Drake turned his scowl to Maris. “What do you mean?”

“I spoke your language, little man. Quite plainly. What part of ‘she’s his lady’ did you not comprehend?”

“All of it.” Drake looked to the others before he spoke again. “I’m so confused,” he breathed.

Hauk laughed. “Yeah, us, too. It’s been a strange day all the way around.”

Syn stepped forward. “Lise came in not long before you and Ryn. Why don’t you go say hi to her?”

Drake put his hands on his hips. “Subtle like an exploding mine there, Syn. You might as well have said, ‘Boy, get your ass out.’ ” He glanced back at Darling. “If anything changes, let me know.”

Syn inclined his head to him.

No one spoke again until after Drake had left. Then Hauk looked at her and grinned. “They put the fun in ‘dysfunctional,’ eh?”

Zarya wasn’t exactly amused by that. “I’m not passing judgment on them. It’s not my place. But having met the three of them… it certainly does explain a lot about Darling.”

Syn gave her a light hug. “I feel your pain. I married into an extremely screwed up family dynamic myself. But I have to say, Darling’s family makes mine look normal in comparison—which scares the hell out of me most days.”

Hauk let out an evil snicker. “Can’t wait to tell Kasen that the next time I see her.”

“You do and I’ll make sure you have a nasty accident the next time you fly your ship.”

Syn’s threat didn’t bother Hauk in the least. “That’s all right, Rit. You’ll just have to put me back together again. Be your punishment for it.”

With a light “heh,” Syn ran his hand through his long hair. “And on that note, I need to go update the rest of our screwed up family on how he’s doing.”

Hauk nodded. “I’ll help.”

After Hauk and Syn left, she turned toward Maris.

“What’s that expression mean?” he asked. “And for the record, I didn’t do it.”

Laughing at his defensiveness, Zarya tried to reconcile the people she’d just met with the erroneous preconceived notions she’d had of them. “Just trying to take it all in. Darling has had a most complicated life.”

“You’ve no idea, hon.”

No, but she was beginning to, and like Syn with his in-laws, she was rather scared of Darling’s. “I can’t imagine dealing with the stress he’s had. Having an uncle who treats you like you’re mentally deficient and can’t go to the bathroom alone, while the rest lean on you so hard that it’s a wonder your back isn’t bowed from it…”

How he had any sanity left was a miracle.

Maris gave a sympathetic nod. “True, but it was the lies he was forced to live with that cut him the deepest. Having to pretend to be gay and passive when it’s not in his nature to be either…”

“I can’t imagine.”

“Oh I can, and it sucks to the extreme. The stress of it’s unbearable… Only in my case, it was heterosexual and aggressive. I was truly a frightening warmonger in my earlier days.”