EPILOGUE.

In full emperor's robes, Bastien entered the throne room with Ember by his side. This was the day they'd been waiting for and dreading.

Kyr Zemin, the League prime commander, stood there, waiting with his crew and the Overseer.

Ember's hand trembled in his, but she showed no other sign of her nervousness.

And Bastien showed no emotions whatsoever as he met Alia's cold gaze.

"Well?" he prompted.

"You kept your word," Alia said with a light note in her voice. "I will give you that."

Bastien didn't find any humor in her words. "And how do you find now, Overseer?"

"Everything you said has been proven. I've ordered Prime Commander Zemin to remove your name as a Ravin. You're free, Emperor. Congratulations."

Congratulations? Was she f.u.c.king kidding, after everything they'd put him through?

He wanted to bury the axe in her skull.

But he caught himself and, as he'd promised Ember, he inclined his respectfully head to the Overseer, even though it galled him through and through. "Thank you, my lady."

Kyr stepped forward. "Now that you've been exonerated of killing your family, I'm here to accept your loyalty oath to The League and the United Systems."

Yeah, right.

Bastien sucked his breath in sharply. "Mmm ... sorry, Kyr. 'Fraid I can't do that, punkin."

His jaw went slack and the scar around his eyepatch turned whiter. "Pardon?"

Bastien moved to shield Ember with his body and pulled his blaster on Kyr. "Consider yourself arrested by order of the Alliance."

Kyr's one eye flared. He lunged at Bastien, but Bastien caught him and countered the strike. It took him several minutes, but he finally subdued the prime commander and cuffed him.

"This war ends. Today. I've buried enough people I love. I'm not burying any more."

Kyr laughed. "You've no idea what you're doing, Cabarro. You've just made the worst mistake of your life."

"No. I just ended a war that never should have started." He shoved Kyr into the hands of his guards. "Take him to lockup while I call Nykyrian Quiakides to let him know we have Kyr waiting for him."

Alia went pale. "What of me?"

"That's for the Alliance to decide.... I hope your son has more mercy on you than you had on him when he stood before your judgement." Bastien jerked his chin at his captain. "Take her."

Ember didn't breathe until they were gone. "I can't believe that worked."

"I told you it would. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a call to make."

Ember bit her lip as she watched her gorgeous husband head for his war room. She still couldn't believe the last few weeks. So much had happened that it all seemed like a dream most days.

"Aldara?"

She turned at the hesitant sound of her secretary's voice. "Yes?"

"You have an old friend outside who wants to meet with you, but she won't give me her name."

Ember wished she could say that was weird, but since her coronation, old friends had been turning up everywhere. Wanting money, favors ...

Souvenirs.

It gave her a whole new respect for how normal Bastien had always been, given the attention he'd been exposed to from birth.

With a heavy sigh, she went to her receiving room, expecting to find an old school chum.

But when the pet.i.te blonde turned around, all the air left her lungs.

It was Alura.

"What are you doing here?"

Alura raked her with a snotty glare. "So you won after all."

Ember screwed her face up. "This wasn't about winning. My G.o.d, Alura! Bastien's a person. And I'm your zusa!"

"None of you ever treated me like family. You were all so jealous of me. My beauty and the fact that I was sa-sa's favorite."

"Is that why you had him killed?"

She hissed at Ember. "I tried to help him. Tried to warn him. He wouldn't listen!"

Yeah, right. Alura never served anyone but herself. Even now, she was impeccably dressed and it was obvious that she'd suffered no hardship while in hiding.

"Why are you here?"

"Tell Bastien I'm dead. Get him off my back. You owe me that much."

Was she insane? "I don't owe you anything!" Other than maybe a severe a.s.s-whipping.

"I'm your zusa!"

"Yeah. And as you said, you never acted like it. You lied and took my husband from me. You knew I was pregnant and you stole even that! And you think I owe you?"

Alura hissed. "You're such a b.i.t.c.h. Fine. But don't say I didn't warn you."

"Warn me about what?"

She didn't answer. Instead, she headed for the door.

And ran straight into Bastien.

His eyes flared with instant recognition. But before he could reach for her, she turned and ran in the opposite direction with an ear-piercing scream.

Bastien exchanged a fierce frown with Ember as Alura headed for the balcony. There was no place for her to go.

Unless ...

They both had the exact bad feeling at the same time.

Running together, they reached the doors just as Alura jumped over the edge and plunged to the street below. Traffic screeched to a halt and horns blared.

When she started to look over the edge, Bastien took her arm and pulled her back. "Don't."

Instead, he glanced to the scene below.

"Is she..." Ember couldn't get the word past the painful knot in her throat.

"Yeah. She's dead. I'm so sorry, Ember."

Ember burst into tears.

Bastien held her close and let her cry. He wished he could feel the same, but every time he tried to feel bad for Alura, he saw an image of his mother and sister lying dead and couldn't. In his mind, she'd deserved a far worse fate.

But he wouldn't begrudge Ember her grief.

Or her love. Family was family. Even when they hurt you. Even when it was done intentionally. Though he'd never understand why some were born so broken they couldn't be fixed. Why some people could only find happiness by lashing out at others and ruining their lives.

All he could do was be grateful that he wasn't counted among their numbers. Life wasn't about misery. It wasn't about spreading pain.

His father had always said that life was a balance. Good and bad. The goal was to make sure that when you left the world, you left it with the scales shifted as much to the good column as you could.

And so he made himself remember the times with Alura when she hadn't sought to hurt them.

Forgiveness was the only way to heal. And the only way to make sure her poison didn't spread was to forget that she'd ever planted it.

In the end, that was the only way to deal with such creatures. Give them no fertilizer to grow their evil. Let it die with them. Let them pa.s.s from the world with no memory that they'd ever walked it.

So he would think no more of their bitter, pain-filled past. Only the future that was Ember and Rian.

And the new life that was growing inside her.

"Bastien?"

Kissing Ember's head, he looked up at Xander's call from inside the room. "Yeah?"

"I hate to bother you."

He rubbed Ember's arm as sirens began to blare from the streets outside. "We know. We saw her jump."

Xander winced. "Not that tragedy. Another one. Kyr."

His stomach tightened as bile rose up in his throat. Please, G.o.ds, no. "What about him?"

"He just escaped custody."

Bastien cursed as he realized that the war wasn't over. Rather it'd just taken a more sinister bend.

And this time when Kyr returned, he'd be out for all of them....

BONUS STORY.

Jullien couldn't have been more stunned had his fraternal twin brother demanded a t.e.s.t.i.c.l.e from him. At least that he'd have expected, given the past animosity between them that had resulted in years of the two of them trying to kill each other. He was actually surprised Nykyrian hadn't gelded him before now with a rusted-out spoon.

But this ...

This was one f.u.c.ked-up turn of events he'd have never conceived in his most vivid nightmare. Or drugged-out delusion. Obviously the G.o.ds were seriously bored and had chosen him for their daily amus.e.m.e.nts.

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 a.s.sa.s.sin-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 amba.s.sador 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 coldc.o.c.k your dad-and Jullien was definitely an authority on that particular topic, as he'd lived his entire youth trying to p.i.s.s 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.