He rubbed a soothing hand over her back, and kissed the top of her bowed head, murmuring to her. Giving her time to recover.
Beyond her, he felt Luc’s need, but Sevin didn’t acknowledge him. Not yet. This moment was for her. For healing.
Eventually, her tears died away, and Sevin lifted his gaze to meet his brother’s. “She didn’t know,” he announced softly.
Luc’s mirrored eyes glittered through the surrounding murk, suspicious. “Don’t lie just to get your way.”
“It’s true, I swear it on the ancients,” Sevin said with quiet assurance. He watched the lingering doubt slowly extinguish itself. Saw the precise instant his brother believed.
A
s Alexa swam back to consciousness, she snuggled into the lee of Sevin’s broad chest. His attention had wandered from her briefly. The brothers were speaking to each other again in that foreign language—their native tongue.
Though she had struggled against the memory he’d brought to the forefront of her mind, she couldn’t be angry with him. She understood his need to discover the truth and was glad she’d been vindicated. Still, she didn’t want thoughts of her family to mar this time and sought to push them away.
With a sigh, she slid her arms around his waist. Through the veil of her nightgown, she felt the hardness of his phallus. Only one remained now, and it stood high and ready from the pelt at his groin.
She thrilled to the knowledge that they would mate again soon. Perhaps this time, she might gaze into his eyes and know his mouth on hers when a second fulfillment ripped through her.
As he’d promised, his taking had not harmed her. Instead, it had left her body humming with a desire for more of the same. Her flesh was highly sensitized to his every touch, and when he idly caressed her back as he spoke with his brother, she shifted in his arms at the pleasurable sensation, like a cat being stroked. A faint echo of her former orgasm gently quaked inside her, and her nether tissues pulsed, slick with his viscous spill.
Though he’d been forceful with her, it had been a passionate force, not the cruel handling she’d experienced in Venice. The latter had been an act of power and brutality, while this man’s lovemaking had been born of a marrow-deep masculine desire. A desire to both give and receive pleasure.
Feeling a new tension seep into his body, she lifted her head, immediately sensing his anticipation. Then came the warmth of a second man at her back—one who’d come to stand mere feet away. She’d tried to forget him. But now she took a fortifying breath and then turned her head slightly in his direction.
It was Lord Lucien Satyr. A man who hated her.
His soulful eyes flickered over her and a muscle jerked in his cheek. Suddenly self-conscious, Alexa tugged her gown higher and shrugged into it. The two brothers who towered over her made no move to stop her. She linked the fingers of her hand with one of Sevin’s, then glanced at Lucien again.
He was young, she realized, certainly no older than she was. And so very beautiful, like some wounded angel. His features were the stuff of romantic legend, his body strongly muscled. His shirt was unbuttoned, and the skin of his chest was smooth and paler than that of his brother. His was a body that had not known the sun for a dozen years. All because her family had drugged and imprisoned him, here in this cool, forgotten place.
Before any other human in Rome had known that ElseWorld existed, her family had known. They’d brought Lucien down here along with other creatures they’d captured from that adjacent world. They’d sold his sexual favors, and used him in other ways equally heinous.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “Sorry for every hurt and every cruelty my family forced upon you.” She reached a hand out to him.
But before she made contact, Lucien snatched her wrist in his fingers. “Don’t touch me,” he murmured. “Let me touch you instead, and all will be well.”
Her eyes searched his, her heart weeping for him. The abuse he’d suffered had made him this way. Had made him shun the touch of others, and doomed him to loneliness. Although she didn’t understand the whole of it, she only nodded and he let her go.
Sevin’s arms came around her in a loose hold, and she relaxed into his support as she studied his brother. “I had no part in what happened to you,” she told Lucien solemnly.
He nodded, a curt movement of his dark head, and a small silence fell. Alexa felt the brothers’ watchfulness, sensed them waiting for her to make some move. Determination filled her, a need to set things right. A need to ease this man’s pain. At length, she straightened away from Sevin.
Holding the eyes of his beautiful, wounded brother, who stood so still and distant before her, she spoke. “Let this night be my payment—freely offered to you—as a recompense for what my family did,” she told him. As her words died away, she pushed her nightgown from her shoulders, letting her arms fall to her sides. The gown lost its moorings, and drifted lower, falling from her in a smooth silken swish to pool at her feet.
Lucien studied her for a long moment, the same lean, hungry look in his eyes that she’d seen before. Then his head lifted and he gazed over her to Sevin. Something passed between the brothers, some unseen signal, though neither moved.
And then Sevin took her shoulders and turned her to face him.
She rested her palms upon his chest and he covered them with his own. Behind her, she heard the shift of clothing. Fabric brushed her bottom as Lucien’s trousers lowered, and she shivered, leaning into Sevin’s embrace. Though she’d given permission and would willingly submit, this was all too new.
Her curiosity about the Satyr had long been a part of her, and she had a rich imagination when it came to her daydreams about them. But her imaginings had never taken her to a place where two brothers would lie with her; where one would hold her close, while a second joined his body to hers.
But within seconds, the pale damaged angel behind her would come inside her where his elder brother had so recently been. The smooth heads of his twin phalluses would find her feminine slit and the opening in the crease of her bottom, and push inside her there. His path would be easier than it might have been had another not paved his way. He would find her slick and ready and wanting. Made so by his sibling’s prior lovemaking.
Behind her, masculine hands drifted lightly over her ribs, downward to hold her hips. Her eyes flew open and lifted to Sevin’s. He was gazing down at her, his silver eyes full of an emotion she could not decipher. He took her hands and looped them around his neck, holding her as he angled his head closer.
“Thank you,” he whispered.
Then he put his mouth on hers, swallowing her cry as his brother took her.
Just after dawn, Sevin washed up at the fountain’s basin, wondering again at the source of its fresh waters as he pulled on his trousers and boots. Shrugging into his shirt he stood and stared down at Alexa where she lay sleeping on the makeshift bed he’d constructed the previous night.
She lay on her side, one leg cocked and a forearm pillowing her head. Blond silken waves of hair spilled out across the blanket around her like a halo. His eyes roved over her, noting the bruised shadows under the sweep of her lashes, the chafing his evening beard had left on her white throat, the voluptuous breasts marked by his passionate mouth.
He pulled a fresh blanket from one of the trunks and laid it over her so it covered her nakedness. She didn’t stir. After a Calling night, males of ElseWorld blood were energized, but their women usually slept the day away.
Their
women. Yes, she’d lain with both Luc and him last night. But she’d been
his
woman. And though this had gone unspoken, all of them had known it.
She’d shown herself to be innocent of her family’s wrongdoing. And she was neither a harlot, nor a mistress a man paid to enjoy between the sheets. Therefore, he must repay her for what she’d done in the way any man of good breeding must. With marriage.
The thought was a new one, and one he’d never considered before with any woman. Not even Clara, for they’d been too young, and in her tribe marriage was not the expected result of a mating.
Yet the idea of wedding this woman did not terrify him, strangely enough. Rather it filled him with determination to see it come about. He could not regret all that passed between them and found that he relished the thought of having her beside him in the years to come. His soul and body recognized her as his, as what was meant to be.
After this night, a remembrance of their joining would remain with her, a new constant in her physical makeup. She would long to lie with him again, and if she proved stubborn and difficult to convince in the matter of a marriage to him, he would use her desire as leverage. As her husband, he would protect her, cherish her. He would not let her go the way that Clara had.
“Lantern’s still got a few hours left in it.” Luc’s voice was pitched low so as to let Alexa sleep a few minutes longer. Already bathed and dressed, he stood across the room tinkering with the lamp.
Sevin slanted a glance in his direction as he began buttoning his shirt. “Are you all right?”
Luc shrugged, not meeting his eyes. “The headache’s gone, if that’s what you want to know. A Calling night always has the effect of relieving it. And I’m alive. Thanks to you.”
“Thank her, not me.” Sevin nodded toward Alexa.
“Maybe I will.” A slight smile tugged at one corner of his brother’s lips and then was gone. Luc gestured toward the riches stacked high in every corner. “That fountain and most of these artifacts were made in ElseWorld. Are they from the Forum digs? Stored here by smugglers, do you think? Or by the Patrizzis?”
“Bastian is the expert,” said Sevin, shrugging. “He and I will come back later to examine everything. But first things first. I’ll wake her. Then let’s find our way out of here.”
Luc nodded. “Any thoughts on which direction to choose? Toss a coin or ... ?” He broke off mid-sentence.
Sevin glanced back to see him swaying on his feet.
Luc held out both his hands, staring at them as if he’d never seen them before. “It’s happening again.”
Alarmed, Sevin lunged for him just as his brother instinctively reached out for an anchor. His hand found Sevin, and clamped on his arm. The room around them began to waver and spin as it had the night before. Sevin felt disoriented and was hit with a sense of vertigo.
“Wait—Alexa!” He started to jerk away, but it was too late. He only had time for one last glimpse of her before she and the room were gone.
Or rather he and Luc were gone.
Seconds later, the two of them were back in the
Salone di Passione
again, far across Capitoline Hill from the sleeping woman they’d left behind. He prayed to the gods that she would not become lost before he found her again.
Hearing Sevin cry her name, Alexa was abruptly jolted from sleep. She sat up, remembering the entire night that had passed before with immediate clarity. Her eyes searched the room, lightning fast.
“Sevin? Lucien?” Gathering the topmost coverlet around her nakedness, she stood and went to the door. Interminable darkness stretched in both directions. “Sevin!”
Only her own voice echoed, mocking her. She was alone. In a very short time, she’d learned enough of Sevin’s character to be certain he would not have intentionally deserted her. She could only assume the two brothers must have traveled elsewhere in the same unexpected, magical manner that he’d said had brought them here last night.
Though this place was incredibly eerie, she tried to stay calm. At least the lamp was still burning. She searched out her nightgown, dressing quickly. Assuming she would spend the evening alone last night, she’d donned these frilly feminine nightclothes that she so enjoyed. Her mother would have hated them, deeming them unfit for a lady. They were things Alexa had impulsively bought in Venice as she’d sought to cast off her former life and find a new one as quickly as possible. But now she wrapped a thin blanket around her shoulders to serve as a cape of sorts.
Moving about this morning was a test of her tired muscles. Her body ached sweetly with every step, a pleasant reminder of the hours she’d spent with the brothers Satyr. A hundred fulfillments indeed. They’d been rough with her on occasion, but it was a thrilling sort of impassioned handling that had greatly appealed at the time.
Yet surprisingly, there was no pain this morning. Unlike the single other time she’d lain with a man a few months ago. The experience with him had lasted mere minutes but had pained her for a week.
Was that very man awaiting her even now in her home?
she wondered as she lifted the gas lamp high and stepped into the corridor. She would strike out in the direction from which she’d come last night, hope to slip into the house unnoticed, and then dress in a more inconspicuous manner before she must confront her rapist.
As her bare feet flew through the serpentine tunnel, her mind was filled with thoughts of the night with Sevin. After their tenth mating, she’d lost count of how many times he and Lucien had joined with her and in how many ways.
She shook her head, remembering how she’d laughed with Eva only months ago about a statue that had been uncovered in the Forum. It had depicted a Satyr with not one but two male members at its groin. At the time, she’d thought it had been the product of an artist taking licentious license. She’d been wrong.
She marveled again over the fact that she was neither chafed nor terribly sore. As Sevin had promised, their gods had gifted them with an ability to soothe any physical stresses that their continued mating might otherwise have caused her. She had grown to greatly appreciate this ability in them as the night had worn on.
Their scent, their touch, their low-voiced words, and the pump of their seed into her had all been designed to keep her arousal at a fevered pitch, thus ensuring her willingness to mate with them for the length of time they required. She now felt thoroughly explored, and completely exhausted.
Unfortunately, she also felt ready for more.