The stewards gasped. Olivian’s hands curled into fists at his sides. “An...actor?”
I wanted to scream.Thatwas the important part in all this? Really?
Kai gave asorry-not-sorryshrug.
“And you thought you could marry my daughter?” the seneschal said, low and trembling. “You thought my Amryssa would marry anactor?”
Kai’s gaze slid to mine. “What can I say? I’m nothing if not optimistic. And I do have a habit of shooting for the stars.”
“Get. Out,” Olivian said. Then, louder, “Out! Get out of my house!”
Vick shoved Kai toward us and ran, taking the dagger and diary with him. He hauled open the doors and disappeared before Olivian had even made it down the stairs. The stewards hovered, frozen.
Meanwhile, relief screamed through me, so complete that my knees buckled. I half-slid, half-scrambled toward Kai, who just stood there, bleeding, like he had exactly zero plans to retreat from Olivian’s advance.
I made it between them just in time. I skidded to a stop and faced the seneschal with my arms flung out. “Don’t touch him.”
“Lioness,” Kai said from behind me. “There’s really no need.”
Olivian lowered his head, the tendons of his neck sharp enough to slice. “Get out of my way.”
“No.”
“Go ahead,” Kai said. “Let him hit me, if he likes.”
“No,” I gritted out. “Only I get to do that. Ifhedoes, he’ll break your face, and you won’t be nearly as pretty, afterward.”
Kai laughed softly, and gods, I wanted to drink the sound. Build a shrine to it, because it meant he was alive, that he would be fine, that he could walk out of here and not look back and live a whole life in Fairmont or wherever the hell he ended up and never think about this place again.
“Just go,” I said.
“Go?” He sounded offended. “Surely you don’t think I’mleaving?”
Olivian flashed his teeth. “Step aside, girl. Or Iwillgo through you. He tried to marry my daughter, and he’ll answer for it.”
Oh, that was it. I’d had enough of the threats. Of Olivian’s bullying and glowering and stomping around. I stepped in and shoved my finger in his face, exactly the way I’d dreamed of doing for years. “Just stop it, will you? Stop throwing your weight around. Stop intimidating people all the time. Stop refusing to look past the end of your own stubborn nose, and give me thirty seconds to talk to Kai without you threatening us, you brutish, tyrannical, hate-mongeringfailureof a seneschal and a father.”
Olivian jerked back, his eyes wide.
I shook my finger again, scarcely daring to believe I’d actually cowed him. “Look. You can throw him out, if you want. It’s your house. But let me talk to my husband first, for pity’s sake.”
He blinked, his green eyes traveling between us. “Your...husband?”
“Yes.” Acid dripped from my tone.
His mouth twisted. “But the annulment.”
“Didn’t matter by the time it got signed. And it wasn’t Kai’s name on that paper, anyway.”
Olivian took that in. “You’re married to this charlatan? Of your own choosing?”
“I am.”
“Youcareabout him?”
“Yes,” I hissed.
He made as if to come at us, then stopped. His attention flickered to the corner, and something surfaced in his expression. A glimmer I recognized.
