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What?The sudden change of topic gave her emotional whiplash. Had he heard about what happened today after all?
“What are you talking about?”
“I’m not an idiot. Every time you deliver food to his mother’s house, you take suspiciously long to come home.”
Her face heated. He thought she was spending time with Mak every time she’d been in a rebel meeting. If he’d come just once knocking on the door, they’d have been in serious trouble. Maybe Neil had been right, and including her in the group had been a dangerous mistake.
She didn’t know what to answer. She didn’t want to deny his accusations because it would put the rebels at risk, but confirming them would put her and Mak in the difficult situation she was trying to avoid.
“You think I’m so cold and he’s so caring?” he continued. “He is using you to make me angry.”
Yeah, she’d guessed that much already.
“Why?” she asked. As a rebel, Mak hated Altair for being a Dougal, but this felt more personal.
“When I first arrived here and was living in my office in the council building, I caught him having sex with the wife of a council member. The man had denied him access to the building one evening, and for revenge, Mak seduced his new wife in the man’s own office. He never planned on anyone finding out. The punishment for sleeping with another man’s wife is death. He just wanted to turn the man’s wife against him. And maybe he felt some pride knowing he’d had sex with her first.”
Altair studied her face for a reaction.
She kept it as neutral as she could. “That’s disgusting.”
She didn’t care about the council member, but his wife?
The poor girl had been kidnapped and forced to marry a stranger. Then she’d thought she’d found a friend in this awful place, and it turned out he didn’t care about her at all but was using her to upset her husband.
She also felt suddenly very glad that she hadn’t slept with Mak. She’d never assumed it would be anything more than sex, but the fact that he used women that way, that he’d planned to useherthat way…
“What did you do?” she asked. Mak obviously hadn’t been punished.
“I told him to break it off with the girl or I would tell everyone what I saw.”
And now Mak was using the same trick to take his revenge on Altair.
“Why didn’t you turn him in?”
“I didn’t want his plan to work. I didn’t want to embarrass the council member. And…I didn’t want to embarrass his wife.”
He turned to look into her eyes.
“Women who first arrive on Mudden should be given special treatment. They need time to adjust to their situation. There is an understanding amongst every decent Mudden citizen that these women need to be protected, and not abused or used. Unfortunately, there are no official laws protecting them, and it’s something I’d like to change. More than the adultery, this is what makes me certain that Mak is dangerous, the fact that he chooses newly matched women as his victims.”
She didn’t know what to say.
“This is why I don’t blame you for anything that you may have done with him. I think of this time period the same way that I do about your past. You haven’t fully committed to me yet, so I cannot expect you to be faithful.”
That was a surprisingly compassionate thing for him to say.
“I didn’t have sex with him,” she blurted out. She didn’t know why, a moment of insanity. She shouldn’t be trying to please Altair, yet she wanted him to know she wasn’t easily manipulated, and she hadn’t made a fool of him.
A small satisfied smile crossed his lips.
“Good. But it doesn’t matter. He can never take you away from me. You are my wife. My match. No matter how long it takes for you to realize that, I will be patient. But you will always be mine. Forever. No one can ever take you away from me.”
She swallowed the lump in her throat as blood pounded in her ears. Little did he know that she was the very person keeping him away from his true match.
* * *
The next day was the day of the council meeting. Altair said they would go together after work. As always, people ignored them or outright sneered at Altair as they entered the meeting room. There was a negative energy in the room as people whispered to each other with their heads bent low. Nova had never been to a council meeting before, but from what she’d heard from others, this was not the usual atmosphere. People tended to view these meetings as an opportunity to socialize. No one here looked happy to be here, and she had a feeling that the Mudden military men walking around the room like they owned Baeddan had something to do with it.
