The sane part of himself said to tell Bas he was mistaken. To deny it, and his cousin, with everything he had.
He couldn't. Not after everyone else in their family had turned their back on Bas. He knew exactly how bad it hurt to be cast out and denied. Be damned if he'd do it to someone else. "Yeah."
Bastien stared at him as if he were a ghost. Then he laughed and reached out to pull him in for a hug. "Damn, if you don't look good, cousin. Running looks much better on you than it does on me. You wear banishment well."
Jullien held him close even though he had to ignore the stench of him and breathe through his mouth. "You wouldn't have said that two years ago. Trust me."
Clapping him on the back, Bastien released him. "Thanks for not cringing when I touched you. Believe me, I know I'm disgusting and it's more than I deserve."
"It's all good, m'drey."
"No, it's not. And for what's worth, which isn't much, I tried to get my father to harbor you. It sickened me how they did you after your parents threw you out. I'm really sorry."
Jullien gestured at him. "I'm sorry for this. What happened to you?"
"League. I'm a Ravin. Been running since Barnabas murdered my family and stole our throne."
He cringed in sympathetic pain. "I figured you were dead by now."
"Same here. Thank the gods for my Gyron Force training. How the hell have you survived?"
Jullien smirked. "Thank the gods for Gyron Force training. Had your uncle and father not been such bastards those times I visited, I wouldn't have lasted a week on my own."
Bastien snorted. "Ain't it a bitch? Barnabas had no idea he was doing us a favor. One I pray I get to return to him by planting my Gyron axe in the center of his skull."
"Gealrewe!" Jullien clapped him on the back. "Well, since you know who I am, you want me to drop you somewhere? Get you off this rock?"
He let out a long, tired sigh. "Yes--but no. Not unless you know how to pull a League chip out of me."
"No." Jullien looked to Unira and Thraix.
"Sorry," Unira said. "Not a clue."
Thraix shook his head. "Beyond my abilities. I could try to do it with my powers, but it's as likely to explode the chip, which could cause internal damage, and depending on where it's located, that could paralyze or kill him."
The only thing that had saved Jullien from being tracked by Nyran's toy was that he'd discovered how to jam the one in his spine--something Nyran hadn't figured on him learning to do with his new Trisani powers. The beautiful bonus about his being a hybrid, he didn't have the same limitations that Thraix and Trajen had. But when it came to surgically removing Bastien's or jamming League tech ...
That he didn't want to risk. As Thraix said, he might hurt or kill his cousin.
Eyes wide, Bas held his hand up and backed away. "Rather not chance death. My life sucks enough without a maiming or fatality."
Thraix nodded. "Figured you'd feel that way."
Bastien narrowed his gaze on Thraix. "Were you really going to kill me?"
"Had you not been his cousin? Yeah. And I still might. If you give me any reason to." Thraix headed for the stairs with Unira.
"Duly noted." Bastien ripped into one of the meal packs as he followed them through the base. "So what brings you here. Really?"
Jullien decided there was no reason to hide the truth. Besides, if Bastien lived here, he might be a resource who could help them with the search. "Looking for the files Bredeh ran on my family back when he was trying to kill Nyk. I'm hoping I can find something to lead me to my grandmother and the rest of my cousins who've sided with her."
"To what end?"
"Theirs, I hope."
Bastien swallowed a bite of his bar. "I thought you and Grandma were always tight?"
Jullien froze and gave him a bone-chilling glare that caused him to take two steps back.
"Sorry," Bastien said quickly. "That's what your father always said whenever he came around. He thought it showed an utter lack of judgment on your part."
"What in the Nine Worlds could ever make him think that? I never could stand the old bitch."
Bastien shrugged nonchalantly. "No idea. But he was fully convinced of it."
Jullien snorted. "Anyway, I love my grandmother as much as you do your uncle, for about the same reasons. Had my father ever bothered to have a conversation with me, he'd have known that. And if I don't stop her, she will find some way to kill my mother and brother, and retake her throne. I didn't wipe out an entire portion of my family to put my mother in power to watch that happen."
Bastien scowled. "No. Wait ... what?"
"You heard me."
"WAR and your aunt put your mother in power."
"Yes," Jullien said slowly, "with the information I gave them over the years. And particularly at the end. Trust me. No one else could have brought down Eriadne. It's why I'm the only one she put a hit on."
Bastien's jaw went slack. "Do they know that?"
"They never bothered to ask. But one would think with their brilliant intellects, they'd have discerned it by now. Again, doesn't take much to figure it out, since I'm the only one my grandmother has come after with a vengeance. Everyone else was spared her wrath. Kind of makes you wonder why, huh?"
"Damn, brother. You got screwed."
"Don't we all?"
Bastien nodded. "So why you want to help them?"
Jullien shrugged with a nonchalance he really didn't feel. "She's still my mother. Nyk's still my brother. My grandmother's done them enough harm in their lives. I'm not about to let that bitch do any more. Be damned if I'm going to let her win after everything else she's done. I'm a bastard that way."
"And here all this time, I thought you were nothing but a vindictive asshole."
"Oh, you were not wrong about that. I am vindictive asshole. This is all about payback to the whore. Just the whore, in this case, isn't my mother."
Bastien sucked his breath in sharply. "That's harsh."
"I am the callous bastard they raised me to be." Jullien scowled at Aksel's system, which Thraix hadn't bothered to touch. Rather, he stared at it with a bemused grimace that matched the one on Unira's face.
One quick glance over it, and Jullien understood their reservation. "It's booby-trapped?"
Bastien stepped around him to enter in his password. "Yeah ... sorry about that. I did it. First thing when I found this place and moved in was secure everything so that if one of the League bastards happened upon it, they couldn't use anything to figure out if it belonged to me or not." He opened the files. "There you go."
While continuing to eat his way through the supplies Jullien had given him, Bastien drifted back to watch.
Jullien took over and began searching through Aksel Bredeh's database with an expertise Bastien had never realized his cousin possessed. This was not the useless piece-of-shit prince the Triosans had railed against. Bastien couldn't count the hours he'd listened to his father and Uncle Aros as they discussed what they needed to do to block Jullien's inheritance. "I don't know what to do with his sorry ass, Newell. It's not like I have another heir to choose from. But you've seen what I'm talking about. He sneers at me as if he could rip out my throat, and he's large enough to do it. Plus he's Andarion. And he's high most of the time. I'm so terrified of being alone with him. I never know when he's going to decide he's had enough, and go for my crown. The way he looks at me scares the shit out of me. I know he's plotting with his grandmother to invade my empire. Why they've waited this long, I have no idea. Why else would he keep begging to come live here when it's obvious he's more Andarion than human? Hell, he can barely speak Triosan or Universal coherently. I only understand every third word out of his mouth. Can you imagine him as the emperor of my people? My father would roll in his grave. I know he's only after my crown."
Instead, Jullien had willingly given up his Andarion inheritance when he put his mother in power. It would have been easy during the Andarion coup and riots to kill off his entire eton A
natole family, and to have emerged as the sole survivor of that mess. No one would have suspected anything, given the way the Andarions had gone after the royal family.
Had he wanted to, he could have seized the Andarion throne and then taken his father's empire in the blink of an eye. Hell, with the turmoil that rapidly followed on Kirovar, Jullien could have even made a play for theirs, too. Since Bastien's mother, their queen, was the younger sister of Jullien's father, Jullien had as much blood rights to it as Barnabas did.
More so, really.
But that wasn't the cousin Bastien remembered from his childhood. While they hadn't been close, the Jullien he recalled had always tried to stay low and in the shadows. Off everyone's radar. True to Aros's words, his studious and portly Andarion cousin had been sullen and quiet. Extremely reserved, and at times rude. Bastien had assumed it came mostly from the language barrier and Jullien's frustration with their strange, "foreign" customs, which were seldom explained to him until after he'd unknowingly violated them and he was mortified and ridiculed when his father or another relative made a grand show of publicly correcting him for it.
Because Jullien was seldom allowed to visit his father, his Universal had been extremely difficult to understand through his thick Andarion accent, and he'd spoken even less Triosan and no Kirovarian--which everyone kept insisting he answer them in. Uncle Aros had refused to allow Jullien a translator, since as a prince of the empire, he "needed" to know and speak the people's language. Then they would laugh and mock him when he spoke with a childish vocabulary and syntax, which understandably had made Jullien even more churlish and silent. Withdrawn and belligerent. It got so bad at one point that Jullien refused to speak even when their grandfather tried to beat answers out of him.
Bastien flinched as he recalled that afternoon of them striking Jullien, and Jullien standing there, unflinching with every blow, but willfully silent through every bit of it. He'd never seen anyone stand so strong, especially at such a young age.
It was why Bastien had attempted to learn Andarion. That had given him a whole new appreciation for Jullien's intellect. God knew, Andarion was one screwed-up language. Hard to pronounce and harder still to comprehend if you weren't born to it.
Honestly, he'd always felt sorry for Jullien. He'd seemed horribly lonely and sad. Wounded even. He seldom smiled. Always looked at the world around him through those dark glasses with a suspicious frown, as if waiting to get slapped or kicked.
While Bastien's father had been doting and kind, Aros wasn't. At least not to Jullien. Aros might bring presents and praise for Bastien and his siblings, but he'd always complained about Jullien's obesity, Andarion traits, and mannerisms. His red-tinted glasses that he had to wear. The way he rolled his rs and ls. His father had accused him of lisping like a toddler when he spoke, but it wasn't a lisp. More like a deep brogue or growling sound.
Basically everything Julie did got on his father's nerves. In fact, all Bastien remembered from family get-togethers was Aros relentlessly dogging his son. Sit up. Stand straight. Sit down. Your coat's crooked. You mispronounced that. Why can't you learn how to greet a human? Stop slouching. Are you paying attention? Where's your head? Did you hear what I said? Or are you too stupid to understand it?
Their grandfather had been even more critical and cold. Mostly because he couldn't stand the Andarions, and he'd been infuriated that his grandson and future heir was one of their dreaded breed. Furious at Aros, he'd taken his rage out on Jullien as if it were all his fault that his father had slept with his mother.
Every time Jullien came to visit, Quinlan had gone to war on both Aros and Jullien, making both their lives hell until Jullien was returned to Andaria.
Now Bastien sighed as he watched his cousin searching through files.
Yeah, Julie knew an entirely different Triosan grandfather than the doting old man who'd bounced Bastien and his siblings on his knee. And that made him saddest of all. He had a hard time reconciling how his grandfather could be so kind to him and so hard on Jullien, who'd never deserved such harsh treatment. It'd really screwed with him as a kid to see those different sides of his family.
Made him extremely suspicious of people in general.
Sadly, not suspicious enough. If he'd been a bit more, he might have seen Barnabas's treachery coming before it was too late.
Jullien scooted the chair back from the desk for Thraix to lean in. "This is it. But it's not really helpful. Venik has a secured base that's unknown to The Tavali outside of his Nation. He had it built for my cousin as a precaution should something happen to him, so that Malys wouldn't be able to kill Nyran or Parisa in a jealous rage. I will lay odds that's where my grandmother is."
Thraix studied the schematic. "That's so deep in their territory ... and the Phrixians. We go near that, they'll know."
Jullien raked a frustrated hand through his hair. "We've got to do something. I can't let them kill my family. She's not going to stop trying for my mother's throat."
The woman with him rubbed his shoulder. "At least your immediate family is safe from them."
"That's not good enough."
"You know..." Bastien moved forward to access another database of old smuggler routes. "There are some ancient trading wormholes that aren't in use anymore in that sector. They don't really appear on most maps." He showed it to Jullien. "I stumbled across this one back when I went through a teenage phase we won't talk about."
Jullien snorted. "I remember that phase."
"And we're not talking about it." Bastien pointed to one of the routes that paralleled the station's orbit. "That would drop you in, clear of their surveillance."
Jullien nodded as he studied the map. "Mind if I take a copy?"
"It's all yours."
He quickly downloaded it. "Thoky."
Bastien's eyes widened at his use of the Kirovarian term for thanks. "Glad I could help."
Jullien jerked his head toward the door. "Want to see about that shower?"
"You know I do."
"We can also drop you somewhere else. Really, I don't mind."
Bastien shook his head. "As much as I would, I better stay put. This place plays havoc with League tracking equipment and most electronics. Not sure why Aksel's shit works. But this is the safest place I've found to bed down. While it's not much, it gives me peace of mind at night. I know I don't have to tell you what that's worth."
No, he didn't. Sad to say, Jullien would have killed for a run-down safe shit-hole like this to call home before Ushara took him in. But even so, he hated to leave Bastien like this.
Desperately, he wanted to offer him Safe Harbor, but since he wasn't a Canted member of the Nation, he didn't have the right to make that invitation. And while Unira had her Canting, she was terrified of Trajen and would never dare bring someone wanted by The League near their base.
Thraix wasn't Tavali and, like Jullien, couldn't extend it on Trajen's behalf. That being said, the Trisani glanced around. "You want me to make the place a little more hospitable?"
Bastien frowned. "What do you mean?"
"I have some skills that can clean this place up and make it more solid and habitable ... if you want."
A slow smile broke across Bastien's face. "A solid roof that doesn't leak during the rare rains we have would be incredible. But don't make it too inviting. I don't want it to attract any undue attention. Only things I want crawling in here are the spiders and insects."
"Got it."
Jullien led Bastien and Unira toward their ship.
Bastien frowned at the ship's name on the side that was written in Andarion. "Pet Hate?"
Jullien grinned as he lowered the ramp. "Seemed fitting for me."
Shaking his head, Bastien laughed. "Damn, Julie, you look so different from the last time I saw you."
"Yeah, I'm surprised you recognized me."
"I would always know my favorite cousin."
He arched a brow at that. "Not how I remember our relationship."
> Bastien grinned. "I will admit that you intimidated me."
That admission stunned him. "What?"
"Honor to the gods. Yeah. You were massively tall and huge. Twice my size, and you always wore a frowning expression that said you were contemplating the death and dismemberment of the next person who made the mistake of speaking to you."
Unira passed a curious look at Jullien. "Did you?"
"No. Honestly, the frown came from my confusion as I tried to understand what they were saying to me. Triosans speak fast, and their accents are incredibly thick and unlike the language files we were given in school. The court dialect was completely different from what I'd been taught."
Bastien nodded. "He's right. It took me a few minutes to reacclimate every time I visited. But man, Julie, that's not what it looked like on your face. Your expression was one of perpetual pissed off. Not that I blame you for it.... Yet even so, I always looked forward to seeing you."
"Why? You mostly ignored me."
"I always sat by you, if you remember."
Jullien scowled as he thought back to their childhood and vaguely recalled that fact. Bastien had done that.
Bastien grinned at him. "I just always thought you had some kind of secret knowledge the rest of us lacked. And I wanted to know more about Andarions and if they were as different from us as everyone claimed. Because honestly, you didn't seem like you were all that strange to me."
"Thanks ... I think."
Bastien winked as Unira laughed before she headed down the hallway that led toward the bridge. Sobering, Bastien narrowed his gaze on Jullien. "In all seriousness, though, you look really good now, and not just more fit and trim. You look happy. Like there's a weight missing from your shoulders. I don't know what happened to you, but I hope it's as good as it seems. You deserve to have some peace from the hell they gave you."
Jullien pulled the glasses down past his eyes so that Bastien could see their true red shade.
Bastien gaped. "What's the Andarion term for that?"
"Stralen."
"Means you're married, right?"
Jullien nodded as he replaced his glasses. "To an amazing female. Like your Alura."
Tears filled his eyes as anger curled his lip. "For your sake, I pray she's nothing like Alura. That faithless bitch is one of the reasons I'm here."