Born of Vengeance

  That thought sickened him the most. Because he'd never failed to come to the defense of his friends. His parents had bred him for loyalty. You stand up for others, especially when they need you. Friends and family didn't abandon each other.

  Yet none of them seemed to have a molecule of it in them.

  In the end, he had no choice but to listen to his unwanted wife malign him in front of a universe who knew exactly what kind of liar she was. They had seen it countless times.

  How convenient that in this they thought she'd finally found some kind of human decency and conscience when she'd never shown any before.

  And three weeks later, after no one, not even his uncle Aros, had come to his defense, he was hauled before the Overseer for the verdict.

  Ever elegant and refined, Alia had her gray hair coiled around her head in the kind of intricate style his mother had favored. It made him wonder if the Overseer had done it for that reason. If her intent had been to cut him to the bone with the loss of his family.

  "Have you anything to say for yourself, boy?" Her voice was cold and brittle.

  "I'm innocent, Your Grace. I could never harm my family. I swear, I didn't do this!"

  She rolled her eyes. "Bastien Aros Cabarro, given the amount of evidence presented and the brutality of your actions, and reluctance to show remorse, you are hereby stripped of all title and standing, and found guilty of eight counts of premeditated homicide and sentenced to death. May whatever god or gods you worship have mercy on your rotten soul."

  Those words hit him like a sledgehammer to his gut. Never had he felt so alone. Not one single member of his family was here.

  Or so he thought.

  "Your Grace?"

  The Overseer arched a brow at her chancellor. "Yes?"

  "I have a petition that came in an hour ago from the Triosan emperor for clemency in sentencing. Would you care to read it?"

  Alia grimaced before she gave a curt nod.

  The bailiff came forward with an e-tablet.

  Bastien's scowl matched hers as he tried to understand why his uncle would speak up on his behalf now when Aros had refused to take any of his calls. Had refused to have any contact with him whatsoever. It seemed incongruous that he'd have sent the letter over while not being here for the hearing.

  But after a few minutes, the Overseer took a deep breath. "It appears your uncle still loves you, but I'm disinclined to give you the simple exile for your crimes that he requests. However, I do believe in compromising where I can, and I've no wish to alienate the Triosans. Therefore, I shall commute your sentence from death to make you a Ravin for The League. Should you survive as such for fifteen years, you'll earn a pardon."

  He gaped at her ludicrous verdict. Seriously? Ravins were the sentient targets League assassins were given as training assignments to hone their skills. They were implanted with a tracking device and then set free to be hunted down and killed like prey.

  Any humanitarian group worth its salt had protested the existence and practice--until their leaders ended up as Ravins themselves for treason against The League.

  Bastien scoffed at her kindness given the fact that the average life expectancy for a Ravin was six to eight weeks.

  For the humanitarian protesters, it'd been a few hours.

  But then he wasn't most.

  He was a captain first rank, Gyron Force trained, and motivated by a blood lust that ought to terrify everyone in this room.

  His fury rising with a heated need for vengeance, Bastien met her gaze. "Oh, I'll survive, my lady. And when I come back, I'll rain down a hell-wrath the likes of which you've never seen, and I promise you that the next time you look upon me, it'll be for the murder of the real killer of my family. And I won't be innocent then as I am today. I will come to you soaked and baptized in the blood of my enemies. You can bank on that."

  "Get him out of my court!"

  The guards jerked him toward the side door, where, to his instant shock, Ember waited.

  Time hung still as he felt a need to embrace her. As all his regret rose to choke him. And hatred, too, if the truth was known.

  I wish I'd never met you!

  When their gazes met, he saw sympathy. For the merest heartbeat, he thought she'd say something.

  But his captors didn't give her the chance. They rushed him past her and threw him into an armored transport, leaving him there to damn her and himself with every breath he took.

  *

  Ember started after Bastien, desperate to comfort him and tell him what was going on. But her father caught her arm and kept her by his side.

  "You say one word to him and they're liable to indict you as an accomplice."

  Grinding her teeth, she wanted to weep in frustration and pain. What had been done to him was all kinds of wrong and she knew it. "He didn't murder his family, Sa. You know that as well as I do. Bastien could never hurt them."

  "I know."

  She met her father's gaze as she sought some kind of sanity in this madness. "Why did Alura lie like that?"

  "To protect us from his uncle. You know as well as I do who the real killer was. We have Alura to thank for the fact that we're still standing when so many others have fallen. Don't you dare criticize her."

  Ember let out a bitter laugh. The concept of thanking her sister stuck hard in her craw. Unlike her father, she couldn't imagine Alura as an altruist. Not in this.

  This bloody coup had torn a hole through their empire. Worse? It'd indicted and torn apart so many of their noble and military families that Ember was terrified to think just how deep the conspiracy against Bastien's family ran. But the one thing she knew for certain, her sister was neck deep in it.

  And Alura had worked hard to set Bastien up for his fall.

  Tears filled her eyes as bitter anger choked her. Alura had robbed her of her future and then, not content to see her and Bastien suffer, she'd done this.

  Damn her to hell for it.

  "You don't believe that, Sa-sa. Surely. The one man who could have stopped Barnabas has just been handed a brutal death sentence--by his own uncle's hand. How long do you think it'll be before Barnabas silences all of us, too? He knows we know the truth. And worse, he knows the truth." She paused as she saw her sister leaving the courtroom with Barnabas and his son.

  Disgusted at the sight, she met her father's gaze. "By standing at Alura's side through this, you've just put a snake on the throne and handed victory to our enemies. Barnabas killed his own and framed his noble nephew for their deaths. Do you really think he's going to stand beside a bargain he made to a pleb? And if you do, I have swampland to sell."

  "You've gone too far!" he snapped.

  Tears filled her eyes as she choked on bile and gall. "No, Sa-sa. I didn't go far enough. I should have told Bastien the truth when I had the chance." More than that, she should have pulled out Alura's hair and cut her throat when she found out her sister was carrying Bastien's baby. Ember's failure to fight for him then had caused all this now. And never had her future, or that of her loved ones, been more tenuous. "If you'll excuse me, I'm going home to pack and evacuate, because I have no delusions on how this is going to end for us." She jerked her chin toward the direction where Alura had vanished. "Your beloved daughter just signed her name to all our death warrants. And unlike you, I intend to protect my own. All of them."

  CHAPTER 4

  ONE YEAR. TEN MONTHS. THREE WEEKS. SIX DAYS.

  "And now you know how I've lasted longer than any Ravin in League history." Bastien shot the corpse at his feet in the head one more time before he searched the assassin's body for supplies.

  He probably shouldn't have wasted that last charge so cavalierly, but there was something to be said for satisfaction. Even meager outlets, given how rare a commodity it'd become in his life.

  "Damn wanker. Couldn't you have a sweet vice? Alcohol? Something?"

  He shot him again for being such a stellar, upstanding soldier.

  Minsid League dogs. They wer
e wretchedly sober. And this one had feet the size of his sister's. Bastien grimaced as he tossed the boots aside and pulled his worn-out, threadbare pair back on. At least he'd gotten a good coat out of this one. Some fresh ammo and batteries.

  Not enough food, though. And they were MREs, which Bastien had been sick of when he was in Gyron Force.

  Oh well. He picked the bastard up and carried him to his stripped-out ship, making sure to delete and fry any trace that could lead a search party back here. Then he set the self-destruct sequence and launched it.

  Hopefully it wouldn't detonate until it was in the upper atmosphere and it'd burn up completely without raining down debris or leaving anything in space The League might find that they could use to trace him.

  You should have buried the body.

  But that came with its own risk, in that if someone found a body, they'd start looking for the killer. First lesson he'd learned out here. Launch the bodies into space. Keep the assassins, both alive and dead, as far away from his position as he could.

  The only good thing about being stuck here in the Oksanan desert was that it played havoc with all electronic equipment. And while that kept him isolated from the other worlds, it also allowed him to remain breathing.

  Bastien picked up the pack of salvaged goods and slung it over his back before he headed toward his burned-out home that had been the former base of one Aksel Bredeh. Scumbag Knoettr based on the debris Bastien had cleaned out on his arrival.

  He didn't know who or what Bredeh had crossed, but someone had taken offense to the man and his troops. There were still bloodstains and blaster marks Bastien couldn't get rid of. Which was probably good since it helped with the illusion that the base remained abandoned should anyone happen upon it.

  Not that anyone ever did. Probably why Bredeh had chosen it.

  Three hundred years ago, this little rock known as Oksana had been a major player in the politics of the Nine Worlds and had been the home of one of the richest, most revered and prestigious ruling families. In fact, interstellar travel and war had both begun here.

  Until the Oksanans had decided to go up against The League and overthrow the one military power that governed them all. The result had been that the once lush, green planet was reduced to the desert hole Bastien now called home.

  Probably why the electronics were wonky. No doubt there was enough residual radiation left behind from those bombings even after three hundred years that Bastien would either be sterile or father children with eight legs some day.

  He laughed at the thought as he looked up at the bleak, blinding sky. "Least you could do, God ... make me glow in the dark so I'd save on battery life."

  That at least would be helpful.

  "Look on the bright side. You only have thirteen and a half more years of this."

  Bastien stopped dead in his tracks as that reality hit him harder than a physical blow.

  I can't do it.

  This last year had almost killed him--and that didn't account for the assassins who were trying to cut his throat. They at least gave him some form of personal interaction. Brief though it was.

  And cheap entertainment. The look on their face when he, the lowly Ravin, finished them off was priceless.

  No, it was the solitude. The grief that tore him apart. Because here, where there was nothing but his thoughts to keep him company, all he could think about was how different everything would have been had he never met the Wyldestarrins. At all.

  How much better off his family would have been had he let Alura die that day, instead of rescuing her. So maybe this fate was justice after all.

  I did kill my family.

  One act of compassion. Of kindness. By thinking of her life over his, he'd sown the destruction for his own.

  No, it shouldn't be that way. She should have been grateful for everything he'd done for her. Should have been loyal.

  But people weren't like that. In the end, Jullien had been right about everything. Put no one at your back unless you want them to drive a knife through it.

  Bastien sank to his knees in the scorching sand. A part of him wanted to lie down and let the hot desert take him and wipe out his existence as easily as the sandstorms did his footsteps. It'd be so much easier. He had nothing to live for. Not really.

  That's not true and you know it.

  His family had died a hard, brutal death at the hands of his uncle's henchmen. With the help of Alura, Barnabas had gotten away with it. And framed him in the process. If he died, Barnabas would never pay for his crime.

  "You promised them."

  And a Cabarro never broke their oath.

  Get on your feet, soldier. Pay that bastard back. Hell. High water. Whatever it took, he wouldn't rest until he stood over his uncle's grave.

  He'd made a promise to the Overseer, too.

  Hell was coming. And Bastien planned to bring it with both fists.

  *

  "How could she do this to us?"

  Ember didn't comment on Cin's question as she helped Brand carry their mother's body into the cave they'd found for shelter. "Kindel?"

  "I got it. Me and Ash are setting the perimeter charges and monitors."

  Brand sank to her knees next to Ember and took their mother's cold hand. Tears welled in her eyes. "I can't believe she's gone."

  Choking on her own tears she didn't dare shed for fear of it incapacitating her, she pulled her sister into her arms and held her. "How's your wound?"

  "It pales in comparison to the hole in my heart." Brand had taken three shots as they'd fought their way out of an ambush. An ambush they'd have never survived had their mother not given her life for theirs.

  A sob escaped Ember's lips against her will as she struggled to hold back her tears over the memory of her mother falling beneath the barrage of fire. Char Wyldestarrin had always been the strongest, most capable soldier in the universe.

  Now ...

  Ember choked. "Has anyone called Sa?"

  Cin grew eerily quiet as she secured the opening of their cave so that no one would be able to detect their presence inside it.

  At her sister's reluctance to answer, Ember tasted bile in her throat. "What?"

  Still she didn't speak. "We need to inventory supplies. They'll be probing for us."

  "Cin..."

  Her eyes swam with tears as she finally looked at Ember and Brand. "He fell with his unit about three hours ago."

  Brand stiffened in Ember's arms.

  For a moment, she couldn't breathe as her entire world collapsed and she understood exactly how Bastien had felt at the moment he learned about his own parents' deaths. How he'd felt holding his mother's body in his arms.

  No, not entirely. She still had her sisters alive and with her. And she wasn't being blamed for their deaths. Nor had she watched them die while being held down, unable to protect them.

  Given how capable Bastien was as a soldier, that had to have killed him. She couldn't imagine a worse nightmare for anyone.

  Shots rang out.

  Brand shot to her feet and drew her weapon. Ember reluctantly left her mother's body to do the same.

  Utter silence descended, making her heart race in fear that Kindel and Ashley might have gone down.

  Please God, no....

  She couldn't handle losing anyone else. Not today. Not like this.

  "Em? Cin?"

  Her breath came out in an audible gasp as she heard Kindel's voice just outside their cave. "We're here. What happened?"

  "Tasi. She's coming in. Don't shoot at her like we did. She's kind of pissed about it."

  Cin wiped at her eyes with a nervous laugh as she saw her wife. Ember let out a ragged breath as they embraced and checked each other for injuries. At least one of them had some good news for the day.

  "You okay, baby?" Tasi held on to Cin as if terrified of letting her go.

  "Yeah. You?"

  She nodded. "I was being followed or I'd have been here a lot sooner. I wanted to make sure I di
dn't bring more trouble to your door."

  Ember holstered her blaster as raw panic continued to choke her. "Did you take care of it?"

  "I did." Tasi smiled grimly. "Another reason I had to make sure I wasn't followed. Everything's secured. Just like you asked."

  Thank the gods. Ember returned to Brand. "So what's going on at home?"

  Tasi winced as she saw their mother's body on the ground. "You've all been accused of treason. If they find you, you'll be arrested on sight."

  "Alura?" Cin asked before Ember had a chance.

  Tasi grew silent.

  Ember's stomach grew tight. "Did they kill her?"

  She drew Cin into a hug then whispered in a low tone, "No. She's giving statements that have indicted the rest of you."

  "How could she?" Brand whispered.

  Cin tried to pull away, but Tasi held her fast. "You can't go after her. She's being protected. They're trying to draw you home."

  "Good," Cin said firmly. "I'm willing to go."

  "But I'm not willing to lose you. Now sit down with your sisters and let's think this through."

  Ember was amazed when Cin obeyed her without question. Only Tasi could get Cin to listen. Especially in this mood.

  Wiping at her eyes, she struggled to accept this new reality. Her parents were dead. And she and her sisters were wanted outlaws. "I warned Sa-sa. I knew they'd come for us. But Alura..."

  "I'll kill that bitch!" Brand growled. "Gut her and bathe in her blood!"

  At the moment, Ember couldn't agree more. And yet with her world crumbling, what she really wanted was Bastien. She needed him more right now than she ever had before. He'd have a plan to get them out of this. He'd know what to do. This kind of strategic planning was what he did best.

  Not to mention scrounging for supplies. It was why they'd dubbed him Ghost Gadget, or GG, for a call sign. If you gave him a problem, any problem, big or small, he came up with a workable solution. The bastard made it look so easy.

  But she had no idea where he was. If he was even alive.

  Most likely not. Ravins only survived six to eight weeks. They were long past that now. He'd probably died years ago.

  Alone.

  That thought almost broke her as she imagined him going down under a barrage of fire as her mother had done. With no one there to care for his body.

  No one there to shed a single tear for him.

  Her Bas had deserved more than that.

  "What are you thinking?" Cin asked. "I see those gears working."