She almost hoped those eyes, and Daemon’s highly intelligent brain, would remain dulled by grief for one more day. She would prefer having this particular fight after the fact.
The door opened. Daemon walked into the room, followed by Beale, who set a fresh pot of coffee on the table and retreated.
Daemon took a seat and poured a cup of coffee for himself. “Surreal.”
“Sadi.” She topped off her own coffee, debated for a moment about the wisdom of scratching his temper, then leaned back in her seat and stared at him.
Grief had dimmed the beauty of his face, but that wasn’t a permanent change. Seventy years was nothing to someone from the long-lived races, and since he was only eighteen hundred years old, he still looked like a well-toned Warlord Prince in his prime—seductive, sensual, washing the room with sexual heat just by passing through. She had spent the past few years discouraging idiot women who looked at Jaenelle and figured Sadi had to be looking for sex outside of the marriage bed because how could a man who looked like that want to bed an old, white-haired woman in her nineties?
Jaenelle had gotten old in years, but she was never old, and whether those idiot women wanted to believe it or not, Jaenelle Angelline had been more than able to handle Daemon Sadi in bed and out.
Surreal just hoped she had done her job as second-in-command sufficiently well that Sadi hadn’t been aware of those women. He wouldn’t have done anything while Jaenelle lived because that would have called attention to why those women were sniffing around him. And he hadn’t been interested in doing anything for the past year. But now? Had any of them come to his attention enough that he would hone his temper and go hunting?
“Something wrong?” Daemon asked, sounding edgy and brittle.
“You look like shit.”
“You do know how to flatter me.”
The silence that followed was uneasy on her part and chilly turning toward predatory on his. That was why she wanted to jump up and hug Beale when he entered the room and set a covered dish in front of Daemon.
Beale lifted the cover. Daemon looked at the simple breakfast and swallowed hard.
None of them knew if Daemon’s refusal to eat anything before the midday meal was a personal gesture of mourning or an inability to keep down food during the first few hours after waking up alone, but they had all known he would be at the breakfast table today whether he could keep the food down or not.
Daemon said, “Thank you, Beale,” picked up his fork, and began to eat his first breakfast in a year.
Surreal finished her own breakfast, glad of the delay, however fleeting, before she told him about the day’s task.
“What are you doing here?” Daemon asked. “I thought you would be in Amdarh for . . . something Holt had mentioned.”
“It’s a celebration for Lady Zhara, and it’s next week.” She swallowed some coffee, then added, “You’ll also be attending.”
He put down his fork. “No, I will not.”
“Zhara is the Queen of Amdarh, the capital city of Dhemlan, and you are the Warlord Prince of Dhemlan. So, yes, you will be attending.”
The room chilled, and Daemon said too softly, “No, I will not.”
She waited. He’d regained enough of himself that his face and eyes didn’t betray the vicious internal struggle she knew had to be going on—just as she knew the decision had been made for him and who had made it.
“So you’ll be there as my companion?” Daemon asked coldly.
The moment he appeared at a social event, everyone would know he’d ended his year of mourning, and there would be women drooling over the chance to ride his cock—and make use of anything else they could squeeze from the Warlord Prince of Dhemlan. There were also women who believed they were in love with him and wanted to gain his attention.
And there was a woman who had loved him for a lot of years and would continue to do her best to hide it because that was still the only way to help him.
“Actually, sugar, I’ll be there as your guard, but I have a thigh sheath for my stiletto, so I’ll still be wearing a dress.”
Daemon blinked. The chill faded from the room. “You’ll have a knife?”
“I’ll have several. I usually do. But at least one will be visible, so no one can say they didn’t have sufficient warning if things get messy.”
His lips twitched. He picked up his fork and took another bite of his breakfast. “So you came to the Hall this morning to tell me about this celebration?”
Shit. “No, I came to clean out Jaenelle’s suite. Helene will help me.”
Daemon set down the fork again. “No,” he crooned, “you will not.”
She’d sometimes wondered if, with the right provocation, he would kill her without hesitation. She didn’t have to wonder anymore. The answer was in those glazed, murderously sleepy gold eyes.
She gave a pointed look to the bare ring finger of his left hand. “You made your promise, Sadi, and I made mine. Today I’m going to keep that promise. Jaenelle wanted her suite cleaned out after the year of mourning ended. There are specific things she wanted saved and taken to the Keep. The rest are to be given away or sold.”
He snarled at her, but it was a sound of pain rather than anger. Unfortunately, being driven by pain made him more dangerous.
She pointed a finger at him. “And that right there is the reason why I’m doing this and you’re not.” She wanted to get out of this room before her bowels loosened past controlling, but she didn’t want to spend the next few decades wondering if the Sadist would pay her a visit. “You would never disobey your Queen. Why do you think I would disregard a request from her?”
He looked away.
“If there is something particular you would like to keep and it’s not on the list of items Jaenelle wanted stored at Ebon Askavi, I’ll set it aside for you,” Surreal said gently.
Daemon hesitated, then shook his head.
“Will you be around if I need to ask you about something?”
“I’ll be in my study at least for the morning,” he replied. “I expect Holt has a long list of items he wants to review with me.” He pushed back from the table. “Keep your promise, Surreal. I won’t interfere.”
She waited until he left the room before she allowed herself to sag for a moment. Then she straightened up and took a last sip of coffee. The sooner she and Helene cleaned out Jaenelle’s suite, the better it would be for all of them.
TWO
The Arachnian Queen, the Weaver of Dreams, delicately touched one thread of the web spun by Witch before the living myth became a song in the Darkness. This web had slept many years because the dreams it held had been too unshaped to become flesh. But something had changed, and now the golden spider could sense the whisper of wishes, of longings.
Specific dreamers. Most unusual to tie threads to specific dreamers when the shaping had not yet begun. Too much chance that the dream would never be flesh if one of the dreamers stopped wishing, stopped wanting. But that was why Witch had made the web this way—because these dreamers had to wish long enough, had to want hard enough, even if they weren’t aware of the wanting.
As long as the dreamers gave her something to work with, the Weaver would keep her promise and add to the web Witch had begun. And someday, another Arachnian Queen would add the last strand to this dream.
THREE
Standing in the family parlor of Lucivar’s eyrie, Daemon grinned like a fool and didn’t give a damn. He looked at the Eyrien baby girl in his arms and purred, “Hello, beautiful.”
She studied him with solemn eyes. Then she broke into a grin.