Not even a hairbrush.

She scowled at that realization. Did he not have them or did he not want them?

Her gaze went to the scars that marred him from head to toe. While many were new, a lot of them weren't. Never in her wildest imaginings would she have thought an aristo would be damaged like this. Her parents had been nothing but kind and protective of them. They'd have killed anyone who dared raise a hand to her or any of her siblings.

Yet Darling's own uncle had caused many of those scars. Meanwhile, his mother had allowed the abuse to go on for years without stopping it. "Have you ever had anyone protect you?"

His eyes closed, he brushed the cloth against his ravaged cheek. "Nero. Nykyrian. Caillen. Hauk. Maris. Jayne and Syn."

She paused as she realized that list corresponded to the number of people who'd come into the room after she'd discovered Darling's presence. "They're the ones who rescued you?"

He nodded.

"How long have you known them?"

"Nero all my life. He swears he's the reason I was named Darling, and if he really was, I'd like to kick his ass for it. Gah, what a stupid name. I can't believe my parents couldn't find something better... like Dogshit or Dumbass."

She snorted. "Could be worse. They could have named you after a girl."

"Might as well have. A name like Darling sucks all the testosterone right out of you. Of course, it also made it easy for me to pretend to be gay, so I shouldn't complain. What self-respecting man would use something so god-awful and stupid?"

Propping her head on her arm, she traced the burn scar on his nipple where he'd been electrocuted. Not wanting to think about that and the bitter agony it caused both of them, she tried to distract him. "What about the others? How did you meet them?"

"They were friends of Nykyrian's."

When he didn't continue the explanation, she prodded him. "And... how did you two become friends?"

He took a long breath before he answered. "When I was finally skilled enough to breech the palace security system and evade Caronese guards, my uncle hired Nykyrian to protect me."

"From whom?"

"Anyone I might run to for help. Arturo lived in fear that I'd find another aristo willing to be my guardian, and thereby usurp him."

"Why didn't you go to someone else?"

He laughed bitterly. "I tried twice, and all I did was get slapped back to him so fast that my ears rang from it. In the end, my situation was made worse by attempting to make it better. So I stopped trying to find someone to help, and concentrated on just getting away from here for as long as I could as often as I could before Arturo had me dragged back."

The bitterness in his tone said it all. She couldn't believe no one would help him. "I take it you and Nykyrian hit it off then?"

He arched a brow at her. "Have you ever seen Nykyrian Quiakides?"

That was a name she knew well, and to her knowledge there was only one man who bore it. But the universe was vast, so she wanted to make sure they were talking about the same person. "The Andarion prince?"

"Yeah."

Zarya conjured a perfect mental image of Nykyrian. A former League assassin who'd left their ranks when they ordered him to kill a mother and small child, the man was huge and lethal in a way very few were. So much so, that the League had actually pardoned him for deserting-something they had never, ever done before. He was the only assassin to leave them and survive.

"He's a little scary."

"No," Darling corrected. "He's a lot scary. I shit my pants the first time I saw him, which was what my uncle wanted. Even with opaque sunglasses over his eyes, Nyk has a way of looking at you that can freeze your blood in your veins. Back then, he never spoke a word to me. He just followed me everywhere I went, and would grab me by the scruff of my neck and pull me back if I so much as took one step in a direction he didn't want me to."

"That must have been awful."

"It definitely wasn't fun. And I hated him for it. It was bad enough everyone else mocked and emasculated me. The last thing I needed was some League asshole jerking me around like I was his backseat bitch."

Her stomach sank as she considered the underlying venom in his voice. "Did he hit you?"

"No. He didn't have to. He could literally lift me off my feet with one hand. For that matter, he still can. That son of a bitch is huge and ungodly strong."

"Then how did you become friends?"

He wiped carefully at his face with the cloth. "One night after my uncle had counseled me for a couple of hours, I slipped Nyk's custody and blew up his prized fighter during my escape."

Her jaw went slack. She was as impressed with his skills as she was with his stupidity. "No, you didn't."

"Yeah. He was really unhappy about it, and I had no idea how rare a ship it was, or how much he loved it. But after he tracked me down, I figured it out real quick. It was the first time I'd seen him lose his temper. Not something you ever want to experience, believe me. I honestly thought he was going to rip out my spine and beat me with it."

That had to be terrifying. She'd rather go up against Nemesis again than to face the Andarion prince. Darling was right, Nykyrian was extremely off-putting. "So what did he do to you?"

Darling fell silent as her question took him right back to that stygian alley on the backside of hell where he'd hidden, thinking he was safe from his uncle's reach. After three days where he didn't dare spend a single cred lest it be used to locate him, he'd been starving. Half dead from that and a severe cold he'd contracted while sleeping out in the frigid winter weather with no jacket or cover, he'd left his filth hole long enough to try and scrounge food.

There had been a restaurant around the corner from where he'd set up a temporary home on the street. He was hoping to find something to eat in the trash. Since he'd been so careful to cover his tracks and not use anything that could trace back to his location, he'd foolishly thought himself safe.

Especially in the middle of the night.

He'd just found a bag of outdated bread when he'd heard a faint scraping sound behind him in the shadows. Thinking it was one of the restaurant's late night cleaning crew, he'd broken out into a sweat, terrified that they'd call the authorities on him.

But it had been something much worse.

Nykyrian had snatched him down from the dumpster and slammed him on the ground so hard he'd seen stars from it. Cursing him, Nyk had pinned him with one massive forearm across his throat. "No one fucks with my ship, you little bastard," he'd growled. "Believe me, it's worth more than your putrid life. I don't care what your uncle pays for your protection or what the League does to me. You're going to die for defiling it."

Darling had tried to push Nykyrian's arm off so that he could breathe, but it was useless. Nyk was too strong. All he could do was cough and wheeze.

Until Nykyrian saw the original scar Ryn had given him that covered the entire left half of his face, and the bruises on his cheek and black eye from his uncle that still, three days later, looked like shit.

Before Darling could regain his senses and to his eternal shame, Nyk had yanked his shirt up to see the other bruises and scars that covered his torso. Then, he'd grabbed Darling's wrists to examine the scars that Darling had made on his own body when he'd been unable to take his uncle's bullshit anymore...

"They beat you?" Nyk had asked.

Darling had shoved him away and scooted out from under him. "Why do you think I run? Do you really think I enjoy eating garbage out of dumpsters in the middle of the night when I could be warm at home in a palace?"

Little had he known then that Nyk had endured a childhood that made his seem like paradise in comparison.

Instead of killing him, which would have been preferable all things considered, Nyk had shrugged his coat off and wrapped it around Darling's shoulders. There was so much difference in their height and build back then that his coat had swallowed Darling whole.

"C'mon, kid, let's get you fed and cleaned up."

Darling had stood his ground. "I don't want to go back."

"I know... I do. But we both know that you have no choice. If I don't take you back, someone else will, and they won't feed you first."

Disgusted by the fact that Nyk was right, he'd lowered his head and nodded glumly.

"Don't worry, kid. Now that I know what you're running from, I'll give you as much protection as I can."

"Why would you do that?"

"Because no one deserves to be afraid to go home."

From that night on, Nyk had done his damnedest to keep him safe. Sometimes it'd worked.

Others...

Darling sighed as he ran his fingers through Zarya's hair. "After Nyk saw the condition I was in, he told me he would do his best to keep me out of the line of fire, and that he would teach me how to protect myself."

"He trained you as an assassin?"

Darling nodded.

"Is that where your tattoo came from?"

"Yeah. After I'd completed my training, Hauk, who is an old childhood friend of Nyk's, designed it for me and his brother Fain was the one who did it." Darling wouldn't have trusted anyone else to touch him that intimately. But the Hauks had always been good friends to him and he treasured them both.

"Has no one ever realized what it is, and the kind of training you've had?"

Bitterness choked him as he thought back to his stints in various asylums over the years. Like Pip, they'd assumed the tattoo was done as a joke or a way for Darling to attract men, and had mocked him for it.

Because of the embarrassing scars and bruises he went out of his way to conceal, no one else had ever seen his bare back.

Not even Maris.

He swallowed before he told her something he probably should keep to himself. "You're the only woman I've ever been with, Z."

Zarya froze as she heard those words. Was that even possible?

"What?"

"I was always too afraid of being outed either as a heterosexual or a member of the Sentella to take the chance. It was why it took me so long to touch you, even though I wanted you from the first time I saw you."

Her head swam as she thought back to the early days of their relationship. Even though she'd craved him from the moment he'd first saved her, she'd had no idea that he found her even remotely attractive. Kere had started out as a liaison from the Sentella and he'd turned into an ally who helped them fight against Arturo's tyranny.

Yes, he'd spent a lot of time with her, but she'd foolishly assumed it was for Resistance or Sentella business.

Until they'd been on the run from Caronese soldiers. To keep from hurting the soldiers, they'd hidden in a tight closet where there had been no room for them to even breathe. As she was forced to press tight to his body, she'd felt him swelling against her hip.

Neither had moved for countless minutes, but she could tell by his rigidness how much he desired her.

When the coast was clear, she'd swallowed hard, unsure of what to do.

"Sorry," he'd whispered to her. "I-um... I hope I didn't offend you."

It was the first uncertainty she'd ever heard in his voice. "You didn't offend me, Kere. I feel the same way about you."

Without a word, he'd opened the door and checked to make sure it was safe to leave.

They had made their way out of the closet and back to the hangar bay where his fighter had been docked. After they launched and once they were sure no one was trailing them, she'd turned around in her seat to face him.

With a boldness she'd never had before with any man, she'd reached down to undo his pants.

"Zarya-"

"Sh," she'd breathed, cutting off his protest. "I don't expect anything from you, Kere. I more than understand why you can't let anyone know who you are-that you have to stay in the shadows. I accept and respect that. But after everything you've done for me and the Resistance, I just want to give something back to you. I really do want to do this for you."

She'd waited for him to protest again.

When he didn't, she'd opened his pants and stroked him until her fingertips were wet from his desire. There in the darkness of space, he'd cupped her face with his gloved hand.

Already in love with him, she'd leaned down and taken him into her mouth to taste him for the first time. She could still hear his heavy breathing as he'd leaned back in the seat and let her lick and suck on him to her heart's content.

Hear his expelled breath when he'd climaxed a few minutes later.

It stunned her to find out now that he'd never been with any woman except her.

She rested her chin on his chest to stare into his incredibly blue eyes. "Given how skilled you've always been in bed, I would have never guessed that I was your first."

"That's because I spend a lot of time thinking about what I want to do to you."

She smiled as she remembered all the little things he'd done over the years that had made him such an important, vital part of her life. "Thank you, by the way."

"For what?" he asked with a scowl.

"I assume you're the reason my sister called me earlier."

He stroked her hair tenderly. "I figured you'd want to talk to her. I know how close you two are and I'm sorry I didn't get you in touch with her sooner."

She should probably hold that against him, but for some reason she didn't. "I also assume you're... whatever that group is that's sponsoring her scholarship?"

"DIG."

"Yes, that was it."

He shook his head. "It's actually the company owned by Syn and his wife. They do all kinds of charitable deeds under it."

Now she was confused. "So are they the ones funding her?"

"No, they just loaned their company name to me so that I could do it without her knowing."

She would never fully understand him. But then he'd always been a contradiction. "Why did you do that?"