by Anne Bishop
“No,” Daemon said softly.
Rainier took a couple of slow, steady breaths. Then he approached the Hall’s doors, which opened before he could reach for the knocker. When the doors closed again, Lucivar walked up to Daemon.
“How bad?” Lucivar asked.
“Beron’s hurt, and at least half of his injuries were caused deliberately by the bitch Healer that family hired to take care of him. Jaenelle’s working on him, has been since we found him. She says he’ll be all right—and may the Darkness have mercy on that family if she can’t bring him all the way back to full health.”
“Mikal?”
“Sylvia told Tildee to run. We haven’t found her or Mikal yet.” Daemon blew out a breath and watched the white plume it made. “You’ve seen Sylvia?”
“Yes.”
“Has Father?”
Lucivar looked sad and grim. “Yes. She made the transition to demon-dead and reached the Keep before draining her Jewels completely. He poured a vial of Jaenelle’s blood down her throat.”
Daemon huffed out a pained laugh. “Well, that should give her temper plenty of scratch and kick.” The moment he said the word kick, he felt grief clog his throat. “I brought her legs. I wasn’t going to leave any part of her there. Now I’m not sure what to do with them.”
“Saetan wants to see you. He’s troubled by some cildru dyathe who have appeared in the Dark Realm recently. You can ask him what should be done.” Lucivar shifted his weight, rubbed his hands together.
“Do you want to go in?” Daemon asked.
“I figure you have a reason for standing out here in the cold.”
That simple. It usually was between him and Lucivar.
He blew out another breath just to watch it plume in the cold night air. “If you were Tildee, where would you run?”
“You already know the answer, old son.”
“I’d like confirmation that I’m thinking like a Sceltie.”
“All right. If she or Mikal are wounded, she would go to the closest Sceltie for help protecting the boy. If they got out before things turned ugly, there are four places I would look: here, their home, Manny’s cottage, and Tersa’s cottage. I would go to Tersa’s first. Mikal considers it his second home, and he’s her ‘Mikal boy.’ He’s family.”
“And Tersa is dangerous when it comes to family.”
“Yeah. Which is why I would go there to hide if I were a Sceltie running from danger with one of Tersa’s boys.” Lucivar remained silent for a minute. Then he huffed out a breath. “So are we going to go down and knock on her door, or wait until morning, or just stand here and freeze our balls?”
The Hall’s doors opened. Beale said, “Prince? The carriage will be around front in a minute.” He closed the doors.
Lucivar looked at Daemon. “Did you ask for a carriage to be brought around?”
“Apparently.”
“Did you think to ask for hot coffee and something to eat?”
Daemon said blandly, “We’ll have to find out.”
Surreal paced the corridor, guarding the guest rooms that held Beron and Haeze. At the midway point, she passed Ladvarian, who trotted in the opposite direction. At the end of the corridor, they both turned and resumed their patrol.
The restless pacing wasn’t necessary. She could have sat in one place and used a psychic probe to remain aware of everything and everyone in and around those rooms, but she needed to move.
All right, the truth was she wanted to go after the son of a whoring bitch who had hurt at least one boy she liked and a woman she considered a friend. She wanted to rip and tear and stab until the enemy was nothing more than a bloody pile of shit. Or find her prey and make the kill quietly, using one of those elegant death spells Sadi had taught her so many years ago.
So damn hard to pace and wait. Since he hadn’t been with them, Rainier would have better luck coaxing information out of Haeze, and her presence in the room would interfere with that. She was more than useless in Beron’s room while Jaenelle was working on the delicate healing needed to restore the boy’s vision, hearing, and voice.
Then Ladvarian froze. Surreal called in her favorite stiletto and stood still, listening.
*It’s Tildee,* Ladvarian said. *She is tired. Mikal is upset. They are with Tersa.*
*Sadi!* Surreal called. *Tildee and Mikal are with Tersa.*
*We’re almost at the cottage,* he replied.
*Any news about Sylvia?*
A hesitation. *She’s with the High Lord.*
He didn’t need to say more.
“The Mikal boy is upset,” Tersa said, blocking the stairs that led to the bedrooms. “The Sceltie is upset and says they must hide.”
Daemon wasn’t sure if she was asking for clarification or warning him not to push. He took her hands because sometimes physical contact helped her mind stay focused on the mundane world instead of wandering down a path in the Twisted Kingdom.
“Beron is injured, and Sylvia is dead,” he said gently. “I need to see Mikal to make sure he wasn’t harmed before Tildee got him away from that place.”
“Oh,” Tersa said softly. “He’s so young to lose his mother.”
I was younger when I was taken from you, Daemon thought as he drew her away from the stairs.
“Perhaps some warm milk?” Tersa looked at him, then at Lucivar.
“Do you need help making it?” Lucivar asked.
“No, I can warm milk.”
She walked down the hallway to the kitchen, leaving them to climb the stairs.
Mikal was in the “Mikal boy’s” bedroom, since he was Tersa’s most frequent guest. The covers were pulled out and rumpled, which Daemon found alarming, since it looked like a struggle had taken place. Then he saw part of Tildee’s head poking out from the covers at the bottom of the bed. She had done the rumpling to have a hiding place from which she could easily attack. And since Mikal was pressed against the headboard on the side of the bed farthest from the door and would draw a person’s eye first, an intruder moving toward the boy would put himself in a position to receive intimate damage from a pissed-off Sceltie with sharp teeth. Even if the intruder’s shield held against her Summer-sky, the clash of power would alert everyone nearby that there was trouble.
“Lady Tildee, please attend,” Lucivar said. “Prince Sadi needs to speak to Lord Mikal.”
Using the formal titles turned the request into a command.
Tildee wiggled out from under the covers and followed Lucivar downstairs.
Daemon sat on the edge of the bed near Mikal. “Are you hurt?” he asked quietly.
Mikal shook his head. Then he frowned and pushed up one sleeve. “Well, my arm hurts a little, but Tildee didn’t mean it. She grabbed me and said we had to run and hide. Mother said so. I wanted to find out why, but Tildee wouldn’t let go of my arm, so we left, and she wouldn’t stop, and it took a long time to ride the Winds, and then we were here, and Tildee told Tersa that something bad had happened, but she didn’t know what the bad thing was, only that we were supposed to hide.”
Daemon lightly brushed his fingertips over Mikal’s arm. The Sceltie hadn’t broken the skin, but she’d clamped down hard enough to leave bruises.
“Prince? Before Tildee caught the Winds and took us away from that house, I heard Beron yell. It sounded bad. Is he hurt?”
Daemon swallowed the lump in his throat. “Yes, he’s hurt. But Lady Angelline is doing the healing, and she’s taking good care of him.”
“Then who’s taking care of Mother? She wouldn’t have told Tildee to run unless something bad happened.”
He brushed back Mikal’s hair. The boy needed to have it cut soon. Who would remember the small things like that now? “I’m sorry, boyo. I am so sorry, but your mother is dead.”
Mikal was silent for so long, Daemon wondered if the words had been understood.
“Can’t the High Lord fix her so she can come back and live with us?” Mikal asked in a small voice. “She would have to
sleep in the daytime, but that would be all right. I’d get my chores and schoolwork done before she woke up. I would.”
“It’s not that easy for someone who is demon-dead to be among the living.” Who was he to say such a thing to this child? Most of his family had been demon-dead and had lived at the Hall for years in order to be with Jaenelle. Saetan had not only been Sylvia’s lover; he’d been Mikal’s surrogate father.
“The High Lord could fix it,” Mikal insisted. There was hope and conviction in those words—and fear that it wouldn’t be true. “Can’t you ask him to fix it?”
Daemon’s eyes filled with tears. He pulled the boy close and hugged him, rocking them both for comfort. “I don’t know if he can fix this, Mikal. I don’t know if he can. But I’ll ask him. I promise that I’ll ask him.”
An hour later, Mikal and Tildee were snoring in a freshly made bed, and Daemon and Lucivar were in the carriage heading back to the Hall.
“You couldn’t have said anything else,” Lucivar told him. “Not to a boy who has rubbed elbows with our family as much as he has.”
“Sylvia is a Queen,” Daemon said wearily. “Letting a demon-dead Queen continue to rule would set a dangerous precedent, and it would be hard for her to remain anywhere near Halaway and watch another Queen rule her people—especially if she didn’t like some of the choices the new Queen made. Families and villages and Territories need to let go of the dead and move on—and the demon-dead need to let go of the living.”
“The boy doesn’t give a damn about Sylvia the Queen. Right now, he just wants the assurance that his mother will still be there to read him a story and tuck him in at night,” Lucivar said.
“I know that, Prick. I know.” Daemon pressed his fingertips against his temples and tried to ease some of the tension.
“Do you think Sylvia’s father will want the boys to live with him?” Lucivar asked.
“Maybe. What the boys want will have more weight than any adult.” A trickle of anger pushed aside the weariness. “But I’ll tell you who isn’t going to have the boys. Their sires.”
“I didn’t think either of them had been granted paternal rights—or wanted them.”
“They didn’t. But Mikal’s sire has come sniffing around a couple of times in recent months, expressing interest in his son and wanting to become acquainted.”
“Why?”
“From what I found out after the first time he came around, his service as a Consort has earned him notoriety rather than the lucrative and illustrious positions he’d envisioned would be his when he walked away from Sylvia and her little village.”
“And I thought Father was the only one who disliked her former Consorts,” Lucivar said dryly.
Daemon lowered his hands and rested his head on the back of the seat. “You will never repeat this to Jaenelle, but after that son of a whoring bitch came around a second time, I told Kaelas and Jaal that if he trespassed on any property that belonged to the family—and that included the land around Manny’s and Tersa’s cottages—they had my permission to eat him. I said it within the bastard’s hearing. I haven’t seen him since.”
Lucivar stared at him for a moment before laughing. “Hell’s fire, Bastard. You do like to dance on the knife’s edge.”
“Maybe.” Or maybe he felt fairly sure that Jaenelle wouldn’t object too strenuously if she did find out.
*Prince?*
*Rainier,* Daemon replied. *Anything to report?*
*I know why Sylvia’s family was lured down to that place, but I didn’t find out anything that will help you hunt down the bastard. If you and Prince Yaslana are coming back to the Hall, Surreal wants to go back to our house in Halaway and get some sleep. She knows she has a suite at the Hall and I have a suite too, and there’s no point in you reminding her because Beale already has—twice—but she wants to be in the village, closer to Tersa and Manny. Just in case.*
*All right. I’ll stop by in the morning before I go to the Keep.* He broke the link and closed his eyes. “Can you stay until morning?” he asked Lucivar. “I’ll be heading to the Keep after I talk to Rainier.”
“I can stay. I’ll check on Tersa and Mikal while you get Rainier’s report. Maybe between us we can give Sylvia a little peace.”
And maybe by tomorrow he would have a better idea of how to find the bastard who had ended a good Queen’s life.
FOUR
Sylvia jerked awake and tried to pull herself out of a memory-dream about Mikal and Tildee. It was during the first year Tildee had lived with them. Mikal had snitched some goody from the kitchen earlier that day and hidden it under his bed for the two of them to have as a treat late that night, not realizing that the treat would spoil if left outside the cold box on a summer day. Tildee had thought it smelled bad, but the boy assured her it was wonderful, so boy and Sceltie had gobbled up the treat.
She still remembered Mikal’s panicked yells, and running into his bedroom to discover that Tildee had vomited all over his lap. In the seconds it took her to realize the dog was extremely ill and needed healing help from someone who knew kindred, Mikal began throwing up. So there she was, very late at night, pounding on the Hall’s front door, holding a blanket-wrapped Sceltie who was covered in Mikal’s puke, while her court Healer was taking care of Mikal, and Beron was running to fetch Manny and Tersa.
Jaenelle had taken one look at Tildee, asked what she and Mikal had eaten, and then poured a tonic down the dog’s throat. An hour later, Sylvia was back home with an embarrassed, freshly bathed Sceltie, who was greeted by an equally embarrassed, freshly bathed boy. For a few years after that incident, on the days when Mikal attended the village school, Tildee went up to the Hall for her own kind of lessons.
The two of them had gotten into their share of trouble since then, but when Tildee told Mikal something was bad, the boy didn’t argue.
Why would I dream about that now? she wondered. Then she remembered she’d told Tildee to run. The boys!
Rolling over on her side, Sylvia tried to fling the covers back and push her legs over the edge of the bed, but an arm tightened around her waist.
“Easy,” Saetan said. “From now on, you have to think before you get out of bed.”
“The boys!”
“Are safe. Beron was injured, but he’s at the Hall in Jaenelle’s care. We’ll find out more when Daemon and Lucivar arrive here in a couple of hours.”
Sylvia shivered. “And Mikal?”
Saetan’s arm didn’t move from her waist, but the covers settled in place around her. “Tildee grabbed Mikal and didn’t stop running until she got them to Tersa’s cottage. They’re upset, but otherwise they’re fine.”
“Thank the Darkness.” All her strength seemed to drain away once she knew her sons were safe. She rolled onto her back—and remembered the rest.
The candle-light in the bedside lamp began to glow softly, providing just enough light for her to see the man who raised himself up on one elbow to look at her.
“You’re not under the covers,” she said. “Is it because of how my legs look?”
“My darling Sylvia, I am the High Lord of Hell. I have seen much worse than truncated legs. No, I’m above the covers because I didn’t want you to wake up alone, but you weren’t in any condition to extend an invitation to sleep with you.”
She let out a pained laugh. “You’re still going to insist on propriety?”
“Your body is dead; you are not. That being the case, I see no reason to dispense with propriety or any other courtesy,” he said with just enough bite to make her feel chastised.
No, he wouldn’t dispense with propriety or courtesy or the Blood’s Protocol or their code of honor, and she doubted the demon-dead were allowed to dispense with those things either. Not if they wanted to extend their existence a while longer after the physical death.
“Saetan . . .” She wasn’t sure what she was asking of him, wasn’t even sure if she was asking anything. But he bent his head and gave her one of those slow, th
orough kisses that used to make her knees weak. When his mind surrounded hers, she felt the wave of sensuality that used to bring her an orgasm before his hands touched her.
Now it felt comforting, but it was her heart and not her body that felt that comfort.
He ended the kiss and eased back enough to look at her. “Everything has a price.”
Being demon-dead wasn’t the same as being among the living. Her Self was now encased in dead flesh. Sylvia the woman could still feel love, but her body no longer felt the pleasures of sex.
She tried to shift away from him, but he rolled just enough to pin her.
“I think you would like some answers to some questions you don’t want to ask,” Saetan said. “Can I love you when sex is no longer part of that love? Yes, I can and do. Do I still want to spend time with you and sleep with you? Yes, I do. I couldn’t remain with you when you were among the living, but there is no reason why we can’t be together now—if that’s something you want too.”
“For how long?” she asked.
“For as long as you want,” he replied. “You’ll know when it’s time to go, and I won’t ask you to stay a day longer.”
“My legs.”
“An illusion spell and some Craft to air walk can hide the loss from the eye.”
“That would be a constant drain of power.”
“Yes, it would—and not a necessary drain on most days, in my opinion.” He looked at the two pendants resting on her chest. “It looks like the dose of Jaenelle’s blood had enough power in it to fuel the healing and fill both of your Jewels’ reservoirs partway. That’s a good start.”
Good start? Oh, no. “Hell’s fire. You’re not going to make me drink more of that stuff, are you?”
“Not immediately,” he said dryly. “But it’s a simple fact that the darker the power, the less blood that’s required to sustain someone who is demon-dead.”
“Plain speaking, High Lord.”
“Once your power is restored, yarbarah will be sufficient most days. Twice a month, you’ll have a small amount of fresh human blood.”