It was so not-so-vaguely that in delivering that line, it felt like he’d delivered a blow.
A blow that made my head twitch but he either didn’t catch it or decided to ignore it and he kept talking.
“This matters not. My men speak the language of the Vale which is spoken throughout the Northlands, except in Fleuridia.”
“Oh…well, okay,” I murmured.
“You have other questions?” he prompted, raising a dark, thick eyebrow, every line of his body indicating he wanted to be anywhere but there.
“About a million of them,” I told him and he pulled in a sharp, annoyed breath through his nostrils.
“I don’t have time for a million questions, Ilsa,” he stated.
I took a step toward him and stopped, but lifted a hand. “Apollo, I’m kind of at a loss here. Your world is not like my world, like, in any way. Sure, we have tuna and you have tuna—”
Another sharp c**k of the head accompanied by his brows snapping together and he cut me off to ask, “Tuna?”
Right, they didn’t call it tuna.
Moving on.
I lifted my hand higher and circled it, “It doesn’t matter. What I’m saying is, things are very different here and I’ve been thrown in the deep end—”
Another brow draw but this one was ominous.
“You’d have me send my children on a journey such as this without me accompanying them?”
“No,” I replied quickly. “But just pointing out, I don’t know what kind of journey that is seeing as I don’t know anything.”
He jerked up his chin and said, “I will talk with my men. They’ll explain things to you.”
“But—”
“You’ll be safe with them.”
“Okay, but—”
“And I’ll have time to explain things to the children, prepare them for your arrival.”
“And that would be—”
“Now, if there’s nothing more,” he stated, his body moving as if he was preparing to leave.
Yes.
He was barely letting me get a word in edgewise and preparing to leave!
So much for Valentine saying he wouldn’t want to be separated from me.
I took two more quick steps toward him, calling swiftly, “Wait!”
He settled but he didn’t look happy about it.
“Ilsa—”
“You can’t just bring me here and then leave me here.”
“You’d rather be with a man who kicks you?” he asked curtly.