Alien General's Bride: SciFi Alien Romance (Brion Brides) (22 page)

“I’ve had him on the med bay tables many times,” Urenya teased. “I know the truth of this.”

“So do I,” said Deliya.

Oh, you
are
the Ex! Son of a bitch…
Only Isolde found herself not caring any more by this point. She liked Deliya, so she snickered with them, fighting down the urge to mention her own knowledge wasn’t anything but theoretical. She knew he was huge. She’d yet to
feel
it.

--

The representative of Terra’s Unified Parliament served her both the carrot and the stick – or to the Brions, to be exact. The fairly large-boned man congratulated her on her “wedding”, which
annoyed the heck out of the ethnographer side of Isolde 
–
Learn the terms, you idiot!
– and hoped she would bring a new wind to the relations between the species. Then he added that if the whole thing was a Brion ploy, Terra would not hesitate to take political action.

“Is that one of your leaders?” Urenya asked with obvious contempt. “A child could take him.”

Deliya laughed until she coughed up her drink when she heard the threat. Isolde was, honestly, embarrassed.

--

Her high school best friend – for the lack of any other options – expressed herself almost entirely in acronyms. The first full sentence consisting entirely of full words was “I can’t believe you bagged a Brion hunk, Izzy!”

You are the only one who called me Izzy and it’s still not cool
, thought Isolde, pouring herself another drink, making Urenya grin in sympathy.

Deliya’s commentary could only be translated to English as “She knows what’s up.”

--

Isolde’s favorite message came from the Palians, very interested in her well-being. She moved forward to the edge of her seat when agent Perkins’ familiar face popped up from under their symbol.

“That would explain the staring,” he said, clearly amused, continuing from their previous conversation as if nothing had happened. “My, my, girl, you have some suitor.”

Then he became serious, although his face remained kind. “My ambassador thought you would prefer to hear this from a familiar, dare I say friendly face. The Brions do not lie about these things. We believe you are what Diego Grothan says you are. However. There are voices in the GU raised louder than ever about them. I am a Palian. We want peace. I hope you silence some of these voices soon, by making a statement on neutral ground. But if not, we will protect you.”

He smiled again then. “Until we meet again, Isolde Fenner. Good luck with your
gerion
.”

Urenya and Deliya said nothing, all of it expected. Isolde felt slightly better, knowing someone was looking after her still, even if she was about to lie to them.

--

On and on they went, some personal and some from species she didn’t even know about yet. Urenya and Deliya noted everything down, observing the reactions of the galactic public, to report to the generals afterwards. Isolde was mainly interested in how much of a lunatic she looked like. She was also aware that they were looking at
her
. It wasn’t difficult to guess that report went straight to Eleya.

The final message came from Terra again, one of her neighbors. She’d left him last, thinking it would be nice to end with a friendly face. Oliver was one of the only people she could say she really liked on Terra, one of the few she missed.

His words made her blood run cold.

“Hey, Isolde,” he began, all cheerful, then dropped to a conspiratory whisper, “what’s up with that Diego, huh? I know you like them big, but isn’t he, like, a killer or something? We always said the Brions were a bunch of bloodthirsty brutes about to get kicked out of the civilized part of the galaxy.

“Now you go and marry one of them? And
Diego Grothan
of all of them. They say he drinks the blood of his enemies every morning, for fuck’s sake. What did he do, drug you or something? If that monster went all crazy on you, I swear I’ll light a fire under the Parliament’s collective fucking ass until they do something more than threaten with diplomatic steps. Try to get back to me, Isolde.”

The screen went dark and Isolde finally noticed that the temperature had dropped some degrees in the room. It wasn’t the Brion women; they were looking at her with concerned smiles. It was her, fuming, her cup clenched in her fist so hard it shook and spilled the drink on the floor and on her lap. Her teeth were clenched together so hard it made her head ache. Urenya reached out to gently tug the cup away from her.

“That was a friend of yours?” she asked, handing Isolde a cloth to clean most of the spilled drink from her dress.

“No,” Isolde said, still shaking. “I can’t believe… he ever was.”

Liar. You can’t believe you ever agreed. Two weeks ago you thought he drank blood for breakfast too. And who the heck even knows! He had breakfast without you!

That was true. Too messed up to even pretend to be able to hold a conversation any more, Isolde was thankful when both the others excused themselves to go and report.

“Could you…” she called after them. “Could you not mention Oliver? He doesn’t have any influence over the Terran rulers, you must know that.”

“It is our duty to report everything,” Urenya said. When Isolde slunk back into the couch, she repeated, “Everything.”

Isolde nodded, looking at the stain on her dress.

She was alone for a long time, so long she began to think Diego had found another place to bed down. As the commander’s chosen mate, she was completely free to roam the
Triumphant
, which on any other day she would have gladly done just to keep the cabin fever away, but something kept her in place. In her mind, an image of him and Deliya appeared, making her throat close up in a jealous rage, but she forced it away. Bindings were the ultimate cheating-repellent. A
gerion
would look at no other and Deliya wouldn’t…

It wouldn’t be cheating in the first place! You are not bound! He’s not yours. You have no right to keep him. What’s up with the I-don’t-want-him-so-no-one-can-have-him thing? And it’s not even like you don’t really, very much want him…

When Diego finally arrived, he looked tired for the first time. For a moment, Isolde feared someone had challenged him in a meeting and he’d emerged only after a narrow win, but there seemed to be no blood on him. No blood on the spear either. His armor was unmarred.

Isolde didn’t know what to say, nor if she should say anything. She knew she was the cause of all this, not to mention the cure. She opted to wait and see what the general would say.

He looked tired enough to fall, but that damn sexy pride kept him standing straight. Eyes which threatened to drown her forever bore into her soul.

He’s picked up some tricks from Faren
, Isolde’s panicked mind got to think before a lazy, tired smile crept on Diego’s lips.

“Blood of my enemies?” he asked.

Isolde snorted. “I’m sorry,” she hastened to reply. “People talk. They hear a thing and tell it their own way and before you know it, you’re drinking blood.”

He seemed too tired to be mad any more. The smile stayed. “Clearly. And obviously they haven’t tasted Fredgen blood. It’s disgusting. I skewered one once and some of his blood spilled on my face. I was young and stupid then and opened my mouth. I spent a week in the med bay coughing my guts out.”

Isolde found herself unable to fight down a responding smile. It felt so good, so utterly natural, to smile when in Diego’s presence. She dreaded the end of it. It didn’t come.

“So I heard about… Oliver?” he said.

Isolde’s face dropped. “Yes.”

“Urenya says you shook so hard as to spill your drink.”

“Yes.” She was still in the dress she had ruined with the spilled drink. Showing Diego her own battle scars? Honestly, Isolde didn’t know. It was difficult to know anything these days, with her mind and heart at brutal war with her body in the middle just longing for him.

“That was…” Diego began, searching for words. Even before he was finished, Isolde realized suddenly that he wasn’t really tired, or even relaxed. He was – “That was very kind of you,” the general said. “Not to believe at least that lie about me. Not that all the rumors about me are false. Some are quite true, as our enemies will soon learn. I will skip drinking their blood, though.”

It was meant as a joke, but Isolde’s heart was in the middle of falling to pieces. She wanted to cry out, to say something to stop the inevitable, but not even air made it to her lips. Diego was watching her patiently.

Not relaxed. Not tired.

“I decided I should be kind to you in return. I do not wish to hurt you. I will torture you no more.”

No. Please don’t do this. Don’t do what I’ve been asking you to do all this time.

“You can have my bed,” the general said. “I will find a place to sleep somewhere else.”

Then he was gone, past her, to one of the many rooms not his bedroom where now a huge empty bed waited for Isolde. She was left standing alone, gasping for air in wordless agonizing sobs.

Had he – had he given up on her?
 

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

Diego

If space had been much smaller, Briolina would have been clear to see just over the next hill. Since it was not, they had a last meeting before their arrival. The same people had gathered, the only difference being that to Diego, it was obvious how distressed Isolde was. The others would – hopefully – put it down to the pressure of very soon being the face on every screen around the galaxy and stepping foot on a hostile planet. He knew better. Unwilling, unwanting, he had broken her somehow.

He knew how, in truth. But this was her choice. She could end it with a word and during some moments, she seemed to have been very close to saying it. One night, he’d heard her steps come across the floor towards where he slept, but stop a way off. She’d stood for a moment, and then all but run back to the bedroom. There was also no way a Brion’s keen hearing could tune out the whimpers. They’d hurt him, but he was doing all she’d asked of him, after all.

This was out of his hands.

The fight to come, however, was not. Ironically, it soothed his mind. Fighting, winning wars – that he knew how to do. He was pleased with his allies as well.

“Report,” he commanded.

Technically, Eleya was in no way answerable to him, but she’d agreed to let him take the military lead. So she offered, “Generals Ilen, Argo, Thora and Shien are with us. The senators… who knows these snakes, but some hesitate. Eren is back on Briolina. I convinced him he has to take you down right so as not to make a martyr of you. I think you’ll get to live at least until you land.”

Diego nodded. “Aneya?”

“I spoke to my family,” the woman said. Diego noticed the unmistakably vicious looks she snuck in Isolde’s direction when she thought he wasn’t looking. He’d have to have a talk with her. It was not proper for a Brion woman to behave this way. Until then, she could deliver valuable allies. “I believe you are not alone. Many fear Eren, but many more fear you and Faren. With every day that you have gotten closer to Briolina, I have noticed more support for us. Mind you, do not confuse support with believing – they still want the Elders to confirm your words.”

“I expected nothing less from them,” Diego snarled. He looked around the room. “Seven generals out of 15, including us. That will give even Eren pause to challenge our…”

“Sixteen,” Eleya said.

All eyes but Isolde’s looked to her in surprise. It had been a long-standing tradition to have 15 active generals, with new ones only replacing the old, never adding to the number.

“Explain,” Faren told the senator. “Who did he promote?”

Of course
, Diego cursed. Eren would resort to such a tactic, would give a command to some pet of his to give him an edge. The coward would pay for this.

“Crane,” said the senator.

If he hadn’t hated the bastard’s guts, Diego would have admired him – and, partly, being a Brion, still did – for the reputation the man had achieved to silence his war council with his name. To make even Faren frown.

“Who is he?” Isolde asked, clearly picking up on the room’s mood.

“A brute,” said Eleya. “A warmonger.”

Seeing the look in Isolde’s eyes, the senator laughed. “Yes, I suppose that is rich coming from us, but imagine someone
we
would name a brute and a warmonger.”

Urenya added, “He is big. Big and strong, but stupid like all people whose mind only has one track. But he is very big. And very strong. Unfit for command of anything but himself and barely that.”

“So why would Senator Eren give him a command?” Isolde asked, still confused.

“To challenge other generals,” Deliya said.

“Couldn’t he do that anyway?”