“Then let me remind you that our father had four children, and all of them had cocks.” Five, actually, if they counted the boy who had been murdered shortly after birth.
Lucivar slanted a look at him. “So you’re saying I shouldn’t count on getting a cuddly little witch?”
“I’m saying the odds aren’t in your favor, so before you pour your contraceptive brew down the sink, consider what it will be like having two of those in the house.”
Lucivar winced and muttered, “One of them would probably end up living with you half the time.”
It was a distinct possibility—and it was exactly what he was afraid of. Not that he didn’t love Daemonar. He did. But most days he loved him much better knowing he could send the boy home.
Suddenly, Lucivar tensed. “How long are you supposed to guard this room?”
Daemon felt all the blood drain out of his head. “Mother Night. Jaenelle is going to be back any minute now.”
They sprang forward at the same moment Daemonar gave the box one last bang on the floor before throwing it and reaching for another.
“You get the boy away from here, and I’ll do what I can to clear up—or hide—this mess,” Daemon said.
Lucivar grabbed Daemonar and swung him around as they twirled toward the door, distracting the boy from the fact he was being taken away from the presents.
Once brother and boy were safely out of the way, Daemon dropped to his knees and began gathering up boxes and wrappings.
He could vanish everything and sort it out later—if he could figure out an excuse Jaenelle would accept for why the packages had disappeared.
Of course, these boxes had arrived after she’d left the room, so maybe she didn’t know about them. That would be good. That would be wonderful. That would—
The door opened—and he froze. When there was no outraged shriek, he dared a look over his shoulder.
Saetan stood in the doorway, clearly amused. The bastard.
Daemon said, “If you love me at all, don’t ask how this happened. Just help me fix it.”
Saetan walked toward Daemon, the door closing silently behind him. “I know how it happened. As a reward, and to give you a break from the festive chaos going on in the rest of the Hall, your wife asked you to guard the gifts. And you, not having brains enough to get comfortable with a brandy and a book, decided guarding the gifts was foolish. So you left ‘for just a few minutes,’ and when you returned, you learned how much of a mess can be made in a short amount of time.”
Daemon closed his eyes and hunched his shoulders. Right now he would gladly give up the privileges of being an adult if he could shove the responsibilities of being an adult under the sofa—along with all the torn wrapping paper.
“How did you know?” Daemon asked.
“I used to have one,” Saetan replied.
Puzzled, he looked up at his father. “One what?”
“Small Eyrien boy. I learned this lesson the hard way, and now, my darling, so have you.”
“You could have warned me.”
“You wouldn’t have believed me.”
So what? You still could have warned me.
Since that wouldn’t get him any help, he swallowed the comment and tried to look woeful. It wasn’t hard to do. “Help?”
Using Craft, Saetan moved a straight-backed chair from one side of the room, placed it close to Daemon, and sat down. “I’ll show you a trick. As long as you don’t use it too often, you can get away with it. Especially during this season, when males are forgiven their foibles. Mostly.”
“The first problem is figuring out who these gifts were intended for,” Daemon said.
“That part is easy. I brought these, so I know which box belongs to which person.”
“Bt. Dt. Zt.” On the second try, he formed actual words. “You brought these? Then why in the name of Hell didn’t you put shields around them?”
A raised eyebrow was his only answer—and an unspoken reminder that Saetan could leave the room without incurring a woman’s wrath.
Sufficiently chastised, Daemon muttered, “Sorry.”
Figuring it was best to confess the worst, he nudged the box Daemonar had pounded on the floor—and winced at the merry tinkle of broken glass.
No response. Just the feel of his father’s formidable presence.
“Lesson one,” Saetan said, sounding too damned amused. “If you shield all the gifts, you also need to shield and Craft-lock the room sufficiently to keep small boys out. Otherwise, that boy will transform from a happy, excited child into a cranky, frustrated child. And trust me, a frustrated Eyrien boy during Winsol is twice as bad as what you’re imagining right now—especially when his little brain is dazzled by boxes and shiny ribbons.”
“Then Lucivar and I can just . . .” What? Put Ebon-gray and Black shields and locks around the room? That would keep Daemonar out, but it would also keep everyone else out of the room—including wives who wouldn’t appreciate being locked out.
“All right,” Daemon said, trying not to sigh. “Guard the room when it’s my turn. Don’t shield all the gifts.” He nudged the broken gift. “If you tell me where you got this, I’ll get it replaced in time.” I hope.
“That? You can dispose of it. It’s just a box of chipped teacups and broken figurines. Helene and Mrs. Beale keep a box of that stuff for just this kind of present.”
A red haze appeared in front of Daemon’s eyes. “What kind of present?”
“The kind that rattles enough to sound interesting. Especially once things inside the box start breaking.”
“You did this deliberately?”
“Yes.”
He was trying very hard to remember why he had looked forward to Winsol this year—and why he’d been happy to see his father a few minutes ago.
“Lesson two,” Saetan said. “Fragile or delicate gifts go in the back where they’re less likely to be noticed by inquisitive children. Even so, they are shielded individually and then are grouped together before a shield ‘netting’ is put over all of them, and that netting is then connected to the floor with Craft. However, there should be one breakable, disposable gift positioned in the front of the tree to catch a boy’s eye. That way, you have a chance of stopping him while he’s distracted by the fake present, and you’re not trying to explain the loss of an expensive gift.”
Daemon looked at the mounds of gifts. All this work to keep out one boy? What would happen if . . .
“Marian wants another baby,” he said.
A stiff moment of silence. Then Saetan said, “In that case, my darling, you’d better learn some of these spells and work on them until you can pull them together in a heartbeat.”
Or they could just all celebrate Winsol at the eyrie, and then it would be Lucivar’s responsibility to guard the gifts.
He considered the probability of getting out of guard duty no matter where the family gathered for Winsol—and sighed.
“Lesson three.” Saetan called in a small hourglass, turned it over, and set it on air. “Stay focused on the task. When I saw Lucivar racing away with Daemonar, I asked Jaenelle and Marian to have a leisurely cup of coffee before returning to this room.”
“Aren’t they going to suspect there’s a problem and that you were stalling them until it’s fixed?” Daemon asked.
“Of course they know there’s a problem. But this request is as time-honored as Protocol—and as strictly observed. All things considered, since those two do understand the males involved, I estimate you have ten minutes left to put everything back the way it was.”
Maybe he could tie a ribbon around his neck and curl up with the other fragile, delicate gifts.
“Gather up the pieces of wrapping paper that have the ribbons and name cards,” Saetan said.
He crawled around until he was fairly sure he’d gotten them all. Then he picked up the first box.
“That one is yours,” Saetan said.
“Mine?”
Warm pleasure flowed through him. A present. From his father.
As he started to coax the top part of the box off, Saetan reached over and clamped one hand on the box, holding it shut. When Saetan released the box . . .
Daemon wiggled the lid, then looked up in disbelief. “You locked the box. You Craft-locked my present.”
“On Winsol, when the gifts are being opened, this is your present,” Saetan said. “Until then, it’s still my box. And it stays locked.”
Fine. Ha! Saetan wore the Black. So did he. He wasn’t going to let . . .
There was some Red power twisted into the Black, changing a simple lock into a deviously elegant puzzle that would have to be untangled in order to open the box.
“You locked my present,” Daemon said, feeling sulky. “I’m an adult, and you locked my present.”
“You’re a son who was about to open a present before it was time to open the present,” Saetan replied mildly. Then he looked pointedly at the hourglass. “Do you really want to argue about this right now?”
He had to think about that for a minute.
“Find the name tag,” Saetan said, taking the box from him.
After handing that over too, he sat back on his heels.
Saetan set the piece of wrapping paper on the box and smoothed out the wrinkles. “You and Lucivar should be the ones handing out the gifts. Each person won’t notice one gift wrapped like this, but anyone handling several . . .”
As he watched, the wrapping paper grew out of the scrap and formed around the box.
“It’s best to work out your own illusion spell for this,” Saetan said. “That way, you’ll be able to do it quickly, since it usually needs to be done quickly.”
The illusion spell was good. If he hadn’t seen the paper forming around the box, he doubted he would have noticed the difference in texture. He wasn’t sure how someone “unwrapped” an illusion, but he’d find out on the day.
All the wrappings had been restored, he’d gathered up the rest of the scraps of paper and vanished the disposable gift, and he still had a few grains of sand left in the hourglass when he stood up and brushed himself off.
Saetan vanished the hourglass and returned the chair to its usual spot in the room.
They were both standing there, guarding the mound of perfectly wrapped presents, when Marian and Jaenelle walked into the room.
Jaenelle studied the two of them. Marian walked over to the tree, pursed her lips, then reached between two gifts and picked something up.
“The Prince and I have something to discuss, so we’ll leave you Ladies to finish sorting out the gifts,” Saetan said.
*We have something to discuss?* Daemon asked on a spear thread.
*Yes, we do.*
Judging by Saetan’s tone, he wasn’t expecting a pleasant discussion, but anything was better than staying in that room.
He reached the door when Marian said, “Daemon?”
Saetan left the room. Having no other safe choice, Daemon turned and waited for the Eyrien hearth witch.
There was something purely female about her expression as she walked up to him, adding to the impression that she was laughing at him.
He broke out in a cold sweat.
“You missed a piece,” she whispered as she held up a scrap of wrapping paper.
He took the paper, vanished it—and fled.
Catching up with Saetan, the two men retreated to the study, where Lucivar met them.
“I promised Kaelas and Jaal I’d get them a steer for Winsol dinner if they don’t let Daemonar out of the room where I stashed him,” Lucivar said.
“You promised them the equivalent amount of meat or a live animal?” Saetan asked.
“Apparently it doesn’t taste as good if it’s already cut up,” Lucivar muttered. “Or maybe it wasn’t as much fun to eat. They were a little vague about that.”
“I see.” Saetan delicately cleared his throat. “So you will get them to promise that they won’t eat their dinner within sight of the dining room windows, won’t you?”
Lucivar’s mouth opened and closed, but no sounds came out.
“Mother Night,” Daemon said. If people lost their appetites because a six-hundred-pound tiger and an eight-hundred-pound Arcerian cat were gorging on a fresh kill, Mrs. Beale would . . .
He wasn’t going to consider what Mrs. Beale would do to him and Lucivar.
“I’m almost sorry I’m going to miss this,” Saetan said with a smile. “Almost.”
In a heartbeat, Lucivar went from stumbling man to warrior. He shifted—one easy side step that effectively blocked any escape through the door.
Daemon moved in the other direction, drawing the eye, keeping the prey focused on what was in front of him instead of the danger behind him.
He and Lucivar had played out this game dozens of times. Hundreds of times. Once they had their prey caught between them . . . Concentrate on one of them, and the other one would be the attacker.
Saetan watched him. Being an intelligent man, he would know exactly what his sons were doing—and what role remained in their little three-person drama.