Page 12 of Fought it Through the Teeth

They are beautiful. He can admit that without hesitation, because Morgan has an eye for craftsmanship and the work here is exquisite. The tunic is soft linen, dyed deep blue, with intricate embroidery along the collar and cuffs in the Wolfe clan's geometric patterns — interlocking lines and sharp angles worked in dark thread that catches the lamplight. The trousers are just as soft and intricate. A belt of braided cord accompanies them, and a pair of soft boots with stitching that must have taken someone days. Whoever made these poured genuine skill into them, and under different circumstances Morgan might have been moved by the gesture, but…

They are unmistakably women's clothes.

The realization arrives not all at once but in details, each one clicking into place in sequence. The tunic nips at the waist, flares slightly at the hip — proportions designed for a body shaped differently from his own. The trousers are seamed along curves Morgan does not possess, the darts and gathers placed for a silhouette that is not his and is not any man's. The boots are small-footed and delicate. Everything about the garments says bride, and everything about the specific shape of that bride says wife, and everything about the presentation says put these on and be what you've been bought to be.

Morgan's first thought is analytical, because his first thoughts always are: This is a test. Ivan wants to see if I'll wear them. If I'll submit to the humiliation publicly. If the sharp tongue I showed him yesterday was real or if it folds the moment he applies pressure in private.

His second thought is less composed. His second thought is the hot, bright flare of something that lives in his stomach and climbs his throat, something that is not quite anger and not quite shame but occupies the seething territory between the two. This is not a gift. This is a collar. This is Ivan Wolfe reaching into Morgan's room before he has even finished dressing and laying his hands on the shape of what Morgan is allowed to be in this stronghold. The shape is a woman's, and the message is unmistakable: I have decided what you are. Now put it on and come downstairs and let my people see you in it.

Morgan folds his arms across his chest.

"These are lovely," he says. "Please convey my appreciation to the chieftain."

Dade's expression brightens.

"However," Morgan continues, and the brightness falters, "I won't be wearing them."

A silence opens between them. Dade stands with the garments half-deposited on the mattress, his thick arms still extended, his face cycling through several interpretations of what he has just heard and settling, reluctantly, on the correct one.

"Your highness —"

"They're women's clothes, Dade."

"They are Wolfe finery, your highness. The chieftain chose them himself." The steward lays them down with deliberate care, his large hands smoothing the cloth with surprising gentleness, adjusting the fold. "To flatter you."

"I see." Morgan's tone has not changed. It is still pleasant, still measured — the careful, escalating politeness that is how his temper works, each degree of courtesy adding a corresponding degree of danger, a blade being drawn so slowly the person holding the sheath doesn't notice it is half out. "And which part of me, precisely, is being flattered?"

Dade's mouth opens and closes. His heavy jaw works once, the muscles bunching beneath the painted cheekbones, and Morgan can see the calculation happening in real time: the dawning awareness that the answer to the question is not one he can give without admitting what both of them already know.

"The chieftain expects his bride dressed in Wolfe finery," Dade says, and the deference has acquired an edge. "It is tradition."

"I understand tradition." Morgan keeps his arms folded. His voice remains pleasant. He is aware that he is standing in his sleep clothes in front of a man who outweighs him considerably and who is backed by the authority of the chieftain, and that the diplomatic calculus of this moment requires something more than stubbornness. He is also aware that he does not care. "I would wear Wolfe colors gladly. But these garments are not cut for my body and the intent behind them is demeaning and we both know it."

"Your highness is being ridiculous. The chieftain chose these himself. To refuse his personal —"

"I am not refusing the gesture. I am refusing the garment. If the chieftain wishes me to wear Wolfe colors, I will happily accept something cut for a man's body. These —" Morgan nods toward the bed, keeping his gaze on Dade's face, reading the tension in the man's jaw and the frustration building behind his eyes, "— are cut for a woman's body, and putting me in them is not an honor. It is a statement about what the chieftain believes I am."

Bohdi is still at the table, working through the last of breakfast. His elbows are on the table. His eyes are on his plate. Morgan knows what Bohdi is doing. Bohdi is giving him the room to handle it himself. It is a trust that Morgan feels in his chest, solid and warm, and he is grateful for it. Part of him still wishes, with a fierceness he will never admit, that Bohdi would step in and end this with the swiftness he employs when he decides a conversation is over.

But that isn't what Morgan needs. What Morgan needs is to win this himself, on his own terms, with his own weapons. He is a diplomat. He is good at this. He has talked down men more powerful than Dade and navigated situations more delicate than a wardrobe dispute, and he is going to stand in his own room in his own clothes and refuse to be dressed as someone else's idea of a bride.

Dade's eyes flick to Bohdi. "Perhaps your escort could offer his opinion —"

Bohdi looks up. His expression is amused.

"I'm a warrior," he says. "Not a tailor."

Dade's mouth thins. The patience he walked in with is visibly fraying. Dade does not want to be here. Dade does not want to be the man who walks back into Ivan's presence and tells the warchief that his bride refused his gift. Whatever happens to the messenger in this stronghold, it is bad enough that Dade is standing in Morgan's room at dawn in a cold sweat of determination, because the alternative is worse.

Morgan feels, underneath the anger, a brief and unwelcome flicker of sympathy. He has heard what it is like to serve a powerful man. He knows in some courts the daily calculation that comes with depending on the moods of someone larger and more dangerous. He has never been subject to that, because his brother is not a tyrant, but he has read the history of households run by men like Ivan, and he understands that Dade's insistence is not arrogance. It is self-preservation.

He sympathizes. He does not yield.

"Thank you for your kindness, Dade," Morgan says, and his voice is quiet now, the politeness stripped back to something that is almost gentle. "Please take them away."

Dade's face changes. The frustration crests, breaks, and what is beneath it is worse — a raw, cornered desperation that twists his heavy features into something close to panic. His eyes go to the clothes on the bed, then to Morgan, then to the door, as though calculating the distance between this room and Ivan's study and measuring it in consequences.

"They are just clothes," he snaps, and the composure shatters. "The prince is being haughty. The chieftain honors you and you throw it back in his —"