Queen of the Darkness

everyone in the coven."
    Jaenelle looked up, no longer amused.
    Karla met that look, recognizing by the subtle change in the sapphire eyes that she was no longer talking to Jaenelle, her friend and Sister. She was talking to Witch, the Queen of Ebon Askavi. Her Queen.
    "You have a reason," Jaenelle said in her midnight voice. It wasn't a question.
    "Yes." How much would she need to say to convince Jaenelle? And how much of what she'd seen in the tangled web could be left unsaid?
    A few minutes passed in silence.
    Jaenelle resumed her stitching. "If it's going to be worn on a finger, it should look decorative enough so that it's real purpose isn't obvious," she said quietly. "I assume you're mostly interested in the Ring because of the protection spells I added to it."
    "Yes," Karla said quietly. The protection spells, the Ebony shields Jaenelle added to the Rings, were the reason she wanted one.
    "Do you want the Rings linked just between the coven or linked to the boyos as well?"
    Karla hesitated. A typical Ring of Honor allowed a Queen to monitor the emotions of the males in her First Circle. Because of a quirk in the way Jaenelle had made the first Ring of Honor—the one Lucivar still wore—the First Circle males in the Dark Court had the same means of gauging the Queen's mood. Did she, or any of the coven, really want to deal with males who were even more attuned to feminine moods than the boyos already were? Was a little emotional distance worth not having a means of sending a warning that couldn't, in any way, be blocked? "They should be linked with the First Circle males."
    "I'll get the Rings made as soon as possible," Jaenelle said quietly.
    "Thank you, Lady," Karla replied, acknowledging the Queen rather than the friend.
    Another silence filled the room.
    "Anything else?" Jaenelle finally asked.
    Karla took a deep breath, let it out slowly. "I don't like your relatives."
    "Nobody here likes my relatives," Jaenelle replied, but there was a sharp edge underneath the amusement—and sorrow. Then she added very quietly, "Saetan formally requested my consent for their executions."
    "Did you give it?" Karla asked neutrally. She already knew the answer. She had been in the same position five years ago when she became Queen of Glacia. She had exiled her uncle, Lord Hobart, instead of executing him, even though she strongly suspected he had been behind the death of her parents and Morton's.
    Jaenelle, if pushed, would choose the same.
    "If it's any consolation, I do like your sister," Karla said when Jaenelle didn't answer the question. "She'll adjust to living in Kaeleer just fine if she can stop being scared long enough to catch her breath."
    Jaenelle looked a little pained. "Lucivar got her drunk. She offered to brush him."
    "Oh, Mother Night." When the laughter finally fizzled out, Karla groaned her way off the couch, said good night to Jaenelle, and headed for her own suite.
    In the privacy of her bedroom, she indulged in a few grunts and moans as she got ready for bed. No matter how much she exercised when she was home, it always took her a few days to adjust to the workouts Lucivar put her through. But she wasn't about to miss a chance to get a little extra training from him. Especially now.
    Later, as she was drifting off to sleep, it occurred to her that Jaenelle, who was a strong and very gifted Black Widow, might have had her own reasons for agreeing to the favor.
----
    7 / Kaeleer
    With exaggerated care, Daemon tied the robe's belt. The hot bath had warmed and loosened his tight, tired muscles. A large quantity of brandy would blur the mental sharp edges. Neither of those things would ease a bruised, bleeding heart.
    Jaenelle didn't want him. That was becoming painfully clear.
    When she had come looking for him last night, he had thought she had been pleased to see him, had hoped that they could begin again. But today she had shied away from him whenever he tried to approach her, using Lucivar or Chaosti or the whole coven as a buffer. It had forced him to realize that she had given him the title of Consort out of some sense of obligation, but she didn't want him.
    How long, he wondered as he walked into his bedroom, could he stand watching her interact with the other males in her court while he was being shut out of her life? How long could his sanity hold together when, day after day, he was close enough to touch her but wasn't allowed to? How long...
    Seeing the mound in the dim light, he thought