Tangled Webs

books.
    It was that tiny hint of desperation, the little undercurrent of a plea, that made it possible to ask the question. But he turned his head and stared at the wall instead of the man.
    “When I was a pleasure slave in Terreille, I woke up each morning and wondered who I needed to kill that day, or what kind of vicious game I would have to play, or if I’d be the one who was killed. I lived on the knife’s edge every waking moment, and I honed my own temper on that edge. I earned being called the Sadist.”
    “And now what’s the most frightening thing you face?”
    “Morning sex.”
    Saetan dropped the books.
    Daemon cringed, hoping none of the volumes had been damaged.
    Saetan fussed over the books, then stopped. Just stopped.
    “I’m your father,” he said quietly. “And I am Jaenelle’s adopted father. So there are aspects of your marriage I would prefer to remain ignorant about unless necessity requires me to know about them. But I’ll ask you: Do you need a Healer?”
    The question startled him. “No.”
    “You’re favoring your back.”
    “That’s not because of Jaenelle; that’s because of the damn cat. She yelled at him, and he got upset.”
    Saetan sighed, a quiet sound full of relief. “Kaelas is a Red-Jeweled Warlord Prince who is eight hundred pounds of muscle and temper. It always amazes me that all it takes to turn him into an anxious puddle of fur is for Jaenelle to say ‘bad kitty’ and rap him on the head with her fingertips.”
    “She did a bit more than that, actually. She yelled at the cat.”
    “Why?”
    “He woke her up.”
    Another silence. “You were in bed with Witch?”
    Sharp concern, Steward of the Court to Queen’s Consort. And the understanding that Jaenelle, allowed to wake up by herself, woke up grumpy. When startled awake, Witch was the side of her that woke first—and Witch woke up deadly.
    “Then I’ll ask again, Prince,” the High Lord said. “Do you need a Healer?”
    Daemon shook his head.
    “Your back?”
    He raised a hand, then let it fall to his side. “Just a bruise. I was sitting at the desk. He came in too fast. I didn’t expect Kaelas to completely lose his brains and try to climb into my lap while I was sitting in the chair!”
    “You shielded?”
    “Kept me from getting impaled,” Daemon replied dryly. Didn’t do him much good otherwise. Lying there on the study floor, a little stunned, getting smashed between broken chair and anxious cat, whose huge paw—with claws thankfully sheathed—patted at his head while Kaelas’s thoughts batted at him. The Lady was upset. Daemon was the Lady’s mate. Daemon would make things better.
    At the time, Daemon had been a bit busy trying to breathe.
    Saetan rubbed his chin. “That was a nice chair. Wasn’t meant to take that kind of weight, though.”
    Neither am I, Daemon thought.
    “The name of the craftsman who made it is in the household files.”
    “I’ll contact him to make a replacement.”
    Another silence. Then Saetan said, “What else?”
    “I like my life now. I truly do. I like waking up in the morning knowing the day will be full of small challenges and pleasures, that I’ll spend part of the day tending to the family properties and finances, as well as my own business ventures, and part of the day tending to Dhemlan. And through it all, there is being with Jaenelle. There is the wonder, and the joy, of being with Jaenelle.”
    “But?”
    “But sometimes I wonder if I’ll lose the edge that makes me who and what I am. Sometimes I wonder, when the day comes for me to stand as defender, if I’ll have become too soft, too tame, to protect what matters most. Is that the price I’ll have to pay to have a pleasant life?”
    There. He’d said it. Asked the question.
    And Saetan just stood there, staring at the books, his fingertips gently brushing the topmost cover.
    “You’ll never lose that edge,” Saetan said suddenly, quietly.
    “Daemon, this life you have now is everything I could have wished for you, and I hope you have decades where the worst challenges you face are morning sex with your wife and dealing with an anxious cat. But I can tell you, here and now, you will never lose that edge. No matter how long who and what you are remains sheathed in that pleasant life, when the day comes for you to draw that cold blade of your temper, it will be as sharp and as honed and as deadly as it is now. Maybe even more so.”
    A tension he hadn’t been aware of drained