Chapter 62
CHAPTER SIXTY-TWO
A fter spending the next hour pretending not to notice the open disgust of the lords, paired with the open fury of my wife, I prepared myself for the immense pleasure of enjoying lunch in the same company.
Rowan all but stormed out of the room, and I weighed the relative merits of letting her stalk up to our room alone against the likelihood that she would do more damage if I didn’t prepare her for lunch.
Decision made, my longer strides easily caught up to her, and I nodded at Kirill that I would accompany her back to the rooms. Like we needed one more witness to this disagreement. We’d already had an entire audience for the start of it.
He followed at a respectful distance, preparing to guard the room once we were both inside. I suspected he would have some jibe to make later, but he was wise enough not to hint at it now.
The strained, silent walk to our suites did nothing for my temper, especially when it was punctuated by Rowan’s furious huffs. By the time we reached our room, it took every last shred of my self-control not to slam the door, something I wasn’t sure I had ever actually had the urge to do before.
She spun around to face me, her fists clenched into the folds of her gown.
“What exactly are you upset about?” she demanded. “It’s not like you were just demeaned in front of the entire council.”
Was she joking? She must be joking.
“It is like that, as a matter of fact,” I responded, just in case she had genuinely failed to see the irony in her words.
She let out another of her indignant huffs. “Surely, you didn’t expect me to just sit there in silence while you?—”
There was that word again, that condescending surely , paired with something that was much less reasonable than she understood it to be.
“That’s exactly what I expected you to do,” I cut her off, once again opting for bluntness since my subtleties sure as storms-damned hell hadn’t worked in the council room.
“Well, perhaps you can bestow a barbaric punishment upon me, as well,” she snapped. “Let’s see, if fifteen lashes is standard for mischievous boys, whatever would a disobedient wife rate?”
Crimson edged out my vision, and I took a deep breath in an effort to drive it away. Barbaric.
Like I was hurting children for the hell of it instead of disciplining trained soldiers who had known damned good and well what they were doing.
I wasn’t even going to touch her implication that I would bestow that kind of punishment on her—not if I wanted to keep whatever civility remained in this conversation, of which there was already very little.
“Why did you even invite me if you didn’t plan on listening to a damned word I said?” she challenged when I didn’t respond.
“Well, I confess,” I bit back with false congeniality. “It didn't actually occur to me when I asked you to go that you wouldn’t have the basic common sense to refrain from criticizing my decisions in front of the entire Council of Lords regarding a law that you know exactly nothing about.”
Her lips parted in outrage, and she shook her head. “Funny, because it didn’t actually occur to me that you would be sadistic enough to subject someone else to the same form of torture that you’ve experienced yourself, that nearly killed your wife.”
For all that she claimed not to view me as a monster, she certainly had no problem hurling my apparent love of torture in my face. The last I had checked, her own kingdom was no stranger to floggings, but she didn’t seem to be in a hurry to accuse her whole beloved family of being sadists.
No. Only me.
“Lemmikki,” I began with all of the very limited patience I could muster. “These boys are twice your size. Fifteen lashes won’t kill them, especially when the whip isn’t being wielded by a man like Samu. It will, however, deter them and everyone watching from disobedience in the future that would get them or their fellow soldiers killed.”
Once again, I made a valiant effort to explain the stakes to her. And once again, she balked.
“And this is the only way to accomplish that?” She threw out her hands for emphasis. “Scarring them for life?”
“It’s a known, effective way of accomplishing that.” I bit out each word. “And again, this is not what happened to you. One standard lashing isn’t likely to leave them mutilated.”
“Likely?” She put a hand on her chest in a display of mock relief. “Well then, what could I possibly have to be upset about, as long as the boys are likely not going to be mutilated?”
Did she honestly not see that a few lash scars would be the least of their problems if everything in Bear went to hell like it was so carefully poised to do?
No, of course she didn’t. Just like when she had failed to understand the implications of her marriage to Korhonan on my clan. Despite the numerous times I attempted to explain it to her, she was still content to paint me as the villain rather than acknowledge for a single moment that I was qualified to lead my own storms-damned armies.
That, perhaps, if I made a decision she didn’t understand, the problem was with her lack of insight on the situation rather than my own predilection for inflicting needless pain on my own men? Was it so difficult to imagine that, in the absence of her own experience, she might trust in mine?
I shook my head, a frustrated breath escaping me. “We’re very possibly teetering on the brink of a war, and you want to argue with me about the way I discipline my soldiers? A job that, by the way, I was doing back when your biggest concern in life was which tiara to wear that day.”
She froze, tilting her head like she hadn’t heard me, though her furious expression said she very much had.
“No,” she breathed after a single beat of silence. “Of course not, My Lord,” Her voice was several octaves higher than usual, dripping with false sincerity. “I wouldn’t dream of having an opinion about something so bold as politics or warfare. Perhaps you could find me something to knit instead.”
“Perhaps I should.” My voice rose of its own accord. “If the alternative is you making arses of both of us in front of the people we need to respect us most.”
Rowan let out another huff of air, but this one was drenched in bitterness. “Respect you , you mean,” she corrected.
Like I hadn’t spent the last hour staring down the very lords whose support I needed for having the nerve to glare at my wife.
I squeezed my eyes shut, taking another breath before I yelled in truth.
“As much as I would love to stand here and debate every aspect of Socairan law and custom that you haven’t bothered to learn or understand,” I continued in a calmer tone. “I have to get downstairs for lunch with the lords to smooth over the damage you caused in the council meeting. But you are welcome to join me,” I added with a wave of my hand toward the door.
Not that she would deign to take responsibility for what she had done, let alone bother to help me fix it.
Sure enough, she only arched her eyebrows. “I’m sure I wouldn’t want to risk further damaging the fragile egos of any Socairan lords.” Her eyes bored pointedly into mine.
Der’mo . This woman. She was the only person in the entire world who chipped away at my self-control like it was crafted from ancient pottery rather than the solid steel I had spent a lifetime forging into existence.
My heartbeat thundered in my ears, my jaw clenching of its own accord.
Her gaze followed the movement, moving from my jawline to my lips with an intensity that was so, so close to anger.
But not quite.
It was enough to remind me that a handful of hours ago, we had been challenging each other in an entirely different way. My lips parted and she closed the distance between us in three short strides.
Then she put both of her hands on my chest, shoving me roughly against the wall. I might have bothered to stop her if I hadn’t seen the desire brimming in her gaze, the same need that coursed through my veins. It burned alongside the fuel of my rage, melding together until they both ignited in the feeling of her lips on mine.
She put every ounce of her fury into the kiss, and I returned it in kind. I captured her tongue with mine, tasting the ire on her lips and letting it wash over us both.
There wasn’t much time before I had to meet with the lords, but there was enough. And talking was getting us nowhere.
At least, not with words. But this—this was the language we knew. The only way to say I don’t forgive you yet, but I still want every jagged piece of you for myself.
I gripped her waist firmly, feeling the heat that emanated off her skin even through the silk of her gown. Then I picked her up and spun us both until she was the one against the wall, bracing her high enough that I had perfect access to the same infuriating mouth that had gotten us into this mess.
She sank her teeth into my lip, wrapping her legs around my waist and pressing against me with intent. I groaned, and her hands clenched around my biceps as I slid my mouth down to her neck, nipping her skin along the way.
She gasped and I pulled her tighter against me.
“A sadist?” I murmured. “I think masochist might be closer to the truth, considering my choice in bride and what an enormous pain in the arse she is.”
Did she realize the way that she was my constant undoing in every imaginable way?
I nipped at her neck harder than I had before, testing the new boundaries she had created for us when she shoved me against this wall.
Her resulting gasp edged out the rest of my rational thought.
“Whereas my choice in husband is just an enormous arse,” she breathed out, moving her hands up to my hair and raking her nails along my scalp in the way she knew drove me insane.
I crushed my lips against hers once more, losing myself in the way she arched against me, the breathy sounds she made, and the energy that smoldered from her skin to mine.
Losing myself in her, even if the reality we escaped from was a beast of our own making this time.