There was no mistaking the way the warrior woman held her head up higher with every word out of Grothan’s mouth. His sexy, devilish mouth that should only kiss my lips.
So caught up in her jealous streak, Isolde barely noticed the general suddenly standing very close to her. His valor squares beamed as he spoke, every word bouncing off the walls as his tone dropped low. “More importantly, I would trust her with yours.”
More importantly. The words kept resonating in Isolde’s mind as it took her several attempts to rip her eyes from Grothan’s and sneak a glance at the warriors. The woman didn’t look upset in any way. If possible, she looked even prouder than before. Perhaps Isolde was overreacting.
Perhaps, a part of her still intent not to become the alien bride thought, you shouldn’t get so damn possessive of a Brion warlord and focus more on getting out of this mess.
Isolde wasn’t sure if that part of her fully grasped how deeply she was in this mess, wondering when it would catch up to the fact she had given in a while ago and was now in the due process of trying to justify that to the only person who at that point still objected – herself.
Grothan pointed to the other warrior, who for some reason seemed familiar to Isolde. “And this is Narath.”
The face finally registered. “You’re the one who saved my life,” she said quietly. “Thank you.”
The Brion nodded. “I am glad to have been able to serve the Commander,” he replied. His voice was so deep Isolde could barely make out the words, but somehow they put her at ease. Where Grothan’s voice excited her, brought her every sense live, Narath’s voice seemed to match his presence. He was the strong, silent type. Isolde had to admit that she felt better about her circumstances than she had before.
“That was far beyond service,” Grothan almost growled at him. “You came to save my gesha. I do not forget this.”
Now Narath looked like Christmas had come early. The warriors hung on his every word, Isolde noticed, and no wonder, she couldn’t help but do the same herself.
Grothan sent them both to their posts, staying behind to kiss her once more. No beeping came to bother them this time, but the world that insisted on revolving around them would not be kept waiting. The general pulled away, holding Isolde’s face in his strong hands, with gentleness she hadn’t thought he could show.
“Sleep,” he said. “I will deal with my brother generals.”
The sense of peace she had had for a moment was banished in an instant. “They are coming to kill you. Because of me,” she whispered.
Grothan’s valor squares flashed to life, filling the room with an otherworldly glow. It literally became the reflection of his will to fight, and win.
“They will try,” he said.
“What if they…” Isolde began.
Grothan shook his head, a vicious snarl pulling back his lips, reminding Isolde in one swift moment she was still in the presence of a killer.
“I’ve had many enemies in my life,” Diego Grothan said. “They are nothing but grief to their mothers now.”
Fear should have kept Isolde awake, but sheer exhaustion won out. Her last conscious thought was of his eyes when he’d sworn he would keep her safe. Then, after what was surely a lifetime worth of experience crammed into a single day, she finally got to sleep.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Diego
Diego had called his fellow generals brothers, denoting the fact that they were all Brions and shared a purpose in life. In Brion culture, nearly everything came down to the things one had in common with others. Warriors felt a stronger connection with others of their kind and less, for example, with politicians.
Men shared an understanding with other men and women with women, although the distance between the sexes was diminished by other factors. Diego counted Deliya as one of the closest to him even though she was a woman. But she was also a warrior, a formidable and dependable one at that, not to mention they had fought together for years and shared a bed more than once.#p#分页标题#e#
All that had something to do with what Brions were like in general, but Diego’s knowledge of that was fairly lacking. Not that anyone could tell for sure. The Elders made no secret of their shame in this.
Briolina was a model planet for the rapid evolution of a proper species, just like Terra, habitable and kind. The Brions, however, were not. The Elders told tales of bloody wars and terrible deeds the Brions had committed amongst themselves. In the darker days of their people, it was not unheard of for the Elders to call the raging armies to order by asking them if they wanted to bear the burden of being the only species in existence to blur the meaning between genocide and collective suicide. Implying that with all the killing it wouldn’t have made a difference in the outcome if all the warring parties just killed themselves. To hear them tell of it, it was apt to compare the two, because the Brions had come very close to destroying themselves and wiping the race off the face of the galaxy forever.
For all the good and evil it brought, the Elders had searched for an answer to quell the blood thirst of their warlords. The answer was found in science now long lost, and they had never looked back, even if the Elders thought mistakes had been made.
The Brions took nature into their own hands, starting to genetically alter themselves with technology no one could replicate in the present. The Elders in those days – now myth as much as history – thought it was better to forget about their violent past and the tricks it took to bring them back from the edge of extinction. In the present, the Elders raged in futile anger at the custom of purposefully removing the knowledge from living memory that had held for, to the best of their guesses, centuries. They had no written history before some thousand years back. Everything they knew of themselves came from oral tradition, passed down from Elder to Elder. As technology caught up with them, scientists slowly started the process of cracking their genetic code, tracing back the paths it had taken. It was like walking in a snow storm, trying to discern whether the footprints they followed were natural or artificial.
As much as anything could be said, the scientists were almost positive most of the changes had been neurological. The ferocity of the Brions had not been removed, theorized to have made them defenseless, but… harnessed. It made them fiercely protective of their species and strengthened the bonds they shared between themselves. It had also enhanced their senses, although not everyone got a similar share. The lives of the Brions were fairly determined from a young age when it became obvious what was intended for them. Warriors and heavy workers grew stronger, their senses sharpened and their bodies achieved natural perfection easily. Scientists, politicians, technicians – their minds seemed to work on another level, easily passing for telepathy or an implanted AI to the untrained eye. Even if it was impossible to say which came first – the alterations or the strict order of their society – they worked together now.
All in all, the Brions saw the world through the concept of being a Brion. The closer someone was to their self-image, the closer they felt to them. Scientists thought it was designed to ensure the purity of the species.
To ensure the variability the species also needed there were geshas and gerions – the female and the male part of their sacred binding. The Elders were positive of two things. One, that they still didn’t understand what provoked the binding, which made it very easy for it to turn into a religious or spiritual matter. After all, did they not call geshas the fated mates? Two, that unlike everything else in Brion culture, geshas and gerions didn’t need to be similar. On the contrary, more often than not the pair were opposites in some aspects, which made Diego feel slightly better about Isolde, although even he had to admit that a gesha from another species might stir up the discussion.
Still, there was no stronger bond than that of a gesha and her gerion. Whether it was an evolutionary trick to mold a species –why the Brions were generally physically fit and rarely ill as their bodies naturally searched for the best match for their genes, breeding weakness out generation by generation – or fate doing the same, it had become unquestionable.
Now Diego was about to match the strongest against the second strongest bond.
He had named his fellow generals brothers, but they were only brothers to him by being Brions.
They were, however, brothers to each other. Faren, Commander of the Unbroken and Gawen, Commander of the Fearless. They were twins, both warriors, both Brion generals, great commanders, nigh unmatched in combat prowess… In the eyes of Brions, they were almost the same. In fact, many treated them as two bodies with one mind, or two aspects of a whole, at least. And Diego would get one of them to betray the other. Even though brothers, they were not the same.#p#分页标题#e#
Space still stretched wide between them, and even with Brion tech, it would take some time for his presumed apprehenders to arrive. Diego was intent on using that time to put his own house in order. With Isolde as safe as she could be without him personally in the room – safeguards in place in addition to the reassuring presence of his two best warriors – Diego could focus on the immediate matters. Duty called to him, even if his heart ached for Isolde’s presence, never to be let out of his sight and his arms.