Reluctantly we broke apart, dazed with lust and breathing heavily. I was one kiss away from slinging Tabitha over my shoulder, bolting to my room to toss her onto my bed. But she had a wedding reception to get back to and I seriously needed to crash for the night.

My bruised, kiss-swollen lips brushed hers as I spoke. "Tomorrow morning under the oak tree."

"Tomorrow," she whispered back.

Tabitha couldn't stop smiling as she smoothed her hair and readjusted her evening gown, and we left together, pushing through the doorway that led back into the mansion. While I turned into its inner depth, she moved in the opposite direction to go down a staircase that would take her back to the Banquet Hall. I watched her retreating figure, the sway of her hips as she descended the steps, and my mind couldn't stop imagining what it would be like if she wore a dress of white with a delicate veil that concealed her face but allowed the broad smile to shine through as we stood in front of one another exchanging vows.

A fierce desire took hold. I'd find a way to transfer her to my ancestral home. I'd twist my father into allowing me to choose my own path as heir. Mamãe would give me her blessing, and I'd have a real life with Tabitha.

We'd have girls, lots and lots of girls with blond hair and violet eyes, and cute dimples.

Ambling back to Chateaux Crappo, I grinned, feeling lighter than I had all day.

It was quiet in this part of the mansion. This particular floor, with its old guest rooms where furnishing came to die, was a graveyard. The servants came around only once a week to open up the windows to air the unused bedrooms and to dust. So it was with great curiosity that I discovered Volkov at my bedroom door, closing it quietly behind him.

What the hells is this fucker up to?

"Volkov?" I practically snarled his name with disdain. I still wasn't done with his pompous ass.

The Head Housekeeper, professional as always but still simmering with the displeasure at having to deal with me personally—feeling the same way, Volkov—swiveled around to face me. "Ah, Mr. Crowther," he greeted with a polite tight-lipped smile. "I've escorted your guest to your quarters."

I stopped before him, widening my stance. "My guest?" Who the hells was visiting me this late?

"Yes, sir." He swept a pale, freckled hand, gesturing toward the stately wooden door. "They've chosen to await your arrival inside your room rather than the grand parlour."

My gaze sliced over his shoulder to the door as foreboding knocked against my bones.

Irritation curled through my blood and slit my eyes. Irma. I'd expected Laurena to have gotten to her by now. Obviously, my ex-girlfriend had immediately charged her way to the Deniauds to demand to know who I'd been kissing last night as if she had a right to me.

I jerked up my chin, squaring my shoulders, silently indicating for Volkov to open the door. I'd run through a few scenarios already and the easiest lie to feed Irma was that I'd been making out with some nameless random I'd picked up at the club.

Not that she had any right to know.

Not now, not ever.

But it would be easier to deal with her theatrics, the tears and begging, if I could give her something to gnaw at and bawl over.

Volkov swung the door open and stepped aside so I could enter.

I took two paces into Chateaux Crappo and ground to an enraged halt.

Cold fury razed through my blood.

I felt my nostrils flare and hot air whooshed out over my top lip. My jaw locked so tight I thought I was going to snap it in fucking half. Standing inside my quarters was the last person I wanted to see.

Hells, I'd rather have come face to face with Irma.

Jeroen swung slowly around and leveled a tyrannical gaze on mine. My father's seething anger engulfed the room like a black storm, almost tangible in the air as it raked up against my skin in frigid gusts that sent a shudder down my spine.

I stalked deeper into the room, which was far too small for the both of us bristling like two dogs straining at leashes. "Dad," I greeted him sourly, heading to where I stored my weapons bag on a luggage rack beside the fireplace. I eyed the bottle of whiskey on the mantle with longing. A long stiff drink was needed to deal with whatever fuckery had brought him to the Deniauds'. "What are you doing here?"

My thoughts instantly speared straight to Laurena. But that wasn't her style. She'd have gone to Irma to cause trouble before heading to my father.

His shock of silver hair was burnished by the dumbass disco ball overhead. It scattered light across the walls and the multitude of porcelain swans like a spray of luminescent raindrops. He pivoted on his heels to keep me in his line of direct sight as I strode across the room, my boots clomping over the stupid cowhide rug.

Jeroen's gritty voice dripped with venom. "You're the one who's forced my physical presence. You're not answering my calls, Varen, and you returned my pager to me in pieces. What else am I to do but come here, son?"

His tall and imperious figure was clothed in a navy double-breasted suit. The soles of his expensive shoes clipped over the floor as he advanced in measure steps. His frosty gaze burned with ice-shredding wrath that I wasn't coming to heel. He was pissed off to Nine Hells he'd had to drag himself from the Keep to speak to me.

Folding my arms over my chest, the bandoleer fitted with small knives jutted against my forearm. It was tempting to palm cold steel and hurl it at him. "What do you want?"

"I think you know the answer to that since you've been so good at avoiding my calls."

"Spit it out, Dad," I replied, bracing myself for his answer. I knew deep down what it would be and it gutted and angered me in equal measure.

"Your presence at the Szarvases' tomorrow night is mandatory." An order, not a request.

"Sorry, no can do, Dad," I replied petulantly as I uncrossed my arms and swung the bandoleer over my head. "I've got shit here to do for Sirro." I tossed the bandoleer onto my battered weapons bag and started unbuckling the narrow straps that bound my sheathed swords to my spine, mostly to distract myself from the eager desire to punch my godsdamned father in the face.

I felt his gaze rake over my figure clad in adamere armor. His tone mellowed and shifted into mild curiosity as he erased the distance between us. "Have you found the Kinslayer?"

"Not yet."

"Then the Kinslayer isn't here. You'd have found it if it were."

"Either way," I retorted, glancing back at him, not caring to confirm it, nor look too closely into the shadowy part of my mind that whispered I was avoiding the truth, it was here. "I've got orders to keep hunting for it until Sirro gets back." Maybe. I still had no fucking idea what the Horned Gods was saying to me when the phone line kept cracking in and out.

"You can use the Szaravases as your base much like the Deniauds'. They share the same forest." He gave an indifferent wave of his calloused fingers. "It's not like they're in the next state." As I bent over and unzipped my weapons bag, storing my bandoleer and swords away, in the corner of my eye I caught him giving a cursory glance around the room at my personal effects. "You'll arrange with one of the servants to have your things packed up, and you'll meet us at the Szarvases' tomorrow evening. We'll be staying for the week. Marton has invited us to stay on and celebrate Cernesses forerunners crossing the sky with his family."

I snapped straight, spinning around to face him fully. "A week?" There was no fucking way I was going to be there at all.

I began to shake my head when he shoved a finger at me, his thin lips curling back to bare his teeth. "Don't you dare cross me on this Varen. You fail to show yourself tomorrow and don't think I won't drag you there myself by the scruff of your godsdamned neck!"

My rage exploded like a blazing inferno. "I'm not signing the Contract of Intentions. I'm not marrying Irma!"

The cords on my father's thick neck strained with his rage, distorting the tattoos curving up the weathered skin. "There's no way out of this, Varen. You will not defy me. Your marriage will ensure we become an Upper—"

"I'm not in love with her!"

"I don't give a damn if you are or aren't!" he snapped, pale violet eyes narrowing to slits. "Hardly anyone is when they first marry—"

"You loved Mamãe!"

"I would have married your mother no matter what," he enunciated clearly and coldly, "because I was doing it for my family and my House, as you will do this for me since you are my heir!"

"I'm not doing it!" I roared. My anger reverberated through the room and rattled window panes.

It was on the tip of my tongue—I'm in love with someone else!

And I damn well was going to have Tabitha in my life, always.

And a moment of stark clarity reminded me that this was my father. I left my wish unspoken because Jeroen was so desperately hungry for us to move upward through the ranks. He'd do anything to get what he wanted, and that included ridding himself of anyone seen as a threat.

Jeroen's face went white and his eyes went wild. "YOU WILL!"

He lunged—

But I was just as fucked off, strong and fast—

We collided in two steps, both of us descending into bloodthirst.

Our fists slung at one another in a rain of blows and spitting rage.

His jaw snapped sideways—

My chin cuffed upward—

I rammed into him with a shoulder, sending him flying into the far wall.

Porcelain swans smashed—

Macrame artwork unraveled—

The cowhide rug slid about underfoot as we surged forward and clashed and unleashed upon one another. Heaving breaths and gruff grunts. Ugly smacks of fists and bellows of fury.

He swept a deft foot and kicked my feet out from beneath me—

I lurched sideways, losing balance—

He whirled around, a hand at my throat, and slammed me bodily up against the wall, his fingers strangling in their hold as he roared into my face, "You are my heir, Varen. My heir!" He thumped the back of my head against the wall—whack, whack, whack—with every word. My hands grappled at his. Jeroen's cheeks burned red and his eyes were feral. "You are my heir because Gratian, my true heir, was murdered. Killed by a beast you couldn't stop or save him from. You are an heir because my son died!"

The world went white and silent as his condemnation echoed inside my mind.

And it seemed to take an eternity for me to understand.

I couldn't breathe.

And it wasn't because my father's fingers were throttling my neck.

Every word ruthlessly stabbed my heart with a blade carved from guilt.

There it was. His truth. His heartache. His blame.

And I was the one responsible for it.

My father's rage slowly petered out as mine did too.

The rage that botched his face faded as his expression collapsed into something I'd never seen him wear before.

Anguish. Grief. Helplessness.

Heaviness, leadened with emptiness, dragged through my limbs, pulling me down, down, down, a spiraling sensation as if I was being pulled into the earth as wretchedness swamped me.

All that could be heard in the room was our rasping breaths.

His grip around my throat eased and gentled. He shifted his hand to the back of my head, his fingers pushing through the sweat-crusted locks as he tipped his forehead to mine. Silver hair tickled my temples and his hot breath leaking misery fanned my cheeks.

I felt his agony all the way inside like I'd swallowed it.

I knew what he felt because I lived with it every day.

His quietly spoken voice cracked with raw pain. "Your brother wouldn't have hesitated in marrying Irma, despite not being in love with her. Love doesn't come into it, Varen. Love is for the weak as our ancestors were when they lost the Great House. Neither my family nor my House is weak. You will marry Irma..." And then he said the one thing that could break me, the only reason I'd ever agree to marry Irma without fighting my fate. "...You will do it for Gratian because he can't. You owe him."

Hope obliterated into tiny shards and my heart cleaved in two.

Gratian was the only person I'd ever give Tabitha up for.

My brother had died because I'd been adrift in red-hazed fury over Irma's betrayal.

For how long we breathed in each other's pain, I wasn't sure. My father gently squeezed the nape of my neck in apology, released his hold on me, and straightened as he stepped back, clearing his throat and blinking the moisture from his eyes.

He busied himself by tugging the cuffs of his blazer, smoothing his sleeves, brushing a hand over his shoulders and lapels; pushing his fingers through his disarranged shock of hair until he was once again his impeccably groomed self.

It was deathly silent inside the room.

Apart from the heartache thundering in my ears.

Jeroen spun around on his heels about to head to the door, but he hesitated, his expression softening and becoming lost. His calloused fingertips tapped his thigh as he took a moment to consider how to say something, but whatever it was, it seemed he changed his mind when his features hardened. He looked at my face but couldn't meet my eye when he said quietly but with an unyielding tone. "You will be packed and ready by tomorrow morning to join us at the Szarvas estate."

My head felt as heavy as concrete when I nodded.

"When Marton and I finalize the contract you will sign your name. Do you understand?"

I nodded once more.

The door shut behind my father, and I sagged against the wall, my feet barely able to support my fatigued body, riddled with sorrow.

I was a fool for thinking I could live my life the way I wanted to, that I could marry a sweet servant girl. My life had never been my own to dictate how I wanted to live.

I shoved off the wall and staggered to the fire mantle, snatching up the bottle of whiskey. Unscrewing the cap, I poured the fiery liquid into my mouth without the use of a glass, letting the burn slap my throat, punch my gut, willingly letting it destroy my mind as I guzzled it down.

The room began to spin into a smear of garish colors. The floor pitched and rolled beneath my feet.

And everything caught up with me.

The day spent hunting the Hemmlok Forest draining my body of energy.

My father's wrath and raw grief.

My dead brother.

Guilt. Torment. Despair.

My heartbreak.

I'd barely put the whiskey down on the bedside table before I fell backward and hit the waterbed with a smack. The force of my striking body created a wave that undulated beneath me. The world went pitch-black as I passed out, willingly embracing the quiet darkness and nothingness of slumber. Where agony couldn't follow me.