Anne Bishop - Dreams Made Flesh

As he turned toward the door, he caught sight of himself in the mirror above the fireplace. His gold eyes were still glazed…the prelude to cold rage.

"You don't want to be here," he snarled softly as the Yellow-Jeweled Warlord slipped into the room and closed the door. "You really don't want to be here."

"I…" The Warlord swallowed hard. "I'm asking you to do the right thing."

"And what is the right thing?" He glided toward the door, forcing the Warlord to sidle farther into the room to avoid getting close to him.

"We…We're in love. We want to be together."

"Who is 'we'?"

"Jaenelle. Me. We're in love. But she hasn't wanted to say anything because…"

"Because?" Daemon asked too softly.

"She's afraid of you." The Warlord blurted out the words. "She doesn't want to be with someone like you anymore."

"Someone like me." The words sliced his heart, inserted a tiny sliver of doubt. Then he rubbed his left thumb against his wedding ring.

If Jaenelle had fallen in love with someone else, she might not have told him until she felt capable of dealing with him. But she never would have married him, because she understood the nature of Warlord Princes better than anyone else could.

" You may be in love," Daemon said, "but…"

"We're lovers."

His brain shut off, snuffing out control, shattering the illusion of civilized behavior. As he descended to the level of the Black, the cold, glorious Black, every thought, every feeling funneled through the lethal rage of a Warlord Prince.

Ice glazed the mirror over the fireplace, formed a crust over the carpet. In the moments when he and the Warlord stared at each other, he created a bubble shield and an aural shield, both ready to snap into place in a heartbeat. Then he rose from the abyss, his Black power delicately surrounding that weaker mind, preventing the Warlord from reaching anyone through a psychic thread.

"So," Daemon crooned as he drew his left hand out of his pocket and rubbed a finger over his chin, "just when did you sleep with my wife?" Horror filled the Warlord's eyes as he stared at the plain gold band. The aural and bubble shield snapped up around the Warlord at the same moment Daemon's Black power smashed through all of the man's inner barriers.

The Warlord's mouth opened in a scream of terror and pain, but no sound filled the room. He tried to run…and crashed against the shield that contained him.

Daemon gave his prey a few moments to stare at death before he ripped into the Warlord's mind…and found all the answers he needed.

One flash of the Black. The Warlord's torso burst open, his guts spilling out. Ribs snapped as they were ruthlessly spread open. The heart burst out of the body to hang, impaled, on a shattered rib.

Another flash of the Black. Witchfire filled the Warlord's skull…and it burned. As the Warlord hit the floor, the skull broke open. Hot ash spilled out on the ice-covered carpet. Steam rose as the ice melted, soaking the carpet enough to keep it from catching fire.

One last flash of the Black drained the Warlord's Jewels and burned out all of the man's psychic power, finishing the kill.

Daemon studied his work with a critical eye…and smiled a cold, cruel smile.

Lucivar flung the parlor door open and rushed into the room, pulling up fast when he saw the body on the floor. His gorge rose, but he braced himself for whatever would come. He knew what that glazed, sleepy look in Daemon's eyes meant, what that smile meant. The Sadist had gone cold, and there was no one strong enough to control him.

Daemon glided up to him…and waited.

"Annoyed about something?" Lucivar asked.

"Not anymore." Stepping around him, Daemon walked to the door and stopped. "Shall we go? I have an appointment to quarrel with my Lady."

No. Sweet Darkness, no. Lucivar moved to the door. "You don't have to quarrel with Jaenelle."

"What my Queen wants, my Queen will have."

Knowing better than to argue, Lucivar walked out of the parlor. Daemon followed him. The door closed behind them.

"Don't worry, Prick," Daemon said. "It won't be much of a quarrel."

Daemon walked away. Lucivar hesitated, then turned back to the parlor. Better to get rid of the corpse before someone else found it.

But when he reached for the doorknob, a feeling of revulsion swept through him, making his skin crawl. Stepping back, he studied the door. Stepping forward, the feeling swept over him again.

Craft. Daemon had done something in the moment when he walked out the door that guaranteed no one would willingly open that door until the spell wore off. Which meant Daemon wanted the body to be found…but not until he was ready to have it found.

"Well, bitch… or whoever you are," he whispered. "You wanted to play with the Sadist? Looks like you'll get your chance."

Turning away from the parlor, Lucivar hurried back to the ballroom. He couldn't stop what would happen, but he'd do whatever he could to protect Jaenelle and Surreal.

Daemon glided back to the ballroom. He had to find Jaenelle and get them both out of this house. He was a danger to everyone around him right now. The kill had cleared his mind enough to give him back a fragment of control, but not enough for him to be sure he wouldn't leave these rooms strewn with corpses.

Unfortunately, Jaenelle was waiting near the door, waiting for her cue to begin the quarrel.

"Where have you been?" she asked, handing her glass of sparkling wine to Surreal.

Hell's fire, Mother Night, and may the Darkness be merciful. It stabbed at him that her power was so much less that she hadn't been able to tell that he'd descended to the Black, that he was struggling not to go cold again.

He walked past her, not quite knowing what to do. He didn't want to quarrel with her. Couldn't quarrel with her. If he said anything that hurt her… Mother Night, he'd destroyed entire courts in Terreille when his temper had been riding this edge. If he hurt her, his control would snap completely, and the killing wouldn't stop until he'd exhausted his body and his power.

"Where have you been?" Jaenelle raised her voice enough to have conversations throughout the ballroom stutter to a halt.

He pivoted to face her, enough space between them to explain the raised voices. As he looked into her eyes, relief swept through him so fiercely he felt light-headed. She knew. Whatever her reasons for going through with this "quarrel," she knew he was too close to the killing edge and would take care not to push him back into a lethal rage.

He saw Lucivar walk into the ballroom, saw Surreal hand over Jaenelle's glass of sparkling wine. Hoping those two would have the good sense to stay out of this, he focused on Jaenelle, who, along with everyone else in the room, was waiting for his answer.

"I wasn't with another woman, if that's what you're asking," he snarled.

He felt a flash of frustration from her as she tried to find some way to respond to his words that wouldn't hurt either of them.

Balling her hands into fists, she shouted something at him. The fact that Lucivar choked on the wine confirmed the words were Eyrien, but he didn't know what she'd said. Which gave him a clue how to provide the tone of a quarrel without wounding.

Unfortunately, there was only one phrase he could think of that no one else would understand. So he bared his teeth and said the words he'd intended to say out of love, in the heat of passion. Words in the Old Tongue.

Her eyes widened in shock. She clamped a hand over her mouth to muffle the mewling noises. Then she whirled and rushed out of the ballroom.

Startled by her response, he hesitated. Play out the game, old son. Struggling to look irritated and slightly disgusted, he shook his head and left the ballroom to find Jaenelle.