Sword of the Gods: The Chosen One (78 page)

Galactic Standard Date:  152,323.08 AE

Tango Sector:  Command Carrier
'Jehoshaphat'

General Abaddon aka
‘the Destroyer’

Abaddon

Three grey hairs. 
With the happiest feeling his old heart could ever remember feeling, he counted
them again.  Three grey hairs.  Not two.  Not four.  But three of them. 
Exactly.  Three grey hairs graced the ebony tresses which cascaded from her
scalp down to the small of her back. 

He sank his nose into
her neck and inhaled, the scent of hCG growing stronger each day.  After 630
years of failure, her scent was so intoxicating that he couldn't bear to be
away from her for more than a few minutes.  More and more he found himself
delegating the more mundane tasks of running the Air Force to one of the
lower-ranking airmen so he could get back to her as quickly as possible.  He
pressed a hand against her abdomen, still flat despite the child he could
smell
growing in her womb.

"Has the sickness
passed,
mo ghrá
?"  He touched the bluish shadows which had
appeared under her eyes about the same time she'd begun to stumble to the
toilet each morning and vomit.  Morning sickness was rare amongst Angelic
females, but the ship's doctor had reassured him her pregnancy was progressing
normally.  Unable to fight this battle
for
her, he did the only thing he
could to show his support.  Held her while she suffered dry heaves, pulled back
her hair, and wiped her face when she was done before carrying her back to the
bed and cuddling her until the color began to creep back into her olive
complexion. 

Brown eyes smiled back
at him, the tiny crow's feet at the corner of each eye telling him what words
didn't.  She felt better.  She muttered something unintelligible, followed by
the word 'okay.'  Lucifer had insinuated the root race was not very
intelligent, but already she'd learned dozens of core phrases to communicate. 
He suspected she could understand far more than she could yet verbalize.

Three grey hairs.  And
a smattering of crow's feet.  He had no idea how old she was or whether or not
her species was as long-lived as his, but he found them oddly reassuring, those
hints of age that indicated she, too, had experienced frustration in the past
with failed matings?  Perhaps she saw him as more than the washed-up old geezer
that female Angelics had spurned every time he'd begged to be put back into the
queue for a mating attempt and been turned down cold.  It gave him hope that
perhaps it had been She-who-is who had brought the two of them together across
the vast distance of the galaxy and not merely the manipulations of one old god
against another?

"You have made me
the happiest man alive," Abaddon whispered in her ear. 

Her lips turned up in
a smile as he nibbled on her earlobe.  Yes.  She definitely felt better.  An
hour or so after the morning sickness started, it went away just as
mysteriously as it had come.  He trailed kisses across her high cheekbones to
the lush, pink lips he loved to kiss.  The Emperor had stolen this from his
species, this exquisite feeling of being joined as one heart and soul with your
mate.  He better than anyone remembered the
real
reason the Emperor had
forbidden his species to take a mate.  He
was,
after all, one-quarter
Seraphim, the bloodline diluted just enough that he wouldn't form the lifemate
bond inadvertently.  He could sense it happening now, and he allowed it, for it
was something he hadn't even realized he'd wanted until he'd met
her.

"Husband,"
Sarvenaz's forehead furrowed in concentration as she tried to pull the few
words they both shared out of her memory.  "You … no … work … late?" 
Husband. 
His heart thrilled at the forbidden endearment.  It had been
the second word he'd taught her, right after he'd taught her to say his name. 

"Ahh,
chol
beag
," he pulled her in closer and nuzzled her cheek.  "You know
I must go.  This Alliance is not going to protect itself.  But I'll be back as
soon as I can.  You know I'll." 

It had become a bit of
a game.  He had to leave, but Sarvenaz wished for him to stay.  She slid her
arms around his chest and snuggled closer, one leg thrown possessively over
his.  Abaddon
liked
this game even though, for the first time in his 630
yearlong military career, it made him late for work.  At his rank, who would
chastise him?  Sarvenaz's eyes got that look they always got before she
'convinced' him to linger.

"I don't know
what I did to deserve you."  Abaddon fished a strand of stray hair that
had migrated across her cheek out of her mouth and tucked it behind her ear. 
"You act as though everything I do is wonderful."

"Husband …"
Sarvenaz looked into her own mind, trying to pull up an adequate word to
describe what she wished to say.  Not finding any, she pieced together smaller
words to do the trick.  "Husband …"  She slid her fingers through the
grey feathers of his wings.

"Angelic,"
he said.  "Husband is an Angelic."

"No," she
said.  "Husband is …"  She chewed her lip.  Abaddon didn't interrupt
her.  If he was patient and waited, she usually found a way to communicate what
she wished to say.  "Husband is …
énas theós
."  She touched
his wings again.

Abaddon curled the
wing around her, pulling her closer.  "It's called a wing,
mo ghrá
.  The Eternal Emperor gave them to our species so we
could protect him.  A long, long time ago."

"No ...
just ... wing."  The sparkle in her eye indicated she'd come up with a
word to describe what she wished to say.  "Sarvenaz ... people ..." 
She made a motion with her hand as though it were a puppet talking.

"Say? 
Speak?  Tell?" Abaddon went through possible words with her.

"Sarvanez
people say speak tell," she said.  "Your people.  Sarvanez people say
speak tell ... your people."

She repeated
the same thing several more times until it dawned upon him what she was trying
to say.

"Your
people have stories about my people?"

"Yes,"
Sarvanez said with a triumphant smile.  "Sarvenez people say speak tell
... stories ... about ... husband's people.  Angelics."

"And what do
these stories tell?"

"Husband … people
…"  Sarvenaz made a gesture with her hands as though they were the rays of
the sun.  She followed up the sign language with a hand to her forehead, her
lips and her heart.  The Sata'anic Empire had such a gesture whenever they
praised their emperor and god, Shay'tan.  It reinforced what Lucifer had said
about their homeworld being lodged someplace in the Sata'anic Empire.

"I can't believe
Shay'tan let you go."  Abaddon pulled her tighter into his arms.  "He
never lets
any
female go.  He keeps the lizard females confined to the
Hades cluster."

Sarvenaz's dark eyes
sparkled with victory.  She could sense she'd already won their daily tussle
over how late she could make him linger, even before she'd pulled out the heavy
artillery.  As if it took much persuasion! 

Abaddon gave a content
sigh, acknowledging his complete and utter defeat.  His subordinates were
talented enough to keep things running without him for just a little while
longer.  He'd already served far beyond his mandatory 500 years in the Alliance
military.  As soon as Lucifer got his override through Parliament, he intended
to tender his resignation and retire.  He didn't know how many years he had
left in this realm before She-who-is called him into the next one to defend
her, but he intended to spend what little time he had left siring and raising
as many offspring as his wife would give him. 

"Husband … say
speak tell … story?"  Her eyes were filled with curiosity.  Although her
speech was still limited, she enjoyed hearing him tell his tales.  He suspected
she analyzed the pattern of his language versus hers, increasing her vocabulary
each time he told a tale. 

Shay'tan had let her
go.  Did she have any idea how lucky she was, to escape the yoke the old dragon
imposed upon all females in Sata'anic culture?  Yes.  He would tell her
that
story today.

"Have you ever
seen one of the Sata'anic females on your homeworld?"

Sarvenaz nodded.  Male
and female were two of the earliest words she'd mastered, and she'd readily recognized
the Sata'anic lizards when he'd shown her a picture of one of them.  She
recognized those two words, not the rest of his question. 

"No, I suspect
you haven't.  Shay'tan keeps them too tightly locked up within the Hades
cluster so the males don't get any ideas about casting off his rule.  Even more
strictly than he does the females of other species he subjugates."

Sarvenaz ran her hand
down his chest to caress his abdomen.  It was part of the game they played each
morning after the morning sickness passed.  She would entice him to linger, and
he would allow himself to
be
enticed.  Her curiosity, however, was
genuine.  Her eyes sparkled as she watched his mouth form the words, her lips
moving silently to repeat each one she recognized.  It was how he gauged how
much she
really
understood.  For all the bribes he'd turned down cold
over the years, money, power, even governorship over his own world one time in
the uncharted territories, the old dragon couldn't have sent him a more
tempting bribe than the one hanging off of his every word. 

"I'm one of the
few Alliance citizens who has ever seen a Sata’anic female," Abaddon
said.  "One day during a border skirmish I captured a Sata’anic
destroyer.  When I went inside, do you know what I found?"

He'd always scoffed at
how animated the Prime Minister was during one of his speeches, but he found
himself borrowing a bit of that body language to tell his tale, gestures
succeeding in telling the story where words failed.  Sarvenaz smiled at him,
her lips silently repeating the words 'Alliance' and 'found.'  Newer words in
her vocabulary.  She understood enough for him to continue the tale.

"I found a
Sata’an general in the launch bay," Abaddon said.  "He was not
attempting to escape himself, but squeezing his three wives and a clutch of
unhatched eggs into an escape pod meant for two so
they
would survive. 
Since Shay’tan keeps all females confined in harems on their homeworlds, just
as he kept
you
there until he let you go, I knew I had captured a very
high ranking general, indeed!" 

"Sata'an …
general?" Sarvenaz chewed her lip and pointed to the uniform he neatly
placed over the back of a chair each night so it wouldn't wrinkle.  Although
the
names
of Alliance military ranks puzzled her, she'd readily grasped
the concept that there was a chain of command here on this ship and that
he
was
the top dog.

"Yes,"
Abaddon said.  "A general.  Like me.  After his pulse rifle was exhausted
and he had no more weapons to fire at me, he drew his sword and stood between
me and his family.  He begged me to kill him, but allow his wives and offspring
to escape.  We conversed a few minutes about a man's wish to protect his
family, and how much he regretted that his reluctance to be parted from them
had put their lives in danger."

He traced the line of
Sarvenaz's jaw, the way her lips parted and eyebrows rose in curiosity as he
told his tale.  Until he'd met the Sata'an general, he'd always thought of the
Sata'anic lizards as monsters.  Enemies he'd casually slaughtered, as
all
Alliance
soldiers were taught to slaughter the enemies of the Eternal Emperor.  After
that day … well let's just say that
since
then he'd been comparing
Sata'anic morals to hybrid ones and finding his own people coming up short.

 "I took pity
upon him," Abaddon said.  "The general ordered his wives to finish
squeezing into the life pod.  They were crying as he shut them into the pod and
programmed in the coordinates to where they could find safety, but they
obeyed.  As soon as the escape pod cleared the ship, he kneeled, dropped his
sword, and bowed his head to give me access to his neck so I could decapitate
him in a single stroke."

"Husband … kill …
general?" Sarvenaz frowned.

Aha!  She
did
understand
that much of the story!  He was unsure how much she knew about the military
structure of the Sata'anic Empire because, although she was familiar with the
lizard people, it seemed Lucifer's assertions that Shay'tan had simply ignored
their world because it had no resources were accurate.

"Yes,"
Abaddon said.  "I smote him.  Not because I hated him.  But because I
respected him too much to dishonor him by turning him over for interrogation. 
If I had, Shay'tan would have seized his assets and cast his family out into
the street in punishment."

Sarvenaz nodded, the
frown line disappearing from her brow.  Although he doubted she understood
exactly
why
he'd chosen to let the general's family go before killing
him, she seemed to understand from the tone of his voice that he bore that dead
general enormous respect.  Abaddon pointed to the sword he'd leaning casually
against the same chair where he kept his uniform.