Shalador's Lady

Especially when it had been a dumb idea. He’d known that when he was doing it. He’d known it even better when he watched Daemonar flutter down to find out what he was doing flat on the ground. But it had been a matter of pride. Jaenelle understood about male pride. She might find it amusing or irritating, depending on the consequences, but she understood it. So she should understand that, at that moment when the boy was looking down at him, he saw himself as the uncle who used Craft instead of muscle, who didn’t participate in the physical world the way his brother Lucivar did. In that moment, he didn’t want to be seen as less by a boy who wasn’t old enough to appreciate the power and skills he did have.
    So he’d climbed the damn tree.
    Idiot.
    “At least I didn’t actually hit the ground,” Daemon muttered. “I did remember to create a shield and use the air walking spell.” Which saved him from serious injury since he landed on a cushion of air instead of hard ground, but it didn’t spare him from having the wind knocked out of him—or having a back full of tight, aching muscles.
    “Good for you,” Jaenelle said, her voice so dry there was no question she was not impressed.
    “All right. Fine. I was an idiot.” Which was a story he was sure the servants at SaDiablo Hall would share for many years to come, since a couple of them had witnessed the little drama. They wouldn’t share the story with outsiders, because anyone who worked at the Hall knew the private lives of the SaDiablo family remained private. But he could see someone like the footman Holt taking a young servant aside and telling him that story as an assurance that the powerful, dangerous, lethal Black-Jeweled Warlord Prince of Dhemlan could also be a man who acted like a bumbling uncle with good intentions and a shortage of brains.
    “Shit.” He could feel her smile, and the fact that she didn’t need to comment was more than sufficient comment.
    She kissed him between the shoulder blades, and that simple contact between lips and skin warmed him in other ways, and the next stroke of her hands down his back had him purring instead of groaning.
    “Just relax,” Jaenelle said. “I’m almost done. By tomorrow you’ll be your usual wonderful self, and if you can remember that you’re a grown-up, you should be able to get through the last day of your nephew’s visit without doing any more damage to yourself.”
    Her hands glided over his back, more a caress than a Healer’s touch.
    “You’re not relaxing,” she said.
    “I’m very relaxed,” Daemon purred. Most of him, anyway. He’d been sore enough that he hadn’t focused on anything besides not hurting. Now he was aware of a few other things.
    “No, you’re not.”
    He heard the concern in her voice. That meant she was looking at him as a Healer and not a woman—and he wanted the woman’s attention.
    “Sweetheart, you’re sitting on my ass. There are parts of me that find that very interesting and don’t want to relax yet.”
    “I am not sitting on your ass,” Jaenelle huffed. “I’m straddling you to work on your back.”
    “You’re close enough that I can tell you’re not wearing anything under that shift, so I call that sitting.”
    “And you can tell what I’m not wearing because . . . ?”
    “When you brush against me, it tickles.”
    A too-thoughtful pause. “You’re awfully sassy all of a sudden.”
    “Blame it on my beautiful wife.”
    “Boyo, I don’t think your back will take what you have in mind.”
    “Then I’ll just roll over. Since you’re already straddling me, you can give us both a ride.”
    She snorted out a laugh. “You’re such a romantic when you’re exhausted, but I’ll take you up on your offer. Just to help you relax completely, of course.”
    “Of course.”
    “Hold still for another minute.”
    Her hands glided over his back, the warm, sensuous caress of a lover.
    Jaenelle Angelline. The living myth. Dreams made flesh. The former Queen of Ebon Askavi. And his wife. His wonderful, longed-for wife.
    “Daemon?”
    In another minute he would roll over and touch her body. He would use a psychic thread to link with her, mind to mind, and consummate their lovemaking with more than his body, touching her in ways he had never touched another woman.
    “Daemon?”
    He could picture her fair-skinned hands gliding over his golden brown chest as she sheathed him in silky fire.
    In just another min . . .

EBON