Heir to the Shadows

Warlord Prince is a serious offense."
    Her eyes flashed fire. He could almost feel her back arch and the nonexistent fur stand on end. Maybe he wouldn't have to dig that hard to bring a little of her temper to the surface. "I never did!"
    "Yes, you did. I distinctly remember teaching you what to do—"
    "They weren't standing behind me!" Lucivar narrowed his eyes. "You don't have any human male friends?" "Of course I do!"
    "And not one of them has ever taken you behind the barn and taught you what to do with your knee?" Her fingernails suddenly required her attention. "That's what I thought," Lucivar said dryly. "So I'll give you a choice. If one of those fine, rutting aristo males does something you don't like, you can give him a hard knee in the balls or I can start with his feet and end with his neck and break every bone in between." "You couldn't."
    "It's not that difficult. I've done it before." He waited a minute, then tapped her chin. She closed her mouth.
    Then she seemed to shrink into herself. "But, Lucivar," she said weakly, "what if it's my fault that he's aroused and needs relief?"
    He snorted, amused. "You didn't actually fall for that, did you?"
    Her eyes narrowed to slits.
    "I don't know how things are in Kaeleer, but it used to
    be, in Terreille, that a young man could register at a Red Moon house and not only get his 'relief but also learn how to do more than a thirty-second poke and hump."
    She made a choking sound that might have been a suppressed laugh.
    "And if they can't afford a Red Moon house, they can i> get their own 'relief easily enough."
    "How?"
    Lucivar suppressed a grin. Sometimes catching her interest was as easy as rolling a ball of yarn in front of a kitten. "I'm not sure an older brother is the right person to explain that," he said primly.
    She studied him. "You don't like sex, do you?"
    "Not my experience of it, no." He traced her fingers, needing to be honest. "But I've always thought that if I cared about a woman, it would be wonderful to give her that kind of pleasure." He shook himself and set her on her feet. "Enough of this. You need to eat and get your strength back. There's beef soup and a loaf of fresh bread."
    Jaenelle paled. "It won't stay down. It never does after . . ."
    "Try."
    When they sat down to eat, she managed three spoonfuls of soup and one mouthful of bread before she bolted into the bathroom.
    His own appetite gone, Lucivar cleared the table. He was pouring the soup back into the pan when Smoke slunk into the kitchen.
    *Lucivar?*
    Lucivar lifted his bowl of soup. "You want some of this?"
    Smoke ignored the offer. *Bad dreams come now. Hurt the Lady. She not talk to us, not see us, not want males near. Not eat, not sleep, walk walk walk, snarl at us. Bad dreams now, Lucivar.*
    *Do the bad dreams always come after one of these visits?* Lucivar asked, narrowing his thoughts to a spear thread.
    Smoke bared his teeth in a silent snarl. * Always.*
    Lucivar's stomach clenched. So it didn't end once she got
    away from Little Terreille. *How long?* The kindred had a fluid sense of time, but Smoke, at least, understood basic divisions of day and night.
    Smoke cocked his head. *Night, day, night, day . . . maybe night.*
    So she'd spend tonight and the next two days trying to outrun the nightmares hovering at the edge of her vision by depleting an already exhausted body that she would mercilessly flog until it collapsed under the strain of no food, no water, no rest. What kind of dreams could drive a young woman to such masochistic cruelty?
    He found out that night.
    The change in her breathing snapped him out of a light sleep. Propping himself up on one arm, he reached for her shoulder.
    *Can't wake when bad dreams come.* Standing at the foot of the bed, Smoke's eyes caught the moonlight.
    *Why?*
    *Not see us. Not know us. All dreams.*
    Lucivar swore under his breath. If every sound, every touch got sucked into the dreamscape . * .
    Jaenelle's body arched like a tightly strung bow.
    He studied the clenched, straining muscles and swore again. She'd be hurting sore in the morning.
    The tension went out of her body. She collapsed against the mattress, twitching, moaning, sweat-soaked.
    He had to wake her up. If it took throwing her into a cold shower or walking her around the meadow for the rest of the night, he was going to wake her up.
    He reached out again . . . and she began to talk.
    Every word was a physical blow as the memories poured out.
    His head bowed, his