The Queen's Price

THIRTY-ONE

Daemon finished reviewing the last piece of financial information that had been sent by Lord Marcus, his personal man of business, as well as all the reports sent by the firm that handled the investments for the SaDiablo family as a whole. Lucivar had gone home yesterday, but Surreal was still in residence, keeping an eye on things while he tackled all the urgent paperwork for the family and the Dhemlan Territory—all the business Holt had said could wait. And it had waited. For a day.

Hell’s fire, he must have looked so exhausted yesterday that Holt probably thought he couldn’t make any decision, let alone a good one.

Beale entered the study without knocking, closed the door, and swiftly approached the desk. “High Lord.”

High Lord. Not Prince Sadi, which was how he was usually addressed for the youngsters’ sake. High Lord.

Daemon capped his pen and set it aside. “Beale?”

“The Queen of Tigrelan is here, requesting an audience.”

“Is she?” he said too softly. “Then we shouldn’t disappoint her.”

“Should I have refreshments brought in?”

“Wait until I know if she’s going to survive this audience.”

“Very good, High Lord.”

While Beale left the study to escort the Queen in, Daemon moved around to the front of his blackwood desk to wait for his guest.

She walked into his study without any personal guards or escorts, and he couldn’t decide if it was a brave move or a foolish one—or an arrogant one.

“Is she here?” the Tigrelan Queen asked, her tone more of a demand than of a question. “Is Grizande safe?”

“Why do you care?” he asked, his voice viciously civil.

“I care.”

“Really? Did you care when she was tortured? Did you care that she’s barely educated and unprepared to meet anyone from a race that’s not her own?” And maybe even the aristos from her own race.

“Is she safe?” the Queen shouted.

“Oh, she’s safe.”

“She’s here? Under your protection?”

He smiled a cold, cruel smile. “Under my protection, yes. And under Witch’s hand.”

She sank to the floor, as if all the strength had left her legs.

He watched her, and offered nothing.

“Thank the Darkness,” she whispered. She didn’t ask for help as she climbed into one of the visitors’ chairs in front of his desk.

“Perhaps you’d like to explain your concerns to Witch.” Oh, he knew how to be so helpful, so civil. So merciless.

But she looked at him with the beginnings of hope. “That would be possible?”

Not the response he’d expected. Then again, this Queen from Tigrelan didn’t know what it would be like to face the Queen of Ebon Askavi in all her dark, feral glory.

“Grizande’s mother was my cousin, and we were close when I was young,” the Queen said. “Different branches of the same bloodline that went back to Grizande the Queen and Prince Elan.” She looked thoughtful, as if struggling to find the words to explain something she wasn’t sure he would understand. “There are different kinds of Queens in Tigrelan, different kinds of courts. My branch of the family was more . . . formal. Official. For many generations we dealt with other races in Kaeleer, had the connection for trade and an exchange of knowledge in all kinds of Craft. But as each generation got further from Grizande and Elan and the Dark Court, the connection faded. The Tigre live differently from other races.”

“I’m sure the Centauran race would say the same,” Daemon said.

“Yes,” she agreed. “Our races haven’t met in a long, long time.”

*Beale,* he said on a spear thread. *Please arrange for refreshments.*

*At once, High Lord,* Beale replied.

“My cousin was a different kind of Queen,” the Queen continued. “Country Queen? Small village, a simpler life. A rich life. She was loved in her village. And she earned the respect of some of the tiger Queens.” A warm laugh. “She and one of the tigers used to hunt together. They made a formidable team and usually brought down enough game to feed both their families. The male who was her husband and Consort loved her fiercely, and there were some women serving in strong courts throughout our land who developed a foul envy for that devotion because it was something their own mates did not feel for them.

“Then Grizande was born, the youngest of my cousin’s three children. She was . . . fierce, even as a small child. Strong of heart and will. But the Black Widows who spun their tangled webs of dreams and visions were concerned about this child and advised that she be kept from the notice of other Queens and aristo witches. Unlike the children from other families with aristo bloodlines, Grizande did not attend a school where the common tongue was learned, where aristo ways were learned—where too many eyes might see too much. But that all changed at the Birthright Ceremony when the child came away with a Sapphire Jewel.”

A knock on the door before Beale entered with a tray. After setting dishes out on the low table in the social area of the study, the butler retreated and Daemon led his guest to the other chairs.

“Coffee?” he asked, raising the pot. “Or would you prefer tea?”

She gave him a sharp, wary look. “Coffee. Thank you.”

He poured cups for both of them, offered her sandwiches—which she declined—then leaned back in his chair and crossed his legs at the knees. “There was trouble over the girl wearing Birthright Sapphire?”

The Queen sipped the coffee, then set her cup on the table. “Birthright Sapphire isn’t the problem.”

“Having the potential to wear Ebon-gray could be a problem,” Daemon said quietly.

“Yes. Ebon-gray without a strong hand to hold the leash?” The Queen shook her head. “The girl instantly became a prize to be acquired and controlled—because the Black Widows were certain she would wear the Ebon-gray and would be a warrior connected to a powerful court. Any Queen who could control her could control all of Tigrelan.”

The Queen reached for the cup, saw the way her hand shook, and pressed both hands into her lap. “I don’t know what happened. I don’t know if my cousin received any warning, or if a warning came too late. I couldn’t ask her, because she and her mate were dead and gone by the time I heard about the attack and sent some of my warriors to her aid. I heard later that the enemy warriors sent to my cousin’s village finished the kill, leaving nothing of my cousin and her mate behind. I also heard that when my cousin fell, some of the villagers hid her body so that she could make the transition to demon-dead and tell the High Lord about the attack. I don’t know which is true.”

Daemon shook his head. “If she made the transition to demon-dead and reached the Dark Realm, she never asked for an audience with me.” He didn’t mention that trusted demon-dead were quietly searching for anyone who arrived in Hell from Tigrelan.

“Grizande was hidden among the village children her age. The Black Widows in the village cast an illusion spell, a kind of veil, over the girl to hide her Birthright power, while her brother took her Jewel and stashed it in a hollow where he often left messages for his sisters as a game. It was a place Grizande would be able to find again in order to retrieve her Jewel once the danger had passed. Then he joined the other men who were fighting to protect the village.

“They all died. Men. Women. All those lives, all that power, snuffed out in a slaughter grown out of envy—or some equally terrible feeling.” She closed her eyes for a moment, and when she opened them, they were full of grief. “The children were divided among the courts that had participated in the slaughter. They became slaves, abused and tortured. Raped and killed. It was an obscene corruption of the ways of the Blood. Grizande was among those children—that I know. But what was done to her . . .” The Queen released a shuddering breath.

“You did nothing?” Daemon asked too softly.

She growled. “I wasn’t the Territory Queen then. I ruled a Province on the other side of Tigrelan. I didn’t hear about the attack until it was too late to do anything but fight a war to free Tigrelan from the corruption and return my people to the Old Ways of the Blood. We fought that war, Prince. We fought it—and we won it. And I was chosen by the victorious Queens and Warlord Princes to be the Territory Queen. Since then, I’ve quietly searched for my cousin’s children. Her son died defending his village. The older daughter had been apprenticing in a remote village that was held by the Hourglass. When I finally found her, I learned that she had rescued Grizande, recovered the girl’s Jewel, and taken her younger sister to that remote village. But the Hourglass found another place even more remote—a place where the Hourglass trained Black Widows and the men trained young Warlord Princes to be deadly fighters. It took years of searching, of following every trail that might lead to my cousin’s children, but by the time I found that village, the Black Widows had told Grizande she needed to go to the place where the Queen who was more than a Queen had dwelled, a place where she would be safe. A place where she would not be corrupted by those who ruled.”

“And that’s what brought you here now?”

“Yes. I had hoped she would be here. It will be better for Tigrelan—and the rest of Kaeleer—if a witch who will wear Ebon-gray finishes growing up here. With you. Away from the court intrigue that still vexes my people, despite the end of war.”

He sensed no deceit, and he agreed with her reason for wanting Grizande to remain here. Jaenelle had also been vulnerable when she was young. What might have happened to all of them if Saetan hadn’t protected her, taught her?

Agreeing with this Tigrelan Queen didn’t mean he trusted her. Still, better to find out now. *Daemonar.*

*Sir?*

*Escort Grizande to my study.*

*Jaalan too?*

*No.* No reason to bring the kitten into this. To the Tigrelan Queen he said, “My nephew will escort Grizande here. It will take a few minutes. The Hall is a large place, and I don’t know where she’s studying right now.”

It wouldn’t have taken more than a heartbeat or two for him to locate the Sapphire within the Hall, but he would pretend otherwise. Why let a potential enemy know how easily he could locate someone anywhere on the SaDiablo estate?

He waited until she reached for a sandwich before saying too casually, “While we’re waiting, tell me about the special tea.”

She dropped the sandwich and jerked back in her seat. “What tea?”

“The secret tea that quiets the effect a Warlord Prince has on a woman.” His smile had sharp edges and a bit of a chill. Not the Sadist—although he could feel that aspect of himself straining to slip the leash—but enough to make this Tigrelan Queen wary. Enough to make her realize she might never leave that room.

Instead of the fear he expected, he found fury. “Is that your price for helping her?” she snarled. “Do you even know what it does?”

“I wasn’t here when Grizande told my nephew about the tea,” Daemon replied coldly. “Her living here under my protection isn’t something you or anyone else can buy.”

She stared at him, then seemed to deflate. “That tea is a secret because it is dangerous, Prince. Something to be used only when necessary. Yes, it cocoons a woman, protects her from a Warlord Prince’s sexual heat. But it also quiets desire, and if used too often, it can smother physical desire for weeks. Months. Years.” A pause. “Forever.”

That confirmed what Witch had told Surreal.

Daemon uncrossed his legs and leaned toward her. “It could smother desire just for Warlord Princes, or for any lover?”

“For anyone. A woman might still love a man.” The Queen pressed a hand over her heart. “But if she consumes that tea too often, he could no longer excite her body. She would no longer want physical mating.”

Daemon reached for the Ebon-gray to deliver a warning, then stopped before making the psychic link. Lucivar already knew the danger that came from drinking the tea and would keep Marian safe—no matter the price.

He studied the woman before him. He didn’t know her, didn’t know what her psychic scent and physical scent should be. But . . . “You drank the tea before coming here.”

“Yes.”

“To deal with me?”

“Yes.” She tipped her head and studied him. “But perhaps a full dose wasn’t needed. Your heat is quieter than I expected it to be, given that you wear the Black.”

He didn’t tell her Witch had taught him how to drain enough of the heat into a tangled web to minimize the effect it would have on everyone living at the Hall. It still had a wicked punch when he let it slip the leash, but he’d been able to ease it back to where it had been before the heat had entered its final phase. And he’d bet he could overwhelm the effects the tea had on the Tigrelan Queen if the Sadist wanted to make her desperate and compliant.

This Queen wasn’t his concern. But the girl, and her reasons for revealing this secret, was very much his concern.

A knock on the study door. Daemonar entered, followed by Grizande. The boy took one look at the Tigrelan Queen, shoved the girl back a couple of steps, then called in his Eyrien war blade.

“We’re here to talk, Prince, not fight,” Daemon said quietly.

Grizande stepped around Daemonar, earning a snarl of temper from the boy. One of her hands flexed, revealing her claws. The other hand held a knife Daemon was sure she hadn’t owned when she arrived at the Hall.

The Tigrelan Queen stood. “Do you remember me? Your mother and I were cousins.”

Everyone in the study waited for the girl’s answer. Finally, Grizande said, “Maybe remember.” A sullen response.

Daemon raised an eyebrow.

Grizande looked at him, then looked away. “I remember.” Another grudging response.

Using Craft, Daemon moved a straight-backed chair closer to the sofa. “Sit down.” An implacable command beneath quiet courtesy.

Grizande sat in the chair. The Tigrelan Queen sat on the sofa. Daemonar stood next to the girl’s chair, his eyes—and temper—focused on the Queen.

Daemon went down on one knee and put a hand on Grizande’s forearm. “Why did you make the secret tea the other day? I wasn’t here, and you weren’t dealing directly with Lucivar. Did traveling in the Coach with him bother you that much? Daemonar shouldn’t affect you. He’s in the first phase of the sexual heat and wears the Green. Your Sapphire power should have provided enough protection.” He gave her arm a gentle squeeze and repeated, “Why?”

Daemonar vanished his war blade and went down on one knee on the other side of the chair. “You showed me because you wanted to help my mother. Isn’t that it?”

Grizande nodded. “Marian mother is kind. Good woman. Good witch. Loves Prince Yaslana.”

“You thought this might help her deal with Lucivar’s sexual heat?” Daemon asked.

She nodded. Then she frowned. “Maybe help. Something Tigrelan Hourglass not say about tea. Maybe Hourglass here know more?”

So Grizande showed Daemonar this secret tea guessing, correctly, that the boy would talk to his father and uncle—and one of them would take that tea to the strongest Black Widow they knew. “Did the Black Widows who gave you this tea tell you how to use it?”

“Make tea.” Grizande raised a hand and held it out, open. “Drink one cup.” She moved her hand slightly and made a fist. “Next day, no drink.” Another slight move as she opened her hand. “One cup. Fertile days, drink, drink, drink. Moon days, no drink.”

Suppress desire during the fertile days, when desire would be at its peak. That might protect a girl from making an imprudent mating before she was safely on the other side of her Virgin Night.

“When did you start drinking the tea?”

She shrugged. “Didn’t drink while traveling. Needed . . . sharp feelings?”

“But you did drink the tea while you lived with the Hourglass?”

She nodded. “Drank tea two times before Hourglass said must run and find this place or be caught.”

Daemon twisted around enough to look at the Tigrelan Queen.

“I don’t know,” she said in answer to his unspoken question. “I’ve only used it a handful of times over the years, when I’ve had to deal with a Warlord Prince who wears Jewels darker than mine and isn’t a trusted member of my court. To use it as Grizande describes? I don’t know how long it would take to smother desire forever. But if she only drank the tea a couple of times, she should be all right.”

“Not safe? You sure?” Grizande sounded alarmed. She grabbed Daemonar’s arm hard enough to make him wince, despite the boy’s protecting himself with a tight Green shield. “Must warn Marian mother.”

“Lucivar knows about the tea,” Daemon said. “Marian is safe.”

The girl sagged in the chair and released Daemonar’s arm.

“Is the tea really needed here?” Daemonar asked. “I know the sexual heat affects some people at the Hall more than others, but it’s not that bad anymore. Is it?”

Grizande shook her head. “Queen blanket protects.”

The Tigrelan Queen shifted on the sofa until she sat on the edge of a cushion. “Queen blanket?” She looked around. Sniffed the air. “Male—and heat—here.”

“This room,” Grizande agreed. “Some rooms. Other rooms still feel like Queen who was more than a Queen. Blankets male heat.”

“You feel Witch’s presence here after all these years?” the Tigrelan Queen asked.

Grizande nodded warily.

“Under her hand,” the Queen whispered. “Who else could hold that leash?”

If this girl had lived at the same time as Jaenelle, she would have served in the Dark Court’s First Circle, Daemon thought. That thought was followed by another. Do any of the other children residing here feel that presence, feel that “blanket”?

He didn’t count Daemonar since the boy had never lost the connection to his beloved auntie J. Were the girls living in the Queen’s square of rooms more protected from his sexual heat because in those rooms Jaenelle’s power still saturated wood and stone from the few years she had worn Ebony while she walked among the living?

Too many questions and only one answer.

“Listen to me, Grizande,” Daemon said. “Listen carefully. There is a steep price attached to drinking that tea, but the choice is yours to make. However, if you feel uncomfortable being around me or Lucivar, I want to know before you drink another cup of that tea. You’re a young woman. I don’t want you to pay a heavy price if there is another way to ease your discomfort. Do you understand?”

“Yes.”

He switched to a psychic communication thread. *Would you like time to talk to the Tigrelan Queen? Would you like to be alone with her?*

*Talk, yes. Alone, no.*

That was clear enough.

Daemon rose and looked at Daemonar. “Thank you, Prince. You’re dismissed.”

Hot temper and a challenge in the boy’s eyes before Daemonar yielded. He gave the Tigrelan Queen a precise bow and walked out of the study.

“I’ll give the two of you time to talk,” Daemon said. “I’ll be at my desk, working.”

Chaperon. Escort. Sword and shield. Call it what you like; he knew the Tigrelan Queen understood this was all the privacy she would be allowed around Grizande. What confirmed her sincere concern about the girl was her approval of the way he balanced privacy with protection.

Queen and girl talked for an hour. Daemon listened to tone rather than words. Listened for anger or distress—and heard none.

At the end of that hour, he escorted the Tigrelan Queen to the landing web, where a full complement of escorts and guards waited around the Coach that had brought her to the Hall. They looked relieved to see her. He wasn’t sure if it was because their Queen had come away from an audience with the High Lord unharmed or because they could get away from the scrutiny of Liath and Shaye, who stood at the edge of the gravel drive. Watching.

“What is that?” the Tigrelan Queen asked quietly.

“He’s a horse,” Daemon replied.

“Truly?”

“That’s what I was told.”

A little snort of laughter.

“Jaalan is here somewhere,” he added.

“Jaalan?”

“A tiger Warlord Prince. A kitten. He came with Grizande.”

“You accept this?”

“He’s not the first tiger who has lived at the Hall.” But the kitten wasn’t with Liath, so . . . *Tarl? Please send someone to check on the chickens.* Despite the home farm, which supplied a good portion of the food that was needed, the Hall’s staff still bought most of the meat and dairy from shops in the village, and also supplemented the kitchen garden with fruits and vegetables from beyond the estate. But Mrs. Beale had always kept a few chickens to have fresh eggs available—and to give the Scelties something to herd besides people and horses. Daemon just wasn’t sure anyone had told Jaalan to keep his paws off the squawky birds, and he really didn’t want to have a conversation with Mrs. Beale and her meat cleaver about chickens devoured without her permission.

“Safer for her here,” the Queen said with a sigh.

“You’re welcome to visit.”

He watched her enter the Coach. Watched her men watch him, Liath, and Shaye as they entered the Coach and the last man finally closed the door. He suspected that the men were more relieved to get away from Liath than from him.

He understood the feeling.

The moment the Coach lifted off the landing web and caught one of the Winds, Daemon returned to his study and summoned Surreal.

“No problems with your visitor?” she asked as soon as she walked into the study.

“No, that much was fine. She also confirmed the things you were told about the secret tea. Safe to drink, but a hefty price to pay.”

Surreal nodded. “Are we past this crisis?”

That was like asking someone how they were doing while they stood on a bridge that was falling apart behind them. “Why?”

Surreal gave him a big smile. “I thought we should discuss Jillian’s Virgin Night.”

“Fine.”

“Hell’s fire, Sadi. You’re suddenly looking peaky.” She laughed. “I heard something and was wondering if you’d ever made cock and balls soup.”

He looked at her—just looked at her—and watched the color drain out of her face as she felt the change in the room, the change in him.

The Sadist said too softly, “Why do you ask?”