Queen of the Darkness

stopped at the edge of the light. He hadn't seen Hekatah in ten years—hardly more than a breath of time for someone who had lived as long as he had. And he had known her for most of those years. Even so, despite Dorothea standing beside her, she had withered so much, decayed so much, he wasn't really sure it was her until she spoke.
    "Saetan."
    "Hekatah." He walked to the center of the bare ground.
    "You've come to bargain?" Hekatah asked politely.
    He nodded. "A life for a life."
    She smiled. "For lives. We'll throw the bitch and the babe into the bargain. We don't really have any use for them."
    Did she think he didn't know they would never give up Daemonar? They had been striving for centuries to get a child out of Lucivar or Daemon that they could control and breed in order to bring back a darker bloodline.
    "My life for theirs," he said. Everything has a price.
    "NO!" Lucivar shouted, struggling against the spelled chains. "Kill them!"
    Ignoring Lucivar, he focused on Hekatah. "Do we have a bargain?"
    "For a chance to see the High Lord humbled?" Hekatah said sweetly. "Oh, yes, we have a bargain. As soon as you're restrained, I'll set the others free. I swear it on my word of honor."
    They ordered him to strip—and he did.
    Removing his Black-Jeweled ring, he tossed it on the ground. He had put a tight shield around it so that no one could actually touch it. If he needed to call it back to him, he didn't want their foulness absorbed by the gold.
    As two guards chained him to the center post, Hekatah slipped a Ring of Obedience over his organ.
    "You look well for someone your age," she said, stepping back to give his naked body a thorough inspection.
    He smiled gently. "Unfortunately, darling, I can't say the same about you."
    Viciousness twisted Hekatah's face. "It's time you learned a lesson, High Lord." She raised her hand at the same time Dorothea, with a look of perverted glee, raised hers.
    Lucivar had once tried to explain to the boyos why a Ring of Obedience could force a powerful male to submit, so Saetan thought he was ready for it.
    Nothing could have prepared him for the pain that filled his cock and balls before it spread through his body. His nerves were on fire, while agony settled between his legs. He couldn't fight it, could barely think.
    His sons had endured this, had fought against Dorothea's control knowing that this was waiting after every act of defiance. For centuries, they had endured this. How could a man not become twisted by this? How...
    He screamed—and kept on screaming until his body just shut down.
----
    19 / Kaeleer
    Surreal paced back and forth in Karla's sitting room, growing angrier by the minute. She wasn't sure why she'd chosen to vent her frustrations to Karla. Maybe it was because Karla had seemed so damned indifferent to everything that had been happening.
    All right, that wasn't fair. The woman was grieving for her cousin, Morton, not to mention that she was slowly recovering from a vicious poisoning. Even so...
    "The bastard sounded like it was an inconvenience that would interfere with his manicure," Surreal raged at Karla. " 'We'll see what we can accommodate.' Hell's fire, it's his father and brother!"
    "You don't know what he intends to do," Karla said blandly.
    The blandness pushed Surreal's temper up another notch. "He doesn't plan to do anything!"
    "How do you know?"
    Surreal sputtered, swore, paced. "It's as if he and Jaenelle want us to lose this war."
    For the first time, temper heated Karla's voice. "Don't be an ass."
    "Now, look, sugar—"
    "No, you look," Karla snapped. "It's about time all of you looked and thought and remembered a few things. The boyos' instincts are pushing them toward battle. They can't change that any more than they can change being male. And the coven is made up of Queens whose instincts are urging them to protect their people."
    "Which is exactly what they should be doing!" Surreal shouted. "And you don't seem to have that problem," she added nastily. Then she glanced at Karla's covered legs and regretted the words.
    "When Jaenelle was fifteen," Karla said, "the Dark Council tried to say that Uncle Saetan was unfit to be her legal guardian. They decided to appoint someone else. And she said they could 'when the sun next rises.' Do you know what happened?"
    Finally standing still, Surreal shook her head.
    "The sun didn't rise for three days," Karla said mildly. "It didn't rise until the Council rescinded their decision."
    Surreal