The Shadow Queen (7 page)

“After that,” Daemon said, “the Queens who were willing to sell themselves to Hayll in order to rise to a power they wouldn’t have gained otherwise were the ones who ruled. Those who opposed Dorothea’s bid to control the whole of Terreille were either broken so they had little or no power, or were killed outright so the males would have no one to serve except Dorothea’s pets.”

Theran stared at Daemon. “How did you know?”

“I was a pleasure slave for a lot of centuries, controlled by Dorothea and the Ladies she sold me to. I watched some Territories fall, village by village, court by court, until there was nothing left that was decent, no one left who was honorable.” Daemon smiled bitterly. “Oh, I slaughtered the bitch’s pets. Buried more of them than anyone will ever know. Hell’s fire, there were times when Lucivar and I destroyed entire courts. But Dorothea was like a vile weed with a deep taproot. No matter how much you cut away, her poisonous influence would grow back. It always grew back—until the taint of her and the bitch who backed her was cleansed from the Blood for good.”

Theran licked his lips. “The storm of power two years ago. You know about that?”

Something queer flickered in Daemon’s eyes. “Yes,” he said. “I know about that. I know what it did—and I know what it cost.”

You know what it cost you,
Theran thought, feeling hopeful that Daemon might be more sympathetic than he seemed. “We lost half the Blood in Dena Nehele to that storm. We lost half of the survivors while quelling the landen uprisings that followed that storm. There are one hundred Warlord Princes left in the whole of Dena Nehele.
One hundred.
My Green Jewel is the darkest we have.” Not quite, but he didn’t want to mention Talon.

“Theran . . .”

“We don’t have any Queens.” Theran rammed his fingers through his hair, then ended up fisting them and pulling until his scalp stung.

He let go of his hair and gripped the chair’s arms again. “All right, we do have some Queens. But they’re old women. Or they’re little girls who are too young to deal with grown men, especially men as volatile as Warlord Princes. And there are a handful of adolescent Queens, but they’re already starting to act like the Queens we’re finally free of, and there’s been some muttering that the Warlord Princes would rather kill them than let a bitch become old enough to rule. If those girls act like the previous Queens and we accept them, we’ve won nothing. All the blood that was shed and the people who were lost would have been for nothing.”

When Daemon didn’t respond, Theran plunged on with the shining coin of hope that Talon had given him. “When Jared was an old man, dying from the wounds of his last fight, he told a trusted friend this one thing. He said, ‘If the need is great and nothing the family can do on its own will help Dena Nehele survive, find Daemon Sadi. Ask him for help. But only once.’ ” Theran closed his eyes for a moment. “Those were the last words Jared spoke. Well, we did all we could. We fought and we bled and we watched our people drown in the filth of Hayll. And now I’m the last one left.
The last one.
So I’m here, asking for help.”

A long silence, interrupted by a knock on the door. All the items on the desk vanished, replaced by a woven mat as Beale brought in a large tray and set it in the center of the desk.

“Thank you, Beale,” Daemon said.

After Beale left the room, Daemon poured coffee for both of them, then leaned back in his chair, ignoring the thin sandwiches and nutcakes that were also on the tray.

“You say you need a Queen,” Daemon said. “What, exactly, are you looking for?”

Theran took a sip of coffee to wet his suddenly dry throat, then took a deep breath—and told him.

Dinner was over; the strained effort to be a courteous and entertaining host was finished—at least for tonight.

Daemon stood in front of the dresser in the Consort’s suite and stared into the mirror.

“You’ve had worse days, old son,” he told his reflection. “You know you’ve had worse days.”

But being pummeled by Theran’s words had made him feel soiled and weary, and listening to that particular blend of hope and despair had stirred up memories until they swelled and burst in his mind like pus coming out of a wound gone septic.

He’d heard it before. Heard it for centuries. He’d watched young men grow old and break under that blend of hope and despair.

It didn’t help that Theran looked so much like Jared, as if all the generations in between had been erased. But Theran wasn’t Jared, and there was some internal difference that Daemon recognized but couldn’t name—and that difference was the reason he had considered Jared a friend and would never consider Theran as more than an acquaintance. Nothing indicated he wasn’t a good man committed to helping his people, but . . .

A knock on the door that connected his bedroom with Jaenelle’s. “Come,” he said, turning away from the mirror.

She came in, wearing a silky sapphire robe.

His stomach clenched. He’d been the one who had hinted this afternoon—shit, more than hinted—that he was interested in sex tonight. But that was before he’d talked to Theran, before the barbs of memories had hooked into his mind and heart. Now he hoped she was too tired to want more than a cuddle.

“You didn’t want to talk about it before dinner,” Jaenelle said, “but I need to know what sort of favor Theran wants.” She stretched out on the bed, propped her head in one hand, and studied him. “Daemon, do you feel all right?”

“I’m fine.” He wasn’t fine, he was nowhere close to fine, and he needed to tell her that instead of trying to hide it.

Talk. She wanted to talk. That, at least, he could do.

He removed his wallet from the inside pocket of his black jacket and dropped it on the dresser before he shrugged out of the jacket and hung it on the clothes stand so that his valet could decide if it needed to be cleaned, pressed, or simply aired. He’d done without a personal valet for a lot of years, and there were times when he missed the independence of having his wardrobe be
his.
On the other hand, Jazen managed to keep his favorite shirts hidden, leaving others out as bait when Jaenelle went foraging in his closet. For that reason alone he was willing to follow his valet’s rules about where to leave the clothing that had been worn.

“Theran wants my help to convince a Queen from Kaeleer to go to Terreille and rule Dena Nehele,” Daemon said, returning to the dresser. He positioned himself in the mirror so that he could see Jaenelle’s face, but his own reflection hid the rest of her.

She’d sat on the bed dozens of times, talking to him while he got undressed, before they both retired to her bedroom. Their bedroom, since he used this room only when she wasn’t home. But tonight it bothered him, scratched on his skin. Scratch, scratch, scratch. Scraping at those pus-filled wounds.

“Say that again,” Jaenelle said.

“Dena Nehele needs a Queen who knows what it means to be a Queen, who knows Protocol and remembers the Blood’s code of honor. Who knows how to live by the Old Ways.”

“And if he doesn’t find a Queen like that?”

Daemon sighed. “If he doesn’t, I think what’s left of two races—Dena Nehele
and
Shalador—will wither and die.”

He slipped his hands in his trouser pockets, then called in some coins to provide an excuse for why he was still standing at the dresser, emptying his pockets, and delaying the moment when he had to tell her he was too churned up to be of use to her.

“What did you tell him?” Jaenelle asked.

“I told him I’d think about it.”

“Will you?”

“No.” When Jared had answered his summons that last time, Daemon had known Dena Nehele would fall under Dorothea’s relentless campaign to rule all of Terreille. Had he done the Shalador Warlord any favor by encouraging Jared to hold on to love for as long as possible? “The males in Kaeleer won’t tolerate one of their Queens going to Terreille.”

A hesitation. “I know a Queen who might be willing,” Jaenelle said. “She knows Protocol, although she prefers to ignore it as much as the rest of us.”

Daemon snorted softly as he fiddled with the coins, stacking and restacking them. The Territory Queens in Kaeleer belonged to Jaenelle’s coven. They had been her First Circle and they were still her closest friends. Thanks to Saetan, every one of them knew all the nuances of Protocol and the give-and-take of power between males and females. Thanks to their own perversity, the Ladies ignored the formality of Protocol every chance they could. And it was that blend that made them so formidable—and made them such good Queens.

“She’s a distant cousin of Aaron’s,” Jaenelle said. “She’s a few years older than me. She’s not a close friend, but I like her. As part of her own apprenticeship, she lived at the Hall with the rest of us for four months to get ‘court polish.’ ”

Since Jaenelle’s court had been the most informal gathering of power he’d ever seen, the humor of sending anyone there for training eased the tightness in his stomach a little. “Did she acquire any polish?”

“She got lessons in Protocol from Papa,” Jaenelle replied. “Those will polish
anybody.
”

It was easier to talk to her reflection, so he kept his back to the room while he continued to fiddle with the items on the dresser. “What will her court say about relocating to Terreille?”

Jaenelle hesitated. “She doesn’t have a court at the moment. That’s why I think she would be willing to do this.”

He looked at her exotically beautiful face, which only hinted at the wonderful and terrifying Self that lived beneath the human skin. She was capable of cruelty, but the cruelty was always entwined with justice.

What had she seen in her tangled web?

And why was the arm that had been covered by sapphire silk now bare?

“What happened to her court?” His stomach tightened again as the edge of his temper sharpened.

“Instead of renewing their contracts, her entire First Circle resigned, and that broke the court.”

“Why?” he asked too softly. There were very few reasons why
all
the males would walk away from a Queen, and none of those reasons would help Theran or Dena Nehele.

“You won’t like the answer.”

He already didn’t like any of this. “Tell me.”

Jaenelle sighed. “She wears a Rose Jewel, which makes her a minor Queen in a Territory like Dharo; she doesn’t come from an aristo family; and”—she winced—“she’s not pretty.”

Fury rose in him, a molten ice. “That’s it?
That’s all?
”

“She can’t offer flash and glitter. It’s not in her. But she’s a good, solid Queen, and she’s got the tenacity to dig in and work.”

Daemon blew out a breath and rolled his shoulders to try to shake off some of the tension. Tried to shake off that terrible blend of hope and despair that was making it so hard to think clearly. But he’d done what he could, hadn’t he? Even now he was doing what he could. “Well, Jared will have to give up some of what he wants in order to get the rest, but—”

“Jared?” Jaenelle asked.

Her voice sounded oddly sharp, and that pricked his temper, honed it to a lethal edge. But he was so tired tonight. So desperately tired. Still had to play the game, though. Dorothea couldn’t prove he’d helped the Shalador Warlord, but lately the women she’d chosen to use him as a pleasure slave were an added barb of cruelty.

“Why are we talking about Jared?”

He turned toward the bed. “Because—”

He slammed back against the dresser hard enough to make everything rattle. His heart hammered against his chest, and his body was suddenly—and painfully—aroused.

There was a filthy bitch sprawled on
his
bed.

She lay on her side, her head propped up on one hand, one leg forward and bent at the knee to help her balance. Nothing blatantly provocative about the position, which meant only that she was smarter than the bitches who had tried before her. She was wearing sheer white stockings that came up to midthigh. No need for a garter belt when Craft could hold the stockings in place. Above that, she was wearing a simple white shift that ended just above the stockings and was sheer enough that it didn’t hide the body beneath.

It also didn’t hide the fact that she wasn’t wearing anything else.

His cock strained against his trousers, wanting to be sheathed inside her and flood her with come.

Bitch. Filthy bitch.

“Daemon?”

She’d succeeded. Where all the others had failed,
this one had succeeded.
She made him want, made him need. And when the little bitch informed Dorothea that he
could
be aroused, the slavery he now endured would be
nothing
compared with what would be done to him to breed him with Dorothea’s select bitches.

“Daemon? What’s wrong?”

And the one untouched thing he had left to offer, the one clean thing he had given to no one else, would be taken from him. Like everything else had been taken from him.