She needed to show him that she loved him, that she desired him. That she didn’t hate him.
But she waited and waited . . . and waited.
She went to the connecting door, wrapped her hand around the handle. What if he didn’t let her in? How could she show him she still wanted him if he locked her out?
Relief filled her when the door opened. No lights were on in the room, but the heavier drapes didn’t cover the glass door that led out to the balcony, so there was enough natural light to see that Daemon was in bed and clearly preparing to sleep in his own room, despite her invitation—and despite his assurance that he wouldn’t turn down an invitation.
“Daemon?” Surreal whispered.
He turned his head. “Something wrong?”
You’re here.
This was dangerous. Potentially lethal. Being in his bedroom invited him to play with her. And if he took offense and thought she was playing with him? He’d warned her—he had—but she couldn’t allow herself to believe he would unleash the Sadist and really hurt her over what amounted to a marital quarrel. If she allowed herself to believe that, she’d run and never stop running.
Slipping into his bed, she leaned over to kiss him as her hand stroked down his chest and headed for the part of him hidden under the covers.
His hand caught hers a moment after she touched the fabric at his waist and realized he was wearing pajama bottoms—something he did only during the winter or at the rare times when he didn’t feel well or when he slept with her doing her moontime, turning a piece of clothing into a visual reassurance that he wasn’t offering, or looking for, anything but her company.
“I’m tired,” he said quietly.
During the whole of their marriage, he had never refused her when she wanted sex or lovemaking. He had never been too tired. Not even when she’d been relentlessly demanding, caught in the addiction his sexual heat had produced. He must have been in pain from the headaches, but he hadn’t denied her his attention. Was he really going to set limits on when he was available to make love?
“Can I stay with you?” she asked, shaken.
A hesitation. “Of course.”
Words politely spoken. In some ways worse than a slap, because it was duty, not desire, that said the words.
He raised his hand. Hopeful, she moved her hand once again to touch him, stroke him, invite him to take pleasure in their bodies coming together. But his hand closed over her wrist again, his touch now so cold it burned.
“No,” he snarled.
All kinds of messages in the finality of that word, and none of them good.
She lay down, far enough away that she wasn’t touching him, but still close enough that if he changed his mind and reached for her, she would be there to tell him without words that she did love him, that she hadn’t meant the things she’d said about him torturing her with sex.
Eventually she fell asleep. When she woke in the still-dark hours of early morning, Daemon was gone. Worse, a quick look through his dresser and dressing room confirmed that he’d taken several sets of clothes with him.
Worse than that, when she found Holt and Beale already awake and working—and pretending they weren’t aware of the potential collapse of her marriage—neither man knew where Daemon had gone. Neither had been given instructions about how to find him. All Daemon had said before he left was they should contact Lucivar if they needed to reach him.
A single ball of witchlight softly illuminated the stone steps that led down to the sunken garden Saetan had built long ago as a place for private meditation. A place meant to offer peace.
Carrying a large mug of coffee heavily flavored with cream and sugar, Surreal walked down the steps. She had never felt peaceful in this garden. Too much grief had been absorbed by the ground for her to feel any peace. That wasn’t why she came to this spot in the Hall.
Ignoring the statue of the crouched male that was a blend of human and animal, she walked over to the fountain where a woman with an achingly familiar face rose out of the water. Then she raised the mug as if to catch someone’s attention.
“I brought you coffee.” Setting the mug on the grass beside the fountain, Surreal raked her fingers through her hair. “Hell’s fire, Jaenelle. I made a mistake, a bad mistake, and I don’t know how to fix it. But how was I to know that—”
The ball of witchlight disappeared. The cool predawn air turned viciously cold. And for just a heartbeat, maybe two, Surreal felt as if she was falling in the abyss, felt as if she was being crushed in body and mind because she was falling deeper than she could possibly survive.
Then a pale light returned and the air was chilly but no longer viciously cold.
Stone and mist. A slab of dark stone that looked like an altar. More slabs that were low enough to be seats.
“What I’m wondering,” said a midnight voice, “is why you ignored the signs and let this go on for so long.”
Chilled to the marrow, Surreal watched the figure shaped out of dreams walk out of the mist.
“Mother Night,” she whispered. “Jaenelle?” She looked around. “Where . . . ?”
“This is the Misty Place.” Witch approached the altar and stood within reach. “Why, Surreal? You’ve never backed down from anything. Why back down because of something that should have been simple? It’s not like you haven’t seen it before.”
The tartness in the words scratched Surreal’s temper enough for her to ignore questions about where she was and if she could get back to the Hall. Focusing on those ancient sapphire eyes allowed her to ignore the rest of Witch’s shape and pretend she was dealing with the friend she remembered. “Let me tell you something, sugar. I’ve never felt like I was being swept away and drowned by a man’s lust. I’ve never felt desperate to ride a cock. So you’ll have to forgive me if I missed the warning signs. And when, in the name of Hell, have I seen this before?”
“You and Rainier were sharing a house when he came into his full prime and went through the same thing,” Witch replied with razor-sharp sweetness. “You shrugged it off despite living with it every day.”
“Rainier did not go through this,” Surreal snarled.
“Of course he did. All the Warlord Princes did. But Rainier wore Opal and you wear Gray, so the increase in his sexual heat rolled off you, barely noticed, let alone acknowledged. Also, you and Rainier weren’t lovers, so you weren’t primed to be aroused by his sexual heat as you are to your lover’s interest in you.” Witch huffed out a sigh. “But even the Gray can’t ignore the Black when the sexual heat’s potency matures, so it’s not surprising you felt swept away. What is surprising is that you and your crossbow didn’t meet Daemon in the bedroom one evening so that you could tell him that something felt wrong before things had gone so wrong.”
“But this fever of sex has opened the door for you to reclaim him, hasn’t it?” Surreal snapped.
She regretted the words the moment she said them.
The air turned so cold it was hard to breathe—and the feeling of pressure being held at bay by something, or someone, reminded her that she was so deep in the abyss that she had no chance of surviving on her own. “Jaenelle . . . My apologies, Lady. Those words were unkind—and untrue.”