She spoke proudly and I squeezed her hand as my cham came in sight. “Well done, Seerim,” I said softly.

“Indeed,” she replied distractedly, I looked to her and then I followed her gaze.

That was when I noticed what I hadn’t noticed before. There were two warriors standing outside my cham. Feetak and the grinning one who Lahn spoke to the night of the games.

He was not grinning now, he was scowling, as was Feetak and the instant they laid eyes on us, they turned to my cham, bent and entered.

“Is something going on?” I asked as Diandra and I got closer.

“I do not know,” she answered softly. “But I do know, we soon shall see.”

We made it to the cham and I entered first. There was candlelight and the space was filled with warriors. Feetak and the grinning one, another one I’d seen in passing often speaking with Lahn, Seerim and Lahn.

My eyes stuck on Lahn who didn’t look at all like he was in a good mood. I started to smile hesitantly and whispered, “Hey.”

It was then he instigated the breaking point.

He took two swift, angry strides to me, his arm going down and across his body and before I knew his intention, he swung it out and struck me with the back of his hand on my cheekbone.

He did this with all his substantial strength and therefore my vision burst in a firework of white lights, agonizing pain radiated out from my cheekbone, piercing through my eye, my face and my brain to bounce against the inside of my skull and I flew to the side and went down on the hides.

I was blinking and concentrating on getting the excruciating pain to fade when I heard Diandra start, “Circe, are you –?” and I turned my head to see Lahn thrust her back with such force, she went flying into her husband. Seerim caught her, his fingers closing on her biceps as he held her steady but not tenderly. He, too, I noticed vaguely as the pain faded but did not, by a long shot, go away, looked seriously pissed.

Lahn was barking words and my eyes moved to him to see he was staring down at me as he raged. My hand drifted up to my cheekbone and I stared dazedly back at him.

“He… he wants me to… to… translate,” Diandra said haltingly then spoke a flurry of quick words in Korwahk.

I said nothing, just stared at my husband.

Lahn’s enraged eyes didn’t leave me when he snarled more words and Diandra started talking.

“He… the Dax… he says he did not know where you were. He says they’ve been looking for you. He says you are never to leave the cham without a guard.” She paused and Lahn kept thundering then she went on. “He says you are queen and you must understand this and the possible dangers and you must never, never leave the cham without a guard.” She stopped then she said, “Circe, I’m so sorry, I didn’t –”

I took my hand from my face, lifted it toward her palm up and she stopped talking.

Lahn had quit speaking but his dark eyes were still filled with wrath and they were burning into mine so fiercely I could actually feel the fire.

And I did not f**king care.

I pushed to my feet and turned my body to facing him.

Then I spoke and when I did, so did Diandra.

“My father loved my mother. He loved her deeply. He said they were the perfect match. When I was ten and she was murdered,” Diandra stopped talking and I heard her soft intake of breath but then she carried on because I didn’t stop. “He never got over it. Never got over her. Never. And he gave me all the love he would have normally given me and the love he would have given her. He thought I was precious and he treated me that way. This was because I was his daughter but it was also because I was the most important thing my mother gave to him and I was all he had left of her.” I swallowed and watched my words start to penetrate Lahn’s fury but I didn’t care about that either and kept right on talking. “And I promised myself, vowed, that I would find a man like my father who would love me deeply and treasure me more than anything in the world.”

I stopped talking when I saw Lahn’s body lock.

Then I kept going.

“You raped me,” I whispered and Diandra spoke softly, “and somehow I found it in me to forgive you. You left me out in the burning sun even though I told you the harm it would do to me and I forgave you. This is your world, this is your way and I have struggled with it but I have accepted it.” I pulled in breath and continued, “But what you did just now, taking your anger out on me when I did something in all innocence, I cannot and will not forgive. You do not know your own strength but it is formidable, so formidable it cows men but I am no man. I am a woman, your woman and you used all of it in violence against me and that, kah Dax, is unforgiveable.”

He held my eyes at the same time he held his body completely still.

I finished and I did it quietly, “My father was an honorable man and he would wish for me to be treasured. If he were here, he and all of his men would fall by your Horde’s swords in order to protect me from the harm you’ve inflicted on me. They would do it and before they did it they… wouldn’t… blink. And because of that, because I know that in the depth of my soul and because of everything he gave to me, all the love he showed me, in return, I loved him more than anything in this world. I respected him. I honored him over any man I ever met. But he is lost to me. He is gone and therefore could not be here to protect me but you should know this, my king… if he knew you, he would not like you.”

When I stopped speaking, I realized my chest was rising and falling rapidly and I held his eyes as they burned into mine.

Then he barked out the words, “Tahkoo tan!”* and the instant he did, I felt the tent empty but I didn’t tear my eyes from Lahn.

We stared at each other for long moments after we were alone, Lahn statue-still, me breathing heavily before he said in a quiet voice, “Vayoo ansha.”

I shook my head and whispered, “Never. For good and always, you have lost me. Na me lapay kah Lahn. Not anymore.”**

I watched him flinch but I didn’t care about that either.

When he recovered, his voice was soft when he said, “Vayoo ansha, kah rahna fauna.”

I shook my head again and moved. Skirting him, I went to the trunks and dropped to my knees to open one to get a nightgown thinking I had no escape. I had nowhere to go. I didn’t even have another f**king room where I could hide and let lose the tears that were burning in my throat.

I felt him come at me before he got to me then his arms closed around me from behind, trapping mine tight to my front and he pulled me to my feet. He held me close and bent at the waist so his face was in my neck. There he spoke more soft words and I pushed hard against his arms caging mine but, as usual, there was no give.