“What would you do if someone misinterpreted the reason for you being here?” she asked Lucivar.

He studied her. “I’m here to have dinner with a member of my family, and since your suite has a spare bedroom and I need a place to sleep tonight, I’m staying there. What’s there to misinterpret? That’s simple enough.”

“Not everyone sees what’s obvious—or true.”

His gold eyes narrowed. Then he shrugged. “That’s easy enough to deal with. If people turn my spending an evening with my cousin into something it’s not, I’ll just rip out their lying tongues.”

Her jaw dropped, and she was very glad she was holding on to the desk. “Don’t you mean you’d cut out their tongues?”

“No, I said what I meant.”

She thought about the difference—and shuddered.

His hand closed over her arm. Then he led her toward one of the archways that provided access to the rest of the establishment.

“So where do we find dinner?” Lucivar asked.

“That way.” She noticed her hand was trembling. Hell’s fire. She was a Gray-Jeweled witch and an assassin. But he was . . . “You’re family, and I love you, but I gotta tell you, Lucivar, sometimes you are a scary son of a bitch.”

“Yes, I am.” He stopped at the doorway of one of the dining rooms. “But if what went on back there has anything to do with the trouble you want to tell me about, then there’s something the Blood in Amdarh haven’t learned yet.”

“What’s that?”

Lucivar studied her long enough to make her stomach tighten. Then he said softly, “That I’m not the Warlord Prince they should be afraid of.”

NINE

1

Daemon woke slowly, gradually becoming aware that his hand rested on a soft, smooth thigh, and someone’s fingers were gently combing through his hair.

“You’re so beautiful.”

He opened his eyes and smiled at Jaenelle, who was sitting up in bed, watching him. Feeling more content than he’d felt in a long time, he caressed her thigh before lifting his hand to brush across her ribs and continue on to her back.

“You can thank my father for that. I didn’t have anything to do with it,” he replied.

She didn’t smile, didn’t respond. Just watched him.

Remembering what they still had to talk about, uneasiness began coiling around his contentment.

“What do you want, Daemon?” Jaenelle asked.

“You. Just you.”

Her sapphire eyes changed. Became haunted, ancient. He hadn’t seen that look in almost a year—since the day he’d gone to Hayll to play out a vicious game to keep Dorothea and Hekatah distracted while Jaenelle prepared to unleash her immense power to cleanse the taint of those two bitches out of the Blood. His heart beat painfully as he looked into those haunted eyes, knowing it was no longer Jaenelle who watched him.