“Wishing I was with you.” Probably not the manliest admission. But then, he’d been pretending to be effeminate for so long that sometimes those lines got blurred. Although to hear Maris berate him, he was never effeminate enough.

“I swear, Darling, you’re way too masculine for your own good. I don’t know how anyone buys the fact that you’re gay. They’d have to be blind or stupid. Both actually.”

But no one had ever guessed the truth.

Except for possibly his friend Caillen’s wife, Desideria. While Desideria hadn’t questioned him about it, he’d caught her looking at him strangely a few times when other women were around, as if she suspected the fact he was straight.

But she was the only one.

And Desideria wasn’t the woman he wanted to think about right now.

That was reserved for an amber-eyed goddess who made his blood catch fire. He traced the line of her cheek on the screen, wishing he could feel her skin under his hand. “Did you eat anything?”

“Why do you always ask me that?”

“Because I know you. You get so wrapped up in other things that you forget all the time. It’s not good for you, you know.”

Her eyes were filled with love. “You’re the only one who’s ever noticed that.”

Only because she lived so deep under his skin that he noticed everything about her and her habits.

Like now. He saw the dark shadow in her eyes and it worried him. “What’s wrong?”

“I just have a bad feeling that I can’t shake.”

“About the Resistance?”

“No. We’re making good strides there. Two of our patrols were able to turn back Caronese troops from the colonists on Arhan III, and save their homes from being burned. Clarion has something planned for tomorrow. He hasn’t told me what, but he swears it’ll strike right at the heart of Counselor Cruel.”

“The counselor doesn’t have a heart. Trust me.”

“Yeah, I know. It was my mother and sister he gutted in the throne room when they went to beg for clemency for my father.”

Darling winced at the pain in her voice, wishing he could take it away. It was the same agony he carried whenever he thought about his uncle killing his father—in a room he’d been forced to walk past almost every day of his life.

The worst part… Zarya’s father had been not only a personal friend to his own father, but one of the royal advisers back in the day. First under his father, and then under Arturo. For that matter, one of her ancestors had been instrumental in placing his family in power back during the early days of their empire. Because of that, the Starskas and the Cruels had been allies for centuries.

But when Zalan had protested Arturo’s laws that would allow his uncle to seize the assets of anyone he deemed a threat to his rule, with or without proof, Arturo had declared him a traitor.

In one single heartbeat, Zarya’s family had lost everything. Their money, their titles, and ultimately, their lives. Because her mother had known Darling’s father and Arturo for so many years, she’d stupidly thought she could bargain with Arturo for her husband’s life.