“What happened?” Daemon asked, watching Saetan’s eyes become lifeless and blank of everything but a memory.
“By his own admission, the Warlord had flirted a few times with the idea of becoming another woman’s lover, but he hadn’t done anything that would force his wife into making a choice about their marriage. They had a son who had gone through the Birthright Ceremony and was irrevocably his by law. But they also had a little girl who hadn’t gone through the Ceremony yet.
“Whatever trouble he had with the woman, he adored the little girl, and it was for her sake that he trod so carefully when it came to his marriage vows.
“A few months before his daughter’s Birthright Ceremony, he went to visit a close friend for a few days—an annual house party he and his wife had gone to for several years. But his wife didn’t go with him that year because their boy was feeling poorly, so it was prudent to keep the children at home.”
Daemon nodded, seeing where the next part of the story was going. “Vulchera was at the house party, playing her games. Did he take the bait?”
“No. He came close to it because he and his wife were growing more and more unhappy with each other, but he walked out of the bedroom and went to find his friend. By the time they got back to the room, the bitch was gone.”
“She denied being in his bedroom?” Daemon said.
“Of course. But his friend’s wife told her to pack her things and leave, and that didn’t sit well with the Lady.”
“She sent a shirt to the Warlord’s wife.”
Saetan nodded. “With enough details about his body to make it clear she’d seen him undressed. The day before she’d set her trap, he’d gotten a soaking during some game the men were playing and had stripped off his wet shirt—which she had kindly offered to take into the laundry room, along with a few others.
“The marriage broke. He’d played too close to that line too many times, and his wife had not been as unaware as he’d believed. As sometimes happens, he began to regret the loss of what he’d had—including the woman, who hadn’t seemed as exciting after she’d become familiar. And there was his daughter, his little girl, to consider.
“So they tried to rebuild what had been broken. He wasn’t living with them, but he visited every evening, doing chores he’d previously resented, playing with his children. Talking to his wife and rediscovering the woman.
“A month before his daughter’s Birthright Ceremony, he’d worked his way back to living at the family home half the time and had earned his way back into the marriage bed.”
Daemon said nothing. Saetan’s eyes still held that blankness, but Daemon felt a terrible something building under the words. Building and building.
“The Warlord going to his friend had caused problems for the Lady—the kind of problems that can be resolved only by relocating to another Province where her previous activities wouldn’t be common knowledge. So she hired a young actress and purchased an illusion spell from a Black Widow to play a prank on a ‘good friend.’
“The Warlord was going to move back to the family home after the Birthright Ceremony. His wife had already told him she would grant paternity, assuring his rights to his daughter, but his formal return as husband and father would come after the Ceremony. So he wasn’t at the house when the package arrived with the second shirt and a note that was skillfully written and indicated that the Warlord had been leaving his wife’s bed and going straight to his lover’s for some real pleasure instead of duty sex.
“The words were meant to cripple a woman’s pride and kill a piece of her heart. In that, they succeeded.
“That afternoon, the Warlord watched his little girl be gifted with her Birthright Jewel, and he waited for the last part of that ceremony that would give him back what he’d learned he held dear.
“Then his wife looked at him and said three words:‘Paternity is denied.’ ”
Saetan closed his eyes. “There are moments in a man’s life when a decision is made, and once made, there is no going back, no changing it.” When he opened his eyes, they were no longer blank. They were filled with a terrible, and growing, grief.
“The shock. The pain,” Saetan said. “You don’t know what it feels like to hear those words.”
“It’s a stupid law,” Daemon said.
Saetan shook his head. “No, it’s not. Considering the nature of Blood males, there are good reasons for that law. That was true when that irrevocable custom began, and it’s still true. That law protects more than it harms. But it still . . . hurts.”
“What happened to the Warlord?” Daemon asked.
“He backed away. He saw the shock on the faces of friends and family—people who had been aware of the reconciliation. He didn’t know what happened, but he knew something had gone very wrong.
“So he backed away, but when he turned, she was standing there. And she laughed at him. That’s all she needed to do. She laughed at him, laughed at his pain and his loss—and something inside him broke.
“He didn’t remember what happened after that. She laughed, something inside him broke, and the next thing he remembered was standing in the middle of a slaughter. The witch, the young actress who had been hired to wear an enemy’s face as a prank, was dead. So was the Warlord’s closest friend, two of his cousins . . . and his daughter.
“When he saw his little girl . . . In that moment when he wondered, he dropped his shields, deliberately, and the blasts of power from other males fighting to defend friends and family ripped into his body and killed him.”
“Mother Night,” Daemon whispered. A terrible story, but he had the feeling that it was the crust holding back something even more terrible.
“Insane rage—and no memory of who had fallen by his hand,” Saetan said. “And the feeling, the fear, that he had killed his little girl.”
“Did he?”
Saetan finally looked up, finally looked him in the eyes. “Yes.” He smiled—and the insane rage within that gentle smile was a living thing. “She had been trying to reach him, had been trying to protect him with her newly acquired Jewel.”
Daemon felt tears sting his eyes and blinked them away.
“His blast of power took half her face. Part of her shoulder,” Saetan said too gently. “He made the transition to demon-dead, and when he reached the Dark Realm, he begged for an audience. Then he begged me to finish the kill.”
“Did you give him mercy?”
“Yes, I finished the kill, and he became nothing more than a whisper in the Darkness.”
Daemon’s stomach rolled as another thought occurred to him. “The little girl became cildru dyathe, didn’t she?”
“Yes, she did. But she didn’t stay long. When I found her, I told her that her father loved her, and that he was very sorry she had gotten hurt, and if he could take that moment back and do it over, he would have walked away. For her sake. To keep her safe from what was inside him.”
“Father . . .”
“It could have been you, Daemon. She could have been you.”
He looked at those gold eyes glazed with madness and took a step back.
Pain. Shock. A moment to make a choice before insane rage eclipsed all ability to think.
Manny’s words, when she finally told him about his father.
So he left. Went to that house you keep visiting, the house you and your mother lived in, and destroyed the study. Tore the books apart, shredded the curtains, broke every piece of furniture in the room. He couldn’t get the rage out. When I finally dared open the door, he was kneeling in the middle of the room, his chest heaving, trying to get some air, a crazy look in his eyes.