ELEVEN
A warm hand rubbing his bare back coaxed Saetan out
of a deep sleep. A loving touch, but not a lover’s touch. Sensual
without being sexual. Who . . . ?
Then he knew. There
was only one person whose psychic scent was so close to his own
that it took a moment to pick up the distinctions between
them.
“Prince,” he said. It
was the best he could do. The way Daemon was rubbing his back made
him feel boneless—and brainless. A bit odd for a son to be
doing.
That thought roused
his paternal suspicions, and that woke up his brain.
“Good evening,”
Daemon said. “Did you sleep well?”
Hell’s fire. Every
time a son had asked him that, the boy was about to dump a basket
of trouble in his lap.
“It’s Winsol,” Saetan
said, turning onto his side and propping himself up on one elbow.
“Why aren’t you home with your wife?”
“Because my wife is
still here,” Daemon replied, resting a hand on his father’s
hip.
A sultry voice.
Almost a sexual purr. Daemon excelled at using sensuality to
intimidate, and right now the boy was doing an excellent
job.
Except he wasn’t sure
intimidation was the response Daemon
intended to evoke.
“Did you enjoy your
gift?” Daemon asked.
“My
gift?”
“You asked for
solitude. We stepped back so you could celebrate Winsol Eve in your
own way.”
With Jaenelle. With
Witch.
“Lucivar and I talked
it over, and we decided that you had a point—and a lesson we wanted
to embrace now instead of later.”
“That’s good.” Maybe.
He might sound more enthusiastic if he were more awake—and if
Daemon’s hand resting on his hip didn’t feel more and more like a
cat’s paw pressing on a mouse’s tail.
“We decided to give
the first six days of Winsol to our public obligations as rulers of
Dhemlan and Ebon Rih. Winsol Day will be for family. And the last
six days will be private. Quiet. Jaenelle and I are going to Scelt
for a couple of days, and then tuck in at the Hall.”
“That’s good,” Saetan
said. And it was.
“Today, being Winsol,
is for family,” Daemon said. “All of us, together. Here at the
Keep.”
“All ...
?”
Sounds just outside
the bedroom door. Then Daemonar shouted, “Wake up, Granpapa! Wake
up!”
He heard Lucivar’s
rumble, followed by giggles and squeals that moved away from the
door.
“All of us,” Daemon
said. “Even Tersa.”
Honoring the day with
his children without the intrusion of the world and its demands. He
felt foolishly sentimental—and very happy.
“Just family,” he
said, his voice husky as he remembered the family members who were
no longer with him.
“And Rainier. It
seems he was going to be alone tonight, so Surreal declared him an
honorary cousin for the occasion.”
Too much sentiment,
too much feeling. And it wasn’t just him. The sensuality was a
game, but having the family gathered like this meant a great deal
to Daemon too.
Figuring they both
needed a moment to step back from deep feelings, he said, “You got
through this much of the day without opening any gifts?” If they’d
managed that with a boy Daemonar’s age in their midst, they had
steel balls and no nerves.
Daemon twitched his
shoulders. “We let him open his, and the adults each opened one of
theirs.”
Saetan studied his
son—the flushed skin, the sudden avoidance of looking him in the
eyes. “So. How long did it take Daemonar to get the bug out of the
box?”
Daemon’s expression
went absolutely blank. Then he muttered, “We found it before Marian
did.”
He could picture
Lucivar and Daemon scrambling around to find the exploding beetle
before Marian—or Surreal—found it. Since he didn’t think either man
was going to find anything amusing about that little adventure—at
least for another decade or two—he’d wait until he was safely in
the shower before he laughed at them.
“Then it sounds like
Daemonar likes his gift. What about you?” He twisted around to
plump up the pillows. “Since you were so eager to open it a few
days ago, I assume you opened the gift I gave you.”
When there was no
response, he stopped plumping pillows and looked at Daemon’s sulky
expression. “Didn’t you like your gift?”
“I don’t know,”
Daemon growled. “I haven’t been able to unravel the Craft lock you
put on the damn box.”
Saetan blinked. He’d
used that same lock on his sons’ gifts when they were young. It
used to take Daemon less than five minutes to unravel the
thing.
Winsol gifts weren’t
just found in the boxes. They were the moments, and memories,
treasured by the heart. Like this one.
He tried to swallow
the butterflies tickling his throat. Seeing the look on Daemon’s
face, he tried hard.
Then he gave up,
plopped back on the pillows—and laughed.