She knew what it was—not because she’d felt it before, but because Nurian had told her about it when she had wondered why some women acted . . . odd . . . when Yaslana and Marian attended a play or some other public event.

“Jillian?” Yaslana sounded puzzled and—maybe?—wary.

She gave him a distracted smile and bolted for the eyrie.

Sexual heat. It was part of a Warlord Prince’s nature, something he could keep leashed to some degree, but it was always there, a lure designed to attract females, because Warlord Princes were dangerous, volatile, extremely aggressive men who were born to stand on killing fields. A Queen’s living weapon. A man like that was feared, but a man like that also needed a way to keep a woman with him in order to sire children and continue his bloodline.

Nurian said Warlord Princes usually kept the heat leashed as much as possible when they weren’t with their chosen lovers, but it still pumped out of them, washing over everyone, producing a kind of scent that made women feel womanly—and desirable. But that leashed heat was no more an invitation to sex or an indication of carnal interest than the scent of moon’s blood was an invitation to attack a woman during the days when she was vulnerable and couldn’t use the reservoir of power in her Jewels to defend herself.

When she reached the eyrie, Jillian looked back. Yaslana was going through the movements of the warm-up—and he looked wonderful. He looked like a man.

She blinked, felt her face burn with shame for thinking such a thing. He was Yaslana, the Warlord Prince of Ebon Rih. She worked for his wife. And until today, she had never thought such a thing about him.

Until today, when she felt the sexual heat for the first time. He wasn’t any different than he’d been yesterday. She was the one who had changed. Warlord Princes didn’t pick up the scent of moon’s blood until they reached a level of maturity during adolescence, so it stood to reason that a level of physical maturity was also required before a girl—a woman—reacted to a Warlord Prince’s sexual heat.

Woman.

Jillian smiled.

Swelling breasts and moon’s blood were signposts that a girl was becoming a woman. She had a feeling that today she had just reached another significant signpost.

Then she was in the kitchen and in the middle of the noise and chaos that made up mornings in the Yaslana household and didn’t give the man another thought for the rest of the day.

* * *

* * *

Lucivar went through the warm-up a second time, increasing the speed of the moves. Normally he’d be in the kitchen helping Marian feed the children and get them ready for school. But he’d seen something in Jillian a few minutes ago that kept him outside.

The girl had been running tame in his house ever since Nurian signed a service contract with him decades ago and came to Ebon Rih, claiming her younger sister, Jillian, as her dependent. He’d been busy getting the Eyrien adults settled and couldn’t say exactly when Jillian became Marian’s “helper” in looking after Daemonar. His boy had been a toddler then—an ever-moving bundle of arrogance and energy—and having Jillian around to keep hold of the little beast had allowed Marian to get some of her own work done.

Didn’t take long for him to stop seeing the girl as someone else’s dependent. Sure, she’d gone home most nights, but she was in his home so much she became his to protect—an honorary daughter in the same way his father had been an honorary uncle to most of the Territory Queens in Kaeleer.

Now he wondered if that was going to be a problem.

The potency of sexual heat was linked to the power that flowed in the veins and made the Blood who and what they were. The darker a Warlord Prince’s power, the more potent the heat. It made a kind of sense for preserving the darker bloodlines and keeping a woman in thrall long enough to make a baby and carry through all the years after until paternal rights to that child were formally granted. But it could be damned inconvenient the rest of the time, since a man let the heat slip the leash in order to seduce a lover and give her a very good ride, but even leashed, it could create too much unwanted interest from other women.

Unlike his brother, Daemon, who could seduce anyone and everyone just by walking through a room, he hadn’t had to deal with much unwanted interest for one very simple reason: he had a reputation for being violent and vicious in bed—a reputation he had earned when he’d been a slave in so many courts in Terreille. The stories of how he’d savaged the Queens who had tried to use him had found their way to Kaeleer with the people who had emigrated to the Shadow Realm. Because of that, he was feared more than other Warlord Princes. Women might enjoy the feel of the heat as he passed by, but they were also grateful that he had a wife and wouldn’t look in their direction.

Jillian wasn’t afraid of him, and that could be a problem. He hoped she would be able to accept the sexual heat as something that had always been there but was only now being noticed, and shrug it off the same way all the Queens who had been part of Jaenelle Angelline’s coven had shrugged it off. If the girl couldn’t ignore it, he’d have to bar her from his home to keep her from making a lethal mistake.

He watched Jillian, Daemonar, and Titian fly toward the eyrie where Lord Endar taught the Eyrien children.

Vanishing the sparring stick, Lucivar crossed the yard and went inside.

Marian—his wife, friend, and partner, and the love of his life—smiled when he walked into the kitchen. She poured a cup of coffee and handed it to him. “You missed breakfast. And you missed the chaos.”

“Did you notice how much quieter it was last week when Daemonar was visiting his uncle?” Lucivar asked.

“Oh, I think everyone in Riada noticed how much quieter it was,” Marian replied. “But he is your son, after all.”

“You had something to do with him being here,” Lucivar protested.

“Not that part of him. That all came from you.”

Hard to argue the truth of it. His son was growing into a formidable—meaning a pain-in-the-ass—Warlord Prince whose Birthright Green Jewel almost matched Rothvar’s Green Jewel of rank in strength.

“I saved you a plate of food,” Marian said. Then she frowned. “Lucivar?”

She insisted she was fine, but she hadn’t regained her strength or energy since baby Andulvar’s birth. He knew she wasn’t happy about his lack of enthusiasm for sex and had started wondering if he no longer found her attractive, which was so far from the truth it was laughable. He wanted her desperately some nights, but even when he was gentle and careful, their lovemaking seemed to devour her strength.

He’d insisted that she go to the Healer who served the Queen of Amdarh, Dhemlan’s capital city. Lady Zhara’s Healer couldn’t find a cause for the slower-than-normal recovery from the birthing. Like Nurian, Zhara’s Healer tacitly agreed that something wasn’t right, but neither of them could find anything wrong. And Marian insisted she was getting better, so there wasn’t much he could do—and the only person whose opinion could have made a difference had died years ago.