by Anne Bishop
His fists clenched. His dark membranous wings flared out to their full span and resettled. His temper was rising hot and ready to burn.
Witch waited quietly, watching him.
If he struck at her, his hand would go through the illusion. If she struck at him, her claws would leave him bleeding. An almost-tangible shadow of her Self meant exactly that—touch only went one way.
“What bothers you about what he did?” she asked again. “That he used words instead of his fists?”
“Yeah, that bothers me. Using words . . . That’s more like something Daemon would do.”
The room chilled, a warning that any criticism of Daemon Sadi had best be said carefully.
He wasn’t trying to criticize his brother; he just needed her to understand so that she would agree to what he wanted from her.
“The boy drew a hard line, and he used the same kind of verbal meanness to punish Orian as she had used on Titian, calculating the amount of hurt his words would cause. Daemon might have done the same, but even when he was young, Sadi had intuitive knowledge about his prey and knew if a verbal warning was sufficient or if he needed to slide in that knife and twist in order to pay a debt. He knew when to draw a soft line and when to gut someone. Daemonar is a blunt blade and hasn’t acquired that skill yet.”
The room warmed back to its previous temperature. “Go on,” Witch said.
Lucivar resumed pacing. “He’s already a strong Warlord Prince. He’s going to be dealing with Queens all his life, and that means he’ll be doing it for centuries. If he reaches his full potential—and I will do everything I can to train him so that he will reach it—he will wear the Gray, and there won’t be many, if any, Queens strong enough to stand up to him. He needs to learn how to deal with Queens and how to deliver a warning when a Queen’s behavior has crossed a line. He needs to learn how someone with his potential strength can take a stand without gutting the opposition—at least initially.”
“So you want . . . ?”
“I want you to train him.” Lucivar looked into those sapphire eyes. “You’re his Queen. Your will is his life—and it always will be. Help me shape him into the man he should be. Hold the leash. Give him the guidance he needs.”
She walked over to the windows and looked out at the terraced gardens that she had helped create when she became the Queen of Ebon Askavi.
“What you’re asking takes time, Lucivar.”
Someone else might have been implying she didn’t want to give that time. He knew the woman, and the Queen—and his sister—better than that.
“I know. That brings me to making a request on behalf of another Brother in the court.”
She turned to look at him, her eyebrows rising. He noticed she didn’t correct him and say there was no longer a court, even if it was an unofficial one now.
“I’m asking, for myself and for my Brother in the court, that you permit Daemonar to visit you here at the Keep instead of him having to go to the Misty Place in order to ask for advice. I understand why you did it that way when he was the only one, and his Self was meeting your Self there. But it’s different now. You’re allowing Daemon and me to be with you here, so why not him? And it would be safer for him.” Lucivar waited a beat. “He promised not to pester you.”
“And you believe him?”
“Of course not. But you’re more than capable of sending him home if he gets underfoot.” He looked down. “Or under hoof.”
Jaenelle huffed out a laugh. Then she sobered. “How will you explain this?”
He gave her the lazy, arrogant smile that always meant trouble. “I’m the Warlord Prince of Askavi. The Demon Prince. I don’t have to explain anything.”
“And what are you, as a husband, going to say to your wife?”
“Oh. Well. I’ll tell Marian, of course. But as far as anyone else is concerned, Daemonar is receiving private instruction. If everyone assumes the instruction is being given by Karla, I have no trouble letting them assume that.”
“In that case, I’d better define the boundaries with Prince Daemonar sooner rather than later.”
Lucivar walked up to her and wished he could touch her, hold her. Saetan had waited thousands of years for this Queen to be born. So had Andulvar, Prothvar, and Mephis. Even supporting one another, the loneliness must have been crushing at times, but they’d endured it in order to be there to serve her. And now she was doing much the same thing—enduring the loneliness of almost being connected to the living in order to support those who needed her.
“I made the choice, Lucivar,” Witch said. “I understood the price I would have to pay.”
Did you? he wondered. “Thank you, Lady.” He stepped back and bowed, a Warlord Prince showing respect and fealty to his Queen.
When he reached the door of the sitting room, she said, “If he does become a pest, it will be your ass that will have bruises in the shape of hoofprints.”
He grinned at her. “I wouldn’t expect it to be any other way.”
* * *
◆ ◆ ◆
“Wake up, boyo.”
Daemonar’s wings flared and his back arched, lifting his chest high enough for him to brace himself on his forearms. “Huh? What?” Why was he sleeping on the floor? And why did his mother sound like Auntie J.?
He blinked. Not his bedroom. Not his family’s eyrie. And yet a familiar place.
Why was he in the Misty Place? He hadn’t been trying to reach Witch’s lair, which probably meant he was in a lot of trouble.
He just wished he was awake enough to remember why he was in trouble.
He climbed to his feet and rubbed sleep from his eyes. “Auntie J.?”
That was when his brain finally engaged and he realized he was wearing nothing but his underpants—a compromise between wearing pajama bottoms like his younger brother and being naked at night like his father. He’d put two and two together and realized his father slept naked in order to easily have sex with his mother. That might not be the only reason, but it was definitely one of the reasons. While he was curious about what sex felt like when you were a man compared to the explorations he did with himself, he was having trouble wrapping his brain around the fact that his father did those . . . things . . . with his mother even though he knew those things were the reason Marian had gotten pregnant and had Andulvar. Well, had him and Titian, too, but he didn’t remember those times, so they didn’t count.
“We’re going to discuss the rules and set some boundaries.”
“Rules? Boundaries?”
She looked amused. Or pissed. He really wished he was more awake. He wondered if that would make a difference, since he had no idea what she was talking about. Then . . . a glimmer of possibility thunked into his brain.
“I heard about your encounter with Lady Orian,” Witch said.
Hell’s fire! “Oh.”
“If she had made that remark to anyone but Titian, would you have said what you said?”
He opened his mouth, intending to assure her that he wouldn’t have been that mean if it had been anyone else. But he stopped and thought and finally said, “Yes. If she’d hurt someone else as much as she hurt Titian, I would have slapped at her the same way.”
Witch nodded. “To the best of your knowledge, was that the first time Orian had been verbally mean to someone?”
“Yes.”
“Then that is not the way you, being a Warlord Prince, should have handled it. A Queen who hurts people by word or deed is a danger to everyone. While there will be times when you have to be the one to draw the line and fight, in this case, you should have had a private word with Orian, or reported her misconduct to Lord Rothvar—or Lady Karla if you didn’t want to approach another Eyrien.”
His temper heated, but he resisted the desire to argue. She was the Queen. His Queen. She wasn’t inviting him to debate his behavior.
She had made a statement.
When he offered no argument in his defense, she nodded again—and looked pleased.
“Lucivar has asked that you receive some private training in dealing with Queens and their courts. He’s concerned about your response to Orian because you are already a strong Warlord Prince and you will grow up to be a powerful man.”
“My father didn’t receive that kind of training.” Training sounded bad. It sounded like he was going to be strapped in by rules that would hamstring his ability to protect people he loved.
“Until he reached the age for his Birthright Ceremony, your father had had your grandfather teaching him the rules that apply to Warlord Princes as well as the Blood’s moral code. Those lessons are the core of Lucivar Yaslana, and he has lived by those rules and that code all his life, even when holding on to Saetan’s lessons cost him dearly. However, the pain and suffering he endured as a slave in Terreille changed him. The core held, and still holds, but it is clothed in savagery quickly unleashed. That is who he is. He wants your education about Queens and courts to be a different experience.”
Witch walked up to him and put her hands on his shoulders. He felt the weight of flesh on flesh, felt the warmth—and wished he could hug her the way he used to when he was young and took such things for granted.
“That is why you will come to the Keep for one hour twice a week from now on to receive that private training . . . with me. There will be forty minutes of focused training. The last twenty minutes will be set aside for you to ask questions or discuss anything you choose.”
Her hands squeezed his shoulders. A light touch, but he felt the prick of her claws.
“Understand me, boyo. This is private training, and you will not talk about it, brag about it, allude to it in any way with anyone except your parents and your uncle. My presence at the Keep . . .”
“I know, Auntie.” Maybe he didn’t see it quite the way she did, but he understood enough about his uncle Daemon to know how the Black would respond if there was a flood of aristo families showing up at the Keep, demanding that their sons receive private training with Witch. As if the Queen was some commodity to be used.
“You and Lucivar fix the time and days when these lessons will be held, and we’ll begin, starting with an alternate way to let a Queen know she’s crossed a line and behaved badly.”
“Thank you, Lady.”
Her lips twitched. She released his shoulders and stepped back. “Time for you to go, boyo.”
Daemonar lifted his head from his pillow.
His bedroom. His family’s eyrie. But he had been in the Misty Place, and Auntie J. had said she was going to train him in how to deal with Queens and courts.
He got up and poured a glass of water from the carafe that sat on the table near the window.
He didn’t think for a moment that Auntie J.’s lessons would be easy. The most powerful Warlord Princes in Kaeleer had served in her court, and the standards for serving in that court would have been high.
Lucivar had helped build the core and the bones of who he was. Witch would shape the flesh of who he would become.
Looking forward to discussing this with his father in the morning, Daemonar drank the water and went back to bed. Because he was excited about the future, it took him an extra minute to fall asleep.
THREE
Surreal quickly dressed in what she thought of as one of her second-in-command outfits: pale green shirt, green waistcoat a few shades deeper, dark trousers with a matching summer-weight coat. She brushed her black hair and used Craft to secure the decorative combs that held the hair away from her face—and revealed the delicately pointed ears.
Then she stared in the mirror and thought, Fool. Have you learned nothing? Why do you keep trying to prove that the line you know you can’t cross doesn’t exist? Why do you keep pretending you can handle him when temper mixed with sex turns dangerous? Is it stubbornness? Leftover professional pride from your years as one of the highest-paid whores in Terreille? Why do this to yourself and to him? Why?
He’d warned her that he wasn’t calm enough for her to feel safe having sex with him, but she had insisted and he had obliged, using his mouth and hand to bring her to a swift climax before he walked out of her bedroom and spent the night in his own room behind Black shields and locks to keep her out.
All she’d done last night was prove he knew her better than she knew herself. At least she could show him that she wasn’t going to run away again. She had enough spine—and pride—to do that.
Surreal rushed down the stairs, handing the coat to Helton on her way to the town house’s breakfast room. She paused at the door long enough to use a psychic tendril to confirm that Daemon was in the breakfast room. Then she walked in.
No warmth or welcome in Daemon’s eyes, but she hadn’t expected any.
Her nerves danced. Who watched her? Sadi? Or the Sadist? His eyes weren’t glazed in the chilling way that was distinctive of the Sadist, but Daemon was definitely in a predatory mood—and his heat was becoming too potent again to be around him in a place the size of the town house. Ignoring her physical response and discomfort, she filled her plate, then sat across from him. After the footman poured her coffee, she thanked the man and told him to leave, giving him the escape that she couldn’t give herself.
“I’ll take Cambrya to the school this morning so that she can look around and meet the staff, and then show her the available cottages.” She took a bite of her omelet. Chewed. Swallowed. “Are you going to pick up the art supplies and then go on to Ebon Rih?”
“I am.” A clipped reply.
“Will you be staying at the Keep for a day or two?” She kept her voice matter-of-fact—just a second-in-command confirming their schedules in case she needed to reach him.
“Yes.”
Last night had unsettled him and sharpened his temper—and no one in Kaeleer could afford to have Daemon Sadi unsettled for long. Even after all these years, his mind was still healing; his sanity was still fragile. If he fell into the Twisted Kingdom, he would inflict devastation on the Realm and on the Blood.
She couldn’t help him mend what had been broken, so his spending time at the Keep was best for all of them.
“When you’re ready to return to the Hall, Jaenelle Saetien should come home with you. She’s had her turn at visiting.”
He nodded.
She couldn’t say he was eating with any enthusiasm, but at least he was eating.
She selected one of the iced cinnamon rolls and took a bite. Still warm . . . and delicious. “Hell’s fire, these are good.” She reached across the table and held it out to him—and hoped her hand wouldn’t shake. “Taste this.”
His eyes never left hers as he leaned forward enough to take a bite. He chewed. Swallowed. And relaxed enough to take a cinnamon roll for himself. “Those are good.”
As she told him her schedule for the next couple of days, she watched him finish most of the food on his plate.
Having eaten her fill, she pushed away from the table and walked around to his side. She gave him a soft kiss that made no demands, then eased back. “Try not to get your brother into too much trouble while you’re in Ebon Rih.”
“That’s like expecting water not to be wet.”
She grinned. “Then you’d better pick up some fudge for Marian before you leave town.”
There was some warmth in his eyes when she stepped away. “An apology before the fact?”
“Absolutely.”
His quiet laugh soothed her. When she left the town house a few minutes later, she almost believed there was a way to mend things between them.
* * *
◆ ◆ ◆
Daemon walked into the art supply shop, saw the way the two shopkeepers—a Blood male and female—almost drooled at the sight of him, and felt his temper sharpen until he stood a heartbeat away
from the killing edge. He smiled at them—a cold, cruel smile—and watched lust and greedy anticipation change to fear.
Good. It would annoy Lady Zhara, the Queen of Amdarh, if he splattered these people over the walls—or worse, much worse, if he let the Sadist off the leash to play with them.
“I’m looking for some art supplies for my niece,” he said.
“Of course, Prince,” the man said. “I can show you—”
“No, I’ll show him,” the woman said.
Or I can show you something you’ll remember for the rest of your blighted existence, because once I’m done with your bodies, I will make sure I see you in Hell—and then we can have a proper chat.
“Art supplies for a beginner?” a young voice said. “I can show you, Prince Sadi. I have a list.”
Daemon turned toward the girl standing in the aisle, holding up a piece of paper. About Titian’s age. Sweet smile. Determined smile.
As he breathed in, he sent a tendril of power toward her and caught her psychic scent.
A Queen. He’d seen her before, but where . . . ?
Then he remembered being introduced to Zhara’s granddaughter a few years ago. “Lady Zoela.” He gave her the small nod of respect that a Warlord Prince of his rank would offer to any Queen who wasn’t his own.
She came forward and kept her eyes on his. She was too young to be affected by his sexual heat. The guard who trailed behind her wasn’t that lucky. The heat washed over him, and Daemon was aware of the man’s efforts not to sink to his knees under the weight of unwelcome lust. Then the guard pulled back his shoulders and looked at Daemon, silently acknowledging that he might die in that shop trying to protect the young Queen.