“We have no secrets from our familiars.”
“I was thinking more of yon minions.” He tipped his head at the warren of labs beyond the closed door. “Remember that spy who used a listening device to discover and leak sensitive information on a new product line?”
Lady El-Adrel fumed in remembered fury. It had been a minor leak—and the wizard made into a cringeworthy example—but her paranoia came second only to her pride. Jadren was counting on that to propel them into the privacy of her meeting chambers, which she zealously warded.
“Fine. Fyrdo, have the familiar housed in one of the enclosures here in the labs. I want her readily available for further testing.”
Jadren fought not to react, especially as his mother watched him keenly, clearly anticipating his negative reaction. “Unless you object?” she inquired silkily.
“It’s your call,” he managed to reply tonelessly. He wasn’t fooling her, but he’d never convince his mother that those enclosures didn’t evoke terrible memories for him. There had been a time that he agreed to anything she wanted, just to escape them. No, he’d understood Seliah’s aversion to small spaces quite well, even if the box hadn’t affected him the same way.
“I’m concerned about the psychic impact on the familiar, however,” he made himself say. He nodded to Seliah, who’d finally, blissfully, passed out. “This is all new to her, and she’s unaccustomed to enclosed spaces. Recall that House Phel is an actual house with windows and doors and pitifully little security. Waking in one of the specimen enclosures will be upsetting to her.”
His mother shrugged. “Suffering builds character, as you experienced for yourself.”
“I thought you’d concluded that all my suffering had led to a decided lack of character,” he couldn’t help saying, the old bitterness welling up. There’d been a time when he’d believed her song and dance that she was sincerely attempting to improve him, both his character and his magic. He was no longer that fool. “Regardless, I want the familiar placed in my old rooms. Put her in my bed and I’ll work on taming her to your satisfaction.”
She narrowed her gaze on him, assessing with glittering intelligence. “I begin to suspect you care about this familiar.”
Uh oh. “I do care,” he agreed blithely, and without any hesitation that might alert her. “She represents what might be my sole opportunity to gain a familiar of my own.”
“You once said you didn’t care to bond a familiar, that you didn’t want the power, but with this one you suddenly care very much.”
He laughed, making it sound careless. “That was before I saw the opportunity before me, the chance to be lord of a high house.”
“You will never be head of House El-Adrel,” she snapped. “Your inability to harness your native magic for external use means you’ll never be more than a minion. You know that.”
He did know that and, for the first time, the knowledge bothered him not in the least. His mother had never intended for him to be her heir. She’d guaranteed that by homeschooling him and keeping him from a Convocation Academy education, all under the guise of addressing his unfortunate condition. All the better to keep him under her thumb. “Not House El-Adrel,” he corrected lightly. “House Phel. With her as my familiar, my willing and ardent lover, I can take over House Phel.”
~ 14 ~
Seliah awoke slowly, struggling up from the miasma of such a deep sleep that she was thoroughly disoriented in the dark room. She was in a bed. That meant she was inside, not in the marshes. But she wasn’t the infirmary either. That had happened several times, that she’d awakened in the infirmary—sometimes strapped to the bed—with no idea how she’d come to be there. At those times, the soft night air wafting in from the marshes had reassured her.
There was none of that here, only the scent of sterile air, the tinge of metal, a far off ticking like a thousand clocks, and…
Magic coiling against her skin like a copper spring.
Jadren was here, in the bed beside her, lying so still in sleep that she hadn’t registered his presence at first. Even if she listened intently, she could barely make out his breathing. Why were they sharing a bed? Surely he hadn’t… She ran her hands over her body, finding she wore the underthings the servants had dressed her in, but not the gown. That’s right—the dress had been rent by those agonizing darts Lady El-Adrel sent into her. She remembered the healer treating her, and that nightmare of a testing chair that Jadren had forced her into.
She wouldn’t think about that now.
Slipping her fingers between her legs, she found no soreness, no evidence of moisture not of her own body. Jadren hadn’t raped her while she was unconscious then.
Did you really think he’d stoop to that? A voice in the back of her mind asked.
Apparently we haven’t yet plumbed the depths of what he’ll stoop to, she reminded herself.
There is that, her other self agreed glumly.
Regardless, she wasn’t staying in this bed mostly naked with him. Moving stealthily, she slipped out from under the covers, easing her bare feet onto a plush carpet. Her eyes were adjusted to the dark, so she began to make out the outlines of the furniture, the boundaries of the room. Not the room she’d been taken to earlier that day. No sign of a robe or clothing, either.
Well, she might be nearly naked, but that didn’t render her defenseless. Probably Jadren wouldn’t have left a weapon where she could reach it, but he’d also been foolhardy enough to fall asleep with her free to kill him at first opportunity.
She would teach the treacherous bastard to underestimate her. Following the shine of silver, hoping to locate something sharp enough to finish what she’d started, she found, to her great astonishment, an orderly collection of their weapons. The moonsilver tips of her few remaining arrows were still attached to their shafts, arrayed on a table beside her bow. Jadren’s machete lay there, too, along with the other swords and daggers the rest of the group had given to them. He hadn’t even kept one to hide under his pillow, so far as she could tell. Arrogant and overconfident, that was Jadren to the core.
She was good at moving silently, having learned that skill the hard way, stalking marsh rats and avoiding the marsh cats stalking her. Even though the bow had been unstrung while not in use, the string had been neatly coiled beside the bow. She fixed it in place, then slid an arrow from the table—she’d only need one—all while keeping an eye and ear on Jadren’s slumbering form.
Padding silently over the thick rug, she came around to his side of the bed. He lay on his back, the covers pushed down to his waist, arms splayed, bare chest gleaming pale in the shadows, a clear target. All the better to put an arrow through his heart.
