“So what went wrong?” Karla asked.

Shame clogged his throat. He swallowed it, just as he’d swallowed it centuries ago. “The next morning, when I went to join the other warriors for a meal before heading back to the hunting camp . . . She was serving up food with the other women. I went over to her, just to talk to someone who would think kindly of me. But the other women must have told her who I was. What I was. Must have teased her about giving herself to a half-breed bastard. So instead of saying anything or even smiling at me, she . . . spit on me.”

The memory swamped him. The disgust in her eyes. The cruel laughter of the men. The reminder that they had to accept his status as a warrior but would never accept him.

“Bitch.”

The sudden chill in the air jolted him back to the present. Karla’s glacier blue eyes flashed with fury. Her Gray power rolled through the room.

Before he could think of how to respond, there was a sharp rap on the door and Saetan walked into the room.

Great. That was just great. He really needed confirmation that his father was staying so close in case something went wrong.

After looking at him, then at Karla, Saetan asked quietly, “Is something wrong?”

“That bitch spit on him after he got her through her Virgin Night!” Karla shouted.

The room had been chilly before. Now it was frigid as Saetan’s eyes glazed with cold rage.

“Who?” Saetan asked too softly.

Oh, no. “It doesn’t matter. It was a long time ago.”

Karla grabbed a pillow and began shredding it as she stormed around the room. “The bitch deserves having her heart ripped out—if she has a heart.”

“Who?” Saetan asked again.

Hell’s fire, Mother Night, and may the Darkness be merciful. Maybe he should have known better, but he hadn’t expected this.

“Can we discuss this outside?” He gestured toward the door.

“You’re not going to let that bitch get away with this, are you, Uncle Saetan?” Karla demanded.

That’s just what he needed—a Gray-Jeweled Queen goading a Black-Jeweled Warlord Prince to rise to the killing edge.

Saetan walked out of the room. Lucivar followed, closing the door firmly behind him.

“Who?” Saetan asked for the third time.

“I don’t remember her name,” he lied. He remembered everything about her, everything about that night and the morning after.

“Liar,” Saetan crooned.

If Daemon had said that to him in that tone of voice, he’d have braced himself for a terrifying kind of fight.

“You never saw another witch through her Virgin Night because of that bitch,” Saetan continued. “Isn’t that true?”

He didn’t say anything. Wouldn’t say anything. Not because he gave a damn what happened to that bitch, but because his father’s instant response to a son’s pain was as frightening as it was gratifying.