Born of Silence (35 page)

Four days later

Her thoughts drifting, Zarya idly brushed her hand through the tangles of Darling’s auburn hair. Not long after daybreak, he’d finally fallen asleep with his body between her legs and his head on her stomach. She was exhausted too, but she’d promised him that she wouldn’t sleep while he did.

He was so paranoid about attacks…

Not that she blamed him given his family and personal history—what she’d learned from Maris during a small break yesterday was that Arturo would often have someone storm into Darling’s room at odd hours of the night or early morning to make sure he was alone in his bed. Sometimes they’d allow him to go back to sleep, and others…

They’d cuff his hands behind his back and drag him out of his room for his uncle to beat while in the throes of a drunken rage. Arturo had taken issue with not only Darling’s confessed homosexuality, but also because he looked, moved, and sounded like his father, whom Arturo had always hated. And then there was the small matter that both Darling and his younger brother were
a constant reminder that Drux had been able to father sons while Arturo had only daughters.

Something Arturo took out on those daughters as well as his wife—as if it were somehow their fault and not his.

To protect them, Darling had done his best to keep his uncle’s anger directed at him as much as possible. He’d go out of his way to provoke his uncle so that his cousins would be left alone. And true to his nature Darling had considered it a moral imperative to make the man spin out of control as often as possible. He’d admitted to her that he’d been hoping to cause Arturo to have a stroke from the stress of dealing with him.

Only Darling would think of that…

But his incendiary actions had kept Arturo in a perpetual state of fury where Darling was concerned. And Arturo had made it his life’s ambition to take everything out on the nephew who didn’t dare physically retaliate for fear of what would happen to his family if he did.

Because of that, Darling didn’t like to sleep at all. And it was why he’d been wearing explosives on her arrival. Before Maris had brought her here, Darling had walked the palace halls, wrapped in them, refusing to rest until utter exhaustion forced him to it. Since his own guards had been the ones who’d thrown him to his uncle, and had done their own share of abuse to him over the years, he didn’t trust them to protect him now that he was governor.

It disgusted her whenever she thought about it, and the one thing she truly didn’t understand was why Darling had ever fought
for
the Resistance. Yes, his uncle was a bastard who needed to be put down, but Darling had been attacked even more viciously by the working class such as his guards who resented his royal blood, and who enjoyed having power over an aristo. She really couldn’t understand why he’d want to help them. If any aristo had ever possessed a reason to absolutely hate the pleb class, it was Darling.

Yet he didn’t.

“Some people need a reason to hate in order to live. It’s easy to despise someone you think has it better than you. Or who has more than you, especially when you think they don’t deserve it and you do. But at the end of the day, life sucks for us all. You do what you have to to get through it.

“Personally, I’d rather they hate me for who I am, rather than for the lies spewed by others. But either way, I can’t change their opinions. And I refuse to be like them and to hate them for something they can’t help any more than I can help being born a prince.

“The hatred has to stop somewhere. I’m not going to let resentment for someone else, especially someone I don’t know who has never harmed me, ruin what little time I have in this existence. I’d much rather focus on trying to be happy, than looking for a reason to be miserable.”

Darling’s words haunted her. He really did have a beautiful soul even as battered as it was.

But he couldn’t change the world alone and she knew it as well as he did. Still, it didn’t stop him from trying, and that was what made him so special.

While he would risk his own life to save a complete stranger, Darling trusted very few.

Yet even with their less than perfect past, he trusted her to watch over him while he slept. Something Maris had assured her was nothing short of a miracle.

That being said, she was positively starving this morning. She’d call for food, but since she didn’t want to disturb Darling while he slept so soundly, here she lay, her stomach grumbling so loud, she was surprised it didn’t wake him.

It was okay though. She really didn’t mind. Hunger had been a part of her life for as long as she could remember. It was why she forgot to eat and why Darling nagged her about it. There wasn’t a
lot of money to be made as a Resistance fighter and since her father had been an outlaw, he’d been relegated to menial jobs that didn’t require a background check or any form of government reporting. Unfortunately, those jobs didn’t pay enough for a family of five.

Anytime they’d start to piece together savings, either someone got terribly sick or they died and wiped out whatever they’d managed to put away, and then some.

And since she’d been forced to leave school before graduation, she’d been relegated to the same kinds of jobs as her father. It was why she’d been so adamant that Sorche stay in school and finish. She didn’t want her baby sister living a life this hard.

At times, she was bitter about it. Before Arturo had turned on her father, they’d been extremely wealthy. And it was why she’d wanted Arturo’s head so badly. Vengeance was an ugly thing and she’d wanted to ram her family crest down the bastard’s throat.

Now that he was gone, she didn’t know what would become of her. While Darling had been kind over the last few days, she hated being dependent on him. It wasn’t in her nature to rely on anyone for anything. And Darling had already thrown her away twice. What would keep him from selling her off the next time she did something that displeased him?

Yeah, that stuck in her craw. No longer his fiancée, no longer the leader of the Resistance, she wasn’t sure what her current role was.

Part of her still wanted to run away and start over. But her heart wouldn’t let her leave Darling while he was like this. Other than Maris, he had no one in this world who seemed to care about him. No one to watch his back.

No one to hold him while he slept, and unless he was wrapped around her or on her like now, he woke up all throughout the night in a panic and cold sweat, his eyes feral and his breathing ragged as he looked around for an attacker. But as soon as he saw
her in his bed, he’d calm down and relax again. So how could she abandon him to his pain?

He never told her what those dreams were about. He didn’t need to. In his sleep, he mumbled the names of those who’d hurt him the worst. Arturo’s was the most common. But Ryn, Clarion, Pip, and Timmon were there, too. Along with other names she didn’t recognize.

And if any of them were still alive, she hoped she never met them. If she did, she’d kill them without hesitation. Whatever they’d done to him had been horrific enough to torture him even when they were in a place where they could no longer reach him.

Her heart aching for the anguish that robbed him of something as simple as peaceful sleep, she played with his hair while his breath and beard tickled her skin.

His link buzzed on the nightstand. Frowning, she started to ignore it until she saw it was Maris. He never bothered them unless it was something important.

“Darling?”

“Mmmm.” With his eyes still closed, he nuzzled against her thigh.

“Maris is calling. You want to take it?”

He scratched at his ear, then sighed before he seemed to go back to sleep.

She smiled. “Are you awake, baby?”

“No,” he groused. “I don’t want to get up. I like it here.”

Tsking at him, she reached past the computer pad he’d been using to work in bed during the past few days, and leaned over to grab the link. She placed it in his hand and tried not to think about the eyeglasses that she’d almost knocked off the nightstand in the process.

Yet another injury her men had caused him.

Their torture had given him spontaneous nystagmus, which
caused his eyes to jerk unexpectedly for no reason, leaving him blind until they stopped and focused again. And he was partially blind in his left eye and near-sighted in his right, something that seriously compromised his depth perception and aim.

In a fight, either condition could prove fatal.

Together, they were a bonus round of vulnerability for any enemy or assassin to exploit. God help him if anyone ever found out. It was why his doctor had refused to document those conditions.

But Darling had trusted
her
with the secret that could kill him.

She winced as the thought of his ongoing physical pain hit her anew. He would never again be the warrior he once was. While his skills were still better than most, he was now at a massive disadvantage in a fight. And because of the nystagmus and structural damage her men had wrought, he couldn’t wear contacts or have surgery to correct his vision.

He clicked the link on, then placed it against his ear. “Mmmm… Maris? Yeah… no, I’m not awake.” He lifted his head to squint at the clock. “What day is it?”

She laughed at his shocked expression after Maris must have answered.

“Yeah, okay. I need a quick shower. Give me fifteen minutes, then bring them up.” He clicked the link off.

“Who’s here?”

Yawning, he set the link back on the nightstand before he slid his eyeglasses into the drawer where he kept them. “My doctor.”

That news surprised her. She glanced at the makeshift bandage on his left hand from the night before—an injury she was sure needed stitches, but he’d adamantly refused to call a medic. “I thought you hated them.”

“Not
all
of them.” He nudged her thighs farther apart so that he could finger her.

Zarya sucked her breath in sharply as he found the place and the rhythm that never failed to go straight to the core of her pleasure zone. “What are you doing, sweetie?”

“Having breakfast.”

She groaned as he started tonguing her. Her body erupted with fire, but she had to stay focused. “What about your shower?”

He made her crazy with lust as he licked and teased her until she couldn’t think straight. “You really want me to stop now?”

When she didn’t answer, he laughed. “Didn’t think so.”

Smiling, Maris greeted Syn and Hauk in the palace foyer and excused the butler who seemed more than relieved to flee their fierce presence. Something highly entertaining since, for once, they were dressed like decent citizens and not the infamous outlaws who were wanted dead by most governments.

Still, their collective ferocity was hard to disguise no matter their wardrobe choices.

Syn had even gone so far as to not line his black eyes or wear his earrings. Rather he had his long dark hair pulled back into a proper queue and was dressed all in white, which made his tawny complexion a deeper shade of olive.

Even though Syn had been raised alternately in prison and on the streets, and was the son of one of the most notorious serial killers in history, he held an air of poised refinement that would rival any aristo. An upper-crust demeanor Syn had refined after Nykyrian had helped him get off the streets and financed him through med school.

A renowned tech thief and trained assassin, that man was truly one of the most intelligent creatures Maris had ever met. And the only clue Syn gave this afternoon to his real lethal nature was the small lump at his hip, underneath his jacket, that betrayed a concealed blaster.

All of that combined to make Syn one of the most lickably delectable men in the universe.

Too bad he was straight…

Hauk was no exception to the lickable list himself. Indeed, he tied all the Sentella men for the number one slot.

Unlike Maris and Syn, Hauk was an Andarion—a lethal humanoid warrior race that valued physical perfection above all things. As a result, they were truly bred for size, speed, stamina, and beauty.

It was also rumored that their warrior spirit, that-live-for-now-and-damn-tomorrow attitude, made them some of the best lovers in the universe. But unfortunately for the other species in existence, they very seldom slept with non-Andarions.

Such a fetid shame…

Not that that was Maris’s only roadblock to having a taste of Hauk…

There were far too many men who played on the other team for Maris’s tastes.

Like the Sentella leader Nykyrian, who was half Andarion and half human, Hauk was as beautiful as a woman. But the rugged cut of his jaw, and that overwhelming aura of feral testosterone kept him from appearing even the least bit feminine.

He absolutely oozed raw, sexy masculinity.

Standing almost seven feet in height with a body full of rippling, taut muscles, Hauk towered over both of them. And he always looked like he was ready to break someone in half. Another lickable trait if ever one existed.

The only thing that detracted from Hauk’s looks was those Andarion eyes that were extremely disconcerting, if not downright off-putting. White irises rimmed in red, they never failed to send a shiver over Maris. Thankfully, Nykyrian had green human eyes. Not that he showed them often, but…