Born of Betrayal (12 page)

She held her hands up in surrender. “Sorry.” She cocked her head to stare at him with an unsettling intensity. “So what went wrong with the two of you, anyway? Did you really love Omira that much?”

Fain pulled the small ring off his pinkie and handed it to Jayne. Everyone, including Dancer, assumed it was Omira's, and he'd never once corrected them. But the truth was when Omira had figured out who it originally belonged to, it'd driven her into the arms of a human. To this day, he could hear her cursing him for keeping it, even though he'd never once cheated on his wife.

At least not physically. And he'd done his best to keep his heart loyal to Omira, too. It wasn't his fault that it'd refused to leave Galene's hands.

When he'd left Omira after he'd caught her in bed with her ex, that tiny ring and the clothes on his back were the only possessions he'd taken with him.

He knew the moment Jayne deciphered the Andarion writing in the band. Her eyes widened and she let out a shocked gasp.

Shaking her head, she sighed. “Like father, like son.” She returned the ring to him. “You need to show
that
to Lena.”

He returned it to where it'd rested on his hand since he was eighteen. It was all he owned that he'd fight or die to keep, and many sentient beings had learned that lesson the hard way. “Why? So she can finish ripping my heart out? No, thanks. I've done enough damage to both of them. Best thing I can do is just stay out of their way and let them live as if I don't.”

Jayne caught his arm as he started past her. Scowling, she pulled her hand back to see it covered in blood. “You're hurt?”

“Not the first time. Won't be the last.” But as he started past her, the floor slanted. Next thing he knew, that fetid bitch known as gravity rose up and slapped him hard across the face.

*   *   *

Fain heard the monitors a split second before he opened his eyes and saw them. That he expected. What he never thought to see was Galene holding his hand.

I have to be dead.

He grimaced at her as she reached to call for the doctor.

“Don't move, Fain. You have a massive head injury.”

It must be bad. Even Talyn was standing in the doorway and had to move aside for the medics to come in and check him.

But honestly, to have them there, with him, he'd take the injury. For the tiniest moment, he allowed himself to pretend that he actually had a family that loved him.

He had a sort of brotherhood with The Tavali, but it wasn't the same as a real blood family and he knew it. End of the day, they wouldn't weep to see him gone. Wouldn't give his death much more than a passing
too bad
thought.

The last time he'd felt like he truly belonged to someone had been in Galene's arms when they were kids.

Never since.

Even now, he could still see her young, bashful face as she pressed her cheek to his and held his naked body close to hers. “I love you, Fain. I live only for the day of our unification when everyone will know exactly how much you mean to me. I shall scream it through the streets. Fain Hauk is my husband and I love him more than anything!”

Laughing, he'd rolled and pulled her body over his. “And I shall tattoo your Batur lineage all the way down my arm so that everyone will know that you mean more to me than even my own revered family heritage. A War Hauk I may be, but it is a Winged Batur who owns me. Mind, body, and soul. Forever.”

Fain glanced down at his left arm to the hand Galene held. Heat stung his cheeks.

Galene ran her hand over the sprawling Batur tattoo that entwined around his Tavali markings before she stepped back to allow the doctor to treat him. She moved to speak in a whisper to Talyn, who nodded, then left.

Fain heard the Andarion doctor speaking, but paid her no attention. Not while he was watching the only female who had ever held his heart.

Galene pressed her lips together as she tried to sort through the conflicting emotions Fain stirred. Especially those that had ripped through her with serrated talons the moment she'd stepped into his hospital room and had seen her specific Batur lineage inked in bold blue and black hues down his entire left arm.

Shoulder to wrist.

Nothing had ever shocked her more. Not even the time Talyn had repainted her walls with her favorite and extremely expensive lipstick when he'd been a toddler.

Fain hadn't borne that tattoo the last time she'd seen him naked.

No, it'd been done long after they'd parted ways. And she could tell by the way the tattoo had faded that he hadn't done it recently, either. He'd been carrying her lineage with him for years.

But why? Why would he have marked that on his flesh after abandoning her? None of this made sense.

How could he both abandon her
and
honor her lineage?

Talyn placed his hand on her shoulder. “You all right?”

“Not sure.” She glanced back toward Fain. “Tell me, honestly. What do you think of your father?”

“You've physically or verbally spanked my ass every time I've ever answered that question. Believe it or not, I can be taught.”

She snorted. “You hadn't met him
then
. Now…” She gestured toward the male she wanted to both kiss and kill.

Talyn let out a tired sigh. “What do you want me to say, Matarra? Like you, I'm still mad as hell at him for what he did to us. But I don't really know him well enough to comment on his motives or decency. He's a complete stranger to me.”

But he wasn't a stranger to her. At least he hadn't been, and in the back of her mind, she saw the precious boy she'd once loved.

Cursed with an obnoxious, bullying older brother who'd been possessed of a severe drug and alcohol problem, Fain had spent the better part of his youth trying to cover for Keris. Or worse, doing his best to protect his younger brother from everyone who thought Dancer was worthless, and should have been left out to die as an infant. Only Fain had ever seen the good in his little brother, and any time Dancer had been threatened, Fain had thrown himself into the line of fire to protect him.

Just like he'd done today for Talyn.

Why do I have to love the very creature I hate most?

Emotions shouldn't be
this
complicated.

Talyn pulled his link out to check it.

“Felicia?”

He shook his head. “I'm a little worried. I haven't heard from her since I left a message asking her to call, and that's not like her. She's not even responding to my nudges. You don't think anything happened, do you?”

“I'm sure she's fine. Did you contact her brother?”

“He said he spoke to her and that she's fine. Just really busy with work and the upcoming holidays.”

“Then don't worry so. She's ferocious.”

That finally made him smile. “True enough.” He returned his link to his pocket. “They need a battle report in the con. I'll go take care of it for you.”

She pressed her cheek to his. “Thank you.”

“Call if you need me.”

Galene watched as Talyn walked toward the nearest lift bank. He really was the very image of his father. Something brought home a second later when the doctor and nurses scattered out of the room like insects fleeing an exterminator.

“No one took your damn ring!” the doctor snarled before she and the others left him. “Up his dosage!” The doctor handed her pad to the nurse on her right. “And give him an enema while you're at it.”

Suppressing a smile at something that was far too similar to Talyn's soured demeanor whenever he was confined to a hospital bed, she slid into the room with a chiding tsk and used a phrase that Felicia normally said to Talyn in similar situations. “You should be nicer to the ones who give you shots.”

“I can't stand a thief,” Fain snarled.

“Interesting words coming from the mouth of a Tavali pirate.”

Fain sneered at her words. “Taking from a government drunk on its own power is one thing. Stealing from an individual—” His words stopped dead as she returned the ring to him.

“As I recall, it's my ring, is it not?”

A deep blush stained his caramel skin as she slid the ring back onto his pinkie to cover the lighter skin tone that said he never removed it from his hand.

“Why did you take it?” he groused.

“Again, it was mine.”

His eyes brittle, he clenched his fist around her ring. “That you hurled in
my
face.”

He was right. She'd wanted him to choke on it that day in the locker room. “I was a little distraught at the time.” She lifted his left hand to twist the ring on his finger. “Intriguing engraving you added inside the band. Should I ask why you felt so compelled?”

Anguish swam in his eyes. “What do you want me to say, Stormy? Please, for the love of the gods, give me the words that will make you forgive me for making the worst mistake of my life.”

Grief and pain choked her as she let her touch linger on his rough callouses—callouses that told her just how hard and harsh a warrior's life he'd led over the years. “No words,” she whispered as she brushed her fingers over the intricate Batur tattoo that ran the entire length of his arm. “What made you do this?”

“I told you I would.”

“A promise a boy made to a young girl … long ago, in the heat of passion.” She shook her head. “This makes no sense to me.”

He reached for her hand and slid it over his heart to hold it there. “There was only ever you for me, Galene.”

“Then why did you tell me you loved Omira?”

“I never did. You accused me of it. But I had never touched her until after you broke off our pledge. Never even really noticed her in our class while we were in school. It was a lie told that you believed.”

“Then why not tell me the truth?”

Pain racked him as he grappled with a past that left a bitter lump in his throat and a burning hole inside his heart. “Because you would have cried and begged me to stay with you. And I would have killed my brother to have you as my wife. I thought that if I was gone and you hated me for it that you'd marry Merrell and have a good life. That was all I ever wanted for you.”

A tear slid down her cheek. “I hate you, Fain Hauk.”

“And I love you, Galene Batur. Instead of engraving ‘Forever Galene's' inside your ring, I should have put ‘Galene's bitch' there instead. That's what I really am.”

A tear slid down her cheek. “You're such a bastard.”

He lifted her hand to his lips and placed a kiss to her palm, just like he'd done when they were kids. “Worthless from my first breath to my last.”

More tears followed as she saw the scars he bore. His body was a roadmap of the horrors he'd been through. Jayne was right. Nothing had ever been easy for Fain. “Why did you marry Omira if you loved me?”

“Given our last encounter in the locker room, I knew you were done with me. That you would never take me back. And you know my mother. Once our pledge was broken, my parents threw me out. I'd embarrassed them publicly. And after Chrisen and Merrell spread their lies, no Andarion female would have me. Not that I wanted one of them. But Merrell wanted you, bad enough to kill Dancer and Keris for it. That was what he told me he would do if I didn't leave you to him. I knew if I stayed on Andaria, I'd crawl back to you and bury my brothers, regardless of the guilt that would have killed me over it. While Omira wasn't my first choice, she was kind to me … at least, in the beginning. All I really was to her was an escape from the father she hated. Once the new wore off and she realized the nightmare of having an alien husband, she couldn't stand me either.”

“Yet you stayed?”

“We were married. I'd made an oath to her. Better or worse. I just didn't realize what all
worse
entailed. And a part of me believed I deserved every scar she carved on me for hurting you the way I did.”

Galene brushed her hand through his dark and bleached braids, straightening them over his chest. “I want to claw out your eyes and stab you until you're dead at my feet.”

He turned his head away.

She caught his chin and forced him to look at her. “I have always loved you, Fain Hauk. From the first moment I met you and you offered me a drink of your malt. You were the only thing in this life that I've ever wanted. Why did you never once come find me?”

He tightened his hand on hers. “Oh, Stormy, you have no idea how many times I wanted to. But by the time I was free again, so many years had gone by that I didn't dare. I figured you were married, with kids. And I knew the sight of you with someone else would destroy me. So I stayed as far away from you as I could. But you were always in my heart. Always.”

She would deny it, but the ink on his arm bore out his words with a bold, tangible honesty.

And so did the tormented sincerity in his eyes.

Galene trailed her hand over his tattooed shoulder and watched as chills sprang up on his skin in the wake of her touch. Her Hauk had always been the most beautiful of all males. Even now, he was everything to her.

“Where do we go from here, Fain?”

“I don't know. The last thing I want to do is hurt you any more. Or, gods forbid, worse.”

Before she could stop herself, she leaned down and placed a gentle kiss to his lips.

Fain closed his eyes as he savored the feel and taste of his precious Galene. Sucking his breath in sharply, he buried his hand in her braids and held her close. He lost himself to the taste of her, to the sweetness of her breath mixed with his. “Stay with me, Stormy. In all the darkness of my life, you are the only light I've ever known.”

She broke off their kiss with a sob. “I don't know if I can. I want to forgive you. I do. But it's not that easy. You didn't just break my heart, Fain. You shattered it. I've never been able to trust any male near me after what you did. None … only Talyn.”