As if it was necessary to tell her that when she could hear him clearly enough. “He’ll stop.”

“He’s hungry.”

Hekatah turned to look at the woman. It had been sensible to bring another family member with her, but she regretted letting her mother talk her into bringing this one. Divorced because she was barren and her husband had wanted to sire children the Families would acknowledge socially, this aunt still craved having a child of her own and was always eager to help any woman in the family take care of a baby.

Weak fool. Children were a bargaining chip, tools to achieve a goal. But once you granted the sire paternal rights, you had to wait centuries before the child was old enough to be really useful again. Of course, the existence of Mephis and Peyton had held her marriage together, had continued to supply her with some kind of income because as long as she remained married to Saetan he would make financial provisions for her.

But not enough. She’d expected to be the High Priestess of Dhemlan, with all the honor and rewards that came with being the leader of the Priestess caste. She should have been. If Saetan had balls for anything but the bed, he would have insisted that she be granted the title and the authority because she was his wife.

She wasn’t anything in Dhemlan but his wife and a Red-Jeweled Priestess from Hayll, given the courtesy due her Jewels and caste but not accepted enough to hold some position of authority.

That would change. She’d make sure of it.

“The baby is hungry,” her aunt said again.

Who cared if the brat starved or not?

Saetan would. He’d rather play with the boys than attend an important social function with her. Oh, he was always willing to escort her to functions, always presented her with the invitations that came from the Dhemlan courts and let her choose which ones she wanted to attend. But he preferred the boys’ company to hers most of the time.

The bastard should have signed the agreements by now, but he valued his honor more than his wife.

He would have to be punished for that.

“Hekatah? Aren’t you going to do something about the baby?”

She stared at her aunt, but in her mind she pictured the man she had married.

The solution was so simple. The agreements would be signed in no time.

All she had to do was break Saetan’s heart.

Chapter 5

5