Heir to the Shadows

Page 56

 

  "That Ring is physical proof that I serve you, and I want it. "

  Jaenelle gave Saetan one fleeting, pleading look—which he ignored. "All right. I'll come up with something," she growled, pushing her chair back. "Karla and I are going to take a walk. "

  Karla, gathering her wits faster than the men could, moaned to her feet and shuffled after Jaenelle.

  Andulvar, Prothvar, and Mephis swiftly found excuses to leave.

  Alter the brandy and yarbarah were brought to the table, Saetan dismissed the footmen, grimly amused by their strained eagerness to return to the servants' hall. His staff didn't gossip to outsiders—Beale and Helene saw to that— but only a fool would think they didn't talk among themselves. Lucivar's arrival had caused quite a stir. Lucivar in service to their Lady . . .

  If tonight was a sample of what to expect, it was going to be an interesting—and long—five years.

  "You play an intriguing game," Saetan said quietly as he warmed a glass of yarbarah. "And a dangerous one. "

  Lucivar shrugged. "Not so dangerous, as long as I don't push her past surface temper. "

  Saetan studied Lucivar's carefully neutral expression. "But do you understand who, and what, lies beneath that surface temper?"

  Lucivar smiled tiredly. "I know who she is. " He sipped his brandy. "You don't approve of my serving her, do you?"

  Saetan rolled his glass between his hands. "You've been able to do more in three months to improve her physical and emotional health than I've been able to do in two years. That galls a little. "

  "You laid a stronger foundation than you realize. " Lucivar grinned. "Besides, a father's supposed to be strong, supportive, and protective. Older brothers, on the other hand, are naturally a pain in the ass and are inclined to be overprotective bullies. "

  Saetan smiled. "You're an overprotective bully?"

  "So I'm told frequently and with great vigor. "

  Saetan's smiled faded. "Be careful, Lucivar. She has some deep emotional scars you're not aware of. "

  "I know about the rape—and about Briarwood. When she's pushed too hard, she talks in her sleep. " Lucivar refilled his glass and met Saetan's cool stare. "I slept with her. I didn't mount her. "

  Slept with her. Saetan kept a tight rein on his temper while he sifted through the implications of that statement and weighed it against the amount of physical contact Jaenelle allowed Lucivar without retreating into that chilling emotional blankness that always scared the rest of them. "She didn't object?" he asked carefully.

  Lucivar snorted. "Of course she objected. What woman wouldn't after being hurt that badly? But she objected more to having her patient sleeping in front of the hearth, and I objected just as strongly to having the Healer who saved my life sleeping in front of the hearth. So we reached an agreement. I didn't complain about the way she hogged the pillows, tangled the covers, sprawled over more than

  her share of the bed, made those cute little noises that we don't call snoring no matter what it sounds like, and growled at everything and everyone until she had her first cup of coffee. And she didn't complain about the way I hogged the pillows, tangled the covers, sprawled over more than my share of the bed, made funny noises that woke her up and stopped the minute she was awake, and tended to be overly cheerful in the morning. And we both agreed that neither of us wanted the other for sex. "

  Which, for Jaenelle, would have made the difference.

  "Do you pay much attention to who immigrates to Kaeleer?" Lucivar asked suddenly.

  "Not much," Saetan replied cautiously.

  Lucivar studied his brandy. "You wouldn't know if a Hayllian named Greer came in, would you?"

  The question chilled him. "Greer is dead. "

  Lucivar fixed his eyes on the dining room wall. "Being the High Lord of Hell, you could arrange a meeting, couldn't you?"

  Why was Lucivar straining to breathe evenly?

  "Greer isdead, not just a citizen of the Dark Realm. "

  Lucivar's jaw tightened. "Damn. "

  Saetan clenched his teeth. Sweet Darkness, how was Lucivar involved with Greer? "Why are you so interested in him?"

  Lucivar's hands curled into tight fists. "He was the bastard who raped Jaenelle. "

  Saetan's temper exploded. The dining room windows shattered. Zigzag cracks raced across the ceiling. Swearing viciously, he rechanneled the power to strike the drive out front, turning the gravel into powder.

  Greer. Another link between Hekatah and Dorothea.

  Saetan sank his nails into the table, tearing through the wood again and again, an unsatisfying exercise since he wantedflesh beneath his nails.

  The training was too deeply ingrained in him. Damn the Darkness, it was too deeply ingrained. He couldn't kill a witch in cold blood. And if he was going to break the code of honor he'd lived by all his life, he should have done it more than five years ago when it might have made a differ-

  ence, might have saved Jaenelle. Not now, when she already bore the scars. Not now, when it wouldn't change anything.

  Hands clamped on his wrists. Tightened. Tightened some more.

  "High Lord. "

  He should have torn that bastard apart the first time Greer asked about Jaenelle. Should have shredded his mind. What waswrong with him? Had he become too tame, too docile? What was he doing, trying to appease those puny fools in the Dark Council when they were doing something that hurt his daughter, his Queen?

  "High Lord. "

  And who was this fool who dared lay hands on the Prince of the Darkness, the High Lord of Hell? No more. No more.

  "Father. "

  Saetan gulped air, fought to clear his head. Lucivar. Lucivar was pinning his arms to the table.

  Someone pounded on the door. "Saetan! Lucivar!"

  Jaenelle. Sweet Darkness, not Jaenelle. He couldn't see her now.

  "saetan!"

  "Please," he whispered. "Don't let her—"

  The door shattered.

  "Get out, Cat," Lucivar snapped.

  "What—"

  "out!"

  Andulvar's voice. "Go upstairs, waif. We'll take care of this. "

  Voices arguing, fading.

  "Yarbarah?" Lucivar asked after a long, tense silence.

  Saetan shuddered, shook his head. Until he was settled, if he tasted blood, he would want it hot from the vein. "Brandy. "

  Lucivar pressed a glass into his hand.

  Saetan gulped the brandy. "You should have gotten out of here. "

  Lucivar raised his glass with an unsteady hand and offered a wobbly grin. "I've had some experience tangling

  with the Black. All in all, you're not too bad. Daemon always scared the shit out of me when he turned savage. " He drained his glass and refilled both of them. "I hope you didn't redecorate in here recently. You're going to have to do it again, but it doesn't look like the room's going to fall in on us. "

  "The girls didn't like the wallpaper anyway. " Ten good reasons to hold his temper. Ten good reasons to unleash it. And always, always, for Blood males like him, the fine line he had to walk to hold on to the balance between two conflicting instincts. "The Harpies executed Greer," he said abruptly. "They have a distinct sensibility when it comes to that sort of thing. "

  Lucivar nodded.

  Steady. He would need to be steady for the days ahead. "Lucivar, see if you can persuade Jaenelle to show you Sceval. You should meet Kaetien and the other unicorns. "

  Lucivar regarded him steadily. "Why?"

  "I have some business I want to take care of. I'll need to stay at the Keep in Terreille for a few days, and I'd prefer it if Jaenelle wasn't around to ask questions or wonder where I was. "

  Lucivar considered this for a minute. "Do you think you can do it?"

  Saetan sighed wearily. "I won't know until I try. "

  2 / Terreille

  Saetan carefully secured his Black-Jeweled r
ing to the center of the large tangled web. It had taken two days of searching through Geoffrey's Hourglass archives to find the answer. It had taken two more to construct the web. He'd given himself two nerve-fraying days more to rest and slowly gather his strength.

  Draca had said nothing when he'd asked for a guest room and workroom at the Terreille Keep, but the workroom had been supplied with a frame large enough to hold the tangled web. Geoffrey had said nothing about the re-

  quested books, but he had added a couple of books Saetan wouldn't have thought of.

  Saetan took a deep breath. It was time.

  Normally a Black Widow needed physical contact to guide someone out of the Twisted Kingdom. But sometimes blood-ties could cross boundaries otherwise impossible to cross, and no one had a stronger tie to Daemon than he did. The tie of father to son; more, the bond of that night at Cassandra's Altar.

  And the Blood shall sing to the Blood.

  Pricking his finger, Saetan placed a drop of blood on the four anchor threads that held the web to its wooden frame. The blood flowed down the top threads, and up the bottom threads. Just as the drops reached his ring, Saetan lightly touched the Black Jewel, smearing it with blood.

  The web glowed. Saetan sang the spell that opened the dreamscape that would lead him to the one he sought.

  A tortured landscape, full of blood and shattered crystal chalices.

  Taking another deep breath, Saetan focused his eyes on the Black-Jeweled ring and began the inward journey into madness.

  "Daemon. "

  He raised his head.

  The words circled, waiting for him. The edges of the tiny island crumbled a little more.

  "Daemon. "

  He knew that voice. You are my instrument.

  "Daemon!"

  He looked up. Flattened himself against the pulpy ground.

  A hand hovered over him, reached for him. A light-brown hand with long, black-tinted nails. A wrist appeared. Part of a forearm. Straining to reach him.

  He knew that voice. He knew that hand. He hated them.