“I want you to help me keep a promise. Dance with me, Daemon.”
He brushed his fingers over the sleeve of her gown—and still wasn’t sure if he was touching something real. “That’s all?”
She took the step that erased the distance left between them. Then she touched her lips to his in a kiss that was as warm as a dream and as soft as a wish.
“For the spooky house, yes, that’s all.” She wrapped her arms around his neck and added a little more heat to the kiss. “Afterward, we can have a late supper and a quiet evening alone to do whatever kind of dancing you want.”
Heat flashed through his blood before he got himself under control again. “Promise?”
She smiled and linked her hand with his as she took a step back. “Promise.”
TWENTY-EIGHT
Surreal had plenty to say to the man who walked into the sitting room.
“You have to talk to your brother.”
“I talk to my brother all the time,” Daemon said mildly. He crossed the room and stood next to the footstool in front of her chair.
“I mean it, Sadi. He’s being unreasonable.”
“Lucivaris being unreasonable? How can you tell?”
Smug, arrogant bastard. He was laughing at her.
“You don’t know what it’s like,” she grumbled. “He comes here every day—every single day—and stares at me like I’m a roast and he’s checking to see if I’m done.” Which, she’d discovered, wasexactly what Lucivar was doing. “He showed up earlier today and said that, after Winsol, I have to go to Ebon Rih and work with him to hone my fighting skills—especially defensive tactics.”
Sadi looked politely interested, but it was hard to tell if his brain was really in the room.
“Hesaid I can stay at The Tavern down in Riada, and he’ll pay for room and board—as if I can’t afford to pay for my own room—but if I get bitchy about this, he’ll chuck me into a guest room at the eyrie and put shields around the room to make sure I stay there.And he’ll chuck Daemonar in there with me. That’s blackmail.”
“No, darling,” Daemon said. “Blackmail would be telling you that if you don’t agree to Lucivar’s terms, you will not only have to deal with him but with the rest of the males in the family who are unhappy because you got hurt. And that includes Chaosti.”
Shit shit shit. Chaosti was the Warlord Prince of the Dea al Mon. Kin on her mother’s side. Chaosti would be just as bad as Lucivar. Maybe worse.
Not worse.No one could be worse than Lucivar. Not individually. But if they ganged up on her…
“You’re as useful as a bucket of piss,” she growled.
Daemon just smiled. “Rainier is equally thrilled. He’ll be joining you. You can whine together in the evenings.”
She considered several extremely vile things to say to and about him, but he held out a white box tied with gold ribbon and she decided to wait and see if the bribe was worth holding her tongue.
“Chocolate fudge,” Daemon said.
Hell’s fire. She’d even be nice to Lucivar today for a box of fudge.
“If you don’t want it…”
“You try to leave with that box, you’ll be leaving without all of your skin.”
Daemon grinned. “That’s the witchling we all love. Now I know you’re feeling better.”
“Bastard.”
He laughed and handed her the box. Then he handed her a familiar-sized envelope. “I’m delivering these in person.”
Her hands trembled as she opened the envelope and read the invitation to the premier showing of Jaenelle and Marian’s spooky house.
“You don’t have to go,” Daemon said gently. “We’ll understand.”
“I’ve seen worse, I’ve lived through worse, and I’ve done worse. I’d like to see what Jaenelle and Marian had intended. Maybe that will help erase the perversion of the other one.”
She hadn’t been sure she’d say anything, but as soon as she returned to Amdarh, she’d made it her business to find out everything she could about Jarvis Jenkell and the trap he had set for the SaDiablo family.
“I heard the house burned,” she said, trying to sound casual—and hoping she was the only one who could hear the thunder of her heart beating. “Witchfire, wasn’t it?”
He said nothing. Just looked at her with eyes that were suddenly a little glazed, a little sleepy.
“Was Jenkell still alive when the fire took the house?” she asked.
Still nothing. Then, “Why do you think I would know?”
“You’d know, Sadi. You would know.”
He studied her for a long moment. Then he took that last step, bringing him right next to her chair. He leaned over. One hand cupped her face while his lips lightly brushed her cheek.
The Sadist whispered in her ear, “He was grateful when I let him die.”
She shivered—and knew he felt the shiver.
Daemon stepped back. “I’ll tell Jaenelle you’ll be there for opening night. Rainier is planning to attend too.”
He walked out of the room.
She set the box and invitation aside, then got up, wincing as her left side twinged in protest. Her main objection to this required training with Lucivar was that she didn’t want her male relatives to know how weak she still was. Well, she had a few weeks before Winsol. If she could keep her relatives at bay until then, she’d be able to convince them that they had been fussing over nothing.
Although, come to think of it, they were probably getting daily reports from the Healer Sadi had hired to look in on her every day, and knew her condition better than she did. And Jaenelle would have understood every nuance of what the poison had done to her and how long it would take her to heal. While Daemon had been tucking her into the town house and giving Helton instructions about meals and visitors, Jaenelle had probably given the Healer explicit instructions of what to watch for to assure that the healing was progressing as it should.
So maybe it had been foolish stubbornness that had made her argue against having the finest Healer in Kaeleer keeping an eye on her, but Jaenelle was family. Right now Surreal would have felt smothered if she’d been fussed over too much by family. She considered it sufficient punishment that Helton was fussing over her. At least he was restrained by his position as the town house’s butler and had to back off if she snarled at him.
Unfortunately, herrelatives thought being snarled at meant her health was improving and that only encouraged them to be bigger pains in the ass.
They had her well and truly chained. Oh, they were giving her breathing room and the illusion of independence, but until she was fully healed, Lucivar and Daemon would continue circling, would continue to keep watch—and anything that was perceived as a threat would disappear before it got close enough for her to be aware of its presence.
So she would go to Ebon Rih, and she would find a way to break the chains family had woven around her. She had a better chance of doing that with Lucivar, of getting him to agree to back off. If Daemon, on the other hand, felt a need to tighten those chains…
The look in his eyes. The sound of his voice when the tone was both seduction and threat.
Chilled to the bone, she stretched out on the sofa, put a warming spell on the blanket Helton had brought in earlier, and tucked it around her.
Was Jenkell still alive when the fire took the house?
Sadi hadn’t answered her question.
Maybe that was for the best.
TWENTY-NINE
“Don’t write in the dust, darling. That’s rude.”
“‘Hello, pree.’ What does ‘pree’ mean?”
“It’s ‘prey.’ ‘Hello, prey.’” Pause. “Oh, dear.”
“Mama, that’s a mouse made of bones.”
“Mouse?Where? ”
“Bwaa ha ha!”
Surreal bit her lip as the ghost boy reached for the door he’d been told not to open. She wanted to scream at him, rage at him. But there was no one to scream at, nothing to rage at, so she turned and stared at sooty layers of cobwebs that were clotting one corner of the dining room ceiling.
She felt Rainier come up beside her, positioning himself so that he blocked even her peripheral view of what was happening.
“I know it’s just entertainment,” she said. “I know it isn’t real, and I know Jaenelle and Marian created it before we walked into that trap, but…”
“I can’t watch it either,” Rainier said. He tipped his chin toward the cobwebs. “What do you think those are supposed to do?”
As if in answer, two spots began to glow and became eyes within a cobweb face shaped by a breath of air. Pieces of cobweb extended out, becoming an arm—and a hand with its fingers curled. The arm turned. The hand opened. And…
Surreal blinked.
“Bats?” Rainier asked. “Are those tiny bats?”
“Sparkly, Jewel-colored bats,” she said. “Must be one of Tersa’s spells.”
By the time the last sparkly bat winked out and the cobwebs once again looked like sooty, clotted cobwebs, Surreal was ready to follow the rest of the guests who were leaving the dining room.
She found her balance as she wandered through the spooky house with Rainier at her side. Despite Jaenelle’s skills as a Healer, he was still walking with a noticeable limp and needed the cane that had been a gift from Daemon.
He was lucky he was walking at all. Jaenelle had told her the Eyrien Warlord’s war blade had cut halfway through the bone as well as severing the muscles in Rainier’s leg. But he was healing, and she was glad he’d felt well enough to come with her to seethis spooky house.
Jaenelle and Marian had created a house that was humor with a bite, scary with a wink. And some things were hauntingly lovely, like that voice in the upstairs hallway.
She saw the other illusions Tersa had added—and after watching eyes open up in the grapes, she was very glad she’d avoided those in the other spooky house.