She felt frightened, feral, and more than a little possessive. Ignoring Helene and the Healer’s assistant as they cleaned her up, Surreal kept her eyes on the man who stood too far away from the bed, cradling
her
child in his arms. She wanted to tear the baby out of his arms—and tear off his arms in the process.
“Drink this,” the Healer said, holding a cup to her lips. “You need to drink this now.”
“Trying to drug me?” She flicked her eyes to the woman’s startled face, then focused again on the man
who wouldn’t even look at her
.
“It’s a tonic to provide you with some quick nourishment. A couple of swallows is all. Your body will use it all up; it won’t get to your milk.”
Milk. The baby needed milk.
“A couple of swallows, Lady,” the Healer said.
She took the cup and drained it.
“There,” Helene said as she smoothed the bedcovers. “You should be able to rest easy now.”
The man immediately looked up, looked at her, and she realized he hadn’t been ignoring her; he’d been giving her privacy while they cleaned her and the bed. Now he watched her as she watched him, but there was wariness in his eyes.
What had she done to make him so wary?
Warlord Prince. Husband. Daemon.
With each word that identified
who
he was, her head cleared a little more and images and sounds flashed by in memory, jumbled and distorted—the pain, the Healer’s encouraging voice, a male voice promising it wouldn’t hurt much longer, the thin cry of a baby, the man lowering her to the pillows and moving toward the child a woman lifted from between her legs, and her sudden attack to keep him, and everyone else, away from her baby. Hands holding her down while she fought and screamed—and the woman, the Healer, rushing to the far side of the room and handing
her
baby to ...
Surreal raised a hand, touched her shoulder, and flinched.
“You’re going to have a few bruises,” the Healer said quietly. “Prince Yaslana wasn’t trying to hurt you, but you had to be restrained for your own safety and the child’s.”
She stared at Daemon. “Was anyone hurt?”
“No,” he said quietly. “But we all learned some things about the Dea al Mon side of your nature.”
He was lying. She could feel it. Someone
had
gotten hurt, but she knew he wouldn’t tell her if she asked him. At least, not right now.
“I’ll be back in a little while to answer any questions you may have,” the Healer said. “For now, why don’t the three of you get acquainted?”
Helene and the Healer’s assistant left through the outer room while the Healer went into the adjoining room, no doubt to report to Lucivar and Marian.
“I guess I must have gone a little insane?” she asked.
“Something like that.” He sat on the edge of the bed near her knees, still wary of her and ready to move out of reach. He also had a shield around himself and the baby so she couldn’t touch either one.
She scraped her fingers through sweat-damp hair. “Hell’s fire, Sadi. What do you want me to say? Things got fuzzy toward the end.”
“Sometimes you’re a scary woman, Surreal.” Daemon studied her. “Still feeling fuzzy?”
“No.” Now she felt scared as she realized how badly she’d unnerved him. He was keeping the baby away from her. Was he going to take her child? Had she done something that made him think she would hurt the child?
Mother Night.
“The baby?”
“She’s fine.”
She.
Daughter. “She has the right number of fingers and toes?”
He smiled. “Yes, she does. I didn’t have a chance to look at everything, but I saw that much.”
We’re both afraid
, she thought.
Both afraid of being shut out by the other. And I don’t know what I did to make him so wary of letting me near my own baby.
“I hadn’t decided on a name for a boy, but I know the name I’d like to give our daughter—with your consent,” she said.
“Unless it’s outlandish, I doubt I’ll have a problem with any name you choose,” he replied.
“Jaenelle Saetien. I would like to name her Jaenelle Saetien in honor of two people who meant a great deal to me.”
Shock. Pain. And then, gratitude. “Are you sure?”
Surreal smiled. “I’m sure.”
She watched his shoulders relax as he studied his daughter.
“Jaenelle say-tee-ehn,” he said, pronouncing the name as she had. Then he gave his girl a loving smile. “Hello, witch-child.”
The right choice, Surreal decided as she watched Daemon relax enough to unwrap the blankets and get a better look at his baby. She wanted to touch them both, and she couldn’t until he trusted her enough to drop his shield.
His eyes wandered leisurely over that small body that had come from hers. Then he studied the head and his expression became bemused.
“Her ears are pointed,” he said softly.
Suddenly self-conscious, Surreal pulled her hair over her own delicately pointed ears.
Daemon’s smile turned soft and silly. He shifted position, moving up so that she could finally see her daughter and share this discovery.
She reached out to move the blanket to get a better look—and couldn’t touch it. He tensed, but he dropped the shield. When she did nothing more than touch the blanket, he relaxed and shifted his body to include her.
“Look,” he said, sounding enchanted. “Her little ears are pointed. She’s going to be beautiful, like you.”
A prick of tears. She blinked them back before he noticed.
Jaenelle began crying. Surreal saw Daemon change in a heartbeat from a soft man to a predator ready to protect his own.
“What’s wrong?” Daemon’s gold eyes were cold and glazed as he raised his head and looked at her.
The temper wasn’t aimed at her, she realized. If he couldn’t deduce what was wrong with his child quickly enough, he expected
her
to point out the problem so that he could take care of it—permanently.
That was the moment she understood that her part of the job wasn’t so much to protect the child as to push Sadi back the necessary half step that would give his girl some breathing room from the instincts that would be honed to a lethal edge from now on.
Uncle Saetan hadn’t had the leash of a partner when he’d raised Jaenelle and stood as the coven’s protector. Looking at Daemon now, she began to appreciate just how formidable the old man’s self-control had been.
“I think she’s hungry,” Surreal said.
A heartbeat. Two. Then Daemon blinked and looked around as if expecting to find a table of food that would appeal to his girl.
Surreal touched his sleeve. When he focused on her, she tapped her chest. “For the next few months, her kitchen is right here.”
He looked at her chest and blinked again. “Oh.”
She held out her arms and waited.
Hesitation. Reluctance. But he finally settled the baby in her arms.
When he sat there, waiting, she turned shy. “I know you’ve seen my breasts before, but this is different.”
Another heartbeat. Two. “You want me to leave?”
She nodded. “Could you ask Marian to come in?”
That request melted whatever resistance he had for leaving her alone with the child. He brushed a finger over the baby’s hand, then leaned over and kissed Surreal with a tenderness that made her heart ache.
“Thank you,” he said.
She grinned. “She is pretty wonderful, isn’t she?”
“She’s her mother’s daughter. How could she be anything else?”
She sat there, stunned by the words, as Daemon slipped out of the room and Marian slipped in.
The moment Daemon stepped into the adjoining room, Lucivar caught him in a hard hug and held on while his brother shook with the effort to control his emotions—and probably control the pain he’d been hiding.
“Is Surreal all right now?” Lucivar asked.
“Yes,” Daemon replied. He eased back enough to rest his forehead against Lucivar’s. “What in the name of Hell happened?”
“Damned if I know. Marian got bitchy during labor, but she settled down once the baby was born. Surreal acted like a wild she-cat, and we were the bad humans trying to take her kitten.” He paused. “How’s the arm?”
“Not bad. The bleeding stopped.” Daemon looked down at his right jacket sleeve. The illusion spell hid the tears and the blood.
“Liar. Come over here and strip down. I’ll wash the arm, and then we’ll have the Healer take care of it.”
“I don’t need—”
“Bastard, what part of that sounded like a choice?”
Daemon stared at him. Lucivar matched the look.
“I’m fine.”
“She ripped your arm open and scared the shit out of you and everyone else in the room. Everyone was focused on taking care of her and keeping the baby safe, and no one’s had a look at how badly you’re hurt. So you’re not fine. Not yet.”
“She won’t hurt the baby,” Daemon said as he followed Lucivar to the table where a basin of steaming water sat beside basic healing supplies.
“She was never going for the baby, old son. She was going for your throat.”
Daemon stripped off his jacket and swore vigorously as Lucivar helped him remove the shirt where it had stuck to the wounds in his upper right arm.
“What did she rip me with?” he asked as he sank into a chair next to the table.
Lucivar looked at the slices in Daemon’s arm. They were deep enough that he wanted the Healer to take care of them and make sure the arm healed properly, but he could clean the wounds to give Daemon time to settle. “An open metalwork glove that had talons honed almost as sharp as my war blade. That must have been something she always kept with her, stored by Craft. I made sure she hadn’t hidden any weapons in the room, but I hadn’t expected her to use Craft so soon after birthing or have something that lethal that she could call in. And I didn’t expect her to attack you.”
“Why did she do that? I haven’t given her a reason to feel hostile toward me. Have I?”
“Surreal didn’t have an easy childhood or a soft life afterward. She saw as much blood, pain, and cruelty as we did in Terreille. Everything has a price, and the price strong witches pay for wearing dark Jewels is more painful moontimes and harder births. I’m guessing the pain and the smell of blood pushed her to someplace in her memories, mixing things up in the end. I don’t think she knew who was with her; you were just a male reaching for her baby. As sure as the sun doesn’t shine in Hell, she didn’t know who I was when I was holding her down to give you and the Healer time to get the baby away from the bed so it wouldn’t get hurt.”
“You don’t think it was just me she wanted to keep away?”
Since they were going to talk, Lucivar smeared a cleansing ointment over Daemon’s wounds. “Nah. I told you. A witch who wears Gray Jewels has to be more careful and work a lot harder to keep a baby in the womb. Surreal has been feeling shaky and protective since the first morning she threw up. During the past few hours, she gave up everything civilized in order to birth this child.”
“Her name is Jaenelle Saetien,” Daemon said.
Lucivar froze for a moment. “Good name. What does Surreal think of it?”
“It was her choice.”
Daemon was starting to sound drunk stupid. Lucivar thought it was a good sign that he was finally, and fully, relaxing. Of course, sounding drunk stupid could indicate that he’d lost more blood than was obvious, and that
wouldn’t
be good.
Stepping into the corridor, Lucivar summoned the Healer to deal with Daemon’s arm while he checked in with Beale, Jazen, and Holt to confirm that nothing needed Daemon’s immediate attention—or his attention, since he figured he’d be handling any problems for the next day or so. They had nothing to tell him except that Tersa, Manny, Mikal, and Beron were now in the family sitting room with Daemonar and Titian. Once everyone had a little time to settle and he was sure Surreal was steady enough to tolerate the rest of the family meeting its newest member, they would all have a chance to coo before he nudged them out to enjoy the celebration dinner.
Surreal didn’t ask the question until Jaenelle finished nursing. Cradling her baby girl, she looked at Marian. “Who did I hurt, and how bad is it?”
Marian turned her head toward the adjoining room’s door. Surreal’s stomach flipped.
“Lucivar?” she asked. “Did I hurt Lucivar?”
“No.” Marian laid a hand on her arm, just above where the baby’s head rested. “Lucivar is fine.”
Surreal stared at the woman who was a sister through marriage. “Daemon.”
Marian hesitated, then nodded. “But he’ll be fine. The Healer’s taking care of him.”