He couldn't even breathe or make fire with it in place.
By the time his attacker wrenched it from his swollen throat, he was barely conscious. He threw Jullien to the ground where he wheezed in an attempt to breathe again.
Before Jullien could catch his breath, his attacker delivered a staggering kick to his ribs that knocked him flat on his back. His vision blurred and head throbbing, Jullien tried to focus as his assailant stomped him hard in the crotch.
Cupping himself, Jullien cursed while excruciating pain crippled him and he tasted bile.
An angry fist wrapped itself in his hair and wrenched his head back so that he could finally see the face of his attacker. For a full minute, he thought he was hallucinating.
But it didn't dissolve.
The vision only grew clearer into the snarling, twisted image of his cousin, Nyran. Tall, dark and insidiously handsome, he'd always been a psychotic bastard.
"Well look at you, little Julie ... stralen. Appears my mother isn't the only Anatole whore after all, eh? No wonder you were always wanting to cuddle up to the Hauks and kept trying to get us to leave them alone. Guess you could smell their putrid blood in your veins." He kicked him again, then slammed his head down to keep him dazed, and unable to fight back.
Or so he thought.
Unwilling to bend to the bastard, Jullien growled and moved to catch him to counter his assaults.
Just as he would have flipped Nyran and beaten the hell out of him, he felt the sharp, bitter sting of a needle in his neck. An instant later, everything began to swim as his empty stomach violently heaved.
"Yeah, you remember that, don't you, little Julie?" Nyran held him down in a practiced lock-hold until the drug took his will away from him completely. Since he hadn't eaten in the last two days as he'd walked through the desert after his crash, its effects were almost immediate, and left him even queasier than normal.
In spite of his best attempts, there was nothing Jullien could do. Everything swam and twisted.
Laughing, Nyran stroked Jullien's whiskered cheek. "I told you I'd be back for you, didn't I?"
Unable to fight at all now, Jullien waited to die from an overdose. But after several seconds, he realized that wasn't what Nyran had planned for him.
Instead, Nyran lifted Jullien's shirt and began marking his back, making a thousand stings across it. The pain was unbearable, but he couldn't move or make a sound due to the drug.
"In case you're wondering, I'm implanting you, but you'll have no idea where it is. So this time, you can't dig it out to escape again. See, I have plans for you, Julie. You owe me, you little shit." He straightened and kicked him again. "Because of you, my mother's dead. I lost my holdings. My titles. My lineage. My Andarion fortune. Everything! My brothers are dead!"
Nyran kicked him over, onto his back so that Jullien could look up at him. "Or at least some of them, I should say." He knelt on the floor by Jullien's side. "Did you ever stop and wonder why Eriadne and my mother had such tight ties to Venik and The Tavali? Eriadne wasn't the only one who fucked him, you know? My mother did, too. In fact, she's the one who introduced Eriadne to Venik and arranged for him to use Andarion space to ply his trade. And she gave him a son to cement the deal. I actually spent a great deal of time on my father's base as a kid. Bet you never knew that, did you?"
He smiled coldly. "Had you gone anywhere other than The Tavali to hide, I would have never found your stupid ass. But the minute you attacked my stepmother, and she came home screaming about you ... then pointed your file out to my father. I had you by the testicles."
Jullien started to pass out.
But Nyran slapped him back to consciousness. "Stay with me, kyzi. See, I was going to kill you when I heard you were with the Gorts. Gut you like the bastard mongrel you are. Until it dawned on me that you owe me a throne." He slammed Jullien's head against the floor. "Are you listening, Julie?"
"I hear you," he whispered as his voice slowly began to work again.
"Good. Because you're going to help me and my surviving brothers take over the UTC and get rid of Thaumarturgus. You will do everything we tell you to do or I will take everything from you, the same way you stole everything from me. Starting with that pretty little wife of yours. Do you understand?"
Jullien shook his head.
Nyran backhanded him. "Do you understand?"
"I'll kill you!"
"You can try. But remember, I am a son of the Porturnum Nation. A Venik and an Anatole. More than that, as the last of our family, I'm still talking to Eriadne. And she would give me anything I wanted if I told her where to find you. I breathe one word of your current location ... you don't want to know what she'd do to you and that little family of yours in retaliation for losing her throne."
Nyran screwed his face up as he considered those words. "Actually, you do know, probably better than anyone, what fate awaits you in her hands." He rubbed at Jullien's chin. "For that matter, Tylie would reward me for a chance to carve out your heart. She always hated your guts. So I have many options where you're concerned. And if I go missing or anything happens to me, my brothers will make sure that your yaya gets your full address, as well as that of your wife and her entire Fyreblood family. You really want to roll that dice, Julie?"
He lifted up the front of Jullien's shirt and traced the scar that his brother Merrell had given him when he'd almost sliced Jullien's throat. "Pity he didn't kill you that day. But my mother always said the gods had their reasons for everything. Perhaps this is the plan. They're finally going to give me my due while I give you what you've earned. And I will enjoy every minute of this. Now go home, little Julie. And remember, if you cross me ... say one word about this to your whore or to that bastard you serve, I will call down The League and Eriadne on you so fast, you won't even have time to run again. I'm through playing with you. You've seen how easy I can track you down. You're my little bitch and you're going to heel at my command, or I will crush you. For as Tavali as you want to pretend you are, I was born into their world and have their blood flowing for generations in my veins. Me, they respect and will follow for all time. You're nothing but a pathetic pretender. An imposter everyone sees through. No one wants you. They never have. Not even your own mother could love you. She won't even let us say your name in her presence."
And with that, Nyran got up and left him on the floor.
Ashamed and aching, Jullien lay there, wishing himself dead. He hadn't felt like this since he'd lived in the palace. Powerless and hurt. Unable to protect himself or anyone else.
This was the exact kind of head game that Eriadne, Tylie, Parisa, Merrell, Nyran, and Chrisen had specialized in and tormented him with his entire childhood. Between them, the courtiers and the rest of his family, he'd never known a moment's peace or any kind of security or happiness.
Now ...
He couldn't even run. If he tried, they'd kill Ushara and Vasili just to punish him. It was how they operated.
I have to kill Nyran.
There was no other way. But he'd have to do it carefully so as not to draw Ushara and her Nation into a war with the Porturnum.
Titana rael.
He heard the door open again. Still unable to move more than his head, he swallowed as he saw Payne and two other males who were similar enough in their features that they must be his brothers.
Jullien laughed.
"What? You think this is funny?" Payne Venik snarled.
"Hysterical. Really. I'm supposed to be worthless and yet you three badass Tavali pirates had to drug me to kick my ass. Guess that makes you the three biggest cocupuni in the universe to fear me this much."
Payne seized him. "You know what your problem is?"
"Yeah. The fact that I like the way that vein throbs in your temple when my mouth sets your fury off."
He backhanded him.
Tasting blood, Jullien laughed again. "Now you're just trying to turn me on, giakon. Is that the best you can do?"
Payne's no
*
"Holy gods..."
Jullien jerked as he felt someone touch his face. Pain burned through him, but at least he no longer felt the effects of the drug Nyran had injected in him. His breathing ragged, he rolled over to see Jupiter kneeling by his side.
"I'll kill those scabbing Porty bastards for this! I told them they weren't to touch you."
Jullien sighed and winced as he wiped at the blood on his lips. "They were avenging their mother's honor. It's fine. The day will come when I won't be on the ground and I will return the favor. I promise you."
Jupiter growled as he tapped his link. "Terris? They've left our guest in quite a mess of a shape. I'm taking him down to your clinic now. Can you meet us there?" He paused. "See you shortly."
As gently as he could, he helped Jullien to his feet, then slung his arm over his shoulders and walked him down to the ship's infirmary.
"So what's the deal with you and the Porties?"
Jullien considered the best way to answer. "I apparently chafe everyone's ass."
"Don't be treating me like a fool, cade. They came in here with blasters and violated me lady. Then they broke Safe Harbor. That weren't done lightly. It's an act of war should I choose to make it so. I want to know why they'd take such a chance for you. Just who are you, really?"
"I'm nobody. Really."
With a snort of disbelief, Jupiter didn't speak another word as he led him into the infirmary and helped him onto the bed.
Once Jullien was settled, he pinned him with a fierce grimace.
"I know you're lying. But I assume you've got your reasons for it and I'll be leaving you to them. We're still planning to take you home. As I promised." And with that, he turned and left him alone with the crew's medtech.
Jullien fell silent as she came forward to treat him.
"You're Andarion?"
He nodded.
The sympathetic expression on her face told him just how awful he must appear. "I'm Doctor Exten. Is it all right if I touch you to treat your injuries?"
"You must have dealt with a few of us to know our protocols."
"We're well warned about Andarions in med school. And it's reiterated when we take Tavali med certs since there can be a fairly large number of Andarion Tavali in some of our Nations."
"Ah ... and yes. I grant you permission to treat me."
Jullien remained quiet while she went over his injuries. It wasn't until she got to his back that she let out an audible curse.
"What did they do?"
He didn't respond since he knew it wouldn't matter. Nyran's implant would be so small, it would take a subatomic scope to find it, and surgery to remove it.
If they could. Knowing his cousin, it was most likely embedded in his spine which would make its removal impossible without paralyzing him. At least that had always been Nyran's SOP, and there was no reason to think Nyran would have changed his practice.
But in coming after him, Nyran had made one strategic mistake.
He'd told Jullien where he was hiding.
Like Ushara had said--don't get his full attention. Until now, Jullien's focus had been scattered. He'd had no idea where to look for his cousin.
Now he did.
Yet getting to Nyran while the coward was holed up on the Porturnum base wouldn't be easy.
Closing his eyes, he held his breath as the doctor worked and tried not to feel the pain, either inside or out. In all honesty, he was so tired of these games. He just wanted it to end.
Why couldn't his family ever let him live in peace?
He should have never tried to have a life with Ushara. He should have known better. Now he was the biggest threat to not only her, but Vas and Trajen.
To their entire Nation.
Nyran wouldn't stop. He knew that from experience. And Jullien had no idea what Nyran's brothers would do. What all they might be capable of. Not that it mattered.
I will fix this.
He had no idea how. Or even where to begin. But it didn't matter.
Wrong is never right ... And you can never be strong while you're standing upon weak legs. The old Trisani words went through his mind. When he'd been a boy, the Book of Harmony had been his only source of comfort. It alone had given him some semblance of conscience and guidance in the middle of the insanity that had made up his grandmother's court.
Now he had that same lost, drifting feeling again. Like he was in the middle of an ocean without a raft or life jacket, surrounded by sharks determined to eat him alive.
Yet as his panic surged and threatened to take him under, he thought of Ushara and pictured her beautiful face. He made himself focus on the sound of her voice saying his name whenever she whispered in his ear.
Kimi tu, Jules ... kimi asyado.
No one else in his entire life had ever told him that they loved him. Not until Ushara, Vasili, and little Nadya.
They had found him in the darkness. Brought him home and made him feel warm and accepted.
He would not lead them into war. And he would not allow Nyran to threaten them.
"Can you take Meracin?" The doctor held a bottle near his face.
Jullien glanced longingly at the painkiller. Had Nyran not injected him, he could have. But it wasn't worth the risk of a lethal interaction that could kill him. "No. I have to suffer with it."
"Is there anything I can give you?"
He shook his head. "Don't worry. I have a high tolerance for pain."
"Yeah, you must. Anyone else would be crying like a baby, given the extent of your injuries. And I wouldn't think any less of you if you did. You took some hard hits."
Jullien sat up slowly and pulled his shirt from her hand. "Sadly, I've taken worse."
She glanced at the scars on his body as she put the medicine away. "Yeah, I guess you have."
He settled his shirt over his chest without comment.
After she cleaned up, she returned with a small cold pack for him. "Twenty on, twenty off."
"Paktu."
"Pardon?"
"Thanks," Jullien said as he realized he'd responded habitually in Andarion and not Universal.
"You're welcome." She hesitated. "How would you say that in your language?"
"To you, I'd say lutzul. To me, you'd say lutzil."
"Lutzil?"
Jullien smiled at her attempt to roll her ls and pronounce the Andarion monothongs and umlaut. It wasn't an easy language for any non-Androkyn speaker to pick up, especially his Erisian aristocratic dialect and accent, and he gave her credit for even attempting it. Most humans didn't bother. "Very good."
"Yeah, right. Thanks for not mocking me."
"Hey, it's better than my first attempts at Universal. I promise you. Took me forever before I could make a human understand anything I said to them. For the longest time, all I got were peculiar frowns and a lot of pointing to the bathroom when what I'd said to them was good day or hello."
She laughed. "I don't know about that. I love Andarion accents. It's very sexy, the smooth way the words roll off your tongue ... like music. I could listen to yours all day long." She took the ice pack from his hand and activated it, then placed it against the bruise on his cheek. "You really need to keep this on your eye so the swelling won't be so bad."
When Jullien put his hand on the bag, he expected her to step away.
She didn't. Instead, she dropped her hand to finger the bruises on his throat below the collar of his shirt. "This has to be killing you. Are you sure there's not something I can do for your pain?"
Before he could answer, she dipped her head to nuzzle his neck.
He shot off the bed and collided with the tray. "I'm married."
She arched a brow at him. "Why aren't you wearing a wedding ring, then?"
Mainly because he was Andarion and they had a different custom with rings since it was a given most any legitimate or free-born male would be spoken for as soon as he entered puberty.
Unlike humans, they didn't exchange rings automatically, or see them as a universal sign of matrimony. Since marriages were arranged between matriarchs, a familial matriarchal pledge ring was given to the female at the time a contract for a future unification was negotiated as collateral to guarantee that the male would fulfill his promise to marry her. Females only gave rings to their husbands on anniversaries or at the birth of their first child, and then strictly as a show of extreme affection.
Because it was rarely done, it was a mark of high honor for an Andarion male to own a wedding ring. But it was not a given, nor customary. Males were naturally deemed either the property of their parents or their spouses and therefore they didn't need a ring to prove ownership. It was simply assumed by all.
Plus he had a natural feature that told the universe he was taken.
Jullien pointed to his red eyes. "I'm stralen."
She gave him a blank stare.
"Means I'm married and rabidly in love with my wife. It's an Andarion condition that's unmistakable. Don't need a ring when you have stralen, as it's far more obvious."
She swept a wistful pout over his body. "For the record, cutie-pie, you might want to rethink the ring since the rest of us have never heard of your stralen. And update your Tavali personnel files to list the wife, so we know."
Stunned and still gaping, Jullien watched as she left him.
Yeah, okay ...
What a screwed-up day this had been from beginning to end. He felt as if he'd fallen into an alternate dimension.
What the hell? Women didn't do things like this to him. He'd never had a female of any species come on to him before.
Except Ushara.
This is just ...
Effing weird.
If not for the pain, he'd think himself dead. It just didn't seem real or even plausible. He was an anathema to sentient creatures. At least that was how he'd always been treated. The concept that anyone would want him ...
Totally screwed with his head.
Unable to cope, he sat down on the floor as he tried to make sense of everything. Maybe he had a severe concussion. That seemed highly plausible given the number of times Nyran and Payne had slammed his head against the floor and the force they'd used to do it.
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