Shaking her head at him, she laughed. "You're incorrigible."
"Can't help it. My mind runs on inappropriate thoughts. Besides, you bring out the worst in me."
"Really?" she dragged the word out, slightly offended by that thought. "The worst?"
Jullien nodded playfully as he stared at the most beautiful female he'd ever seen in his life. Before he could stop himself, he brushed the pale hair back from her soft cheek. The light in her eyes scorched him.
More than that, it made his mouth water for a taste of her. God, how he'd missed her these last few days. She was all he could think about. Whether she was with him or not, she stayed with him like his own private demon.
Damn her for that ...
And damn him.
"No, Shara," he breathed honestly. "It's not true. You make me a much better Androkyn. I actually walked away from the fight at first, because of you. And I've never done that before in my life. Believe me. If there's trouble to be had, I'm always there with both hands out."
"Then how did you get pulled back into it?"
Cringing as he realized he'd accidentally screwed her brother, he brushed his fingers along her jaw. "I'm going into stealth mode now. I just walked into a bad place with no clear, safe exit."
Regretfully, he stepped away from her.
She narrowed her gaze on him as she invaded his personal space to confront him. "So Davel dragged you into it, I take it?"
"I didn't say that. I was definitely a willing participant for the entire event. Walked there on my own two feet, and everything."
Ushara let out an agitated breath as she pressed her forehead against his cheek, and sank her hand into his soft hair to hold him close. One of the best things about him was also the most aggravating. He accepted all blame as his due.
With full responsibility.
The true mark of a leader. Whether it was hardwired because of his birthright or beaten into him from his parents and grandmother, he never tried to weasel out of blame. He might hide the truth a bit, but he didn't hide his part in it.
She'd also discovered these last few days as she'd done more research into his warrant and past exactly how much his grandmother hated him. There were no records left of him on Andaria.
At all.
Nothing other than the hostile, mocking articles of reporters roasting him and holding him up for public ridicule. No birth registration. No caste listing. Every trace of Jullien eton Anatole had been erased from their systems. It was if he'd never been born. He wasn't even listed in the royal family histories.
They'd purged him entirely.
For all intents and purposes, he was persona non grata.
And it wasn't much better on Triosa. There were no birth or school records. While they hadn't gone so far as to remove him from their royal family tree, he'd been relegated to not much more than a footnote and listed simply as the younger half-Andarion bastard son of Aros Jullien Triosan. Disinherited from royal succession on the seventeenth day of Elembiuos, 8561.
No first or last name given for him. He had been erased from their lives as if he didn't matter at all. As if he had no significance to his family whatsoever.
But that wasn't true where she was concerned. In spite of what they thought and how they treated him, she saw his noble heart beneath his bluster. The insecurity that undermined his arrogance. And the adorable, playful bit that peeked out from under the rough countenance of a fierce, weary warrior.
"Come home with me, Jules. Vas is spending the night with a friend. I can make you dinner and listen to you complain about my cooking instead of my son."
He chuckled lightly. "Remember, I'm easy to please. No matter how bad you think your cooking is, it'll never be the worst thing I've tasted, and I would never complain. As long as you don't poison me, spit or piss in it, I'm ecstatic and grateful."
Those words made her stomach ache. "I really wish that were a joke."
"Not as much as I do, I assure you." He took her hand and placed a searing kiss on her palm. "Lead me home, mu tara. As always, I am helpless against your will."
It didn't take long to swing by the grocery store and pick out a light dinner, then head back to her condo.
Jullien started washing and cutting the vegetables while she changed out of her uniform and into more casual clothing. Then she took over so that he could open and pour their wine.
"You sure you don't want me to cook?" he asked as he handed her a glass.
She fed him a piece of bread. "No. I've got this. While I may not be as accomplished as you are, I can do basic comfort foods. Now let me dazzle you with my ineptitude."
He snorted as he drifted away from the counter to look around her living room at the pictures on her walls and shelves of Vas and her family. When he came to the old keyboard console she had near the sofa, he frowned. "Is this what I think it is?"
"Electric keyboard?"
He glanced at her. "You play?"
She shook her head. "Not a single note. Vasili wanted lessons a few years ago. It lasted about six days before he got bored and gave up. I keep it around in case he gets interested again. It's one of those things I know the day after I sell it, he'll want to do it again." She caught the reverent way he was looking at the abandoned instrument. The way he caressed the dusty case. Like a lost, forgotten friend. "You play?"
"Used to. But it's been a long time."
"Go ahead and amuse yourself. I promise I won't laugh. There's no way you can torture it more than Vas did. It sounded like a dying yaksen the whole time he attempted to play it."
Snorting, Jullien sat down, opened it up, and tapped a few keys, then winced. "It's way out of tune. That might have been part of it." He hummed and toyed with the sliders on it for several minutes until he brought it back into harmony.
Ushara was impressed that he could tune it so easily by ear. She knew from watching Vasili and his instructor that it wasn't that easy to do even with a tuner. Because it was old and had been well used at the time she'd purchased it, they'd struggled to keep it in tune and had complained about it incessantly. However, Jullien didn't seem to have any problem finding the right pitch.
Once he was satisfied, he began to play an extremely complicated piece. Her jaw dropped at the unimaginable skill he possessed.
Holy gods ...
It was like listening to a recording of a master virtuoso. His touch was so light and delicate. Precise and elegant. He didn't miss a single note. She'd never heard anyone actually play like that live before. Not with that kind of accomplishment. He made the instrument come alive as if it were a breathing creature. Her chest tightened with the emotions he wrung from her as he played as if he were divinely inspired.
She wouldn't have thought anything could sound more incredible.
Until he closed his eyes and started singing in a deep, rich bass. It was only a low rumble as if he was too timid or embarrassed to sing out loud. But it was beautiful, and his pitch was as tone perfect as his playing.
Tears blinded her as she struggled to listen to every note. He sang like an angel.
Breathless, she crossed the room to stand by his side.
He stopped instantly and cleared his throat. "Zeritui."
"Sorry? Oh my God, Jullien! That was incredible. Where did you learn to play and sing like that?"
Reaching for his wine, he gave a humble shrug. "Lessons were required as part of my education, six times a week. But I was never good enough for a recital."
Never good enough? Was that a joke? "Said who?"
"Everyone. My grandmother and instructors. My aunt. Father. Cousins ... guards who groaned whenever I sat down to practice. Even the guard dogs and trained battle-lorinas would howl and whine at me, then run and hide under furniture."
Anger poured through her at their vicious, jealous cruelty. At what they'd stolen from him for no reason whatsoever. "Jullien, they lied to you. You have to know that. Surely you can hear how well you play and sing. Can't you?"
Yet th
e sincere light in his eyes said that he honestly thought himself incompetent. "I was okay, maybe when I was younger. But that was a long time ago. As I said, it's been years since I touched one. I'm way out of practice."
She let out a scoffing laugh. "If this is you out of practice, I can't imagine what you must have sounded like then. I want to hear more. You keep playing." She put his hands on the keyboard. "I mean it."
"Gah, you're bossy."
"That's why I'm the vice admiral."
Snorting, he ran through a scale. "I really don't remember too much more."
By the time she finished dinner, he'd started playing and singing a ballad she'd never heard before. "That's beautiful. Who wrote it?"
Getting up, he gave her a bashful grin. "I did, just now."
"Seriously?"
He nodded, then in the sweetest of gestures he wrapped himself around her and held her with her back to his chest and his face buried in her hair. She could feel his fierce heartbeat against her shoulder and his erection against her hip, as he surrounded her with his strength and warmth. His muscles flexed while he gently rocked her.
She leaned back in his arms, surrendering her weight to him. "Are you all right?"
Jullien couldn't speak as he let her gentle presence soothe him. He'd felt safe so rarely in his life that he knew to cherish it while he could. This wouldn't last.
It never did. There had never been a time in his life when he'd had even a glimpse of heaven without there being massive hell to pay for it.
He was terrified of letting her go. Terrified of this night ending and being banished back to the cold where he was forced to live. All he wanted was to stay here. To have the right to share his broken life with her.
Forever.
"Jullien?"
Closing his eyes, he kissed her cheek. "I just wanted to thank you for dinner. I know how hard you worked all day. The last thing you needed to do was come home and feed me, especially after having to get me out of jail."
Ushara growled at him as she suppressed her anger over that little bit that dampened her tender feelings. "Don't remind me."
Impishly, he nibbled her fingers. "It smells good." He gave one sexy nuzzle that left her breathless before he moved to hold a chair for her. "You sit and I'll serve you."
"Really?"
"Only fair. You did the hard part."
She slid into the chair and watched as he quickly made plates for them and refilled their glasses. He could be so incredibly thoughtful and sweet. She'd never met a male like him before. He appreciated every little kindness he was given in a way no one else did.
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 Korilon 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."
"Zeritui."
"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."