by Anne Bishop
And more than that, he wanted—
Before he finished the thought, intense cold seared the broken bones. He gritted his teeth and grunted to hold back a scream.
Then he was in the Misty Place, standing almost within reach of Witch, who stared at him with those ancient sapphire eyes while the claw on one finger tap, tap, tapped against the stone altar.
“I don’t want to forgive her,” he burst out, his breath creating a momentary fog between them. “I know she’s my cousin and she’s younger and she’s been so stupidly infatuated with that bitch Delora that she wouldn’t listen to anyone else, and I know she’s family, but Titian could have been raped because of her. My sister could have been raped and broken because Jaenelle Saetien was being so damn stupid, and I don’t want to forgive her.”
“Then don’t,” Witch said calmly.
He stopped raging. Blinked. Wondered if he’d heard her correctly. “What?”
“If you can’t forgive her, then don’t.”
“It will put a strain on the family. More of a strain.”
“Daemon and Lucivar have plenty of experience dealing with their tempers colliding. They’ll find their way through this. So will you.” She moved toward him and placed a gentle hand on his right shoulder. “I know a bit about waiting to forgive, boyo. Give yourself time. Let the idea of forgiving float on the wind and return to you when you’re ready.”
He felt some measure of tension ease. “Okay. Thanks, Auntie J.”
The hand on his shoulder tightened. The claws pierced his shirt and just pricked his skin, a warning that he needed to stay still if he didn’t want to bleed.
“Now,” Witch said too sweetly, “explain why you were so careless with someone who belongs to me.”
* * *
◆ ◆ ◆
Daemon walked into Daemonar’s room ahead of Lucivar, took one look at the agitated boy storming around the room and waving his arms, and stopped. Just stopped. And closed his eyes against the visual assault.
He stopped so fast, Lucivar walked into him, shoving him another step into the room before slamming to a stop.
“Hell’s fire,” Lucivar said.
“Look at this!” Daemonar said indignantly. “Look!”
Daemon opened his eyes, but looked away from the boy. “Stand still,” he ordered.
“All I did—”
“Stand. Still. And stop moving your arms.”
Lucivar snapped out an order in Eyrien that finally pinned the boy’s feet to the floor. Although it was possible that Lucivar had used Craft to actually pin the boy’s boots to the floor.
Still feeling a bit queasy, Daemon cautiously approached his nephew, with Lucivar walking beside him.
“Well,” Daemon said, “it’s not blue.”
“Mother Night, boy, what did you do to get your auntie J. that pissed off at you?”
“I didn’t—” Daemonar started to wave his arms.
“Don’t move!” they shouted.
When Daemonar was young, he’d broken his arm in a fight, and Daemon had put a bright blue shield around the arm to keep it safe while the bone healed—and to be a constant, annoying reminder to his nephew that there were penalties for getting hurt.
Witch’s penalty was also coloring the shield around the boy’s forearm and ribs, but the multiple colors were beyond garish and they kept swirling around the shield, and whenever Daemonar waved his arm, the movement created an afterimage of color in the air that followed every up-and-down and side-to-side move. And on top of all of that, the damn shield sparkled.
Their Queen could not have picked a better punishment for a Warlord Prince Daemonar’s age.
“When you were young, you asked me what I had done to piss off Witch so much that she gave me the scars on my arm because you didn’t want to make her that angry with you.” Daemon shook his head slowly. “Boyo, that shield is as close as you could come to that level of pissing her off without earning scars.”
“She was using her too-sweet voice.” Daemonar looked at the swirly, sparkly shield. “You know?”
“Oh, yeah,” Lucivar said. “We know. The only thing worse than too sweet is ice.”
The boy nodded. “Didn’t get to ice.”
“Lucky for you.”
“Aren’t you supposed to wear a sling?” Daemon asked.
“Yeah, but . . .” Daemonar looked toward a chair.
The sling was solid black. Thank the Darkness for that.
Daemon fetched it, braced himself to come that close to all that color, and gently arranged the arm into the sling. “Wear it. It hides the colors.” He kissed his nephew’s forehead, then stepped back as Lucivar stepped forward—and the boy braced for whatever discipline would come.
“You know why the Queen did that, don’t you?” Lucivar asked.
Daemonar swallowed hard. “She said you’d explain it to me.”
“You knew there was trouble here—”
“But I didn’t!”
Lucivar stared at his son. “I beg your pardon? Titian called for help and—”
“I didn’t hear it,” Daemonar said hurriedly. “Two of Zoey’s friends were attacked at the school. Chaosti dealt with the attackers and told me he was bringing the girls to the town house, along with Prince Raine and some of the other boys and girls who might be in danger. And he confirmed that Krellis, Dhuran, and some of the others connected to the coven of malice had left the school. So I left Beron to help guard the town house and came here to warn Uncle Daemon that the boys had left the school, in case they were going to cause trouble.”
“But the prick-asses were already here, and you . . . what? Strolled in to see what they were doing?”
“I didn’t stroll in,” Daemonar said indignantly. “I came in shielded.”
“A single Green shield? With what weapon?”
The boy was starting to look a little gray. Daemon wasn’t sure if it was pain and fatigue or the realization that he was in trouble with his father.
“An Eyrien club.”
Lucivar nodded. “There were . . . what? Six? Seven of them? And you figured if you smacked a couple of them, the rest would back off?”
“Not exactly.”
Lucivar moved so fast, the boy had no time to evade. And the hand now gripping the back of the boy’s neck closed tight enough to make Daemonar flinch.
“Listen to me,” Lucivar said quietly. “Are you listening?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Don’t you ever again walk into a fight without shielding as if you’re going into battle. If you’d done that, you’d have bruises instead of broken bones. And when the odds are against you, don’t you ever again assume a few punches will settle things. You’re a Warlord Prince. You knew there was trouble before you walked through that door. You should have been armed and shielded and ready to step onto a killing field. And you should never have raised a weapon or engaged in that fight unless you were willing to be the only one who walked away from that field.”
“They weren’t trained warriors,” Daemonar said softly. “I didn’t think I would have to kill them.”
“They were trained well enough to hurt you before you recognized you were in a real fight. If I had been the first one through the door, I would have given the prick-asses one hit against my outer shield, just to be able to say they started the fight. And then I would have slaughtered them, regardless of their training or age, because my daughter needed me to reach her.”
“Titian?” Daemonar asked, his voice and eyes full of fear.
“She’ll be all right. She held on for as long as she could, but her shields finally broke, and she could have been killed.” Lucivar released Daemonar’s neck and stroked a hand over the boy’s hair. “In a situation like that, you do not have time for mercy.” He sighed and lightly tapped Daemonar’s left hand. �
��And that’s part of the reason your auntie J. gave you that . . . reminder.”
“Are you hungry?” Daemon asked.
Daemonar thought for a moment, then nodded. “Yeah. I could eat.”
Not surprising. The boy could always eat.
“I’ll have Beale bring a tray up for you.” He glanced at the small glass sitting on the table near a chair already nested with blankets and pillows. The Healer must have decided that would be a better place to rest while the boy’s ribs knit. “You didn’t drink the tonic to help with the pain.”
“Figured I should be awake when I got my ass kicked.”
Lucivar snorted a laugh. “Well, at least you’ve learned that much.”
Daemon sent the request for food to Beale. Then he and Lucivar got the boy settled in the chair, tucked in with blankets and warming spells.
The food arrived with a speed that made Daemon wonder if Beale—and Mrs. Beale—had anticipated the request. Either way, they left the boy busily consuming a variety of dishes that didn’t require the use of two hands.
“Witch couldn’t reach him, so she summoned us,” Lucivar said as they made their way back to the great hall.
“Sounds that way,” Daemon agreed. And if they hadn’t arrived when they did . . . “How did you get here from Ebon Rih so fast?”
“Rode black lightning.”
Daemon raised an eyebrow.
“It’s not something you want to know about when we’re completely sober.”
“Another time, then.”
Lucivar nodded. “Another time.”
FORTY
Daemon glided past the row of arrogant young Warlords who were tethered with phantom Black chains to the stone wall. He had said nothing since he’d taken them, both the living and the dead, from the Hall in Dhemlan.
“My parents are going to hear about this,” Krellis said, trying to sound sneeringly brave.
“They will,” Daemon agreed as he glided past. “Eventually. But according to the gatekeeper’s logs and as far as anyone else knows, you never left the school. Your instructors will, no doubt, think you’re ignoring your classes since you often do in favor of something more exciting and malevolent. No one is going to look for you, Lord Krellis. Certainly not here.”
The males who had experienced the physical death hadn’t made the transition to demon-dead yet, and it hadn’t taken more than a tiny flick of power to knock out the living long enough to open the Gate that was next to the Hall and bring them to this place, to this room.
How many executions had been performed here? How much blood had been collected as sustenance for the demon-dead? How many bodies had been left out on the land to be consumed by the Dark Realm’s flora and fauna?
He imagined Saetan would have felt a measure of sickness along with the cold rage when he’d been required to perform an execution. Unfortunately for these fools, the humanity that would have felt that measure of sickness had been burned out of Daemon Sadi by torture and drugs like safframate long before he had reached the same age as these boys.
“Where are we?” Dhuran asked.
“SaDiablo Hall,” Daemon replied. “In Hell.”
“You can’t keep us here,” Krellis said, no longer sounding sneering or brave.
“I don’t intend to keep you here. I don’t want you with me any longer than I’m required to endure your presence.” Daemon stopped in front of Krellis. “A slow execution takes three days. During that time, I am going to take you apart, body and mind. I will extract every moment of pain you’ve inflicted on someone else. I will know the name of every girl you raped or broke for your own pleasure or at Delora’s request. I will know everything you have said and done—and once I have everything, I will collect the debt you owe for the lives you’ve damaged. When it’s done, I will give you the mercy of the final death, and you will become a whisper in the Darkness.”
He smiled a viciously gentle smile as his sexual heat flowed through the room, both a torture and a snare. He leaned closer to the Warlord, pleased by the mix of lust and fear that filled the enemy’s eyes and psychic scent.
The Sadist whispered, “It’s time to dance, Krellis.”
* * *
◆ ◆ ◆
Lucivar figured he and Zoey had walked every corridor in the entire Hall over the past two days—and judging by the color of her socks, some of those corridors hadn’t seen a dust mop in years. That would change once Helene saw those socks. Then again, the Hall was a massive structure, and it wasn’t surprising that some parts of it weren’t being used or kept up to Helene’s standard of clean. Those sections of the Hall and the connecting corridors hadn’t been used when Saetan lived here either—at least, not used in any expected way. Jaenelle Angelline and the coven had found all kinds of things to do with corridors that weren’t used.
As he walked with Zoey, he looked around for any sign that some part of the structure needed repair, but he didn’t see anything. Amazing, really, since Jaenelle’s coven had, with fair regularity, miscalculated the ingredients in a new spell, and that had ended with the damn thing blowing up. Or maybe not so amazing since they had also learned how to create some of the best shields he’d ever seen in order to avoid Saetan’s ten-minute stare.
The agreement had been that Saetan would turn a ten-minute hourglass, and while the sand ran down in the glass, he could voice his opinion about whatever transgression had been made. At the end of that ten minutes, the subject was closed.
Sometimes, when he was truly angry about something, he would turn the hourglass and just stare at the witch or witches who had committed the offense. It was an impressive way to express anger and disappointment because no one could argue with that stare—and no one, not even Witch, had dared to break the silence.
Maybe he should mention that to Daemon when his brother returned to the Hall. In the meantime, there was Zoey.
She was so exhausted, she couldn’t hold up a stick well enough to spar, so he and Zoey and Allis walked and walked and walked. When Zoey went down, sometimes he created a mattress of air large enough for dog and girl. There was always a footman nearby with blankets and a pillow, so he’d cover them up and leave them to sleep while he checked on Daemonar, who, bored and restless, spent most of his time with Holt, sorting through the correspondence that was flooding into the Hall. Titian didn’t want to go home until she knew Zoey would be all right, but she wanted to help her friend and kept getting her heart bruised by Zoey screaming at her to stay away. Every time he checked on her, he told his girl Zoey didn’t want to connect her feelings for Titian with what the drug was still doing to her and that was why she wanted Titian to stay away.
While Zoey slept, he checked on Surreal, who had been sending the other guests home with a firm message to the parents that those girls were not to go back to the school until Prince Sadi gave his consent. He read the reports from Chaosti, who still had several students and Prince Raine staying at the town house under guard for their protection, and from Lady Zhara’s Master of the Guard, whose men were keeping the instructors and other students contained at the school while Zhara’s First Circle ferreted out the other youngsters who had assisted in the coven of malice’s vicious games.
We war against children, he thought bitterly as he, Zoey, and Allis returned to familiar corridors in the Hall. But what choice is there? To stand back and let Delora become another Dorothea? To let her followers destroy the strongest and best young women and men of that generation . . . and beyond? Can’t do that. Can’t. We know too much, have seen too much. If Daemon and I don’t shoulder the burden now, don’t pay the price now, then who will?
Zoey stopped walking. She sniffed, then wrinkled her nose. “I smell bad.”
*You are stinky,* Allis agreed. *But you do not smell sick anymore.*
Huh. Instead of wondering about the level of Zoey’s recovery, he should have asked the damn Scelti
e.
“Shower?” Zoey asked hopefully.
“Sure,” he said. “We’re close to your room. You can go there and get cleaned up. You want some food?”
She wobbled when she started walking again, so he wrapped a hand around her arm to keep her steady. “Not broth. I think . . . Did I eat broth?”
He nodded. “Broth, water, a slice of fruit or a bite of a sandwich when I could get it down you.”
“I yelled at Titian.” Her voice spiked. “Why did I yell at Titian? She saved me.”
“You didn’t want your feelings muddled by the lust caused by the drug. You needed her to stay away.”
“Is she all right?”
“Yeah, she’s fine. She’ll be better once she knows you’re feeling better.”
She looked up at him, her eyes older and shadowed now. “You know how this feels.”
“Yeah, I do.”
“This . . . changed me.”
“It did. But you survived it. Many don’t.”
They had reached her bedroom. “Do you think, if she doesn’t touch me—I don’t think it would be good to have someone touch me—that Titian could sit with me and have something to eat?”
He didn’t point out that he had a hand on her arm to keep her from falling down. Not the same kind of touch. “She’d like that.”
They walked into the bedroom. Titian rushed to the doorway between their rooms. Lucivar raised a hand to stop her.
*Zoey is stinky and needs a bath,* Allis said. *Then we will have food, and then we will sleep.*
“I forgot how bossy they are,” Zoey whispered when Lucivar helped her reach the bathroom.
“Well, I hope you’re resigned to having Allis around, because I think she’s decided you’re going to be her human to love and herd.”
Zoey let out a small laugh, a sound that eased the tightness around his heart.
Leaving Zoey in the bathroom, watched by Allis, Lucivar dealt with Titian, who hugged him hard enough to constrict his ribs.
“She’ll be all right, witchling,” he said, stroking one hand down her hair. “She came out the other end of it, so she’ll be all right. But she needs you to be patient about . . .” How to say it?