He scowled. “How can you even stand to look at me like this? I’m revolting.”
“No, you’re not. And it’s not a hardship by any means. I think you’re gorgeous.”
He scoffed. “Bullshit. You think I don’t know what’ll happen if I show this”—he scraped his hand angrily against his bleeding cheek—“in public? I already went through this once. The cringing and grimacing, and the whispering. The sighs and looks of gratitude that they’re not the ones who are scarred. The glares of distaste as people step away from me, or refuse to look at me at all because it turns their stomachs. Having people ask what happened so I can relive it over and over again until I want to scream. I couldn’t stand it the first time, but at least it was only on one side of my face then. So long as my hair stayed in place, no one saw it. This shit”—he gestured at both sides of his face—“I can’t hide.”
Except with the mask that covered everything…
She set her chin down on his knee and looked up at him, wanting desperately to make him feel better. “You know I’d do you.”
The corners of his mouth twitched. “You’re a fool.”
She trailed her hand over the muscles of his chest to his ripped eight-pack and then lower still. “What’s that say about you since you’re the one keeping me around?”
Darling didn’t really hear those words. Not while she stroked his cock with her hand and he stared into those amber eyes that soothed him in a way nothing else did. He could almost believe he wasn’t disgusting when she treated him like this and looked at him as if he were worth something.
Like he was human and still desirable.
She slid herself closer, then went down on him.
His breathing ragged, he ground his teeth at how good she felt tonguing his body. All his thoughts scattered and he forgot where he was and how he looked. The only thing he felt now was how much he loved the way her long hair fanned out across his legs. Sighing, he leaned his head back and savored her sweet mouth on him until there was nothing else in existence except the two of them.
After a few minutes, she lifted her head to smile at him. “Come on, sweetie. Let’s get you cleaned up and I can continue, okay?”
Right then, he’d have followed her into hell, smiling the whole way.
Zarya stood, hoping she’d helped his mood. In a strange way, his current bashfulness and reserve toward her reminded her a lot of how he’d been after the first time she’d touched him. For weeks afterward, he’d been bashful and awkward whenever she was near. Finally, she’d cornered him one afternoon in the kitchen of the Resistance’s HQ.
Even though she couldn’t see anything other than his black battlesuit and helmet, he was still the most beautiful man she’d ever known.
“Kere, nothing has changed between us.” She’d taken his gloved hand into hers and kissed it. “I don’t ask or expect anything of you. I’m here if you need me, that’s all. The last thing I want to do is to make you uncomfortable.”
“It’s not that.”
“Then what?”
He’d led her hand down his body, to his crotch so that she could feel how swollen he was. “Every time I see you now, all I can think about is how good you felt. How much I want you.”
Grateful for that, she’d smiled up at him. “I’m here for you anytime you want me. No strings. No demands.” She’d locked the door and then turned the lights off for him. Because there were no windows in the room, it had been so dark she couldn’t see anything at all.
That was how she’d learned that Darling had perfect vision in the dark. How she’d learned that he could make her come within minutes of touching her…
Now, after all they’d shared, he was bashful with her again.
Unable to look at her, he stood, then picked her up and carried her to his room that connected to hers through the door in the center of the far wall. While her room was pastel blue and white, his was decorated in dark blues, maroon, and gold. The royal Cruel seal was carved into a headboard that went all the way up to the ornately gilded ceiling.
Even bigger than her room, it was one of the largest rooms in the palace. Only the throne room, dining hall, and ballroom were larger.
Darling closed the door to her room and headed for his bed. As gently as he could, he set her down on the mattress.
“Where are you going?” she asked as he stepped away from her.
“I’m not completely helpless, Z.”
“I didn’t say you were, Captain Defensive.”
He paused before he opened the door. “Stay there. I’ll be right back. Have no fear. If I use a razor again, it’ll be to cut my throat.”
Zarya cringed at his warped humor. “That’s not funny, you know.”
He didn’t respond. Instead, he vanished into what must be his bathroom.
A few seconds later, she heard water running.
After a handful of minutes he was back with two warm, damp cloths. He handed one to her to clean herself while he called housekeeping to clean her room next door.
Then he laid back on the bed, and covered his face with the other cloth.
As she leaned against him, she saw a frame on his nightstand. Curious about its contents, she reached over him and pulled it closer, then turned it on.
It was a photo of Darling as a boy, probably around the age of ten. He stood beside his tall, lean father, and behind his mother who sat holding a female toddler with curling red hair. A dark-haired boy a few years younger than Darling stood next to Natale’s knees.
“Is this your family?”
He pulled one corner of the cloth back so that he could see what she was looking at. “Yeah. That’s them.”
They looked so happy together. But that made her wonder something…
“Why isn’t your family here at the palace?”
Shouldn’t they be the ones helping him to heal instead of Maris? Granted Lise was in school, but still…
If Darling was her brother, she wouldn’t have left him alone in the mental condition he was in. He needed people around him who loved him and could reassure and help him while he healed. People who didn’t mind his physical appearance or limitations.
He sighed irritably. “My sister’s at school, mad that I caused her to flunk her classes, and that she’s going to have a permanent limp because of the attack she survived.”
“That wasn’t your fault.”
“Wasn’t it? If I hadn’t pulled her out of school, she would have been fine. Not still going to physical therapy twice a week and living on painkillers that make it hard for her to maintain her course load and grades. But for my interference, she’d have graduated with honors this year. Now, because of me, she’ll be lucky to graduate at all.”
That was twisted logic. “I doubt she thinks that.”
“I don’t. I hear her rant about it every time I call.”
Zarya started to tell him that she’d had an entirely different impression from her earlier conversation with Lise, but she wasn’t sure he wanted her talking to his sister.
“What about your brother?”
“Poor bastard’s taking care of his mother.”
She noted the fact that he didn’t refer to Natale as his mother. “And she is…?”
“At the Summer Palace.”
Zarya frowned at that. It didn’t make sense. His brother and sister… Okay, there were times when she couldn’t be there for Sorche.
But a mother?
“Why isn’t she here? Is she ill?”
When he spoke, the raw anger in his voice chilled her. “No. I don’t want her here.”
“Whyever not?”
“I don’t want to see the way she refuses to look at me, okay?”
“I don’t understand.”
He sighed wearily. “Be glad you don’t. My mother doesn’t mean to be selfish. She just always had a man to protect and care for her, a staff of servants to cater to her every whim, and a nurse or tutor to care for us. She doesn’t know what to do when she’s supposed to be the caregiver—other than delegate it to someone else. It’s hard for her to think about other people.”
“But you’re her son.”
“I know. I love my mother and I hate her guts. I guess that’s my curse. To only want women who put me through hell.”
That stung her like a slap in the face, but she forced her own anger down. “I didn’t hurt you intentionally.”
“My mother doesn’t believe she does either. She thinks she’s a great, loving mother who has done nothing but sacrifice her life for us. One who does her best and only tells us what we need to hear.” Sliding the cloth to his neck, he returned the frame to his nightstand. His eyes were empty as he turned the power off and lay back against the pillows.
Zarya glanced around the elegant room that held no other personal items of his in it. Nothing. No childhood mementos of any kind. No other pictures.
Not even a hairbrush.
She scowled at that realization. Did he not have them or did he not want them?
Her gaze went to the scars that marred him from head to toe. While many were new, a lot of them weren’t. Never in her wildest imaginings would she have thought an aristo would be damaged like this. Her parents had been nothing but kind and protective of them. They’d have killed anyone who dared raise a hand to her or any of her siblings.
Yet Darling’s own uncle had caused many of those scars. Meanwhile, his mother had allowed the abuse to go on for years without stopping it. “Have you ever had anyone protect you?”
His eyes closed, he brushed the cloth against his ravaged cheek. “Nero. Nykyrian. Caillen. Hauk. Maris. Jayne and Syn.”
She paused as she realized that list corresponded to the number of people who’d come into the room after she’d discovered Darling’s presence. “They’re the ones who rescued you?”
He nodded.
“How long have you known them?”
“Nero all my life. He swears he’s the reason I was named Darling, and if he really was, I’d like to kick his ass for it. Gah, what a stupid name. I can’t believe my parents couldn’t find something better… like Dogshit or Dumbass.”
She snorted. “Could be worse. They could have named you after a girl.”
“Might as well have. A name like Darling sucks all the testosterone right out of you. Of course, it also made it easy for me to pretend to be gay, so I shouldn’t complain. What self-respecting man would use something so god-awful and stupid?”
Propping her head on her arm, she traced the burn scar on his nipple where he’d been electrocuted. Not wanting to think about that and the bitter agony it caused both of them, she tried to distract him. “What about the others? How did you meet them?”
“They were friends of Nykyrian’s.”
When he didn’t continue the explanation, she prodded him. “And… how did you two become friends?”
He took a long breath before he answered. “When I was finally skilled enough to breech the palace security system and evade Caronese guards, my uncle hired Nykyrian to
protect
me.”
“From whom?”
“Anyone I might run to for help. Arturo lived in fear that I’d find another aristo willing to be my guardian, and thereby usurp him.”
“Why didn’t you go to someone else?”
He laughed bitterly. “I tried twice, and all I did was get slapped back to him so fast that my ears rang from it. In the end, my situation was made worse by attempting to make it better. So I stopped trying to find someone to help, and concentrated on just getting away from here for as long as I could as often as I could before Arturo had me dragged back.”
The bitterness in his tone said it all. She couldn’t believe no one would help him. “I take it you and Nykyrian hit it off then?”
He arched a brow at her. “Have you ever seen Nykyrian Quiakides?”
That was a name she knew well, and to her knowledge there was only one man who bore it. But the universe was vast, so she wanted to make sure they were talking about the same person. “The Andarion prince?”
“Yeah.”
Zarya conjured a perfect mental image of Nykyrian. A former League assassin who’d left their ranks when they ordered him to kill a mother and small child, the man was huge and lethal in a way very few were. So much so, that the League had actually pardoned him for deserting—something they had never, ever done before. He was the only assassin to leave them and survive.
“He’s a little scary.”
“No,” Darling corrected. “He’s a lot scary. I shit my pants the first time I saw him, which was what my uncle wanted. Even with opaque sunglasses over his eyes, Nyk has a way of looking at you that can freeze your blood in your veins. Back then, he never spoke a word to me. He just followed me everywhere I went, and would grab me by the scruff of my neck and pull me back if I so much as took one step in a direction he didn’t want me to.”
“That must have been awful.”
“It definitely wasn’t fun. And I hated him for it. It was bad enough everyone else mocked and emasculated me. The last thing I needed was some League asshole jerking me around like I was his backseat bitch.”
Her stomach sank as she considered the underlying venom in his voice. “Did he hit you?”
“No. He didn’t have to. He could literally lift me off my feet
with one hand. For that matter, he still can. That son of a bitch is huge and ungodly strong.”