Born of Legend (88 page)

She led him from her office out toward the street. “Do you love her?”

“I'm Trisani,” he said simply as he held the door for her.

She hesitated at his answer. “Not sure what that means.”

He followed after her. “We don't have casual sex, Ushara. Ever. As much as we hear internal thoughts just standing next to someone, you don't want to know how much more we know about them when we're that intimately connected to them. There's a reason why Trajen and I are solitary creatures. And we damn sure don't share domiciles with someone voluntarily. That takes a special level of commitment and torture you can only appreciate if you're one of us.” He quirked a charming grin. “Especially when you're involved with someone as spirited and open as Mary. Your sister holds nothing back, and can be quite overwhelming.”

Ushara laughed at his tactful description. Mary was definitely an acquired taste. “Very true. So how long have you two been seeing each other?”

“Our son's due about two months after yours.”

She stumbled. Thrāix caught her and set her back on her feet. “We just found out it was a boy two days ago.”

“I know.”

And that was the eerie part about being with a Trisani. Ushara was barely showing
her
pregnancy, and they were only now medically able to determine the gender of her baby, yet Thrāix already knew the gender of his child and most likely the exact day their son would be born.

Which made her wonder something. “Did you know the first time you met Mary that you'd be involved with her?”

“It doesn't quite work that way.”

“What do you mean?”

“We have a degree of control over our destinies. So while I knew it was possible, I tried to behave.”

“Meaning?”

“Your sister is a hard female to deny, especially when she sets her mind to something. She's the real reason I stayed here instead of returning to my base when war broke out. I wanted to make sure I was close by should she need me. And I didn't want her flying to my base to track me down.” There was no missing the way his voice softened when he spoke of Mary. Or the way his eyes sparked.

He did love her.

Grateful that Mary had finally found someone who could appreciate her peculiar charms, Ushara opened the door to her condo. The twins rushed her and Thrāix with an excited scream that all but pierced her eardrums.

Jullien laughed at them. “So much for trying to get their shoes on them.”

Thrāix swung Mira up over his shoulder and held her upside down while she laughed and kicked. “I think we can get some shoes on this one. If we hurry.”

Ushara caught his gaze behind Jullien's back.
Does he know?
she mouthed.

“Do I know what?” Jullien asked without looking at her.

Ushara gaped at his hidden talents. “How do you do that?”

“Lived in a palace with enemies plotting against me. I can literally see through walls.” He scowled at her. “What are you two up to?”

Thrāix tickled Mira before he used his powers to put her shoes on her feet. “He only knows because he walked in on us once.”

Jullien grimaced. “Oh, crap. She found out about her sister?”

Ushara gasped as she glared her husband. “You knew and never told me?”

“Mary swore me to secrecy.”

Gasping again, she popped him on the bottom.

Mira sucked her breath in sharply as she looked at her sister. “Mama spanked Paka!”

“Yes, I did. He kept a big secret from me.”

Jullien rubbed at his posterior. “What's the big deal?”

“The big deal is that my sister is now pregnant.”

Freezing, Jullien arched a brow at Thrāix. “Hell of a kiss, huh?”

Thrāix rolled his eyes. “Yes, my powers are
that
extreme. I can impregnate with my lips alone. Fear me.”

Mira tugged at her father's sleeve. “What's
impregnate
mean, Paka?”

He brushed her hair back from her face. “Lyra Mary is having a baby like Mama.”

Viv clapped her hands together. “We're having two babies?”

“Kind of,” Ushara explained. “Mary and I will have our boys close together. They'll almost be twins like you and Mira.”

Mira clapped her hands together. “So Basha Thrāix will be our real basha?”

Jullien nodded. “Yes.”

Both twins ran and hugged him.

“Till your graspa turns him into your lyra.”

Ushara snorted at Jullien's sarcasm, which confused them. “Stop!”

“I don't know,” Thrāix said as he hugged the girls. “He's probably not too far off the mark.”

After they herded the girls out the door to head to her parents', Ushara saw that Jullien had been watching the news as he turned the monitor off and locked the condo.… Which meant he'd most likely seen the report about his mother and her newest additions to the Andarion royal family.

Sobering, she allowed Thrāix to walk ahead with the girls, toward her parents' house. “You okay?”

He shrugged his jacket on. “Fine.”

“Jules…”

He settled it on sideways as he always did, but she fixed it for him while they walked. “Really, Shara. I'm good. Yes, it hurt at first when I heard it. But my cousins and I were the main reason Fain Hauk was Outcast from his lineage. So I'm good with my mother taking him in. It feels right. I'm actually glad she did it. He deserves to have a family again.”

“Okay. If you're sure?”

“Really. I swear.” He tucked his scarf around the scars on his neck and put his red glasses on.

Deciding to believe him, she had just set it from her mind when they entered her parents' house and her link buzzed. It was the base comptroller.

Weird. They almost never called her.

She answered it while Jullien and Thrāix took the girls to Nadya and her sister's to play and say hi to Oxana.

At first, she didn't understand what they were telling her. It was hard to hear over the boisterousness of her family. “What? Can you repeat that?”

When she did, Ushara felt the room tilt.

“I said, Admiral, that a rogue group hit the convoy that was headed in. Right now, we're not showing any survivors. What do you want us to do?”

Ushara dropped the link as her stomach pitched hard and she stumbled against the wall.

Jullien turned toward her at the same time Thrāix went pale. No doubt from having heard her thoughts.

Numb, she swallowed before she told her parents and family what they'd just told her. “Mary and Ryna's convoy was hit.…”

 

C
HAPTER
34

Jullien and Ushara flew out on the
Pet Hate,
while Thrāix headed up the
Vengeance
with Zellen and Unira on board. Trajen and Davel ran point behind them on their own ships. Because they were emotionally overwrought and worthless in that condition, the rest of the Altaans had been left behind, including Vasili.

“How you doing over there, Thrāix?” Jullien asked as they went to investigate what had happened to the convoy.

“I'm not burying another wife and child.” His tone was deadpan.

“Wife? What?” Davel's voice broke through the static. “Child? Did I hear that right? Who did Thrāix marry?”

“We'll talk about that later,” Trajen said, cutting Davel off mid-tantrum.

As they neared Mary's last known coordinates, Jullien took Ushara's hand in his. What he saw made him sick to his stomach for her as his own grief and anger choked him. He loved Mary and Ryna, too. Since the early days of their marriage, her sisters had been welcoming and warm to him, especially Mary.

Damn it!

How could this have happened?

There was twisted wreckage all over this sector. Tears glistened in Ushara's eyes as she saw the remnants of her sisters' ships and the remains of a brutal, nasty fight. Her family had fought hard.

It just hadn't been enough.

Gutted, Jullien struggled to keep his emotions in check for Ushara. And he knew she was doing the same. How she managed to hold it together, he had no idea. This had to be tearing her apart. Yet she maintained her composure like a champ.

No, she held herself like the military commander she was.

Never had he respected her more. Though, to be honest, he wouldn't have faulted her for losing it under these circumstances.

Clearing his throat, he went over the readings, wanting the lifeblood of whoever was responsible.

“This wasn't a League hit.” The League didn't leave a charred mess like this. They were clinical and precise. Had they gone after the convoy, they'd have left a team of sweepers who'd have removed all the debris to keep anyone else from running into it—or from seeing this as a warning that they were patrolling this sector. Plus, they'd have teams still in the vicinity, waiting for accomplices to show so they could arrest them.

Which Jullien and the others had been prepared to fight and evade.

But there were no League ships here. Not patrols or scouts.

Ushara glared at the damage that had been wrought. “This looks like Mavericks. They're the only ones I know who would leave behind this kind of destruction as a sign of pride that they were here. But I've never known them to hit us before.”

Neither had Jullien. Because the Mavericks were another pirate group, like The Tavali, they had an understanding that they'd leave each other's ships and crews alone. Otherwise, it invited a nasty retaliation that could quickly escalate to open warfare.

It just wasn't done. It'd never been done in the history of their worlds. The Mavericks might unite with The Tavali to prey on The League or other governments. But they
never
went after each other.

Jullien opened the channel. “Are you guys picking up anything?”

“No.” Trajen's voice was cold. Empty.

When Thrāix didn't answer, Jullien scowled at Ushara. “Sparda? You there?”

“I want blood, Andarion. No one's getting out of this alive.” Thrāix's ship went off their scanners as he shot out of their range.

“Ah shit,” Jullien breathed. “Tray, can you trace him?”

“No. You?”

“No, but I got a bad feeling I know where he's going. Follow me.” Jullien used his powers to fly into the last sector he wanted to venture.

Ushara turned to stare at him as she saw their new heading. “Solaras? Why are we going there?”

“I guess I'm feeling suicidal,” he answered sarcastically.

The only places worse for him were the Arcadian and Tryga Systems—the two ruled by his parents, where he was exiled. What made Solaras more dangerous for him was the small fact that it was controlled by The Sentella and Porturnum.

More precisely, it was where Nyran and Eriadne were currently shacked up, along with the majority of those who wanted Jullien most dead. If he had an enemy who lived to gut him, they seemed drawn to this particular sector.

So naturally, it was where Thrāix decided to have his nervous breakdown.

Effing figures. So much for my pardon.

His stomach knotted with dread and grief, Jullien led them to Barataria—the heart of Maverick-controlled territory.

While the Porturnum ruled a portion of the sector, the Mavericks dominated the majority of it. For that matter, the entire system was known for its spirited lawlessness. As well as the fact that no matter how hard The League tried, they couldn't quite bring it under heel. There was just something about the beings who called this area home, that they wouldn't be tamed. No matter how heavily patrolled or how many centuries went by, the Solaras System remained one of the raunchiest and deadliest in the Nine Worlds.

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, Thrāix 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 Thrāix 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 Thrāix 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?”