Jaenelle frowned and looked at Saetan.
"I believe Lord Magstrom is referring to dances and other public gatherings," he said carefully.
Her frown deepened. "Why do we need to go out for dancing? We've got enough people here who play instruments and we dance whenever we want to. Besides, I promised Morghann I'd spend a few days in Scelt with her when they have the harvest dances, and Kalush's family invited me to go to the theater with them, and Gabrielle—"
"Dujae," Friall said tightly. "Dujae is teaching you to draw?"
Saetan squeezed Jaenelle's shoulder but she shrugged away from him.
"Yes, Dujae is teaching me to draw," Jaenelle said, the chill back in her voice.
"Dujae is dead."
"For centuries now."
Friall dabbed at his lips. "You study drawing with a demon?"
"Just because he's a demon doesn't make him less of an artist."
"But he's ademon"
Jaenelle shrugged dismissively. "So are Char and Titian and a number of my other friends. Who I call a friend is no business of yours, Lord Friall."
"No business," Friall sputtered. "It most certainlyis the Council's business. It was a show of faith that the Council allowed something like the High Lord to keep a young girl in the first place—"
"Somethinglike the High Lord?"
"—and to soil a young girl's sensibilities by forcing her to consort with demons—"
"He never forces me.No one forces me."
"—and submit to his own lustful attentions—"
The room exploded.
There was no time to think, no time to protect himself from the spiraling fury rising out the abyss.
Drawing everything he could from his Black Jewels, Sae-
tan threw himself on Jaenelle as she lunged for Friall. Wild, vicious sounds erupted from her as she fought to break free and reach the Warlord, who stared at her in shock while windows shattered, paintings crashed to the floor, plaster cracked as psychic lightning scored the walls, and the furniture was ripped to pieces.
Hanging on grimly, Saetan let the room go, using his strength to shield the other men, using himself as a buffer between Jaenelle's rage and flesh. She wasn't trying to hurt him. That was the terrifying irony. She was simply trying to get past the barriers he was placing between her and Friall. He opened his mind, intending to press against her inner barriers and force her to feel a little of the pain he was enduring. But there were no barriers. There was only the abyss and a long, mind-shattering fall.
"Please, witch-child.Please!"
She came at him with frightening speed, cocooned him in black mist, and then brought him up to the depth of the Red Jewel before she turned and glided back down into the comfortable sanctuary of the abyss.
Silence.
Stillness.
His head throbbed mercilessly. His. tongue hurt. His mouth was full of blood. He felt too brittle to move. But his mind was intact.
She loved him. She wouldn't deliberately hurt him. She loved him.
Pulling that thought around his bruised mind and battered body like a warm cloak, Saetan surrendered to oblivion.
Lord Magstrom woke to a none-too-gentle slap. Blinking to clear his vision, he focused on the dark wings and stern face.
"Drink this," the Eyrien snapped, shoving a glass into Magstrom's hands. He stepped back, fists braced on his hips. "Your companion is finally coming around. He's lucky to be here at all."
Magstrom gratefully sipped his drink and looked around. Except for the chairs he and Friall were sitting in, the room
was empty. The painted screens that divided the room were gone. The furniture on the other side was tumbled but intact. If not for the black streaks on the ivory walls that looked like lightning gone to ground, he might have thought they'd been moved to a different room, that it had been a hallucination of some kind.
He'd heard of Andulvar Yaslana, the Demon Prince. He knew it was a measure of his own terror that he found shivering comfort in having an Ebon-gray-Jeweled demon standing over him. "The High Lord?" he asked.
Andulvar stared at him. "He almost shattered the Black trying to keep you safe. He's exhausted, but he'll recover with a few days of rest." Then he snorted. "Besides, it'll give the waif an excuse to dose him with one of her restorative tonics, and that, thank the Darkness, should keep her from thinking too much about what happened."
"What did happen?"
Andulvar nodded at Friall. Beale was still waving smelling salts under Friall's nose, but the butler's expression strongly suggested he'd rather toss the intruder onto the drive and be done with it. "He pissed her off. Not a smart thing to do."
"Then she's unstable? Dangerous?"
Andulvar slowly spread his dark wings. He looked huge. And there was no concern in his gold eyes, only an unspoken threat.
"Simply by being Blood, we're all dangerous, Lord Magstrom," Andulvar growled softly. "She belongs to the family, and we belong to her. Never forget that." He folded his wings and crouched beside Magstrom's chair. "But in truth, Saetan's the only thing that stands between you and her. Don't forget that either."
An hour later, Magstrom and Friall's coach rolled down the well-kept drive, then onto the road that ran through Halaway.
It was dusk on a late summer afternoon. Wildflowers painted meadows with bright colors. Trees stretched their branches high above the road, creating cool tunnels. It was beautiful land, lovingly tended, shadowed for thousands of years by SaDiablo Hall and the man who ruled there.
Shadowed and protected.
Magstrom shivered. He was a Warlord who wore Summer-sky Jewels. He acted as the caretaker of the village where he'd been born and where he'd contentedly spent his life. Until he'd been asked to serve on the Dark Council, his dealings with those who wore darker Jewels had been diplomatic and, fortunately, seldom. The Blood in Goth, Little Terreille's capital, were interested in court intrigue, not in a village that looked across a river into the wooded land of Dea al Mon.
But now a curtain had been drawn back, just a little, and he had seen dark power, truly dark power.
Saetan's the only thing that stands between .you and her.
The girl had to stay with the High Lord, Magstrom thought as the coach rolled through Halaway to the landing web where they would catch the Winds and go home. For all their sakes, she had to stay.
Saetan woke slowly as someone settled on the end of his bed. Grunting, he propped himself up on one elbow and stroked the candle-light on the bedside table just enough to dimly light the room.
Jaenelle sat cross-legged on his bed, her eyes haunted, her face pinched and pale. She handed him a glass. "Drink this. It'll help soothe your nerves."