As he turned to run to his room and arm himself, he collided with someone and was knocked unconscious.

When he awoke, he was in a room with Lil and her husband. He was on one side. They were across from him, near the bed. Bound and gagged, he'd struggled as hard as he could to reach them while Lil begged for mercy for her unborn child.

They'd shot her right in front of him.

Bastien had expected them to kill him next.

They didn't.

Instead, they'd released him. Unbound his hands and gag and vanished before he could recover from the horror. When he did, he grabbed the blaster they'd left at his side without thinking and went to find them.

That was when he'd found his parents.

Agony had torn him asunder. He'd dropped to his knees, then crawled to his elegant mother, who was covered in blood. Unable to speak or even process it all, he'd pulled her into his arms to hold her.

"die? Speak to me, please!" Even as he'd said the words, he knew she was gone. But he kept hoping and praying for a miracle that never came.

He'd been cupping her cheek, trying to warm her cold skin, when the League enforcers had stormed in and taken him into custody. Of all the stupidity, he'd thought at first they were there to protect him.

It wasn't until they'd brought him to the Trigon Court headquarters on Gondara and processed him through lockup that he realized he was under arrest for his family's murders.

In an act of complete denial, he'd actually tried to call his father for bail like he always did, thinking that it was some kind of cruel hoax.

Until Barnabas had picked up his father's link to answer it.

Then he knew. His father would have had it on him when they killed him. He was never without it.

Never.

Only his killer would have been able to pry it out of his possession. Only close family would have known where he kept it.

Jullien had been right, after all.

Bastien blinked back tears at the nightmarish memory. As the reality that his uncle had just slaughtered his entire family slowly sank in, he'd stood there in the processing center unable to move or breathe, watching the monitors as the news mercilessly played gory images of his parents' remains without regard for the fact that those were human beings with family members who loved them. That the news agencies were banking ratings off the tragedy of his life.

G.o.d, he hated them all for their lack of compa.s.sion. Their lack of human decency that they wrapped up in their lies, and masks of moral superiority and hypocrisy as they condemned him for something he hadn't done.

Not a single one of them had bothered to contact him to learn the truth. Yet they all lied, saying they'd tried, when they knew better.

f.u.c.king, f.e.c.kless pieces of lying s.h.i.t.

It'd been a full hour later that a cold, heartless interrogator had gutted him with the news that he was being charged with every one of their deaths.

Bastien had kept waiting for someone to come forward with the truth and spare him his h.e.l.l. Surely to the G.o.ds, someone else had to know better. Had to see what was so obvious!

And yet they didn't. Rather, the blind fools rushed to protect the liar who sought them out and played the victim for them all. They listened to the lies and swallowed them whole, while painting Bastien as the monster he'd never been.

The full reality that they could honestly think for one moment he would be guilty of such savagery hadn't entered the realm of his belief system.

Not until that first interrogator had come in and started torturing him for a confession. A confession he still refused to give them. They could cut all the pieces off his body they wanted, he'd never admit to something he hadn't done.

He was innocent! He was the victim and yet those gullible, idiot sharks danced to Barnabas's tune. They all surrounded Bastien, tearing at his flesh to dig the wounds in ever deeper.

No one believed him. Everyone was so convinced of his guilt that no attorney in the Nine Worlds would even agree to representation. Not a single relative would take his calls or speak his name.

Every friend had abandoned him.

Just like now. The hatred in the Overseer's eyes as she glared at him from her seat seared him to the marrow of his bones.

I didn't do this.

But Alura's testimony of lies gave him no reprieve. All it did was solidify his guilt in the minds of everyone who heard her. "I gave a report to his uncle that I thought Bastien might try something. Had I known it would cost Jackson his life, too ... that Bastien would cut his throat to keep him silent, I would never have said a word."

The prosecutor shook her head. "Were you not afraid for your own life, dear?"

Alura sobbed. "Of course I was! I was petrified every minute I was married to him. It's why I kept a separate residence. Why my zusa refused to marry him when he asked her, and why his own zusa had to be his wingman. No one else could handle him. And you see what it got Lil. He's p.r.o.ne to violent rages. You never know when he's going to explode. Any little thing could set him off!"

Bastien ground his teeth at her utter nonsense. How could anyone believe her?

Yet as he glanced around at the faces in the crowd, he realized he was alone in this. No one was on his side.

No one.

It defied reason that anyone could believe her ridiculous bulls.h.i.t given what everyone knew about him. Given all he'd done that refuted it. He felt so betrayed by all of them. How could they not see the truth?

Or worse, that they knew the truth and were too cowardly to speak it. Because they feared coming under fire for defending him.

That thought sickened him the most. Because he'd never failed to come to the defense of his friends. His parents had bred him for loyalty. You stand up for others, especially when they need you. Friends and family didn't abandon each other.

Yet none of them seemed to have a molecule of it in them.

In the end, he had no choice but to listen to his unwanted wife malign him in front of a universe who knew exactly what kind of liar she was. They had seen it countless times.

How convenient that in this they thought she'd finally found some kind of human decency and conscience when she'd never shown any before.

And three weeks later, after no one, not even his uncle Aros, had come to his defense, he was hauled before the Overseer for the verdict.

Ever elegant and refined, Alia had her gray hair coiled around her head in the kind of intricate style his mother had favored. It made him wonder if the Overseer had done it for that reason. If her intent had been to cut him to the bone with the loss of his family.

"Have you anything to say for yourself, boy?" Her voice was cold and brittle.

"I'm innocent, Your Grace. I could never harm my family. I swear, I didn't do this!"

She rolled her eyes. "Bastien Aros Cabarro, given the amount of evidence presented and the brutality of your actions, and reluctance to show remorse, you are hereby stripped of all t.i.tle and standing, and found guilty of eight counts of premeditated homicide and sentenced to death. May whatever G.o.d or G.o.ds you worship have mercy on your rotten soul."

Those words. .h.i.t him like a sledgehammer to his gut. Never had he felt so alone. Not one single member of his family was here.

Or so he thought.

"Your Grace?"

The Overseer arched a brow at her chancellor. "Yes?"

"I have a pet.i.tion that came in an hour ago from the Triosan emperor for clemency in sentencing. Would you care to read it?"

Alia grimaced before she gave a curt nod.

The bailiff came forward with an e-tablet.

Bastien's scowl matched hers as he tried to understand why his uncle would speak up on his behalf now when Aros had refused to take any of his calls. Had refused to have any contact with him whatsoever. It seemed incongruous that he'd have sent the letter over while not being here for the hearing.

But after a few minutes, the Overseer took a deep breath. "It appears your uncle still loves you, but I'm disinclined to give you the simple exile for your crimes that he requests. However, I do believe in compromising where I can, and I've no wish to alienate the Triosans. Therefore, I shall commute your sentence from death to make you a Ravin for The League. Should you survive as such for fifteen years, you'll earn a pardon."

He gaped at her ludicrous verdict. Seriously? Ravins were the sentient targets League a.s.sa.s.sins were given as training a.s.signments to hone their skills. They were implanted with a tracking device and then set free to be hunted down and killed like prey.

Any humanitarian group worth its salt had protested the existence and practice-until their leaders ended up as Ravins themselves for treason against The League.

Bastien scoffed at her kindness given the fact that the average life expectancy for a Ravin was six to eight weeks.

For the humanitarian protesters, it'd been a few hours.

But then he wasn't most.

He was a captain first rank, Gyron Force trained, and motivated by a blood l.u.s.t that ought to terrify everyone in this room.

His fury rising with a heated need for vengeance, Bastien met her gaze. "Oh, I'll survive, my lady. And when I come back, I'll rain down a h.e.l.l-wrath the likes of which you've never seen, and I promise you that the next time you look upon me, it'll be for the murder of the real killer of my family. And I won't be innocent then as I am today. I will come to you soaked and baptized in the blood of my enemies. You can bank on that."

"Get him out of my court!"

The guards jerked him toward the side door, where, to his instant shock, Ember waited.

Time hung still as he felt a need to embrace her. As all his regret rose to choke him. And hatred, too, if the truth was known.

I wish I'd never met you!

When their gazes met, he saw sympathy. For the merest heartbeat, he thought she'd say something.

But his captors didn't give her the chance. They rushed him past her and threw him into an armored transport, leaving him there to d.a.m.n her and himself with every breath he took.

Ember started after Bastien, desperate to comfort him and tell him what was going on. But her father caught her arm and kept her by his side.

"You say one word to him and they're liable to indict you as an accomplice."

Grinding her teeth, she wanted to weep in frustration and pain. What had been done to him was all kinds of wrong and she knew it. "He didn't murder his family, Sa. You know that as well as I do. Bastien could never hurt them."

"I know."

She met her father's gaze as she sought some kind of sanity in this madness. "Why did Alura lie like that?"

"To protect us from his uncle. You know as well as I do who the real killer was. We have Alura to thank for the fact that we're still standing when so many others have fallen. Don't you dare criticize her."

Ember let out a bitter laugh. The concept of thanking her sister stuck hard in her craw. Unlike her father, she couldn't imagine Alura as an altruist. Not in this.

This b.l.o.o.d.y coup had torn a hole through their empire. Worse? It'd indicted and torn apart so many of their n.o.ble and military families that Ember was terrified to think just how deep the conspiracy against Bastien's family ran. But the one thing she knew for certain, her sister was neck deep in it.

And Alura had worked hard to set Bastien up for his fall.

Tears filled her eyes as bitter anger choked her. Alura had robbed her of her future and then, not content to see her and Bastien suffer, she'd done this.

d.a.m.n her to h.e.l.l for it.

"You don't believe that, Sa-sa. Surely. The one man who could have stopped Barnabas has just been handed a brutal death sentence-by his own uncle's hand. How long do you think it'll be before Barnabas silences all of us, too? He knows we know the truth. And worse, he knows the truth." She paused as she saw her sister leaving the courtroom with Barnabas and his son.

Disgusted at the sight, she met her father's gaze. "By standing at Alura's side through this, you've just put a snake on the throne and handed victory to our enemies. Barnabas killed his own and framed his n.o.ble nephew for their deaths. Do you really think he's going to stand beside a bargain he made to a pleb? And if you do, I have swampland to sell."

"You've gone too far!" he snapped.

Tears filled her eyes as she choked on bile and gall. "No, Sa-sa. I didn't go far enough. I should have told Bastien the truth when I had the chance." More than that, she should have pulled out Alura's hair and cut her throat when she found out her sister was carrying Bastien's baby. Ember's failure to fight for him then had caused all this now. And never had her future, or that of her loved ones, been more tenuous. "If you'll excuse me, I'm going home to pack and evacuate, because I have no delusions on how this is going to end for us." She jerked her chin toward the direction where Alura had vanished. "Your beloved daughter just signed her name to all our death warrants. And unlike you, I intend to protect my own. All of them."

CHAPTER 4.

ONE YEAR. TEN MONTHS. THREE WEEKS. SIX DAYS.

"And now you know how I've lasted longer than any Ravin in League history." Bastien shot the corpse at his feet in the head one more time before he searched the a.s.sa.s.sin's body for supplies.

He probably shouldn't have wasted that last charge so cavalierly, but there was something to be said for satisfaction. Even meager outlets, given how rare a commodity it'd become in his life.

"d.a.m.n w.a.n.ker. Couldn't you have a sweet vice? Alcohol? Something?"

He shot him again for being such a stellar, upstanding soldier.

Minsid League dogs. They were wretchedly sober. And this one had feet the size of his sister's. Bastien grimaced as he tossed the boots aside and pulled his worn-out, threadbare pair back on. At least he'd gotten a good coat out of this one. Some fresh ammo and batteries.

Not enough food, though. And they were MREs, which Bastien had been sick of when he was in Gyron Force.

Oh well. He picked the b.a.s.t.a.r.d up and carried him to his stripped-out ship, making sure to delete and fry any trace that could lead a search party back here. Then he set the self-destruct sequence and launched it.

Hopefully it wouldn't detonate until it was in the upper atmosphere and it'd burn up completely without raining down debris or leaving anything in s.p.a.ce The League might find that they could use to trace him.

You should have buried the body.