Anne Bishop - Twilight's Dawn

“I am the cock who danced with her,” Daemon crooned.

His lungs locked, and for a moment he couldn’t breathe. “You?”

Daemon smiled.

Lucivar shuddered. “I’d like to talk to Surreal.”

“You don’t need my permission.”

“Today I do.”

Daemon’s smile became more gentle—and more terrifying. “Yes, today you do.”

Would I have walked out of this room intact if I hadn’t known that? He didn’t need to ask the question when he already knew the answer.

The study door opened, Daemon’s invitation for him to leave.

Turning his back on the Sadist was playing with suicide, but he did it. When he reached the door, Daemon said, “Lucivar? I want this baby.”

Lucivar looked over his shoulder. “I’ll talk to Surreal. And then you and I will talk.”

He walked out of the study. Beale stood in the great hall at the doorway leading to the informal receiving room and the staircase that led to the family wing.

“Anything I need to know?” he asked the butler.

“Lady Surreal saw her Healer in Amdarh and was given a tonic to help her body adjust to . . .” Beale fumbled, clearly reluctant to speak of something so personal when it pertained to the SaDiablo family—especially when none of them knew if Daemon would take offense at someone talking about Surreal.

Lucivar nodded so that Beale didn’t have to continue. “I’m going up now to talk to her—with the Prince’s permission.”

“I don’t believe Lady Surreal’s Jewels have been drained yet,” Beale said.

Not something I can do for her now, Lucivar thought as he strode through the corridors that led to Surreal’s suite.

Blood was the living river, and the body was the vessel for the power that made the Blood who and what they were. But everything had a price. When a witch wore darker Jewels, her moontimes were more uncomfortable and the pain of doing more than basic Craft during the first three days was fierce. That was the reason they drained their Jewels before a moontime—to let the body rest. And when they were pregnant, they submitted to someone else draining the reserve power in their Jewels so that their power didn’t try to fill the child in the womb—and destroy it.

He rapped once on Surreal’s sitting room door and went in before she answered. One look at her had him yanking back his temper because she didn’t need a man yelling at her, but he couldn’t stop himself from going up to the windows where she stood and opening his wings halfway to look more intimidating.

“Get off your feet,” he snarled.

“Take a piss in the wind,” she snarled back.

Relieved that she didn’t sound as sick as she looked, he took a step back to give her some room.

“Aren’t you going to ask how this happened?” Surreal said.

“I have two children. I know how it happened. What I don’t know is what you want to do about it.”

“Do about it? I’m keeping it! How could you think I would . . .” She burst into tears.

“Ah, Surreal.” He put his arms around her and cuddled her while she cried. “That isn’t what I meant.”

“I’m not upset,” she said, still crying. “My body is doing strange things, and it’s making me weepy. And being weepy because I can’t help it is not the same as being upset.”

Lucivar rubbed his cheek against her hair. “It will be all right. In a couple of days, you’ll swing over to bitchy and that will feel more normal to you.”

She punched him. He laughed.

When she seemed settled again, he called in a handkerchief and let her mop her face.

“What I meant was, what do you want to do about Sadi? Talk to me, Surreal.”

“I’d rather you talk to him .”

“After you tell me what you want. I thought Daemon had this place locked down to keep everyone out, but that’s not all of it, is it?”

“He says I can’t leave with his child.”

“Well, the baby can’t go anywhere without you for quite some time, and he can’t seriously expect you to stay inside the Hall for the next ten months.”

“I wouldn’t bet on that, sugar.” Surreal sniffled once more, then vanished the handkerchief. “He offered to marry me. Told me, more like it. A week from tomorrow.”

He loved his brother, but he wasn’t sure Daemon was emotionally ready to be anyone’s husband yet—if ever.

“What did you say?” he asked.

“I haven’t given him an answer yet.” She looked sad and wistful. “But I am going to marry him.”

“Why?” When she didn’t answer, he swore softly. “I know you care for Daemon. And he cares for you. But I’m not sure he can give you the kind of love a wife deserves from a husband.”

“I do have some conditions that he’ll have to agree to, and if he agrees, I think we can do well enough together.”

“You don’t have to settle for ‘well enough.’ ”

She turned away to stare out the window. “I want this baby, Lucivar. Not just a baby; this baby. And I want this chance at a marriage. I haven’t shared my life with anyone since Rainier, and we were never lovers, never had that kind of bond. Plenty of men since then have been willing to entertain a short-term liaison, especially if it got them an invitation to sit at a dinner table with Daemon and talk about whatever grand idea they had that needed a little financial backing. But men from the short-lived races didn’t want to have children who wouldn’t reach true adulthood in their lifetime, and men from the long-lived races saw their offspring’s lives cut short if I was the mother. I never fit in to either place. Sadi knows all that, but he wants this child too, regardless of whatever life span it may have. And I have the feeling that if he doesn’t have someone soon who can make a claim on his heart, he’ll become so cold and distant we’ll all lose him. Or he’ll become so lonely, he’ll accept the illusion of love and end up like his father, with a woman who loves ambition more than him. Well, I do love him, and I know he probably will never love me. But I can keep him from being alone, and I can give him a family of his own.”

“And what will you get?” Lucivar asked.

“I’ll get a family too.”

“Is that enough?”

“I’ll find out.”

“Then I guess I should talk to him about the wedding.”

“I need to talk to him first. Could you stay around for a little while?”

“All right.”

“Lucivar? Did you know Sadi is the High Lord now?”

Her words froze Lucivar’s heart. He’d suspected that Daemon had begun absorbing that side of Saetan’s duties years ago—Sadi was, after all, Saetan’s true heir—but he hadn’t wanted to see the evidence, hadn’t wanted to acknowledge what had been unspoken until now. He’d been afraid that once he admitted that Daemon was the High Lord, he would lose the man who was his brother.

He understood Surreal’s decision now. The Realms couldn’t afford to let Daemon slide into an isolated, lonely existence. None of them wanted to see Daemon repeat the mistakes in Saetan’s life—or see the rise of someone like Hekatah because of those mistakes. The new High Lord of Hell needed to be kept tethered to the living because the simple truth was he was more dangerous than his predecessor.

“Go on and talk to him,” Lucivar said. “Get things settled between you.” He paused. “And then get off your feet.”

He thought her answer landed squarely on the side of bitchy, which pleased him because it meant she was feeling a little better—and he’d take bitchy over tears any day.

Surreal found Daemon standing in the middle of his study, watching her with those glazed gold eyes.

“I have some conditions,” she said. “If you can agree to them, I’ll marry you.”