She gave me a crooked smile that looked alarmingly tipsy and I wondered with some concern if Diandra was a lightweight.

“I’d love that… Circe, ” then she giggled.

Oh shit.

The cham flaps slapped open, I turned to them and then stopped breathing when Lahn bent low and entered.

Here we go.

His eyes cut through Diandra, across the bed and hit me standing at the far end of it. Then his face went soft. Then he took a step toward me.

I lifted my hand swiftly and said, “Stop.”

Diandra translated.

Lahn stopped and his brows drew together in a way that didn’t loosen me up one bit, his gaze sliced to Diandra then back to me.

“We need to talk,” I told him in a soft voice. “It’s important. I asked Diandra to translate for us. Please, Lahn, will you talk with me?”

Diandra interpreted and Lahn stared at me with that scary look for awhile then he jerked his chin up, crossed his arms on his chest and cleared his expression.

“I think that means yes, Circe,” Diandra translated his look.

“I think I got that, honey,” I said to her, Lahn’s brows snapped right back together again and he looked over at Diandra.

“Lahn,” I called and his eyes came back to me. “Did you have sex with one of the Xacto last night?”

His face darkened ominously when I said the word “Xacto” and it darkened more ominously when Diandra translated what I said.

I held my breath.

He scowled at me.

I felt my heart start to hurt.

He continued to scowl at me.

My heart squeezed.

“Me,” he finally grunted.

“No,” Diandra translated a word I actually knew and I felt my chest release.

“Okay, baby,” I whispered to Lahn, watched his eyes flare briefly when I did but the scowl didn’t shift. “Now,” I went on carefully and quietly, “I know I’m living in your world, I get that. But I want to explain something about my world, something I want you to get and I want you to get what it means to me. Will you listen?”

Diandra translated. When she finished, Lahn kept scowling but jerked his chin up.

“Shahsha,” I whispered, got nothing but continued heat from his eyes and then forged ahead. “In my world, men are faithful to their wives. They don’t cheat on them, they don’t have sex with other women or do anything with them, sexually or not. They don’t allow other women to touch them, bathe them, um… etcetera.”

Diandra translated and her translation became tentative as the raw, brutal energy Lahn normally exuded ratcheted up to the danger zone.

“I get that you do, here, I mean, the warriors do and all that,” I said swiftly, Diandra translating with me, “but in my world we don’t. We so don’t, if a man does that to his wife, she has the right to leave him.”

This was a mistake. A bad one.

I knew this when his body tensed so fiercely, it seemed to grow and expand and I heard the growl escape his throat.

No words, just a growl.

“Circe, my dear, I didn’t know… you shouldn’t… warrior wives do not ever –” Diandra started but Lahn spoke over her and his words were clipped and seriously fucking pissed off.

When he was done talking, Diandra translated.

“You will not leave.”

“I wasn’t saying I was going to, just –”

Diandra spoke with me and Lahn spoke over her and she translated but she didn’t have to. He simply repeated his pissed off words.

“You will not leave.”

“I wasn’t –”

He kept talking and Diandra interpreted.

“You will not call the wife of Seerim after me.”

I blinked at this sudden change of subject as well as his words which I did not get.

“What?”

Diandra translated, Lahn spoke and then she spoke again.

“You will not call Seerim’s woman ‘honey’. That is mine.”

Oh man.

“It’s an endearment,” I explained. “In my world we say it to –”

“It is mine. You will not use it with anyone but me.”

I studied him and decided this was not going very well.

So I decided to agree in order to try to soften him up for the hard part.

“Okay,” I whispered.

“Okay,” he bit off.