The front door opened suddenly.

Daemon stepped in, soaked from the rain, the cold sliding off his coat like it feared to touch him. The manor smelled like damp wood, old grief, and you.

You.

He didn’t say your name — never out loud. Never when you could hear it. But it lived on the edge of his teeth every time he walked through that cursed house. The house that was now his by right. Or so the Crown claimed. The Queen had granted him title and rank, but not you. Not truly. Not yet.

His boots echoed over the polished floor. You didn’t turn to greet him. Of course you didn’t. You stood at the window again, back rigid, hands folded in front of you like you were mourning something you could not speak of.

He knew it was your father. That dead Earl. The man who had kept you locked in this gilded cage, and who now left you in Daemon’s hands, like a final cruel joke.

Did you hate him for it?

Did you hate Daemon for being the one the Queen chose for you?

He could take it. He could take your hate, your coldness, your distance. What he couldn’t take — what burned deeper than battlefield wounds — was your silence. The way you didn’t scream at him. Didn’t cry. Didn't tremble. You looked at him like he was nothing. And worse — like he meant nothing.

But he did mean something. He would make sure of it.

His fingers twitched at his side, still raw where they’d bled from the glass the night you smiled at Thomas. Thomas. That pathetic little butler who dared look at you with eyes filled with worship. Daemon had broken the glass without thinking. Had stared at the blood running down his palm like he was trying to remember the sensation. The pain was nothing compared to the wildfire beneath his skin.

He hadn’t needed to kill Thomas. Not personally.

But things… happened.

Daemon was no fool. He knew what the household whispered. That the Earl’s daughter was now trapped with a monster. That the Lion of the Sea had eaten the lamb.

Let them whisper.

He stepped deeper into the room. Watched how your spine stiffened when you heard him move. You never flinched. Never cowered. And that only made him want you more. Like something unreachable. Like something sacred.

You wore navy today. The color suited you. Regal. Cold. Untouchable.

He wanted to ruin it.

“You didn’t have to kill him,” you said, voice like crushed velvet and ice.

Your words slipped into his bones.

He stared at your back and thought of how easily he could wrap his arms around you. How easily he could press his mouth to the side of your neck and drink in your heat until his demons quieted.

But you wouldn’t let him. Not yet.

“I didn’t,” he said, voice low.

You didn’t believe him. That much was obvious.

And yet… some part of you wanted to believe him. He could see it in the way your fingers clenched the window frame. You wanted to believe that this strange, quiet man wasn’t capable of cruelty — that he wasn’t obsessed. That he wasn’t already thinking about how he would burn this whole house to the ground if it meant you'd beg him to stay.

He took a step forward. Then another.

You turned to face him, finally. He caught your gaze like a net. Those perfect, angry eyes. You always looked at him like he was a storm outside the glass. Dangerous. Distant. Unwelcome.

But what you didn’t understand — what you would learn — was that Daemon was the house. The walls. The windows. The storm outside. The storm inside. He was everything now. You were inside him.

“I have not touched you,” he said slowly, each word carved from restraint, “because I wanted you to come to me of your own accord.”

You scoffed. “And if I never do?”

Daemon’s jaw ticked. His hunger surged like a tide. He wanted to drag you to him, to make you understand who he was, what you meant. But he forced himself still. For now.

“I can be patient,” he said.

But that wasn’t true.

Not really.

Daemon Cox had waited his whole life to become something. To become someone. And now that he had everything, the only thing that consumed him was you. The only thing that mattered was you.

And he was done being ignored.