Her heart broke at those words.
He glanced at her and she saw the torment that scarred his soul worse than her men had scarred his body. "I just wanted the pain to stop, Zarya. Just for one minute of my life. I was so tired of being beat on, locked up, and drugged. I thought it would be easier to be some man's kept whore than another one's punching bag. And by then, I'd learned that Arturo wasn't just beating on me. He was raping my mother--something he'd been doing since the night he killed my father. He used me against her, the same way he used my family against me. It's why she hates me so much. Why she hasn't been able to look at me since I was twelve years old. Every time she hears my name, she flinches because of what he did to her. I figured that since everyone already thought I was gay, what would it matter? Anything had to be better than the hell we were in."
She pulled him into her arms so that she could comfort him. "What happened?"
He actually trembled from the pain of his memories as he laid his head on her shoulder and held her close. "I told Nylan I was willing to be... mentored by him any way he wanted if he would assume my guardianship. He said that he didn't buy things sight unseen. So he made me take all my clothes off in front of him."
"Oh baby..."
"Yeah..." Darling's voice was barely more than a whisper. "He walked around me, looking me up and down, like a piece of meat in the market. I wasn't allowed to cover myself while he inspected me from head to toe. I felt so humiliated that I thought I was going to vomit right there. He moved to stand behind me so that he could fondle me, and he told me to moan out loud like a whore for him. To tell him how much I craved him and to beg him to touch me even though all I wanted to do was run."
She tightened her arms around Darling's waist, wishing she could burn that memory out of him forever. No wonder he seldom made a single sound whenever they had sex. It probably reminded him of that day. "You don't have to say anything else, baby."
He nuzzled his cheek against hers. "There's not much more to tell. I had no idea the sick bastard was recording the whole thing. When I failed to get hard for him, he told me that he'd have to think it over and get back to me. He watched me dress and I left. By the time I got home--after I'd thrown up a couple of times--he'd sent pictures of us to Arturo, telling him I was the best and tightest piece of ass he'd ever had. And that while it was tempting to assume my guardianship, I needed someone with a firmer hand to control me."
She could only imagine how that went over. "Why would he do such a thing?"
"To get back at me for all the times I'd turned him down over the years. He wanted me humiliated... and he succeeded."
Never in her life had she wanted to kill anyone more than she did Nylan. Damn him for his cruelty.
Darling winced. "Arturo met me at the door, and then put me through it. Hoping he'd finally kill me, I spat the blood out of my mouth and laughed at him. I told him he hit like a girl. And that I'd whore myself to any man who'd get him out of my life. As bad as I'd been beaten before then, it was nothing like that night. I didn't think he'd ever stop. At some point, I passed out. When I came to, I was in a mental institution."
"Maris said it was done to cure your homosexuality."
He laughed bitterly. "That's what my file says, and it's what I let other people think. But it was done to teach me a lesson about trying to find another guardian. Not that I needed it. Believe me. After what Nylan did to me, I wasn't about to try again. Besides, I knew no one would ever help me. No one cared. I'd been stupid for even trying. I was just so desperate that I was willing to do anything. And those pictures were posted everywhere, by both Arturo and Nylan. They haunted me for years. Every time I thought I could put it behind me, someone would slap me in the face with them. Every member of the Caronese aristocracy has seen them and they've all had something horrendous to say to me over it."
She couldn't imagine anything worse. It'd been bad enough to experience it, but to have other people dredge it up constantly and throw it in your face...
Glancing down, she saw the scars on Darling's wrists from his suicide attempts that Drake had told her about. Her hands trembling, she lifted his so that she could kiss them. "How many times did you--"
"Three. It was part of the reason everything was taken out of my room and I was strip-searched every night. Why my guards would randomly come in at all hours to wake me. The gods forbid, I should die and escape my hell."
She laid her hand against his cheek. "I'm glad you're still here."
Darling's stomach tightened at the love he saw in her eyes. But it wasn't enough to take away the misery of those memories. Nothing could.
Yet she helped him in ways he'd have never thought possible. Like Maris, she didn't judge him by his mistakes. Nor did she hold them against him. Or use them to hurt him. They didn't make him less in her eyes.
For that alone, he was eternally grateful.
She kissed his lips. "I'm so sorry for what they did to you, and I swear I will never, ever speak of it again or mention that bastard's name. May he rot in hell for eternity."
He tightened his arms around her. "I've never told anyone what really happened, Z. Not even Maris. I'm sure he's seen the photos, too, but he's been decent enough to keep silent about them. Too bad Drake couldn't."
While he loved his brother, there were times he couldn't stand him. Why would Drake have told her about the most horrific event of his entire life?
Why couldn't Drake leave things alone?
"Hey," Zarya breathed, stepping back and forcing him to look at her. "I love you, Darling. I really do. It's that capacity you have to care about others more than you care about yourself that has always drawn me to you. You've been my hero from that first moment when you risked your life to climb out onto my roof to get my cat for me, to the moment when I first saw Kere carrying Timmon to safety. The rest of us ran for cover during that ambush, but you ran into it, knowing we had soldiers pinned down. I've never known anyone braver than you."
"I don't feel brave." Most days, he just felt like complete and utter hell.
Zarya kissed him lightly on the lips. "And that's what makes you so wonderful. You don't see the beauty that is you. I hate that you focus on your handful of flaws."
Why shouldn't he? "Everyone else does."
"Screw them if they do," she said as her anger blazed in those beautiful amber eyes. "Do you really care what they think? Are any of them that important to you?"
"No. But it doesn't stop it from hurting."
Zarya blinked away the tears in her eyes. "You're right. But my father used to have a saying. 'Don't let them steal your day.' Never give them that kind of power over you. They're not worth it."
Darling let those words soothe him, along with her fingers that toyed with his hair against his collar. In his mind, he saw an image of her as a little girl on that day when they'd first met, crying and begging for her big brother to save her cat. Wanting to play ball outside, Gerrit had callously brushed her aside and ignored her pleas.
But those tears and her concern for her pet had touched him even as a boy. Unable to walk away from her misery, Darling had gladly braved the high-pitched roof of her father's mansion to make her smile.
It was the first time in his life that he'd felt heroic. She'd been so grateful. So thrilled. She'd even hugged him for it, then given him the cookie she'd been saving for herself.
His siblings had always taken his help for granted. He could give them the entire universe and they'd think nothing of it. As for his parents, they expected it of him, and were extremely disappointed whenever he failed to help someone.
But not Zarya. She had never failed to make him feel so incredibly special and courageous. It was why he'd always begged his father to take him along whenever his father visited Lord Starska. As soon as Zarya saw them coming into the palace, her entire face would light up and she'd run as fast as she could to say hi to him.
In all the years they'd been apart, he'd never forgotten the way she made him feel.
br /> Welcomed. Appreciated. Noble.
Loved.
It had been the same when he, as Kere, had been working with the Sentella on a rescue mission to save the Caronese Resistance members who'd been pinned down on a remote outpost. Since he hadn't heard a single word about any of the Starskas in years, he'd assumed Zarya was long dead, or that she was so deep in hiding that he'd never see her again.
He and Hauk had volunteered to get as many of the Resistance soldiers out as they could. Smoke and enemy fire had been thick all around them.
While Hauk secured the rear, Darling had gone on ahead. He grabbed the first soldier on the ground that he'd come to and pulled him back to where the bulk of the Resistance's troops had been pinned down for hours.
There in the midst of utter chaos, with hell itself raining down on them, Darling had stared into that pair of amber eyes that had haunted him as a boy.
Zarya had smiled up at him with that same, exact look she'd worn when he saved her cat--the look that made some unknown part of him soar.
"Thank you!" she'd breathed with such sincerity that he'd glanced behind him to see if she was talking to someone else.
Momentarily stunned by the way she smiled at him, he'd taken a shot to his shoulder that had sent him into the wall next to her. Cursing, she'd sprung to her feet and opened cover fire to protect him from the Caronese guard corps.
He'd been in love with her ever since.
But never in all the talks about childhood they'd had since their first meeting as adults had she ever mentioned those long ago afternoons he'd spent with her as a boy. He'd assumed that they had meant nothing to her. That her hatred for his family had destroyed all remnants of what, to him, had been some of the happiest moments of his life.
He cupped her cheek in his hand. "You remember us as children?"
Her smile widened. "I remember you."
"Why did you never mention it?"
She grimaced. "Like yours, my childhood memories are too painful to visit, so I try to never go there. Not because they were awful, but because we were so happy before your father died, that it hurt too much to remember them. Until I met you as an adult, I never thought I'd ever be happy like that again."
Darling inhaled her scent as he savored the sensation of her arms around him.
Right now, his entire world was in chaos. His people were revolting... in more ways than one. Life was changing faster than he could handle.
The only constant he had was Zarya.
Nothing good ever lasts. If he'd learned nothing else in his life, it was that one fact. Every time he'd found solace or comfort of any kind, it had been ripped from him. It was why he should have never proposed to her. Had he refrained, he could have saved them both a year of utter hell.
Yet he wanted this relationship to be real. Most of all, he needed it to last.
But in his heart, he knew the truth. This was temporary and soon the gods would divide them again as they always did.
He wasn't meant to have Zarya. He wasn't meant to be happy. Whenever he tried to make his life better, the gods made it worse.
Just don't let her die. He could handle anything except that.
Closing his eyes, he held her tight against him, knowing that all too soon he'd have to let her go for good.
Senna listened as the remnants of the Resistance met in a dive hole not far from where the Workers Coalition had been rallying. No more than a few moments ago, Gerst had returned from the palace and disbanded them.
She narrowed her eyes at Hector. "I told you Cruel has mind control. Now you have proof of it."
Hector nodded angrily. "He is far more cunning and dangerous than his uncle ever was." He slid his drive toward her. "Those are his medical records from when he was committed. He's extremely unstable. Anything can set him off and as far as I can find out, he still has bombs planted all over the city that could explode at any moment."
"Then how do we bring him down?"
Hector shook his head. "He should never have survived our attack. We have to get him out of the way so that our ally can seize the throne."
She couldn't agree more. "What about Starska?"
"We need to accept the fact that she might be lost to us. There's no telling what he's done to her by now. How much damage she's taken."
"We can't leave her with him."
"What do you suggest?" Hector asked.
Senna fished her own small drive out of her pocket and slid it toward him. "I have a way to bring him down once and for all, and to get our leader back. Cruel won't even know what hit him. I promise you, next time, he will die."
15
Zarya had known that Darling, as Kere, had an extended family where the Sentella was concerned. But honestly, she'd had no idea exactly how massive it was. Not until they walked into the Sentella's central headquarters and literally everyone they came into contact with took a minute to speak with him and wish him well.
And she meant everyone. From the cleaning staff to the soldiers to the engineers. Everyone they saw seemed to know him, and most shocking of all, he knew them. Darling asked about them, their families and friends, and mentioned details that showed he not only remembered who they were, but that he cared about their lives, too. That all of them meant something to him.
If she'd ever had any doubts about what a great governor he'd be, this alone would have allayed all fears. Standing back to watch him interact with his people, she was stunned by just how generous and kind Darling really was.
In some ways it was hard to rectify the fierce warrior she knew him to be with the man who was able to soothe a little girl's fears and to greet every worker with a smile and a handshake.
He absolutely amazed her.
"They like him best," Hauk whispered in her ear as they were stopped yet again so that Darling could talk to one of the engineers. "Notice how they all ignore me like I'm not even here."
Maris snorted. "It's because you always threaten to eat them."
"Well there is that," Hauk said with a fang-enhanced smile.
She had no idea why, but she really liked the acerbic Andarion.
He leaned over to whisper to her, "Still... Darling's their favorite."
Zarya laughed at Hauk's feigned pout.
In fact, it took them so long to get down the hallway, that Syn ended up bringing a stretcher for Darling.
His tone dry, Syn pulled Darling's shoulder and urged him toward it. "Get on here. Lie down. And don't say anything."
Darling rolled his eyes before he obeyed.
Winking at her, Syn covered him with a sheet. "I don't know what we're going to do with Lord Social here."
"I vote we shoot him," Hauk said with an evil smirk.
"You know, there's nothing wrong with my hearing. Right, Hauk?"
Hauk grinned at Darling's comment. "Yeah. Like I care."
"You will when I send you a special gift that's wrapped with wiring."
"Children..." Syn had the voice of a stressed parent. "Let's not fight."
"Yes, Dad," they said in unison.
She glanced over her shoulder at Maris who was following them. Drake and Lise were behind him.
"They're always like this," Maris mouthed to her.
Shaking her head, she wasn't quite sure what to make of this more playful side of Darling. As Kere, he'd been reserved and formal whenever he interacted with her soldiers. Ruthless and lethal with his enemies. As governor, he'd been stern and fierce. Guarded. With Maris, like her and his younger siblings, he was protective and strong. Ever watchful and ready to attack anyone who hurt them.
In private, she'd seen glimpses of this playful side of his personality, but he'd never been quite this open and at ease, even with her. It was like a part of him had waited for her to betray or hurt him. Like he feared that she'd reject him if he acted goofy around her.
Yet here in the heart of the Sentella, while on his way to a risky surgery, he was completely at ease and relaxed. Even with people as deadly as Syn a
nd Hauk. His behavior reminded him more of how his brother and sister acted around him.
But then, Darling knew they would kill or die for him just as he would for them. He trusted Hauk and Syn, she realized. Fully.
More than he's ever trusted me. And that stung on a level so deep, she had to force herself not to flinch from it. They owned a part of Darling that she could never reach.
"Are you okay?" Maris asked her.
She nodded in spite of the fact it was a lie. She wanted Darling to give her this side of himself, too. To be so comfortable with her that he could be silly and childlike without reservation.
As they entered the waiting room, Zarya slowed. Trepidation filled her at the sight of all the unfamiliar people gathered there to see Darling.
Nykyrian Quiakides she knew immediately by sight, but only because his face had once adorned more wanted lists than hers and Darling's combined. Given his extreme height and long white-blond hair that was braided down his back, he was a hard man to miss. And while he was no longer a League assassin, he still wore the dark sunglasses that kept anyone from seeing what he was looking at or who he was targeting.
Next to him was an extremely pregnant redhead. She put her hand on Darling's arm to stop Syn from taking him straight into the operating room.
Pulling the sheet back, she tsked at him. "Don't tell me they couldn't get you here any other way."
Darling laughed. "Ah, you know. It happens."
The woman took his hand into hers, sending a little wave of jealousy through Zarya. "I know Syn will take care of you, but... I love you, sweetie. God speed and keep you." She placed a kiss on Darling's forehead, then stepped back.
"Don't worry," Maris whispered in Zarya's ear. "Kiara's an old friend of Darling's and she's married to the tall blond killer dwarfing her."
In spite of Maris's kindness, Zarya was beginning to feel like an outsider. Even as long as she and Darling had been together, there was still a lot about Darling she didn't know. And the people here brought that home with a vengeance. Not only did she not know who they were, she wasn't sure what they meant to him.
The next to stop Darling was a rather large group.
She could identify the tallest of the men, but again only by reputation. Dressed more like a Tavali pirate than royalty--right down to the blaster strapped to his lean hips--Caillen de Orczy was the Exeterian prince and heir to his father's empire. He'd been hunted a couple of years back when the League had erroneously accused him of assassinating his father and the Qillaq queen. For weeks, no one had been able to go near any news broadcast without seeing his face.