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“JOY, COME LOOK AT THIS.” Olivia, Grace’s witch hat and shield, was on the window ledge, peering out the glass pane. “There is a warlock staff snoozing on that carriage’s roof.”
Grace’s magical staff, in the guise of a broom, was sweeping up her mistress’s room. At Olivia’s call, Joy spread her bristles apart and strode over to the window.
Below, on the front circular drive, four black horses were harnessed to a carriage. A stray beam of light penetrated the cloud cover to strike the vehicle’s roof. A long oak staff, intricately carved and topped by a sapphire, sent light shards spearing around the vehicle.
“He looks powerful,” Olivia said in an awed tone.
“I could take him,” Joy said, with disdain. “Bet he is all show and no substance.”
“Heard from the light globes downstairs that Lady Mandell dislikes her male guest. If he is a warlock, that would explain her objection.”
“Let us find out.” Joy tapped the glass. “Ho, long staff. Wake up!”
The staff on the carriage sat up. Then he rose upward.
“Now you’ve done it,” Olivia whispered.
He stopped directly outside their window and bowed, before greeting them in Welsh. “Bore da. A fine morning to you lovely ladies. Kemp, at your service.”
“Myttin da,” Olivia replied in Cornish.
Joy nodded. He was taller than he had seemed while lying down, and the sheen on his wood showed several black blemishes, as if he had been in a firefight or two and lived to tell the tale. His jewel pulsed. Joy made the introductions and then realized that she was still in broom form.
About to change, she reconsidered. Despite her brash claim that she could take this warlock weapon, the outcome depended on his master’s skill. For now, better if Kemp thought her no more than a lowly broom. “Why does your master visit our home?”
“To retrieve his hellhounds.”
“He must mean Dewer,” Olivia said. “Whom the mistress–”
“Took the hounds from.” Joy cut her off. Trust that silly hat to blurt out their play to the opposing team while the game had barely begun. This was delightful news. So, Dewer had returned to Cornwall. Mistress Grace would be thrilled. “Why come for the hounds now, Mr. Kemp?”
“We are on a secret mission to London, Miss Joy. Terribly hush-hush. Sworn to secrecy.”
This sounded dodgy. Dewer was half dark fae and known for causing trouble. “What must he do?”
“Am not a rattlepate, ladies. Can keep a secret.”
Olivia’s hat tip dipped. “Is it a dangerous mission?”
“None of us might come out alive.” Kemp’s tone was grave. “Especially the hounds.”
“Ohhh,” Olivia said, “how terrible.”
Mistress Grace would not countenance that. Joy, too, had grown fond of those beasts.
“Cannot say more. Other than a battle’s afoot.”
Below, the door banged opened and a man strode out.
“Da boch. Goodbye.” Kemp returned to the carriage.
The man raised his hand and his staff flew into his grip.
“Ooh, that warlock is a fine specimen of manhood,” Olivia whispered. “Tall and smartly dressed. No wonder the mistress was smitten at first sight.”
Joy returned to her sweeping, sending up dust.
Olivia coughed. “We must tell the mistress about this.”
“No.”
“Why not?” Then she nodded. “Ah, I see. “
“Exactly.” Joy whisked under the bed. “If we tell her, she would refuse to return the hounds, which might provoke a fight and attract his attention, but not in the right way. We must consider the end game, Olivia.”
“If we say naught, Farfur and Bartos might die.”
“Between a rock and a hard place, that is where we are.” Joy swung around and banged into a table. A bottle tipped over and liquid trickled out, slid across the table and dribbled onto her bristles. “Oh, bother! What a mess!”
“Never mind that spill,” Olivia said. “How are we to save the hounds?”
As Joy stared at the dust balls clinging wetly to her bristles, an idea blossomed. She twirled upward, transforming into an alder wood staff, topped with a flashing golden jewel. Her light swelled until the room sparkled.
“You know what to do!” Olivia bounced on the sill.
“We must cast a love spell,” Joy said, all aquiver.
Olivia stilled and her tip drooped. “On Dewer?”
“No!” Joy returned to the windowsill in time to observe the warlock disappear past some bushes. “Casting a love spell on him would be akin to doing a mind spell, which is against the witch’s code. If this battle is to be in Town, we can cast a spell that will do no harm, but might distract everyone from wanting to fight. That should give our hounds a chance to escape their fate. The spell, Olivia, must be on London.”
Olivia gasped and then said, “On everyone there?”
Had she not been listening? “Never people, Joy. It will have to be on the clouds. The next time a thunderstorm pelts over London, more than rainwater will fall. I know just the witch who can help me cast this grand spell.”
* * *
HER MOTHER’S HAND HALTED Grace closing her door. The baroness then strode inside and pointing to the open doorway, issued an order to the hellhounds. “Out!”
Tails down, they retreated to the corridor. She shut the bedroom door on their forlorn faces and confronted Grace. “Have I ever led you astray, child?”
“No, Mama.” Grace flopped onto her bed and clenched her fists under her bosom. Her lower limbs from knees downward hung over the edge as she stared at the ceiling and pictured Dewer. In his smart black jacket that emphasized his tall trim figure to perfection over form-fitting beige breeches and thigh high boots with the tops folded down just below his knees, he had looked breathtaking. His pristine white cravat though might have been tied too tight as he kept trying to loosen it.
“Grace, why do you hesitate to relinquish the hellhounds?” her mother asked with concern.
Because giving them up means surrendering Dewer, too. Also, it would mean saying goodbye to the hounds. Forever. She was now so attached to Farfur and Bartos, the idea of relinquishing them was physically painful.
The moment of silence stretched and her mother strolled to the window and picked up Grace’s conical black witch’s hat. Holding it by the brim, she dusted it with her elbow sleeve and then blew on it. The hat instantly transformed into a pretty blue bonnet, rounded at the top to hug Grace’s head and trimmed with bluebells. “This will go nicely with your traveling gown.”
“Thank you, Mama.”
“Grace, I only have your best interests at heart.”
“I know.” Grace’s throat clogged with all the words she dared not speak. How could she confess that her pulse had soared whenever Dewer’s dark gaze settled on her, and especially when his eyes sparked with desire. Or that when he had absently petted Farfur, her heart had melted for both the lonely hound and lonelier warlock.
Setting the bonnet back on the windowsill, her mother returned to the bedside and sat beside her. “Grace, those hellhounds limit your choices. Flirting with that warlock in order to keep them is unwise.”
A hot blush swept over Grace’s cheeks. She turned toward her mother and, resting her face on her fist, she trailed a forefinger along the stitching of the bed cover. “Were my desires so obvious?” Had Dewer noticed? She hoped so.
Glancing at her mother, Grace pondered asking about a matter prodding her. The question, however, might inflame the baroness just as she seemed to be calming down. Still, Grace wanted to know the answer and her mother had taught her to freely ask questions, however inappropriate, saying that was preferable to making incorrect assumptions.
“Mama.” She sat up and took her mother’s hand and kissed the back of it to show she meant no harm with her probing. “Do you love Papa and does he love you? I mean passionately and thoroughly, as if nothing else mattered more?”
“What a foolish question, Grace. Of course, I love your father. I would not have agreed to marry him otherwise. I will have you know that I was as sought after in my youth as you were during your first Season. None of my other suitors held a light to the fervor in your papa’s eyes. When he looked at me, I felt as if no other woman existed.”
“Does he still love you like that? As much as he treasures his dams and his fish and his scientific studies?”
Her mother chuckled. “Apparently more so, even after all these years of marriage. His latest missive said that if I did not join him in London posthaste, he would return to fetch me. That, despite being so worried about his silly sick fish, that he has been earning censures from his fellow lords for shirking his parliamentary duties while tending to his ailing trout.”
“I want to be loved like that,” Grace said.
“You will be. You already are, if your many suitors are to be believed. What does any of this have to do with you keeping the hellhounds?”
“Dewer is capable of feeling such deep love.”
Her mother jumped up and backed away. Arms akimbo, she stared at Grace with wide worried eyes. Then she pointed to Grace’s blue bonnet and it turned back to its normal appearance of a black conical witch’s hat. “Grace, you had better not be setting your cap for this warlock. Have you forgotten that he is enamored with your cousin?”
“He has had long enough to recover from that painful involvement.”
“Are you saying you kept those hellhounds all these months because you formed an unfortunate attachment to that half fae/half warlock downstairs? Grace Elizabeth Adair, have you lost your sound mind? You do not even know him.”
Grace hugged her knees. “Mama, I know he is capable of showing affection to animals.” He had petted Farfur, even if it had only been for a brief moment. That showed promise. “And of experiencing deep hurt.”
He was no longer in love with the Coven Protectress. Of that she was certain. He would not have been capable of looking at her with such desire as he had when she entered the drawing room earlier if his heart were still entangled elsewhere.
“I forbid it.” Her mother slashed the air with her arms. “You will put him out of your mind this instant. Do I make myself clear?”
She met her mother’s anxious gaze with a scoffing look that she hoped spoke volumes about such a dictatorial order.
Dropping her arms to her side, her mother approached closer and spoke in a more conciliatory tone. “Grace, you can have any man you want. Why do you want this damaged one?”
“I do not know if I want him, Mama.” Lie. She wanted Dewer. She shivered and a hum echoed as she finally admitted that truth to herself. Seeing him again had cemented her initial spike of desire eleven months and four long days ago.
She did want him. Inexplicably. Irrationally. Irrevocably. Every glance into his sorrowful eyes captivated her soul. She could hardly admit that to her mother. The baroness hated Dewer. That had been patently obvious downstairs.
Convincing her mother to accept a possibility of her daughter and Dewer as a match might prove as difficult as convincing Dewer that he could love Grace as much, or hopefully more, than he ever had the Coven Protectress. “All I ask for is a chance to discover if he could be the right man for me.”
“He is not!”
“I cannot be told that, Mama. I must see it for myself.”
“You sound as if you are in love with the idea of falling in love. That is a childish whim you cannot afford to advance. Grace, he could hurt you as deeply as you say he has been hurt.” She sat on the bed. “Dearest, how can you even consider a relationship with this man? His mother is a dark fae. She tried to kill Merryn. She did kill Merryn’s brother and her parents.”
“Dewer is not his mother,” Grace said in a quiet voice. “You cannot punish him for her murderous character.”
“Blood is blood.” The baroness’s voice was hard. “I will never countenance that creature becoming a part of our family. We must cancel this travel arrangement. I shall tell him so this instant and send him on his way.” She marched to the door. “We will settle for the public coach to reach London.”
Grace jumped off the bed and sprinted to bar the door, arms outstretched. She could not believe her kind-hearted mother was being so cruelly judgmental. “Now you sound like the Warlock Council that outlawed him from their society as a babe in arms simply because his mother was a dark fae. Which did naught but deliver him into that evil creature’s clutches.”
Her mother stood with her arms crossed. “How can I do aught else, Grace? Your proposal puts not only yourself, but all of your sisters, your father, grandmother, and all the witches in Callington in jeopardy. Step aside.”
Grace shrugged off that dire claim of danger. They had successfully withstood an attack by Queen Eolonde before and could do so again. Besides, after the sound rousting that evil fae received in Callington during her last campaign, Grace doubted Eolonde would have the audacity to set foot on witch territory again.
Convincing her mother of that, however, might be too difficult. Grace tried another tactic. “Have you considered, Mama, that after enduring close confinement with Mr. Dewer during a three-day long journey to London, I might come to despise him as much as you do?”
Or we could be given a rare prospect of Dewer that no one has ever witnessed. Not even his precious Merryn.
Her mother’s gaze wavered.
Seeing that first chink in her mother’s armor, Grace displayed a meek countenance. Taking gentle hold of the baroness’s elbows, she drew closer. “Also, Mama, you would have time to prove to me beyond a shadow that this warlock is unworthy of my consideration.”
Her mother’s tense shoulders dropped. “You, child, more than any of my other children, have your papa’s way about you when you want something.”
Grace flashed her most winsome smile. “We do need to travel to London, and his vehicle seems sturdily built. Besides which, grandmamma is less likely to complain all the way to London in Mr. Dewer’s coach than she would in a public one.”
The baroness released a heavy sigh as if that last argument held the most weight. “Perhaps once you see that your precious hellhounds are safe in Mr. Dewer’s hands, you will finally agree to release them into his custody.”
“Yes!” Grace shouted in exhilaration, and gave her mother a sound kiss on her cheek. Though she had every intention of not only retaining ownership of both hellhounds, but to also lay her claim on their delicious master.
Her mother gently stroked her check. “Grace, you have always had an exceptional ability to feel another’s pain. That is what makes you an extraordinary healer, but dearest, you must learn to pull back before a flame burns you.”
“Mama, all I ask is a chance to exercise that lesson.”
The baroness nodded. “You are a grown woman and my most sensible daughter. At some point I must trust you to make your own decisions. Well, if we are to leave in Dewer’s company, we had better get ready or his lordship-to-be will leave without us.” Still looking concerned, her mother pulled out of her hold and opened the door. At her curt nod, the two hounds rushed inside and the baroness left.
“We are going to London with your master.” Grace gave both Farfur and Bartos a fond ruffle and then skipped over to the window. A flick of her wrist and her hat returned to the pretty blue bonnet her mother had crafted. About to start packing, she noticed a flare-up in the distance, near her mother’s rose garden.
Farfur rose to rest his front paws on the windowsill beside her and look out. Bartos joined her and whined.
A shiver spun up Grace’s back. That fire had the gleam of dark fae magic and she could think of only one reason for its presence on witch property. She pushed the windows open wider. “We should check on that disturbance.” In case, against all sane actions, a certain fae queen had come to call.
Grace tied on her bonnet. While she was transformed, it would protect her, acting as a shield against a magical attack. When she reached for her staff, it was missing from the side of the hearth where it normally rested. “Confound it! Where has that infernal staff gone?”
Well, she was not about to go into battle, merely scout out possible threats. Her mother was a shout away.
She sent a mental call for her recalcitrant staff to join her and, in case her worries were for naught and all was indeed well, she twitched her portmanteau out from under the bed. A wave set her clothing swooping from her trunks into that traveling bag. Satisfied with her contingency plan, she transformed and leapt to the windowsill in her feline form.
Using the vines clinging to the outside walls, she scrambled below. Once close to the ground, she bounded onto the gravel and the hellhounds landed on either side of her. Together, they raced toward the rose arbor.
* * *
PULSE HAMMERING A WARNING, Dewer strode into a secluded rose garden full of shifting shadows despite it being broad daylight. Somewhere in this unnatural shade, a dark fae queen lurked.
“Bore da, Mother,” he greeted in his native Welsh, though little good had occurred this morning. He instantly thought of Miss Adair but mentally shook his head in rejection. She was a witch, so not for him.
“What are you doing back in Callington, Devil?” The sibilant whisper was designed to send horror slithering up a human’s back, but Dewer had grown up with this voice crooning in his ears. Along with that insufferable nickname.
Any other parent might call her child darling or simply, boy. His mother preferred a term of endearment that everyone else on Earth reserved for the most reviled of serpents. A derivative of Dewer’s first name, Devlin. Explained why he always thought of himself as Dewer.
The shadows coalesced into a dozen hellhounds, their red eyes glowing and fangs drooling. They crouched beside droopy rose bushes and observed him with dispassionate stares that warned they would as soon devour him as a juicy bovine.
So, she was here to taunt him with what he wanted most. Staff clenched, he steeled himself to not snatch up one of those lethal hounds. They could be found in the thousands in the underworld, roaming in packs and often conscripted to obey a demon or dark fae. Since Dewer was only half fae, he needed his mother to gift him one before he could control a hellhound. A fact she used often to her advantage.
“I do not need your help,” he said.
“Yet, you are prepared to plead with theses witches who scorn you in order to retrieve your two hounds?”
A blistering breeze swept past his shoulder like a flamethrower spraying Greek fire. He patted down a stray glow charring his new coat.
Straight ahead, a rose bush burst into flames and shot upward before the fire settled into a throne two feet above the blackened bush. Below it, burning branches dripped flakes of ashes. Excellent. One more item to add to Lady Mandell’s growing list of Dewer misdemeanors. Now he’d destroyed her droopy roses.
A slender woman appeared seated on that blazing throne, as ethereally beautiful now as in her portrait holding a babe in arms that hung in Dewer’s study in Wales. A picture painted over two decades ago.
With hair of flames and skin smooth and white as alabaster, Queen Eolonde, exiled from the Welsh fae clan, Y Tylwyth Teg, reviled by Wyhcans and feared by humans, surveyed her son with deadly fondness. “Or is it a particular buxom witch that draws your interest?”
Dewer’s neck hairs tingled and nervous sweat trickled down his back. This was dangerous conversational territory.
Fact: His mother was as possessive as she was treacherous.
Distract her.
“In case you missed the news while down below, Merryn Pendravan is happily married. I do have plans for her that might sully that happiness but those do not concern you.”
She raised an inquiring eyebrow as she silently weighed his words, judged his intention and calculated her options. Then her gaze swerved toward the house where the alluring Miss Grace Elizabeth Adair was likely packing her bags to travel in his company. His heart sped like a crazy fool at that delightful thought.
Be calm. He must not raise suspicions that his romantic interest was once again engaged or Miss Adair would not survive to reach London.
His mother’s dark gaze, so like his own, returned to study him. She raised her arms and snapped her fingers. The hounds vanished, and Dewer could not help a sigh of regret whispering past his lips. Then shadows coalesced again, this time into three voluptuous women clothed with far less material than the properly covered Miss Adair. All of them, however, sported her ebony hair and bewitching gray-green eyes.
“If I had known dim-witted blondes with blue eyes no longer interested you, Devil, I would have peppered my court with these beauties to draw you home. Time you returned. Trouble stirs that I wish you to handle.”
What trouble? Never mind, there was always trouble in his mother’s kingdom, and in all the other levels of Hell. “I am never returning to the underworld.”
The three green-eyed fae temptresses had reached him and began to drape themselves over his back, shoulders and chest with sensual abandon.
Dewer disentangled himself from the lustful nymphs and stepped out of their range. He had learned at a young age that he could ill afford to sup at his mother’s table. “Give over, Mother. This trick no longer works on me.”
“Be gone!” His mother snapped the order and the dark fae vanished in a puff of acrid smoke. “You are a hard child to please, Devil.”
“I never needed pleasing.” He cleared his irritated throat but the burn of that dark magic lingered. He was no longer a child to be placated.
“You balk at my every affectionate gesture.”
“I would balk less if you stopped killing those I love.”
“Then stop loving unworthy witches.”
He expelled his mounting frustration in a grunt. Winning an argument with his mother was akin to persuading a boulder to turn over. Then again, he was now famous for moving mountains. “If you are concerned that I am drawn to Miss Adair, then you are mistaken.”
A twig snapped nearby and Dewer’s pulse shot up faster than his mother’s flames. Had Harridan caught him loitering in her garden? Would she blame him for her roses being torched? A quick check showed no one among the surrounding shoulder-high shrubbery.
“We are alone, none can approach without my knowledge.” His mother’s narrow-eyed survey of the terrain at his back did not match that confident statement.
Would she tell him if someone was there? Just like her to set him up for a fall in front of the witches in that house, baiting him to say the wrong thing or stir another fae-Wyhcan war in Callington. Lying was second nature to his mother.
He double checked his findings. Where his eyes failed to spot an intruder, Dewer sent his senses roaming. There! Crouched behind a wide hedge, he spotted Bartos, Farfur and a white cat. His pulse pounded as realization sank in about that cat’s identity. Miss Adair was the only one with such control over his two hounds. Farfur and Bartos would have torn any other feline to pieces, never mind hover near so protectively. Especially Bartos, who had positioned himself slightly in front, as if to shield the cat from attack.
Also, his earlier conversation had suggested that Dotty’s animal form was most likely a chicken while Harridan would never deign to hide. She would have long since charged at him like an enraged harpy.
He took care to hide his terror at Miss Adair’s presence – in her vulnerable feline form no less – so close to his lethal mother. Too late for distractions. Time for a frontal assault.
Trouble was, once he executed the plan he’d hastily formulated, Miss Adair would never speak to him again. A part of Dewer that had come alive after the young lady entered her drawing room, shriveled and died, leaving a familiar ache in his chest. He shrugged off that useless sense of sorrow.
Fact: Life was unfair.
“You were right, Mother. Witches are more trouble than they are worth. I have sworn off them.”
His mother’s canny gaze met his. “Indeed?” The word dripped skepticism.
“Even if I had not, the bold Miss Adair would be the last witch, nay, the last woman on this blighted earth who would ever tempt me.”
Queen Eolonde rested an elbow on crossed knee and chin on fist. “Do spill, Devil. What brought on this bit of wisdom?”
He strode closer so she would not mistake his meaning, but spoke loud enough for their foolish eavesdropper to hear every cruel word. “She is disagreeably brazen. She stole my hounds while I was confused and beaten down by Merryn’s rebuff. She is self-centered enough to discount her mother’s wishes to amuse herself by seducing me. Obviously, she is uncaring of others’ needs, else she would have immediately flown to her papa’s assistance instead of insisting on a leisurely ride in my carriage.”
“How delightful,” his mother said. “I begin to like her.”
“You would,” Dewer said, heart hammering with anxiety and deep regret at what he must say next, “since her character is a mirror of yours. Ensuring I would never consider her a suitable mate.”
“Oh!” His mother who had been relishing his every contemptuous insult, now blazed with reproach. “You rude child.”
Black smoke flared, engulfing him in its scorching embrace. He coughed and swept his arms to clear the air. Once the smoke dissipated, muted light trickled from the cloud cover to highlight the charred remains of every single rose bush.
He sent his senses scurrying into every nook of the surrounding gardens to ensure his mother had indeed left. She had. Relief coursed through him in a cool wave. Only then did he focus his inner sight on his other victim. Miss Adair, still in feline form, was racing toward her home, Bartos loping beside her. Farfur was still nearby, watching Dewer.
A harsh “meow” from the distance and Farfur’s ears perked, pointing backwards. Only then did he respond to his mistress’s command to heel.
Interesting. So, Farfur was not under her full command.
A rustling nearby drew his attention. A hare hopped into the circle of charred plants and sitting back on its large hind legs, observed the lumps of ashes in silent wonder. Then spotting Dewer, it turned to speed away.
Dewer pointed his finger and stopped the animal in mid-motion. Traveling inside his carriage with now two witches who despised him soured the idea of accompanying the Adairs to London even more. With a nod, he made up his mind. He would ride instead.
A swirl of his hand and the brown hare with its long floppy ears, large feet and short tail grew taller and transformed into a stallion that dropped onto all four hooves. It twitched its new smaller pointed ears and flicked a thick flowing tail. After a moment of contemplation, Dewer twirled his forefinger to change the stallion’s color to black, his favorite shade. “Much better.”
A snap of fingers and the horse was saddled. At his nod, his mount tromped toward him over the ashy ground, but its eyes remained terrified.
Dewer gently stroked its forehead and added a soothing mind spell to calm its nerves. “You are a horse now,” he murmured, to dissipate the animal’s confusion by sharing information. “I will ride you and we will travel to London, which is far from here. You will be safe under my care. Do you understand?”
The horse shook its head. A definite no.
“Well, become accustomed to the concept. Consider it a new fact of your life. As will be your name. Ifan.”
Naming his new horse broke one of his mother’s rules. She insisted that if he named an animal, he would grow too fond of it, which immediately turned it, and him, into a liability.
He no longer cared about following her rules, any more than he was bothered with why she had come here today. He was never returning to the underworld, no matter what troubles haunted her. The day Merryn married Braden, Dewer had decided that he wanted to be finished with that dark life.
Fact: As long as he clung to his mother’s realm, he would never find happiness.
Except, he had one unfinished business that kept drawing him back down there. After his father was killed, his fae aunt had evicted his mother from Wales. As if Eolonde had been responsible for allowing those murderous demons into the upperworld and into their home. The germ of an idea to prove his mother’s innocence and find his father’s killer had taken root in Dewer that day.
His father’s murder was linked to the underworld and Dewer was determined to uncover that secret and deal with that long overdue retribution. He was certain an arch-demon named Adramelech was at the heart of that mystery.
Dewer had been ten when he met Adramelech, Lucifer’s Chancellor. He had come to pay Dewer’s mother a visit to her newly claimed underworld kingdom. Though shaped like a muscular man, Adramelech had sported broad fancy wings made of colorful peacock feathers, but they were counterbalanced with a terrifying boar’s head with curved tusks. Young Dewer, eyeing those fierce tusks while hiding behind his mother’s skirts, had been certain they were designed to rip a boy apart.
Adramelech had stared at Dewer’s mother as if she were a choice piece of meat set out on his dinner plate. Even more disturbing was his mother’s reaction. She twirled her hair as she spoke to the hairy, barely-clothed demon, and asked in a teasing tone, would Lucifer not miss his Chancellor if he lingered too long.
Disliking their playful exchange, Dewer chanted from behind his mother that the demon looked like Lucifer’s little piggy. He discovered that day that his mother did not appreciate cowardice in her child and that Adramelech never forgave an insult. Ever since his thoughtless taunt, Dewer had been paying a price with both.
Could Adramelech be the “trouble” his mother mentioned? It would not surprise him.
Several years after his thoughtless remark, Adramelech had captured Dewer and held him bound in one of his cells, burning Dewer alive, for days on end. In the underworld, torture was considered more effective the longer it could be extended. To extract maximum suffering.
His skin twitched with remembered agony, of his flesh melting and then reforming, to melt again. During one of Adramelech’s many boastful visits to that prison, the demon had accused him of being as gullible as his father. Then he set his demon hornets on Dewer.
While recovering from that tortuous visit, he wondered if the hornets were meant to be a distraction for a slip. Had the demon not meant to mention Dewer’s father? Why? Because it might reveal that the Chancellor had designs on his mother even when her husband was alive? Instantly, the venomous notion took hold that Adramelech had played a role in Dewer’s father’s death.
He endured his confinement longer than needed, hoping to learn more. Six months into his torture, his mother came to his rescue. He suspected it had taken her that long so she could teach him as a lesson to never let down his guard again. One of the many useful schoolings he had endured at her pleasure. He was a better fighter for it.
Instead of being grateful, however, Dewer had silently raged that she had come too soon. He had not uncovered the proof he needed to substantiate his suspicions about Adramelech’s involvement in his father’s killing. Once home, during his long months of recovery, both mental and physical, despite his mother’s obvious disappointment in his inability to rescue himself, he refused to share his reason for putting up with his confinement. Telling her would have put her life in danger.
Queen Eolonde was as unforgiving as Adramelech. If she believed the demon was responsible for her husband’s death, she would risk even Lucifer’s retribution by ensuring the devil’s favorite chancellor breathed his last breath. Dewer refused to risk her enraging Lucifer by going after his pet demon until he had solid proof to substantiate his suspicions. Then he would take care of Adramelech, once and for all.
He shook off that tormenting memory. If Adramelech was annoying his mother again with his persistent courtship, she could deal with him. He was done playing interference between those two.
Dewer mounted Ifan and was about to leave when he reined in and surveyed the burned rose bushes. At a clap, the ashes rose from the ground, reforming into their previous shapes, this time covered with more buds that were not so droopy. Every shade of rose he had ever seen was represented, all except yellow.
Once, while he wallowed in his tower, miserable about Merryn’s choice of lover, his mother presented him with a bouquet of stinky yellow roses, saying the reeking bouquet suited his envious disposition.
Dewer had needed her help so he accepted that malodorous gift. The moment she departed, he tossed the flowers out his window. The next morning another bunch of yellow roses appeared in a vase on his dresser. It was months before those blasted yellow blooms stopped reappearing.
With a wave, he sent three long stems, heavy with rosebuds, winging toward his carriage, each settling on a seat for the three ladies who would be traveling under his guard. Two of the stems had pink buds, but one was pure white.
“Come, Ifan, let us join the ladies. The sooner we are off for London, the sooner we will arrive and can part ways.”