Safir bowed respectfully to him. “Before I go, I should warn you that Kyr will be here tonight.”
A tic started in Maris’s jaw. “Why?”
“League High Command wants to hear what Darling has to say. It’s why I’m here, too.”
“Are they going to make an attempt on his life?” That would be the natural assumption.
Safir made a subtle gesture she assumed was a Phrixian sign of trust. “I wasn’t given those orders, and to my knowledge no one else was either. We’re simply here to observe. Nothing more.” He paused next to Maris and placed his hand on Maris’s shoulder before he leaned in to whisper something in his ear.
Zarya frowned as Maris responded in an equally low tone.
Stepping back, Safir offered her a stiff, formal bow. “It was an honor meeting you, my lady.”
“You as well.” She curtsied to him.
Once he was gone, she lifted a brow at Maris. “One of your many brothers, I presume.”
Maris nodded. “My youngest. He’s also the only one of them who will still talk to me… when he can.”
It saddened her to hear that, especially since it was obvious that Safir loved his older brother. How tragic for their parents’ prejudice to divide them so. But it wasn’t her place to judge. She refused to be like others and hate someone when she didn’t know what demons drove them to their beliefs.
She watched as Safir was hailed over to a group of gerents who greeted him warmly.
While she watched them, she reviewed their conversation. “When he said ‘Kyr,’ did he mean Kyr Zemen, the prime commander of the League?”
Maris drained his glass in a way that was more akin to his military training than to the fastidious man she knew him to be. “One and the same. Unfortunately. Bloody damn wanker bastard.”
The venom behind those words had to spring from a personal grudge between them. She’d never seen so much hatred from Maris before toward anyone.
Not even her.
“How do you know him?” she asked.
“He’s my oldest brother.”
That news floored her. Completely. “Are you… what? No. Not possible. Well, I guess it’s possible, but… why do all of you have different surnames?”
He plucked another glass from a passing tray. “Unlike other cultures, Phrixians aren’t born with their surnames. We earn them. Zemen means ‘strength through adversity.’ Jari is ‘honor in battle.’ ”
Ah… She hadn’t caught the different nomenclature earlier because she hadn’t realized when they were introduced that Safir was Maris’s brother. “And Sulle?”
He gave her a twisted grin. “ ‘Invincible.’ ”
Her eyes widened at that.
“I really was a soldier, Zarya,” he said simply. Then he held his hands wide to show her his body. “Underneath all this fashionable, sexy attire is a bitch who knows how to kick ass and smack people around with the best of them.”
She still had a hard time reconciling Maris’s playful personality with that hard military persona. Even though he’d shown it to her, he hadn’t held it for very long. She just couldn’t imagine him as a warrior.
He reached for another hors d’oeuvre.
A tall brunette woman stepped out of a passing group to pause by Maris’s side. She swept him with an amused, but cold smile. “So, Mari, I have to know something.”
“Yes, Cretia?”
She pinned Zarya with a glacial stare. “What does she do for you and Darling? Is she around to coach you on how to be a woman, or are you two instructing her on how to give blow jobs?”
Zarya saw red. Before she even realized what she was doing, she lunged at the woman.
Maris caught her with one arm and pushed her back.
“Oh,” Cretia said, raking her with a smug sneer. “She’s your bodyguard. I get it now. Makes sense, since she has more testosterone than both of you combined.” She drifted off.
Zarya glared at him as he finally released her. “You should have let me rip her hair out by the dyed roots.”
Maris tsked at her. “Oh please. The last thing you want to do is get her acidic blood on your beautiful dress. Think of the poor designer who’d curse you for the affront to his hard work.”
“Yes, but the dry cleaner would thank me.” She made an obscene noise at the direction the woman had vanished in. “I can’t believe how rude she was.”
“That was exceedingly mild, thanks to her infantile intelligence. And look at it this way, they’re all going insane with curiosity. Not to mention, jealousy. None of them can figure out why we both walked in as his royal escorts, wearing official Caronese court garb.”
He had a point. It was actually illegal for anyone other than a member of the governor’s immediate family to wear the royal colors together unless it was a national holiday or they had a special dispensation from the governor.
By having them in his colors and entering with them, Darling had made a very public statement about his feelings where she and Maris were concerned.