Born of Defiance

They were out to get him, and that wasn’t paranoia. It was fact. His new rank showed that.

Either way, his mother and Felicia were targets. And he had no idea how to protect them from harm on his own. Not with his bastard status and low caste.

Strong alone. Stronger together. That was the motto for The Sentella group his aunt Jayne had helped to found.

One Andarion, alone, couldn’t make much difference. But thirteen War Hauks had saved their entire race from enslavement and extinction.

Lorens rose to his feet. “Look, I know I’ve given you a lot to think about and I blindsided you with it. Just consider what I’ve said. If you decide to join us, call and invite me to a party at your house. I’ll know by that phrase that you’re in. If you decide not to, just leave a message saying the party’s canceled. Since you live with my sister, no one will think anything about either comment. And I know what I’m asking from you. Believe me, I know. It wasn’t an easy decision for me to make either. It goes against everything I was raised to believe. Everything I thought I was. But when I stood over my brother’s closed casket – because of what they’d done to him – and saw my children there… his children, I knew I couldn’t stand by and let them die next. Not when I had the ability to stop it. Andarions don’t live in fear. We fight back.” Lorens placed the file on the bed and left.

Sick to his stomach, Talyn opened the file and read his demotion letter first.

Rage burned through him. He’d worked and fought his ass off to get the rank of major. Honestly, after four years, and given his training, lineage, record, and education, he should have been a colonel or commander by now.

But no…

A minsid lieutenant. Beginner’s rank for the next three effing years.

For disciplinary reasons.

Bellowing in rage, he threw the file across the bed as the injustice tore him apart. Of them torturing him and laughing about it.

“Talyn?”

He didn’t respond to Felicia. He couldn’t. Not while he hurt like this. He wanted their blood so badly, he could taste it.

She stooped to pick up the pages that were strewn across the bed and floor. Without reading them, she returned them to the folder and set it on the nightstand. “Did my brother upset you? I’ll bar him from the condo if he did.”

“No,” he breathed. “The commander didn’t do anything other than tell me that I’ve lost my rank.”

“What?” she asked in a shocked tone.

He drew a ragged breath. “I’m now Lieutenant Batur.”

“Oh honey, I’m so sorry.” Sitting down beside him, Felicia rubbed his back. “Did he say why?”

“Because of my history of write-ups and disciplinary problems. The fact that I’ve been disrespectful to my superiors and my blatant disregard for check-ins and military protocol.”

“Can’t you appeal it?”

“To whom, Felicia? Eriadne herself busted my rank. Who’s going to believe the word of a worthless bastard against the tadara? I can’t even apply to regain a captain’s rank for three years.”

“I’m so sorry, Talyn.”

“I should have just let them kill me.”

“Don’t say that!”

“Why not? It’s true. What am I fighting for? Really? No matter what I do, it all comes down to the fact that I have no paternal lineage. Even when I’m ten times better than anyone else, I’m seen as only half as good.” He touched his bald head and cursed at the reminder of what they’d done to him. “A lieutenant, a fucking lieutenant. Do you know what kind of shit assignments they’re going to stick me with? I can’t even fly with a rank that low. It relegates me back to flight deck prep. Cleaning toilets.” He could hear the mockery already. Gah, he was so sick of the abuse.

“Tizirah Tylie said that your mother would be your CO. She won’t —”

“I’m a lieutenant, Felicia. I’m no longer qualified for palace duty. I have to go back to reg-staff.” Disgusted, he stared at the wall as bitter resentment and hatred filled him.

Felicia swallowed against the wave of tears she felt for him. There was so much raw agony in his eyes that it made her ache. “Did Anatole say why they did this to you?”

He let out an acrimonious snort. “Because they hate my parents.”

“What?”

He nodded. “My father pissed them off in school and I look enough like him that it chafes the tahrs’s ass.” He met her gaze. “But most of it is because my mother refused to pledge with Anatole when she was younger. They can’t attack her. She’s a high-lineaged female, and as such, she has rights through the courts.”

Rights that were denied to him.

“Is there nothing your mother can do?”

“No. And you can’t breathe a word of this to her. It would kill her to know they attacked me because of her past with them.”

No wonder he’d refused to look at his mother in the hospital. It made total sense now.