“Yeah, but they think I’m mentally challenged. They still try to cut my meat for me most days.”
That surprised her. He was without a doubt the most capable man she’d ever met. Why would they treat him like a child? “Really?”
“Yeah, it’s the most screwed-up thing you’ve ever seen. They really think I’m a kid until one of them gets into trouble, then I’m the first one they call to bail them out. Insanity, right?”
She didn’t want to agree, yet he was correct. It would be weird to be treated like a child and then be relied on so heavily by the very people who refused to see her as an adult. “So what do your sisters do for a living?”
He rose to his feet before he stretched. The tightness of his shirt over his chest distracted her from the question as she became fascinated with the way his muscles played.
“Shahara’s the oldest. She was a tracer until she married a couple of years ago. Now she runs a charitable organization for her husband. Kasen’s my business partner and I use that term with all due hostility and sarcasm. She mostly sucks off my share of our profits by making me feel guilty over her medical condition.”
“Which is?”
“Diabetes and a rare blood disorder. She’s spent most of her life in and out of hospitals and you have to be really careful with what she comes into contact with or you can kill her—which has occasionally crossed my mind. And lastly there’s Tessa.” He let out a long breath as if the mere thought of her gave him an ulcer.
“What about her?”
“I love her, don’t get me wrong, but she’s constantly in trouble with loaners. Not that I can say much. I have a nasty tendency to gamble too. But I stop before I go into debt doing it. She doesn’t. Since she was sixteen, we’ve all had to chip in to save her ass. Over and over again. But she married last year and seems to be doing better now. She works as an admin for the Ritadarion press corps.” He came back to help her clean up her food. “What about you? What do your sisters do?”
“I only have the two still living. They either train to fight or plot ways to embarrass me in front of my aunt and mother—usually during training.”
Caillen paused at the lackadaisical way she said that. As if it was so normal for them to attack her that she thought nothing about it. “Seriously?”
She wrinkled her nose. “Sad, isn’t it?”
Yes it was. But he refused to say that out loud and hurt her any worse when it was obvious this topic bothered her.
She shook her head. “I don’t know why they bother My mother practically hates me most days anyway.”
“Why?”
Her gaze went back to the floor, but not before he caught a glimpse of how much pain she kept inside herself. “I’m only half Qillaq.”
That stunned him. Her people were such isolationists that it was rare they bred with anyone else. There had to be a juicy story behind her conception. “Really?”
“Yes and they don’t think much of me because of it. Everyone considers me tainted by my father’s inferior blood.”
“Which was?”
“Gondarion. He was a pilot who’d been shot down in battle. He crash-landed and was taken prisoner.”
Caillen winced at the thought and the irony that Desideria had followed in her father’s footsteps by crashing here—while dragging him along for the ride. “That’s tough for both of you.”
“You have no idea. Everyone stares at me like I’m a mutant. Like I don’t belong. You have no idea what it’s like to be judged for a birth defect you can’t help.”
“Oh not true,” he corrected. “We’re all judged for things we can’t help. Whether it’s our clothes, our birth, our social class or our appearance. I swear sometimes it’s like people just look for a reason to hate each other.”
“I don’t do that.”
Caillen snorted in contradiction. “I seem to recall the first time you saw me. There was judgment in those beautiful brown eyes when you looked my way.”
Her cheeks turned a becoming shade of bright red. “I should say I try not to. But it is hard.”
“It is indeed.”
Desideria fell silent as she realized that Caillen didn’t judge like that. At least he didn’t seem to. “How do you not do it?”
He shrugged. “People are people. I’ve been kicked enough in my life to not want to return the favor to others. Like you said, it’s hard and I’m not perfect. When you’ve been beat down all your life it’s a natural inclination to want to strike the first blow. But I learned to fight that instinct. Sometimes I’m more successful than others and in cases like Teratin, I wish I’d been more judgmental. It would have saved me a universe of hurt.”