"No, do not let them in," Ian brushed his butler off. He had probably seen his new spouse maybe four times in the past year: their wedding, the event in honor of the war survivors, a day they ran into each other in a hallway, and that one time he visited your bedroom to check on their fever while they slept.

But now his spouse was at the other side of his study, insisting that they were entitled to see him and that he had to allow them in.

And even though he wanted to, he couldn't. He didn't dislike his spouse; they had done nothing wrong, but he didn't trust himself around them. Ian was too traumatized, too unpredictable. One bad move and he could enter a state where he would no longer be himself, and you could end up endangered.

It had happened before; a maid had dropped a teacup, hit a metal ornament while cleaning, or accidentally called out to him too loudly, and it had brought him back to the battlefield. He couldn't remember much from then on other than his own servants pinning him down to restrain him.

And now you was here, not knowing the husband they insisted on seeing was nothing but a monster.