Jullien settled down instantly. His breathing remained heavy and ragged, his body tense, but with her pressed against him, he didn't move.
By the time Thraix finally pulled back and let go, he was pale and shaking. Weak. He stumbled and almost fell. When Trajen went to help him, he curled his lip at him. "I'm fine."
Trajen held his hands up and backed off.
Jullien was unconscious.
Terrified, Ushara rose up and started to wake him, but Trajen stopped her. "He needs to rest. His brain's healing right now. Don't disturb him."
"Are you sure?"
He nodded.
She glanced to Thraix for confirmation.
"He's being honest. Jullien's fine from this." But there was an odd note to his tone.
"What does that mean?"
Thraix shook his head. "Has Jullien ever talked to you about his family?"
"Some."
Wiping the blood from his nose, Thraix let out a bitter laugh. "No. He hasn't." He met Trajen's gaze. "You haven't really gone into his past, have you?"
"Hell no. The unintentional bits I've caught scarred me enough that I keep my shields up around him at all times."
When Thraix glanced to Jory, he shook his head. "I don't really have those powers."
"Be glad." He turned his attention back to Trajen and drew a shaky breath. "How the hell does he manage to trust anyone? With anything?"
"I don't think he does."
Sniffing against the blood, Thraix cleared his throat. "Ushara? Walk with me."
"What about Jullien?"
"He's not going anywhere. Besides, Jory and Trajen are here with him."
Reluctantly, she followed him from the room. He didn't take her far. Just outside the door. There, he turned and narrowed his gaze on her. "There's something I think you need to see."
"What do you mean?"
He held his hand out to her. "It's about Jullien. If you want to really understand him..."
She took his hand, then gasped as she instantly saw images of Jullien as a young male in the Andarion palace. He was dressing alone, preparing for his graduation ceremony from primary school. But what burned her was the turmoil inside him. Instead of the joy she'd felt when she was his age and getting ready for her ceremony with her sisters surrounding her, he was utterly despondent.
He winced as he caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror. His eyes were hollow from the drugs Merrell had been feeding him. And he was so pale, his skin rivaled the whiteness of his shirt. He felt ill and dizzy. Nauseated and weak. But he'd worked hard for this, and he was determined to stand strong and be there tonight in spite of them all.
Determined to hold his head high, he pulled his jacket on and buttoned it, then wiped at the clammy sweat on his forehead. He checked the time. His valet should have been back by now with his water.
Whatever.
His link rang. Picking it up, he saw that it was his father. Joy brought a rare smile to his face that his father had arrived early to pick him up and take him to school. "Paka! I was just--"
"Your Highness? This is His Majesty's secretary. Unfortunately, the emperor has a pressing issue that has come up, and he must cancel his appointment with you today. He regrets that he can't be there. But this is an urgent matter of national importance and can't wait. Thank you for your understanding." He cut the transmission.
Jullien stood there in stunned disbelief as his joy withered under a staggering wave of disappointment.
A pressing issue?
Seriously? Tears gathered to choke him, but he held them back.
Of course his father had something else to do. He always did. Why should today be any different than normal? And there wasn't anything pressing about Triosan security that needed his father's attention. Did his father forget that he watched the news, too?
Screw it.
Trying not to think about it or the fact that his father had probably forgotten to add it to his calendar, he finished buttoning his coat and put himself together as best he could. Once he had himself impeccably groomed, he left his room and tried not to let his father's callousness hurt him. He should have known better than to expect anything else.
With a deep sigh, he hesitated as he passed by his mother's suite of rooms. They were eerily quiet.
Hurt and wanting comfort, Jullien went toward the doors. His breathing ragged, he put his hand on the knob, then stopped short of turning it.
Don't. She'll just yell at you.
If she even knew it was him. Most of the time nowadays, she thought he was his uncle, come to kill her. Ever since he'd hit puberty, she couldn't tell them apart. One look at his face and she would scream and threw something at him.
Aching to the core of his soul over something he couldn't change, he pressed his head to the door and splayed his hand against it, wanting her love and approval with everything inside him.
Suddenly, the door opened.
Jullien stumbled into the room to meet the startled gasp of his mother's favorite guard, Lieutenant Galene Batur. Tall and gorgeous, she hated every one of his guts and didn't hesitate to let him know it.
"Why are you skulking outside the door?"
His hurt turned to anger. "I wasn't skulking. I wanted to see my matarra."
The unusual sound of his mother's laughter stunned him.
"She's awake and alert?"
Galene didn't speak as he stepped around her and into the room. He followed the sound of his mother singing to find her in a rocking chair with a young boy in her lap. Talyn Batur. The sight struck him like a kick in the groin, especially since the child held one of Nykyrian's prized toys that his mother didn't allow anyone to so much as breathe on without a shrieking fit.
"What's this, Yaya Tizirah?"
His mother smiled down at the boy and smoothed his long hair back from his face before she kissed him. "It's a lorina, like you!" She tickled him until he squealed in laughter.
"Matarra?"
Sobering, she met Jullien's gaze. "What are you doing here?"
The sharpness of her tone cut through him like a knife. "It's my graduation night. Do you not remember?"
She tightened her grip on Galene's son. "You're not supposed to be in here." She stood up with Talyn and cuddled him in her arms. Something she'd never done with Jullien. "Get out! Guards!"
"Matarra? I'm not Eadvard. It's me ... Jullien. Don't you remember?"
"My son's dead. You killed him."
Galene took his arm. "You should leave, Alteske. You're upsetting her."
He felt the childish urge to shout that she was his mother, not Talyn's. But he knew it wouldn't do any good. Instead, he allowed Galene to push him out and shut the door in his face.
Jullien turned to find Tylie rushing toward him while his mother continued to shriek from inside the room.
"What did you do now?"
"Nothing."
Shoving at him, she pinched him on the arm. "You know better than to disturb Cairie. Why can't you leave her alone and let her be happy?"
"I happen to be her son."
"Then act like it and do something for her, you selfish little bastard."
His breathing intensified under the hatred in her gaze. "And whose fault is it that I'm bastard-born? I'm not the whore who screwed a human dog."
Tylie slapped him. "You filthy mongrel! That's your mother you're insulting! Why don't you go sober up for once? You reek of alcohol!"
Wiping the blood from his lips, he watched as she entered his mother's room and left him alone.
His link went off, warning him it was time to leave for his graduation.
Jullien pulled it out and turned the alarm off, then slammed it against the floor and stomped it. There was no need to go. He'd been to enough ceremonies where his family abandoned him and left him to stand alone. He had no desire to attend another one. It was too embarrassing to be the only one there with no family present. To have to make excuses and to see the mockery or pity in the eyes of others.
Disgusted, he headed for the study, intending to grab a bottle of the strongest Tondarion whisky his grandmother had in her cabinet and have his own celebration in his room. But as he reached the foyer, he met Merrell coming through the main palace door.
"What are you doing?" Merrell had demanded.
Disgusted, Jullien held his hands out. Was he totally stupid? Couldn't he tell he was headed for alcohol? "What does it look like?"
Merrell's eyes had flared as he shoved Jullien toward the study that had been his destination. He literally threw him into the room and shoved the doors closed behind them. "Are you out of your mind? You can't go to graduation!"
Jullien's contentious spirit kicked in. If Merrell was so thick he couldn't figure out he'd already abandoned that idea, far be it from him to correct the moron. "You don't order me, asshole!"
Merrell grabbed his collar in an angry fist. "Have you given thought to what would happen if someone were to see you and that hybrid bastard together and realize he was your twin? You can't risk this!"
Rolling his eyes, Jullien shoved Merrell away. "You don't tell me what to do! I'm the tahrs! Not you!"
Merrell caught him in a headlock and twisted him, pinning him to the ground.
Jullien tried to speak, but the way he was held, he couldn't say another word. All he could do was wheeze and choke.
"I'll see you dead before I let you jeopardize our lives!" Merrell injected him.
A few heartbeats later, everything went black.
Ushara came out of the memory, gasping. "His cousin overdosed him on his graduation night?"
Thraix nodded. "What I didn't show you was his grandmother's reaction to it all. Because he wasn't in the top one percent of his class, she refused to acknowledge it. To quote the bitch, I don't celebrate mediocre accomplishments. And the whole reason he wasn't in the top one percent had nothing to do with his abilities, intelligence, or study habits as much as it did with the fact that he was a hybrid prince attending a predominately Andarion school, and overweight, and neither of his parents gave a shit when his teachers attacked him and lowered his grades out of jealousy and spite. He had one teacher who took off an entire grade because he handed the paper to her upside down. He never had anyone champion him, for anything."
She swallowed hard against the swell of pain inside her. "I knew it was bad. But I had no idea just how isolated he was."
Thraix took her hand. "I want to show you one more thing."
"I'm not sure I can take it."
"Yeah, you can. You need to see this."
She doubted it until she took his hand and saw herself through Jullien's eyes.
It was the day she'd brought him clothes and taken him for breakfast. There was no way to describe the feelings inside him when he'd opened the door and seen her. An act of random kindness that she hadn't thought very much about--she'd have done it for most anyone. But one that had changed his life and given him his first taste of compassion.
That single morning had changed his entire perspective and outlook--had given him hope.
And made him hopelessly hers, forever.
That succeeded in breaking her completely. Sobbing, she let go and staggered back.
Thraix didn't take pity on her. "I wanted you to understand what he'll never be able to say to you. The depth of emotion mere words won't ever convey. I thought you should know. I didn't have the chance to tell the woman I loved like that what she meant to me, and I've had to live out my life wondering what it would have been like had Julia fully understood what she was to me."
He swallowed hard. "I know you've been hurt, Ushara. That you're afraid of losing him. Life is never the fairy tale they sold us on when we were kids. More often, it's the nightmare we can never wake from. What they don't tell us when we're little is that the trick is to find the one who will be there in the middle of the night to hold us when we're screaming and tell us that it'll be all right. The one who doesn't shirk or run from our nightmares, but who holds us through them and makes sure we never face them alone. I promise that I will do everything in my power to make sure you don't lose him."
"Thank you."
Nodding, he stepped away from her. "When he wakes, he'll be extremely ill. Don't be too concerned. It's normal. He'll have a high fever. Chills. Severe headache. Dizziness. Disoriented. Confusion. Even vomiting. Some motor control might be compromised. Things to watch for are slurred speech and memory loss. Vision problems. Nose bleeds. Numbness in his extremities. If he has any of those, let me know immediately."
"Okay." Wiping at her tears, she returned to the room where Jullien had yet to move.
Jory and Trajen scowled at her, but didn't say a word. Rather, they withdrew to give her privacy.
Alone with Jullien, she sat on the bed and pulled the collar back from his neck so that she could gently finger the scars where Merrell and Parisa had injected their venom into him for years. And not carefully. The scars showed their savagery where they'd purposefully stabbed the injectors to cause him as much pain as possible and to make it obvious to everyone that Jullien was using.
A true junkie would have hidden his use and chosen a concealed spot on his body to access his veins. Like everything else in his life, this was done to scar and humiliate him. To hold him up for public ridicule.
Worse? Once his guards had discovered him overdosed on the floor, his grandmother had punished him for it.
As had his father.
She winced as the images Thraix had shown her played through her mind, along with all the articles she'd read about Jullien. Those that had shown him alone in harsh rehab clinics where they'd sent him to recover and recuperate. Not the cozy, cushy ones most aristocrats were sent to, like the one they'd chosen for his mother.
No, his grandmother and father had sent him to the ones that were barely a step up from prison, where he'd been resented and hated. A target because of his noble birth by both the staff and other patients. Hospitals where he'd sat alone on visitation days in a solitary corner while everyone else spent time with their family and friends.
A weary soul.
"I will never leave you alone again," she whispered in his ear.
*
Jullien came awake with a start.
Ushara sat up instantly to let him know that she was still with him. "I'm right here, baby," she breathed, cupping his face.
Hissing, he placed the heel of his hand to his eye.
"I know. Thraix said your head would be hurting." She reached for the water on the table next to the bed. "Sip this slowly. It'll help."
To her astonishment, he obeyed. "How long have I been out?"
"A few hours."
"Shouldn't you be headed back for Vas?"
"He'll be fine with my parents and family for a couple of days. He knows we love him and that he can call us if he needs something. Right now, you need me more, and I don't want you here alone."
Jullien placed her hand on his cheek. The tender expression on his face seared her.
Until he opened his eyes. There was a strange light behind them. Dazed and haunted.
"Jullien?"
He started to get up, then cursed and stumbled. "Trajen!" His shout rumbled through the room. "Jory!"
"Baby, you need to get back in bed."
He wasn't listening. Instead, he was trying to get to the door.
Luckily, Thraix, Jory, and Trajen didn't dawdle in their rush to join them.
They stared at him in flabbergasted awe.
Trajen gaped. "What are you doing, Andarion?"
"Eriadne's going after Shara's brother. We have to get to Axl. Now!"
Ushara felt her stomach hit the floor. "What?"
Jullien tightened his grip on her hand. "That's what the bitch meant. She's got The League coming down on your brother. We have to warn him, or they're going to kill him."
CHAPTER 25
"What the hell did you create?"
Ushara drew up short as she entered the room with Trajen, Jory, and Thraix.
Thraix glared at Trajen for that accusation. "I did nothing you didn't ask me to do. You know what I know. Everyone responds differently to it. He's a hybrid being. His brain isn't wired like anyone else's."
Terror and panic mixed inside her over their fury. "What happened? Is Jullien in danger?"
"No," Jory said quickly. "Definitely not in danger. At least we don't think so."
Trajen let out a tired sigh as he turned to face her with pinched features. "Sit down, Ushara."
"Why?"
Thraix helped her to a chair. "Because we've accidentally made your husband Trisani."
Yeah, okay, she needed to sit. "W-w-what?"
Trajen nodded. "Somehow he's got more powers than just the ability to communicate with machines."
"We're not sure what all he can do yet." Thraix rubbed at his chin. "I've never heard of this happening. With anyone ... ever."
Jory made a sound of supreme disgust. "Man, why couldn't it have been me? I never catch the great breaks like this."
"Not sure this is that great a break." Thraix exchanged a brutal grimace with Trajen. "These powers are their own form of hell at times."
"Especially if you're not born with them." Trajen kept trying to signal her brother. "I can't get through to Axl. I've sent word to every ship we have near him ... but there's no way we can reach him in less than a week."
Tears filled her eyes. "I already called Dimitri and told him. But he's too far away to get to him, or Kirill, either, for that matter. No one can reach him in time to warn him. Eriadne picked her target well."
"She always did."
Ushara wanted to scream in frustration. "What are we going to do?"
Jory sighed. "I've got the word out to me sister and me Sep brothers and Ryn Cruel. He said he'd contact The Sentella and Wassies. With luck, one of them can get to Axl before The League does."
Thraix scowled. "What's that sound?"
"It's a ship starting. Dear gods, tell me he isn't..." Trajen ran for the bay.
Ushara ran after him, along with the others. She had the same bad feeling about Jullien that they did. And as she got to the bay, she cursed at the visual confirmation of Jullien's stubborn stupidity. "What's he thinking? He can't make it any faster than we can."
Trajen cursed. "I don't know."
Jory ran for his ship.
Trajen turned to Thraix. "Got a ship I can borrow?"
"Follow me."
Ushara ran after them. But as soon as she got on board, she realized the same thing Jory did.
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