“It was nothing.”
“You were having an enjoyable afternoon until that moment, so it wasn’t nothing.”
“It was just a tease, but sometimes I get self-conscious and too sensitive.”
Silence. Surreal walked. Jillian followed half a step behind, wondering how things had gone wrong.
“If you want me to tangle with Lucivar to give you opportunities to spend time with this boy, you will tell me what he said.” Surreal sounded cool, distant, not the indulgent chaperon she had been at the cake shop.
Marian and Nurian would do whatever Lucivar said. Surreal was the only one who might stand up to him. If she lost Surreal’s support, she would never see Dillon again.
“He said if I ate another cake, I would be too plump to fly.”
“I see,” Surreal said.
“Haven’t you ever felt this way?” Jillian cried. “Haven’t you ever thought your heart would burst out of your chest because it was beating so hard when you caught sight of a special boy, or would break if he didn’t send you a note when he promised?”
Surreal walked. She appeared to be heading for the old cabin on the outskirts of the village.
Before Jillian could point out that the cabin was out of bounds to everyone, Surreal stopped walking, as if she could sense the boundary that shouldn’t be crossed.
“My mother was murdered when I was twelve,” Surreal said. “I came home from lessons one day and found her on the floor with her throat slit. She was a Queen and a Black Widow who had been broken by a man who had lusted for a girl who looked exotic. Being Dea al Mon in the Realm of Terreille certainly made her exotic.
“I ran because that was what she wanted me to do—get away, hide from her killer. I was raped a few days later. I wore Birthright Green, and sometimes raw power makes up for the lack of experience or training. That man violated my body, but he couldn’t break me, couldn’t break my Green Jewel.
“I let men use me in order to have enough coins to buy food, to keep going another day. And then a man used me and refused to pay. I rammed a knife into him and began my second profession. Even at that age, I was good with a knife. I whored on the streets for a few years until Sadi found me and arranged for me to train in a high-level Red Moon house.”
“Why didn’t he help you get out of being a whore?” Jillian asked softly.
“I wouldn’t let him, and he knew that. So he made sure I received the best education available for the skills I wanted to acquire. I was the most sought-after, and expensive, whore in Terreille, but I was even better as an assassin.” Surreal looked at Jillian. “I never felt that rush, that tingle of anticipation, that heightened level of nerves because every knock on the door might be that special boy. Because of that, I will help you have opportunities to spend time with Dillon and get to know more about him—and give him a chance to know you. But my rules aren’t negotiable, Jillian. If you break them, even once, you had better hope that Lucivar gets to that boy before I do. Are we clear on that? If you can’t, or won’t, follow my rules, you should write a note to Dillon telling him you can’t see him again—and warn him not to try to see you.”
Jillian hesitated but couldn’t see another choice. “What are your rules?”
Surreal nodded, as if Jillian had asked the right question. “Dillon can visit you at your sister’s eyrie or at Lucivar’s eyrie, as long as one adult is present. When you go into the village, you go with a chaperon.”
“I’ve been allowed to go into Riada on my own since I was a child!”
“And you were safe,” Surreal agreed. “But that kiss and grope in the alleyway changed things.”
If Dillon had given her just the kiss instead of doing more, they wouldn’t have been caught and Prince Yaslana wouldn’t be angry and she wouldn’t have these restrictions on where she could go and whom she could see.
“There will be opportunities for kissing, but there won’t be time for him to take the play and petting beyond what is acceptable to me—and what I can persuade Lucivar to agree to.”
“But I love Dillon!”
“I don’t doubt it. But he’s reached the age of majority, and you have decades ahead of you before you reach yours. So a chaperon is required when you go down to the village. An adult has to be home if Dillon comes to visit—and if you’re not within sight of that adult, you have to be visible to anyone who might fly past the eyrie. That way, if Dillon’s hands, or anything else, end up where they’re not supposed to be, no one will wonder why an Eyrien war blade sliced through his wrists.”
The wind changed direction. Surreal finger combed her hair away from her face and used Craft to twist it into a casual knot at the back of her head.
“You want time to think about it?” Surreal asked.
“I’ll follow your rules.” She wasn’t sure how Dillon was going to react when he heard what was required in order for them to see each other, but she would deal with that later.
“Then it’s time we got back to the eyrie.”
The thought was there and the words were out before Jillian had time to consider. “I think you did have a crush on a boy once, before the bad things happened. I think you did feel that tingle of anticipation, of waiting for him to visit and notice you.”
Surreal gave her the queerest look. “Maybe. And maybe I also know what an impulsive, imprudent action can cost a girl and don’t want you to carry that same kind of regret.”
Sobering words. But Dillon would never ask her to do something she would regret.
When they reached the open ground outside her home, Jillian thanked Surreal for the outing and hurried into the eyrie. As she set the table for dinner and cleaned the vegetables, she wished she had thought to ask the waitress to box up the remaining cakes so that she could bring them home and share them with Nurian.
Not looking at Surreal because it would piss him off if he looked at her right now, Lucivar picked up one of the chunks of wood on his desk and blasted it with power and temper, then watched the sawdust drift into a pile on his desk like sifted flour.
“You want me to back off, let him court her.”
Surreal nodded. “Yes, I do. Allowing men the opportunities and space to court young women is part of being Blood, regardless of race.”
He picked up the next chunk of wood and blasted it, watched it dribble onto the desk. “That’s true for Warlord Princes, not the Blood in general.”
“No, Warlord Princes are given a clear field once they express interest in a woman to avoid having their potential rivals splattered all over the walls. But all social gatherings allow people to meet and get to know one another—and see if the attraction one person feels for another is friendship or romance.”
“You think I overreacted, that my instincts about that little prick-ass are wrong.”
“Oh, no,” Surreal said with a tight smile. “There is nothing wrong with your instincts. If we were still in Terreille, I would have been tempted to gut Lord Dillon in a way that would have had his intestines spilling into the street when he walked out of the cake shop this afternoon. But we’re not in Terreille, so while our instincts about Dillon aren’t wrong, they might not be quite right either. He’s . . . Hell’s fire, Lucivar, if you take away Dillon’s veneer of polish, Daemonar has better social skills than that Rihlander Warlord.”
He’d been reaching for the third chunk of wood. Now he stopped and looked at her—and was glad the desk was between them and her hands were in sight and empty.
“There’s something off about him.”
“Yes, but I can’t decide if he really is an arrogant prick who deserves a knife in the guts or if his social maturity is stunted for some reason. He wants to be fawned over and admired. Not just wants it. Needs it. I suspect that’s what he finds so appealing about Jillian. She’s young enough not to see his flaws—or recognize his subtle cruelty,” she added softly.