He fucking hated balls. Pain in the ass court functions filled with simpering nobles who couldn’t find their asses with both hands and a map. He especially hated balls where he stood on the sidelines as his lady wife danced with every one of the assholes besides him.

It had pissed him off so much, he’d taken her dance card and changed a few names to his… only she’d fucked off, leaving the ball before their first dance to come home.

Kalen Sauveterre stormed through the door to his wife’s rooms, his mood so foul that the wood crashed into the wall and rebounded, just barely avoiding hitting him as he strode through it.

“Astra! Where the hell are you?” he growled, finding the sitting area empty. Before he could walk into her bedroom, she appeared in the doorway, a vision of slender loveliness in pink silk, her almost-white blonde hair a cloud around her shoulders.

For a moment he allowed his gaze to wash over her. He tried to conjure some of the emotions he’d once felt for her—the feelings he’d had when they’d married and before they’d had Naeva—but there was nothing. No feeling, no emotion, no nothing. It had all been leeched away in the months of arguments since their daughter’s birth. Months in which it seemed he could do nothing right, in which it seemed Astra would rather he didn’t exist, never mind not touch her.

“What do you want, Kalen?” she pouted, the sulky expression covering what he could have sworn was panic. He had to be wrong though… what did she have to panic about?

“What was that about? Leaving like that?” he demanded, keeping his hands in closed fists at his sides. Anything to keep the rage boiling in his veins to himself so as not to scare her. Astra was a noblewoman, not a warrior like he was, and he knew the darker side of his nature scared her. So he tried to minimize her exposure to it.

She shrugged, her expression becoming even more moody, which pissed him off and he stepped forward.

“For fuck’s sake, Astra, you know better than to travel alone. What if the rogues had caught you? One driver isn’t enough to protect you.”

“Oh god, this again?” She sneered dismissively, looking down her nose at him. Somehow, even though he was noble-born and she wasn’t, she always made him feel he was beneath her because he was a warrior. “The way you talk, you’d think there were rogues hiding around every damn corner. You’re paranoid, Kalen. You should go and get your head checked.”

He bit back his growl, just the corner of his lip twitching as he kept his reply to himself. If she knew what he and the other warriors faced every night on patrol, it would scare the ever-loving crap out of her and every other civilian. The fact that they lived practically cheek to cheek with the scourge that preyed on their race… they’d go running in fear and never leave their fortified houses.

“So why did you leave?” he asked, trying to bring the conversation back on topic before she could get onto the subject of his supposed paranoia.

He knew what she was getting at… that he was mad, or slipping into blood-rage. All male kyn were at risk, but warriors, given they were so close to the rogue vampires they hunted, were even more so. If she could get him diagnosed as blood-mad, she could live the life she’d always wanted… that of a noble lady… but without the pesky encumbrance of an actual husband. He was fairly sure she prayed each night when he went out on patrol, not for his safe return like most women would have, but for the rogues to kill him and make her into a widow.

“I was bored,” she said with a sniff, not moving from the door.

His eyes narrowed as he registered her stance. It almost seemed as though she was guarding the door. But from what? Him? He almost snorted at the thought. He hadn’t been invited to her bed for months, forced to feed from one of the blood-women supplied to the warriors. It wasn’t the same as being balls and fang-deep in his beloved wife, though… a pale imitation of the bond he’d thought he had with Astra.

“Bored? You missed our dances. I would have made sure you weren’t bored.”

He stepped to the side nonchalantly, testing her reactions. She moved subtly to block him. Yeah, she didn’t want him getting into her bedroom. Why? He took a slow breath, tasting the air for any hint of a male in the room behind her, but it came up clean. The only two scents in here were his and hers.

She sniffed, leaning against the doorframe to study her nails. “Really? You bore me all the time, Kalen. I’m afraid I prefer the more…” her gaze raked over his tall form, the court clothes not able to disguise his warrior’s physique. “Intellectual man, shall we say? Not a dinosaur of a warrior.”

Anger boiled over, the snarl escaping Kalen’s lips before he could stop it. “Really? Well, tough shit. I’m still your husband, rather than one of those limp-wristed assholes.”

“Yeah, you are.” She picked at one of her nails. “For now.”

The red at the corners of his vision crept inward. “For now? What the fuck does that mean?”

In a surge of movement, he pushed past her and into the bedroom beyond, her slender frame no match for his warrior’s bulk. Instantly his gaze fell on the open trunk by the bed, half filled with her dresses.

“You’re leaving me?” he demanded, turning on her. Fury filtered through his veins, deepening his voice and making his jaw ache as his fangs tried to descend.

“You can go,” he said, accepting the inevitable. They’d been over for months, but he’d refused to accept it. “But you’re not taking Naeva. My daughter stays with me.”

He stared her down, resolute on the fact he would keep their baby. She was the one good thing that had come out of their marriage and he would ensure that she was cared for and raised as befit her station as a kyn noble.

Astra laughed, one eyebrow raised. “Ohh, you poor darling,” her voice dropped to saccharine venom. “You really think a savage of a warrior could have sired a child, let alone a daughter? No, Kalen, you didn’t. She’s not yours. She never was.”