Born of Legend (23 page)

Jullien nodded weakly.

With an equally annoying playful slap to Jullien's cheek, Trajen steadied Jullien's balance before he let go. “Just so you know, Ushara's young enough to be my daughter. And that's how I view her. I only said that to wake you up to your feelings. There's never been anything between us.”

“Good. I'd hate to have to gut you.” Jullien followed him down the scaffolding.

By the time they reached the bottom, Ushara was waiting for them. She rushed forward.

Jullien felt like crap as he saw the worry in her eyes.

Trajen took the bottle from his hand. “I'm confiscating this as punishment for your bad behavior.”

“Thank you, Trajen,” Ushara said.

He inclined his head to her before he left them alone.

Jullien grimaced as he tried to think of what he should say to her. Honestly, he was embarrassed. “I'm—”

She cut his words off with a searing kiss.

Stunned, he growled at the unexpected taste of her as she filled his arms with warm, lush curves, and his head with the scent of sweet roses.

Ushara pulled back to stare up at him with a sheepish smile. “Sorry.”

“Why? For
that
greeting, I'd light my ass on fire … Or
you
could.”

She laughed, then sobered. “Are you all right?”

Cringing, he scratched at his ear in the most adorable fashion. “My ego will never be the same. I hope I didn't offend your sisters overmuch. It was kind what they attempted to do. I didn't mean to spoil it.”

“So what happened?”

He tucked his chin to his chest. “I seem to have developed an aversion for soap. Took one look at a bar and it—”

She cut his words off with another kiss. “The truth.”

“Why? I definitely prefer the rewards a lie brings me.”

Snorting, she dropped her hands to his waist.

He sucked his breath in sharply as she lightly touched him.

“Because the truth will bring you much better ones.”

His body turned molten as his throat went dry. “Don't, Shara.” He tried to pull away, but she wouldn't let him.

She captured his coat and held him in front of her. “Not tonight. I know all the arguments why this is stupid and why I should jettison you out the nearest airlock. I hear everything as loudly as if I'm Trajen. But…” She placed her hand on his cheek and forced him to meet her gaze. “Then I look at you and I see those soulful eyes that burn me.” She brushed her thumb against his lips. “This cute little smirk…” She pressed her lips together. “I've never felt like this about anyone else. And I don't understand it. I loved my husband. I did, but it was very different. It was comfortable and comforting. What I feel for you is scary and unnerving.”

“Great. I terrorize you. Just the emotion I wanted to inspire.” He tried again to get loose.

But she was ever relentless as she held him in place. “It is great in a terrifying way. It's like a part of me awakens whenever you come near me. And I know you don't feel the same, and that's okay.”

She interrupted him when he started to speak. “I don't want to take anything from you, Jullien. You've had enough taken away. I just want to give you the one thing I don't think you've ever had.”

“And that is?”

“Safe harbor. Come home with me. One night. And let me show you what it's like to lay your head down in peace … in a place where you're wanted.”

Jullien couldn't breathe as his throat tightened.
Don't be stupid. It's a fucking trick.

It had to be.

Suddenly suspicious, he stepped back and looked around. “Who's here?”

“What?”

“Is it The League? You're surrendering me, aren't you?”

She gaped at his assumption. “No one's here. Dear gods, Jullien. Really? You honestly think I'm lying about this? That I'm setting you up to hand you over to your enemies? What have they done to you that you can't trust anyone? For anything?”

Jullien let out a bitter laugh as her question triggered several memories he hated most. “You really don't want me to answer that.”

She caught his arm as he started to leave. “Talk to me.”

Where could he even begin? Seriously. There was so much pain. So much inside him that hurt and was broken. He'd been alone for so long, he didn't even know how to be with someone else.

But as he stared into her eyes, there was one memory that always stood out above the others. One nightmare that he could never banish no matter how hard he tried. And before he knew it, he told her the one thing he'd never told another soul.

“When we met you, you asked whose murder I was wanted for. Do you remember?”

Ushara nodded slowly as a bad feeling went over her. By his somber mood, she could tell this was going to be terrible. So she braced herself as best she could.

“It was the first life I took. You know how old I was?”

“Twenty?”

His laugh was even more bitter than the darkness in his eyes. “Seven.”

Horrified, she choked at the last number she'd have ever expected to come out of his mouth.

Was he serious?

“What?” she gasped.

His gaze haunted and tormented, he nodded. “I killed him in cold blood. He
never
saw it coming.”

A chill went down her spine as she struggled to understand what he was telling her, and the age he'd been when he'd done the most unspeakable crime. “Why would you do such a thing?”

Stepping away from her, he wiped his hand over his face as if he was trying to rid himself of the nightmare and couldn't. “I just wanted to make sure my mother was okay. She'd been crying all day for my brother—like she would often do. Then all of a sudden, she was quiet for no reason.”

He turned to face her. “It made my blood run cold.”

“Why?”

“I knew my grandmother was growing impatient with her. I'd been savagely beaten the year before for crying myself so I knew better than to shed another tear for Nykyrian. I wasn't about to risk my grandmother's wrath again. Ever. Trust me. One of Eriadne's beatings is more than enough to live long in anyone's memory. But my mother had been spared it, so far. Yet I knew it was only a matter of time until my grandmother turned her wrath on her, too. And something about the way she'd stopped crying that night told me it wasn't right. That this was the night my grandmother had had enough of it. It was a feeling deep in my gut. So I went to check on her. And when I pushed open the heavy door to her room, I saw my grandmother's personal guard smothering her in her bed.”

Ushara gasped in horror.

Jullien swallowed, but still showed no emotion as he continued speaking in a whispered monotone. “I was so scared when I saw them, I didn't know what to do. He was huge and I was so small in comparison. One blow and he could have killed me. Just like they were always threatening to do. But I couldn't let him kill my mother. She was all I had left in the universe.”

He raked his hand through his hair. “Terrified. Freaking out. In a total panic, I saw my mother's military Warsword on the wall, next to the door where I stood. Just a few inches from my hand. I was never to touch it because it was so sharp and dangerous. All my life, I'd been told that it could cut through flesh and bone like they were made of butter, and all I could think was that it would help me. So I grabbed it and cut his head off before I knew what I was doing. Before he even knew I was in the room. I had no idea anyone could bleed so much. And it was so hard to pull his body from my mother's. He was so heavy. I kept thinking his weight would crush her before I could get him off her and check to see if she still lived.”

Ushara couldn't breathe at the tragic horror he described. “You didn't call for help?”

“Who, Ushara?” His voice finally held his anger, guilt, and turmoil. “It was my own grandmother, the tadara, who'd sent that male to murder her while she lay in a drugged stupor. The same insidious creature who'd just ordered the death of my twin brother. The very one who'd cut the throat of my own grandfather and everyone else in my family. Who was going to help me, I ask you? Who was I supposed to call that night for help? Who? My father wouldn't even take my calls. He was in mourning for my brother, and I was told that the sound of my voice was too mentally disturbing for him to deal with, at that time.”

In that moment, the full horror of his childhood and situation hit her. He'd truly had no one in his life to turn to. Not for anything. “Your father really wouldn't take you in?”

“No. He refused to go to war for me. He told me as much. Repeatedly. His people mean more to him than a worthless, lying bastard son he can't trust. That's all I am to him. It's all I've ever been. He never once even thought of me as his heir. Not really. Nyk was the only one of us he ever loved. He
never
cared for me.”

Ushara wanted to deny it, but he was right and she knew it. A contradiction would only sting him more. “So what did you do?”

“Once I made sure she was alive, I cleaned the blood from her as best I could and I sat there in shock for hours, holding the bloody towels in my lap, trying to think of what I should do. I ran so many scenarios through my mind, but I had no answers. All I knew was that my grandmother was as crazy as my mother. And that I was alone with them in that palace, with no one to help me. Worse, I knew my grandmother wouldn't stop. Sooner or later, she'd try again to kill her. So I did the only thing I knew to. I finally grabbed the guard's head and my mother's sword, and in the wee hours of the morning, I made my way to my grandmother's bedchamber.”

Ushara could imagine the elder tadara waking to find the young prince in her room in such a grisly state. “And?”

“I placed his head at her feet and stared at her without flinching. Then with all the courage I could muster, I confronted her and said that tonight is the last night you will threaten my mother. Ever. Because there is one truth as tahrs that I know about you,
mu Tadara
. You are as vain as you are cruel. And while you hate me and are ashamed of me, you would die before you ever allowed a lesser Anatole lineage to occupy your beloved throne. Since you have killed my brother, I am the sole heir of your direct bloodline. The very last of it. Therefore you are forced to endure me. But I am not forced to tolerate you. With one cut of this sword, I could take your throne as easily as I took your guard's head. If you ever come at my mother again, I won't hesitate to take my place as the Andarion tadar. My mother is all that keeps you alive. Guard her well and know that your life is dependent upon hers.”

Jullien sighed. “In retrospect, I should have speared her in that bed while I had the chance. That was my biggest mistake in life.… And my greatest regret.”

“Does your mother know about this?”

He shook his head. “She was passed out from her drugs and remembers none of it. Only my grandmother and I know about that night. Eriadne had it all cleansed and erased. I didn't know any part of it had been kept as evidence until the warrants for my execution had been issued.”

“How so?”

“Bitch kept the clothes I was wearing that night that had the guard's blood on them. Her version of the story omits his attack on my mother. With no corroborating witnesses…”

“You're a murderer.”

“Wanted dead for it.”

“But if you went to your family and told them—”

He laughed bitterly. “They don't care. My aunt Tylie's partner was the one who shot me when I escaped Andaria the last time four years ago … on Tylie's orders.”

“But your mother—”

“Would stand beside Tylie against me. She believes I'm as guilty as they do. If she thought me innocent, she'd have rescinded the contract. But notice, it stands and so I'm hunted without quarter. I can't even get it reduced to a simple Bill-Kill. At least that would be a quick, painless death, instead of being tortured first.”

Ushara felt sick to her stomach for him. She couldn't imagine how horrible he must have felt when his aunt ordered him shot.

How betrayed.

Jullien let out a tired breath. “Look, don't judge my mother. It's not her fault. I'm not going to lie and say I was this perfect, pristine angel. I wasn't. I cut the bastard's head off with a single stroke while he had his back to me. I spent my entire childhood in a fit of bitter rage. And you didn't want to be caught in my path when it exploded. Sometimes my actions were justified. Many times they weren't. Whether they were or not, I still have to live with them all. That's what's hard.”

“And knowing all this about you, I still want to take you home.” She held her hand out to him.

Jullien hesitated. “Why?”

“Is it that hard to believe that I might like you?”

“You'd be the first.”

“Then let me be your first.”

Still aghast, Jullien stared at her. But in the end, he couldn't deny what she made him feel. She was offering him the one thing he wanted most. The one thing he'd never had.

A kind touch. Someone who didn't look at him like he was utter shit.

Knowing this was probably as big a mistake as not taking his grandmother's head, he placed his hand in hers and let the warmth of her skin soothe him.

Without another word of protest, he followed her back through the station to a small grocery store. She glanced about nervously. “I need to get a few things before we go to my place.”

“Okay.” He trailed along behind her as she grabbed a small basket.

“Do you have a meat preference?”

He shrugged. “I've learned not to be picky these last few years.” He took the basket from her so that he could carry it while she quickly filled it with dinner items.

“Wine?” she asked.

“Again, no preference.”