“I can. I will.”

The leash that had loosened a bit with his flash of temper tightened again, choking him.

“And what price will Kaeleer pay for this self-indulgence?” Karla asked.

Daemon smiled a cold, cruel smile as one particular leash relaxed around its peg. Unlike the others, this one was leather braided with chain. This one held the Sadist in check.

“You do not want me to slip this leash,” he said too softly. “Not this one.”

“And you don’t want to snap this leash along with the rest of them when you start fighting to survive,” she replied, sounding too damn reasonable. “So loosen another one, Sadi.”

“They’re all there for a reason.”

“Yes, yes, yes. Temper. Power. Sexual heat.” She waved a hand at the chain and leather. “And whatever that one keeps in check.”

“I’m a Black-Jeweled Warlord Prince. I have to keep power and temper under control.”

“Not under this much control. Not all the time. But if you truly believe you have to keep power and temper so tightly leashed, at least loosen that one.” She pointed to the leash he held on the sexual heat.

“You want me to turn all of that on a woman? You want to see every woman around me begging to be mounted? I don’t.” Even the thought of it reminded him too much of being a pleasure slave and added cold claws to his temper.

She smacked his shoulder again, making him snarl.

“Dream. Vision. Me, who was never impressed with the wiggle-waggle even when I walked among the living. What’s done here won’t matter, so do it now.”

Allowing that leash to go slack around the peg, Daemon drew his first full breath in . . . How long had it been?

Sweet Darkness, had he really been holding on too tight? And when had that leash frayed to the point of breaking, leaving him in less control than he’d realized? He couldn’t be around other people if the heat wasn’t under control. He certainly couldn’t be around Surreal, since the heat continued to upset her.

“You have your own bedroom, don’t you?” Karla asked as if she’d heard his thoughts. Maybe she had. As she’d pointed out, he’d somehow landed in her dream vision, not the other way around.

“I do.”

“Breathing room, Sadi. You need it. You’re too damn dangerous to indulge in being foolish.”

Daemon looked thoughtful. Then he shook his head. “I can control it.”

 

* * *

 

* * *

“Until you can’t.”

Karla blinked. Sat back in her chair and stared at the tangled web of dreams and visions. Uneasy, she pushed away from the worktable and used Craft to glide across the room to the small table that held a decanter of yarbarah and a ravenglass goblet. She filled the goblet, then created a tongue of witchfire to warm the blood wine.

Tersa’s plea hadn’t been directed at her, but that didn’t matter. She had heard, and Tersa’s concerns about Daemon Sadi had been troubling enough that she had woven her own tangled web.

The demon-dead were not supposed to interfere with the living. When he’d been the High Lord, Uncle Saetan had held that line. All right, he had smudged the line when it came to his own family, but being Jaenelle Angelline’s adoptive father had been necessary, and he’d needed the help of his eldest son, Mephis, as well as Andulvar and Prothvar Yaslana—especially after he ended up being the honorary uncle for Jaenelle’s First Circle.

No, the demon-dead were not supposed to interfere with the living. But couldn’t the new High Lord of Hell have advisors who no longer walked among the living even if he still did? Couldn’t he have the relief of talking to old friends whose only interest in Kaeleer was their concern for him? Couldn’t he be allowed the luxury—and necessity—of expressing his feelings to someone who had no reason to fear his temper?

“The time will come when you’ll be needed. I hope you can stay in Hell that long.”

“Well, Sister, it looks like you were right.” Karla raised the goblet in a salute to the friend who wasn’t there. Of course, if Jaenelle still walked the Realms, Daemon wouldn’t be descending into this troubling state of mind.

How could she tell him his control was slipping when his reaction would be to try to tighten that control even more—which would only fray the leashes of his self-control faster until either the leashes snapped or his mind shattered? If his mind shattered, there was no one in the Realms anymore who was strong enough or gifted enough to heal him.

The sexual heat seemed to be the sticking point, but why now? And why, if Tersa had seen something similar, had she come to the Keep to beg for help from someone who didn’t exist anymore instead of telling her son to ease his control of the sexual heat and put up with the annoyance of women—and men—lusting for him?

Unless Tersa’s tangled web had revealed more than Daemon’s excess of self-control. Unless Tersa had seen something coming that would require the intervention of someone who didn’t exist. At least, everyone believed Witch didn’t exist—except, it would seem, a broken Black Widow.

“Song in the Darkness,” Karla whispered. “Are you more than that, Sister? If the need is great enough, can you be more than that?”

Which brought her back to the question of what to do about Sadi.

She could tell him what she had seen and let him do whatever he liked with the information. Or she could wait and keep watch. Whatever was coming, Daemon would need some old friends, but he wouldn’t go looking for them. She’d just have to be in a place where she would be easy to find—a place where he couldn’t avoid finding her.

Having made that decision, Karla drank the rest of the yarbarah, cleared away her tangled web, and went to talk to Draca, the Seneschal, about taking up residence in the Shadow Realm’s Keep.

 

* * *

 

* * *

Daemon woke in the dark, heart pounding, throat feeling bruised. Where . . . ?

Feeling overheated, he sat up, tossing aside the bedcovers as he used Craft to create a small ball of witchlight.

His bedroom at SaDiablo Hall. His room.

By the time he’d returned to the Hall from his trip to Ebon Rih, Surreal had retired for the night, and he’d had no desire to disturb her—and even less desire to tangle with her temper. Time enough in the morning to discuss Jaenelle Saetien’s misbehavior and the whole nutcake incident.

Getting up, he went to the window and pushed aside the heavy winter drapes that Helene and her staff had hung in the bedrooms recently to keep out the cold. The moonlight shined through the glass—and the chill from the glass whispered over his skin, a refreshing sensation after the bed’s heat.