The minute she’d admitted she didn’t know how to get out of here, her fate had been sealed. If he were here alone, he might have chosen a different path. Given her a choice in things. Risked his own life by denying himself use of her if she refused him.
But because Luc was here, the choice was made. For all of them. He would not let his brother die. Not down here.
When the flame finally leaped again, he breathed an inward sigh of relief. The first thing he saw in its glow were Alexa’s small, bare toes peeking from below the hem of a gauzy nightgown. As he rose, he held the lamp before him, lighting her shape from hem to a low neckline that revealed the shadowy hint of well-rounded curves.
His brows rose. This was the sort of gown one of his salon employees might select to please a client—lacy, translucent, provocative. Quite a contrast from the prim day dress she’d worn when they’d met earlier. This was what she wore to bed?
She folded her arms over her breasts. He moved the lamp higher still, and studied her features, pale and gaunt in the shadowy catacombs.
Annoyed, Alexa canted her head at him. “Looked your fill, have you?” she inquired in a falsely sweet tone.
Lord Sevin didn’t reply, but instead stretched out his arm beyond her, holding the lamp high in an attempt to shed light down the corridor. Her eyes surreptitiously drank him in. Earlier today in the carriage, she hadn’t noticed how very tall he was. And his shoulders—they were surely twice as wide as her own. With the lift of his arm, his linen shirt had drawn taut over his brawny chest and shoulders, and she felt the strong pull of his masculine attraction.
Forcibly shaking it off, she looked in the direction of his gaze. In the distance she saw only more blackness. Though she would have much preferred to be fully dressed, it was fortunate she’d found him. He would offer protection if she were followed and accosted.
After going to bed early tonight, she’d awakened to the sound of intruders moving about her home. She’d heard voices—those of two particular men she’d prayed never to hear again. Having dismissed all the servants from employment due to a decided lack of funds several days ago, she’d been alone.
Certain that the interlopers had planned to make mischief, she’d sought escape. Coming downstairs, she’d slipped past them in the foyer and scurried for the closest door. Cornered in her mother’s library, she’d made use of the secret entrance that led to these catacombs. Her mother had shown it to her only once, four months ago. It had been the last time she’d ever seen her mother and brother alive. The next day, Alexa had fled to Venice. And they’d been killed in a cave-in in these very catacombs the following week.
“What were you running from?” Sevin asked, moving the lamp to light her face.
“My past,” she told him, with a glib sort of truth.
When he only stared at her, she added, “We’re only ten minutes or so from the entrance I used. I was hoping to find another exit, but I think I can retrace my steps. Given a little time.” She looked back the way she’d come, unsure.
Foolishly she’d dashed down here helter-skelter, coming some distance into the tunnels and taking random turns with no thought of how she’d get back again. Thinking she’d heard her uninvited guests behind her, her only concern had been escape. But now she wondered if perhaps the sounds she’d heard had only been the echo of her own movements, for she saw no sign of anyone coming this way.
Taking Alexa’s lantern with him, Sevin went over to his brother. Her friend, Eva, always referred to him as Lucien. But in the carriage, she had learned that his brothers apparently called him Luc. In the golden lamplight, he appeared pale and beautiful like some dark-haired angel who’d accidentally ventured into hell.
Judging from his expression, he considered her the devil-in-residence. She’d never had anyone gaze at her with such hatred. It was there in his eyes, in the stiffness of his muscled body. A feeling of guilt and shame overwhelmed her for what he’d suffered at the hands of her family. Their blood flowed in her veins.
Lucien held the stem of an ornate wine goblet loosely in his long fingers. Going to him, Sevin took it and tilted it, surveying its contents, and then handing it back to his brother. “Drink,” he commanded him. “But leave some for her.”
For her? What did that mean?
she wondered. “I’m not thirsty.”
“I won’t take her,” Lucien bit out, drowning out her words. “Not
her
. Not here.”
“You will. Do you want to die?”
Silence greeted his question.
“Luc, don’t be stupid.”
Alexa’s breath tripped. Watching Sevin’s broad back, remembrance slowly crept through her. “This is the night that you both ... change.” Her voice quavered on the last word, and her eyes dropped below his waist, to well-shaped hips and strong thighs encased in light wool. Realizing how unseemly her interrogation was, she quickly averted her eyes.
She scuttled a few steps backward, out of the ring of light.
Sevin glanced at her over his shoulder. Seeing that she was shrinking away, his eyes narrowed. He went to her, approaching her as a hunter does a skittish doe. In three long steps, he was at her side. He caught her upper arm in an unforgiving grip.
“Yes, it’s the night we rut until sunrise,” Luc’s disembodied voice informed her bluntly and cruelly from the blackness where he stood beyond them. “And lucky us. Lost down here in this chamber of horrors—when who should appear but the last woman on this earth who I want to fuck.” A stray flicker of light caught the glint of gold as he raised his goblet in a macabre sort of toast in her general direction, and then tossed back some of its contents.
“Shut up, brother.” Sevin knew his brother’s blood was running high. So was his own. Already he felt the faint cramping in his loins, felt his skin prickle along his thighs. A light down of hair would soon cover his haunches and extend lower along his legs. An outward indication of the insatiable beast he would become. The beast that would mate this woman.
No! She’s human. Like Clara,
a voice raged inside him.
He didn’t want to harm her—to change her in any irreparable way. But maybe it would be different now, he reasoned desperately. He’d been young when he was with Clara, both of them had been. Among her kind, fornication had not been forbidden to those who were unwed. And marriage came about at an early age—she’d had a younger sister who was already engaged.
He’d come into her tribe at fifteen and turned eighteen only weeks before he’d left it. With that last birthday had come his first Calling. Because she had loved him, Clara had gone along with his depravity on that night. And in the nights that ensued, she’d accepted his casual inclusion of additional partners in their liaisons. Had claimed to understand his fierce need to test the boundaries of his sexuality, to explore every carnal pleasure available to them.
In those lost years, he’d been without his family. Absent their guidance—a guidance every Satyr male required at this juncture in life—he’d been reckless, too careless and unworldly to recognize that Clara had only pretended to accept his ways.
But all had been made horribly clear to him in the note she’d written before ending her own life. Reeling from her death and his part in it, he’d left her tribe immediately after her burial. He’d gone back to Rome to find that Bastian and Dane had returned during his three-year absence. Luc, however, had remained missing for another decade.
If Sevin followed through with his plans, Alexa would be forever bonded to him tonight. And he would in turn become responsible for her. This was an irrevocable repercussion of mating himself to a human.
After Clara, he’d sworn never again. He hadn’t taken a second look at a human female for over a decade. Yet here he was, faced with an impossible choice. Let his brother die. Or mate them both to the reluctant woman in his hold. It was a choice, yet there was no choice at all.
He looked into her soft gray eyes, read her fear. He hardened himself against any sympathy for her. Luc had only recently returned to them from the very hell in which they now stood. A hell of her family’s making. His brother had only just begun to learn what it was to live again.
Sevin would not let him die. No! Tonight boiled down to a single, crucial goal—keeping Luc alive. No matter what he had to do.
“C
ome. Both of you.” At Sevin’s steely command, Alexa stiffened, pulling at his hold on her. “No! Why?” she protested. Luc only glowered at him, unmoving.
Holding the lantern in one hand, Sevin kept a firm grip on her upper arm with his other. Though she struggled, he hardly seemed to notice as he led her through a portal in the wall. Once they passed through it, he released her. Too late, she could see he hadn’t simply led her down another tunnel. They were in a room. A trap.
In here, the prospect Lucien had so crudely laid before her moments ago began to seem all too possible. She’d always been so curious about the Satyr. Had wondered how it might be to lie with one of them. But none of her daydreams had ever unfolded quite like this! What sort of beasts would they become tonight? What did they plan to do to her ... exactly?
This unknown was sufficient to make her blood pound in her ears. Her eyes flew to the door. She took a step toward it, but at the same time Lucien stepped forward from the corridor, blocking it with his body. So instead, she slipped out of the pool of light again. With her back to the wall, she felt only marginally safer there shrouded in darkness.
Leaving his brother as de facto guard, Sevin set the lantern on a shelf so it bathed much of the room in its glow. By its light Alexa could see that there were treasures stacked here and there. They had the look of ancient things, yet their gold shone as if recently polished.
“What is this place? And these riches?” she asked, half hoping the question might distract Lucien so that she might escape.
Sevin glanced at her over his shoulder. “You don’t know?”
She shook her head. “I’ve never been down this far.”
Lucien snorted in disbelief. He took another swig from his goblet. Whatever was inside it was not improving his humor. He didn’t want her here. If she tried to get past him, would he let her? She began sidling around the edge of the room, still hanging back under the cover of shadow.
Meanwhile, Sevin commenced arranging things to his satisfaction. Opening several trunks he pulled out various fabrics, none of them as dusty as they should’ve been if they’d been in storage down here for some time. Tossing them down to the stone floor he unfolded them to cover the entirety of a vacant area along the wall. Then he knelt and quickly created what looked to be a makeshift pallet. A bed.
Alexa began to panic in earnest. “What about the sycophants, the ones Eva told me of whose skin shimmers?” she asked desperately. “Can’t you bring them—”
“Shimmerskins, you mean. We’re unable to call them forth down here.” Sevin gestured generally toward the walls. “Something about this rock or perhaps the depth we find ourselves in. I don’t know. So, you see, we will need you.”
“I won’t,” Lucien grumbled.
“You’ll do as I say,” Sevin growled, cutting him off. “Even if I have to force you. Both of you.”
At that, Alexa made a wild break for the door. Unexpectedly, Lucien locked a linen-sleeved arm across the opening, blocking her exit. She pushed, but it was as unyielding as an iron bar. “Let me out,” she hissed urgently, her voice lowered so only he would hear. “Don’t you want to be rid of me?”
Lucien twisted her around, catching her silk-covered arms painfully high behind her back. “I’d like nothing better than to let you get yourself lost in these catacombs,” he growled at her ear. “But my brother will need you soon.”
“That’s enough, Luc,” Sevin warned.
“It will be interesting to see how you like captivity, now that the shoe’s on the other foot,” Lucien taunted at her ear.
And then she was free. Whirling around, she backed away from him, her eyes wide. Gazing into her face, something changed in his expression. Was that a hint of concern seeping into the vehement dislike she read there? Surely she must be mistaken.
He took a step toward her, but she leaped away with a tiny squeak. “Have you f—been with a man?” Lucien asked her, suddenly seeming less bent on scaring her to death.
Alexa knew what he was asking. But the fact that he felt at liberty to ask at all made all of this seem far, far too real. She slunk back into the shadows. Yes, she’d lain with a man, though the word Lucien had almost uttered more accurately described what had transpired in Venice. It had been only once. And it had been a cruel disappointment.
“Answer him,” Sevin asked from somewhere behind her. “It will matter.” She saw that he’d found some glass bottles, the colorful ones made in the north from the look of them. And for some reason he’d set them within easy reach of the bed he’d made. She pressed back into the corner again, wedging herself between some sort of throne and a collection of urns.
When she remained mute, he stood and went to an enormous golden fountain, washing his hands and face in its pool. Turning then, he planted one hand at his hip and sent her a level gaze. His white linen shirt gleamed in the dim light. Knowing he couldn’t see her in her hiding place, she nevertheless shook her head as if that alone would keep him at bay.
“Come now, I know we are not an anathema to you. You were engaged to Dane at one point. Before he married Eva.”
“That was my mother’s doing,” she said. “He and I hardly said three words to one another during our engagement, which lasted all of three minutes. He was handsome. I was far too young and stupidly infatuated with the idea of marriage. I’m older now and wiser.”
“It was only four months ago!”
She laughed bitterly. “I’ve done a lot of growing up in the interim, I assure you.”
He frowned, beckoning to her. “Come out of that corner, damn it.”
But she only pressed back harder against the wall behind her. “No. Let’s try to find our way out,” she pleaded. “Now. We have hours before the lamplight burns away.”