Mother Night. “You’ve never felt this . . . need . . . before? You’ve never seen Daemon act like this?”

“Even when Sadi is in rut, it’s not this bad. Or it is, but it’s three days and then it’s done. This is . . . relentless.”

How to say this? “Men relax after the Birthright Ceremony. They don’t feel vulnerable, don’t feel they could lose the right to be a father to their children, so they let their guard down, allow themselves to be more fully themselves.”

“What are you saying? That this is Sadi as he really is?”

“I think that’s at least part of it.” When Surreal stared at her, Marian tried to find words to describe her encounter with Daemon in the kitchen. “I felt some of that this morning . . .”

“Mother Night, Marian.” Surreal looked horrified.

“. . . and I realized I was seeing him without any barriers. For the first time in all the years I’ve known him, I was seeing Daemon when he wasn’t leashing his power or sexual heat. It was . . . potent.” She flushed with embarrassment but pushed on. “I jumped Lucivar in the laundry room as soon as we fed the children and dogs and booted them outside.”

“No,” Surreal said sharply. “It’s more than that. This started after the Sadist played with me one night . . . and I told Daemon the next morning that I never wanted him to do that to me again. But every time I’m near him, the heat coils around me until I can’t think, can’t breathe, can’t live. This is the punishment for refusing to play his games. That monster has gotten me addicted to sex so that he can torture me every night.”

Marian ached for her friend. For both friends. “I don’t think Daemon would deliberately hurt you. He hasn’t been well, Surreal. The headaches. Maybe he doesn’t have as much control as he did before.”

“It has to be more than that.” It sounded like a plea.

“Have you talked to him? Have you told him the sexual heat is causing a problem for you?”

“Yes, I’ve told him!” Surreal cried. “I can’t count how many times I’ve told him. He insists he has the heat leashed. I know he doesn’t. Hell’s fire, I was a whore for most of my life, so I know about sex. And I know Sadi well enough to know he’s using sex to torture me until I agree to let him do anything he wants.”

Lucivar had told her enough about Daemon’s past—and the warning signs that indicated the Sadist had come to call—that Marian didn’t doubt for a moment that, as the Sadist, Daemon didn’t distinguish between sex and torture. But what Surreal was saying didn’t sound right, didn’t fit the man she knew.

Assuming Daemon was still sane.

Chilled by that possibility, Marian said, “You’re his wife. That means something to him. Surreal, talk to him before he comes to some conclusions about your marriage that you might not be able to change. Talk to him before it’s too late. Or ask someone to intercede for you and find out why things have gone so wrong.”

“Who would dare challenge the Sadist?” Surreal said bitterly.

Marian caught the scent of coffee and looked past Surreal. Lucivar stood in the fully open doorway, holding a mug. But he was looking back down the corridor, and Marian realized he wasn’t the one who had brought the coffee.

Lucivar retreated, making no sound. Marian wrapped her arms around Surreal and felt the weight of her friend’s head on her shoulder as one of the strongest women she’d ever known wept like a heartbroken child.

 

* * *

 

* * *

“Bastard?” Lucivar crossed the flagstone courtyard and caught up to his brother as Daemon reached the stairs leading to the landing web below the eyrie. “You heading somewhere?”

There was nothing for him to read in Daemon’s gold eyes, and that lack scared him. It meant Sadi had retreated deep into himself, no longer allowing anyone to see what he was thinking or feeling. It was the mask Daemon had worn when he’d been a pleasure slave in Terreille.

It was the look Daemon had worn just before the Sadist annihilated a Queen and all the bitches who served in her court.

“Just down to the village to walk around,” Daemon replied.

A rational, reasonable answer to the question—which didn’t mean a damn thing.

Lucivar tipped his head to indicate the eyrie. “What are you going to do?” No need to clarify the problem. He’d found Daemon standing just outside the guest room, had seen the pain and sorrow on his brother’s face, had heard enough of what Surreal had said to understand the danger if Surreal truly couldn’t accept the Black-Jeweled Warlord Prince she had married.

All these years of living around and with Daemon. Living around and with the sexual heat. Living with the cold, dark power of the Black Jewels. It surprised him—and disappointed him—that a woman as strong as Surreal, a witch who wore Gray Jewels, had lasted less than two decades around the Black. Despite what Surreal thought, she wasn’t dancing with the Sadist, wasn’t the focus of the Sadist’s cold, cruel rage.

The chalice is breaking.

The girl would free him to ask for help.

Was it finally time? Was this the moment that Tersa and Karla had seen in their tangled webs?

“What are you doing to do?” Lucivar asked.

“Nothing.” Daemon’s voice, like his eyes, held no emotion. “It was my mistake. I’ll fix it.”

How? “Maybe someone at the Keep could help.”

“If the Gray-Jeweled witch who is my wife can’t stand to be around me anymore, I don’t think the Gray-Jeweled Queen at the Keep can do anything to help.”

Not the Gray, but . . . If Tersa and Karla were wrong about the help that could be found at the Keep, and he persuaded Daemon to ask for help that would never come . . .

“So you’re going down to the village?” he asked.

“I am. For a while.”

“You want some company?”

“No. Thank you.” Daemon went down a few stairs before looking at Lucivar. “Everything has a price, and I have no illusions about what I am.” He walked down to the landing web.

I have no illusions about what I am.

Lucivar had never heard Daemon say anything that had frightened him more, because there had been times when he’d heard Saetan say much the same thing.

 

 

TWENTY-SIX

 

 

Dillon walked to his appointment and wondered how to extricate himself from a couple of arrangements now that he had a chance for the exact thing he had struggled to achieve.