Rebels and Lovers by Linnea Sinclair Read Free Book Online Page A

manuals.
    Ethan sat up straighter. “Kidnappers plan—”
    “Father, Uncle Devin’s right.”
    Startled, Devin glanced to his right. Sixteen-year-old Thana stood in the library’s wide doorway, a large, long-furred black-and-white cat in her arms. Cosmo, Devin remembered. Petra Frederick had evidently let the children stop home long enough to retrieve Cosmo—a source of comfort—but not to change their clothes. Thana was still in the dark-blue pants and white tunic that comprised her school uniform, her long dark hair pulled back and tied with a white ribbon. “Trip takes his bookpad everywhere.” Her voice wavered slightly. She sucked in a breath. “Not only because it has his class work. It has all of Uncle Philip’s stuff. If someone kidnapped
him …
well, he’d make sure that was left behind. Because then we’d know he really didn’t want to leave.
I’d
know.” She held her father’s gaze for a moment, then looked at Devin. “He cried a lot when we heard Uncle Philip was dead. I told him he shouldtalk to you or to Father, but he … he said no. He said …,” and she hesitated, her desire to find her brother clearly warring with her desire to protect him.
    “I know you’re worried about Trippy.” Devin prompted her as gently as he could. “I am too. But if you know anything that might help—”
    “He said he was gonna join the Alliance and help them kill Prime Commander Tage,” twelve-year-old Max said, stepping into the open doorway. Like Thana, he was in blue pants and a white tunic. But his dark curly hair was mussed.
    “Maxwell Macy!” Jonathan shot to his feet. “If your brother was talking such nonsense, I should have been told. Immediately.”
    Max dropped his gaze to the carpet under his shoes. “I know. I’m sorry.”
    Devin stared at Max, then at Thana, seeing—
feeling
—their fear. And not of their father but for their brother’s safety. Jonathan was stern, but he was fair. And, in rare moments, he could even be kind.
    But Max and Thana, who knew Trippy better than anyone, were afraid. So was Jonathan. So was Devin. Trippy
had
spoken to him about Philip’s reported death, but Devin hadn’t taken the young man’s rantings against Tage seriously. More than half the Empire was ranting about the new prime commander lately.
    Jonathan looked at his daughter. “He told you this as well, Thana?”
    “Something like that.”
    “Something?” Jonathan’s voice rose as he stepped toward his daughter. She lowered her face into Cosmo’s thick fur, cradling the cat more tightly against her. “Your brother’s missing and all you can remember is ‘something’?”
    “That’s because they’re lying.” Ethan cut in, his voice hard and angry. “They just want the attention—”
    “That’s not true, Uncle Ethan!” Max’s hands fisted at his side.
    “Enough.” A deep voice that hadn’t lost its firmness or ability to issue orders in almost eighty years halted them all in their tracks. J.M. splayed his large hands on his desktop. “Yelling and unconfirmed suppositions are unproductive,” he said to Jonathan. He nodded at his grandchildren. “Thana, Max, please go to the kitchen and tell Audra we’d like some coffee brought to the library. Ethan.” He pinned his third son with a meaningful glare. “Go see if your mother needs anything.”
    Thana let Cosmo slip to the carpet then turned, grabbing Max’s shoulder as Ethan shoved himself off the couch. The cat on their heels, the children hurried away from the doorway, obviously glad to have escaped their father’s wrath. Ethan followed, but not without one final glance back into the library, peevishness clear in the tight lines of his face.
    “Sit down, Jonathan,” J.M. ordered. Then, as Jonathan returned to his seat: “I understand exactly what happened now. If your son did in fact have some wild idea to harm Darius Tage, it stands to reason Imperial Security would have taken him into custody. It also stands to