Twilight's Dawn

the bathroom door.
    Calling in a handkerchief, Daemon wiped his own face and was sufficiently tidy when Beale brought in the tray.
    “It’s done?” Beale asked.
    “Yes, it’s done. Saetan is a whisper in the Darkness.”
    “Then please accept our condolences.”
    “Thank you, Beale. And please tell Mrs. Beale that I appreciate her preparing something for Lady Surreal and me so late in the evening.”
    “I’ll tell her. Holt is staying with your mother and Mikal tonight. Lady Tersa has been . . . distracted . . . today, and since there is no journeymaid staying with her at the moment, we thought it best if someone was at the cottage.”
    “I agree. I should have thought of it myself when Tersa decided not to come with us.” Daemon glanced at the clock on the mantel. “There’s no point disturbing them tonight. I’ll talk to Tersa and Mikal tomorrow. And Manny.” He’d have to walk carefully around his chat with Manny. She’d been feeling her years lately and had begun fussing about what would happen to the Blood who became demon-dead when Saetan no longer ruled Hell. “Do you agree?”
    If Beale was surprised to be asked the question, he didn’t show it. “Yes . . . Prince. I agree.”
    High Lord. The title hung in the air between them, proving that Beale had been aware of a great many things these past years and had kept his own counsel.
    “For now, it will remain Prince Sadi,” Daemon said, then added silently, At least in public and in this Realm.
    “Understood.”
    Surreal emerged from the bathroom a moment after Beale left the sitting room, making Daemon suspect that she’d waited in order to avoid the butler.
    “Any better?” he asked gently.
    She shook her head. “Sadi? Could I stay here with you tonight?”
    He’d been reaching for one of the covers on the dishes. He stopped and looked at her. “Of course you can stay. Your suite is always ready for you.”
    She swallowed hard. “No. Could I stay with you tonight?”
    He stared at her, sure he’d misunderstood.
    “I don’t want to be alone.” She let out a watery laugh as the tears started again. “There are probably a hundred people in this house, so it’s not like being alone . . .”
    Yes, it is , he thought. He’d been surrounded by those people too, but he’d still felt painfully alone after Jaenelle died. And still felt alone most of the time—and still sometimes had the dream where he looked in a mirror and saw the hole in his chest where his heart had been.
    “Surreal.” He put his arms around her, wanting to give her some measure of the comfort she was seeking—and found some comfort when she wrapped her arms around him.
    My father is dead.
    The two people who had truly understood him in ways no one else ever could were gone.
    He brushed his lips over her temple and felt something inside him stir. It had been so long since he’d held someone, and even longer since he’d dared hold someone when he was feeling vulnerable.
    His lips traveled down her cheek, and he tasted tears. When he started to pull back, she kissed his jaw, then his mouth. A soft kiss, asking for nothing but contact.
    Then her mouth warmed, moved, asked for more. And he gave her more because it felt so good to hold someone again.
    With each brush of their bodies, something in him stirred, wanted, needed, yearned. But he started to pull away because she’d asked for comfort and not . . .
    “Daemon.” Surreal took his face in her hands. “Freely given, freely taken. Just for tonight. So neither of us will be alone tonight. All right?”
    She wasn’t a child, and the dream he’d waited for had come and gone.
    My father is dead.
    He allowed himself a moment to consider nothing except what he needed tonight.
    “Come with me.” Clasping her hand, he led her out of the sitting room, not sure where he was going, not caring where he was going as long as they ended up in a room with a bed.
    Except when he reached the first available room, he hesitated, and then bared his teeth in a snarl before he moved on, searching for something because now it was more than a desire for comfort and sex driving him, and that something was tangled around this particular woman.
    By the time he found the room that felt right, he didn’t know where he was in the Hall and he didn’t care. It had a bed, and it had her. Heat pulsed in his veins, but it burned in her too because she tore at his shirt in order to touch skin, and her purr of satisfaction as she ran