Alien General's Bride (Brion Brides 3)(22)

Diego waited, but Isolde had nothing else to say. Everything she had feared had been confirmed, and the things she would have thought ridiculous some weeks ago seemed fairly normal compared to the sort of trouble she was really in.

“You are right, about almost everything,” Diego said in a cold, emotionless voice so unlike the soothing tones he usually had when talking to her. “I hope you believe me when I say I was going to tell you the truth.”

“I don’t,” Isolde said. “I should have paid attention. You said you wouldn’t hurt me, which you haven’t. You said you would protect me, you have. You didn’t say you wouldn’t lie, and you did.”#p#分页标题#e#

For a moment, there was an endless sadness in Diego’s eyes, but like all his kind moments, it passed. Isolde’s own tears had dried. She had spent all of them, lying on the bed, cursing herself for falling into the trap as old as time. A really handsome guy comes, messes with a woman’s head, and off she goes, abandoning all reason for a pair of pretty eyes and strong arms and voice like thunder and… No. The stupid simple word she hadn’t been able to say this whole time.

“You do not understand,” Diego began, sighing. “Isolde, you have to trust me. You do not know the full meaning of all of this. If you let me, I will explain. You will understand why we are going to Briolina and why I did not tell you before. You will understand why you are so important now, to me and to all Brions.”

“I don’t want anything to do with the Brions anymore,” Isolde said, even if the tears she thought spent threatened to make another appearance. “I don’t want anything to do with you.”

There was real pain in the general’s eyes now. She found herself unable to take any enjoyment from that, even if she thought she owed it to the dead. The thread that bound them together was taunt, but not broken. She hurt, hurt all the more because she’d truly thought she might fall for him. Might actually, really like him. Maybe even love him. The thread tugged at her heart, but how could she live with herself if she forgave something like this?

“If my words mean anything to you, I want you to drop me off at the first opportunity,” Isolde went on, even if the thought of leaving him seemed as unbearable as it was unavoidable.

“Isolde…”

“Until then, I don’t want to see you. I don’t want to talk to you. I don’t want you here.”

“Isolde, it is not so simple. If you get off my ship, you are as good as dead. We have to fix this first, or you will be running for the rest of your life, and it will be very short. I can only protect you if you are with me, do you understand that?”

“Get out of my room.”

It was plain from the look on Diego’s face that no one had ever uttered those words to him before.

“Isolde, listen to me…”

“Get. Out.”

Diego still did not move, but Isolde’s strength was running out. She could no longer bear to see him. She could no longer risk that she might forgive him still. He had to go.

Oh no, no, no, no, do NOT yell at the alien warlord…

“GET OUT!”

Diego went. Isolde slumped to her bed, tears finding some hidden reserve in her chest and pouring unbidden and unwanted, falling in her hopeless despair. It hurt on a level she hadn’t thought possible. Given the choice between Diego heeding her request and throwing her off the ship, meaning her almost certain death, and staying here with people that did this to others, Isolde desperately wished she knew which she really hoped for.

Diego was one of them. Diego had lied to her, betrayed her, protected her, cared for her, fought for her, used her… Diego had told her she was his gesha and he her gerion. Her world fell to pieces, not the least of which because, at last, she believed him.





CHAPTER NINETEEN

Isolde



She was still alive.

Isolde Fenner was in the process of doubting her own existence – a question that had plagued philosophers for ages. Her arguments were better than theirs, she felt.

Never mind being solely in the presence of the Brions, a species with not exactly a peace-loving reputation. Never mind she’d seen the bullet with her name on it, although to be completely honest, it had been a spear. Never mind a Brion civil war was a very probable event in the near future, with her directly in the heart of it.

Nope. She had yelled at Diego Grothan, and she still drew breath.

Not only that, Isolde had thrown Diego out of her room, on his ship no less, a subject he was pointedly touchy about, and to top it all off with a beautiful red cherry – she was shaming him by actually refusing the binding his species thought sacred and undeniable.

She had resorted to madness as the last line of reason. Blowing gently on a mirror proved that she could still count herself among the living. This absurd test took place in her new alien bathroom. She kept referring to it like that, because she still couldn’t figure out half the controls and had come very close to roasting herself alive, after which the more complex ones had been shut off.

The same old face greeted her in the mirror. Her long dark hair was now held back from her face with a green jewel that matched her eyes. At the moment, her lips were curled into a sneer as she considered her options for what to do with her eyes. It was clear she’d been crying – not a lot, Isolde was hardly a crybaby to lock herself in a room and become a living ghost – but just enough to get all the helpless frustration out. She hoped. Now, should she cover up the traces, or let the generals see exactly what they were putting her through?#p#分页标题#e#

She decided to put on a brave face. The Brions had little compassion, they would care nothing for her tears, they’d proved that already. They recognized strength alone and strong she would be.

Time had passed on the Triumphant as they flew at perfectly average speeds towards the Brion home world. Speed was the major question these days, Isolde felt, and during the week she’d spent aboard, it seemed to be the main topic of conversation. Brion ships could travel great distances very fast, if they chose to.

Yet both Diego and Faren wanted to strike a balance between getting to Briolina too soon and taking too much time. Their slow approach would give the Elders time to come out of their secretive meditation and allow the other generals to make up their minds as to their allegiance.

Isolde knew about as much as the rest of the galaxy about the Sleep. Another relic of tech they no longer understood, the Brions were still able to maintain the weird artificial dream that took up most of the Elders’ time. It didn’t make them immortal, but it considerably prolonged their life and kept them at the age in which they’d entered the Sleep.

The most notable thing was that while in the Sleep, they formed a sort of a hive mind between the pods and could be fed new information through implants. That’s how they always emerged with a single purpose, having already discussed all they needed in their dreams. So Diego and Faren had to give them time to deal with the new situation.

However, delay too much and the senators would have the advantage, and the Galactic union   would start to wonder about Isolde’s whereabouts. So far, Diego had answered the Palians’ inquiry saying that Isolde was alive and well, but urgent matters demanded he make a small detour – after all, it wasn’t a carrier ship she’d boarded and couldn’t have been expected to make her a priority. The Palians had reluctantly accepted that, but no one was under any illusions as to what was going on at the GU council where the Brions had few true allies.

Everything was teetering on the edge of a knife, thought the shining creature in Isolde’s mirror. Green light seemed to glimmer around her, only aided by her new robes, befitting the gesha of the commander. Oh yes. That.

Isolde the alien bride looked at her new self and fought down conflicting emotions. Two nights ago, Diego had made one of his few appearances since their fight. Mostly, he’d kept away as she’d demanded, but Isolde knew it could never get out, which was exactly what they’d had to discuss.

He’d come in without Isolde’s door making a single sound, informing her exactly how much she was at his mercy, and that her privacy was allowed only as a gift.

The familiar jacket was gone, Isolde had noticed with a painful tinge of regret. The feel of it still ached under her fingers, and as much as she’d tried to force herself to forget, she hadn’t been able to shake the need to fist her hands into the hard fabric and pull herself up to… But the jacket hadn’t been the only thing gone, replaced by the black-and-gold war armor that fit him so perfectly she’d been unable to tear her eyes away.

The armor wasn’t the old heavy medieval type, but a form-fitting, gold-adorned suit cast in the pulsing light of his valor squares. Seeing that avatar of manhood stand before her, tower above her, with his head held high and an aura of power around him so great it nearly brought her to her knees had made her mouth water and her whole body shiver from head to toe. Yet Isolde hadn’t taken one step closer, because besides the jacket, his smirk had been gone as well.

“General,” she’d said, quietly.

“Miss Fenner,” the commander had replied, causing her to wince as if struck. “Do you find your accommodations agreeable so far?”