Queen of the Darkness (22 page)

”The kindred males don’t wear them there. You had small Rings made that attach to the chain holding their Jewels.”

”So you want a Ring of Honor,” Jaenelle said, still sounding amused, still adding stitches to the needlepoint design.

Karla nodded solemnly. ”For everyone in the coven.”

Jaenelle looked up, no longer amused.

Karla met that look, recognizing by the subtle change in the sapphire eyes that she was no longer talking to Jaenelle, her friend and Sister. She was talking to Witch, the Queen of Ebon Askavi.
Her
Queen.

”You have a reason,” Jaenelle said in her midnight voice. It wasn’t a question.

”Yes.” How much would she need to say to convince Jaenelle? And how much of what she’d seen in the tangled web could be left unsaid?

A few minutes passed in silence.

Jaenelle resumed her stitching. ”If it’s going to be worn on a finger, it should look decorative enough so that it’s real purpose isn’t obvious,” she said quietly. ”I assume you’re mostly interested in the Ring because of the protection spells I added to it.”

”Yes,” Karla said quietly. The protection spells, the Ebony shields Jaenelle added to the Rings, were the reason she wanted one.

”Do you want the Rings linked just between the coven or linked to the boyos as well?”

Karla hesitated. A typical Ring of Honor allowed a Queen to monitor the emotions of the males in her First Circle. Because of a quirk in the way Jaenelle had made the first Ring of Honor—the one Lucivar
still
wore—the First Circle males in the Dark Court had the same means of gauging the Queen’s mood.

Did she, or any of the coven, really want to deal with males who were even more attuned to feminine moods than the boyos already were? Was a little emotional distance worth not having a means of sending a warning that couldn’t, in any way, be blocked? ”They should be linked with the First Circle males.”

”I’ll get the Rings made as soon as possible,” Jaenelle said quietly.

”Thank you, Lady,” Karla replied, acknowledging the Queen rather than the friend.

Another silence filled the room.

”Anything else?” Jaenelle finally asked.

Karla took a deep breath, let it out slowly. ”I don’t like your relatives.”

”Nobodyhere likes my relatives,” Jaenelle replied, but there was a sharp edge underneath the amusement—and sorrow. Then she added very quietly, ”Saetan formally requested my consent for their executions.”

”Did you give it?” Karla asked neutrally. She already knew the answer. She had been in the same position five years ago when she became Queen of Glacia. She had exiled her uncle, Lord Hobart, instead of executing him, even though she strongly suspected he had been behind the death of her parents and Morton’s.

Jaenelle, if pushed, would choose the same.

”If it’s any consolation, I do like your sister,” Karla said when Jaenelle didn’t answer the question.

”She’ll adjust to living in Kaeleer just fine if she can stop being scared long enough to catch her breath.”

Jaenelle looked a little pained. ”Lucivar got her drunk. She offered to brush him.”

”Oh, Mother Night.” When the laughter finally fizzled out, Karla groaned her way off the couch, said good night to Jaenelle, and headed for her own suite.

In the privacy of her bedroom, she indulged in a few grunts and moans as she got ready for bed. No matter how much she exercised when she was home, it always took her a few days to adjust to the workouts Lucivar put her through. But she wasn’t about to miss a chance to get a little extra training from him. Especially now.

Later, as she was drifting off to sleep, it occurred to her that Jaenelle, who was a strong and very gifted Black Widow, might have had her own reasons for agreeing to the favor.

7 / Kaeleer

With exaggerated care, Daemon tied the robe’s belt. The hot bath had warmed and loosened his tight, tired muscles. A large quantity of brandy would blur the mental sharp edges. Neither of those things would ease a bruised, bleeding heart.

Jaenelle didn’t want him. That was becoming painfully clear.

When she had come looking for him last night, he had thought she had been pleased to see him, had hoped that they could begin again. But today she had shied away from him whenever he tried to approach her, using Lucivar or Chaosti or the whole coven as a buffer. It had forced him to realize that she had given him the title of Consort out of some sense of obligation, but she didn’t want
him.

How long, he wondered as he walked into his bedroom, could he stand watching her interact with the other males in her court while he was being shut out of her life? How long could his sanity hold together when, day after day, he was close enough to touch her but wasn’t allowed to? How long...

Seeing the mound in the dim light, he thought someone had come in and dumped a white fur cover over his bed without smoothing it out.

Then a head lifted off his pillows and muscles rippled under the white fur as the huge cat shifted position.

The front paws, dangling over the side of the bed, flexed, displaying impressive claws. Gray eyes stared at him as if daring him to do more than breathe.

Even if he hadn’t seen the Red Jewel lying against the white fur, Daemon would have had no doubts about who was sprawled on his bed.

We all try not to upset Kaelas,Lucivar had said.

Hell’s fire, Mother Night, and may the Darkness be merciful.

With his heart pounding in his throat, Daemon cautiously backed toward the door. Saetan’s suite was right across from his. He could...

Something large thumped against the other side of the door just as his hand touched the knob.

Kaelas curled his lips in a silent snarl.

There was only one escape open to him.

Never taking his eyes off Kaelas, Daemon sidled over to the door that separated his bedroom from Jaenelle’s. He opened the door only as much as necessary, slipped into her bedroom, Black-locked the door, and added a Black shield. If what Lucivar had said about Kaelas being able to get through any shield was true, the lock and shield were useless, but they made him feel a little better.

As he backed farther into Jaenelle’s room, he began to shake. It wasn’t because of Kaelas, exactly. Any man with a healthy survival instinct would be cautiously afraid of a cat that size—especially when that cat was also a Red-Jeweled Warlord Prince. But he knew that, before he had shattered his mind the first time that night at Cassandra’s Altar, he wouldn’t have felt this kind of overwhelming fear. He would have had enough confidence in himself to match that feline arrogance even while being prudent enough to yield.

Now...

”Daemon?”

He twisted around, suddenly finding it impossible to breathe.

Jaenelle stood in the doorway that led to the rest of her suite, dressed in sapphire-blue pajamas.

Seeing her, he lost his balance in too many ways.

She ran to him, wrapped her arms around his waist to keep him from falling. ”What’s wrong? Are you ill?”

”I—” He was sweating from the effort to take a deep enough breath.

”Can you walk far enough to sit on the bed?”

Unable to speak, he nodded.

”Sit down,” Jaenelle said. ”Put your head between your knees.”

When he obeyed, his robe parted. He leaned over farther, hoping, since she was crouched in front of him, that he wasn’t revealing anything she didn’t want to see.

”Can you tell me what’s wrong?” Jaenelle asked as her fingers brushed through his hair.

You don’t love me.”On my bed,” he gasped.

Jaenelle swiveled to look at the door adjoining their rooms. Her eyes narrowed. ”What’s Kaelas doing in your room?”

”Sleeping. On my bed.”

”It’s your room. Why didn’t you tell him to get off?”

Why? Because he didn’t want to die tonight.

But she sounded so baffled, he raised his head to look at her. She was serious. She wouldn’t think twice about hauling eight hundred pounds of snarling feline off a bed.

Jaenelle stood up. ”I’ll get him—”

Daemon grabbed her hand. ”No. It’s all right. I’ll find another bed. A couch. Hell’s fire, I’ll sleep on the floor.”

Those ancient eyes studied him. Something odd flickered at the back of them for a moment. ”Do you want to sleep here tonight?” she asked quietly.

Yes. No. He didn’t want to come to her as a frightened, needy male. But he also wouldn’t refuse the only invitation to her bed he might ever receive. ”Please.”

She pulled the covers back as far as she could with him still sitting on the bed. ”Get in.”

”I—” His face heated.

”I gather you wear the same thing to bed as every other male here,” Jaenelle said dryly.

Which meant ”nothing.”

She moved to the other side of the room, her back politely turned.

Daemon quickly slipped out of the robe and slipped into the massive bed. No wonder she had offered to let him stay there. The bed was so big she would never notice another occupant.

A minute later, she got into bed, keeping well to her side of it. As she turned off the candle-light, she murmured, ”Good night, Daemon.”

He lay in the dark a long time listening to her breathe, certain that, like him, she wasn’t asleep.

Eventually, the warm bed, the murmur of the fountain in the garden below, and the scent of whatever soap or perfume she used lulled him into a deep sleep.

The quiet, almost furtive sounds roused him.

Daemon opened his eyes.

Darkness. Swirling mist.

Propping himself up on one elbow, he looked around and saw her standing next to the altar. The golden mane that wasn’t quite hair and wasn’t quite fur. The delicately pointed ears. The thin stripe of fur that ran down her spine to the fawn tail that flicked over her buttocks. The human legs that ended in hooves. The hands that had sheathed claws.

Witch. The living myth. Dreams made flesh.

He was back in the misty place, deep in the abyss. The place where...

He rose slowly. Moving carefully so that he wouldn’t startle her, he walked around the altar until he was standing across from her.

On the altar was a crystal chalice laced with hairline cracks. As he silently watched, she picked up a sliver of crystal and slipped it into place.

Something shifted inside him. Looking more intently at the chalice, he realized it was his own shattered mind.

He noticed three other tiny fragments. As he reached for one, she slapped his hand.

”Do you have any idea how much searching I had to do to find these?” she snarled at him.

She turned the chalice, slipped another tiny sliver into place.

The mist swirled, danced, spun.

Falling, falling, falling into the abyss. His mind shattering. Waking up in the misty place. Seeing Jaenelle as Witch for the first time as she pieced his crystal chalice back together.

Another sliver slipped into place.

A narrow bed with straps to bind hands and feet—
the bed from Briarwood. A sumptuous bed with
silk sheets. A seductive trap made of love and lies and truth
—
a trap to save a child. The Sadist
whispering that she would take the bait because he, in all his male sexual glory,
was
the bait.

The last sliver was slipped into place.

Re-forming the psychic link with Saetan after he had persuaded Jaenelle to ascend to the level of the Red Jewels. The two of them forcing her to heal her own torn, bleeding body. Jaenelle’s panic when the males from Briarwood started fighting the defenses Surreal had created in the corridors leading to the Altar. Cassandra opening the Gate between the Realms and taking Jaenelle away.

His crystal chalice glowed, heated as Witch’s dark power covered all the cracks and sealed them.

Now that the gaps were filled in, the memories reformed, and, finally, he knew
exactly
what had happened at Cassandra’s Altar thirteen years ago. Finally, he knew
exactly
what he had done—and not done.

He took a deep breath, let it out slowly.

She glanced at him, nerves warring with the sharp, feral intelligence that filled her ancient eyes. ”The missing pieces made weak spots that kept the chalice fragile.You should be fine now.”

”Thank you.”

”I don’t want your gratitude,” she snapped.

Studying her, Daemon opened his inner barriers just enough to taste her emotions. The hurt inside her surprised him.

”What
do
you want?” he asked quietly.

She nervously caressed the stem of the chalice. He wondered if she realized he could feel those caresses. And he wondered if she had any idea what those caresses were doing to him. He started to move around the altar, his fingers lightly brushing the stone.

”Nothing,” she said in a small voice as she shifted a half step away from him. Then she added, ”You lied to me. You didn’t want Witch.”

The fire of anger washed through him, waking the part of him the Blood in Terreille had called the Sadist.

When the anger cooled, another kind of fire took its place.

His voice shifted into a sexual purr. ”I love you. And I’ve waited a lifetime to be your lover. But you were too young, Lady.”

She raised her head, her body stiff with dignity. ”I wasn’t too young here, in the abyss.”

Slowly, he continued moving around the altar. ”Your body had been violated. Your mind had shattered.

But even if that hadn’t been the case, you were still too young—even here in the abyss.”

He came up behind her. His fingers lightly brushed her hips, her waist. Moving upward, he spread his hands across her ribs, his fingers just brushing the undersides of her breasts. He moved closer, smiling with savage pleasure as the fawn tail’s nervous flicking teased and aroused him.

He kissed the spot where her neck and shoulder joined. The first kiss was light and chaste. With the second kiss, he used his teeth to hold her still while the tip of his tongue caressed and tasted her skin.

He could feel her heart pounding, feel each breathy pant.

Leaving a trail of soft kisses up her neck, he finally whispered in her ear, ”You’re not too young anymore.”