Alien Warrior's Mate (Brion Brides 1)(2)

“You think I’m a waste of resources?” Darien repeated.

“Of my time,” Deliya said.

Another warrior would have gotten mad, maybe even demanded a reprimand – the Brions didn’t forgive anything easily, personal insults the least – but Darien merely laughed.

“You’re colder than this place,” he said, shrugging. “Once we find the cowards, I think you’ll be glad to have me around.”

“Try not to get me killed,” Deliya said, regretting the snap at once.

She wasn’t usually the snappy type, but Darien brought that out in her for some reason. And once again, he reacted out of character for the Brions by letting the insult go.

Instead, he turned serious for the first time on a freezing planet where by that point every living soul wanted them dead.

“I would rather die,” he said.

Deliya believed him without question. Darien was a joker by character, someone who could be trusted to always make light of something, even his own death. He laughed in the face of terror and pain, one of the many reasons he rubbed Deliya the wrong way – it simply struck her as fake. When in danger, she also faced it head-on, making as though she had no fear, but she didn’t pretend the danger wasn’t there.

So when a man who joked about everything said something serious, you believed him. Deliya started to think she might have to start believing him about the her-the-star thing as well.

Perhaps she was so shocked by this sudden flash of honesty, or the Antanaris were better at setting traps than she’d thought, but the ground disappeared from under her feet. She caught a glimpse of the fall, hundreds of feet of impenetrable darkness between her and the bottom of the chasm.

Such a fitting end, she managed to think. I will fall like a star, illuminating the chasm before I go out.

Yet as she took a breath and then another, the distance didn’t seem to grow smaller. She was hanging in place, almost mid-air.

“Don’t move,” Darien said, much closer to her than he should have been.

Deliya heard her men shuffling around, some falling back from the edge of the treacherous cavern beneath them, some forming a line to pull her and Darien back to safety.

She was standing on her tippy toes at the edge of the chasm, bent forward like she was flying over it. Darien’s one hand was around her waist, the other gripping his battle spear thrust into the solid ground only inches away from the cavern mouth. His hand around her was strong and sure and hard like marble, holding her as though she weighed nothing. Deliya was tall for a woman, a warrior born and raised, and her own spear, strapped to her back, had to be uncomfortable against Darien’s chest, yet he held them both with only one arm.

As her men reached out and pulled first her and then Darien away from the trap, all Deliya could focus on was one man. The valor squares pulsed out the emotions of the person wearing them if you were tuned to listen to it. It was difficult to understand for their enemies, who only saw the light and heard their humming, but it was a way for the Brions to communicate – a brutally honest display of their true feelings. Thus they knew who to support and who to follow in battle. The warriors whose squares portrayed fear were shamed and worked hard to overcome that weakness.

It hadn’t been for long, merely a heartbeat, but Deliya was positive. As they hung over certain death, Darien’s signal had been one of clear, petrified fear. Not for him. For her.





CHAPTER TWO

Darien





Anger rose up in Darien’s heart, sharper than it had been in a long time.

He didn’t usually make such stupid, careless, ridiculous mistakes and it was the absolute worst moment to begin. How could he not have noticed the chasm lying right before their feet? He should have stopped Deliya long before she even came close to it. Another part of him was mad he’d chosen that moment to distract her by talking when it was clear they both needed to have their attention firmly on the ground and scanning the terrain for their enemies. At least they weren’t ambushed or Darien might have welcomed the chance to die before he could mess something up further.

Deliya was bound to be furious. He would definitely be in her place. So much for his intention to get on Deliya’s good side, something he’d been quite looking forward to. Instead of warming up the little ice queen, Darien honestly had no idea if Deliya now hated him more for distracting her and making her look like a fool for walking into a trap, or for the fact he’d jumped to save her like she was a damsel in distress.#p#分页标题#e#

Then again, if she did, perhaps that would simply make things more fun.

The next seconds were very important. He had to say something clever, tension-breaking and soothing before Deliya never spoke to him again. Yes, something eloquent was called for.

“See,” he said, “I didn’t get you killed.”

Deliya glared, while Darien chuckled at her annoyance.

To Deliya’s credit, after she was done scowling at him and giving him a look Darien couldn’t completely decipher, she just carried on. He liked that about her, it was one of the many reasons he was so intent on getting to the bottom of her obvious dislike of him – she was worth it.

“Moving on,” Deliya commanded and on they went.

Way ahead of them, the beacon that was their commander seemed to have stopped to see what had happened to them, but now they were all moving again.

Darien sighed in harmless frustration. He was often told that it was his ultimate curse he kept talking when in trouble, trying to make everything better and naturally making it all worse. The smart thing to do now was to keep his silence and find a way to redeem himself in Deliya’s eyes when they found their enemies. After all, that was what he was good at, something he excelled in without effort.

As a warrior, he understood her frustration, couldn’t fault her for a moment for doing her best to ignore his presence even when they walked nearly shoulder to shoulder. Everyone present knew Deliya didn’t stumble into traps and they all knew he had distracted her, even if they hadn’t heard the conversation. Still, she had stumbled. Brion officers didn’t do that.

Searching for words, so many bad ideas came to him. His thoughts seemed determined to get him killed. It took a considerable amount of will power to silence them, and then Darien kept his eye on Antaris again. Not a place where he could allow a mistake, another mistake.

To his surprise, it was Deliya who spoke first after they’d put enough distance between them and her warriors. The officers always went first. How else would they have inspired confidence and loyalty if not by putting themselves in the thick of danger? Deliya kept walking, deliberately not looking at him.

“Thank you,” she said.

A smile crept to Darien’s lips. Maybe he hadn’t messed everything up after all.

Up ahead, the commander seemed to have stopped again, but this time it wasn’t about them. All around him, the Brion line was stopping, looking around expectedly. Something had caught their attention. Darien looked around, trying to see the cause of the stop. They had come to this cold wasteland to find the Antanari champions, leaders of their people, without whom the species was thought to be left powerless and easier for the union   to deal with.

All around Antaris, the ships of the Brion generals were hovering above the ground, their commanders looking for and rooting out the champions on the surface. It was their job to draw the noose tight and not let them escape to another hidden, nigh impossible to see cave under the surface. Getting even this location had been a chore for their technicians. They couldn’t allow the opportunity to slip by.

Knowing the Brions were coming for them had made the Antanaris desperate. They weren’t going to surrender – not to them, nor to the union   – but they weren’t without self-preservation. The force of the Brions was great and now it was unleashed upon them. So they had launched another attack the moment the Brions arrived at Antaris, destroying tens of their ships trying to reach the surface. One of the big battle ships had escaped the same fate by an inch, having had its main engine sabotaged by fast-moving fighters. Brion blood had flown. There was to be no mercy.

From where they stood, Darien couldn’t see what the commander was doing, but he had fought alongside him for years. He could guess quite well. Since it was out of the question for the commander to talk with their enemy, and no sign of trouble showed in the ranks, he was calling for an attack from the hiding champions. The exact reasoning escaped him, but Darien supposed the commander could have given a pretense of injury or another reason to stop. Right now, they were simply standing idly – a perfect moment to use.

Beside him, Deliya was tense and focused. Their faith in the commander was absolute, so they all naturally went along with whatever his plan was to lure out the enemy. Maybe he’d seen something on –

Out from the white rocks, the enemy appeared. There was no time to question what had drawn them. Suddenly there they were, seemingly appearing from thin air from their hiding places. And just as Darien took off running he saw what had happened. There was a gap in their ranks that the enemy was going for now. It couldn’t have truly been a flaw, their commander didn’t make mistakes, but he had managed to make the Antanaris believe that. Grinning, Darien ran straight for the champions, Deliya by his side, her warriors at their back.#p#分页标题#e#