Alien General's Baby: BBW Human - Alien Surprise Pregnancy SciFi Romance (Brion Brides)

by Vi Voxley

  The rage in her voice seemed to die with every syllable she spoke and by the end of it, her words sounded… broken, to her. Like just by speaking her reasons, she was making them less believable.

  "You didn't say no," Braen said, the malice in his voice the first she'd ever heard from him.

  Naima glared, her hands curling into fists as she shuddered from head to toe in anger that bloomed in the place of that hollowness she’d felt a moment before.

  "I did not," she said, almost laughing. "I admit it. That part of the fault is mine. Let me make up for it now. I say NO. To all of this, to any version of us you can come up with."

  Hearing that, the general straightened himself and came at her so quickly Naima's heart jumped right into her throat.

  "Don't you dare touch me," she snarled, backing away.

  Braen stopped. The look in his eyes was a passion of all the wrong kinds. The room was cast in terrible shadows as the general didn't even bother to hide his true emotions. Naima had seen him mad before. The valor squares pulsed red when Brions were in their battle mode or irritated. The black shadows dancing on the walls of her rooms... they were horrifying.

  Her eyes were fixed on him, judging the distance between them. Naima's heartbeat was so fast and loud she could hear it rushing in her ears. In that moment, breaking the heart of one of the most dangerous men alive, she was very sharply aware of the irony.

  The only thing standing between them, the only defense she had, was the bond she was in the middle of denying. And in the process of saying no to him, she was doing exactly what she sought not to do. To break a part of him in a way that perhaps could never be mended.

  If it’s not now, it will happen later. And the later it does happen the worse it would be. I have to be strong.

  "You are right," Braen said then and for a second there, Naima dared to hope. "I admit your sources are correct. Some bonds have not worked out. They are a rarity, but they exist. That is fine. We are not one of those couples."

  "You can't decide that on your own," Naima said quietly, but she knew it was no use.

  "I will leave you alone," Braen said, walking past Naima and retrieving his spear. "We still have a long journey ahead. You and I belong together, you'll see."

  With that ominous promise, the general was gone, leaving Naima shaken. Her mind was in complete disarray. A part of her wanted to trust Braen. A part of her wanted to trust herself, that she could be better than she thought she was. That she would never do the same to Braen as her father had done to her mother.

  But she couldn’t trust herself to be that person. Not with everything she knew about herself and the universe she lived in.

  17

  Naima

  Like a prophecy coming true, disaster struck that night.

  Audrey had warned Naima that being stressed out weakened her to the Fearless' grip, who was always searching for them both. She had also suggested, not too subtly, that Braen's closeness helped like her own Palian mate shielded Audrey from the monster.

  So far, that had worked. Naima had been flattered and cheerfully ready to accept anything Braen offered to her, but now it was over and there was an emptiness in her she couldn't fully grasp.

  The fight between her and the general had left her deeply disturbed. Even so she didn't think that was all there was to it. She was reminded of the iceberg figure – like nine-tenths of their issues were unseen and unspoken. The unknown bothered her.

  It's getting worse, Naima thought that night, taking a shower before going to bed.

  The scorching hot water turned to steam the second it touched Naima's skin. When she pressed her hand against the shower wall, ice flowers spread from her fingers. It was a gorgeous picture, but a wholly disconcerting one.

  I can't believe I joked about becoming an ice queen. That's what I get for having such a romantic mind. A pragmatic would have considered the obvious first. I'm not turning into an ice queen, I'm just turning into ice.

  Naima wondered what kind of a statue she'd be before she melted and that whimsical fancy at least made her laugh a little.

  She hadn't heard anything from Braen after the general had left. Naima was thankful that it wasn't yet the time to adjust their course, and that she had plenty of long days to befriend the android. For one night, she was free of the whole mess.

  Even if she felt worse tonight than she had on any previous evening.

  The bubble of false security she had been living in had never occurred to Naima before the Palian bracelet slipped off her wet, soapy hand and clattered to the floor.

  The Fearless was there in less than a heartbeat.

  Naima wanted to scream, but the monster robbed the sounds from her throat and took every bit of strength from her. She collapsed to the shower floor, feeling hot water pour down on her.

  It was so much worse than Naima had thought and everything Audrey had warned her about.

  The Fearless was still shapeless, but stronger and more powerful now than ever before. It was no longer the young creature Naima had seen in her mind's eye, but an entity as old as the galaxy itself. The formlessness it had been forced to adapt for a while was gone. Somewhere out there, the Fearless was gathering its strength, managing to hide itself from Naima and Audrey.

  The effort that took left the monster's mind unguarded, but that was not comforting in the least.

  Naima caught glimpses of the Fearless in its past lives, the terror it had reaped, the worlds it had destroyed, the forms it had taken. That was long before any other species was strong enough to take it on.

  The first Fearless, born on some deserted rock in the middle of a dark, empty space was horrifying. It had reigned the longest and the Fearless who lived now hadn't forgotten a damn thing.

  Naima knew she was dying.

  It didn't bring the petrifying paralysis she'd expected. Instead, Naima was filled with rage at the creature who thought it owned everything. Like a coward, it had struck her when she was down. With crystal clarity, Naima knew the bracelet hadn't dropped by accident.

  It protected her, but the protection it offered wasn't foolproof. Bit by bit, the Fearless had clawed its way back into her mind, making Naima become careless with the bracelet. With her mind distracted by the seemingly endless argument she was having with herself about what was right and wrong about love, she’d become sloppy.

  She gritted her teeth, remembering how she'd played with the device without realizing she was doing that.

  I will not die like this, Naima swore. You can crawl back into whatever ice hell you climbed out of.

  In her mind, the Fearless laughed.

  And Naima fought for her life.

  It was a race against time. The monster only needed to keep her still and silent until Naima froze, light years from the empty ice fields that were killing her. Her teeth clattered in the unholy cold, but her mind was as sharp as ever. The hot water steaming on her helped a little, but it was beginning to freeze on contact.

  Out of the corner of her eye, Naima could see the lifestone's glow in her room. The temptation to crawl to it was great, yet she didn't dare to. Everything else Audrey had said had come true and Naima wasn't about to give the Fearless one more advantage it didn't need. If it knew she had the lifestone, or she touched it when they were linked like this, she had no idea what could happen next.

  The floor was turning into an ice field beneath her, freezing her skin to the ground. Naima growled in fury, trying to push herself up. Even from a lifetime away, in a weakened state, the Fearless was one of the most powerful creatures in the galaxy and nearly impossible to fight

  At some point, it seemed to Naima it was snowing in the shower, but she couldn't know if it was actually that cold in there or if it was the icy world the Fearless crept on, projecting it into her mind.

  It didn't matter. There was only one thought in Naima's mind. Noise.

  Actually, there were two, but she couldn't think of Braen at that moment. The fight she'd had with the general
was the reason she laid there, all her defenses down. Thinking of how badly she needed him by her side didn't make Naima feel any better.

  She forced herself to concentrate on Kerven, but even he only existed in connotation to Braen. The general had appointed his most dutiful warrior to keep guard over her. Behind Naima's door, Kerven still waited for any sign that she might be in trouble.

  Inch by agonizing inch, Naima pushed herself up. She could feel the Fearless rage and it gave Naima strength to know she was giving the monster a hard time.

  Naima had her destination in sights even as her eyelashes turned to icicles. Right by the shower stood a long lamp that illuminated the small room. It was the only thing in the room that wasn't wall-mounted and Naima suspected Braen had it brought to her to remind her of Terra, where such nostalgic items were a luxury.

  The reminder that despite his ferocious intensity, Braen still cared deeply about her, helped. It felt incredibly two-faced of her to revel in this tiny tidbit of affection when she had pushed him away just hours before, but she was grasping at any straws that she could find. Naima managed to push herself out of the shower, wrapping her fingers around the leg of the lamp.

  Her body was shuddering so hard it was difficult to maintain the grip. The lamp froze under her touch as Naima channeled the inhuman cold.

  In her mind, the Fearless roared, but their connection was still too weak for it to kill her simply by wishing Naima to die. Well, at least kill her quickly.

  What should have been a long, tormented scream was nothing more than a whimper as she gasped for air. It felt like even her blood was freezing solid.

  The end wasn't far, but Naima wasn't about to give up either. Seeing what the Fearless was, what it had done... she was only more determined that she and Braen needed to find a way to kill it. And she did mean kill it, despite the Palians claiming it couldn't be done.

  Anything that was born can die, Naima thought and pushed the lamp with every ounce of strength she had left.

  The lamp toppled for a moment, before crashing to the ground with a thunderous clash.

  As Naima heard Kerven rush into her rooms, she knew she had fucked up twice in the course of a single day.

  I should have gone for the bracelet, Naima realized with furious, hot tears in her eyes as Kerven ran to her side, speaking urgently into his comm link.

  She realized far too late that the Fearless had blocked the bracelet from her mind just as it had made her drop it before. It was too powerful for her to catch every little move, but Naima should have known killing her was not the monster's goal. It needed her, using Naima as a compass just as she was using the lifestone.

  Hearing Braen's voice speak over the comm link, Naima wanted to warn Kerven to make the general stay away, but she knew that was asking for the impossible. Both by speaking and by expecting any force to keep the general away from her.

  Braen was coming for her.

  Her strength was gone, getting the attention of the man who was desperately trying to save her life. Kerven retrieved a soft blanket from her bed, wrapping Naima into it to warm her up as much as to cover his general's fated.

  Her fingers were reaching out for the bracelet, but it was hopelessly out of Naima's reach.

  Through her eyes, the Fearless saw everything. Braen storming into the room like a raging warrior god, coming to lift her into his strong arms without any hesitation. Alona following only a few steps behind the general. The concern in Braen’s eyes.

  As Braen laid Naima on her bed, the android put its cold, metallic hands against her skin.

  Naima winced, but Alona's touch became warm immediately, making heat rush through her entire body.

  She could feel the Fearless laughing victoriously, having finally seen its enemies. That wasn't all. As Braen noticed the absence of the bracelet and retrieved it for her, the Fearless stayed.

  Only it wasn't the monster itself. When the bracelet clasped shut around Naima's wrist, the creature was gone from her mind and only its dark laughter lingered.

  But when Alona took its hands away, the coldness in Naima's bones returned. She was still freezing, somehow still on the unknown planet with the Fearless.

  Braen's eyes burned like hellfire as the general listened to Alona explain her condition while Naima still fought to utter a single word, shuddering so hard that she thought the muscles would rattle free of the bones in her body.

  "Change course," he ordered roughly the second the android was done. "We are going to Laveden. The Palians have to fix this."

  "Commander," even Kerven dared to protest. "The Fearless. It grows stronger."

  The look Braen gave him could have burnt a lesser man to ashes.

  "This is my gesha," Braen growled and Kerven had no counter-argument to that.

  Naima had quite a few, but she was unable to voice them. The part of her that wanted to live didn't want to, either.

  The Fearless had gotten what it had wanted. They were racing against two clocks now. One to save the galaxy. And one to save Naima.

  18

  Braen

  Knowing fear wasn't an emotion that Braen cherished.

  He had been raised to believe that any kind of pain was a weakness that could be overcome. Through vigorous training and hardship, the sense of suffering was all but eradicated from a grown Brion warrior.

  Some in the Galactic Union believed they'd become immune to pain, which was just another in the long line of rumors the Brion Elders happily fed. The truth was that Brions considered immunity a weakness as well. Without a fight, nothing was worth having, or achieving.

  Fear, however, was something that had been reduced to pragmatism. Braen and his brother generals believed that a warrior should know a healthy amount of dread in the face of a powerful enemy. To Brions, there was nothing glorious about over-confidence. A warrior's worth was their accomplishments, not perception of their own superiority.

  Therefore, fear was synonymous to the correct interpretation of facts.

  Looking at Naima lying on her bed, his gesha's body lifeless and shivering, Braen felt the true power of an emotion he'd thought long gone within him. His heart was beating so fast it seemed to pop right out of his chest. His hands that never shook trembled lightly, watching Naima fight for her life with a mixture of horror and rage.

  It felt like his soul was being crushed. For a moment there, when Braen had thought he'd lost her, the pain had been so searingly physical that the general was certain his heart would stop if he saw his gesha dead.

  For a Brion warrior, there was no worse feeling than being unable to defend their fated. Except perhaps to know that the last time he'd spoken to her, they were fighting. It was the absolute opposite of what he wanted, which was the chance to make her happy. Truly and thoroughly happy.

  That seemed like more and more of an impossibility at this point.

  "How is she?" Braen snarled to Alona.

  Having the android there grated on his nerves. The Chali were treacherous to the bone and seeing one of their creations lay a hand on Naima had sent a blinding bloodlust through Braen's veins. If Alona had any blood to spill, he would have likely spilled it already.

  Only the android appeared to be – if that was possible – concerned for Naima. And Braen couldn't deny that whatever it was doing was helping. Alona had laid its metallic palms on Naima's skin and the coldness that had surrounded the little Terran was visibly retreating.

  When he'd burst into the room, for a second Braen hadn't recognized her. She looked as white as Alona, his gesha's skin covered in ice fractals and frost. Her lips had been even paler and when Naima opened her mouth, her breath misted. The bathroom had become an ice cave around her, of which she seemed to be a permanent fixture.

  It was the Fearless. Braen had no doubt about that. Both Audrey Price and Naima had said without a shadow of a doubt that the monster was on a very cold world, which matched the region they were headed to.

  In that first second of seeing Naima wrapped
in a blanket, cold as ice, Braen had had trouble hearing her breathe. With Brion senses, that was almost impossible.

  All of that meant he was ready to tolerate Alona’s presence for the time being.

  The android looked at him, hesitating. Braen noticed Alona didn’t dare to take its hands away yet.

  Then it spoke, in clear, pure Brionese.

  "She is alive," Alona said.

  Her accent was as perfect as it was possible to be for an artificial construct that couldn’t really emote. Despite himself, Braen was impressed. Among weaknesses the Brions didn’t have, underestimating the enemy was one of them. He loathed the Chali with all his being, but Braen couldn’t deny their accomplishments were incredible.

  In the ever-morphing Brionese, Alona pronounced alive as functioning, working.

  Braen frowned.

  "Your Brionese is impressive," he growled at the android, speaking the pure form of his language so that Naima wouldn’t understand. "Did you say that on purpose? She works. Does that mean living for you or do you mean that she merely exists?"

  Weakly, Naima turned her head in the direction of his voice. Braen felt the painful grip of guilt around his heart for not being upfront with her, but the times were perilous. If not knowing everything helped Naima…

  Alona nodded appreciatively.

  "The other, General,” the android said. “She is breathing, she lives. But there is something wrong. I believe I will get her body temperature to normalize I don’t think that’s the problem."

  It can’t be trusted, was Braen’s first thought.

  Before he found Naima, that would have been the general’s only reaction. Only in that moment, watching as color returned to Naima’s cheeks and lips, Braen pushed his prejudices aside.

  He was a Brion. If Alona proved to be a threat, he’d deal with it. For now, she seemed to be helping. That gave her some worth, as hard as that was to admit.