The Shadow Queen

that wanted to lash out at someone, anyone. “I need to work alone. You need to leave me alone.”
    She ran from the shed and stopped at a part of the garden that looked like it hadn’t been touched in years. The ground here wasn’t soft like the bed she’d been working on with Gray. This ground would require muscle, sweat, even pain.
    Nothing easy. Not here.
    All women look the same in the dark.
    Did you really think I was excited about being with you?
    She had to move. Had to. Work. Move. Keep moving. Don’t think. Because if she let the words keep ripping at her heart, she’d simply lie down and not get up again.

Ebon ASKAVI
    Lucivar closed the door of the sitting room, took a moment to get a feel for what kind of temper he was about to meet, and didn’t like the answer. Didn’t like it at all.
    “Draca told me you were here,” he said.
    Daemon turned away from the windows. “I received the first report from Cassidy.”
    “Is she doing all right?”
    Daemon smiled dryly. “Hard to say. I think she was nervous about writing the report and was trying hard not to say anything negative, so it’s a bit lean on information. However, she did say that her Master of the Guard is a Sapphire-Jeweled Warlord Prince who is demon-dead. Since yarbarah isn’t a vintage known in Dena Nehele, she requested that some bottles be sent to her, paid for by the Queen’s gift.”
    “You’re taking care of those bills, aren’t you?”
    “I am. And since at least half of the yarbarah made in Kaeleer comes from our family’s vineyards, I decided to deliver a couple of cases personally.”
    “You mean deliver them personally as far as the Keep here in Kaeleer. You can’t go to Terreille.”
    Daemon stiffened. His eyes began to glaze. “Are you giving me orders, Prick?” he asked too softly.
    “I’m telling you I’ll help you follow our Queen’s command, even if that means we’ll both need a Healer by the time the discussion is done.”
    Daemon looked away. “Did Father tell you what happened?”
    “He told me dealing with Theran Grayhaven opened up some old wounds,” Lucivar replied. Saetan had told him more than that, and what their father hadn’t said he could guess.
    “Did he tell you I attacked Jaenelle?”
    Mother Night. Lucivar blew out a breath, not sure how to answer that.
    “Did he tell you the Sadist was in bed with her?”
    Oh, now. That he knew how to deal with. “The way I heard it, Daemon attacked Jaenelle while caught in an old, bad memory, and the Sadist enjoyed a snuggle that included a lot of moaning and several climaxes.”
    “What?”
    Hell’s fire, he’s fragile.
    “The Sadist uses sex as a weapon,” Lucivar said, “but the Sadist rises out of temper, not desire. Usually.”
    Daemon swayed—and Lucivar had the queer sense of circling around a memory . . . about another time and place when Daemon had come to him, already mentally fragile, and he had lashed out with words that had created a wound that would never fully heal. Even now.
    “Old son, Daemon makes love to Jaenelle, but the Sadist dances with Witch,” Lucivar said gently. “Not out of hate or temper; he dances with her out of desire. But this time, for whatever reason, she didn’t make that transition with you—and it scared you.”
    “Wouldn’t it scare you?”
    “ Tch. You scare the shit out of me when you’re the Sadist. But you don’t scare her. You don’t scare Jaenelle.”
    “I did scare her.”
    “Yeah, well, not as much as you think. And I figure scaring her once in a while helps her remember what you’re feeling when she does something that scares you. Which, you have to admit, she does on a regular basis.”
    Daemon’s response was a brief, reluctant smile to acknowledge that particular truth. Then the smile faded. “Have you ever ... ?”
    Pain there. Fear there. And too damn close to one of those emotional scars that created a line Daemon couldn’t cross anymore. Not without paying too high a price.
    “Just say it,” Lucivar said.
    “Do you ever feel possessive about Marian?”
    Lucivar sat back on air, as if he were sitting on a stool. “Most of the time, I think of myself as Marian’s husband, or I think of her as an independent woman who lives with me and is the mother of my son. But when Marian and I first became lovers, she moved into my bedroom—and into my bed. So there’s not a night that goes by that I’m not saying ‘Mine.’ ”
    Daemon turned to look at him. Lucivar couldn’t tell what was going on in his brother’s mind or heart, but he knew what he said here