“Gods, Luc. You were surviving, the only way you could. But you’re back with us now. Safe.”
Luc stared at him a moment, his face expressionless. Then he looked beyond him, canting his head as if listening to some sound Sevin could not hear.
“We have guests,” he announced. Bending, he dragged Signor Tivoli’s body fully inside the library.
Sevin kicked the bookshelf door closed, obscuring the tunnel entrance. Luc turned the lever, locking it, just as the first of the
polizia
burst into the front door of the Patrizzi town house.
One week later
S
omething brushed Alexa’s throat. Sevin’s mouth. She angled her head, inviting more, and his lips traced the downward slope to kiss the ridge of her shoulder. For some reason, he was quite fond of the flower design she’d had inked there in Venice. How long ago that seemed. How happy she was now in comparison to those dark days.
Soft music floated to her on the fragrant air in the secluded grotto, mingling with the splashing sounds of water in the nearby pool. A bed of clover-like groundcover was under her back, its blanket forming the softest of cushions. Her body was flushed and pleasantly weary from Sevin’s lovemaking, his hand warm on the curve of her waist.
They were celebrating tonight. He’d gotten permission from the Italian government to begin work on a second salon across Capitoline in her family home. Some of his female employees had visited various officials during the week as envoys, and she could well imagine what sort of bribery had led up to such an agreement.
The grotto was private, located in isolation and behind iron gates within the existing
Salone di Passione
for the use of the Satyr lords only. It seemed to her a paradise within a paradise, with its lush flowers and perfumed pools. Occasionally, the muffled sounds of laughter, conversation, and moans charged the air here, drifting to them from the main salon below. She wondered if those in the salon had overheard them as well. Her last fulfillment had continued for a full five minutes and she’d cried out numerous times under its passionate onslaught.
Sevin rose on an elbow to gaze down at her. “You never said how you came by this.” He’d plucked a blossom from the grass and now drew it over her tattoo.
“It was an impulse. A backlash against my family’s strictures. I wanted to make myself different from them, to do something my mother would despise and could not change.”
“But why this particular flower?”
Alexa lifted a shoulder in a slight shrug. “For some reason, I was drawn to it in the inker’s display of possibilities.”
“It’s the flower of my family’s god, did you know?”
She shook her head languidly.
The flower moved over her, dusting its petals along her collarbone and lower. “It has always been specific to the worship of Bacchus, used in processions and incense devotionals to him throughout time.” His floral brush teased her nipple. “It’s an aphrodisiac to men of my blood.”
Her nipple tightened and peaked under the flower’s stroke and she gasped, covering her flesh with her hand. A dimple came and went in his cheek. Then the flower went lower still, over her belly where it traced an aimless pattern.
This reminded her of a matter of concern and she spoke of it. “I understand from Eva that you can only father children during your Calling.” She slanted him a glance from under her lashes. “And I was wondering ...”
“I was careful with you that night in the catacombs. As was Luc,” he replied, catching her meaning. “Unlike human men, we can decide if our seed will be potent, if our mates will conceive.”
“And three weeks from now, in your next Calling?” she asked, cupping his jaw in her palm. Already it was dusky with the beginnings of his evening beard. “Will you be as careful then?”
Sevin smiled slowly. His flower drifted to her thighs, running upward along the seam between them to tease at their apex. “Perhaps not.”
She pulled his head down to hers. “Good,” she whispered against his mouth.
The flower was tossed away and his body covered hers. An hour later, they clung together, in the pool now. He was seated on a slab of rock and she on his lap, facing him. Their bodies were linked in a slow undulation that had evolved into an extended, low-level orgasm that neither wished to end.
“We seem destined to make love in carriages, catacombs, and corridors,” she said breathlessly. “And now grottos and pools.”
“Why don’t you wed me then and install yourself in my bed?” He smiled, the barest twist of those beautiful masculine lips, there and gone in a flash.
The sight of it sent a hard lick of lust through her, straight to her feminine core. She cried out softly as she came on him. For long moments, her flesh milked at his, yet he only held her through it and did not come himself.
At length, she pushed up from him slightly, disengaging. Standing, she turned from him slightly and studied him over her shoulder. “This bed of yours. Will we be alone there?”
He rose from the pool as well, and they stood there together, water streaming down their flesh. “Not always,” he admitted slowly.
She nodded slightly, then she waded from the pool. She stood there combing her fingers through her tangled hair and considering his words and what they meant. She felt him join her and glanced up at him. His hands were at his hips, his face serious.
“So it wasn’t just the situation we found ourselves in the other night in the catacombs,” she asked. “Sharing is your common practice?”
“Only with Luc. Only during our Calling.”
Understanding filled her expression. “It’s because of his imprisonment,” she guessed. “That’s why he requires your presence.” She shivered in the coolness.
Noticing, Sevin found toweling neatly folded within a cabinet that was cleverly concealed in a nearby stone wall. Then he pulled her slick body against his, and with his arms around her, he employed the toweling to slowly dry her back, her bottom. His hands worked on as he finally spoke again.
“Luc forgoes all carnal pleasure except when he is Called. And on those nights, he can’t be alone. I don’t trust him to do what he must. To mate.”
He moved behind her, and wrapping his arms around her, began wicking moisture from her belly, moving higher. His voice was a low rumble at her ear. “I’ll want you to join us, Luc and me, on those nights. I’ll bring Shimmerskins into things in future, so that you’ll spend most of your labors with me. But if you force me to make a choice between you and him ...” He took a deep breath. “... you’ll spend the Moonful nights alone.” His hands found her breasts. The toweling created a gentle, stirring abrasion on her skin. “It’s not what I want—”
She put her hands over his, then turned and wrapped her arms tight around him and lay her head on his smooth chest.
“I choose to be with you. And Luc.”
“Gods.” The toweling fell to the ground, and his arms came around her. He buried his face in her hair, and she heard the relief in his voice.
She smoothed her palms up the long muscles of his back and down again, soothing him. “I would not have you abandon your brother for me. Your fierce loyalty to your family is one of the traits I most admire about you.”
He gave her a quick squeeze, then his head turned, his mouth finding hers. “And there are so
many
traits to admire,” he murmured, a teasing lilt entering his tone.
Her lips quirked. “Not the least of which is your modesty.”
He kissed her deeply, his hands going to her waist. Cupping the rounds of her bottom, he lifted her against him in a gentle grind. “I need you. Can you go again?” She’d felt his hardness between them and knew what he was asking.
“Yes, my love,” she whispered, her eyes smiling into his. “Yes.”
As Sevin lifted her in his arms, neither of them heard his youngest brother’s departing footsteps.
Luc closed the iron gate soundlessly. Nodding to the guards posted there, he left the grotto behind. He’d unabashedly eavesdropped on Alexa and Sevin just now. Had heard their lovemaking, her soft laughter, their plans to wed.
And his brother’s request that she continue to include him in their lovemaking.
He’d departed before he’d heard her reply. It didn’t matter. He wouldn’t ask that of them.
In three weeks the next Calling night would come. Sevin’s first with his new wife. Fool that he was, Luc hadn’t fully considered what that would mean.
Now that all of his brothers were happily mated, he had no place here among them any longer. He had become even more of a liability, a problem.
On that first Moonful after his return from the tunnels, they’d all watched over him like clucking hens, making sure he took the elixir and that he engaged in the rites that began the Change. During his imprisonment, he’d already fornicated in every way possible, forced into every debased act by his captors, while under the influence of powerful drugs.
But none of that had prepared him for the onslaught of emotions he experienced during that first Calling. Untempered by narcotics, his need had been a terrible, uncontrollable thing inside him. When one of the salon employees—a fey female—had approached him, he’d panicked, rebuffing her roughly and frightening her. Frightening his brothers. And himself.
Dane had already been wed to Eva, but Sevin and Bastian had been with lovers. They’d immediately banished them from the chamber, bringing forth Shimmerskins in their stead. His brothers had then slowly and carefully drawn him into their circle, sharing their females with him. Instructing him on what must be done. Thus had begun his initiation into the ways of the Satyr at Moonful.
He well remembered that first push inside of a Shimmerskin. How soft her hair had felt fisted in his hand. How her body had cradled his. For the first time in his life, no one was forcing him, except the moon. And he knew he wasn’t hurting her. His way had been eased by the prior spill of his brothers. And Shimmerskins could not feel pain.
But all that had been months ago. Why, after all this time had passed, could he not act alone with a female? Why this drive to partner with his brothers? It was a weakness, and one he must overcome if he wanted to live.
If he wanted to live.
The sounds of the carousel were louder now, and he realized he’d reached the main salon. There were plenty of women here milling about. He gazed out over them. He could select one, woo her into one of the rooms tonight. His hands fisted, his heart pumping. Would he hurt her? He was capable of murder. He knew that.
His brothers thought he found it easy to forgo women in the weeks between Moonful. They were wrong. He craved fornication as much as they did. At times, he thought his unquenched need for carnal release would drive him insane.
Yet he didn’t like to be touched. Abhorred the stroke of an unfamiliar hand. Even on Calling nights, he held his partner’s hands carefully away, binding them above her head or behind her back. Anywhere where they couldn’t touch him.
In fewer than three weeks, another Moonful would come. Sevin might be generous enough to welcome him into his marital bed, but he would not intrude. The thought of passing the Calling on his own filled him with dread. An attempt with Shimmerskins on his own seemed the best way forward.
He heard Bastian and Dane nearby, heard the splash and gurgle of the new Bacchus fountain. Sevin had had it moved here only last night from the catacombs below the Patrizzi house. His brothers were seated just outside the low wall that had been built to surround it.
He crossed the main floor toward his brothers. His head was splitting open. Another migraine. They came more frequently now. At least this one was not as bad as those that came in the hours leading up to a whole moon.
As he neared Bastian and Dane, he nodded and they returned the gesture. They were discussing the matter of the elixir and didn’t notice his subsequent silence. They were accustomed to his strangeness by now. They worried over him, considered him a victim.
They had no idea what he’d become since his release. But humans did. A week ago, when they’d protested outside the salon, they’d called them murderers among other insults. They’d been right. At least about him.
How will we manage with the travel embargo in place?
Bastian and Dane were wondering now. In three weeks, without the elixir, they would all die here. And in order to brew it, they needed grapes from ElseWorld to mix with the grapes they grew here in Rome. But the only interworld gate lay in Tuscany, where they could not travel.
This was their conversation, around and around.
As he stood listening a few feet away, Luc’s face was calm. But his own thoughts were of mayhem. So far, he’d destroyed all but one of those responsible for tormenting him and the others in the tunnels. Only one final man still eluded him.
He hadn’t killed them all only to salve his own wounds. No, he knew the sickness inside the hearts of these men who called themselves the Sons of Faunus. If they’d lived, they would go on hurting others.
But no matter how justified, each kill had sickened him inside, hardened his heart until he began to crave death himself, an end to remembered pain.
His brothers believed that the carefree child he’d once been was locked somewhere inside him. But they were wrong. That child was long dead. This brooding, taciturn shell of a man who’d been returned to them was all that remained.
His nights were full of horrific nightmares—his time in the catacombs relived. His brothers wondered why he would not talk of those days. He dared not for fear that it might send him around the bend. He had no aspirations to be locked away again, this time as a lunatic.
As usual, his brothers had no idea of his dark thoughts. He stood there, an island unto himself, gazing at the new fountain. Its waters flowed ceaselessly, splashing from the mouth of their wine god into a series of pools and then cycling away even as fresh water sprang forth again to flow from stone lips.
The gentle song of its series of waterfalls called to him, the sparkling showers holding him transfixed. There was something about this fountain that drew him, some secret yet undiscovered.