Someone had been touching his back for some time before he was aware of it. Daemon resisted the urge to open his eyes. There would be nothing to see, and if she knew he was awake, she might pull away.

Her touch was firm, gentle, knowing. It traveled in slow, circular lines down his back. Cool, soothing, comforting.

Where was she? Not nearby, so how was she able to make the reach? He didn’t know. He didn’t care. He surrendered to the pleasure of that phantom touch, a hand that someday he would hold in the flesh.

When she was gone again, Daemon slowly eased one arm around and gingerly touched his back. He stared at the thick salve on his fingers and then wiped them on the sheet. His eyes closed. There was no point in fighting the sleep he so desperately needed.

But just before he surrendered to need, he thought once more about the kind of witch who would come to a stranger’s aid, already exhausted from her own ordeal, and heal his wounds. “Don’t get in my way, Priest,” he muttered, and fell asleep.

CHAPTER FOUR

1 / Hell

Saetan slammed the book down on the desk and shook with rage.

A month since that plea for knowledge. A month of waiting for some word, some indication that she was all right. He’d tried to enter Beldon Mor, but Cassandra had been right. The psychic mist surrounding the city was a barrier that only the dead could feel, a barrier that kept them all out. Jaenelle was taking no chances with whatever secret lay behind the mist, and her lack of trust was a blade between his ribs.

Embroiled in his own thoughts, he didn’t realize someone else was in the study until he heard his name called a second time.

“Saetan?” Such pain and pleading in that small, weary voice. “Please don’t be angry with me.”

His vision blurred. His nails dug into the blackwood desk, gouging its stone-hard wood. He wanted to vent all the fear and anger that had been growing in him since he’d last seen her, months ago. He wanted to shake her for daring to ask him to swallow his anger. Instead he took a deep breath, smoothed his face into as neutral a mask as he could create, and turned toward her.

The sight of her made him ill.

She was a skeleton with skin. Her sapphire eyes were sunk into her skull, almost lost in the dark circles beneath them. The golden hair he loved to touch hung limp and dull around her bruised face. There were rope burns and dried blood on her ankles and wrists.

“Come here,” he said, all emotion drained from his voice. When she didn’t move, he took a step toward her. She flinched and stepped back. His voice became soft thunder. “Jaenelle, come here.”

One step. Two. Three. She stared at his feet, shaking.

He didn’t touch her. He didn’t trust himself to control the jealousy and spite that seared him as he looked at her. She preferred staying with her family and being treated like this over being with him, who loved her with all his being but wasn’t entrusted with her care because he was a Guardian, because he was the High Lord of Hell.