Queen of the Darkness

She's alive!Another tremor went through Daemon's body. "No," he said. "Not now." He slid the door open and stumbled into the corridor. Barely keeping his balance, he went into the bathroom and Black-locked the door. His body shook violently. His stomach twisted viciously. Leaning over the sink, he fought the need to be sick.



Too late.



If he had tried to find her five years ago, when he'd first returned from the Twisted Kingdom, maybe it would have been different. If he had searched for the High Lord and at least tried to find out what had really happened that night at Cassandra's Altar...



Too late.



He could hold on. Hewould hold on. His mind was far more fragile than he allowed anyone to realize. Oh, it was intact. He had lost a few memories, a few small shards of the crystal chalice, but he was whole, and he was sane. But the healing would never be complete because he had lost the one person he needed to complete it. It hadn't mattered when he had only wanted to stay in one piece long enough to destroy the High Lord. It didn't really matter now. He could survive long enough to see her, just once.



There was nothing else he could do. If it had been any other man, he would have used everything he was and everything he knew in order to be her lover. If it had been any other man. But not Lucivar. He wouldn't become his brother's rival.



So he couldn't let Lucivar tell him what he desperately needed to hear. Not because he didn't want to know for sure that Jaenelle was alive, but because he wasn't ready to be told about the gold wedding ring on Lucivar's left hand.



3 / Kaeleer



Surreal pushed the last of the cushioned boxes together to form a bench against one wall. "Sit down, Manny," she said to the older woman.



"Wouldn't be right," Manny said. "A servant shouldn't be sitting."



Surreal gave her a slashing look. "Don't be an ass. You're a 'servant' because that's the only way Sadi could bring you with him."



Manny tightened her lips in disapproval. "No need for you to be using that kind of language, especially with children around. Besides, I was a servant for a good many years. It was an honest living and nothing I'm ashamed of."



Unlike me?Surreal wondered. She had never denied that she had been a very successful whore for centuries before she quit thirteen years ago, no longer able to stomach the bedroom games. That night at Cassandra's Altar had left its mark on all of them.



Manny's feelings about women who worked in Red Moon houses were ambivalent. What would she think if she knew about Surreal's other profession? How comfortable would the older woman have been if she had known that Surreal had been—and still was—a very successful assassin?



Didn't matter. They had become friends during the two years when Daemon had been rising out of the Twisted Kingdom, but after he regained his sanity, Manny had made a mental shift, treating both of them to the domestic affection that existed between a special servant and an aristo child. Daemon hadn't noticed anything odd about this behavior; maybe Manny had always treated him like that. But it had annoyed Surreal, who had grown up hard and fast on the streets. It had also given her a lot of practice in dealing with Manny's set opinions.



"Look," she said very softly. "Lady Benedict's servant doesn't look like he can stand up for two hours without being in pain. If you sit down, you can badger him into sitting." .



A few minutes later, Manny, Andrew, Wilhelmina Benedict, and Surreal were sitting on the makeshift bench.



Surreal glanced at the remaining space on her right. Where in the name of Hell was Sadi? He wasn't as mentally stable as he pretended to be, and seeing Lucivar must have been a shock. But what had theEyrien thought about seeing his half brother again? After Jaenelle disappeared thirteen years ago, Daemon had gone to Pruul, intending to get Lucivar out of the salt mines. For some reason, Lucivar had refused to go with him. She had always suspected, because of what Daemon wouldn't say, that there had been a vicious collision of tempers and that a rift had formed between them. And she had always suspected that the reason for that rift had begun, like so many other things, at Cassandra's Altar.



The driver's compartment door slid open. Lord Khardeen stepped out and glanced at the Eyriens, who tensed at his appearance. Saying nothing, he walked to the end of the makeshift bench and sat down beside Surreal.



Directly across from them was the woman with the two young children. They had the brown skin, gold eyes, and black hair that was typical of the three long-lived races, but the little girl's hair had a slight, natural curl. Surreal wondered if the girl's hair indicated that one of the parent's bloodlines wasn't pure Eyrien, if those curls had betrayed a secret, and if that was the reason these people had left their home Territory.



The older boy stayed close to his mother, but the little girl smiled at Khardeen and took a couple of steps toward him.



"Woofer," she said happily, holding out a worn stuffed animal.



Khardeen leaned forward and smiled. "That he is. What's his name?"



"Woofer." She gave the toy a squeezing hug. "Mine."



"Right you are."



Watching Khardeen apprehensively, the woman reached for the little girl. "Orian, don't bother the Warlord."



"She's no bother," Khardeen said pleasantly.



The woman pulled the girl close to her and tried to smile. "She likes animals. My husband's mother made her a girl doll before we left, but Orian wanted to bring this one."



And where was your own mother while that bitch was giving you a verbal knife?Surreal wondered as she watched shadows gather in the woman's eyes and picked up a flicker of shame in the psychic scent. Well, that answered which side of the girl's heritage was in question.



The Warlord who had protested when Friall refused to finish the contract turned away from his conversation with a couple of Eyrien males, glanced sharply at Khardeen, and then moved protectively closer to the woman and children.



Khardeen leaned back, returning that sharp glance with a mild look.



Sitting next to him, with his arm brushing hers, Surreal felt his tension—and anger?—but he gave no outward sign of it. When he looked at her, his expression was solemn, but his blue eyes held amusement.



"I wonder how the little Queen's mother will react when she sees the 'woofers' her daughter's going to be hugging," he said softly.



"Will they bite her?" Surreal asked.



"The girl? No. The mother?" Khardeen shrugged.



Hearing the warning underneath the amusement, Surreal shivered. Then Daemon approached them, and she took a sharp breath.



He moved carefully, like a man who had received a fatal wound and was quietly bleeding to death.



Khardeen stood up and gestured toward the vacated seat. "Why don't you sit down? I've got a couple of things to see to."



As soon as Daemon sat down, he wrapped his arms around himself.



She'd seen that protective gesture before, when he had been pushing too hard at his Craft studies, when dreams had haunted his sleep.



Khardeen gave her a questioning look. She shook her head. She appreciated his concern, but there was nothing anyone could do for Daemon just then except let him retreat until he felt strong enough to face the world again.



A minute later, Lucivar came out of the private room, his expression carefully blank.



For the rest of the journey, Daemon sat beside her with his eyes closed and Lucivar stood near the back of the Coach, talking quietly to the Eyrien males who cautiously approached him.



For the rest of the journey, she wondered what had happened in that private room. And she worried.



4 / Kaeleer



Lord Jorval cowered in the chair and watched the Dark Priestess storm around the outer room of the suite he'd rented for this meeting.



Red Moon houses hadn't existed in Kaeleer until four years ago—andstill didn't exist anywhere outside of Little Terreille. But certain influential Council members, himself included, had argued that the stronger immigrating males, who had little chance of having a Kaeleer-born woman for a lover, needed some way to relieve their sexual tension. The Queens in Little Terreille had yielded to the argument with no more than a token protest since they quickly recognized the usefulness of such places. Now a visit to a Red Moon house became a way of rewarding males for good behavior in the Queens' courts. They could take their frustrations and aggressions out on women who couldn't refuse them, who couldn't demand courtesy and obedience. And no one noticed—or cared, if they did—that all the women in those houses were immigrants who had been claimed the day after a service fair.



And some Kaeleer males, himself included, had discovered the pleasure that could be had from a cringing woman's obedience.



He'd chosen this Red Moon house, on the edge of the slums that had sprung up near the fairground, because the proprietors wouldn't ask any questions. The two men who owned the place didn't care if a woman was damaged physically or mentally, as long as they were suitably compensated. And they wouldn't care about the youth who was now bound and gagged in the other room—the offering he had brought in the hopes it would lessen the Dark Priestess's rage.



Hekatah threw off the cloak that had shrouded her face and body.



Jorval swallowed hard. He had become violently ill once at the sight of her decaying, demon-dead body. Her punishment for his lack of control had given him nightmares for months.



There were times when he desperately wished he'd never met her or become entangled in her schemes. But she had been behind his rise to power in the Dark Council, and he had discovered that she owned him before he even realized he had agreed to serve her.



"There were four Queens suitable for our purpose," Hekatah snarled."Four. And you still couldn't manage to get him tucked away until we found a way to use him."



"I tried, Priestess," Jorval said, his voice quivering. "I blocked the inquiries Sadi made about serving outside of Little Terreille. Those were the only names I offered him."



"Then why isn't he with one of them?"