Alien General's Bride: SciFi Alien Romance (Brion Brides) (11 page)

The warrior with the booming voice who’d questioned him hadn’t moved either, although he was covered with fresh blood more than the rest. Now he merely nodded and retreated into the ranks.

Diego leaned the butt of the spear on the ground, his eyes cast down, looking at the dead with mild curiosity.

“I do not have my answer. Just bad blood.”

Still no movement, and in the darkness, Diego stood in the aura of steaming red light.

“Very well,” he said then, “I see a quick death does not appeal to you.”

From the moment they’d gathered and even before, Diego had narrowed the possibilities down; he knew his officers. Access to comm links, the amount of ambition, distance from him during the hologram call as to hide his actions from Diego’s sight, and most importantly, petrified eyes and the shaking he couldn’t completely still had all given the guilty away.

The traitor had time to draw in a shocked breath before Diego’s spear nailed him to the arena’s wall fifteen meters away. It was aimed to make him bleed out agonizingly slowly. His hands tried to clutch the spear and pull it out of him, not to escape but to die, but without a warrior’s strength it might have been a wall he tried to lift. Frightened, pained sobs escaped his lips. The others turned their backs on him in disgust.

Diego looked around him, pleased.
They were his
.
 

CHAPTER TWELVE

Isolde

Isolde woke. The first few seconds of only partial consciousness had never been kind to her.

Oh crap, oh crap, oh crap. I’m on a space ship. The wrong space ship! I’m with Brions and they’re so hot and their stupid sexy commander wants to marry me and…

Biting her pillow, Isolde took a moment to snicker away at the absurdity of her life without feeling too weird about laughing alone like a maniac. Then she remembered someone had tried to kill her and others might try yet. Even that seemed an oddly distant concern in the soothingly humming room. She was half certain the room didn’t really have to hum, but did it so she’d feel more at ease. When she’d taken a walk in the rest of the ship, there had been no noise, made by the ship, at least.

Either something in her room detected she was awake, or the Brions had hidden being psychic from the GU, because her door started beeping with Deliya’s image. Isolde stifled a smile when she noticed the beeping was less… annoying. The sound seemed to have been altered to a more pleasant tune, which didn’t make her think of smoke detectors. The same ugly knot in her stomach that had made an appearance the day before twisted again, but Isolde ignored it. Deliya hadn’t tried to kill her in her sleep, which had to count for something.

“Good morning,” Isolde said politely when the Brion stepped in. As the warrior gave the room a customary sweep-over glance, she hurried to ask, “Is it… morning? I don’t know what time it is on the ship.”

“It is,” the woman said. “Do you require something? I have alerted the Commander you are awake, but he cannot join you immediately. He has instructed I accompany you until he arrives. We have understood humans enjoy company while they eat. However, if you wish, I can return to my post.”

“Food would be great, thank you,” Isolde said, “and stay, please.”

It would be good to see the Brions from a woman’s perspective. Even if she said “we” like she and Grothan were a “we”.

Deliya ordered breakfast for them. At least for Isolde, she herself hardly touched any of the food.

Over the safest and most Terran looking dish – it reminded her roughly of a sandwich – Isolde’s priorities fought over questions she should ask. Survival instincts won out, and she was honestly surprised.

“Are we going to die?” she blurted out.

To her surprise, the Brion woman laughed. She had never seen or heard a Brion laughing, the best Grothan could do was smirk. “No,” Deliya said. “The Commander always wins.”

“Brion bravado is nice and all, but this is our lives we’re talking about here,” Isolde protested, pouting at being laughed at.

“If it were some other general,” Deliya argued proudly, “but this is Diego. He is
grothan
.”

Diego… I wonder if he calls you Della
, Isolde thought bitterly, but then frowned. “What do you mean ‘he is
grothan
’? I thought that was his name.”

“It is not a name, it is a title. All Brions have a single name. You call us by the root of that name, because for you names remain the same throughout your life while ours change.”

Isolde had known they changed, but not about Grothan’s… Diego’s name. Similarly to their language, names were another thing the galaxy simplified with the Brions. Deliya was right about the roots thing. All female names ended with -ya, while male names tended to end in -en, although they were plenty of exceptions Isolde hadn’t been taught for some reason.

“What does it mean?” she asked, amazed. Her professional curiosity lifted its head, somewhat shadowed as of late by her desire for the commander, who apparently she’d been calling by his title… titles.
How many titles did that man have?

Deliya thought about it for a moment. “It does not… translate well. It is an archaic word, few use it, few are worthy of it. All Brions theoretically start out as
grothan
– undefeated, victorious –but it is not used for the young. There is little pride to be had in not losing two or three fights.
Grothan
means you have not failed, truly failed.

“Warriors lose it when they are defeated, or do not achieve their goals. But when a warrior remains undefeated for a long time, the Elders name him
grothan
. They do not do so lightly nor often. We are proud that our commander can still carry that title, we like calling him by it.”

“So he never loses?” Isolde asked, wide-eyed and not a little turned on by the picture Deliya’s words painted.

“Never,” said a voice at the door.

Deliya was quickly banished to her post, and Isolde was left alone with a bunch of alien sandwiches, which looked to be the same juice she had been served before, and the man who had never suffered defeat.

He looked invigorated, somehow. The valor squares, as much as Isolde could determine, seemed to be resting at ease. Distantly she wondered what it was like to walk the world with your every emotion broadcasted so vividly to others, but it wasn’t even a trivial concern compared to the smirk playing on the commander’s lips. It did things to her. Good, and a bit uncomfortable things.

The alien proposal she couldn’t distance herself from suddenly hung in the air between them again.

Isolde’s mouth went dry. She wasn’t yet done with the complicated and elaborate lies she had to tell herself in order to get her mind to admit that every inch of her wanted to give in. It was like she was pulled to him by some invisible cord of… fate. Oh whoo-bloody-hoo, they would make a believer out of her still, but time was up, since Grothan – no, Diego – crossed the distance between them with slow, measured paces, the smirk still on his lips.

She had joked about the whole thing so far, but he was actually serious, wasn’t he? While she went
ha-ha, the alien lord is trying to seduce the human girl
in her head, the general saw her as his other half for the entirety of his life. As ludicrous as the whole situation seemed to Isolde, she kind of felt bad. Brions took these things very seriously. Even if he believed she was destined for him, did it change anything for her?

Isolde thought about dreams. Two days ago, she’d had practically none. All her friends were always going on about what they wanted to do, wanted to have, wanted to achieve, and she had felt out of place. A big house would have been nice, yes. A kind man to love her, sure. Recognition for her work, boosted by serious field work on Rhea – lovely. Had she ever craved anything with the kind of passion usually reserved for dreams? No. She had been aimless; drifting like she had yet to meet her destiny. The smile died on her lips as the general lifted her chin up for her to look in his gorgeous eyes. Two days ago, she’d had nothing to dream about. Diego Grothan
was
a dream.

“Two warships bound to my location, and my biggest concern is how you are feeling,” he said.

Isolde’s heart tried to pound itself out of her chest.
Stop joking about this! He’s not trying to smooth talk you. He’s being serious. Oh girl, you’re in such a fucking mess…

“I’m fine,” she whispered, her voice barely audible, but the general heard her anyway. “Commander…”

“Diego,” he corrected. “A
gesha
doesn’t call her
gerion
by titles.”

Isolde wanted to argue she was nothing of the sort to him.
Yet, maybe, damn it.

“Diego,” she said, the name rolling of the tip of her tongue like a song. She saw his eyes lit up, the smirk giving way to the first really kind smile she had seen on him. “I…”

I can’t. This is so wrong. I can’t be what you want me to be. What you wish me to be. I can’t. This is all wrong. This shouldn’t be happening. I can’t. I can’t be without your touch.

What?
Isolde was not prepared to rule out the possibility of a drug in her system, although she was fairly certain it was a natural aphrodisiac called Diego and should be administered to her at once. Her hands locked with his, and then she was standing on her tippy toes and initiating the first kiss. She couldn’t stand like that for too long; the general was so much taller than she was, but strong arms encircled her waist, fitting around her like she was made to be in his arms, holding her up. She squirmed in response, not to get away but to get
closer
, much closer, even if she knew it was a bad idea. Backing away would be a better one, telling him humans didn’t function this way, he had no right, but her body was giving him every excuse ever.

Eventually she had to get some air, and if her memory wasn’t completely faulty and Brions hadn’t suddenly started favoring firearms, that wasn’t a gun poking her belly… She suddenly became very aware that she wasn’t wearing much, and the blouse she had decided to sleep in was the only thing covering her breasts. No bra. There was no mistaking the direction of the general’s eyes as he took in the curves of her body, skintight as her clothes were. She should have dressed before he got there, now her nipples were sticking out, giving her body ideas, very clearly giving
his
body ideas… The movement was so sudden she let out a surprised yelp and so smooth she barely noticed when she was already flat on her back on the bed. The general was on top of her, again, belonging there in a sense Isolde could neither explain nor disprove. She was about to tell him something of propriety, when his hands calmly pushed her blouse up and then his mouth was on her breasts, tasting, sucking,
licking
… The gasp that escaped her lips was everything but silent and the chuckle from him tickled her exposed skin.

“I read that human females enjoyed this,” he murmured, his hands groping her skin, sliding over her body as if he wanted to map its every contour. Isolde moaned.

He looked this up! Oh gods, he looked up how to pleasure me! I have to send the editor of Cosmopolitan a thank you note or something… Ooooh.

Isolde checked out from the realm of consequences and focused her entire attention on arching up from the bed under his miraculously strong body, all kinds of nos fleeing from her mind. She closed her eyes and had to bite her lip not to give him the satisfaction of knowing exactly
what
he was doing to her, because surely his ego was already flattered enough. Besides, she knew he could read her reactions like a book, so there was no need to spell it out for him.

He was good at it, she had to give him that. Isolde wouldn’t have considered herself an expert in such matters, but she knew what she liked, and he was pushing her buttons like nothing else. Maybe it was his natural gift, or he read the signals her body gave him, or he had a lot of practice – she pushed those images away. All that seemed secondary to Isolde, who had never felt anything so good for a wholly different reason.

Her treacherous eyes wanted to close in pleasure, but another instinct kept them open, staring at the general. Skilled or not, what made every inch of her skin ache for more contact with him and her soul ache for something even greater, was how obviously
he
was enjoying her. Every moan that escaped her lips, every twist of her body under his hands and tongue, the way she writhed under him – the effect on him was immediate. It was
his
eyes that were closed, relying on touch instead; his body shivering against hers at every sound she made. Isolde whimpered to see it. A surge of power went through her. The general might have been able to overpower anyone he met, but Isolde held the power to make him shiver. She doubted any of his enemies had ever gotten that reaction. Not that lust and fear were the same, but to get Diego Grothan to expose his feelings so clearly, to make him grind himself against her body without the restraint he was usually known for…