Born of Legend Read online

  "Admiral? We have a matter on deck."

  She glanced to the monitor where Gavin was paging her. "Can you patch it through?"

  Gavin glanced to Jullien. "It's a transmission we're picking up, but none of us can translate it, and the ship's translation software can't ID the language. We're concerned The League or another force might be tracking us."

  "Patch it to me."

  Finally, he played it.

  Ushara scowled. It was pretty, but ... "No idea. Pull back and--"

  "Gyron Force code," Jullien said without hesitation. "Nothing to do with you. They have troops heading to Aluran C for training. They're getting ready to start some crap with their neighbors soon. It's a routine transmission from command to their leader, with orders for mission parameters."

  They both gaped at Jullien.

  "What?" he asked defensively. "I had cousins who were Gyron Force. One a major. The other a captain. Their uncle was the commander general before he murdered them all in a coup, and took his brother's place as emperor ... and my chickenshit father refused to retaliate. Anyway, when we were kids, Barnabas used to take me out on maneuvers to quote--whip me into shape--every time I dared breathe his airspace. Personally, I think he was attempting to send me into cardiac arrest. But whatever. I grew up on that military code crap. It still sends me into PTSD whenever I hear it."

  Ushara snorted at his dry, sarcastic tone. "Well, there you go, Captain. Nothing to worry about, then."

  "You trust him?"

  "Since he has more to fear than we do should we run into the authorities, I think so."

  The screen went blank.

  She turned toward Jullien with an arched brow. "Is that the truth?"

  "Want me to show you more scars?" He reached to undo his pants.

  Laughing, Ushara quickly stopped him. "You are so not what I expected from a tiziran."

  He scoffed. "Trust me, we don't hold the market share on asshole. There's plenty of that to go 'round."

  Sadly, he was right about that. Ushara moved so that she could pick up the tray. "Are you still hungry?"

  "Want the polite answer or the truth?"

  "Truth."

  "I haven't eaten in almost five days. Where do you think the hole in my boot came from? Notice it's the same size and shape as my fangs?"

  Smiling at his flippant answer, she didn't want to be charmed by him. Yet ...

  "Come with me."

  As they left the infirmary, she almost collided with Vasili who was walking briskly toward her. He backed up sheepishly.

  "Vas ... what are you doing?"

  "I, um ... um...." Her precious baby glanced around as if searching for an answer she'd buy.

  She loved whenever he tried to lie. He was so bad at it.

  Vasili looked up at Jullien. "Are you all right, Alteske?"

  "Call me Dagger, and I'm fine. How 'bout you, luden? They didn't hurt you, did they?"

  "Nah. But Mum almost killed me with her flying. Were you awake when we escaped?"

  "No, I missed that."

  "Be grateful. Half the crew is still upchucking from it."

  Ushara rolled her eyes.

  "But Ma, you should have seen the tiziran fight. It was awesome! He kicks more butt than you do."

  She arched her brow. "Gyron Force, you said?"

  "Uh, no. Their prepubescent sister, actually. I got rather tired of her flushing my head in the toilets whenever she visited. Worst part about living in a palace? Turbo flush. Toilets so powerful, you fear they're going to suck out a kidney if you're still on them when you pull the handle. Quite certain I lost a few brain cells before I learned to beat her off me."

  His delivery was so dry and deadpan that she wasn't quite sure if he was serious or not.

  "Joking?"

  He arched a regal brow. "Would one ever joke about turbo flush, commode shampoos, missing brain cells, or Amazonian cousins? What kind of beings do you typically associate with?"

  "Normal ones."

  "Really? Lot of normal sign on with The Tavali, do they?"

  She went cold at his question. "Who said anything about The Tavali?"

  He gave her the most arrogant cock of his head. "No one. Certainly not me."

  Damn, he was perceptive. Unnerved by it, she led him to the galley where she set the tray down on the counter.

  Jullien pulled back to shadow the doorway as he saw that the room was occupied.

  Ushara inclined her head at the cook. Short and round with blue skin and bright green eyes, Daryn had been a member of Gavin's crew for a number of years. "Daryn. How's it going?"

  He wiped his hands on his apron before he took the tray. "Better with Gavin at the helm."

  "Would you stop?" She turned toward Jullien. "What would you like?"

  All friendliness and teasing were now gone. His handsome features stern and deadly, Jullien lingered his hand on his blaster as he eyed the cook warily. "I'm good. Thank you." With his back to the wall, he drifted into the hallway.

  Confused by his sudden turn around, Ushara left Vasili in the galley to follow after the prince, who was already halfway to the infirmary. "Jullien?"

  He slowed his long stride. "Yes?"

  "I thought you were hungry?"

  "I can make do. Thank you, though, mu tara. How much longer till you jettison me?"

  "Why are you so nervous?"

  "Not nervous. Circumspect." He handed her his link with the bounty sheet on it again. "For that amount cred, I'm lucky I can trust myself not to shoot me in the back. Therefore, I prefer to stay in areas where I don't tempt others."

  "You have a point."

  "Yes. And it's not just the one on top of my head." Without so much as a whisper of a boot click, he drifted into the shadows and returned to the infirmary.

  Ushara couldn't believe that she actually felt sorry for a member of the aristocracy. The Andarion aristocracy, no less. She'd been raised to hate them with everything she had.

  And yet ...

  She couldn't get the sight of his scars out of her mind. His shoddy, bedraggled clothes. The tired resignation and torment in his hazel eyes. Or his quirky humor that kept catching her off guard.

  "Mum?"

  She turned at the sound of Vasili's voice. "You need something?"

  "Where did the tiziran go?"

  "He wasn't feeling well."

  "Oh. Should I take him some food?"

  She frowned at the uncharacteristic question. It wasn't like Vasili to care about a stranger. While her son was a good boy, he was normally very cautious and fearful around others.

  Ever since his father's death, he'd been withdrawn from the world. A shadow of the vibrant child who'd worshiped every breath Chaz had drawn. They had been so close that after Chaz's death, Vas hadn't spoken for almost a year. He'd been so traumatized and forlorn by the event that she'd begun to fear she'd never see her son again.

  Now, after one encounter with the prince, Vasili was almost the boy she remembered.

  How strange that Jullien had sparked something inside him and brought back his trust ...

  "Sure. And can I ask a question?"

  Vasili scratched at his nose. "Okay."

  "Why are you so attached to the tiziran?"

  Shrugging, Vasili screwed up his face. "He had no reason to care, Mum. And he did. He gave me his link, blaster, and wallet to go home to you and then was willing to die so that I could get away. I don't know. It just meant something to me the way he did it. No one but you has ever stood and fought for me like that before. He was like a real-life hero. Like the War Hauks you used to read to me about."

  And that meant everything to her. Smiling, she drew Vasili into her arms and kissed his head. "You're getting so tall. Soon I'll be looking up at you."

  "God, I hope so. I'd hate to be this short as a grown-up. You think I'll be as tall as Basha Dimitri?"

  "Taller."

  He smiled. "I'll go get the tiziran some food."

  "Okay, and Vas?"

  He paused to look back at her.

  "You probably shouldn't keep calling him that. It could get him into trouble. Just call him Dagger like he said, okay?"

  Nodding, he headed for the galley while she went to the infirmary to check on their guest.

  As she opened the door, she caught Jullien with his shirt pulled up, examining his wound. "Is everything all right?"

  He jerked the shirt over it. "Fine."

  She didn't believe that for an instant. "How bad is it?" She crossed the room and reached to see for herself.

  He stepped out of her way. "It's fine."

  "Let me see what you've done."

  "I'd rather you not."

  "Why?"

  With an irritated growl, Jullien turned her to face the small mirror over the sink. The anguished pain in his eyes was searing as he met her gaze. "I have enough reminders of things I can't have. The last thing I need or want is to feel the hands of a beautiful female touching me when I know how repugnant I am to you, especially that intimately. I'd rather bleed to death first." He glanced down at her hair with such bitter longing that it actually brought a lump to her throat before he stepped back and looked away.

  Sitting down, he pulled out his link and stared at it. "Just let me know when it's time to leave."

  "You're not repugnant."

  He snorted a rude contradiction.

  "What's that about?"

  "It means I don't believe you, mu tara. I have much evidence to the contrary, including the way your lip involuntarily curls every time you glance in my general direction, as if I'm a pile of flaming excrement someone has lit on fire and placed on your doorstep."

  Ushara hated how much those words made her ache for him. Worse? She hated the fact that she'd done that to him, at all. And here she'd thought she'd been hiding her distaste for his birthright and family. Apparently, she was as bad as everyone else, and just as quick to judge.

  She swept her gaze over his long, lean body. Over his clean, shoddy clothes that were so old and torn, and yet he wore them with masculine swagger and wounded pride.

  Only he could carry off something that shabby and still make it look sexy and lethal.

  "When was the last time you slept in an actual bed?"

  The fact he had to stop and consider it broke her heart. But not as much as the answer. "I don't know."

  "A month?"

  He sighed before he answered. "Longer.... at least."

  She winced at his whispered words. And before she could stop herself, her sympathy spoke for her. "Then how about you come back with us?"

  He scowled up at her. "Back where?"

  "To our base. You can find work there. Safe housing where no one will hunt you. Do you have any skills?"

  He gave her a cocky grin. "I'm particularly skilled at pissing off everyone around me. Quite exceptional at it, point of fact. Been known to do so by merely entering a room."

  She laughed. "Anything more marketable?"

  "Yeah. Engineering and mechanics. If it has a motherboard, or electronics, I can run it, design it, or repair it."

  Impressive. If he wasn't lying. "We can always use those skills. Ever worked on ships?"

  "Custom-built my first fighter from the ground up."

  She gaped at him. "Seriously?"

  He slid his link into his pocket and gave her a bemused stare. "Given how many individuals passionately hate my guts, most of them very close relatives in line for my throne, you honestly think I'd trust anyone to touch something with mechanical moving parts and fuel injection systems that could horrendously explode with me trapped inside it, and it look like an easy accident where I'm burned beyond all recognition? Really?"

  "Paranoid much?"

  With an arrogant arch of his brow, he snorted derisively. "Second most hated being on all of Andaria. Most hated prince in the entire history of the Triosan empire--that's not my boasting, they actually took polls and wrote articles about it. I won. Hands down. No contest. Ten years straight on Andaria. And let me reiterate that my own grandmother murdered my grandfather during a PMS hissy fit, the majority of her family, my twin brother when we were only five--or at least tried to, and my mother slaughtered a number of her own siblings, including my doppelganger ... Paranoia, insomnia, and an overly high degree of extreme flexibility and peripheral vision are the only reasons I'm still breathing. Go me." His tone was drier than the Oksanan desert.

  But it left her with one question. "What did you do to the Triosans that they would hate you so much?"

  He sighed wearily. "I have the grave misfortunate of being born to an Andarion mother."

  Yeah, right. "Seriously, what did you do to them?"

  "I have an Andarion birth mother," he repeated in a slow, steady tone. "Seriously. They embrace Nykyrian because he looks like our father and somehow that allows them to see past his fangs. I have dark hair and favor no one they know. Just enough red in my eyes that it throws them. Somehow that makes all the difference to remind them that I'm Andarion, and therefore am unfit to be part of the Triosan royal family."

  "And your father?"

  He lifted his head to pin her with an irritated smirk. "Is this my therapy session? Yes, Dr. Tavali, I have father issues. And mother issues. I didn't bond with either parent during my formative years. Brace yourself. I had no positive role models growing up, and therefore I react badly in most situations. Tend to act out in extreme, self-destructive ways. In short, I'm an abrasive, unlovable asshole with antisocial tendencies. It's all my fault that I ended up like this. I accept it fully. I don't blame my parents for how I turned out. There's no need. Since they weren't there during my childhood, I don't see how they're responsible for my adulthood. I'm the one who raised me and I sucked at it. Never could keep a pet for long either. They always bonded to someone else and left me. Even my pet fish jumped from their bowls to commit suicide rather than suffer my boorish company."

  Vasili opened the door and brought in another tray.

  Instantly, Jullien's entire demeanor changed. And for the first time, she realized that he always buried his stern glower whenever Vasili was around. He softened his features to a much kinder expression. Brotherly and tolerant.

  "I brought you some food, Alte ... J-J-Jullien?"

  He smiled. "Jullien's fine. Thanks, luden. You shouldn't have troubled yourself."

  "No trouble. Do you like cookies?"

  Jullien sat up. "Are you kidding? They're the best. You're going to share them with me, though, right?"

  "Um, sure." Vasili sat beside him and picked up a cookie from the tray.

  Ushara took a moment to watch the two of them. Jullien was far kinder with Vasili than anyone else. Though there was still a trace of the regal tiziran in his movements, he was much more approachable.

  "So are you interested in the job?" she asked, turning their conversation back to her offer.

  Vasili glanced up with wide eyes. "Job?"

  "I offered the tiziran work at the base."

  Jullien hesitated as he ate. Swallowing, he reached for his drink. "I have to be paid in hard notes or cronas. Nothing traceable. Same for housing."

  "Understood."

  Vasili blinked with a hopeful expression. "Please come work for us! You'll love it there!"

  Jullien gave him an adorable grin. "Okay. I'll try it."

  "Good. Let me tell Gavin to change our course. You two stay out of trouble." On her way out the door, Ushara didn't miss the sight of Jullien handing the last cookie off to Vasili for him to eat. Even though she knew Jullien was starving, he still gave it to her son who had no idea how ragged the male's clothes were. How long the tiziran had gone without anything to eat.

  Mystified and touched by Jullien's unexpected kindness toward her child, she headed for the bridge to tell them.

  While she expected some resistance from her cousin, the all-out anger from him was rather unwarranted.

  "Are you out of your mind, Shara? Do you know he is?"

  "I know."

  "No, I don't think you do." Gavin pulled Jullien's warrant file up on the monitor.

  "I already saw it."

  "Did you see this?" He showed her Jullien's Andarion criminal court records. And she had to admit, it was quite a lengthy file. "He's been in and out of lock-up since he was ten years old. Only reason he hasn't done time is his last name. Apparently, Mummy spent a lot of time pulling strings and dragging his entitled ass out of trouble."

  Ushara scrolled through the charges and Jullien's old mugshots. She barely recognized the young tiziran as the same grown male in her infirmary. Ignoring the fact that he'd been extremely overweight back then, his face was battered in most of them. Black eyes. Busted nose and lips. Scratches. His skin sallow, and eyes sunken. While he stood with an arrogant pride, the boy in those pictures appeared haunted, soul-weary, and bitterly angry.

  And though he apparently had liked to brawl at a very early age, this was not the lethal, wary male who'd cut through trained killers while wounded to save her son.

  As for the arrests ... most were for fighting and public intoxication, but the rest were possession, destruction of public property, perjury, breaking-and-entering into government buildings, vandalism--he'd once defaced his grandmother's image on the capitol building at Eris--resisting arrest, misuse of public vehicles, indecency, and one charge for urinating on law enforcement equipment. That she could almost respect, depending on the events that had led up to it. "You know, your juvenile records are worse than this."

  "Yeah, but I didn't graduate to murder, treason, espionage, and kidnapping."

  She noticed Gavin made no mention of his own theft charges. But then, they were pirates.

  Frowning, she read through the file until she saw the specifics of his current warrant.

  Damn. Jullien had aided in the kidnapping of his sister-in-law. That was also part of his treason charge. He'd murdered a cousin and several Andarion guards while escaping custody. Had given out information on the former queen that had led to her arrest and overthrow so that his mother could take the throne, hence the rest of the treason and espionage charges. Ratted out some cousins named Merrell, Chrisen, and Nyran to the rebels and Sentella, and had helped another named Parisa escape. Then he'd set her up to be captured by the new regime.

  Yeah, it was all rather bad. None of it made him particularly sympathetic or trustworthy.

  Ushara winced as she saw that his aunt Tylie, as acting tadara, was the one who'd signed the orders for him to be arrested originally on Andaria and exiled from their territory, and that his grandmother was the one who'd sent the orders to The League with a request for an execution warrant and bounty. As well as the orders for his Outcast status.

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