The Invisible Ring

to find something else to talk about. “Blaed likes you.”
    “Blaed’s a fool,” she snapped.
    Thinking of how Blaed looked at her, with too much of his heart in his eyes, Jared’s sympathy for Thera rapidly faded.
    “Tell me,” he said politely, “does being a bitch come naturally to you, or do you have to work at it?”
    He’d expected her to lash out at him. It unnerved him to see tears fill her eyes and spill over.
    “Thera,” he said softly, trying to hold her close to comfort her while she struggled to break away from him.
    She stopped fighting and rested her head against his chest. “It’s safer to be a bitch. Can you understand that?”
    “Yes, I can understand that,” Jared said, gently wiping the tears away with his hand.
    “It’s hard to let go of a useful weapon. Hard to trust.”
    “I know.” He hugged her once, then eased back, pleased when she didn’t shake off the arm draped companionably around her shoulders.
    After they’d been walking for several minutes, he broached the question that had nagged at him for the past few days. “What were you doing at Raej, Thera? Why was a Green-Jeweled, unbroken Black Widow submitting to the humiliation of the auction block?”
    “To escape. Why else?”
    Dry, sharp amusement lit her green eyes for a moment. When it faded, Jared looked into a spiritual desert.
    Thera took a deep breath, let it out slowly. “My mother wasn’t very bright.” Her laugh was tinged with bitterness. “The landens always think being Blood and using Craft has to mean we’re all very powerful, very wealthy, very intelligent. It doesn’t necessarily mean we’re any of those things. We’re just Blood.
    “She was pretty and gentle and had an innate sweetness that made her shine. Or it would have if she’d stayed in her home village living a life that suited her. But one day, a Warlord from the Province Queen’s court rode through the village and saw her. Courteous and admiring, he spent the afternoon with her, carrying her market basket and acting as if he’d never seen anyone quite so wonderful. Then he rode back to the court, and she was pleased to have been admired.
    “A few weeks later, the Province Queen summoned her to the court and offered her a place in the Fifth Circle. She was awed, flattered, and overwhelmed by the way the aristo members of the court acted.
    “He was there, a favored Second Circle male. He gallantly offered to escort my mother through the intricacies of court life. Since he was the only person she knew there, she accepted his company with open arms. He couldn’t bear to be away from her. He begged her to marry him. And he begged to see her through her Virgin Night.
    “He broke her. An accident, they said. It happens sometimes. Even with all the care that’s taken, it happens sometimes. So sorry.
    “Of course, he couldn’t marry her after that. Neither his family nor his Queen would grant permission for an Opal-Jeweled Warlord to marry a broken witch who wasn’t aristo. But she could be his lover, and in his heart she would always be his wife. It didn’t take her long to discover there wasn’t much difference between being a lover and a slave. At least, not in a court that had spread its legs for Hayll.
    “He liked to hit. He enjoyed hurting anything or anyone who was weaker. He used to slap her to excite himself before he mounted her.”
    “Why didn’t she leave him?” Jared asked.
    “She had signed a contract to serve in the court. The Queen wouldn’t release her. Staying with him protected her from the other males.” Something fierce began to glow at the back of Thera’s eyes. “He didn’t think she’d challenge him about anything. But when I had the Birthright Ceremony and it was time for her to formally grant him paternal rights, to give him a claim to me, she denied paternity. Said it wasn’t his bloodline that ran in me. What could he do? Granting paternity is a public ceremony, and there are no second chances, no retractions.
    “She sent me to her sister. My aunt had left the home village a few years before—I never found out why.” Thera paused for a moment. “Auntie had a lover, a Purple Dusk Warlord. They’d never formalized their union in any way. There were no records to link one to the other. He was a good man, solid and strong, easy-tempered. He worked hard for the first hug I freely gave him.”
    Jared smiled sadly. He could imagine the pleasure and relief the man had felt when he finally overcame her sire’s viciousness. “What was his name?”
    Thera shook