Born of Legend (32 page)

Yet even so, she couldn't help teasing him. “Hmmm, I think you just wanted to make sure I didn't contaminate your food.”

Laughing, he pushed his glasses up on his nose before he sat down next to her. “Notice, I've given you my complete trust. I've barely examined anything.” He playfully pulled his own cutlery out of his coat pocket.

She let out a high-pitched laugh. “No! You really carry your own set?”

He folded them and returned the cutlery to his pocket. “I do, indeed.” Then, he reached for his napkin and placed it in his lap and took her fork. “See.” He wiggled it between his fingers. “Total trust.”

He playfully sniffed at it.

Shaking her head at him and laughing, she took his hand in hers and caressed his fingers. “You break my heart.”

He gave her a stricken look. “I don't mean to. You're the last one I'd ever hurt.”

“I don't mean it that way. What they've done to you.… It's so wrong.”

“Not really.” Clearing his throat, he wiped his mouth and took a deep drink of his wine. “I promise you, I have an equal share in the fate that's befallen me over the years. I've spent a great deal of my life playing hard to get along with. Most of what happened in my past stems from my utter lack of cooperation with others. In case it's escaped your notice, I'm quite the contentious asshole.”

She laughed so hard at his dry, serious tone that she choked. After clearing her throat, she smirked at him. “Name me one thing you could have changed.” She held up her index finger. “One.”

He sat back and crossed his arms over his chest. “I did not have to piss in the courtyard pool of the Triosan palace during my grandfather's sixtieth birthday party.”

Shocked and horrified, she burst out laughing again. “No! What? Why?”

Sighing, he rubbed adorably at his forehead before he sat up and returned to eating. “I was seven and it was the first time I'd been allowed back to my father's for a visit after my brother's death. So it was awkward to say the least—they were all virtual strangers to me and I was rather angry that my father had abandoned me for two years after Nyk's death without so much as a single
hey surviving son, are
you
still breathing?
Plus I wasn't used to being around humans anymore. They kept staring at me and whispering and gossiping bad things about me.”

“Like what? What could they possibly say about a seven-year-old child?”

“How fat and revolting and animalistic I was. Speculating on how many humans I'd eaten to be my freakish size at my young age. I'd been rudely inspected, pinched, grabbed, and prodded in some rather private places by far too many, and I was done with it. For the two days I'd been there, I'd kept trying to talk to my father and he'd kept brushing me off with sorry excuses. Pawning me off on a viciously rude nanny who sneered at me whenever she glanced my way, and pinched me every time I said or did something she didn't like. Which was every time I opened my mouth.”

“Is this where your Amazonian cousin comes in?”

He paused while buttering his roll. “You remember that?”

She nodded.

Jullien set his butter knife aside. “Well, Lil's not to blame for this one. Rather, it'd been a particularly grueling day without her. I'd felt like shit. My mother was in a mental institution at home, which was why I'd been sent to my father. After an all-day session of being told how repugnant I was, what a crazy whore had birthed me, and how unwelcome I was on Triosa, I just wanted to be left alone and was trying to be as invisible as possible. At some point as I hugged the shadows and silently went for more cake, I overheard my grandfather sneering to his friends about how my very presence there embarrassed him on his birthday. He said I was being obnoxious and going out of my way to take attention away from him. And here I thought I was being good, staying out of everyone's hair, and being inconspicuous by hovering alone in my dark corner all night. I really had been doing my best to stay out of everyone's sight, with my head down, and hadn't spoken to a soul in hours. But as he continued to rail about what a sorry excuse for a grandson I was, and how he hated that the grandson who looked human was the one who died and I was the one he was stuck with, the Koriłon sank his bloody talons in me and I thought, fine, old man … you want embarrassment? It's on, bitch. I set my cake down—and you know I mean business when I lay uneaten cake aside—put my shoulders back, waddled my little fat ass over to the fountain, unzipped my pants, whipped it out and colored their fountain water right there in front of them all while yelling, Happy Birthday, you old bastard. Hope you choke on your fucking happiness. You want to see what an Andarion penis looks like, bitches? Here it is.”

She burst out laughing. “Oh dear Saint Saren. No, you didn't!”

“Yes, I did. I still have my father's hand prints on my ass from the beating I got afterward to prove it. And at least I finally got the old bastard to talk to me. Granted, all he did was shout, but it was words and they were directed at me, in the same room.”

Covering her mouth, she stared bug-eyed at him. “I can just imagine the humans screaming in horror.”

“Yeah well … As I said, I am guilty of a lot of instigation when my Fuck-it List kicks in. My temper and mouth are not my friends. I have a bad tendency to walk around half-cocked on my best day. And that was one of my particularly stellar evenings. If there is a right or wrong thing to do in any given situation, my innate tendency is always for whatever is going to get me into the most trouble.”

She watched as he ate his food. “You are definitely not a peacemaker.”

“Most Andarions aren't. And I, in particular, am not.”

She reached for more wine. “My husband was.”

He arched a brow at that. “Seriously?”

Nodding, she took a bite of bread. “Chaz flew on a human Tavali crew. He was actually a pacifist.”

“And you agreed with his philosophy?”

“I didn't disagree with it. It was soothing to be around him, especially after being raised in the middle of my lunatic brothers who would run at each other's throats over every little insult. In comparison, Chaz was very tender and quiet.”

She paused at the stricken expression on Jullien's face. “What's that look for?”

“What look?”

Ushara gestured at him. “That one. Right there.…” She brushed her hand against his brow to smooth his frown away. “It's not an indictment against you, Jules. I like the fact that you're different from him. I don't want you to be the same as Chaz. Ever. Besides, it was his convictions that got him killed.”

“Zēritui
.”

“Me, too,” she said sadly as her throat tightened. “I miss him a lot.” She brushed at the tear on her cheek that fell past her control.

Before she realized he'd even moved, Jullien was by her side, pulling her into his arms. He held her against his chest and cupped her face in his warm hand.

Biting her lip, she swallowed hard at the tenderness she felt for him. He'd never been held when he'd been hurt and yet he didn't hesitate to comfort her. She leaned her head back to stare up at him.

“I can't believe you allow me the honor of touching you,” he whispered as he lightly brushed the backs of his fingers over her cheek.

“It's because I love you, Jullien.” The words were out so fast and effortlessly that she couldn't even stop them.

And he didn't take them the way she would have expected. He released her and staggered back as if she'd slapped him.

“Jules?”

With a panicked frown, he blinked slowly.

“Did you hear what I said?”

“I heard. But I don't understand.”

She rose to her feet. “What part?”

“All. Any…” He scowled at her. “Why?”

“Why do I love you?”

He nodded. “Um, yeah. Let's start there.”

“Really?” she asked with a bitter laugh. “'Cause this is not how these discussions usually go and you're beginning to piss me off. Which for the record, doesn't usually go well for the male.”

Stepping back from her, he brushed at his brow with his knuckles—a gesture she was beginning to recognize as one he did anytime he felt extremely uncomfortable in a situation. “Discussions of any sort don't usually go well for me, so that's nothing new. But this—” He waved his hand between the two of them. “This is an entirely foreign landscape. I have no ability to comprehend what you're even talking about.”

A horrible realization went through her suddenly. “No one's ever said that to you before, have they?”

“No.” He shook his head. “No, they have not.”

“Never?” she tried again.

There was a strange, panicked look in his eyes as if he might bolt. “Only that they'd love for me to die. That they'd love for me to contract a venereal disease and rot. But
no
. The
I love you,
period. Only been said around me to others. Closest
I've
ever personally come to it was a priest telling me once that he hoped the gods loved me because no one else ever could. So you'll have to forgive me if I'm a bit skeptical that you alone possess this incredible supernatural ability to love that which is unlovable. By
anyone
else.”

She was completely aghast at what was obviously the truth and yet so far beyond belief that it floored her. But it made sense as she remembered seeing the pictures of him with his family.

No one had ever held Jullien. Not even as a child.

They always stood apart from him, giving him their backs. No, none of them would have ever told their son that they loved him.

“I can't imagine anyone knowing you and not seeing how wonderful you are. Or maybe, I'm defective, too. I'll go with that. Because all I see is a warm, hilarious male I love spending time with.” She walked slowly forward and reached up to lay her hand against his cheek.

He cupped her face in his hands and gave her the hottest, hungriest kiss of her life.

Ushara shook from the force of his passion. Reaching up, she pulled his glasses off and set them aside. His breathing ragged, he scooped her up in his arms and carried her to the bedroom where he wasted no time stripping her clothes from her, and then removing his own. He didn't slow until he got to her panties. Those he removed at an excruciatingly snailish pace as he teased and stroked her skin with his hands.

“Are you trying to torture me?”

“No.” He looked around uncomfortably.

Determined to show him how much he meant to her, she rose up on the bed and forced him to lie back.

Jullien couldn't breathe as she gently stroked and teased his cock. Whenever she touched him like this, she owned him, mind, body, and soul. He had no will where she was concerned. She had no idea how much control she had over him.

Since the day he'd drawn his first breath, he'd been a defiant bastard. Contentious. Smart-mouthed. Belligerent. Surly and nasty.

But his admiral had declawed him completely. Effortlessly. No one else had ever made him heel. Not the guards of his prison. His grandmother. His father.

Well, Nykyrian had quelled him in Camry's. But only because Merrell and Parisa had overdosed him on Bliss with the intent to kill him that night. Had he been sober, that scene in the restaurant would have played out differently, too.

Nyk had no idea how lucky he was that Jullien had been too high to fully react and counter his assault that night.

And that was the last thing he wanted to think about right now.

His heart pounding, he watched as Ushara gently rolled a condom over him. Then, she kissed her way up his abdomen until she reached his lips. Taking his hands into hers, she lifted her hips and impaled herself on him.

He growled deep in his throat as she led his hands to her lush breasts and started the sweetest swaying dance against his hips.

She leaned forward over him, allowing her white hair to sweep against his chest while her pale gaze held his captive. The warmth of her hands sent chills all over his flesh.

“I love you, Jullien eton Anatole. And I intend to keep saying it to you until the day you actually believe it.” She gave him the hottest kiss of his life.

He tried to catch his breath as she made love to him. But honestly, he couldn't think straight. Not while he felt like this. There was something feral and primal in him that wanted to wrap around her and protect her. To make sure nothing ever harmed her again.

It was fierce and demanding and undeniable. Taking her hands in his, he pressed one against his racing heart and the other to his lips. The scent of her skin and the sensation of her thrusting against him sent him over the edge. With a primal growl, he came so forcefully that he shook against her.

Ushara smiled in satisfaction, but as Jullien opened his eyes, she gasped.

They were blood-red in the darkness of her room.

He froze instantly. “Ushara?”

She swallowed hard before she responded. “You're stralen?”

“What? No.”

Eyes wide, she nodded before she reached to touch his cheek. “Baby, you're stralen.” As gently as she could, she slid from him to pull the mirror from her nightstand drawer and showed it to him.

Gaping, he poked at his eyes. “How's this possible?”

“You must have the gene.”

“Anatoles don't have it. They've
never
had it. And neither do the Nykyrians. No family on either side of mine has ever possessed the gene.”

She wiggled the mirror in his face. “Jullien. You can't argue
this
. You know the rules of genetics. Same as me. There are only three carrier families in all of Andarion history known to be stralen. Two warrior clans. One Fyreblood. You have to be related to one of them.”

He let out a nervous laugh as he sat up and took the mirror from her hand to study his eyes more closely. “Well ain't this a bitch? Nyk and I are freaks, but not just because of our father. What do you want to bet that the real truth behind the insane Purging on Andaria is that Eriadne screwed a Fyreblood?”