He barely glanced at her as he walked to his desk. “You’re dismissed.”

Senna hurried from the room as if she was terrified Darling might shoot her before she could clear the doors.

Never had Zarya seen the like. It absolutely blew her mind apart that anyone would say such horrible things about a man who’d lived his entire life fighting to give all of them a better life.

“They are terrified of you.”

Darling opened the bottle of whisky on his desk, then reached inside a drawer to pull out a small shot glass. “Good.” He poured the glass full.

How could he be so blasé? Did he not know about the rumors?

Or did he just not care?

“Not really.” He needed to understand how dangerous these things could be. “I mean, they are… Words fail me to describe their skewed beliefs. They really think you’re worse than your uncle.”

He knocked back the shot glass, then poured another. “I am worse than my uncle. Unlike him, I’m trained to kill with my bare hands.”

“So it doesn’t bother you to have people tremble in fear around you?”

He still refused to look at her. “Should it? As long as they’re scared, they won’t attack.”

Yeah, right. He had to know better. Was he being obstinate to annoy her? “I wouldn’t bet on it.”

“Then let them try,” he said in a low, deadly tone. “I could use the target practice.”

He definitely had the skills to warrant that bragging right, but she’d seen a lot of good soldiers fall over the years. Nothing took them down faster than the misconstrued belief that no one could get the drop on them, or outgun them.

“Arrogance comes before the fall.”

He knocked back another drink and laughed bitterly. “I’m already in the gutter. There’s not much farther down I can go.” He poured yet another shot, then brought it over and offered it to her.

She cringed as she realized he was drinking Tondarion Fire—a hard liquor so potent it was banned by most civilized governments. It was a miracle he still had a stomach lining left after drinking it. “No, thank you, Your Majesty. I don’t drink that.”

“Get assaulted enough and you’ll learn to.” He spoke those words in a tone so low, she wasn’t sure she heard them correctly as he walked back to his desk.

“Why did you bring me here?” she asked.

He drank her whisky, too. Then he finally set the glass down. “Were you unconscious or inhaling fumes? Maris brought you here. Not me.”

She scoffed at him. “Obviously something’s wrong with me, ’cause I could have sworn it was you, and not Maris, who carried me into this room a few minutes ago.”

“Consider it a momentary lack of sanity. Something I’ve had a lot of lately.” He raked a sneer over her dress. “Wherever did you find those rags?”

His question cut what little vanity she possessed, but she would die before she allowed him to know that.