Alien General's Bride: SciFi Alien Romance (Brion Brides) (14 page)

“Very well. I will take responsibility. It would be good for you to see your
gerion
, to know that we do not lie. And you would see why
we
do not worry. Yes. This would do you good.”

As they led her through the corridors, still heavily guarded by both Deliya and Narath’s warriors, Isolde couldn’t help but feel victorious herself. Maybe she should be called
grothan
too. After all, it hadn’t been difficult to play at the warriors’ obvious love for their commander by implying they could help him connect with his
gesha
.

In her heart – the same old ticker that had made her speak in agent Perkins’ defense to one of the most dangerous men in the galaxy – she hoped that she didn’t get Deliya and Narath in too much trouble. Their orders were to guard her, after all. They could just as well do that somewhere away from her room. No harm done.

The arena seemed crowded to Isolde, but Deliya and Narath easily made their way through the Brions to stand at the front of a balcony looking down upon a very gladiatorial arena not of sand and scorching hot sun, but a floor of so finely polished wood that Isolde could make out the reflections of the Brions on the ground. At the front, Diego stood at ease, waiting. His eyed darted up to the balcony at the murmurs that rose when Isolde came forward. Even in the dimness that was natural on Brion ships, Isolde could make out several conflicting emotions flashing in his eyes one after another.

Some unseen barriers in her heart tumbled at seeing the first look, soft and kind at the sight of her. The second was as hard and cold as marble, so vicious Isolde staggered into the Brion standing behind her. Deliya and Narath tensed up immediately, but the third was calming gaze followed by a terse nod. He turned away from them, but the second look refused to leave Isolde’s mind – for a moment, she had been face to face with an ancient predator, ready to pounce. She’d been prepared for him to jump the impossible distance to her and rip her throat out.

Haha
, her mind tried hopelessly.
Look at the alien warlord trying to seduce me, isn’t it adorable. When you look behind the dreamy eyes and the body to die for, you might remember you really could die. Don’t play games with him. Those who have tried thought death a mercy.

Stories came back to her then, stories even making their way down to Terra, in whispers and speculation. Diego Grothan was not a man to provoke. Isolde felt glad for the edge of the balcony to grip, because her legs were about to give in. Another, guilty part of her had felt her knees go weak at that look, at the thought of such a powerful man pledging his life to her. In the end, it was good she didn’t have to stand up straight on her own.

At the other end of the arena, huge double doors opened. Deliya leaned down to whisper, clearly intent to make sure Isolde understood the whole situation.

“Those are the twins,” she said. “Do you know them?”

Isolde did. “Faren and Gawen,” she murmured back, as the generals walked forward with their honor guards, mirror images of each other. “Faren is on the left, I think, with the battle axe. Gawen is the one with the guns.”

Deliya nodded, clearly happy with her knowledge. An axe was not a traditional Brion weapon, but it was better than a gun, which the Brions didn’t favor, although they didn’t run headlong into their fire. For occasions when the enemy packed considerable firepower, the Brions had unbelievably durable battle armors and long, full body length energy shields to cover them until they could get up close and feed the blades of their spears to what they considered cowards.

The twins cared little for the opinions of others, often being cited saying they were of much more use to their people alive rather than dead with an
honorable
weapon in their hands.

As Isolde relayed all that to Deliya, she got the first real, conspiratory laugh from the warrior woman. “Yes!” she exclaimed in a hushed tone. “Very good. I see you know much about us; that is good. The Commander says they are fools, differing from the others does not make them as great as they think.”

They fell silent then, because the twins stopped a few feet from Diego. Their movements were so synchronized Isolde wasn’t prepared to rule out hidden telepathic powers. Her eyes kept warily returning to the guns at Gawen’s hip, flickering between them and Diego, who had no armor she could see. When she realized she was holding her breath, Isolde was forced to consider that perhaps she had not lied to Deliya.

As she didn’t speak real Brionese, and the generals obviously weren’t going to simplify their speech for her sake, she understood only some of what was said. Instead, her nails digging into the balcony’s edge, she tried to read into their body language. Deliya and Narath were listening intently, although to their credit, Isolde saw them scan the crowds and especially the generals’ honor guards at regular intervals to make sure they weren’t going to try something.

All the Brion generals were known in the galaxy, and even the least bloodthirsty of them had a reputation. Isolde put it entirely down to the whole
gesha
thing, but Diego only now looked to her the warrior he was, as he’d appeared to her on
Luna Secunda
. Although it seemed stupid to build on her fear, Isolde wanted to remember this. She
had
to remember that no matter what it looked like to her, Diego Grothan was never really tame.

In comparison, the twin generals made her blood run cold. They looked so similar that if they’d chosen to switch their signature weapons, Isolde couldn’t have told the difference. Only their mannerisms gave them away. They were both towering giants even by Brion standards, easily at eye level with Diego. Gawen was a brute in character, the hard lines of his face etched with fury from the first sentences he uttered. His posture was that of a tiger ready to pounce at any provocation.

In contrast, Faren said almost nothing, his big arms crossed over his chest, head lowered in silent contemplation. He looked no less dangerous for it. In fact, he bothered Isolde a lot more. She wondered if being around Brions was somehow contagious in that she had, like them, come to respect honest fury. Gawen was a clear threat, Faren was the one that struck when you least expected. Her eyes kept returning to Diego, who hadn’t raised his voice yet, speaking in a completely calm manner. In fact, most of the conversation Isolde understood was what he said. Gawen merely growled and Faren’s answers were mostly monosyllabic.

She did recognize the moment when they appeared to talk about her – both twins looked up then, straight at her. Gawen looked angry, Faren simply… curious, if anything. Isolde looked away.

In truth, she should have felt weird or out of place. She’d met aliens on Terra and in her brief time on
Luna Secunda
, but a Brion meeting should have set off some alarms in her. Instead, Isolde found her heart beating and her eyes glued to Diego as the conversation picked up. Suddenly, she felt a fool to have believed that Brions could settle a dispute with words. These were the guys who killed people over insults.

This matter was surely far beyond that. And there were two against one. No Brion in the arena would lift a hand in Diego’s defense, even if their beloved commander were slaughtered under their very eyes. He’d kill them with his bare hands, and their names would forever be in shame.

When Deliya asked her something, Isolde was unable to reply. Terror had closed her throat, so she just shook her head and tried not to blink, not to miss a second of what was unfolding before her eyes. If there really was a connection between her and Diego, it was drawn tight at that moment, tugging at her heart up to the point where she felt like jumping down to the arena herself, to – what? Stop the twin generals?

In all her life, Isolde had never felt so powerless. She was the weakest person in a room with aliens whose children could easily have kicked her ass. Most of them were warriors who could have snapped her neck with as much difficulty as a human opening a jar of pickles.

If Diego was to die, she was sure to follow. There would be no reason to keep her alive, with her mate dead she would no longer by a
gesha
to anyone. Any other species would just drop her off at Rhea and let her be, but she doubted Brions would be so kind. Perhaps Deliya might have felt slightly bad, but Isolde harbored no illusions that if her general were to die, the pair of them off would be finished off together and an excuse found for the GU.

Lovely indeed. In the eyes of the galaxy, we’re the same already.

The thought of her death seemed less important as minutes went by. If it was to come, there was no way she could stop it. Possibly her guards would even carry it out. The Brions had already proved to her that they did not want their system disturbed. Ensha hadn’t seemed to hate her personally, just what she was. Isolde had never thought they’d be that… what? Human-phobic? Her studies had suggested that the Brions thought the binding sacred. Even Diego had seemed surprised someone would challenge his mate.

And now he was likely to actually die for her. A fairy tale indeed. Once upon a time there was a girl from Terra who met a very hot alien warlord, and then they both died… That wasn’t how it was supposed to go.

A sudden flash of light robbed her of sight for a moment. Then she felt the unmistakable stench of blood. There was screaming. Apparently coming from her.
 

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Diego

Seeing Isolde standing on the balcony, Diego wasn’t sure if he felt proud or angry. Evidently his little
gesha
was smart enough to convince two of his most loyal to let her out of her room and bring her to a Brion arena. Not against his strictest orders, per se, or he would have killed her guards by now, but he wasn’t certain Isolde’s presence did any good. He needed his mind on the other generals, not on her safety, up on the balcony clear for all to see. The men about to enter, after all, had orders to put her to death.

Deliya and Narath could handle it, he knew that. Yet it irked him that they hadn’t thought to keep Isolde away. They would answer some serious questions later. Right now, what bothered him a lot more was the way his
gesha
had gone white with terror at the sight of him. The rage, already on the surface at the thought of the senators and their treachery, rose to new heights at the prospect of Isolde seeing Brion viciousness up close. Even more, she shouldn’t be afraid of him, which she clearly was. He posed no threat to her.

All that left his mind when his brother generals appeared, every bit of him focusing on the task ahead.

Faren and Gawen, commanders of the
Unbroken
and the
Fearless
, respectively, were two of the other Brion generals he respected the most. Undoubtedly, that was why Senator Eren had sent them to apprehend him. Similarly, no doubt he had told them his version of things.

“Brothers,” he said. Brions-like-me, it meant.

Faren barely acknowledged him, except for the slightest of nods to show he had heard him. Gawen barked a laugh.

“Any other day, Diego,” he growled. His name now meant
grothan
-that-was. “Today, it seems we stop being brothers.”

“I see no reason why that should happen.”

“Don’t play the ignorant,” Gawen snapped back. He beamed in the dimness, valor squares implanted in his skin casting him in deadly, darkened light. Unlike Diego, the twins had their crystals going up their faces to their brows. It was said, by Brions gossip and the rest of the galaxy alike, that the twins had thrust their signs of valor too deep. The squares went too high, too close to the brain, and the implantation had driven them both different kinds of mad.

In myths that haunted every general, the crystals were said to have hit the emotional core, making Faren cold to the point of not feeling anything and Gawen barely able to restrain his feelings. Diego doubted it. Faren had been cold and Gawen quick-tempered since they were young and had trained together to be warriors. He could not rule out, however, that the implantation had exaggerated the characteristics already there.

“I’m not,” he said with deadly calm. He was aware his Brion brothers knew him well enough not to confuse his cool tone with a peaceful mind. Even in his rage, Gawen didn’t approach him. Faren knew better anyway. “What did that traitor tell you about me?”

Traitor meant Brion-enemy.

Gawen snarled something unintelligible in reply, but Faren looked at him for the first time since he entered the arena. “Careful,” he said simply. Compared to a lot of Brions, his voice was gentle to the point of sounding soft. Diego had seen him drenched head to toe in the blood of his enemies and knew where the only threat to him in that room lay.

It was Gawen who replied, as always. “He said you disobeyed a direct order from him, and you threatened to undermine the entire Brion culture.”

“The first is true, the second is not. It applies quite well to him, though.”

“The first
implies
the second,” Gawen said, his hands clearly itching for his guns, pacing restlessly, but not coming closer. “We are Brions. We do not disobey orders that come from the Elders.”