Daemon followed slowly. When Lucivar stopped and knocked on a door, he kept walking, drawn to the strong, dark, feminine psychic scent coming from a room on the opposite side of the corridor.

“Daemon?”

Lucivar’s voice faded, muted by a powerful tide of emotions.

Daemon opened a door and walked into a sitting room. One wall had built-in bookshelves above a row of closed, waist-high wooden cabinets. A couch, two triangular side tables, and two chairs formed a bracket of furniture around a long, low table. A pair of sinuous, patinaed lamps sat on the side tables. Next to one chair was a large basket full of skeins of wool and silk and a partially completed piece of needlework. A desk sat in front of the glass doors that led out to the balcony. A tiered stand filled with plants occupied one corner.

The psychic scent washed over him, through him. Oh, he remembered that dark scent. But there was something different about it now, something delicately, deliciously musky.

His body tightened, then swelled with male interest before his mind understood the significance of that difference. Then he noticed the sapphire slippers near one chair. A woman’s slippers.

Against all reason, despite all desire, even when he had thought that Lucivar had married her, he hadn’t fully absorbed the fact that she was no longer the child he had known. She had grown up.

The walls of the room faded to gray, then darkened and began to close in, forming a tunnel around him.

“Daemon.”

He remembered that deep voice, too. He had heard it amused. He had heard it full of rage and fierce power. He had heard it hoarse and exhausted. He had heard it plead with him to reach up, to accept the help and strength being offered.

Turning slowly, he stared at Saetan. The Prince of the Darkness. The High Lord of Hell. His father.

Saetan extended his hand, with its slender fingers and long, black-tinted nails. “Daemon…Jaenelle is alive,” he said softly.

The room shrank. The tunnel kept closing. The hand waited for him, offering strength, safety, comfort—all the things he’d rejected when he’d been in the Twisted Kingdom.

“Daemon.”

He took a step forward. He raised his hand, with its slender fingers and long, black-tinted nails. This time, he feared his own fragility. This time, he would accept the promises Saetan offered.

He took another step, reaching for the hand that mirrored his own.

Just before his fingers touched Saetan’s, the room disappeared.

“Keep your head down, boyo. Breathe, slow and easy. That’s right.”

Calm strength and warmth flowed from the hand that stroked his head, his neck, his spine.