“Fine. But while we have him, maybe we can use him.”

Another fear settled deep inside her. After this mess, she wasn’t sure of his intentions anymore. “What do you mean?”

Clarion wagged his eyebrows as a smile split his face. “Think about it, Z. As the royal prick, Darling can give us details about security on the palace and all the government buildings. There’s no telling what all he’s been privy to that could prove invaluable to us. Do I have your permission to interrogate him?”

She mulled the idea over. Clarion could be on to something. If they had details about security and Arturo’s plans, it could save a lot of lives.

Still…

It’s only an interrogation. She’d done dozens of them herself over the years with various prisoners. It wasn’t like they were going to torture him or anything. A few questions before they released the prince.

What was the harm?

“If you must.”

Clarion’s smile widened. “Thank you.”

Inclining her head to him, Zarya left his office and pulled her link out again. She tried Kere one more time, but again all she got was his voicemail.

C’mon, baby, answer me soon.

Then, she tried calling the Sentella who refused to do anything more than take a message for him.

Why wasn’t he getting back to her? It wasn’t like him to go this long without at least texting her a note to say he’d call her when he had a chance.

By the time she returned to her office, the sick feeling in the pit of her stomach had bred babies. They were jumping up and down, until she was absolutely ill with nausea.

Kere was in trouble. She knew it. She could sense it with every part of her being.

But how could she find him when she didn’t know who he really was?

5

Darling hung from chains by his throbbing, bleeding wrists. Both of his legs had been broken repeatedly so that his wrists supported all his weight.

Unrelenting pain coursed through him with merciless knives that shredded every part of him…

It was unbearable. He kept drifting in and out of consciousness. The horror of his time here in Resistance custody blurred with his stints in mental institutions, and the times his uncle had punished him at home. They blended together into one unending nightmare of bitter agony.

I just want it to stop.

At this point, he wasn’t sure how long he’d been held. It seemed like eternity, but since he couldn’t see daylight, he had no way of gauging one day from another. Unless they were coming in to hurt him, which they did at random intervals, they kept the lights off. Something they thought added to his misery.

But it didn’t. Courtesy of his mother’s mutated genes, he saw as well in pitch-black darkness as he did in brightest sunlight.