that in America, I get to choose my own fate. That way, if it all goes to pot, I have no one to be mad at but myself.”
Speaking of Ones with his One was unsettling. Anticipation and uneasiness skittered through him. He pushed himself upright, shifted back into his human form, and moved to sit cross-legged on a smooth, flat rock by the fire. She watched him, but other than the barest shimmer of awareness passing through their link, she gave no indication that she even noticed his nudity.
He cleared his throat and avoided her comments about Ones altogether. “It’s unsurprising that a woman raised in a democratic society where anyone can hope to attain the highest ranks of society—regardless of true ability to rule—would think that way, but my people believe fate gives us the power and ability we need for the social class we were born into.
“Children with the highest ability in each family become heir to that house. Each heir is taken to the royal vizier and tested, their destiny foretold. The most powerful boy or girl is then trained to ready them for the rigors of the throne, and their house becomes the royal house. Typically, the throne remains in the direct imperial line, but not always. Destiny can occasionally reshuffle the power structure of the Sueni houses, but the emperor is always the most powerful, and thus he rules all the houses.”
He didn’t say that sometimes a child would have the power, but not the restraint and fortitude to control their abilities. Cilji, as sweet and kind as she had been, and as much as he and his family had adored her, had been one who couldn’t contain her power, neither her psychic abilities nor her animal nature. Her One had been as bad or worse. Yet another reason not to lose himself to that kind of bond. He sighed, hoping Tylara didn’t suffer Cilji’s fate with her own Sajan male. That family was well known for their passionate outbursts and unstable powers.
“With the whole power and testing thing, will it matter that the emperor’s One is a human?” Bren tilted her head, and her braid slipped over her shoulder to dangle between her ripe breasts. “Or is that cancelled out by the One bond making better children?”
He shrugged, hypnotized by the movement of that thick plait instead of the dancing flames. “Only the viziers could tell.”
Her voice went so soft, even his sensitive ears had to strain to hear her. “Did the viziers tell you you’d have a One?”
“No.” It was the truth. The prophets had only said that he would lead the Arjun house, anything else was hidden from their sight. Unfortunate for him, on so many levels.
“So you might not have a One?” The almost hopeful tinge to her question made his belly knot and his gaze snap up to examine her face.
His hands clenched into fists, and he found he couldn’t lie to her, but he also couldn’t tell her the whole truth. “I know I do.”
“Congratulations.” She swallowed, her face wiping of all expression. “Since it’s such a blessing in your culture.”
“You don’t think it would be for you?” Everything inside him froze as he waited for her answer. He knew it shouldn’t matter, but it did.
“Having my mind no longer be all mine ever again? Being bound to someone forever?” Her eyes popped wide, something close to panic flashing in their ocean blue depths. “I can’t think of anything more horrifying.”
“I know exactly what you mean.” They were probably the most honest words he’d ever said to anyone in his life.
Surprise flittered over her face before she looked at the fire again. She tossed the little twig she’d been playing with into the flames. “But…I thought you had a One?”
He stared at her, wondering if it would be easier to resist this pull she had on him now that he knew she was appalled by the very idea of the One bond. He hoped so. A smile quirked one side of his mouth. They were more alike than either of them would ever admit. Perhaps he owed her the truth about his motives, if he couldn’t give her what most Sueni craved so much. At the very least, if she ever found out the truth, she would understand why he’d never bond with her.
“The One bond killed my family.” He pushed his fingers through his hair. “Not long after I came of age.”
“I’m sorry. My family died when I was a small child. I never really knew them.” Her gaze met his, her voice soft. “Do all Ones go together, then?”
“No, a person can live after their One dies.” He hadn’t spoken of his family in years. Their loss was a wound that refused to heal, one he’d learned to live with, to ignore, but coming to Earth, meeting his One, had ripped it open and forced him to acknowledge it again, to admit how much it had shaped him and the choices he’d made in his life. How it had taught him to deny what others only dreamed of finding.
He closed his eyes for a moment. Discussing this was harder than he’d ever imagined. “My mother was a doctor who worked with those whose power was erratic. My father always thought it was too dangerous, but she was determined, and she was good at her work. The best. But…Father wasn’t wrong. Her work was dangerous, and one day the danger caught up with her. A very high-powered Kith male, Eetash Sajan, lost control during a session and rampaged. Neither of them survived the encounter.”
“Oh, my God.” Her fingers splayed as though to reach for him. He felt a throb of her sympathy through the bond he’d narrowed to a mere filament.
It was almost his undoing, but now that he’d started he needed to finish, needed her to know all of it. She deserved at least that much.
He clenched his fists and plunged on with the twisted tale. “Father didn’t last the week. He got his affairs in order, turned everything over to me, including guardianship of my younger sister, and then he slit his wrists in bed one night. The servants found him the next morning with a smile on his face.”
“Jesus.” He heard her swallow. “He knew he was going with her.”
He stared into the fire, unable to look at her. “Yes.”
He hoped that his father was right, that his parents were together now. They had loved each other dearly, and that love had sustained his family. He and Cilji had been lost without it. Its demise was what led his sister to her own end. Living without it was more than his father had been able to bear. Everything shattered and broken…by love. He closed his eyes. “That left just my sister Cilji and me in the Arjun house. She…was an incredibly gifted Kith. Powerful. Almost too powerful.”
Bren leaned toward him, the end of her braid trailing perilously close to the fire. “More powerful than you?”
“Oh, definitely.” He chuckled, a rare moment of lightness when he thought of his family. “She delighted in holding it over me, too.”
“More powerful than the emperor?”
He hesitated. “Possibly.”
“And that was a problem?” Her eyebrows arched.
“Socially? Not really.” He brushed his hands down his naked thighs, shifting his weight on the hard stone. “My mother was Kyber’s aunt, so we’re close enough in relation to the throne that it wouldn’t have been surprising.”
She didn’t seem surprised that he was the emperor’s cousin, though the two of them bore little resemblance to one another. They both looked like their fathers. Bren’s forehead wrinkled as she considered this new information. “Shouldn’t Cilji have been the empress if she was the most powerful?”
“No. She wasn’t in control enough.” He shook his head. Therein lay the problem—the final seal to Cilji’s fate, the reason Farid felt the need to always be in control. Not that that seemed to spare him where Bren was concerned.
“She was unstable? Mentally?” She tucked a stray wisp of hair behind her ear. “Or…like the people your mother worked with?”
“My mother’s interest in her field started with Cilji’s problems as a child. She’d improved a great deal, but when our parents died, she slipped