Maris shrugged nonchalantly. “You’ve been wrong before. Many times, point of fact. I have most of them documented.”
Yeah, but this was different. He was different. The Resistance had turned on him and that wasn’t something he’d ever forget or forgive.
As for Zarya…
I’m losing faith in humanity one person at a time.
He glared at Maris. “Why are you doing this to me?”
Maris tsked at him. “It’s such a shame you have no recollection of last night.”
“Why?”
Wrinkling his nose in a playful gesture, Maris draped his arm around Darling’s shoulders and whispered in his ear. “You proposed to me, my precious. Told me that you loved me and had dreamed of me naked in your arms for years. You even begged me to ravish you right in your own bed.”
That actually amused the hell out of him. Ravish him… right. Darling smiled in spite of his agitation. “You’re such a liar.”
Maris blinked innocently. “How do you know?”
“You have absolutely no self-control, Mari. Had I begged you to ravish me, I’m positive you would have. And we were both fully clothed when I woke up this morning.”
“But you don’t know that for sure…” Maris’s gaze was bright with his teasing. He squeezed Darling, then moved ahead to reach the stairs first. He flounced around and raked a lustful gaze over Darling’s body. “I can see the doubt in your eyes. Admit it, Dar. You secretly want me. You dream about having me naked in your bed. You know you do.”
Darling laughed until he caught a glimpse of himself in the smoked mirror wall. His humor died instantly. There for a minute, he’d completely forgotten what had been done to him.
The horror that had become his existence.
Maris sobered. “It’s all right, sweetie.”
But it wasn’t. They both knew that. Darling wasn’t sure if it, or he, would ever be all right again. “Have you ever felt lost, Mari?”
He folded his hands in front of him in a somber pose that was out of character for him. “Yes, I have. And I know that place of crazy where you asphyxiate every time reality crashes down and you see the nightmare that has become your life. The darkness that swallows you whole until you fear you’ll never see light again.”
Darling paused by his side. “How did you find your way home?”
“I didn’t.” Maris reached out and brushed a strand of Darling’s hair back from his mask. “My best friend found me wandering in the darkness and carried me back to the light.”
Darling fell silent as he remembered finding Maris in a Ladorian whorehouse after his parents had thrown him out. He’d been too proud and ashamed to tell Darling what they’d done to him. Instead, Maris had lied and said that his parents had forgiven him and that Darling had nothing to worry about.
Until the Resistance had tortured him, that had been the worst three months of his life. He’d had no idea where Maris had gone. No one knew anything about what had happened to him.
No one in Maris’s family had even cared. Darling would never forget the words Maris’s father had growled at him when he’d asked if Maris’s father knew where he was. “Hopefully, he’s in a grave somewhere. At least then he can’t shame us anymore.”
By the time Darling had tracked him down, Maris had become addicted to drugs and was selling himself for food and shelter. He’d looked so terrible. Gaunt and pale.
His entire body covered in sweat, Maris had been lying naked on a flea-infested bed that had been crusted over with stains. He’d been so out of it that he hadn’t recognized Darling at first.
Once Maris realized who he was, he’d thrown up all over him.
Darling had carried him out of there and then stayed with him for weeks as he sobered up. Maris hadn’t touched anything stronger than sweet wine since.
To this day, Darling had no idea what he would have done had he not found Maris that day. Maris was the one person he could always confide in without fear of being judged or hated. The only person who’d kept his most guarded secret and held it close.
Darling sighed. “We’re a pair, aren’t we?”
“Through thick and thin, brothers to the bitter end.” Maris tucked his hand into the crook of Darling’s elbow before he leaned over and whispered in Darling’s ear. “And you did offer yourself to me last night. I’m just too much of a lady to take advantage of you when you’re drunk.”
Darling smiled at Maris’s old joke. Then he sobered as his thoughts turned to a more somber topic, and a new fear. “Did you, um… did you bring Zarya in through the front last night?”
Maris scoffed. “I am not that stupid. My goal was to get you laid, not bitch-slapped. I daresay had she seen your little tribute to all the failed assassination attempts, especially from the Resistance members she might recognize, she would have probably run screaming straight into traffic.”
Darling was extremely grateful for Mari’s common sense. “Would you mind having the groundskeepers disassemble my… tribute, as you call it?”