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  "I fell on a friggin' bomb for him and his kids. Lost an arm."

  She laughed even harder as he poured a glass. "You're so bad."

  "Yeah, but you love that about me."

  "'Deed I do."

  He handed the glass to her.

  She shook her head. "You know I can't drink that while pregnant."

  "One tiny sip won't hurt him. Believe me. I should have been born pickled. You have to taste it."

  "One sip." She dipped her finger in and lifted it to her lips, then almost moaned out loud at how good it was. "Oh my..."

  Jullien smiled knowingly. "Told you."

  "I've never tasted anything so sublime."

  "I have. Better even."

  "I can't imagine anything better." She dipped her finger in again for one more tiny sample. "What in the universe could top this?"

  Jullien leaned down to capture her lips with his. "The taste of you."

  Those words melted her heart. "You were wrong, my darkest heart. It's not the wine that leaves my head in the clouds. It's ever you."

  Jullien set his glass down on the shelf behind her before he pulled the hem of her skirt up. Ushara's heart raced as his ragged breath burned against her throat. She fumbled with his battlesuit, hating how hard it was to open. She despised anything that ever came between them.

  Sinking her hands into his thick hair, she reclaimed his lips while he ran his hands over her breasts and his tongue tormented her ear with a sensual rhythm that left her breathless and hot.

  He sucked his breath in sharply the moment she cupped him. She adored the sounds he made whenever she held him like this. And especially the tender, sweet way he looked at her. As if she was his reason for being alive.

  Smiling, she touched his lips. "Love you."

  He took her hand and led it to his cheek. Closing his eyes, he held it there. "Love you so much more." Then he lifted her up in that effortless way that made her feel so dainty and slid inside her.

  Ushara groaned out loud as he filled her completely. She wrapped her arms around his shoulders and held him close as he slowly thrust against her hips. In spite of his earlier words, he was taking his time with her. There was no hurry to him at all as he savored each and every stroke.

  Jullien nibbled at Ushara's chin as he watched the pleasure play across her face. There was nothing he enjoyed more than watching her when he was inside her. She was the only one who'd ever fully accepted him. Not once had she recoiled from his scars. Not even before they'd reattached his arm.

  She'd stood by his side in a way no one ever had. In a way he'd never thought possible. He'd never known the kind of friendship, loyalty, and love she'd given him. Never imagined having a lover like her. Someone he could tease and laugh with, but never with mean-spirited barbs that left his soul bleeding and his heart scarred.

  He had no right to the life she'd given him, and he knew it. It was why he couldn't shake the feeling that something was going to happen to take him away from her.

  Something bad.

  Happy endings didn't come to eton Anatoles. And they damn sure didn't come to creatures who'd lived a life like his.

  Ushara's laughter filled his ears an instant before she came in his arms. Cupping her face, he smiled down at her as he watched the ecstasy play across her features. Patiently, he waited for her to finish, and then he joined her with one last fierce stroke where he buried himself deep inside her body and growled from the ferocity of his release.

  Not just from that, but from the intensity of what he felt for her. The depth of his love and the need to protect her and their children. To make sure they remained safe, no matter what hell came to the rest of the universe.

  He tightened his arms around her. "I have to say, that was much better than any dream I ever carried about it."

  Tilting her head, she frowned up at him. "Are you telling me you've never done this before?"

  "Never. Just a fantasy I've always had. Thank you for indulging me." He took the wine and downed it in one gulp.

  "Hey!"

  He gave her an unrepentant smile. "You're not supposed to have any in your condition."

  She pouted.

  Laughing at her misery, he opened the cabinet. "There are three bottles in there. I'll confiscate one more and pay Davel for the two. The second one I'll save, and we'll use it to celebrate the birth of our son after you wean him."

  She smiled at his generous thoughtfulness. "Davel will forgive you, then ... and so will I."

  With an adorable grin, Jullien straightened his clothes, then bent over to retrieve her panties from the floor. He knelt dutifully in front of her and helped her dress, but not without lifting her skirt to place a lingering kiss to her stomach. She smiled down at him as his whiskers tickled her skin.

  He splayed his hand beside her navel, where Vidarr rested. "Is he sleeping?"

  The baby moved away as if he'd heard him.

  She brushed her hand through his hair. "Not now."

  Kissing her stomach again, Jullien lowered her skirt into place and rose to his feet. "Sorry."

  "No, you're not," she teased.

  The gleam in his eyes agreed with her as he poured himself another glass of wine, and he recorked the bottle for later.

  Ushara couldn't resist exploring the ship a bit more. "This is quite decadent, isn't it?"

  "Very much so."

  "Who do you think owned it?"

  "Let's take a look." He paused by a panel and turned it on.

  She watched in quiet amazement as he quickly navigated the alien system that appeared to be written in gibberish. "What language is that? Can you read it?"

  "Yeah. It's Gondarion. Vertan syntax with a Darish alphabet."

  She didn't even understand what he was talking about. "How do you know that?"

  "You married a freak." He scowled and snorted. "But apparently, not as big a freak as the Gondarion senator who owned it. He has quite the collection of porn." He stepped back and covered the screen with his hand. "Oh dear gods ... I just went blind. Remind me to call my mother later tonight. I definitely need to confess my sins."

  She laughed.

  Until he uncovered the screen, flipped away from it, and the humor fled his features.

  "What is it?"

  Jullien didn't comment as his scowl deepened while he read whatever had his attention.

  "Jules?"

  "This is bad."

  "What?"

  "It's an attack plan, Shara. A confidential e-mail sent to the senator from Kyr, updating him on League actions against Andaria to bring them back into line and on The Sentella to crush them."

  She gasped. "On what?"

  "A Sentella base and two heavily populated Andarion outposts."

  "Do we have time to warn them?"

  Jullien clicked through the code. "It's encrypted. This is going to take me a while. You go on to your sister, and I'll work on it."

  "Are you sure?"

  "Yeah, I'll be fine."

  "Okay. But I'm sending Sheila in here to watch over you."

  He smiled at her. "Still don't trust me alone, huh? Fine. I would complain, except your worry is justified." He gave her a quick kiss and kept working, while his brain spun even faster. The last thing he wanted was to panic anyone.

  Yet if he was reading this correctly ...

  Kyr was about to unleash holy hell on the entire Ichidian universe and all of them were going to feel that psycho's fury.

  Especially those of them who flew outside traditional nations. And that was all Tavali.

  Shit.

  CHAPTER 37

  Jullien pushed open the door to Trajen's study to find his friend sitting in front of an old Trisani altar. The sight of him there caught him completely off-guard. "So you're not as anti-religion as you pretend."

  Trajen sighed. "Let's keep this embarrassing little secret between us."

  "You shouldn't be embarrassed."

  Trajen blew out his prayer candle. "We're not here to talk about my secret religious habits."

  "I can come back. I didn't mean to interrupt your Vespers."

  Trajen made a sound of extreme irritation. "How much of my culture did you study, boy? Shit ... I swear you know more about it than Thraix, and he was raised in it."

  "You really want to be impressed? Ask me about the Caronese, Phrixians, or Gourish.... Or Hyshians, for that matter. I spent way too much time in the repositories."

  Trajen harumphed. "Out of curiosity, how many languages are you fluent in?"

  "Counting gibberish and the twin speak of my girls?"

  "Sure. Why not?"

  "I don't know. About sixty-seven, roughly ... with varying dialects."

  "H-o-l-y shit. And neither of your parents ever had a clue?"

  Jullien shrugged nonchalantly. "They never really spoke to me in any known language."

  Trajen shook his head as he continued to tuck away his altar pieces in the ornate polished case that blended in seamlessly with the rest of his antique furniture. If you didn't know what it was, you'd never guess he had an altar on the premises. "Anyway, why are you in my home, annoying me?"

  "I just spoke to my cousin, Bastien. And I'm here to revisit a sore topic."

  Trajen released a foul curse that probably undid every bit of his evening prayers. "Let's go through the last three to four dozen of these we've had, shall we? I'm going to ask why. You're going to say that you think it's for everyone's good. I'm going to snort. You're going to say something smart-ass and piss me off. Is that it, roughly?"

  "Basically. With a slight variation."

  "And that is?"

  "I tried to warn them about the last attack, and because we remain so isolated from the other Nations and I couldn't lay ears to Chayden or Jory"--and because of his history with Ryn and Darling, he hadn't dared attempt to contact Ryn or Mack--"no one took it seriously. They lost over three hundred people and had almost a thousand wounded. You know how hard we tried to mobilize Alliance forces. This time, The League's going after Hermione Dane and intending to bring her down and plant Ryn's bones on top of her grave. More than that, did you know Ryn was married?"

  Trajen rose to his feet. "What? When?"

  "Mack Hinto." Jullien crossed his arms over his chest. "Last night, Jory called to tell me that Mack just learned days ago that she's carrying the magic Dane heir who will one day unite three of the four branches of Tavali. 'Cause everyone knows that you might as well be Hermione's other blood-born son. How do you think Venik will react when this news hits him? More to the point, what do you think Nyran and Malys will do when they find out the Portnums are about to be a stand-alone Nation, subjugated to the whims of the Fetchyn who inherits that Tavali seat of power? 'Cause the next generation of Tavali HAPs will most likely all be related by blood."

  Trajen gaped. "Why did Jory call you?"

  "In the event Mack has to go into hiding with the pregnancy, he wanted to know if they could bring her here. I told him we'd be fine with it. Said you had plenty of room in your house for her."

  "Excuse me? You said what?"

  Jullien laughed. "Relax, Yaya. I offered her the spare suite in the new place we're buying. But I do like the panic in your eyes just now at the thought of you having to share space. Nice." He approached the altar, where Trajen had an extremely old and ragged copy of the Book of Harmony resting on top of it. It was obviously a family heirloom that he must have salvaged from the destruction of his homeworld--which said a lot, given how unsentimental Trajen was.

  His gaze went to the mantel, where a small handful of photos were lined up. Trajen's sister with Thraix. Ryn Dane as a child with his mother. Varys Dane, Hermione's brother who'd been killed years ago, standing with a teenaged Hermione. Ushara holding an infant Vasili at his exordiom. And the rarest of all--Trajen at the first birthday party for the twins, where they stood on each side of him, kissing his cheeks.

  The surly bastard was actually smiling in that one. For whatever reason, Trajen loved Jullien's girls as much as he and Ushara did. And they and Vas were what had made this decision so hard for Jullien. Why he hadn't come to it lightly. But why he felt it had to be done.

  "Like it or not, Tray, we have to choose a side to fight on, especially after I saw the hatred the League prime commander has for Tavali. I assume you want to go down protecting the Danes, and now the Hintos since they're married to them."

  "And what about you?"

  "My loyalty is here. To you and my family."

  "No, it isn't. You're divided."

  "Not divided at all. My first priority is, and will always be, Ushara. Then you."

  "And your brother?"

  Jullien looked away. "That's guilt. Plain and simple. Not loyalty."

  "I'm proud you recognize that."

  "I have no delusions where my birth family's concerned. I've never lied to myself about who and what I am or what I feel."

  Trajen looked to the photos. "Family is a complicated thing, Jules. Careful where it leads you."

  "I know. But no one will take me from my wife or children."

  Nodding, Trajen fell quiet for several minutes while he considered the request.

  Finally, he spoke. "You win. I'll do this for you. But only because you've asked it. You know how I feel about fighting in a political war. And I trust you alone to lead us. When you've had enough and you're done with them, we're out."

  "I'll let Jory know we're in." Jullien inclined his head to him and started to withdraw.

  "Hey, Jules?"

  He paused to look back.

  "Thank you."

  That earnest gratitude confused him. "For what?"

  "You think that I saved you by letting you stay here and earn rank. But the truth is, we both were given a shot out of a dark place. And Thraix, too. He and I had died, we just hadn't found our tombs yet. Or maybe we had. At any rate, we owe you as much as you think you owe us ... maybe more. Just so you know."

  Jullien grimaced. "So what? Are we going to kiss now? Gah, just don't fondle me in my marital bed again. I'm still having nightmares that Ushara's going to find out and geld us both."

  Trajen laughed. "Get your cantankerous Andarion ass out of here."

  "I'm going," Jullien said with a laugh of his own.

  Still smiling, he left Trajen's house and headed for Ushara's office to let her know that they were now officially part of the Alliance against The League.

  He'd just headed that way when his link buzzed. Assuming it was the babysitter telling him to come home and help with the twins, who were probably climbing up the walls again, he tapped his ear. "Admiral Samari."

  "Hey, Dagger, this is Kareem Venik. Are you where you can talk free and clear?"

  "Yeah. What's going on?"

  Static answered him for a minute before Kareem dropped his voice two octaves. "Look, I got some intel, and I don't know what to do with it."

  "What do you mean?"

  "I overheard something I wasn't supposed to, and I'm not sure it's important, but given how it was said, and who said it, I'm certain it was. That being said, if anyone finds out I know it, or that I breathed a word to someone else ... let's just say I need some real discretion."

  "Okay."

  "Anyway. It was something about the skyva being plowed down and replanted for the lyfera to return from the ashes."

  His mind raced at what Kareem was saying. The lyfera was the mythological creature that decorated the Anatole family Warsword and coat of arms. A winged dragon, it was believed to burst open the womb of its parent, which it then consumed until nothing was left of its mother but ashes. Thereby, the child lyfera absorbed and took its first nourishment and life from its mother's essence and knowledge. Of course, family tradition said that it symbolized the fact that a new tadar or tadara couldn't ascend the throne until the death of their parent, after they stood over the funeral pyre to take their inheritance.

  Skyva was the Andarion word for a Warsword's scabbard or for the main palace in Eris that "held" the royal family.

  A bad feeling went through Jullien....

  "I'm sorry, Kareem. Could you repeat that?"

  "The skyva is going to be plowed down and replanted for the lyfera to return from the ashes.... Does that make sense to you?"

  His heart pounded as he checked the date on his link.

  Six days.

  Oh shit.

  "Yeah, Kareem. It makes sense. Thanks for telling me. I need to go." He cut the transmission.

  Six days ...

  His breathing ragged, he ran to Ushara's office as fast as he could. As soon as he flew past Zellen's desk, Zellen gasped but didn't say anything.

  Jullien hit the release for Ushara's door and didn't speak until it closed behind him.

  She swallowed and set her drink aside, then scowled at his eagerness. "Rare look for you. Holy terror? Haven't seen it on your face since you thought Mira had fallen and skinned her knee. What's wrong?"

  "My grandmother's going to bomb the Andarion palace in six days."

  Ushara froze as those words hung between them. "Trajen tell you this?"

  "Kareem Venik overheard it."

  "From?"

  "I'm assuming Nyran."

  "But you don't know ... so it could be a trap."

  "It's not. Shara, I know it's going to happen. Six days. That's Eriadne's birthday. And it's not just that. It's the way the message was coded.... Mia, you've just got to trust me on this. I know it's solid."

  "Okay, so we tell them."

  "You know they won't believe us."

  Stubbornly, she shook her head. "They can fortify themselves. They have an army."

  He raked his hand through his hair. "It didn't work last time. Shara, you know it's not that simple. I know the players involved and how they do these things.... She's going to kill my brother's family while he's away and can't protect them. Even if he believed us and turned around right now, he couldn't get back before her fleet would reach them."

  Jullien ground his teeth at the cruelty of what his grandmother intended to do to her own blood kin. "It's a blow to him that he'll never recover from. And she knows it. This will destroy his life and his soul. Do you understand? I heard from Jory just last night that Nyk's on his way to the Ports, and he's having to fly dark so that The League won't pick up their transmissions. He thinks his wife and kids are safe with my idiot mother. His youngest daughter's what? Seven, eight months old now? The rest aren't much older. Kiara's a minsid moron. She's not you. She has no idea how to fight or survive, never mind protect those kids. They won't see this coming. If we call, they'll hang up on us like they did last time, and do nothing. They'll all be dead in less than a week."

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