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“Your room in my house, during my month.” I spat out the words, awareness at my own stupidity already echoing through my thoughts.

My house? My month? Who the hell had I become? My father?

“You’re safer with me.” I tried to gentle my voice, but it still came out as a command.

She barked out a sudden laugh. “That’s rich. I was with you this evening if I recall—”

“You left,” I interjected, my voice flat. “You left with Sebastian and endangered yourself.”

Leia’s skirts rustled as she climbed several steps, putting herself above me before she turned around. Fuck, she was beautiful when she was angry. Fire and fury blazed from her, and I basked in it even as I railed against it, wanting her back under my control.

“I wasn’t safe at the home of your family, or with your brother, and I no longer feel safe here. Connect the dots, Dupont. You haven’t kept me safe. You can’t keep me safe. I’d be safer if I left. Maybe you’re the boogeyman, too.”

Her use of my last name was a slap in the face, and I stepped closer to the stairs, grabbing hold of the end of the winding bannister where it finished in a tight spiral, my knuckles whitening, the wood threatening to crack under the force of my grip.

My chest heaved with the injustice of Leia running from me based on my brother’s actions.

“I would never scare you like Sebastian did.” Then I checked myself and lowered my voice. Shouting at her wasn’t the best way to convince her of the sincerity of my words. “Why would you think me capable of that?”

“Because you’re brothers. You share blood,” she said, and then she whirled away, flouncing up the stairs.

On the sharing blood thing, she was very wrong indeed. I would never share the same blood as Sebastian, and he would most certainly not share anything that was mine.

I prowled through the first floor of my home, then the basement, irritable and aware of Leia’s presence, lurking like a shadow in the east wing. The same shadow lurked in my head, nudging me into a constant state of arousal and desire. Just knowing she was close by made me want her, even as I wanted to comfort her and make her feel safe. I had a desire to protect her as much as fuck her. It burned like a fierce need in my chest.

When the need grew too much, I stormed up the stairs, hesitating outside the doors to the east wing. She’d closed them, mirroring the doors of the west wing—a clear indication that I wasn’t welcome in her space.

I whirled away and unlocked the doors to the west wing, slamming them for the sheer theater of ensuring Leia knew I’d also rejected her this evening. I hoped she cared.

Except. Fuck. No. I didn’t care if she cared at all. I didn’t need her to want me. Just to accept me willingly. I didn’t care how she fucking felt. I didn’t feel anything at all.

Apart from anger.

I shoved the rejection down and ignored it.

I walked toward my room then stopped, resting my hand on the doorhandle of the first door I came across. I kept this room closed. I never looked inside. This room had been reserved for decades for my bride.

But now I flung the door open and strode inside, my chest heaving with each deep inhale as I sought an outlet for my building rage. I had no bride.

I had no fucking bride. No queen. No way to secure my rule. And it seemed like I was blowing my one chance.

I tore through the room, pushing furniture over and ripping the white drapes on the four-poster bed. This was a room for my virgin, and she wouldn’t even let me near her. She’d closed me out.

I whirled around the space like a tornado, tearing my nails down antique wood, releasing feathers from the pillows, and shredding soft furnishings. By the time I stood by the door, my chest still heaving, nothing in the room was usable anymore.

But it didn’t matter.

She didn’t fucking want me.

Shit. What was wrong with me?

I left my bride’s room and…fuck. I needed a drink. I made my way to my… I laughed. My wine cellar. Except it wasn’t wine. It was all neatly bagged and organized according to vintage, though.

My blood room was quiet with only the unrelenting hum of the refrigerators, and I immediately missed Leia. I felt the lack of her just as acutely as I ever felt her presence.

I grabbed and warmed a pouch of blood, but my stomach soured at the idea of drinking it, swallowing the too-thick, slightly curdled liquid that had already lost most of its vitality.

Maybe these would never satisfy me again. Not now I was so aware of the blood thrumming through Leia’s body.