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  Jullien ground his teeth. Yeah, that sounded like something his family would do. "If it makes you feel better, Gur Tana, my grandmother slit that same guilty grandfather's throat during breakfast over a rumor she heard."

  That took the anger out of him. He actually gaped. "What?"

  Jullien gave a subtle nod. "Ear to ear. Of course, it was a lie she'd been told. But she didn't bother to find out the truth until after the deed was done. Oops didn't quite cover it that day, and it was nothing compared to the rampage she went on against the one who'd lied to her. Just glad I wasn't that idiot."

  His jaw dropping even more, her father gestured at Jullien while he grimaced at Ushara. "You see how they are! You can't trust any of them. And you dare bring this into my home? What are thinking?"

  "He is not his grandmother. Jullien, tell him!"

  Jullien glanced to her mother and then her father before he shook his head, and released her hand. "There's no need. I've already been judged and sentenced, and the one thing I learned most from my family is that once a verdict is rendered, there's no reprieve or mercy from it." He gave a curt, formal bow to her mother. "Forgive me, Ger Tarra, for bringing disharmony into your beautiful home and distressing you." He bowed to her father. "Mi Gur Tana."

  With that, he left.

  Ushara glared at her father. "Really? After all the lectures you gave me as a girl about hospitality and repaying debts owed?"

  "Don't you dare take that tone! If I taught you nothing else, it was to never, ever put faith in a darkheart. Your husband spins in his grave over this!"

  "And my son lives because of that male and the sacrifice he made for Vas. He has been cast out and spurned by everyone. I won't be like them. You taught me better. The journey across the universe begins with a single step. How many times have you said that to me?"

  She turned toward her mother with a scowl. "His family taught him nothing but betrayal and cruelty at every point in his life. They threw him out with nothing and left him to die. I told him we were better than they were. Yet since he's come here, he's seen the same kind of brutality from us. Are we really any different from them? They attacked us because we weren't like them and what have we done to him? The same exact thing. Well, I won't be like that. I refuse to judge him by what his family has done."

  Her father sputtered. "He is wanted. Have you not seen the bounty he carries?"

  She nodded. "Yes, I have. He has a bounty, just as we do. Are we not every bit as wanted by The League? Is it not death to own Tavali Canting and flags? Is there not one of us here who would be imprisoned or hanged if caught by a League ship? Never mind what would happen to us should we ever venture into Andarion territory?"

  Ushara gestured at the door where Jullien had gone. "Jullien is trying to turn his life around, and start over. Rather than become another mountainous obstacle he has to scale, I'd rather be a stepladder to help him."

  Her mother snorted disdainfully. "More like a stepping stone to be cast aside after he uses you."

  "That would be on him if he chooses to do so. But if I spurn him and treat him like shit for no other reason than the fact that he was born to the eton Anatole lineage, then that is on me. And I don't want that sin on my soul. I will not live as a darkheart. My parents taught me better."

  *

  Shaking and weak, Jullien sighed as he slid down the wall to crouch in the shadow of a dark alley. Honestly, he was too tired and in too much pain to walk anymore. Why did he even bother, anyway?

  No one gave a single shit if he lived another day. No one would even know if he died. He had nothing left. Just a resolute will to carry on that he didn't understand. Probably because it was all he'd ever known.

  His grandmother was right, he was a contrary bastard to the bitter end.

  Closing his eyes, he tried to remember a time in his life when he'd had dreams. But honestly, he couldn't. As a child, the only goal had been to survive. To get through the day alive.

  All he really remembered about being a boy was being scared all the time. Or angry.

  Yeah. He remembered a whole lot of pissed off.

  And how weird that the fear and anger had only left him after he'd looked into his brother's eyes and seen Nemesis staring at him. That soulless killer he knew wouldn't hesitate to gut him where he stood. In that sole moment of crystal clarity, of those human green eyes that burned him with ravenous fury, he'd seen his own reflection and had hated himself more than Nykyrian ever could.

  Not that they'd ever really been brothers. Even before Nykryian had been sent away and "murdered," they'd never gotten along. Golden and fair, Nyk had been doted on by their mother and father. And Jullien had hated him for it. From the moment of birth, Jullien had done everything he could to try and compete. To make them see him as Nyk's equal.

  They never had.

  Second born. Second best.

  Nyk was the heir. Jullien was their spare. And they'd never really wanted him. Nor had they tried to hide that fact, or save his feelings over it.

  "Jullien?"

  Tilting his head back, he saw his angel of torment descending on him. Weary and cold, he stared up at her. "Please leave me alone."

  Ushara knelt by his side and frowned. There was something different about him. Something in his voice that wrung her heart. "Why?"

  He didn't answer.

  "Jullien ... talk to me."

  "It's just easier, okay? I know I'm an unwanted piece of shit and I accept that. But then you come around and you show me glimpses of a world I can't be a part of. You show me what it's like to be normal, and then when reality returns it's just that much harder for me to deal with." He met her gaze and the agony in those hazel eyes seared her. "I'd rather you beat and insult me like everyone else does, than do this anymore. It's far more cruel."

  "I can't leave you here. In pain."

  "Sure you can. Just turn your back and leave me in the dark like everyone else. It's easy."

  "Jullien--"

  He placed his finger on her lips to cut her words off. "Thank you for trying. It's more than anyone else ever did for me. Now go, mu tara. You have a family that loves you. You should never fight with them over something like me. Believe me, I'm not worth it."

  A shadow fell over them.

  She looked up to see her father glowering at them.

  Growling irritably, he bent down to help Jullien to his feet. "C'mon, you worthless darkheart bastard."

  Jullien hissed in pain.

  "Careful!" she warned. "He's in bad shape, Paka."

  Gentling his touch, her father draped Jullien's arm around his shoulders and helped him back to their home without speaking another word to him.

  By the time they returned, her mother had the guest room ready and had set out a small medical kit. Her father helped Jullien sit on the bed before he stepped back.

  "So what's wrong with him?" her father asked Ushara.

  "Before or after he was knifed by an assassin?"

  Her father sighed. "That would do it."

  Jullien cracked a bitter, half-hearted grin. "What can I say? I bring out the best aim in everyone."

  Her father grunted as her mother helped Jullien remove his work shirt. Only then did Ushara see real sympathy in her parents' eyes for him as they began to recognize what she was learning about the true horrors of Jullien's life.

  Biting her lip, her mother pulled the bloody bandage back from the knife wound. "This is badly infected. Have you been to a doctor?"

  "No. I was doing okay with it until I got jumped. It's been hard to keep it disinfected with busted ribs." He held his hand up and pulled the ragged, worn glove from it. "And a broken wrist."

  Ushara gasped at something she hadn't even noticed.

  Her father passed a shocked gape at her, before he stepped forward to glare at Jullien. "You've been working the bay like this?"

  "Yes, Gur Tana."

  "How long?"

  "Two days. It's actually not as bad today as it was yesterday."

  "He needs to go to the infirmary." Her mother's tone was insistent.

  Jullien shook his head. "I can't risk it."

  "He's right," her father concurred. "There's not a Tavali here who wouldn't be tempted to turn him in if they figured out his identity. And since he's not one of us, he has no protection. Hell, he's lucky I haven't shot him for the bounty."

  Her mother gave him a withering stare. "You're not funny, Petran."

  "Nah, but I'm honest."

  Tsking at him, her mother gently examined Jullien's bruised and swollen hand and tattooed forearm. Her features stiffened as she saw the jagged vertical scars on his wrist that betrayed an even deeper sadness about the tiziran's past.

  Worse? He'd tried more than once to end his own life.

  The moment he realized what her mother was looking at, he blushed and turned his wrist aside to hide them.

  Her mother didn't comment on the scars. "Pet? Would you please fetch my oil chest for me? And Shara, I'll need an herbal tea. Lemon with honey and ornar."

  Jullien braced himself as her mother moved to examine his eye and cheek. He had to give her credit, she had the gentlest touch of any he'd ever been near.

  "Why do you keep flinching? Does my touch offend you that much?"

  "No, Ger Tarra. Please forgive me. I'm not used to anyone touching me unless it's to strike a blow."

  She cupped his unbruised cheek and forced him to meet her gaze. "When was the last time someone held you?"

  Jullien looked away, unwilling to answer her.

  "Alteske?"

  "Jullien, if you please, Ger Tarra. There's no need for formality. I was disinherited four years ago."

  Her gaze fell to the distinctive claw marks on his chest that proved his words. He was Outcast. No longer welcome in Andarion territory. To be caught in any of their lands would mean instant arrest at best, or death at worst.

  Fitting really since it was what his cousin Merrell had done to Talyn Batur while Talyn had been assigned to Jullien's personal guard. What they'd all had a hand in causing to be done to Talyn's father, Fain Hauk. Though to be honest, Jullien hadn't wanted Fain disowned.

  That had been his grandmother's cruel dream because she personally hated the Hauk family so badly.

  What is cast out to the universe, returns with a vengeance. Jullien could definitely attest to that.

  Ushara's mother gently cleaned his eye. "You haven't answered my question."

  "I should think it obvious, Ger Tarra."

  "Four years?"

  He laughed bitterly at her assumption. Then that old streak of venom reared up inside him and did what it always did. It lashed out from the vicious pain that he did his best to keep leashed in the darkest recesses of his soul.

  "I've only been held by others long enough for punishment. If you're seeking some vestige of beneplacity within me, I assure you, I'm quite barren. Everyone, including my own mother, has told me since the hour of my birth that I am the least bene-merent of all Androkyn. Rather, I should have been suffocated upon arrival from her womb rather than suckled by my most unwilling wetnurse to live."

  Her pale eyes filled with horror, she dropped her hand from his face. "What have you done to be so hated by your own mother?"

  That was the question that had haunted him throughout his entire childhood. "The only answer I have is that I had the unfortunate luck of favoring my uncle Eadvard."

  "I don't understand."

  Jullien met her gaze and sighed. "They were barely a year apart in age. The favorite child of my grandmother, Eadvard killed two of my mother's siblings before he turned sixteen. He had my mother attacked and left for dead, and after she failed to die of her injuries, he attempted to murder her and my aunt Tylie himself. She, in turn, carved his heart from his chest while she was still a teenager. Apparently, he was a psychotic bastard from the moment he learned to walk. So you can imagine my mother's abject horror when they pulled a physical duplicate of the very creature she'd already killed for trying to murder her out of her womb and tried to hand it to her. I'm told she actually screamed and recoiled in terror the first time she looked at me."

  "That's not your fault."

  "And my mother and aunt are strict followers of Yllam Orthodoxy. They believe I have my uncle's soul and that the gods returned him to her to haunt her for her actions against him."

  "What do you believe?"

  "Perhaps I am Eadvard reborn. And my punishment is to return here and be cast into the care of those who hate me most. That at least gives me a reason for the hell that has been my life. And if that is why I'm here, then I can accept this fate and deal with it."

  "So you're a believer, then?"

  "Not really. It's just the lie I tell myself so that I can hold on to some semblance of sanity and explain the utter travesty that is my family. And why I'm forced to endure them."

  Ushara returned with the tea and a large chest. "Paka had to leave to pick up Oxana. They blew a part of their engine and are stranded."

  "Is she okay?"

  "Yeah. Just a malfunction. I've got a tracer on him for you, and she's transmitting so that we can keep an eye on her to make sure everything's fine. We've already scrambled a fighter team to cover them until Paka gets there." Ushara handed the tea to her mother. "Oxana is one of my sisters," she explained to Jullien.

  He didn't respond as he watched her mother mix the oils into his tea before she handed it to him.

  "You should drink that while it's warm. It'll help with the pain. Once you finish, I'll clean and reseal the knife wound and set your wrist."

  "What about his ribs, Mama?"

  "We can wrap them after I tend the wound. The infirmary could fuse them and heal them a lot faster."

  Jullien scoffed at the thought. "They could also sever my carotid and collect the bounty." He knocked back the tea in one gulp. It was actually really good. The warmth spread through him, but as it did so, it made his eyelids heavy.

  The room started to spin.

  What the hell?

  He tried to focus. "What did you do to me?"

  "You need rest. Just relax and breathe."

  Oh shit ...

  "You drugged me?" He tried to get up, but couldn't. The next thing he knew, everything went black.

  Ushara caught Jullien's head before he struck the headboard.

  "Careful," her mother warned.

  The care in that tone caught her off-guard. "You're concerned now?"

  She helped Ushara position him on the bed, then nodded. "We had a moment while you were gone."

  "What do you mean?"

  "Meaning, I get it. I understand why you're drawn to his darkness." She picked up Jullien's arm where the tattoo was and turned it so that Ushara could see the scars underneath the ink where Jullien had cut his wrists. "But be careful, mu tina. When someone is in this kind of pain, it's not easy to come out of it. He's more likely to pull you down and drown you than you are to pull him up and save him."

  "I agree. But he doesn't wallow in his sadness. And he doesn't blame others. He's trying. That is what I see, and it's what makes me want to help him. He's not like the other darkhearts we've met."

  "No, but there is still a deep, unforgiving darkness inside him. From what I've read of him, he unleashed it against his own brother. Be careful that he never unleashes it on you."

  Her mother was right and she knew it. Only a fool would ignore the danger of this male. While Jullien wasn't like his family, he was still a product of their cruelty. Still an eton Anatole. Which meant his idea of claiming her heart was more likely carving it out of her chest and putting in a box to be burned for entertainment.

  "Don't worry. We're only friends. Something he seems to be very short on."

  Her mother nodded while she worked on his knife wound. "Why was this not sealed?"

  "It was. He must have torn it open again when Silig and his stupid friends attacked him."

  She looked up, slack-jawed. "Silig is the one who did this to him?"

  "Yes. Lev saw us eating together and they decided to teach him his place."

  "Did they not know who he was?"

  "Of course not. They're idiots. Thankfully, our side hogged all the brains."

  Her mother laughed at that, then finished resealing his wound, and carefully bandaged his side.

  Once they had his ribs wrapped, her mother hesitated. "He is extremely handsome, isn't he?"

  Ushara felt heat rush over her face before she nodded in agreement.

  Her mother gave her a speculative stare. "So you are attracted to him?"

  "I won't lie and say no. He's tempting."

  "Has he made any advances toward you?"

  "No, he's been very respectful."

  "Pity."

  "Matarra!"

  She laughed and wrinkled her nose. "Your father was an irritating beast, back in the day. I couldn't turn around without him shadowing me. I had my sights set on another, but your father wasn't having any of that. To this day, I'm extremely glad Petran was persistent. And that I came to my senses before it was too late. Otherwise, you would have had another paka ... and another life."

  Carefully, her mother applied her oils and rubs to the bruises and cuts on Jullien's body. All the while, she stared at Ushara from under her lashes. "Your Chaz has been dead for a long time, and I haven't known you to go near another male."

  "True."

  "So what's changed, my daughter?"

  Ushara started not to answer, but she'd never kept secrets from her mother. There was really no reason to start now. "Vasili likes him. You've seen how Vas is now. He's talking again, and interacting, like he hasn't done in years. And the tiziran's been very kind to Vas. Amazingly so."

  "Your paka will never accept a darkheart near us. You know that. I'm surprised he allowed him to return."

  "I know. As I said, we're only friends. That's all." Yet even as she spoke those words, she knew them for a lie. Something was different in her whenever Jullien was around.

  He broke her heart and made her feel for him in a way no male had made her feel for him since her husband. A part of her was more alive in his presence. More aware of him. More alert and giddy.

  It wasn't just Vasili he touched.

  She didn't even know why. Or how. But she recognized the danger signs. With Chaz, it'd been so easy. They had been similar creatures who'd gone to school together as children.

  Their parents had been friends for as far back as either of them could remember.

  Jullien was another matter entirely. His presence threatened them all. He was wanted. Hunted.

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