Alien General's Beloved (Brion Brides 6)(50)

Corden alone would have been a bit suspicious—a lone Brion in a fighter meant for an entire unit. But the Torons were a dead giveaway. The Abysmal's guns were firing all around them, but remained blissfully unaware of the enemy coming at them.

Seconds ticked by and Corden knew he'd made the right call. His three warriors had done their duty. They had brought him one step closer to claiming the legendary warship.

Corden briefly considered destroying the landing bay. The Abysmal may have been impenetrable, but its interior was not. It would have been easy to do some secondary damage, but the bridge would have shut off that section of the ship immediately. Not worth it.

Besides, Corden thought with a smile, he didn't want to destroy the precious ship. He was going to take it from Worgen, along with his life and everything else the other general valued.

After another minute, he landed his fighter smoothly on the obsidian deck of the Abysmal.

He was in.



***



The deck shuddered beneath his feet as Corden stepped out of the stolen fighter, waiting for his allies to land. The Abysmal was clearly intent on destroying the Claw before it could find a way to deploy troops.

Corden had warned his flagship that the enemy would be able to take heavy fire without a problem, but it was not out of the danger yet. He had no way to communicate with the Claw, but trusted his second-in-command Captain Soren to know what had to be done.

In the meanwhile, the Torons would have to do and he knew they'd relish the prospect.

All that went through Corden's mind within a second, and by then the general was already moving, pulling his battle spear free. He and the Torons were in the Abysmal, but the trick would only work once. Already he saw the crew coming to meet him, realizing he was the enemy. No matter what he did, Corden couldn't get to them all before one managed to signal the bridge.

In a minute, Corden knew, the Abysmal would shoot down everything that tried to approach. And right on cue, the bay doors behind them were starting to close, sealing the warship and trapping everyone inside.

Bringing his spear on guard, Corden grinned, knowing that meant Worgen had cut himself off from any warriors still remaining on the fleet ships.

He hoped his three warriors had the good sense to get out of the control room before the mad general realized that was where his weakness lay.#p#分页标题#e#

Corden met the Abysmal's crew head-on, buying time for the Torons to land and exit. The general's spear twirled in his hand as he charged to meet the first enemies foolish enough to face him. Nothing but simple guards, but elite units were to undoubtedly follow.

Seeing him was having an effect on the enemies, that much was obvious. Corden's blood was boiling, the valor squares pulsing out a fierce, demanding challenge.

Come and meet your fate. You've delayed it for far too long.

The bay was bathed in haunting red color like it was on fire and Corden was the flame in the middle of it. The general roared, a clear call-sign for all the guards to target him and not the Torons already appearing from the shuttles. He cut off their approach, standing like a dam that didn't let a single clone through.

The floor around him was wet with blood, slippery and treacherous. That was Corden's purpose, cutting the guards open and spilling their life out on the deck. The stench of death rose, driving everyone but him mad. Behind his back, the Torons came forward, their revenge finally there for the taking. And the guards were witnessing what they were up against.

Corden barked a hollow laugh, seeing how it drove them on with stubborn, reckless abandon.

There is some Brion spirit left in you after all.

Only he didn't miss how they looked at him, approaching like an unstoppable tide. They tried to hide it from him, oh how they tried, but the failure was almost sad. The valor squares on the necks of the clones, the marks of victory that weren't their own, were finally showing signs of life.

One after another, they made first steps at becoming real Brions, but it was too late. Corden was already upon them, slicing them open and cutting them down. The only real emotion they ever got to feel was fear.

By his side, the Torons were as unyielding as Corden himself. The beasts roared their defiance in the face of the enemy that had hidden itself behind the Abysmal's walls for so long. They charged into the fight, claws and fangs first, tearing at the clones. Corden saw a few of them brought down by the Brion spears. Their opponents weren't exactly helpless, but it didn't stop them. With great, stomping steps the Torons advanced, trampling over everything in their way.

The clones were losing. The blood on the deck was almost all that remained of their brothers and they knew it. The deck was treacherous beneath their feet, while Corden didn't stumble once and the Torons were incapable of it. The beasts who worked heavy jobs in mountain ranges, carrying precious metals upstream of cascading waterfalls, didn't even notice the change in their footing.

Corden laughed before he remembered Lana. He was losing himself in the fight, enjoying the righteous killing too much. The general couldn't allow that to happen. Not only would he have betrayed himself, giving in to the same sin that plagued Worgen—but also Lana and the fleet, expecting him to save them before the mad general realized it was over.

"Charge!" he bellowed to the Torons. "Onward into the ship! Take your revenge!"

They heard. The huge, hairy creatures were on a rampage again, but this time it was their own choice. They roared in response to him, at least those who could still catch his words. The leaders understood at least and where they went, the others followed. Trampling, clawing, and tearing through the clones, the Torons spread out into the ship and the bay was left in a heavy silence just moments later.

Corden stopped only for a moment to take it all in. The rage within him burned, beating mercilessly on his self-control, telling him to open his mind to the blood lust, but the general refused. He regarded the carnage, forcing his mind and body to cool, take account of what he'd done.

It had been necessary, he knew that, to take the bay by storm and open the gate to the depths of the ship. But the moment he enjoyed it, rejoiced in the killing, he was no better than Worgen.

He had to remember. This was not about a victory, this was about his duty. The Abysmal was falling, but it was still able to take them all down with it.

And he had to slay a man he'd been born to kill.

Corden ran further into the ship, his eyes easily adjusting to the darkness. He could no longer see the Torons anywhere, which was a good sign. The general couldn't have asked for better allies for a fight on a Brion ship. The beasts were used to the dark, preferring it themselves due to their cave-dwelling way of life. They could see almost as well as he did.

A smile kept creeping on his lips. This time it was because Worgen had brought this upon himself. A smarter man, a thinking man, wouldn't have angered those he didn't need to. The Torons were practically harmless without provocation, but the mad general had done everything he could to anger them. This was Worgen's own cruelty fighting him.#p#分页标题#e#

Corden fought the smile off his lips. He had to be righteous, not vengeful. But his core, the deepest part of him that he had always tried to silence, had woken. The man he'd once been was raising its ugly head, coming to life when Corden had almost believed it was gone.

The general walked through the halls of the Abysmal, eerily empty after the Torons had passed through. He left a blood trail after him, trickling from his spear. The taste of copper on his tongue was feeding life into the darkness within him and he followed the scent of blood like a predator.

There was a reason the Elders had chosen him for the task, for the position of an executioner. Two of them, in fact. The one Corden had given to Soren was true, it was because he possessed the most clinically analytical mind that could take people and their motivations apart.

But there was another, far more secret reason.

The smile was back on his face again and Corden could no longer fight it down. He walked, catching glimpses of himself on the few reflective surfaces that the Abysmal offered. Bloody, dark, and dangerous. The mirror image of Worgen.

After all, of anyone, the Brions would know the secret to fighting a monster like the mad general. The Elders had trusted him to keep the darkness inside and let it out only when it was absolutely necessary.

You had to fight fire with fire, monsters with monsters.

Corden bared his teeth in a ravenous grin.





CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

Lana



Lana's heartbeat still hadn't calmed down.

The way Worgen had appeared from the darkness, the sudden hopelessness he brought with him, it was too much. She'd sincerely thought that she had gotten used to seeing him, but it wasn't true. Instead, every time it seemed to get worse, because it meant he was still alive, still a threat.

She'd allowed herself to be dragged away by Worgen's men, but she hadn't gone quietly. The captain had kicked and fought back as hard as she could. The Flora had seemed like a ghost town when she was taken back to the landing bay, but still some of her crewmembers had tried to help. They were all killed for it, just like Yarel.

The meaningless deaths made Lana rage and rebel even harder, hating the Brions from the bottom of her heart for that crime alone—killing those they didn't have to.

It was only in the fighter, hearing the warriors assigned to guard her discuss how weird it was that the jet had already been unlocked, that Lana realized. Worgen had stayed behind on the Flora. With Corden.