Vulchera slipped into the bedroom and looked around. The maid had turned down the bedcovers and plumped the pillows. Everything was ready for the Warlord when he bade the other guests good night and came up here to his chaste bed.

Damn Sadi for his lack of discretion. Why in the name of Hell did he have to explode like that? She hadn’t been aiming for him at that house party. Not initially. But when he wouldn’t even flirt with her, when he looked at her with those cold yellow eyes like she was some kind of scabby street whore, when every remark he did make to her had been blandly worded but so heavily laced with contempt everyone knew he wouldn’t consider soiling himself by being with her . . .

Well, she had her pride, didn’t she? She’d wanted only to give him a twinge of discomfort, a little payback because the other men who had been present at Rhea’s country house had taken a good measure of Sadi’s feelings and avoided her.

She’d wanted only to make him uneasy. She certainly hadn’t intended to do anything that would upset Jaenelle Angelline. Anyone who had heard about what Sadi had done to Lady Lektra last spring knew better than to aim anything, even a barbed comment, at Sadi’s wife.

But he had exploded when he found her in his room, had heaped his rage on Rhea’s head to the point where the Province Queen had “suggested” she leave their little house party—and had made it clear there would never be another invitation.

They had been friends, and she’d truly liked Rhea. Besides, having a Province Queen as a friend had put her in contact with the kind of men who could be most useful, and it had provided her with some clout she wouldn’t have had otherwise when she’d asked for favors from those men, even if Rhea hadn’t been aware of providing that clout. Now it was all spoiled because she had miscalculated the depth of Sadi’s rage.

None of that mattered now. Rhea still wanted to believe that she had intended to meet a lover who was an available male and had gotten the rooms mixed up. But they both knew Rhea’s court was going to break under the weight of Sadi’s temper, and that the friendship was just the first thing to break because of her mistake.