“He has his friend in his guest room,” I shot back. “And if we ever crossed that line—ifthat ever happened—it wouldn’t be temporary. There’d be an announcement streamed and handlers drafting talking points.”
“What the fuck does that mean.”
“It means Atticus knows me. And I know him. We don’t risk our friendship on something casual. It’s marriage or friendship. Nothing in between.”
A string of Crow dialect poured down the line. Harsh consonants, low vowels, all of it sliding right past my understanding and straight into my nerves.
“Vince. Stop. I don’t understand you.”
“You should know my tongue,” he snapped. “My sub should know my fucking tongue. You know DePout’s dialect,” he bit out. “Don’t you.”
“It was taught at the Academy, All dynasties’ languages were. Apart from the Crows, because you’ve got a full language and an addiction to secrets.”
He went quiet in a way that felt heavier than yelling.
“You get to keep me locked in two worlds. Soft in your bed. Obedient on your phone. Invisible in public. It’s tidy. For you.”
“Tidy?” The word sounded like it burned on his tongue. “You think any part of this feels tidy from where I’m standing?”
Seven hours at the table had left me with no patience.
“You ignored me,” I said. “In the foyer tonight, you walked straight past. In the Hall, during Sovereign, you spoke to everyone but me. You stood beside other women. You gave a waiter more attention than you have given me in a room like that.”
“I was working,”
“I was working,” I shot back. “And when it ended, I needed my boyfriend. The sick part? He was there. He just walked right past to argue with three men whose names I barely know.”
“This again,” he muttered.
“Yes. This again. Because it keeps happening. Sovereign. Tonight. I’m supposed to swallow it as ‘safety’ while you stand beside other women. Meanwhile, I’m the one who spends entire weekends with your body inside mine and then gets treated like nothing when the lights come on.”
“Don’t do that. Don’t reduce what happens between us to a weekend and a bed.”
“How else am I meant to frame it?”
I wiped the tears off my cheek. I hated the feeling that consumed me. “Two days every second weekend I’m the star of your bed, and then I go back to being… what? A perfectly behaved sub who sends you lingerie photos every morning and a report every night while you pretend you don’t know me at events.”
It hurt. It physical fucking hurt. How could he not understand that.
He drew in a breath, slow and audible. “You think I don’t want to cross every room I’m in and bend you over the nearest surface when I remember them?”
“Wanting isn’t the same as doing.”
“You want me to do it in a hall full of cameras?” There was steel under the words now. “You want your father seeing my hand on your throat in Sovereign? You want every syndicatewatching the feed to mark you as the place to hit if they want to move me?”
“I want you to look at me like I exist,” I snapped. Apart of me hated I was even explaining this to him. I was arguing to be seen.
“You exist. You’re the only fucking thing that?—”
He cut himself off with another string of Crow dialect, harsher this time.
“Stop that. I don’t understand you!”
“You should. My girl should know my tongue. Not just DePout’s bastardised version of old dynasty.”
Heat surged up my neck. “This isn’t about languages.”
“It’s about loyalty.”
