“It’s done?” Beale asked.
“Yes, it’s done. Saetan is a whisper in the Darkness.”
“Then please accept our condolences.”
“Thank you, Beale. And please tell Mrs. Beale that I appreciate her preparing something for Lady Surreal and me so late in the evening.”
“I’ll tell her. Holt is staying with your mother and Mikal tonight. Lady Tersa has been . . . distracted . . . today, and since there is no journeymaid staying with her at the moment, we thought it best if someone was at the cottage.”
“I agree. I should have thought of it myself when Tersa decided not to come with us.” Daemon glanced at the clock on the mantel. “There’s no point disturbing them tonight. I’ll talk to Tersa and Mikal tomorrow. And Manny.” He’d have to walk carefully around his chat with Manny. She’d been feeling her years lately and had begun fussing about what would happen to the Blood who became demon-dead when Saetan no longer ruled Hell. “Do you agree?”
If Beale was surprised to be asked the question, he didn’t show it. “Yes . . . Prince. I agree.”
High Lord.
The title hung in the air between them, proving that Beale had been aware of a great many things these past years and had kept his own counsel.
“For now, it will remain Prince Sadi,” Daemon said, then added silently,
At least in public and in this Realm.
“Understood.”
Surreal emerged from the bathroom a moment after Beale left the sitting room, making Daemon suspect that she’d waited in order to avoid the butler.
“Any better?” he asked gently.
She shook her head. “Sadi? Could I stay here with you tonight?”
He’d been reaching for one of the covers on the dishes. He stopped and looked at her. “Of course you can stay. Your suite is always ready for you.”
She swallowed hard. “No. Could I stay with you tonight?”
He stared at her, sure he’d misunderstood.
“I don’t want to be alone.” She let out a watery laugh as the tears started again. “There are probably a hundred people in this house, so it’s not like being
alone
. . .”
Yes, it is
, he thought. He’d been surrounded by those people too, but he’d still felt painfully alone after Jaenelle died. And still felt alone most of the time—and still sometimes had the dream where he looked in a mirror and saw the hole in his chest where his heart had been.
“Surreal.” He put his arms around her, wanting to give her some measure of the comfort she was seeking—and found some comfort when she wrapped her arms around him.
My father is dead.
The two people who had truly understood him in ways no one else ever could were gone.
He brushed his lips over her temple and felt something inside him stir. It had been so long since he’d held someone, and even longer since he’d dared hold someone when he was feeling vulnerable.
His lips traveled down her cheek, and he tasted tears. When he started to pull back, she kissed his jaw, then his mouth. A soft kiss, asking for nothing but contact.
Then her mouth warmed, moved, asked for more. And he gave her more because it felt so good to hold someone again.
With each brush of their bodies, something in him stirred, wanted, needed,
yearned.
But he started to pull away because she’d asked for comfort and not . . .
“Daemon.” Surreal took his face in her hands. “Freely given, freely taken. Just for tonight. So neither of us will be alone tonight. All right?”
She wasn’t a child, and the dream he’d waited for had come and gone.
My father is dead.
He allowed himself a moment to consider nothing except what he needed tonight.
“Come with me.” Clasping her hand, he led her out of the sitting room, not sure where he was going, not caring where he was going as long as they ended up in a room with a bed.
Except when he reached the first available room, he hesitated, and then bared his teeth in a snarl before he moved on, searching for something because now it was more than a desire for comfort and sex driving him, and that
something
was tangled around this particular woman.
By the time he found the room that felt right, he didn’t know where he was in the Hall and he didn’t care. It had a bed, and it had her. Heat pulsed in his veins, but it burned in her too because she tore at his shirt in order to touch skin, and her purr of satisfaction as she ran her hands over his chest and shoulders tripped something inside him. A moment before, he’d been pulling at her clothes too. Now he became savagely gentle, letting her strip him down before he used Craft to cuff her hands behind her back.
“Sadi,” she snarled.
Using Craft, he pulled back the covers and plumped up the pillows.
“Want me?” he purred.
Aroused past prudence, she tried to bite him.
He laughed, but he said, “Do that again, and the only thing you’ll get is a cold shower.”
She swore at him but let him coax her into bed. Then she swore some more while he played with her, stroking, petting, kissing, and licking until she was too caught up in sensation to form words. He gave her small climaxes that eased the need without eliminating the need, and enjoyed the slow emergence of her skin as he removed her clothing piece by piece.
Finally he released her hands and slid into her, relishing each moan and plea for more. So he gave her more. And then, when he couldn’t hold back his own need for release, he gave her everything.
Surreal drifted up to awareness. For the first time in weeks, maybe longer, she felt relaxed, easy. There was some soreness, but that was to be expected since she hadn’t had a man inside her for three years. She suspected she would find a few bruises from the times when Sadi had edged into rough play, but nothing she hadn’t asked for—and he probably had a few bruises of his own from her hands and teeth.
She hoped he wasn’t going to get pissy when he saw them.
She wanted to float a while longer, keeping her thoughts confined to the delicious feel of the bed and Daemon’s hand resting on her belly, warm and heavy. But when she opened her eyes ...
Her vision had been so tear-blurred last night, and Sadi had taken them through so many corridors to find a discreet bedroom, she hadn’t known where they ended up. And last night the room hadn’t mattered, as long as it had a bed or sofa. Hell’s fire, last night she wouldn’t have cared if they’d ended up on the floor. But now ...
His psychic scent was much too prominent for this to be a seldom-used bedroom. Maybe this was the bedroom he used when a woman stayed overnight for sex? The thought cut, but she’d asked for something they both needed last night, and she’d told him it was freely given. So she couldn’t quibble now if he hadn’t seen it differently from the other sex he’d had since he’d been anyone’s lover. Even if those other women hadn’t recognized the difference, she’d lived around him long enough to know that Daemon as a sex partner, even when he was giving great sex, paled in comparison with Daemon as a lover.
That thought added a wash of sadness over her contentment. Better to slip out now and go back to her suite to clean up and maybe get another hour of sleep. She would meet him at the breakfast table as if they’d parted company in the family sitting room and spent the night in their own beds.
She started to shift, to slide out from under his hand. Except the fingers suddenly pressed down on her belly and the nails pricked in warning.
“Going somewhere?” Daemon crooned as he rose up on one elbow and looked down at her.
It was still too dark to see his face, his eyes. But that particular timbre in the deep voice had her heart racing. She knew the Sadist’s voice when she heard it.
His hand didn’t actually press down on her belly, but it felt heavier, more ... possessive.
Then he turned back the covers for her at the same time a light appeared through a half-closed door on the opposite side of the room. Enough light to see the room—and to see his eyes.
Not quite the Sadist. But not Daemon either. He was riding a side of his nature that was somewhere between the two.
She slipped out of bed and walked into the bathroom, too aware that a predator watched her and was considering if she too was a predator and required careful handling or if she was prey.
She used the toilet, then let water run in the sink to wash her face and stall for time.
They weren’t in a guest room. She’d seen enough to realize the room was too personal to be any kind of guest room. His bedroom, then. The Consort’s suite, since he hadn’t moved out of the room next to Jaenelle’s. A swift, careful probe confirmed he’d put Black shields in the walls and Black locks on the doors. No way for her to get out of this room until he let her go.
Mother Night.
A Warlord Prince’s bedroom is his private place, and he tends to be more possessive when he’s there. So if you’re invited into his bedroom, you want to be more careful in how you deal with him.
At the time, Surreal had thought Jaenelle’s mind had begun wandering because of old age, especially because those kinds of comments had usually come when they were alone and working on some chore not even remotely related to the subject matter.
Which was why all those comments had stuck in her mind.
“Hell’s fire,” Surreal whispered as she dried her face. Jaenelle’s mind hadn’t wandered. She’d been giving lessons in a way that wouldn’t be resisted—and wouldn’t be forgotten.
Damned if he understood why they had ended up here, except that he’d needed to have her in this room, in this bed.
You’re only eighteen hundred years old, Daemon. You are not going to spend the rest of your life celibate.
You don’t think I can?
he’d crooned.
I know you can. That’s why I want you to promise me that you won’t. No one will think you’re being unfaithful if you find another lover after the year of mourning. You’re not going to spend the rest of your life without that kind of companionship or comfort. If you’re not comfortable accepting that as a request from your wife, consider it a command from your Queen.
Cornered. He hadn’t liked making that promise, and he hadn’t liked the sex much. Even when he’d enjoyed it physically, he hadn’t liked it much because of the expectations that always seemed to shroud the bed. And because he usually dreamed about Hekatah and Dorothea afterward. He didn’t need more of a reminder than that of what could happen if a man got careless and had sex with a woman who rode a cock in order to ride ambition.
Besides, something had been missing from the bed with the women he’d pleasured that had made even the best sex a disappointment for him.
That elusive something wasn’t missing last night, though.
The water in the bathroom shut off, and his attention sharpened.
He’d have to think about why last night was different. Later.
Daemon hadn’t moved at all during her time in the bathroom.
“It’s early,” he crooned. “Come back to bed.”
Not a lot of choices.
She slipped into bed, not sure what to expect. Arousal was dominant in his psychic scent, so she wouldn’t have been surprised if he’d rolled on top of her. After all, he was the dominant male in Kaeleer, and that much power had privileges no other male could claim.
Instead, he pulled the covers up high enough to cover her breasts. Then his fingers lightly stroked her hair, combing it away from her face.
“How are you?” he asked, his voice still in that dangerous croon.
“All right.”
“Sore?”
“A little.” She didn’t dare so much as tweak the truth. Not with him. Not now.
His fingers drifted to her temple, down her jaw, over her neck and shoulders. So light. So delicate.
Her heart stopped racing as she relaxed under that delicate touch. When he eased the covers down to her hips, she didn’t protest, barely noticed because those fingers kept drifting along her skin, making her float.
A brush of thumb over hard nipple made her whimper—and whimper even louder because he stopped touching.
“Pain?” he asked. Then his mouth closed over that nipple, and what he did with his tongue stopped just shy of pain. “Stop?”
She curled her fingers in his hair to hold him in place. “Not if you want to live.” It was meant as a growl but came out a different kind of whimper.
After he gave her breasts sufficient attention, he kissed her mouth, hot and full. Then he said, “Do you want more, or do you want to leave?”
It took her a moment to realize she understood the words. He could sense her arousal, psychic and physical, but if she said she wanted to leave, he would release the lock on the door and let her go with no protest, no show of temper or disappointment. When a man belonged to the most dangerous caste of male, a display of temper in bed could be seen as coercion far too easily.