Before the week ended, Daemon was gone.

Not long after, Kartane learned what Daemon’s presence had spared him. Dorothea’s appetite for a variety of pretty faces was no less demanding than Lanzo’s, the only difference in their taste being gender, and she kept a stable of young Warlords at the court to do the pretty for her and her coven. Until then, Kartane had been nothing more than Dorothea’s handsome, spoiled son.

One night she summoned Kartane to her chamber. He went to her nervously, mentally ticking off the things he’d done that day and wondering what might have displeased her. But she soothed and stroked and petted. Those caresses, which always made him uneasy, now frightened him. As she leaned toward him, she told him his father had been loyal to her and she expected him to be loyal too. Kartane was too busy trying to figure out how Lanzo’s spearing a different serving girl every night could be considered loyalty to recognize the intent. It wasn’t until he felt Dorothea’s tongue slide into his mouth that he understood. He pushed her away, threw himself off the couch, and crawled backward toward the door, not daring to take his eyes off her.

She was furious with his refusal. It earned him his first beating.

The welts were still sore when she summoned him again. This time he sat quietly as she stroked his arms and thighs and explained in her purring voice that a Ring could help him be more responsive. But she didn’t really think that would be necessary. Did he?

No, he didn’t think it would be necessary. He submitted. He did what he was told.

Lying in his own bed later that night, Kartane thought of Daemon, of how night after night, year after year Daemon had done what Kartane had been forced to do. He began to understand Daemon’s aversion to touching a female unless he was forced to. And he wondered how old Daemon had been the first time Dorothea had taken him into her bed.

It didn’t end with that first time. It didn’t end until years later when Dorothea sent him away to a private school because he was spearing the serving girls so viciously that Lanzo and his companions complained that the girls weren’t usable for days afterward.

The private school he attended, where the boys all came from the best Hayllian families, put the final polish on Kartane’s taste for cruelty. He found Red Moon houses disgusting and could satisfy himself with an experienced woman only if he hurt her. After being barred from a couple of houses, he discovered that it was easy to dominate younger girls, frighten them, make them do whatever he wanted.

He began to appreciate Dorothea’s pleasure in having power over someone else.

But even the youngest whore was still a witch with her Virgin Night behind her, and she was protected by the rules of the house. He didn’t have, as his mother had, absolute power over whomever he mounted.