Did you? he wondered. “Thank you, Lady.” He stepped back and bowed, a Warlord Prince showing respect and fealty to his Queen.
When he reached the door of the sitting room, she said, “If he does become a pest, it will be your ass that will have bruises in the shape of hoofprints.”
He grinned at her. “I wouldn’t expect it to be any other way.”
“Wake up, boyo.”
Daemonar’s wings flared and his back arched, lifting his chest high enough for him to brace himself on his forearms. “Huh? What?” Why was he sleeping on the floor? And why did his mother sound like Auntie J.?
He blinked. Not his bedroom. Not his family’s eyrie. And yet a familiar place.
Why was he in the Misty Place? He hadn’t been trying to reach Witch’s lair, which probably meant he was in a lot of trouble.
He just wished he was awake enough to remember why he was in trouble.
He climbed to his feet and rubbed sleep from his eyes. “Auntie J.?”
That was when his brain finally engaged and he realized he was wearing nothing but his underpants—a compromise between wearing pajama bottoms like his younger brother and being naked at night like his father. He’d put two and two together and realized his father slept naked in order to easily have sex with his mother. That might not be the only reason, but it was definitely one of the reasons. While he was curious about what sex felt like when you were a man compared to the explorations he did with himself, he was having trouble wrapping his brain around the fact that his father did those . . . things . . . with his mother even though he knew those things were the reason Marian had gotten pregnant and had Andulvar. Well, had him and Titian, too, but he didn’t remember those times, so they didn’t count.
“We’re going to discuss the rules and set some boundaries.”
“Rules? Boundaries?”
She looked amused. Or pissed. He really wished he was more awake. He wondered if that would make a difference, since he had no idea what she was talking about. Then . . . a glimmer of possibility thunked into his brain.
“I heard about your encounter with Lady Orian,” Witch said.
Hell’s fire! “Oh.”
“If she had made that remark to anyone but Titian, would you have said what you said?”
He opened his mouth, intending to assure her that he wouldn’t have been that mean if it had been anyone else. But he stopped and thought and finally said, “Yes. If she’d hurt someone else as much as she hurt Titian, I would have slapped at her the same way.”
Witch nodded. “To the best of your knowledge, was that the first time Orian had been verbally mean to someone?”
“Yes.”
“Then that is not the way you, being a Warlord Prince, should have handled it. A Queen who hurts people by word or deed is a danger to everyone. While there will be times when you have to be the one to draw the line and fight, in this case, you should have had a private word with Orian, or reported her misconduct to Lord Rothvar—or Lady Karla if you didn’t want to approach another Eyrien.”
His temper heated, but he resisted the desire to argue. She was the Queen. His Queen. She wasn’t inviting him to debate his behavior. She had made a statement.
When he offered no argument in his defense, she nodded again—and looked pleased.
“Lucivar has asked that you receive some private training in dealing with Queens and their courts. He’s concerned about your response to Orian because you are already a strong Warlord Prince and you will grow up to be a powerful man.”
“My father didn’t receive that kind of training.” Training sounded bad. It sounded like he was going to be strapped in by rules that would hamstring his ability to protect people he loved.
“Until he reached the age for his Birthright Ceremony, your father had had your grandfather teaching him the rules that apply to Warlord Princes as well as the Blood’s moral code. Those lessons are the core of Lucivar Yaslana, and he has lived by those rules and that code all his life, even when holding on to Saetan’s lessons cost him dearly. However, the pain and suffering he endured as a slave in Terreille changed him. The core held, and still holds, but it is clothed in savagery quickly unleashed. That is who he is. He wants your education about Queens and courts to be a different experience.”
Witch walked up to him and put her hands on his shoulders. He felt the weight of flesh on flesh, felt the warmth—and wished he could hug her the way he used to when he was young and took such things for granted.
“That is why you will come to the Keep for one hour twice a week from now on to receive that private training . . . with me. There will be forty minutes of focused training. The last twenty minutes will be set aside for you to ask questions or discuss anything you choose.”
Her hands squeezed his shoulders. A light touch, but he felt the prick of her claws.
“Understand me, boyo. This is private training, and you will not talk about it, brag about it, allude to it in any way with anyone except your parents and your uncle. My presence at the Keep . . .”
“I know, Auntie.” Maybe he didn’t see it quite the way she did, but he understood enough about his uncle Daemon to know how the Black would respond if there was a flood of aristo families showing up at the Keep, demanding that their sons receive private training with Witch. As if the Queen was some commodity to be used.
“You and Lucivar fix the time and days when these lessons will be held, and we’ll begin, starting with an alternate way to let a Queen know she’s crossed a line and behaved badly.”
“Thank you, Lady.”
Her lips twitched. She released his shoulders and stepped back. “Time for you to go, boyo.”
Daemonar lifted his head from his pillow.
His bedroom. His family’s eyrie. But he had been in the Misty Place, and Auntie J. had said she was going to train him in how to deal with Queens and courts.
He got up and poured a glass of water from the carafe that sat on the table near the window.
He didn’t think for a moment that Auntie J.’s lessons would be easy. The most powerful Warlord Princes in Kaeleer had served in her court, and the standards for serving in that court would have been high.
Lucivar had helped build the core and the bones of who he was. Witch would shape the flesh of who he would become.
Looking forward to discussing this with his father in the morning, Daemonar drank the water and went back to bed. Because he was excited about the future, it took him an extra minute to fall asleep.
THREE
Surreal quickly dressed in what she thought of as one of her second-in-command outfits: pale green shirt, green waistcoat a few shades deeper, dark trousers with a matching summer-weight coat. She brushed her black hair and used Craft to secure the decorative combs that held the hair away from her face—and revealed the delicately pointed ears.
Then she stared in the mirror and thought, Fool. Have you learned nothing? Why do you keep trying to prove that the line you know you can’t cross doesn’t exist? Why do you keep pretending you can handle him when temper mixed with sex turns dangerous? Is it stubbornness? Leftover professional pride from your years as one of the highest-paid whores in Terreille? Why do this to yourself and to him? Why?
He’d warned her that he wasn’t calm enough for her to feel safe having sex with him, but she had insisted and he had obliged, using his mouth and hand to bring her to a swift climax before he walked out of her bedroom and spent the night in his own room behind Black shields and locks to keep her out.