Born of Shadows (The League Gen 1 #3)(5)
Author: Sherrilyn Kenyon

And worst of all, he’d made a promise to the man that he’d try this for a year before he made up his mind about leaving.

Why did I pick a krikkin year?

Much like that thirty minutes in his cell, it hadn’t seemed all that long at the time. Now it stretched out into infinity and he hated it. He barely saw his father and when he did all they talked about was how unacceptable his behavior was.

Suck it up, Cai. You signed on for the mission. And he would see it through.

Even if it killed him.

“I told you, Sire. He’s an animal that doesn’t belong here. I realize he’s your son, but honestly, you need to send him back to the gutter that created him.”

Evzen shook his head at Bogimir’s condemnation as he watched in front of the monitor bank in his office. Caillen laughed with his friends while he stood with his hand on the grip of his blaster as if ready to defend at a hair’s notice. It was a cocky stance that belonged to a rogue outlaw. Not a prince.

But a prince he was…

And it was his job to make his son realize that destiny.

“He’s not an animal, Advisor. And you would do well to remember that he is a prince of this empire and as such deserving of a deferent tone when you refer to him.”

While Bogimir blanched from overstepping his position, Evzen glanced at the monitor where Caillen was still grinning with proud satisfaction over the destruction he’d wrought. He, too, was amused by his son’s aim. Rude but impressive though it was. “Granted he’s a little rough around the edges—”

“Sire, please… He h the manners of a ruffian and the sense—”

“He is my son.” One he’d thought dead for these last long years. Dead because he’d failed to keep the boy safe.

To have his son back and alive…

It was a blessed miracle and it was one he didn’t take lightly. He didn’t care that his son knew nothing of the aristocracy or diplomacy.

Actually that wasn’t true and he knew it. “Caillen speaks thirty-eight languages and most of the dialects of each one. Fluently. Not just tutored versions learned through instructional vids and teachers. He knows the idioms and the culture as well as the natives. He understands the intricacies of their politics and laws better than I do.” He cast a meaningful stare at Bogimir. “Better than most cultural advisors I’ve known.”

More than that, Caillen knew how to fight better than the top ops of his elite forces. The first day Caillen had been in the palace, he’d found twelve holes in their security and had shown them how to shore up their defenses.

His son was brilliant.

“Sire—”

“Don’t.” He held his hand up to cut off Bogimir’s words. “You will train him and you will treat him like the prince that he is. I want no more arguments.”

“Yes, Sire.” Bowing, Bogimir left him.

Evzen sighed as he turned toward the mic on his desk where he’d been talking to his brother before Bogimir had interrupted them. “Did you hear all of that?”

“I did indeed.”

“And what do you think?”

Talian took a minute to consider his words before he spoke. “You want my answer as your top military advisor or as your devoted brother?”

“Both.”

“As your brother, I agree with you completely. Even though he’s less than diplomatic, Caillen is brilliant at assessing situations and determining how to handle them—if not always at defusing them. You couldn’t ask for a better successor.”

“And as my advisor?”

“He’s impulsive and brash with an overdriven libido that has him chasing anything with br**sts. Left unchecked, he’ll drag us into war over something completely stupid like shafling someone’s daughter and wife, probably at the same time. He has potential, but I think Bogimir is correct. He lived in the gutter too long. Had we found him sooner, he might have been salvaged. Now… he doesn’t belong in our world and he isn’t adjusting to it at all. Truthfully, I don’t think he wants to. Let him go home, Ev. For all our sakes.”

Evzen’s chest tightened at those words as grief choked him. He couldn’t bear the thought of losing Caillen again. Yes the man was rough around the edges, but he was funny and highly intelligent.

He’s my son. Most of all, he had faith in Caillen. In time, he had no doubt his son would adjust.

Yet Evzen was owned by his people. His first priority had to be their safety and welfare. It was a mantle of responsibility he wanted to bequeath to his son. But if Caillen refused…

I have to try.

Evzen met his brother’s gaze on the monitor. “Let’s see how he does on the Arimanda.”

Talian heaved a sigh of remorse and disgust that said his brother was nowhere near as thrilled to have Caillen back in the line of succession as he was. “I’ll assign an extra detail to him.”

“Why?”

“The Qillaqs? Remember them? They’re sending an entire quorum for the assembly. And I can see this disaster coming. You know how their women dress… or more to the point, don’t. Whatever we do, we have to keep Caillen away from them.”

His brother was right. The Qillaqs were a warring race who tolerated no one easily and especially not offworlders or men. One wrong glance and they’d attack.

And so would Caillen.

Evzen frowned. “I thought they had declined the summit.”

“They did originally. But I received word this morning that their queen herself will be joining us. Apparently there’s something of great import she wishes to declare before the council. Our luck, it’s probably an act of war. Let’s just hope your son doesn’t make it one against us.”

Evzen watched while Caillen argued with Bogimir in the room. Maybe he should leave Caillen home while he attended the summit. But he didn’t want to be away from his son for two weeks. Not when they were still getting to know each other. Not to mention the fact that Caillen was an expert in negotiating with the Krellins and was even well acquainted with their crowned prince. They desperately needed a trade agreement with them that he’d been working on for three years with no progress. If he didn’t get that to go through during the summit and be ratified by the council, it would be three more years before he could attempt it again. By then, their colony, which needed supplies and protection, would be destroyed and all her citizens enslaved. His people couldn’t wait six more months, never mind three years.

Caillen was the only hope they had.

Therefore he’d take his son and watch him.

Closely.

He had all faith that everything would turn out just fine.

Until he remembered Caillen’s favorite saying. Never underestimate a Dagan’s ability to screw up the best-laid plans.

And right now, his son still considered himself a Dagan.

Every time Evzen heard that name it enraged him. His son was a de Oczy. One of the oldest and finest of the ruling houses. His was a legacy people had killed for.

But not Caillen. He was the only man who honestly didn’t care about wealth and its trappings. While his son was happy to have the finer things, he was just as happy, if not happier, without them.

Baffling.

And that made him want to weep. His son was a complete stranger and he was trying to understand him. He was. But the more time they spent together, the more Evzen had to face the truth.

When all of this was over, he would most likely lose his son all over again…

Caillen breathed a sigh of relief as Boggi took off in a huff again and left him alone with his friends. The moment the door sealed shut, he twisted out of the stifling robes and threw them to the floor. Then he jammed the signal in the room so that neither his father nor his father’s security detail could spy on them. He really hated that crap.

Maris tsked at him. “It’s just plain cruel the way you flash that hot body of yours at me all the time, Cai. I swear I’ve never wanted to be a woman more so than I do right now.” Biting his lip, he looked at Darling. “Those abs… it’s criminal to look that good and be straight. Couldn’t you just lick those muscles all night long?”

Darling screwed his face up in distaste. “Uh, no. He’s too much like a brother to me. I honestly find that thought repugnant.”

Maris snapped his neck and wrist in a purely feminine gesture. “I am yanking your membership card.” He returned his attention to Caillen and made a purring growl in the back of his throat. “One night, baby, and I could change your religion.”

Caillen gave a good-natured laugh. “You keep saying that, but I know you better. You like to be the pursuer, Maris. The moment someone chases you, you run for the door.”

Laughing at the truth, Darling shrugged his outer robe off and tossed it back to Caillen. “You know, Maris is right. You can’t keep undressing every two seconds and especially not on a ship during a summit meeting where they’ll be monitoring all the rooms. You do that there and it’ll end up on the news and you’ll be tainted by it forever.”

Caillen wasn’t worried about that. “I’ll jam them.”

Darling shook his head. “Take it from the weapons and explosives techspert. It ain’t going to happen. You jam anything there and it’ll set off all manner of alarms. Not even Syn could break in without getting busted.”

Now that gave him pause. His brother-in-law could crack into anything without detection and that told him all he needed to know about his voyage to hell. “So keep it in my pants, huh?”

“Unless you want to be the next viral porno feature. I know it’ll be hard—”

Caillen arched a brow at Darling’s choice of words.

Darling rolled his eyes. “Your mind is alays in the gutter.”

“Yeah, well, you know it’s got a lot of friends it likes to play with there and I happen to like the view.”

Maris made a light “heh” sound. “Give it up, Dar. You have to remember you’re talking to the only man I’ve ever seen who can walk up to a woman he’s just met and tell her he needs to have his manhood serviced and instead of getting bitch-slapped or arrested for it, gets to take her home.”

Darling crossed his arms over his chest. “That’s because most men have more sense than to say that out loud.”

Yeah, right. Caillen knew better. “That’s ’cause most men lack my boys and my skills. You may know how to handle explosives, Dar, but I know how to handle women. When it comes to the female population, I am the master.”

“Please,” Darling said with a laugh. “I’ve seen you with your sisters. You don’t handle them at all. You’re completely whipped.”

“Totally untrue. I just let them think that. That, my friends, is the beauty of it. There’s not a woman born I can’t manipulate and wrap around my little finger.”

Darling shook his head. “And one day you’re going to meet a woman who’s immune to your charms.” There was an odd note in Darling’s voice that said he commiserated, but since he knew Darling had never been in a serious relationship he ignored it.

“Never happen. I can even charm a baby out of her rattle and milk.”

Maris chuckled. “I’m with you, Dar. I’d like to see him get some karmic paycheck, but in this I have to side with Cai. Like he said, I’ve seen too many women, of all ages, fall at his feet as soon as he gives them that come-here-and-strip-for-me teasing smile.”

Darling refused to cede his opinion. “And I’m saying that there’s always that one person who will knock you off keel. Always when you least expect it. Trust me, if Nykyrian and Syn can find women to tolerate them and their psychoses, you will too.”

Caillen didn’t argue because he knew better. He’d spent his entire life having to answer to his sisters for everything and having to watch after them and deal with their drama. Not to mention the one time he’d tried to be serious with a woman…

Yeah, that had taught him and killed any thoughts he might have ever had about commitment. Women were crazy.

It was why he had no interest in settling on one female. Ever. Or even letting one near him for more than the couple of hours it took to relieve a biological itch. He didn’t want the trauma of it. All women wanted to domesticate the male and he was too wild for that. He didn’t want kids or a wife. He just wanted to live his life on his own terms and answer to no one but himself.

Freedom. That was what he craved. He lived for the blood-pumping danger of smuggling. Flying fast. Living on the edge, one step away from death. Not even his sisters, who were the toughest females he’d ever met, could keep up with him. If they couldn’t he knew there was no oe else who could.

Wanting to change the topic, he directed them back to the matter at hand that had caused him to jam the vid surveillance. “Look, you guys know I don’t give two shits if I’m a flaming dork in public—which I am most of the time. My philosophy is simple. You want to be my friend, let’s take a drink. You want to judge me, duck. But this isn’t about me. In spite of the fact that he’s an aristo, my dad seems to be a decent man and I don’t want to humiliate him in front of his pretentious crew by doing something stupid like thinking the hand-washing bowl is soup and trying to eat it… again. Or breaking some other protocol I don’t know about. So can you show me how to be like one of you?” That actually came out easier than he’d thought it would. He’d barely choked on his dignity.

Darling clapped him on the back. “Don’t worry, brother. We’ll be with you every step of the way.”

Maris flashed a devilish grin. “And laughing continuously at your expense. However we do promise to keep it on the inside… most of the time.”

Caillen laughed at the way Maris said that. He was lucky to have two friends he could trust. Four if he counted Nykyrian and Syn. He’d had enough people stab him in the back that he knew better than to take their loyalty for granted. There weren’t many people who’d lay down their lives for someone else. But any of the four of them would do it for him.