“I wasn’t the first one. Did you know that? Does anyone care about that? I wasn’t the first to fall for her game, and I wasn’t the last. I looked for some of those other men. They’re toys for aristo bitches now. The men those girls have fun with while they wait for the men with the right family bloodlines and social standing to be husbands.

“I tried to find work, tried to stay away from the aristo girls. But they wouldn’t let me. I was soiled, so I was fair game. So why shouldn’t I play games with them? Why shouldn’t I get something out of them? The moment one of those girls said my name and ‘handfast’ in the same sentence, their fathers couldn’t pay me off fast enough. I figured it was a better way to earn a living than being a real whore.”

Panting, sweating, Dillon faced Daemon Sadi.

“And Jillian?” Daemon asked, still sounding calm and reasonable.

He wiped sweat off his forehead with the back of his hand. “I like Jillian. I really do. I knew she was young to enter into a handfast, but I didn’t think she was too young. I really didn’t. And I didn’t realize she was that old.” He paused. Considered what he should say to this man. Careful words, but nothing less than the truth. “I wasn’t as kind as I should have been, and I’m sorry for that. I wanted to be important. I wanted her to be impressed. She thought I was special, and it had been so long since someone had thought well of me, let alone thought I was special, and I thought . . .”

“You thought?”

“I thought a handfast with Jillian would help me restore my reputation, repair my honor. She worked for Prince Yaslana, so I figured that connection would help me find work, would give me a year when I didn’t feel hunted. I thought she was old enough.”

“She’s not.”

“No, she’s not.” Dillon felt wrung out, purged of emotions. “But suddenly there was an aristo family who expected me to court a girl properly, with chaperons and supervised meetings. And not just any family—the most powerful family in the valley.”

“You felt protected.”

“Yes.” Dillon relaxed a little. Someone understood—and that someone was an aristo Warlord Prince. “If I could show the ruling families here that I wasn’t a cad, I could find work, could stop moving from place to place because the aristo girls forced me out by demanding I be something I didn’t want to be.”

“You took Jillian away from her escort,” Daemon said too softly.

“I was using a spell to make her think I was wonderful, but it stopped working.” Admitting to using a spell would be enough to have him executed, but Dillon didn’t care anymore. “Just when I had a chance to do things properly, Jillian was going to end things between us. I saw it in her eyes. I thought if I could make her believe in me a little while longer . . .” He smiled as he gingerly touched his face. “I thought she was malleable, but she’s got a mean side to her temper.”

“She’s Eyrien.” Daemon sighed. “Everything has a price, Warlord.”

“Is Prince Yaslana going to execute me?” A day ago, he would have said that for drama. Today he believed it could happen.

Daemon uncrossed his legs and rose, a beautiful man full of power and grace. He called in several sheets of paper and a pen and placed them on the small table that also held the plate of food and the carafe of water.

“I want the names of every girl you dallied with, everyone who believed you wanted a handfast or who loaned you money because of the spell you used on them, every girl you had sex with, every girl who was a virgin before you entered her life. Every one of them, Lord Dillon. On another page, I want the names of every girl or woman who used you, who played games with you. Start with the first one. Lady Blyte. Yaslana and I are going to investigate every person on those lists, and when we’re done, we’ll decide what happens to you.”

Dillon approached the table but stayed out of reach of the man. “Do you want the names of the other men she and her friends ruined? At least, the names of the ones I know about?”

“Yes.”

Dillon’s mouth twisted into a bitter smile. “One of those men killed himself after she was through with him, so I hope you know someone in Hell who can talk to him.”

He couldn’t interpret the odd light in Sadi’s gold eyes or the meaning of the gently murderous smile.

Sadi said, “As a matter of fact, Lord Dillon, I do know someone.”

* * *

* * *

Marian watched the haphazard way Surreal packed up Jaenelle Saetien’s clothes and resisted taking them out of the trunks to fold them more neatly.

“We could keep Jaenelle Saetien here for a few more days, if that would help,” she said.

“She doesn’t have enough clothes for an extended visit,” Surreal replied dully.

“Clothes can be washed. Another trunk can be packed and brought by Lord Holt or one of the other people working at the Hall.”

Surreal hesitated, then shook her head. “It’s best if she and I go home now. Jillian’s love life is sorted out, not that I had much to do with that.”

“Why do you say that? Lucivar followed your advice to let this romance run its course so that Jillian could find out for herself that Dillon wasn’t as wonderful as she’d believed.”

“I wasn’t needed.”

Annoyance flitted through Marian, but she remembered Surreal’s tear-filled confession and smothered the annoyance. “Are we talking about Jillian or something else?”

“Witch has come back. Daemon saw her at the Keep.” A hesitation. “I saw her in the Misty Place. We had quite a chat.”

Marian sucked in a breath. “How? Jaenelle’s body is gone, Surreal. If her Self has somehow managed to stay anchored to the Keep, then what he saw was just a shadow. A shadow isn’t flesh to hold at night and love.”

“How would you feel if she came back because you had failed somehow?” Surreal threw the clothes into the trunk. “How would you feel if Jaenelle was suddenly back in Lucivar’s life?”

“She never left him.” Marian smiled at Surreal’s stunned look. “Lucivar belonged to Witch before I met him. He’ll belong to her until his last breath and beyond. Lifetime contract, Surreal. She was the reason Lucivar and Daemon fought to survive everything that was done to them in Terreille. Loving her healed something inside them that made it possible for them to love someone else.” She took Surreal’s hands in her own. “She saved you once. Remember?”

Surreal’s eyes filled with tears. “I remember.”

“She saved me too. More than once. She was our friend and our sister and our Queen, and you can’t blame her for being the most important love our men will know. She’s their Queen, Surreal. No one comes before the Queen. Not even a wife.”