Joined: Book One

by Mara Gan

  “Ones who clearly aren’t here?” He sat back. “Try again.”

  A small smile played on my lips. He was good; I supposed I should be glad he was the one who would be doing the search for my would-be kidnappers. “Aren’t you observant. Would you believe curiosity?”

  “You’d need to be more than curious to risk entering a Mathan bar,” Gi said, finishing his ale and setting it down. “You’d need to be extremely brave, adventurous—and a healthy dose of crazy wouldn’t hurt, either.”

  I grinned. I had most certainly been called crazy on several occasions for entering this bar. That, and forbidden from coming here, but I ignored that order too. I was the Heir, after all; I should be able to go anywhere I pleased. “Crazy it is, then.”

  “No bravery or adventure?”

  “Adventurous, sure,” I admitted with a shrug. “But bravery requires wisdom and knowledge, something I’m not sure I can say I possess yet.”

  “Perhaps,” Perseus said, “bravery requires a big heart more than it needs wisdom.”

  I glanced at him, tilting my head. He had a nice, deep voice, with just a little scratchiness to give it an edge. “You’re saying I need a big heart to enter a Mathan bar?”

  He considered. “You’re right. You’re probably just crazy.”

  I laughed outright this time and decided I liked him. “I’m Meda.”

  “Meda,” he said softly. “That’s a beautiful name. Does it mean anything?”

  I shifted uncomfortably, knowing my full name, Andromeda the Princess Harmonia, would mark me for who I was. I didn’t want to lie outright to him, but I didn’t want him to start treating me like the princess just yet. Still, I gave him the meaning of my full name, not my nickname. “It means ‘ruler of men.’”

  “And are you?”

  Awesome. He still hadn’t figured out who I was. One quick glance at Gi confirmed that he was still unaware too. I gave a mischievous grin. “Absolutely. I’ll be the ruler of this galaxy someday.”

  “Oh, of course. And my name is Fate,” Perseus replied. “Nice to meet you.”

  “And you,” I said, mouth twitching. Perseus, the most notorious mercenary in the galaxy, was entirely unaware that he was sitting at a table with the princess of Galaxia.

  He leaned forward, bracing his elbows and folding his arms on the table, and I fought to stay where I was. The table was small enough that his motion had brought us much closer, and I couldn’t help but stare at his arms; one of his biceps was bigger than my thigh, and with his jacket off, I could see the cords of muscle winding down to his wrists.

  Apparently, I loved strong arms, because I was fairly certain I’d never seen anything so attractive in my life. I willed my heart to stop pounding; Mathan hearing was notoriously good, and the last thing I wanted was for my new Protector to realize I found him exceedingly handsome.

  “I see you still wear the braid,” Gi said softly, nodding faintly at my hair.

  I glanced down at the small lock of hair behind my ear that I always kept braided and partially wrapped with a white cord. I fingered it thoughtfully, feeling the sadness I always felt when I looked at it, before flicking it back over my shoulder. “I do,” I said.

  Halian mourning customs were simple. A Halian always wore either a white band around their left wrist or braided a lock of hair behind their left ear to show they were mourning the loss of a loved one.

  “I keep it as a reminder,” I said.

  Perseus set his glass down and refolded his arms on the table. “To remind yourself of the Destruction?”

  I smiled a little. “No,” I replied, lifting my eyes to his face, “to remind everyone else.”

  His eyes caught mine, and suddenly the rest of the universe vanished.

  It was as though he’d reached across the table and swept a large, dark blanket around me, comforting me, giving me strength and warmth and shelter.

  My mouth popped open and I blinked. What the heck?

  My eyes shot back to his, but he had looked down and was switching my full ale glass with his.

  I shook myself. “Hey. I was going to drink that.”

  “No, you weren’t.”

  He gave me a cocky half grin and I quirked my eyebrow in response. He was right, I wasn’t. But it was still rude.

  And did he always drink so much?

  As if he’d read my mind, he said, “It takes a lot more than this to get me drunk, little girl.”

  I opened my mouth to protest and quickly shut it again.

  “You’ve yet to tell me how you know who I am,” he said.

  He was remarkably focused and single-minded. “All of Galaxia knows.”

  “Do they now?” he asked, eyebrows raising farther. He tilted his head at me, his expression taking on a dangerous edge. The faint purple scar running through his left eye did not help him look any less intimidating. “That seems a bit unfair, don’t you think? What, exactly, do you think you know of me?”

  I shrugged, glancing down at the table and picking at the edge. “You’re a mercenary. Dark, menacing, brooding, permanently angry.”

  “I never brood.”

  Gi rolled his eyes and stood, stretching. “There’s the understatement of the millennium,” he said, winking at me. “And on that note, seeing as how my big, scary sidekick here is in no danger, I am going to bed.”

  I choked a little on my laughter at the idea that Perseus was Gi’s sidekick. He wiggled his eyebrows humorously on his way out. “Night, Boss. Night, Meda.”

  “Boss?” I repeated, confused, as I turned back to Perseus. He had closed his eyes and was pinching the bridge of his nose. I studied his face. “You don’t like that nickname, do you?”

  He opened his eyes and glared at Gi’s retreating form. “No, and I’m 90 percent certain he only calls me that to irritate me.”

  I giggled. “And the ‘sidekick’ bit?”

  “He’s trying to kill me, obviously.”

  I laughed again. I was going to enjoy having a Protector, I thought, if this was what it would be like.

  “You haven’t finished telling me what you know about me,” Perseus said, taking another swig of ale.

  I shrugged. “You apparently hang out with Yalan,” I said carefully, curious if he would tell me about their relationship.

  His eyebrow went up again. “You know Yalan too.”

  “Yalan has… had some run-ins with the law here on Galaxia,” I said. “He’s not trustworthy.”

  Perseus rolled his eyes. “Yalan is a question mark in the best of situations,” he agreed. “He’s a cutthroat who would sell his own soul if he thought it was worth anything, but I know when I can and can’t trust him.”

  Fair enough. “You’ve been hired to be the Protector for the Heir,” I continued. I was playing with fire, I knew, mentioning that. I was not going to lie about who I was—I hated lying—but I couldn’t help testing him a little. “A highly exalted position, I might add. The princess is supposedly the most powerful Heir to the throne in a millennium. They haven’t even hired a Protector in centuries.”

  Everyone had been told the same story. Even I had heard it over and over, drilled into my head at the Moirae monastery where I grew up. Tykhe, the goddess of chance and fate, had created a new galaxy to imprison the chaotic and despotic Kronos after he tried to overthrow her realm, but Tykhe knew it would only hold him for so long. She’d locked him in Tartarus somewhere in the new galaxy, far away from her own, and then she had sent honest and just people to be his jailers and guards.

  This new galaxy was where we, the so-called “normal” people, lived now. As the millennia passed, the descendants of the original jailers forgot the ways of their honorable ancestors and became—well, less honorable. They lost whatever powers they might have had and became various forms of human. They adapted to the planets they lived on by developing better hearing—like my ears—grew taller and stronger for harsher environments, changed skin color and texture, or gained abilities like electric current
s in their fingertips. It just depended on the planet they were from.

  But underneath it all, we were all human, some way or another, no matter how we looked or what we could do.

  Many in the galaxy were devoted to Tykhe, but several had become devoted to Kronos in recent centuries, convinced he was not the villain the story painted him as. Legend had it that one day Kronos would break free to conquer and enslave the galaxy, unleashing a time to be known as the Chaos, and his devotees wanted to be on the winning side. Some seemed to prefer the high death toll and rampant misery. I didn’t understand it and worked every day to prevent any kind of chaos, combating terror and disruption in any way I could.

  At my birth, a Moirae had determined that somehow, I alone could stop Kronos, that I was the Heir to the throne of Galaxia, and that I would restore peace to the galaxy.

  Unfortunately, doing all this would also kill me, or so the Prophecy said. Curiously, it also stated I was going to die more than once, something no one understood.

  I paid little attention to it, personally. Whether I really was ordained by Tykhe or destined to restore peace—or even if I was going to die in the process—hardly mattered. The Pragma, our council that worked to implement laws, tended to agree with me. I was the Heir, but the law didn’t allow for too much of the old religion to interfere with ruling policies, and so lawfully, that’s all I was: the next in line to rule. I was the future ruler of Galaxia and I had a job to do, Prophecy or not.

  Perseus shrugged. “It’s just a job.”

  I raised my eyebrows. “‘Just a job’?” I repeated. I was… ‘just a job’? Well, of course I was. What else was I expecting?

  But this was exactly what had brought me down here. I wanted to know if I could trust him. Since he was going to be responsible for protecting me, it seemed only fair that I meet him first. Even though Kos trusted him, I worried about Perseus’s past as a mercenary. I was a worrywart about some things—byproduct of anxiety—and I was stubborn, so here I was, trying to form my own, unadulterated opinion of the new Protector.

  “Yes. They’re paying me. Mercenary and all that,” he said.

  I bit my lip. “You are, in that respect, an odd choice for such a job, given that there has yet to be a mercenary in this galaxy capable of keeping his word. They tend to sell out to the highest bidder.”

  “Perhaps, but no one else is paying me more to subvert this job. Hence, my loyalties are here.”

  I frowned. “That sounds so… rotten.”

  “Yes, I suppose it is,” he said easily, although I could tell it bothered him to hear me describe his profession that way.

  I chewed on my lip again. I didn’t want to make him uncomfortable or insult him, but I really felt that mercenaries were rotten. How could someone steal, lie, and cheat, just for money? What kind of person did that?

  For some reason, Perseus didn’t seem so rotten, though. He seemed… honorable.

  “So what else have I done to earn your disregard?” he asked, swirling his glass, still frowning.

  I hesitated. “I have no disregard for you.”

  “Fine. Disregard for my profession.”

  I sat back, studying him as I thought about how to answer his question without offending him. I’d only known Perseus for a few minutes and I couldn’t read anything at all from him, but I liked him already. He was, despite all the rumors, not so terrifying, and something about him was magnetic. Oh, he was dangerous all right, but only if you got on his bad side, something I had no intention of doing. And an immediate glance at him would probably scare anyone with half a brain; all Mathans looked dangerous, but Perseus managed to look just that much more dangerous. The sword strapped to his back didn’t really help soften his appearance.

  But, while dangerous and intense, his eyes also seemed… tired. He looked weary, like he’d seen and done more in this lifetime than most people would do in five lifetimes.

  I suddenly wanted to know why.

  I opted for truth and hoped I didn’t insult him too much. “I… want a galaxy in which honesty works,” I said, rubbing my arm. I always did that when I was nervous. I could hold my own in diplomatic negotiations, but outside my comfort zone I would make a terrible poker player. “I want to live somewhere where trust means something. Where people don’t steal or kill for the highest bidder. Where people and their happiness are worth more than robbing other people of their happiness.” I raised my eyes to his, trying not to preach. “Mercenaries represent everything I work against. And you… you’re the most famous mercenary there is. I assume you… you’ve killed people?”

  He flashed me a smile. “Not this week.”

  I scowled, not fooled by his deflection. “But you have?” I pressed.

  “You’re a Mousai,” he countered. “Haven’t you?”

  “Have you killed before?” I repeated. I was fairly certain of the answer, but I wanted to know. All cards on the table. I wanted to know his history, and more importantly, if he would lie to me about it. That would be the final word for me, what would determine whether I could trust him. Would he lie about something so big?

  He paused, then looked up to meet my eyes. “Yes.”

  Some part of me breathed a huge sigh of relief. He didn’t lie. I didn’t actually mind that he had killed people before; I understood that was a part of life outside of my happy little bubble. He didn’t seem the type to kill good people, anyway. “Self-defense?”

  He smiled, but there was little mirth in it. “Something like that.”

  “But you….” I studied him again, eyes narrowed. There was something about him…. Despite their passionate responses to life, Mathans were too strong-willed for me to sense much. It was part of the reason I liked coming to this tavern. My abilities were becoming so strong that I had trouble being around people in general. Sometimes, at night, I could sense everyone in the city, all at once, and occasionally hear their thoughts. It was mind-numbing and gave me horrible headaches.

  It was comforting being around people I could watch without feeling everything they felt.

  Perseus was no exception. He was a blank wall to my empathic abilities, but I was fairly adept at reading faces and body language.

  He was a mercenary, but he claimed he only lied when survival or money were involved. He had just proven that to be true; he’d been honest with me when I’d asked him about his job as a mercenary or if he had killed anyone, and he had seemed genuinely annoyed by my insinuation that he had no honor.

  He was going to be a great Protector. Anyone who could live as a mercenary while maintaining a strong sense of honor had to be worth trusting.

  He looked uncomfortable beneath my gaze now. Clearly, he wasn’t used to being scrutinized, but it wasn’t just that. He was a perplexing mercenary, true, but there was something else that I couldn’t quite put my finger on. Something that had been trying to get my attention since I sat down.

  “What about me?” he asked, sounding a little strangled.

  I shook my head, realizing why I found him peculiar. I hadn’t reacted to him the way I usually reacted to people; he affected me differently and I was beginning to get an inkling why. “You aren’t a mercenary,” I said softly.

  He coughed. “I think you should check your records—”

  “No, I mean—you’re not… bad,” I finished, confused. How could I explain what I was sensing? I couldn’t truly sense anything, not directly, but I could see something different in his eyes, in his face. “You feel bad, but you aren’t. You have a lot of….” I paused as I reached out to touch a scar on his jaw. He held his breath as my fingertips brushed his skin. “You hurt,” I whispered, realizing that fact with a touch of awe—and sympathy. “Only good people hurt.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  A jolt of electricity shot up my arm when I touched him. Everything about this man drew me in; the smell of leather and spice, the firm and hard visage, but most of all his eyes. They gave him away; in them I could read every regret he’d ever had, every mis
take he’d ever made, every wish left unfulfilled.

  I couldn’t see what those wishes were, exactly, but I could see mountains of guilt.

  And then I hit a wall.

  It was like suddenly understanding a complex math problem or a difficult language, but then someone came along and hit you on the head with a brick to make you lose it.

  My eyes swam and I sucked in a breath as a slight wave of nausea came over me.

  Perseus swiftly grabbed the hand that was touching him. “Hey,” he murmured. “Best not look too deeply into the black pit.”

  I smiled faintly, realizing he hadn’t meant to shut me out. “No, it’s just…. You have a lot of barriers. It hurts to see past them.”

  “Stop trying.” He smiled wryly. “Trust me.”

  “Why do you have such barriers?” I asked softly.

  He shrugged, seemingly nonchalant, but I knew better—one slam into that wall of his told me much. You only had walls if you needed to protect something.

  “I have a lot of enemies,” he said finally, looking up at me.

  “And friends?”

  His smile was grim. “God, no. Everyone is afraid of me. Surely, if you know who I am, you’ve heard that much.”

  “Does that bother you?”

  He shook his head, and I could tell he meant it. Sort of. “No,” he replied. “Being feared is rather useful.”

  “But?”

  He smiled a little, studying me. “But,” he capitulated, “it can be rather tiresome at times.”

  “Do you miss people?”

  “I’ve never known it otherwise,” Perseus said. “Everyone I’ve ever known is a greedy, selfish bastard, out to benefit himself.”

  My heart went out to him in that moment; the pain he must feel, the loneliness, gnawed at me. How could someone go his entire life without feeling a sense of companionship with another soul? It was horrible.

  “People aren’t always like that,” I replied softly.

  His eyes met mine and I felt that bolt of connection again. The space between us was so charged I could almost touch it.

  “No,” he returned, his voice thoughtful as he studied me, “I am learning there are some exceptions.”