Daemon & Sunny Ch. 04

"You overstep yourself!" Stung by her chain of logic, touching on suspicions Daemon himself had harbored, he felt the need to defend his leanings.

Sunny counterattacked before he could lash into her any more than that. "You overstep yourself! You took an oath the day you put on that crown, to obey the laws of the Imperium. Now you're going to break a second one!"

"Asecond one? What other Law have I 'already' broken?" he demanded.

She tapped her throat, where the ribbon of the slave collar used to be. It wasn't there anymore, but the implication was. He colored. Sunny went on, driving her point home. "Keeping me as a slave only affects you and me. Signing this preferential treaty will affect everyone in both empires, and not necessarily for Astorra's good! And as Astorra's king, youmust take the long-term view into considerationover the short term—and before you can make a soddering crack about my not knowing what I'm talking about, I am ahistorian. The long term view is myspeciality." She thumped the covers of his bed with a finger, staring him down. "I know whereof I speak, Daemon Astorre! Now, if you're doing this because the Ruyikans pleased you by giving me to you, then you'redefinitely considering the treaty favorably for the wrong reasons."

Daemon had the grace to blush at that accusation. He lifted his chin and stared her down. "How else do I show my pleasure in you? And what makes you so sure the Ruyikans' spies should be linked in the same breath as the deaths of my father and brother?"

"I don't know. All I know is, Lord Crellan threatened me when he was bringing me here—threats that sounded like he could kill me at will once I was in thesaeda, and not fear any repercussions from it. Things from what I sensed from him a week ago, when he demanded to see me because most of thesaeda's staff had been dismissed, when he didn't have his spies in thesaeda anymore. The feeling I got that he and his queen want something from you as the Astorran king—a sense of a pattern forming whenever I think about it. Maybe I've been exposed to something that's heightened my instincts, maybe even given me a latent psychic awareness along with my odd freckles, or it could be natural—spontaneous psychic sensitivity may be rare, but itdoes occur on worlds other than ones such as Azran, or Mindrel, or far off Kintaka! All I know is,I don't trust him. For your own safety, I suggest that you don't, either."

"If you really are growing mentally sensitive," Daemon challenged, "if I refuse, and my predecessors' deaths are linked to their refusal of this treaty—what happens to me if I refuse it?"

Sunny opened her mouth to answer with the truth, that he wouldn't be harmed in the least...then sealed her lips. He still wasn't treating her as an equal yet, wasn't accepting her advice on a par with a co-ruler's. She couldn't tell him he was the future Emperor, and that the Matrix would protect both of them from anything but a natural, old-age death from now on, when it was their proper time to die and for the Matrix to pass on to new keepers. Not yet. "I don't know. Tell the Ambassador that you need more time to consider the treaty—tell him that all of your new duties as king occupy so much of your attention, you want to wait until you have time to devote more of your attention to it. If he presses you, tell him you find the idea is intriguing and has merit, but don't say anything more, and that should settle his pressing for a little while. At least long enough for you to decide how much you believe in the laws of the Imperium, and how much you believe in my instincts.Don't make this decision immediately. The art of dangling hope in a bid for more time is a vital skill for a monarch to possess. If you intend to die of old age, you're going to have to start practicing it right now."

Her words made sense to him. Daemon did believe in Imperium Law—he'd taken history courses, and knew about the constant battle and strife that had plagued the member worlds before the Pax Imperium had been imposed, knew that the Imperium's authority, even weakened as it was right now, was better than a continuing threat of strife. He wasn't sure if he believed in her instincts, but her comment about his urge to please the ambassador had the sting of truth to it. Not entirely, but it had been a factor in his leanings. Raising his knees from the mattress, he leaned his elbows on them and rubbed at his face with his hands.

"You can practice your monarchial skills now, whether or not you agree with me. Just say, 'I'll take that under advisement,' and you'll be the perfect king," Sunny prodded, daring to tease him a little now that he was thinking instead of defending.

"I'd rather practice my lovemaking skills," Daemon stated, uncurling and hauling her down to the bed under him with a lithe twist of their naked bodies. He nibbled his way around her face, across her cheekbones and nose, over her forehead and down around her chin, brushed his lips over hers, then pulled back. A wicked spark lit up his pale sea eyes. "Iam grateful to Lord Crellan for his excellent taste in concubines. You never answered my question—how should I reward him for giving you to me?"

"Reward him?" Sunny asked, pondering his question lightly as he returned to nibbling here and there with soft, savoring kisses. "I was thinking more along the lines of torturing h...hee hee! Dae, that tickles!"

He grinned and stroked his tongue around the curves of her ear a second time. He liked the sensual way she squirmed under him. "Mmm, good..."

"You haven't told me about the rest of your day," she reminded him, firmly gathering her scattering wits, doing her best to ignore his onslaught.

"You haven't answered my question."

"Oh, for the love of Natura—! Give him one of those ugly, eyesore artworks every palace has lurking somewhere as a gift from someone a past king couldn't offend."

Daemon pulled back and studied her with a mock-frown. "Are you sure you aren't actually a queen in disguise? Because that'sexactly the sort of junk we've got crammed into the palace attic."

Sunny grinned. "A queen? No, I'm not a queen," she answered truthfully. Now,empress was something else entirely... "I'm a historian, Daemon Astorre. Part of my education was learning how to glean history from lists of all sorts of things—guest lists, gift lists, grocery lists... It's a historical fact that someone in almost every culture gives something grossly useless to someone else, at some point in time."

"What is your last name, anyway?" Daemon asked her, curious. "Or do your people have any last names or clan names, family names, that sort of thing?"

"Craida follows a geriartrichal clanship—the eldest same-gender member of a direct descent family is the keystone for drawing relations. Dannonee was the name of the eldest woman on my mother's side still alive when I was born, my great-grandmother."

"So...if you outlive all the other women in your family, you'd eventually have a couple of girls running around calling themselves...Stasrie Sundrea, or Andranna Sundrea?"

"They'd have to be my own kids and grandkids, but yes. If you were a Craidan, or married to one," Sunny added, deliberately keeping her tone light, "some distant grandson or great-grandson could be Grant Daemon, or Rajo Daemon."

"Rajo? That's the name of Armon's lover!" he exclaimed in mock-dismay. "The man hasno taste! Did you see the hideous vase he gave me for my coro—oh, nowthere's an idea..."

"Now, Daemon, you can't give anything that someone still alive might remember," Sunny cautioned him. "There's a definite line between discreetly offloading something old that you don't want to keep, and blatantly offloading a new monstrosity in front of its previous giver."

"Then how aboutyou picking out the tacky, tactless offering?" Daemon returned. "That way you can torture him with someone's long-dead bad taste, and I can offload my gratitude, all in one gesture."

"Deal. Now, while I'm on a bargaining roll..."

Daemon eyed her warily. "What do you want now?"

Tempted, Sunny didn't press for her freedom—it was symbolic at this point; necessary, but not immediately so. Instead, she pressed for something more. With her hips arched up and rubbed against his. "I was wondering if I could lure you to the, ah, negotiating bed."

He grinned. "Why not a table?"

She gave him a hard look. "Because the last table you had me on squeaked rather distractingly; it was rather alarming, constantly wondering if it was going to collapse under us. And I still want to know what happened after you saw Lord Crellan's treaty petition."

"So you can pry at my duties and and argue with my decisions?"

"You're just soddered that I'm right."

"You are not!"

She stuck out her tongue at him. He dropped down and caught it in his mouth, sucking on it. Coaxing her into sucking on his. The rest of his day got set aside in favor of exploring a little more of his night.