“You know there’s only one way to stop me,” he said with a growl.

“And if you don’t do it, the blood of the females I hurt is on your hands, too.”

Boone made it back to his father’s house with about two hours to go before the Fade ceremony he’d convened. As he entered through the front door, he was rank pissed. Leaving Helania had been the last thing he wanted to do, and the fact that he’d had to go because of something connected to Altamere?

He wasn’t happy about sacrificing even a second of his life to memorialize the male, much less anything as important as spending time with his female.

Not that she was technically his. She just felt that way.

Closing out the cold, he put his hands on his hips and glared at the marble floor. Which, granted, hadn’t done anything wrong. It was just there to be walked on, like it had been for his whole life.

“I have got to relax,” he muttered.

Of course, that would be easier if he didn’t have the biggest set of blue balls this side of a hot air balloon convention. Fuuuuuuuuuck. And he thought his bad ankle was making him walk with a limp? Every step he took, he felt like someone had tied kettlebells to his groin.

Looking around the staircase, he eyed the door to the males’ guest bathroom. He could go in there, unbutton his fly and palm things up. At the rate he was going, it would take him two strokes and he would come all over the place.

But he still couldn’t shake the idea that he was being somehow disrespectful to Helania. She was so much more than YouPorn. Than some random female body to jerk off to. Than a two-dimensional fantasy tailor-made to his tastes just so he could rub one out.

She was a living, breathing, incredibly beautiful and smart young female who—

He had not kissed goodbye.

God, he had wanted to. On the dance floor. Back at their table. When they were walking out through the Remington’s courtyard and then after they’d snuck around to the shadows next to the hotel’s tall side so they could ghost out.

The feel of her body moving against his own as they’d danced close and slow had flipped all of his levers to the Hell-Yeah position. The Right-Fucking-NOW. The OMG-I-Will-Beg. He wanted her to distraction, his blood running hot and thick with a lust that he’d never come close to feeling before. And she had been right there with him. He had scented her arousal and stared down into her glowing eyes and known that she wanted him, too.

What had stopped him? Two things. He wasn’t going to stop things with just a single kiss . . . and neither was she. Unless he was grossly misreading her—and he did not think he was—lip-to-lip would be but a beginning for them, a precursor to bare skin and a whole lot more, and he wanted the space and time to take the “yes” on both sides to its natural conclusion.

And what do you know, Oh, hey, sorry, I’ve got to go Fade my father was a total buzzkill.

The other set of brakes on the situation had been the fact that he didn’t want her to think it was just sex on his end. It had been a relief to find they had so much in common other than grief, and he wanted the chance to be around her again as much as he wanted all the horizontal stuff. But he knew his aristocratic station spoke for itself: Males of his class had a tendency to use civilian females for casual sex, taking them to bed and tossing them aside. The last thing he ever wanted was for Helania to think he was disrespecting her like that. And though they had never outright discussed his lineage, he hadn’t exactly tried to hide his accent or his background.

So he had gentlemale’d it in that alley: Hugging her. Kissing her chastely on the cheek. Making sure she dematerialized out safely first.

And now he was here. In this damn house. Waiting for people he didn’t really care about to arrive for a ceremony that felt like a lie so he could close the door on a death that had rocked him and yet didn’t matter much at all.

On that note, he should probably go check on preparations.

At least duking it out with Marquist would allow him to channel some of this going-nowhere frustration.

As Boone strode down to the dining room, and then pushed his way through the flap door that the staff used, the idea he was behaving as his father would have rankled. God, Altamere and Marquist had been consumed by proper preparations and accommodations for guests of the house, whether they were people coming for a cocktail party, a dinner party, an event, or an overday.

Those two would spend hours in Marquist’s office, poring over seating charts, menus, wine and liquor orders.

Crazy.

On the far side of that flap door, there was the staging area for meal service, the silver polishing room, and then the enormous pantry. Also the closed door to Marquist’s office and private accommodations—which, as it turned out, did not have an I-quit letter taped to its jamb. Or U-Haul moving boxes stacked beside it. Or a gun target with Boone’s photograph in the center and bullet holes in a smiley face on his forehead anywhere in its vicinity.

Guess the male hadn’t resigned yet. And it was hard to know whether that was a good or a bad thing.

The answer to the question “Where’s Marquist?” was sorted in the kitchen proper: The butler was at the counter in front of the stove, his pressed jacket removed and his sleeves rolled up. His attention was focused on trimming the fat off a roast beef the size of a golf cart, that Henckels knife flying around the piece of meat, expert hands doing an expert job.

The butler did not look up. “Yes.”

“Are we ready?”

“Yes.” The knife flashed as Marquist changed the angle of the slice. “Everything is in hand.”

“Where are the other doggen?”

“I am completing the preparations myself. It is the last thing I shall do in service unto my master, and no one is welcome into this sacred space.”

“The others will want to participate. My sire was their master as well.”

“Not as he was mine.”

Boone frowned. “So how long were you two sleeping together anyway. Did it start right after he brought you here, or did he hire you because it was already happening.”

Marquist hissed and looked up. And what do you know, a knife unattended was a lot like a pot on the stove—it did its job even better without being watched.

Of course, the caveat was that the blade sliced into the butler rather than the fat layer on all that beef.

The butler dropped the Henckels and raced for the sink. And as Boone watched the hot water rinsing and the wrap-up with the dish towel, he couldn’t decide whether his dislike for the male was what precluded him from apologizing . . . or the fact that after all these years of monitoring his own social manners, he had totally ceased to give a shit.

He did not care that the butler was hurt. And he was not going to pretend he did.

Marquist squared his shoulders before turning back around, and as he pivoted, Boone met the male’s eyes straight on.

“Don’t bother denying it,” Boone said. “And FYI, it doesn’t matter to me one way or the other. Just like it apparently wasn’t an issue for my stepmahmen. Maybe she felt like you were doing her a favor.”

As the butler’s eyes narrowed like he was mulling over his responses, Boone considered what it would be like to get left out of the will in favor of the other male. Well . . . what do you know. The idea of letting this unhappy house, and all its boatload of crap, go seemed like a liberating event as opposed to an alienating one.

Marquist’s expression turned haughty, like he was above any accusations. Especially those of a poke-and-tickle variety—even though they both knew what had gone on with Altamere behind closed doors.

“I would do anything in service to your father. Anything.”

“I’m thinking that was very true,” Boone muttered.

“Is true. I have served him in ways you cannot fathom, protecting him and his household, ensuring all is well. And death has not changed my devotion to him.”

You want an obelisk? Boone thought. A commemorative stamp. No, wait, a billboard in Times Square to all the blow jobs.

Okay, that was crass. But come on.

“I will not dignify this with a response to anything further.” Marquist’s eyes narrowed again. “Except to say that your sire and I were excellent partners. In the running of this house.”

Boone crossed his arms over his chest and leaned back against one of the counters. “Kind of convenient my blood mahmen died so soon after you came under this roof.”

“What exactly are you suggesting.”

It was not a question. And not for the first time, Boone wondered exactly what Marquist’s background was. His motives, on the other hand, seemed clear. Ordinarily, no male civilian would choose to be a kept servant in the household of their lover. Talk about demeaning. But there were perks to being with a member of the glymera—and God knew the only way Marquist could ever have nightly contact with someone of Altamere’s stature was if he moved in under the guise of employment.

In the aristocracy? There was no tolerance for overt male homosexuality. Social propriety dictated that no matter how miserable it made you, you were to mate a member of the opposite sex and procreate at least once—preferably twice if your lawful shellan survived the first birthing bed. If you were, as they called it, of a “secondary persuasion,” you could take male lovers discreetly. But the relationships were never to interfere with your mate, your family, or your bloodline—and the Scribe Virgin save you if anyone ever found out about your extracurricular activities.

Oh, and as for females in the aristocracy? They weren’t allowed lesbian lovers. Ever. Under any circumstances.

Just one more example of the patriarchy of the glymera. The intolerance. The injustice. All of it was so unfair.

“My parents were never happy together,” Boone stated. “But neither of them had been brought up to expect anything more or anything less. That being said, I always wondered if my mahmen committed suicide, or whether it was something else, something sinister that killed her. Exactly how did she die? No one ever told me because no one ever talked about it.”