Queen of the Darkness

coming at all.
    "I think it's time to send Jaenelle another little gift," Hekatah said, her girlish voice now slurred by the misshapen jaw. "Another finger?" She used the same tone another woman might use when trying to decide the merits of serving one dish over another at dinner. "Perhaps a toe this time. No, too insignificant. An eye? Too disfiguring. We don't want her to start thinking you've become too repulsive to rescue." Her eyes focused on his balls—and she smiled. "It's dead meat now, but it will still be useful for this anyway."
    He didn't react. Wouldn't allow himself to react. It was dead meat now—the last part revitalized, the first part to die. He wouldn't react. And he wouldn't think of Sylvia. Not now. Not ever again.
    With their eyes locked on each other, Hekatah stepped closer, closer. One of her hands stroked him, caressed him, closed around him to hold him for the knife.
    An enraged shriek tore through the normal nighttime sounds.
    Hekatah jumped back and whirled toward the sound.
    Surreal came flying into the camp as if she'd been tossed by a huge hand. Her feet hit the ground first, but she couldn't stop the forward momentum. She tucked and rolled, coming up on her knees facing the darkness beyond the area illuminated by candle-lights.
    "YOU COLD-BLOODED, HEARTLESS BASTARD!" Surreal screamed. "YOU GUTLESS SON OF A WHORING BITCH!"
    Dorothea burst out of her cabin, shouting, "Guards! Guards!"
    The guards rushed in from three sides of the camp. No one came out of the darkness facing them.
    "GUARDS!" Dorothea shouted again.
    From out of that darkness, a deep, amused voice said, "They aren't going to answer you, darling. They've been permanently detained."
    Daemon Sadi stepped out of the darkness, stopping at the edge of the light. His black hair was a little wind-mussed. His hands were casually tucked in his trouser pockets. His black jacket was open, revealing the white silk shirt that was unbuttoned to the waist. The Black Jewel around his neck glittered with power. His golden eyes glittered, too.
    Seeing that queer glitter in Daemon's eyes, Saetan shivered. Something was wrong here. Very wrong.
    Hekatah turned halfway, resting the knife against Saetan's belly. "Take one more step and I'll gut him—and kill the Eyrien, too."
    "Go ahead," Daemon said pleasantly as he walked into the camp. "It'll save me the trouble of arranging a couple of careful accidents, which I would have had to have done soon anyway since the Steward and the First Escort were becoming . .. troublesome. So, you kill them, I destroy you— and then I return to Kaeleer to console the grieving Queen. Yes, that will work out quite nicely. You'll be blamed for their deaths, and Jaenelle will never look at me and wonder why I'm the only male left whom she can depend on."
    "You're forgetting about the Master of the Guard," Hekatah said.
    Daemon smiled a gentle, brutal smile. "No, I haven't. I didn't forget about Prothvar or Mephis either. They're no longer a concern."
    For a moment, Saetan thought Hekatah had gutted him. But while the wound wasn't physical, the pain was. "No," he said. "No. You couldn't have."
    Daemon laughed. "Couldn't I? Then where are they, old man?"
    Because he had wondered the same thing, Saetan couldn't answer that. But he still found himself denying it. "You couldn't have. They're your family."
    "My family," Daemon said thoughtfully. "How convenient that they decided to become 'family' after I became the Consort to the strongest Queen in the history of the Blood."
    "That's not true," Saetan said, straining forward despite the knife Hekatah still held against his belly. It was mad to be arguing about this, but all his instincts shouted at him that it had to be now, that there might not be another chance to alter that look in Daemon's eyes.
    "Isn't it?" Daemon said bitterly. "Then where were they 1,700 years ago when I was a child? Where were you? Where were any of you during all the years between then and now? Don't talk to me about family, High Lord."
    Saetan sagged against the post. Mother Night, every worry he'd had about Daemon's loyalty was coming true.
    "How very touching," Hekatah sneered. "Do you expect us to believe that? You're your father's son."
    Daemon's gold eyes fastened on Hekatah. "I think it's more accurate to say I'm the man my father might have been if he'd had the balls for it."
    "Don't listen to him," Dorothea said suddenly. "It's a trick, a trap. He's lying."
    "It seems to be his day