Brocke: Alien Warlord's Conquest (Scifi Surprise Pregnancy Alien Military Romance) (14 page)

B
rocke knew
nothing and everything about Ashby.

He had never met the woman; that was true. But one look at her and the guardian knew she was exactly like all the rest. No matter how many layers people heaped upon their core, they were all afraid.

Whilst Brocke was fear itself.

He didn’t say anything for a long second. Ashby and Cora might have thought he did it to intimidate the priestess, but Brocke knew he didn’t need anything so banal.

The only concern he had was Cora and how she would perceive him after he was done with the young priestess.

Ashby was glaring at him, mistaking defiance for bravery, but that was a common enough lapse. She was shaking ever so slightly, but if she thought Brocke was going to torture the answers out of her, the priestess was wrong. That wasn’t his way. There were so much more effective ways to make people talk.

“You know me,” Brocke said.

He made it a question, but it really wasn’t one.

“Naturally,” Ashby answered proudly as though recognizing him was some sort of a feat. “You’re the chieftain’s half-breed son. The first. They say you’re quite the warrior now.”

Brocke didn’t answer the taunts. Instead, he cocked his head just slightly, looking the priestess right in the eyes.

“Good,” he said simply. “This spares us a lot of needless explaining. You are also not surprised.”

“By what?” Ashby shot, and Brocke could see her eyes scanning the room.

Looking for a weapon, possibly. Her discarded dagger lay on the ground, but it was clear it wasn’t the one the priestess would have wanted. Ashby looked like she was barely able to lift it, thin and lean like all of her profession. She longed for a long needle or a blade more suited to her skill set.

“By us being here,” he replied. “Move and I will tear your arm out of the socket so hard even you can’t restore it.”

Ashby’s eyes went wide. She bristled, unable to say anything back. Brocke waited, knowing their hands were the tools of priestesses, their most valued possession. She wouldn’t risk it.

“Sit down,” he ordered before turning to Cora. “Are you sure you want to stay?”

Cora answered with a simple nod.

Brocke knew she stayed to guard him, which wasn’t the thing that worried him. He was prepared to break a few of Ashby’s bones if it made her a little more talkative, but he wasn’t going to do anything close to what Cora seemed to imagine.

The truth was a bit more complicated and, it seemed to him, more sinister.

Ashby sat, her hands in her lap, pressing her mouth into a thin line like it would help her keep the secrets inside.

Discarding all the irrelevant questions that would interest the Union and the Militant later, Brocke cut to the heart of things.

“Where is Condor?” he asked.

Ashby burst out laughing, the sounds echoing in the room. He saw Cora look at the priestess with disgust, opening her mouth to say something, but Brocke shook his head. Cora shut her mouth, but her revulsion was obvious to see.

“Pathetic,” Ashby said. “I expected more subtlety from you, Guardian.”

“Did you?” Brocke asked, seeing the way his voice made the young woman edge away from him despite herself. “You have been misinformed then. I don’t speak in riddles. You will tell me where Condor is, what he is planning, and why you are helping him. If you do that, I will send you to the Citadel to wait upon the chieftain’s mercy. Perhaps he will let you live out your days in Gomor, perhaps he will be kinder. The more you delay, the less likely you’ll be to receive it.”

“And if I don’t help you?” Ashby asked.

First mistake. It already means you don’t want to suffer the sweeter deal I offered.

“Then I will take you to Gomor with me, no matter how this ends.”

Ashby hesitated a bit too long before replying as stubbornly as she could, “Gomor doesn’t scare me. Condor was there.”

“He was,” Brocke agreed, turning his back on her, looking out of the window upon Eborat.

The city acted like nothing was going on, and for the most of them, that was true. Brocke could never understand the disinterest people showed in bastards like Condor until the priest was at their own doorstep.

From the reflection, he saw Ashby. As one of the most powerful warriors in the realm, Brocke didn’t have anything to fear from her, but ultimately, it was a test. He had warned her about moving, and now he waited to see if she’d heard him.

Ashby didn’t move, even if he saw her practically itching to jump up and try for an escape.

That was good. It meant what Brocke had to say would strike very close to home.

“Condor was in your prison,” Ashby repeated. “And he escaped. He told us the chieftain only wants us to believe it’s impossible to get away. Said it was so easy once he figured out you relied on fear more than actual presence.”

“Very clever of him,” Brocke said, turning back to her.

His eyes found hers, and the warlord made sure Ashby saw the truth in his gaze when he spoke again.

“He lied, I believe. The other option is that Condor really is stupid enough to think the escape was his doing.”

Ashby’s confusion was plain to see.

“You let him out,” she said, the smile on her face almost maniacal. “This is the worst thing I’ve ever heard. Wait until I let the realm know the chieftain’s son let Condor out to kill half-breeds.”

“My father knows. He approved.”

That shut Ashby up for a long moment, her face ashen. Her arguments kept crumbling, one after another. It was clear to all of them that she could do nothing if Nadar Brenger openly admitted to condoning Brocke’s actions. It would lose all impact.

“Still,” the priestess tried. “It doesn’t matter. You let him out, and now he’s doing it. Condor is going to show the world exactly what half-breeds are.”

Interesting.

That was one of the keys to interrogating someone. Usually, they thought they were so smart that they kept telling Brocke things he never asked. Whether it was an attempt to appear more intelligent or more innocent, the end result was the same.

He didn’t jump on the obvious chance to ask more. Instead, Brocke went back to the previous topic.

“Condor hated Gomor, did he tell you that too?” he asked.

Ashby’s expression told him Condor hadn’t been too keen to share his experiences.

“I see that he didn’t,” Brocke said. “I assume it was because he doesn’t want you to know how bad it was for him. I’m afraid I didn’t treat him very well.”

“I’m a priestess!” Ashby snapped at him. “Pain is nothing to me! I have made my body immune to it.”

“Liar,” Cora cut in, her eyes flashing.

She came closer, looking ready to shake the truth out of Ashby, but she didn’t touch the priestess. Brocke watched instead as Cora stopped in front of her, staring her traitorous friend down.

“You have told me many times that’s not possible. Close, but still out of your reach,” she said.

“I lied,” Ashby tried, but Cora stopped her before she could continue.

“I don’t think so,” the little Terran said seriously. “I could tell. Whatever crap you told me, that was the one time I know you were being truthful. When you were talking about your job, I could see the way your eyes lit up. Just like when I told you about my theories. You can’t hide true passion, even if you plan to use your knowledge for atrocities, you fucking bitch.”

Ashby had no counter-argument to that, so Cora stomped back to her seat, enraged. Brocke could see how badly she wanted to go on, but the small outburst seemed to have helped a little. He couldn’t imagine how it felt for Cora. She might have denied it, but Brocke knew Cora had hoped it was all a misunderstanding until the moment she saw the blade in Ashby’s hand.

“Pain tolerance might help you,” Brocke said, and Ashby’s attention snapped back to him. “But it is not pain that waits for your there. It’s not pain that Condor hated. He would rather die than go back to the fear.”

“Condor is not afraid of you,” Ashby argued, but her voice sounded weaker.

“Yes, he is,” Brocke said dismissively. “All of them are, and you will be too. I don’t say this to scare you, I state that as a fact. Fear is the most important punishment Gomor has. You will succumb to it, as Condor did, and you will never be free. Tell me, have you met Condor after he
escaped
?”

The priestess’ silence spoke volumes.

“Did he look like a free man to you?”

For the first time since they’d entered her home, it appeared to Brocke that Ashby looked at him for real. Not through a haze of hate or fear. Her eyes were so wide in her head they seemed to almost pop out of her skull.

“You didn’t think of this before,” Brocke went on. “You’re only realizing it now. It wasn’t fervor you saw, it wasn’t some inner light. He looked like a feverish man seeing spirits behind every corner.”

He walked closer to her, watching Ashby crawl back until she had to pull her legs up on the couch to avoid contact with him.

“I didn’t give Condor his freedom,” Brocke said, his voice dropping low and dangerous.

It was the one he used in Gomor when talking to the prisoners. Out of the corner of his eye, Brocke kept wary watch on Cora, dreading the way she reacted. So far, Cora didn’t emote at all. Her eyes never seemed to leave him.

Brocke looked at Ashby again.

“I gave him a bigger cage,” he growled. “And he knows the truth you don’t yet but will learn once I take you with me. No one, not one, ever leaves Gomor. At least not alive.

“It is always with Condor, even now. He is no longer on the narrow platform that was his home for long, agonizing months; that is true. But I guarantee you, every night he sleeps on an area just as large as the ledge he lived on in Gomor. And he wakes, startled, thinking he’ll fall.”

Ashby stared at him, her big eyes filled with pure horror now. She no longer tried to deny what he was saying, even if her mouth opened to utter a few more lies.

“Let me tell you the final truth about this,” Brocke said, leaning lower, letting his voice envelop whatever was left of Ashby’s resolve. “You are not special. Not to me and definitely not to Condor. I let him go because I had to. There will be no escape for you.”

“Like all the rest, you will spend your days in a tiny room, held prisoner by a white line on the floor. Every morning, it will tempt you to run, but you will not. My footsteps will fade away, and there will a temptation to try your luck, more powerful than any emotion you’ve ever felt before. Like thousands before you, like a worm you will crawl to the edge of your cave. Nothing will be there to stop you, and yet you will shrink back from the line with a scream.”

“I will appear from the shadows, and you will know I’m always there. One of the guardians is always watching. But night after night, the temptation comes again. You will think, ‘This time I’m sure.’ But the moment never comes.”

“And all that time, you will have nothing to do. You waste away, dreading the white line and hating the fact something so simple is an object of such terror to you. Day after day, you become less you until you’ve surrendered all of yourself to Gomor.”

There were tears rolling down Ashby’s face as she sat, shivering under his gaze. Behind him, Brocke saw Cora. He’d expected hatred, a horrified expression he could never get out of his mind, but that was not the case.

There were tears in her eyes too, looking at the friend she’d lost, who was now heading for such a terrible fate.

Brocke knew he couldn’t stop now. It was up to Ashby to save herself. No accomplice of Condor would get the mercy of swift death, except if she pleaded for it.

Nadar Brenger wasn’t without mercy, Brocke knew that better than anyone, being his father’s executioner. His forgiveness was simply very hard to earn.

“You have a choice now,” he went on, keeping Ashby’s eyes locked with his shining blue ones. “I don’t care what you believe or think. You can explain all your motives to the chieftain’s men if you want to, or bury them in Gomor for all I care. The choice is yours.
Where is Condor
?”

“In Olyra,” Ashby whispered.

“I know,” Brocke said. “He is somewhere under the forests, but I need you to be more specific.”

“Komol,” the priestess said quietly, continuing when Brocke said nothing, his hearts beating a thundering rhythm in his chest. “He’s at Komol. He said he will show everyone the difference between a Corgan and a half-breed. That he’d prove the half-breeds are making us weaker.”

That definitely sounded like Condor, but Brocke’s hand itched for Ashby’s neck. To know such a thing was taking place and not to do anything…

But there was Cora, showing compassion like nothing he could ever conjure for someone like the priestess. For her, Brocke drew back, watching as Ashby practically collapsed off the couch.

“Don’t take me to Gomor,” the priestess pleaded. “I didn’t want it to go like this. I just saw proof of his words in my work, and I –”

“I think you’ve said enough,” Cora said, coming closer.

Ashby never looked away from him.

“I believe you’ve made the right choice,” Brocke told the priestess, seeing the way relief washed over her like a wave.

When a satisfied smile started to appear on her face, he continued, “I will tell the chieftain’s men where to find you. I suggest that you be here and never deal with the likes on Condor again. Gomor is always waiting for you.”

Ashby’s face dropped at once. The priestess nodded frantically, mumbling promises Brocke didn’t care about. He knew where they had to go, and the truth was more horrible than anything he could have imagined.

As they left Ashby’s quarters, Cora stopped once to look back at her friend. The priestess seemed to have forgotten she was still in the room. Brocke waited as Cora gave her one last glance and walked away, saying nothing.

C
ora left Ashby behind
, feeling strangely empty inside.

Their visit had shaken her, but not in the way she’d expected. Cora had thought seeing the person she’d considered her closest friend for a while would hurt. The fact that Ashby would willingly and knowingly support what Condor was preaching certainly did, but it wasn’t that. Not exactly, at least.

It made her doubt, and Cora hated that. If she’d trusted Ashby, she had to be the worst judge of character ever.

Second-guessing didn’t come naturally to her. All her life, up to the moment Cora had been promoted to the rank of lieutenant, she had trusted her instincts. They were what had gotten her so far, gotten her started in the first place. Now, she was feeling uprooted.

Fuck that
, Cora told herself firmly.
People like Ashby and Condor won’t do this to me.

In her wildly spinning world, one thing remained as a constant. Brocke was walking beside her, as powerful and unshakeable as ever. There was a peculiar look on the warlord’s face, but Cora waited until he was ready to tell her. Until then, she waited. If she knew anything in that moment at all, it was that she loved Brocke – truly and deeply.

Cora wanted to be with him, not just for the sake of one investigation that had spun completely out of control. She wanted to be with him forever like Brocke had promised.

That was the center of her world now, the focal point that all the other things started from.

And Cora knew she was as determined as Brocke to remove Condor from that equation entirely.

“Are you going to hand her over to the chieftain like you promised?” she asked.

The warlord looked at her oddly, like it was a needless question. Cora hoped she hadn’t offended him, but she needed to know.

“Yes,” he said. “I abide by my word.”

“And Nadar Brenger? Will he show mercy?” Cora pressed on.

Brocke gave her another long look when they reached his bike. In the back of her mind, it bothered Cora a lot that there wasn’t anyone on their trail. Not that she wished for the danger and the imminent possibility of death, but it felt off. Like a calm before the storm, like they were in the eye of a hurricane and didn’t even know it yet.

“Do you want him to?” Brocke asked.

Cora wasn’t prepared for the question, but the answer came as naturally as breathing.

“Yes,” she said. “Yes, of course I do. I mean… you saw her.”

“Everyone looks like that when they’re faced with me,” Brocke said, regarding her seriously.

Cora saw something resembling fear in his eyes and wondered if it was the first time that emotion took a hold in the warlord.

“I didn’t want you to hear that,” Brocke said, and his voice told her the matter had been on his mind far longer than it took for them to walk from Ashby’s home. “About Gomor. The guardian there, that is not the part of me I wanted to show you.”

“I’m glad you did,” Cora said, seeing the way Brocke’s blue eyes widened in surprise. “I really am. I know you think I’m horrified, and perhaps I am, at least for Ashby’s sake, but I understand. The people in there – if they’re anything like Condor, it’s the right place for them. As long as you are watching them, I believe we are safe.”

There was an incredibly deep emotion in Brocke’s eyes as he leaned in to kiss her. It was not a kiss of passion, not even one of love. More like a sealed promise to keep her safe, gratitude for not condemning him for what he did.

“Just please ask your father to show mercy,” Cora said when they pulled back from each other. “As bad as she is, I don’t think Ashby deserves to go to Gomor.”

“She helped him,” Brocke pointed out as the bike’s engine roared to life. “Everything that ever stopped you from finding Condor, it was her. All the deaths are as much on her conscience as they are on the killers’.”

“I know,” Cora said, watching the warlord mount the bike and wait for her. “I’m not telling you or the chieftain what to do. I only think she’s an idiot, not evil like Condor. I don’t know about you, but I believe there’s a difference.”

Brocke watched her, his blue eyes solemn, and Cora didn’t turn away. She didn’t know why she was pleading for Ashby when the priestess had betrayed her, but it felt like something Cora needed to do for herself.

She wasn’t like Ashby, never would be.

“Alright,” Brocke promised, even if Cora could sense his reluctance. “I will relay your words to the chieftain, exactly as you said them. The rest is up to him.”

“That’s good enough for me,” Cora said, taking her seat behind him.

It was funny how she’d gotten used to the speeder after the long, perilous rides.

Still don’t like them though.

“The place we’re going to go now…” Brocke said when the bike lifted off the ground. “It’s the home of all the idiots and all the evil, and most of the inhabitants are both.”

As the speeder took them away from Eborat unchallenged, Cora had to wonder if she’d done the right thing by going along.

H
er suspicion was further confirmed
when Cora saw the thing Brocke called a “gate”.

It was nothing like a gate. It was a drop to her death, so deep Cora couldn’t see the bottom. Yet Brocke insisted it was the absolute safest way into Olyra, which was why he’d picked it. No regular traps he’d described to her, no monsters guarding the entrance.

After all the scary stories, Cora had wholeheartedly approved the gate Brocke suggested. She didn’t think she was in her best form when it came to dodging spears and fighting off Haunters.

“You have got to be kidding me,” was the phrase that popped to Cora’s mind when she saw the chasm.

They weren’t very far from Eborat, but a little off from their target. Cora appreciated the fact Brocke didn’t make her take one of the more dangerous paths with him, but she knew it was once again costing them time.

Time that some of the kidnapped people didn’t have. Cora was thinking about them more and more, hoping that her efforts had brought them closer to helping the half-breeds.

The chasm in front of her was basically nothing more than the ancient remains of a landslide. It had created a terrifying crater right on the edge of the dreaded Corgan forests. And Brocke was telling her they were supposed to walk over it. On thin air.

“There is a path,” Brocke said. “I know where it is, and I know you can’t make it out. The booster I gave you should help, but it’s wearing off. All the more reason for us to hurry. Trust me.”

“I do,” Cora said, her voice shaking a little. “But this is a little much. I don’t see it, I really can’t.”

“That’s the point of this gate,” Brocke explained. “It’s a leap of faith.”

“Good god, that is even worse,” Cora said, although it
did
calm her a little. “You don’t think it’s a little bit ironic? That we’re crossing a bridge of faith to get to a priest.”

Judging by Brocke’s expression, he didn’t.

Refusing to say anything further and reminding herself of the innocent lives at stake, Cora raised her hand to take Brocke’s. The warlord gave her an encouraging smile and squeezed her hand a little. With slow steps, he took them both over the chasm.

Cora barely dared to look down, but there was honestly nothing else to see. She needed to watch where she was going, even if Brocke was leading her, so Cora had no choice but to face the trial. When the guardian turned in a place that seemed as empty to her as the rest of it, Cora’s heart nearly stopped.

She could feel another reaffirming squeeze and steeled herself. Cora couldn’t explain it rationally, but she no longer believed anything bad could happen to her when she was with Brocke.

They made it across, and the world was instantly dark around them. Looking behind, Cora saw the chasm they’d just crossed. From there, the path went below the surface of Gaiya, and every step made her feel more unwelcome than ever before.

Brocke had warned her several times, but only when Cora first laid her eyes on Olyra did she fully understand.

If looks could kill
, she mused, seeing the way eyes followed her every move.

Cora realized without a shadow of doubt that the only reason she was still alive was because of Brocke. The warlord’s arm was now firmly around her, showing everyone she was under his protection.

It was dark down there, very dark, but the booster Cora had taken was still helping. If not to make her pass for a Corgan, at least to see in the dimness.

“Don’t stop,” Brocke warned her quietly. “No matter what.”

Cora wasn’t going to say she had no intention of stopping. Or that she would have liked nothing more than to walk right out of that ghastly place. She had never seen a place that seemed to literally pull the life force out of her.

There was something about the cramped, tight tunnels they walked through that made everything so much worse. The floors were old, rusted metal, and there were parts of the maze that were so badly cared for Cora didn’t know how it hadn’t collapsed already.

With every step she took, escape seemed less likely. As they headed farther from the gate, Cora couldn’t imagine ever getting back. She tried to force herself not to think like that, but it was very difficult when she had never felt so self-conscious before. It seemed they could almost smell the Terran on her. Her hand went on her stomach by instinct.

She kept thinking someone would say it out loud eventually, but no one dared to stop Brocke. Cora could see a few itching to, though.

When the door of a pod that looked identical to a thousand ones they’d passed by slid shut after them, Cora realized she’d been holding her breath the whole time. She finally dared to let it out, watching an old warrior rise to his feet.

There was almost nothing in the small room, but Brocke’s impressive bulk filled about half of it.

The old warrior turned the sharp gaze of his eyes right on Brocke.

“Now you’ve done it,” he gargled. “You’ve killed me, boy. Bringing a Terran here –”

“Uncle,” Brocke cut in. “I didn’t come to ask for your help. I came to tell you that I will kill two things tonight. One is Condor. The other is Olyra. You can either die with this doomed place, or you can protect her and regain your honor.”

The old man laughed, but Cora could see a glint of emotion in his deep blue eyes.

“Honor,” he said. “Since Condor came –”

“Yes or no?”

The old warrior glared as voices rose outside. Cora winced when running footsteps went by them, like a lot of people were rushing in one direction right past them. She wondered what was going on, but there honestly weren’t that many options.

Condor had to be close by.

“Boy, I can’t help you,” the old man said, sighing. “Condor is about to begin his showing. And whether you like it or not, he has been dragging you in all along. He knew you’d come, you see. Perhaps he even knew you’d bring the girl. You’ve been on the performer list since the start.”

“I don’t plan to play any of Condor’s games,” Brocke said.

“You don’t have a choice,” the old warrior replied, and the world went upside down.

Cora screamed when Brocke’s uncle knocked her against a wall with surprising strength. It was nowhere near the shock of finding it was a revolving door. She and the old man were spun to the other side, while Brocke was left behind. Cora could hear him roar, saw the blades of his swords cut through the door, but she was already being dragged away by unknown hands.

The old warrior watched it unfold. There was a deep sadness in his eyes as he stood, walking slowly away from where Brocke was about to break through. Cora thought it was a lousy comfort to know that Brocke was going to kill him the second he got his hands on his uncle.

“I’m sorry,” she could hear the man say.

“
Sorry
,” Cora yelled back at him as Condor’s priests pulled her out of the room she’d ended up in. “Do you have any idea what they’ll do to me? You traitorous scumbag –”

The old man’s answer was the last Cora heard of him.

“I do. I tried to tell the boy. There is no choice for anyone in Olyra.”

The priests dragged her, kicking and screaming, away from Brocke. The door between the two rooms was apparently made of something better than most walkways if it managed to delay the warlord. Cora had seen Corgan swords cut through space ships.

The corridors and long tunnels were completely different now when Brocke was no longer by her side. It wasn’t the mindless hate Cora had expected, however.

It resembled pity and disgust more closely. The people who pushed her forward to a large open area looked at her like she was an animal, far below their dignity to mention.

When Cora was dragged to the arena, her mouth dropped open.

Brocke hadn’t told her much about where they had come, other than that Komol – the area of Olyra they ventured into - was an ancient fighting ground, but he’d given the impression it hadn’t been used in ages.

The large, square-shaped arena before Cora’s eyes had definitely seen battles. Very recently. She could see corpses, cut open like they were exhibits in the worst show imaginable. It took Cora a long, horrified moment to realize that was exactly what was going on.

She didn’t know much about Corgan physiology, but Cora didn’t need that to guess all the dead ones were half-breeds. Some looked like they’d died fighting, and the way the bodies were positioned left her no doubt.

Condor was proving his point, literally. By making the half-breeds fight Corgans.

On the other side of the arena, a man rose from a seat overlooking Komol. Bald, tall, and thin, with eyes full of madness, Cora had no doubt she’d found the man she had been looking for.

Seeing a twisted smile spread on the priest’s face, it was also clear that
he
had found her.

“Good people of Olyra,” Condor barked. “Our guest of honor has arrived. Come here, girl. I will give you the best seat in the house so you could see the half-breed Guardian of Gomor die at last.”