Malik had never been a patient man.

Seated upon his throne, draped in the heavy silence of the court, he watched—no, studied—Viscount Duske with the eyes of a predator sizing up prey. The noble stood too close, his gloved fingers brushing against the delicate silk of his sleeve, his smile oily, his voice too smooth as he murmured something under his breath.

Malik did not hear the words. He did not need to.

His husband’s posture stiffened, a flicker of discomfort crossing his features before he stepped back, putting precious inches of distance between himself and the viscount. That should have been the end of it. It would have been, had Duske possessed even a shred of self-preservation.

But he didn’t.

Instead, the fool reached for him again. A touch—light, fleeting, yet too familiar, too bold. The court had fallen deathly silent, their murmuring snuffed out the moment they sensed the shift in the air. Malik was already rising from his throne, his dark cloak sweeping behind him like the whisper of a coming storm.

“Duske.” His voice was quiet. Deceptively so.

The viscount flinched at the sound of his name, as if realizing—too late—that he had made a fatal mistake. Slowly, Malik descended the steps of his dais, his boots echoing in the vast hall, each step deliberate, final. The guards stiffened. The nobles held their breath. Even the chandeliers above seemed to flicker in his wake.

Malik stopped mere inches from Duske, his towering presence blotting out everything else.

“Tell me,” he murmured, his lips curling into something that was not quite a smile. “Did you just touch…my husband?”