Cloak & Silence by Sherrilyn Kenyon Read Free Book Online

Darling had suffered at the hands of people who’d been his allies had left him psychotic.
    Maris had been so occupied with saving Darling’s life and sanity that he’d forgone any other need. Besides, it didn’t matter. He was in love with Darling and while he might have relationships with other men, they always left him feeling hollow.
    Those men weren’t Darling.
    Yet as he held Ture, that old need to be in love with someone who could physically love him back surged. Just once in his life, he wanted to go to bed with someone whose happiness meant more to him than his own. He would give anything if he could feel toward a lover one tenth of what he felt for Darling.
    Just for one heartbeat.
    But it wasn’t meant to be.
    He’d accepted that a long time ago. Darling would always be heterosexual. Nothing would ever change that, and his best friend would die before sleeping with him.
    Why can’t I walk away from Darling?
    Honestly, he’d tried. He’d gone from one man to another, hoping, aching that one of them would find a way into his jaded heart.
    And every one of them had disappointed him, and left him with scars that were deeper and uglier than the ones marring his body.
    But as he breathed Ture in, that part of him that he hated most surged forward. Hope was a fickle whore, and he hated the fact that he was her bitch.
    You’ve walked this path a million times, Mari .
    Only Darling was Darling. Everyone else was a poor substitution.
    Clenching his teeth against the wave of pain, Maris pulled back and got up. He wouldn’t mourn something he couldn’t change. Forget hope.
    He was, and would forever be, Darling’s bitch.
    Ture scowled as he watched Maris clean up the food he’d brought. There was a darkness to him now that Ture didn’t understand. A thick wall of sadness.
    Zarya’s stories of Maris went through his head. Like him, Zarya didn’t trust easily. She was extremely suspicious and cautious.
    Yet Maris had won her over with little effort. She idolized this man. Originally, Ture had dismissed all her stories as hero worship and delusions. He’d never dreamed that a man like Maris actually existed.
    A king among princes.
    Someone who wouldn’t hesitate to protect what he loved. A man capable of putting the needs of others above his own. Such beasts were as rare as the fabled iksen that was said to only come out of its cave once every thousand years.
    Now that Ture had found one, he wanted to hold on to it for awhile. But even as that thought went through him, he knew the truth.
    Love never lasted. People betrayed. And lovers inevitably disappointed each other.
    What if they didn’t?
    Ture tried to squelch that treacherous thought. He didn’t want to have hope. Hope had never been kind to him.
    Ever.
    Still, he couldn’t help but wonder if Maris could ever be as loyal to him as he’d been to Zarya and Darling. If Maris could hold his heart in his hand and not shatter it.

CHAPTER 3
     
    M aris froze as he heard a knock on the door that connected his room to Ture’s. In the last two weeks while Ture had been here, he’d never once knocked. Had something happened?
    More frightened by that thought than he should be, he crossed the room and opened the door. Ture stood on the other side, looking gorgeous, but sheepish. “Is something wrong?”
    “I can’t believe I’m admitting this . . . I can’t sleep and I’m lonely.”
    Maris smiled in understanding. He often suffered from that, too. Before Zarya, he’d always had Darling to console him on those nights. They’d stay up for hours, gaming and joking.
    Now, he had Hauk for an opponent, but only so long as Hauk wasn’t with a woman. Though lately, Hauk had been in a dry spell that would rival Maris’s.
    “You want to come in?”
    A blush spread over Ture’s face.
    Maris smiled. “I don’t expect you to get naked, hon. We’re friends.”
    He snorted. “I don’t have many of those.”
    “Well, you have one in me.” Maris stepped back