Page 118 of Tamed By Her Touch

“She is my wife. It is my responsibility to guard her.”

Sendar nodded.

“I was once protective of my wife too,” he said softly.

Kaelus remembered their conversation the day before.

“Galandra,” he said.

Sendar’s expression changed immediately. His shoulders slumped and sorrow settled over his features with almost theatrical speed.

“Ah yes—my dear Galandra.”

“I am sorry for your loss,” Kaelus said stiffly.

Sendar nodded.

“Thank you.”

“What happened to her?”

Kaelus hadn’t intended to ask so directly, but something about the other male’s grief bothered him. It seemed false somehow—put on like a convenient costume.

Sendar sighed.

“It was a terrible accident—she drowned.”

Kaelus frowned.

“In open water?” He hadn’t seen many large bodies of water since they’d been here.

Sendar shook his head.

“No. In our bathing pool.”

For a moment Kaelus simply stared.

“She drowned in a bath?” It seemed really improbable, though he supposed it could happen.

Sendar nodded sadly.

“She was exhausted the night it happened. Galandra worked here in the Archive as well. She had become rather obsessed with some very old records and had been staying late night after night. She was having difficulty sleeping, so she had begun taking a mild calming draught before bed.”

Something cold moved through Kaelus’s gut.

“And then?”

“One evening I was working late. She went home before me, took her draught, and apparently decided to bathe.” Sendar looked down. “When I returned, I found her beneath the water.”

Kaelus was silent. On any other world, it would have sounded like a tragic accident. On Titus Four it sounded wrong.

Every male on this planet seemed unable to let his wife cross a room without making certain she was safe and comfortable. Varell watched Maera as though she was the center of his universe. Husbands carried their wives’ burdens, tasted their food, walked beside them, kissed them before leaving, and practically built their entire lives around keeping their goddesses protected.

And Sendar’s exhausted wife had been taking a substance to make her sleep—then climbing alone into a bathing pool while her husband remained at work?

Kaelus couldn’t imagine Varell allowing Maera to do such a thing. He couldn’t imagine himself allowing Clair to do it either.

That realization troubled him almost as much as Sendar’s story.