Still, as the Warlord Prince of Dhemlan, it was his responsibility to deal with the Queens who ruled the other Territories in Terreille, so he would meet with the Zuulaman ambassador once more and hope that, this time, there would be some glimmer of understanding in the man’s eyes when he explained why the trade agreements the Zuulaman Queens wanted were not acceptable.

As he reached for the letter to review its contents again, the door of his study opened, and his wife, Hekatah, hurried into the room as quickly as a woman three weeks away from childbirth could move.

“Saetan,” Hekatah said as she lowered herself into the chair in front of his desk. “I just had the most distressing news from home.”

This is home. But he bit back the words since it was as useless to think them as it would be to say them. Hekatah was a Red-Jeweled Priestess from one of Hayll’s Hundred Families, and she looked at the Territory of Dhemlan in much the same way that she looked at her family’s country estates—as something quaint and inferior . . . and valued only for what she could take from it.

“Is someone ill?” he asked politely, although he knew the reason for her distress.

“No, but Mother says you refused to give my father and brothers a loan. I’m sure she misunderstood something, because that accusation is utterly—”

“True.”

She stared at him. “It can’t be.”

Her gold eyes filled with tears, and her mouth moved into that sexy, sulky pout that had pulled at his loins when he’d first met her and now always scraped against his temper.

“I’m sorry, Hekatah, but I won’t give your family another loan.” He’d informed her father of that fact a month ago. Since the bastard had delayed telling Hekatah, why couldn’t he have waited a few more weeks until she had safely delivered the baby?

Her lips quivered. One tear rolled down her cheek. “But . . . why?”

“Because they didn’t honor the agreement they made with me when I gave them a loan last year.” When her only response was a blank look, he swore silently and struggled to be patient. “Last year, in order to save your family from financial and social ruin, I gave them almost two million gold marks to cover all of your father’s and brothers’ gambling debts. I paid close to a million gold marks to cover all the debts that were owed to all the merchants who would no longer allow anyone in your family to buy so much as a spool of thread or a handful of vegetables on account. And I also provided another million gold marks with the understanding that those funds would be put back into the estates so that the properties could be restored and once more provide an income. I made it clear that I required receipts to prove materials were being purchased for that purpose and that your father and brothers would receive no further financial help from me if they didn’t fulfill their side of the bargain. I never received a receipt of any kind, and from what I can tell, absolutely nothing was done to benefit the estates and make them productive again. Since they squandered what they already received, that is the end of it.”

“Maybe they did do something foolish with the money,” Hekatah conceded with real, or feigned, reluctance before adding quickly, “but I’m sure they didn’t believe you really meant it about not giving them another loan.”

I’m a Black-Jeweled Warlord Prince, the strongest male in the history of the Blood. I’m the only male Black Widow in the history of the Blood. And I’m the High Lord of Hell. Despite the fact that I still walk among the living, I rule the Realm of the Blood’s dead. How could your family not believe I meant what I said?

“It doesn’t matter if they believed me or not,” he said. “The decision stands.”

She slapped the chair’s arm. “You’re being unreasonable. The Dhemlan people didn’t complain the last time you raised the tithes to cover the loans. They won’t dare whine this time, either.”

Speechless, he stared at her and wondered if there was any point in explaining how deeply she’d just insulted him. Finally, he regained his balance sufficiently to reply. “I didn’t raise the tithes, Hekatah. That was a personal loan, from me to your family.”

Now she stared at him. “Our money? You used our money?”

“Of course. Why should the Dhemlan people have to pay for your family’s financial imprudence?”

“So you took almost four million gold marks away from us?”

He shrugged. “I could afford it . . . once.” And the timing for that last loan had pissed him off enough that he’d played their manipulative game with so much finesse Hekatah’s family had never realized he was playing. “You could always give them a portion of your quarterly income.”

“As if that pittance would do much good,” Hekatah replied, her eyes filled with resentment.

“Thirty thousand gold marks a quarter is hardly a pittance,” Saetan said with cutting gentleness. “Especially when you don’t have to maintain a household”—he saw the jolt of nerves, quickly suppressed, which confirmed what he’d suspected—“and the only thing those funds have to cover are your personal expenses.” He paused. “Or, if you prefer, I can release the principal I put in trust for you as a wedding gift, from which you receive that quarterly income, and you can give your family as much of it as you choose.”

She said nothing. He hadn’t expected her to.

She pushed herself out of the chair and stood before him, one hand resting on the large belly where his child moved inside her. It might have softened him enough to yield a little if he’d truly believed that gesture was a protective one rather than a reminder that she had power over something he wanted.

“I’m going to Hayll to offer my mother, and the rest of my family, whatever comfort I can,” she said.

He choked back a protest, knowing she would use any concern he showed as a weapon against him. “Do you think that’s wise?” he asked mildly. “You shouldn’t be traveling so close to your time.”

“I’m going to Hayll.”

The challenge filled the space between them.

“I would appreciate it if you would send a message back to let me know you arrived safely,” Saetan said.

Her shoulders slumped, her only acknowledgment that she had lost this battle of wills. Then she walked out of his study.

He waited there, his hands, tightly clasped, resting on the desk, while his mind, at times too facile for his own comfort, turned over nuggets of information and presented him with some unpalatable conclusions.

Last year, Hekatah’s father had come to him for help in solving a “minor financial difficulty” shortly before Peyton’s Birthright Ceremony, when the power a Blood child was born with was tested and confirmed, and the child received the Jewel that would be a visual warning of the depth of power that lived within that flesh as well as a reservoir for the power that wasn’t used. It was also the time when paternity was formally acknowledged or denied. A man could sire a child, raise that child, love that child, but he had no rights to that child until the mother granted him paternal rights in a public ceremony that usually followed the Birthright Ceremony. It didn’t matter if the child looked like the man in miniature, didn’t matter if the woman had taken no lovers so there could be no question of who was the sire. If paternity was denied at that public ceremony, the man had no rights to the child. He could be cut out of the child’s life in every possible way, becoming nothing more than the seed.

A public ceremony—and a decision that was never overturned. In many ways, a man who wanted children was held hostage by his heart until that ceremony. After that, the child was his, no matter what happened between him and the mother.

He should have wondered why Hekatah had wanted to get pregnant so soon after they’d married, should have wondered why she hadn’t wanted a year or two just for the two of them to enjoy each other. But her true personality had already begun to crack the facade that had attracted him to her in the first place, so she couldn’t afford to delay a pregnancy if she was going to keep the prize of a Black-Jeweled Warlord Prince whose wealth rivaled any of Hayll’s Hundred Families and who ruled a Territory without having to answer to any Queen. At least, not a flesh-and-blood Queen that she could see or understand. She hadn’t recognized his deep commitment to Witch, to the living myth, dreams made flesh. He had served Cassandra, the last Witch to walk the Realms. He had made a promise to serve the next one, no matter how long he had to wait for her to appear. She was the Queen he served, and he ruled both Dhemlan Territories, the one in the Terreille and the one in Kaeleer, on her behalf.

Hekatah hadn’t recognized his commitment, and he hadn’t recognized that she’d seen him as a way to fulfill her ambitions to become the most powerful Priestess in Terreille—or, possibly, all the Realms.

How convenient that she’d become pregnant with Peyton a few months before Mephis’s Birthright Ceremony. How well-timed was her father’s embarrassed admittance a year ago, when it was time for Peyton’s Birthright Ceremony, that the family debts had become a difficulty. The bastard had mentioned too many times how distressed Hekatah was about the family’s social status being tarnished by whining merchants who had so far forgotten their place that they’d gone to the Queen of Draega to complain about a “few” overdue bills.

He’d made sympathetic murmurs, but he’d understood the threat: If he didn’t make some effort to reestablish her family financially, Hekatah might say something in haste when it came time to acknowledge Peyton as his son and grant him paternal rights to his child.

Hekatah’s father and brothers were anxious to have their gambling debts paid off since those were to other aristos and the invitations to social engagements had declined as those debts had piled up. Instead, Saetan had paid up the accounts with all the merchants and presented her father with the receipts—and had insisted that he was simply too caught up in the celebration of Peyton’s Birthright Ceremony to deal with “minor” gambling debts. He’d assured her father that those would be taken care of after the ceremonies.

While they realized he might refuse to pay the gambling debts if Hekatah said something in haste at the ceremony, it never occurred to anyone in her family that his timing in paying off the debts that concerned them the most was as manipulative as their timing in asking for financial help.

So his paternity of his younger son was granted, the debts were paid off . . . and he gave himself a few weeks to consider if, with his sons safely under his control, he wanted to remain married to a woman who expected absolute fidelity from her Warlord Prince husband while she indulged her taste for variety by having affairs with men from the minor branches of Hayll’s aristo families.

He’d almost accepted that his hopes for this marriage had been wishful thinking and the self-delusion of a lonely man who, while receiving plenty of bedroom invitations, had been craving love.

Then Hekatah had told him she was pregnant again. And, once again, a child’s life held his heart hostage. He didn’t blame her for the pregnancy. He wanted another child, had willingly stopped doing anything to prevent conception, and had let her decide when she was ready.

But the timing had just been a little too convenient to make him feel easy, just as this request for another loan coming so close to when Hekatah would be brought to childbed was a little too convenient.

He sighed. Hekatah would punish him for not agreeing to provide the loan by staying with her family instead of being with him right now, and Zuulaman . . .

He pushed away from the desk. Screw all of it. What was the point of being the most powerful male in Terreille and shouldering the responsibility for a land and its people if he couldn’t indulge himself once in a while?