Smiling, he closed his gold eyes and tipped his head back to feel the sun on his face. Slowly opening his dark, membranous wings, he savored the feel of sunlight and chilly air playing over his wings and light-brown skin.

In all of his seventeen hundred years, he’d never had a home until three years ago when he’d been reunited with his father—the man who, through the machinations of Dorothea, Hayll’s High Priestess, had had his two younger sons taken from him. The man who had never forgotten or forgiven the betrayals that had left scars on all of them.

He’d been happy living in the suite of rooms at SaDiablo Hall, but the Hall was still his father’s house. This place was his. Exclusively, totally his.

*Yas?*

Well, maybe not exclusively his.

Sipping his coffee, Lucivar watched the adolescent wolf trot toward him. The youngster had been ready to leave the pack that lived in the north woods of his father’s estate but hadn’t wanted to go back to the Territory most of the kindred wolves called home. Tassle had grown up near humans and wanted to learn more about them, but there still weren’t many places where the wild kindred could safely live in human Territories—and there still weren’t many humans beyond Jaenelle Angelline’s court who felt easy about living around an animal who had the same power as the human Blood. Since he now had plenty of land for a wolf to roam in, it was easy enough to share the space.

Tassle, Lucivar thought, raising the mug to hide his smile. What kind of name was Tassle for a Warlord wolf? “Good morning. Smell anything interesting?”

*Yes. Yas, you aren’t wearing your cow skin.*

“It’s called leather.” Which Tassle knew perfectly well. Humans had prejudices, but so did the kindred. If something could be described by referring to the animal it came from, they ignored the human word for the end result. They viewed the world from their own furry perspective, which was fair, he supposed, since no two people, let alone two species, would view the world around them in quite the same way. “I don’t need clothes right now. It’s a fine morning, we’re alone up here, and it’s not like anyone living in the valley is going to see me.”

*But, Yas—*

He sensed it then. Someone coming up the stone stairs from the landing area below had passed through the perimeter shield he’d placed around the eyrie. The shield wasn’t meant to keep anyone out, just to alert him if someone approached his home.

As he turned toward the intruder, Helene, his father’s housekeeper, hurried up the last few steps, then stopped abruptly when she reached the flagstones and saw him.

“Good morning, Prince Yaslana,” she said politely.