Confusion replaced fear. *Pain? They didn’t nip you. Why is there pain?* After a pause, Tassle added, *I could lick it to make it better.*

Maybe it wasn’t just for Tassle’s sake that he’d offered to share his home with a wolf, Lucivar decided as amusement eased the knots in his belly. You could never tell what the kindred would pick up from human behavior and decide to make their own. Obviously, Tassle had decided the wolf version of “kiss it and make it better” was the appropriate response to this situation.

“No, thanks,” Lucivar said, moving away from the eyrie to walk in the rock-strewn grass that might have been a lawn or a garden once upon a time. He swallowed a mouthful of coffee and swore. Not only rough enough to bite but now it was also cold.

Noticing the way Tassle sniffed the air, Lucivar made a “go forward” gesture with one hand. “Go on. Go explore. If you stay around here, you’ll end up getting washed and polished.”

*You come too?*

He hadn’t had a chance yet to really walk the land around the eyrie and get a feel for it, but leaving right now felt a bit too much like running away—and it went against his nature as an Eyrien Warlord Prince to run from a battleground. “You go on. I’ll keep an eye on things here.”

As he watched Tassle trot off to mark the home territory, he felt the weight of the eyrie at his back and wondered if it really would be running away to get out of sight while all of those women cluttered up his home. Besides, if his presence wasn’t a distraction from the allure of buckets and mops, his absence wouldn’t be noted either. Which should have pleased him. The fact that it didn’t was an annoyance he’d think about later.

“I’d wish you a good morning,” a deep, amused voice said, “but I’m not sure that’s appropriate.”

Turning, he watched the slender, brown-skinned man cross the rock-strewn ground with feline grace. The movement lifted the edges of the knee-length black cape, revealing the red lining and providing slashes of color to accent the black tunic jacket and trousers.

His brother Daemon moved with the same feline grace.

He tried not to think about Daemon too much, tried not to wonder too often if his brother had found a way out of the madness the Blood called the Twisted Kingdom. There was nothing he could do for Daemon, wherever he was.