Nykyrian laughed as if he knew where Jullien’s thoughts had gone. “That’s why I know you’re the Tavalian for the job of keeping my girl safe for me.” He held his hand out to Jullien.
The moment he took it, Nyk jerked him closer for a brotherly hug.
Jullien closed his eyes, savoring the novelty of it. Though neither of them would ever say the words, they both regretted the years of bitterness that had driven an awkward wedge between them.
But they were getting better.
Slowly.
While still not brothers per se, they were no longer enemies, and were learning that they could reach out to each other without getting slapped for it.
In time, they both hoped to become the family they’d never been.
Clearing his throat gruffly, Nyk clapped him hard on the back and stepped away. “She’s in her rooms.”
Jullien’s gut clenched involuntarily at those words, as he remembered the vicious slap he’d felt when he’d first learned that Thia had been given his old quarters in the Andarion palace after he’d been ruthlessly disinherited. A palace that had been leveled by their own grandmother in an attempt to kill Nykyrian and his family—after putting a brutal hit out on Jullien’s life.
But for Jullien and his Tavali brethren, the bitch would have succeeded.
Thankfully, they’d all survived, and now his brother had moved his family into their birth father’s palace on Triosa. A palace where Jullien had been made to feel about as welcome as a lethal STD in a whorehouse.
So given that, he well understood Thia’s feelings of isolation and not belonging. Of wanting to escape this hell as fast as possible. But to be fair to Nyk, his brother was a good and decent father.
Unlike theirs.
Yeah, there was nothing here he missed at all. The sooner he could leave and get back to his Gorturnum base, and more importantly the family that loved him, the happier he’d be.
And as they entered the east wing, Jullien saw that Thia’s current rooms were the ones that had belonged to an aunt who’d finally married. Not that he begrudged his niece her place in the royal family. Never would he slight any of his nieces or nephews anything. Rather, he hated his parents for their lack of regard where he was concerned.
Hence his years of teenage rebellion.
But that was another story and the last thing he wanted to think about.
At the end of the hallway, Nyk knocked on the door and waited for Thia’s bored, irritated voice to bid them enter. Rolling his eyes at Jullien, Nykyrian opened the door.
Jullien wasn’t expecting the sudden ear-piercing shriek that greeted them.
“Basha Dagger!” Nykyrian’s twin sons came running so fast, he barely caught them before they leapt against a part of his anatomy that would have rendered him on the ground in agony.
He smiled at his rambunctious nephews, who jumped all over his body in an attempt to tackle and hug him. “Hey, Terry and Tier. How are my boys?”
Laughing, they wrapped their spindly bodies around his and squeezed tight. Now he fully understood Vas’s complaints about his sisters whenever they attempted to scale his body.
After sliding off Jullien’s back, Taryn looked down the hallway behind Jullien. “Did you bring Viv and Mira?”
“Vas?” Tiernan added as he clapped his hands in hopeful excitement and did what would also double as an I-need-to-go-to-the-bathroom-Dad dance.
“Sorry, my glorious Fetchyns. It’s just me this trip.”
Tiernan pouted, but Taryn smiled even wider as he showed Jullien his arm where he still sported Jullien’s Tavali patch on his sleeve. “You haven’t forgotten, right, Basha Dagger? When I’m growed up, I’m going to be on your crew like kyzu Vasi!”
Jullien barely caught himself before he corrected Taryn’s Andarion. “Kyzu” was the female term for a cousin. Vasili would have a fit over that mistake. “Kyzi” was the word the boy wanted. But if Nyk wasn’t teaching them proper Andarion, then be damned if he would. “Absolutely, Terry.”
Thia tsked at her brothers as she pushed her way past them. “You two need to learn a little restraint.” She leaned forward to kiss Jullien’s cheek. “What brings you here, Basha?”
He frowned at Nykyrian.
“I didn’t tell her I was calling you. Thought you’d want the honor of it, since the final decision about it is entirely yours.”
Jullien hesitated. While that was true, he wasn’t used to this kind of trust or respect from his birth family. It actually scared him. “Your paka said that you wanted to sign on with The Tavali?”
Her jaw went slack an instant before tears welled in her eyes. “Really?”
Nyk’s own eyes moistened. His angst-filled expression probably mirrored the same one Jullien had worn the day he’d decided to let his own son follow him into battle. To this day, he got sick to his stomach every time he glanced over to see Vasili on his ship whenever they came under fire.
“If it’s truly what you want, Thia, I won’t stop you.”