No one is ever really changed, 
Free will is an illusion, and the willful are deranged, 
And, in the dark, can anyone determine what is strange, 
What is terror, what is love, what is pain?
- Tom Smith
	He bolted upright in the darkness, sweaty and disoriented. He felt threatened, vulnerable, and he instinctively sought out the source of the danger. Likely one of the other concubines in the…
	But he wasn’t in the harem chamber. He wasn’t sleeping on perfumed cushions on the floor, and there was no threat. He was alone, sitting up on a bunk that made up in comfort and dignity what it lacked in aesthetics. Technically he shared the room with Slav, but the other bunk was empty at the moment.
	Sven swung his legs over the side and bent forward as if he could vomit up the nightmare. Of course, nothing came out. He just focused on catching his breath and trying not to think about it. This, of course, ensured that he thought of nothing else.
	Her hands. Her lips. Her eyes burning into mine. Why did he have to remember these things? Why couldn’t he just forget the last year of being imprisoned and enslaved to Her will? Why did She have to be so ethereally gorgeous on the outside and so warped and cruel on the inside?
	Even now, even here, when he should have been beyond Her grasp, She still had Her clutches in him. As the memory of what had woken him unfolded, he wasn’t even sure he could call it a nightmare. He was back with Her, in Her bed, and the pleasure was bitterly exquisite, like dark chocolate. 
	No. No, it is a nightmare. I didn’t ask for any of that. I was treated like Her toy, like an object. My feelings never mattered… But he did have feelings. And that was the problem.
	Sven pushed himself up to pace the room. He was half-hard, embarrassed and angry by it, even though no one else was around to see it. I can’t help it. It’s a physical reaction. Of course She’s good at getting what She wants; whore’s had enough practice. But there was a dark voice that answered, It is a physical response… but that’s not all it is. It feels good on more than a physical level. Even when She humiliates me, even when She renders me powerless… 
	He missed Her.
	“No,” he said under his breath. 
	But it was true, and that was the worst part. 
	He didn’t miss being treated like a plaything. He didn’t miss Her mind games and the entitlement She felt She had to do whatever She pleased with him. But Her hands, Her lips, Her eyes… the rare times I’ve wrung my name from Her throat… Her moans in my ears… those moments when I wrest the power from Her and it’s mine, and SHE’S mine… 
	He looked back to his bunk. Better than the aromatic pillows of the harem chamber, but nowhere near as sumptuous as Her bed, where he could sleep safe and warm if he just pleased Her well enough. Some nights, he hadn’t even fought Her, just given Her what She wanted so he could be safe from the (sometimes literally) back-stabbing concubines. But he hated himself the next day. He fought back twice as hard the next time She sent for him. He resumed pacing.
	I wasn’t safe with Her, he reminded himself. And She needs to be stopped. 
	That’s why he was here, with the Guns of Gamara: to stop Her, to topple Her immoral reign, to keep Her from stealing anyone else’s free will.
	That last part proved exactly how evil She truly was. She could have made me Her mindless slave at any time. I would have instantly done anything and everything She asked of me. But She didn’t. She didn’t because She likes the battle. She likes the conquest. She likes exerting Her power over m-… people. 
	His traitorous mind gave him flashes of the sort of power She’d so often exerted: the look on Her face as She rode him to get Herself off; the feel of Her clenching around his cock just before She came; the way Her body arched when he’d fucked Her for a change, and how She’d bitten Her lip to keep from screaming his name, from letting anyone know how much She loved it, how much power She’d surrendered to him.
	He was more than half-hard now, and he bit off a swear under his breath. Stop thinking about it. Stop thinking about Her.
	She deserved to die for what She’d done to him. But right now, he wanted nothing so much as to be back in Her bedchamber. He wanted to make Her scream, give Her no choice, let them ALL HEAR HER – because of him. He wanted to take that power back from Her, and…
	“Stop it,” he told himself. “You’re free of Her. And you’re going to work to free others from Her, too. She can’t be allowed to keep doing this to whomever She chooses. The people of the universe are not Her playthings.”
	The memory of Her voice – purring, hoarse, and enraptured – Her breath hot against his ear as She whispered, right after he’d pinned Her down to Her own mattress and fucked Her with every bit of anger in his body, “You have pleased your Empress.”
	He pounded his fist against the wall, hard. He hated Her. He hated what She’d done to him, what She continued to do to him even now. “I will make you pay,” he promised the empty room. “We’ll see who’s happy then.”
	But none of that solved his immediate problem. He resigned himself to the obvious solution. He took himself in hand, knowing he’d think of Her while he jerked himself off, knowing it was impossible not to. For now, he swore to himself. One day She’ll be gone – from the universe and from my hea-…mind. I swear it.