As they walked toward the dining room, Saetan used the excuse of his weak leg to move slowly, to give himself time to think. He had to understand what had brought out that ferocity in her.

Helene was a stranger, true. But he had a score of names on a sheet of paper locked in his desk drawer, and all of them had been strangers once. Because Helene was an adult? No. Cassandra was an adult. So was Titian, so was Prothvar, Andulvar, and Mephis. So was he. Because Helene was living? No, that wasn’t the answer either.

In frustration, he replayed the last few minutes, forcing himself to view it from a distance. The sound of footsteps, the sudden change in Jaenelle, her predatory glide…in front of him.

He stopped suddenly, shocked, but got tugged along for a few more steps before Jaenelle realized he wasn’t trying to walk.

He’d wondered what her reaction would be to being with him in Kaeleer, being with him outside the Realm he ruled, and now he knew. She cared for him. She was ready to protect him because, to her anyway, a weak leg might make him vulnerable against an adversary.

Saetan smiled, squeezed her shoulder, and began walking again.

Geoffrey had been right. He had a more potent leash than Protocol to keep her in check. Unfortunately, that leash worked two ways, so from now on, he was going to have to be very, very careful.

Saetan looked with growing dismay at the amount of food on the table. Along with a bowl of stew and sticks of cornbread, there were fruit, cheese, nutcakes, cold ham, cold beef, a whole roasted chicken, a platter of vegetables, fresh bread, honeybutter, and a pitcher of milk. It ended there only because he’d refused to allow the footman to bring in the last heavily laden tray. The volume would have daunted a hungry full-grown male, let alone a young girl.

Jaenelle stared at the dishes arranged in a half-circle around her place at the table.

“Eat your stew while it’s hot,” Saetan suggested mildly, sipping a glass of yarbarah.

Jaenelle picked up her spoon and began to eat, but after one bite she put the spoon down, once more shy and uncertain.

Saetan began to talk in a leisurely manner. Since he talked as if he had nothing else to do and nowhere else to go and was going to sit at the table for quite some time, Jaenelle picked up the spoon again. He noticed that every time he stopped talking she put the spoon down, as if she didn’t want her eating to detain him. So he gossiped, telling her about Mephis, Prothvar, Andulvar, Geoffrey, and Draca, but he ran out very quickly. The dead don’t do much, he thought dryly as he launched into a long discourse about the book he’d been reading, completely unconcerned with whether or not it was over her head.

He started feeling a bit desperate about what to say next when she finally leaned back, her hands folded over a bulging tummy, and gave him the sweet, sleepy smile of a well-fed, content child. He put his glass up to his lips to hide his smile and briefly glanced at the carnage in front of him. Perhaps he’d been too hasty in sending that last tray back to the kitchen.