Daughter of the Blood

knew. She cared for him. She was ready to protect him because, to her anyway, a weak leg might make him vulnerable against an adversary.
    Saetan smiled, squeezed her shoulder, and began walking again.
    Geoffrey had been right. He had a more potent leash than Protocol to keep her in check. Unfortunately, that leash worked two ways, so from now on, he was going to have to be very, very careful.
    Saetan looked with growing dismay at the amount of food on the table. Along with a bowl of stew and sticks of cornbread, there were fruit, cheese, nut cakes, cold ham, cold beef, a whole roasted chicken, a platter of vegetables, fresh bread, honey butter, and a pitcher of milk. It ended there only because he'd refused to allow the footman to bring in the last heavily laden tray. The volume would have daunted a hungry full-grown male, let alone a young girl.
    Jaenelle stared at the dishes arranged in a half-circle around her place at the table.
    "Eat your stew while it's hot," Saetan suggested mildly, sipping a glass of yarbarah.
    Jaenelle picked up her spoon and began to eat, but after one bite she put the spoon down, once more shy and uncertain.
    Saetan began to talk in a leisurely manner. Since he talked as if he had nothing else to do and nowhere else to go and was going to sit at the table for quite some time, Jaenelle picked up the spoon again. He noticed that every time he stopped talking she put the spoon down, as if she didn't want her eating to detain him. So he gossiped, telling her about Mephis, Prothvar, Andulvar, Geoffrey, and Draca, but he ran out very quickly. The dead don't do much, he thought dryly as he launched into a long discourse about the book he'd been reading, completely unconcerned with whether or not it was over her head.
    He started feeling a bit desperate about what to say next when she finally leaned back, her hands folded over a bulging tummy, and gave him the sweet, sleepy smile of a well-fed, content child. He put his glass up to his lips to hide his smile and briefly glanced at the carnage in front of him. Perhaps he'd been too hasty in sending that last tray back to the kitchen.
    "I have a surprise for you," he said, biting his cheek as she wrestled herself into a sitting position.
    He led her to the second floor of his wing. The doors along the right side led into his suite of rooms. He opened a door on the left.
    He had put a lot of thought into these rooms. The bedroom had the feel of a seascape with its soft, shell-colored walls, plush sandy carpets, deep sea-blue counterpane on the huge bed, warm brown furniture, and throw pillows the color of dune grass. The adjoining sitting room belonged to the earth. The rooms still required personal touches that he'd deliberately kept absent to make them feminine.
    Jaenelle admired, examined, exclaimed, and shouted back to him when she saw the bathroom, "You could swim in this bathtub!"
    When she finally returned to him, he asked, "Do you like them?"
    She smiled at him and nodded.
    "I'm glad, because they're your rooms." He ignored her delighted gasp and continued. "Of course, they'll need your personal touches and lady's paraphernalia to give them character, and I didn't put any paintings on the walls. Those are for you to choose."
    "My rooms?"
    "Whenever you want to use them, whether I'm here or not. A quiet place, all your own."
    He watched with pleasure as she explored the rooms again, a territorial gleam in her eyes. His smile didn't fade until she tried the door on the opposite side of the bedroom. Finding it locked, she turned away, not interested enough to question it.
    When Jaenelle returned to the bathroom to ponder the possibilities of the bathtub, Saetan studied the locked door.
    He loved her dearly, but he was no fool. On the other side of that locked door was another suite of rooms, somewhat smaller but no less carefully decorated. Someday a consort would reside in those rooms whenever she came to visit. For now, or at least until she asked, there was no reason to tell her what was on the other side of that door or what its occupant would be for.
    "Saetan?"
    He came out of his dark reverie to find her beside him again, her happiness putting a little color back into her cheeks. "Do you think we could begin my lessons again?"
    "Of course." He thought for a moment. "Do you know how to create witch light?"
    Jaenelle shook her head.
    "Then that's a good place to begin." He paused and added casually, "How about having your lessons