Rolling over on her side, Sylvia tried to fling the covers back and push her legs over the edge of the bed, but an arm tightened around her waist.
“Easy,” Saetan said. “From now on, you have to think before you get out of bed.”
“The boys!”
“Are safe. Beron was injured, but he’s at the Hall in Jaenelle’s care. We’ll find out more when Daemon and Lucivar arrive here in a couple of hours.”
Sylvia shivered. “And Mikal?”
Saetan’s arm didn’t move from her waist, but the covers settled in place around her. “Tildee grabbed Mikal and didn’t stop running until she got them to Tersa’s cottage. They’re upset, but otherwise they’re fine.”
“Thank the Darkness.” All her strength seemed to drain away once she knew her sons were safe. She rolled onto her back—and remembered the rest.
The candle-light in the bedside lamp began to glow softly, providing just enough light for her to see the man who raised himself up on one elbow to look at her.
“You’re not under the covers,” she said. “Is it because of how my legs look?”
“My darling Sylvia, I am the High Lord of Hell. I have seen much worse than truncated legs. No, I’m above the covers because I didn’t want you to wake up alone, but you weren’t in any condition to extend an invitation to sleep with you.”
She let out a pained laugh. “You’re still going to insist on propriety?”
“Your body is dead; you are not. That being the case, I see no reason to dispense with propriety or any other courtesy,” he said with just enough bite to make her feel chastised.
No, he wouldn’t dispense with propriety or courtesy or the Blood’s Protocol or their code of honor, and she doubted the demon-dead were allowed to dispense with those things either. Not if they wanted to extend their existence a while longer after the physical death.
“Saetan . . .” She wasn’t sure what she was asking of him, wasn’t even sure if she
was
asking anything. But he bent his head and gave her one of those slow, thorough kisses that used to make her knees weak. When his mind surrounded hers, she felt the wave of sensuality that used to bring her an orgasm before his hands touched her.
Now it felt comforting, but it was her heart and not her body that felt that comfort.
He ended the kiss and eased back enough to look at her. “Everything has a price.”
Being demon-dead wasn’t the same as being among the living. Her Self was now encased in dead flesh. Sylvia the woman could still feel love, but her body no longer felt the pleasures of sex.
She tried to shift away from him, but he rolled just enough to pin her.
“I think you would like some answers to some questions you don’t want to ask,” Saetan said. “Can I love you when sex is no longer part of that love? Yes, I can and do. Do I still want to spend time with you and sleep with you? Yes, I do. I couldn’t remain with you when you were among the living, but there is no reason why we can’t be together now—if that’s something you want too.”
“For how long?” she asked.
“For as long as you want,” he replied. “You’ll know when it’s time to go, and I won’t ask you to stay a day longer.”
“My legs.”
“An illusion spell and some Craft to air walk can hide the loss from the eye.”
“That would be a constant drain of power.”
“Yes, it would—and not a necessary drain on most days, in my opinion.” He looked at the two pendants resting on her chest. “It looks like the dose of Jaenelle’s blood had enough power in it to fuel the healing and fill both of your Jewels’ reservoirs partway. That’s a good start.”
Good start? Oh, no. “Hell’s fire. You’re not going to make me drink more of that stuff, are you?”
“Not immediately,” he said dryly. “But it’s a simple fact that the darker the power, the less blood that’s required to sustain someone who is demon-dead.”
“Plain speaking, High Lord.”
“Once your power is restored, yarbarah will be sufficient most days. Twice a month, you’ll have a small amount of fresh human blood.”
She narrowed her eyes. “Whose blood?”
He gave her a smile that had her pressing into the bed. “That depends on whether a certain Lady thinks you look peaky. I strongly recommend not draining yourself to the point of looking peaky.”
“Mother Night.”
“And may the Darkness be merciful.” Saetan shifted so he no longer pinned her. “But as I said earlier, you should be grateful you never had Ebony-strength blood poured down your throat.” He rolled out of bed. “All right, witchling. Nurian will be back before sunup to take a look at your legs, but she already confirmed that her shields will keep everything protected so you can have a bath beforehand. I expect Daemon and Lucivar to arrive before sunup as well, since they both know you’ll need to sleep during the daylight hours. Karla’s wheeled chair was left outside the room. You can use that until we can arrange to have one built for you.”
“But you said I could air walk!” She didn’t want to be seen in a chair like that, didn’t want her sons thinking about the parts of her legs that weren’t there.
Saetan gave her a dry look. “It’s like anything else, Sylvia. There needs to be a balance between using Craft to move around and using your body. The wheeled chair is practical.” He snarled softly as he came around to her side of the bed. “You were not a vain woman when you were alive. You are
not
going to become vain now that you’re dead.”
Her mouth was still hanging open and her brain was still trying to think of a reply when he flung back the covers, picked her up, and took her into the bathroom.
Ignoring the breakfast breads, ham, and fruit that had been set out for him and Lucivar, Daemon poured himself a second cup of coffee and sat back.
“Let’s begin with the simple and work up to the nasty,” he said.
“Why is Sylvia glaring at me?” Lucivar asked Saetan. “It was only a few drops of Red added to the yarbarah. It’s not like I opened a vein and poured Ebon-gray down her throat. I added a few drops to your glass too, and
you
aren’t acting bitchy about it.”
“I’m going to overlook that poor choice of words,” Saetan replied, giving Lucivar a look that said,
Say another word and I’ll kick your ass.
“Prince Sadi, please report.”
“As I told you last night, Mikal is upset, but he’s fine except for the bruises Tildee’s teeth made on his arm. He and Tildee are staying with Tersa for the time being.”
“I thought my father might want to take him,” Sylvia said, her voice troubled.
Are you hoping he’ll take them, or are you hoping someone will step in and prevent that arrangement?
Daemon wondered. Something wasn’t right between grandfather and grandsons, but he wasn’t going to wade into
that
family quarrel unless Jaenelle wanted him to. “Right now, Mikal has Tildee, Ladvarian, and Jaal protecting him. Your father might be willing to argue with two Scelties, but I don’t think he’ll want to deal with a tiger. So Mikal stays with Tersa, since her response to finding Jaal in her parlor was to send Ladvarian out to buy more milk.”
“And Beron?” Sylvia asked.
Lucivar gave her that lazy, arrogant smile. “He remembered more of his training than you did. But I guess I’ll overlook that, since you’re all weak and helpless now.”
*The Prick sure does know how to rile up women,* Daemon told Saetan as they watched Sylvia change from wounded, vulnerable woman into a pissed-off Queen. *Think she’ll go for his balls?*
*I locked the wheels on her chair after I tasted the yarbarah,* Saetan replied.
“Beron is wounded,” Daemon said. “He’ll need several days of rest and care to fully heal, but he will heal. He’ll stay at the Hall with us until this is settled. He’ll be well protected there. Nothing will get past Kaelas—or me.”
Sylvia looked at each of the men. “Why so much protection? The trouble is in the southern part of Dhemlan, not in Halaway.”
They had reached the nasty part of this report. “We brought Haeze back to the Hall last night. After talking with Rainier this morning, I’m glad I made that choice.” Daemon took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “A Warlord in Little Terreille has been preying on young boys for the past few years. There is even a story whispered in schools near Goth about No Face, a Warlord who tortures and kills boys who slip out at night instead of staying home as they should.” No Face indulged in physical, sexual, and emotional torture, but Daemon saw no reason to tell Sylvia what had been intended for her younger son.
“No Face.” Sylvia turned her hand palm up and stared at her fingers. “He had some kind of mesh covering his face. I thought my fingers were ripped up by it when I was fighting him.”
Saetan cleared his throat. “Nurian was able to heal your fingers before the flesh could no longer respond like it was still living.”
He broke his own rules in order to repair her body this much
, Daemon thought.
He won’t regret that decision, but he isn’t comfortable with having made that choice.
“Some of No Face’s victims might have made the transition to
cildru dyathe
, but more likely, he used them up and made the final kill so there wouldn’t be anyone to bear witness against him.”
“Until now,” Saetan said too softly. “The
cildru dyathe
who have reached Hell in the past few weeks ...” He didn’t glance at Sylvia, but Daemon understood why his father chose not to continue. “The last one was a boy from Dhemlan. Something I wanted to discuss with you, Daemon.”
*Was he mutilated?* Daemon asked on a Black thread.
*Yes.*
“No Face has either grown careless or too confident,” Daemon began.
“Or bored,” Lucivar said, breaking in.
Daemon nodded. “Or bored. The bastard shifted his hunting ground to villages near the Dhemlan border. All of a sudden, village guards in Little Terreille were paying attention and responding faster when a child disappeared. More of a challenge for him, and far more exciting.”
“Then he made the mistake of straying over the border into Dhemlan.” Lucivar helped himself to one of the breakfast breads. “He sees a brown-skinned child and forgets that the Dhemlan people are a long-lived race, and that child probably has lived as many years—or more— than him. That means the child is a little more mature in some ways than other children and may not be as easy to grab. Combine that with an adolescent male who had the luck to become friends with the Queen of Halaway’s son, and the bastard has more trouble than he’s prepared to meet.”
“Haeze soaked in the weapons lessons Lucivar gave the boys, and used his spending money to buy a knife,” Daemon said. “When the District Queen makes some pointed inquiries, I suspect she’ll discover more than one child has gone missing from that village before Haeze came to visit Beron.”
“He wanted to learn to protect himself,” Saetan said.
“More likely, to protect his younger brother,” Lucivar said. “Like Beron, Haeze is too old to be of interest to No Face.”
Daemon glanced at his father. The look in Saetan’s eyes was enough to confirm the age of the children who had reached Hell.
“The invitation,” Sylvia whispered. “The house party was a ruse to bring Mikal within reach. Why lure a boy who lives in a distant village instead of hunting one within reach?”
“We think No Face blames your family for his death and the inconvenience that comes with the physical death,” Daemon said. “Haeze’s younger brother was the intended prey. But when No Face attacked, Haeze rushed in and managed to land a killing blow. Not an instant kill, since the boy was knocked out by a blast of power and his brother was taken, but he changed the battleground. No Face became demon-dead.”
“People in the border villages are going to notice if a Warlord from Little Terreille no longer goes out during daylight or sits down for a meal,” Lucivar said. “Whatever face the bastard hides behind that mesh is no longer going to go unnoticed—and people will start connecting him with the missing children.”
“So his game was spoiled,” Daemon continued. “All because Haeze went to Halaway to visit Beron.”
“Why didn’t Jaenelle’s purge get rid of that monster?” Sylvia asked.
“That witch storm was over a decade ago,” Saetan said, “and it was unleashed to purge the Realms of Dorothea’s and Hekatah’s taint, not eliminate every person who is twisted in some way. If No Face comes from Little Terreille, which sounds likely, he’s from a short-lived race. He may have been young enough then to have avoided any kind of detection, or maybe his taste for this didn’t develop until maturity, when he would have the physical strength to overpower his chosen prey. Maybe he was the one who started the story of No Face to begin with—or maybe something happened to him and he told it as a story at school to hide the truth about a real predator.”
“Do we care about why he kills boys?” Lucivar asked.
“I don’t,” Daemon replied. “I just want to find him and put him in a deep grave.”
Saetan might be willing to wonder if a boy became a monster after being brutalized by one, but
he
had the duty to protect the people of Dhemlan. Until No Face was contained, he had no room for pity.