“Well, he did choose her.”

“Not exactly.”

She laughed and set her book aside. Before she could turn to him, he placed a hand over hers, and his mood sobered.

“The rocks at the back of the garden,” he said.

“If you want a rock garden, Sadi, you and Tarl can build it.” The sass in her voice should have made him smile. It didn’t.

“They aren’t there to grow anything. They’re there . . .” He sighed. “It’s dangerous to thin the shields around that chamber beneath the Hall. I must insist that you stop doing that.”

“What’s in the chamber?”

“Nothing that concerns you—and not something we’ll discuss.”

She studied his face, tried to read the warning. “Something Saetan left in your care?”

“Yes.”

She nodded her acceptance, since there was nothing else she could do.

“The rock pile is a place where you can drain your Gray Jewel whenever you need to,” Daemon said. “I’ve laced Black shields around them and filled pockets between the rocks with Black power. You can strike the shields without worrying about damage or danger.”

Meaning she wouldn’t have to engage with him directly for help draining the Gray or the Green. Since she’d avoided asking for his help for months, why did his creating this solution make her sad?

“Well,” he said.

She touched his face, kissed his mouth. “Stay. I need you, Daemon. Stay.”

She could barely feel the sexual heat that had been such a torment and wondered what he had done to quiet it so much that it was barely a sensual warmth tonight.

He didn’t reject her kisses or withdraw from her touch, but it took a while before he began to respond with some excitement, before he began kissing her back with some enthusiasm. Then she pulled the robe off his shoulders and ran her hand down his right arm—and found the scars.

She jerked back and stared at the white, thin ridges. “Hell’s fire, Sadi. What happened?”

He said nothing.

“Why didn’t Nurian heal these wounds so they wouldn’t leave scars?”

“They were meant to scar,” he said quietly. “Just as the one on my left wrist was meant to scar.”

“Why?”

“A reminder.”

Of what? she almost asked him. Then she remembered what he’d told Jaenelle Saetien about a private kind of healing at the Keep and knew who had given him those scars.

He kissed her, a lover intent on pleasuring his woman—or at least pleasuring the one he could touch. He took his time and loved her in all the ways she liked best. And when he finally sheathed his cock inside her, she knew he enjoyed it, knew he wanted her.

And yet . . .

* * *

* * *

Surreal invited Daemon to her bed each night, and they made love until they were both spent. The sexual heat became more noticeable with each passing day, and she knew Daemon watched her, always assessing whether the pleasure he gave her, and his presence, was still enjoyable or had slipped into torment. On the fourth night, instead of joining her in her bed, he kissed her good night and retreated to the suite that now served as his sanctuary.

He never stayed with her more than three nights in a row. Sometimes he retreated to the suite that had been his father’s. Sometimes he went to the Keep after Jaenelle Saetien fell asleep, and stayed for a day or two. When he returned, the sexual heat was drained to the point that it was just enough to add a fillip of arousal to everyday desire.

The edgy play that had been the merest whisper of the Sadist and had been an exciting part of being in bed with him was missing altogether, even when the heat became uncomfortably intense, and she regretted the loss.

She couldn’t breach the barrier between them—and admitted to herself that maybe she didn’t want to. She felt comfortable being around him again, felt they had reestablished the partnership they’d had for decades. This arrangement gave her breathing room so that she didn’t have to look at the full truth about the man she had married.

The truth had terrified her, but, Hell’s fire, it had been exciting too. The problem was, if she managed to break that barrier, could she survive the man now contained behind it?

Her feelings were conflicted. Daemon’s feelings were not. In bed and out, he maintained that careful distance between them in order to keep her safe, and he did it out of courtesy, out of respect, out of kindness.

Out of love.

FORTY-FIVE

They stood in front of the gate of a sprawling patchwork house.

Jillian had never seen the ocean, was already fascinated by the fishing boats that were heading out. Would any of those fish find their way to Riada? Would she have the opportunity to learn how to catch one?

Her first apprenticeship in a real court. What would her duties be? What . . . ?

Lucivar sighed.

She looked up at him. “You’re going to have to do this three more times.”

“Don’t remind me.”

He sounded unhappy. He sounded like a father who wanted to keep his girl close to his own wings but knew he had to let her soar on her own. Had the other steps he’d let her take been as hard for him, or was this a bigger leap?

Nurian and Marian had both given her spending money as a farewell gift, after learning that she’d given all her savings to Dillon. The first thing she would look for once she got settled in was some nice stationery that might reflect the sea or this village so that Lucivar would know she had bought it in order to write to him.

She saw the homely woman walking toward them, talking to two men who were escorting her away from the Queen’s home. She wore skirts and shawls and so many jangly bracelets, she could be heard down the street.

“It’s kind of the Queen to grant an audience to the village rag lady,” she said, trying to sound grown-up.

Lucivar choked on a laugh. “That’s not a rag lady, witchling. That’s Perzha, the Queen of Little Weeble.”

Her jaw dropped as the woman smiled at them and waved.

“Another thing,” Lucivar said. “Perzha has an allergy to sunlight and rests during the day. Some members of my family had a similar allergy.”

Jillian blinked. “You mean she—”

“Has an allergy to sunlight and has to drink a special tonic.” His gold eyes held two parts warning and one part amusement.

“Right. Allergy to sunlight. Special tonic.”