When Arturo had ordered her taken into custody, Darling knew the next step would be her execution. As the mother to the heir and widow of the last governor, his mother was to keep herself pristine and chaste in memory of his dead father for the rest of her life. For another man to touch her was viewed as an act of high treason on both their parts.
The guards had seized her and she’d been screaming, protesting her innocence and begging for mercy. His brother and sister had been holding on to her waist, crying and pleading for their mother’s life.
Darling had been frozen by terror. His father had only been dead three years and all he could hear was the promise he’d made to him the last time they’d spoken. “If anything should ever happen to me, Darling, swear to me that you’ll make sure your mother and siblings are taken care of. They’re not as strong as you. You’ll make a great governor one day. I know it. It’s why I trust you to do right by the three of them.”
Still, they’d all screamed and cried until Darling was deaf from it. More guards had come forward to pull his brother and sister away and to handcuff his mother for her execution while Carus had stood there, silent. No word to deny or defend the woman he’d slept with. The woman who’d risked her life and endangered her children for him.
He was useless as a protector.
And his mother would die if Darling didn’t do something.
So he’d seized on Maris’s personal secret to save her life. Biting his lips to make them swell, and pinching and clawing his neck to turn it red, he’d run forward to stop his mother’s arrest.
“He’s my boyfriend. I’m the one who slept with him.” The words had flown out of Darling’s mouth before he could stop himself.
Or think through the consequences.
But then, he’d stupidly assumed his mother would cut off the affair after seeing what a feckless, uncaring prick Carus was. Instead, she’d been grateful to Darling that he’d provided her with a cover story.
Little did he know then that he’d just sold his soul to his mother so that she could be happy. After that night, she’d carelessly chosen lovers and then guilted him into pretending they were his.
Lies he’d paid for with his flesh and blood.
Over the years, it’d been ironic really. To make their parents happy, Darling had pretended to be gay while Maris had pretended to be straight. It was one of many reasons why they were so close. Each had coached the other on how to carry out his ruse. What to say. How to act and dress. They’d invented code phrases to let each other know when they’d stepped out of their role. “I’m yanking your membership card” was the primary one. As soon as it was heard, they knew to pull back from whatever it was they were saying or doing before they exposed their true natures.
But Maris had had the luxury of coming out in his early twenties. Darling’s only way out was to find a legal way to kill his uncle and then pardon his mother for her stupidity.
Arturo made a gagging sound at them.
His hatred riding him with spurs, Darling curled his lip at the smug bastard who glared at them.
In an act of utter defiance Darling knew he was about to pay for, he kissed then licked Maris’s palm while staring at his uncle with a half smile.
Snarling furiously, Arturo stormed across the room and backhanded him so hard, his neck snapped and blood instantly invaded his mouth. “What have I told you, you stupid cock-licking rimmer?”
Testing his teeth with his tongue to make sure they were all still in place, Darling forced himself to play docile and not give in to the need to strike back.
Daintily—to further piss his uncle off—he wiped the blood from his lips with his forefinger.
I could snap you in two, you bastard…
It was so unfair to have the ability to rip his uncle’s heart out and not be able to do it. So long as his family meant more to him than he did, he was like a toothless lion and he hated that feeling most of all.
“We’re just friends.”
“Sure you are.” Arturo grimaced at Maris who prissed and preened, knowing it got under Arturo’s skin in the worst way. The only thing that kept Arturo from striking Maris was the fact that Maris’s blood was even bluer than theirs. And while Maris had been disowned by his family for his homosexuality, he was still protected by League laws. Not to mention the small fact that Maris was the Andarion ambassador to Caron. As such, he fell under the protection of their crowned prince, Nykyrian—a former League assassin who would give his eyeteeth to have one shot at Arturo’s jugular.
Unless Darling committed an act of treason, or Nykyrian’s grandmother declared war on the Caronese, Maris couldn’t be touched without severe consequences.
Arturo sneered at them. “Get out of my sight. You repulse me.”
Maris hooked his arm through Darling’s. “Come on, sweetie. The air in here is suddenly chilly.”
Arturo caught Darling by the hair and snatched him back. “I didn’t say you, cock jockey.”
Darling locked down on his primal instincts that begged him to hand Arturo his testicles.
Maris gave him a panicked stare.
“Leave,” Darling said in Phrixian.