He meant it. All of it.
“I don’t think that’s where sense is stored,” she said, trying for a lighter tone.
“You’d be surprised how much sense can be acquired when it hurts to sit down,” he replied dryly. Then he gave her a lazy, arrogant smile that had her nerves humming. “Let’s review the rules.”
She would have rolled her eyes if it had been anyone else saying that, but he was the Warlord Prince of Ebon Rih and he wore Ebon-gray Jewels, which made him the most powerful male in the Territory of Askavi—and the second most powerful male in the entire Realm of Kaeleer. No one rolled their eyes at him.
“I know the rules,” she said.
“Then you won’t have any trouble repeating them.” His smile had an edge now, warning her that he would ignore all his duties and they would stand out there all day if that was what it took for her to answer him.
She sighed. “Look equals tell. Touch equals tell. Permission before action.” That last rule made her very uneasy, because she’d broken it—but just a little. And not intentionally. Not really.
If she said anything now, after the fact, Tamnar would get into trouble, and he didn’t deserve Yaslana’s anger. Not for something that had barely broken the rule.
She eyed him and wondered if he already knew about the barely broken rule.
“Something else you want to tell me?” Yaslana asked.
“No, sir,” she said quickly. Too quickly?
He studied her until she wanted to squirm, then said, “If someone tries to hurt you, what are you going to do?”
He’d asked that same question decades ago when he found out Falonar had strapped her, so she gave him the same answer. “Kick him in the balls.”
Yaslana huffed out a breath that might have been a laugh. “Before that.”
She pretended to ponder the question. “Put a defensive shield around myself and holler for you?”
“That is correct. And then, witchling, you fight with everything in you until I can get to you. You understand me?”
“Yes, sir.”
Yaslana looked toward the eyrie. “Did you get any breakfast?”
“No, sir.”
“Then go eat.” He lifted his chin to indicate Daemonar and Titian, who were heading into the eyrie. “You can do some sparring after school.”
Jillian turned toward the eyrie, then hesitated. “I brought another bottle of tonic for Lady Marian.”
“It’s appreciated.”
She took a step away from him and felt something wash over her—a heat that made her nipples tighten, that made her feel warm and tingly between her legs. That heat was almost a scent in the air. Sheer intoxication, like catnip for human females.
She knew what it was—not because she’d felt it before, but because Nurian had told her about it when she had wondered why some women acted . . . odd . . . when Yaslana and Marian attended a play or some other public event.
“Jillian?” Yaslana sounded puzzled and—maybe?—wary.
She gave him a distracted smile and bolted for the eyrie.
Sexual heat. It was part of a Warlord Prince’s nature, something he could keep leashed to some degree, but it was always there, a lure designed to attract females, because Warlord Princes were dangerous, volatile, extremely aggressive men who were born to stand on killing fields. A Queen’s living weapon. A man like that was feared, but a man like that also needed a way to keep a woman with him in order to sire children and continue his bloodline.
Nurian said Warlord Princes usually kept the heat leashed as much as possible when they weren’t with their chosen lovers, but it still pumped out of them, washing over everyone, producing a kind of scent that made women feel womanly—and desirable. But that leashed heat was no more an invitation to sex or an indication of carnal interest than the scent of moon’s blood was an invitation to attack a woman during the days when she was vulnerable and couldn’t use the reservoir of power in her Jewels to defend herself.
When she reached the eyrie, Jillian looked back. Yaslana was going through the movements of the warm-up—and he looked wonderful. He looked like a man.
She blinked, felt her face burn with shame for thinking such a thing. He was Yaslana, the Warlord Prince of Ebon Rih. She worked for his wife. And until today, she had never thought such a thing about him.
Until today, when she felt the sexual heat for the first time. He wasn’t any different than he’d been yesterday. She was the one who had changed. Warlord Princes didn’t pick up the scent of moon’s blood until they reached a level of maturity during adolescence, so it stood to reason that a level of physical maturity was also required before a girl—a woman—reacted to a Warlord Prince’s sexual heat.
Woman.
Jillian smiled.
Swelling breasts and moon’s blood were signposts that a girl was becoming a woman. She had a feeling that today she had just reached another significant signpost.
Then she was in the kitchen and in the middle of the noise and chaos that made up mornings in the Yaslana household and didn’t give the man another thought for the rest of the day.
Lucivar went through the warm-up a second time, increasing the speed of the moves. Normally he’d be in the kitchen helping Marian feed the children and get them ready for school. But he’d seen something in Jillian a few minutes ago that kept him outside.
The girl had been running tame in his house ever since Nurian signed a service contract with him decades ago and came to Ebon Rih, claiming her younger sister, Jillian, as her dependent. He’d been busy getting the Eyrien adults settled and couldn’t say exactly when Jillian became Marian’s “helper” in looking after Daemonar. His boy had been a toddler then—an ever-moving bundle of arrogance and energy—and having Jillian around to keep hold of the little beast had allowed Marian to get some of her own work done.
Didn’t take long for him to stop seeing the girl as someone else’s dependent. Sure, she’d gone home most nights, but she was in his home so much she became his to protect—an honorary daughter in the same way his father had been an honorary uncle to most of the Territory Queens in Kaeleer.
Now he wondered if that was going to be a problem.
The potency of sexual heat was linked to the power that flowed in the veins and made the Blood who and what they were. The darker a Warlord Prince’s power, the more potent the heat. It made a kind of sense for preserving the darker bloodlines and keeping a woman in thrall long enough to make a baby and carry through all the years after until paternal rights to that child were formally granted. But it could be damned inconvenient the rest of the time, since a man let the heat slip the leash in order to seduce a lover and give her a very good ride, but even leashed, it could create too much unwanted interest from other women.
Unlike his brother, Daemon, who could seduce anyone and everyone just by walking through a room, he hadn’t had to deal with much unwanted interest for one very simple reason: he had a reputation for being violent and vicious in bed—a reputation he had earned when he’d been a slave in so many courts in Terreille. The stories of how he’d savaged the Queens who had tried to use him had found their way to Kaeleer with the people who had emigrated to the Shadow Realm. Because of that, he was feared more than other Warlord Princes. Women might enjoy the feel of the heat as he passed by, but they were also grateful that he had a wife and wouldn’t look in their direction.
Jillian wasn’t afraid of him, and that could be a problem. He hoped she would be able to accept the sexual heat as something that had always been there but was only now being noticed, and shrug it off the same way all the Queens who had been part of Jaenelle Angelline’s coven had shrugged it off. If the girl couldn’t ignore it, he’d have to bar her from his home to keep her from making a lethal mistake.