Lucivar retreated, making no sound. Marian wrapped her arms around Surreal and felt the weight of her friend’s head on her shoulder as one of the strongest women she’d ever known wept like a heartbroken child.
“Bastard?” Lucivar crossed the flagstone courtyard and caught up to his brother as Daemon reached the stairs leading to the landing web below the eyrie. “You heading somewhere?”
There was nothing for him to read in Daemon’s gold eyes, and that lack scared him. It meant Sadi had retreated deep into himself, no longer allowing anyone to see what he was thinking or feeling. It was the mask Daemon had worn when he’d been a pleasure slave in Terreille.
It was the look Daemon had worn just before the Sadist annihilated a Queen and all the bitches who served in her court.
“Just down to the village to walk around,” Daemon replied.
A rational, reasonable answer to the question—which didn’t mean a damn thing.
Lucivar tipped his head to indicate the eyrie. “What are you going to do?” No need to clarify the problem. He’d found Daemon standing just outside the guest room, had seen the pain and sorrow on his brother’s face, had heard enough of what Surreal had said to understand the danger if Surreal truly couldn’t accept the Black-Jeweled Warlord Prince she had married.
All these years of living around and with Daemon. Living around and with the sexual heat. Living with the cold, dark power of the Black Jewels. It surprised him—and disappointed him—that a woman as strong as Surreal, a witch who wore Gray Jewels, had lasted less than two decades around the Black. Despite what Surreal thought, she wasn’t dancing with the Sadist, wasn’t the focus of the Sadist’s cold, cruel rage.
The chalice is breaking.
The girl would free him to ask for help.
Was it finally time? Was this the moment that Tersa and Karla had seen in their tangled webs?
“What are you doing to do?” Lucivar asked.
“Nothing.” Daemon’s voice, like his eyes, held no emotion. “It was my mistake. I’ll fix it.”
How? “Maybe someone at the Keep could help.”
“If the Gray-Jeweled witch who is my wife can’t stand to be around me anymore, I don’t think the Gray-Jeweled Queen at the Keep can do anything to help.”
Not the Gray, but . . . If Tersa and Karla were wrong about the help that could be found at the Keep, and he persuaded Daemon to ask for help that would never come . . .
“So you’re going down to the village?” he asked.
“I am. For a while.”
“You want some company?”
“No. Thank you.” Daemon went down a few stairs before looking at Lucivar. “Everything has a price, and I have no illusions about what I am.” He walked down to the landing web.
I have no illusions about what I am.
Lucivar had never heard Daemon say anything that had frightened him more, because there had been times when he’d heard Saetan say much the same thing.
TWENTY-SIX
Dillon walked to his appointment and wondered how to extricate himself from a couple of arrangements now that he had a chance for the exact thing he had struggled to achieve.
He’d been imprudent the last time he’d seen Jillian, caught off guard by her four-legged chaperons. He’d also been caught off guard by what Jillian had said. Public outings with chaperons? Visits to her home—or Yaslana’s home—as long as an adult was present? No sneaking around? No need for lies?
This was . . . courtship. This was a chance to show the most powerful men in the Realm that he knew how to be an escort, even if his training hadn’t been completed.
He shouldn’t have been dismissive of Jillian’s thoughts about books and other things. It had become a habit—or a need—to undermine an aristo bitch’s trust in her own opinions in order to keep her believing that he was superior. He’d stop doing that. And he’d start listening, really listening, as he would listen to a respected friend.
He’d forgotten what it felt like to have a friend like that.
Jillian might not even notice the difference. Not at first. But he would. And the first thing he needed to do was stop doing things that added smudges to his honor.
Pain was a faithful, predictable lover. Unlike the woman he had married, the woman who had given him a precious daughter. The woman he had trusted to be honest with him.
Daemon walked down the main street of Riada, pretending not to see how people scurried out of his way, their faces filled with a fear he’d like to carve into their skin so it would never be forgotten.
No. He didn’t want to do that. These people had done him no harm, had offered no challenge. Were not the reason for his pain.
He flicked a glance toward the other side of the street, where Lord Rothvar kept pace with him. Was the Eyrien so foolish—or arrogant—as to think he could survive the Sadist?
He spotted Lord Zaranar up ahead and expected Rothvar to cross the street and come up behind him. But, no, Rothvar remained on the other side, keeping Riada’s citizens away from him, giving him a clear path—the same as Zaranar was doing on this side of the street.
Lucivar’s orders, no doubt. Yaslana would know better than anyone the need to avoid any kind of challenge.
Crack.
He’d get out of this village, get away from this valley if he could. But he wasn’t steady enough to ride the Winds any distance. Getting down to the village had proved that much.
Surreal had seen the truth of who he was and called him a monster who tortured her. The rest of the Blood might see him as a monster, too, but he hadn’t tortured his wife. He’d respected her wishes, had understood he’d made a mistake the night she came to his bedroom, had done everything he could since then to keep the heat leashed so that it wouldn’t distress her. Had endured this unrelenting pain in his effort to keep the heat leashed. For her. But she was the one demanding sex every night they slept together.
Could he stand sleeping in the same bed with her anymore? Maybe . . .
Crack.
. . . she could live in the family town house in Amdarh. Or purchase a town house for herself if she preferred. Jaenelle Saetien could go to school . . .
The taste of sickness and blood filled the back of his throat—and cold rage pushed against the icy calm that provided the last illusion of control.
She wasn’t taking his girl. Surreal could leave, if that was what she needed to do, but she wasn’t taking his daughter. Monster or not, no one was going to take his girl away from him.
CRACK!
He felt Rothvar walking toward him. He turned his head and looked at the Green-Jeweled Eyrien Warlord—and smiled at the terror he saw in Rothvar’s eyes.
Yes.
Then something brushed against his senses. A ripple from one of his own spells. He focused on the female psychic scent and reached out until he located her.
Emotions in turmoil. That wasn’t right.
Cherish and protect.
Turning away from Rothvar, Daemon followed the psychic scent to a village garden between some shops.
Cherish and protect. Even the Sadist, in his own way, valued those words.
٭This isn’t the way to the library,٭ Khary protested as he trotted beside Jillian. ٭You told Marian we were going to the library. This is not the library.٭
“We are going to the library,” Jillian said. “But first we’re going to the shop over there to buy some cakes for Nurian.”