Anne Bishop - Tangled Webs

It took a little too much effort to leash his libido, but he managed to do it. Or to be more precise, Jaenelle’s slightly puzzled, slightly amused look managed to do it. Besides, this wasn’t an evening to let his mind wander.

“I’m fine.” He hesitated, then decided he’d better warn her.

“Lucivar will be coming over after dinner.”

She picked up a bottle of perfume he’d given her recently and applied a drop to her pulse points. “Is he upset about something?”

“Yes.” No point in denying it.

She set the bottle on the dressing table and turned to face him. It had been easier talking to her reflection than being pinned by those sapphire eyes.

“Do you know what it is?” Witch asked.

He shook his head. “But it’s…between brothers.”

She turned back to the mirror and put on the multigemmed bracelet he’d given her before they were married, during the weeks when he’d been afraid she was going to turn away from him forever. “Then I’ll stay in the suite this evening. It sounds like this discussion would be easier if there are no distractions.”

“I think so.” He wouldn’t have asked her to stay away, but he was relieved that she understood her presence would hinder any attempt at getting to the root of the problem.

She walked over to him and gave him a soft kiss. “You’ll work it out. The two of you always do.”

Giving in to one need, he wrapped his arms around her and nuzzled that special spot on her neck.

The psychic scent rolled through the lower rooms of the Hall, announcing Lucivar’s temper before he crossed the study’s threshold. Arrogance. Anger. And hurt.

Daemon leaned back against the blackwood desk and waited for his brother to smash through the door.

On second thought, enough things had already gotten smashed that day. He used Craft to open the study door just ahead of the Eyrien’s entrance.

Lucivar’s temper was leading, and most people would have scrambled to get out of the way of the storm that was about to shatter everything in its path. That anger didn’t bother him. They had clashed before and would, no doubt, clash again. And the arrogance was simply Lucivar being Lucivar. But the hurt…That was the wound they were going to have to lance.

“Bastard,” Lucivar said as he began prowling the room.

“Prick.” He watched Lucivar take in the room, assessing it as a battleground.

Unless he was completely relaxed and in a familiar place, Lucivar made that same assessment. He didn’t see the furniture for its craftsmanship or the decorations for their aesthetic value. He didn’t look at the space of a room in terms of its comfort or pleasing dimensions. He saw weapons, traps, and defense. The fact that he was making that assessment of the study did not bode well for this discussion.

“What’s wrong with your back?” Lucivar asked as he prowled past the desk, his gold eyes taking in the details of a potential enemy with one slashing look.

Should have realized he’d notice, Daemon thought as he braced his hands on the desk. “Jaenelle yelled at the cat.” Even though Jaal was around as much as Kaelas was, everyone understood “the cat” referred only to the big white feline and not the tiger.

“If you don’t have brains enough to shield, you deserve to get hurt.”

He felt his temper flex, lightly testing the leash of self-control.

“I know why we were closed out of the library today.”

Daemon blinked. Worked to shift his mental balance.

“Daemonar’s just a little boy,” Lucivar growled. “He doesn’t understand about the thrice-damned precious books.”

There was the hurt, suddenly bubbling up to the surface. And there was something more under the hurt. Something that worried him.

“That’s right,” Daemon said carefully. “He’s just a little boy. That library isn’t an appropriate place for him.”

“Isn’t appropriate for an uneducated Eyrien, isn’t that what you mean?”

Someone had managed to hit Lucivar in one of the few places where the man was emotionally fragile.

Daemon’s temper unsheathed its claws. He pushed away from the desk. “Who took a jab at you?”

“What?” Lucivar stopped prowling. His wings opened slightly for balance. And wariness was now added to the messy stew of emotions that filled the room.

“Who?” Because whoever had hurt his brother would find herself in a deep grave—and the bitch wouldn’t necessarily be dead when he put her there.

“I’m not like you! I can’t be like you. Either of you.”

A mental skid on emotional ice. Trying to restrain a temper that wanted to snap the leash. So this was about him after all.

The truth of it was like a knife slicing his heart.

“No, you’re not like me, any more than I can be like you.” He went back to the blackwood desk and leaned against it, clamping his hands on the edge of the wood. “What is this about, Lucivar? You were pissed at me when we were at the Keep; you’re still pissed now. Why?”

Vulnerable. Fragile. He couldn’t stand seeing Lucivar like this.

“I don’t have the schooling you do,” Lucivar said, looking at the wall, not meeting his eyes.

Do I hug him or kill him? “Eyriens don’t value that kind of schooling. I absorb information from books for the pleasure of it, but it’s also another kind of weapon.” He paused to assess the battleground and the man, and then added, “Besides, you don’t like to read.”

“I can read.” Quick, automatic defense.

“I know you can,” Daemon said dryly. “From the first time I met you—or the first time I thought I’d met you—I pushed and bullied and bruised your ego until I goaded you into learning. In the same way that you pushed and bullied and bruised my ego until I learned a few basic moves with hand weapons.”

During the centuries they had been enslaved and had clashed over and over again, they hadn’t understood why they felt compelled to push at each other to share the knowledge and skills they had acquired. Even after they had learned they were brothers, they hadn’t realized that this need to protect each other’s weaker side had begun in a childhood they didn’t remember.

Lucivar’s shoulders relaxed a little, and the smile was fleeting but genuine.

“You can read,” Daemon said, “but you don’t enjoy reading. It was always difficult for you. Maybe that’s not just you, Lucivar. The Eyrien race has a strong oral tradition to pass on stories, but they don’t put much value on the written word.”

“Marian reads a lot,” Lucivar mumbled. “She likes books.”

“Then maybe it’s cultural. Reading is a female entertainment, something the males can sneer at indulgently.”

“I don’t sneer,” Lucivar said. Then added under his breath, “Wouldn’t dare.”

They were circling around the heart of the wound now, so Daemon just leaned back and waited. And felt memories stir awake.

“Maybe it is a part of being an Eyrien male,” Lucivar said.

“Like being stronger and having more muscle than females.”

“Maybe.”

Lucivar took a deep breath and let it out slowly. Daemon almost sighed with relief. They’d gotten past the worst of this without too many bruises.

Then Lucivar looked him in the eyes and the words burst out. “I want that for Daemonar. The education. That kind of knowledge. I don’t want him to feel hobbled. I don’t want him to feel like he’s…less.”

Daemon snapped upright. Then sucked in a breath as his back protested. But his voice held a chill and an edge not quite honed enough to cut. “If that’s your way of saying you feel inferior to me in any way other than that I wear darker Jewels, I will beat you to a bloody pulp.”