But, gods, he was hurting, and dying to do just that. He’d loosened the fastenings of his trousers earlier, rather than find himself strangled within them when the Change occurred. And he’d brought one of the bottles of oil for himself when he’d fetched Sevin’s. Now he opened it and spilled oil into his cupped palm. Then, with a hard toss, he sent it into a corner where it cracked on the stone floor, but did not shatter. The couple across the room took no notice.
His spine hit the wall behind him, and he took himself in his own oiled hands. His head fell back as he began long, slow, dual upward tugs. In the wake of his fists, labyrinths of purpled veins sprouted along his lengths.
Ahhh, gods.
At the top of his strokes, the O of his fists met the jutted rims at the plinths of his crowns. He heard his brother’s low growl; heard the Patrizzi woman’s thready moans as he whispered to her in the ancient language.
His pricks surged and he groaned. How much more must he stand? How horribly ironic it was that he must change in this way once a month—that his body must be driven to crave fornication—when all he wanted was to be left alone! To feel nothing.
His grips angled so the knuckles of his forefingers massaged the sensitive notches at the undersides of both crowns. Rounding the plump heads, his thumbs found and smeared twin pearls of pre-cum in identical slits.
A hard shudder took him.
Slowly and with experienced hands, he set a familiar, arousing pump, masturbating himself.
Why could this not be enough?
Why must the blood of his ancestors sing in his veins and call to him, demanding more? Why must it bid him to ignore his phobia of having another being touch him skin on skin, in order that he take a female under him and engage her in passionate pursuits throughout this long, treacherous night?
In the distance, Sevin’s voice turned rough, urgent. During passionate engagements, he and his brothers were all linked, causing him to share an echo of Sevin’s pleasure.
Luc’s erections strained, the knotted veins now standing from them in such stark relief that he could feel the difference under his hands. Even from across the room, he could sense his brother’s desperate wanting of the woman he held. This was more than just fucking. Sevin
cared
for her. Why? She was no better than any other. Worse than most, by his estimation.
Luc gritted his teeth against the terrible lust that now racked his body. He would not be able to find relief by the use of his own hands no matter how he worked at it. Only the cradle of a woman would offer the sort of sensual oblivion that would keep him sane on a night such as this.
His eyes opened and found his brother’s partner. The lamplight burnished her pale hair to gold and glistened on her sleek, undulating back. Sevin was right. He would need her.
At least she didn’t have the look of her brother, Gaetano. His torturer. At the thought of him a tremor of dread shook Luc. His jaw hardened against it. No, he must not think of that now. Not here, of all places. That bastard was dead. He’d seen to that himself, using his talent to kill him on the same day his brothers had rescued him from these very tunnels.
Now he only needed to forget. To lose himself in this night. In a woman.
He smiled faintly, as a thought occurred. Gaetano would surely have hated the very idea of his former captive, Lord Lucien Satyr, fucking his pristine sister. Perhaps that in itself was reason enough to force himself to mate Alexa Patrizzi when Sevin was done.
Sevin’s slitted gaze watched Alexa’s smooth back, mesmerized by its sensuous bow and arch as she took him into her and then gave him up and then took him yet again. She stood between his legs, half lying upon the stack of trunks before them, her pale hair a silken swath in the darkness.
Her breathy moans rode the air, mingling with his low carnal groans. He murmured to her, dark sex words. Words his ancestors had whispered to their mates on nights such as these throughout centuries past. He wanted to come inside her, to feel her take his spend, to feel her cream for him, pulse for him.
His thighs went outside hers, pinning her even tighter for his push. She took him like two hot, slick fists, again and again. His white-knuckled hands gripped the sides of the leather trunk. The stack of them lurched against the wall under each of his powerful thrusts. Her gossamer gown was bunched high at the small of her back, its sleeves still precariously looped at her elbows. The perfect white globes of her bottom shuddered as he ground his flesh into hers like the aggressive, rutting animal he’d become.
She was panting now, emitting tiny whimpers each time he fucked her, urging him on with her dulcet moans and ecstatic cries. She was tight, buttery-slick, and hot. So fucking hot.
All thought had flown from his mind. There was nothing but this. The two of them together. Him holding her. Fucking her. Raw need spiraled in him, ever higher and darker. Harsh breath sawed in his lungs. His balls drew up painfully tight. He felt himself losing control. Felt himself hurtling toward the most monumental ejaculation of his life.
Alexa shrieked at the suddenness of her own climax, her body curling and going stiff under its force. Her tissues milked at him—enticing his cum, promising him ecstasy.
His hands flexed on her hips, and he groaned hoarsely, a low animal sound that was a harbinger of his finish. Then he drove himself deep, so impossibly deep in her. One ... last ... time. His teeth bared and the tendons in his neck went stark as every muscle in his body seized.
Then a triumphant, strangled shout tore from his throat as he found his release at last, at last. She cried out again under the force of it, and her nether flesh clenched on his cocks with a renewed, delicate strength. He came again, yet again, deep inside her, in hot rhythmic spurts that went on and on... .
Ahh, gods.
He reached for her and pulled her to stand with him, cradling her body to his. Crossing his arms over her, he crushed her breasts in his hands and twisted their sensitive peaks. She arched and covered his hands, moaning with pleasure. They stood there together, arching under each successive pulse of their flesh.
Then he pressed his mouth to the iris inked on her throat. Marking her. Binding her to him. Binding himself to her in the most elemental way possible.
She was his now.
And he, hers.
Alexa drew a sharp breath as yet another echo of the orgasm she’d just experienced shuddered through her. She felt Sevin’s phallus pulse inside her in response. His body was warm at her back, his spill slick inside her. She sighed, replete, her body and mind more relaxed than she could ever recall.
He held her close now in the humid aftermath of passion, their breath still heaving as one. She’d felt his pelvic cock retract inside him earlier, once it had finished. But the cock rooted at his groin still filled her, lodged heavy and thick within the snug harbor of her vaginal walls.
It had all been so different, so wonderfully different than that horrible experience in Venice. Yet Sevin had been right in what he’d said before. Her desire for him—for more of this—hadn’t waned. Already, she wanted him again. Wanted the ecstasy again. It was addictive.
He
was addictive. And he was hers, for the rest of the night.
Long seconds later, she stilled. Something intangible was there, brushing at the edges of her mind. It pushed, oh, so gently. Pricking at her memories. Invading them. Her eyes flew open. Her brow knit as the mental nudge came again, more insistently this time.
Stiffening, she turned her head toward her lover, the man whose body was still linked with hers. “No. I don’t want to remember,” she begged. “Please.”
“Shh,”
he whispered, his hand gently smoothing her hair. “Relax,” he murmured. His body disengaged from hers, but still his mind probed hers, delving deeper, searching.
Alexa gasped and then whimpered and shook her head. “No! Don’t make me think of them,” she whispered. “They were monsters, best forgotten.”
Sevin hardened his heart against her pleas. “
Shh
. Luc has to know.” And then more quietly, he added, “
I
have to know.”
Gods, please don’t let her turn out to be a liar,
he silently prayed.
He let his mind ease farther into hers and eventually she relaxed under him, unaware now that he was rifling through her memories. And then abruptly, he found what he was looking for.
In his own mind’s eye, he saw Alexa standing in a room that was unfamiliar to him. But she knew it well and her mind informed his. It was a small but elegant library in the Patrizzi mansion on Capitoline. The date of the scene he would witness taking place here was roughly four months ago. It was a scene that was only a memory. Her memory. One he would coax her to share with him now.
He joined her there, stood alongside her in this remembrance. He was an unseen specter in her family home, there to watch a specific drama unfold.
Across the room from her stood her mother and brother—Serafina and Gaetano Patrizzi. The mother was in an argumentative mood, vastly irritated with Alexa... .
“What’s going on?” asked Gaetano, looking from Alexa to Serafina.
“I’m glad you’re here, Tano,” his mother told him. “I’ve decided it’s time your sister learned the truth about the workings of our little family business.”
Gaetano’s eyes sharpened, and his voice turned agitated. “Why?”
Serafina shrugged. “Because the other Daughters of Bona Dea and I have agreed it’s time. Shall we go?” With that, she lead her two grown children toward the opposite side of the room, pausing beside a bookcase filled with jars and vials. The labels indicated they were products sold by Bona Dea Cosmetics, the Patrizzi business.
“You’re coming down, too?” Gaetano asked, glancing back at his sister.
“Down where?” Alexa asked blankly. “What business?”
Serafina laughed lightly. “Our cosmetics, of course. Haven’t you ever wondered how they are made, and where?”
“Well, yes, I’ve asked you many times, but you said young ladies were not to concern themselves with matters of finance and manufacture.”
Serafina cupped her daughter’s cheek fondly. “Ah, but you’re grown-up now, and one day you and Tano must carry on for the family when I’m gone. It’s time you learned.” Along the wall, she pulled a lever that turned the bookcase.
Alexa gasped when an opening appeared behind it that lead to a tall, crude tunnel hewn from rock. A hidden entrance to the catacombs!
Serafina stepped inside and lit a decorative lantern with a matchstick.
“Why didn’t I know about this?” said Alexa, moving to peer inside. “It’s rather Gothic. Frightening, actually.”
“You haven’t seen anything yet,” her brother murmured.
“Come along.” Serafina nodded to Gaetano, who lit another lantern and gestured for Alexa to precede him through the labyrinth. “The first thing you must understand,” Serafina went on to her daughter as she lead the pair inside the serpentine corridor, “is that there is a world beyond ours, accessed through a gate in Tuscany. Your friend Eva is from that world, as are the Satyr lords.”
Alexa stopped short. “What?” she asked faintly.
“Why does she have to know?” Gaetano bit out. Alexa looked his way, her brow knit.
“But how adorable,” Serafina cooed at him in delight. “You, playing the protective older brother. That will work nicely into my plans, for your sister is to be inducted into womanhood soon. And since your father is no longer with us, you have been chosen by the Daughters to stand in for him with her.”
Gaetano looked stunned by this announcement.
“What are you talking about?” Alexa demanded, sounding wary now.
“She wants me to act as Faunus with you,” her brother told her angrily. “A man who sought incest with his own daughter, Bona Dea—as in our own Bona Dea Cosmetics. I’m to get you drunk, then lie with you as a husband would. They’ll likely drug you so you won’t remember afterward.”
“No! Stop it!” Alexa was pale now and she backed away.
But Serafina grabbed her wrist, pulling her close again. “I know it seems strange now, but you’ll grow used to it. It’s a tradition in our family.” She smoothed back a strand of hair that had fallen across Alexa’s brow. “My father bedded me when I was your age. But your father is dead, so Tano is my choice for you. Better he than one of the bloated husbands of the other Daughters. They take their pleasures in the bowels of the earth, while the Daughters and I conduct other business here.”
Alexa shook her head, and Sevin felt her horror. “You can’t mean it!”
“We’re descended from gods, Alexa!” her mother exclaimed. “Bona Dea and Faunus dictated long ago that a mating has to occur among family before you can eventually wed. It’s tradition. Be proud.”
Alexa looked at her mother and brother as if she’d never seen them before. “Proud? I’ve never been more ashamed!”
With that, she turned and ran.
Thank the gods Alexa had escaped.
It was Sevin’s uppermost thought as he released her mind from his thrall. And then came the additional realization that she was innocent! She’d had no part in her family’s schemes. Euphoria filled him at the knowledge.
He’d already disengaged from her, and now he turned her into his arms. Her face was dewy and still flushed from an earlier passion. Her gentle tears flowed, damp on his chest as she stood unresisting in his embrace, her arms lax at her sides.
“Make me forget,” she whispered, and his heart twisted painfully for her.
“The memory will fade again into the recesses of your mind in the coming hours,” he promised. “By dawn it will be as distant as it was before I resurrected it.”
If he could, he would erase the pain of the scene he’d just witnessed from her mind forever. She’d been sickened to learn that her family—the very mother and brother who had nurtured her, and whose blood flowed in her veins—were monsters. He’d felt her reeling under the devastating impact of the discovery. And now he’d reopened the wound, rendered it as fresh and horrifying as that day, months ago.