Twilight's Dawn (12 page)

Read Twilight's Dawn Online

Authors: Anne Bishop

Tags: #Fantasy fiction, #Fiction, #Fantasy, #General, #Witches, #Epic

Probably not.
When she reached his door, she took a moment to catch her breath. No point starting a fight if she couldn’t yell at him.
She vanished the present, unlocked the door, and walked into his parlor, only to find Rainier standing there waiting for the intruder, looking pale and furious.
“Surreal . . .”
“You wear Opal; I wear Gray. I outrank you. Shut up.”
She could feel his temper taking a sharper edge, but he wasn’t a fool. His being a Warlord Prince couldn’t make up for the difference in their power.
“You were supposed to be visiting your family,” Surreal said.
“I did visit. Now I’m back.”
And sounding more bitter than when he’d left.
“Well, that’s good, actually, because the family is gathering at the Keep for Winsol. You and I will have a quiet dinner at the town house tonight, and tomorrow afternoon we’ll go up to the Keep.”
“Surreal, it’s a family gathering. I’m not family.”
“Oh, that’s not a problem.” She walked up to him, smiled, and slugged him in the shoulder hard enough to almost knock him off his feet. “Now you’re an honorary cousin. If you get pissy about this, I’m going to tell Daemon and Lucivar that you didn’t want to be family for Winsol because you didn’t want to be related to
them
.Won’t that be fun when they show up wanting an explanation?”
“Bitch.”
“Boyo, you have no idea.” She gave him a minute to appreciate just how cornered he really was. “So, are you still packed or do you need help?”
“I can take care of it tomorrow if you want to go back to the town house now,” Rainier said.
She bared her teeth in a smile. “You and your luggage are coming with me to the town house. Where you’ll be staying tonight.”
“I’m not going to run away.”
“Damn right, you’re not. I’m not going to face all of them by myself.”
He studied her. Then he sighed. “Fine. I’ll swap out some clothes. Give me a few minutes.”
“Don’t take long. The driver is waiting, and Helton will worry if I’m late.”
Rainier huffed out a laugh and limped to his bedroom.
Surreal closed her eyes. He didn’t need tears or pity or whatever else was being dished out. And he wouldn’t get those things. Not at the Keep.
But he would get the warmth of friends who cared about him. And he wouldn’t be alone for Winsol.
NINE
 
 
“A
re you sure she’s home?” Lucivar asked as Daemon opened the cottage door. “There aren’t any lights on in the sitting room.”
“Doesn’t mean anything,” Daemon replied, touching the hallway candle-light so they could see as they headed for the kitchen. “Allista left this morning to spend a few days with her family, and Manny is celebrating with friends in the village. Tersa told both of them she was staying home tonight.”
As they walked into the kitchen, they saw her silhouetted against the open back door, oblivious to the cold air streaming into the cottage.
“Tersa,” Daemon called softly.
“It’s the boy,” she said, sounding puzzled as she looked from him to Lucivar. “Both my boys.”
“Yes,” Daemon said.
“Why are you here?”
Lucivar nudged her into the kitchen and closed the door. “We’ve decided to establish some family traditions. Winsol Eve is going to be a time for fathers and daughters to spend together.”
“And mothers and sons,” Daemon added.
“So we’re here to spend the evening with our mother,” Lucivar said.
“But . . .” She looked around, as if finally noticing where she was. “There is no food. I should prepare food?”
“We did that,” Daemon said, calling in several dishes and settling them gently on the kitchen table. “A couple of things need to be heated, and a few other things need the finishing touches.” He took off his overcoat and wrapped it around her, adding a warming spell.
Did she even realize she was shivering?
Lucivar pulled out a chair. “You sit down, and we’ll take care of things.”
“That does not seem fair,” Tersa said. “You are doing all the work.”
“Fine,” Lucivar said. “You can do the dishes after.”
“
That
is not fair!”
Lucivar grinned at her and winked at Daemon.
They talked, they laughed, and they ate. And as Tersa’s mind flowed between past and present, they learned more of who they had been when they had been her boys.
“We’d like to ask a favor,” Daemon said when he set out the plate of baked goods he’d wheedled out of Mrs. Beale. “A special gift we’d like you to give both of us if you can.”
She looked at them—not with the lucidity of madness, but with clear-sighted eyes. “Ask.”
So he asked. And after thinking about it for a minute, she said yes.
TEN
 
 
S
aetan walked through one of the enclosed gardens at the Keep. Stark at this time of year, but not barren. Life slept beneath the snow, beneath the earth, waiting for the light to return.
The Blood came from the Darkness of the abyss—a power inherited from another race whose time as the guardians of the Realms had ended. So they honored the Darkness that separated them from the landens, that shaped their preferences and needs and desires.
Especially their desires.
“I understand now.”
Jaenelle’s voice came out of the darkness around him.
No, not Jaenelle’s voice, he thought as he turned. Too much midnight in that voice, too much of the abyss.
For a moment, when she took the first step toward him, he saw the Self that lived beneath her skin. Saw the living myth, dreams made flesh.
Not all the dreamers had been human—and neither was Witch.
Then the moment was gone, and Jaenelle, lovely and human, kept walking toward him.
“You should be home with your husband,” Saetan said.
“No, I shouldn’t. Not tonight,” Jaenelle replied. “I understand now.”
“Understand what, witch-child?”
“The private dance on Winsol Eve.”
She took both his hands. Hers were cold, so he put a warming spell on his own to make hers more comfortable.
“We didn’t dance these last two years. But you did. Alone. Just as you did for most of your fifty thousand years. You danced for a dream, for a promise. And every year when you performed the steps of that dance, you renewed your own promise to that dream.”
He closed his eyes, unwilling to look at her because she would see the truth of her words. She was the sweetest, most painful dance of his life. She was the reason for this unnaturally long life.
“Each year, when we performed that dance, you renewed that promise. But it was no longer to a dream. It was to flesh and blood, to a real Queen.”
He had no words for what he felt, so he did something he had done no more than a handful of times during his entire life—he opened all his inner barriers, revealing his heart, his mind, his Self to her without any defenses or shields. As he opened his eyes and stared into her sapphire ones, he realized he wasn’t showing her anything she didn’t already know about him.
“It’s almost midnight,” Jaenelle said. “Dance with me, Saetan. Tonight, let’s both acknowledge a promise made and kept.”
He followed her to one of the sitting rooms. A small bowl of hot blooded rum was on a table, along with two glasses and a crystal music sphere in a brass holder.
He helped her out of her coat, then removed his cape and vanished both.
She wore a black dress made of layers of spidersilk. Widow’s weeds. A dress made for a Black Widow Queen—especially one who had once worn Black Jewels.
Jaenelle raised her hand. Music for the traditional Winsol dance filled the room.
He raised his hand and took the first step of the dance. Fingertips touched fingertips. Hands touched hands.
She was no longer a girl indulging her adopted father. She was no longer a Queen accepting her Steward’s request for a traditional dance. The woman who moved with him tonight understood the weight of his choices—and the importance of this night that marked each year.
So they danced in honor of a dream—and to renew a promise.
ELEVEN
 
 
A
warm hand rubbing his bare back coaxed Saetan out of a deep sleep. A loving touch, but not a lover’s touch. Sensual without being sexual. Who . . . ?
Then he knew. There was only one person whose psychic scent was so close to his own that it took a moment to pick up the distinctions between them.
“Prince,” he said. It was the best he could do. The way Daemon was rubbing his back made him feel boneless—and brainless. A bit odd for a son to be doing.
That thought roused his paternal suspicions, and that woke up his brain.
“Good evening,” Daemon said. “Did you sleep well?”
Hell’s fire. Every time a son had asked him that, the boy was about to dump a basket of trouble in his lap.
“It’s Winsol,” Saetan said, turning onto his side and propping himself up on one elbow. “Why aren’t you home with your wife?”
“Because my wife is still here,” Daemon replied, resting a hand on his father’s hip.
A sultry voice. Almost a sexual purr. Daemon excelled at using sensuality to intimidate, and right now the boy was doing an excellent job.
Except he wasn’t sure intimidation
was
the response Daemon intended to evoke.
“Did you enjoy your gift?” Daemon asked.
“My gift?”
“You asked for solitude. We stepped back so you could celebrate Winsol Eve in your own way.”
With Jaenelle. With Witch.
“Lucivar and I talked it over, and we decided that you had a point—and a lesson we wanted to embrace now instead of later.”
“That’s good.” Maybe. He might sound more enthusiastic if he were more awake—and if Daemon’s hand resting on his hip didn’t feel more and more like a cat’s paw pressing on a mouse’s tail.

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