Born of Defiance

  Felicia went to get a cup as his mother returned to stand by his bed.

  "You should have told me about Felicia. She was quite a shock to my system."

  He swallowed hard before he tried to speak. "I haven't known her that long. Just a few weeks."

  She narrowed her gaze at him. "She's a companion, isn't she?"

  He glanced away.

  "You don't have to answer. She has to be. But you should know that she hasn't left here since you were brought in four days ago. She's fetched for me and taken care of us like a daughter, and has been genuinely scared for you. I don't know which of us prayed harder for your recovery." She brushed her hand through his braids. "Paid or not, that girl adores you. No one could fake the heart I've seen in her, and definitely not for almost a week with no sleep."

  He swallowed hard as those words choked him with emotions he couldn't even begin to fathom. But one, he could easily identify. "I love her, Matarra."

  His mother tensed. "Talyn ... you're too young to know what love is."

  He emphatically disagreed with that. While he might be young, he knew what he felt. And he was a lot older than his parents had been when his mother "fell in love" with his father.

  If what his mother felt for the dickhead who fathered him wasn't love, damned if he knew what that word meant.

  "You've never had a female before, son. Don't make the mistake of thinking your hormone levels can sustain a difficult relationship. You know why you can never have a female or family of your own. What would happen if she ever saw the real you. The risks ... you can't let anyone that close to you, and you know it."

  Talyn glanced away as he bit back a sneer at her dismissal of his feelings. Unfortunately, he knew exactly what she meant. Love was hard for two normal Vested Andarions.

  For someone like him ...

  He had nothing to offer Felicia, except profound risk and heartbreak.

  "Please tell me you haven't said any of this to her."

  He shook his head. "We're still on our probationary period."

  "Then I wouldn't tell her. No good can come of it. You know that."

  As much as he hated to admit it, she was right.

  Licking his lips, he grimaced and changed the subject. "Is there something I can use to brush my teeth?"

  His mother smiled. "My proper little soldier. Always so meticulously clean and well-kempt." She went to the sink to open his shaving kit.

  "Yeah, well, I got tired of the ass-spankings and tirades whenever I let myself go."

  Laughing, she returned to help him brush his teeth. "I don't know about that. I think you must have enjoyed the spankings. You went from letting me do it, to every Andarion stepping into a Ring with you."

  He spit out the paste into the plastic container she held for him. "What can I say? Big and hairy as they are on their worst day, they're nowhere near as scary as you on your best."

  His mother let out a tired heh sound at that.

  As he finished brushing his teeth, Felicia returned with the ice chips. "Is he speaking yet?"

  "I am."

  She smiled warmly. "I've so missed the sound of that deep, rumbling voice." She dipped a spoon into the cup and held it for him to eat.

  He dutifully opened his lips and allowed her to feed ice to him.

  His mother cocked a brow as she watched them. "I feel like an outsider."

  Felicia blushed. "I'm sorry, Commander." She held the cup out toward her. "Would you like to do this?"

  She shook her head. "I have a feeling he'd much rather eat from your hand than mine."

  Talyn ate another bite of ice. "Shouldn't you be in class?"

  "I spoke to my professors. They understand, and I've been doing my assignments while we took turns watching over you."

  He glanced over to his mother. "What about you?"

  "I don't have class."

  He rolled his eyes. "What about your post?"

  "I spoke to my superiors and they understand. Sorry, champ. You're stuck with both of us."

  "I wouldn't have it any other way. Well ... maybe with a little less pain." He grimaced as he adjusted himself in the bed.

  Felicia took a bite of his ice chips.

  "Hey!" he said playfully.

  "What?" She blinked innocently without the least hint of guilt in her eyes. "I'll get you more, you big old baby." She fed him another bite.

  In spite of the pain, his body hardened at the intimacy of her feeding him with the same spoon that had just touched her lips and tongue. But it wasn't the spoon or ice he wanted to taste. It was those sassy, glossy lips that made him hunger.

  Damn the hospital blanket for being so thin. He bent his knee to disguise the sudden bulge he was afraid was way too obvious.

  The blush on both his mother's and Felicia's faces corroborated the fact that his erection was as apparent as he feared.

  "Want a pillow, baby?" Felicia asked.

  "Yes," he groaned, humiliated to the core of his soul.

  Laughing, she pulled one from a small recliner and placed it over his groin.

  "Thank you."

  His mother cleared her throat. "I think I'll go call ... somebody. I'll be back in a few."

  As soon as she was gone, Felicia leaned in to give him the kiss he was dying for. When she started to pull away, he kept her there for a moment longer.

  "Better?" she asked with a wicked grin.

  "Not really." He pulled the pillow back to show her.

  She tsked at him. "Poor baby. Want me to kiss it and make it better?"

  "Don't tease me like that when you know the answer."

  Biting her lip, she glanced out the door. "It's really public."

  "I know. Damn it."

  She nibbled his lips as she snuggled against him.

  Closing his eyes, he savored the warmth of her body and scent of her curls that teased him even more. It was so difficult to not tell her what he felt. How glad he was that she appeared to care for him.

  Even if she might be faking it, he'd take it. The only ones who'd ever been really kind to him were his mother, Aunt Jayne, her husband, and Erix. It was nice to have someone else watch his back.

  Felicia gave him a light squeeze before she sat on the bed and continued feeding him ice. She glanced over to his monitors. "Your heart rate and BP are up. Are you in pain?"

  "Yes, but I'm rather sure you're the reason for the elevation." He glanced to the pillow in his lap. "As well as other ones."

  The blush returned to her cheeks. "I think you like embarrassing me."

  He brushed his hand through her thick curls that he wanted to literally bathe in. "You are adorably beautiful when you blush. Have I really been out for four days?"

  "Not counting the day you spent in surgery. Yes."

  "Damn, they're right. I am a thoughtless bastard to be such boorish company for you."

  Snorting, she rolled her eyes. "Do you remember the crash at all?"

  Talyn shook his head. "I vaguely remember anything about that day. The last clear memory I have is you feeding me at the gym." Then he gave a short laugh as he remembered one innocuous detail. "Oh, wait ... there was a Tavali named Blister in the battle. How stupid is that?"

  She wrinkled her nose. "Blister?"

  "Yeah, we all get embarrassing call signs in the beginning, but they normally fade after a fight or two. Seldom do they make it onto our ships."

  "So yours wasn't always Pit Viper?"

  "No. It was Mongrel Ass until I got fed up with the giant, arrogant bastard who gave it to me. He was mocking me as usual and then made the mistake of speaking ill about my mother. I froze midstep and, without warning, took him down with one punch. Hence the name. When I go stock still, you need to run. Means I'm taking aim and about to strike ... with fatal consequences."

  She fed him more ice. "So Blister is the only thing you recall from the whole fight, huh? I think I need to do a psych eval on you about that."

  Grinning at her playful teasing, he glanced away. Unt
il he did recall something. "Now that you mention that, I think I was talking to Syndrome when my ship went up."

  Felicia went cold at the name. "Syndrome?"

  "A female in my squad ... why are you so mad?"

  She tried to suppress her anger, but it was impossible. A part of her wanted to beat him.

  Most of all, she wanted to find this female and make sure she understood in no uncertain terms that Talyn had someone in his life.

  With a jerk of her chin, she indicated the bouquets of flowers and balloons that lined the shelf in front of his window. "Syndrome sent those to you ... a new one every day you've been here. She must really like you."

  Talyn rubbed his head as he struggled to remember. "Not really. She usually growls out an insult if I so much as glance in her general direction." There was a ghost of something about Syndrome in the outer fringes of his mind, but he couldn't quite pull it. "I must have taken a blast for her. Or something slammed into me. Maybe."

  "You were shot," his mother said as she rejoined them. "You really didn't hear the alarms to warn you you'd been sighted?"

  He shook his head. "I would have taken evasive action had they done so."

  "What does that mean?" Felicia asked his mother.

  Talyn explained for her. "Whenever an enemy's targeting system locks on us, our alarms go off to warn us we're about to be fired on, so that we can get out of the way."

  "Did they malfunction?"

  "Possibly."

  His mother crossed her arms over her chest. "I spoke to the ground crew who combed the wreckage of your ship yesterday. They were pretty sure and clear that you were hit by friendly fire."

  Still, he couldn't believe it. "How? Our systems can't lock on each other, or fire. They're blocked from it."

  His mother wasn't willing to let it go. "It's been known to happen, from time to time."

  "Could the Tavali be using our armada system?" Felicia asked. "Maybe it really was them."

  He shook his head again. "There's a special fight program we use. Even if they had one of our systems, it wouldn't provide the right code to silence the alarms on my fighter. Every battle has a new and unique code that isn't generated until we launch for that specific fight."

  Fury darkened his mother's gaze. "When I find out who fired on you, there will be blood shed for it."

  Talyn stared at the wall without responding. There was only one Andarion who'd have dared it. Only one who would have had access to the override codes.

  Anatole.

  He had no idea why that bastard had such a hard-on for him. But he did. And there was nothing his mother could do. She couldn't even get Talyn reassigned to another post. So he said nothing. All the truth would do was upset her. She'd never handled it well whenever something was out of her control. Especially when it involved him and his well-being. Then her guilt kicked in, and Talyn hated seeing that in her eyes.

  It wasn't her fault that his father had abandoned her while she'd been pregnant. That was solely on Fain Hauk's shoulders. He was the irresponsible bastard who'd impregnated her and walked away without looking back.

  The only thing she'd done wrong was give up her life and prestige to keep Talyn. Though there were times he wished he'd never been born, he'd never regretted his mother staying with him. His life would have been infinitely worse had she given him up. While orphans with no paternal or maternal lineages were technically above his caste in their rigid society, they were completely ineligible for the military. His role would have been that of an opinionless servant, forced into the most menial of jobs.

  Taking his mother's hand, he held it to his heart.

  "I love you, Talyn," she whispered, kissing his temple.

  Talyn tightened his grip on his mother's hand, but didn't speak. His gratitude to her was too great to be trivialized by words that couldn't convey the depth of what he really felt.

  He reached for Felicia and took her hand, too. "My two munataras. I couldn't ask for better company."

  "Well, look at this ... and here I was feeling sorry for your rotten ass. Hell, for two such gorgeous females to dote on me, I'd set myself on fire, too."

  Snorting, Talyn glanced to the door to see Erix joining them. "Sure you would. You cry over a hangnail."

  With his arms crossed over his chest, Erix moved to stand at the foot of the bed so that he could scowl at Talyn. "How you feeling, kid?"

  "Like I've gone a few too many rounds with you."

  Erix tsked at him. "Flattery will only get you an extra hour of laps."

  "You always threaten that, but you never do it."

  "'Cause you're so pretty, you remind me of my daughter." Erix glanced over to Talyn's mother. "Any word on when they might release him?"

  "Once they ease him back on solid food for a full day without any complications, they'll let him go home."

  He nodded. "I'll have Ferrick reschedule a few fights."

  "Ferrick's going to kill me."

  Erix scoffed. "Don't worry about that old buzzard. I'll take care of him. You focus on getting better."

  Talyn nodded. "I'll get out of here as soon as possible." He had no intention of staying in this bed one minute longer than was absolutely necessary. But as he listened to his mother and Erix talk, his memory began to slowly fill in details of his mission.

  More than that, he remembered why Syndrome had sent him flowers.

  Anatole was seriously abusing his power and Talyn had challenged him. Apparently, this was how the royal prick answered a legitimate invitation.

  With treachery.

  Fine, bitch. If Anatole didn't want to face him in the Ring like a true Andarion, Talyn would go over his head and report him.

  One way or another, he'd end this.

  *

  Alone in his room, Talyn sneered at the news report that covered the battle against the Tavali.

  "Colonel Anatole emerged as the hero of the day. With seven kills, he single-handedly saved his unit and the lives of every Andarion who fought beside him. Andaria owes a tremendous debt to the royal family member. We're lucky to have one such as he on our side."

  Talyn turned the news off before he threw up, just on principle. Ridiculous.

  His link buzzed. Thinking it was his mother or Felicia checking in with him, he answered without reviewing the ID.

  It was Command. "Major Batur, we have received your report and the prime commander has gone over it. We wanted to make sure that you are willing to stand by what you've written, as it seriously contradicts what Colonels Anatole and Pinara have reported."

  He scowled. "What do you mean?"

  A file popped up on his link. "They claim that you are the one who has been propositioning the females in your squad, and Colonel Anatole has sworn testimony from six different females who say that you have behaved inappropriately with them. The commander is currently reviewing the rest of your file to see if a demotion is in order. So again, I ask you, do you wish to submit your report and have it as part of your record?"

  Talyn couldn't breathe as those words sank in and he realized Syndrome had thrown him to the wolves for daring to help her. "What exactly did Colonel Pinara say?"

  "She claims you have accosted her on two separate occasions, and that she's seen you expose yourself to other females in your squad."

  Talyn ground his teeth. So, he'd put his ass on the line for Syndrome and she'd sold him out. Minsid hell.

  Why was he even surprised?

  "Do you wish to proceed with your report, Major?"

  The suicidal part of Talyn was ready to see it through, but the saner half of his brain knew better. He was a lack-Vest bastard. Without corroboration, no one would ever believe him. Not against a member of the royal family.

  The nail that stands out gets hammered down. The old Andarion proverb went through his head. And he was tired of taking those blows.

  Screw this shit.

  "No. Please destroy the report."

  "Very well. You should know that when you return
to duty, the commander wants you to report to his office for disciplinary action."

  Of course he did. "Duly noted." Talyn hung up and fought the urge to destroy his link.

  This was bullshit.

  He'd just put his link away when it rang with the armada's tone. What fresh hell is this? There was no way it could be good.

  His gut knotted, he answered it to find Anatole on the other end.

  "You think you're smart, mongrel? You're lucky I caught this. And I promise you that as bad as you think you've had it, it's nothing compared to what you're going to face when you're cleared for duty again. I swear you will regret the day you ever decided to don an Andarion uniform. End of the day, I own your sorry ass. And I intend to make you bow down to your betters and lick my boots. One way or another, you will learn your place." Anatole hung up.

  Talyn growled low in his throat as reality kicked him hard. Why had he bothered to stand up for someone else? Anyone else?

  Now ...

  He was going down in flames and no one would be there to help him through this. No one.

  Ta-lyn No-kin

  Born in sin.

  No matter what, you'll never win....

  In that moment, he wanted the throat of every Andarion ever born. But none more so than his own father's.

  And that of every member of the Anatole bloodline.

  *

  "Thank the gods, you're here."

  Felicia frowned at the nurse as she left the lift and approached their station in the hallway. Her heart pounded in fear. She'd only left Talyn long enough to go to her final. Had he taken a turn for the worse during her absence?

  I should have never left him.

  "What's happened?"

  Her face a mask of horror, the nurse gestured toward Talyn's room. "That ... male is the most infuriating, surly, nasty beast to ever breathe! We're down to drawing straws to see who has to go in to check his vitals."

  Felicia gaped at the female. "What?"

  "You know he signed the orders yesterday that we couldn't give him anything without his express approval?"

  "Yes."

  "Well, now he's in extreme pain and he refuses to eat. He can't sleep. He takes the head off anyone who goes near him. And if we don't get food into him, we're going to have to reinsert a feeding tube. And none of us want to do that, for fear of what he'll do to us to retaliate.... The doctor's in a meeting right now, trying to overturn Batur's right to refuse treatment, or get him kicked out."

  Felicia was aghast. "Where's his mother?"

  "She had to leave not long after you did. He's been impossible ever since."

  Felicia shook her head. "All right. I'll deal with him. Where's his food?"