Born of Legend Read online

  And the Mavericks were some of the worst of the worst. While The Tavali had a tight Code of conduct they swore to and a set of rigid laws that oversaw them, the Mavericks went by a more arbitrary cluster of nebulous guidelines they sometimes followed. Their basic law was, Take whatever isn't nailed down, and if you aren't strong enough to keep it, then you don't deserve to have it.

  Eriadne would have made a perfect Maverick queen.

  For that matter, some claimed that Cyprian and Wynne Proux, the Maverick leaders, were actually part Andarion. Since no one who ever met them had lived long enough to report back to authorities, or anyone else, anything about either of them, that was sheer speculation.

  During the early days of his exile, Jullien had once ventured into their so-called pravins or territory while seeking refuge from his grandmother's wrath. He'd even made it into their main headquarters.

  It hadn't gone well.

  Gah, I hope they don't have a long memory.

  Of course, he'd changed a lot physically since then. Hopefully, no one would recall the event.

  And speaking of ...

  By the time they arrived in that old headquarters on the megastation known as Barataria, Thraix had already landed hot and made a stellar announcement of his Trisani powers. Half the main Maverick landing bay had gone up in flames. Crews were still trying to put it out.

  But that wasn't the most concerning part. What kept Jullien immobile in his ship was the sight of Thraix and what had to be about half the members of the Maverick forces in a heated standoff. Neither side could move without detonating the rest of the station.

  Jullien sat in the captain's chair, eyeing Thraix with a mixture of awe, amusement, and horror. "Well," he drawled slowly to Ushara. "Could be worse."

  She arched a brow. "How do you figure?"

  "We could have Chayden or Jory in the mix. Or better yet, Caillen Dagan."

  "Sure ... let's be optimistic. Any idea how to fix this?"

  "Not really. But let me try something catastrophically stupid."

  Crossing her arms over her chest, she didn't appear the least bit pleased with him. "Catastrophically? Oh, I like that word coming out of the mouth of my babies' daddy. Any final words you wish me to convey to your children?"

  "That I hope they inherit their mother's intelligence."

  Laughing, she sighed heavily. "Okay, then."

  When Jullien stood to leave the flight deck after telling the others over the link to hold their positions, Ushara moved to block his way. The concern in her pale eyes tightened his stomach.

  "Please be careful. Remember, if anything happens to you, Davel will be the most prevalent male role model for your son."

  He screwed his face up. "That hits below the belt." Unbuckling his holster, he kissed her gently and laid it in her hands. "Anything goes wrong, you blast out of here. Don't worry about me."

  "Nothing better go wrong, Jules. 'Cause I'm not leaving here without you. I will follow you straight down to Tophet and back. No compromises on your safety. I will have the cannons trained on them. One word, and I will open fire."

  With a deep growl at her for her stubbornness, and grateful to the gods for her, he lowered the ramp and headed from the ship, into the fray.

  As soon as he came down the ramp, half the blasters and rifles took aim at his head.

  Oh yeah, that was not comforting.

  Bet that guy who was so looking forward to coming back as a prince in his next life and got reincarnated as me is feeling seriously gipped right about now.

  Jullien held his hands up and out. "Hey now, I left my blasters on board my ship. Let's not get hostile, folks. No one sneeze or make any sudden moves, okay? I don't want to lose a body part I might need later."

  "Declare yourself!"

  "Uncommonly stupid for being here unarmed. Ridiculously loyal, though, to my friend you have pinned down. So ... what say we talk this out for a minute, shall we?"

  Someone backed their hammer.

  "No, you don't want to do that." Jullien kept his tone calm and low. "The minute you open fire, we're all taking a free ride to Tophet. While my buddy and I are pretty sure we'll be partying with our gods tonight, are all of you ready for that final journey? I know some of you have got to be atheists, right? Y'all don't want it all to end."

  Thraix glared at him. "Stay out of this. I want the ones who attacked the Fire Kiss. I'm not leaving without them. The rest of you can walk away. Otherwise, we can all go to hell together."

  "That's great for you, brother, but I got things I want to live for." Jullien glanced around at the others, scanning them for the one who seemed to be in charge.

  Like The Tavali, The Mavericks were heavily painted for war and wearing body armor. Most had on blast helmets that kept their faces shielded.

  Jullien moved slowly through them, sizing them up. Since he was unarmed and walking in front of their group, they didn't stop him. "What about the rest of you? Want to give my buddy what he wants? I know there's no real code between Mavericks for this kind of thing. You can kill us both, but it won't stop more Tavali coming for vengeance. You took two daughters of the Altaans tonight. You might as well have fucked over Tavali Snitch herself. They won't take this lightly."

  That seemed to unsettle them.

  A nervous ripple went through their ranks. But it didn't have the desired result. They weren't turning on each other. Nor was he catching a guilty vibe from anyone.

  Suddenly, Jullien paused in front of a leaner Maverick. Yeah, this was what he was looking for. Even though she was obviously pregnant, she stood a little more cocksure. Clutched her rifle with confidence, and at the same time she seemed to have her attention on other things, too.

  The others gave her more space. A respectful distance.

  She was their leader. He knew it. That "in charge" aura bled from her pores.

  Quicker than anyone could react, he used his telekinesis to snatch her rifle and angled it at her head. "This is war. And we can settle it or go nuclear. Your choice."

  She gasped as the others scrambled to protect her. But as expected, they didn't dare shoot him and risk him squeezing the trigger out of reflex and killing her.

  "Hold positions!" That was a fierce, deeply concerned male voice.

  Jullien narrowed his gaze on the female in front of him. "Wynne Proux, I presume?"

  She didn't respond.

  He dug the tip of the rifle into the bottom of her shiny black blast helmet. "You can remove your helmet or I'll remove it for you."

  With a fierce curse, she pulled the helmet off, exposing a wealth of coarse, wavy black hair, pale eyes, and caramel skin that said she was indeed Andarion. Young and beautiful. Curling her full red lips, she glared at him. "You bastard! How did you know?"

  Jullien quirked a smile at her. "There's no way to miss a female in charge. You stood out in the crowd."

  "And you're Andarion. You know what my husband will do to you for this."

  "I'm stralen. You killed the beloved little sister of my pregnant wife. You're lucky you're still breathing."

  That instantly took the fire out of her eyes. "We didn't do it."

  "Liar!" Thraix stepped toward them, but Jullien held his hand up to stop him.

  "She's not lying, Thraix. Calm down and use your powers." Jullien's had already detected it.

  Something else was going on here. It was off. He just wasn't sure what it was.

  Lowering the rifle, he tilted his head as he tried to figure it out. "What exactly happened?"

  Wynne lifted her chin as she raked a sneer over him and Thraix. "Before or after you attacked us?"

  "We haven't attacked you."

  She curled her lip at his arm patch. "Gorturnum Tavali? You've been attacking us for weeks now. Without letup."

  "No. We haven't. As their field admiral, I'm giving you my word on that. None of our people have been near your pravins."

  A much larger Maverick moved through the group. This would no doubt be her husband. A few inches shorter than Jullien, he paused by his side and removed his helmet. "How do we know we can trust what you say?"

  Unlike his wife, the man wasn't Andarion at all. He was some human race. With black hair and brown eyes. Muscular and even in height with his wife, he seemed familiar, but Jullien couldn't place him. His long hair was laced with feathers and he had a black stripe painted horizontally across his face, beneath his eyes and over the bridge of his nose.

  Jullien shrugged. "You don't know. But I give you my word."

  "Word of a Tavali." Cyprian Proux spat on the ground at Jullien's feet.

  He forced himself not to react to that. "I could be insulting and insulted, if I wanted. Or we can act like adults and put forth a bit of faith. If we had been attacking you in the past, why would we have only brought four ships here? Don't you think I'd have unleashed a tidal wave of hell against you for what you've done today? Think about it. You're in the trifecta of getting screwed by Tavali. The Ports are behind you with a massive station that is less than two hours away. My best friends are Seps, who we could rally to be here in no time. And we could call out to the Wasturnums, many of whom routinely travel this sector. And we would have brought fleets in to retaliate. Yet we didn't. We came alone to investigate so as not to cause a war."

  "He has a point, Cy."

  "Yeah, and it's not just the one on the top of my head."

  Cyprian narrowed his eyes on Thraix, then Jullien. "I know it's your Tavali that's been hitting us."

  "Then give us information, and I promise you their heads. If it's Tavali, I will stop them myself and deliver them to you. Personally. With my initials branded on their ass cheeks."

  Cyprian cocked his head to study Jullien's features. "Do I know you?"

  Jullien cringed as he tried not to remember the disaster that was his last visit to this base. "Nah. I just have one of those faces."

  He didn't quite buy that, but luckily he let the matter drop. His gaze went back to Thraix. "We didn't attack your woman. Look around. We were hit hard with a blind strike a week ago. We don't have a battleship capable of assault right now. It's the only reason the four of you got in here today. A week ago, we'd have owned your asses."

  As he explained that and total recognition as to who and what Cyprian really was dawned on him, a really crappy feeling went through Jullien.

  Shit, this is bad, bad, bad....

  He tapped his earlink. "Trajen? Davel? Start your engines and get ready to launch. Open your ramps and take on as many of the Mavericks as you can hold."

  Jullien looked at Thraix. "This is a fucking setup and we just ran right into it."

  Wynne and Cyprian scowled at him.

  Cursing, he met Cyprian's gaze. "You're Abenbi's son, aren't you?"

  "How'd you know that?"

  "Titana rael." Jullien stepped back. "Nyran set this up to get the Probekeins to wipe us out. We've got to move now!"

  Alarms began screeching.

  Cyprian cursed. "Sound the evacuations!"

  "Come with me. You and your wife. Do you have any other kids?"

  "No, this is our first."

  Jullien turned to Thraix. "Do you trust me?"

  He nodded.

  "Then let's get out of here, and we'll get to the bottom of this. For now, grab as many of them as you can."

  Thraix inclined his head to him, then rushed to his ship. Jullien led Wynne and Cyprian onto his ship, where Ushara waited with an arch stare, but didn't say anything other than a quick greeting as she fired the engines and did a prelaunch.

  They boarded more of Cyprian's people as fast as they could. But not before they were hailed by the crew of those approaching.

  Using his powers, Jullien masked their frequency so that it appeared to be the station answering the incoming call. He inclined his head to Cyprian.

  He answered it. "This is Barataria. Go."

  "Barataria, this is Dagger Ixur, acting field admiral of the Gortunum Nation. I'm here to demand your surrender to our authority. Failure to do so will result in your utter destruction."

  "On whose authority?"

  "Trajen Thaumarturgus."

  Jullien turned in his chair to stare at Cyprian. "In my defense, I'm not the minsid acting anything. I am the field admiral."

  Ushara snorted. "Actually, you took a rank reduction, if you recall. You're technically not a field admiral at all, at the moment. You're just a commander, keramon."

  "The vice admiral would be correct," Trajen said over the line. "And as the HAP of the Gorturnum Nation, I would like to know who the fuck this is posing as my FA, because I know the voice of my Dagger, and you, asshole, are not my active right hand. If you were, you'd know Ixur isn't his last name, it's his call sign, and that his mother is on board my ship with me. Now, who the hell are you?"

  They answered with a volley of fire.

  "Ah now, that's just rude," Trajen said. "Tavali? Let's teach these bitches some manners."

  Thraix banked left and went after them.

  Jullien hesitated. "Hey, boss man? I'm toting two pieces of very precious cargo on board. Permission to pull back a bit?"

  "Granted. Stay low."

  "Pakti."

  Ushara gave him a droll stare. One that was duplicated by Wynne.

  Jullien was completely unabashed. "Don't be hating on me, mu tarir. And need I remind you, Shara, both parents for our children are currently on board this ship. We go down, think about who'll be left raising our girls. Do you really want that?"

  He had a most valid point. "You need to slow way down, precious. No need to take any unnecessary risks. At all."

  "Yeah. I just knew that would reorient your way of thinking."

  Cyprian moved to stand behind Jullien. "Thank you, Tavalian. I owe you, and I won't forget that you saved my wife and daughter."

  "No problem. When's the baby due?"

  "End of Edrinius. Yours?"

  "First week of Samonius."

  "Just a few weeks apart, then."

  Jullien nodded. "As was Thraix's. His son was due at the end of the year."

  Cyprian winced in sympathy. "I swear on the life of my unborn daughter that we had nothing to do with that strike that took his woman." He looked at Ushara. "I know you think that we have no code, but we do value our children and those of others. We don't prey on innocents."

  "I believe you." Ushara turned her attention back to the monitors. "Jules?"

  "I see it." He banked to the left as a group of fighters came after them. "Strap down, everyone. We have incoming."

  Cyprian headed for the guns, but Ushara stopped him. "Jullien has it. Believe me. You'll only interfere."

  He moved to sit by his wife.

  Jullien locked to his ship and let his mind sync with her perfectly. He heard both the silence of space and the roar of her engines.

  Most of all, he heard the heartbeat of his wife and child. And he did his damnedest not to let that distract him.

  This was when the Trisani part was annoying as hell. He'd made peace with most of what had been done to him. With the process that had allowed him to merge with his ship and opened his mind to the much larger universe and to the minds and bodies of others. And with the prospect of death. There had been a time when he courted Eternal Night as his mistress and closest companion.

  Had desired her, point of fact.

  Until Ushara came into his life.

  Now that he shared a higher connection to his wife, she was a live wire in his mind that sucked when he needed to focus. It was like having an exposed nerve ending strung across an elephant farm ... near their watering hole at bath time.

  More ships dropped in on them. Not just fighters. Cruisers and attack squads.

  "What the hell?" Jullien skidded to the side of his control panel and twisted as he watched Thraix going in hard for a group of them. "Hey, Coracinus Anima? What you doing? There's no need in you going Psycho Bunny on us. Stay with me."

  Thraix didn't answer.

  Jullien cursed silently as he saw more ships closing in and he realized what Thraix intended. "Buddy, listen to me. I know you're hurting, and I know that hunger in you to die and to take them with you. I've been there. We all have. But you're my brother, Thraix, and family's something I don't have a lot of. Don't make me watch you die. You hear me? We will get through this. And we will find the exact ones who hurt Mary and make them pay for it in the worst way imaginable. Together. C'mon. Don't do this. I need you in this fight. And remember, you're not on that ship alone."

  Thraix let out a guttural cry that came from deep inside his soul. Splintering and soul-wrenching, he rolled away and fell in behind Trajen.

  Ushara bit back her tears as she watched Jullien calmly handle himself and face their attackers during the worst circumstances, all the while dealing with Thraix and keeping him under control. His ability to handle and push people never failed to impress her.

  Of course, he normally pushed them over the edge and past the point of homicide. But when he chose to be diplomatic and caring ...

  There were few better at it. Even while facing death. He always kept his wits intact and emotions under an iron restraint that amazed her. It was why he was the only one she trusted to fly and train Vasili for his citizenship.

  Jullien was an exceptional commander. And it was a shame his parents had failed to see what an incredible leader he would have made. That they never gave him a chance to take his place in history. For all of Nykyrian's abilities, Jullien would have been a valuable asset to his brother and his races. It was a shame his parents had deprived the brothers and their empires of Jullien's extraodianary abilities.

  It broke her heart for him. But it made her glad that he was part of their Nation. Most of all, she was grateful that five years ago, Trajen had seen in Jullien the potential no one else had. It said a lot for her boss.

  Five years ...

  In some ways, it seemed like yesterday--and in others, a blip. So much had changed.

  If they weren't in battle, she'd hug her sexy beast. Actually, she'd like to do a little bit more than that. A slow smile curved her lips as a very naughty thought went through her head while she watched him maneuvering.

  The one thing about carrying a son over being pregnant with her daughters ...

  She had an elevated libido.

  "Shara?"

  "Yes?"

  Jullien glanced at her, over his shoulder. "You've really got to stop thinking about what you're thinking right now. 'Cause you're really distracting me at a time when I need to be focused on what I'm doing."

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