Sure he was teasing her, she said, “Many people eating. No one will know.”
“Ooh, someone will notice and a comment will be made, and the next thing will be Mrs. Beale and her meat cleaver cornering Uncle Daemon to find out why you didn’t like what she had served for this meal.”
Grizande studied him. He had to be teasing. “No.”
“Yes. I’ve made that mistake when I’ve visited. I don’t make that mistake anymore.”
He put a large spoonful of something on his plate—then put a smaller spoonful on hers. She hoped she would like it. She followed his example with the other foods, noticing that his dish did look full even though he’d taken about half as much food as the Warlord Prince who sat across from him.
The Zoey Queen sat on the other side of the table, but far enough away that Grizande didn’t have to talk to her. And yet . . .
More than one kind of tiger. More than one reason to need the safety of this place. Maybe the Zoey Queen was still licking her wounds too. Maybe there could be a little trust, a little liking.
Maybe.
“Do you think it’s intentional that all the women are at the other end of the table?” Lucivar asked as he heaped food on his plate.
“Do you think it’s not?” Daemon countered.
Surreal, Nadene, and Brenda chatting away and getting along just fine. Sweet Darkness.
“Lord Morris is gone?” Daemon asked, looking at Raine and Weston. Beale and Holt had been less than forthcoming about the instructor’s reason for resigning—and running.
Raine and Weston exchanged a look.
“Well, there was Liath telling us about biting off a man’s ball,” Raine said.
“Just one?” Daemon murmured, grateful there was nothing on his plate that looked similar to that part of a man.
“And then there was Lady Surreal honing some of her knives at the breakfast table while she stared at him,” Weston said.
“Hmm,” Daemon said.
They all looked at Kieran, who said, “Yes, Liath did. Brenda has never sharpened any knives while we were eating, but she has been known to throw a dinner fork at someone with fierce accuracy.”
“Well, your meals are going to be interesting,” Lucivar said, lifting his glass of ale in a salute to Daemon. “I have another boy at home, and a wife. It’s time I got back to them.”
“I appreciate the help.”
“Whenever you need it. After all, I’m your whip hand.” Lucivar glanced at the other end of the table. “One of them, anyway.”
“I am so fortunate to have more than one,” Daemon said dryly.
A beat of silence. Then Kieran burst out laughing.
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.”