Page 153 of Onyx Cage: Volume II
“What exactly areyouupset about?” she demanded. “It’s not like you were just demeaned in front of the entire council.”
Was she joking? Shemustbe joking.
“Itislike that, as a matter of fact,” I responded, just in case she had genuinely failed to see the irony in her words.
She let out another of her indignant huffs. “Surely, you didn’t expect me to just sit there in silence while you?—”
There was that word again, that condescendingsurely, paired with something that was much less reasonable than she understood it to be.
“That’s exactly what I expected you to do,” I cut her off, once again opting for bluntness since my subtleties sure as storms-damned hell hadn’t worked in the council room.
“Well, perhaps you can bestow a barbaric punishment upon me, as well,” she snapped. “Let’s see, if fifteen lashes is standard for mischievous boys, whatever would a disobedient wife rate?”
Crimson edged out my vision, and I took a deep breath in an effort to drive it away.Barbaric.
Like I was hurting children for the hell of it instead of disciplining trained soldiers who had known damned good and well what they were doing.
I wasn’t even going to touch her implication that I would bestow that kind of punishment on her—not if I wanted to keep whatever civility remained in this conversation, of which there was already very little.
“Why did you even invite me if you didn’t plan on listening to a damned word I said?” she challenged when I didn’t respond.
“Well, I confess,” I bit back with false congeniality. “It didn't actually occur to me when I asked you to go that you wouldn’t have the basic common sense to refrain from criticizing mydecisions in front of the entire Council of Lords regarding a law that you know exactly nothing about.”
Her lips parted in outrage, and she shook her head. “Funny, because it didn’t actually occur tomethat you would be sadistic enough to subject someone else to the same form of torture that you’ve experienced yourself, that nearly killed your wife.”
For all that she claimed not to view me as a monster, she certainly had no problem hurling my apparent love of torture in my face. The last I had checked, her own kingdom was no stranger to floggings, but she didn’t seem to be in a hurry to accuse her whole beloved family of being sadists.
No. Only me.
“Lemmikki,” I began with all of the very limited patience I could muster. “Theseboysare twice your size. Fifteen lashes won’t kill them, especially when the whip isn’t being wielded by a man like Samu. It will, however, deter them and everyone watching from disobedience in the future that would get them or their fellow soldiers killed.”
Once again, I made a valiant effort to explain the stakes to her. And once again, she balked.
“And this is the only way to accomplish that?” She threw out her hands for emphasis. “Scarring them for life?”
“It’s a known, effective way of accomplishing that.” I bit out each word. “And again, this isnotwhat happened to you. One standard lashing isn’t likely to leave them mutilated.”
“Likely?” She put a hand on her chest in a display of mock relief. “Well then, what could I possibly have to be upset about, as long as the boys arelikelynot going to be mutilated?”
Did she honestly not see that a few lash scars would be the least of their problems if everything in Bear went to hell like it was so carefully poised to do?
No, of course she didn’t. Just like when she had failed to understand the implications of her marriage to Korhonan on myclan. Despite the numerous times I attempted to explain it to her, she was still content to paint me as the villain rather than acknowledge for a single moment that I was qualified to lead my own storms-damned armies.
That, perhaps, if I made a decision she didn’t understand, the problem was with her lack of insight on the situation rather than my own predilection for inflicting needless pain on my own men? Was it so difficult to imagine that, in the absence of her own experience, she might trust in mine?
I shook my head, a frustrated breath escaping me. “We’re very possibly teetering on the brink of a war, and you want to argue with me about the way I discipline my soldiers? A job that, by the way, I was doing back when your biggest concern in life was which tiara to wear that day.”
She froze, tilting her head like she hadn’t heard me, though her furious expression said she very much had.
“No,” she breathed after a single beat of silence. “Of course not, My Lord,” Her voice was several octaves higher than usual, dripping with false sincerity. “I wouldn’t dream of having an opinion about something so bold as politics or warfare. Perhaps you could find me something to knit instead.”
“Perhaps I should.” My voice rose of its own accord. “If the alternative is you making arses of both of us in front of the people we need to respect us most.”
Rowan let out another huff of air, but this one was drenched in bitterness. “Respectyou, you mean,” she corrected.
Like I hadn’t spent the last hour staring down the very lords whose support I needed for having the nerve to glare at my wife.
I squeezed my eyes shut, taking another breath before I yelled in truth.