She choked on a sob.
Maris swallowed hard. “He was brutally raped, Zarya. Repeatedly. It was so bad, that for weeks after his release, he sat huddled in a corner, with his back against the wall. Like now, he wouldn’t speak to anyone, and he had violent nightmares from it for years. Sometimes I think he still does.”
His gaze haunted, he wiped a hand over his face. “When I finally saw him for the first time after he’d been released, I stupidly asked what they’d done to him… tears welled up in his eyes and then flowed down his face—and Darling doesn’t cry, Zarya. Ever. Not for anything. He refused to look at me or to speak about it at all. By that, I knew what he wouldn’t say.”
“Did he ever tell you for sure?”
“Years later, when he was extremely drunk and ranting about his uncle, but he’s never gone into any details. Other than to say he wanted to kill them all… and now he has.”
Sighing, Maris returned to the counter to finish putting away her makeup. “For over a year after his release, he wouldn’t let anyone touch him at all. Not even his own sister, and Darling has always adored Lise. If a man came anywhere near him, he literally ran away, and he refused to be alone with anyone. Even me. It was two full years before he’d even look another person in the eye, male or female. So no, he’s never experimented. Until you, I’ve never known him to voluntarily be naked with anyone.”
Her heart ached for Darling and what his uncle had put him through. It was so wrong.
But it left her with one question. “How did Darling pull off being gay if he was so repulsed by men?”
Maris smiled sheepishly. “I taught him how to use men he knew were safe to keep up the ruse—like I did with the women I dated. Men who wouldn’t touch him or beat him over it. It took a lot of patience, but I got him to the point that he’d let me hug him again. He knew I wasn’t going to make a move on him. And once he was used to me, we took smaller steps. First with his friend Caillen, who is rabidly heterosexual, and yet completely at ease with homosexuals. I taught Darling how to stand close to Caillen, and lean in to him so that other people would misinterpret his actions. If anyone asked him if he had a crush on someone, we chose Nykyrian because we knew Nyk would never hurt Darling for it. And once I came out, it was a lot easier. I was the one person he could be openly affectionate with who wouldn’t be offended or expect anything else from him.”
It was actually a brilliant plan. “So you’ve protected him all this time?”
“More he protected me. Until I came out, he took the heat for a lot of things I had.”
“Such as?”
He gave her a duh stare. “I’m gay, Zarya. I’ve been that way as far back as I have memories. Obviously, I like to look at men, and read about men being together. I didn’t dare do that at home where my brothers or parents might find it. So Darling kept… items for me, and I kept things for him.”
That made sense, but it also made her feel stupid that he had to be so explicit. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to be dense.”
“It’s okay. We’re all dense from time to time.” He let out a bitter laugh. “I still can’t get over the shock on my parents’ faces when I told them the truth about me. And all I could think was, Are you people totally blind? Did none of you ever really look at me? Even though I’d tried to hide it, I don’t see how they missed it. Any more than I’ve ever understood how someone couldn’t tell Darling was straight.”
“I have to say I never had any doubts.” But then she’d never seen the “Darling Cruel” side of him. As Kere, with a tiny handful of exceptions, he’d been all testosterone, all the time.
That thought made her flash back to one of their first missions together. They’d been ambushed by Caronese troops. When the blaster volley had started, he’d caught her about the waist and pulled her out of the line of fire. With one arm only, Darling had lifted her and held her against him with so much ease that his strength had temporarily stunned her. He’d wrapped himself around her body so that they shot his armor and left her unscathed.
When their attackers had paused to recharge their weapons, he’d literally skated across the slick floor to dump her into an access hallway before he turned. His head low and lethal, he’d stalked down the smoke-filled hallway like the fiercest predator she’d ever seen, and opened fire on them.
She still got chills whenever she thought about the tough vision he’d made in that dimly lit hallway, surrounded by smoke and blasts, as he returned their fire, and set their enemies into retreat.
Single-handedly.
Yeah…
No one messed with Kere, or her, without feeling his wrath.
Now she understood a lot more about why Darling had always been so hungry for her whenever they’d been alone. If he’d been keeping all of the real him bottled up around everyone else, it made sense that he’d savor their time together.