Born of Legend (99 page)

“Indeed. He might get out and push.”

Shaking his head, he snorted at her humor. “Don't you dare have him without me.”

“Trust me, I won't. I live too much to torture you.”

Jullien kissed her one more time before he hugged Unira and inclined his head to Zellen. “Take care.”

“And you,
m'tana
.” Unira kissed his cheek.

With a heavy heart and his stomach knotted from the pain of being separated from them, Jullien waited until they'd launched before he went to the
Pet Hate.
As a safeguard against his shitty luck, they were flying this mission in two ships … just in case they had mechanical trouble of any kind. His and Davel's.

He tapped his link. “Dagger to Krunch. You ready for launch?”

“I'm with you,
drey.
All the way to Tophet and back.”

“Let's hope it doesn't come to that. With any luck, we'll be back in a couple of days. No sweat. No drama.”

Thrāix started the engines while Jullien closed the ramp. But as he swept his gaze over the bay and he saw Sheila smiling while she waved a friendly good-bye at him, a weird sense of foreboding went through him as he returned her gesture.

Trying to shrug it off, he headed for the flight deck to take his seat and head them to Andaria.

*   *   *

“I still don't understand why we don't use the pass for us to land in the main hangar bay,” Davel groused. “This is a long effing walk.”

Letting out an irritated sigh, Jullien passed a droll stare to Thrāix. “Whose bright idea was it to bring him?”

Thrāix growled low in his throat. As Jullien predicted, he'd been a surly asshole the entire time, due to his involuntary separation from his wife. “His.”

“Then why's he bitching?”

“Apparently, he has a death wish.”

“Just checking.” Jullien glared at his brother-in-law over his shoulder. “But if he doesn't stop, I'm going to put a bark collar on him.”

Gallatin covered her laugh with a cough. Axl wasn't so kind—he laughed until Davel shoved him.

Skipping to Jullien's side, Axl grabbed his arm. “Protect me, big brother!”

With a snort, Jullien playfully wrapped a light choke hold around him. “I'll keep you safe, little one. You've always been my favorite, anyway.”

“Och,” Davel mocked. “That's just rude. Holidays are coming up. I will remember this when it's time for you two jackals to want to hide out from the screaming family horde. No male cave privileges for you. Me and Thrāix, we
dreys.
We going to be laughing our asses off at you two and your communal misery.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Jullien said with a laugh. “If being surrounded by family who loves me during a holiday week is torture, then chain me to the wall.” He sobered as they neared the palace grounds.

This was going to be interesting.…

Pulling his Tavali mask and helmet over his face, he let Thrāix take the lead. The last thing they could afford was for anyone here to recognize him in any way. If they did, they'd automatically assume he was working for his grandmother, and they'd all be arrested.

Rather, the game plan was that they'd tell Kiara they had orders from The Sentella to evacuate her and her children to Nyk's Arcadian base, which was on the outer reaches of this galaxy. Once they had her off the planet, they'd take her to the Porturnum StarStation and turn her and the kids over to his brother.

Simple.

She couldn't check with Nyk, as he was en route and flying through League-controlled space at the moment, with his high command. No one else would have knowledge of Nyk's orders to move his family—paranoid bastard would never leave something like that as public record.

If she wanted to talk to Tavali, they had that covered with their people, who would back their story.

Just a few more minutes, they'd be out of here. Kiara would never know Jullien was Jullien, and they would all sleep in peace tonight.

Thrāix approached the guard station and exposed his face. Like Jullien, he held the bearing of nobility and military command. It bled from every gesture and pore, and the guards knew it. They snapped to attention immediately.

“Commander?” The head guard moved forward to address them. “What's this about?”

Thrāix pulled out his orders. “Sorry to bother you so late,
Dryht.
As you can see, we have orders from His Highness to secure his family. We have reason to believe that a threat is imminent.”

“Why didn't he send Sentella?”

Thrāix arched a condemning brow. “I'm a commander. My place isn't to question direct orders when they're given to me. It's to carry them out. I guess the Andarion military ranks follow a different protocol.”

“Forgive me.” He stepped back and buzzed them in, then motioned for a unit of guards to escort them to the palace entrance.

As they walked into his former home, through the front door and down the elegant main marble hallway, Jullien let them take lead and pulled point. He scanned every shadow they passed for any signs of his grandmother's attack. So far, it appeared their luck was holding and they'd beaten her forces here.

But as they turned down the family wing and he passed the door to his old room, he wasn't quite prepared for the unexpected blow it gave him, especially since that the door was slightly ajar, allowing him to see that it'd been completely redecorated for Nykyrian's oldest daughter. Not that he begrudged Thia having his room. He couldn't care less about that.

What stung was the memory of how his mother had treated Nyk's room for all the years his brother had been gone. No one had ever been allowed to enter it. To touch a single item that had belonged to Nyk. Not even to clean it. It had been sealed off as a holy shrine. If anyone so much as touched the doorknob, his mother would demand they be beaten for it.

He still had scars from the one and only time he'd made the mistake of venturing into it—one night a month after the funeral, when he'd gone in there seeking solace. All he'd done was lie on the bed and hold his brother's stuffed animal because he missed Nykyrian and wanted to feel his presence again.

His mother had reacted as if he'd devoured a living infant.

Obviously
his
room and personal effects weren't so important to her. She'd probably had a bonfire after Tylie drove him out at blasterpoint.

Don't think about it.

The guardsmen knocked on Kiara's door.

Her secretary answered a few seconds later with a stern frown.

“Sorry to disturb you, but we need to speak to Her Highness. We have an urgent message from the tahrs.”

“I shall get her.” She opened the door to admit them to the receiving room that was reserved for special dignitaries and visiting friends and family. This had been Tylie's room back in the day.…

His breathing ragged, Jullien hovered in the doorway while the others stood, waiting.

With her dark auburn hair braided, Kiara came out in a thick blue robe. A former dancer, she had perfect posture and the most delicate of features. Damn, he'd forgotten how tiny and frail she was. A gust of wind could snap her in two.

Confused, she glanced around their small group. “Is something wrong?”

Thrāix smiled warmly. “No, Your Highness. We're Tavali, and we've been sent to take you and your children to a secured Sentella base for Commander Quiakides. Just a precaution. But we need to hurry. Time is critical.”

“What about the others?”

Thrāix scowled. “What others?”

“Shahara, Zarya, Ture, Desideria, and their kids. And Darling and Aros. Not to mention Kasen. They're all here, too.”

Jullien let out a fetid curse. “That's why they're hitting it. Minsid hell! They're taking out the whole high command in one blow tonight.”

Thrāix nodded in agreement. “We've got to get them out of here. Now!”

The guards turned on them.

Thrāix and Jullien used their powers to disarm them.

“Don't,” Jullien snarled as he started to slap the guard nearest him. “We're not your enemies.” He stepped closer to Kiara. “Highness, I know you don't know us, and that you can't get ahold of your husband to verify what we're saying, but you have to trust us. We are here to protect you. No deceit. No lies. Your safety and that of your children is all that matters to us. We need you to gather up every member of The Sentella's family under this roof so that we can evacuate all of you to a Sentella-held safe zone immediately. The League is en route, and they're coming for all of you.”

“I believe you.” She turned to her secretary. “Gather my children to the hall outside the tadara's room. Hurry! Don't dress them. Just grab a coat and go.” She took Jullien's arm and pulled him after her. “Follow me, and we'll wake the others.”

Something that wasn't too difficult until they got to Darling Cruel. First, they interrupted him in the middle of a very private moment with his wife, which pissed him off to no end, and almost blinded their entire group, as none of them, with the possible exception of Gallatin, wanted to see that much of the man's bare arse.

Or other naked body parts.

Second, the Sentella high commander and Caronese emperor wasn't used to taking orders from anyone except Jullien's brother.

Maybe Ryn.

Neither of whom was currently here. So, holding a sheet around his waist, Darling glared angrily at them and refused to cooperate. “I haven't heard any of this. What attack? Who's your source?”

Even more irritable by nature than Darling, Thrāix barked orders that said,
Hey, I'm in charge. Fuck off
! “We have the intel. It's legit. We need to go. Now. I'm not getting caught in this shit because you're an idiot.” He gestured at Darling's groin. “Cover
that
and join us, or we're leaving you to fend for yourself. We came to secure the princess and her children for Commander Quiakides. Those are my orders that I'm standing on. Rest of you … collateral damage, as far as I'm concerned. Come or go. I don't give a flying shit.”

Jullien released a tired sigh. “Yeah, you never worked in an embassy.”

He turned that exasperated glare to Jullien. “No
scytel
,
drey.
Son of the vice-praetor. Draconarion decurion. Our unofficial motto was, Behave. Begone. Or be killed. I don't like my authority challenged. Even by
you.
”

Jullien held his hands up. “I know better,
frater meus. Pax tecum.
No shooting the Dagger. Lower your hostility.” He turned toward Darling. “Majesty … worst case, you lost some sleep for nothing. You wake up in your Sentella base. Everyone's grumpy but healthy. But if our intel is right, you, your son, and wife are about to be in the middle of a war zone and air strike. Is this really where you want them when it starts?”

He pulled his blaster out and offered it to Darling, grip first, showing him that it had a full charge. “We're on your side, Majesty. My Tavali father is Trajen Dane Thaumarturgus. I'm not about to let any son of Hermione's be harmed. And Trajen would cut my throat himself if I spilled one drop of Dane blood.”

Darling inclined his head and pushed the blaster back toward Jullien. “
That
I believe. Especially since you said his name correctly and without stumbling over it. Only someone who knows him intimately can do that. Where are we meeting?”

“Hallway.”

“Be there in two minutes.”

As they headed out the door, Thrāix paused and listened.

Jullien knew that look. One heartbeat later, he felt it, too. “They're here.”

Thrāix met his gaze. “We don't have time to clear the palace. They'll hit us before he can make it to the gate. We'll be in the open if we run for it.”

“Get everyone to the queen's bedroom. Now! In her closet there's a doorway to an underground prison. It's reinforced enough, it should withstand the impact.” He sent a mental image of its location to Thrāix. “Go!”

While he went ahead, Jullien ran back to check on Kiara, who had yet to leave her room.

“Highness?” he called from the doorway. “We have to go.”

Distraught and frenzied, she searched the room violently. “I can't find Zarina's woobie. She can't sleep without it. I put her to bed with it and now it's gone!”

Damn. As the parent of two stubborn toddlers, he well understood that. There was nothing in the universe more unreasonable than a petulant child at bedtime.

Just when Jullien thought it couldn't get worse, his father walked in, holding a sleeping Zarina. “I looked all through the nursery. I didn't see it in there, either.”

His father's unexpected presence slammed into him like a sledgehammer to his stones.

For a full minute, Jullien couldn't breathe. He couldn't move. He hadn't seen his father since the night Nykyrian had held him against the wall at Camry's and threatened to blow his brains out. His father had just stood there, saying nothing. Had Nyk pulled the trigger, his father wouldn't have done anything to stop it.

Aros probably would have applauded, then cursed Jullien's corpse for daring to make an inconsiderate mess for the staff to clean up.

Worse, Jullien remembered the sight of his father turning his back and walking away to callously leave him in the care of strangers after he'd choked him to death.

He'd never once in the whole of Jullien's life held him with the care he was now using to cradle Kiara's daughter.

The whistling sound of a missile drop in the distance finally shook him out of his stupor.

“What does her woobie look like?” he asked Kiara.

“It's a fox blanket.”

Shots sounded outside in the palace yard. Lights from blasters lit up the windows. His father went stark white and almost dropped the baby as Zarina woke up and let out a foul, terrified scream.