Chapter 3

"And then she caught a Wind and left!" Daemonar yelled as his grandfather calmly sorted a few books and listened to his grandson. Saetan was also biting the inside of his lip almost hard enough to draw blood in order to keep from laughing. Lucivar had put it best. Young Warlord Princes were a pain in the ass.

They were more of a pain when they didn't understand the real cause of their anger. Saetan had suspected over the last year or so that Orian and Daemonar were slipping beyond the friendship stage. He had seen it happen before, under his careful guidance even, with most of the ruling couples in Kaeleer. Childhood friendships between particular males and females would get to a point, and then change. Sometimes romance bloomed. Other times they lost the closeness as other people came into their lives and became more important. Daemonar and Orian had been coming to this point. Saetan suspected that Daemonar was closer than Orian, but the boy hadn't bothered to do more about it than pull her pigtails, so how would she know that his feelings were changing? More to the point, was Daemonar ready to accept that he didn't see her as just a childhood friend anymore?

"So," Saetan said, "are you angry that she believes you should be in a large, darker Court, or that she's going to a dance with another man?"

"He's a stranger!" Daemonar spat.

That answered Saetan's real question even if the boy didn't know it. "Are you going to the party?" Saetan asked evenly.

Daemonar snorted. "Prissy aristo snobs prancing around, trying to outdo each other? Yeah, that's where I want to be."

"Orian's mentioned the party before," his grandfather reminded him. "Even I've heard her talk about it. Doesn't your family get an invitation?"

"Yeah," Daemonar said. "But he's just trying to suck up to my father since he's the Warlord Prince of Ebon Rih. They don't really want him there. They don't really think of him as aristo, and I don't even want to know what they say about Mom."

Saetan tried to look thoughtful. "So, you know Orian wanted to go to the party, you have an invitation, and you're angry because she said yes to another man who asked her to go?"

"But, he's…" Daemonar sputtered.

Saetan cut him off. "A man that you don't know. But she does know him. He's not a stranger to her, and unless you start thinking with the rational part of your brain that I know you got from your mother, Orian is going to be spending a lot more time with him, and you're going to lose your chance to make a claim." Saetan paused. He had made that exact speech to either Khary or Chaosti. Funny, with the boyos, the names changed, but situations didn't. It made it easier to refine lectures over the years.

Daemonar glared at him. "Staking a claim is done when…we're friends."

Saetan turned and faced his grandson full on. "Boyo, I've got over 50,000 years of experience dealing with young Warlord Princes. And I'm telling you that you've already started making your claim. But if you don't make it obvious to her, then you don't get to have any say when another man courts her."

Daemonar fell into one of the chairs that were designed for Eyriens. He folded his arms, and for a moment looked like a pouting boy. But there was the man under the boy that was swimming up to the surface. Everything in life had come relatively easy. He had a family that adored him. Except for a couple of days that he couldn't really remember, he had never gone hungry, or been abused. He had been trained to be a warrior by the best Eyrien warriors in all the Realms, and tutored in Craft and Protocol by two Black Jeweled Warlord Princes. For the first time, there was something that wasn't coming easily, and he either had to stand his ground and be willing to enter an uncertain battlefield, or decide that there was nothing worth battling for anyway.

"I was thinking about getting her a nice Winsol gift," Daemonar finally said softly. They had always exchanged Winsol gifts, but usually their gifts to each other were funny or a prank. This time, he wanted something special.

"Hell's fire, boy, now you're finally thinking right!" Saetan smiled at his grandson. "And I know just who you need to talk to."

A few hours later Daemonar knocked on the door of his uncle's study. The door swung open quietly and he walked in. Daemon glanced up from behind a desk full of paperwork, looked down, and then jerked up sharply.

"You're alone," he said flatly. "Sweet Darkness, you didn't burn down another village, did you!"

"Uncle Daemon…" Daemonar began.

"Boy, what did you talk Tersa into doing this time?" The room actually was taking on a slight chill.

"I just need advice!" Daemonar said quickly and then swore under his breath. It was a small warehouse, a stable and a tavern, and nobody had been hurt, including the horses, not a whole village that had been burned down. One would think that Uncle Daemon of all people would be more forgiving over one little fire. At least Daemonar's fire was an accident.

Daemon eyed his nephew cautiously. He dropped to the Ebon-Gray and sent a psychic communication to his brother. *Prick, why is your son asking my advice? Did you give him the "don't slobber or chew on her face" rule?*

*Years ago. What has the little beast done now?*

*I don't know*

A mental sigh. *Let me know what the damages are and I'll kick his ass later.*

Daemon cut off the communication. "What did you do?" he asked too softly.

"I…I want to get Orian a nice Winsol gift," he muttered. It was easier to admit that he had burned down those buildings. Or that he had been the one to convince three villages there was a plague and the laxative he had was actually a cure. "Granddad said you knew best about what Ladies like."

Daemon sat down heavily. He had known that he would probably be the one to give his nephew a sex primer. But he had been hoping for a little advance warning, and not an hour before a family dinner at the Hall. He did not want to have to explain certain details and then hope that Marian didn't ask why her son had come to the Hall early. Maybe Surreal would take over on this one. She had helped a few times with some of the other sons of the Jaenelle's First Circle, giving them some experience in the bed before they became lovers or consorts to a particular Lady.

"Granddad suggested jewelry," Daemonar continued, oblivious to his uncle's internal suffering. "He said that you could help me pick something out."

Daemon smiled. "What are you thinking about?"

Daemonar shrugged. "I…something…I don't know. Something…grown up." A dark look slid over his face. "Something Prince Ass-Face won't think to give her," he muttered more to himself than for his uncle to hear.

It took all of Daemon's 1,700 years of developing a court mask to keep from bursting into laughter. So, a rival had surfaced, and forced Daemonar to look at Orian a little differently. "What happened?" he asked, the question a silky command.

Daemonar felt silly at telling the story a second time, and now he could see how he had acted badly, being insulting to Orian when he didn't mean to be. But then, he was talking to Uncle Daemon, who was also known as The Sadist. He had seen the way women looked at him, heard them whispering together how much they wanted him and would do anything for an hour in his bed. Daemonar had even felt the leashed seduction that flowed off of his uncle before when he had danced with Jaenelle. If his uncle would let that seduction go, even part-way, then he could have almost any woman in the Realm at his feet.

If there was anyone who could give advice, it was Daemon. Daemonar smiled, instinctively knowing that his uncle would have a strategy in seconds, one that would probably be risky, but possible if one was willing to face the challenge.

And he was one Eyrien that had never backed away from a challenge yet.

"I met up with Orian today outside of Riada," Daemonar began.

Daemon settled in his seat behind the great blackwood desk, listening to his nephew, and planning a gentle, but Eyrien seduction.