No wonder Galene was so cautious with that nugget. While The Sentella was technically a legal military organization, they skimmed the laws of The League and had a lot of enemies in high places.
Including the tadara of Andaria.
Eriadne had issued a death warrant for any member of their High Command. It said a lot for Talyn that he’d never betrayed them. With one word about The Sentella to his CO or Lorens, he could have had any command position he wanted.
Galene patted her arm. “I have full faith that if anyone can find him, Hadrian can.”
“Hadrian?” she whispered between clenched teeth.
She lowered her tone again to the faintest of whispers and spoke behind her hand. “He views Talyn as a son. He won’t rest until he finds him and returns him to us.”
Felicia nodded. She prayed Galene was right. But then Galene loved her son enough that if Hadrian and the others weren’t more than competent, she’d never trust them with Talyn’s safety.
“What can we do, Commander?”
Galene wrapped her arms around her chest. “Wait for them to do their job.” Tears glistened in her eyes. “If Talyn’s still alive, they’ll find him for us.” A single tear slid down her cheek. “Either way, they’ll bring him home.”
As she whispered a prayer for them all, Felicia’s biggest fear was what condition he’d be in when they did.
Chapter 15
Jayne Erixour paused as they neared one of the most inhospitable places she’d ever seen – and given some of the shitholes she’d been forced to live in growing up while her father hid from various authorities, criminals, and governments, that said a lot. The more she skimmed from their readings, the more she wanted Jullien eton Anatole’s testicles in her fist. This was ridiculous.
What kind of sentient creature would place a boy on a planet like this, alone? Yes, Talyn was a soldier and he was a fierce fighter, but he was barely old enough to shave.
No one should be relegated to this.
Over and over, she saw Talyn as the painfully shy boy he’d been when she first met him. And that did nothing to settle the bloodlust in her heart. Payback for Anatole was coming, and she planned to be the brutal harbinger who shoved it up his arrogant ass.
“Hon?”
She glanced over to her husband. At six foot nine, Hadrian was one of the few men she looked up to, and was the only one she’d ever dated she could actually wear heels with. A warrior of fierce skills, he kept his brown hair cut short around his gorgeous face. And those silvery-blue eyes betrayed his birth race that had been hunted to the brink of extinction. It was why he was more than happy to stay home and voraciously protect their babies from the assholes of the universe, while she risked her life fighting against the very tyrants who’d slaughtered most of Hadrian’s family and left him an orphan in hiding. “What is it?”
“Nero wants us to buckle in. We’re about to break atmosphere.”
Nodding, she pulled at the straps and secured herself. Her thoughts wandered as she glanced between her husband and his older brother, Nero. At first glance, they bore little resemblance to each other – something that had served them both well while Hadrian, unlike Nero, had grown up alone and in relative safety.
With blond hair, Nero was supposedly the spitting image of their father. Hadrian with his darker hair color took after their mother. Because they were two of the last of their hunted species and the sole survivors of their royal house, they were rarely seen together. The risk to each of them was too great.
No one outside of this ship knew Hadrian had lived through the massacre of his family. He’d been barely eighteen months old when they’d been executed. Narrowly escaping that so-called cleansing himself, Nero had hidden Hadrian among loyalists and surrendered himself to his enemies to make sure that his baby brother lived and grew to manhood in total safety.
For that alone, Jayne would have loved and adored Nero. But he was a decent male, with a loyal heart and humorous, dry wit. When Hadrian had called his brother about Talyn, Nero had instantly appeared to help them find him. No questions asked.
But that was how Nero was.
And as a professional tracker, Nero was the best in the Nine Worlds. Not to mention, he and her husband were full-blooded Trisani – some of the last of the