by Anne Bishop
“To prove that the Sadist won’t always be there?”
“Oh, no. No, Daemon, the Sadist will rise in a heartbeat to defend your most private bit of territory. But I don’t think he’ll hurt Jaenelle. He’ll play games. That’s what he does. But he won’t hurt her.”
He felt a change inside Daemon, pieces that would never be completely whole settling back into place.
“I’ll take the yarbarah to Dena Nehele,” he said. “I’d like to get a look around, and this is a good excuse. And I’d like to get a look at this demon-dead Warlord Prince.”
“Which means you won’t be back until later tonight.”
“I’ll let you know when I get back to the Keep.”
“All right. Anything I can do here?”
Lucivar gave Daemon a lazy, arrogant smile. “You feeling brave?”
Daemon groaned.
“It’s market day. I was going to entertain the little beast for a couple of hours so Marian could go down to Riada alone.”
Daemon groaned louder, but this groan sounded less sincere.
“Fine. All right,” Daemon said. “For Marian.”
“Of course.”
Daemon laughed, and the sound had Lucivar breathing easy again.
“Will you be all right going to Terreille?” Daemon asked.
“I’ll be fine.”
Daemon hesitated. “You’ll shield?”
Lucivar vanished the two boxes of yarbarah. “Of course. I have to set a good example.” Slipping the hunting knife out of its sheath, he studied the blade for a moment before deciding it was a sufficient weapon to wear openly. “Is Surreal still pissed off at me for chewing on her because she didn’t shield before she went into that spooky house?”
“She doesn’t automatically swear anymore when she hears your name, so I think she’s getting over it.”
Lucivar grinned. “In that case, it’s time to get some other woman riled up.”
TERREILLE
She had to move. Had to work. Move. Work. Keep moving.
Whenever she stopped for a moment, her hands throbbed in time with her heart, and she knew that wasn’t good. But the words were there, waiting to cut, jab, tear. The pain in her back, arms, shoulders, and hands kept the words at bay. Formed a wall that the other hurt couldn’t breach.
So she kept working, kept moving, kept the words at bay.
“How long can she keep that up?” Ranon asked, sounding worried.
Theran shook his head as he watched Cassidy. As they all watched Cassidy. Since early this morning, the First Circle had been gathering on the terrace to watch their Queen tear into the gardens.
So she got up feeling pissy. If she hadn’t been eavesdropping, she would have had a good ride last night and would have been feeling just fine this morning.
But she was out there digging in that damn garden so everyone would know little Cassidy was feeling pouty.
She’d snapped at Ranon when he’d gone out to talk to her, told him flat out to leave her alone. And when he, Theran, had approached her, she had screamed at him. Screamed. Scared Gray so much the boy had been hovering around the terrace ever since.
She’ll stop when she gets tired of playing the wounded party, Theran thought. Hell’s fire, it’s not like I actually did anything.
“What in the name of Hell is going on here?”
Theran spun around and stared at the Red-Jeweled Eyrien standing in the doorway. A Warlord Prince whose glazed gold eyes were a warning that the man was standing close to the killing edge, if he wasn’t already dancing on it.
Ranon shifted into a fighting stance.
The Eyrien stepped out on the terrace, ignoring Ranon, his eyes fixed on Cassidy.
“You don’t want to start a pissing contest with me,” the Eyrien said to Ranon. “You really don’t.” He turned his head, and Theran felt the punch of power as those gold eyes stared at him.
He was looking at death. This man was a stranger who had walked into his home and should be challenged, but he knew, with absolute certainty, that he was looking at death.
Then the Eyrien fixed his eyes on Gray. “You do anything to piss her off?” he asked mildly.
Gray shook his head.
“Then get me two large buckets of cold water, and put them over there.” He pointed to a spot near the stairs leading down to the lawn. “Do it now.”
Gray bolted.
“What are you going to do?” Theran asked.
“What you should have done,” the Eyrien replied. “Take care of your Queen.”
“She ordered us to leave her alone,” Ranon said.
The Eyrien snorted. “And you let her get away with that? Well, she knows better than to say that to me.”
As soon as Gray returned with the buckets of water, the Eyrien headed for Cassidy. When he got close to her, he whistled sharply.
Her head came up—and the hoe came up like a weapon. The Eyrien simply grabbed the wood between her hands and tugged. She yanked back. He tugged. Then he yanked, lifting her off her feet for a moment before he turned and walked back to the terrace, dragging her with him.
Her feet kept trying to find purchase, but she skimmed along the top of the grass while the Eyrien ignored her increasingly shrill demands.
“It’s my hoe!” Cassidy yelled, still fighting the Eyrien as he yanked her up high enough to clear the terrace steps. “Let go! It’s mine!”
“Uh-huh.” The Eyrien set her down in front of the buckets.
“Mine!”
A fast twist of his wrist, and the length of the hoe handle between Cassidy’s hands snapped off cleanly. He tossed it off the terrace.
“You broke my hoe!” Cassidy wailed. “You broke my hoe!”
As she threw down the broken pieces, the buckets rose up behind her and doused her with cold water.
Her shriek had all of them jumping back. Except the Eyrien.
“Have I got your attention now, witchling?” the Eyrien asked.
“You—” Cassidy blinked. Stared at the man.
“Yeah. Remember me?”
“Oh, shit.” Her eyes skipped over Theran and settled on Ranon and the others before coming back to the Eyrien.
“Listen up, Cassie, because I’ll only tell you this once,” the Eyrien said. “If you have a problem with your court, you deal with your court. And if they end up with a few bruises because of it, so be it.”
“A Queen doesn’t do that to her court,” Cassidy said.
The Eyrien grabbed her wrists and turned her hands palms up. “And a woman doesn’t do this to herself.”
Theran looked at Cassidy’s hands and felt his stomach roll. How could she have done that? Why didn’t she stop?
She looked at her hands—and grew pale.
“You ever do anything like this again, I’ll haul you back to Kaeleer,” the Eyrien said. “And I’ll bury anyone who tries to stop me.”
“You have no right to—”
“You do anything like this again, I will haul you back to Kaeleer, and you can explain to your father why you did this to his daughter.”
Kick in the gut. Her lower lip quivered. Her eyes filled with tears. The damn Eyrien knew right where to hit her to take all the fight out of her.
Bastard.
“Do you have a Healer?” the Eyrien asked.
“Yes,” Cassidy said.
“Then you call her, and you get those hands fixed. I’ll look in on you in a little while. We’ve got some things to talk about.”
She stumbled a little when she headed for the door, and she flinched away from him when Theran reached out to give her a little support through the doorway.
He waited until he was sure she was out of sight and hearing before he looked at the Eyrien. “Who do you—”
His back slammed into the house. The Eyrien’s forearm pressed against his chest, holding him in place.
Hell’s fire. He hadn’t even seen the man move.
“The only reason a woman does that to herself
is because she’s running from pain that hurts a lot more,” the Eyrien snarled. “And in my experience, the source of that kind of pain is usually attached to a cock. I’m guessing you’re the reason she was out there this morning. Whatever the problem is, you’d better fix it. Because if I ever find her in that shape again, boyo, I will skin you alive.”
The Eyrien stepped back. Theran sagged against the wall.
The Eyrien looked at Ranon, who stiffened but offered no challenge. “Does the Master of the Guard live in this house?”
“Yes,” Ranon replied. “But he’s not available until sundown.”
“I’m aware of that. I have a delivery for him. And a few things to discuss.”
The Eyrien walked into the house. No one asked him where he was going.
“Mother Night,” Ranon said. Then he looked at Theran. “You all right?”
“Bruises. Nothing more.” Except he had looked at death.
The Eyrien wasn’t bluffing about skinning him alive.
* * *
Cassidy walked into the healing room Shira had set up in the wing that held the working rooms for the court.
“What’s going on?” Shira said. “Ranon keeps calling me on a psychic thread, telling me to get to the healing room as fast as I can, and I’ve never heard him sound so nervous. What’s . . . ?”
Cassidy held out her hands.
“Mother Night!”
Shira hurried around the table where she mixed her tonics and healing brews. Her hands hovered around Cassidy’s but didn’t touch.
Cassidy kept her eyes fixed on a spot over Shira’s left shoulder. “Can you fix them?”
Shira let out a quivering sigh. “I think so. It’s going to take a while just to clean them out and see how bad it really is, but I think so.” She led Cassidy to a chair at one end of the table.
Cassidy sat quietly, cocooned in pain. She didn’t pay attention as Shira hustled around the healing room, gathering supplies and starting a series of different brews to cleanse and heal. But she did look over when Shira placed a basin on the table.
“What’s that for?” she asked.
Shira gave her a long look. “This isn’t going to be easy, and I’m thinking one or both of us is going to need to puke in that basin before this is done.”
Gray followed the Eyrien who had dared to dump cold water over Cassie. Who had yelled at Cassie.
Bastard.
Why didn’t Theran or Ranon say anything? Why did they let him do that?
The bastard had no right. He—“had no right!”
The Eyrien stopped and turned his head just enough to indicate he knew someone was behind him. Had probably known all along.
The man was power and temper like he’d never felt before, but he would have his say.
“She’s our Queen!” Gray shouted. “Ours! You had no right to be scolding her or getting her wet.”
The Eyrien turned to look at him. “Your Queen,” he said quietly. “Why didn’t you stop her?”
His eyes filled with frustrated tears. “She wouldn’t let me. She ordered me to stay away, to leave her alone. And she got hurt.” His shoulders sagged. “She got hurt.”
The Eyrien took a step closer. “The first law is not obedience. The first law is to honor, cherish, and protect. The second is to serve. The third is to obey.”
“But if you don’t obey, you get punished.”
The Eyrien studied him. “Everything has a price. You take a chance of being punished, even killed, for challenging a Queen even if you’re doing it to protect her, but you accept that risk and do what you should. If the Queen is truly worthy of your loyalty, she’ll understand the reason for the challenge and back down. Doesn’t mean she’ll like it or be happy with the man, but she’ll back down.”
“She told everyone to leave her alone.” It had been so painful to watch her, to know she was hurting and not be able to stop her.
“Someone hurt her and—”
“Who?” Gray felt something in him stir. “Who hurt Cassie?”
“I don’t know, and that’s healthier for everyone,” the Eyrien said. “I do know she was hurting before she went out into the garden, and she was trying to sweat out some of the hurt and temper. Her First Escort should have given her an hour; then he should have used Protocol to stop her. And if that didn’t work, he should have fought her into the ground.”
Gray frowned. “Protocol? But those are just words.”
“Yeah. And one sentence that used the right words could have stopped this.”
He’d gotten a glimpse of Cassie’s hands. One sentence could have stopped that?
The Eyrien made a sound. Annoyance? Disgust? “This court is supposed to be learning the Old Ways. I know Lady Cassidy brought books of Protocol with her. Haven’t any of you looked at them?”
“Don’t know.” Gray rubbed his nose with the back of his hand. “If I had said the sentence, she would have stopped before she got hurt?”
It was the way the Eyrien looked at him that made Gray wonder what the man saw.
“A Queen doesn’t like having a man set his heels down and get ready to fight her about something, so if you use Protocol to stop her, she’ll probably swear at you. A lot.”
“That’s it? She’ll swear at me?” He wouldn’t like it, but that didn’t sound so bad. “Will she hit?”
“Depends on the woman. I’ve gotten slugged in the arm more than once because I annoyed a witch who needed to be protected from herself.” The Eyrien shrugged. “I can take a bruised muscle a lot easier than I can take watching someone I care about get hurt.”
If he learned the Protocol, then . . .
Gray looked around and realized where he was. He’d been so focused on catching up to the Eyrien and yelling at the man for dumping water on Cassie, he hadn’t paid attention.
“Nothing is going to come at you,” the Eyrien said, “because there is nothing here that can get past me.”
He knew. Somehow this stranger knew.
“Who are you?” Gray whispered. He wanted to curl up and hide, wanted to run.
“Lucivar. And you?”
“Gray.” His body shook with the effort to stand there and not run, not hide, not scream out the old fear until his voice was gone.
The other Queen never stopped the pain until his voice was gone.
“I’m not . . . right,” Gray said. That was the reason he couldn’t serve in the court. Talon and Theran had both told him that. Not that he’d wanted to serve in the court. At least, not until he’d met Cassie.
“No, you’re not,” Lucivar said quietly. “You have scars, Gray, and they run deep. I can feel them in you. When a man has scars like that, there are boundaries he can’t cross, lines he has to draw to keep himself whole. But those boundaries aren’t as small as you might think, and a man can choose to live safe or he can choose to live right up to those lines. He might slip over a line every now and then, and that will hurt like a wicked bitch, but he might decide that what he gains will be worth the price.”
“Do you have scars?” Gray asked.
Lucivar nodded. “I have scars. And sometimes they still bleed.”
Gray studied Lucivar. This man didn’t know him, didn’t know about the times when he was so scared he couldn’t take care of himself, when his body seized up so badly he couldn’t move. And yet there was a message underneath the words, a message that had been there since Lucivar had first turned and looked at him.
“I’m not a warrior,” Gray said.
“Yes, you are.” Lucivar smiled grimly. “Just because you fought on a different kind of battlefield doesn’t make you less a warrior.”
Something stirred, shifted, fit into place.
“You get a copy of those books of Protocol and you study them,” Lucivar said. “Next time you won’t have to stand back if Cassidy does something foolish.”
“The first law is not obedience,” Gray said.
Lucivar grinned. “That was the best rule I ever lear
ned.”
Gray grinned in reply. Then the grin faded as he looked at the walls that seemed to be closing in around him.
“Do you want me to walk you out of here?” Lucivar asked.
Gray hesitated. “Can those boundaries you talked about change?”
“Up to a point. The challenge is to learn which ones are still fluid and which ones are made of stone. I’m guessing you entered what had been the enemy’s lair. That’s pushing the boundaries plenty for one day.”
Gray nodded. Then he pointed to a door on the right. “That room has the fastest way out from here. Not a door, just a window, but there’s nothing in the way under it.”
“Let’s go.”
When Gray had the window open and one leg over the sill, he realized what was missing from Lucivar’s psychic scent that was there in all the other Warlord Princes’ scents. Even Theran’s and Talon’s.
“You don’t pity me,” Gray said.
Lucivar gave him one of those long, assessing looks. “A lot of us have scars, boyo. The biggest difference between you and the rest of us is you haven’t learned to live with yours yet.”
CHAPTER 14
TERREILLE
Talon waited in the small meeting room. As Master of the Guard, he didn’t have an office like the Steward—and didn’t want one—but this small room was becoming his place to talk with one or two of the men when he had specific instructions or one of them wanted to report something in private. Not that there had been much to report.
He had a bad feeling that was about to change.
Didn’t need to be told they were in trouble. He’d felt that dark presence the moment he woke; known a strong predator had come to the estate. And Powell had knocked on his door a minute after sunset to tell him an Eyrien was waiting to see him. A Red-Jeweled Warlord Prince.
“Red-Jeweled, my ass,” Talon muttered. He wore Sapphire. He knew the feel of Red. And he was willing to bet that if the Eyrien wore the Red, it wasn’t his Jewel of rank. Which meant the Eyrien had to be . . .
The door opened and controlled fury walked into the room.
“Lucivar Yaslana,” Talon whispered, feeling his legs go weak. He’d never met the man before, thank the Darkness, but there was no mistaking the Ebon-gray Jewel that gleamed against Lucivar’s brown skin. “I’m Talon, Master of the Guard.”