Anne Bishop - Tangled Webs

“Why?”

He gave her a look. Then he said, “Whoever painted that has never seen a Warlord Prince in rut.”

Why? Why? He’d had that painting created based on solid information, and had paid extra for that particular illusion spell. Why was this male so dismissive of what he was seeing?

Warlord Princes were known to be extremely violent when they were caught in the sexual madness known as the rut. The women they used were brutalized for days . While the Blood didn’t talk about it much, it wasn’t one of their damn secrets.

Why had the whore dismissed the violent message of the woman’s fate? She had to know the fate of such women. They were pampered and imprisoned—and used for the rut until their minds and bodies were too broken for even a sex-maddened beast to ride. That’s what he’d been told.

On the other hand, he hadn’t realized her companion was a Warlord Prince. Too bad there were still some children with them. Otherwise, he might have gotten some sizzling, firsthand information about Blood lust.

Then again, seeing as they were a Warlord Prince and a whore, maybe they wouldn’t be inhibited by an audience—even the audience they could see.

They checked the room, then checked it again. Either there was nothing dangerous in the sitting room or they hadn’t done the combination of things that would trigger it. There was wood for a fire, but they both felt uneasy about opening the flue. She didn’t know if she and Rainier were sensing a real potential danger or if they’d just reached the point where they were spooked by everything in the house. But the uneasy feeling was strong enough that they decided to make do with the dusty, musty throws they’d found in a chest in one corner of the room.

«Do we shield the room?» Rainier asked.

She nodded. «A Gray shield around the room.»

They’d already seen that Rainier’s power wouldn’t be strong enough to protect them, so that would be her task. She would be the one closing off another potential way out of this damn place. But it needed to be done, and it was the smart thing to do.

She still flinched when the gong sounded after she shielded the room.

Rainier rested a hand on her shoulder, unspoken agreement and comfort.

They’d left the sitting room door open while they’d checked the room. Now they moved together to close the door and lock it.

As she started to push the door closed, Rainier sucked in a breath and swore softly.

Trist stood in the hallway. She could see the torn chest and belly through his ripped clothes. She looked straight at the face that was coated in blood on the side that had the empty eye socket.

But this wasn’t Trist. Wasn’t even cildru dyathe. This was an illusion spell called a shadow, an image created from a little blood and a lot of Craft.

Jaenelle could create a shadow that looked and acted and felt so real, even touching it didn’t reveal the truth of its nature. But this…The boy stood with the woodenness of a puppet. Effective enough during that first jolt of seeing him, but clearly a trick just the same.

The shadow Trist smiled at them and said, “The worst is still to come.”

Then it vanished.

Surreal closed the door—and swore when the door vanished too.

Rainier studied the wall, then shook his head and took a step back. “If that’s an illusion, I can’t tell without touching the wall.”

“Which would put your hand on the wrong side of the shield.” Surreal looked around, swore, and pointed to the back wall. “That wasn’t there before.”

A door. She had created her shield a hand span away from the walls to avoid triggering any spells that might be in the walls. Looked like she’d made the right choice. Still, in the morning, the only way out of the room was through a door that held who knew what on the other side.

She took a deep breath and let it out in a sigh. “Next?”

“Food and water,” Rainier said. “We’ll use my stash.”

He didn’t expect to get out of the house, Surreal realized. If he died and made the transition to demon-dead, he might get pulled into the spells and become an enemy instead of still fighting with her. If that happened, she wouldn’t have access to the supplies he carried. That’s why he wanted to use his supplies first. But neither of them actually put that into words.

The other thing neither of them said was that she would be able to destroy him, to finish the kill, but if she was the one who died and turned on him, he wouldn’t be able to survive her attack. So keeping her alive was the only chance that one of them would get out of this house.

He called in a jug of water and a chill box that was inside a large wicker picnic hamper—the kind that had a separate compartment to carry dishes, glasses, and silverware.

Surreal blinked. She’d brought water, yes. Always carried some with her. But her stash of food was four apples she grabbed from a bowl in the town house’s kitchen as she and Rainier were leaving.

“You carry a chill box?”

He looked puzzled. “Why not?”

She didn’t answer that, too busy wondering if a chill box was something all escorts kept with them or if this was just Rainier.

He opened the chill box’s lid and pulled out a whole roasted chicken, a small wheel of cheese, and three apples.

“What, no sweet?” she teased.

“The chicken had already been cooked when we changed our plans for the evening. We didn’t get much dinner, since we rushed to get here—”

She snorted.

“—so I figured a harvest picnic after viewing the house would be appropriate.” «And I did bring a sweet,» he added, «but it’s not in the chill box, so you’ll have to do without.»

She grinned at him and opened the compartment that held the silverware and dishes.

They were joking, smiling, eating! How could they find anything amusing? Why weren’t they afraid ?

The worst was still to come, but they had managed to shut out all his pets. Nothing in that room but a couple of the little, creepy spells, and the bitch had already spoiled one of them by not letting the children eat the grapes. Unless the Warlord Prince insisted on sex, nothing interesting would happen while they stayed in that room.

But no. The Surreal bitch outranked the Warlord Prince, so he couldn’t insist on being pleasured, even though she had been a whore.

No matter. When he wrote the Landry Langston version of this little adventure, he’d make things interesting. Besides, stories always needed an interlude before the final storm.

“So.” Surreal bit off a piece of apple and chewed slowly. The wheel of cheese was gone, and the chicken was nothing more than a jumble of bones. With their tummies sufficiently full, the children had fallen asleep before they’d gotten to the apples. Just as well. She and Rainier needed the extra food, since their bodies, as the vessels of the power they wielded, burned up food faster. “If this was one of those mystery stories we’ve read, where do you think we’d be now?”

Rainier looked around the sitting room. “Well, we’ve had death and danger, we’ve been warned that there is worse coming, and we’re barricaded in a room in order to get some rest. In terms of story, this is the place where the two main characters have fast, hot sex.”

They looked at each other.

“So what do you want to do in the five minutes that would have taken?” Surreal asked.

Rainier huffed out a laugh. “ Surreal.”

“What? Remember that one we read where the man’s penis wept in gratitude? Personally, I thought he was just leaking, and that the woman, who swore it was the best sex she’d ever had, was being very polite. I know this because when I was a whore and had to be very polite in that way, I always charged a lot more.”