Queen of Darkness

Daemon felt one layer of tension ease. He forced his lips to curve in a smile. ”Well, luck favored us this time.” Then he looked, really looked, at Lucivar, and the smile became genuine. ”You’re alive.”

Lucivar returned the smile. ”And you’re sane.”

Daemon felt a tremor run through his body and tightened his self-control. Tears stung his eyes. ”Lucivar,” he whispered.

He didn’t know which of them moved first. One moment they were standing as far away from each other as they could in the small room, the next they were in each other’s arms, holding on as if their lives depended on it.

”Lucivar,” Daemon whispered again, pressing his face against his brother’s neck. ”I thought you were dead.”

”Hell’s fire, Daemon,” Lucivar said softly, hoarsely, ”we couldn’t find you. We didn’t know what happened to you. We looked. I swear, we did look for you.”

”It’s all right,” Daemon stroked Lucivar’s head. ”It’s all right.”

Lucivar’s arms tightened around him so hard his ribs ached.

Daemon’s hand fisted in Lucivar’s hair. ”Lucivar … I know there are things that need to be settled between us. But can we put them aside, just for a little while?”

”We can put them aside,” Lucivar said quietly.

Daemon stepped back. Using his thumbs, he gently wiped the tears from Lucivar’s face. ”We’d better join the others.” He turned and reached for the door.

Standing behind him, Lucivar’s left hand gripped Daemon’s left arm. Daemon placed his right hand over it for a moment. As his fingers slid away from Lucivar’s, he looked down, and the significance of what he’d seen but hadn’t really seen finally hit him.

”Daemon,” Lucivar said urgently. ”There’s one thing I need to tell you. I think you may already know, but you need to hear it.”

She’s alive! Another tremor went through Daemon’s body. ”No,” he said. ”Not now.” He slid the door open and stumbled into the corridor. Barely keeping his balance, he went into the bathroom and Black-locked the door. His body shook violently. His stomach twisted viciously. Leaning over the sink, he fought the need to be sick.

Too late.

If he had tried to find her five years ago, when he’d first returned from the Twisted Kingdom, maybe it would have been different. If he had searched for the High Lord and at least tried to find out what had really happened that night at Cassandra’s Altar…

Too late.

He could hold on. He would hold on. His mind was far more fragile than he allowed anyone to realize. Oh, it was intact. He had lost a few memories, a few small shards of the crystal chalice, but he was whole, and he was sane. But the healing would never be complete because he had lost the one person he needed to complete it. It hadn’t mattered when he had only wanted to stay in one piece long enough to destroy the High Lord. It didn’t really matter now. He could survive long enough to see her, just once.

There was nothing else he could do. If it had been any other man, he would have used everything he was and everything he knew in order to be her lover. If it had been any other man. But not Lucivar. He wouldn’t become his brother’s rival.

So he couldn’t let Lucivar tell him what he desperately needed to hear. Not because he didn’t want to know for sure that Jaenelle was alive, but because he wasn’t ready to be told about the gold wedding ring on Lucivar’s left hand.

3 Kaeleerspan

Surreal pushed the last of the cushioned boxes together to form a bench against one wall. ”Sit down, Manny,” she said to the older woman.

”Wouldn’t be right,” Manny said. ”A servant shouldn’t be sitting.”

Surreal gave her a slashing look. ”Don’t be an ass. You’re a ’servant’ because that’s the only way Sadi could bring you with him.”

Manny tightened her lips in disapproval. ”No need for you to be using that kind of language, especially with children around. Besides, I was a servant for a good many years. It was an honest living and nothing I’m ashamed of.”

Unlike me? Surreal wondered. She had never denied that she had been a very successful whore for centuries before she quit thirteen years ago, no longer able to stomach the bedroom games. That night at Cassandra’s Altar had left its mark on all of them.

Manny’s feelings about women who worked in Red Moon houses were ambivalent. What would she think if she knew about Surreal’s other profession? How comfortable would the older woman have been if she had known that Surreal had been-and still was-a very successful assassin?

Didn’t matter. They had become friends during the two years when Daemon had been rising out of the Twisted Kingdom, but after he regained his sanity, Manny had made a mental shift, treating both of them to the domestic affection that existed between a special servant and an aristo child. Daemon hadn’t noticed anything odd about this behavior; maybe Manny had always treated him like that. But it had annoyed Surreal, who had grown up hard and fast on the streets. It had also given her a lot of practice in dealing with Manny’s set opinions.

”Look,” she said very softly. ”Lady Benedict’s servant doesn’t look like he can stand up for two hours without being in pain. If you sit down, you can badger him into sitting.”.

A few minutes later, Manny, Andrew, Wilhelmina Benedict, and Surreal were sitting on the makeshift bench.

Surreal glanced at the remaining space on her right. Where in the name of Hell was Sadi? He wasn’t as mentally stable as he pretended to be, and seeing Lucivar must have been a shock. But what had the Eyrien thought about seeing his half brother again? After Jaenelle disappeared thirteen years ago, Daemon had gone to Pruul, intending to get Lucivar out of the salt mines. For some reason, Lucivar had refused to go with him. She had always suspected, because of what Daemon wouldn’t say, that there had been a vicious collision of tempers and that a rift had formed between them. And she had always suspected that the reason for that rift had begun, like so many other things, at Cassandra’s Altar.

The driver’s compartment door slid open. Lord Khardeen stepped out and glanced at the Eyriens, who tensed at his appearance. Saying nothing, he walked to the end of the makeshift bench and sat down beside Surreal.

Directly across from them was the woman with the two young children. They had the brown skin, gold eyes, and black hair that was typical of the three long-lived races, but the little girl’s hair had a slight, natural curl. Surreal wondered if the girl’s hair indicated that one of the parent’s bloodlines wasn’t pure Eyrien, if those curls had betrayed a secret, and if that was the reason these people had left their home Territory.

The older boy stayed close to his mother, but the little girl smiled at Khardeen and took a couple of steps toward him.

”Woofer,” she said happily, holding out a worn stuffed animal.

Khardeen leaned forward and smiled. ”That he is. What’s his name?”

”Woofer.” She gave the toy a squeezing hug. ”Mine.”

”Right you are.”

Watching Khardeen apprehensively, the woman reached for the little girl. ”Orian, don’t bother the Warlord.”

”She’s no bother,” Khardeen said pleasantly.

The woman pulled the girl close to her and tried to smile. ”She likes animals. My husband’s mother made her a girl doll before we left, but Orian wanted to bring this one.”

And where was your own mother while that bitch was giving you a verbal knife? Surreal wondered as she watched shadows gather in the woman’s eyes and picked up a flicker of shame in the psychic scent. Well, that answered which side of the girl’s heritage was in question.

The Warlord who had protested when Friall refused to finish the contract turned away from his conversation with a couple of Eyrien males, glanced sharply at Khardeen, and then moved protectively closer to the woman and