But he, gutter-child bastard that he was, glanced at her over the half-moon glasses he'd begun wearing, marked the page in his book, and vanished the glasses before, finally, giving her his full attention.
"Hekatah," he said with pleasant wariness.
Biting back her fury, she strolled around the room. "It's wonderful to see the Hall refurbished," she said, her girlish voice full of the cooing warmth that had once made him cautiously open to her.
"It was time to have it done."
"Any special reason?"
"I thought of giving a demon ball," he replied dryly.
She tipped her chin down and looked up at him through her lashes, not realizing it was a parody of the sulky, sensuous young witch she'd been long centuries ago. "You didn't redo the south tower."
"There was no need. It's been emptied and cleaned. That's all."
"But the south tower has always been my apartment," she protested.
"As I said, there was no need."
She stared at the sheer ivory curtains beneath the tied-back red velvet drapes. "Well," she said, as if giving the matter slow consideration, "I suppose I could take a room in your wing."
"No."
"But, Saetan—"
"My dear, you've forgotten. You've never had an apartment in the Hall in this Realm. You haven't lived in any house I own since I divorced you, and you never will again."
Hekatah knelt beside his chair, pleased by the way the gown pooled around her, one shimmering wing of her sleeve draped across his legs. "I know we've had our differences in the past, but, Saetan, you need a woman here now." She could have shouted with triumph as his eyebrow rose in question and a definite spark of interest showed in his eyes.
He raised one hand and stroked her still-black hair, flowing long and loose down her back. "Why do I need a woman now, Hekatah?" he asked in a gentle, husky voice.
His lover's voice. The voice that always enraged her because it sounded so caring and weak. Not a man's voice. Not her father's voice. Her father would never have coaxed. He would never have allowed her to refuse him. But he had been a Hayllian Prince, one of the Hundred Families, as proud and arrogant as any Blood male, and not this . . .
Hekatah lowered her eyes, hoping Saetan hadn't seen, again, what she thought of him. All that power. They could have ruled all of Terreille, and Kaeleer too, if he'd been the least bit ambitious. Even if he'd been too lazy, she could have done it. Who would have dared challenge her with the Black backing her? He wouldn't even do that. Wouldn't even support her in Dhemlan, his own Territory. Kept her leashed to Hayll, where her family had enough influence to make her the High Priestess. All that power wasted in a thing that had to give himself a name because his sire didn't think the seed fit enough to claim. But Terreille would be hers yet, even if she had to use a weak little puppet like Dorothea to get it.
"Why do I need a woman now?" Saetan's voice, less gentle now, called her back.
"For the child, of course," she replied, turning her head to press a kiss into his palm.
"The child?" Saetan lifted his hand and steepled his fingers. "One of our sons has been demon-dead for 50,000 years, and you, my dear, probably know better than anyone where the other one lies."
Hekatah drew in her breath with a hiss and exhaled with a smile. "The girl child, High Lord. Your little pet."
"I have no pets, Priestess."
Hekatah hid her clenched fists in her lap. "Everyone knows you're training a girl child to serve you. All I'm trying to point out is she needs a woman's guidance in order to fulfill your needs."
"What needs are those?"
Hekatah smacked the arm of the chair. "Don't play word games with me. If the girl has any talent, she should be trained in the Craft by her Sisters. What you do with her afterward is your concern, but at least let me train her so she won't be an embarrassment."
Saetan eased out of the chair, went to the long windows, and pulled the sheer curtains aside for a clear view of Hell's ever-twilight landscape. "This doesn't concern you, Hekatah," he said slowly, his voice whispering thunder. "It's true I've accepted a contract to tutor a young witch. I'm bored. It amuses me. If she's an embarrassment to someone, it's no concern of mine." He turned from the window to look at her. "And no concern of yours. Leave it that way. Because if you persist in making her your concern, a great many things I've overlooked in the past are going to become mine."
Saetan dropped the edge of the curtain, flicked the folds back into place, and left the room.
Using the chair for support, Hekatah got to her feet, drifted to the windows, and studied the sheer curtains. She reached up slowly.
Selfish bastard. There were ways around him. Did he think after all this time she didn't know his weak spot? It had been such good sport to watch him squirm, the great High Lord chained by his honor, as those two sons she'd helped Dorothea create were battered year after year, century after century. They hate you now, High Lord. What bastard doesn't hate the sire who won't claim him?
The half-breed had been a bonus. Who could have anticipated Saetan having so much fire and need left? Fine, strapping boys, and neither one capable of being a man. At least the half-breed could get it up, which was a great deal more than anyone could say for the other.
With her help, Dorothea had gotten the strong, dark SaDiablo bloodline returned to Hayll. Waiting until Daemon's Birthright Ceremony to break the contract with Saetan had been a risk, but that was the time when paternity was formally acknowledged or denied. Up to that point, a male could claim a child as his, could do everything a father might do for his offspring. But until he was formally acknowledged, he had no rights to the child. Once the acknowledgment was made, however, a male child belonged to his father.
Which had been the problem. They had wanted the bloodline, but not the man. Having watched him raise two sons, Hekatah had known from the beginning that any child who grew up under Saetan's hand could never be reshaped into a male who would give his strength for her ambitions. She had thought that, since he visited each boy for only a few hours a week, his influence would be diluted, that the mark he would leave on them wouldn't begin until they were his and he began their training in earnest.
She'd been wrong. Saetan had already planted his code of honor deep in the boys' minds, and by the time she had realized that, it was too late to lead them down another path. Without knowing why, they had fought against anything that didn't fit that code of honor until the fighting, and the pain and the punishment, had shaped them, too.
And now there was this girl child.
Five years ago, she'd sensed a strange, dark power on the cildru dyathe's island. Ever since then, she'd been following whispered snippets of talk, leads that faded to nothing. The tangled webs she'd created had only shown her dark power in a female body, the kind of power that, if it were molded and channeled the right way, could easily control a Realm.
It had taken five years to discover that Saetan was training the child, which infuriated her. That girl should have been hers from the start, should have been an emotionally dependent tool that would have fulfilled all of her dreams and ambitions. With that kind of power at her disposal, nothing—and no one—could have stopped her.