Heir to the Shadows

Page 55

"Between the fights about raising you in Dhemlan, as she wanted, or raising you in Askavi, where I believed you needed to be, and my sexual inability, our relationship became strained to the point that, when she was spoon-fed half-truths about Guardians, she chose to believe them.
"Dorothea timed her schemes well. With Prythian's help, I lost both of you. Within a day, I lost both of you."
Not Luthvian. Daemon.
A sigh shuddered out of Saetan. "Lucivar, for what it's worth, I've never regretted your existence. I've regretted the pain you've endured, but not you. And I'm very glad you survived."
Unable to think of anything to say, Lucivar nodded.
Saetan hesitated. "Would you tell me something, if you can?"
Lucivar knew what Saetan was going to ask. He wasn't sure what he thought about the man who had sired him, but for this moment at least, he could look beyond the titles and the power and see a man asking about one of his children.
He closed his eyes, and said, "He's in the Twisted Kingdom."
Saetan lay on the couch in his study, desperately glad to be alone.
Everything has a price.
He just hadn't expected the price to be so high.
Regrets were useless. And guilt was useless. A Warlord Prince's first duty was to his Queen. But Daemon . . .
Shards of memories floated through him, pricking his heart.
Tersa ripely pregnant, holding his hand against her belly.
Luthvian's constant circle of anger and sexual hunger.
Daemon sitting in his lap while he read a bedtime story.
Lucivar fluttering around the room, laughing gleefully while just staying out of his reach.
Jaenelle turning his study upside down the first time he tried to show her how to use Craft to retrieve her shoes.
Tersa's madness. Luthvian's fury.
Lucivar lying on the bed in the cabin, his body torn apart.
Daemon, lying on Cassandra's Altar, his mind so terribly fragile.
Jaenelle rising out of the abyss after two heartbreaking years.
Fragments. Like Daemon's mind.
Which explained why, during the careful searches he had made over the past two years, he hadn't been able to find this son who was like a mirror. He'd been looking in the wrong place.
A regret slipped in, as useless as any other.
He might be able to find Daemon, but the one person who could have brought Daemon out of the Twisted Kingdom without question was Jaenelle. And Jaenelle was the one person who couldn't know what he intended to do.
Chapter eleven
1 / Kaeleer
Waiting for dinner, Saetan's stomach tightened another notch.
Jaenelle had been home for a week, helping Lucivar adjust to the family—and helping the family adjust to Lucivar—when a pointed letter from the Dark Council arrived, reminding her that she had not finished her visit to Little Terreille.
He still didn't understand Lucivar's cryptic remark, "Knees or bones, Cat," but Jaenelle had stomped out of the Hall spitting Eyrien curses, and Lucivar had seemed grimly pleased.
That had been three days ago.
She had returned abruptly that afternoon, snarled at Beale, "Tell Lucivar I used my knee," and had locked herself in her room.
Disturbed, Beale had informed him of her return and the comment meant for Lucivar, and had added that the Lady seemed unwell.
Jaenelle always seemed unwell after a visit to Little Terreille. He'd never been able to pry the reason for that out of her. Nothing she said about the activities she'd participated in explained the strained, haunted look in her eyes, the weight loss, the restless nights afterward, or the inability to eat.
The only person besides Beale who saw Jaenelle after she returned was Karla. And Karla, teary-eyed and dis-
tressed, had picked a fight with the one person she could count on to give her a battle—Lucivar.
After enduring a vicious harangue about males, Lucivar had hauled her out to the lawn, handed her one of the Eyrien sticks, and let her try to whack him. He'd pushed and taunted her until her muscles and emotions finally gave out. He'd offered no explanation, and the fury in his eyes had warned all of them not to ask.
The dining room door opened. Andulvar, Prothvar, and Mephis joined him, the concern in their eyes needing no words.
Karla arrived a minute later, moving stiffly. Lucivar came in behind her, threw an arm around her shoulders—which, amazingly, produced no temperamental explosion—and helped her into a chair.
Beale appeared, looking as strained as Saetan felt, and said, "The Lady says she will be unable to join you for dinner."
Lucivar pulled out the chair on Saetan's right. "Tell the Lady she's joining us for dinner. She can come down on her own two feet or over my shoulder. Her choice."
Beale's eyes widened.
A low growl of displeasure came, unexpectedly, from Mephis.
The room smelled dangerous.
Wanting to avoid the confrontation building up between the men in the family, Saetan nodded to Beale, silently backing Lucivar.
Beale hastily retreated.
Lucivar just leaned against the chair and waited.
Jaenelle appeared a few minutes later, her face drained of color except for the dark smudges underneath her eyes.
Smiling that lazy, arrogant smile, Lucivar pulled out the chair beside his and waited.
Jaenelle swallowed hard. "I—I'm sorry. I can't."'
She moved fast. Lucivar moved faster.
In stunned silence, they watched him drag her to her place at the table and dump her in the chair. She immediately shot upward, smacking into the fist he calmly held
above her head. Dazed, she didn't protest when he pushed her chair up to the table and sat down beside her.
Saetan sat down, torn between his concern for Jaenelle and his desire to treat Lucivar to the same kind of affection.
Andulvar, Prothvar, and Mephis took their seats, bristling. If Lucivar noticed the anger being directed at him, he ignored it.
The arrogance of not acknowledging the displeasure of males of equal or darker rank galled Saetan, but he held his tongue and his temper. There would be time to unleash both later.
"You're going to eat," Lucivar said calmly.
Jaenelle stared at the place setting in front of her. "I can't."
"Cat, if we have to dump the soup on the floor so that you can puke into the tureen, then that's what we'll do. But you're going to eat."
Jaenelle snarled at him.
A pale, shaky footman brought the soup.
Lucivar put a ladle full into her bowl and filled his own halfway. He picked up his spoon and waited.
Her snarl grew louder as she reluctantly picked up her spoon.
After a narrow-eyed, considering look at Lucivar, Karla asked a question about a Craft lesson she was working on.
Mephis responded, and the discussion covered the first course.
Jaenelle ate one spoonful of soup.
Andulvar shifted in his seat, rustling his wings.
Saetan flicked a glance at Andulvar, warning him to keep still. He'd caught the scent of feminine anger. He'd caught Lucivar's tightly focused awareness of Jaenelle and her rising temper—a temper Lucivar was able to provoke with frightening ease.
With each dish offered in the second course, Lucivar selected food for her, pricked at her, scraped away her self-control.
"Liver?" Lucivar asked.
"Only if it's yours," she snapped, her eyes glittering queerly.
Lucivar smiled slightly.
By the end of the second course, Jaenelle was an explosion waiting for a spark, and Saetan couldn't understand the point of taunting her.
Until the meat course.
Lucivar slipped a small piece of prime rib onto her plate and then stacked two large pieces on his own.
Jaenelle stared at the tender, pink-centered meat for a long moment. Then she picked up her knife and fork and began to eat with single-minded intensity. When the meat was gone, she turned to her right and looked at Karla's plate.
Karla's face paled to a ghastly white.
When Jaenelle turned to her left and Saetan got a good look at her eyes, he realized that Lucivar had turned the meal into a violent, brilliantly choreographed dance designed to bring the predatory side of Witch to the surface.
Finally her attention fixed on Lucivar's plate. Snarling softly, she licked her lips and raised her fork.
Keeping his movements slow and deliberate, Lucivar transferred the second piece of prime rib from his plate to hers.
She stabbed the meat with her fork and bared her teeth at him.
Lucivar withdrew his utensils and hands and calmly resumed his meal while Jaenelle devoured the meat.
By the time they reached the fruit and cheese course, Jaenelle's attention was entirely focused on Lucivar and his offerings of food. When he held up the last grape, she stared at it for a moment, then wrinkled her nose and sat back with a contented sigh.
And the woman-child Saetan knew and loved returned.
For the first time since the meal began, Lucivar looked at the other men sitting at the table, and Saetan felt keen sympathy for this son with the battle-weary look in his golden eyes.
After the coffee was served, Lucivar took a deep breath and turned to Jaenelle. "By the way, you owe me a piece of jewelry."
"What jewelry?" Jaenelle asked, baffled.
"Kaeleer's equivalent to the Ring of Obedience."
She choked on her coffee.
Lucivar thumped her back until she gave him a teary-eyed glare. He smiled at her. "Will you tell them, or shall I?"
Jaenelle looked at the men who made up her family. She hunched her shoulders, and said in a small voice, "In order to fill the immigration requirement, Lucivar's going to serve me for the next five years."
This time Saetan choked.
"And?" Lucivar prodded.
"I'll come up with something," Jaenelle said testily. "Although why you want to wear one of those Rings is beyond me."
"I did a little checking while you were gone. Males have to wear a Restraining Ring as part of the immigration requirements."
Jaenelle let out an exasperated snort. "Lucivar, who's going to be foolish enough to ask you to prove you're wearing one?"