He drank water straight from the carafe Jazen brought up each evening when the valet came in to turn down the bedcovers. Daemon thought it was an unnecessary bit of work, since he slept with Surreal most nights, whether or not they had sex, but he knew better than to interfere with any household routines and requirements. He might own the Hall and pay all the bills, but the place ran according to the dictates of Helene, Beale, and Mrs. Beale—and skimping on one’s duties was not acceptable.

Leaving the drapes open, Daemon drained the power from the witchlight and returned to bed. He stretched out, ignoring the covers as he tried to recall the odd dream he’d been having just before he woke. Something about Karla? Why would he dream about Karla? Couldn’t remember. Besides, he felt languid, lazy, better than he’d felt in weeks.

The feel of cool air against his bare skin was almost as sensual as a lover’s caress, and he was just floating back to sleep when the door between his bedroom and Surreal’s opened. His mind registered her psychic scent as he breathed in her physical scent—a scent heated by lust.

“Surreal.” Too languid and lazy to have any interest in sex, even with a woman who had entered his private domain, he drifted toward sleep again.

Then she climbed on the bed, took his cock in her mouth, and worked him until he swelled to an edgy lust that equaled her own, until he was hard and hungry and needed to be ridden. Spurred by her hunger, he welcomed the pricks of pain from her nails as she impaled herself on him and rode him to a climax that took them both to the razor’s edge of marrying pain to pleasure.

When she was done, she didn’t settle next to him to cuddle or talk or even sleep. She didn’t say a word. She simply dismounted and went back to her room, leaving him to wonder what had just happened—and why.

* * *

* * *

Surreal washed away the smell of sex—and him—before putting on a fresh nightgown and getting into her own bed. Then she grabbed fistfuls of her hair and pulled, hoping the pain would settle her, would help her think past the wanting that was twisting into something terrible.

Daemon had always been a demanding lover. He wore the Black and was a Warlord Prince, so that wasn’t surprising. He’d always been a wonderful lover, enjoying the pleasure he gave almost more than his own. He also liked to play, and while that play never physically hurt her, ever since the night when she’d found herself in bed with the Sadist, having sex with Daemon—even being around Daemon—frightened her, because he made her so needy, so desperate for his touch, his kiss, that she couldn’t think past feeling.

He swore the sexual heat was leashed, but she knew that wasn’t true. It was more now, always more, wrapping around her like a cocoon of soft fur that imprisoned, took away choices.

That was what the Sadist did—wrapped his victims in desire that they couldn’t escape. Didn’t want to escape until it broke them. Ruined them. Destroyed them.

She should talk to him again, should demand an explanation for why he was continuing to play with her like this. Like tonight, going to his own room without saying anything. Then that sexual heat drifting from his room into hers, and her waking with hard nipples and a wet need between her legs that wouldn’t be slaked by anything but him.

She had entered his room, ignoring the danger of being there, not sure if she intended to tell him to stop or to take her, but that one word purred in that deep, smooth voice—“Surreal”—took the decision away from her, had her working him, riding him. And leaving him. Escaping before the Sadist woke and decided to play with her.

She should talk to him in the morning and insist that he stop this game. But she was afraid, so terribly afraid, that if she forced him to admit that he had turned sex into an addictive torment, he would apologize with genuine sincerity—and never touch her again. And that was a torment she didn’t want to endure.

ELEVEN

Jillian dumped a pile of clean diapers at one end of the wooden table in the laundry room, then started folding the dry baby clothes. Daemonar and Titian were eating breakfast, and Marian was taking care of baby Andulvar. That gave her a little time to complete some chores before she escorted the children to the Eyrien school.

She liked Lord Endar, but she had learned everything he could offer. How much longer did she have to sit in a classroom, listening to the same lessons over and over and over? But if she didn’t go to school . . . When she was younger, she’d wanted to be a guard, a warrior, but she wasn’t sure she wanted that anymore. And she wasn’t interested in the other work that was usually pursued by Eyrien women, so what was there to do? She liked Marian, but she didn’t want to be someone’s helper forever. She wanted . . . She didn’t know what she felt, didn’t know what she wanted, didn’t know . . .

“What’s wrong with you?” Daemonar asked, approaching the table but not getting too close.

“Nothing is wrong with me.” What did it say about boys that Daemonar, a Warlord Prince who wore a Green Jewel, could plunge his hands into the guts of a deer but got squeamish about touching a diaper—even a clean one? “If you’ve finished your breakfast, you should clean your teeth and get ready for school.”

“Something is wrong,” Daemonar insisted. “You’ve been acting . . . odd. You’ve been acting like . . . a girl.”

Her hands clenched on the little shirt she had just folded. If she didn’t say something, he would keep poking at her until she hit him or started crying, so she said the one thing she knew would rout him. “I used to change your poopy diapers, boyo, so don’t you get bossy with me.”

She watched color rush into his face, darkening his light brown skin, before he rushed out of the laundry room.

Bitch, she thought as she finished folding the shirts. She grabbed the pile of little trousers and kept her head down as she felt the return of a male presence. Then, angry with herself for being bitchy and angry with Daemonar for pushing her into being bitchy, she turned and said, “Look, boyo . . . Oh.” She pulled her wings in tighter, an instinctive reaction when facing an adult Eyrien male. Lucivar Yaslana had a hot, volatile temper, but it was seldom displayed inside his own home. Remembering that, she offered a wobbly smile. “Is there something I can do for you, Prince?”

Lucivar studied her a moment before he started folding diapers.

Relieved to have some of his attention off her, Jillian folded more of baby Andulvar’s clothes.

“You should start thinking of another argument, witchling,” Lucivar said as calmly as if he were pointing out something of interest on the mountain. “Right now the boy is of an age where he’s embarrassed that he needed diapers and doesn’t want to think about who changed them. In a few more months—or years if you’re lucky—he’ll still be embarrassed, but he’ll set his heels down and fight . . . and he’ll fight harder for being embarrassed.”