“The butler,” Krellis sneered. “True aristos don’t take orders from servants. Then again, your mother is probably used to taking orders from all kinds of men.”
“You’re the one who foolishly gave your word,” Delora said with a sniff. “If there’s a problem—”
“I’ll forfeit my Jewel—and so will you and all your friends,” she snapped.
Delora looked startled—and, finally, just a little frightened. “He was bluffing. He wouldn’t do that to his daughter because of a few extra people at a party.”
“My father doesn’t bluff.” Jaenelle Saetien caught a glimpse of Clayton and one of Zoey’s friends slipping out the door on the other side of the sitting room. She looked at Krellis. “And you should know that any male who has sex at the Hall without my father’s permission will be skinned alive. He doesn’t bluff about that either.”
She hurried out of the sitting room. She’d been so stupid. Whatever Delora had in mind for this house party, it wasn’t to mend any differences with Zoey.
And yet . . . If Delora came after her and apologized for dismissing her concerns and made the boys’ arrival sound reasonable, would she be able to resist the glitter and excitement that was Delora and align herself with Zoey, who had such prosaic ideas of fun?
“Maybe this wasn’t a good idea,” Krellis said.
“There are too many guards at the school. This was the best chance of taking care of Insipid Zoey and some of her friends,” Delora said. “And no one knows you left the school. You paid the gatekeeper enough to keep him quiet?”
Krellis nodded. “But I want to be gone before—”
“Hell’s fire,” one of the boys said, pushing against something that blocked the open window. “There are shields over the windows! We can’t get out that way.”
“Well, I guess I have to persuade my ‘friend’ that I’ve seen the error of my ways and get her to convince the butler to open the door and let you leave,” Delora said.
Hespera shook her head. “Insipid went into the dining room. By now she’ll be needing whatever Krellis wants to give her.”
Delora smiled and gave Krellis an arch look. “How long does it really take for you to get the job done?”
Finding nothing amiss at the school for half-Bloods, Daemon still sent commands to the District Queens and their Masters of the Guard to be alert to any attempts to attack the girls in their villages.
As he strode toward the landing web, he felt Surreal tap his first inner barrier with a Gray psychic thread.
*Anything?* he asked.
*Nothing,* she replied. *It was a ruse.*
*We had to be sure.*
Then a midnight, sepulchral voice full of feral, icy rage filled his mind before he could break the link with Surreal. *Daemon, you’re needed at the Hall. Now.*
*Mother Night,* Surreal whispered.
Daemon broke the link with Surreal as gently as he could. If something had provoked Witch’s temper and she was giving him that command, he knew which aspect of his own temper needed to reply, and it wasn’t the Warlord Prince of Dhemlan or the High Lord of Hell.
It was the Sadist.
Beale looked at the two shadows Prince Sadi had left with him, to be used if that kind of protection was needed. One was a shadow of Kaelas, the eight-hundred-pound Arcerian cat who had been a Red-Jeweled Warlord Prince. The other shadow was Jaal, who had been a Green-Jeweled Warlord Prince—and a six-hundred-pound tiger.
He opened his first inner barrier and offered the shadows and the four Scelties careful images of Ladies Zoela and Titian and the other girls he’d identified as their friends. “These witches need protection. Find them. Take them to Helene.” He offered an image of the Hall’s housekeeper so they would know her on sight. “Capture but don’t kill any males who are with the girls and don’t serve this house.”
“We will find the human females,” the Sceltie Warlord Prince said.
Dogs and cats left the servants’ dining room, the only place in this part of the Hall that was large enough to hold cats that size—after Beale vanished the table and chairs.
He remembered the real Kaelas and Jaal and had no illusions about what he’d unleashed in the Hall. The Scelties would herd the girls to safety, and the shadows would capture any males they found wandering where they didn’t belong. But if any of those girls showed fear of the boy who was with them . . .
Well, everything had a price.
*Lucivar. You’re needed at the Hall. Now.*
Hearing that midnight voice, Lucivar abandoned the game of hawks and hares he’d been playing with young Andulvar, walked out of the family room in his eyrie, and headed for the front door. He wasn’t surprised that the command had come, but the location troubled him.
“Lucivar?” Marian hurried after him.
Feeling an icy calm settle over him, Lucivar called in the double-buckle fighting belt that Eyriens wore in battle. He slipped the fighting knife in the sheath and then sheathed the palm-sized knife between the belt buckles. Two more knives went into sheaths in his boots.
“Lucivar . . . ?”
“Trouble at the Hall.” Leather gauntlets closed over his wrists and forearms before he used Craft to fit the light leather vest and chain mail over the shirt he’d been wearing for an evening at home.
“But Titian’s there,” Marian said.
He looked at his wife, saw her coat a mother’s fear with a woman’s courage. “I know.”
*Rothvar,* he called to his second-in-command. *There’s trouble at SaDiablo Hall. Put the men on alert in case that trouble is meant to draw me away from here.*
*I’ll bring Nurian and our children to your eyrie. Easier to defend all of them that way,* Rothvar replied.
“Bring Titian home, Lucivar,” Marian said.
He nodded and walked out of the eyrie, still wrapped in an icy calm. That would crack soon enough, and when it did, his hot, volatile temper would be another weapon on a killing field.
Except . . .
Won’t get there in time. Not from here. Not even riding the Ebon-gray Winds will get me there in time to protect my girl.
Then he saw it, felt it, the crack and sizzle of power that dwarfed his own.
Black lightning.
Only once had Jaenelle Angelline offered him the terrifying and thrilling experience of riding black lightning with her. It wasn’t like the Winds, which were set out in webs with predictable tether lines and radial lines. Black lightning ran deeper than the Black Winds and was so much faster. But it was dangerous because there was no way to predict the shape of each bolt and no way to recover from a miscalculation. He could die making this run.
But it might get him to the Hall in time to save Titian.
*Thank you, Lady,* he said on an Ebon-gray thread.
He launched himself skyward and caught the Ebon-gray Wind. Then he deliberately flung himself off that Web and fell in the Darkness, just catching the edge of the next bolt of black lightning.
Using all his strength and skill, Lucivar rode the lightning to SaDiablo Hall.
Holt walked toward one of the Warlord intruders and the girl who was trying to free herself from the bastard’s tight hold on one arm while he rubbed the knuckles of her hand.
“If you loved me,” the boy began.
“Can I help?” Holt interrupted, not looking at the girl or breaking his stride.
The Warlord scowled at him. “Just go about your business.”
“I will.” Holt smiled as he took a last step, grabbed the Warlord’s shirt, and turned his fist so that the Jewel in his ring pressed against the bastard’s chest. Then he unleashed a jolt of power from his Opal Jewel. That small amount of power, used on someone who wore a Jewel lighter than the spell’s wielder, wouldn’t pulp the heart or sear the lungs, but it would seize all the muscles in a person’s chest and hurt so much, it brought a person to his knees.