The sight of him, his lips on her skin, was like a slap to his face, a blatant display of disrespect that would not go unanswered.
The clap of a heavy hand fell on his shoulder as Kaal and hishermanos,the Signet company and the vanguard of the flotilla, closed ranks around him.
‘Brother,’ Kaal growled into Mak’s ear. ‘Don’t let him get to you.’
‘Fokkif I’m going to let our age-old enemy one-up us and with an unwanted Lisade bride no less,’ Mak grunted back.
Kaal’s hand gripped Mak’s bicep with brute power.
It kept him from charging toward Zolan without thought. His eyes glinted with concern and a steeled readiness for whatever may come.
Kaal raised his chin. ‘You calm?’
Mak took a deep breath. ‘I’m edgy. He’s challenging me, no doubt, and I want to let loose on him.’
‘If you step to his face in this public venue, you’ll be throwing down the gauntlet. Don’t do it,’ Xander, Mak’s Commander and close friend, warned, ever the peacekeeper.
Mak took an inhale, heart weary, done with keeping up appearances.
The outcome of this wedding ceremony had been a shitshow so far, and he was raging with the wild urge to hurt someone, to make them pay.
Xander, despite being Mak’s Signet leader, had no idea of the Sauvage family skeletons and no clue of the constant saber-rattling that often took place behind their closed doors.
‘If I let him preen about and come within five feet of myŠarim, we look weak before this assembly,’ Mak hissed.
He also spotted a few priests of the Holy See flicking nervous looks between them. They were the keepers of their religious Akkadian-based tradition, and he observed their discomfort at Asivan’s blatant disregard for their Code of Honor.
One of the most controversial was the unspoken rule that no unmarried man was allowed to touch a woman who was wed.
‘I can’t let the challenge remain unmet,’ Mak growled to his brothers.
‘Go,’ Santi rasped. ‘But keep it clean,cabrón.’
‘I will, tis the only thing to do,’ Mak snarled as the eyes of their guests canted back and forth from his cousin and him, tension ratcheting.
Mak forced a tight smile and, masking the turmoil within, he strode forward.
Straight through the throngs that parted like the sea until he reached Saba’s side and placed a possessive hand on his bride’s arm.
Silence fell around them as all eyes were fixed on them.
The whispers of those witnessing more of the infamous enmity between the Asivan and Sauvage clans rippled through the room.
‘Zolan,’ Mak drawled. ‘To what do we owe this unexpected pleasure?’
His eyes gleamed with malice as Zolan straightened, his gaze flicking from Mak to his bride with thinly veiled contempt. ‘I’m here to offer my congratulations to the happy couple,’ he replied, though the underlying threat in his tone was unmistakable.
Mak narrowed his eyes at him in silent warning. ‘I don’t remember sending you a wedding invitation,’ he retorted, his voice tinged with iciness, aware he had not indeed sent one.
He swiveled his head towards his wife, arching a brow. ‘Šarim, one of your first wifely duties then must be to get your husband a visit to his physician,’ Zolan taunted, eyes on Mak. ‘His memory wanes.’
Zolan’s smirk widened, and Mak noted the challenge in his eyes, the unspoken rivalry that had simmered for years.
Mak had the power to shut him down right then; however, this moment was not about their petty grievances, societal scandals, or familial discord, which had plagued them for far too long.
Today was about the union of two people bound together by fate and circumstance, and community.
It was also about the woman standing at his side, her green eyes shimmering with confusion and concern as she glanced between them.
