“It is admirable that you try to be a husband.” Oldun did not pull away, even stepped closer. “Surely you’ve been . . . lonely.”
She had the gall to touch the front of my belt.
I gripped her wrist, pulling her hand aside briskly. “Do not place your hands on me again.”
“Who does then?” Oldun bit down on her bottom lip. “Surely not the elven, we all heard how it is, and she is a fool not to join you in your bed.”
Mesmer clouded my eyes. I took a bit of delight in the wash of fear paling Oldun’s features. “Do not speak poorly of my wife.”
“Jonas. Gods, there you are. What the hells are you . . .” Von’s voice faded, but he made his way through the cooking rooms and cut an arm between me and Oldun, He shot a look my way. “Step back.”
I bared my teeth, but blinked until the blur of darkness faded from my eyes. I shoved around them and made no attempts to greet a soul until I slammed the door behind me in the half-constructed room in the upper corridor.
Sander sat on the floor, legs outstretched, with a book of elvish plants and herbs open on his lap. “What’s wrong with you?”
“Seems one of the women in the cooking rooms thought she had a right to my bed, and did not believe me when I said she didn’t.”
“Hmm.” My brother didn’t look up from the pages. “You could’ve.”
“Could’ve what?”
“You could’ve returned with her. Could’ve taken her to wherever you go to bed women. No one on Natthaven would be able to speak againstyou.”
I drew to a halt, my hand hovering over the handle of a wood scraper. “Is that how highly you think of me?”
“You vowed with Skadi to bring peace, didn’t you? You fear war, it eats at you, haunts your dreams.”
“Shut up, brother.” I took up the tool and returned to the damn shelf that should’ve been finished by now.
Sander chuckled, slapping the pages closed. “Isn’t that why you took vows? More than that spell you absorbed to keep the sea and earth realms safe, it is the fear of war and battle that led you to vow with the princess.”
“What does it matter?”
“Nowhere in that reason does it say you must not live your life as you did.” He let out a long breath. “So, you could’ve gone with the woman.”
I yanked the book from his hands, using the spine to point at him. “Stop telling me to betray my wife. What’s gotten into you?”
“Is it a betrayal? Your negotiations do not speak of fidelity, they do not speak of love.” Sander folded his arms over his chest. “Unless those pieces are becoming rather important to you.”
I blew shavings off the surface in an angry breath. “Why don’t you speak a little plainer. What are you getting at?”
“You want to care about her; I think you already do. I think something about her speaks to you.”
“I think you are wrong.” There could be no caring for my wife, not in that way. “I told her when we first arrived, I would not have other lovers. I gave her my word.”
“And what did she say?”
“That she did not believe me.”
Sander hesitated. “Jo, why have you never wanted to love anyone?”
“I love plenty.”
“You know what I mean. You never wanted to take vows.”
“Circumstances changed.”
“I know,” he said. “Now you have taken them, and you look miserable because the wife you claim not to care for isn’t speaking to you.”
