“You know that’s not true, Dar. I got your ass kicked the first day we met.”

Darling let out an unexpected tiny laugh at the memory. “But I won the fight.”

“Yes, you did.” Maris smiled as he saw that day so clearly in his mind. He’d been pinned to the school wall by a bully who’d been pounding on him. Out of nowhere, this tiny little red-haired boy had come charging in like a hurricane. Barely five years old, Darling had been short for his age. But what he lacked in height, he made up for in ferocity.

In no time at all, he’d beat the bully back and had him on the ground, crying for his mother. After making him swear he’d never even look at Maris again, Darling had stood up and come over to him. Forever proud and fierce, Darling had wiped the blood from his lips, then offered Maris his other hand. “Hi, I’m Darling Cruel. We should be friends.”

Maris had fallen in love instantly.

And he’d been in love with Darling every day since.

“You have always been my champion,” Maris whispered to him.

Darling closed his eyes as he clenched his fist in Maris’s hair. “Why couldn’t they have killed me, Mari? My mother’s right. I have no reason to be here. I shouldn’t be alive. The empire would be better off with Drake as governor and not a freak like me.”

“Don’t you dare talk like that!” Maris didn’t want to think about a life without Darling in it. He couldn’t face the pain of even the thought, never mind the reality. Not knowing where Darling was had been the worst time of his life.

He didn’t care what condition Darling was in. He just needed him to be here.

“It’s true and you know it,” Darling said, his speech slurred as his hand fell away from Maris’s hair. “I’m sick of hurting all the time, Mari. I just want the pain to stop. But it doesn’t. It only worsens. I can’t even dull it anymore.” His words were really slurred now. “I just want…”

Maris tightened his arms around Darling as he finally passed out. “My poor baby.” But at least Darling would have a few hours of rest now.

Maybe by tomorrow he’d feel a little better. Not likely, but he could hope.

Swinging Darling up in his arms, Maris carried him upstairs, to the governor’s bedroom.

He lay Darling down on the large bed and removed his boots, hood, and gloves. His heart broke as he saw the damage they’d wrought on Darling’s face, hands, and feet.

It was so wrong. Damn them for their cruelty.

Darling had been so beautiful in his youth. So flawlessly handsome. But first his own brother had given him the vertical scar on the left side of his face, and now this…

Bastards.

Maris started to remove the explosives that were woven around Darling’s tunic, then caught himself. Knowing Darling, they were trip wired. It was extreme, but he understood that insanity, too. Every Cruel governor for the last three thousand years had been assassinated.