by Anne Bishop
Lucivar's hands curled into fists. He'd smashed that look off a lot of faces over the centuries. There was battle-fire in the voice he kept low and controlled. "Get the slut out of here before I break her neck."
Roxie's eyes widened in shock.
Luthvian surged out of her chair, tossed Roxie out of the kitchen, and slammed the door.
Fine tremors ran through him. "Well, now I know why I need privacy. It would be an extra selling point for your school, wouldn't it? Your students would have the use of
a strong Warlord Prince. You could assure fretful parents that their daughters would have a safe Virgin Night. I wouldn't dare provide anything else since the witch I serve has to be served to her satisfaction."
"It wouldn't be like that," Luthvian insisted, gripping the back of a chair. "You'd get something out of it, too. Hell's fire, Lucivar, you're a Warlord Prince. You need sexual relief on a regular basis just to keep your temper in check."
"I've never needed it before," he snarled, "and I don't need it now. I can keep my temper in check just fine- when I choose to."
"Then you don't choose to very often!"
"No, I don't. Especially when I'm being forced into a bed."
Luthvian smashed the chair against the table. She bared her teeth. "Forced to. Oh, yes, it's such an onerous task to give a little pleasure, isn't it? Forced to! You sound like-"
your father.
He'd tolerated her temper before, withstood her tantrums before. He'd tried to be understanding. He was trying hard now. What he couldn't understand was why a man like the High Lord had ever wanted to mount and breed such a troubled young woman.
"Tell me about my father, Luthvian."
Desperation and a keening rage flooded the kitchen. "It's past. It's done. He's not part of our lives."
"Tell me."
"He didn't want us! He didn't love us! He threatened to slit your throat in the cradle if I didn't do what he wanted." The length of the table stood between them. She stood there, shaking, hugging herself.
So young. So troubled. And he couldn't help her. They would destroy each other inside of a week if he tried to stay here with her.
She gave him a wavering smile. "We can be together. You can stay-"
"I'm already in service." He hadn't meant for it to come out so harshly, but it was kinder than saying he would never serve her.
Vulnerability crystallized into rejection, rejection froze
into rage. "Jaenelle," Luthvian said, her voice dangerously empty. "She has a gift for wrapping males around her little finger." She braced her hands on the table. "You want to know about your father? Go ask precious Jaenelle. She knows him better than I ever did."
Lucivar snapped to his feet, knocking the chair over. "No."
Luthvian smiled with pleased malice. "Be careful how you play with your sire's toys, little Prince. He just might snip your balls off. Not that it would matter."
Never taking his eyes off her, Lucivar righted the chair and backed away to the outer kitchen door. Years of training kept him surefooted as he crossed the threshold. One more step. Two.
The door slammed in his face.
A moment later, he heard dishes smashing on the floor.
She knows him better than I ever did.
It was late afternoon by the time he reached the cabin. He was dirty, hungry, and shaking from physical and emotional fatigue.
He approached slowly but couldn't bring himself to step onto the porch where Jaenelle sat reading.
She closed the book and looked at him.
Wise eyes. Ancient eyes. Haunting and haunted eyes.
He forced the words out. "I want to meet my father. Now."
She studied him. When she finally answered, her gentle compassion inflicted pain he had no defense against. "Are you sure, Lucivar?"
No, he wasn't sure! "Yes, I'm sure."
Jaenelle remained seated. "Then there's something you need to understand before we go."
He heard the warning underneath the gentleness and compassion.
"Lucivar, your father is also my adopted father."
Frozen, he stared at her, finally understanding. He could accept them both or walk away from both, but he wouldn't be allowed to serve her and battle with a man who already had a claim on her love.
She'd been right when she'd said there were reasons he might not be able or willing to serve her. The Keep he could handle. He could deal with Luthvian as well. But the High Lord?
There was only one way to find out.
"Let's go," he said.
5 / Kaeleer
Jaenelle stepped off the landing web. "This is the family seat."
Lucivar reluctantly stepped off the web. A few months ago, he'd walked through the ruins of SaDiablo Hall in Terreille. Ruins didn't prepare a man for this dark-gray mountain of a building. Hell's fire, an entire court could live in the place and not get in each other's way.
Then the significance of her living at the Hall finally hit him, and he turned and stared at her as if he'd never seen her before.
All of those amusing stories she had told him about her loving, beleaguered papa – she had been talking about Saetan. The Prince of the Darkness. The High Lord of Hell. The man who had built the cabin for her, who had helped her rebuild her life. He couldn't reconcile the conflicting images of the man any better than he could reconcile the Hall with the manor house he'd imagined.
And he would never reconcile anything by just standing there.
"Come on, Cat. Let's knock on the door."
The door opened before they reached the top step. The large man standing in the doorway had the stoic, unflappable expression of an upper servant, but he also wore, a Red Jewel.
"Hello, Beale," Jaenelle said as she breezed through the door.
Beale's lips turned up in the tiniest hint of a smile. "Lady."
The smile disappeared when Lucivar walked in. "Prince," Beale said, bowing the exact, polite distance.
The lazy, arrogant smile came automatically. "Lord Beale." He put enough bite in his voice to warn the other man not to tangle with him, but not enough to issue a challenge. He'd never challenged a servant in his life. On the other hand, he'd never met a Red-Jeweled Warlord who was a butler by profession.
Ignoring the subtle, stiff-legged displays of dominance, Jaenelle called in the luggage and dumped it on the floor. "Beale? Would you ask Helene to prepare a suite in the family wing for Prince Yaslana?"
"It would be my pleasure, Lady."
Jaenelle pointed toward the back of the great hall. "Papa?"
"In his study."
Lucivar followed Jaenelle to the last right-hand door, trying, unsuccessfully, to think of another reason besides amusement for the sudden gleam in Beale's eyes.
Jaenelle tapped on the door and went in before anyone answered. Lucivar followed close on her heels and then stumbled as the man standing in front of the blackwood desk turned around.
Daemon.
While they stared at each other, both too startled to respond, Lucivar took in the details that denied the gut reaction.
The dark psychic scent was similar, yet subtly different. The man before him was an inch or two shorter than Daemon and more slender in build, but moved with the same feline grace. The thick black hair was silvered at the temples. His face – lined by laughter as well as by the weight of burdens – belonged to a man at the end of his prime or a little beyond. But that face. Masculine. Handsome. The warmer, rougher model for Daemon's cold, polished beauty. And the final touch – the long, black-tinted nails and the Black-Jeweled ring.
Saetan crossed his arms, leaned back against the desk, and said mildly, "Witch-child, I'm going to throttle you."
Instinctively, Lucivar bared his teeth and stepped forward to protect his Queen.
Jaenelle's aggrieved, adolescent wail stopped him cold.
"That's the sixth time in two weeks and I've barely been home!"
Anger flooded Lucivar. How dare the High Lord threate
n her!
Except his darling Cat didn't seem the least bit intimidated and Saetan seemed to be fighting hard to keep a straight face.
"Sixth time?" Saetan said, his deep voice still mild but laced with an undercurrent of amusement.
"Twice from Prothvar, twice from Uncle Andulvar-"
All the blood drained out of Lucivar's head. Uncle Andulvar?
"- once from Mephis, and now you."
Saetan's lips twitched. "Prothvar always wants to throttle you so that's no surprise, and you do have a knack for provoking Andulvar, but what did you do to annoy Mephis?"
Jaenelle stuffed her hands in her trouser pockets. "I don't know," she grumped. "He said he couldn't discuss it while I was in the room."
Saetan's rich, warm laugh filled the room. When his laughter and Jaenelle's temper were both at a simmer, he looked knowingly at Lucivar. "And I suppose Lucivar has never threatened to throttle you, so he wouldn't understand the impulse to express the desire even when there was no intention of ever carrying it out."
"Oh, no," Jaenelle replied. "He just threatens to wallop me."
Saetan stiffened. "I beg your pardon?" he asked softly, coldly.
Lucivar shifted back into a fighting stance.
Startled, Jaenelle looked at both of them. "You're going to argue about the word when you mean the same thing?"
"Stay out of this, Cat," Lucivar snarled, watching his adversary.
Snarling back, she threw a punch at him with enough temper behind it that it could have broken his jaw if he hadn't dodged it.
The tussle that followed was just turning into fun when Saetan roared, "Enough!" He glared at them until they
separated, then he rubbed his temples and growled, "How in the name of Hell did the two of you manage to live together and survive?"
Eyeing Jaenelle warily, Lucivar grinned. "She's harder to pin now."
"Don't rub it in," Jaenelle muttered.
Saetan sighed. "You might have warned me, witch-child."
Jaenelle laced her fingers together. "Well, there really wasn't any way for Lucivar to be prepared, so I figured if you both were unprepared, you'd start out on even ground."
They stared at her.
She gave them her best unsure-but-game smile.
"Witch-child, go terrify someone else for a while."
After Jaenelle slipped out of the room, they studied one another.
"You look a lot better than the last time I saw you," Saetan said, breaking the silence, "but you still look ready to keel over." He pushed away from the desk. "Care for some brandy?"
Turning toward the less formal side of the room, Lucivar settled into a chair designed to accommodate Eyrien wings and accepted the glass of brandy. "And when was the last time you saw me?"
Saetan sat on the couch and crossed his legs. He toyed with the brandy glass. "Shortly after Prothvar brought you to the cabin. If he hadn't been standing guard duty at the Sleeping Dragons, if he hadn't managed to reach you before-" He stroked the rim of the glass with a fingertip. "I don't think you realize how severe the injuries were. The internal damage, the broken bones. . your wings."
Lucivar sipped his brandy. No, he hadn't realized. He'd known it was bad, but once he was in the Khaldharon Run, he'd stopped caring what happened physically. If what Saetan said was true. .
"So you let a seventeen-year-old Healer take it on alone," he said, struggling to keep a tight rein on his rising anger. "You let her do that much healing, knowing what it
would do to her, and left her without so much as a helper or servant to look after her."
Saetan's eyes filled with anger that was just as tightly leashed. "I was there to take care of her. I was there all the time she put you back together. I was there to coax her to eat when she could. I was there to watch the web during the resting times so she could get a little sleep. And when you finally started rising from the healing sleep, I held her and fed her spoonfuls of honeyed tea while she wept from exhaustion and pain because her throat was so raw from singing the healing web. I left the day before you woke because you had enough to deal with without having to come to terms with me. How dare you assume-" Saetan clamped his teeth together.
Dangerous, shaky ground. There might be a great many things he could no longer afford to assume.
Lucivar refilled his glass. "Since there was so much damage, wouldn't it have been better to split the healing between two Healers?" He kept his voice carefully neutral. "Luthvian's a temperamental bitch most of the time, but she's a good Healer."
Saetan hesitated. "She offered. I wouldn't let her because your wings were involved."
"She would have removed them." A small lump of fear settled in Lucivar's stomach.
"Jaenelle was sure she could rebuild them, but it would require a systemic healing – one Healer singing the web because everything had to be pulled into it. There could be no diversions, no hesitations, no lack of commitment to the whole. Doing it Luthvian's way, the two of them could have healed everything but your wings. Jaenelle's way was all or nothing – either you came out of it whole or you didn't survive."
Lucivar could see them – two strong-willed women standing on either side of a bed that held his mangled body. "You decided."
Saetan drained his glass and refilled it. "I decided."
"Why? You threatened to slit my throat in the cradle. Why fight for me now?"
"Because you're my son. But I would have slit your
throat." Saetan's voice was strained. "May the Darkness help me, if she'd cut off your wings, I would have."
Cut off your wings. Lucivar felt sick. "Why did you breed her?"
Saetan set the glass down and raked his fingers through his hair. "I didn't mean to. When I agreed to see her through her Virgin Night, I honestly didn't think I was still fertile, and she swore that she'd been drinking the brew to prevent pregnancy, swore it wasn't her fertile time. And she never told me she was Eyrien." He looked up, his eyes filled with pain. "I didn't know. Lucivar, I swear by all I am, until I saw the wings, I didn't know. But you're Eyrien in your soul. Altering your physical appearance would have changed nothing."
Lucivar drained his glass and wondered if he dared ask. This meeting was bruising Saetan as badly as it was bruising him – if not worse. But he had come here to ask so that he could make an honest decision. "Couldn't you have been there sometimes? Even in secret?"
"If you have some objection to my not being part of your life, take it up with your mother. That was her choice, not mine." Saetan closed his eyes. His fingers tightened around his glass. "For reasons I've never been able to explain rationally to myself, I agreed to try to breed with a Black Widow in order to bring a strong, dark bloodline back into the long-lived races. Dorothea was the Hayllian Hourglass's choice but not mine." He hesitated. "Have you ever met Tersa?"
"Yes."
"An extraordinarily gifted witch. Dorothea would never have become the force she is in Terreille if Tersa had survived her Virgin Night. Tersa was my choice. And Tersa became pregnant."
With Daemon. Had Daemon ever known, ever guessed?
"A couple of weeks later, she asked me to see a friend through her Virgin Night, a young Black Widow with strong potential who, if I refused, would end up broken and shattered. I was still capable of performing the service, and I wouldn't have refused Tersa anything within reason. Everyone was willing to accommodate Tersa at that point.
No one wanted her to become distressed enough to miscarry since there would be no second chances.
"A few weeks after I saw Luthvian through her Virgin Night, she told me she was pregnant with my child. There was an empty house on the estate, about a mile from the Hall. I insisted she and Tersa live there instead of with Dorothea's court. Tersa wasn't much older than Luthvian, but she understood a great deal more, especially about Guardians. She was content with the companionship I offered. Luthvian was more high-strung and had discovered the pleasure of the bed. She craved sex. For a while, I could still provide the
kind of intimacy she wanted. By the time I couldn't, she had lost interest. But after she healed from the birthing, the hunger returned. By then, I could satisfy her in other ways but not the way she craved.
"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.
