Alien Warrior's Mate: Sci-fi Alien Military Romance (Brion Brides Book 1) (3 page)

She had to shake her head clear. It was merely battle hormones flooding her body with emotions that so easily translated to lust. She respected Darien, but disliked him as well. Right. Right?

With a grin –
Irresistible,
flashed through her treacherous mind – Darien drew his battle spear, and they were right in the thick of the fight. She barely had time to get her own weapon free before giving herself completely over to the fates that decided all battles.

The Antanaris were huge, there was simply no better term to describe them. Big and brutal and heavy enough to make even a glancing blow devastating. It made them a simple, but dangerous enemy. Some enemies required complicated tactics and needed to be outsmarted, but the Antanaris simply had to be fought. It was very simple: hit them, don’t get hit. The Antanaris were roughly humanoid, but resembled some huge hairy beasts more than the Brions.

Their teeth were long enough to be called fangs, and their hands had nails that could cut through steel. Their bodies were covered with thick white fur, making them nearly impossible to see on the ice fields unless they moved. Quite a few Brions had died before they’d learned to distinguish the enemies from the terrain.

For all their brutal looks, the Antanaris were far from stupid. The fur and the claws were simply adaptations to their ruthless planet. Underneath, a dark and bloody mind observed the galaxy. The Brions knew the look in their eyes instantly. It was a rage similar to their own bloody past, the reason the galaxy trusted them as little as they did. They were glad to understand – so they didn’t underestimate their enemy. With their bodies as good as weapons and minds as sharp as their own, the Antanaris were their dream opponents. Not that the Brions were unequipped.

The Brion battle spear was a miracle in the great galactic whole. It was heavy enough to be used to simply bludgeon the enemy to death, but boasted a few tricks as well. The blade was sharp and nigh unbreakable. Deliya liked it, enjoyed the weight in her hand, an extension of herself, sharp and powerful.

The champions met them, roaring in their strange language she didn’t speak. All of the surrounding Antanaris rounded on them and for a moment Deliya considered if they hadn’t run too far ahead of their support. It wasn’t a regret but hope. More fight for them.

She thrust the tip of the spear into the stomach of the first Antanari that stormed her, narrowly dodging out of the way of the creature’s claws aiming to gouge her eyes out. It growled even as it died, trying to pin her down with its weight, but Deliya yanked out the spear and jumped out of the way. The creature’s blood glittered in the light of her squares as another immediately took her fallen enemy’s place, only this time it kept a distance from her spear. It didn’t matter.

A spear wasn’t merely a striking weapon. Deliya took aim, every muscle in her arm tensing as she threw the spear with all her might.

The Antanaris had thick skin, and it would have been difficult to throw a spear and make it do some actual damage, which said something about the way the Antanaris were built, astounding even Brion scientists, who had thought no living being should be able to withstand weapons designed to cut through metal. So she threw the spear straight and swift towards the creature’s eye. For a moment, it didn’t seem to realize its end, towering above her. Then it roared and collapsed but not before Deliya had kicked its legs to make it fall on its back.

At the last second she retrieved her spear, before another Antanari thumped in her direction. Distantly, she sensed her warriors arriving. They’d run a considerable amount ahead, she realized. To her left, the snow was red with Antanari blood and Darien stood in the middle of it, breathing calmly, smiling as he always did in battle, victorious and strong. Deliya had to tear her eyes away when the newcomer’s weapon caught her attention.

She thought only then that the first wave had been butchering meat and not much more. They’d tried to hurt the Brions, pin them down, but they hadn’t even carried any weapons other than their claws. The true champions had simply sent them to slow down the attack.

What a horrible species
, Deliya thought, disgusted. She didn’t understand how anyone could follow leaders who all but killed their own men, however as much as they understood, the Antanaris had a culture very different from their own. The champions ruled with absolute power, taking no responsibility. That single factor had eventually determined their fate in the eyes of the Union. The Brion Elders also ruled over their people without having to explain themselves to anyone, but they were reasonable, and acted according to certain rules and traditions.

They could be trusted to do what was best for all Brions. The Union found them strict and stubborn, but not malicious. The Antanaris were different.

The champion before her carried a blade as tall as her and thicker by far. How he could lift that thing was beyond Deliya, but the Antanari champions towered over even their monstrous species. It was a mountain of raw, hard muscle armed with a metal slab that could hardly be called a blade. Deliya didn’t know if her spear could actually block it without breaking.

It made no difference. She was a Brion warrior and dying against this beast wouldn’t be a shame to anyone.

The champion charged, swiping with the monstrous blade. It was so big that after jumping out of its way, she landed with one foot on the blade. Luckily, she was able to keep her balance or she would have been dead in seconds. The champion reacted at once, flipping her in the air, aiming to pierce her as she fell, but Deliya had not risen to one of the chosen of her commander to die such an ignoble death.

The size of the Antanari became a disadvantage as Deliya caught on to its fur and slammed the butt of her spear straight against its sharp fangs. The champion roared, unintentionally swallowing some of its own broken fangs, and flung her to the ground.

Under any other circumstances, Deliya would have been on her feet in seconds, but on Antaris, she slid further than she’d have liked. The champion accounted for that perfectly, of course. The huge blade cut down, big enough to slice her in two.

A spear caught its edge. Not Deliya’s, her weapon was still gripped in her hands, trying to halt her slide. Her first thought was,
It didn’t break after all
. Her second was,
Oh gods, why him
?

Right at their heel was simply stunned amazement. She couldn’t understand how Darien had been able to fend off the murderous weapon, almost as big as she. Yet he held on, two hands on the shaft, face twisted in determined rage. His green eyes burned, flashing. It took a second for Deliya to understand he was willing her to move, unable to break his concentration even to speak as the blade kept pushing down.

She rolled out of its way, still on the ever-cursed ice, which had to be a trap because no natural thing could be that slippery. Finally she stopped, feeling the welcome,
manageable
ice beneath her feet again. As she looked up, she just caught the moment the champion sent Darien flying against a pile of rocks so hard blood spurted from his mouth.

It was a peculiar sort of insult to aid a Brion warrior in battle, yet Deliya found her feet running towards the fight again. Suddenly her blood told her she couldn’t simply stand by and watch the warrior die, not after he had broken the same unwritten rules and saved her life. Twice now, on this planet of death. Deliya couldn’t say she was mad. She was in no way ready to die.

Running towards the champion, possibly to her death after all, she realized she wasn’t ready for Darien to die either. Her dislike of him suddenly seemed very irrelevant.

Darien raised his spear in his defense, but the movement was slower than it should have been.

“Move!” Deliya shouted, making them both turn her way.

Darien moved, and a moment later the blade demolished the rock he’d been leaning on. Then the champion turned to her. Like Deliya, it hadn’t risen to its position by being clumsy. The first blow she avoided, then the second, and then she felt another ledge at her back and realized it’d caught her. The creature’s eyes were bloodshot, almost black. Deliya braced herself for that to be the last image she ever saw as the champion raised the blade above its head with both hands. She jammed the spear into its stomach, but the champion didn’t even seem to notice.

It roared. Deliya took a deep breath. Funnily, her last thought returned to Darien.

Then a spear emerged from the champion’s chest, right where its heart was. The black eyes seemed surprised, as though it had never considered the possibility of death. Then it slumped, blood running down its fur. When it collapsed, Deliya saw Darien standing behind the champion, breathing heavily.

His valor squares pulsed relief, and joy, and lust.

Illuminated, literally, by his victory, Deliya had to finally come face to face with how handsome she thought he was. The realization drove her mad, echoing in her own squares and making Darien’s lips curl upward ever so slightly. She snarled, but it was no use. He walked towards her, slowly and surely, big and mighty, with that damned knowing smile on his lips. Her body reacted to the sight at once, warming her even in the biting cold.

She wanted to hate him for making her feel so weak in the knees before him, but she only came up with more desire. Not even one inch of her wanted to push him away as he pulled her up against his strong body, fitting perfectly into his arms. Nor did she even whimper in protest as he bent down and kissed her, forceful and demanding.

And to top it all off, her body had completely abandoned her will to fight him at that moment, rubbing herself against him, hands around his powerful wide chest, opening her mouth to let him taste her. Even through both of their armors, which contorted to fit their bodies, she could feel him grow hard for her, growling deeply and seductively against her lips.

Lust roared in her blood, and she could see and feel his responding, but the battle roared around them. Antaris wasn’t done with them, but they weren’t done with each other either.

“Don’t die now,” Darien warned her, teasing. “I want to continue this.”

Deliya moved out of the embrace to punch him for that, but Darien sidestepped easily, smiling again, only this time there was the unmistakable flare of lust in his eyes.

She thought longingly of the time when the sight of him made her frown, not want to have him pound her until all the cold was gone from her bones.

Good times
, she thought.

It was at that moment that the chieftain of the Antanari appeared, and Deliya had to wonder if perhaps she wasn’t destined to ever feel warm again.

CHAPTER FOUR

Deliya

The champions had roared their challenge to the Brions, but the chieftain was silent.

Deliya supposed that when you were a walking mountain of fur, claws and fangs like swords, you didn’t need to advertise your might. Even the Brions, who never retreated from the enemy, had mostly stopped to stare. The chieftain stood, having crawled forward at last from one of the chasms, although for the life of her Deliya couldn’t see how it’d even fit there without falling in, and how he’d managed to hide there while the Brions were literally walking over him.

The thought she might have unknowingly walked over a beast like that knotted in the bottom of her stomach. Brions liked to see death coming, not have it sprung forward from under their feet, not even seeing it properly before all was over.

Most of the champions were dead, lying at the feet of her fellow officers. The rest gathered around the chieftain, having fallen silent. Deliya didn’t speak a word of the Antanaris’ language, but she supposed if she was driven into a corner, she might have acted the same way: gathered her warriors around her and made a glorious last stand. For all the disgust she felt for the Antanaris and the gruesome culture of their champions, she respected them for that.

As one, she and Darien walked forward. So did the rest of the officers. It wasn’t the Brion way for warriors to aid each other in battle, as they saw an insult in that they couldn’t handle an opponent on their own. A warrior’s death was a natural thing, and it was their fate to one day die in battle. There was no honor in having that glory taken from them.

With the chieftain, that didn’t apply. No single warrior could take it down.

Behind them, the Brion battle chain drew tighter again, their warriors starting to pick off the less important fighters and slowly aiming for the remaining champions. Deliya and Darien exchanged a look. It was up to them to get the chieftain. It was all they had come to this icy field for.

All the blades were already red with blood. The chieftain bent its huge head calmly, watching them approach. It almost looked peaceful, standing there, waiting for them to come to it. Deliya knew it fooled none of them. The chieftain was the worst of the Antanaris. It had no match, which meant it had no equal. It did as he wanted. Their sources said that if it didn’t feel like hunting, it’d pick a member of his own species to be its food. She didn’t know what repulsed her more – the horrible command, or the fact that the Antanaris obeyed it.

The chieftain waited until almost the last moment, the tips of their spears so close they’d already drawn them back to strike, before jumping.

For a creature that big, it shouldn’t have been able to move that fast. In all her many battles, Deliya didn’t remember suddenly yelping as she did when the chieftain broke two spears in its hands like they were toys. The next moment, it was on top of the two unlucky warriors now left unarmed.

All valor squares flared to life, a painful, horrified, raging glow emanating from them. The blood of their fallen brothers trickled from the chieftain’s fangs. A thought crossed Deliya’s mind that it was no shame to die at the hands of the Antanari’s mightiest champion, but she didn’t want to end up between its teeth.

“Its legs,” Darien said from beside her, while the chieftain stood silent again, in all likelihood looking for its next victims.