PROLOGUECopyright Page
I
n centuries past, the Satyr secretly dwelled throughout Italy, watching over the vineyards of the wine god, Bacchus. After a Great Sickness arose, few remained to protect a sacred gate between EarthWorld and ElseWorld, a parallel realm populated by creatures of myth.
The corridor of lands extending from Tuscany southward to Rome was once so thoroughly bespelled that ElseWorld immigrants went largely unnoticed. But the recent discovery of their existence by humans threatens a small clan of Satyr lords in Rome.
They are four brothers of ancient Satyr blood—Bastian, Sevin, Dane, and Lucien. Entrusted with safeguarding artifacts created by their ancestors—artifacts that are even now being excavated in the Forum—they are determined to protect their families and holdings in their adopted human world.
Upon the coming of each new month, their blood beckons them to heed the full moon’s call to mate. To deny this carnal call is to perish. To heed it, bliss.
SEVIN
Capitoline Hill, Rome
“H
eathens!” “Heretics!” “Go back where you came from!”
Lord Sevin Satyr braced a muscled forearm on the stone doorjamb at the front entrance to the
Salone di Passione
and surveyed the throng in the street below with disgust. The fearful; the haters; the avid, ethnic purists; and end-of-the-world prophets. Hundreds had come despite the gray drizzle and looming storm, all of them squeezing into the narrow streets of Capitoline. The smallest of the Seven Hills of Rome, it was thick with monuments, museums, medieval
palazzi,
and one very exclusive club where humans could not trespass—his infamous salon.
Rising three stories high, its gleaming marble façade was lined with soaring Corinthian pilasters crowned with carven olive branches. Its magnificent staircase stretched before him, sweeping downward to the street below. All of this grandeur only hinted at the glories to be had inside.
Although it was only late afternoon, some who’d gathered carried torches and lanterns. Either they were planning a long siege or they had visions of burning him out.
Good luck with that,
Sevin thought grimly. The centuries-old veil of magic that had protected ElseWorld creatures such as he from human perception in this world had been destroyed only weeks ago, but the Satyr still had the ability to erect an invisible forcewall around something as small as a single building. These hecklers weren’t getting through the barrier he’d established around the salon’s perimeter, no matter how they tried.
Someone pitched a bottle at one of the high windows and it bounced off the magic shielding it. Sharp gasps of surprise and awe filled the street in reaction. Whispers swelled into fearful shouts and dire predictions.
Knowing the barrier to be impenetrable, he’d opted not to employ extra security tonight, nothing beyond the usual guards. A show of excessive force was the surest way to start trouble. He rarely questioned one of his decisions, but now—
“Fifty hells!” he snarled. “I didn’t expect it to be this bad.”
“I expected worse,” his youngest brother, Lucien, replied darkly. He stood nearby on the landing with his arms folded and surveyed the mob with brooding eyes. “First Calling night since creatures from an alternate world are discovered in their midst? Naturally these backward humans would all turn out to witness the comings and goings.”
“That’s the Italians for you—any excuse for a celebration,” added the muscle-bound, one-eyed sentry who stood guard at the door.
“Or for a riot,” Luc put in.
Sevin stepped over and reached upward. With a hard jerk, he unfurled the wine-colored banners on either side of the entrance doors, formally signaling their anticipation of the upcoming Calling night.
More whispers.
What was the significance of the flags?
the humans wondered.
“Next Calling, perhaps we should hand out explanatory leaflets,” Luc suggested wryly.
A slight smile curved Sevin’s lips, drawing a line at one side of his mouth that hinted at his famous dimples. “They’d pay well for such a privilege, I imagine.”
Luc shot him a hard glance. “Surely, why not just invite them all inside to goggle their fill instead of leaving them out here to speculate on what we get up to under a full moon?”
The sentry sniggered.
Luc had spoken in jest, but in actuality Sevin had been thinking along similar lines in all seriousness. This outpouring of fear and hatred was not only dangerous for his family’s future here in this world, it was bad for business. Which meant that he was going to have to find a way to get into the good graces of these humans. He had a solution in mind, but tonight was not the time to put his plan in motion.
No, tonight, like his brothers’, his thoughts must instead turn to other things. To matters of sensual gratification. For the Satyr had been born to act as carnal followers of the wine god, Bacchus. With the coming of the whole moon tonight, they would succumb to an inextricable sexual thrall. One that called upon them to worship the ancients through the lustful actions of their own flesh. A craving to do so would become a fever in his blood. In the blood of all creatures from his world.
During their collective erotic surrender, all would be vulnerable in the time to come and must seek out a safe haven for the hours from dusk to dawn. Until now, no haven had been safer than the salon. Until now, they’d managed to keep this place hidden from prying eyes. Invisible to humans.
But no longer.
“How are the rest of our clients going to make their way through this crap?” Sevin muttered. “And where are Bastian and Dane?”
“I doubt many more will chance it, signor,” said a feminine voice. “I suppose we’ll all just have to entertain ourselves tonight, won’t we?”
He glanced over one shoulder. His new hire, Signorina Ella Carbone, had come slinking out to join them. A fey female with long red hair and a rouged mouth set in a perpetual sultry pout, she had a fondness for putting her hands where they weren’t wanted.
All three men on the landing watched as she artfully molded her considerable curves along Sevin’s side, smiling up at him through long artificial lashes. “You’re so tense,” she purred. “Maybe I can help you with that, hmm?”
He felt his companions’ speculation, but the truth was he hadn’t lain with this woman, and wouldn’t. When he and his brothers had reached their eighteenth year, each had in turn taken part in their first Calling, whereupon they had been gifted with a different and unique talent.
His lent a special meaning to the act of coition. When he first lay with a woman he would become privy to her closely guarded secrets. It was a talent useful for ferreting out classified information in business dealings and had garnered him a reputation—even among other Satyr—for a keen ability to intuit and fulfill a woman’s fleshly desires.
But after years of liaisons with women like this, he didn’t need to lie with this one to learn her goal. She wanted to rut with one of the legendary Satyr on this special night. To use him for the rare carnal animal he would become. To have him fornicate with her until dawn with not one, but two cocks, his sexual energy and her pleasure never flagging. And later, she hoped to lord it over the others that the powerful owner of the salon had chosen her.
One of her hands slipped under his long coat and flexed brazenly on his rear, her other slipping between the buttons of his linen shirt to stroke his chest. He caught her wrist in a hard grip and shot a dark glance in the direction of the sentry. Sevin was no woman’s trophy.
Springing into action, the sentry briskly peeled her away and steered her inside with a determined hand at her back. “It grows dangerous out here. I must insist you go inside, for safety reasons, you understand.” Ella found her protests falling on deaf ears as she was finessed off into the depths of the salon where her wiles could be put to more effective use among its patrons.
The uniquely talented men and women who were employed in this house of pleasure were here by their own choice, and they abided by Sevin’s rules or quickly found themselves tossed out. He had rules for himself as well, and rule number one was never to show favoritism by taking an employee to bed. It was bad for morale.
A carriage pulled up at the foot of the granite steps, and the woman was quickly forgotten. Bastian, his eldest brother, leaped from the conveyance, then turned to help his new wife, Silvia, alight. As the carriage then slowly waded off through a sea of humanity, Dane, the second to youngest of the four brothers, reined in and dismounted. A light smack on his well-trained stallion’s rump sent it pounding off to the stables around back.
The trio then fought their way through the drizzle and the crowd, ignoring cries of “Heretics! Fiends! Murderers!” Passing twin stone griffins at the foot of the stairs, Bastian and Dane moved ever upward, guarding Silvia between them as they headed for the salon’s front entrance.
“Murderers? That’s a new one,” Dane said, nodding a greeting to Sevin and Luc. “Is Eva already inside?” When Sevin shook his head, Dane put his hands on his hips and glared out over the crowd and into the distance, looking disgruntled as he searched for his errant wife. “Damn. I knew I should have insisted on bringing her myself.”
Brushing droplets of rain off his wool coat, Bastian eyed Sevin as he ushered his own wife toward the door with a broad, proprietary hand at her lower back. A toucher, this brother was. And then on the opposite end of the spectrum there was Luc, who kept his hands to himself and shrugged off even the most casual touch as if it burned him.
“What’s your attendance like?” Bastian asked.
“Half the usual,” Sevin told him. “Only the gods know how those who are too afraid to come will fare out on their own tonight.”
Beyond the crowd he spotted two furtive figures approaching from an alley. A pixie and a fey, by the look of them. Seeing the threatening crowd, they backed off. Slinking into the shadows where they’d find other less safe accommodations in which to pass this dangerous night.
“Damn it all to hells and back!” Sevin slammed the side of a fist on the stone doorjamb. He was on edge, had been all day. They all were. Already he could feel the temporary changes that were occurring in his blood and body. The tension that was building in him. It would break free only with the appearance of the whole moon. Only a few hours more.
Just inside the door, Bastian murmured something to his wife, and in response she put a hand to his cheek and lifted her face for his kiss. With a smile and a nod to Sevin and Luc, Silvia then entered the salon. Her husband watched her go with a besotted look he took no pains to hide.
Intercepting Sevin’s amused glance, Bastian sent him a smug half-smile. “Laugh now, little brother, but you’ll fall one day, too. And you might just find wedded bliss to your liking.”
Sevin snorted a laugh. “When hells freeze.”
“Ah yes, I forgot. You’re already wedded to the salon,” Bastian chided.
“And a fine, faithful, and profitable wife she makes,” Sevin returned unapologetically. The salon was big business in the ElseWorld community in Rome—the only one of its kind. He’d convinced the ElseWorld Council to allow him to commission it, and he had seen it built against all obstacles when he was but eighteen. It flourished because he excelled at running it. If he had time for little else these days, so be it.
“Finally,” Dane said, sounding relieved as another carriage rolled up in the street. The door of this one bore the Patrizzi family crest. Sevin felt Luc tense behind him as Dane took the steps downward. Bastian moved closer to their youngest brother, ready to stop him were he to try anything foolish.
Two feminine faces peered from the carriage windows, both with blond hair. One was Dane’s tardy wife, Eva, who was Satyr herself, though this was unknown to anyone outside the family.
The second occupant was that friend of hers, Alexa Patrizzi. A human.
Sevin’s gaze cut to his youngest brother. There was nothing subtle in Luc’s body language as his eyes pinned Alexa. He wanted to kill her.
Unfortunately, Sevin’s reaction to her was altogether different. He ground his teeth against the sharp curl of attraction that speared through him. An attraction for her—a woman he’d never formally met, never even spoken to. A woman whose family had all but destroyed his. He’d heard she’d gone to Venice. It appeared she was back.
As Dane and Eva ascended the steps, the crowd turned surly, rocking the carriage and hemming it in so the driver couldn’t proceed. Alexa Patrizzi was still inside. Any friend of a Satyr’s wife was apparently to be rebuked. When Eva made as if to go back to her rescue, Dane all but dragged her upward and out of harm’s way.
“We have to help her,” Eva urged once they reached the landing.
“I’ll help her to the five hellfires,” Luc growled, making a lunge in the direction of the carriage. Dane and Bastian each grabbed one arm, restraining him.
“There’s trouble enough already. We don’t need you starting any more,” Bastian said through gritted teeth. Then he frowned as something in Luc’s face gave him pause. “What’s wrong with you? You’re unusually pale.”
“Nothing. A headache.” Predictably, Luc shrugged them and their concern off and they let him. Had they touched his skin instead of the linen of his sleeve, his reaction would have been considerably more violent.
“Dane,” Eva insisted, putting a hand on his arm.
“We’ll help the signorina, I promise. Now go inside,
cara,
where it’s safe. I’ll be in shortly.” With a brusque kiss, Dane swept her toward the door and handed her off to the sentry whose job thus far tonight seemed to have been reduced to herding women.
“Your wife should choose her friends more carefully,” Sevin murmured as the couple passed him. He heard Eva’s soft protest, something about unfairness of his statement.