Dreams Made Flesh

would have to talk to Saetan and reach an agreement. He was an Eyrien warrior and Jaenelle's First Escort. He had to be able to step onto any kind of battlefield and fight to defend his Queen. He had to be willing to die for his Queen. He couldn't do that until he got a promise from Saetan that there wouldn't be another Zuulaman.
    His arms tightened around Marian. No Eyrien mattered more to him than she did. So he had to have that promise.
    Because if he died without it, the price would be too high.
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    FOURTEEN
    « ^ »
    Marian looked at the sugar spilled on the kitchen floor and wanted to cry. Such a little thing. A bobble of the hand that held the sugar bowl. Normally, it would have caused no more than a moment's annoyance before she cleaned it up.
    But not today. Not when a taloned fist had curled around her womb and was squeezing hard.
    She closed her eyes and braced a hand against the kitchen counter. Maybe once in a year, the physical discomfort that came with her moon-time escalated to nauseating pain. When it hit, it made her grateful she didn't wear a Jewel darker than the Purple Dusk because the pain balanced the power that could be wielded the rest of the time, and darker-Jeweled witches always suffered more during the first three days. And no witch could use her Jeweled strength during those first three days without causing herself hideous pain.
    Marian opened her eyes and stared at the spilled sugar. The thought of doing any physical labor made her want to curl into a ball and weep, but she knew from experience that even using basic Craft today would increase the pain.
    With a shaky sigh, she went to the cupboard in the pantry where she kept her broom and dustpan.
    * * *
    Lucivar stopped in the corridor, the scent hitting him with the force of running into a stone wall. His nostrils flared. His lips pulled back in a silent snarl. Moon's blood.
    Some change in a witch's psychic scent or her physical scent triggered that recognition in Blood males once they reached puberty. Maybe it was a trait that had developed long ago as a tool for survival since this was one of the times when the balance of power between the genders swung in the males' favor. A witch who had to defend herself against a male ended up fighting two adversaries: him and her own body.
    Which was why the males closed ranks around a Queen during those days when she was vulnerable. Even the mildest-tempered Blood male became edgy and aggressive, but moon's blood drove Warlord Princes to the killing edge. Naturally aggressive and territorial, their response to an unknown male was lethal more often than not. That response was the primary reason Blood males were trained to ignore the scent of moon's blood except for the females in their own family and the Circle of the court they served in.
    And that was the problem now, wasn't it? At the Hall, the male servants looked after, and fussed over, the female servants. The family and the boyos took care of Jaenelle and the coven when they were in residence. The boundaries were established, and all the males accepted them. But there was just the three of them here. He'd gritted his teeth through it the other times, reminding himself that Marian worked for him, so he couldn't yell at her for exerting herself. He couldn't insist that she sit and do something quiet that wouldn't strain her body. He couldn't roar until it brought every male in the area running to find out what was wrong the way he could when Jaenelle got stubborn. There were boundaries and…
    Screw boundaries. Marian was not going to make him frantic again, seething in silence and trying to keep a slippery hold on his temper while she scrubbed and polished things that could damn well wait a few days before they got scrubbed and polished. They were going to compromise…and if that meant tying her to a chair to make her rest, so be it.
    With his temper choked back to simmering…and ready to boil…he strode toward the kitchen to explain a few things to his little hearth witch.
    "WHAT IN THE NAME OF HELL ARE YOU DOING?"
    The broom jerked in Marian's hands, scattering the sugar she'd just swept into a neat pile. Her heart slammed against her chest. She took a step back as Lucivar stepped through the archway into the kitchen, his lips pulled back in a snarl and a wild look in his eyes.
    "You are not going to do this again, do you understand me?" he shouted as he walked toward her. "You are not going to beat yourself into the ground trying