by Anne Bishop
“Lord Krelis.”
Maryk’s bland expression was a subtle insult, but he hadn’t been able to completely extinguish the contempt from his eyes.
“I’ve received some information about the little bitch-Queen who’s been such an annoyance to the High Priestess,” Krelis said. “I’m going to look into it personally. Until I return, you’re in charge. If the High Priestess summons, you’ll have to answer her.”
Maryk swallowed carefully. They both knew what could happen to males when Dorothea was annoyed.
“I understand, Lord Krelis. Is there anything that will require special attention?”
Krelis shook his head. “You have the assignment roster. I’ve been informed of nothing else.”
“Then, may the Darkness grant you a safe and speedy journey.”
Yes, Krelis thought, as Maryk escorted him to the landing place. The guards—especially the First Circle guards— might despise him, but they’d rather have him standing between them and the High Priestess of Hayll than nothing at all. And not one of them would envy him this journey.
Krelis didn’t bother to knock before he opened the door of the small receiving room. Men didn’t have to extend any kind of courtesy to pleasure slaves. Even this one. Besides, he’d already used up his courtesy on the pouty Queen who ruled this forsaken Province. Hell’s fire! What had the High Priestess been thinking of to loan the Sadist to a witch who’d had half of her brains bred out of her?
Daemon Sadi stood with his back to the door, looking out a window.
Krelis closed the door hard enough to make anyone else jump. Daemon didn’t even twitch.
“Sadi,” Krelis said, coming into the room far enough to see the beautiful face in profile.
“Lord Krelis.”
The boredom in that deep voice grated on Krelis’s nerves. That Sadi didn’t bother to look at him grated even more.
Krelis’s hands curled into fists. “Do you know why I’m here?”
“No.”
If Sadi’s voice and face were any gauge to measure by, he also didn’t care.
“It seems your Lady grants you a lot of liberties,” Krelis said.
“She has a low threshold for pain.”
Not knowing how to respond to that, Krelis said nothing for a minute. “You were seen at a traveler’s inn a couple of days ago.”
“Was I?”
“You met a Red-Jeweled Shalador Warlord named Jared there.”
“Did I?”
“Did you arrange to meet him?”
“That would have required effort. He’s not that interesting.”
“After he rented a room, he wasn’t seen again. You left the common room shortly after he arrived and weren’t seen again either.”
“It appears someone else was as bored as I was if keeping track of everyone else’s movements was the best entertainment available.”
Krelis clenched his teeth. “You met with him. Why?”
“We were in the same court a few years ago. When he showed up at the inn, having dinner together seemed like a way to pass some time.”
“What did you talk about?”
“Nothing interesting enough to remember.”
“Was there a woman with him? A witch?”
“I’d gone to that hovel to get away from the stink of witches. I wouldn’t have stayed in the room if one of them had been present.”
Krelis took a deep breath and forgot what he was going to say. The air in the room felt soft, heavy. An elusive scent drifted past him, a scent that warmed the muscles in his groin at the same time it melted the tension from the rest of his body.
He took another deep breath. What had they been talking about? The Shalador Warlord. Now he remembered. “You talked all evening and remember nothing?”
“We talked during dinner.”
“Did he mention the Gray Lady?”
“He wasn’t quite that boring.”
“What—” Krelis bit his lip. The pain cleared his head a little. “I want to know what the two of you did that evening.”
Daemon turned and looked at him. “Do you?” he asked too softly.
Krelis nodded slowly.
Daemon smiled that cold, cruel smile.
Krelis shuddered and then gasped.
Long-nailed fingers whispered down his back, over his buttocks, down the backs of his thighs. They were still drifting over his calves when another pair of phantom hands brushed the back of his neck and began the journey.
“He bored me.” Daemon took a couple of graceful, predatory steps toward Krelis. “It left me feeling mean, so I seduced him.”
Another pair of phantom hands whispered over Krelis’s chest and belly, separating just before they reached his groin to travel down the front of his legs.
“He was begging by the time I began to feel amused,” Daemon crooned, taking another step toward Krelis.
Krelis opened his mouth to protest.
The tip of a phantom tongue delicately licked his upper lip.
Another tongue licked the inside of his thigh, moving upward.
Warm breath washed over his balls, over his hard organ.
“He was sobbing by the time I left the room,” Daemon crooned, coming just a little closer, but still not close enough to touch.
A phantom mouth brushed against Krelis’s throat. Sucked gently.
“Do you want me to show you what I did to him?”
Krelis couldn’t think. Didn’t want to think about anything but that beautiful face, about the moment when that real mouth would glide over his hot skin, when that real tongue would—
Daemon smiled. “I thought not.”
Everything stopped. Instantly.
Krelis swayed. His vision blurred. Every breath made his body throb. In that moment, he would have promised anything, done anything to make Daemon finish it.
Knowing that revolted him.
He bit his lip until it bled. By the time he could think again, Daemon was looking out the window as if nothing had happened.
Krelis wanted to lash out, wanted to threaten some kind of dire punishment that would make up for his body’s screaming need for relief.
Daemon turned his head and smiled that cold, cruel smile.
Krelis staggered out of the room.
A few steps away from the door, he leaned against the wall while he waited to get some strength back in his quivering legs.
Now he understood why Queens and favored witches from aristo families paid Dorothea such exorbitant fees for the loan of Daemon Sadi. Now he understood why they were willing to endure his cruelty, why they were willing to risk his temper. To have that exquisite pleasure brought to completion . . .
Krelis pushed away from the wall, desperate to get away from this place. Maybe, with distance, he could deny the terrible feeling that, no matter how skilled the whore or how much relief he took between her thighs, he would never again experience the kind of pleasure he’d felt with the Sadist.
Chapter Twenty-one
Lia stopped abruptly at the edge of the official landing place outside Ranon’s Wood.
Jared grabbed her, drawing her back against him while he absorbed the significance of what he was seeing—of what he wasn’t seeing.
The section of the Coach station roof that had been torn away.
The broken windows.
The empty corral where the horses for hire would have been kept during the day.
The pieces of the stable door that were scattered around the yard.
The absence of people.
And the deeper feeling of emptiness.
“The land’s been wounded,” Lia said in a hushed, aching voice. “Oh, Jared, the land’s been deeply wounded.”
Hay fields that should have been thick with stubble from the harvest had small islands of yellow grass growing out of a sea of barren ground. Trees that had been landmarks for generations scarred the morning sky with their dead branches.
“The Blood fought here,” Lia whispered. Her
hand shook as she wiped a tear from her cheek.
Hearing her unspoken question, Jared chained his grief, leashed his growing fear. “This didn’t happen because of our coming here. Look at the land, Lia. This happened during the growing season, not the harvest. When we got the supplies at the landen village, the old woman warned me that there was trouble in Shalador.” He took her hand.
“Come on. Ranon’s Wood is about a half a mile from here.”
It would have been easy to probe the village, would have been easy to reach for the familiar minds of his family. He didn’t do either.
The second time Lia stumbled because he’d increased the pace beyond her ability to keep up, she planted her feet and refused to move.
“You go on, Jared. Find out what’s happened to your people.”
“I’m not leaving you.”
“I’ll be fine. There’s nothing here that will harm me.”
“I’m not leaving you.”
As they stared at each other, the words seemed to echo.
Jared swallowed. Tasted bitterness. Silently acknowledged the lie beneath the sincere words. As much as he didn’t want to, he would leave her—as soon as he saw her safely home.
“Jared!”
Jared whirled, putting Lia behind him. Hell’s fire, where were his wits? No one should have gotten this close to them without his sensing it, especially someone cantering toward them on horseback.
“It’s Blaed!” Lia said, stepping around Jared and waving.
Reining in a few yards away from them, Blaed slid off the roan mare’s bare back and dropped the reins to ground-tie her. He spared one quick glance for Jared before focusing on Lia with a hunger that made Jared tense.
Not a sexual hunger, Jared realized as Blaed’s eyes traveled over the body that was covered from neck to mid-thigh by the bulky sweater, but the hunger a strong Blood male feels when he’s bonded to a Queen.
“You’re well?” Blaed asked hesitantly.
Lia gave him a dazzling smile. “I’m fine. I—”
Blaed pulled her into his arms. “Thera’s been frantic about you.”
*Thera’s not the one hugging her hard enough to crack her ribs,* Jared said on a spear thread.
Blaed let go too fast.
Jared lunged to catch her. Blaed grabbed the front of the sweater.
A minute later, Lia was standing out of reach of both of them, eyeing them warily. “Whoever said males were sensible obviously never met either of you,” she grumbled.
Blaed grinned at Jared. “She is well.”
“Don’t encourage her too much,” Jared said dryly. “She needs more rest than she thinks she does.”
Lia straightened her sweater. “Let’s go to the village. I’d like to talk to someone sensible. Someone female.”
“I thought you wanted to talk to someone sensible,” Jared said.
Blaed coughed.
Lia looked at the sky and threw up her hands.
The gesture, so like Reyna’s, stabbed Jared. As he turned away, he met Blaed’s now-solemn hazel eyes.
Feeling the prickle between his shoulder blades, Jared chose each word as if it were a step he had to take on a trail filled with hidden traps. “When did you get here?”
“Last evening,” Blaed said in a neutral voice. “Thayne’s always been able to call animals to him. Enough of the marauders’ horses survived, so we each had a mount.”
“My mother’s a good Healer. She’ll take care of the witchfire burns for him.”
“Jared . . .”
“My father got you settled in all right? Did you talk to him about getting a Coach to the Tamanara Mountains?”
“Jared . . .” Blaed’s hand closed on Jared’s arm.
Feeling the sympathy that flowed out of that touch, Jared jerked away, circling Blaed cautiously as he moved toward the roan mare.
“Go home, Jared,” Blaed said quietly. “I’ll escort Lia.”
Torn, again, between two needs, Jared froze.
“Go home, Jared,” Lia said.
Because it was the woman and not the Queen who said the words, he found himself galloping down the road to Ranon’s Wood. His mind refused to see the images his eyes collected, and he was grateful. There would be time enough to deal with the destruction later.
It didn’t take long to reach the lane that ended at the weathered, rambling house that had been in Reyna’s family for generations. The Healer’s House, passed on, not from mother to daughter, but from the old Healer to the strongest, or only, Healer in the next generation. Year after year, the land had been tended by and yielded its bounty to the women of that bloodline. Generation after generation, strong Blood males had sought out those women, settling for a long-term contract as a consort if they weren’t able to win the coveted title of husband.
Jared tied the mare’s reins to the hitching post near the path that led to the front door.
Every spring, all the women in the family gathered for a few days to help plant the gardens at the Healer’s House. The males of all ages divided their time between helping with whatever repairs might be needed after the winter and watching indulgently while the women laughed and squabbled over the planting.
Jared opened the gate. It didn’t hang true and got stuck. He went sideways through the narrow opening.
“Mother?”
No one had planted this year. He felt the absence of laughter as keenly as he felt the land’s wounds. Flower beds that had dazzled him with color when he was young held a few wind-seeded flowers that looked spindly and faded.
Jared took a hesitant step toward the house. Took another. He raised his voice. “Mother?”
Another step.
He saw the smears of old blood around the front door.
Hurrying now, he flung the door open. “Mother!”
Sweating and freezing, he rapidly explored the downstairs rooms the family used. Then the healing rooms. Then the stillroom. Out the back door to the greenhouse. He didn’t notice anything except that there was no one there.
“MOTHER!”
Inside again, he took the stairs two at a time, checking his brothers’ rooms first.
Davin’s room was bare of personal belongings. Janos’s looked as if someone had hurriedly searched through it and had left the clothes and books where they’d fallen.
No one in the second-floor guest rooms.
No one in the third-floor rooms.
Back to the second floor.
His clothes no longer hung in the wardrobe, but his books still filled the low bookcase next to the writing desk that had stood in front of the window for as long as he could remember. The same quilt covered the bed that had once felt so huge and that he now knew would be a snug fit for two people.
One room left.
His hand shook as he opened the door to his parents’ room.
Pain and grief entwined with love hit him at the threshold.
He closed his eyes and clung to the doorframe, unable to step back, unable to go forward.
Walls remembered. Over time, wood and stone absorbed the feelings of those who lived in a place and could be sensed by anyone with power.
This was different. Stronger. As if . . .
Jared opened his eyes and looked at the large double bed that Reyna had shared with Belarr—the bed that a male child, no matter how young, didn’t climb into without his father’s permission.
At first, he thought Reyna had bought a new quilt for the bed, but he couldn’t figure out why she, who loved bright things, would choose such a dull color.
Then he saw a patch of blues and greens at the bottom corner, and then he realized the quilt had been soaked with blood.
Jared staggered toward the bed, fighting the sickness that churned in his stomach.
Blood sings to blood. That’s why the feelings were so strong. They weren’t in the wood and stone, they were in the blood.
His hand shook violently as he reached for the quilt.
The blood was old, but t
here was so much of it. All he had to do was open his inner barriers and touch it, and he’d know.
“Jared,” a gravelly voice said.
His hand hovered over the quilt. Another inch. Just another inch.
His hand wouldn’t move.
“Jared.”
Jared spun around, his heart pounding wildly.
An old man stood in the doorway. Unkempt gray hair hung to his shoulders. Grief and pain had carved deep lines into his face. His left sleeve was pinned above where the elbow had been.
Jared stared at the old man. His eyes widened. “Uncle Yarek?”
“Uncle Yarek,” the old man agreed, smiling sadly. “Reyna said you’d be coming home this autumn.”
“Mo—” Jared’s voice broke. In a rush, he crossed the room and hugged his uncle. Terrified of the fierce grief rising inside of him, he choked it back, chaining it down.
“Come away, Jared,” Yarek said softly as he stepped back into the hallway, drawing Jared with him. “Come away from this room. It’s too painful to look on. We’ll go outside. We’ll go out and sit in the garden, and we’ll talk.”
Saying nothing, Jared followed Yarek to a stone bench at the far end of the garden. Near the bench was a small, covered well.
“Would you like some water?” Jared asked.
Grimacing a little, Yarek settled on the bench. “Sure.”
Jared lifted the cover and lowered the wooden bucket. When he looked around for the dipper, Yarek said, “Here,” and called in a mug.
Jared filled the mug and handed it to Yarek. “Whenever my friends and I spent the afternoon playing in the woods, we’d all end up here because this well had the sweetest water in Ranon’s Wood.”
“Yes, it did.” Yarek drained the mug and handed it back to Jared. “Now it’s as bitter as a woman’s tears.”
Jared hesitated, finally dipped the mug into the bucket and drank.
As bitter as a woman’s tears. Or was it the land’s tears he was tasting now? For the Blood, was there really any difference?
Because he was thirsty, he drank another mug of water before settling on the bench next to his uncle.
“What happened here, Uncle Yarek?”
