Tangled Webs

temper. Added to that was the suspicion that he’d been trying to eavesdrop on a conversation and hadn’t been happy when she’d caught him at it.
    She considered sending Rainier down another aisle and boxing the man between the two of them, but she had seen no Jewel, didn’t get any sense of threat or power. In fact, she got so little sense of him, she wasn’t even sure he was Blood. Was she going to scare the shit out of a man and spoil his pleasant afternoon of browsing in the bookshop just because she didn’t like something about the way he dressed?
    Since she couldn’t say with certainty that her reaction wasn’t the result of an edginess caused by talking about Falonar, she turned to Rainier and said, “Help me find the first Jarvis Jenkell story about the Blood. And while we’re doing that, you can tell me again about this spooky house.”

    Late that evening, Daemon sprawled across the big bed, naked, sated, and blissfully content, his head pillowed in Jaenelle’s lap. They had bathed after a hungry session of lovemaking, but he still caught a light whiff of their mingled scents beneath the clean smell of soap.
    So tempting to turn his head and press a kiss on that triangle between her thighs. But a kiss through her nightgown would make him want to push up the fabric in order to taste skin, and that kind of kiss would lead to other kinds of kisses.
    He’d already indulged himself with those other kinds of kisses.
    Besides, she was reading a book and petting him, her fingers drifting through his hair, over his shoulders and back. He could float on that sensation, and he did, beginning to settle into sleep when… tap. tap tap. tap. tap tap. Her finger against his shoulder.
    He knew that rhythm. It seldom boded well.
    “Are you asleep?” Jaenelle asked.
    “Mmmm.” Noncommittal response. Could mean anything. tap. tap tap.
    “Daemon?”
    He opened his eyes halfway.
    “When we have sex, does your penis weep with gratitude?”
    A handful of answers flashed through his mind. If he said any of them, he would end up sleeping in the Consort’s room. Alone.
    “In what context?” he asked.
    She lowered the book. Since he’d acknowledged being awake, he raised his head and read the passage. Then he read it again.
    “Sweetheart, if my penis ever does that, you will be the first to know. Not as my wife, but as a Healer.”
    “That’s what I thought, but I wanted to be sure.”
    Hearing the frown in her voice, he shifted, reluctantly, and propped himself up on one elbow. “What are you reading?”
    She flashed him a guilty look. “A book by Jarvis Jenkell.”
    At least you didn’t kick me this time. “That book doesn’t start with a body in a closet, does it?”
    “Yes, it does.”
    Hell’s fire. Well, Rainier would get to deal with Surreal when they reached that part of the story. And wouldn’t that be fun?
    “Do you think there’s something wrong with his brain?”
    He studied her expression. Not a flippant question.
    “Do you think there’s something wrong with his sanity?”
    Definitely not a flippant question when asked by a witch who was a Black Widow as well as a Healer.
    “Are we talking about the writer or the character?” Daemon asked.
    “I’m not sure,” she replied, looking troubled.
    Uneasy now, he pulled the sheet up to his waist, a defensive gesture. “Why are you asking? Because Jenkell wrote a bad sex scene?” Appalling was a more accurate description.
    “No, I’m asking because he seems to think this is normal behavior for the Blood.”
    He hesitated a moment, then said softly, “It’s not that far off from what was done in some of the Terreillean courts.” Other places. Other beds. None where he served willingly. Those weren’t memories he wanted to stir up and bring to the surface. Not now. Not ever.
    Jaenelle looked at him with those sapphire eyes. Looked through him. Saw him in ways no one else ever had—or could.
    She vanished the book, then shifted so that she was propped up on an elbow, close enough to him that all she had to do was lean a little to kiss him.
    Memories swam up to the surface. Ugly, hateful memories. As he looked at Jaenelle, his heart pounded, but it wasn’t from excitement or lust.
    Submit. Serve. Play the whore.
    He couldn’t do it. Not even as a game. Not with Jaenelle.
    “Daemon?” Her lips touched his in a soft kiss.
    He couldn’t do this, had to stop this before she became aroused. If he tried to oblige her while the