Lord of Destiny (The Dragon Demigods #6) - Charlene Hartnady Page 0,19

looks concerned. His eyes are so warm. His lashes are long and black. Stephan is hot.

“Take the room upstairs, sis. I’ll take this one,” Maddox insists. There’s a hardness to his voice I don’t like.

“I’m fine here.” I’m not sure why he’s going on about this. I get the feeling he wants me upstairs. Why? “Out of the two of us, you’re the light sleeper,” I tell my brother.

“My sister might sleep like the dead, but there’s an unfortunate side-effect in that she snores.” Maddox chokes out a laugh. He’s trying to dial back on the weird tension that’s creeping in.

“I do not,” I throw back because I don’t snore.

“Do too.” He chuckles. “She might disturb your work. She’s that bad.”

I gasp. “You talk such shit.”

“I’m deadly serious.” He laughs some more.

“Whatever,” I mutter, walking out of the bedroom. Maddox is acting strangely. I’m not sure why. We head up a huge spiral staircase. The whole thing is made out of floating oak steps and stainless steel. This place is like something out of a magazine.

There are big double doors as we reach the top of the stairs. Stephan opens them and gestures for us to enter. “This is the bedroom I had in mind for you,” he says to me as I walk past him. I note that he moves back to make plenty of space for me. He’s been very good about not accidentally getting into my space. I like how thoughtful he is, which makes me feel even guiltier about what happened earlier.

The room is lovely. Like the rest of the house, the floors are gleaming gray wood. There are various textures throughout. The main colors are gray and white, with splashes of yellow. The headboard is solid oak. There are a desk and a chair, with a sofa in the corner. There’s a whole lounge suite on the spacious balcony.

“You might want to change your mind and take this one?” Maddox urges me.

“I promise you, I’m fine downstairs.” I want him to drop it already.

Stephan goes ahead. “Um...” He seems shy all of a sudden. “The next room is…an indulgence of mine.” He switches on a light.

We walk through the open door. “You’re freaking kidding me.” Barrett shakes his head. “Wow!”

“Fuck me!” My brother chuckles. “You have your own cinema. I’m impressed!”

“Now, this is amazing,” I say. “There’s even a popcorn machine…and a slushy machine!” I’m gaping again.

There are several rows of comfortable chairs at descending levels, with a huge screen taking up the whole wall at the front of the room. There are no windows that I can see. “It’s a bit of an overkill.” Stephan is blushing again. He’s cute when he blushes, and sexy…very sexy. “But…I love it.” He gives a boyish smile. It’s lopsided and does this thing to my insides. “I have a whole array of movies if you feel like chilling up here.”

“We won’t get bored in this house,” Barrett says, turning a slow circle, “that’s for sure.” He grins.

“This is my bedroom.” He points at an open door but keeps on moving.

I can’t help but peer inside as we walk past. Again, it’s mostly gray, but this time with quite a lot of teal as well. The bed is made. It’s clean and neat. There are more wooden features in this one with— My brother bumps his elbow against mine, and I realize I stopped to check the space out. Stephan’s private space.

He gives me this strange look. It’s a questioning look. I ignore him and keep walking. The next room is a smaller version of the balcony room. There’s more mustard yellow here than that one. “I’ll sleep here,” Barrett says. “You take the bigger one,” he says to Maddox, who is frowning.

“I insist that you take the bigger room, sis.” He tries to sound light-hearted and fails. I can see the tension in his features.

“I insist that you have it,” I counter. Why is he acting like this?

“No, really. You’re taking it!” His voice grows deeper. “That’s the end of it.”

For a few seconds, I can’t believe what I am hearing. This isn’t Maddox. It isn’t like my brother at all. I snap. “No, that’s not the end of it. Are you telling me what to do now?” I can’t help it. “We left our weyr for a reason, Maddox.” There are reasons why we packed a few meager belongings in the middle of the night and ran.

His demeanor softens. Maddox sighs and roughs up his hair