Walking through the corridors of the Keep, he went to the closest landing web, caught the Black Wind, and took the five bodies with him to the Hall he’d built in this Realm. There, he would have everything he needed to make sure the debt owed to the Eyrien woman was paid in full.

The sun had set by the time Saetan returned to the Keep in Kaeleer and entered Jaenelle’s suite of rooms. She was on the couch in her sitting room, reading one of those romances that was as close as she was willing to get when it came to experiencing intimacy with a man. With Lucivar as her First Escort, she didn’t need a man just to fill the position of Consort, and when Daemon finally . . .

He wouldn’t allow himself to travel down that road. He would defend Jaenelle’s choice not to have a Consort—and he would hope that, with the right man, someday her interest in sex would go beyond the pages of a book.

Jaenelle closed the book and looked at him with sapphire eyes that still held a touch of feral rage. His daughter hadn’t come back yet. Not completely. He was still dealing with Witch—and his Queen—and he needed to tread carefully.

“How is the woman?” he asked quietly.

“Marian will be all right,” Jaenelle replied just as quietly.

Marian. Saetan tightened the chain on his temper. The bastards hadn’t known her name, hadn’t cared who she was. Finishing the kill shouldn’t have taken more than a few minutes for each of them. It was why they’d done it that had spurred him to prolong their suffering with a viciousness that wasn’t a side of himself that usually surfaced. But they had deserved everything he’d done after he helped them make the transition to demon-dead—and then proceeded to rip their minds apart before he drained what was left of their psychic power, finishing the kill so they could become a whisper in the Darkness.

“She lost a lot of blood,” Jaenelle continued, “but all the wounds were shallow. Her wings were sliced in several places, but they were easily repaired. A couple of days of bed rest and good food will rebuild her strength. There won’t be any permanent damage to her body.”

Yes, Jaenelle would make the distinction between body and heart. Her body had healed from the brutal rape that had almost destroyed her when she was twelve years old, but she carried the emotional scars . . . and always would.

“Have you eaten?” Saetan asked, noticing the decanter of yarbarah on the table in front of the couch.

When she gave him a wary smile, he knew his daughter was back.

“I was waiting for you.” Shifting her legs, Jaenelle poured a glass of yarbarah, warmed it over a tongue of witchfire, and offered it to him.