Born of Silence (43 page)

Maris moved to put a comforting hand on Drake’s shoulder. “He really will be fine. You don’t have to worry about him. He’s a fighter.”

Drake nodded. “Believe me, I know.”

“Did you bring your mother with you?” Syn asked.

Drake let out an aggravated sound deep in the back of his throat. “That’s what took me so long to get here. I was trying to convince her to come with me. She adamantly refused. I know Darling’s going to be pissed at me that I left her alone, but I don’t care. After everything he’s done for us, I couldn’t stay there while he was hurt or dead… Damn the news. They had so many conflicting reports that I had to come and see for myself what had happened.”

Then he did the most unexpected thing of all. He placed his head on Darling’s shoulder and gave him what she could only describe as a little brother hug.

Her throat tightened at how sweet a gesture it was, especially coming from someone who was as fierce as Drake.

He stood and turned around, then realized there was a “stranger” in the room with them. A scowl creased his brow. “Who are you?”

“Zarya.”

He went completely rigid. “Starska?”

She nodded.

Hatred flared in his eyes before he took an angry step toward her.

Hauk caught him with one arm and held him back. “Don’t.”

“She’s the reason he was attacked!” Drake snarled. “What—”

“She’s the reason he’s alive.” Hauk’s tone was steady and calming. “But for
her
, you’d be picking out your brother’s casket right now.”

Maris nodded, then added, “Not to mention, Darling will paint your backside red if you harm one hair on his lady’s head.”

Drake turned his scowl to Maris. “What do you mean?”

“I spoke your language, little man. Quite plainly. What part of ‘she’s his lady’ did you not comprehend?”

“All of it.” Drake looked to the others before he spoke again. “I’m so confused,” he breathed.

Hauk laughed. “Yeah, us, too. It’s been a strange day all the way around.”

Syn stepped forward. “Lise came in not long before you and Ryn. Why don’t you go say hi to her?”

Drake put his hands on his hips. “Subtle like an exploding mine there, Syn. You might as well have said, ‘Boy, get your ass out.’ ” He glanced back at Darling. “If anything changes, let me know.”

Syn inclined his head to him.

No one spoke again until after Drake had left. Then Hauk looked at her and grinned. “They put the fun in ‘dysfunctional,’ eh?”

Zarya wasn’t exactly amused by that. “I’m not passing judgment on them. It’s not my place. But having met the three of them… it certainly does explain a lot about Darling.”

Syn gave her a light hug. “I feel your pain. I married into an extremely screwed up family dynamic myself. But I have to say, Darling’s family makes mine look normal in comparison—which scares the hell out of me most days.”

Hauk let out an evil snicker. “Can’t wait to tell Kasen that the next time I see her.”

“You do and I’ll make sure you have a nasty accident the next time you fly your ship.”

Syn’s threat didn’t bother Hauk in the least. “That’s all right, Rit. You’ll just have to put me back together again. Be your punishment for it.”

With a light “heh,” Syn ran his hand through his long hair. “And on that note, I need to go update the rest of our screwed up family on how he’s doing.”

Hauk nodded. “I’ll help.”

After Hauk and Syn left, she turned toward Maris.

“What’s that expression mean?” he asked. “And for the record, I didn’t do it.”

Laughing at his defensiveness, Zarya tried to reconcile the people she’d just met with the erroneous preconceived notions she’d had of them. “Just trying to take it all in. Darling has had a most complicated life.”

“You’ve no idea, hon.”

No, but she was beginning to, and like Syn with his in-laws, she was rather scared of Darling’s. “I can’t imagine dealing with the stress he’s had. Having an uncle who treats you like you’re mentally deficient and can’t go to the bathroom alone, while the rest lean on you so hard that it’s a wonder your back isn’t bowed from it…”

How he had any sanity left was a miracle.

Maris gave a sympathetic nod. “True, but it was the lies he was forced to live with that cut him the deepest. Having to pretend to be gay and passive when it’s not in his nature to be either…”

“I can’t imagine.”

“Oh I can, and it sucks to the extreme. The stress of it’s unbearable… Only in my case, it was heterosexual and aggressive. I was truly a frightening warmonger in my earlier days.”

His words caught her off guard as she tried to imagine someone as effeminate and gentle as Maris being tough and swaggering like the other warriors she knew.

Yeah… no. It just didn’t work. He could
never
pull that off.

She wrinkled her nose teasingly at him. “You?” she asked with a laugh.

In that instant, his entire demeanor changed. His posture rigid and predacious, he moved to stand in front of her with an aura so powerful and lethal, she actually took a step back.

The scathing glare he raked over her body sent a chill down her spine. In that moment, she could easily see him killing someone.

When he spoke, his voice was an octave deeper and it rumbled from deep inside his chest. “You think I couldn’t kick your ass, bitch? Never underestimate what I can do, and my willingness to do it.” Now that was a warrior’s growl that would rival any League assassin.

Then as quickly as he’d summoned it, he let it go and deflated back into the gentle man she’d grown to love.

“
That
was impressive,” she admitted in an awed whisper.

Maris waved a dismissive hand. “Not really. I hated every minute of the years I was forced to live that way. I have eight brothers, a war-hero father, and assorted cousins and uncles who did nothing but throw women at me every hour of the day until I was ready to scream.” He clutched his hands in his hair, then lowered them. “For that matter, I was even engaged once.”

That caught her by surprise, too. “To a woman?”

He nodded. “Political alliance arranged by our fathers.”

“What happened?”

Glancing toward the bed, he primly folded his hands in front of him. “On the day of the wedding, Darling and I were alone in the groom’s chamber and I was so scared, I was shaking. My married future of lies stretched out in front of me, and it made me sick to my stomach.”

Maris paused as he saw that moment again so clearly in his mind. Swathed all in black, Darling had been dressed more for
a funeral than a wedding—something extremely apropos given Maris’s feelings about the event.

Ever elegant and beautiful, Darling had stood there while Maris had paced back and forth with a lump in his throat so tight he’d felt like someone was strangling him.

As befitting his station, Maris had been in full dress battle gear, complete with the combat medals he’d earned. Back then, he’d been part of the Phrixian High Command as a fully commissioned officer—the very pride of his father.

Darling had watched him with a bemused expression. “Breathe easy, Mari. You look like you’re about to pass out or puke.”

“I’m trying.” He’d locked gazes with Darling, seeking both forgiveness and strength for what he was about to do. “I can do this. It’ll be easier, really. No one will expect me to whore around… as much, anyway. I can always say that I love my wife so I won’t have to come up with excuses why I can’t sleep with women anymore.” If he made up one more STD to get out of bedding a woman, he was sure his father would have him permanently hooked to an antibiotic IV.

“True,” Darling said.

Maris hesitated. “What’s with that tone?”

“It’s not my place to say. I’m your friend and I’m here to support you with whatever you do. You know that.” Darling handed him a towel. “I think you’re going to need another shower, though. At the rate you’re sweating you’re going to drown your bride at the altar.”

“You’re not funny.”

“Really not trying to be.”

Maris had wiped his hand across his forehead and grimaced as he realized Darling was right. He’d run marathons in the deepest heat of summer and sweated less. “How do I look?”

“Your pants are too tight, and you look like you’re about to vomit.”

That had panicked him even more. If he threw up like some green coward, his father would never forgive him. “What am I going to do, Dar? I’m about to be married… to a female person with female body parts. I’m going to have a wedding night and…” Unmitigated terror had filled him at the thought of sleeping with his wife for the rest of his existence. It was all he could do not to cringe. “Can you be me tonight? Please?”

“Pretty sure she’ll notice.”

Damn him for being right. But Maris wasn’t quite ready to give up on that solution. “We could drug her and she’d never know the difference, that way we’d all be happy.”

Darling gaped at his suggestion.

“Think about it,” Maris said, really getting into the idea and all the possibilities that it would open. “We could. That way you’d have a woman and—”

“I’m not going to screw your wife for you, Mari. And I’m damn sure not going to drug her first.”

“Fine, you moral asshole,” he’d snapped in anger. Taking a deep breath, he braced himself for his duties. “I’ve had to sleep with women before. I can do this.” But when he looked back at Darling, he’d seen the shadow in his friend’s eyes of some unspoken emotion. “What?”

“I am not going to tell you how to live your life, Mari. The gods know I’ve fucked mine up so badly that I wake up every morning hoping it’s all been one really long nightmare. But I keep seeing this as that one second when they handcuffed my mother to drag her away. That one instant where I screwed myself forever. If only I could take it all back or stop myself before I did it. And I keep hearing my dad’s words in my head,
the worst decisions of your life will always be those that are made out of fear
.”

“What are you saying?”

Darling hesitated before he answered. “My moment of supreme
stupidity only impacted me. I was the one who was hurt by it, and I saved two people when I did it. But I’m the only one who’s had to live with the lie and be bound by it. I just want you to think about the fact that when you walk down that aisle and tie your life to Tams, you will be forcing both of you to live with it. She wants a husband, Mari. One day, she’ll want kids and they will be expecting a military father to train them. Are you ready to force your lie onto all of them
and
you, forever?”

Maris had growled angrily at him. “I really hate you.”

Darling hadn’t reacted to his hostility. “I love
you
, Mari. I always have and always will. And I’ll be honest, I wouldn’t wish my current existence on anyone, especially not you. You’ve seen what everyone has done to me and how they’ve all treated me because they think I’m gay. In your position, I’d marry her and deal with it as best I could. But at the same time, I know
exactly
how you feel right now, and how hard it is to walk a lie every single day of your life. This is
your
moment in the hallway, Mari. This one decision, either way, will viciously impact the rest of your life, and you will have to live with the consequences of it. Neither option will be pleasant for you. You are screwed both ways. But whatever you choose, I will be here for you. And I will protect you any way I can.”

“But you won’t sleep with my wife for me, you worthless beast.”

“You know I can’t.”

Maris had sighed wearily as he debated what to do. “Would you sleep with me, then?”

“Maris…”

“I know, Dar. I know.”

Even all these years later, Maris could still remember that nauseated feeling inside him as he’d walked down the aisle with Darling by his side.

Not to get married, but to tell everyone present why he couldn’t.

And
that
memory was one he never wanted to revisit.

Coming back to the present, he looked at Zarya. “To this day, I owe Darling everything. His support never wavered. I know he would have been there for me had I married her. Instead, he was there when I told my entire family and every dignitary present that I was gay. That was the worst moment of my life.” He winced as he remembered their extremely unpleasant reactions. “My father even attacked him over it.”

“Why?”

“Brace yourself,” he said bitterly. “They thought it was all Darling’s fault. That he’d converted me. To quote my father, I would never have been gay had that filth not infected me.”

Zarya cringed as she saw the pain in Maris’s dark eyes. She couldn’t believe his family had thought such a thing.

“Would you believe my family even tried to sue him over it?”

She gaped. “What?”

He nodded grimly as he raised his right hand. “Swear to the gods.” He lowered his hand and looked away from her. “You know that scar Darling has on his thigh? The one shaped like a star?”

How could she forget? It was the one that had allowed her to identify him when he’d been in their custody. “Yes.”