Birthright Black. She wore Birthright Black. Sweet Darkness, what would become of her when she made the Offering?
Daemon opened his eyes and saw a small white figure moving slowly along the garden path. He opened his window and was instantly soaked by the cold rain, but he didn't notice. He whistled once, softly, sharply, sending it on an auditory thread directed toward the figure.
It turned toward him, resigned, and made its way to his window.
Daemon leaned over as Jaenelle floated up to him, grasped her beneath the arms, and pulled her in. He set her on the floor, closed and locked the window, pulled the curtains together. Then he looked at her, and his heart squeezed with pain.
She stood there, shivering, dripping on the rug, her eyes glazed and pain-filled. Her nightgown, bare feet, and hands were muddy.
Daemon picked her up, took her into the bathroom, and filled the tub with hot water.' She'd been unnaturally quiet all day, and he'd feared she was becoming ill. Now he feared she was in shock. There were dark smudges beneath her eyes, and she didn't seem to know where she was.
She struggled when he tried to lift the nightgown over her head. "No," she said feebly as she attempted to hold the garment down.
"I know what girls look like," Daemon snapped as he pulled off the nightgown and lifted her into the tub. "Sit there." He pointed a finger at her. She stopped trying to get out of the tub.
Daemon went into the bedroom and got the brandy and glass he kept tucked in the bottom drawer of the nightstand. Returning to the bathroom, he sat on the edge of the tub, poured a healthy dose into the glass, and handed it to her.
"Drink this." He watched her take a small taste and grimace before he put the bottle to his own lips and took a long swallow. "Drink it," he said angrily when she tried to hand him the glass.
"I don't like it." It was the first time he'd ever heard her sound so young and vulnerable. He wanted to scream.
"What—" He knew. Suddenly, all too clearly, he knew. The mud, the dirge, her hands cut up from digging in the hard ground, the dirt beneath her fingernails. He knew.
Daemon took another long swallow of brandy. "Who?"
"Rose," Jaenelle replied in a hollow voice. "He killed my friend Rose." Then a savage light burned in her eyes and her lips curled in a small, bitter smile. "He slit her throat because she wouldn't lick the lollipop." Her eyes slid to his groin before drifting up to his face. "Is that what you call it, Prince?"
Daemon's throat closed. His blood pounded in him, pounded him, angry surf against rock. It was so very, very hard to breathe.
The sepulchral voice. The midnight, cavernous, ancient, raging voice that held a whisper of madness. He hadn't imagined it, that other time. Hadn't imagined it.
Birthright Black.
Witch.
She wanted to kill him because he was male. Accepting that made it easier to be calm.
"It's called a penis, Lady. I have no use for euphemisms." He paused. "Who killed her?"
Jaenelle sipped the brandy. "Uncle Bobby," she whispered. She rocked back and forth as tears slid down her cheeks. "Uncle Bobby."
Daemon took the glass from her and set it aside. It didn't matter if she killed him, didn't matter if she hated him for touching her. He lifted her out of the tub and cradled her in his arms, letting her cry until there were no tears left.
When he felt her breathing even out and knew she was falling into exhausted sleep, he wrapped her in a towel, carried her to her room, found a clean nightgown, and tucked her into bed. He watched her for a few minutes to be sure she was asleep before returning to his room.
He paced, gulping brandy, feeling the walls close in on him.
Uncle Bobby. Rose. Lollipop. How did she know? All day she must have known, must have waited for the night so she could plant her living memento mori. All day, while Robert Benedict had been so conspicuously at home.
If you sing to them correctly, they'll tell you the names of the ones who are gone.
He snarled quietly. His pacing slowed as cold rage filled him.
There was something wrong with this place. Something evil in this place. Chaillot had too many secrets. Added to that, Dorothea and Hekatah were hunting for Jaenelle, and Greer was still in Beldon Mor sniffing around.
Tersa had said the Priest would be his best ally or his worst enemy.
He would have to decide soon, before it was too late.
Finally, exhausted, he stripped off the robe and fell into bed. And dreamed of shattered crystal chalices.
chapter eleven
1 / Terreille
The only thing in the cell besides the overflowing slop bucket was a small table that held a plate of food and a metal pitcher of water.
Lucivar stared at the pitcher, clenching and unclenching his fists. The chains that tethered his ankles and wrists to the wall were long enough to reach one end of the table and the food, but not long enough to reach over and tear out the throat of the guard who brought it.
He needed food. He was desperate for water. These little ovens that Zuultah laughingly referred to as her "enlightenment" chambers were located in the Arava Desert, where the sun was voracious. The heat was sufficient by midday to make his own waste steam.
The first three days he'd been locked up, the guards had brought food and water and emptied the slop bucket. During the first two, he'd eaten what he was given. The third day, the food and water were laced with safframate, a vicious aphrodisiac that would keep a man hard and needy enough to satisfy an entire coven at one of their gatherings. It would also drive a man to the point of madness because, while it made it possible for him to be an enduring participant, it also prohibited him from physical release.
He'd sensed it before he consumed anything. A less vigilant man wouldn't have noticed, but Lucivar had experienced safframate before and wasn't about to experience it again for Zuultah's entertainment.
Lucivar licked his cracked lips as he stared at the pitcher of water, his tongue prodding the cracks, wetting itself with his blood.
His answer, that third day, had been to throw the plate and pitcher against the wall. The viper rats—large, venomous rodents that were able to live anywhere—scurried out of the shadowy corners and fell upon the food. He'd spent the rest of the day watching them tear each other apart in frenzied mating.'
For the next two days no one came. There was no food, no water. The slop bucket filled. There was nothing but the rats and the heat.
An hour ago, a guard had come in with the food and water. Lucivar had snarled at him, his dark wings unfurling until the tips touched the walls. The guard scurried out with less dignity than the rats.
Lucivar approached the table, his legs shaking. He picked up the pitcher and licked the condensation off the outside.
It wasn't nearly enough.
He looked at the plate. The stench of the slop bucket warred with the smell of food, but his stomach twisted with hunger, and over all of it was the need for the water that was so close. So very close.
Holding the pitcher in both hands so that he wouldn't drop it, he took a mouthful of water.
The safframate ran through him, a fiery ice.
Lucivar's mouth twisted into a teeth-baring grin. His lips cracked wider and bled.
There was only one reason to eat, to submit to what would come, and it wasn't to stay alive. He fiercely loved life, but he was Eyrien, a hunter, a warrior. Growing up with death had dulled his fear of it, and a part of him rather relished the idea of being a demon.
There was only one reason. One sapphire-eyed reason.
Lucivar lifted the pitcher again and drank.
2 / Terreille
Lucivar clenched his teeth and squeezed his eyes shut. He hated being on his back. All Eyrien males hated being on their backs, unable to use their wings. It was the ultimate gesture of submission. But tied as he was to the "game bed," there was nothing he could do but endure.
As one of Zuultah's witches moved on him, intent on her pleasure, he sile
ntly swore the most vicious curses he could think of. His hands clenched the brass rails of the headboard, had been clenching them throughout the night with such pressure that the shape of his fingers was embedded in them.
Again and again and again, one after another. With each the pain grew worse. He hated them for the pain, for their pleasure, for their laughter, for the food and water they taunted him with, trying to make him beg.
He was Lucivar Yaslana, an Eyrien Warlord Prince. He wouldn't beg. Wouldn't beg. Wouldn't.
Lucivar opened his eyes to silence. The bed curtains were closed at the bottom of the bed and along one side, cutting off his view of the room. He tried to shift position and ease his stiff muscles, but he'd been stretched out when they tied him, and there wasn't any slack.
He licked his lips. He was so thirsty, so tired. So easy to slip away from the pain, from memories.
Male voices murmured in the hallway. Movement in the room, hidden by the closed curtains. At last, Zuultah saying, "Bring him."
The room was gray, a sweet, misty gray where the light danced through shards of glass and voices were heard under water.
The guards untied his hands and feet, re-tied his hands behind his back. Lucivar snarled at them, but it was a faraway sound of no importance, no importance at all.
For a moment, when he saw the marble lady, his vision cleared, and the pain made his legs buckle. The guards dragged him to the leather leg straps, forced him to his knees, and strapped him to the floor behind his knees and at his ankles. They rolled the marble cylinder, with its smoothly carved orifices, into position. When he was fitted into an orifice, they held him in place with a leather strap beneath his buttocks. There was enough slack for him to thrust but not enough for him to withdraw.
The gray. The sweet, twisting gray.
"That will be all," Zuultah said arrogantly, waving the guards out of the room with her switch and locking the door.
The floor hurt his knees. Pain. Sweet pain.
The switch hit his buttocks. Blood trickled over the
leather strap. Scented silk brushed against his shoulder and face.
"Are you thirsty, Yasi?" Zuultah cooed as she swung herself up on the flat top of the marble lady. "Want some cream?" She opened her robe and spread her thighs, revealing the dark triangle of hair.
The switch hit his shoulder. "This is your reward, Yasi. This is your pleasure."
Red streaks in the gray. Red streaks and a dark triangle.
"Thrust, you bastard." The switch hitting, cutting where one wing joined his back.
Thrust, thrust, thrust into the gray. Lips against the wet. Tongue obedient. Thrust, thrust. Deeper into the pain, the wet, the dark, the dark, the dark, the pain twisting to a sweetness, shards of glass, twisting, the wet, the dark, the dark streaked with red, the hunger, the pain, the red fire boiling, rising, the Ebon-gray boiling, rising, the hunger, the hunger, teeth, pleasure, pain, moaning, moaning, teeth, pleasure, rising, boiling, pain, pleasure, moaning, hunger, teeth, moaning, teeth, screaming, screaming, screaming, red, red, hot sweet red, boiling, rushing, free.
Lucivar swayed, confused. Zuultah rolled on the floor, screaming, screaming. He tried to lick the moisture from his lips but something was in the way. He turned his head and spat.
For a long time, while guards pounded on the locked door and Zuultah screamed, he stared at the small thing his teeth had found to ease the hunger. At first he didn't understand what it was. When his flaccid organ finally slipped out of the orifice and he recognized the red for what it was, Lucivar lifted his head and let out a howling, savage laugh.
3 / Terreille
"You have a visitor," Philip said tersely as he tapped piles of papers into neat stacks, something he did when annoyed.
Daemon raised an eyebrow. "Oh?"
Philip glanced toward him but refused to look at him.
"In the gold salon. Keep it brief, if possible. You have a full schedule today."
Daemon glided to the gold salon. The psychic scent hit him before he touched the door. He settled his face into its cold mask, locked away his heart, and opened the door.
"Lord Kartane," he said in a bored voice as he closed the door and leaned against it, his hands in his trouser pockets.
"Sadi." Kartane's eyes were filled with malicious glee. Still, he took a nervous step backward.
Daemon waited, watching Kartane pace one side of the room.
"Probably no one's thought to tell you, so I took it upon myself to bring the news," Kartane said.
"About what?"
"Yasi."
The anticipation in Kartane's eyes made Daemon's heart pound and his mouth go dry. He shrugged. "The last time I heard anything about him, he was serving the Queen of Pruul. Zuultah, isn't it?"
"Apparently he's served her better than he's ever served anyone," Kartane said maliciously.
Get to the point, you little bastard.
Kartane paced. "The story's a bit muddled, you understand, but it appeals that, while under the influence of a substantial dose of safframate, Yasi went berserk and bit Zuultah." Kartane let out a high-pitched, nervous laugh.
Daemon sighed. Lucivar's temper in the bedroom was legendary. At the best of times, he was unpredictable and violent. Under the influence of safframate . . . "So he bit her. She's not the first."
Kartane laughed again. It was almost a hysterical giggle. "Well, actually, shaved might be a better way to describe it. Anything she mounts now won't be for her pleasure."
No, Lucivar, no. By the Darkness, no. "They killed him," Daemon said flatly.
"He wasn't that lucky. Zuultah wanted to, when she finally came to her senses and realized what he'd done. He also killed ten of her best guards while they were trying to subdue him." Kartane wiped nervous sweat from his forehead. "Prythian intervened as soon as she found out. For some insane reason, she still thinks she can eventually tame him and breed him. However, Zuultah wasn't going to let him get away without some kind of punishment." Kartane waited, but Daemon didn't rise to the bait. "She put him in the salt mines."
"Then she's killed him." Daemon opened the door. "You were right,'" he said too gently, turning to look at Kartane, "no one else would have dared tell me that."
He closed the door with a silence that made the whole house shake.
All the tears were gone now, and Daemon felt as dry and empty as the Arava Desert.
Lucivar was Eyrien. He would never survive in the salt mines of Pruul. In those tunnels with all the salt and the heat, no room for him to stretch his wings, no air to dry the sweat. There were a dozen different molds that could infect that membranous skin and eat it away. And without wings.. . An Eyrien warrior was nothing without his wings. Lucivar had once said he'd rather lose his balls than his wings, and he'd meant it.
Oh, Lucivar, Lucivar, his brave, arrogant, foolish brother. If he'd accepted that offer, Lucivar would be hunting in Askavi right now, gliding through the dusk, searching for prey. But they had known it might come to this. The wisest thing for Lucivar to do would be to end it quickly while his strength was intact. He would be welcome in the Dark Realm. Daemon was sure he would be.
She won't go unpunished, I promise you that. No matter how long it takes to do it properly, I'll see the debt paid in full
"Lucivar," Daemon whispered. "Lucivar."
"They've all been looking for you."
He hadn't heard her come in, which wasn't surprising. It wasn't surprising she was there even though he'd locked the library door.
Daemon shifted on the couch. He held out one hand, watching her small fingers curl around his own. That gentle touch, so full of understanding, was agony.
"What happened to him?"
"Who?" Daemon said, fighting the grief.
"Lucivar," Jaenelle said with steely patience.
Daemon recognized that strange, unnerving something in her face and voice—Witch focusing her attention. He hesitated a moment, then took her in his arms. He needed to hold her, feel her w
armth against him, needed reassurance that the sacrifice was worth it. He didn't know how or when the tears began falling again.
"He's my friend, my brother," he whispered into her shoulder. "He's dying."
"Daemon." Jaenelle gently stroked his hair. "Daemon, we have to help him. I could—"
"No!" Don't tempt me with hope. Don't tempt me to take that kind of risk. "You can't help him. Nothing can help him now."
Jaenelle tried to push back to look at him, but he wouldn't let her. "I know I promised him I wouldn't wander around Terreille, but—"
Daemon licked a tear. "You met him? He saw you once?"
"Once." She paused. "Daemon, I might be able to—"
"No," Daemon moaned into her neck. "He wouldn't want you there, and if something happened to you, he'd never forgive me. Never."
Witch asked, "Are you sure, Prince?"
The Warlord Prince replied, "I am sure, Lady."
After a moment, Jaenelle began to sing a death song in the Old Tongue, not the angry dirge she'd sung for Rose, but a gentle witchsong of grief and love. Her voice wove through him, celebrating and acknowledging his pain and grief, tapping the deep wells he would have kept locked.
When her voice finally faded, Daemon wiped the tears from his face. He blindly allowed Jaenelle to lead him to his room, stand over him while he washed his face, and coax a glass of brandy into him. She said nothing. There was nothing she needed to say. The generous silence and the understanding in her eyes were enough.
Lucivar would have been proud to serve her, Daemon thought as he brushed his hair, preparing to face Alexandra and Philip. He would have been proud of her.
Daemon took a shuddering breath and went to find Alexandra.
Everything has a price.
chapter twelve
1 / Terreille
Winsol approached rapidly. The most important holiday in the Blood calendar, it was held when the winter days were shortest, and it was a celebration of the Darkness, a celebration of Witch.
Daemon wandered through the empty hallways. The servants had been given a half-day off and had deserted the house to shop or begin their holiday preparations. Alexandra, Leland, and Philip were off on their own excursions. Robert, as usual, was not at home. Even Graff had gone out, leaving the girls in Cook's care. And he ... Well, it wasn't kindness that had made them leave him behind. His temper had been too sharp, his tongue too cutting the last time he'd escorted Alexandra to a party. They'd left hastily after he'd told a simpering young aristo witch that the cut of her dress would make any woman in a Red Moon house envious, even if what she was displaying didn't.
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