Jullien smiled at something Ushara's nieces would have done as well. He could just imagine Nadya's reaction over it.
Exhausted from it all, Shahara and Zarya were now both napping on the floor, with their children nestled beside them while Ture changed Terek's nappy as the baby gnawed on his fist.
Looking up, Ture smiled and waved. "I'm all right, Mare-bear. T, too. We just want you to be safe." He held the freshly dressed Terek up to wave. "We love you."
Darling paused in the middle of whatever he was working on. "Yeah, Nyk, I don't trust your brother, either. He's a bloody, traitorous bastard. We know it. But ... he has given us one hell of a tactical advantage. The League thinks we're dead and that you're rattled and reactionary. So long as they think we're dead, they're not coming after us, and you can focus on kicking their asses with a clear head and single-minded objective. Use this to the best advantage possible, and don't let either of my brothers do anything stupid while I'm gone. I know I'm asking a lot, but I'd like to still have an empire when I get out of here." He cut his gaze back to Jullien. "And if your brother gets frisky, don't worry. I will end him. Shahara will help. She already took two shots at him."
Even more agitated at them, Jullien handed his link back to Thraix so that he could hold it while he addressed his brother. "Anyway, Nykyrian, I know you have absolutely no reason to trust me. And I know you're fighting with one hand tied behind your back so long as you're worried about whether or not I'm going to betray you when you least expect it. So as an act of good faith, to let you know that I understand that I hold in my hands everything in this universe you treasure, I've placed in your hands my very heart and soul. The very means by which to destroy me. And with you being a former League assassin, I know you won't hesitate to do so if I fuck this up.... I have your wife and family in my custody. So I have sent to you my wife, daughters, and sons. Please protect them.... I can't live without them, brother. They are all I have in this world. All that means anything to me. You are the only one I would ever trust them with."
Jullien paused as fear finally overtook him and he realized how much he had on the line.
Everything.
Tears choked him. "Shara, I love you, munatara a la frah. I'll be home as soon as I can. Don't you dare have Vidarri without me. And don't let Vasili fight without my brother winging him. I swear I'll loosen the noose on him soon, but he's not as skilled a fighter as he thinks he is, and I don't want to bury our son. He's just not ready to fight in this war. Kiss the girls for me, and tell Mira to be brave for her paka." He nodded at Thraix, who turned the link off and handed it to him.
Drawing a ragged breath, Jullien quickly sent the recording to Ushara with a note letting her know he was safe and that he would not break her heart. She was going to be stuck with him for the rest of her life.
Yeah, he was just that cruel.
He swallowed against the tears that gathered in his throat to choke him.
Thraix clapped him gently on the back. "Just breathe, little brother. You've been in worse predicaments. We both have."
He snorted. "Not helping." With a deep breath, he forced himself to focus on their immediate needs. Something hard to do, since Zarina kept fussing and crying.
Kiara couldn't seem to quiet her. And the gods forbid his mother should step in to aid with her granddaughter.
After a few minutes of them attempting a discussion over it and failing due to the distraction, Jullien went to Kiara.
"I'm sorry. I fed her, but she gets horrible colic. It's just her age, I'm told."
"It's not her age. Androkyn are a bit different from humans." He held his hands out for the baby. "May I?"
Nodding, she handed him her daughter.
Jullien tsked at his niece and spoke to her in his baby voice that always made Mira laugh whenever he used it. "What you doing, bytazifm? You trying to make Matarra lose her sanity?"
Kiara frowned at him. "Bytazifm?"
"Andarion word for tender bit or morsel." Jullien placed her so that she rested against his forearm. To keep her from squirming out and falling, he held her to his chest while he gently massaged her left side with two fingers until she finally belched and settled down to chew on his fingers. She instantly stopped crying.
Gaping, Kiara stared at him as if he'd just worked a miracle. "What did you do?"
"Our stomachs aren't quite in the same place as a human's. So when you attempt to burp an Andarion baby as you would a human, it doesn't work as well. We do better on our bellies."
"Hey, Dagger!"
Kiara reached for her daughter, but he was already across the room with Zarina. Sitting back, she tilted her head as she watched Jullien for a few minutes.
Desideria scooted next to her. "I know there's some kind of bad history with Jullien and Nykyrian, but he doesn't seem so horrible to me."
Kiara shook her head. "Yeah ... I was never around him all that much. He creeped me out when I was younger."
"Why?"
"Well, he was gigantic, for one thing. I mean, he's still huge--don't get me wrong. But he was probably a good hundred and seventy pounds heavier, so he took up a lot of room, and it was extremely intimidating. Plus, he seemed to have a crush on me. Whenever he came around, he was all the time trying to ask me out or invite me to perform in his empires in a way that left me terrified I'd find myself locked up someplace like this, where no one would ever see me again. And then there was the small matter that he was always surrounded with an entourage that bled cruelty. You looked at them, and it was like watching a pack of snakes slithering by. Not to mention, he wore these weird red glasses and was so condescending and snotty to everyone he spoke to."
"He wasn't condescending. That's his defense mechanism whenever others are assholes to him first. I've never known him to pull that trigger without prior provocation."
She jumped at the deep voice of the one Jullien called Thraix beside them. Dang, he moved as silently as her assassin husband.
He held two small bottled waters for them. "As for the glasses, he had to have them to be able to see. He still has to wear them in certain lighting conditions, or he gets vicious headaches."
"You don't know. You weren't there."
"I'm Trisani. Trust me, I can see your memories more clearly than you can because my view isn't clouded by your emotional reference point. And you're right. They were a pack of snakes around him, and he'd have sold his soul to break free from those bastards. Unfortunately, every time he tried, he was thrown back to them because none of you ever gave him a chance to escape."
Desideria scowled at Jullien. "What's he doing? Oh my God! I would kill to have Caillen do that without complaint!"
Turning his head to see what she was talking about, Thraix laughed while Jullien changed Zarina's nappy without even pausing in his discussion with Davel and Darling. "He carries his own daughters around so much, he doesn't think anything about it. Mira's practically a symbiotic life-form who's permanently attached to her father's hip. And before them, his nieces used him as their own private jungle gym. Nadya basically claimed his shoulders and lap the first day they met and only grudgingly ceded them when his daughters were born. She still uses his shoulders to perch on for parades." He headed back to Jullien.
Kiara sat there, stunned. Even more so when a few minutes later, Adron, Jayce, and Taryn nudged their way into the planning group.
Aros started to send them off, but Jullien pulled Taryn to sit on his knee while Davel allowed Adron to sit on his and Thraix took Jayce. It was obvious these Tavali thought nothing of having children around them as they discussed politics and battle strategy. They even took time to patiently answer the boys' questions and explain things to them.
Once Zarina was asleep and snuggled against Jullien's chest while he attempted to awkwardly draw out their plans, Kiara went over to to retrieve her youngest child. "May I?" she teased.
He looked up in confusion. "What?" Then it must have dawned on him that he still had her daughter. "Oh!" Blushing
"I'm surprised you didn't yelp when she bit into your hand earlier. In fact, you barely reacted, and I know she caught some flesh with her fangs."
He shrugged nonchalantly. "My daughters do it all the time. Pretty sure the only teething ring Viv used was my fingers, knuckles, and thumb. Besides, it's my cyber-arm. The nerve endings aren't as sharp in it."
Kiara's jaw went slack. "You lost an arm?"
All of them grew silent at her question, especially his parents.
Grimacing as if the question embarrassed him, Jullien sighed. "What can I say? I'm an annoying asshole. No one likes me. Some really don't like me and try to kill me off."
"Can I see it?" Taryn asked.
"Taryn," Kiara growled at her son. "That's rude. We don't ask things like that."
"It's fine." Jullien rolled his sleeve back and allowed his nephew to examine it.
Taryn oohed and ahhed. "You can't tell."
Jullien rubbed at his shoulder. "You can, where they attached it. There's a lot of scarring. But you're right. Down on the arm itself, it looks natural. It's just a little darker than my normal skin."
His mother swallowed hard as she stared at him. "How did you lose it?"
"Doing something very few others would have," Dimitri said simply. "Threw himself on top of an IED that would have taken out our entire station and probably killed all our families had he not been willing to commit suicide rather than see his loved ones go up in the blast and aftershock."
Jullien scoffed. "Yeah, right. You would have done the same."
Davel laughed hard. "Uh, no. I don't think I could ever knowingly launch myself on top of a bomb. Gal?"
She shook her head.
Dimitri agreed with them. "He's right, Ixurian. You're a fool if you think that inclination comes naturally to others. We tend to run away, not toward explosions. Only you're that big an idiot."
"Oh. I just assume everyone's as stupid as I am. Anyway--" Jullien pointed back to the map. "If that tunnel is still holding, we should be able to reach the ships."
His mother scowled. "You keep acting like we need to run. My forces--"
"Will follow whoever wears the crown and holds the Anatole Warsword." He swept an annoyed glare over her. "That's not you. By now, it will be Eriadne, who most likely dug the Warsword out before she looked for survivors. She won't hesitate to reinstate herself and proclaim you dead."
"But if I'm alive--"
"You will be slaughtered before you can speak, and there's not enough of us to prevent that from happening. Dear gods, Matarra! Look around you. Look at this place. Do you think I learned nothing of how your mother thinks or operates? Believe me, her cruelty is seared into the fiber of my soul. I know that bitch like the back of my hand."
Standing up, Jullien placed Taryn on his feet so he could face his mother. "Do you think I put myself to the hazard the whole of my childhood to protect you to see you killed now? For once, use your head!"
She scowled at him. "What are you talking about? What hazard?"
Thraix moved forward. "Tell her, Jules."
He laughed bitterly. "She won't believe me. And it doesn't matter." He glanced around at the children. "Our time is growing short. We have to move. By now Eriadne and the others will be gathering here for a press conference to reestablish her power. There should be enough chaos that we can forge documents for launch. But if we delay much longer, WAR will reunite and everyone's guard will go up."
Tylie sneered at him. "What do you know about WAR?"
Thraix started for her, but Jullien caught him. "Let it go. You have a wife and a baby to get home to. Think of Mary and Sphinx. Your son will need his father. You don't want Trajen teaching him his powers, do you?"
"That's a low blow, Andarion."
"But an effective one." Jullien winked at him. "Let's wake our sleeping members and see if we can get this plan into motion."
"Uncle Jullien?"
He turned at Taryn's insistent tugging on his sleeve. "What is it, luden?"
"As your Fetchyn, can I be your point?"
Cupping his cheek, he smiled down at him. "I would be honored for you to be my wingman. You can march between me and Uncle Thraix."
Taryn frowned. "Is he really my uncle?" He turned to Thraix. "Are you really my uncle? Or are you like Uncle Darling?"
"I'm married to the sister of Dagger's wife ... so to an Andarion, yes, that makes us calduracyn, with me your basha, and my children your kyzir." He looked at Jullien. "Did I get that right?"
He nodded. "You can be taught. Who knew?"
As the adults assembled, Jullien went to Thia. "How old are you, sozibe?"
"Nineteen."
"Can you handle a blaster?"
Her face lit up. "Yes! My father trained me, but he seldom lets me near them."
"Well, I'm not your father." Jullien handed her one of their spare holsters that contained a set of blasters. "Anyone comes near you you don't know, you lay them in the ground. Got it?"
"Excuse me?" Kiara shot to her feet. "We don't teach my daughter to kill things! She's--"
"Old enough to die and be raped. Or worse, sold into slavery." Jullien put Thia's hand on the grip. "Shoot to kill. Do not wound. Those are the same orders I give my son anytime he flies under my Canting."
Thia gaped. "You take your son out with you when you fly?"
"Of course. He's a member of my crew."
"Only reason Vas isn't here is that Jules didn't want him in the crossfire should something go wrong." Davel looked at Axl and laughed. "We should have heeded that fear, eh?"
"Speak for yourself, Krunch. Mi cepandrey."
Davel shoved at his little brother. "Worthless suck-up. It's why you were always Mom's favorite."
"Nah, that's 'cause I'm the cutest." Axl playfully slapped at Davel, whose eyes flared.
Recognizing that battle sign, Jullien stepped between them. "And I'm about to cull the family if you two don't stop and act your age. Axl, to the back. Davel, go visit your stryper."
Jullien took a moment to wrap his armored jacket around Kiara and Zarina again.
She frowned at him. "Why are you risking your life for us?"
"Because I'm really sorry about what I did to you with Aksel. And I know this doesn't make up for it. That nothing ever will. If I don't make it back, tell Nyk that in spite of everything I said and did when we were in school, I do love him. I was just too fucked up mentally to know what to do to get us out of the situations we were in. Every time I moved, I ended up back here in this shit-hole."
Pausing, he ground his teeth. "I wish to the gods I'd done things differently, especially where you were concerned." He locked gazes with her so that she could see his sincerity. "I swear on the lives of my children that I had no idea Aksel would hurt you. He promised me he wouldn't. A part of me thought he might be lying, but honestly, I figured he'd be too afraid of your father to do any real harm to you personally. He said that once he had Nyk, he'd release you to your father, and I took him at his word. I was just so mad and hurt that night, and it wasn't even at Nyk. Or you. I should have never taken my anger out on you two. I only hope that I can get you home to him and that maybe this'll even our score."
"Why did you betray us?" his mother asked.
Jullien stepped back as those words slapped him like a physical blow. "I betrayed you?"
"Yes, you did. You handed Kiara over to your brother's worst enemy, and then you helped your grandmother escape our justice. Did you not think we'd find out what you did? Haevoc Ichi?"
Stunned and pissed, he stumbled back with a bitter laugh. "Haevoc Ichi? You really think that was my code name?" He looked to his father, then to his mother. "I have no idea where my intelligence comes from, but thank the gods, I didn't inherit either of yours."
And with that, he stormed to the front to lead them out of the vorgate.
Thraix moved to stand beside Aros and Cairistiona. "Jullien's alias was, and is, Dagger Ixur. He worked with WAR to get you and your sister to his father to keep you safe during the political overthrow he helped put in place. It was his intel and codes that were used to bring Eriadne to justice and capture her on the Porturnum base station. Something that has put him in jeopardy with The Tavali to this day. You know nothing of your son."
He started past them, then turned back. "And for the record, Haevoc Ichi was Chrisen Anatole. It was also his call sign, if you'd bother to check your own military database. Ichi was the unit he flew in. Kind of how Talyn Batur is Viper Ichi."
When he moved to leave, Cairistiona pulled him to a stop. "Do you know why he kidnapped Kiara?"
Thraix glanced to where Jullien had already vanished. He knew he should keep his mouth closed, but there was no need in it. The time for the truth had come. He met Darling Cruel's curious frown before he answered. "After he'd risked his life--" He gestured at the underground prison they stood in. "And you can see he was well versed in what real torture at your mother's hands meant for him, and after he'd done everything he could to protect you, including pit himself against your mother to keep you alive, he overheard that oh-so-pleasant conversation you had with your sister in the embassy."
"What conversation?"
Thraix snorted bitterly. "How could you forget laughing and joking about throwing your own son in prison after you disinherited him?" He turned to Tylie. "And what was it you said? You wanted a ringside view as the convicts had their way with his spoiled ass? Only you doubted any of them would touch him because he was so repugnant?"
Darling sucked his breath in sharply as both his mother and aunt went stark white.
"He heard us?" Cairistiona
"Yeah. He heard you. Now that you see his extensive experience with an Andarion prison, I think you can understand why he went a little crazy that his own mother intended to put him in one permanently. And with even more psychotic, pissed-off felons. He also knew from personal experience just how wrong your theory was where he was concerned, Tylie. You didn't have to bribe inmates with pardons to attack him. Brutalizing a hand-cuffed royal eton Anatole was what they lived for."
Thraix met Aros's gaze. "And just so you know, that last time your son called to ask for temporary asylum on a Triosan outpost and you had your secretary answer because you were too much of a coward to tell Jullien you'd personally denied his request for landing privileges? He was bleeding from a near fatal knife wound, where his own grandmother had almost carved his heart from his chest because she found out that he'd been the one who put his mother in power. That was why Eriadne swore out the Thrill-Kill warrant on his life. You know, the same warrant none of you could be bothered to fight against because of Nykyrian's precious feelings you didn't want to step on. And no, Jules doesn't know that dirty little secret. I would never hurt my brother by telling him the truth. He doesn't need to know what assholes you really are."
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