But this …
This was one fucked-up turn of events he’d have never conceived in his most vivid nightmare. Or drugged-out delusion. Obviously the gods were seriously bored and had chosen him for their daily amusements.
Standing in Nykyrian’s Triosan office, he arched a brow and tried to keep a straight face as he did his best to wrap his head around his brother’s shocking question. “You’re sure about this?”
“It’s what she wants.” Nykyrian swallowed hard as he rose from his desk and slowly approached him. The pain-filled sincerity in those green, human eyes stunned Jullien, as his assassin-trained twin so seldom showed any emotion whatsoever. It just wasn’t in Nyk.
Or him, either, for that matter.
And those eyes weakened him even more. Eyes that were so similar to Jullien’s and at the same time, served to alienate them both from their birth mother’s Andarion culture that hated all things human.
That mutual tragedy was the one tie that bound them and allowed the two of them to put their own mistrust of each other in the past and build a shaky alliance. While they had a long way to go before they were whole with each other, they were slowly making strides to at least become friendly for once.
And that was the biggest miracle of all.
For both of them.
Jullien scratched at his dark beard. “You know, you could ask Ryn to train her.” The Tavali ambassador Ryn Dane and Nykyrian went way back. Unlike his bitter, mistrustful feelings for Jullien, Nyk had always trusted and respected Ryn. That would be the much more logical choice for a matter this delicate.
Nyk shook his head. “She doesn’t want Ryn. He’s not family. And given that his wife is about to birth his son, he’ll be distracted and preoccupied with them, as opposed to her safety. Besides, Thia asked specifically for you to train her.”
Ouch. Talk about wanting to coldcock your dad—and Jullien was definitely an authority on that particular topic, as he’d lived his entire youth trying to piss off both his progenitors.
His niece’s request must have stung his brother to the marrow of his bones. “Teenage rebellion?”
Nyk snorted at his suggestion. “No, she’s not you.”
Double ouch there. Not that he’d hold it against Nyk. His brother was right, after all.
Jullien was forever a contentious ass, first and foremost. How his wife Ushara could stomach him, he had no idea. There were entire days when even Jullien didn’t want to be around himself.
Nyk let out a ragged sigh. “I fear she feels out of place with my other children. Kiara and I have done everything we can to make her feel loved and welcome. But … we just can’t seem to get through to her. No matter what we do, she still feels like a stepchild.”
Jullien ached for his brother. The love Nyk bore his eldest daughter was evident in every line of anguish on his face and in the deep timbre of his voice as he spoke. And Jullien knew from their shared near-death experience that Kiara felt the same about Thia. She couldn’t love the girl any more if she’d birthed her.
For himself, he was lucky that his eldest son, Vasili, didn’t view him as a stepfather, but rather accepted him as if Jullien were Vas’s natural father. And in turn, Jullien loved Vas just as much as he loved the children he’d fathered with Ushara.
It was a shame that Thia couldn’t find that same peace with her stepmother that Vas had found with him. And as Nyk had said, he knew it wasn’t from a lack of effort on Kiara’s part.
Or Nyk’s.
He’d seen their love of Thia firsthand. Yet Thia still felt out of place with them. No one knew why.
But if he could help them in any way …
“I will guard her like my own.”
That finally succeeded in making his brother smile. Or at least as close to it as Nykyrian could manage. A lopsided grin that was more frightening than friendly.
For most people, anyway.
Jullien wasn’t most.
Nyk cleared his throat. “That’s why I’m entrusting her to you, little brother. I’ve seen your psychosis where your children are concerned.” Crossing his arms over his chest, he smirked. “You still putting Vidar down to nap on your chest instead of his crib?”
“Absolutely.” Jullien grinned proudly at something everyone mocked him over. “And to sleep. No way in Tophet I’d trust my infant to rest in his own room. Not after all the shit that I’ve seen and what was done to us. My girls and Vas are lucky I let them have their own beds.”
And Vasili was eighteen.
His girls would be starting school in the fall. They’d only graduated to their own beds because Ushara had insisted on it. And had used her unfair wiles against him that he couldn’t resist.
He grew hard just thinking about that particular fight. It was the only one in his life he’d been happy to lose.