“Because,” she whispered, her shoulders hunching, as if that stance alone might protect her from the mocking laughter he was surely about to fling her way, “…I thought she was your mistress.”
The silence that fell between them was deafening. She was entirely too aware of the rasp of her own breath, the burn of his asymmetrical stare against her face, the flutter of her pulse.
After a small eternity, he finally repeated, “You thought she was my mistress.”
She flinched, waiting for the verbal abuse to begin. But he didn’t laugh as she had expected he would. Nor did he taunt her. He simply stared.
His silence was even worse than his mockery.
Pressure built within her as she stood there, waiting for him to say something. Anything. When he did not, she finally shoved away from the table and turned to make for the kitchen. She might as well fetch Olivia and get out of there before her Queensguard realized she was missing.
But before she could take that first step, Aldric’s hand captured hers, his grip somehow both gentle and strong at once. “You thought I was spending our wedding night with another woman,” he rumbled, carefully sounding out each syllable.
It wasn’t a question. Merely a statement.
A statement to which she didn’t know how to respond.
His touch was warm, his skin pleasantly rough against her own. But with her Crow’s nearness came the memory of her latest vision-dream. The voice. The cold. The laughter.
She withdrew her hand from his and edged away, placing the table between them. “What are we doing, Aldric?”
His one eye narrowed as he cautiously sounded out, “You tell me.”
“I just mean…” She glanced away, looking about the little cottage—at the worn floorboards, the battered furniture—anywhere but at him. “We swore to do this together that day in the throne room. And yet we’ve still been at each other’s throats ever since. Thinking the worst of each other. Bickering like children.”
She lifted her chin and clarified, “I am not absolving myself of blame either. I know I have been doing it too, just as much as you have.” Cautiously, she dared to peek back his way to gauge how he was taking her speech thus far.
His right eyebrow twitched, but otherwise, he had no reaction to her words.
Wetting her lips, she suggested, “I propose a truce.”
Aldric expelled a humorless breath. “I didn’t realize we were at war.”
“You know what I mean,” she snapped, already losing her patience.
What was it about her Crow that she found so utterly maddening? His taciturn demeanor? His seeming determination to goad her at every available opportunity?
“Very well, wife,” he rasped without a single trace of emotion. “Name the terms of your peace treaty.”
She narrowed her eyes. Was he mocking her again? When his deadpan expression didn’t shift in the slightest, she murmured, “No more baiting the other. No more being rude on purpose. Accidental rudeness is acceptable, within reason, so long as it is accompanied by an apology.” After a moment’s consideration, she tacked on, “And no more secrets.”
Aldric’s lips pressed into a thin line at that.
She raised her eyebrow, inviting his input. “Did you wish to add something,husband?” That word tasted strange on her tongue, but she might as well get used to that, too.
A thought clearly brewed within her Crow’s eye, something he was mulling over. Finally, he spat out, “I want you to start listening to my opinion on matters where I know more than you do.”
He might as well have slapped her across the face. Her initial reaction was to balk, to protest. But she knew that was just her pride talking. There were certainly…somethings on which he knew more than she did. War for one.
Probably…horses, for another.
As if he was determined to test her resolve on their truce, he added, “I know you like being right, Sera, but you don’t know everything.”
She gritted her teeth and gave a sharp nod, agreeing to his terms.
But still he continued. “I am your consort, and I wish to be treated like a consort.”
“Very well,” she said, louder than she intended. Expelling a slow breath through her nose, she repeated in a quieter—calmer—tone, “Very well. You will be treated like a consort. You can start by inspecting the troops tomorrow with Sir Easome and the Lord Chancellor and then sharing with me your thoughts, to which I will listen and take your advice into account.”
