“Oh my God,” I whispered, my hands clasping and coming up to my chest as my eyes stayed glued to her.

“It is in a tongue I do not understand. I wrote it down as I heard it and I will share it with you that same way. He expects a response and I have moved quickly through Korwahk to give this message to you for his spell has bound me and I am not at my own free will until I provide your reply.”

“What did he say?” I asked and she nodded, unfolded the parchment and started speaking in halting English.

“Circe, girl, this is your father. I’m guessin’ you’re gettin’ that I’m leavin’ you there for your own good and the good of my grandbaby. That asshole ain’t treatin’ you right, you tell whoever gives you this message and we’ll move heaven and earth to find a way to bring you all home. He is, you tell her that too and I wanna know my grandchild’s name. And he isn’t, you tell him I’m gonna find a magical way to kick his warrior ass. But I got all the hope in the world that you’re happy, darlin’. I love you, Circe girl, and I always will.”

I clenched my teeth and swallowed as I closed my eyes.

“I can assume I know what ‘asshole’ means,” Lahn remarked tersely and my eyes flew open.

He’d heard the message before, he’d understood it and that was why he was pissed.

Shit!

I opened my mouth to say something but Lahn got there before me, barking at the witch, “Leave now. My wife will give you her reply tomorrow. Come back after the sun begins its descent.”

She nodded, reading his mood (which was hard to miss) and got the hell out of there.

The door barely closed on her when I started, “Lahn –”

But I didn’t finish. This was because he lunged toward me, grabbed my hand in a tight grip and dragged me out of the room.

I was running to keep up with his long, angry strides and he was already at the stairs before I got myself together to cry, “Lahn! What on earth?”

“Quiet,” he growled.

Uh-oh.

Perhaps Diandra was wrong. Perhaps Lahn wasn’t going to find someone else to receive the sharp edge of his impatience. Perhaps that someone was going to be me.

He went straight to our room, pulled me in so hard I went flying in five steps when he released me. He came in after me and slammed the door behind him.

Uh-oh again.

I lifted a hand and started retreating as he started advancing.

“Lahn –” I whispered.

“Eight months,” he clipped and I blinked.

“Wh… what?” I stammered as I kept backing up and Lahn kept advancing.

“Eight months, my queen, I have not taken a woman.”

Oh my God!

I blinked again and in the nanosecond of that blink, this news hit me like a shot.

Oh… my… God!

My eyes stayed glued to him as my heart started beating fast.

I hit bed, skirted it and kept retreating.

Then I whispered, “Really?” and he jerked his chin up.

Then he spat, “Really. ”

Oh man.

“Uh…” I mumbled, liking this, hating this (mainly because I wasn’t giving it up to him as I should as his wife and the woman who loved him), being thrilled by it and feeling massive guilt at the same time.

I hit wall and slid to the side, hitting corner and sliding down a new wall as he stopped and slowly turned his big body to keep facing me.

“My Circe told me it was important to her…” he leaned in and his eyes narrowed, “crucial, ” he hissed, “that I use my body on no one but her. So I have used my body on no one but her. ”

Oh… man.

My heart stopped beating fast and started thumping faster.

“Lahn –” I whispered.

“But she withholds from me.”

Oh shit.

When I’d cleared him, I came away from the wall and started to back toward the door.

Lahn came at me again. “She withholds her xaxsah. She withholds her golden honey. She withholds her claws. She withholds her spirit.

And, since she bore my children, she withholds even her time. ”

“Uh…” I mumbled again.

I hit door and didn’t even get close to finding the knob. Lahn moved fast, I was up, across the room and on my back in the bed, Lahn on top of me. I was winded, his face was in my face and he was beyond furious, he was seriously fucking pissed, him and the brutal, golden spirit that was shining in his eyes.

And he was something else. Something I didn’t get. Something I couldn’t read. Something that didn’t belong in his eyes. It was wrong there.

Cataclysmically wrong.

“I will not take you by force for I know you will use it as well as reason never to forgive me and now I know it to be true, from the name your father called me, that you never will.”

“Lahn –” I whispered again as what I saw in his eyes, held by his spirit, started to dawn.

He talked over me. “But you should know before I leave you to be my queen only for our people, my wife only to be mother to Tunahn and Isis and I let you go, that I suffered for my mistake, I suffered for it greatly when I found you left me.”

My heart thumped harder just as my belly melted.