Alien General's Chosen: SciFi Alien Romance (Brion Brides)

by Vi Voxley

  One of them wanted away – fast and far. Senator Primen had offered her that if she ever needed any help, she could go to him. The idea wasn’t bad. She’d been rolling it around in her head ever since she’d tried to run on Briolina. One of her plans was to go to the senator and ask him to hide her. It was known he didn’t have any love for the generals and especially for Faren. And he was a friend of her father’s. Surely he’d help.

  The other was thinking if Faren would be okay with turning one of his arenas into a concert stage and a ground for her audience. Also, whether the crew and the warriors would like her singing. Leiya had many fans aboard the ships, many of them gladly spent their time off coming to listen to her with their fated. She just wasn’t sure if the Unbroken was home to any of them.

  She couldn’t help imagining having that conversation with her gerion. Telling Faren, the bloodthirsty monster of Briolina, that she wanted to bring light and music to his ship. And maybe lights for the corridors. Leiya didn’t exactly fancy having to walk around with a light on her brow like the underground miners that dug into Briolina’s mineral-rich core. Surely he’d have to figure out a way to keep her safe from tumbling into something sharp in the darkness.

  And therein was the problem. If she didn’t focus properly, her mind seemed to accept that the huge Unbroken was to be one of her homes. Leiya didn’t want to allow that possibility into her mind. She’d only asked Faren for things she hadn’t expected him to give her. So he’d send her away. She hadn’t expected him to be so bloody reasonable.

  Then she discovered something fun. Brion warriors had amazing eyesight and great hearing. But Leiya’s hearing wasn’t bad either. She was a singer, of course it would be necessary that she hear things. The orchestra playing with her, her own voice and how it changed. The audience. Maybe her hearing wasn’t as wide-ranged as that of the warriors, but it was specific.

  Leiya often hummed, it was a habit most singers had. Tunes and melodies came easily to them. So at some point she discovered that while she still couldn’t see in the depressing, ever-lasting darkness, she could hear. Gods had a true sense of humor.

  She gave a few testing whistles and yes, she could bloody echo-locate. She'd first discovered the trick when she'd been very young and developed it as she grew. It wasn't something just anyone could do and while it wasn't perfect by a long shot, Leiya had learned to use it to her advantage.

  Hah! Take that, darkness!

  She kept going, making up a melody for dark places and girls lost in them. It didn’t become a song, but in her mind, there was a story behind the melody like usually. A girl lost in a frightening dark place with monsters all around and she couldn’t find home. And then there was the song that helped her, making the way home as clear as the light of day.

  Her beautiful, powerful voice bounced back from the walls. She couldn’t tell all the contours of the ship, of course, there were limits to the trick. But she could, roughly, tell where the walls were. And how big the room was. Whether they were in a corridor or passing through an arena of sort.

  At some point, Roven spoke.

  “That is really impressive.”

  “Thank you,” Leiya said, beaming. “How could you tell what I was doing?”

  “You’re no longer stumbling,” he said. “How precise is it?”

  “Not very,” she admitted. “But at least I won’t run into anything.”

  Then she heard something else.

  The sounds of fighting were coming from straight ahead. She distinguished between grunts, and screams, and simple huffing from exertion. Her whistles died down.

  It had been years since she’d last seen a Brion arena. Ever since she’d convinced her father not to take her to the duels and tournaments anymore, Leiya had strictly avoided seeing the Brions fight. It felt wrong to her, on every level. Not just the fighting itself, which she thought to be a relic of the dark days of Brions where all they did was fight, but fighting with each other as well, even if it was for practice.

  She didn’t deny they needed the armies, or at least as many armies as it took to protect them. But she also firmly believed that having an army as great as the Brions had invited someone to attack them. The galaxy wasn’t a friendly and peaceful place, she knew that. Unlike the Brion generals, she didn’t think having huge battle ships roam around and wage wars made it any more peaceful.

  Her fingers dug into Roven’s arm as they slowly edged closer. Leiya’s fear of him was nearly gone in the face of meeting the one responsible for those gut-wrenching sounds.

  She knew the purpose of the valor squares. They pulsed light, and sounds, and everything else the Brions thought would make them look even more dangerous than they already did. It was a very valid theory that had worked wonders for them for years.

  Leiya was hit with the full power of that.

  The light around Faren was red. Red like the blood pooling around his feet, even though he was clearly unhurt. The razor-sharp edge of his ax was lodged into the chest of a warrior lying on the ground. Leiya had very good hearing at such range, but she almost missed the warrior’s breathing. All of the blood on the ground was clearly his, and there was much of it.

  Her eyes darted to Roven and to his ruined, monstrous face. She didn’t scream. Otangis? She’d believed Faren when the general had told him that. Suddenly she wasn’t so sure. The silence on the Unbroken crashed in on her. Leiya’s mind flooded with all the rumors she’d ever heard of him. Maybe they weren’t silent because they were well trained. Maybe they were simply scared. The thought made sense to her petrified mind.

  All ideas of interior design vanished. All possibilities of the binding ever working out went with them. They took the breath from her lungs. She'd been right all along. She couldn't do it. If she had to break the holiest of Brion traditions, let it be so. There was no future for her with Faren.

  She’d been so stupid, joking around with a man like that. And the night before. Gods! It wasn’t her, it was the bond. It was the bond making her feel like that, her own body betraying everything she’d ever believed in. How could she have thought it might somehow work with someone who carved his own warriors up for fun?

  The general must have heard or seen her, because he looked straight towards her then. In the red light, even his eyes looked bloodshot and cruel. Leiya shuddered, finally face to face with the Monster of Briolina.

  There was no other way. If she didn’t get off the Unbroken in the next hour, she was going to suffocate from its evil.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Faren

  The look on his gesha’s face was indescribable.

  Faren had seen many emotions flicker behind her beautiful eyes, but this was a new one. One he rather would not have seen. The way Leiya slowly took in the whole scene in the arena was enough to tell him she would not easily forget what she’d seen. He should have listened to Diego and forbid her entrance to the training arenas.

  Should have taken the warning the other general had passed on to him. Diego's human gesha had been shocked to see him fight too andFaren wasn’t even fighting anymore. This was a part of training. He was aware of what he had to look like, the image she was seeing. Blood pooling around his boots, the battle hormones in his veins making his valor squares pulse a threat. The ax smeared red in his hands.

  “Leave us,” he ordered his warriors.

  They left without a word, as he’d known they would. He did not suffer anyone aboard his ship who couldn’t follow orders or felt the need to waste his time with meaningless words. The one before his feet had to wait until he’d lifted his ax to limp away, the trail of blood marking the road he took. Only Roven stayed, hesitating. Faren’s latest orders were not to let Leiya out of his sight when she was out of her room, but this was private.

  “You too,” he said. “Wait by the hangar.”

  Roven saluted at once and left them alone.

  Leiya was still speechless. Faren thought it better to speak first.

  “You should
not have come here,” he said. "I know how you feel about violence. This is not a place for non-warriors.”

  Or non-Brions.

  She looked at him, her eyes wide.

  “That doesn’t mean it isn’t happening.”

  “No,” he agreed. “But I think this gave you the wrong idea.”

  A hollow laugh was Leiya’s initial response to that. Then she shook her head, looking disturbingly beautiful in the few lights the arena had. She gestured to the arena.

  “Tell me how this isn’t what it looks like.”

  “You seem to think I hurt people for fun.”

  “Don’t you?”

  “No,” Faren said. “This is training, that is all.”

  “That man was bleeding out of his throat! That is just torture!”

  He had to wonder how no one else had ever suspected before. That was not the way any Brion saw things. It was human logic, completely removed from the Brion way of life. How to explain that to her, to someone who'd already made up her mind about it?

  “He lost,” Faren said. “He was in a position of defeat. I injured him in the duel, but I was not going to kill him. Why would I do that?”

  Leiya looked at him like he was speaking a whole different language.

  “I don’t know!” she said. “What were you doing then?”

  “I was about to show him how to get out of a position like that, even when heavily injured.”

  There, a slight hesitation on her part, but his gesha pushed the emotion aside. She’d done that a lot ever since they met, Faren had noticed. He could have told her it was unreasonable to deny her own emotions, but he didn’t. She wasn’t exactly disagreeing with him, she was refusing to agree with him. Nothing he could do about that.

  She looked as if she was about to cry. Faren had no idea how he could stop that from happening. It seemed his ability to make people feel what he wanted them to feel didn’t work with her. Maybe it was because she was human, maybe it was the bond. The result was the same one way or another.

  “I want to go home,” Leiya said.

  He knew she did. Faren wondered if she knew how far from home she really was.

  “You can’t,” he simply said.

  "Because you won't let me go!" Leiya protested, her voice going from angry to sad in a second. "I want to go home, to Briolina, to my family..."

  "You really don't know."

  "Don't know what?" Leiya asked, glaring at him. "That I should just accept all this like a good Brion. I'm sorry, I can't-"

  "I know," Faren said. "I understand it's hard for you to accept, exactly like it was for Isolde."

  The look in Leiya's eyes was pure confusion.

  "What are you talking about?" she asked quietly.

  "You're human, like her."

  For the first time aboard the Unbroken, Leiya smiled, but not because she found it funny.

  "You're joking."

  That was definitely the first time he'd ever been accused of that.

  "I am not," he said. "You might not like it, but you were brought to Briolina for this exact purpose. To see if a human could be a gesha. Isolde already proved it, but it happened with you as well."

  "I-" Leiya began to say. "I – I don't believe you. My father would have told me, he..."

  "He knows. He was the one who brought you here. Him and Senator Primen."

  It was quite a truth to drop on someone, but Faren felt like she deserved to know. That was all he could do for her. Give her the truth and trust the fate, like a Brion.

  Her eyes were fierce when she locked their gazes. Only the night before, Faren had thought she might warm up to him at last. Day by day, she could slowly get used to her new position. It didn’t seem so likely anymore.

  “I don't believe you,” she said, slowly and surely. “Take me home.”

  “That’s not wise,” he said seriously. “I told you it wasn’t safe. I understand you are feeling angry now, but you’ll get used to this.”

  “No,” she said and there was something final in her voice, something very broken. “You still don’t understand. I don’t want you to be my gerion. Before you say that we are fated, I know! I feel the pull, I believe you. But I don’t want this. I’m saying no. I’m saying no now, and I’ll always say no. I will never be your gesha. Take me home, please.”

  Just a year ago, Faren might have argued with her. The Brion bindings were sacred to them, and it wasn’t so long ago that no one doubted them. Only he’d personally met those who had denied the bond. Diego’s healer, Urenya, had filled them in briefly on the matter. It was slowly becoming public too.

  The Elders had long taught them that the bindings always worked. In truth, they almost always worked. There were a few special occasions when they simply didn’t. The current High Senator Eleya had denied her gerion, and Faren couldn’t say she’d been wrong.

  Senator Eren had almost destroyed all Brions with his plan to bring them to an eternal war with the rest of the galaxy. In truth, he admired her courage at denying fate and the bond that she had to have felt.

  So with the certainty of the bond taken from them all, he found he couldn’t really tell Leiya that she was wrong. If she felt so strongly and so negatively about him, there was nothing he could do. He was who he was and so was she. It didn’t surprise him that she took him for a monster. Nor was it a surprise that she didn't believe him.

  But to let her go back to Briolina… Away from the safety of the Unbroken. How could he do that? Even with Primen’s position being as shaky as it was, it didn’t take much. One stray bullet, one skilled assassin. She was so frail, like all humans. Her little escape had shown him she wasn’t entirely helpless. His gesha could think on her feet, but she wouldn’t be a match for a warrior.

  The look in her eyes, however, was terrible. Faren saw no doubt, no regret. He didn’t know if she was aware of the uncertainty of the bonds, but ultimately it didn’t matter. It was over.

  He’d thought the binding and his gesha would make him complete, make him a better warrior. He still wasn’t certain it wouldn’t have, but that didn’t matter anymore. He’d tried, and she’d denied him.

  All he could do was to make sure she was safe. Even if Leiya wouldn’t be his, he’d make sure nothing harmed her.

  “Very well,” he said.

  It felt like defeat. Worse than defeat. He’d suffered losses in his life, but that was beyond all of them. Emotions he was so good at denying threatened to choke him. For the first time in his life, Faren had to fight to restrain himself.

  Leiya suddenly looked like a bucket of cold water had been dropped on her head.

  “Really?” she asked. “You’re going to let me go?”

  “On one condition,” Faren said.

  The only thing that might keep him sane if Leiya insisted on putting herself in danger.

  She looked at him, clearly preparing for something horrible.

  “I want you to take Roven with you,” he said. “Whatever you say, you will still always be my gesha, and I will not let anything happen to you.”

  The trip back down to Briolina was quiet. Faren presumed they both kept their silence because words seemed to only make things worse. Not to mention he wasn’t going to tell Leiya everything. Right before their leaving, he’d called Roven to him and given him a quick order in Brionese battle lingo.

  “If anyone tries to hurt her, kill them.”

  The warrior nodded, accepting that as he did everything.

  Of course Roven wouldn’t be the only one keeping an eye on her. Faren had plenty of people on Briolina who would make it their business to see that she was safe. He would have to trust them to be able to protect her until he could find a way to deal with Primen.

  The last rumor that had reached him was that the senator was hiring warriors out of service. More so, bringing the ones the army had deemed unfit out of their prisons. If that was true, it was all the proof Faren needed. It showed the senator still had connections to pull off something so f
orbidden and the clear intent to continue on the track he’d always been on.

  He didn’t doubt Eleya had heard it too. Soon he’d be rid of the scheming senator and Leiya could be safe. From that particular enemy at least, but he had always been the boldest of them.

  Leiya kept sneaking glances at him. As ever, Faren didn’t need much to read her emotions from her body language.

  A part of her felt regret. That much was clear to him. Until she still denied herself those feelings, he would let her.

  They were alone in the compartment of the shuttle, with Roven sitting in the pilot seat behind closed doors. It was a small room, and her scent was driving him wild. From what he’d heard, the coming days would be the worst to bear. The bond was still fresh, and he was not used to the constant, maddening pull of it towards the little starlet.

  Every inch of his body ached to press her against him, slide his hands across her soft body, feel her hair falling over his fingers, taste her lips and claim her, make her scream in pleasure.

  It would become easier in time. Faren had gotten used to many things in his life, he’d get used to another sense of incompleteness as well.

  The shuttle shook suddenly, entering the atmosphere. Faren was used to the ways an aircraft moved, but Leiya lost her balance and fell with the shuttle. He caught her easily before she could collide with the heavy metal walls. Her hands clenched around the folds of his uniform jacket and didn’t let go even when the shuttle straightened up.

  Faren didn’t push her away, but he didn’t pull her closer either. The little starlet seemed reluctant to look at him. As gently as he could, although carefulness didn’t come easy to him, he lifted up her chin. Surprisingly, she let him.

  Her green eyes were wide, her lips slightly parted. The way she was breathing heavily made her breasts move maddeningly against his chest, and he did his best not to let it distract him. The moment required his full attention. It was the first time – and the last – that he could truly hold his gesha in his arms. Possibly she knew it too, which was why she didn’t fight him like she had for two days.