“Anything.”

He hesitated again as if he was afraid, something that mystified her. She’d seen him stand toe-to-toe with the baddest asses the League and Caronese government could throw at him.

Never had he flinched or faltered.

But tonight, something was bothering him in a way his enemies never had.

“When you see me, I want you to remember not to judge me by my looks.”

How could he be afraid of something so incredibly trivial? “I told you that I only judge people by their hearts.” And he had the most beautiful one she’d ever known.

“But I’m not just anyone, Zarya.”

“I know. You’re the man I love.”

He cupped her face in the palms of his hands… hands that held roughened calluses—testament, along with the scars all over his body, to how hard a life he’d lived. Her Kere was anything but a spoiled rich aristo who lived off the backs of people like her and her family and those she tried to protect from the aptly named Cruels who preyed on them all.

Though he rarely spoke of his life outside of his role in her beloved Resistance and the Sentella, she felt the road map of tragedies all over him. His past had been one marred by untold brutality and battles. All she wanted was to soothe and comfort him the way he comforted her.

“I don’t ever want you to forget that, Z. Promise me?”

“Of course.” She laid her hand over his damaged cheek. She knew he was extremely self-conscious about the scar that bisected the left half of his face, and the ones on the rest of his body. When they’d first started sleeping together, he’d kept his hair over his face and had pulled back from her touch anytime she went near that particular scar.

Then one night, when he’d been so exhausted that he’d fallen asleep on her, she had brushed his hair back from his face and found what bothered him most. That scar was so deep, she could feel where the wound had left a deep groove in the bone underneath it. So deep that she wondered if he might not be blind in his left eye from whatever had caused that injury.

No, he couldn’t be. His aim was too perfect in battle. If he only had sight in one eye, his depth perception would be off and he’d be at a serious disadvantage. Still, there was no denying the savage ferocity of the injury that had caused a scar like that.

Her heart aching for the pain it must have caused him, she’d pressed her lips to the scar he’d always hidden from her. That kiss had awakened him instantly.

He’d turned his face and pulled away. “Don’t. I’m disgusting.”

“You’re not disgusting.” She’d felt his pain in the darkness and it had broken her heart. “We all have scars, Kere. Inside and out. Wounds that go so deep, they leave a permanent mark on us. But that doesn’t make them ugly or revolting. They were hard lessons learned and for better or worse, they changed us. No matter how hard you try to hide them, they will always be there. And I think your scars are beautiful because they are what have made you the man I care about.”