Born of Silence (58 page)

Darling answered before Ryn had a chance. “Even with his powers, he wouldn’t live long enough to enjoy it. He’s much better off keeping a low profile.”

“But doesn’t that threaten your mother, too?”

Darling yawned before he answered. “It would if anyone knew she was related to the Scaleras. But once it became open season on the Trisani, her family did a hell of a job erasing their ties to them. The only reason we know about it is because of the genetic deformities I have.”

She frowned. “Is that why you avoid medics?”

“No. I avoid them because they have a long history of assassinating my family.”

“It’s true,” Ryn concurred. “Our grandfather was poisoned and murdered when a med tech came here to give him a routine vaccine.”

She winced at that fact.

Ryn indicated where she was sitting on the mattress. “He died right there.”

She shot off the bed. “Ew!” Glaring at Darling, she had an awful case of the sudden creeps. “Couldn’t you have told me that?”

Darling laughed. “Sweetie, there’s barely a corner in this palace where someone hasn’t died or wasn’t murdered.”

He had a point. Still…

Ew!

Ryn pulled his mobile out of his pocket and checked it for a message. He looked back to Darling. “I would suggest beefing up your security, but they’re not real fond of you. At this point, I wouldn’t be surprised if one of your own guard didn’t try to assassinate you.”

Anger whipped through her at his reminder. “I don’t understand that. They protected Arturo.” Who had to be the nastiest piece of work to ever breathe. How could they have served him and not Darling? Were they that stupid? “What do they have against Darling, anyway?”

“You mean aside from the fact that he killed a third of them when he took the throne?”

While she’d seen him go after the guard courtesy of Maris, that number stunned her. “Is that true?”

“No… It was more like half of them.”

Ryn let out an evil laugh. “I’m speaking from experience.
Never
get on Darling’s bad side.”

“Payback’s a bitch.” He dropped his hand to pin her with a cold stare. “I owed them for sixteen years of abuse and fourteen years of rude, invasive, and sadistic body cavity searches. Let’s just say, I’m not a forgiving man. The old excuse of ‘I was ordered to do it’ didn’t sit well with me. I expect more out of my guard than someone who ruthlessly violates a defenseless kid under orders and then laughs about it and throws it in his face every time they see him.” His eyes still jerking, he glanced toward Ryn. “Because of that, I wouldn’t trust them anyway. They’ve never thought much of me… other than as a punch line to a tasteless joke.”

Ryn held his hands up in surrender. “Hey, I commend you for weeding out the gene pool, even though I have to say that I enjoy polluting it myself. It doesn’t say much for their substandard intelligence that none of them thought ahead to what would become of them once you were governor.”

“They were counting on my being shoved aside in favor of Drake inheriting. No doubt, they still are.”

Ryn snorted. “Well to that, all I have to say is… surprise.”

“And they were. Though in retrospect, killing so many of them probably wasn’t the wisest move I’ve made. Oops.”

Oh, his humor was bad. But then, he’d always had a dark side.

Another knock sounded on the door.

“What the hell?” Darling growled. “Did I miss a memo? Who opened my bedroom for public access?”

Laughing, Zarya went to the door to find Hauk there, along with two extremely tall men flanking him. “What are you doing here?”

Hauk flashed a wicked, fanged grin at her. “So good to see you again, too, lovely. Thanks for the warm welcome. ’Preciate it.”

Her face flamed at her unintended rudeness. “I’m sorry, Hauk. It’s just late and most people are in bed.”

He leaned down as if to impart a secret to her. “In case you missed it, I’m not people.” Looking past her to the bed, he jerked his chin toward Darling. “And I’ve come to protect Lord Hard Head.”

“Pardon?”

“Is Darling still awake?”

She stepped back so that he could see Ryn. “He is.”

Hauk headed for the bed. “Fain sent me a note about what’s going on with the locals. I’m here with backup.”

Darling growled. “Not helpless, people.”

“Not people, human,” Hauk said in an exasperated tone.

Darling made an obscene gesture at him. “I thought I got rid of you when I left the hospital.”

Hauk clutched his chest as if those words wounded him. “Aww now, Dar, you’re going to hurt my feelings.”

“You don’t have feelings.”

“True. Just think of me like a bad STD. I always show up at the worst time.” He glanced back at Zarya. “So much for your hot date, huh?”

Darling groaned. “You are ever a pain in my ass, Hauk. Should I reset the timers on my explosives in the city? Might give the
Resistance pause if they think I’m going to take them or their families with me.”

Ryn shook his head, but didn’t comment on Darling’s threat. “I’m sure you need to rest. Get some sleep and we’ll take care of everything else.”

Hauk moved to sit in the chair near Darling’s closet.

Arching his brow, Darling scowled. “What are you doing?”

“Taking my post.”

“Yeah… no. Get your hairy ass out.”

Hauk scoffed at Darling’s protest. “Let me be honest with you. Nyk scares me. You don’t. Not even a little. Besides, you’ll sleep better with a bodyguard.”

Zarya stepped forward. “He has a bodyguard.”

Hauk raked her with a less than complimentary grimace. “You’d be dead before you could scream.”

“Try me.”

When he stood up to confront her, Darling laughed. “I wouldn’t do that if I were you.”

“You’re not me.” Hauk moved to pin her.

Zarya dodged, and twirled out of his reach. She grabbed the blaster off his belt and angled it at his head. “Like I said, he has a guard.”

A light of respect darkened those eerie Andarion eyes. “All right then. It’s settled. Zarya will watch you and I’ll be outside should either of you need anything.”

She held his blaster out to him.

“Keep it.”

“Thanks.” Zarya set the blaster down on the nightstand as the men finally left her alone with Darling again.

Darling rubbed his hand over his forehead. “This wasn’t how I wanted to come home to you.”

Zarya quickly exchanged her robe for the shirt she’d been
sleeping in. “I don’t mind… so long as you come home.” She’d take him any way she could get him, scary friends and all.

She slid into bed and leaned back against the padded headboard before she parted her legs for him.

Darling moved to rest his head on her thigh. He lay on his back, looking up at her as she brushed her hand lightly through his long, tangled hair.

The beauty of his repaired face still stunned her. He was exquisite. “I’m going to have to get used to you all over again.”

A stricken look furrowed his brow. “What do you mean?”

She smoothed his features with her fingertips. “It’s nothing bad, sweetie. I was just repeating the fact that Syn did a remarkable job.”

Darling fell silent as he surrendered himself to her soothing touch and tried not to think about the fact that she deserved a man who was whole. Not a scarred piece of shit like him. He took her hand in his and held it against his cheek. The scent of her skin was enough to make him light-headed. He’d spent his entire life aching for someone to hold him when he was hurt.

As a teen and young man, he’d only trusted Maris with his weaknesses. While he knew his friends wouldn’t hurt him, Syn, Nyk, Hauk, Caillen, and Jayne weren’t the most sympathetic of beings. They had their own damaged pasts to deal with, just like him. Because of that, he’d tried to keep his bitching to a minimum.

Then there had been the perpetual fear that if he told them exactly what was going on at home, one of them would kill Arturo for hurting him and he’d lose his family over it. A fear that seemed stupid now given the fact he’d finally found a way to murder his uncle and bypass the law Arturo had put into place.

Why hadn’t he acted sooner? If he’d only come up with the bomb idea when he was a kid, he could have saved himself years of abuse…

But then even if he had murdered Arturo, there was still the matter of his being virtually enslaved to whomever replaced his uncle’s guardianship.

His luck, it would have been someone even worse.

Someone like Nylan.

He flinched at the thought while Zarya traced the line of his brow with her fingernail. She sank her hand into his hair. He turned his head so that he could breathe her scent in and let it drive the past away.

Everything was so different now. He stood on new ground with a CDS who hated his guts even more than Arturo had.

And tonight he’d have to face all the Caronese gerents…

Pain racked him as he remembered the last time he’d been forced to attend a Caronese symposium. It’d been unbearable.

Granted even a regular gathering of multinational nobles wasn’t the joy of his life. But at least when other empires were present, the mocking was kept to a minimum. The Caronese didn’t believe in airing their private ridicule to strangers.

Yet when it was just them…

He didn’t want to think about what was to come.

Why couldn’t Nylan do him the favor of dying already?

But the gods had never been friends of his. Rather, they intended to keep the bastard alive for no other purpose than to serve as an eternal reminder that Darling was nothing more than a stupid piece of shit.

The memory of their laughter at the last gathering still rang in his ears…
“What’s the difference between Darling Cruel and a rooster? In the morning, a rooster says, ‘cock-a-doodle-doo’ while at night Darling says, ‘any-cock’ll-do.’ ”

“Are you okay?” Zarya’s voice cut through his misery to bring him back to the warmth of her touch.

“Just thinking about the meeting tonight.” He looked up at her.
“Maybe you shouldn’t go to it.” The last thing he wanted was for her to overhear one of those stupid, juvenile jokes.

Anger flashed in her eyes. “I do know etiquette, Darling. I’m not going to embarrass you.”

His heart sank at her mistaken assumption. “It’s not that,” he quickly assured her. “I don’t know how
they’ll
react to
my
presence. The last thing I want is for them to insult you because of me.”

She leaned down and kissed his lips. “I don’t care what they think of me. None of them are worth a minute of my time, and I will not waste one thought on worrying about them when I’d rather spend it thinking about you.”

Darling wished he could banish them so easily. Instead, they kept rushing his mental blocks and slamming them to the ground. “I’ll have Maris there to get you out if it gets bad.”

“Who’ll protect you?”

“They won’t physically attack me, Zarya.”

“Yes, but physical blows heal a lot faster than psychological ones.”

Darling didn’t respond this time.

Worried about him, Zarya glanced down to see that he’d fallen asleep in her lap. Smiling, she brushed the hair back from the left half of his face so that she could study the surgery without Darling watching her. She couldn’t believe the difference it’d made. Syn was a certified genius when it came to medicine.

Darling was absolutely devastating. Those very faint scars actually enhanced his beauty. Without them, he’d lean more toward pretty than ruggedly handsome.

No one would ever mock his looks now.

But that wasn’t what concerned her most. If Darling didn’t make peace with the gerents tonight, he wouldn’t be governor long.

One of them would have him killed.

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