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“Crux can read your thoughts, so do not think to lie about what happened. The others escaped?”
He met my eye steadily, giving a nod. “Yep. They asked me to go with them, but I figured if I’ve got a baby in a tube out there, I shouldn’t do that.”
In the years since I’d gotten my fourth mark, I had never before been tempted to use it for anything other than keeping Crux out of my head. That was all I’d seen it as good for. But it was more than that, as well I knew. Because it was my father’s mark.
In that moment, I was tempted to use it as Crux always had, with impunity, to read the thoughts of others. Not because I wished to violate Beau that way, but because I selfishly wanted to know if the possibility of a child was the only reason he had stayed.
But that was the moment I realized I didn’t have to violate Beau to know his mind.
Because I did know. The softness in his eyes as he watched me, the tiny twitch of his lips that said he, too, was trying to keep from gloating at Crux.
Perhaps Beau had stayed because of a child, but every bit of his attention was on me, even as Crux shouted and postured and growled deep in his chest. Beau did not care at all for Crux. His eyes were only for me.
He stayed for me. Not because I had seven marks, or because I was the strongest warrior of my generation. But precisely because I would never violate him by reading his mind without his permission.
Crux stormed off, shouting instructions into a communicator, insisting that his people hunt down Kaelum, find where he was no doubt keeping the humans for himself, but I didn’t care to tear myself away from Beau.
I simply stood there in his doorway, both of us still, staring into each other’s eyes, until Crux returned, grabbing my arm and yanking. “Yes, yes, you’re obsessed with that pathetic human. And you can have it. You can have a hundred humans if you bring me Kaelum’s head.”
Ahh, of course. There was the knife he’d stuck in my belly. He’d found a soft spot, and now he was twisting it. It was his way.
Perhaps Kaelum had no love for me. And to me, he was little more than a symbol of everything I would never have.
But he was my brother.
And didn’t that mean something?
Half the reason I’d never killed Crux had been our familial relationship, after all. Well, perhaps less than half. A tenth, at least. Some tiny part of me would always be that whimpering wretched child, slamming his body against the temple door, begging his father to let him inside because the starlight burned.
Unlike Crux, Kaelum had never hurt me. Never moved against me. More than once over the years I had wondered, if not for our parents’ hatred for each other, if Kaelum and I might have been friends.
But then the thought of having “friends” would always remind me how ridiculous the very notion was. No one would ever want to be friends with Vorian the Bastard, because however much I might wish he did not, Crux existed.
Until the king let me challenge for the right to begin my own house, Crux as good as owned me, according to Thorzi law. And because Crux existed, no one wanted any part of Vorian the Bastard, particularly the king.
My shoulders slumped, and I turned to follow my father toward his lab. “I can hardly murder the king’s son without dying myself. Xyren will challenge me if I even think to harm his son.”
Halfway down the hall, Crux turned to flash me a wild, almost mad grin. “Not if you kill him in an honorable challenge, because he has threatened the future of our people by stealing the humans.”
With that, the sinking feeling in the pit of my belly was back.
The facts could be twisted that way. I could use them to challenge and kill my own brother. It would upset the line of succession, something Crux no doubt planned to use for himself. Not to mention it being a black mark against all hybrids, if Kaelum proved unfit to be the future king.
The surprising irony was that I did not think him unfit to be king. He wasn’t the greatest warrior, perhaps, but kings needed qualities other than battle prowess. Like that thoughtful consideration Kaelum had shown himself so very capable of. Like the audacity to steal seventeen humans out from under Crux’s nose.
On the other side, my father still had Beau.
Brother or not, Beau had to come first. If Kaelum defeated me in a challenge, I would ask him to care for Beau. I didn’t doubt he would do it. Perhaps it would be for the best. Vorian the Bastard could die in an attempt to manipulate the throne, and Kaelum would demand Crux’s house be broken in recompense for the insult when he defeated me and proved my challenge invalid.
And Beau would be safe.
CHAPTER15
BEAU
It was strange, to be the last human in Crux’s lab. All my friends were gone. There’d be no wry grimaces exchanged on the way to the bathroom, no sense of solidarity with people who were every bit as screwed as I was.
I’d given that up.
