He shook his head. “I’m not hungry.” He reached out, touched her hair. When his fingers trailed along her shoulder, she started to step back. “Marian . . . Let me hold you. Please. I need to hold you.”

She didn’t move toward him, but she folded her wings tight so he could wrap his arms around her and draw her up against him. At first, she held herself stiffly, but when he didn’t do anything else, she relaxed enough to rest her head on his shoulder and put her arms around his waist.

He brushed his cheek against her hair, savoring the feel of her, the smell of her.

Everything has a price.

He would have to talk to Saetan and reach an agreement. He was an Eyrien warrior and Jaenelle’s First Escort. He had to be able to step onto any kind of battlefield and fight to defend his Queen. He had to be willing to die for his Queen. He couldn’t do that until he got a promise from Saetan that there wouldn’t be another Zuulaman.

His arms tightened around Marian. No Eyrien mattered more to him than she did. So he had to have that promise.

Because if he died without it, the price would be too high.

FOURTEEN

Marian looked at the sugar spilled on the kitchen floor and wanted to cry. Such a little thing. A bobble of the hand that held the sugar bowl. Normally, it would have caused no more than a moment’s annoyance before she cleaned it up.

But not today. Not when a taloned fist had curled around her womb and was squeezing hard.

She closed her eyes and braced a hand against the kitchen counter. Maybe once in a year, the physical discomfort that came with her moontime escalated to nauseating pain. When it hit, it made her grateful she didn’t wear a Jewel darker than the Purple Dusk because the pain balanced the power that could be wielded the rest of the time, and darker-Jeweled witches always suffered more during the first three days. And no witch could use her Jeweled strength during those first three days without causing herself hideous pain.

Marian opened her eyes and stared at the spilled sugar. The thought of doing any physical labor made her want to curl into a ball and weep, but she knew from experience that even using basic Craft today would increase the pain.

With a shaky sigh, she went to the cupboard in the pantry where she kept her broom and dustpan.

Lucivar stopped in the corridor, the scent hitting him with the force of running into a stone wall. His nostrils flared. His lips pulled back in a silent snarl.

Moon’s blood.

Some change in a witch’s psychic scent or her physical scent triggered that recognition in Blood males once they reached puberty. Maybe it was a trait that had developed long ago as a tool for survival since this was one of the times when the balance of power between the genders swung in the males’ favor. A witch who had to defend herself against a male ended up fighting two adversaries: him and her own body.

Which was why the males closed ranks around a Queen during those days when she was vulnerable. Even the mildest-tempered Blood male became edgy and aggressive, but moon’s blood drove Warlord Princes to the killing edge. Naturally aggressive and territorial, their response to an unknown male was lethal more often than not. That response was the primary reason Blood males were trained to ignore the scent of moon’s blood except for the females in their own family and the Circle of the court they served in.

And that was the problem now, wasn’t it? At the Hall, the male servants looked after, and fussed over, the female servants. The family and the boyos took care of Jaenelle and the coven when they were in residence. The boundaries were established, and all the males accepted them.

But there was just the three of them here. He’d gritted his teeth through it the other times, reminding himself that Marian worked for him, so he couldn’t yell at her for exerting herself. He couldn’t insist that she sit and do something quiet that wouldn’t strain her body. He couldn’t roar until it brought every male in the area running to find out what was wrong the way he could when Jaenelle got stubborn. There were boundaries and—

Screw boundaries. Marian was not going to make him frantic again, seething in silence and trying to keep a slippery hold on his temper while she scrubbed and polished things that could damn well wait a few days before they got scrubbed and polished. They were going to compromise—and if that meant tying her to a chair to make her rest, so be it.

With his temper choked back to simmering—and ready to boil—he strode toward the kitchen to explain a few things to his little hearth witch.

“WHAT IN THE NAME OF HELL ARE YOU DOING?”

The broom jerked in Marian’s hands, scattering the sugar she’d just swept into a neat pile. Her heart slammed against her chest. She took a step back as Lucivar stepped through the archway into the kitchen, his lips pulled back in a snarl and a wild look in his eyes.

“You are not going to do this again, do you understand me?” he shouted as he walked toward her. “You are not going to beat yourself into the ground trying to do more than you should be doing.”

The weepy mood vanished. Resentment welled up, hot and bitter. Hearth witches weren’t pampered. Other witches might be excused from their work, but hearth witches were expected to grit their teeth and keep going, no matter how they felt. Her mother had worked half days during the first three days of her moontime. Her sisters weren’t required to do more than sit quietly and study—and usually complained about doing even that much. She, on the other hand, was expected to prepare the meals and do the cleaning, excused from her work only if the greasy nausea that sometimes accompanied the start of the moon’s blood made her too sick.

It had become a matter of pride that she did her work and didn’t complain, since that only brought criticism. Now Lucivar was yelling at her for no reason, just when she’d been about to swallow her pride and tell him she really needed to rest for the day. She was even going to ask him to purchase bread at the baker’s in Riada so she wouldn’t have to make biscuits to go with the stew she was planning to make for the midday meal. Well, she was not going to ask him for anything now.

“I can do my work,” she said, gritting her teeth as she started sweeping up the sugar again.

“You’re going to rest if I have to tie you down to make sure you do it.”

Oh, she’d love to rest today, but not on his terms. Not when he was snarling at her. “What I do is my own business.”

“Think again, witchling,” Lucivar snapped, moving closer to her. “You live in my eyrie, you’re under my protection. And that means protecting you from yourself when you get too stubborn to do what’s good for you.”

“And you never get stubborn and always do what’s good for you,” she snapped back. The nerve of the man. Who did he think he was, anyway?

He grabbed the broom handle, his hand closing over it just above her own hands. He tugged. She tugged back, trying to reclaim control. His hand tightened. A fast twist of his wrist and the handle snapped. He took one step back, turned, and threw the piece of wood through the archway.

Marian flinched, expecting to hear a lamp in the other room smashing. Or, worse, the crash as the handle shattered the glass doors that led out to the lawn on the other side of the eyrie.

No smash. No crash. Nothing. Not even the clatter of wood as it fell on the floor.

He must have vanished it before it could hit something.

Before she could react, he yanked the rest of the broom out of her hands, strode to the archway, and threw the broom away.

How could she forget how strong he was? She’d seen him exercising to keep his warrior’s body and reflexes sharply honed. She’d seen him chopping wood. Hadn’t she watched those wonderful muscles ripple under his skin all summer? He didn’t need Craft to be dangerous.

Turning back to the kitchen, he pointed a finger at her, and snarled, “You are not doing anything today.”

A wave of temper drowned out nerves. “Don’t you tell me what to do! I can do my work!” Irrationally angry and feeling cornered, she grabbed the pot sitting on the stove and threw it at him.

He tucked his wings in at the last second. The pot hit the wall next to the archway and fell to the floor.

Awful silence filled the kitchen.

Lucivar picked up the pot and walked away.

Marian crept to the archway and saw him outside, throwing the pot at the bales of hay he’d set up for target practice. She sagged against the wall. Eyrien males didn’t tolerate defiance from a witch who didn’t outrank them. Thank the Darkness Lucivar was taking his anger out on a pot and bales of hay. Her father, who didn’t technically outrank her since he also wore Purple Dusk Jewels, would have slapped her for arguing with him. Throwing the pot at him would have earned her a fist in the belly, inflicting pain where it would hurt the worst today.

*Marian?*

She turned and saw Tassle sniffing the spilled sugar.

“Don’t step in that. I have to clean it up.”

Tassle sniffed the air. *You cannot use Craft.*

She bit back a snappish reply. That furry body made it easy to forget at times that Tassle was more than a wolf. Other times, forgetting that he would respond to some things like any other Warlord would only cause more problems.

“You’re right,” she said. “I can’t use Craft, but—”

*I will clean it up for you.*

The sugar on the floor vanished. He looked at her, obviously expecting praise.