"Why didn't you ever check on me while your men held me?"

Not that again... Her anger snapped to the forefront that he wouldn't let this go, but she forced it down. He wasn't accusing her this time. In fact, there had been a note of pain in his voice and it was the first time he'd asked this question.

Biting her lip, she searched for the best words possible. Please, God, help me find a way to make him understand that I hadn't meant to hurt him. Ever.

She knew he couldn't see her or her reaction, not while his eyes were jerking. So she set the computer aside and took the cloth from his hand so that she could clean the remnants of blood from his face.

As she did so, her gaze dropped down to his chest where the scars from his torture screamed their own form of accusation at her. The worst ones were the burn scars on his nipples and groin. It was inhuman what they'd done to him. Who could blame him for holding it against her?

Tears blurred her vision."Honestly Darling, I was so consumed with looking for Kere, that you as the prince never entered my mind. Not even as a passing thought. Every day I didn't hear from Kere, I panicked more because it wasn't like you to not have any contact with me for days on end. All my attention was spent trying to get the Sentella to tell me something about Kere's whereabouts. I left hundreds of voicemails on your mobile and with the Sentella. Did you never get them?"

"No. Syn cleared them while I was in the hospital." Darling fell silent as he tried to reconcile what she said with his memories of being in Resistance custody. "You never sounded like you were looking for me." She'd sounded happy every day. Like she didn't have a single care in the world.

"That's because you heard the voice of the Resistance leader-the soldier who couldn't afford to let anyone know her weaknesses. No matter how I felt, I couldn't let them see it. But I swear to you, Darling, I was screaming and crying inside for fear of your death-you can ask my sister, if you doubt me. Or Ture. They'll tell you that I wasn't human. My mental state was so bad that they came over every weekend to stay with me so that I wouldn't hurt myself."

She traced the scar on his chest where Timmon had branded him with a hot chain. "And I know I shouldn't have left you there without checking on you. I hate myself every time I think about you in that room, starving and suffering at the hands of the people I entrusted you to. I know it's not the same as your having gone through it, but I promise you, you're not alone in that hell. A part of me dies every time I see a scar on you that I could have... that I should have stopped." Her voice cracked. "You are the most important person in my life. The only one I can depend on and when you needed me most, I wasn't there for you. I-" Her words broke off into deep, heart-wrenching sobs. "Why didn't I just open that damn door? Why?"

Darling pulled her against him and held her tight. "It's all right."

"No. No, it's not." She was crying so hard now, that her entire body was shaking. "I let them hurt you. I did. And now-"

"Shh baby," he said, hating himself for upsetting her like this. "I swear I will never, ever bring it up again."

Zarya believed him, but it didn't change the fact that when he slept, if he slept, he still had horrifying nightmares over it.

I failed him in the worst way imaginable.

"I'm so sorry, Darling."

Tightening his arms around her, he kissed her cheek. "You want to know the truth?"

No. Not if it was worse.

But before she could speak, he continued. "I would gladly suffer all of that and more if at the end of it, I knew you'd be waiting for me."

She cried even harder. How could he feel like that? How? They'd torn him up so badly that Syn had barely been able to piece him back together.

"I was trying to cheer you, Z. Not upset you more."

"I know." She hiccupped. "I just... how did you survive it?"

Leaning back, he pulled her into his lap and held her with her head tucked beneath his chin. The warmth of his body soothed her more than anything. "At first, I thought you'd recognize me. After all the times that damned scar showed through my hair when I didn't want it to, the one time it could have served me, it didn't show at all. You got to love irony, huh? Anyway, once they chained me, I kept thinking you'd come in, see the scar and know me."

"And when I didn't come?"

"In the beginning, I clung to my anger-the same way I survived the mental institutions. I told myself that I was going to get out and then I'd have the throat of everyone who'd hurt me. But the bad thing about anger is that it's not sustainable. Eventually it burns out and the pain swallows it until there's nothing left but a hollow shell. All you want is to die and when you know you can't, you find this fucked-up place inside you where all you do is survive. Minute by minute. Second by second. You try not to think about anything or feel anything. You just get through it one heartbeat at a time, as numb as possible."

"You so didn't deserve it."

"No one does, Zarya. But sooner or later, no matter who you are, life uses everyone as its whipping boy. You didn't deserve to lose your family or be given to a slaver. You damn sure didn't deserve to have your brother die in your arms."

No, but it wasn't the same. While Gerrit still haunted her, none of those had been the unrelenting hell of excruciating pain he'd lived through. He'd had no let up at all. And that was what amazed her about his strength.

"I love you, Darling."

He nuzzled her hair with his cheek. "I love you, too."

Zarya savored the feeling of his fingers brushing through her hair as his heart thumped slow and steady beneath her cheek. And as she inhaled the warm scent of his skin, she understood what he'd meant. She, too, would walk through hell itself so long as she knew he was on the other side.

She never wanted to hurt him again. But as her gaze went to the computer that had begun to play another news segment, she cringed. While they weren't physically flogging him, this was every bit as unrelenting.

And it, too, was because of her. Why do I have to cause him so much pain? Shouldn't love be easy?

Suddenly a whiny voice filled the room. It was a tech worker being interviewed by a reporter. "I think the governor is insane and shouldn't be in power. While I was never fond of the Grand Counsel, he didn't scare me. This new governor terrifies the daylights out of me. What with all that happened tonight, I'm afraid to let my family out of my house. We can't go to war with everyone. Someone ought to tell the governor that. We need a leader who isn't crazy."

Darling groaned out loud before he reached to close the computer. "I'm thinking I should blow up the CDS building to give them something else to focus on."

She snorted. "Call me whacky, but I don't thinking killing more people is going to allay their insanity fears where you're concerned."

"I can wait until the building's unoccupied... or better yet, call in Giran and Nylan, then set it off."

She laughed in spite of her tears. With his warm hand, he wiped them from her cheeks.

"Don't worry about this, Z," Darling said, grateful that her tears had finally stopped and that she was calm again. "If I've learned nothing else in my life, it's that we will get through it." Eventually.

And compared to the whole Nylan scandal and some of his other traumas, this was mild. At least the gerents were afraid of him now. They were no longer laughing in his face.

They were still trying to depose him, but they weren't laughing while they did it. That made all the difference...

Yeah, right.

"How do we fix this?" she asked.

"Hell if I know. At this point, I think the best thing for me to do is to keep my head down. At least then I can't screw up anything else."

"You're not funny."

"Really not trying to be." He sighed. "I knew, given what Arturo had done to me and my reputation, that this would never be an easy transition. I always expected the gerents to protest my governorship and to mudsling to the point I contemplated murder."

But what he'd never considered was coming to power after he executed his uncle... with his bare hands. And what that would do psychologically to the people who hated his uncle as much as he did, and with a lot less reason to do so.

He'd hoped to have at least some of the gerents back him, and he'd relied on the mistaken belief that the people would welcome him in after living under Arturo's greedy fist.

However, after tonight, that wasn't going to happen. So much for allaying the gerents' fears.

Now, everything was so much more complicated than he'd ever anticipated. While he'd known Caronese people didn't like him, their unreasoning animosity was slowly shredding what little confidence he had.

And that could ultimately tear the empire apart.

One match, and the gerents would now ignite the fires of rebellion against him.

I swear, Dad, I will protect the things you love most... That naive promise haunted him.

"Maybe I should abdicate and let Drake take over." Everyone loved his brother...

She pushed herself up to give him a scowl that resonated, 'are you stupid?' "You can't. Drake's not old enough to rule, and Ryn won't take on guardianship for him. The rest of the gerents... they're selfish bastards out for themselves. They don't care how their decisions affect other people. You're what this empire needs. Not them."

Her loyalty touched him deeply, especially since he knew what she truly thought of the Cruel family and their elongated reign. Over the years, she'd ranted against all of them repeatedly. "The best thing that could happen for this empire would be a gas leak in the palace that took all of them out at once."

Yeah, those words had been hard to swallow. But he'd more than understood her malice, and he'd never held it against her.

Still unsure of what would be best, he turned on the wall monitor. Immediately, it showed Giran being interviewed. Through his shifting vision, he saw that Giran's eyes were blackened and his nose taped. There was a white bandage wrapped around his entire head. He looked awful.

I should have hit him harder...

Giran licked his bruised lips. "We have to remember that Governor Cruel comes from a long line of unstable genes. Why do you think all of them have been assassinated? Our latest leader is the worst of them. I've released his medical file for public review. Right here"-he held up the mobile reader in his hand-"the psychologist says that Governor Cruel had to be restrained due to his violent outbursts, and this while he was sedated..."

He glanced down at his mobile so that he could read the report verbatim. " 'Patient Cruel is showing no improvement or remorse for his past behavior, whatsoever. He continues to be belligerent, lunging out against the staff and cursing all of us. He's resistant to our best efforts to rehabilitate him. Yesterday, he broke the arms of two guards. When asked how he felt about putting them in the hospital, he responded that he not only enjoyed it, but that he'd gladly do it again. And that if he was able to, he'd harm me as well.' "

Zarya gaped at Darling.

His features darkened as he clutched the remote in his hand. Vicious memories of that event rushed through him and he wanted blood for it. He returned her shocked expression with a fierce growl. "They were violating me with a pole and the doctor stood there watching, telling them to be more sadistic with it. When they hit me in the arm with the pole, it knocked loose one of my restraints. As soon as I had my arm free, I beat the shit out of them. And yes, I enjoyed it. Every second of it, and every scream they let out while I did it. My only regret was that they sedated me before I could kill them."

Zarya felt sick at what he described, and at the shame that tinged the anger in his jerking eyes. Damn that bastard for dredging up something so foul.

Still, when one didn't know Darling's side of the event...

"I understand, but it sounds so bad from the doctor's point of view."

"Of course it does. You don't really think he'd put in a report that his treatment was to sanction the brutal rape of a patient, do you?" He cursed under his breath as the reporter continued to question Giran about his mental capacity and inability to lead them.

Zarya cringed with every word. The saddest part of it all was that Darling would never set the record straight. His shame and horror over it ran too deep.

And she couldn't blame him for it. In his place, she wouldn't breathe a word of it either.

He gestured toward the monitor with the remote. "They're taking everything out of context and spinning it to annihilate me. It's..." His voice trailed off as his eyes widened and his face went stark white.

Zarya turned to see a naked teenaged Darling with Nylan. Maris was right. Darling was crying and it was painfully obvious that he wanted no part of Nylan's groping. Her stomach tightened to the point she thought she'd be sick as she grabbed the remote from his hand and turned it off.

Horrified agony was etched deep into his features.

She felt as if she'd been hit with a blow. "Darling?"

He didn't move. His gaze on the floor, he sat there as if he were comatose.

"Sweetie?"

Still, he didn't respond in any way. It was as if the pain was so great that all he could do to survive it was to withdraw from everything. Even her.

Wanting to soothe him, she reached to brush her hand through his hair.

He jerked away. "Don't touch me!" Those snarled words brought tears to her eyes. Pain bled from every pore of his body. He was aching on a level she couldn't imagine. No one should ever be so hurt.

Darling couldn't think as memories surged and brought him to his knees.

But the worst was having Zarya see it...

Why would the gods do this to him? Why did they make her see his shame?

Needing to withdraw from her and the pain of his past, he slid off the bed and headed for the bathroom. He only took three steps before his jerking vision unbalanced him and sent him to the floor.

He ground his teeth as his fury mounted. I can't even walk myself to the fucking toilet...

Arturo had been right after all. He was a useless piece of shit, unfit to breathe, never mind run an empire.

Suddenly, Zarya was there, helping him to his feet.

With no choice, he allowed her to put him back in bed. Something that didn't help his ego at all. I'm so worthless...

She brushed the hair back from his face. "Bad things happen to decent people, Darling. It's so wrong, but-"

"Don't you dare patronize me!" he snarled.

"I'm not. Believe me, I'm not." She gestured toward the bedroom door that led to the hall. "My mother and sister were killed in this palace. Brutally. Why? Because they dared to ask an old friend for mercy. A friend. Someone my mother had known most of her life. A man we'd all sat down to dinner with. She didn't deserve that any more than you deserve what was done to you."

"I know that, Zarya. I do. Just as I know the horror and shame of that video won't kill me-even though I've wished a million times that it would. I've been forced to live with it being thrown in my face for years. I... I just need a minute to catch my breath and cope, okay?"

Zarya hesitated. Did he really need to be left alone? She wasn't sure. But then he'd never asked that of her before. Surely he wouldn't send her away if he needed her.

Deciding to give him some time to himself, she relented. "All right, sweetie. I'll go see Maris. Call me if you need anything."

He responded with a single nod.

Her heart breaking for him, she left his room. Fain and Hauk looked up from where the two of then were sitting on the floor, against the opposite wall.

In spite of Darling's wishes and protests, the men had stayed to guard him should any of the gerents or people try to harm him after tonight's events.

She paused beside Hauk as she studied the three strange pyramids in his hand. "What are you doing?"

"Playing Squerin."

He said it like she should know exactly what it was. "I've never heard of it."

Fain laughed. "It's an old Andarion game. From the way Dancer plays, I don't think he's ever heard of it either."

"Stop calling me that," Hauk growled at his brother.

Fain scoffed at his anger. "I'm not about to call you Hauk. Sorry. My name, too, and it gets confusing as hell whenever I'm around you. Every time someone yells out for you, I think they're calling me. So your parents named you something stupid. Take a stone from Darling, and deal with it."