Don’t borrow trouble, old son. You’ve already got enough of it. Do everything you can to get her well again and deal with what her Jewels can—and can’t—do another day.

*Are you sleeping here?* Ladvarian asked.

Here? Where he couldn’t wake up and hear her breathing, where he couldn’t have that immediate assurance that she was still with him? *No.*

As soon as Ladvarian trotted back to Jaenelle’s room, Daemon stripped out of his clothes and shrugged into a robe that was a token gesture of modesty. He didn’t need it for warmth. The warming spells he’d put on Jaenelle’s suite of rooms and this one guaranteed she wouldn’t catch a chill.

The fire burning low in the hearth was enough light to see by as he made his way to her bed, shrugged off the robe, and slipped under the covers. The bed, specially built and strengthened with Craft to accommodate Kaelas, the eight-hundred-pound Arcerian cat who had slept with Jaenelle since she brought him home as an orphaned kitten, meant he could sleep with her without fear of bumping her during the night and causing an injury.

As he pulled the covers up, he heard the change in her breathing, felt her roll onto her back.

“Go back to sleep, sweetheart,” he said softly. “It’s just me.”

“Daemon.” She sank back into the deep sleep her body demanded.

Propped up on one elbow, Daemon watched her sleep for a long time. Had he heard longing in that one word?

He shifted closer to her. Then he reached out and touched the ends of her golden hair. The kindred had used Craft to crop her hair very short. A practical thing to do while they’d tended her body when she was still connected to the healing webs. It had grown out enough to look shaggy. It was also the one thing he could touch without fear of hurting her.

So he brushed his fingertips over her hair, wishing she was healed enough that he could brush his lips over hers, could slip his tongue into her mouth and kiss her the way he wanted to kiss her.

Someday he would be able to kiss her that way again. Someday he would be able to do a lot more than just kiss her.

He wouldn’t allow himself to believe anything else.

THREE

THREE

Too restless to sleep, Lektra paced her bedroom. Roxie’s scheme had to work. It had to. They would stir rumors and provide nuggets of information that, if strung the wrong way, would ruin a man’s reputation. They would also be Daemon Sadi’s most vocal defenders. In the end, when he was freed of his obligation to take care of that crippled invalid, he would feel grateful to the woman who had loved him enough to publicly defend him against the charges of infidelity.