His lips curling in a snarl at this blatant intrusion, he limped around the desk and froze as Jaenelle slipped through the door and closed it behind her. She stood there, shy and uncertain.
"Jaenelle," he whispered. "Jaenelle!"
He opened his arms. She ran across the room and leaped into them, her thin arms gripping his neck in a stranglehold.
Saetan staggered as his weak leg started to give, but he got them to a chair by the fire. He buried his face in the crook of her neck, his arms tight around her. "Jaenelle," he whispered over and over as he kissed her forehead, kissed her cheeks. "Where have you been?"
After a while, Jaenelle braced her hands on his shoulders and pushed back. She studied his face and frowned. "You're limping again," she said in an aggrieved voice.
"The leg's weak," he replied curtly, dismissing it.
She unbuttoned the top of her blouse and pushed back the collar.
"No," he said firmly.
"You need the blood. You're limping again."
"No. You've been ill."
"No, I haven't," she protested sharply and then quickly looked away.
Saetan's eyes turned hard yellow, and he drew in a hissing breath.
If you haven't been ill, witch-child,
then what was done to your body was done deliberately. I haven't forgotten the last time I saw
you. That family of yours has much to explain.
"Not really ill," Jaenelle amended.
It almost sounded like she was pleading with him to agree. But, Hell's fire, how could he look at her and agree?
"The blood's strong, Saetan." She definitely was pleading now. "And you need the blood."
"Not while you need every drop for yourself," Saetan snarled. He tried to shift position, but with Jaenelle straddling him, he was effectively tethered. He sighed. He knew that determined look too well. She wasn't about to let him go until he'd taken the blood.
And it occurred to him that she had her own reasons for wanting to give it beyond it being beneficial to him. She seemed more fragile—and not just physically. It was as if rejecting the blood would confirm some deep-seated fear she was trying desperately to control.
That decided him. He gently closed his mouth on her neck.
He took a long time to take very little, savoring the contact, hoping she would be fooled. When he finally lifted his head and pressed his finger against the wound to heal it, he read doubt in her eyes. Well, two could play that game.
"Where have you been, witch-child?" he asked so gently that it was a whip-crack demand.
The question effectively silenced her protest. She gave him a bland, innocent look. "Saetan, is there anything to eat?"
Stalemate, as he'd known it would be.
"Yes," he said dryly, "I think we can come up with something."
Jaenelle edged backward out of the chair and watched him struggle to his feet. Without a word, she fetched the cane leaning against the blackwood desk and handed it to him.
Saetan grimaced but took the cane. With one arm resting lightly around her shoulders, they left the study and the lower, rough-hewn corridors, traveled the upstairs labyrinth of hallways, and finally reached the double front doors. He led her around the side of the Hall to the Sanctuary that held the Dark Altar.
"There's a Dark Altar next to the Hall?" Jaenelle asked as she looked around with interest.
Saetan chuckled softly as he lit the four black candles in proper order. "Actually, witch-child, the Hall is built next to the Altar."
Her eyes widened as the stonewall behind the Altar turned to mist. "Ooohh," she whispered in a voice as close to awe as he'd ever heard from her. "Why's it doing that?"
"It's a Gate," Saetan replied, puzzled.
"A Gate?"
He pushed the words out. "A Gate between the Realms."
"Ooohh."
His mind stumbled. Since she'd been traveling between the Realms for years now, he'd always assumed she knew how to open the Gates. If she didn't even know there
were
Gates, how in the name of Hell had she been getting into Kaeleer and Hell all this time?
He couldn't ask. He wouldn't ask. If he asked, she'd tell him and then he'd have to strangle her.
He held out his hand. "Walk forward through the mist. By the time you count slowly to four, we'll be through the Gate."
Once they were on the other side, he led her back around the side of the Hall and through the front doors.
"Where are we?" Jaenelle asked as she studied the prisms made by the arched, leaded-glass window above the doors.
"SaDiablo Hall," he replied mildly.
Jaenelle turned slowly and shook her head. "This isn't the Hall."
"Oh, but it is, witch-child. We just went through a Gate, remember? This is the Hall in the Shadow Realm. We're in Kaeleer."
"So there really is a Shadow Realm," she murmured as she opened a door and peered into the room.
Certain she hadn't meant for him to hear that, he didn't answer. He simply filed it with the other troubling, unanswered questions that shrouded his fair-haired Lady. But it made him doubly relieved that he'd decided to introduce her to the Hall in Kaeleer.
Even before her long disappearance, he'd wanted to wean her away from Hell. He knew she would still visit Char and the rest of the
cildru dyathe,
would visit Titian, but Hekatah was too much in evidence lately, stirring up mischief with the small group of demon witches she called her coven, mischief designed to distract him, draw his attention, while her smug smiles and overly contrite apologies filled him with a dread that was slowly crystallizing into icy rage. Every day he kept Jaenelle away from Hekatah was one more day of safety for them all.
Jaenelle finished her peek at the rooms off the great hall and skipped back to him, her eyes sparkling.
"It's wonderful, Saetan."
He slipped his arm around her shoulders and kissed the top of her head. "And somewhere among all these corridors is a kitchen and an excellent cook named Mrs. Beale."
They both looked up at the
click-dick
of shoes coming purposefully toward them from the service corridor at the end of the great hall. Saetan smiled, recognizing that distinctive
click-click.
Helene, coming to see exactly who was in "her" house. He started to tell Jaenelle who was coming, but he was too stunned to speak.
Her face was the coldest, smoothest, most malevolent mask he had ever seen. Her sapphire eyes were maelstroms. The power in her didn't spill out in an ever-widening ring as it would have with any other witch whose temper was up, acting as a warning to whoever approached. No, it was pulling inward, spiraling downward to her core, where she would then turn it outward, with devastating results. She was turning cold, cold, cold, and he was helpless to stop her, helpless to bridge the distance that was suddenly, inexplicably, between them. She twitched her shoulders from beneath his arm, and with a grace that would have made any predator envious, began to glide in front of him.
Saetan glanced up. Helene would enter the great hall at any moment—and die. He summoned the power in his Jewels, summoned all his strength. Everything was going to ride on one word.
He thrust out his right hand, the Black Jewel ablaze, stopping Jaenelle's movement. "Lady," he said in a commanding voice.
Jaenelle looked at him. He shivered but kept his hand steady. "When Protocol is being observed and a Warlord Prince makes a request of his Queen, she graciously yields to his request unless she's no longer willing to have him serve. I ask that you trust my judgment in choosing who serves us at the Hall. I ask permission to introduce you to the housekeeper, who will do her utmost to serve you well.
I ask that you accompany me to the dining room for something to eat."
He had never taught her about Protocol, about the subtle checks and balances of power among the Blood. He had assumed she'd picked up the basics through day-to-day living and observation. He'd thought he would have time to teach her the fine points of interaction between Queens and dark-Jeweled males. Now it was the only leash he had. If she failed to answer . . . "Please, witch-child," he whispered just as Helene entered the great hall and stopped.
The Darkness swirled around him. Mother Night! He'd never felt anything like this!
Jaenelle studied his right hand for a long time before slowly placing her hand over it. He shuddered, unable to control it, seeing the truth for just a moment before she kindly shut him out.
"This is my housekeeper, Helene," Saetan said, never taking his eyes off Jaenelle. "Helene, this is Lady—" He hesitated, at a loss. To say "Lady Jaenelle" was too familiar.
Jaenelle turned her maelstrom eyes on Helene, who cringed but, with the instinct of a small hunted creature, didn't move. "Angelline." The word rolled out of her in a midnight whisper.
"Angelline." Saetan looked at Helene, willing her to remain calm. "My dear, would you see what Mrs.
Beale might have for us today?"
Helene remembered her station and curtsied. "Of course, High Lord," she replied with dignity. Turning around, she left the great hall with a steady, measured step that Saetan silently applauded.
Jaenelle moved away from him, her head down, her shoulders slumped.
"Witch-child?" Saetan asked gently.
The eyes that met his were pained and haunted, full of a grieving that twisted his heart because he didn't know what caused it—or, perhaps, because he did.
He hadn't shuddered because, with her touch, he had found himself looking at power as far beneath him as he was to the White. He hadn't turned away from
her.
It was what he had seen there that horrified him—during those months when she'd been gone, she'd learned the one lesson he had never wanted her to learn.
She had learned to hate.
Now he had to find a way to convince her that he hadn't turned away from her because of what she was, had to bridge the distance between them, had to find a way to bring her back. He had to understand.
"Witch-child," he said in a carefully neutral voice, "why were you going to strike Helene?"
"She's a stranger."
Rocked by her cold response, Saetan's weak leg buckled. Her arms immediately wrapped around his waist, and he didn't feel the floor at all. Somewhat bemused, he looked down and tapped the floor with his shoe. He stood on air, a quarter inch above the floor. If he walked normally, it would take a keen eye to realize he wasn't walking on the floor itself. That and the lack of sound.
"It will help you," Jaenelle explained, her voice so full of apology and concern that the arm he'd been sliding around her shoulders pulled her to him in a fierce hug.
As they walked toward the dining room, Saetan used the excuse of his weak leg to move slowly, to give himself time to think. He had to understand what had brought out that ferocity in her.
Helene was a stranger, true. But he had a score of names on a sheet of paper locked in his desk drawer, and all of them had been strangers once. Because Helene was an adult? No. Cassandra was an adult. So was Titian, so was Prothvar, Andulvar, and Mephis. So was he. Because Helene was living? No, that wasn't the answer either.
In frustration, he replayed the last few minutes, forcing himself to view it from a distance. The sound of footsteps, the sudden change in Jaenelle, her predatory glide ... in front of him.
He stopped suddenly, shocked, but got tugged along for a few more steps before Jaenelle realized he wasn't trying to walk.
He'd wondered what her reaction would be to being with him in Kaeleer, being with him outside the Realm he ruled, and now he knew. She cared for him. She was ready to protect him because, to her anyway, a weak leg might make him vulnerable against an adversary.
Saetan smiled, squeezed her shoulder, and began walking again.
Geoffrey had been right. He had a more potent leash than Protocol to keep her in check. Unfortunately, that leash worked two ways, so from now on, he was going to have to be very, very careful.
Saetan looked with growing dismay at the amount of food on the table. Along with a bowl of stew and sticks of cornbread, there were fruit, cheese, nut cakes, cold ham, cold beef, a whole roasted chicken, a platter of vegetables, fresh bread, honey butter, and a pitcher of milk. It ended there only because he'd refused to allow the footman to bring in the last heavily laden tray. The volume would have daunted a hungry full-grown male, let alone a young girl.
Jaenelle stared at the dishes arranged in a half-circle around her place at the table.
"Eat your stew while it's hot," Saetan suggested mildly, sipping a glass of yarbarah.
Jaenelle picked up her spoon and began to eat, but after one bite she put the spoon down, once more shy and uncertain.
Saetan began to talk in a leisurely manner. Since he talked as if he had nothing else to do and nowhere else to go and was going to sit at the table for quite some time, Jaenelle picked up the spoon again. He noticed that every time he stopped talking she put the spoon down, as if she didn't want her eating to detain him. So he gossiped, telling her about Mephis, Prothvar, Andulvar, Geoffrey, and Draca, but he ran out very quickly.
The dead don't do much,
he thought dryly as he launched into a long discourse about the book he'd been reading, completely unconcerned with whether or not it was over her head.
He started feeling a bit desperate about what to say next when she finally leaned back, her hands folded over a bulging tummy, and gave him the sweet, sleepy smile of a well-fed, content child. He put his glass up to his lips to hide his smile and briefly glanced at the carnage in front of him. Perhaps he'd been too hasty in sending that last tray back to the kitchen.
"I have a surprise for you," he said, biting his cheek as she wrestled herself into a sitting position.
He led her to the second floor of his wing. The doors along the right side led into his suite of rooms. He opened a door on the left.
He had put a lot of thought into these rooms. The bedroom had the feel of a seascape with its soft, shell-colored walls, plush sandy carpets, deep sea-blue counterpane on the huge bed, warm brown furniture, and throw pillows the color of dune grass. The adjoining sitting room belonged to the earth. The rooms still required personal touches that he'd deliberately kept absent to make them feminine.