The Shadow Queen

CHAPTER 5

Theran looked at the man who walked into the breakfast room and thought, Predator.

Whatever mood was riding Daemon Sadi could have lethal repercussions for the rest of the males in this place. And judging by the way Beale held himself, as if a twitch at the wrong time could end with someone being gutted—or worse—the butler recognized the danger too. The difference between them was that Beale seemed to be offering something Sadi wanted, whereas he . . .

He dared give that cold, beautiful face a quick study before fixing his eyes on his plate.

In Dena Nehele, men had two ways to describe a man who had spent a vigorous night in bed: ridden hard or well used. A man who had been well used came to the breakfast table with a sated, lazy satisfaction. A man who had been ridden hard might have gotten some relief from the sex, but he was still edgy and looking for an excuse for a different kind of relief. And when a Warlord Prince went looking for that kind of relief, blood was spilled—and too many friends and families ended up grieving for the dead.

Sadi pulled out a chair and sat down across from him. Within moments Beale poured a cup of coffee for the Prince and, without asking, fixed a plate of food for the man.

“It will be ready in a few minutes,” Beale said quietly.

Nodding, Sadi reached for the cup of black coffee.

Undercurrents. Any man who lived in Terreille learned to recognize them. Even someone who had spent his life in the rogue camps.

There was concern—and understanding—in Beale’s voice. The same concern Theran had heard in older men’s voices when they’d tried to offer support to a younger man who’d been twisted up by bedroom games. And there was a moment before Beale left the room when Theran thought the butler would actually lay a comforting hand on Sadi’s shoulder.

He recognized all the signs and knew what they meant, but who in the name of Hell would be brave enough—or foolish enough—to twist up a Black-Jeweled Warlord Prince?

Sadi’s wife.

That first exchange he’d witnessed between Lady Angelline and Sadi had left no doubt that Daemon’s attention became focused exclusively on her whenever she entered a room. He’d figured it was because they were still in their first year of marriage—a time when a man’s thoughts didn’t stray too far from the bed.

Now he wondered. Who was Jaenelle Angelline? He’d heard of Sadi—who hadn’t heard stories about the Sadist?—but the Prince’s wife, the adopted daughter of the former Warlord Prince of Dhemlan, was a Queen who didn’t have a court and didn’t rule anywhere that he could tell, not even the little village just down the road from the Hall. She wore a Jewel so peculiar he’d never seen its like before. And everything about her outside of her life here at SaDiablo Hall was off-limits in terms of questions or conversation. Sadi had made that very clear when the three of them had dinner last night.

The other thing that was becoming clear was that no matter how they appeared for the servants and guests, no matter how Sadi was presented as the dominant power in Dhemlan, when the bedroom door closed at night, she had a Warlord Prince by the balls and wasn’t afraid to squeeze.

Which brought him to the unpalatable conclusion that he was going to have to negotiate with Lady Angelline instead of Prince Sadi.

Then he looked up and realized those sleepy gold eyes were focused on him, had been focused on him all the time his thoughts had wandered—and he had the terrifying feeling that Sadi was analyzing him right down to the last drop of blood and the smallest sliver of bone.

A sudden chill hung over the table, along with an unspoken warning: Keep your hands, and your thoughts, away from my wife.

“Prince?”

Thank the Darkness, Theran thought as Daemon turned his head to look at the butler standing in the doorway.

Beale nodded once.

Daemon pushed his chair back, hesitated a moment, then called in a sheet of paper and dropped it on the table.

“Those are the terms for having a Kaeleer Queen go to Dena Nehele,” Daemon said. “You can look them over and give me your decision later.”

Theran waited until Daemon was out of the room before letting out a shuddering sigh of relief.

Maybe if he told the butler he was going to take a walk around the estate, he could catch the Winds and reach the Keep before anyone realized he was gone. Maybe he could persuade that Hayllian librarian to help him go through the Gate and get back to Terreille.

Maybe you can throw away the one chance you’ll have of finding someone who might be able to help your people. If you run away now, you run away from everyone. Jared and Blaed wouldn’t have run. They would have been scared—Hell’s fire, they weren’t stupid—but they wouldn’t have run.

And neither would he.

Resigned to that much, Theran picked up the sheet of paper to look at the terms.

Carrying the loaded breakfast tray, Daemon paused outside the bedroom door.

Control it, damn you. Lock it away. Keep it leashed.

He was Daemon Sadi, Warlord Prince of Dhemlan, husband of Jaenelle Angelline. This morning, that was all he was. All he would allow himself to be.

Choked by that leash of self-control, he passed through the bedroom door and the shields still surrounding the room. When he’d crept out of the room at the first hint of dawn, he could have changed the locks and shields to Red, which would have kept Jazen out but allowed Jaenelle to leave. He hadn’t. So she was still in his bed, tucked under the covers, just as he’d left her.

Not quite, he realized as he rounded the bed and saw her. She’d gotten up long enough to pull the shift on—and, most likely, to realize that he’d locked her in the Consort’s suite.

Her eyes opened. He wasn’t sure who stared at him—Jaenelle, his wife . . . or Witch.

“I’m still deciding if I should be very pleased with you or very pissed off at you,” she said.

Cautiously hopeful, because he hadn’t thought there would be any chance of her being pleased, he raised the tray to catch her attention. “I brought you some breakfast.”

“Did you bring coffee?”

“Yes.” Of course he’d brought coffee. He wouldn’t have dared come back into the room if he hadn’t.

He waited until she was sitting up and comfortably settled before he placed the tray across her lap.

A pointed look from her had him sitting gingerly on the edge of the bed. He didn’t speak while she inspected the contents of the tray.

“Vegetable omelet and”—her eyebrows rose as she cut into the other one—“seafood omelet.”

“Took a little persuading to convince Mrs. Beale to give up some of the shrimp and cold lobster she’s using for the midday meal,” he said.

She took a bite of the seafood—and didn’t look at him. “Did you eat?”

“Wasn’t hungry.” He was so scared of what would happen now, even the thought of food made him queasy.

“I’d like an explanation,” Jaenelle said quietly.

“Sweetheart, I’m sor—”

“An explanation, Daemon, not an apology.”

He swallowed the words and closed his eyes. An apology would have been easier.

“Something snapped in you last night, in a way I’ve never seen before. I think I provoked it—or was the final shove. I’d like to know why.”

“You didn’t provoke anything,” he snarled as he met those sapphire eyes. “It wasn’t . . .” He wouldn’t let her take the blame for this, not even a crumb of blame. But how to explain? Where to begin?

She sipped her coffee and waited.

“The Consort’s room is a kind of sanctuary,” he began, choosing each word with care. “A place for a man to let down his guard. A place where he doesn’t have to perform.”

She bit into a piece of toast and chewed slowly. “Do you feel like you have to perform, Daemon?”

He shook his head. “No. Never. Not with you. But . . . for most of my life I’d had to perform, had to be on my guard except for the few precious hours each day that I had to myself. So even though things are different now—so very different now—I like having this private space. I’ll come up here sometimes in the afternoons, stretch out on the bed for an hour, and let my mind wander.” And know he was safe when he did it.

She cut off a piece of the seafood omelet and held up the fork.

His stomach cramped, but he kept his eyes on hers as he leaned forward and accepted the offering.

“Nothing wrong with wanting a place for yourself,” Jaenelle said. “The cabin in Ebon Rih is my private place and seldom shared even with the people I love. So I do understand.”

“All those years in Terreille, I had to fight hard to have a private place,” he said softly.

When he didn’t say anything more, Jaenelle poked around the tray. “Ah. There is another fork.” She handed it to him. “Eat in between the pauses.”

He wasn’t sure if being required to eat was a subtle punishment or confirmation that she was more shaken by last night than she wanted to admit. Otherwise, since she was a Healer, she would have known he couldn’t eat.

He took a piece of toast, then a bite of the vegetable omelet. And swallowed hard to keep it down.

“I needed a private place,” he said. “In order to stay sane, I needed a place. My room. My bed. Out of bounds to everyone.”

She drank some coffee. Dabbed at her mouth with a napkin. “You could have asked me to leave.”

“I didn’t want you to leave.” He kept his eyes fixed on the tray of food, no longer able to look at her. “In every court, there would always be one who wouldn’t respect the boundaries, one who had to be the lesson to the others. Always one little bitch who thought I would bend in private in ways I wouldn’t bend in public. And there she would be one night, dressed to arouse, rubbing her stink on my bed.”

Jaenelle flinched.

“I hurt them, Jaenelle. Even when I let them live, I hurt them. They were violating what little peace I could make for myself, trying to create a need, a desire, a physical response that would have condemned me to a more savage kind of slavery once Dorothea found out I was capable of being aroused. And in a way those little bitches succeeded. They created a need to hurt them, a desire to inflict pain. As for physical response, they didn’t get the one they wanted, but they got one—and they lived with the nightmares for the rest of their lives.”

“Daemon,” Jaenelle said gently.

He couldn’t stop now. “Then last night, talking to Theran, remembering Jared and the last time I saw him—and the years that followed. Those weren’t easy years for me.”

“Those memories were riding you last night.”

“Yes. And then I was here, in my room, my private space, trying to settle my feelings, talking to you but not paying attention to you. Listening to you, but not paying attention while I was getting undressed, still steeped in that other time in my life. And then I turned around. . . .”

“And saw a memory.”

“A thousand memories.” Daemon swallowed hard. “I saw the body, but not the face. I saw the clothes, but not the person who wore them. And my own worst nightmare from those years happened. I was so completely aroused I couldn’t turn away from what I wanted. What I needed. It was like being thrown into the rut without any warning. And then you moved as if you were going to leave, and—” He clamped his teeth together.

Jaenelle refilled the coffee cup, taking her time as she added cream and sugar. “You scared me last night.”

He bowed his head. “I know.”

“This was more than the rut, Daemon.” She hesitated. “You know who I am when you’re caught in the rut. Last night . . . I wasn’t sure you knew who was under you—or cared.”

“I didn’t know,” he admitted. “Not until I touched you. And then . . .” The smell of last night filled the room, and every thought encouraged his body to remember what he’d done while she was under him. Every thought encouraged the part of his nature he tried so hard to keep leashed to wake up again, play again, dance with her again.

After a long silence, Jaenelle said, “Say it.”

“When I touched you, when I realized where we were and that I was aroused because it was you, I had one thought: This was my room, my bed, and you were . . . mine. And no one was going to stop me from having you. Nothing was going to stop me from satisfying every need.”

He reached for the coffee cup, then reconsidered and took another bite of omelet.

“Once I knew it was you,” he said softly, “all the things I had hated for so many years were the things I now wanted. I wanted your scent on my sheets. I wanted to lay in this bed on other nights and remember having you.”

When she didn’t comment, he poked at the food, eating to have something to do.

Finally she said with dry amusement, “You were pretty single-minded last night. Mine, mine, mine. I guess this really did jab at the possessive side of your nature, didn’t it?”

He huffed out a laugh. “I guess it did.”

She pinched a bit of the shift between thumb and forefinger. “As for this, I’m sorry it brought back bad memories. I’ll—”

“Wear it again? Please?”

She looked wary.

He touched her hand briefly, the first contact he’d made since he’d walked back into the room. “Bad timing. If I’d seen you in those clothes in your bedroom or here on any other night . . . Well, I can’t say the outcome would have been different, but the reasons I reacted to the clothes would have been.”

Which made him wonder about something that hadn’t occurred to him last night. “Why were you wearing that?”

She blushed. Shrugged. Fiddled with the coffee cup.

He waited, a patient predator.

“I was reading a story and when the woman wore something like this, the man . . .” Another shrug. More fiddling.

He tried to remember what she’d been reading lately, but couldn’t recall a title. “Maybe I should read that book to get a few ideas.”

“You don’t need any ideas.”

He was pretty sure that was a compliment.

Since he was feeling easier and the food was there in front of him, he ate some more.

“Will you wear it again?”

“To spend the night in this room or the other bedroom?” Jaenelle asked softly.

“Both,” he answered, just as softly.

A slow, mischievous smile. “Instead of negotiating about which bed to use, maybe we should just flip a coin to see who gets to be on top.”

Last night he’d dominated, possessed, kept her under his body and under his control. Now he had a sudden image of her riding him, her body a teasing shadow covered by the shift, her legs sheathed in those sheer white stockings, his fingers moving up her legs to the damp skin above the stockings, moving up to the wet heat that sheathed him.

That image stayed in his mind, but the tone changed, becoming a dark, spicy thrill when she realized she wasn’t the one in control, that he was still . . .

He jerked back, snarling, as fingers snapped in front of his face.

Jaenelle stared at him. “I don’t know where your brain went just now, but, Mother Night, Daemon, judging by the way your eyes glazed, we don’t have time for whatever you were thinking.”

They had all the time they wanted. Who would dare interrupt them?

“I’m going to Dharo today, remember?”

Leave? She was going to leave?

“Daemon. You have a guest, remember?”

Theran. Stranger. Male. Rival.

“Daemon.”

Her hand clamped over his wrist. Physically, he could break the hold without effort. But her touch, her will, was the only chain strong enough to keep him leashed.

He shifted on the bed, trying to find a comfortable position, trying not to snarl at her for denying him the right to eliminate a rival.

She blew out a breath and kept her hand clamped on his wrist.

“You won’t be able to settle if I stay here today, and if you don’t settle, Prince Theran is going to end up dead.”

She was right, and they both knew it.

“And you need to get out of this room until it’s been cleaned and aired.”

She was right about that too. But . . .

He wasn’t Daemon anymore. Not completely. That other side of him was swimming close to the surface, wanting to dance, wanting to play, wanting to give her a little taste of fear while he aroused her body and produced a banquet of climaxes ranging from wild screams to soft, helpless moans.

He caught the back of her neck and pulled her forward gently, carefully, implacably. His mouth opened and hovered a breath away from hers.

“Kiss me.” Not a request. A purring command.

She trembled a little as her mouth touched his. As her tongue touched his.

A soft kiss. A lingering kiss that soothed with the promise of fire at the end of the day.

He eased back and shoved his brain and libido—and the Sadist—away from all the thoughts of what his body wanted to do with hers.

“Am I forgiven?” he asked.

“For last night? Yes. For eating the last bite of the seafood omelet? I’ll have to think about that.”

He looked at the tray and realized they’d done a fair job of cleaning the plates. “I didn’t drink any of the coffee,” he muttered.

Jaenelle bared her teeth in a feral smile and lightly pinched his cheek. “That’s why you still have all your fingers.”

Daemon stepped out of the Consort’s suite and felt the dark presence in the rooms across the corridor. He shivered as he stared at the door to his father’s sitting room.

As much as he’d told Jaenelle in an effort to explain last night, there was so much more he hadn’t said. Couldn’t say. Not to her.

For one thing, he wasn’t stable, wasn’t sure he could be trusted around her—and that scared him to the bone.

He crossed the corridor, knocked on the door, and waited for his father’s deep voice to give him permission to enter. Barely pausing to close the door, he hurried to the chair where Saetan was reading a book, and sank to his knees.

“Father.”

Saetan closed the book, then removed and vanished his half-moon glasses. “What’s wrong?”

Jaenelle’s lack of anger and her willingness to understand had helped him maintain a crust of calm, a thin layer of control, that had hidden a seething ugliness for a little while.

But here, now, he faced a man who wouldn’t hesitate to punish him if he needed to be punished, who wouldn’t hesitate to hurt him if that was needed to pay the debt. Who would understand the depth of what he’d done wrong.

“Father,” he said, his voice breaking. “I hurt Jaenelle. I scared Jaenelle.” Those words would mean little to most people, but Saetan would know what it would take to frighten Witch.

“Tell me,” Saetan said.

He told Saetan everything. Everything. And when he was done, he pressed his face against his father’s legs . . . and wept.

Hell’s fire, Mother Night, and may the Darkness be merciful, Saetan thought as he stroked Daemon’s hair, the movement of his hand weaving a soothing spell around his son.

It could have been worse. Could have been much worse. This was a painful reminder that Daemon’s mind and sanity had been shattered twice—and no matter how strong the man, no matter how well he healed, there were always scars, always permanent damage. But he could help his boy deal with the fears stemming from last night.

“Are you ready to listen?” Saetan asked quietly.

What worried him was the certainty that if he told Daemon to strip and lie on the floor to be whipped until there wasn’t any skin left on his back, Daemon wouldn’t hesitate, wouldn’t question—as long as the punishment came with the promise that Jaenelle would truly forgive him for last night.

Daemon nodded, his face still pressed against Saetan’s legs.

“I’m here because Jaenelle asked me to come—not because she needed me, but because you did.”

“She needs a Healer,” Daemon whispered.

And you need more than a Healer. And the witch who had the skill to mend what had been broken was currently in the suite across the hall. “I’ll see to it, and I will tell you what is needed. I’ll also find something to do with your guest.” And wouldn’t that be fun?

“Now,” he said, giving Daemon’s hair a tweak, “you need some rest, so I want you to wash your face, strip down, and get into my bed.”

He felt the jolt, recognized the reason. A Warlord Prince was what he was, and letting another male in his bed for any reason was an unspoken testimony of love. His bed had been forbidden ground, but every one of his boys had been allowed to have a nap there when they were feeling shaky or heartsore. Sometimes he had joined them, had held them while they whispered their little hurts and secrets; sometimes he sat in a chair by the bed, reading. Either way, his boys knew they were safe there, protected there. And sometimes knowing that was all they needed.

“Really?” Daemon asked, with just enough doubt to rip at Saetan’s heart.

“Really. I’ll even read you a story after I take care of a couple of things. Go on, now.”

Daemon got to his feet, unable to hide how shaky he was physically and emotionally. He swallowed once, twice. Then he rushed to the bathroom and slammed the door shut.

A moment later, aural shields went up around the bathroom to hide the sounds of Daemon being violently sick.

Sighing, Saetan went across the hall and knocked on the door to Jaenelle’s sitting room.

Fresh from a bath, she was bundled in a robe, her golden hair still damp. He saw no fear in the sapphire eyes that assessed him, but he did see worry.

Using Craft, he floated a footstool over to her chair and sat down in front of her.

“How is he?” Jaenelle asked.

“First things first. Was this rape?” Am I going to have to execute my son?

He saw the shock in her eyes, quickly followed by anger. “No.”

“Are you saying that to protect him because he’s your husband?”

“No.” Her voice was icy and knife-edged. “I’m saying that because it wasn’t. He gave me a choice, Saetan. He asked me to stay, but he told me I could go. I chose to stay.”

Sick relief washed through Saetan. Daemon hadn’t remembered giving her a choice, and even though the word had remained unspoken, the fear that he’d crossed an unforgivable line had been in every word Daemon had said.

“You need to see a Healer, witch-child.”

“I am a Healer.”

And a Black Widow and a Queen. One of the three witches in all of Kaeleer who had a triple gift.

“Then I need an accurate list of your injuries.” Jaenelle was his adopted daughter; Daemon was his son. More than that, he had been her Steward. This wouldn’t be comfortable for either of them, but they were going to have this conversation. “Before you try to shrug this off because you’d rather not be frank with me, you should keep in mind that whatever broke in Daemon last night may stay broken unless it’s fixed in a hurry, and if it stays broken, your husband may not be able to do more than imagine making love to you again.”

“Does he really know what happened last night?”

Saetan frowned. “I had the impression he explained some of this to you.”

“Yes, he did.” Jaenelle studied him for a moment, then pushed back the sleeves of her robe and held out her wrists.

Ugly bruises. His own wrists ached in sympathy.

“That’s the worst of it,” Jaenelle said, smoothing the sleeves back down. “There are a few other bruises from love bites, but considering where they’re located, I’m not going to show you.”

On the basis of Daemon’s fears, he’d been prepared for something far more serious, and he found himself comforted by Jaenelle’s tone of amused snippiness.

“I’m a bit sore, but that has to do with quantity, not his temper, and at any other time, he’d be smugly sympathetic about that,” Jaenelle continued. “And between the exercise I got with Nighthawk and Daemon, my thighs are sore enough that I’m not interested in riding anything for a couple of days.”

Saetan gave in to the smile tugging his lips. “That’s it?”

“That’s it.”

His smile faded. Couldn’t be all of it. “He scared you. That’s the sticking point for him. He scared you.”

“Yes, he did,” Jaenelle replied quietly. “He didn’t know who I was, Saetan. He didn’t know where he was. He was caught in some twisting memory, and when I realized that, I also realized that if he really tried to hurt me, I was going to have to hurt him, because he would be able to live with a physical injury much easier than he could live with the knowledge that he’d done more than give me a couple of unintentional bruises.”

“Could you have hurt him?” Saetan asked. “Are you strong enough that you could have stopped him?”

She folded her right hand into a loose fist. When she opened her hand . . .

Her fingers no longer had human nails. These were cat claws, the kind that could do serious damage with even a glancing blow.

“I see,” Saetan said softly. A physical wound, even a permanently crippling one, would have been less destructive for Daemon. She had known that—and her choice of weapon would have shocked any man back into the present.

“Well.” Jaenelle closed her right hand, then fluffed her hair with her normal fingers. “I’m heading out to Dharo. Aaron should be here by now.”

“Oh?” He kept his voice carefully neutral, but he wondered if Jaenelle was being honest about her own emotional state. He understood her summoning him in the early-morning hours so that he would be here when Daemon most needed him, but summoning Aaron could indicate a need to escape.

“Oh.” Those sapphire eyes looked through him—and understood everything he didn’t say. “The purpose of the visit has changed, but the arrangements were made several days ago. I’m not hurt, Papa. I promise you. I’m . . . shaky. I won’t deny that. But I’m not hurt.”

He nodded.

She laid her hand on his. “Will you stay over today? Be here for him? I think you can do more to help him heal right now than I can.”

“Yes, I’ll stay.”

Her fingers curled around his. “Daemon can’t go back to Terreille. In memory of a friend, he’ll try to do what’s right, but he can’t go back to Terreille.”

“He has no defense against the memories anymore, does he?”

“No. His mind and his sanity are intact. He may feel broken right now, but that’s a surface feeling, an emotion. Last night didn’t actually break him. I did descend into the abyss during one of the times he fell asleep, and I made a thorough assessment of his mind, so I’m sure of that. But he’s going to be fragile for a while. If it’s needed, Lucivar can go to Dena Nehele.”

“If Lucivar goes to Dena Nehele, he’ll walk in ready to fight.”

Jaenelle huffed. “That’s not new. Lucivar walks into every place ready to fight.”

Saetan laughed softly. Hard to deny the truth about his Eyrien son’s temper. “All right.” Raising her hand, he kissed her knuckles, then let her go. “You head out to Dharo. . . .”

“And you’ll look after our guest?” Jaenelle asked knowingly.

“That I will. But first I’m going to read my boy a story. I had thought of reading him Unicorn to the Rescue! or Sceltie Saves the Day—”

Jaenelle’s silvery, velvet-coated laugh eased his heart and vanished his concern about this child.

“—but I don’t think he’d appreciate the humor of being read a story appropriate for his nephew,” he finished. “At least, not today.”

“No, I don’t think he would. Not today.”

When their laughter faded, Jaenelle called in a small wooden frame Black Widows used to hold their tangled webs. “That room needs to be cleaned and aired before Daemon can go back in. I think Helene will find this useful. Marian and I have been working on a way to cleanse a bedroom after a Warlord Prince goes through a rut. The vial is opened with a basic housekeeping spell. Once it’s triggered, the web will absorb the psychic scents in the room, while the oil in the vial absorbs the physical odors. The whole thing takes a couple of hours. When it’s done, the spider silk of the web will look thick and greasy. Same with the oil. We haven’t figured out how to cleanse the frame or vial after it’s been used, so the whole thing should be put in a shield and burned with witchfire, then buried so the ash doesn’t drift on the Wind.”

He had to marvel that no one else had ever thought of this. Of course, there probably hadn’t been that many friendships between Black Widows and hearth witches, and until Marian and Jaenelle started working together to create specific spells, no one, to his knowledge, had thought to combine those two kinds of Craft.

“Yes,” he said. “I’m sure Helene will find this useful.” Setting it aside a moment, he asked about something that had troubled him in Daemon’s story. “Witch-child, you must have known Daemon wasn’t in the best frame of mind. Why did you wear something that . . . ?” If she weren’t his daughter and his Queen, he wouldn’t have any trouble in phrasing the question.

“Why did I wear an invitation?” she asked.

He nodded.

She fluffed her golden hair. The look she gave him was a little amused and embarrassed. “It’s been said that when a man is feeling a bit broody about something, sometimes he wants sex as a comfort but doesn’t feel secure enough to ask for it.”

The thought of Jaenelle’s coven exchanging confidences about their husbands and/or lovers made him want to run and hide, but he just sat there and nodded.

“I thought Daemon was feeling moody about Jared, about remembering a friend who was gone, but I hadn’t realized it was more than that until it was too late. Anyway, I was reading a story, and the clothes the woman was wearing had caught the man’s interest, so . . .” Jaenelle shrugged. “I knew if Daemon wasn’t interested, he wouldn’t notice the clothes and would be oblivious to the invitation.”

“I beg your pardon?” Saetan blinked, sure he’d misheard. “Daemon wouldn’t notice what you were wearing? Daemon?”

“Yes, Daemon.”

“Witch-child . . .” He shook his head. “Maybe he pretends not to see, but he does notice.”

“Before Surreal went back to Ebon Rih, we went shopping in Amdarh, and she picked out some things that she swore would make Daemon’s tongue hit his toes and have his eyes roll back in his head.”

“What a lovely picture,” Saetan muttered.

“So I was trying the outfit on later that evening and wondering if I really had the nerve to wear it when Daemon walked into the bedroom. I don’t remember what he’d been working on that day, but he looked exhausted. Before I could say anything, he stared at me for a moment, then told me I wasn’t dressed warmly enough for the weather since a bad winter storm had hit a couple of hours before. He bundled me up in his winter robe, stuffed my feet in two pairs of socks—a pair of his over a pair of mine—made us both a hot drink, tucked us into bed, and promptly fell asleep.”

Saetan pressed his lips together to hide his smile. Daemon’s robe. Daemon’s socks. The clues had been there, but neither Jaenelle nor Daemon had recognized the significance.

“That’s not the only time it’s happened,” Jaenelle said. “It’s a comfort.”

“How so?”

So much understanding in those sapphire eyes. “I don’t ever want him to feel like sex is a duty. The fact that he’s sometimes blind to an invitation means he doesn’t feel obliged to perform.”

“Did you wear that outfit on another night?”

She hesitated a long time. “Yes.”

“And did you get the response Surreal said you would?”

“Not exactly.”

But judging by the sudden color flaming her cheeks, she had definitely gotten a response.

He stood up, kissed her forehead, picked up the frame with the web, and walked to the door. Then he turned back. “Are you sure there are no other injuries, witch-child?”

“I’m sure.”

That assurance helped, especially when he walked out of Jaenelle’s sitting room and found Beale, Helene, and Jazen standing in the doorway of the Consort’s bedroom, a look of shock on their faces.

“Problem?” he asked softly. When they turned toward him, he raised a finger to his lips. “Prince Sadi is in my suite. It would be best not to disturb him.”

Helene looked from him to the bedroom and back again. “Was anyone hurt?” she asked in a hushed voice.

They stepped aside for him, and when he stood in that doorway, he understood the question.

Nothing outwardly wrong with the room. Nothing broken or damaged. Even the bed didn’t look unduly messy.

But the psychic scents in the room, combined with the muskiness of sex, made his own body tighten. Rage and fear filled the room, along with a hatred so deep it caught in the back of the throat like a bitter mist. If he’d walked into that room without already knowing both people were safe and unharmed, he would have been tearing the Hall apart to find Daemon and Jaenelle, certain one or both would be desperately hurt.

And there was something under all those other scents that he recognized, that he—and Daemon—would have to deal with.

But not yet. Not until his boy was feeling steady again.

He turned his back on the room and gave Helene the frame that held the cleansing web, and explained what it would do.

“Please give my thanks to the Ladies,” Helene said. “This will help to clean the room.” She looked at Beale and Jazen. “The fewer women in the room right now, the better.”

“I’ll help with the cleaning,” Jazen said. “And I’ll make sure the clothes don’t need to be aired.”

“I’ll send up Holt to assist,” Beale said.

Helene turned to Saetan. “We’ll have the room done in a few hours.”

“Good,” Saetan replied. “Jazen, leave a complete change of clothes in my sitting room for the Prince.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Beale? Is there something else that needs my attention?”

“Prince Aaron is down in the breakfast room, waiting for Lady Angelline,” Beale said. “The Prince’s guest is pacing in the formal receiving room, muttering to himself.”

“Inform Prince Theran that someone will be available in an hour if he wants to discuss anything.”

“Very good, High Lord.”

There was a look in Beale’s eyes that told him plainly enough that the butler wasn’t going to inform Theran about who would be available for that discussion.

What was it about the Dena Nehele Warlord Prince that raised the hackles of Kaeleer males?

Still wondering about that, he walked back into his bedroom and found Daemon tucked in his bed. The body belonged to a full-grown man, but the eyes that watched him, so full of despair, belonged to a boy.

He sat on the side of the bed. “She’s all right,” he said softly. “In better shape than you are, actually.”

“There were bruises,” Daemon whispered. “On her wrists. I saw them.”

Saetan nodded. “Yes, there are. And there are a few love bites, which I didn’t see. And her leg muscles are sore, but you and Nighthawk are being given equal blame for those.”

“Oh.”

The smallest twitch of lips; a hint of amusement in the golden eyes; the tight muscles in the shoulders beginning to relax one breath at a time.

He knew the signs, had watched this son struggle to repair himself once before when he’d believed Jaenelle had been lost forever.

“Now,” he said, “you and Nighthawk may be equally to blame for the sore muscles, but you’re the only one with hands, so I suggest that you be the one who offers to give Jaenelle a back rub this evening.”

An unspoken question hung in the air. He waited.

Finally Daemon gave him the tiniest nod. The Steward of the Dark Court wouldn’t tell the Consort to take care of the Queen if there was any doubt about the Consort’s welcome.

Having done as much as could be done for the moment, Saetan called in a book, opened it to the table of contents, and pointed to the titles of two stories. “Which one would you like to hear?”

“Both?”

The answer made his heart ache—and also gave him hope that Jaenelle was right and Daemon was emotionally battered right now but not truly broken.

Daemon didn’t remember giving the same answer so many times as a boy that it had become a ritual between them. But he did. And because he remembered, he called in his half-moon glasses, took his time settling them on his nose just so, and completed the ritual with the same words he’d always said. “Yes, I think we can read both this time.”