Born of Betrayal Read Online Free PDF Page A

silent hurt in his teenaged eyes when females had viciously spurned him because he had no paternal lineage. Only his mother’s broken one. They had been so incredibly cruel to him.
    Even his military rank had been viciously stripped from him at one time because of Fain and his family’s feud with the Anatoles.
    He’d suffered so much as a direct result of what his father had done. For Fain abandoning them. That, more than anything, was what she hated Fain for. She could handle her own humiliation. She’d chosen her path with her own free will.
    It was what had been unjustly given to Talyn that burned bitterest.
    What her son had been forced to endure that made her crave vengeance from his father. Her proud, precious baby had deserved none of it.
    Tears choked her. “You have ever been my brave champion.” When everyone else had abandoned her, Talyn had stayed by her side. Ever the dutiful son.
    Maybe not verbally. He did have his father’s limited fuse, and a smart mouth capable of lethal sarcasm that had tested her temper and restraint on many occasions.
    But his heart had always been loyal. Always loving.
    Always ferocious. Her fierce little lorina.
    â€œYou deserve to be a tiziran.”
    â€œTitles mean nothing to me. You know that.”
    Only his rank as her adjutant had ever mattered to him. He’d worked insanely hard to achieve his rank as fast as possible so that he could be with her and watch over her. Something that had been twice as hard for him since he’d lacked his father’s prestigious military lineage and had been under the direct command of his father’s childhood enemies.
    It was why he’d been forced to become a prizefighter for the Andarion Ring as a mere boy. With every title he’d earned, his military rank was supposed to advance to match his proven martial skills. Yet he’d had so many boulders hurled at him that unlike other Andarions, it hadn’t happened the way it should have.
    But even without his father’s lineage, even with her being harder on him than she was on her other soldiers, he’d risen to become one of the youngest officers in the Andarion military. Had attained his current rank at an age when most were only beginning their obligatory service. Had risked literally life and limb to keep them all safe.
    He had done her proud.
    â€œYou may think nothing of those things, Talyn. However, that’s not true of others, and I know how much you want to marry and start your own family.”
    He looked away, but not before she saw the bitter yearning that lived inside him for something he’d been denied all these years.
    â€œExactly. I do know you, my son. As tiziran, you will have your choice now of any female who meets your fancy.”
    He scoffed at her words. “If I wasn’t good enough for them without a royal title, I damn sure don’t want them because of it. Besides, I love my Felicia. I’m grateful and lucky to have her in my life.”
    Galene bit back a scoff at his words. While she adored Felicia for taking care of Talyn whenever he was allowed liberty, she knew the truth.
    Felicia was still a paid companion—a contracted mistress who lacked full lineage, too. One Talyn had been forced to pay top dollar to keep in a style that was unheard of for others of Felicia’s birth standing. And the unfair terms of Felicia’s original contract still sickened Galene. No other Andarion male would have been forced to sign such a travesty, or spend the credits Talyn did for her services.
    Or to buy out her contract from her agency, as he’d been forced to do. Galene flinched as she remembered that particular nightmare, and what it’d cost Talyn.
    But because of her and Fain, Talyn’s social standing ranked below even that of a slave’s. It didn’t matter how many fighting titles he’d earned. How many citations and awards he gained as a military hero. He was still