Heir to the Shadows (The Black Jewels #2)(74)
Author: Anne Bishop

She blinked. Confusion filled her eyes. "What?"

Would she understand if he told her what she’d said? He doubted it. "So the food is lousy and you don’t sleep well. That still doesn’t explain why you came back in this shape. What did they do to you, Cat?"

"Nothing," she whispered, closing her eyes. Her throat worked convulsively. "It’s just that boys expect to be kissed and—"

"They expectwhat?" Lucivar snarled.

"—I’m f-f-frigid and—"

"Frigid!" Lucivar roared, ignoring her frightened squeak. "You’re seventeen years old. Those strutting little sons of whoring bitches shouldn’t be tryinganything with you that would even bring up the question of whether or not you’re ‘frigid.’ And where in the name of Hell were the chaperons?"

He rocked furiously, petting her hair with one hand while his other arm tightened protectively around her. Her yip of pain when he accidentally pinched her arm snapped him out of a red haze. He muttered an apology, resettled her in his lap, and began rocking at a more soothing tempo. After a couple of minutes, he shook his head.

"Frigid," he said with a snort of disgust. "Well, Cat, if objecting to having someone slobber on you or grope and squeeze you is their definition of frigid, then I’m frigid, too. They have no right to use you, no matter what they say. Any man who tells you otherwise deserves a knife between the ribs." He gave her a considering look, then shook his head. "You’d probably find it hard to gut a man. That’s all right. I don’t."

Jaenelle stared at him, wide-eyed.

He wrapped his hand around the back of her neck and massaged gently. "Listen to me, Cat, because I’ll only say this once. You’re the finest Lady I’ve ever met and the dearest friend I’ve ever had. Besides that, I love you like

a brother, and any bastard who hurts my little sister is going to answer to me."

"Y-you can’t," she whispered. "The agreement—’" "I’m not part of that damn agreement." He gave her a little shake, wondering how he could get that frail, bruised look out of her eyes. Then he squelched a grin. He’d do what he’d do with any feline he wanted to spark—rub her the wrong way. "Besides, Lady," he said in a courteous snarl, "you broke a solemn promise to me, and breaking a promise to a Warlord Prince is a serious offense."

Her eyes flashed fire. He could almost feel her back arch and the nonexistent fur stand on end. Maybe he wouldn’t have to dig that hard to bring a little of her temper to the surface. "I never did!"

"Yes, you did. I distinctly remember teaching you what to do—"

"They weren’t standing behind me!" Lucivar narrowed his eyes. "You don’t have any human male friends?" "Of course I do!"

"And not one of them has ever taken you behind the barn and taught you what to do with your knee?" Her fingernails suddenly required her attention. "That’s what I thought," Lucivar said dryly. "So I’ll give you a choice. If one of those fine, rutting aristo males does something you don’t like, you can give him a hard knee in the balls or I can start with his feet and end with his neck and break every bone in between." "You couldn’t."

"It’s not that difficult. I’ve done it before." He waited a minute, then tapped her chin. She closed her mouth.

Then she seemed to shrink into herself. "But, Lucivar," she said weakly, "what if it’s my fault that he’s aroused and needs relief?"

He snorted, amused. "You didn’t actually fall for that, did you?"

Her eyes narrowed to slits.

"I don’t know how things are in Kaeleer, but it used to

be, in Terreille, that a young man could register at a Red Moon house and not only get his ‘relief but also learn how to do more than a thirty-second poke and hump."

She made a choking sound that might have been a suppressed laugh.

"And if they can’t afford a Red Moon house, they can i> get their own ‘relief easily enough."

"How?"

Lucivar suppressed a grin. Sometimes catching her interest was as easy as rolling a ball of yarn in front of a kitten. "I’m not sure an older brother is the right person to explain that," he said primly.

She studied him. "You don’t like sex, do you?"

"Not my experience of it, no." He traced her fingers, needing to be honest. "But I’ve always thought that if I cared about a woman, it would be wonderful to give her that kind of pleasure." He shook himself and set her on her feet. "Enough of this. You need to eat and get your strength back. There’s beef soup and a loaf of fresh bread."

Jaenelle paled. "It won’t stay down. It never does after . . ."

"Try."

When they sat down to eat, she managed three spoonfuls of soup and one mouthful of bread before she bolted into the bathroom.

His own appetite gone, Lucivar cleared the table. He was pouring the soup back into the pan when Smoke slunk into the kitchen.

"Lucivar?"

Lucivar lifted his bowl of soup. "You want some of this?"

Smoke ignored the offer. "Bad dreams come now. Hurt the Lady. She not talk to us, not see us, not want males near. Not eat, not sleep, walk walk walk, snarl at us. Bad dreams now, Lucivar."

"Do the bad dreams always come after one of these visits?" Lucivar asked, narrowing his thoughts to a spear thread.

Smoke bared his teeth in a silent snarl. " Always."

Lucivar’s stomach clenched. So it didn’t end once she got

away from Little Terreille. "How long?" The kindred had a fluid sense of time, but Smoke, at least, understood basic divisions of day and night.

Smoke cocked his head. "Night, day, night, day . . . maybe night."

So she’d spend tonight and the next two days trying to outrun the nightmares hovering at the edge of her vision by depleting an already exhausted body that she would mercilessly flog until it collapsed under the strain of no food, no water, no rest. What kind of dreams could drive a young woman to such masochistic cruelty?

He found out that night.

The change in her breathing snapped him out of a light sleep. Propping himself up on one arm, he reached for her shoulder.

"Can’t wake when bad dreams come." Standing at the foot of the bed, Smoke’s eyes caught the moonlight.

"Why?"

"Not see us. Not know us. All dreams."

Lucivar swore under his breath. If every sound, every touch got sucked into the dreamscape . " .

Jaenelle’s body arched like a tightly strung bow.

He studied the clenched, straining muscles and swore again. She’d be hurting sore in the morning.