*They’re devoted to each other,* Kieran said on a spear thread. *She won’t tolerate another stallion, and he won’t cover another mare. They have three offspring younger than Shaye.*
Who was he to offer a comment about family? And the horses’ psychic scents were too similar to Eileen’s and Kildare’s as they hugged their daughter and wished her well for him to think they were anything less than family.
“Lady Brenda, if you have everything you need, at least for now, we should be going,” Daemon said.
“I’ll write,” Brenda said as she gave her mother one more hug. “I will.”
Daemon met Eileen’s eyes and dipped his head in a tiny nod, receiving a nod in return. Even if the daughters forgot to write, the parents would know what was going on.
He invited Brenda to join him in the front of the Coach, not because he wanted company but because there wasn’t any other comfortable place for her to sit.
As he caught the Black Winds and began the journey back to Dhemlan, he wondered how many trunks and bags and boxes Saetien would deem necessary for a visit of a few weeks.
TWENTY-FIVE
Surreal paced the sitting room. The rest of the Keep felt the way it always did—full of old, dark power. Full of things best not seen in the light of day. But here on the other side of an ornate metal gate . . .
Power. And a feral presence no longer hidden by a human body or softened by human emotions.
“I’d offer you coffee, but you look like you need a large whiskey,” Witch said, suddenly appearing in the room.
“Maybe a mug of this would be better.” Surreal called in the jar of leaves Lucivar had given her, along with one copy of the list of plants used to make this blend.
Witch took the jar and opened it. She sniffed. Frowned as she read the list of plants. Then she focused on Surreal, and “feral” didn’t begin to describe the look in her eyes.
“Where did you get this?” Witch asked too softly.
“This mixture comes from Tigrelan,” Surreal replied—and wondered if she would still be among the living when she walked out of that room.
“From the Tigre? From Grizande?”
She nodded.
“Who else knows about this?”
She hadn’t expected this cold rage rising from somewhere deep in the abyss. If she lied . . . No. She wouldn’t lie, because there was something else besides cold rage filling the room. “I stopped by Yaslana’s eyrie to tell Marian there might be a way to . . . soften . . . the effect of Lucivar’s sexual heat. Nurian was there.”
“And at the Hall?”
“Lucivar knows. And Daemonar.” Surreal swallowed hard. “Look, sugar . . .”
“Contact Marian and Nurian now. They are to say nothing about this until they talk to me. I’ll inform Lucivar that Grizande is not to drink any more of that tea.”
Witch vanished. A moment later, Surreal fell to the floor as an arrow of dark power was unleashed and headed west. Toward Dhemlan. Toward SaDiablo Hall—and Lucivar.
Mother Night. Surreal sent out a psychic call to Marian. *Something about this tea has made Witch furious. She commanded that you and Nurian say nothing to anyone until you talk to her.*
*Witch?* Marian sounded confused. *But . . . why?*
*I don’t know yet.* Surreal tried to get to her feet, discovered she was too shaky, and collapsed into a chair moments before Witch returned. A moment after that, a tray with a pot of hot water, a cup and saucer, and a tea ball appeared on the table near the chair.
“Do you want to try the tea?” Witch sounded terrifyingly calm.
Whenever Sadi was that kind of calm, people died.
“The Tigre witches drink this in order to quiet their response to a Warlord Prince’s sexual heat,” Surreal said, watching Witch. “That’s what Grizande told us.”
“That’s probably as much as she was told. It’s true that this tea muffles the response to sexual heat by dulling a woman’s desire. One cup won’t hurt you, and since you wear the Gray, the effects won’t last for more than a few hours. Maybe a day.”
One cup could reduce the lust response produced by a Warlord Prince’s sexual heat for a day?
Surreal filled the tea ball with leaves, set the ball in the cup, and poured the hot water over it to let the tea steep. “If you’ve known about this tea, why didn’t you say something? It could have spared . . .”
“I wasn’t here when things went wrong between you and Daemon,” Witch said.
The calm didn’t break, and Surreal had a bad feeling that it was holding back something terrible.
“Marian, then. It’s difficult for her right now.”
“The webs Karla and I created to absorb sexual heat keep things tolerable for Marian when she is home—and those webs aren’t that different from the webs hearth witches use to cleanse a bedroom after a Warlord Prince’s rut. Since Daemon is a Black Widow, he’s been able to make the webs to absorb the sexual heat in specific rooms at the Hall to make it easier for the students and staff.”
“Rooms.” Surreal removed the tea ball and set it in a small bowl. “This tea doesn’t restrict someone to specific rooms.”
“Drink it. See what it does. Then we’ll talk. You’ve focused on the relief you and Marian might have from the heat of Ebon-gray and Black. You haven’t considered the price the rest of the Blood might pay if this tea was discovered again.”
“Again?”
Witch said nothing. Surreal drank the tea.
“How do you feel?” Witch asked.
She shrugged. “The same.”
“Good. Now think about something besides what this means for you personally.”
“Not just me. Marian.”
Witch nodded. “All right, let’s consider Marian. She wears Purple Dusk. Until this last phase, she was able to handle Lucivar’s leashed sexual heat without being overwhelmed and certainly appreciated the way it excited her and added to her enjoyment of sex. Now the heat is too much even when it’s leashed, and it will be for a few more decades, before it begins to decline. A woman from a short-lived race would endure this for a few years if her lover was a Warlord Prince who outranked her. It’s harder for someone from one of the long-lived races because it has to be endured for a lot more years.
“Then a tea is discovered that quiets a woman’s response to the heat, dulls her desire for sex. Doesn’t affect the Warlord Prince, just her. How often does Marian drink the tea? Once a week? Twice? Does she wait until she starts to feel her husband’s heat again, starts to feel sharp desire again, before brewing another cup? Don’t you think Lucivar will notice that the woman who is the love of his life, the woman he’s been living with for centuries, no longer wants to have sex with him, no longer wants more than a hug and cuddle?
“You wanted to use Marian as the example, so let’s talk about Lucivar. If Marian could no longer have sex because of injury or illness, he wouldn’t consider leaving her—and he would remain celibate, even during the ruts. But how hard would it be for him to stay if Marian chose to drink a tea that silenced desire in order to escape an intrinsic part of what he is? How hard would it be for both of them when they realized she’d castrated herself to avoid his sexual heat?”
Surreal snapped upright in the chair. “What?”