Born of Shadows (The League Gen 1 #3)(17)
Author: Sherrilyn Kenyon

She wiped at her eyes. “I’m sure that’s not the real reason.”

“I promise you, it is.”

She shook her head. “You’re terrible.”

“Again, I’ve been called worse.” He brushed his hand over her head, checking for swelling. She winced as he touched the lump where she was bleeding. “Sorry.” He reached into his bag and dug out a chemical ice pack. He broke the seal, shook it and then handed it to her to put on the swelling. “The cut doesn’t appear to need stitches. Let’s get the swelling down and then I’ll put a coagulant on it.”

Desideria cocked a brow at his authoritative tone. “You’re a doctor too?”

He didn’t respond. By the look on his face, she could tell she’d inadvertently hit a nerve, though she had no idea how.

Ignoring her, he pulled back the leg of his pants to tend his own wound.

She watched in silent awe as he stopped the bleeding, cleaned and then wrapped it like a pro.

“How is it a prince knows so much about field dressing and medicine? You said you’d made runs into the Andarions’ territory. Were they mercy missions?”

He scowled at her. “I thought you knew.”

“Knew what?”

Scratching at the whiskers on his face, he snorted. “You must live under a rock on the most back-ass planet in the universe to have missed the news.”

She ignored his insult—it was so mild compared to what her family gave her that it didn’t even register. And for once, she actually agreed with his summation. Qillaq was rather backward compared to other worlds. “What news?”

“I was kidnapped when I was still a baby and raised as a pleb. I didn’t know I was a prince until a few months ago when a DNA test identified me.”

That stunned her. “Really?”

“Yeah, really.”

That explained the dichotomies she’d noticed. Why he held that feral quality to everything he did. His worn-out clothes and his ever changing syntax that went from royal dialect to street slang. “Were you shocked when they told you?”

“Still am. Not exactly something you expect to learn about yourself. Hey, kid, your parents weren’t your parents and by the way, did you know you’re a prince and heir to a major empire?”

Very true. And it also explained about his sisters. “Your sisters belonged to your adoptive parents?”

He fell silent as he returned to putting things back in the pack. After a few seconds he spoke again. “Don’t worry. I am housebroken. I might not be as refined as the rest of the aristocracy, but I won’t crap on the floor either.” His tone was dry and even. Still, she understood the pain thse words betrayed and knew why he’d said them.

Like her, others had been judging him.

“My people aren’t like the other aristos. Hence why I’m in the Guard. Nothing in my world is given to anyone. Everything is earned. It’s not how you start in life that matters. It’s how you finish.”

The look he passed to her was cold enough to make her shiver. “No, your people just accuse others of crimes they don’t commit.”

“I had nothing to do with that.”

He scoffed. “I’d like to believe you, but I don’t know you well enough for that. I’ve had people I trusted implicitly come at me. So you’ll have to forgive my mistrust.”

“Again, I understand. Trust, like everything else, has to be earned and I have yet to gain it. I get it.”

Caillen hesitated. He wanted to believe her. Yet he didn’t dare. Too many memories surged inside him. Partners who’d turned on him when he least expected it. “Friends” he’d put at his back who’d knifed him so hard he still felt the burn of it. Most of all was the bitch who continued to come at him for no good reason at all.

People were treacherous by nature. And Desideria was a stranger—one he was attracted to.

That made her deadlier than most.

He moved away from her. “I’ve got minimal food and water. Enough to hold us today. Tomorrow we’ll have to scavenge.”

Agitation creased her brow. “We have no time to dawdle with inconsequentials. Every minute that ticks by is one my mother could be slaughtered.”

His father too. But that knowledge didn’t change their circumstances. “Let me lay this out for you, Princess. We are on a hostile planet with natives who will eat us if they catch us. Our pod is no longer transmitting a homing beacon which while it keeps the natives from identifying our origins and the assassin after us from finding our exact location, it also keeps our allies from rescuing us. And while your mother’s life really doesn’t matter much to me, my father’s does, so don’t think for one minute that you’re even an edge more motivated than I am. Because you’re not. However, if we die, it’s over for all of us and believe it or not, I’m doing my best to make sure we all survive. Body parts intact.”

She narrowed her gaze on him. There was no missing the shadow that hung heavy there in those dark eyes. “What aren’t you telling me?”

Her questions caught him off guard. “What do you mean?”

“You’re holding something back. I can tell by the look in your eyes. What is it?”

Caillen hesitated. Damn, she was perceptive—like his sister Shahara. She’d always had an uncanny ability to read him too.

He started to tell her nothing, but why lie? She needed to know and if she betrayed him here, she’d be cumake sher own throat. Andarions didn’t play and they didn’t tolerate offworlders—especially him. “I’m a wanted felon by the Andarions. While it’s technically been repealed by their prince and heir, I’m not about to trust a colony not to carry out my death sentence without notifying the capital government before I’m dead—they have a nasty tendency that way.”

All the color drained from her face. “What did you do?”

Caillen sighed. Again he started not to tell her. It was so stupid really. But if he didn’t answer her question, she’d probably assume him a r**ist or something even more vile. “I’m housebroken, okay? But I don’t heel well. Prince Jullien grabbed my sister inappropriately and had trouble understanding the no word when she said it forcefully, so I busted loose a few of his teeth. Nykyrian repealed my death warrant when he was crowned, but, as I said, I don’t trust their government. And while I know Nyk would bail me out, he has to know about it first and since Jullien still has a hard-on for me over my assault, I’m not betting that these colonies have the most current wanted list—Jullien’s vindictive that way. My luck, the bounty for killing me’s even tripled.”

She gaped at him. “Surely Jullien would have something better to do than worry over a fight, especially if they’re anything like my people. That’s to be expected.”

Yeah, right. “Jullien isn’t a warrior and given the ass-whipping I gave him and his pompous arrogance, he definitely would leave it in place. That slimy bastard is the worst sort of scum.”

“Why do you hate him so?”

“Aside from him trying to rape my sister, he traded his own twin brother’s pregnant wife to his brother’s enemies so that they could kill her. And we, including me, almost lost our lives getting her out. That’s nothing compared to what he’s done to others. He’s a total scabbing bastard. The only reason he hasn’t been executed is that he’s royal and his grandmother has paid a fortune to the League to keep him breathing.”

He could see in her eyes that she was trying to understand Jullien’s crimes, but couldn’t quite mentally grasp them any more than he could. The man’s cruelty was only surpassed by his stupidity. “Their grandmother did nothing to him for betraying his own brother?” she asked.

“No. But believe me, Nyk did and I’m still amazed Nyk’s beating didn’t kill him. That being said Jullien will limp for eternity. Officially though, Jullien wasn’t punished except that he’s been removed from the line of succession. Which I guess to him is probably a fate worse than death. But in my opinion, he got off light.”

She shook her head. “And I thought my family was screwed up.”

“Yeah… Mine have their problems, but the worst thing I can say about my sisters is they’re self destructive… or in Kasen’s and Tess’s case, fatally stupid. The damage they’ve done to me was never intentional. The pry bar incident notwithstanding.”

Desideria paused at that last bit, curious about it. “Pry bar incident?”

He paused putting the things backullien was pack and let out a long suffering sigh. “When we were kids, I made Kasen mad enough, she threw a pry bar at me.” He pointed to the scar above his left brow. “Eight stitches.”

That had to hurt. “What did you do?”

An unexpected blush colored his cheeks. How strangely becoming even in his disguise. “In my defense I was six.”

Oh now this had to be good for him to be that embarrassed and to make excuses. “What did you do?”

He was actually bashful about it. “She refused to play court ball with me, so I burned down her dollhouse.”

She gaped at his disclosure. No he didn’t… “You burned down her dollhouse?”

He pointed to his scar. “I was adequately punished.”

“But you burned down her dollhouse? That’s so cold.”

“So’s bashing your little brother in the head with a pry bar. I could have lost an eye that day and I think my recent death warrant while protecting her from her latest bout of supreme stupidity more than makes up for it.”

She scoffed at his indignation. “It was a flesh wound, you big baby.”

Caillen started to respond, then caught himself as he realized he enjoyed her teasing.

She was charming him…

Crap. That he couldn’t allow. Not until he knew what her real loyalties were. She was her mother’s daughter.

And they were framing him.

Desideria saw the veil come down on his face, changing it to a mask of seriousness. For some reason, it felt like a blow to her sternum. Don’t be ridiculous. Yet there was no denying what she felt.

It hurt.

She liked the teasing, fun Caillen a lot more than the serious prince who was guarded.

I’ve lost my mind. He was all kinds of irritating.

He’s all kinds of sexy.

And when he teased and his eyes sparkled, he was all the hotter. Licking her lips, she watched as he returned to the backpack to pull out another item.

This one made her gasp.

It was a subspace link.

Joy exploded through her. “We can call someone?”

“Let’s hope. But if we can, we can’t talk for more than thirty seconds. Any longer and it’ll be traceable. I don’t know how high tech this place is. So for now, I’m erring on the side of not getting disemboweled.” He tried to hail his sister.

Nothing. The call wouldn’t go through.

Growling in irritation, he looked at Desideria. “Either we’re too far inside or it’s jammed. I’ll try again in the morning.”

“What if they kill my mother tonight?”

“What if they kill my father? You’re not the only one taking a risk here. This shit bites both ways.”

She ground her teeth as more frustration burned through her. “I can’t believe there’s nothing we can do.”

“Well we can go out there and let them find us. That is if they don’t already have something that can read through my mirrors. If they have that, we’re screwed.”

She cocked her head at his use of a word that didn’t belong in that sentence. Mirrors. “Is that what you placed at the opening?”

“Yeah. It emits a pulse to anything that scans us saying there’s nothing inside. No heat signature, no signs of life. To my knowledge nothing can breach it. But technology changes faster than the skin on a rodalyn lizard. So the colonists might be able to find us here.” He winked at her. “Let’s hope not, shall we?”

Desideria rubbed her head that was starting to ache as she ran over everything that had happened to them and how much danger they were in. “What a day.”

“Yeah. I have an assassin running loose after my dad and you now have one after your mom. The only reason I agreed to attend that sanctimonious stratiotes was that I’d hoped the assassin would make a move on my father and I’d be able to capture him on the ship where the escape routes would be limited.”

“Strat… what was that word you used?”

“Stratiotes. It means a collection of morons. Is that really all you got out of my tirade?”

“No, it wasn’t. It was just the part I didn’t understand. Just like I don’t understand who’s trying to kill my mother.”

He snorted. “Motive, baby. It’s all motive and that usually leads back to cash flow… Personally, I think it’s my uncle after my father. My father thinks I’m insane. But my uncle is the only one who makes sense.”

“Why would your uncle want your father dead?”

“Only one who has something to gain if both my father and I die. First blood law: follow the money. It always leads you home.”

She considered his words as she remembered meeting his uncle many times since her birth. The man had seemed extremely mild and unassuming. “You don’t really believe that, do you?”

“Yes, I do.” There was no missing the sincerity in that gaze. “So what about your mom? Who stands to inherit the most with you and her out of the way?”

“My sisters.” Her stomach heaved as she rose to her feet. “Oh my God. It’s Narcissa. She’s the one who kill" wy other two sisters in training accidents.”

And she’d tried to kill her just two weeks ago. She’d even made threats against her…