Anne Bishop: Tangled Webs

The feelings swelled, bubbled up, demanded an outlet.

Daemon snarled, using Craft to let that soft sound roll through the room like thunder.

Kaelas snarled, not needing Craft to fill the room.

Then Jaenelle snarled.

Suddenly he was the only male in the bed.

«We’ll tell Beale you need coffee,» Ladvarian said, using a psychic spear thread to keep the comment just between the males.

«You do that,» Daemon replied, watching the way Kaelas shifted from one paw to the other, as if uncertain whether to stay or run.

Jaenelle stirred.

Kaelas sprang toward the glass doors connected to the balcony that looked out over Jaenelle’s courtyard. He passed through the glass, leaped over the balcony railing, and landed in the courtyard two floors below.

Ladvarian ran straight for the inside wall and passed through it to the corridor, no doubt racing to find Beale and inform the Hall’s butler that the Lady was awake.

Which left him to deal with his wife, who was not the friendliest person first thing in the morning.

He kissed her bare shoulder, an acknowledgment that he knew she was awake. “Good morning.”

He’d been a pleasure slave for centuries when he’d lived in Terreille. He knew all the nuances for playing bedroom games. The rules were different for a husband, but a lot of what he’d learned about women still applied. So he kept his voice warm and loving, with just a husky hint of sex—enough to tell her she was desirable but not enough to imply he had any expectations.

She shifted. Turned toward him. There was nothing loving or loverlike in the sapphire eyes that stared at him.

“You woke me up.”

A shiver of fear went down his spine. He had seen her in the Misty Place, that place deep in the abyss where she appeared as the Self that lived within the human skin—a Self that clearly revealed that not all the dreamers who had woven this dream into flesh had been human.

Despite the fact that the body still looked like Jaenelle, it was Witch who stared at him. And Witch was not pleased.

“Sorry,” he said, brushing his fingers over her short golden hair. “Didn’t mean to.”

She braced one hand against his shoulder and pushed.

He could have resisted, physically, but he’d waited seventeen hundred years for her, and he could no more disobey her than he could stop loving her. So he rolled onto his back, passive, knowing he wouldn’t defend himself from anything she did to him.

She settled over him, her nails lightly pricking his shoulders. She rubbed against him—and his cock responded with enthusiasm.

“You woke me up.”

She nipped his lower lip, then settled in for a long, slow kiss that had his blood pumping. The scent of her arousal, both physical and psychic, filled him until there was nothing but need and desire.

Then she ended the kiss and her teeth closed over his throat. Not a love bite on his neck, but a predator’s hold meant to strangle the prey. No pressure, no real menace from her, but the hold—and what it stood for—shredded the chains that usually held a Warlord Prince within the boundaries of civilized self-control.

His long nails whispered down her back, encouraging her to take him. His hands rested on her ass for a moment. Then he pricked her with his nails just hard enough to have her hips pushing down against him.

Snarling, she raised her head.

“You woke me up,” she said for the third time.

This wasn’t lovemaking, and it wasn’t just sex. He wasn’t sure there was a word for where they were at that moment.

And he didn’t care.

Lifting his head, he licked her throat as he shifted her hips and sheathed himself inside her. Then he purred, “I guess I’ll have to make it up to you.”

Daemon watched his hand as he poured a cup of coffee, pleased to see that the uncontrollable shakes had settled down to little tremors.

Their mating had been a combination of unrestrained arousal mixed with dollops of fear, which, because of the woman, had intensified his excitement. Sex that was savage and yet still tender, that was all physical and yet was possible only because of the depth of their feelings for each other. When they were done, Jaenelle had staggered into the bathroom, and he, braced by self-discipline and sheer stubbornness, had stumbled his way to the bathroom in the adjoining Consort’s suite. In safe privacy, he had braced his hands against the shower walls, and while the hot water poured over him, his body shook in response to what he’d been doing in bed with the woman who was his wife and Queen.

He sincerely hoped they would enjoy each other like that again in the future. And he hoped, just as sincerely, that it wouldn’t be anytime soon.

“I thought men liked morning sex,” Jaenelle said, looking baffled.

“We do,” Daemon replied. Of course, “sex” was a pale word to describe what they had been doing, but he wasn’t about to debate her choice of words. Especially since she was watching the hand holding the coffee cup. Had noted the tremors. “Of course we do.”

The baffled look changed to something that was almost angry, almost hostile. “You said it didn’t matter. You said you could accept that I no longer wore Ebony Jewels, was no longer dominant.”

Her quiet intensity alarmed him. He set the cup down. “It doesn’t matter. I can accept it. What is this about?”

“It’s about that.” She waved a hand to indicate his own. “It’s about pretending that you were with a witch who was stronger than you, and now acting all shaky and nervous.”

Sweetheart, you didn’t see the look in your eyes when we were in bed. But he saw the problem now. Despite having gotten married twice—once in a private ceremony and again in a public ceremony a few weeks later—she still wasn’t certain he had accepted the choice she had made.

After he’d dealt with the witches who had tried to stop the wedding by hurting her, Jaenelle had brought him to the Misty Place and shown him the truth. So he knew she could have been exactly the same as she had been before she’d sacrificed herself to save Kaeleer. She could have worn the Ebony Jewels again instead of Twilight’s Dawn, which had only a hint of Black. But she hadn’t wanted that much power, had never wanted to be so different and so distant from everyone else. And everyone around her, everyone who had loved her, was still adjusting to what they thought of as a loss.

“I’ll agree with the part about my being shaky, but I’ll dispute the accusation that I’m pretending to be nervous.” He put enough punch in his voice to assure he’d have her attention.

“Men pretend sometimes. You can’t tell me they don’t.”

He acknowledged that fact with a nod. “Sometimes a man does pretend he’s a little intimidated by the woman he’s bedding, even if he’s the one wearing the darker Jewels.” And sometimes it wasn’t pretense; men just didn’t argue with women’s incorrect assessment—mostly because they figured women wouldn’t understand that the power that was sometimes being wielded had nothing whatsoever to do with the Jewels.

To give himself a moment to collect his thoughts, he picked up the cup and took a sip of coffee.

Damn. If he’d known they were going to have this kind of discussion, he would have put a warming spell on the cup. He swallowed the cold coffee and set the cup down.

“Would you say our enjoyment of each other this morning was intense?” he asked. “Because I would.”

A blush stained Jaenelle’s cheeks. She nodded.

Daemon sighed, a sound of strained patience. Or patient exasperation. “Sweetheart, sometimes the body reacts. Should I apologize for feeling weak in the knees and quivering? I’m your husband, and I’m your lover. Being both—being able to be both—still takes my breath away.”