She turned and tried to open the door—and felt the heat of his body at her back as his left hand gently pressed against the door next to her head.
“You want to twist a verbal knife?” he crooned. “All right, then. Here’s another truth about your family. I was a pleasure slave for centuries before your mother was born and for a lot of years after that. I was on my knees pleasuring hundreds, maybe thousands of bitches over the years. I was very good at providing pleasure. I was even better at turning pleasure into pain. One way or another, I destroyed every bitch that used me—including the ones who were barely older than you. Anything you want to say about that?”
She shook her head. She didn’t want anything except to get out of that room and get back to the school.
“Now,” he continued. “Who told you about Surreal in a way guaranteed to have you come home hurling accusations instead of talking to your mother?”
Jaenelle Saetien shook her head. Considering what had happened to Amara and those other girls, she wasn’t going to give him names.
He leaned closer, his breath warm against her cheek. “You’ll have dinner on a tray in your room. In the morning, I’ll escort you back to the school, and you will introduce me to your new friends. And just in case you’re considering slipping out in the middle of the night . . .”
Soft thunder rolled through the Hall, and she felt the Black shields and locks that effectively turned the Hall into a prison.
“Either I escort you in the morning and you introduce me to your friends, especially the one who was so helpful in telling you about Surreal, or you don’t go back at all.”
“I have to go back to school!”
“No, you don’t. I am in no way obliged to permit you to return to that school, especially if this bitch behavior is what you’re learning from the other students.”
He was so angry right now, he wasn’t going to listen. Well, she’d swallow her disgust and make nice. “I don’t need a tray in my room.”
“If you don’t want dinner, that’s your choice, but you’re not sitting at a table with my wife tonight.” He reached down and closed his hand over the doorknob. “One other thing you should know. Surreal was a very talented and very expensive whore, and she earned a good living doing it. But she was, and still is, even better as an assassin—and you’ve just given her a reason to sharpen her knives. Something to think about this evening.” He opened the door and stepped back. “We’ll leave early enough for you to be at school for your first class. Don’t procrastinate getting ready tomorrow morning. We leave when I’m ready, and I will deliver you in whatever you are, or aren’t, wearing.”
“Why are you being so mean?” she whimpered.
“If you don’t know, that will give you something else to think about this evening.”
The look in his eyes, that smile . . . She came close to wetting herself out of fear.
She’d never been afraid of her father, even when he was starting to take one of his funny turns. But the man standing in the study wasn’t really her father, and she wanted to get away from him as fast as she could.
Daemon walked into Surreal’s bedroom without waiting for permission since he didn’t think she would grant it right now.
He’d expected fury, was prepared to listen to her rage about the girl acting like a snippy bitch. He didn’t expect to walk into the room and find Surreal staring out a window and crying.
“Surreal.” He came up behind her, wrapped his arms around her waist. “Sweetheart, don’t cry. This isn’t worth your tears.”
“Hell’s fire, Sadi. How did you stand me when I was her age?”
He kissed her temple. “You weren’t like that.”
“Yes, I was. So full of myself and needing to prove . . . something. I looked like an adult. I looked like a woman with an exotic heritage. But inside . . .” She sniffed. “Whenever you went to one of those flats or secret places you owned, you slipped away from the Queen who owned you and her court in order to get away from the bitches and their demands. And then I would show up, and you were so patient, so tolerant of this girl who wanted your attention just like everyone else.”
“I enjoyed your company.”
“Until the night I asked you to show me what it was like to be in bed with Hayll’s Whore.”
His arms tightened around her. “Stop.”
“Snippy little bitch thinking of no one but herself, never considering how that might hurt you. And then you gave me a taste of what it was like to be with Hayll’s Whore.”
“Surreal, stop.”
“I’m so sorry for what I said that night, and you were right to do what you did.”
“It was a long time ago.”
“I was afraid of you after that. Until I met Jaenelle Angelline all those years later, I was afraid of you.”
“I know.” He sighed. “You’re still afraid of me.”
“Some days,” she agreed. “Some aspects of you.”
He called in a handkerchief and handed it to her.
Surreal wiped her nose. Then she sighed and leaned against him. “Daemon? Could Jaenelle Saetien just be your daughter for a little while?”
“Why? She had no right to speak to you that way about your former profession, but—”
“It’s not that.” She hesitated, and he felt her brace for his reaction to what she would tell him. “When she said I wasn’t her mother and that she wished I was dead, I felt something inside me break, and I don’t know if I can fix it. I don’t know if anyone can fix it. But I’d like to not deal with her for a few days.”
“I’ll take care of it.” He kissed her temple again. “Talk to Tersa.”
She laughed, a reluctant sound. “I don’t think Tersa knows much about adolescent girls.”
“She knows about being broken.”
“Yeah, I guess she does.”
They stood quietly for several minutes.
“Why don’t you rest for a while?” Daemon said. “Then you and I will go down and have dinner.”
“Your daughter doesn’t want to dine with us?”
She tried to sound amusing, but he heard pain under the words. “She hurt my wife, my friend, my partner. I don’t want her dining with us tonight.”
Surreal turned in his arms. “She needs you, Sadi.”
“And in the morning she’ll have all my attention.” He kissed her mouth softly. “But you need me tonight.”
TWENTY-SEVEN
The following morning, Daemon met Beale and Holt in the butler’s pantry. The third time Beale offered the plate of shredded-beef-and-cheese sandwich triangles, Daemon conceded that he wasn’t going to be offered the coffee sitting on Beale’s desk until he took a sandwich.
He accepted a sandwich, received a mug of coffee, and waited. He didn’t need to ask; he could tell by the look in their eyes that the whole staff knew about Jaenelle Saetien’s emotional firestorm as well as what was said.
“It is difficult to know what to do with a girl that age,” Beale said. “Your father had less trouble, despite the number of Ladies living here, because the coven was united by a single purpose—to be here with Lady Angelline. And while there were . . . eruptions . . . on occasion, it was the opinion of the senior staff that those moments were caused by an excess of feelings.”
“Once Prince Yaslana came to live here, he simplified things,” Holt said. “He’d haul whoever was erupting outside, hand her a sparring stick, and wouldn’t let her go back inside until she’d worked off enough of the energy behind those feelings. She could yell about anything while they were sparring, but the moment there was any meanness in the words, he’d put her in the dirt—and he didn’t care who she was.”