Tangled Webs

Lucivar said softly. “And he knows it’s a trap. That’s why he sent the message last night, telling me to stay home.”
    Marian said nothing. Just watched his eyes glaze as he rose to the killing edge and made the transition from fumbling husband to lethal predator.
    “Pack a bag,” Lucivar said. “Enough clothes for you and Daemonar for a couple of days. Do it now. I’ll escort you to the Keep.”
    “And then?” she asked when it seemed like he wouldn’t say anything more.
    “And then I’m going to Dhemlan to have a chat with my brother.”
    “If you need to go, I can take Daemonar to the Keep as soon as we’re—”
    “No.”
    She looked into his eyes and saw the agony that still haunted him from the memories of what happened in Terreille last year. She was supposed to go to the Keep then too. Instead she and Daemonar had been abducted and taken to Terreille as hostages. Daemon had managed to keep them safe by playing out some savage games, but the emotional price for both Daemon and Lucivar had been brutally high.
    She wouldn’t risk her son again by thinking she was far enough removed from danger. And she couldn’t risk the heart of either man.
    “Give me ten minutes,” she said.
    He turned aside to let her pass. He didn’t touch her. She didn’t dare touch him. He understood something about that invitation that she didn’t. Whatever he was facing, whatever he had to do, she wasn’t going to be used as a knife held to Lucivar’s throat.
    Not again.

    Surreal stirred, winced, swore softly. She didn’t snarl at him when Rainier braced a hand on her shoulder and pushed until she sat up straight.
    “How does your side feel?” he asked.
    “Like I got ripped by some bitch with razor-sharp nails,” she replied.
    He slipped a hand under her shirt. She did snarl at him for that.
    He ignored her, which was ballsy of him, since even without using Craft, she could do a considerable amount of damage to him before he could get out of reach.
    Then she sucked in a breath as his fingers delicately brushed over the shield above the wound.
    “Feels hot,” he said, his green eyes filling with worry. “Might be infected.”
    “I cleaned it out,” she replied, feeling defensive.
    “You’ll need to see a Healer when you get out of here.”
    A statement. One of those simple sentences that summed up the Blood in Kaeleer. Witches ruled. Males served. And somehow those two facts could add up to an escort hauling a witch to a Healer just because he decided she needed one.
    And you couldn’t even argue with him about it without having all the other males gang up on you.
    She couldn’t even argue with the other half of that statement—the assumption that he was going to die getting her out of the house.
    “Fine,” she grumbled. “I’ll see a Healer.”
    Rainier looked around. They had snuffed out all the candles except the one with the witchfire and had turned down the lamps to conserve the oil. The light didn’t seem to illuminate as much now that it was competing with a room made up of shades of gray instead of true darkness.
    “If we can trust the light coming from the windows, it’s almost dawn,” Rainier said.
    “I wonder if we were supposed to survive this long.”
    “Probably not, but we had incentive.”
    “Yeah.” When your uncle was the High Lord of Hell, becoming demon-dead for a stupid reason was not something you wanted to do. The lectures about it would go on for decades.
    “There’s water left in the jug,” he said. “We should hold on to what’s left of the food.”
    “And we need to make a decision.” Surreal got to her feet and swore silently. She felt stiffer than she should, and her side hurt more than it should. At least her lungs seemed to be all right now.
    “We either need to go upstairs to use the bathroom or we need to pick a corner and pee on a carpet.”
    The children were waking up, so they would have to make that decision soon. Hell’s fire, she needed to make that decision soon.
    “Could the window be an exit?” Rainier asked. Taking one of the pokers, he approached the window. Then he gave her a considering look. “Your Gray shield will let things out but not in?”
    She nodded. “Whatever goes out stays out.”
    He retreated, set the poker down, then selected a fork from the hamper.
    “Doesn’t give you much distance,” Surreal said.
    “No, but I’ll still be behind the shield,” Rainier replied. “Besides, we can’t take the hamper or