Born of Shadows (The League Gen 1 #3)(2)
Author: Sherrilyn Kenyon

You know, a sane man would be wetting his pants.

Good thing he was crazy as hell.

He ran to the ledge and in a well-practiced move, planted the hook into the wall. Without pausing, he jumped over the side and rappelled down to the street where he’d have some cover. He jerked the hook free and let it recoil back into the case on his forearm.

At least the city was more crowded here.

Yeah, but it’s hard to melt into them while your coat’s lying on top of your sister.

ht="0em" width="27">True. Without its camouflage, his weapons were out and visible. Something that caused the people around him to cringe, scream and flee as they saw his short-sleeved armored shirt that was covered with light bombs, ammunition clips, four blasters (in addition to the one in his hand), his rappelling gear and all the other “just in case” things he carried in addition to his backpack. Leather straps crisscrossed both of his arms from wrist to biceps.

Badass came at a price and today that price just might be his freedom.

Or his life.

He ran with the crowd which panicked the innocent people even more—no doubt because they were afraid he’d take one of them hostage.

As if. The only life he gambled with was his own.

The Enforcers flanked them, trying to get an aim on his head which he kept low. He could hear from the earwig he had tuned to their frequency that they were setting up blockades around the city.

But that wasn’t what concerned him…

They had a Trisani tracker with them that they were about to drop in on the chase.

Damn.

Unless it was Nero, he was a dead man. Trisani had psychic powers that pretty much no one except another Trisani could fight. Nero could actually get into someone’s head, shut down all brain activity and, if he was really pissed, melt it and leave his vic a vegetable, sucking his thumb on the floor.

Luckily, Nero was one of Caillen’s few friends and no matter what they might have paid him, Nero wouldn’t bring him in.

He hoped.

Every life has a price…

And he knew that better than most.

Caillen felt the fissure of power as the Trisani stepped out of a transport and eyed the crowd, reading them as he sought Caillen’s position.

Yeah it wasn’t Nero… He’d never seen this tracker before.

Shit.

Caillen slowed as he saw the dark blond man with sharp features dressed all in black. Curling his lip as he locked gazes with Caillen, the tracker sent a plasma blast at him that barely missed his head. It ignited then exploded the transport behind him.

Hope no one was in that. Otherwise they were having a worse day than he was.

Caillen pulled out another blaster and opened both up all over the tracker. But the bastard threw up a force field to block it.

“I hate the Trisani.” No wonder most of them had been hunted down to a small handful. At the moment, he’d like to add one more to their extinction list.

But that was all right—he still had tricks up his sleeves. Literally. He holstered his right blaster and jerked a light bomb off the chain. He lobbed it at the Trisani and then followed it with a pulse grenade.

The light temporarily blinded the Trisani and the pulse exploded against the force field. Even though it didn’t break through it, it was enough to send the Trisani reeling backward.

Yeah, don’t screw with someone whose closest friend was an explosives engineer renowned for making the best toys in the universe. Darling lived and breathed for one purpose only. Making shit blow up.

Before the Trisani could recover, Caillen ducked into the next alley.

Which was crawling with Enforcers.

Damn. Damn.

Double damn.

Grinding his teeth in frustration, he turned to head back to the street.

He couldn’t. They’d closed in on him and the air transport was directly above with snipers taking positions on the building’s roof.

“Surrender!”

Ah now this was just galling.

“Lay down your weapons!”

That was easier said than done. He was covered in them. Took him two hours to get all this gear on…

Only thing that could induce him to take it off fast was a hot nak*d woman in his bed, clawing at his back. Definitely not one of those here and he had no interest in being defenseless with this much artillery pointed at him.

A warning blast shot over his head.

“The next one will be right between your eyes.” Targeting lasers let him know exactly what they were aiming for. Honestly it wasn’t the one at his forehead that gave him pause as much as the one at his crotch.

“Put your hands behind your head!”

Caillen frowned. “If I put my hands behind my head, I can’t drop my weapons, people. Someone needs to make up their mind here. What do you want me to do and in what order?”

“Drop the weapon in your hand, then put your hands behind your head!”

He did as instructed.

They moved in closer.

Yeah, come to Papa, baby. Closer… closer…

Don’t be shy.

When one of them went to cuff him, Caillen grabbed him and used him as a shield. Three sniper rounds went into the man’s chest. Caillen flung the body at the Enforcer coming in at his back. Twisting, he grabbed another man, disarmed him and knocked him flying. His morals on killing drones out the window under this assault, Caillen used his spring loader to pop his fighting knife into his palm and took out five more before the Trisani grabbed him by the neck without touching him and paralyzed him where he stood.

The Trisani tsked at him. “I almost hate to hand someone with your skills over to the drones.”

“Fuck you.”

The Trisani laughed. “Sorry. In this the only one getting screwed is you.”

Caillen locked gazes with the Trisani. The moment he did, he felt the surge of power that Nero had taught him. It was the only weapon anyone could really use against the Trisani species—unless this guy was as strong as Nero this would work.

Here’s hoping he’s not.

He focused it with everything he had. One second the Trisani had him, the next, Caillen was free and slamming the Enforcers into each other. He shot his cord up the wall and started to leave them in his wake… until he heard something in his ear that gave him pause.

“There’s an unconscious woman here in the street, under some garbage. Not sure if she’s with our perp or not. But she is covered up by what appears to be a man’s coat.”

Fu-fu-frick.

They’d found Kasen. If he escaped, they’d take her in and she’d never stand up to their questioning. She was the kind of witness who spilled more guts than a butcher.

Of all the flying-ass bad luck.

Caillen sighed as he flicked his wrist to miss the shot and allowed the hook to fall back to the pavement. He let them think they’d done it when the truth burned deep inside him. But for Kasen’s discovery, he’d have made it out.

They cuffed his hands, then carefully disarmed him over the next twenty-eight minutes.

“Damn, boy,” one of the officers said as they continued to find weapons hidden on him. “It’s like disarming an assassin. You sure you ain’t in the League?”

He had to force himself not to lash out and escape again. Submission was not in his nature.

Think of Kasen…

Yeah, what he was really thinking about her was how badly he wanted to beat her.

The Enforcer jerked his cuffed hands. “Who’s with you?”

Caillen met the Enforcer’s gaze without flinching or hesitating. “No one. I fly alone. Check the logs.” Thank the gods he was good at what he did. They wouldn’t find a trace of anyone except him.

“What about the woman?”

“Nameless vic. I stole her wallet. You check my pocket, you’ll find it.” He always had a fake ID and wallet for his sisters with aliases.

Just in case.

The Enforcer pulled it out, then lifted his arm to speak into the mic in his cuff. “She’s innocent. Get her to a hospital.”

“You want me to take a report from her?” the voice asked.

“No. We have a confession and mugging is the least of what we’re taking him in for. Just dump her and go.”

Caillen met the Trisani’s frown. The bastard either suspected he was lying or knew it for a fact, but for whatever reason, he kept it to himself.

End of the day, the Trisani was definitely right about one thing. He was royally screwed and they hadn’t even fondled him yet.

That was bad enough.

Worse than bad came as they were hauling him toward the transport and they began reading him his charges.

“… and for smuggling prillion.”

He felt his stomach shrink. Shit.

His sister’s contraband carried a death sentence…

2

Three Weeks Later

How bad would decapitation hurt?

From the window of his pathetically small, sparse cell that barely accommodated a bunk, sink and toilet, Caillen stared out across the yard teeming with people, at the heavy electronic blade that was being charged and sharpened in preparation for his execution.

Yeah, that was definitely going to leave a mark.

Don’t worry, Cai. In just a few more measly minutes your problems will be over.

Forever.

His neck tingled in expectation of the coming blow, which would end a life that really hadn’t been all that great. Strange thing though, bad as it was, he wasn’t ready for it to be over. Not by a long shot.

I could have been something.

Ah hell, who was he fooling? He was a third-generation smuggler with a gambling problem his family knew nothing about…

Yeah? So what? He was still the best damned pilot in all the United Systems. There was nothing he couldn’t fly and no one he couldn’t outmaneuver when he was in a ship.

He never missed a target. Ever.

None of that matters now. Not while he was standing toe to toe with death.

What a way for a warrior to go…

Forget a last meal, what he really wanted before he checked out was a good lay. One last bang to end all others.

He laughed evilly under his breath as he remembered the look of dumbfounded shock on the warden’s face when they’d asked him for his last request.

“Any of your daughters horny?”

That had been answered with a vicious head slam to the wall. Not that he wouldn’t have done the same, or more to the point, worse, had someone asked him that about one of his sisters. But…

He was ever a thorn in the ass of those he hated and that was basically anyone who had any kind of authority.

Yeah well, that’s about to end too.

He sighed as he stared through the small open window covered in bars, watching the soldiers outside rush around in last-minute prep. There was a part of him terrified about dying. Okay, there was a lot of him terrified about dying. He’d always hoped it would be when he was really old and in his sleep. But practically speaking, the alternative druther would have been in a brutal fight where he took out as many of his enemies with him as he could.

At least you’re not dying alone in the gutter.

He flinched at a memory he always did his best not to think about. If he lived a thousand years he’d never forget watching his father die alone like he was nothing but trash. And in all the morbid scenarios he’d conjured over the years for his own death never had execution entered his mind.

Even now he could hear his sister’s desperate call. “Cai, I’m in the Garvon sector and running from their Enforcers. Can you help me?”

Kasen had omitted the fact she was transporting prillion—an antibiotic so potent it was outlawed by every government that took payoffs from the medical communities who feared the dent it would put into their profit margins. But to smugglers like him and his sister, it was pay dirt. One shipment would leave you flush for at least a year.

And it was a death sentence to carry it through certain systems.

Garvon happened to be one of them.

Even if she’d told him when she called what she had on board, it would have changed nothing. He’d have still taken her place in the noose.

Altruism sucks.

Right now he was thinking he should have learned some self-preservation and been about ten minutes late. But at the end of the day, his sisters were his world and even though he might like to pretend otherwise, he wouldn’t have been able to live had he let one of them die.

Even Kasen’s crabby ass.

He checked his chronometer and felt sick again. Thirty more minutes and everything was over.

Thirty minutes.

He remembered times in the past when that had seemed like an eternity and now…

He wished he had the power to stop time. To teleport himself out of here and see his rat-infested dive one more time. To have his sister Shahara tell him he was an idiot.

Well, at least he wouldn’t have to stare at the drab tan walls and that nasty crusted-over toilet anymore.

Boy, are my creditors going to be pissed. He still owed two years of payments on his ship that had been impounded by the Garvons after his arrest. And face it, he’d dogged the absolute shit out of it and it still had blast marks down both rear stabilizers from his last run-in with the authorities.

He sighed again.

His friends and family had tried everything to negotiate a stay of execution. But the Garvon governor had been adamant that they make an example of him.

“This is to stand as a lesson to any outsider who thinks they can travel through our system and not obey our laws. We might be a small system, but we are big on intolerance.”

Caillen shook his head as the governor reiterated those words he was obviously proud of just a few feet away from his window to the news crews surrounding him. What an effing idiot. Whatever aide was supposed to keep the governor on a leash was failing epically.

One of the female reporters panned her camera Caillen’s way to catch a shot of his reaction to the governor’s speech while he watched from his cell.

Caillen flipped the camera off.

The governor sputtered in indignation, letting Caillen know he’d struck a nerve with his silent defiance.

Big mistake on the governor’s part. That was like baiting a wild predator and the little brother in him kicked into overdrive.