Little did Arturo know his mother didn’t cringe. She was so grateful he was a protective idiot that she was more than willing to live with the shame of a gay son than to be dead from her numerous affairs.
“Really, Darling, how dare you complain. Am I not entitled to one single moment of pleasure in this horrible life I was shoved into? I was only a child when I was forced to marry your father and only twenty-seven when I was widowed. And after all I’ve done for you, is it too much to ask that you do this one thing for me? I don’t understand why, since you’re gay anyway, you get so upset about claiming my lovers as yours. I can’t believe I raised such a selfish, thoughtless brat. Your father would be as disappointed in you as I am.”
His sight dulled as his ears buzzed. If he died right now, the only thing his mother would miss was having him cover for her.
Yeah, that would seriously fuck up her day since everyone knew Drake was straight.
Arturo finally released him.
Darling coughed as he finally drew an unrestricted breath through his bruised throat.
Arturo raked a sneer over his naked body. “I’m pulling a hundred thousand credits out of your trust to pay for this and as punishment. You charge something like that to me again, and I swear…” His uncle kicked him hard in the groin.
Cursing, Darling cupped himself as pain exploded through his entire body. Bile rose in his throat. He felt like he was about to vomit.
With one smug smile, Arturo left him to his misery.
You fucking bastard…
He couldn’t wait to kill him tomorrow night. I’m going to bathe in your blood and drink my fill of it.
The wolf was coming home to den, and it was going to claim sixteen years of long overdue vengeance.
4
Darling opened the door to his sister’s dorm room and smiled as he saw her sitting on her bed with pink earphones set deep into her ears while she studied for her finals. He could hear the bass from her music even at his distance. Unaware of his presence and completely lost to her blissful youth, she bobbed her head and kept time to the raucous beat with her stylus. She didn’t appear to have a worry in the universe—a state of existence he’d fought hard to give her.
Thank the gods she was still untouched and happy. That alone was worth every degradation and beating he’d ever suffered.
With her long red hair in pigtails that fell to her waist, Lise was beautiful—an exact duplicate of their mother, except for the hazel green eyes she’d inherited from their father. She was extremely tall for a woman. Barely an inch shorter than he was, she towered over their petite mother and most other women.
Sitting on the frilly pink bed in a blue tank top and shorts, surrounded by primitive print textbooks and her e-reader and note ledger, she was all skinny arms and legs.
How he wished he’d been able to study for his exams in such peace and security.
Unlike his brother and sister, Darling had been brought home from school the moment his father had died—two days before his brother and sister had even been notified of the murder. A lovely task his mother and uncle had delegated to him. There were some things a twelve-year-old shouldn’t have to do and telling your little brother and sister they wouldn’t see their father again was one of them.
After the funeral, Arturo had demanded he stay at the palace to be tutored, supposedly for his own protection. But Darling knew the truth. It was another way for his uncle to keep him under control and make sure Darling didn’t try to find another relative to pose as Grand Counsel until his majority.
From that day forward, he’d scarcely had a moment of freedom from his uncle’s overbearing presence or fists—not unless he’d somehow managed to run away for it. But that had changed when he was seventeen, and his uncle had made the unfortunate mistake of hiring Nykyrian to guard Darling for public functions. Thinking the fierce Andarion would intimidate him into behaving, his uncle had never dreamed they would become close friends.
His uncle’s second biggest mistake.
Because of his own battered past, Nykyrian had welcomed Darling in like a brother. Rather than ride herd on him as his uncle wanted, Nykyrian had given him a cover story so that Darling could finally live like he was almost normal, and have days of freedom at a stretch.
At least until his uncle got nervous about his whereabouts and sicced his dogs on him. Then Darling was dragged back to his cell and kept there until something else distracted Arturo.
When Nykyrian had founded the Sentella to protect innocent victims from the League and her allies, Darling had gladly signed on as their youngest member, and one of the five leaders.
To this day, his uncle had no idea about the other life Darling had been living for years.
But he was about to meet Kere. And there would be no mercy for him.
First though, Darling had to make sure his family was safe.