It iss the Jewel for Kaeleer’ss Heart.
There was another dreamer.
Sshe iss who sshe hass alwayss been.
I lost nothing I regret losing. I am what I want to be.
Lorn was right. He should have looked with his heart to find the answers. If he had, he would have realized there was one person who had no regrets, who felt no grief about the power that had been lost. Was, in fact, enjoying her “diminished” strength.
There was another dreamer.
One tear spilled over, not from sorrow this time but from joy.
He raised the glass of yarbarah in a salute. “To you, witch-child.”
FIFTEEN
1
No one saw him, heard him, felt him as he entered Lektra’s town house and climbed the stairs. He paused on the landing. He’d spent the day learning about his prey, so it was simple enough to sense which woman huddled in which bedroom.
Turning away from Lektra’s room, Daemon walked down the corridor. As he passed through the door of Roxie’s bedroom, he placed aural and psychic shields around the room that would keep this conversation private.
She was curled up in a chair, reading a book—something he doubted she usually did for entertainment. She wasn’t aware of him as he watched her, as he breathed in her scent.
An illusion spell could hide what a person looked like, but it didn’t change her psychic scent. When he’d seen her in Banard’s shop the day he bought the bracelet for Jaenelle, he’d felt pity for the witch who needed an illusion spell to hide a disfigurement.
Tonight, pity—and mercy—were words that had no meaning for him.
“So,” he said pleasantly as he dropped the Black shields that had kept him hidden from her, “since you couldn’t have my brother, you decided to play games with me.”
Roxie sprang out of the chair, dropping the book. “I—I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Roxie, darling, of course you do. Lucivar exiled you from Ebon Rih when you tried to force him into your bed. I know all about you. Or enough about you. I made it my business to find out. But I really don’t care what games you played with Lucivar. I want to know why you decided to play games with me.”
Roxie pouted. “Lektra wants you. I just helped her.”
“By spreading lies about me, by watching me when I was in Amdarh so you could build those lies on a foundation of truth?” Smiling, he crooned, “Did you also help Lektra with the carriage accident that could have injured Jaenelle?”
“No!” Panic laced her voice, filling him with pleasure. “I didn’t know about that! Not until she got back to the town house.”
“Ah.” Daemon sent wisps of a seduction spell into the room—just enough to dull the sharpest edges of her fear. “Everything has a price, darling. It’s time to pay the debt for your part in these games.”
“I suppose you’re going to tell Zhara to exile me from Amdarh.”
Smiling, he glided across the room until he stood in front of her. “Exile? Oh, no. That was Lucivar’s choice.” He held out his right hand.
As the seduction spells coiled around her, her eyes gleamed with speculation. She slipped her hand into his, then sighed with pleasure when he raised her hand and brushed his lips across her knuckles.
Roxie licked her lips. “So you’re not going to exile me?”
“No, I’m not. Because there is one small detail you didn’t take into account.” He licked the back of her hand as his fingers shifted to her wrist.
“What’s that?” she asked, sounding breathless.
“I’m not my brother.”
His nails stabbed her. His snake tooth pricked her wrist, and he pumped half of his venom into her before he released her and stepped back.
She stared at the wounds on her wrist, then looked at him, stunned.
“As I said, darling, everything has a price.”
He watched her die—and it was a hard death.
Hearing the click of a lock, Lektra spun around and stared at Daemon Sadi, who was leaning against her bedroom door. She pressed a hand against her chest, as if that would control the sudden pounding of her heart. “How did you get in? My butler didn’t announce you.”
“I didn’t want to be announced,” he replied.
“You came for me.” She breathed out the words, hardly daring to believe. Her beautiful love was here. He had realized who really loved him and had broken his ties with Jaenelle in order to be with her.
He walked toward her. “Yes, I came for you.”
There was something cold about his smile, something mocking in his deep voice, but she didn’t care about that because his gold eyes were already glazed with passion.
She flung herself at him, intending to throw her arms around him, but he stepped aside at the last moment. She staggered, off balance, and almost fell.
“Don’t touch me,” he snarled softly.
“But—” Confused, she pushed her hair away from her face. “Then why are you here?”
“I came to give you what you want from me. I came to give you what you deserve from me.”
A low-backed stuffed chair drifted across the floor, then turned until it faced her freestanding mirror.
“Sit down,” Daemon said.
She could almost feel his voice on her skin, as if it were some intoxicating lotion he was pouring over her. She couldn’t defy it, couldn’t disobey that voice. It scared her a little that she couldn’t rouse herself enough to make her own demands. Not demands. Requests. She would never make demands. Not with him.
As she moved to obey, he said, “Not in the seat. On the back of the chair.”
Being low enough and wide enough, she often perched on the back of that chair, but now she felt self-conscious as she climbed into position and saw her reflection in the mirror.
Daemon stepped up behind her. “What do you see?”
She gave him a coy smile. “I see my lover.”
“And I see a woman so obessed with a man she tried to harm a Queen.”
Her pleasure at having him in her bedroom vanished. “Is that why you’re here? Because of stupid Jaenelle?”
For a moment, his face became a cold mask carved out of fine wood. Then he smiled. “You’re right, darling. Jaenelle has no place in this room. This is between you and me.”
His hands caressed her arms beneath her nightgown. He wasn’t actually touching her—he couldn’t take his eyes off the woman in the mirror any more than she could stop watching him—but she felt his hands caressing her arms. Then another pair of hands caressed her breasts—and another pair lightly stroked the insides of her thighs.
“How—” she gasped. But she couldn’t form the question because a pair of lips brushed over hers. Two mouths closed over her nipples, licking and suckling. And another mouth . . .
Moaning, she arched her back and rested her head on his shoulder. This was so delicious, she never wanted it to stop, never wanted it to end.
Gently, relentlessly, those hands caressed her, those mouths licked and suckled . . . until the pleasure became an unbearable craving for his real hands, his real mouth.
“Touch me,” she gasped, ripping open the nightgown to reveal her breasts. “I need you to touch me.”
“Not yet,” he whispered. “Not yet.”
It didn’t stop, didn’t end. The pleasure went on and on until she began weeping from the need for release.
“Daemon . . . please.”
His right hand curled around her neck, and the warmth of that hand was ten times better than the feel of those phantom hands and mouths.
Feeling intensified until the pleasure became excruciating. As she finally crested, she felt a sharp prick in her neck, which somehow only added to her climax. The fierce release gradually eased to warm waves of pleasure, and finally faded to a delicious glow.
Still watching her, Daemon stepped away from the chair.
Gasping, Lektra stared at the flushed, wild-eyed woman in the mirror. A woman thoroughly satisfied by her lover. Brutally satisfied. And now . . .
Feeling strangely heavy and numb, she twisted on her perch to face him. “Now you—” It took her a moment to understand what she was seeing—and what she wasn’t seeing. “You—You’re not aroused.”
“Why would I be?” he replied, sounding bored and cold. So terribly cold.
“It didn’t excite you to make love to—”
“I serviced you like I serviced the bitches in Terreille who tried to play games with me. Love had nothing to do with it.”
She slid down into the seat. Her legs didn’t feel right. Neither did her arms. And she couldn’t quite draw a full breath.
“You don’t mean that,” she panted. “You love me, and I love you.”
“I don’t know you—and you don’t know me.”
“But—” She pushed herself out of the chair and tried to walk over to him, but her legs wouldn’t hold her. She collapsed on the floor. “There’s something wrong with me.”
“Everything has a price.” Holding out his right hand, he flexed his ring finger. “The price for playing with the Sadist is pain.”