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She watched the snake tooth slide out beneath the long, black-tinted nail. “You—you poisoned me?”
He looked at her and smiled a cold, cruel smile. “Yes. ”
Remembering the prick she felt, she tried to reach up and touch her neck. “You poisoned me . . . while . . . I . . . was—”
“Coming. Yes. ”
“Why?”
“Because of your obsession with me, you tried to hurt Jaenelle. So you will be the lesson for any other bitch who thinks she can have me if she eliminates the competition. Just between you and me, darling, if I have to kill every witch in Amdarh to assure no one tries to hurt Jaenelle again, I’ll do it and have no regrets. You’re all expendable, and she is . . . everything. ”
Lektra stared at him, fighting for each small gasp of air. Pain danced through her limbs, setting her nerves on fire. She would have screamed if she could have drawn enough breath.
“Daemon . . . help me. ”
“I will,” he promised. “Before you draw your last breath, I’ll finish the kill. At least you won’t have to face the High Lord and endure this kind of pain a second time. ”
As her lungs failed and her vision faded, she tried to see her beautiful love one last time. And even though he stood in front of her, the only thing she saw as the cold Black rage ripped through her was those glazed, sleepy eyes and that cold, cruel smile.
After he finished the kill, Daemon studied the room. The Blood had a saying: The walls remember. Wood and stone could hold strong emotions, and a skilled Black Widow could draw out those feelings and replay a ghostly image of what happened in a room.
At another time in his life, he would have walked away from this room, would have, most likely, added a few seduction spells that would have been triggered by drawing the memories out of wood and stone. Whoever had come to watch the events leading up to Lektra’s death would have felt those phantom hands, those phantom mouths. They would have stood there, helpless to escape, knowing how the previous seduction ended.
It wouldn’t have killed them, but the message would have been clear: anyone who tried to play games with his life or someone he loved would die.
But there was Jaenelle to consider, and he didn’t want this game paraded before the rest of the Blood. He felt soiled enough being near Lektra and Roxie. So he would leave enough of a warning for the witches in Amdarh. As for the rest . . .
He could deal with that easily enough.
2
Surreal stood across the street and watched the town house burn. She’d spent the evening wandering the nearby streets, passing by the town house often enough to keep an eye on things. Because Sadi had said Lektra was his business, not hers, she’d kept her participation to a passive watch.
So she’d been nearby when witchfire suddenly filled two of the upstairs rooms. She didn’t run to the town house to pound on the door and alert the servants. There was no need. The Sadist had his own kind of justice, and the fire remained in those two rooms until the last servant had fled. Then the witchfire took the town house, roaring up to twice the structure’s height, a beacon for the rest of the Blood in Amdarh.
They’d come running, but witchfire was fed by power, and there was nothing they could do to extinguish a fire fed by the Black. The water wagons were brought out, and the roofs of the neighboring town houses were doused, but the fire remained confined. He would have made sure of that before he walked away.
“Here,” Lucivar said, joining her. He handed her a steaming mug of coffee. “It’s damn cold to be standing around. ”
“Is it this cold a couple of blocks away?” she asked, taking a sip of coffee.
“No. ”
He’d arrived in Amdarh just as the rest of the town house went up, so they’d found each other easily enough. He, too, would have recognized the fire as a signal—and a warning.
After taking a sip from his own mug, he called in a bundled napkin, used Craft to balance it on air, then flipped open a corner.
Surreal grabbed one of the rolls filled with meat and cheese. She took a big bite, washed it down with coffee, then asked, “Where did you get these?”
“Dining house down the street a little ways. They were still open when the fire started, so they stayed open to keep serving food and drink. ”
“At least someone will profit from the evening. ” Finishing the first roll, she checked the napkin bundle, pleased to see two more stuffed rolls. Lucivar was going to share fairly—and just in case that wasn’t what he had in mind, she took another roll and bit into it.
“And let’s hope this is the only thing in Amdarh that burns tonight,” Lucivar growled, using the mug to point to the carriage and riders slowly moving up the street.
The carriage stopped. Zhara stepped out and was immediately surrounded by her guards.
“He doesn’t have any reason to go after her, does he?” Surreal asked.
“Not that I know of,” Lucivar replied.
Someone pointed them out. Zhara and her circle of guards pushed their way through the crowd. On Zhara’s command, the guards stepped aside so the Queen of Amdarh could face Surreal and Lucivar without looking over a wall of male bodies.
“Is Daemon Sadi responsible for this?” Zhara demanded.
Lucivar took a long swallow of coffee before answering. “Yeah, he is. ”
“Did he also kill Lord Tavey?”
“Sadi killed a Warlord?” Surreal asked.
“At the party the other night,” Lucivar replied. “He was fairly neat about it—in a messy sort of way. ”
“I’m so glad I didn’t know that. ”
“Stop it, both of you,” Zhara snapped. “You find this all amusing? It’s likely Lady Lektra and her friend were caught in that fire. ”
“They wouldn’t have been alive when the fire started. ” Surreal shrugged. “What do you want us to say, sugar? The little bitch played a game with the Sadist—and she lost. ”
Zhara went very still. “What did you call him?”
Lucivar vanished his mug. “In Terreille, they called him the Sadist—with good reason. If you want to push at him for going after a witch who spread those rumors about him and tried to hurt Jaenelle, you go right ahead. You’ll live just long enough to regret it. ”
The fire went out. One moment it was still blazing, the next it was gone.
“Oh, shit,” Surreal said softly.
There was plenty of light from the houses on this side of the street to see him coming. That gliding walk, that feline grace. The waves of cold that had the rest of the Blood scrambling to get out of his way.
“Zhara,” Lucivar said very quietly, “don’t be a fool. ”
Daemon got close enough that Surreal could see his eyes were still glazed, and his lips were curved in that brutal, chilling smile. He was still in a cold rage, still riding the killing edge. If anyone pushed him now . . .
Lucivar shifted, drawing Daemon’s attention.
“Still pissed off?” Lucivar asked.
“Not anymore,” Daemon replied. “At least, for now. ” Those glazed eyes fixed on Zhara. “But if anyone from Dhemlan ever tries to hurt my Queen again, I’ll kill you all. ”
As Daemon turned and walked away, Zhara slowly sank to the ground.
Not hurt, Surreal decided, just . . . shocked. Seeing Daemon as the Sadist for the first time had that effect on most people.
Lucivar wrapped a hand around her arm and pulled her away. “He’ll head back to the family town house now to have the quiet he needs to step back from the killing edge. We should be there. ”
She didn’t want to be anywhere near Daemon right now, but Lucivar was right. Even if there was nothing they could do for Sadi, they could stand as a buffer between him and the rest of the Blood until the cold rage passed.
“Do you think he could do that?” Surreal asked. “Do you think something could provoke him enough that he’d really ki
ll everyone in Dhemlan?”
Lucivar muttered, “He’s his father’s mirror. ” Then he added, “Let’s hope we never have a reason to find out. ”
SIXTEEN
Daemon waited until the following evening before he returned to the Hall. After a long night’s sleep, the cold rage had thawed, but he hadn’t been able to sheath his temper quite enough to face the “talk” with Jaenelle. So he’d stayed in his room most of the day, letting Surreal and Lucivar deal with the visitors who timidly knocked on the town house door.
He’d known the moment Zhara had stepped into the town house. Even Lucivar’s efforts to shield him from the other visitors’ shrill emotions hadn’t been enough to keep him from sensing Zhara’s spikes of fear. His warning had been found: two bodies, completely untouched by the witchfire that had consumed everything else in Lektra’s house. As powerful as he was, his venom didn’t offer a kind death, and the fact that he’d made sure there was no way to mistake how they’d died had chilled the aristo Blood in the city. So now the Queen of Amdarh knew what so many witches in Terreille had learned, although usually too late: The Black-Jeweled Warlord Prince who was called the Sadist had no mercy for anyone he considered an enemy. They wouldn’t forget the warning because he wouldn’t let them forget. The Black Jewels would be in evidence whenever he walked through the streets of Amdarh, and the Blood would understand that their continued survival depended on Jaenelle’s compassion, not his. As long as she held the leash, the Sadist would yield to his Queen. If anyone tried to break that leash . . .