A light of respect darkened those eerie Andarion eyes. “All right then. It’s settled. Zarya will watch you and I’ll be outside should either of you need anything.”

She held his blaster out to him.

“Keep it.”

“Thanks.” Zarya set the blaster down on the nightstand as the men finally left her alone with Darling again.

Darling rubbed his hand over his forehead. “This wasn’t how I wanted to come home to you.”

Zarya quickly exchanged her robe for the shirt she’d been sleeping in. “I don’t mind… so long as you come home.” She’d take him any way she could get him, scary friends and all.

She slid into bed and leaned back against the padded headboard before she parted her legs for him.

Darling moved to rest his head on her thigh. He lay on his back, looking up at her as she brushed her hand lightly through his long, tangled hair.

The beauty of his repaired face still stunned her. He was exquisite. “I’m going to have to get used to you all over again.”

A stricken look furrowed his brow. “What do you mean?”

She smoothed his features with her fingertips. “It’s nothing bad, sweetie. I was just repeating the fact that Syn did a remarkable job.”

Darling fell silent as he surrendered himself to her soothing touch and tried not to think about the fact that she deserved a man who was whole. Not a scarred piece of shit like him. He took her hand in his and held it against his cheek. The scent of her skin was enough to make him light-headed. He’d spent his entire life aching for someone to hold him when he was hurt.

As a teen and young man, he’d only trusted Maris with his weaknesses. While he knew his friends wouldn’t hurt him, Syn, Nyk, Hauk, Caillen, and Jayne weren’t the most sympathetic of beings. They had their own damaged pasts to deal with, just like him. Because of that, he’d tried to keep his bitching to a minimum.

Then there had been the perpetual fear that if he told them exactly what was going on at home, one of them would kill Arturo for hurting him and he’d lose his family over it. A fear that seemed stupid now given the fact he’d finally found a way to murder his uncle and bypass the law Arturo had put into place.

Why hadn’t he acted sooner? If he’d only come up with the bomb idea when he was a kid, he could have saved himself years of abuse…

But then even if he had murdered Arturo, there was still the matter of his being virtually enslaved to whomever replaced his uncle’s guardianship.

His luck, it would have been someone even worse.

Someone like Nylan.

He flinched at the thought while Zarya traced the line of his brow with her fingernail. She sank her hand into his hair. He turned his head so that he could breathe her scent in and let it drive the past away.