Two seconds after Maris swiped his card, he cringed at the rampant stupidity. Damn, he’d lived as a civ too long. If the League was monitoring for them, he’d just given up his location. Stupid moron.
Cursing himself, Maris slid out of the transport and secured his smallest bag across his body so that both of his arms would be free. He didn’t pause or hesitate as he maneuvered through the crowded street on foot. Making sure to keep one hand on his concealed blaster, he stayed vigilant and hated every second of it.
Even though it was ingrained in him by countless hours of training and drills, this degree of heightened alert threw him back to a time and place he didn’t want to revisit.
What are you, a pathetic faggot? Keep your guard up! Only queers rely on their girlfriends to protect them. You are a soldier, not some limp-wristed *.
Back then, he’d lived in a state of perpetual pissed off. It’d been bad enough to be insulted, but to hear the open and hostile disdain on a preference he’d done his best to deny and “cure” had only made it worse. He’d tried everything to be like the other men in his family and the academy and armada. To tell himself that he wasn’t really gay. That it was a faze or curiosity. Or anything other than what it really was.
Only his fiancé, Tams, had made it bearable. Because she wasn’t Phrixian, she’d assumed his strange behavior and reluctance to touch her was his own nervousness from being a different species.
Best of all, she’d given him an easy excuse to stay celibate. He’d told her that he didn’t want to dishonor her before their wedding. Tams had thought it sweet, even while his father had rolled his eyes at something he considered unmanly. Phrixian males were slaves to their ids. Morality was dictated only when you went up against someone who could kick your ass. Otherwise, the universe was your playground and you did what you wanted.
The lies and unrelenting fear of being exposed had brought Maris one step shy of insanity.
Only Darling had known the truth and he’d coached Maris on how to fake a warrior’s stride. On how to pass undetected around the staunch machismo that went against his natural tendencies. But for Darling and his help, Maris would have been killed before he reached his maturity. There was no such thing as a homosexual Phrixian. Never in his life had Maris met or even heard of anyone other than him.
And to be a prince on top of it...
That more than anything else was why his bounty was higher than Darling’s or Nykyrian’s. Nykyrian might have taken Kyr’s eye, but so long as Maris lived, he was a blight on their family honor. And if one of his brothers could claim his life, he would be regaled by their parents for cleansing their gene pool. Maris’s killer would be honored as a national hero.
A sudden flash to his right caught his attention.
Reacting on instinct, Maris dropped down an instant before a black dart sailed so close to his face, he felt the air burn of it. From behind, an assassin moved in with a knife as the crowd realized what was happening and panicked. People ran in all directions, screaming while they sought shelter. Maris spun and caught the man’s wrist. The assassin cried out as Maris twisted and snapped the bone. The assassin came up with his blaster, but before he could fire it, Maris struck his nose with the heel of his hand. He wrested the blaster from the assassin’s grip as the man fell to the street. Switching it to stun, Maris shot him and stayed low as he scanned for his next target.
He caught sight of the one who’d sent the dart at him and moved toward him with raw determination. Without realizing it, he fell into target fixation and missed the third assassin who sank a dagger deep into his side. Hissing, he turned and backhanded his assailant. As he moved to snap his neck, Maris froze.
Draygon...
His younger brother who was barely a year older than Saf.
He winced at the sight of him. Switching tactics, he held Draygon on the ground in a fierce grip against his neck. A smart man would end him. Brother or not. Yet when Maris went in for the kill, he didn’t see a soldier. He saw his brother laughing as they tried to jump over a ditch that had left Maris with a broken leg. Even though Draygon was injured himself, he’d carried Maris home.
This wasn’t an enemy.
It was his little brother.
Draygon’s dark eyes dared him now, just as they’d done as kids whenever they’d gotten crossed up over something. Maris could hear the taunt in his head. Go ahead and hit me! I can take it.
That was what they’d both been raised on.
Silent, Draygon stared defiantly, waiting for a death blow.
Maris jerked the dagger out of his injured side that Draygon had planted there. Without a word, he sank low and threw it straight into the heart of the assassin he’d been fixated on.
Still, his brother’s gaze never wavered as he waited for Maris to kill him. Maris pinned him with a paralyzing hold that Draygon had never been able to escape. If Maris let him go, Draygon’s honor would be eternally damaged. To be defeated by a target was the ultimate Phrixian insult.