٭He won’t be when I kill him flatter than dead.٭
Flatter than dead had become a family catchphrase that indicated annoyed relief rather than true anger at a child’s misbehavior.
٭We’re going to stop for a hot drink and something to eat before returning to the eyrie,٭ Daemon said.
٭Going to fortify him for the scolding when he gets home?٭ Lucivar asked dryly.
٭As an indulgent uncle, what else would I do?٭ Why did he get the impression that Lucivar was relieved to have him away from the eyrie a while longer?
No questions about where the boy had been found. There was no need. Lucivar would know everything when they talked later that day.
“Come on, boyo,” Daemon said. “We’ll stop at The Tavern for some soup.”
“And hot chocolate?”
He should withhold the treat as a penalty for upsetting the adults, but today an occasionally indulgent uncle would learn more than a strict one. “And hot chocolate.”
Surreal hung her clothes in the wardrobe and tucked her underwear in one of the dresser drawers before turning to Tersa. “Would you like me to help you unpack?”
Tersa dropped her travel bag next to the dresser. “The boy is sleeping in another room?”
“Yes. You and I are sharing this room.” And a bed, since none of the guest rooms at the eyrie had two beds. She could squeeze a daybed into the room, but those were being used by Manny, who was staying in the baby’s room, and Jillian, who was staying with Titian. Lucivar had said nothing when she told him she would stay with Tersa. Maybe he had his own concerns about a broken Black Widow staying in an unfamiliar place without someone close by who would know if she woke up and wandered out of the eyrie. They were on a mountain, after all.
Lucivar hadn’t asked why she didn’t intend to sleep with her husband, an indifference she put down to his being preoccupied with Marian’s illness and Daemonar’s disappearance. She wasn’t sure what Daemon was going to say about the sleeping arrangements.
She found out an hour later when Daemon and Daemonar returned.
“Is Daemonar all right?” she asked, staying just a step away from the door of the primary guest room while Daemon hung up the clothes Jazen had packed for him.
“He just needed some private time to think,” Daemon replied.
He didn’t look at her, but she could feel that sexual heat drifting toward her—a lure to compel her to give in to something she wanted to resist while they were at the eyrie. They weren’t here for him to play his games. They were here to help his brother.
“You’re sleeping elsewhere?” he asked mildly.
“Tersa came with us. Someone needs to keep an eye on her, and Manny is looking after the baby.”
“You should do what you think best.”
Something under those bland words. Something that might be dangerous.
“I do think it’s best while we’re here,” she said, her voice sharp before she regained enough control to remember that courtesy was the way most of the Blood survived interacting with the most dangerous among them. “I’ll let you finish unpacking while I figure out what to do with all the food that’s arriving.”
He turned and looked at her. She couldn’t interpret what she saw in his gold eyes, but the door closing as soon as she stepped into the corridor—and the click of the lock—expressed his feelings quite well.
Dressed in the flannel sleep pants he occasionally wore on cold winter nights, Daemon put a warming spell on the sheets before settling into bed. Just as well that Surreal had chosen to sleep elsewhere. If she’d stayed with him, she’d want sex, and he wasn’t in the mood to oblige her.
His smile was sharp and a little bitter when someone knocked on the Black-locked door. Then Lucivar said, ٭Bastard?٭
After creating a dim ball of witchlight that floated near the ceiling, he released the Black lock and sat up as Lucivar walked into the room and closed the door.
“Problem?” he asked.
Lucivar stared at a spot on the wall just past Daemon’s shoulder. “I can’t sleep in that bed. Not tonight.”
His arrogant Eyrien brother seldom hesitated, but they both knew who had to extend the invitation.
Daemon lay back and raised his right arm. Lucivar came around to that side of the bed and tucked in beside him, laying his head on Daemon’s shoulder. How many times had they slept this way over the years when one of them was wounded in body or heart? Protection and comfort. A silent promise that the one who was hurting more could rest because the other would keep watch.
Tonight that was Lucivar.
Daemon said nothing. Whatever was happening to Marian they would face together. As his fingers drifted through Lucivar’s hair, he added a soothing spell that would ease his brother into needed sleep.
Once Lucivar fell asleep, Daemon allowed himself to drift toward his own rest. Then the door opened and Daemonar hurried in. The boy didn’t even blink when he saw his father and uncle together. If anything, he looked relieved—and piled onto the bed, fitting himself against Daemon’s other side.
“All the girls have someone to sleep with,” Daemonar whispered. Then he yawned, made a snuffling sound, and went alarmingly limp.
Before Daemon could decide if the boy was ill or really fell asleep that fast, Lucivar reached across and wrapped a hand around the boy’s arm, a move so ingrained that neither Eyrien woke—and Daemon relaxed.
When Lucivar took Daemonar hunting on the mountain, he probably allowed the boy a lot of freedom to learn—and to make small mistakes. But at night, when they both needed sleep and the boy might make a potentially fatal move? Daemon imagined Lucivar kept a hand on his son as protection and would wake immediately if he sensed anything wrong.
Someday, when baby Andulvar was old enough to join them, he would sleep between father and elder brother, protected by both.
And hopefully, when that day came, they would return to the eyrie after a hunt to find Marian working in her garden or reading a book, whole and healthy and able to welcome them home.
Marian stood under the cascade of warm, soft black water. The song, that familiar voice, seemed to fall with the water, seeping into her skin, down into her muscles, through her bones right into the marrow.
She wasn’t sure how long she stood under the water before she felt something trickle between her legs. Alarmed, she started to reach for herself when she noticed a fine black silt dripping from the ends of her fingers.
Stay, the voice sang. Stay until the water runs clear. Stay until what doesn’t belong is washed away.
She felt a tickle, a trickle along her scalp, and tipped her head back to let the black water wash more silt away. And as she listened to the song, she stayed beneath the black water that washed away what didn’t belong.
FOURTEEN
Propped on one elbow, Dillon watched the woman sleep.
He hadn’t been looking for anyone during the days of Winsol, and it had taken him a couple of days to realize the witch who was a decade older than he had focused on him for more than brief conversation. He hadn’t thought much of her interest in him until she began sharing her sad tale about the lover who had jilted her. They had been handfasted and were going to marry, were going to have children and be together forever. But he’d abandoned her, had packed up his things and had left one minute after the handfast expired.
After being with her a couple of days, Dillon didn’t blame her former lover for running. He’d accepted her invitation for “company”—which, it turned out, had meant sex—because he was lonely and still hurting from his own family’s rejection during the days of the Blood’s most important celebration. In the days since then, he’d likened her to one of those plants that ensnared its prey and then sucked the life out of it.