Born of Legend (14 page)

He shrugged. “Why not? Been known to employ such tactics myself to teach others a lesson. While I'm a lot of worthless things, Admiral, I'm not a hypocrite. And I'm a big believer in karma. Figured I deserved it. At any rate, it got their point across to me with resounding clarity. It's definitely something I won't forget any time soon.”

“Hey!”

Ushara turned at the sharp, angry call to find one of her older cousins headed for them from the opposite side of the bay. From where she stood, he couldn't see her, but she had a clear line of sight to him.

Istaf stormed toward Jullien with his furious ass-kicking swagger. At six-six, he was a mountainous, muscled snow beast who intimated everyone around him, and always had. Most skittered from his path like mice fleeing a starving cat.

Jullien, however, held his ground courageously and didn't flinch at his approach. Rather, he calmly wiped his hands off and faced him with an irritated, challenging smirk that was as admirable as it was stupid.

“You the slag shit what beat my little brother down?”

While Jullien might have refrained from meeting her gaze, he leveled a killing stare at Istaf. “Depends. Your brother the pussy bastard who attacks an unarmed civ in a pack like a rabid dog?”

Growling in rage, Istaf started forward.

So did Jullien.

Ushara put herself between them. “Whoa! What is this? Istaf, explain yourself. Now!”

“He beat the hell out of Silig. Put him in the hospital. I'm here to make sure he pays for it.”

Her jaw dropping, she faced Jullien. “Is Silig the one who attacked you?”

Jullien glanced away.

She faced Istaf. “Did Silig attack him?”

“You're not seriously defending a piece of crap slag over one of our own, are you?”

“When he's the one who single-handedly saved my son's life and returned Vas to me unharmed, I am. Are you telling me that my own blood dared harm the very male I brought here out of gratitude for saving my son? A male Trajen extended his own hospitality to?”

Istag paled. “What?”

“Yeah, you missed that part of it, did you?”

“What's going on here?” Davel asked as he must have seen the blood fury in Istaf's gait and doubled back to make sure everything was all right.

Ushara gestured toward her cousin. “This idiot was about to beat down on the male I offered sanctuary to, who saved Vasili.” She spun on Jullien. “Look at what the imbeciles did to him already!”

Davel shoved at Istaf. “What the hell, man? What's wrong with you?”

“I didn't know. Besides, I was doing it to protect
your
sister. Silig said Lev caught some indigent comet slag snaking on her, and that he needed to be put in his place. How was I to know the indigent slag was the same slag that saved Vasili?”

Ushara curled her lip in disgust. “As if
I
need
you
to protect me. Really? Do I look like your wife? For your information, I happen to have two blasters, and a license to use them. Minsid hell,
kyz
!”

“Uh yeah,” Davel agreed. “If you recall, the last male who tried to force a dance with my little sister is still undergoing surgeries to have both his testicles retrieved from his nostrils.”

She rolled her eyes as her brother piled on. “I'm not
that
bad.”

“No? I beg you to ask the guy whose testicles haven't redescended after three years. I promise you he would emphatically disagree. Testicle retrieval surgery is no laughing matter.”

Ushara wasn't amused. “I still maintain that he racked his own balls.”

“No male racks his own balls
that
hard. Trust me.”

“You don't know,” she snorted. “You weren't there.”

“Yeah, but I've fought enough with you to know who racked what and how, and especially how hard. In fact, my balls still crawl back into my body out of survival instinct any time you come near me. And that's just from bad childhood flashbacks.”

“Hey, where's he going?” Istaf jerked his chin toward Jullien who was slowly walking backward, toward the bay's offices.

Jullien froze as the three of them turned to face him. “This entire line of conversation was making me rather uncomfortable. Therefore, I thought it best I remove my testicles out of
everyone's
striking range.”

Davel burst out laughing. “Smart male. I like him already.” He sobered as he saw the damage done to Jullien's face. A tic started in his jaw as he returned to glare at his cousin. “You do that to him?”

“No. Silig and a group of his cronies did it. But—” Istaf held his hand up to cut off Davel's words when he started to interrupt. “You should see what this slag bastard did to
them
. He beat the utter hell out of every one of 'em. Honestly, I was expecting someone about twice his size.”

Jullien tossed his wrench into the toolbox by his feet. “Yeah, me and Gondarion spiderweed. We don't go down easy.”

“Then why'd you come after him alone,” Davel asked Istaf defensively.

“Well I wasn't, at first, until I saw him. Then I just thought my brother was an idiot.”

Jullien arched a brow at that. “In that case, you owe Admiral Altaan a debt of gratitude. She just saved you a universe of hurt and an operation for wrench retrieval from a place you don't want to know where I was planning to shove it.”

Istaf stiffened. “You don't look like much of a threat,
boy
.”

“Yeah, and I'm the one walking and working, while your brother's the one laid up in a hospital bed.” Jullien twirled another wrench before he set it down.

Istaf took a step forward, but Davel caught him and forced him back. “Enough. You,” he said to his cousin. “Go home.”

Istaf passed a disgruntled sneer at Jullien before he complied.

Jullien returned to work.

Ushara placed her hand over Jullien's as he reached for a monitor and stopped him. “You need to see a doctor.”

“I'm fine,” he said without looking up.

She caught his chin gently in her palm and forced him to meet her gaze.

Jullien couldn't breathe as he stared down at the warm concern in her pale eyes. As he felt the heat of her hand on his skin.

“Please?”

He savored that single word before he spoke the truth. “I can't afford the down time. I have to make rent. Besides, I've had much worse beatings. Trust me. This isn't so bad.”

She dropped her well-manicured hand down to his bruised one. The contrast between them was startling. Not just that hers was so pale compared to his, but the delicate bones and softness of her skin. “I'll go away if you do one thing.”

“What?”

“Take your shirt off. If Davel agrees that he thinks you don't need a doctor, I'll leave you alone.”

Her brother made a sound of supreme protest. “How did I get dragged into this?”

“You're an irritable ass who loves to fight, and you've broken and bruised enough ribs that I trust you to know whether or not Jullien should be working while injured. Plus I can judge by your facial expression how bad his injuries are 'cause I know you
that
well.”

Jullien ground his teeth. “And if I refuse?”

“I'm going to suspend you from work and order you to the infirmary for a full eval.”

Jullien growled at her before he dropped his tools and braced himself for the pain of pulling his shirt up. Not that he had to. He'd only lifted it to his armpits before her brother let out a foul curse.

“How the hell are you standing in that condition?”

Ushara grimaced. “It's bad, isn't it?”

Davel nodded. “Yeah, it's bad.
Shit!
If you've really had worse, I don't want to know how. Damn sure don't want to know why.”

Lowering his shirt, Jullien winced as pain cut through him and he let out an agonized breath. For a minute, he feared he might actually pass out from it.

Ushara glared at him. “That's it. You're coming with me.”

Jullien shook his head to clear his vision as he broke out into a sweat.
“Mu tara—
”

“Not a single word of protest. I'm not leaving you here to suffer. That's not how we do things.”

“Take my advice,
drey
? Don't argue. She'll win by sheer stubbornness or meanness. Remember the earlier testicle discussion?”

Jullien snorted. “Fine.” When he went to clean up his tools, her brother pushed him aside.

“I got this. You really should rest before you puncture a lung. Honestly? I don't know how you've missed doing it before now.”

He was right. It was a miracle he hadn't done some serious internal damage. But then, as stated, it wasn't his first severe beating. He'd learned how to move with injuries and not worsen them a long, long time ago.

Grateful to Davel for his kindness, Jullien inclined his head to him.
“Pakti, drey
.”

“No problem.”

Ushara picked his coat up from the ground and to his complete and utter shock, took his hand into hers. For a full minute, he couldn't breathe as the warmth of her skin caressed his. “I can't believe you came to work in this condition. What were you thinking?”

“That if I didn't, I wouldn't get paid. Worse? I'd get fired. Somewhere between those two … killed.”

“You're not funny.”

When she started for the infirmary, he stopped her. “I can't go there.”

“Why?”

Jullien was aghast at the question. “You've seen the bounty on my head. I'm not about to put my life in the hands of an unknown physician who's going to run my DNA and find my warrant. I'd sooner die of my wounds than feed a gutter rat who poisons me so that she desecrates my remains to make my bitch grandmother happy.”

“You trust me, don't you?”

“Yes.”

With his hand still in hers, she pulled him in the opposite direction.

Jullien had no idea where she was taking him until she came to another housing area. The condos here were much nicer than the ones where he was living. Larger. Lush. They reminded him of the politician district of Eris on Andaria where a lot of the upper aristocracy and older nobility made their homes.

Ushara stopped at one that was painted a sedate green and punched a code into the door before she entered. At first, he thought it was her home, until he looked around and saw older paintings of Ushara as a girl with her numerous siblings. There were all kinds of toys strewn about the carpeted floor, and something warm and sweet scented the air.

“Matarra?”

Eyes wide, he froze as she called for her mother. “What are we doing here?” he whispered between clenched teeth.

“Relax. She's a healer. She'll take good care of you.”

Suddenly terrified at the very prospect of meeting Ushara's
Fyreblood
parents, he stepped back, intending to leave at the same time an older version of Ushara came through the door in front of them. Her mother took one look at him and curled her lip as the familiar glare of hatred filled her white Andarion eyes.

Jullien tried to flee, but Ushara refused to let go of his hand.

Suddenly, he felt a presence behind him. Turning, he saw an older Fyreblood male there who must be her father.

And he looked as happy to see him as her mother did. He was lucky her two parents weren't roasting him on the spot with their incendiary breath.

“What is
he
doing here?” her mother growled in a vicious tone that said she was about to launch her firespit at him any heartbeat now.

“
He
saved Vasili's life.”

“I find that impossible to believe,” her father snarled from behind him. “His kind doesn't do that. They save no one but themselves, and they have no use for us, except as target practice and morbid decoration as trophies for their walls.”

“And I was there. I saw it.”

Her father closed the distance between them. “Do you know who this is, Ushara?”

“I know, Paka.”

“I don't think you do,
atalla
.” He raked a cold, hate-filled glare over Jullien that reminded him of the ones his aunt Tylie would give him when he was a child and he'd try to see his mother. Just like then, it shrank his stomach and left him with that same sick, gutted sensation that made him wish he was low as they made him feel. At least then, he'd be invisible. “His grandfather murdered my father in front of me when I was a boy, and he laughed while he did so.”

Jullien ground his teeth. Yeah, that sounded like something his family would do. “If it makes you feel better, Gůr Tana, my grandmother slit that same guilty grandfather's throat during breakfast over a rumor she heard.”

That took the anger out of him. He actually gaped. “What?”

Jullien gave a subtle nod. “Ear to ear. Of course, it was a lie she'd been told. But she didn't bother to find out the truth until after the deed was done.
Oops
didn't quite cover it that day, and it was nothing compared to the rampage she went on against the one who'd lied to her. Just glad I wasn't
that
idiot.”

His jaw dropping even more, her father gestured at Jullien while he grimaced at Ushara. “You see how they are! You can't trust any of them. And you dare bring
this
into my home? What are thinking?”

“He is not his grandmother. Jullien, tell him!”

Jullien glanced to her mother and then her father before he shook his head, and released her hand. “There's no need. I've already been judged and sentenced, and the one thing I learned most from my family is that once a verdict is rendered, there's no reprieve or mercy from it.” He gave a curt, formal bow to her mother. “Forgive me, Ger Tarra, for bringing disharmony into your beautiful home and distressing you.” He bowed to her father. “Mi Gůr Tana.”