“I wish you would sit, my queen, you’re making me nervous,” Diandra mumbled and then sucked back more wine.
I stopped, turned to her and started babbling. “I can’t sit. I’m wound up. And, by the way, I wish you’d stop calling me your queen. I know I am to the people out there but you’re just my friend. No one but us knows what it means anyway, all my friends from home call me Circe mainly because that’s my name and I’m not a queen there but even if I was… not that that could ever happen but still… I wouldn’t let them. And you’re my friend. So, I’d like you just to call me Circe.”
She gave me a crooked smile that looked alarmingly tipsy and I wondered with some concern if Diandra was a lightweight.
“I’d love that… Circe,” then she giggled.
Oh shit.
The cham flaps slapped open, I turned to them and then stopped breathing when Lahn bent low and entered.
Here we go.
His eyes cut through Diandra, across the bed and hit me standing at the far end of it. Then his face went soft. Then he took a step toward me.
I lifted my hand swiftly and said, “Stop.”
Diandra translated.
Lahn stopped and his brows drew together in a way that didn’t loosen me up one bit, his gaze sliced to Diandra then back to me.
“We need to talk,” I told him in a soft voice. “It’s important. I asked Diandra to translate for us. Please, Lahn, will you talk with me?”
Diandra interpreted and Lahn stared at me with that scary look for awhile then he jerked his chin up, crossed his arms on his chest and cleared his expression.
“I think that means yes, Circe,” Diandra translated his look.
“I think I got that, honey,” I said to her, Lahn’s brows snapped right back together again and he looked over at Diandra.
“Lahn,” I called and his eyes came back to me. “Did you have sex with one of the Xacto last night?”
His face darkened ominously when I said the word “Xacto” and it darkened more ominously when Diandra translated what I said.
I held my breath.
He scowled at me.
I felt my heart start to hurt.
He continued to scowl at me.
My heart squeezed.
“Me,” he finally grunted.
“No,” Diandra translated a word I actually knew and I felt my chest release.
“Okay, baby,” I whispered to Lahn, watched his eyes flare briefly when I did but the scowl didn’t shift. “Now,” I went on carefully and quietly, “I know I’m living in your world, I get that. But I want to explain something about my world, something I want you to get and I want you to get what it means to me. Will you listen?”
Diandra translated. When she finished, Lahn kept scowling but jerked his chin up.
“Shahsha,” I whispered, got nothing but continued heat from his eyes and then forged ahead. “In my world, men are faithful to their wives. They don’t cheat on them, they don’t have sex with other women or do anything with them, sexually or not. They don’t allow other women to touch them, bathe them, um… etcetera.”
Diandra translated and her translation became tentative as the raw, brutal energy Lahn normally exuded ratcheted up to the danger zone.
“I get that you do, here, I mean, the warriors do and all that,” I said swiftly, Diandra translating with me, “but in my world we don’t. We so don’t, if a man does that to his wife, she has the right to leave him.”
This was a mistake. A bad one.
I knew this when his body tensed so fiercely, it seemed to grow and expand and I heard the growl escape his throat.
No words, just a growl.
“Circe, my dear, I didn’t know… you shouldn’t… warrior wives do not ever –” Diandra started but Lahn spoke over her and his words were clipped and seriously f**king pissed off.
When he was done talking, Diandra translated.
“You will not leave.”
“I wasn’t saying I was going to, just –”
Diandra spoke with me and Lahn spoke over her and she translated but she didn’t have to. He simply repeated his pissed off words.
“You will not leave.”
“I wasn’t –”
He kept talking and Diandra interpreted.
“You will not call the wife of Seerim after me.”
I blinked at this sudden change of subject as well as his words which I did not get.
“What?”
Diandra translated, Lahn spoke and then she spoke again.
“You will not call Seerim’s woman ‘honey’. That is mine.”
Oh man.
“It’s an endearment,” I explained. “In my world we say it to –”
“It is mine. You will not use it with anyone but me.”
I studied him and decided this was not going very well.
So I decided to agree in order to try to soften him up for the hard part.
“Okay,” I whispered.
“Okay,” he bit off.
Then we started talking with Diandra translating.
“We need to talk about the Xacto,” I told him.
“I will not discuss the Xacto with my wife,” he told me.
“Um… this is important to me,” I explained.
“This matters not. I will not discuss it.”
Oh man. Now I was getting pissed.
“But Lahn, I’m telling you this important to me!” I snapped.
“It is not your place,” he replied.
“I’m your wife!” I shot back, my voice rising.
“And as my wife, it is not your place,” he returned.
“That’s crazy!” I cried.
“It is not,” he retorted.
“Doesn’t it matter to you that this is important to me?” I asked.
“No,” he fired back, saying it in my language.
Oh yeah. Now I was pissed.
“I beg to differ, big guy,” I retorted. “And I will tell you right here, right now, right in this cham,” I pointed to my feet then at him, “you will not let them touch you.” I jerked my finger at him again. “You will not let them bathe you.” Again with the finger. “You will not let them massage you, touch your gorgeous f**king hair, your fantastic f**king body or anything to do with you because that, baby,” I swept him top to toe with an up and down sweep of my hand then jerked a thumb at myself and leaned in, “is all mine.”
“Vayoo ansha,” he ordered, uncrossing his arms and planting his hands on his h*ps and I retorted before Diandra could translate because I knew what that meant.