He felt a flash of frustration from her as she tried to find some way to respond to his words that wouldn’t hurt either of them.

Balling her hands into fists, she shouted something at him. The fact that Lucivar choked on the wine confirmed the words were Eyrien, but he didn’t know what she’d said. Which gave him a clue how to provide the tone of a quarrel without wounding.

Unfortunately, there was only one phrase he could think of that no one else would understand. So he bared his teeth and said the words he’d intended to say out of love, in the heat of passion. Words in the Old Tongue.

Her eyes widened in shock. She clamped a hand over her mouth to muffle the mewling noises. Then she whirled and rushed out of the ballroom.

Startled by her response, he hesitated. Play out the game, old son. Struggling to look irritated and slightly disgusted, he shook his head and left the ballroom to find Jaenelle.

She’d made it as far as the conservatory, where large ferns shielded her, giving her some privacy. He approached quietly, pained to see her shoulders hunched and her hands over her face. She gasped for air between sobs.

“Jaenelle,” he said, brushing a hand over her shoulder—and bracing himself for her rejection of his touch. Mother Night, she sounded close to hysterical.

She lowered her hands and looked at him.

She was close to hysterical . . . because she was laughing so hard she could barely stay on her feet.

“I—I—I eat cow brains?” she gasped.

Shocked, his mouth fell open. “What? You do?”

“N-n-no. You do.”

He gripped her upper arms to keep her upright. “What? No, I don’t.”

“Th-that’s what you said. ‘I eat cow brains.’ ” She collapsed against him, howling with laughter.

That was so far removed from what he’d intended to say it was embarrassing—and he could imagine how much worse it would have been if he’d whispered those words in the middle of hot lovemaking. “That wasn’t—It wasn’t what I thought I said.” Feeling his face heat, he wrapped his arms around her and pressed her face against his chest to muffle her laughter.

“Oh, g-good.” She gulped air and made an effort to regain some control. “What did you mean to say?”

Oh, no. He wasn’t about to embarrass himself that much. “Never mind.” He paused. “So what did you say to me?”

“Oh. Well.”

“Come on, fair is fair.” He tugged on her hair. “What did you say?”

“I said you had the feet of a pig and smelled like a goat.” She burst into laughter again.

Daemon sighed. “Well, we certainly descended fast enough to barnyard mudslinging, didn’t we?”

“We did. Oh, we did.”

Her laughter broke his temper better than anything else could have. “Let’s get out of here.”