Mephis's hand tightened to hold on to his, surprising him.
They had been the beacons he'd followed to find his way out of the Twisted Kingdom. He hadn't wanted to leave. There had been peace there after the baby stopped crying. There had been an absence of pain he knew he wouldn't find in the sane world. But he'd made the journey back because he needed to be with them, needed to be here for them.
His little Warlord Princes. The day would come when they realized who… and what… their father was. And things would change between them. But until that day came, they were his boys, his sons, his joy. He would protect them, no matter the price.
"Papa?" Peyton said. "Would you read us a story?"
He pressed his lips to Peyton's forehead, savoring the contact, just as he savored the feel of Mephis's hand in his. "Yes, my darlings. I'll read you a story."
Kaeleer's Heart
This story takes place after the events in Queen of the Darkness
One
Rage filled him. Love drove him. He and Witch hit the Green web. He rolled, but he didn't have Lucivar's skill. They broke through close to the middle of the web. He kept rolling so that when they hit the Sapphire, they were close to the edge. He rolled the other way, wrapping her in the web's power.
They broke through the Sapphire, but they weren't falling as fast now. He had a little more time to brace, to plan, to pour the strength of his Black jewels into fighting the fall.
They hit the Red, rolled, clung for a second before falling to the Gray. Only half the Gray strands broke immediately. He strained back as hard as he could. When the other half broke, he rolled them upward while the web swung them down toward the Ebon-gray. He pulled against the swing, slowing it, slowing it.
When the other side of the Gray broke, they sailed down to the Ebon-gray. The web sagged when they landed, then stretched, then stretched a little more before the strands began to break.
His Black jewels were almost drained, but he held on, held on, held on as they floated onto the Black web.
And nothing happened.
Shaking, shivering, he stared at the Black web, not quite daring to believe.
It took him a minute to get his hands to unlock from their grip around her ankles. When he was finally able to let go, he floated cautiously above the web. Near her shoulder, he noticed two small broken strands. Very carefully, he smoothed the Black strands over the other colors that cocooned her.
He could barely see her, only just enough to make out the tiny spiral horn. But that was enough.
*We did it, * he whispered. He looked up. He couldn't see his brother and father, but he knew they were still floating in the abyss, exhausted from their own part of this fight to save her. *Lucivar! Priest! We did it!*
Then he looked at Witch … and horror filled him. In that moment of inattention, the Black web's strands had sagged, stretched, started to break. He lunged, trying to grab her. His fingertips brushed against her ankle, but no matter how hard he strained, he couldn't get any closer.
Her eyes opened. Even through the cocoon of webs, they glittered like fine sapphires.
"Daemon." Little more than an exhalation of breath, a sigh. "Daemon."
Then the strands of Black web broke, and she spiraled down into the Darkness and disappeared.
"No." Grief ensnared him, cocooned him in agony. "Noooo!"
Still trembling from the nightmare that had become a familiar companion over the past few months, Daemon Sadi braced his hands against the shower walls and let the hot water sluice over his bowed head.
He loved Jaenelle Angelline with everything in him, had waited all of his seventeen hundred years for the day when he would surrender to Witch and serve her, be her lover. He had dreamed of her, yearned for her, had endured the centuries of being used as a pleasure slave because he had to survive in order to find her. And now…
He was losing her. He didn't know what he'd done, or hadn't done, to cause her feelings for him to change, but he was losing her. There was sadness lurking in the depths of her sapphire eyes whenever he was with her, and with each passing day, she seemed a little more distant, a little more out of reach.
Daemon shook his head. He'd let doubt become a living cry of pain while the kindred were fighting to hold on to Jaenelle and heal her body, and those doubts had cost her dearly. He couldn't afford to let doubt surface again.
Soaping up a washcloth, he scrubbed himself fiercely, as if washing the sweat off his skin could also scour the nightmare from his mind and heart. When he finally shut off the water and toweled himself dry, his body was clean…and his heart still ached.
Going back into the bedroom of the master suite in his family's town house in Amdarh, Dhemlan's capital city, he looked at the bed and hesitated. No. He wouldn't take a chance of the nightmare coming back. Once in a night was more than enough. Besides, he could spend the hours before dawn going over the papers Marcus, his man of business, had delivered to the town house for his review.
During the years when he'd been lost in the Twisted Kingdom and the years he'd remained hidden while he regained his strength and patched together his sanity, Marcus had worked diligently on his behalf. Because of that, much of the wealth he'd accumulated over the centuries had been quietly transferred to investments in various Territories in Kaeleer. That diligence had served Marcus as well, establishing him as a businessman and making it possible for him to bring his wife and young daughter to Kaeleer without having to serve in a Queen's court. Now Marcus and his family also lived in Amdarh, where it was safe for a child to play in the park with her friends, where a woman could walk down the street and not fear the men she passed, where a man wouldn't have to wonder if he would be snatched and maimed for the amusement of a bitch's court.
Using Craft, Daemon turned on the candle-light near the chair and table where he'd left the large stack of papers waiting for his perusal. Between his personal assets and controlling the vast wealth of the SaDiablo family, he had enough work to keep him busy, enough work to fill the hours when Jaenelle…
He reached for the robe at the foot of the bed, then turned away empty-handed to stand in front of the freestanding mirror.
He had the light-brown skin, black hair, and gold eyes that were common to the long-lived races. But his face was beautiful rather than handsome and left women breathless; his deep, cultured voice with its sexual edge could cause a pulse to race; and his body, trim, toned and full of feline grace, made women, and more than one man, crave him. He was seduction in motion, a promise of pleasure to the woman who held his affection and loyalty…and a promise of pain to everyone else who thought to use him in a bed.
He was also a Black Widow, one of the Blood who could wield the Hourglass's Craft of dreams and visions… and poisons. His father had been the first male in the history of the Blood to become a Black Widow. He had been born one, and the venom held in the sac beneath the ring-finger nail of his right hand was deadly. Adding that to the fact that he wore Black Jewels made him the most powerful, and dangerous, male in the history of the Blood, second only to Saetan.
No. Not second. They had taken each other's measure, and they both knew the truth. He might be his father's mirror, but his power was a little stronger, a little darker. And whatever held his father in check from unleashing that power didn't hold him. With the right provocation, there was nothing he couldn't, and wouldn't, do.