Cloak & Silence

  "Majesty?"

  Darling turned as an officer joined them.

  The male officer bowed low. "Two assassins were dead on arrival. The third killed three officers and escaped. We've notified all agencies to be on the lookout. Hopefully, we'll catch him."

  Darling inclined his head. "Thank you for your service and report."

  The officer started to leave them, then pulled his weapon out and angled it at the door.

  Startled, Ture looked past him to see a uniformed League assassin entering the lobby. As soon as he saw the officer, he held his hands up and froze.

  Darling pressed the man's blaster toward the floor. "It's all right, Officer Dalens. He's on our side."

  Bowing again, the officer retreated.

  Only then did the assassin approach. Tall, well-muscled, well-armed and raven-haired, he moved with the fluid grace of a lethal killer. Yet there was something strangely familiar about him.

  "How is he?" the assassin asked Darling.

  "He'll live. Any idea who got away from us?"

  A tic started in the assassin's jaw. "Draygon. My guess is Mari let him go. There's no way Dray could have gotten away from him on his own...which means he's going on an asetum for the compassion."

  "A what?" Ture asked.

  Darling made a sound of supreme aggravation. "Blood vendetta to avenge his honor. But more serious than it sounds. When a Phrixian makes an asetum, it is to the death."

  "In this case, Dray's...unless Mari lets him take his head. Stupid fucking bastard might do it, too."

  Ture saw red at those words. Without thinking, he shoved the assassin back. "Don't you dare insult him!"

  Darling came between them before the assassin could retaliate. "Emotions are running high here for all us. But before you two go at it, let me make introductions. Ture Xans meet Safir Jari. Saf is Maris's baby brother. Ture is the boyfriend."

  That took the fight out of Ture, and the fire died in Saf's dark eyes.

  "Sorry," they said at the same time.

  So this was the brother that had been beaten in Maris's stead.

  The one Mari loved above all others.

  By the slightly softened expression on Saf's face, Ture knew Maris had spoken to his brother about their relationship. But he wasn't quite sure what to make of it. Like all assassins, Saf kept his emotions visibly checked.

  "I meant no disrespect to Mari," Saf explained. "He's just tender-hearted when it comes to our idiot brothers. Personally, I'd like to have a legal shot at Kyr...and most days, Dray, too."

  "Yeah, but Dray's not League," Darling said. "The other two killed were."

  Saf ground his teeth. "Kyr has called out the whole family on Maris so that we can avenge the shame he's brought to our house. Your little stunt at the prison killed the last shred of sanity Kyr possessed. While he'd love to have your head on his wall, it's Mari's he's obsessed with."

  Ture scowled. "Why?"

  The tic returned to Saf's jaw, something Mari's did whenever he was pissed off. "It would be bad enough if Maris was just gay. The fact he's gay and the best, most decorated warrior in our family... Kyr wants his testicles in a jar to prove he's the bigger man."

  "Mari's better than you?" Ture couldn't help asking.

  Safir went rigid. "I am damn good at what I do. I'd put my skills up against anyone's, any time, any place...except Maris's and Nykryian's." He glanced to Darling. "And the one man who taught Mari how to really fight, and blow shit to pieces. Growing up, I got into enough altercations with Mari to know he can sweep the floor with my ass, and that's with him holding back because he didn't really want to hurt me. While I can make him bleed, I can't stop him, and I know it. Unlike the rest of my family, I have a healthy respect and appreciation for my brother's abilities and skills."

  Darling shrugged. "Yeah well, I learned most of what I know from Nyk."

  "Which is why I'm not taking that contract. Or yours. I may be arrogant, but I'm not stupid. Luckily, Kyr and Dray hogged the family share of that."

  Ture was beginning to really like Saf. Unlike the others of his ilk, Saf was strangely humble and kind.

  Safir glanced around the room. "Speaking of, I better go. It wasn't exactly intelligent to come and be seen here. But when I heard Dray's report, I panicked and wanted to make sure he was lying about the severity of Mari's condition." He held his hand out to Darling.

  "Peace, my brother." Darling took his hand then hugged him.

  To Ture's complete shock, Saf pulled him into a full body embrace. "Take care of my brother for me. Tell him he can't die and leave me the sole source of sanity for the family. I'm depending on him to help me hold the line."

  After giving Hauk the same hug he'd given Darling and kissing Zarya's cheek, Saf made a League sign of respect and solidarity over his heart then left.

  Ture quirked a brow at Zarya. "He was unexpected."

  She nodded. "I've loved Safir since the moment I met him. You know he's the only reason you and I are alive, right?"

  Ture frowned. "No. How so?"

  Darling crossed his arms over his chest. "After all of our combined resources failed to locate you, Saf's the one who found out where you were being held and got word to Maris. You'd both still be in prison, or dead, but for Safir."

  Ture went cold at the courage that it took for Safir to go against Kyr and the rest of the League. If they ever learned what he'd done, they'd make sure his death was symbolic, painful and prolonged. "I like him all the more, now." He frowned. "Why didn't Maris tell me that?"

  "Mari protects what he loves. It doesn't mean he doesn't trust you. But given his harsh upbringing, he's learned to say as little as possible when it comes to handing over information that could get someone killed. You've no idea the horrors of what he and Saf have been through. There's a reason their entire family is insane. And Maris is the sole reason Saf is halfway normal. He went out of his way to protect his brother, and show him that there were other ways to live than the severe life they'd been born to."

  Ture digested that. "Mari never really talks about his family or past." Anytime he tried to broach the topic, Maris deftly changed subjects.

  "Because it would break your heart." Darling led him away from the others so that they could talk in private. "Did you know that the Phrixians have thirty-three words for honor? Twenty for loyalty? Three dozen for betrayal, but not a single word for love?"

  Ture gaped. "You're joking."

  Darling shook his head slowly. "Their declaration of affection for one another is two words that translate to, I will cause you no dishonor. Or esera diya kya, which means I will die before I shame you. His people truly have no social concept of love."

  "None?"

  "Not even parent to child. Phrixian children are viewed as property of the government. Parents don't have them, nor do they raise them, because they want them or love them. They do so because it's their national duty to breed warriors to fight, and daughters to procreate the next generation of soldiers."

  Horrified by what Darling described, he stared at him. "I can't even wrap my mind around what you're telling me."

  "I know. Their world is mind boggling. Kids can be, and will be, taken from any parent who is deemed too lenient with them. At sixteen, their males are all conscripted into the military. Some girls, if they make the cut, can join, but it's frowned upon. There, they are viewed as government property until they're forty-two years old. Until then, they can't own anything or marry. Should they have a child, it's raised by the government and they know nothing of the child's upbringing."

  "What happens to their daughters?"

  Darling rolled his eyes in disgust. "If they're deemed beautiful or have the right lineage, they're put into the marriage pool as virgin trophies for the retiring warriors to choose a mate from. The rest become social servants, which includes servicing the conscripted soldiers whenever they earn sex privileges."

  Ture frowned. "I'm confused. Mari was engaged and had property at one time. He's told
me that much."

  "Maris is a prince. While they still have to abide by the same laws as everyone else, they, alone, are allowed to own property before they leave military service, and can marry should their father need them for a political match. Even married, they still can't live with their wife until they turn forty-two and are released from service. The only other honorable way out, for any of them, is to be good enough to join the League as assassins, such as Saf and Kyr."

  Where they were forced to be celibate, and where no one could retire. Assassins were killed the moment they became too old or too injured to continue their duties.

  Tears filled Ture's eyes as he tried to imagine how horrible that existence had been for his peace-loving Maris. "Mari said that the League forced his father to give up one son to mix with humans."

  Darling nodded. "Maris was a political prisoner for ten years."

  Ture narrowed his gaze at Darling. "Prisoner? From the way he explained it, I thought he was just fostered by a human family."

  Darling let out a bitter, angry laugh. "I so love how Mari sugarcoats things for the ones he loves." His gaze seared Ture. "He was barely five, and couldn't understand a single word of Universal or any language other than Phrixian, when his own father handcuffed him and surrendered him to League custody with one order... You bring any shame to Phrixus and we'll dine on your liver."

  Nauseated, Ture stared at him. "What?"

  Glancing back toward Zarya, Darling sighed heavily. "His father wasn't joking. He would have killed Mari had he received any report of misbehavior or problems. So there was Mari, with no understanding of kindness or love or compassion of any kind, unable to comprehend what the foreign people around him were saying, thrown to the wolves. Alone."

  As little more than an infant.

  And Darling made no mention of Mari's amphibious nature and the stress of keeping that secret. Even though he abhorred violence, Ture wanted to kill Maris's family for the cruelty of abandoning a boy so young.

  "On Phrixus," Darling continued, "anyone does anything you don't like, you two fight until one of you loses consciousness or dies. That is the Prime Law. Suddenly, Maris was thrown into a world where he was forbidden to strike out at all. For any reason. Everything he'd been trained and taught from birth was the exact opposite of what was expected of him once he left Phrixian territory. He had to curb every instinct he possessed or die for it. The League told him he better not even swat and kill a fly or they'd retaliate. First against him. Then his people."

  Ture's stomach cramped at the horror Maris must have felt as a small child, alone in a world he didn't understand. "Where did he live?"

  "The League handed him over to the Ultaran royal family."

  Ture wasn't sure where Ultara was, but he knew the name of the planet. "Why there?"

  "The Ultarans had been at war with the Phrixians for centuries. No one cared about it, until a League convey was caught in the crossfire. Since the Phrixians were the ones who blew it apart, they were punished more severely than the Ultarans. The League High Command demanded that the Phrixian emperor hand over a son for a decade to the Ultarans to guarantee a cease fire between their empires."

  "And the Ultarans? What was their punishment?"

  "They basically skated with a slap on their wrist."

  Ture was disgusted by how the League operated. "So Mari was handed over to his father's enemies?"

  The expression on Darling's face confirmed Ture's fears. "He was."

  And as the son of their enemy... "I take it they weren't kind."

  "You know how I met Maris, right?"

  It was one of Mari's favorite memories. "You saved him from a bully."

  "The Ultaran prince. Crispin. I'll admit I was scared as hell that day. It was the first time I'd ever been away from home or family, and all I wanted was for the day to end and for my dad to come get me." Darling paused as the memory played through his mind. Even all these years later, he could see it as if it'd been yesterday.

  He'd been playing tag with another boy when Crispin, who dwarfed both him and Maris, threw Maris on the ground and held him there by his hair. Maris's eye was cut and his nose bleeding from the punches Crispin had already given him.

  "You're not so tough, are you, Phrixian? You're nothing but a puss. Say, I'm a scared little bitch. Say it!"

  A group of older boys, Crispin's friends, were circled around them and laughing about Maris's abuse.

  "Say it, Phrixian scum!"

  If Darling lived a thousand years, he'd never forget the fear he saw on Maris's face.

  Because of Darling's father, who often attended sessions and meetings with Darling on his lap, Darling was well advanced in politics for his young age, and he'd known who Maris was and why he was at their school. Most of all, he'd known that Maris was forbidden to defend himself. If he dared fight back, a report would have been filed with the League, and Maris would have been executed for it. If not by the League or Ultarans, then by his own father.

  Maris had said something in Phrixian, but Darling's understanding of the language at that time had been as poor as Maris's of theirs.

  "What?" Crispin had shouted in his ear. "You want to suck my dick? Is that what you said, you freak?" He rose with his hand still wrapped in Maris's hair.

  Because he'd already started military training before he'd been handed over to the League, Maris had feinted to the right then reversed course. And even though he'd left a clump of bloody hair in Crispin's hand, he'd shot across the yard with the others giving chase.

  Two of the older students had tripped him as he ran past them. With a fluid grace, Maris had rolled and sprung to his feet. But no sooner had he regained his footing than Crispin slammed him against the wall and started pounding on him again.

  Darling had looked at their teachers who were ignoring it. They knew Crispin's father would only punish them if they intervened. As an emperor, he had total power over them. And since Maris's father wouldn't do anything to help his son, they refused to render aid and risk their own necks or jobs.

  Unable to stand another minute of the cruelty, Darling had shot across the yard and slammed his body into Crispin's, knocking him away from Maris. Blinded by fury, Darling had beat the shit out of the sniveling coward.

  Twice his size and age, Crispin had cried like an infant.

  "Swear to me that you won't hit him anymore! Ever!" Darling had demanded.

  "No!"

  Darling had punched him, again and again, until his own knuckles were bleeding and bruised. "Swear it! Or so help me, I'll beat you every time I see you!"

  "Okay! I swear I won't ever hit him again."

  "Not even at home!"

  "Not even at home."

  Only then had Darling pulled back. Aching and winded, he'd turned around to see Maris still against the wall, staring at him as if afraid Darling would take over where Crispin had left off.

  Darling had smiled at him and tried to think of something Maris would understand in Universal. "Hi, I'm Darling Cruel. We should be friends."

  Maris had frowned as he struggled to translate what Darling was saying.

  So Darling had pulled his hand-sized notepad from his pocket, and downloaded a translator to say it to him in Phrixian.

  Only then did Maris return his smile. He'd reached for the notepad and typed in a response. "Your services were necessary and memorized."

  It would be months before Darling understood the strangeness of that comment. Phrixians had no words for friend, gratitude or thank you.

  He'd pointed to himself. "Darling."

  Maris had done the same. "MAH-ress"

  From that moment forward, Darling had kept Maris close, watching his back while he taught Mari Universal and Mari taught him Phrixian well enough that they could talk to each other fluently. Those days had been so hard for Maris. Darling couldn't even count how many times Maris had come to school with bruises and cuts from where the Ultarans had attacked him when he was on their soil.

  M
ari never said a word about it. Nor did he try to befriend anyone else. I am loyal to you, alone, Darling. They are untrusted.

  His mistrust had only grown when he saw how viciously their classmates had turned on Darling when Darling, to save his mother's life for an affair that would have seen her executed, had claimed her male lover as his. After that, Maris had never trusted anyone with anything about him that could cause harm to his body or heart.

  It was why the two of them were closer than brothers. Why Darling could kill anyone who caused harm to Maris.

  Darling's thoughts returned to the present as he stared into Ture's eyes. In all these years, Ture was the only one Maris had ever given his heart to.

  That alone told him how much Maris loved Ture. "As scared as I was, I knew Maris was even more so. And I couldn't stand by and watch him be hurt."

  "You're a good man, Darling."

  He scoffed at Ture's praise. "Not really. Flawed like everyone else. But I try. And I'm just grateful that Crispin went to the same academy I did, otherwise I'd have never met Maris. And I shudder at what would have become of us had we not found each other. I know I wouldn't have made it through without him."

  "He feels the same way about you, Darling. And now I understand exactly why. I can't imagine how awful that had to be for him."

  "Yeah, it was harsh. While the rest of us went home for holidays and breaks, Maris couldn't. His family was only allowed to visit with League chaperones, and only for a few hours at a time. Which they very seldom did." And then it was only to threaten him. "Meanwhile, after our regular classes ended, he spent another six hours a day with Phrixian tutors who continued his lessons that contradicted everything our academy drilled into him. Talk about homework . . . You can't imagine the workload he carried, and he wasn't allowed to slack off or do badly in any subject, either human or Phrixian."

  "Why not?"

  "Honor. To fail or allow a human to outdo him would shame his family. He would go days without sleeping, just so that he could keep up."

  Ture winced. No wonder Maris seldom tired, and never complained about staying the long hours they did at the restaurant. He was used to it. "Did he never get a break?"

  "Sometimes. Because of our friendship, my father intervened as best he could between the League, Phrixians and Ultarans so that Maris would be allowed to stay with us, or visit. For seven years, we did a pretty good job running interference."