Tangled Webs (26 page)

He didn’t want to tell her what he intended to do. Didn’t want to argue with her about it. The first stage of the punishment he was about to design would be brutal, but it was also just. And it was a side of him he was never comfortable letting her see.

His foot touched the first stair to the upper story when her voice stopped him.

“You should use the thicker-weight spider silk,” Witch said.

“It will hold up better for those kinds of spells.”

SEVENTEEN

M
arian drifted around the kitchen, feeling soft and delicious and powerful and female. She’d been so hungry for the man, and Lucivar had been so wonderfully
male
last night. And this morning.

It had been so satisfying to slide on top of him, and so flattering that his only response at first had been to wrap his arms around her. For a man with Lucivar’s past, trusting a woman so much that he wasn’t pulled from sleep when her body covered his told her how deeply he loved her. When she sheathed his morning-hard cock, she kept her movements quiet and controlled, enjoying the easy ride. And then she felt the excitement building as she watched his slow rise from sleep until he was fully awake and aware just moments before she was milking him with her climax.

She looked at the chair pushed back from the table and felt her body ready itself for a man.

Then she heard Daemonar’s laughing squeals, followed by playful “papa growls” from Lucivar.

Time to be a mother instead of a lover.

Trying to focus on something besides the chair and what she had done with Lucivar in the kitchen last night, she fixed her eyes on the corner cabinet. Years before, when she’d still been Lucivar’s housekeeper, Jaenelle had decided Marian needed that corner cabinet—mostly because Jaenelle, who was incapable of doing something as simple as boiling an egg, had no idea what was needed in a kitchen. She hadn’t been sure she’d ever use the thing, but now the shelves held little trinkets that warmed her heart—a pretty stone Daemonar had found for her; a seashell Lucivar had kept for her during a rare overnight stay he’d arranged with the dragons who lived on the Fyreborn Islands; and other things that reminded her each day that she was more than she’d thought she could be.

Because she was focused on the cabinet, she noticed the triangle of white sticking out from underneath it. When she pulled it out, she flushed with embarrassment that an invitation had gotten shoved under the cabinet. Lucivar never paid attention to such things, leaving it to her to decide what she’d like to attend or what he
had
to attend.

She read the invitation. Then she read it again.

She looked up when she felt his presence in the archway.

“Lucivar, what…?”

He flinched. Her strong, powerful, arrogant, Eyrien Warlord Prince husband
flinched.

“Marian…I can explain.”

His distress was unnerving, especially when she didn’t know
why
he was reacting so strongly to something that was, in the end, a simple miscalculation.

“It was sweet of you to prepare the invitations,” she said, and then added silently,
Even if the wording needs to be softened.
“But, Lucivar, the spooky house isn’t ready yet. We’re still working on the last room and—”

“That son of a whoring bitch.”

It was like watching a storm heading toward you. She could almost taste the violence that scented the air as he took the invitation from her.

“It’s a trap,” Lucivar said softly. “And he
knows
it’s a trap. That’s why he sent the message last night, telling me to stay home.”

Marian said nothing. Just watched his eyes glaze as he rose to the killing edge and made the transition from fumbling husband to lethal predator.

“Pack a bag,” Lucivar said. “Enough clothes for you and Daemonar for a couple of days. Do it now. I’ll escort you to the Keep.”

“And then?” she asked when it seemed like he wouldn’t say anything more.

“And then I’m going to Dhemlan to have a chat with my brother.”

“If you need to go, I can take Daemonar to the Keep as soon as we’re—”

“No.”

She looked into his eyes and saw the agony that still haunted him from the memories of what happened in Terreille last year. She was supposed to go to the Keep then too. Instead she and Daemonar had been abducted and taken to Terreille as hostages. Daemon had managed to keep them safe by playing out some savage games, but the emotional price for both Daemon and Lucivar had been brutally high.

She wouldn’t risk her son again by thinking she was far enough removed from danger. And she couldn’t risk the heart of either man.

“Give me ten minutes,” she said.

He turned aside to let her pass. He didn’t touch her. She didn’t dare touch him. He understood something about that invitation that she didn’t. Whatever he was facing, whatever he had to do, she wasn’t going to be used as a knife held to Lucivar’s throat.

Not again.

Surreal stirred, winced, swore softly. She didn’t snarl at him when Rainier braced a hand on her shoulder and pushed until she sat up straight.

“How does your side feel?” he asked.

“Like I got ripped by some bitch with razor-sharp nails,” she replied.

He slipped a hand under her shirt. She
did
snarl at him for that.

He ignored her, which was ballsy of him, since even without using Craft, she could do a considerable amount of damage to him before he could get out of reach.

Then she sucked in a breath as his fingers delicately brushed over the shield above the wound.

“Feels hot,” he said, his green eyes filling with worry. “Might be infected.”

“I cleaned it out,” she replied, feeling defensive.

“You’ll need to see a Healer when you get out of here.”

A statement. One of those simple sentences that summed up the Blood in Kaeleer. Witches ruled. Males served. And somehow those two facts could add up to an escort hauling a witch to a Healer just because
he
decided she needed one.

And you couldn’t even argue with him about it without having all the other males gang up on you.

She couldn’t even argue with the other half of that statement—the assumption that he was going to die getting her out of the house.

“Fine,” she grumbled. “I’ll see a Healer.”

Rainier looked around. They had snuffed out all the candles except the one with the witchfire and had turned down the lamps to conserve the oil. The light didn’t seem to illuminate as much now that it was competing with a room made up of shades of gray instead of true darkness.

“If we can trust the light coming from the windows, it’s almost dawn,” Rainier said.

“I wonder if we were supposed to survive this long.”

“Probably not, but we had incentive.”

“Yeah.” When your uncle was the High Lord of Hell, becoming demon-dead for a stupid reason was not something you wanted to do. The lectures about it would go on for
decades.

“There’s water left in the jug,” he said. “We should hold on to what’s left of the food.”

“And we need to make a decision.” Surreal got to her feet and swore silently. She felt stiffer than she should, and her side hurt more than it should. At least her lungs seemed to be all right now.

“We either need to go upstairs to use the bathroom or we need to pick a corner and pee on a carpet.”

The children were waking up, so they would have to make that decision soon. Hell’s fire,
she
needed to make that decision soon.

“Could the window be an exit?” Rainier asked. Taking one of the pokers, he approached the window. Then he gave her a considering look. “Your Gray shield will let things out but not in?”

She nodded. “Whatever goes out stays out.”

He retreated, set the poker down, then selected a fork from the hamper.

“Doesn’t give you much distance,” Surreal said.

“No, but I’ll still be behind the shield,” Rainier replied. “Besides, we can’t take the hamper or chill box with us, so losing the fork doesn’t matter.”

No, they wouldn’t use Craft to vanish the hamper or chill box, and they couldn’t carry it with them. While Rainier approached the window again, she selected the sharp knife and two forks. Any weapon was better than none.

Rainier hooked a bit of material in the fork’s tines and pulled aside the curtain. “Surreal, look at this.”

The window should have been facing the front of the house. She should have seen the wrought-iron fence and the street beyond. Instead, there were stone markers and, in three spots, freshly mounded earth.

“Graveyard,” she said.

“Do those markers indicate how many people have died in this house and become fodder of one kind or another? Or are six of those markers reserved for us?”

She didn’t know and didn’t care. “If it’s an illusion spell, we could try getting out through the window. If it’s not…”

“We may not be in the same house anymore. Or even the same village.”

She blinked. “You think someone shifted this whole house without us noticing? Without so much as one of those awful little statues falling off a table and breaking?”

He shrugged. “Jaenelle could have done it. She could pick up a house this size and turn it around without causing so much as a rattle. She could vanish something this size and set it down in a different village. Or in a finger-snap moment of the lights going out, she could swap a room right out from under your feet.”

“You’ve never seen her do that.”

Rainier released the fork, letting the curtain fall back into place. “Actually, I have. There’s an odd sensation of the floor dropping out from under your feet in that moment when the lights go out. Then the lights come back on and you’re standing in a different room—or sitting on a different sofa, which is actually more unnerving. We never could figure out if she shifted the people or shifted the room.”

Surreal felt her jaw drop. Then she shook her head. Why was she surprised? Before she had shattered herself and her Jewels to save Kaeleer, there had been almost nothing Jaenelle couldn’t do.

Except basic Craft.

“Which do we try?” Rainier asked. “Door or window?”

Sage’s voice piped up behind them. “Lady Surreal? I need to pee.”

“Well,” Surreal said to Rainier, “unless you want to try holding her out the window, I guess we find out what’s behind the door.”

“He flinched.” Marian glanced at Daemonar to reassure herself that he was still more interested in the plate of food Draca had brought in for him than the adults in the room. Then she focused on the High Lord. “Lucivar
flinched.
”

Saetan looked solemn and serious—if she could ignore the laughter lighting his gold eyes. “Darling, I heard you the first time. It’s the significance of the words that puzzles me.”

“He
flinched.
” Why couldn’t she get through to him?

“And this upsets you. Why?”

“Because…” Flustered, she pushed her hair back. How could she explain if he didn’t—or wouldn’t—understand?

A twitch of his lips. A hint of a smile.

“It’s a bit unnerving to realize you have power over such a powerful man, isn’t it?” Saetan asked.

Thank the Darkness, he
did
understand. “Yes. I wear the Purple Dusk. I shouldn’t have that kind of power over him.”

“Marian, you’re the woman he loves. There are very few things that can match that kind of power. Not even these.” He tapped the Black Jewel he wore over the tunic jacket.

“Would you have reacted like that?” Marian asked. “If you had missed an engagement your wife had wanted you to attend, would you have flinched?”

She bit her lip when she saw the look in his eyes and wished she could take back the words. Considering who his wife had been, it was a bad question.

“No,” he said. “I wouldn’t have. Not for her.” He took her face in his hands and kissed her forehead, a fatherly kiss washed in the sensuality that was inherent to the man. Then he added, “But if I had disappointed Sylvia by not remembering an engagement that I believed was important to her, then, yes, Marian, I would have flinched.”

Draca,

The High Lord must not leave the Keep. Do whatever is necessary to keep him there.

Sadi

Saetan handed the message back to Draca, then looked out the window and watched Marian playing with Daemonar in one of the Keep’s courtyards.

After a while he raised his left hand. Most days he didn’t think about that lost finger, but there were other days when he could still feel the moment when Hekatah put the blade against his skin.

“It’s one thing for a man to say he’s gotten old and has reached an age when it’s time to step aside for those who are younger and better able to stand on a battlefield. But it humbles a man to realize his
sons
think he’s too old.”

“You were harmed the lasst time, Ssaetan,” Draca said.

“Yes.” And it wasn’t just a finger that had been lost to Hekatah’s torture. Oh, he hadn’t lost anything else physically, but the damage to his body had been irreparable—and had weighed in his decision to step back from the living Realms.

Just because he couldn’t use his balls didn’t mean he didn’t still have them when it came to temper and Craft.

“I am not without skills,” he growled.

“They know that.”

He snorted. “Do they? One son sends a message to
you
, asking you to lock me in the Keep—and sends the message with Khardeen, who latched on to me last night like a Sceltie who had found a meaty, unguarded soup bone. The other son shows up this morning and tells me to my face that he’ll break my legs if I don’t promise to stay here.”

Draca made a soft sound that might have been laughter. “Lucivar hass alwayss been more direct.”

You’re amused. How delightful.

Draca reached out and touched his arm, a rare gesture for her. “Lucivar brought hiss wife and sson here becausse you are here. He dependss on you to protect what he holdss dear.”