The Invisible Ring

like Gran, and I’m the only other Queen in the family.”
    For a moment, Jared couldn’t think of anything to say. Couldn’t think at all. “Gran?” His voice cracked and rose to a squeak. “ Gran ? The Gray Lady is your grandmother ? How?”
    Lia blinked. “The usual way. Her daughter had a daughter.”
    Jared drained his mug. All right. An illusion web spun by a gifted Black Widow had been able to fool the eye, had been able to somehow mask the fact that Lia wore a Green Jewel so that strangers wouldn’t be able to tell it wasn’t the Gray Lady. But there was nothing that could fool a male into believing any other kind of witch was a Queen—especially if he focused his attention on her.
    So it made sense that they would need a Queen to impersonate a Queen. And maybe the family bond made it easier to create the illusion web, especially if Lia resembled her grandmother. Maybe there hadn’t been another Queen willing to take the risk. Or maybe the Gray Lady hadn’t felt she could ask someone outside of her family. Or ...
    Jared’s shoulder blades twitched. He kept hoping there was another answer because, if there wasn’t, he was going to be furious all over again, and he couldn’t afford the luxury of telling her what he thought of the males in her Territory.
    “So,” he said pleasantly while the anger started simmering his blood, “since you were the only other Queen in the family, and the Gray Lady’s successor, you decided to do this yourself.”
    She eyed him warily. “Yes.” When he started swearing again, the kind of inventive curses that were designed to make another man flinch, she snarled at him. “Why are you so snappish about my father?”
    “What kind of man would stand back and let you do this?”
    “What would you have done if your Queen ordered you to let your daughter go?”
    “I would have fought it!”
    “He did! He lost.” She winced and wrapped her left arm around her belly. “And now he’s going to yell at me when I get home. He’ll hug me and get teary about the bruises, and then he’ll yell at me.”
    Since he wanted to do a bit of yelling himself, Jared leaned forward and patted her shoulder gently. And found he now understood his father’s outbursts while still able to remember how it felt to be on the receiving end. “Doesn’t seem fair, does it? Getting yelled at when you’ve already been through a hard time and survived it.”
    She shook her head and sniffed.
    The pats changed to soothing circles.
    Jared hesitated. “There had to be other ways of letting Dorothea know the Gray Lady is still a formidable adversary. Was going to Raej to get a few more slaves really worth this risk?”
    Her eyes became brutally hard. “There are no slaves in Dena Nehele,” she said coldly, and shifted just enough to let him know his touch was no longer welcome.
    Hurt by the withdrawal, he matched her coldness. “Well, if you keep your precious Territory clean of the stink of slavery, what do you do with the slaves you buy?”
    “Send them home, of course. That is, if they want to go home.”
    That stopped him.
    Stopped his brain, stopped his heart, and withered his anger.
    “Home?” Jared’s voice broke. His heart started again with a leap. “You send them home?”
    Cupping both hands around her mug, Lia finished the brew. “Yes, we send them home—or invite them to stay if ‘home’ is no longer a safe place for them.” She closed her eyes for a moment and took a couple of deep breaths. “Dorothea SaDiablo wants nothing less than to control the entire Realm of Terreille. That’s been her goal since she became the High Priestess of Hayll centuries ago. Since outright war would have devastated the Realm, she had to find a different way of waging war on the rest of the Blood.”
    “Fear,” Jared said softly. “Over time, fear between the genders would undermine a Territory.”
    Lia nodded. “And she has time since Hayllians are a long-lived race. The seeds of distrust are sown village by village while she nurtures the lighter-Jeweled witches who have the same twisted nature that she does. Strong males who might not submit to one of her pet Queens are usually Ringed young, before they become ‘dangerous.’ Mature males who challenge the new rule are declared rogues and are either hunted down and killed or go into hiding. All of the dark-Jeweled witches and most of the Queens are broken young so there’s no one left for the males to bond to except Dorothea’s chosen.”
    Jared set his mug on the floor and clasped his hands