Heir to the Shadows (The Black Jewels #2)(82)
Author: Anne Bishop

"A few weeks after I saw Luthvian through her Virgin Night, she told me she was pregnant with my child. There was an empty house on the estate, about a mile from the Hall. I insisted she and Tersa live there instead of with Dorothea’s court. Tersa wasn’t much older than Luthvian, but she understood a great deal more, especially about Guardians. She was content with the companionship I offered. Luthvian was more high-strung and had discovered the pleasure of the bed. She craved sex. For a while, I could still provide the kind of intimacy she wanted. By the time I couldn’t, she had lost interest. But after she healed from the birthing, the hunger returned. By then, I could satisfy her in other ways but not the way she craved.

"Between the fights about raising you in Dhemlan, as she wanted, or raising you in Askavi, where I believed you needed to be, and my sexual inability, our relationship became strained to the point that, when she was spoon-fed half-truths about Guardians, she chose to believe them.

"Dorothea timed her schemes well. With Prythian’s help, I lost both of you. Within a day, I lost both of you."

Not Luthvian. Daemon.

A sigh shuddered out of Saetan. "Lucivar, for what it’s worth, I’ve never regretted your existence. I’ve regretted the pain you’ve endured, but not you. And I’m very glad you survived."

Unable to think of anything to say, Lucivar nodded.

Saetan hesitated. "Would you tell me something, if you can?"

Lucivar knew what Saetan was going to ask. He wasn’t sure what he thought about the man who had sired him, but for this moment at least, he could look beyond the titles and the power and see a man asking about one of his children.

He closed his eyes, and said, "He’s in the Twisted Kingdom."

Saetan lay on the couch in his study, desperately glad to be alone.

Everything has a price.

He just hadn’t expected the price to be so high.

Regrets were useless. And guilt was useless. A Warlord Prince’s first duty was to his Queen. But Daemon . . .

Shards of memories floated through him, pricking his heart.

Tersa ripely pregnant, holding his hand against her belly.

Luthvian’s constant circle of anger and sexual hunger.

Daemon sitting in his lap while he read a bedtime story.

Lucivar fluttering around the room, laughing gleefully while just staying out of his reach.

Jaenelle turning his study upside down the first time he tried to show her how to use Craft to retrieve her shoes.

Tersa’s madness. Luthvian’s fury.

Lucivar lying on the bed in the cabin, his body torn apart.

Daemon, lying on Cassandra’s Altar, his mind so terribly fragile.

Jaenelle rising out of the abyss after two heartbreaking years.

Fragments. Like Daemon’s mind.

Which explained why, during the careful searches he had made over the past two years, he hadn’t been able to find this son who was like a mirror. He’d been looking in the wrong place.

A regret slipped in, as useless as any other.

He might be able to find Daemon, but the one person who could have brought Daemon out of the Twisted Kingdom without question was Jaenelle. And Jaenelle was the one person who couldn’t know what he intended to do.

Chapter eleven

1 / Kaeleer

Waiting for dinner, Saetan’s stomach tightened another notch.

Jaenelle had been home for a week, helping Lucivar adjust to the family—and helping the family adjust to Lucivar—when a pointed letter from the Dark Council arrived, reminding her that she had not finished her visit to Little Terreille.

He still didn’t understand Lucivar’s cryptic remark, "Knees or bones, Cat," but Jaenelle had stomped out of the Hall spitting Eyrien curses, and Lucivar had seemed grimly pleased.

That had been three days ago.

She had returned abruptly that afternoon, snarled at Beale, "Tell Lucivar I used my knee," and had locked herself in her room.

Disturbed, Beale had informed him of her return and the comment meant for Lucivar, and had added that the Lady seemed unwell.

Jaenelle always seemed unwell after a visit to Little Terreille. He’d never been able to pry the reason for that out of her. Nothing she said about the activities she’d participated in explained the strained, haunted look in her eyes, the weight loss, the restless nights afterward, or the inability to eat.

The only person besides Beale who saw Jaenelle after she returned was Karla. And Karla, teary-eyed and dis-

tressed, had picked a fight with the one person she could count on to give her a battle—Lucivar.

After enduring a vicious harangue about males, Lucivar had hauled her out to the lawn, handed her one of the Eyrien sticks, and let her try to whack him. He’d pushed and taunted her until her muscles and emotions finally gave out. He’d offered no explanation, and the fury in his eyes had warned all of them not to ask.

The dining room door opened. Andulvar, Prothvar, and Mephis joined him, the concern in their eyes needing no words.

Karla arrived a minute later, moving stiffly. Lucivar came in behind her, threw an arm around her shoulders—which, amazingly, produced no temperamental explosion—and helped her into a chair.

Beale appeared, looking as strained as Saetan felt, and said, "The Lady says she will be unable to join you for dinner."

Lucivar pulled out the chair on Saetan’s right. "Tell the Lady she’s joining us for dinner. She can come down on her own two feet or over my shoulder. Her choice."

Beale’s eyes widened.

A low growl of displeasure came, unexpectedly, from Mephis.

The room smelled dangerous.

Wanting to avoid the confrontation building up between the men in the family, Saetan nodded to Beale, silently backing Lucivar.

Beale hastily retreated.

Lucivar just leaned against the chair and waited.

Jaenelle appeared a few minutes later, her face drained of color except for the dark smudges underneath her eyes.

Smiling that lazy, arrogant smile, Lucivar pulled out the chair beside his and waited.

Jaenelle swallowed hard. "I—I’m sorry. I can’t."’

She moved fast. Lucivar moved faster.

In stunned silence, they watched him drag her to her place at the table and dump her in the chair. She immediately shot upward, smacking into the fist he calmly held

above her head. Dazed, she didn’t protest when he pushed her chair up to the table and sat down beside her.

Saetan sat down, torn between his concern for Jaenelle and his desire to treat Lucivar to the same kind of affection.

Andulvar, Prothvar, and Mephis took their seats, bristling. If Lucivar noticed the anger being directed at him, he ignored it.

The arrogance of not acknowledging the displeasure of males of equal or darker rank galled Saetan, but he held his tongue and his temper. There would be time to unleash both later.