"W–WHO IS YOUR WIFE!"
The words cracked out of her before she could throttle them back. The aftermath hit her instantly. Her throat tightened, her pulse kicked upward, and any semblance of knightly composure evaporated into smoke.
Lucavion blinked once. Then his lips curved. Slowly. Dangerously.
"Oh?" he murmured. "So you do object?"
Valeria felt her entire face ignite. "T–that's not— I wasn't— You—!"
She could not form a sentence. Not a coherent one. Every time she tried, her voice tangled with mortification. She sounded nothing like the disciplined knight she had spent years shaping herself into and everything like someone cornered by her own flustered instincts.
Lucavion leaned back, one eyebrow arched with delighted cruelty. "Valeria," he said warmly, "are you… jealous?"
"S–SHUT UP!"
Her voice cracked again. She slapped both hands onto the table just to steady herself. Her mind kept looping back to the same horrifying realization:
Elowyn is watching.
