Her father had been scary and strange because he was pissed off about what she’d said about that woman, but he wouldn’t have killed anyone at the school. Would he?
“Did you know my father was a pleasure slave?” She wanted to shock him.
He didn’t look impressed. “Yeah, I did. He told me. Not all of it, certainly not the worst of what he’d endured, but we’ve talked about it.”
“He never told me!”
“Well, he probably figured you weren’t mature enough to understand.”
It burned that he would say that, that he believed that. It burned enough to douse the anger and make her lower lip quiver. “You said you’d always have my back.”
He didn’t even try to give her a hug, and that shield around him made it impossible for her to touch him.
Daemonar sighed, a sound of impatience. “I don’t like the girl you’ve become, Jaenelle Saetien. I don’t like that girl at all. But you’re still my cousin, and I will still have your back—up to a point. If I have to choose between you and Titian, I will choose my sister every time.”
He walked away.
When she turned to head toward the dormitory, she saw Krellis. He stood far enough away that he wouldn’t have heard what was said, but he must have realized it wasn’t a friendly discussion.
He fell into step beside her. “Having trouble with the bat?”
She should have told him not to insult her cousin. Instead, she said, “Yeah. He’s being a prick.”
Krellis tucked her arm into his. “What can you expect from a rube?”
Some people didn’t think she was an insufferable bitch. “Yeah. What can you expect?”
SaDiablo Hall was an immense structure, and yet there was nowhere to run. Not for her.
As the frigid warning of Sadi’s return rippled through the Hall, Surreal stepped into the great hall, looked at Beale and Holt, and said, “Get the rest of the staff out of this part of the Hall.”
She had the best chance against the Black. Not because she wore Gray. She had no chance against the Black if it came to a fight, but as Sadi’s wife, she could offer a distraction that might keep everyone else safe.
She retreated to the sitting room and waited for him to walk through the front door. She didn’t know where he’d been after he escorted Jaenelle Saetien to school, but if this was as much as his temper had thawed, they were all in trouble.
He walked into the sitting room—and she struggled to control bowels and bladder.
The Sadist, unleashed.
Lucivar had told her years ago that she had never really danced with the Sadist, that she had never seen that aspect of Daemon’s temper without him showing some restraint. Well, she was seeing it now, and there was nothing she could do to stop whatever he was going to do to her.
When he walked up to her, the room turned so cold, she could see her breath. His hand, with its lethally sharp black-tinted nails, curled around the back of her neck, drawing her closer. As the sexual heat wrapped around her, his lips settled over hers, making her shake with lust and fear. And when his tongue demanded entry and he gave her a brutally gentle kiss, she knew there was nothing of the lover in him. Not now. And yet . . .
He ended the kiss, smiled at her, and crooned, “Surreal, darling, we’re going hunting.”
TWENTY-EIGHT
Lucivar walked into the Keep and hesitated. When he’d left his eyrie to fly here, the Black had been inside the Keep. Now he had no sense of Daemon being anywhere in Ebon Rih. Of course, that could mean Sadi had gone into the Queen’s part of the Keep. Once a person walked through the metal gate that separated that part of the mountain from the rest, Witch’s vast power cloaked everyone else within those rooms.
He couldn’t find the Black, but he felt the presence of two Gray Jewels.
He went to the rooms that had been converted into the official office of the Warlord Prince of Askavi. That was Karla’s domain within Ebon Askavi, but the demon-dead Black Widow Queen who was his administrative second-in-command wasn’t there.
*Karla?* he called on a psychic thread.
*In the library with Surreal.*
That confirmed the identity of the second Gray Jewel.
He strode to that part of the Keep and found both women in the private section of the library, standing around a large blackwood table filled with the registers that held the information for generations of bloodlines and Jewels.
Karla glanced at him, said, “Kiss kiss,” and went back to making notes about whatever she was reading in the registers.
Surreal, on the other hand, stopped and straightened. Her gold-green eyes still held residual fear and she looked shaken. Easy enough to guess why after receiving Daemonar’s terse message yesterday about the collision at the school. But she didn’t appear to be physically hurt. In fact, despite the fear and shakiness, she looked more like a predator who had caught the scent of prey.
“Chaosti showed up a little while ago,” Surreal said. “Sadi was needed in the Dark Realm. He’ll be back after he takes care of business there.”
Lucivar nodded. “What are you two doing?”
“Looking up bloodlines and family connections.”
Surreal held out a list. Recognizing Daemon’s blend of printed script—a form he’d developed because it was easier for his brother to read than regular handwriting—Lucivar took the paper and read the list. He knew some of the names from things Daemonar had said and from letters Titian had written to Marian.
“Daemonar refers to this group as the coven of malice,” Surreal said. “I’m tracing the bloodlines to find out if the families originally came from Dhemlan or Hayll—and how long those families have been in Kaeleer.”
“You think some of them slipped in during the service fairs?” he asked.
“Or before that. A minor aristo family with enough money to purchase a small estate could have slipped into Kaeleer and settled in a village easily enough—as long as they followed the Old Ways of the Blood and didn’t give anyone a reason to wonder where they had been before that. And it’s not like there is an obvious difference between the Hayllian and Dhemlan races.”
Unlike Eyriens, whose wings made them distinctive among the long-lived races.
“I’m checking out a different list,” Karla said. “Apparently, Daemon went back to the school and had a little chat with Lady Zoela to obtain the names of the girls she considers friends. Most have some claim to an aristo bloodline, which seems a requirement for being accepted at that school, but otherwise, what I’m looking at is the beginning of an unofficial court. One girl is a natural Black Widow and should be leaving that school soon to begin an apprenticeship in the Hourglass. One seems to be a natural Healer who, like the Black Widow, will need to begin a different kind of training within the next year or so. The rest of this group has the potential to wear dark Jewels when they mature.” She smiled grimly. “Just the kind of young witches that a rival group would not want coming into power around a strong Queen.”
“Mother Night,” he muttered.
“One other name was on my list,” Karla said. “An instructor named Raine, a Prince from Dharo. This is his first year at the school.”
“He’s tutoring Daemonar. I haven’t heard any reason to think ill of him.”
“I don’t think you will.” Karla looked at Surreal. “I followed his line back to one of Rainier’s brothers.”
Surreal sank into a chair. “Rainier? He’s kin to Rainier?”
Surreal and Rainier had been friends for decades, had shared a house for decades. Never lovers, as far as Lucivar knew, since Rainier preferred men when it came to the pleasures of the bed, but they had loved each other in their own way.