“Valid point.”

Yes, it was. Chayden’s treatment over the fact that his parents were from two different human cultures had been so foul that Chayden had run away from his homeworld at fourteen, and had grown up on the back streets of other planets, alone. It said a lot that the hell he’d known on his own was better than the one he’d left behind.

Chayden leaned back in his chair to check their headings. “So where’s Mrs. Fain now? I’ve never seen or heard of him being with any female. Or male either, for that matter.”

Hauk winced at the tragedy that had been his big brother’s life. “Sadly, he’s never been with anyone except Omira. She was everything to him. And when she left him, he never got over it. I don’t think he’s gone near a female since.”

“Left him? Why?” he asked incredulously. “What’s not to love about Fain?”

Hauk sighed as he remembered the harsh betrayal Fain had never recovered from. “Bitch didn’t care that he’d given up everything for her. His education, his military career, his future… his entire blood family. Less than two years into their marriage, she packed her things and went back to her human family.”

“Damn,” Chayden breathed. “That’s so cold. How old was he when it happened? Five?”

Hauk frowned. “When she left him?”

He nodded.

“Eighteen.”

“Damn,” Chayden repeated. “He was an infant.”

“Yeah.” He’d been way too young to have his heart carved out and handed to him. “Fain was completely wrecked by it. He tried to come home, but my parents wouldn’t have anything to do with him. My mother told him that he’d died to them the day he chose to walk out the door to be with a human harita. That the last thing she wanted was the stench of a human-lover in her house.”

“And yet you two are still close.”

Hauk glanced to the monitor, where Fain followed at a discreet distance. Just like he always had. He was the only blood family Hauk had who had proven to him, time and again, that he would always stand at his back and not judge him. That was too rare a gift to take for granted. “Like my brother, I don’t give up on my family. For any reason.”

Chayden brushed his hand against the small religious medallion his sister had given him. “I know the feeling.” He glanced over to Hauk. “And that includes all my brothers who get on my nerves.”

Snorting, Hauk playfully turned Chayden’s head back toward the instrument panel. “Don’t be cutting them eyes at me, human.” But in his heart, he knew what Chayden did.

They were family.

And every bit as screwed up and dysfunctional as one related by blood.

Still, he hated what Fain had been through because his brother had given his heart to an unworthy bitch. Omira Antaxas had been the sorriest excuse for a supposed sentient being as Hauk had ever met. Devoted love like Fain held for her was so incredibly rare. Even for Andarions. How could anyone walk away from that?