Surreal jumped in front of him. “Trust me, sugar. You don’t want to do that. Not tonight. Daemon isn’t interested in talking to anyone tonight.”

Lucivar studied the town house door. “Where’s Jaenelle? Aren’t you doing some female thing today?”

“We were. We did. Now . . .” Surreal looked pointedly at the town house. “Jaenelle’s not interested in talking to anyone either.”

“You’re telling me it’ll be worth my balls if I walk in there and interrupt something?”

“At the very least.”

Lucivar grinned. Then he looked at her. “So where are you staying tonight?”

“Jaenelle and I had a suite at the female place, but it looks like I’ll have it to myself tonight.”

“They have any rooms there where you can get something to eat?”

Oh, shit. “They do, but the place is really . . . female.”

“No males there at all?”

Remembering all the looks and whispers she’d endured that day, she gave in to the urge to be pure bitch. “Yeah, there are males. We can get dinner there if you want. And since Jaenelle won’t be using it, you’re welcome to the other bedroom.” She paused. “Besides, we need to talk. There’s some trouble here.”

“Fine. Let’s go.”

“We’ll probably have to walk to the corner to find a cab,” Surreal said, walking past him.

His snort of laughter warned her, but before she could react, he clamped one arm around her waist and launched them skyward. Since her back was pressed to his chest, she didn’t have many places to grab while he flew way too close to the treetops, so she settled for swearing as cre atively as possible.

“Shut up,” Lucivar said, “or you’ll end up with bugs in your teeth.”

“What?”

Roaring with laughter, he spun them a few times before gliding down to the sidewalk and backwinging to land lightly in front of the “female place.”

“You son of a whoring bitch,” Surreal snarled. The sidewalk tilted, and she grabbed the arm he offered. “Just for that, I hope being in this place a few hours makes your balls shrivel up.”

He just snorted and escorted her to the registration desk.

“Am I supposed to sign in or something?” he asked.

“You can do whatever you want.” Surreal grabbed the desk. The atrium wasn’t moving, but she still didn’t quite trust her legs. The same little prick who had signed her and Jaenelle in that morning was still on duty—and eyeing Lucivar.

“We do request that any . . . company . . . visiting with our guests sign in,” he said, setting a leather-bound guest book on the desk and offering a pen.

Taking the pen, Lucivar dipped it in the inkwell and signed his name. “I’m not company, I’m family.”

It was the man’s sneer, there and gone in a moment, that pricked Surreal’s temper.

“What would you do if someone misinterpreted the reason for you being here?” she asked Lucivar.

He studied her. “I’m here to have dinner with a member of my family, and since your suite has a spare bedroom and I need a place to sleep tonight, I’m staying there. What’s there to misinterpret? That’s simple enough.”

“Not everyone sees what’s obvious—or true.”

His gold eyes narrowed. Then he shrugged. “That’s easy enough to deal with. If people turn my spending an evening with my cousin into something it’s not, I’ll just rip out their lying tongues.”

Her jaw dropped, and she was very glad she was holding on to the desk. “Don’t you mean you’d cut out their tongues?”

“No, I said what I meant.”

She thought about the difference—and shuddered.

His hand closed over her arm. Then he led her toward one of the archways that provided access to the rest of the establishment.

“So where do we find dinner?” Lucivar asked.

“That way.” She noticed her hand was trembling. Hell’s fire. She was a Gray-Jeweled witch and an assassin. But he was . . . “You’re family, and I love you, but I gotta tell you, Lucivar, sometimes you are a scary son of a bitch.”

“Yes, I am.” He stopped at the doorway of one of the dining rooms. “But if what went on back there has anything to do with the trouble you want to tell me about, then there’s something the Blood in Amdarh haven’t learned yet.”

“What’s that?”

Lucivar studied her long enough to make her stomach tighten. Then he said softly, “That I’m not the Warlord Prince they should be afraid of.”

NINE

1

Daemon woke slowly, gradually becoming aware that his hand rested on a soft, smooth thigh, and someone’s fingers were gently combing through his hair.

“You’re so beautiful.”

He opened his eyes and smiled at Jaenelle, who was sitting up in bed, watching him. Feeling more content than he’d felt in a long time, he caressed her thigh before lifting his hand to brush across her ribs and continue on to her back.

“You can thank my father for that. I didn’t have anything to do with it,” he replied.

She didn’t smile, didn’t respond. Just watched him.

Remembering what they still had to talk about, uneasiness began coiling around his contentment.

“What do you want, Daemon?” Jaenelle asked.

“You. Just you.”

Her sapphire eyes changed. Became haunted, ancient. He hadn’t seen that look in almost a year—since the day he’d gone to Hayll to play out a vicious game to keep Dorothea and Hekatah distracted while Jaenelle prepared to unleash her immense power to cleanse the taint of those two bitches out of the Blood. His heart beat painfully as he looked into those haunted eyes, knowing it was no longer Jaenelle who watched him.

“What do you want?” Witch asked.

Daemon swallowed the lump in his throat. “A wedding ring,” he said, his voice roughened by longing—and a fear that he might still lose the one person who meant everything to him. “I want the wedding ring you promised I’d wear after I got back from Hayll.”

She went so still he wasn’t sure she was still breathing. Then her eyes changed again.

“I’m not the same as I was when that promise was made,” Jaenelle said.

He couldn’t stop himself from looking at the Jewel she now wore. Twilight’s Dawn was a Jewel unlike any other, which made it extraordinary. But it wasn’t the Ebony Jewel she used to wear. It wasn’t the Black that had been her Birthright. As unique and mysterious as Twilight’s Dawn was, it still represented a loss of the power she once wielded. And that did make her different, but . . .

He sat up to face her. Brushed his fingertips over her face. “No, you’re not the same—except in the ways that truly matter.”

“Do you really believe that, Daemon?”

Can you accept the difference? That was the question under the question.

“Yes, I really believe that.” And I can accept the difference.

A sheen of tears brightened her eyes as she smiled. “Then let’s do it. Let’s get married. Today.”

Now! Excitement, fierce in its intensity, flooded through him before common sense intervened. He rested his forehead against hers and forced himself to consider the ramifications of following desire.

“We can’t.” He pulled back enough to see the uncertainty, and a hint of hurt, on her face. “Sweetheart, there’s nothing I’d like better than to marry you today, but we can’t.”

“Why not?”

He sighed. “For one thing, the coven and the boyos would never forgive me if they weren’t invited to your wedding.” Her wedding. Things were still too shaky between him and the rest of the humans who had made up her First Circle that they would give a damn whether or not they came to his wedding. “If we’re going to avoid hurt feelings, we have to have a formal wedding. That means sending out invitations, talking to Mrs. Beale about preparing a wedding feast for the guests. It will take a few weeks.” And the Darkness only knew what other rumors might be spread about him in that time.

Jaenelle echoed his sigh. “You’re right. But . . .”

The look on her face made him giddy ... and a bit terrified.

“We could have a private wedding today, just for us, and then have a formal wedding in a few weeks,” she said.

“You mean a secret wedding?” Yes! But common sense, which he was really beginning to resent, intruded once more. “There isn’t a Priestess in Kaeleer who would be willing to marry us in secret and risk the wrath of the Queens who rule Kaeleer—not to mention Lucivar and Saetan.”

She took his face in her hands. “Daemon,” she said, her voice full of laughter, “I’ve just discovered something about you. As much as you know and as much as you’ve experienced, you can still be naive about some things.”

His mouth hung open, and no brilliantly phrased words came out.

After giving him a smacking kiss on the forehead, Jaenelle got out of bed and headed for the adjoining bathroom. “If we leave within the hour, we can get there by this afternoon.”

“Where?”