“I am a whore,” she whispered.

And he burst, slamming inside her, spilling his seed.

He again yanked back on her hair, enjoying the noise she made, before he fell forward, his forehead resting on her spine.

“You are…you are…”

His eyes had closed in his climax, but hearing these stammered words come from the direction of the door, they shot open.

“Vile.”

He shot straight and turned his head, feeling his eyes widen as he saw his wife standing there, her face ashen, her expression filled with hurt, staring at him in shocked agony.

“What on—?” he began, quickly pulling out of Pegeen to turn to his spouse.

“Vile!” Vanka cried.

Snatching at the bedsheets, Johan tugged them around his hips.

“Vanka—” he started again but was unable to say more.

“This one, this one you pay,” she said, throwing a hand toward Pegeen, who was scuttling away. “You installed her in your daughter’s home.”

“Vanka,” he said, struggling with the sheets to find his feet beside the bed.

“The others, they work here too. They take you too!”

“Wife, get a handle on yourself,” Johan snapped, having found his feet, and thus his equilibrium in this ridiculous turn of events.

“You’ve been unfaithful to me,” she returned, then shrieked, “Repeatedly!”

“Vanka,” he approached her, “quiet down.”

“No!” she snapped, shuffling to the side to escape him, but not the room. To his astonishment, she stood her ground. “You…you…you made her say she was your—”

She’d heard.

“Stop speaking,” he commanded.

“You do not get to tell me what to do anymore, Johan,” she returned, her pale face now turning red. “It is not simply that you took prostitutes. It is not simply that you hired prostitutes to attend your daughter’s home. It is that you hired your prostitutes that you use to be unfaithful to me to attend your daughter’s home.”

“She is not my daughter,” he retorted.

“She is,” Vanka spat, and Johan saw, and ignored it, as Pegeen scurried out of the room. “You commissioned her, you do not get to renounce her.”

Johan decided a change of subject was in order.

“How did you now I was here? Are you following me?”

“You have made an enemy you should not have made, Johan. But you could not help it for you are…” she shook her head in short angry shakes, concluding, “you.”

“An enemy? What enemy?” he demanded to know.

“Only you,” she said, her voice breaking.

“Make sense, woman,” he bit.

“Only you,” she repeated. “Only you would make an enemy of not only your daughter’s husband, but the bloody Fire King.”

Johan’s insides seized.

That animal.

That gods-damned animal!

That fucking swine had instigated this.

He would pay.

Oh, he would…

“You will not,” Vanka declared.

Johan focused on her and saw she’d noted the direction of his thoughts.

“You will not tell me what to do,” he spat.