Born of Silence (23 page)

She had to bite back a laugh at his unexpected anecdote. “Did he really say that?”

“Yes, yes he did. And he meant it. So I promised him he would always be safe from my groping… unless he begged me for it. And unfortunately, he never has.” His gaze turned sad again. “I miss my best friend, Zarya. I really want him back.”

“I feel the same way. I miss him, too.” And she did.

Under the guise of Kere, Darling had been everything to her.

Maris cupped her face in his hands. “I should warn you, when he came back after his first assault, he was angry like he is now.”

First? There had been more than one? She wanted to cry over that disclosure.

But Maris didn’t pause to elaborate. “Think of him like an
animal in the wild. You have to move slow around him, and let him know you’re not going to hurt him. He’s in raw survival mode. It’s not that he wants to hurt others as much as he wants to protect himself from harm. So he’s liable to strike out verbally. Pay it no attention. He will be sorry for it later. Right now, he’s just in pain, and he’s acting out. Take nothing he says or does personally.”

“Okay.”

His gaze intensified. “Remember, he’s not really attacking you. It’s the world he wants to punch. You have to be strong and don’t back down from him.”

Instead of making her feel better, this “pep talk” was beginning to make her want to run for cover.

Maris kissed her cheek. “You ready?”

“I’m scared.”

“Me, too. Now don’t forget that he’s not what he was. He’s changed a lot. But if we stand together, I think we can still get him back.”

She hoped so. It’d been well over a year since she’d last held him, or heard him ask if she’d eaten anything.

No man had ever treated her the way he did.

Like she mattered.

Come back to me, Darling.

Maris tucked her hand into the crook of his elbow and led her from his room.

With every step they took closer to Darling’s office, the more nervous she became. Her hands were clammy and her heart pounded in trepidation. It was so loud, she was amazed Maris couldn’t hear it.

How would Darling react to her presence? She saw various scenarios in her mind, but none of them were particularly favorable to her.

I can’t believe I slapped him.

Twice…

She wanted to cry every time she remembered that.
I didn’t know who he was.
But that was only an excuse, and she knew it. Did it really matter who had been held in chains? What kind of person would hit someone who’d been so damaged while in their custody?

The fact that she hadn’t even seen him enough to register his ragged condition before she’d attacked him bothered her most of all.

Deep inside, she was as disappointed in herself as he’d been. Yes, she could make excuses. She’d been worried about Kere. She’d been focused on her pain and not his…

But in the end, wasn’t that the very thing she and her allies accused the ruling class of? The thing the Resistance had condemned them for? Being numb to others who were suffering right before their eyes? Not caring about their pain?

And what had she done?

The same damn thing.

Truth scalded her throat, and the bitter taste of it hung heavy on her tongue.

Would she be able to forgive Darling if she was in his place?

No, she wouldn’t. So what made her think for even a nanosecond that he’d be a better person than she was?

Because he’d always been a better person.

Guilt, dread, and raw fear tormented her with more scenarios.

And all of them ended with him killing her…

Maris left her alone in the hallway so that he could enter Darling’s study first.

Tempted to run for cover, she listened intently. If Darling spoke, she couldn’t hear him through the door. But Maris’s voice was plain.

“I think I might have found something to finally brighten your foul mood.” Maris opened the door and motioned her forward.

For a full minute, she couldn’t move as terror overwhelmed her.

I can’t do this.
Fear had her absolutely paralyzed.

“I won’t let him hurt you,” Maris whispered. He held his hand out for her.

Summoning her courage, she allowed him to pull her inside. She’d barely entered the room when her gaze locked with Darling’s.

Time hung still as they stared at each other.

She wasn’t sure what she’d expected, but it wasn’t the man in front of her. First, she couldn’t see anything of his face. He wore a gold mask that had no expression whatsoever.

Only a pair of furious blue eyes showed his emotions, and the hatred there was a living, tangible entity that held her immobile.

Like some menacing demon, he wore a black hood pulled up over his head with tendrils of long, greasy red hair peeking out around its edges. Not a single millimeter of skin showed other than his scarred lips and bearded chin. He was swathed from head to toe in black and his hands were covered with leather gloves. But what held her attention hard and fast was the explosive device he wore around his chest.

Maris was right. Darling was deranged. She could feel the violent undercurrent in him with every instinct she possessed.

Run!

But her limbs wouldn’t obey her…

Darling didn’t move as he stared at the last human being he’d ever thought to see again. For a full minute, he couldn’t breathe as he gazed into the amber eyes that had haunted him for months now. At first he thought his drunken mind had conjured her, but one look at Maris and he knew the truth.

The treacherous bastard had betrayed him.

Even worse, Maris must have dressed her. Darling had never known Zarya to wear makeup of any kind before. Nor curl her hair.

Tonight, she was exquisitely perfect in his office. Not that she hadn’t always been exquisite. From the first time he’d met her as an adult, and she’d been covered in grease and blood from a mission she’d been on, he’d thought she was the most beautiful woman in the universe.

You’re all I ever wanted…

In spite of everything her soldiers had done to him, a part of him wanted to run to her and hold her. To have her soothe the blackened misery that consumed every last molecule of his soul.

He hated that part of himself.

She betrayed you. She spit on you like you were dirt beneath her feet.
When he’d been helpless and torn apart by her friends, she’d slapped him.

He still bore the scar on his cheek from the ring he’d given her. It bisected the one his brother had given him.

But worse was the agony deep inside. The part of him she’d kicked the hardest.

His heart.

All of his volatile, competing emotions slammed into him with resounding violence. In that one heartbeat, he wanted only to kill her. He could already feel her last breath. Smell her blood on his hands.

“What is she doing here?” he snarled.

Zarya swallowed as she heard what Maris had warned her about. That wasn’t the lyrical, refined voice that used to whisper in her ear. It was a gruff, raspy growl that sounded like it caused him pain to speak. One that told her just how badly the muzzle had damaged his throat.

Her poor Darling…

Maris faced him bravely. But for his reassuring hand on her arm, she’d be running for the door.

“I thought she’d make you happy.”

Darling came out of his chair with a feral snarl. “Get her out of my sight.”

“But—”

Before Maris could utter another syllable, Darling let out a fierce roar and overturned his ornately carved desk. Everything that had been on top of it went flying.

The air was charged with Darling’s fury as he stormed toward them.

Fearless, Maris released her and put himself in Darling’s path. “If you want to hit someone, hit me. I’m the one who bought her for you.”

“You’re going to tempt me one time too many to hit you, Maris. One day, I’m not going to pull back.”

“And I’ll still love you, even if you knock my teeth out.”

Those words seemed to calm Darling a degree. At least that’s what Zarya thought until he looked at her. Then the bitter, insane rage returned to his eyes.

He stepped around Maris to grab her by the arm.

“Darling? I—”

The frigid look he gave her froze her vocal cords. “
I
am the Caronese governor, with one of the purest aristocratic bloodlines in the United Systems. You will refer to me as ‘Your Majesty’ or ‘my lord.’ Do you understand?” He literally spat every syllable at her.

She nodded.

His grip tightened on her elbow as he pulled her from the room.

She looked back to see Maris following after them. She considered fighting Darling, but her sanity kept her from it. In the mood he was in, he might kill her if she tried.

Without slowing his determined stride, Darling hauled her through the palace and into a huge, industrial kitchen. There he flung her toward an older, portly woman who appeared to be in charge of the area.

The woman and her all female staff bowed low to Darling.

When he spoke, that raspy growl chilled every part of her. “You have a new slave for your staff. Do with her what you will.” He turned and glared at Maris before he left her there like a discarded toy he’d grown bored with.

Her sight blurred as she saw the relief on Maris’s face that Darling hadn’t hurt her. At least not physically.

Emotionally, however, she felt kicked and bruised by his rejection.

What were you expecting?

In all honesty, she should be grateful he hadn’t beat or killed her. This was far kinder than all but one of the things she’d imagined for their reunion.

In that one, Darling had actually welcomed her.

You’re an idiot.

He would never welcome her again. Why should he?

And this finalized it. Darling hated her. He had every right to.

“Maris!”

Maris jumped at Darling’s gruff bellow. He gave her one last look of sympathy before he went to see what Darling needed.

Zarya swallowed. There had been a time when Darling had needed
her
.

But never again.

By her own actions, she had destroyed his love for her. The worst part was that she couldn’t even blame him for it. She’d done this to herself.

“Here.” The kitchen warden shoved a filthy trash bin into her hands. “Dump that in the receptacle out back…
my lady
,” she sneered, then broke off into mocking laughter. “And try not to muss your hair or get shit on your dress.”

The others laughed, too, as Zarya headed for the door. Yeah, she could just imagine how pathetic she looked dressed like this
while she went about household chores. Every one of them knew exactly what had happened.

Their governor had rejected her.

Even so, she kept her chin up and her spine stiff. Let them mock her. She didn’t need their approval or their friendship.

All she needed was a man who hated her guts.

Darling glared at his oldest friend as he toyed with the idea of gutting Maris where he stood. “What the fuck was that?”

“I thought she’d cheer you up.”

He curled his lip. “Don’t lie to me. You thought you could weaken me with her. Admit it.”

A tic started in Maris’s jaw—something that didn’t happen often. It took a lot to make Maris lose his temper, especially with Darling. “I’m not trying to weaken you. I’m trying to
help
you.”

Yeah, right. “Help me what? Get killed?”

Maris sighed. “You know better than that. But what am I supposed to do?” His tone sharpened as the fire returned to his dark eyes. “Stand by and watch as you drink yourself into another coma? Really? And when was the last time you bathed or shaved? You look awful and you smell like the back end of a dead, rotting yaksen’s ass.”

Darling wanted to kill him as those words cut to the core of his battered soul. The impulse was so strong, he wasn’t sure how he kept from it.

How could Maris say
that
to him?

Maris had always been so intuitive, but in this…

The bastard was wrong.

Dead wrong.

“You want to know why I don’t bathe?” Darling snarled at him. “Because I have to look at
this
.” He jerked his mask off and
threw it at Maris. It was the first time since he’d been rescued that he’d allowed anyone other than Syn to see what was left of him.

And it was truly repulsive.

His expression unreadable, Maris caught the mask to his chest. Tears welled up in his friend’s eyes as he finally saw the true horror of what had been done to Darling.

And
that
was just on the surface.

Darling turned away as agony washed through his entire being. It was the internal damage that tore him up the most. Every time he saw his face or his skin, it took him right back to that room where they’d hung him up, naked, like a piece of meat to be butchered. All of it hit him again as if it were still happening—as if he’d wake up and be right back there at their mercy. He felt every stinging emotion of being abandoned and alone and hopeless.