“And how many of those Queens that we passed over are going to be impressed with a witch who wears a Rose Jewel?” Theran asked, feeling bitter again. He had to hide that bitterness from Talon, but he’d be damned if he’d hide it from the rest of the First Circle. Especially Ranon.

“The Shalador Queens might be willing to come and talk to her—and listen to what she has to say,” Ranon said.

“Shalador. Shalador. That’s all you harp about, isn’t it? Every meeting of the First Circle, you bring up something about the reserves.”

“Someone has to remember our people,” Ranon said with his own touch of bitterness.

“Just because our Queen has given her consent for you to mount a Black Widow—”

“Watch your tongue, Grayhaven,” Ranon snarled.

Theran caught a movement out of the corner of his eye and turned to see Cassidy coming toward him, her hands clenched and a look on her face....

“You coldhearted son of a whoring bitch!”

She rammed him with a force that knocked him into the wall.

Instinct and temper took over, and he shoved her hard enough that she would have fallen if Ranon hadn’t caught her. She shook off the Opal-Jeweled Warlord Prince, and the expression on Ranon’s face would have been amusing if the woman didn’t look ready to kill someone.

“You made such a point of family, you bastard,” Cassidy snarled. “The family wing was to be off-limits to the court because this had been the Grayhaven family home.”

“Why are you so pissed about that now?” Theran shouted.

“Because he’s family!” she shouted back. “But you stick him in a damn gardening shed, don’t even let him come in for meals, all because someone hurt him, scarred him so he isn’t perfect anymore, and you won’t accept anyone or anything that isn’t perfect, will you? Well, you’re not perfect either, Grayhaven. Far from it.”

Theran looked at her in disbelief. “This is about Gray?”

“YES,THIS IS ABOUT GRAY!”

She used Craft to enhance her voice, and that shout rattled the windows. And brought everyone running.

“Shit,” Ranon said softly, turning and raising a hand to stop the men who rushed into the room from the other door.

“Jared Blaed Grayhaven,” Cassidy said with a kind of cold anger that put a chill down Theran’s spine. “Family, isn’t he?”

“We’re cousins,” Theran replied cautiously. He wore Green. She wore Rose. He wasn’t in any danger. Not from her. But he couldn’t forget right now that she had the backing of the kind of power that could wipe Dena Nehele and its people out of existence.

“Cousins,” Cassidy said. “But he’s not good enough to be family, is he? Not good enough to stay in your precious house.”

“He can’t stay here.”

“Why?”