The venom behind those words had to spring from a personal grudge between them. She’d never seen so much hatred from Maris before toward anyone.

Not even her.

“How do you know him?” she asked.

“He’s my oldest brother.”

That news floored her. Completely. “Are you… what? No. Not possible. Well, I guess it’s possible, but… why do all of you have different surnames?”

He plucked another glass from a passing tray. “Unlike other cultures, Phrixians aren’t born with their surnames. We earn them. Zemen means ‘strength through adversity.’ Jari is ‘honor in battle.’ ”

Ah… She hadn’t caught the different nomenclature earlier because she hadn’t realized when they were introduced that Safir was Maris’s brother. “And Sulle?”

He gave her a twisted grin. “ ‘Invincible.’ ”

Her eyes widened at that.

“I really was a soldier, Zarya,” he said simply. Then he held his hands wide to show her his body. “Underneath all this fashionable, sexy attire is a bitch who knows how to kick ass and smack people around with the best of them.”

She still had a hard time reconciling Maris’s playful personality with that hard military persona. Even though he’d shown it to her, he hadn’t held it for very long. She just couldn’t imagine him as a warrior.

He reached for another hors d’oeuvre.

A tall brunette woman stepped out of a passing group to pause by Maris’s side. She swept him with an amused, but cold smile. “So, Mari, I have to know something.”

“Yes, Cretia?”

She pinned Zarya with a glacial stare. “What does she do for you and Darling? Is she around to coach you on how to be a woman, or are you two instructing her on how to give blow jobs?”

Zarya saw red. Before she even realized what she was doing, she lunged at the woman.

Maris caught her with one arm and pushed her back.

“Oh,” Cretia said, raking her with a smug sneer. “She’s your bodyguard. I get it now. Makes sense, since she has more testosterone than both of you combined.” She drifted off.

Zarya glared at him as he finally released her. “You should have let me rip her hair out by the dyed roots.”

Maris tsked at her. “Oh please. The last thing you want to do is get her acidic blood on your beautiful dress. Think of the poor designer who’d curse you for the affront to his hard work.”

“Yes, but the dry cleaner would thank me.” She made an obscene noise at the direction the woman had vanished in. “I can’t believe how rude she was.”

“That was exceedingly mild, thanks to her infantile intelligence. And look at it this way, they’re all going insane with curiosity. Not to mention, jealousy. None of them can figure out why we both walked in as his royal escorts, wearing official Caronese court garb.”

He had a point. It was actually illegal for anyone other than a member of the governor’s immediate family to wear the royal colors together unless it was a national holiday or they had a special dispensation from the governor.