“Appreciate that.” He hesitated. “You have any objections to me paying my respects?”
“She’s your Queen too.”
She was, but entering Witch’s area of the Keep tended to prick Daemon’s temper.
They parted ways when Daemon headed for the library and he headed for the part of the Keep very few people knew was still occupied—in a way.
She no longer had a physical body, and he suspected that her choice to appear as Witch, the dream that had been clothed in flesh—the dream that hadn’t been fully human—was as much a kindness to Daemon as it was an acknowledgment of who she had always been. This form wasn’t the body Daemon had worshipped with his own as husband and lover. This shadow, this illusion, was the Queen powerful enough to crush the Realms and everything in them.
He walked into the sitting room across from the Queen’s suite and waited.
He didn’t wait long.
“Daemonar sent a note telling me about the Sadist’s visit to the school,” Witch said, seeming to take shape out of the air.
“He’s the third side of the triangle and one of your weapons,” Lucivar replied. “Did you think he wouldn’t?”
“You’ll all do what needs to be done.”
“Yeah, we will.” He wasn’t sure how to ask. “Jaenelle . . .”
She shook her head and huffed. “Your boy was quicker off the mark this time. Inform young Prince Yaslana that he should tell you about the charm he gave his sister before she went to school. The Queen commands.”
He studied her. “A charm?”
“A protection. Blood sings to Blood. If Titian is in danger, she can call him.”
“If he’s within her reach.”
“No, Lucivar. If he’s within my reach.” She shrugged. “It was a reasonable request from a member of the triangle.”
“If it’s more than he can handle?”
Oh, he remembered that look in her eyes. “Then I will summon the Demon Prince—and the High Lord of Hell.”
He looked around the room, not sure what to say to her. That he was grateful she was still here? He was. More than he could say. That he had some inkling of what it must cost her to stay in this form, interacting with the people she had loved when she’d walked among the living—and still loved enough to do this? That he felt relieved that she was teaching Daemonar what a Queen should want from a Warlord Prince? That he felt even more relief that Daemon was still sane because he was under her hand? She already knew those things.
Instead, he said, “I haven’t heard about any explosions lately, so I guess you and Karla have been too busy to experiment with spells.”
“You haven’t heard about any? Oh, good.”
She gave him a smile that turned the bones in his legs to water.
She could have been teasing. Maybe.
He’d ask Draca. The Seneschal would know if any part of the Keep had turned to rubble.
Lucivar walked out of the Keep, smiling. The Queen’s weapons would carry the weight of killing. They would pay the price. But today he would remember a sister and her coven—and mischief that had never contained any trace of malice.
TWENTY-NINE
Surreal woke as her nipple hardened against the hand Daemon had cupped around her breast while they’d slept. A simple thing for most married couples, she supposed, but for them, it not only indicated trust, it indicated that Daemon had set aside the burden of what might need to be done and would welcome an invitation from his lover.
The first few days of Winsol had been . . . fraught. They had attended the parties and public celebrations as required by the Warlord Prince of Dhemlan and his wife. They had quietly taken aside the Province Queens and the District Queens who ruled the larger cities in Dhemlan and told them to put together lists of the young witches who had been broken during the Virgin Night—and they told the Queens why they wanted those lists, told them what they suspected without naming the youngsters they believed were responsible. They didn’t want the Warlord Princes living in Dhemlan to turn on youngsters who had been stupid rather than malicious.
But the demands of those days had been felt by both of them. Some nights, after a day full of meetings and an evening full of parties, they had slept in the same bed but as far from each other as they could get. Some nights she woke and realized Daemon had gone to his own room to sleep alone, his temper too sharp and cold to stay with anyone.
Titian and Daemonar had asked to have parties at the town house in Amdarh to celebrate with friends before the whole family went to the Hall to celebrate Winsol Eve and Winsol. Jaenelle Saetien had thrown a hissy fit at first when she found out Titian hadn’t invited any of her friends to the party, and Daemon wouldn’t allow her to add those friends since it was Titian’s party and the girl wasn’t comfortable being around what Daemonar called the coven of malice.
The boys had their party on the Yaslana side of the town house, and the girls took over the SaDiablo side of the town house. Casually chaperoned by the adults, each group had seemed to have a good time, if the laughter and giggling had been the measuring stick.
Winsol Eve and Winsol Day at the Hall had been pleasant. She and Jaenelle Saetien had maintained a stilted formality, but Marian and Lucivar didn’t ask what had brought about that change in their relationship. For that, she was grateful. At first, she had hoped that Tersa had been wrong, that the bond between her and Jaenelle Saetien hadn’t been broken beyond repair. But the girl’s words had severed that connection between them, and she felt the jagged break those words had made inside her. She needed to figure out how to accept that and move beyond it.
No longer a mother. Maybe a guide.
Maybe that was just as well, considering how much blood she would have on her hands soon.
But this morning, they had reached the quiet side of the Winsol celebrations, the days that Daemon and Jaenelle Angelline had established as time just for themselves. For family. No work, no meetings, no parties. Quiet days to rest and read, or go out for a gallop over fresh snow, or walk down to the village. Days she and Daemon spent together as friends and lovers.
This year, those days would also be used to prepare body and mind for a vicious kind of war that most of the people in Dhemlan would never know had been waged—if they were lucky.
She didn’t think they would be that lucky.
Daemon’s hand flexed around her breast. His thumb stroked her nipple.
She reached back and between them, and her hand closed around the part of him that was standing at attention, begging to be stroked.
The sound he made was part sigh, part dark chuckle.
She smiled. “What would you like to do today?”
“Is staying in bed an option?” he asked.
Releasing him, she vanished her nightgown and turned toward him, reclaiming the part of him that was exclusively hers. Guiding his cock into her, she said, “If you put a Black shield around the room, we can stay long enough to combine breakfast with the midday meal.”
“You won’t get too hungry?” he asked as he moved inside her.
Not for food. She kissed him—and his response was to give her an edgy sweetness they hadn’t shared in a long time.
“Ease up now,” Jaenelle Saetien said, putting a little pressure on the reins attached to the mare’s halter.
The kindred mare—a witch who wore a Tiger Eye Jewel—slowed to a walk. *I am not tired. We can run some more.*
“I’d like to go down to the village and visit Manny.”