"Why should he trust you?" Jaenelle said bitterly.
Pain flared in Lucivar's eyes.
Saetan felt Jaenelle's inner barriers open just a crack. He didn't stop to think. At the moment when she was torn between anger at and distress for Lucivar, he swept in and out of that crack, tasting the emotional undercurrents.
So their little witch thought she could force them to yield. Thought she had an emotional weapon they wouldn't challenge.
She was right. She did.
But now, so did he.
"Let her go, Lucivar," Saetan crooned, his voice a purring, soft thunder. Still leaning against the wall with his arms crossed, he tilted his upper body in a mocking bow. "The Lady has us by the balls, and she knows it."
He felt bitterly pleased to see the wariness in Jaenelle's eyes.
She looked quickly at both of them. "You're not going to stop me?"
"No, we're not going to stop you." Saetan smiled malevolently. "Unless, of course, you don't agree to pay the price for our submission. If you refuse, the only way you'll walk out of here is by destroying both of us."
Such a neat trap. Such sweet bait.
He confused her, had finally managed to unnerve her.
She was about to find out how neatly he could spin her into a web.
"What's your price?" Jaenelle asked reluctantly.
One casual, flicking glance took in everything from her head to her feet. "Your body."
She dropped the knife.
It probably would have cut off a couple of toes if Lucivar hadn't vanished it in midair.
"Your body, my Lady," Saetan crooned. "The body you treat with such contempt. Since you obviously don't want it, I'll take it in trust for the one who already has a claim to it."
Jaenelle stared at him, her eyes wide and blank. "You want me to leave this body? Like I did before?"
"Leave?" His voice sounded silky and dangerous. "No, you don't have to leave. I'm sure the claimant would be perfectly willing to give you a permanent loan. But it would be a loan, you understand, and you would be expected to give the body the same kind of care you'd give any object lent to you by a friend."
She studied him for a long time. "And if I don't take care of it? What will you do?"
Saetan pushed away from the wall.
Jaenelle flinched, but her eyes never left his.
"Nothing," he said too softly. "I won't fight with you. I won't use physical strength or Craft to force you. I'll do nothing except keep a record of the transgressions. I'll never ask you for an explanation, and I'll never explain for you.You can try to justify abusing part of what Daemon paid for with dear coin."
Jaenelle's face turned dead white. Saetan caught her as she swayed and held her against his chest.
"Heartless bastard," she whispered.
"Perhaps," he replied. "So what is your answer, Lady?"
" Jaenelle! You promised!"
Jaenelle jumped out of his arms, back-pedaled to try to keep her balance, and ended up with her back smacking against the wall.
Saetan studied Jaenelle's guilty expression and began to feel maliciously cheerful. Noting that Lucivar had come up on her blind side, he turned his attention toward the annoyed, half-grown Sceltie and the silent, but equally annoyed, Arcerian kitten who now weighed as much as Lucivar and still had five more years to grow. "What did the Lady promise?" he asked Ladvarian. "You promised to eat and sleep and read books and take easy walkies until you healed," Ladvarian said accusingly, staring at Jaenelle.
"I am," Jaenelle stammered. "I did." " You've been playing with Lucivar." Lucivar stepped away from the wall so that they could see his left arm. "She was playing rough, too." Ladvarian and Kaelas snarled at Jaenelle. "This is different," Jaenelle snapped. "This is important. And I wasn't playing with Lucivar. I was fighting with him."
"Yes," Lucivar agreed mournfully. "And all because I thought she should be resting instead of pushing herself until she collapsed." Ladvarian and Kaelas snarled louder. "For shame, Lady," Saetan said, using a Black thread to keep the conversation private. "Breaking a promise to your little Brothers. Care to agree to my terms now, or shall we all snarl a bit longer?"
Her venomous look was not only an answer but a good indication of how often she lost these kinds of "discussions" once Ladvarian and, therefore, Kaelas made up their furry little minds about something.
"My Brothers." Saetan tipped his head courteously toward Ladvarian and Kaelas. "The Lady would never break a promise without good reason. Despite the risks to her own well-being, she has pledged herself to a delicate task, one that cannot be delayed. Since this promise was made before the one she made to you, we must yield to the Lady's wishes. As she said, this is important."
"What's more important than the Lady?" Ladvarian demanded.
Saetan didn't answer. Jaenelle squirmed. "My . . . mate ... is trapped in the
Twisted Kingdom. If I don't show him the way out, he'll be destroyed."
"Mate?" Ladvarian's ears perked up. His white-tipped tail waved once, twice. He looked at Saetan. " Jaenelle has a mate?"
Interesting that the Sceltie looked to him for confirmation. Something to keep in mind in the future.
"Yes," Saetan said. "Jaenelle has a mate."
"She won't have if she's delayed much longer," Jaenelle warned.
They all politely stepped aside and watched her painfully slow journey down the corridor.
Saetan had no doubt that she would use Craft to float her body as soon as she was out of their sight, which would put more strain on her physically but would also speed her journey to the Dark Altar that stood within Ebon Askavi. And except for being carried, that was the only way she was going to reach the Gate that would take her to the Keep in Terreille.
After Ladvarian and Kaelas had trotted off to tell Draca about the Lady's mate, Saetan turned to Lucivar. "Come into the healing workroom. I'll take care of that arm."
Lucivar shrugged. "It's not bleeding anymore."
"Boyo, I know the Eyrien drill as well as you do. Wounds are cleansed and healed." "And I want to talk to you in a shielded room away from furry ears."
"Do you think she'll make it?" Lucivar asked a few minutes later as he watched Saetan clean the shallow knife wound.
"She has the strength, the knowledge, and the desire. She'll bring him out of the Twisted Kingdom."
It wasn't what Lucivar meant, and they both knew it.
"Why didn't you stop her? Why are you letting her risk herself?"
Saetan bent his head, avoiding Lucivar's eyes. "Because she loves him. Because he reallyis her mate."
Lucivar was silent for a minute. Then he sighed. "He always said he'd been born to be Witch's lover. Looks like he was right."
2 / Terreille
Surreal watched Daemon prowl the center of the overgrown maze and wondered how much longer she would be able to keep him here. He didn't trust her. She couldn't trust him. She'd found him about a mile from the ruins of SaDiablo Hall, weeping silently as he watched a house burn to the ground. She didn't ask about the burning house, or about the twenty freshly butchered Hayllian guards, or why he kept whispering Tersa's name over and over.
She'd taken his hand, caught the Winds, and brought him here. Whoever had owned this estate had either abandoned it by choice or had been forced out or killed when Dhemlan Terreille had finally caved in to Hayll's domination. Now Hayllian guards used the manor house as a barracks for the troops who were teaching the Dhemlan people about the penalties of disobedience.
Daemon had watched passively while she'd used illusion spells to fill in the gaps in the hedges that would lead to the center of themaze. He'd said nothing when she created a double Gray shield around their hiding place.
His passive obedience had melted away when she called in the small web Jaenelle had given her and placed four drops of blood in its center to awaken it, turning it into a signal and a beacon.
He'd started prowling after that, started smiling that cold, familiar, brutal smile while she waited. And waited. And waited.
"Why don't you call your friends, Little Assassin?" Daemon said as he glided past the place where she sat with her knees up and her back against the hedge. "Don't you want to earn your pay?"
"There's no pay, Daemon. We're waiting for a friend."
"Of course we are," he said too softly as he made another circuit around the center of the maze. Then he stopped and looked at her, his gold eyes filled with a glazed, cold fire. "She liked you. She asked me to help you. Do you remember that?"
"Who, Daemon?" Surreal asked quietly.
"Tersa." His voice broke. "They burned the house Tersa had lived in with her little boy. She had a son, did you know that?"
Hell's fire, Mother Night, and may the Darkness be merciful. "No, I didn't know that."
Daemon nodded. "But that bitch Dorothea took him from her, and she went far, far away. And then that bitch put a Ring of Obedience on the little boy and trained him to be a pleasure slave. Took him into her bed and,. . ." Daemon shuddered. "You're blood of her blood."
Surreal scrambled to her feet. "Daemon. I'm not like Dorothea. I don't acknowledge her as kin."
Daemon bared his teeth. "Liar," he snarled. He took a step toward her, his right thumb flicking the ragged ring-finger nail. "Silky, court-trained liar." Another step. "Butchering whore."
As he raised his right hand, Surreal saw a tiny, glistening drop fall from the needlelike nail under the regular nail. She dove to his left, calling in her stiletto as she fell. He was on her before she hit the ground. She screamed when he broke her right wrist. She screamed again when he clamped his left hand over both of her wrists, grinding bones.
"Daemon,"she said, breathless and panicked as his right hand closed around her throat. "Daemon."