He caught the man’s fist and held it. Taven tried to yank it back, but Jesstin tightened his grip. “When a woman tells you to leave, Considine, you leave.”
“You don’t speak for her.”
“Didn’t get the message when she snuck out to avoid you?”
“I know she snuck out. I watched her do it! I waited and waited and waited all day, and?—”
“I’m tired of your games, Taven! I’ve hardly been home a day!” Elloven stood. “I’m asking you, as a friend, to please stop.”
“Your friend?” Taven danced his incredulous glare to Jesstin and back. “Did you not tell him we’re to be married?”
The notion made Jesstin sick to his stomach, but he could see Elloven felt the same, and he decided he would never let it happen. Everyone else had failed her, and he was suddenly aware of his own privilege of having a loving family in spite of the shade hanging over his name and reputation.
He’d only met the woman, and he was ready to die for her.
Sesto would tell him he was fixating again, that he always had to have something to obsess over. Maybe he was right. He didn’t care. He’d obsessed over far worse.
“I’m never getting married again and certainly not to you,” Elloven said with a cool laugh that made Taven’s entire face flush in defiance. “Not that you’ve ever cared about what I want.”
“Go, or I’ll get someone to help you,” Jesstin said. He moved closer to her, angling himself so that he could react if Taven did something unwise.
“Is there a problem?” A high-pitched voice sang the words. A golden-haired Virtue stood behind Taven with a troubled look, almost childlike. The Virtues were children, in a way, because they’d never been given freedom to grow into something more. They would forever be the age they were when acquired, barely even of marrying age, which was the whole allure of them, he supposed.
“I don’t know, stable hand, is there?” Jesstin asked.
“Are you fucking him?” Taven demanded, turning his back on Jesstin as he towered over Elloven. “You know he has a reputation. He’ll only hurt you.”
“I wouldn’t know anything about fucking, Taven, as I’ve only been with men who chose their own needs first,” Elloven spat. She seemed to grow taller as she stood up to him. “I was fourteen when you first saw to your own.”
Taven glowed with shame and anger. The Virtue whispered something that sounded like oh dear, and two others appeared, mumbling questions to each other. “You’re misremembering things, Ellie.”
“Or you’re remembering them as it suits you, as you always have.”
“Enough.” Jesstin slid between them. “I won’t ask again. Go home.”
Taven rolled his eyes and threw a wild punch that hit Jesstin square in the jaw.
“You’re going to regret that.” Jesstin rubbed his chin, winced, and threw his weight into the man, knocking him to the floor. Elloven screamed, and so did the Virtues standing nearby, amid sliding chairs and gasps.
Jesstin wedged a hand over Taven’s neck, pushing on the center of his throat. Taven thrashed and sputtered underneath him. “Are you done?”
Taven spat in his face.
The rest was a blur.
The next thing Jesstin remembered was a man pulling him away and looking down to see Taven gurgling blood, glaring at him through the eye not swelling shut.
Elloven’s hands were on his back, his shoulders. She was trembling and breathing hard, her hair lifting and falling like a wind had swept through the tavern. He had the overpowering urge to get her away from the tavern, the town, the world. He saw himself turning toward her and proposing exactly that, but when he did turn, he realized she required a different kind of calming.
Elloven looked positively, indisputably murderous.
“It’s all right.” Jesstin stumbled into the table. She caught him, but her eyes followed Taven as the men helped him to the door. His head ached from the one good hit Taven had gotten in, but he’d been hit harder.
“It’s not all right, Jesstin. It’s never been all right,” Elloven said, low and tense. She waited for him to sit upright before taking her own seat again. “Did he hurt you?”
When Jesstin grinned, he tasted a tinge of his own blood. “Ask him the same question.”
She didn’t smile back. “He’s not a man who lets things go.”
