by Anne Bishop
A scratching at the bathroom door before a Sceltie entered. A young witch who wore a Rose Jewel.
*I am Allis,* the Sceltie said. She glanced at him before focusing on Zoey.
“You watch over Lady Zoey,” he told her. “Make sure her head doesn’t go under the water.”
*I will watch.*
Lucivar collected the clothes and ruined shoes and left Zoey and Allis to become acquainted.
Helene and a maid waited for him in the bedroom.
“The Healer is almost done examining the other girls,” Helene said. “She was going to heal Prince Daemonar’s broken bones next, but he insisted that she see to Lady Zoela first. She and her husband’s sister will be up in a few minutes.”
Of course the boy had insisted. Daemonar was a Warlord Prince. Zoey was not only a Queen but his sister’s romantic friend. Which made her family. As long as he wasn’t bleeding out and wasn’t given a direct order to submit to the Healer, he would wait until the females in the family were seen.
The moment Helene and the maid walked out of the room, Titian flung herself into his arms.
“My shields broke,” she cried. “They broke and I couldn’t protect Zoey. If Jaenelle Saetien hadn’t put up a shield, Delora would have . . .”
“You held until your brother could reach you,” he said, holding her against him and hoping she wouldn’t realize that he was the one who was shaking. “You held, witchling. You did what you were supposed to do.”
She eased back, and he saw the pattern of his chain mail pressed into her cheek.
“I have the food,” she said. “Zoey told me to take the food so that Uncle Daemon could have it tested. Papa, they put something in the food. It made Zoey sick.”
He led her to a small table in the room’s sitting area. “Show me.”
She called in a plate of food, then the serving dishes.
A knock on the door. A swift psychic probe confirmed that he didn’t know either witch, so he formed an Ebon-gray shield around Titian before using Craft to open the door.
The Healer and Black Widow walked into the room.
“Prince,” the Healer said. “Lady Zoela . . . ?”
“In the bath,” he replied. Reading the concern in her eyes, he added, “She’s not alone.”
No chance that the girl might harm herself in a desperate, misguided attempt to relieve whatever the drug was doing to her. Not with a Sceltie watching—and questioning—every move she made.
The Healer disappeared into the bathroom. The Black Widow stayed near the door.
“You are Tersa’s winged boy?” she asked.
“I am.”
She relaxed but stayed near the door.
“I’d like your opinion.” He pointed to the food, then reached for Titian and placed her on his other side, putting himself between his daughter and an unfamiliar Black Widow.
In the time it took the Black Widow to walk from the door to the table, he’d probed the food, confirming what he’d expected to find—and thankful for what he didn’t find. He just wanted the Black Widow to confirm that before he went searching for Daemon.
She held her right hand over the plate, then over each serving dish, the look in her eyes distant but thoughtful.
“I detect no poisons, if that was your concern,” she finally said. “But . . .” She frowned. Then she stepped back and anger flashed in her eyes. “Safframate?”
“Yes.”
“But so much? That’s not an aphrodisiac. That’s . . . beyond cruelty.”
“Yes.”
She looked at him with sudden understanding. She flicked a glance at Titian and said, “I don’t know if any of my skills will help her, but if there is anything I, or any Sister of the Hourglass, can do, please call on us.” Then she added on a psychic thread, *And not just for Lady Zoela.*
He nodded. He waited until the Black Widow left before dropping the Ebon-gray shield and turning to his daughter.
“Did you eat any of the food that Zoey ate?” he asked.
Titian shook her head. “I put a little on my plate because she likes that dish so much, but she started feeling sick after two bites, so I never had a chance to eat anything.”
“What about the other girls?”
“I don’t know, Papa.”
“All right.” That one dish had so much powdered safframate dumped over it, he wasn’t surprised that it had taken just two bites to hit Zoey that hard. If the other girls had taken the tiniest taste, they’d be showing some reaction to the drug by now. Wild rage or inappropriate—and desperate—amorous feelings. Something the servants—and the Scelties—would have to watch for tonight.
The Healer gave him a timid psychic tap.
“Witchling, what does Zoey sleep in?” When she gave him a wary look, he huffed out a breath. “I’m not saying you broke your uncle’s rules, but I don’t believe for a minute that you keep your preference of nightclothes a secret from each other. So find what she would wear so the Healer can help her get dressed.”
“Oh.” Titian hurried to the small chest of drawers, opened the second drawer without hesitation, and pulled out a long fleece top and matching long pants. She closed that drawer, then opened another one and pulled out a pair of thick socks. “The room feels cold.”
“I’ll increase the warming spell in this room,” he said mildly. “In yours too.”
She looked relieved.
He would talk to Beale about getting some food for Titian and the other girls. They all needed something hot to warm up their insides and something sweet to help them deal with the shock of the attack.
He took the nightclothes and handed them to the Healer, who waited at the bathroom door.
“She’s in bad shape,” the Healer whispered.
“I know.” The muscle pains and strains would be the least of it and, for Zoey, the most understandable. But what that much safframate was doing to her? Hell’s fire, he’d slaughtered entire courts and exploded the buildings that held those courts, trying to burn out an equivalent dose of safframate. He’d pushed Zoey as hard as her body could stand to help her get rid of some of it, but she was going to suffer tonight because of Delora and her coven of bitches.
It was tempting to suggest that every one of them be given the same dose, then locked up and left to scream. They wanted to embrace Hayll? Let them embrace it.
But he didn’t think Daemon would agree because of one of Delora’s friends. Daemon knew the pain caused by excessive doses of safframate, so Lucivar didn’t think Sadi could be persuaded to pour a dose down Jaenelle Saetien’s throat.
* * *
◆ ◆ ◆
He had other duties, but Beale waited in the kitchen with his wife. She had killed a guest—a hostile guest who was attacking another person, but still a guest—and there would be a price for that choice. Prince Sadi could be reasoned with, even when he was angry, but this High Lord, who was a lethal blend of sex and death, was a dangerous unknown because Sadi had been so careful, so considerate, to keep himself away from the staff when this side of his temper was dominant.
No more. High Lord and Sadist would walk together from now on. Beale hoped that, once things calmed down, Daemon Sadi, rather than the High Lord, would reside at the Hall most of the time, just as he’d done before tonight.
The High Lord stepped into the kitchen, his gold eyes glazed and cold, his face a beautiful mask that revealed nothing. He glanced at the girl still hanging in the bubble shield Mrs. Beale had created.
Mrs. Beale stood by her worktable, her hand white-knuckle tight around the handle of her meat cleaver.
The High Lord walked up to her, lifted that fisted hand—and pressed a kiss on the back of it. Then he turned his head slightly and pressed his lips to the side of the meat cleaver. He looked Mrs. Beale in the eyes and stepped back, stepped away. Turned and walked
out of the kitchen.
He didn’t say a word, but a moment after he left, the dead girl vanished.
Beale stared at his wife, not knowing what to say. She stared at the meat cleaver—and the impression of a kiss now engraved on the side of the blade.
* * *
◆ ◆ ◆
*Beale,* Daemon called when he reached the dining room. *Please attend.*
While he waited, he let psychic tendrils flow through the Hall, cataloging the location of everyone inside.
When his butler approached, he saw wariness and regret—and resignation.
“I failed in my duty,” Beale said.
“Did you?” Daemon asked gently.
“If I had ignored the order given by a . . . child . . . Lady Zoela would not have been harmed.”
“If I had ignored the plea to let the party continue instead of hauling all the girls back to the school . . .” He sighed. “Were any of the girls raped?”
Beale’s shock crashed against his inner barriers.
“No, High Lord.”
“No,” Daemon agreed. “You chose to cherish and protect the Ladies who were left in your charge instead of obeying a command that was an insult to both of us. And you contained the enemy until I returned.”
Beale hesitated. “Two of the boys, friends of Lady Zoela’s, were not taken to the cells beneath the Hall. One is the boy who was attacked in the kitchen. The other was shielding another Lady from a hostile guest with a knife. The boys are currently in the staff room across from the square of guest rooms occupied by the young Ladies.”
“Where is the hostile guest? In the cells?”
“She will be making the transition to demon-dead,” Beale said. “The shadow Jaal was given the order to capture, not kill . . .”
“Even a shadow of Jaal would never obey that order when a young female was being attacked.”
“No.”
“Very well.” Daemon thought for a moment. “The young Ladies are going to need some food. Regretfully, nothing that is in the dining room can be trusted. All of it should be taken out and burned.”
“I’ll see to that at once.” Beale pursed his lips. “Mrs. Beale had made a beef soup for the staff. Would that do?”
Daemon nodded. “I’ll be in my study, if Lucivar and Surreal have trouble finding me.” He doubted they would, but all the Black shields might mask his location in the Hall.
“Tarl wants to know if he should continue to hold the messenger he has locked in the stables.”
“Yes, I still want to have a chat with that messenger before I take the dead to Hell.”
“I will inform him.” Beale hesitated for a moment. “Tarl said the boy seemed grateful to be captured, that he wasn’t trying very hard to reach the landing web and leave. And the boy keeps asking if you’re going to hurt his younger brothers because he brought the message.”
“Is that why he brought the message?” Daemon asked too softly. “Because someone had threatened to harm his brothers if he didn’t obey?”
“Tarl thinks so.”
How many times had he done something that had violated everything he was because Dorothea had threatened to harm Lucivar if he didn’t comply? How could he blame this messenger for doing what he would have done in order to save someone he loved?
“Make sure the boy is fed, and have Tarl find out whatever he can about where the boy’s family lives and who made the threat against the brothers.”
Daemon walked to his study, feeling the leashes that usually controlled temper, power, sexual heat, and the Sadist slip back into place. Loose, yes, but he felt them again. Which meant he was no longer riding the killing edge.
Which meant he had to consider what was going to happen next—and the price that would have to be paid for the lies and betrayal that had provided an opportunity to damage a young Queen.
* * *
◆ ◆ ◆
Lucivar returned to the great hall and found Surreal hovering there. She looked like she was watching several footmen and maids scrape up the gore and partially melted blood near the front door, but it didn’t take him more than a moment to understand that she had been waiting for him, unwilling to walk into the study and face Sadi—or whatever side of his temper was behind the study door—alone.
“Come on, witchling,” he said. “Let’s get it done.”
He walked into the study without knocking.
Daemon turned away from the desk and held out a brandy snifter filled almost to the brim.
Lucivar took it and swallowed down half, grateful for the heat. It had been a bitch of a night and it wasn’t going to be over until the sun rose, if it ended there.
Surreal joined them, accepting another snifter that wasn’t filled quite so full.
Daemon poured a third and took a long swallow before asking, “Zoey?”
“Not good,” Lucivar replied. “Hell’s fire, there was enough safframate in that food to have felled both of us, let alone a girl her size. I figure she’ll go down for an hour and then the arousal and pain will drive her into something physical.”
“Like what?” Surreal asked, looking drawn.
“I’ll walk her tonight. Inside the Hall to keep her from getting chilled. We’ll walk until she goes down again. Then I’ll tuck her into the nearest sitting room and let her sleep until the drug drives her up again.” He drained the snifter. “If her body doesn’t give out, the drug’s hold on her should ease in another day . . . or two.”
“Shit,” Surreal whispered. “That long?”
“Unless you want to hand her a knife and let her rage on the bodies in the cells, walking and letting her fight against me are the only ways to give her some relief.” There was sex, but he wouldn’t consider it and Daemon wouldn’t allow it.
“Even if she tore into the dead, she wouldn’t be able to live with that once her mind cleared of the drug,” Daemon said.
Unlike us, Lucivar thought. We relished the destruction of our enemies, and painted the walls with blood.
“Is there nothing a Healer can do for Zoey?” Surreal asked.
Not any of the Healers living in Kaeleer. There were two who might be able to help the girl, but one was no longer flesh and the other was demon-dead. Still . . .
*I’ll ask,* Daemon said on an Ebon-gray spear thread.
“I’ll be taking the dead and all the male intruders to Hell,” Daemon said. “We’re all going to have a chat. Except the messenger. Tarl thinks the boy is another victim, so I’ll talk to him before I leave.”
“When?” Surreal asked.
“Within the hour. I may be gone for several days. Can you manage here?”
Slow executions took three days, so Daemon would be gone that long.
Lucivar glanced at Surreal. She was sweating from the effort to ignore Daemon’s leashed sexual heat, and her eyes were glassy with need. Knowing what he’d be facing, he’d put a shield on the inside of his trousers to hide his own aroused response. Right now Daemon’s control would be shaky at best. Hell’s fire, his control of his temper and heat weren’t much better. In other circumstances, they might tear into each other for some relief, but that wasn’t going to happen because neither of them could afford to be wounded and bloody tonight.
Daemon’s choice to go to the Dark Realm was the only way to protect everyone else right now.
“We’ll manage,” he said. “I’ll stay until Zoey can go home. Surreal and I will arrange for the other girls to be sent home if they’re fit enough to leave.”
“Not back to the school,” Daemon said. “None of them go back to that school.”
“Agreed. I’ll send that message.”
Daemon nodded.
“Beale’s probably arranging for some food for the girls,” Surreal said, using Craft to float the barely touched snifter of brandy back to the desk. “
I’ll see how that’s coming along.”
After she left, Daemon said, “Titian?”
“Scared. Shaken. She almost drained her Jewel to the breaking point trying to maintain a shield around herself and Zoey.” He hesitated, but it had to be said. “If Zoey is permanently damaged, I don’t think Titian will ever forgive Jaenelle Saetien.”
“I know. Neither will Lady Zhara.” Daemon set his glass on the desk. “They might not be the only ones who won’t be able, or willing, to forgive my daughter for what happened tonight.”
Can you? Will I?
“It might help both of us if we remember that, in the end, Jaenelle Saetien stood for Titian and Zoey, shielding them from Delora and that other bitch,” Lucivar said.
“It might help,” Daemon agreed softly, sadly. “It might.”
A quiet knock on the study door before Holt opened it just enough to lean into the room.
“Prince Daemonar would like to see you at your earliest convenience,” Holt said.
“Did the Healer take care of those broken bones?” Lucivar asked.
Holt nodded. “He wouldn’t let me in the room, but I had the impression the Healer isn’t the only one who has seen your son.”
Holt looked wide-eyed and a little pale, as if he’d caught a whiff of something—someone—who shouldn’t exist.
“Mother Night,” Lucivar said, setting his glass aside.
“And may the Darkness be merciful,” Daemon added.
He and Daemon left the study to find out what his son had done now.
* * *
◆ ◆ ◆
Daemonar paced around his room, hurting and angry. So angry.
He’d drunk the healing brew and submitted to having the bone in his forearm set and the broken ribs adjusted and sealed within a shield to keep them stable while the bones knit, but he’d refused the tonic that would have made him groggy enough to sleep. He didn’t want to sleep. He wanted to be awake—and angry—when he faced his father and uncle.