by Anne Bishop
As he walked toward the center of the camp, guards followed him. No one approached him or tried to touch him.
Round candle-lights set on top of tall metal poles lit the bloodstained bare ground at the exact center of the camp. Lucivar was chained to the last stake. The lash wounds on his chest and thighs had scabbed over and didn't appear to be deep enough to cause him serious harm. There were bruises on his face, but those, too, would cause no permanent damage.
Saetan stopped at the edge of the light. He hadn't seen Hekatah in ten years—hardly more than a breath of time for someone who had lived as long as he had. And he had known her for most of those years. Even so, despite Dorothea standing beside her, she had withered so much, decayed so much, he wasn't really sure it was her until she spoke.
"Saetan."
"Hekatah." He walked to the center of the bare ground.
"You've come to bargain?" Hekatah asked politely.
He nodded. "A life for a life."
She smiled. "For lives. We'll throw the bitch and the babe into the bargain. We don't really have any use for them."
Did she think he didn't know they would never give up Daemonar? They had been striving for centuries to get a child out of Lucivar or Daemon that they could control and breed in order to bring back a darker bloodline.
"My life for theirs," he said. Everything has a price.
"NO!" Lucivar shouted, struggling against the spelled chains. "Kill them!"
Ignoring Lucivar, he focused on Hekatah. "Do we have a bargain?"
"For a chance to see the High Lord humbled?" Hekatah said sweetly. "Oh, yes, we have a bargain. As soon as you're restrained, I'll set the others free. I swear it on my word of honor."
They ordered him to strip—and he did.
Removing his Black-Jeweled ring, he tossed it on the ground. He had put a tight shield around it so that no one could actually touch it. If he needed to call it back to him, he didn't want their foulness absorbed by the gold.
As two guards chained him to the center post, Hekatah slipped a Ring of Obedience over his organ.
"You look well for someone your age," she said, stepping back to give his naked body a thorough inspection.
He smiled gently. "Unfortunately, darling, I can't say the same about you."
Viciousness twisted Hekatah's face. "It's time you learned a lesson, High Lord." She raised her hand at the same time Dorothea, with a look of perverted glee, raised hers.
Lucivar had once tried to explain to the boyos why a Ring of Obedience could force a powerful male to submit, so Saetan thought he was ready for it.
Nothing could have prepared him for the pain that filled his cock and balls before it spread through his body. His nerves were on fire, while agony settled between his legs. He couldn't fight it, could barely think.
His sons had endured this, had fought against Dorothea's control knowing that this was waiting after every act of defiance. For centuries, they had endured this. How could a man not become twisted by this? How...
He screamed—and kept on screaming until his body just shut down.
19 / Kaeleer
Surreal paced back and forth in Karla's sitting room, growing angrier by the minute. She wasn't sure why she'd chosen to vent her frustrations to Karla. Maybe it was because Karla had seemed so damned indifferent to everything that had been happening.
All right, that wasn't fair. The woman was grieving for her cousin, Morton, not to mention that she was slowly recovering from a vicious poisoning. Even so...
"The bastard sounded like it was an inconvenience that would interfere with his manicure," Surreal raged at Karla. " 'We'll see what we can accommodate.' Hell's fire, it's his father and brother!"
"You don't know what he intends to do," Karla said blandly.
The blandness pushed Surreal's temper up another notch. "He doesn't plan to do anything!"
"How do you know?"
Surreal sputtered, swore, paced. "It's as if he and Jaenelle want us to lose this war."
For the first time, temper heated Karla's voice. "Don't be an ass."
"Now, look, sugar—"
"No, you look," Karla snapped. "It's about time all of you looked and thought and remembered a few things. The boyos' instincts are pushing them toward battle. They can't change that any more than they can change being male. And the coven is made up of Queens whose instincts are urging them to protect their people."
"Which is exactly what they should be doing!" Surreal shouted. "And you don't seem to have that problem," she added nastily. Then she glanced at Karla's covered legs and regretted the words.
"When Jaenelle was fifteen," Karla said, "the Dark Council tried to say that Uncle Saetan was unfit to be her legal guardian. They decided to appoint someone else. And she said they could 'when the sun next rises.' Do you know what happened?"
Finally standing still, Surreal shook her head.
"The sun didn't rise for three days," Karla said mildly. "It didn't rise until the Council rescinded their decision."
Surreal sank to the floor. "Mother Night," she whispered.
"Jaenelle didn't want a court, didn't want to rule. The only reason she became the Queen of Ebon Askavi was to stop the Terreilleans who were coming into the kindred Territories and slaughtering the kindred. Do you really think a woman who would do those things has spent the past three weeks wringing her hands and hoping this will all go away? I don't. She needs us here for a reason—and she'll tell us when it's time to tell us." Karla paused. "And I'll tell you one other thing, just between us: sometimes a friend must become an enemy in order to remain a friend."
Karla was talking about Daemon. Surreal thought for a moment, then shook her head. "The way he's been acting—"
"Daemon Sadi is totally committed to Witch. Whatever he does, he does for her."
"You don't know that."
"Don't I?" Karla said too softly.
Black Widow. The words bloomed in Surreal's mind until there wasn't room for anything else. Black Widow. Maybe Karla wasn't indifferent to what was happening. Maybe she had seen something in a tangled web. "Are you sure about Sadi?"
"No," Karla replied. "But I'm willing to consider the possibility that what he says in public may be very different from what he does in private."
Surreal raked her fingers through her hair. "Well, Hell's fire, if Daemon and Jaenelle were planning something, they could at least tell the court."
"I was poisoned by a member of my court," Karla said quietly. "And let's not forget Jaenelle's grandmother, because I'm sure Jaenelle hasn't. So tell me, Surreal, if you were trying to find a way to totally destroy those two bitches, who would you trust?"
"She could have trusted the High Lord."
"And where is he right now?" Karla asked.
Surreal didn't say anything, since they both knew the answer.
20 / Terreille
"I think it's time to let Jaenelle know you're here," Hekatah said, circling behind Saetan. "I think we should send a little gift."
He felt her grab the little finger of his left hand. He felt the knife cut through skin and bone. And he felt rage when she dropped to her knees and clamped her mouth over the wound to drink his blood. A Guardian's blood.
Gathering his strength, he sent a blast of heat down his arm, psychic fire that cauterized the wound. Hekatah jerked away from him, screaming. While he had the chance, he used a little healing Craft to cleanse the wound and seal up the flesh enough to keep infection at bay.
Hekatah kept screaming. Dorothea rushed out of her cabin. Guards came running from every direction.
Finally the screaming stopped. He heard Hekatah scrabble for something on the ground, then slowly get to her feet. As she circled around him, he saw what the blast of power had done. Since her mouth had been clamped on the wound, the psychic fire had kept going after it cauterized the blood vessels. It had melted part of her jaw, grotesquely reshaping her face.
In one hand, she held his little finger. In the other, s
he held the knife. "You're going to pay for that," she said in a slurred voice.
"No," Dorothea said, stepping forward. "You said yourself that we have to keep the damage to a minimum until Jaenelle is contained."
Hekatah turned toward Dorothea. Saetan felt sure the sick revulsion on Dorothea's face would drive Hekatah past any ability to think rationally.
"Until Jaenelle is contained," Hekatah said with effort. "But... that doesn't mean ... he can't pay." Turning toward him, she raised her hand.
For the second time, the agony from the Ring of Obedience ripped through him. That was devastating enough. Hearing Lucivar's pain-filled, but still enraged, war cry as Hekatah also punished the son for the deeds of the father produced an agony in him that cut far deeper.
21 / Kaeleer
Daemon wished Surreal hadn't been around when Geoffrey brought the small, ornately carved box that had been delivered to the Keep in Terreille. He had suggested that, since the verbal message had said it was a "gift" for Jaenelle, Surreal’s presence wasn't required. She had countered by saying she was family and had just as much right to know what was going on as he or Jaenelle did. Which, unfortunately, was true.
"Do you want me to open it?" he asked Jaenelle when she had just stood there staring at the box for several minutes.
"No," she said too calmly. Using Craft, she flipped the lid off the box.
The three of them stared at the little finger nestled in a bed of silk—a little finger with a long, black-tinted nail.
"Well, sugar, I'd say that message is to the point," Surreal said as she stared at Jaenelle. "How many more pieces do you need to get back before you do something? We're running out of time!"
"Yes," Jaenelle said. "It's time."
She's in shock, Daemon thought. Then he looked at her eyes—and couldn't suppress the shudder. They were sapphire ice. But behind the ice was a Queen who had been pushed far beyond even the cold rage males were capable of unleashing. Because he was looking for it, because he could descend far enough into the abyss to feel it, he sensed that Hekatah's little gift had fully awakened the feral side, the deadly side of Witch. She was no longer a young woman who had received her father's finger as a demand for her surrender; she was a predator studying the bait laid out by an enemy.
Dorothea and Hekatah had seen the young woman. They had no idea who they were really dealing with.
"Come with me," Jaenelle said, lightly touching his arm before she walked out of the room.
Even through his shirt and jacket, her hand felt so cold it burned.
Careful to keep his eyes and expression bland, he looked at Surreal—and felt a little dismayed by the fury that looked back at him. That was when he realized that, despite being chilled to the bone, the room was still warm.
Jaenelle had given no outward warning of the rage just underneath the surface, no indication of power being gathered for a strike. Nothing.
He glanced at the finger again, felt his stomach clench. Then he walked out of the room.
Damn them both, Surreal thought as she stared at the finger in the box. Oh, there had been a little flicker of dismay in Sadi's face when he first saw it, but that had disappeared quickly enough. And from Jaenelle? Nothing. Hell's fire! She had shown more temper and concern when Aaron had been cornered by Vania! At least then there had been that freezing, terrifying rage. But the woman gets a piece of her father sent to her and... nothing. Not a damn thing. No reaction at all.
Well, fine. If that's the way those two wanted to play the game, that was just fine. She wore a Gray Jewel and she was a skilled assassin. There was no reason she couldn't slip into Terreille and get Lucivar and the High Lord—and Marian and Daemonar—away from those two bitches.
Surreal bit her lower lip. Well, getting all of them out in one piece might be a problem.
All right, so she'd think about it a little, work up some kind of plan. At least she was going to do something!
And maybe, while she was thinking, she would mention this little incident to Karla to see if the Black Widow still thought there was more going on than nothing.
By the time Daemon reached her workroom, the ice in Jaenelle's eyes had shattered into razor-edged shards, and he saw something in them that terrified him: cold, undiluted hatred.
"What do you expect will happen now?" Jaenelle asked too calmly.
Daemon slipped his hands into his trouser pockets to hide the trembling. He quietly cleared his throat. "I doubt anything more will happen until the messenger returns to Hayll and reports the delivery of the box. It's almost mid-morning now. They aren't going to expect you to be capable of making any decisions immediately. So we've got a few hours. Maybe a little more than that."
Jaenelle paced slowly. She seemed to be arguing with herself. Finally she sighed—as if she'd lost the argument— and looked at him. "The Weaver of Dreams sent me a message. She said the triangle must remain together in order to survive, that the other two sides weren't strong enough without the strength of the mirror—and the mirror would keep them all safe."
"The mirror?" Daemon asked cautiously.
"You are your father's mirror, Daemon. You're one side of the triangle."
The memory flashed in his mind of Tersa, years ago, tracing a triangle in the palm of his hand, over and over, while she had explained the mystery of the Blood's four-sided triangle.
"Father, brother, lover," he murmured. Three sides. And the fourth side was the triangle's center, the one who ruled all three.
"Exactly," Jaenelle replied.
"You want me to go to Hayll."
"Yes."
He nodded slowly, suddenly feeling like he was on a very thin, shaky footbridge, and one false step would send him plummeting into a chasm he would never escape. "If I walked in to try another exchange of prisoners, that would buy a few more hours."
"I never said anything about you handing yourself over to them," Jaenelle snapped. Her face had been pale since she'd seen Saetan's finger. Now it got paler. "Daemon, I need seventy-two hours."
"Sev—But everything is ready. All you would need to do is gather your strength and unleash it."
"I need seventy-two hours."
He stared at her, slowly coming to terms with what she was telling him. In a controlled dive into the abyss, he could descend to the level of his Black Jewels in a few minutes and gather his full strength. It was going to take her seventy-two hours to do the same thing.
Hell's fire, Mother Night, and may the Darkness be merciful.
But there was no way for him to ...
He saw the knowledge in her eyes—and fought against the shame it produced in him. He should have known he couldn't hide the Sadist from Witch. And he finally understood what she was asking of him.
Unable to meet her eyes anymore, he turned away and began his own slow prowl around the room.
It was just a game. A dirty, vicious game—the kind the Sadist had always played so well. As he gave that part of himself free rein, the plan took shape as easily as breathing.
But...Everything has a price. If he was going to lose the companionship of almost everyone he had ever cared about, the reward would have to justify the cost.
"I can do this," he crooned, slowly circling around her. "I can keep Dorothea and Hekatah off-balance enough to keep the others safe and also prevent those Ladies from giving the orders to send the Terreillean armies into Kaeleer. I can buy you seventy-two hours, Jaenelle. But it's going to cost me because I'm going to do things I may never be forgiven for, so I want something in return."
He could taste her slight bafflement before she said, "All right."
"I don't want to wear the Consort's ring anymore."
A slash of pain, quickly stifled. "All right."
"I want a wedding ring in its place."
A flash of joy, immediately followed by sorrow. She smiled at him at the same time her eyes filled with tears. "It would be wonderful."
She meant that. So why the sorrow, why the anguish? He woul
d have to deal with that when he got back.
His temper was already getting edgy, dangerous. "I'll take that as a 'yes.' There are things I'll need that I can't create well enough for this game."
"Just tell me what you need, Daemon."
He didn't want to do this. Didn't want to go back to that kind of life, not even for seventy-two hours. He was going to mutilate the life he'd begun to build here, and the coven, the boyos, they would never—
"Do you trust me?" he snapped.
"Yes."
No hesitation, no doubts.
He finally stopped moving and faced her. "Do you know how desperately I love you?"
Her voice shook when she answered, "As much as I love you?"
He held her, held on to her as his lifeline, his anchor. It would be all right. As long as he had her, it would be all right.
Finally, reluctantly, he eased back. "Come on, we've got a lot of work to do."
"That's the last of it," Jaenelle said several hours later. She carefully packed the box that held all the spelled items she had created for him. "Almost the last of it."
Daemon sipped the coffee he had brewed strong enough to bite. Physically, he was tired. Mentally, he was reeling. As Jaenelle created each of the spells he had asked for, he'd had to learn how to use them—which meant she'd explained the process to him as she created one, then had him practice with it while she created the ones he would take with him. She'd reviewed his efforts, given more instructions on how to hone the effect—and never once asked him what he intended to do, for which he was grateful. Of course, he didn't know exactly what she was going to do either. There were some things one Black Widow did not ask another.
Jaenelle held up a vial about the size of her index finger that was filled with dark powder. "This is a stimulant. A strong one. One dose will keep you on your feet for about six hours. You can mix it with any kind of liquid—" She eyed the coffee. "—but if you mix it with something brewed like that it's going to have more kick."
"That's one dose?" Daemon asked. Then he bit his tongue to keep from laughing and wished he could have a picture of the look on her face.
