Tangled Webs

“So he sleeps his way into a position of power?”



“He doesn’t do much sleeping in his Lady’s bed, but, essentially, yes. Usually there is attraction, basic lust on both sides. Most often there is affection. Sometimes even love. And sometimes there is lust on the Lady’s side and ambition on his—and nothing more.”



She moved toward the shelves of books, wanting to be farther away from the counter and the other customers. “It was like that in Terreille, but I hadn’t thought it was that way in Kaeleer.” And Falonar had come from Askavi in the Realm of Terreille. Maybe he’d seen servicing her as a way of solidifying his position as Lucivar’s second-in-command.



What bothered her more? That Falonar’s interest in her could have been a combination of lust and a desire to have a connection with the witches who ruled Kaeleer, or that his interest in his current lover had nothing to do with ambition and everything to do with heart?



Let it go. He wasn’t the right man for you anyway.



“What I’m trying to say is, I will stand as an official escort for you whenever you need one—or whenever it is required that you have one,” Rainier said. “But I’m not here for the sake of ambition. I’m here because I like you. All right?”



She nodded, then puffed out a breath. “I guess I’m just being moody. Or bitchy.”



A warm smile now. “I hadn’t noticed.”



He was teasing her, poking fun of her usual sharp tongue. Something a friend would do. Something a manwouldn’t do unless he was sure the teasing would be taken as intended.



Cheered by the thought, she moved toward the back shelves. The dapper-looking man who had come in while she and Rainier were talking saw her coming toward him, flushed as if he’d been caught doing something dirty, and ducked out of sight.



Her cheerful mood vanished as she stared at the spot where the man had been. Something about him. Something not quite right. Like he’d dressed very carefully for an afternoon out, but it was a laboriously constructed costume, and he had missed some small detail that skewed everything else just enough to scratch her temper. Added to that was the suspicion that he’d been trying to eavesdrop on a conversation and hadn’t been happy when she’d caught him at it.



She considered sending Rainier down another aisle and boxing the man between the two of them, but she had seen no Jewel, didn’t get any sense of threat or power. In fact, she got so little sense of him, she wasn’t even sure hewas Blood. Was she going to scare the shit out of a man and spoil his pleasant afternoon of browsing in the bookshop just because she didn’t like something about the way he dressed?



Since she couldn’t say with certainty that her reaction wasn’t the result of an edginess caused by talking about Falonar, she turned to Rainier and said, “Help me find the first Jarvis Jenkell story about the Blood. And while we’re doing that, you can tell me again about this spooky house.”



Late that evening, Daemon sprawled across the big bed, naked, sated, and blissfully content, his head pillowed in Jaenelle’s lap. They had bathed after a hungry session of lovemaking, but he still caught a light whiff of their mingled scents beneath the clean smell of soap.



So tempting to turn his head and press a kiss on that triangle between her thighs. But a kiss through her nightgown would make him want to push up the fabric in order to taste skin, and that kind of kiss would lead to other kinds of kisses.



He’d already indulged himself with those other kinds of kisses.



Besides, she was reading a book and petting him, her fingers drifting through his hair, over his shoulders and back. He could float on that sensation, and he did, beginning to settle into sleep when…tap. tap tap. tap. tap tap.Her finger against his shoulder.



He knew that rhythm. It seldom boded well.



“Are you asleep?” Jaenelle asked.



“Mmmm.” Noncommittal response. Could mean anything.tap. tap tap.



“Daemon?”



He opened his eyes halfway.



“When we have sex, does your penis weep with gratitude?”



A handful of answers flashed through his mind. If he said any of them, he would end up sleeping in the Consort’s room. Alone.



“In what context?” he asked.



She lowered the book. Since he’d acknowledged being awake, he raised his head and read the passage. Then he read it again.



“Sweetheart, if my penis ever does that, you will be the first to know. Not as my wife, but as a Healer.”



“That’s what I thought, but I wanted to be sure.”



Hearing the frown in her voice, he shifted, reluctantly, and propped himself up on one elbow. “What are you reading?”



She flashed him a guilty look. “A book by Jarvis Jenkell.”



At least you didn’t kick me this time.“That book doesn’t start with a body in a closet, does it?”



“Yes, it does.”



Hell’s fire. Well, Rainier would get to deal with Surreal when they reached that part of the story. And wouldn’t that be fun?



“Do you think there’s something wrong with his brain?”



He studied her expression. Not a flippant question.



“Do you think there’s something wrong with his sanity?”



Definitely not a flippant question when asked by a witch who was a Black Widow as well as a Healer.



“Are we talking about the writer or the character?” Daemon asked.



“I’m not sure,” she replied, looking troubled.



Uneasy now, he pulled the sheet up to his waist, a defensive gesture. “Why are you asking? Because Jenkell wrote a bad sex scene?” Appalling was a more accurate description.



“No, I’m asking because he seems to think this is normal behavior for the Blood.”



He hesitated a moment, then said softly, “It’s not that far off from what was done in some of the Terreillean courts.” Other places. Other beds. None where he served willingly. Those weren’t memories he wanted to stir up and bring to the surface. Not now. Not ever.



Jaenelle looked at him with those sapphire eyes. Looked through him. Saw him in ways no one else ever had—or could.



She vanished the book, then shifted so that she was propped up on an elbow, close enough to him that all she had to do was lean a little to kiss him.



Memories swam up to the surface. Ugly, hateful memories. As he looked at Jaenelle, his heart pounded, but it wasn’t from excitement or lust.



Submit. Serve. Play the whore.



He couldn’t do it. Not even as a game. Not with Jaenelle.



“Daemon?” Her lips touched his in a soft kiss.



He couldn’t do this, had to stop this before she became aroused. If he tried to oblige her while the memories churned inside him, it would damage the feelings between them.



“Do you want to sneak down to the kitchen and snitch whatever Mrs. Beale is hiding in the cold box?”



He blinked once. Twice. Waited for his heart to settle back down to a normal beat.



Love and mischief. That’s what he saw in her eyes. She, too, had emotional scars that had come from violence in the bed. She would recognize when something came too close to one of his scars.



As she looked at him, waiting for an answer, different memories washed through his mind. Memories of Jaenelle when she was twelve and he had been her grandmother’s pleasure slave. She had talked him into silly, mischievous adventures during those months, dragging him into the game like a well-loved toy that had half the stuffing hugged out of it. She’d given him a taste of innocent childhood.



She was making the same offer now.



“We do have our own kitchen and some food in the cold box.” Well,he had his own small kitchen where he could putter around when he felt like cooking. That recent renovation was a very large thorn in Mrs. Beale’s side, and he had the feeling that the negotiations required before she accepted that addition had just begun.



The fact that a Yellow-Jeweled witch, whom he paid very well to be the cook at the Hall, could make him uneasy about renovating his own home sparked a little, boyish flame of defiance in him.



“Do you think there’s anything worth snitching?” he asked.



“This afternoon, when I went to the kitchen doorway to ask for a plate of fruit and cheese, she seemed more territorial than usual.”



That was a terrifying thought.



He brushed a finger over Jaenelle’s shoulder. “We do own the Hall, and we do pay for all the food, so we are entitled to eat anything we want from either kitchen.”



“Uh-huh. If we’re caught, you should try that argument.”



A picture in his head: him with his hands full of pilfered food; Mrs. Beale and her meat cleaver, both wearing old-fashioned, frilly nightcaps, blocking the doorway and waiting for an explanation.



Mother Night.



Since they were partners in this late-night venture, he reached for Jaenelle’s mind and lightly brushed against her first inner barrier. When she opened the barrier, he showed her his imagined picture of Mrs. Beale.



“Oh.Ick. ” Jaenelle scrunched up her face and made gagging noises. Then she stopped making noises and looked at him, her eyes owl wide. “Do you think she really wears one of those things? Does anyone wear those anymore?”



“I have no idea.”



“Beale sleeps with her,” Jaenelle whispered. “Do you think the meat cleaver has its own little bed?”



He shuddered. “If I were Beale, I wouldn’t share a bed with that meat cleaver.” Although Beale might think the same about him occasionally sharing a bed with an eight-hundred-pound cat.



“They have sex,” Jaenelle whispered.



“No. No no no.That is too scary to consider.” He swung out of bed. “Come on. Let’s do this before one of us remembers we’re supposed to be adults.”



She laughed, and that silvery, velvet-coated sound washed away the rest of the bad memories, leaving nothing but the anticipation of a mischievous adventure.



They were laughing at him.



He’d gone to the bookshop in Amdarh that afternoon to spend some time among his own kind, to give them a chance to recognize who he was—and to listen to their praise of his latest book.