Zarya deserved only his utter best.

“I’m going to kill your brother, Maris.”

“I know. And while a part of me still loves him, he’s not the same brother I grew up with. I truly hate the assassin he’s become and I’m so sorry he hurt you.”

Darling squeezed his hand, then released it. “For Zarya,” he breathed. He stepped to the right so that Maris could go around him and walk to his own fighter.

But Maris didn’t move. “Nykyrian asked if you could wait twenty minutes for them to rally and go with us.”

Honestly, he didn’t want them to. He didn’t want to endanger anyone else. Never mind his true friends, and especially not Maris. Unfortunately, he knew they were every bit as obstinate as he was. Nothing would deter them.

And if Maris wasn’t with him, he’d never wait.

One is easily overtaken. Two can fight back.

But a group united is hard to destroy. Another adage his father had made him commit to memory.

“Twenty minutes. Then I launch.”

Inclining his head, Maris relayed the message through the comlink in his suit. Darling turned to climb aboard his fighter while Maris went to his.

Once he was harnessed into his seat, he glanced over, then froze. It was so strange to watch Maris skillfully strap himself into his cockpit and systematically run the flight checks. While he and Maris had been friends all these years and had fought together in a couple of bar brawls, they’d never gone to war as a team.

Never once.

In his younger days, Maris had fought in the Phrixian Fighter Corps under Kyr’s command.

And Darling had only fought with the Sentella and Resistance with Hauk as his usual wingman.

It was always so strange to him how life turned. Usually when you least expected it.

Never had he seen this one coming. And the fact that Maris was fighting with him against the brother he’d once protected…

Yeah, fate was a bitch with a wicked sense of humor.

And today we’re all her punch line.

As Darling ran through his own checklist, he tried his best to not think about the first time Zarya had touched him. She’d been right here, in this very ship. If he closed his eyes, he could still see her with him in the darkness of space, feel her mouth on his body as she went down on him. It’d been the first time in his life that sex with someone else had given him pleasure. The first time anyone had made love to him…

I miss you so much…

How could I have let you die? Had he been the man she deserved, she would never have been in this situation. He should have run away with her when he had the chance.

To hell with Arturo and the empire and his duties.

She was the only thing that had really mattered. Why hadn’t he taken better care of her?

He should have just grabbed her and run to live on some colony somewhere else. Screw duty. Screw honor. The gods knew, he had enough money even without his inheritance, they could have had an extremely comfortable life together.