Dominic (20 page)

him inside in one smooth, wet glide. Lips and tongue fondled and coddled him, making his swol en length throb. Her chin lifted, and her throat muscles

relaxed, coaxing his crown ever deeper.

Gods!
He braced his legs wider, cradling her head with both hands and watching her suck him off. She was talented. Experienced at pleasing a

man. Stil , even as she ministered to him, his thoughts were on another.

His gaze rose to find Emma. Her head had lol ed back on the chair now, and she was looking directly at him, as if she could actual y see him.

Shadowed by dark lashes, her eyes were lazy, contented, sweet. Her hair was tousled and would be soft in his hands.

Hands that even now were absently smoothing the darker hair of this other, lesser woman.

As a daughter’s innocent mouth worked busily at a mother’s plump breast, so the nimble mouth of a stranger worked at his thick, ruddy cock.

After several moments, Itala’s lips released him, and her head turned. Unexpectedly her hand covered the back of his where it rested on her hair,

and she drew his palm to her mouth. A tongue flicked out and, like a snake, she licked his glove.

Stunned, he shook her off. The sight of her depraved desire for the most heinous part of him fil ed him with disgust.

She scrambled to her feet, undaunted. “The others are afraid, but I am not like them,” she said, a fanatical light in her eyes. “I have prepared myself

for you. Made my body as you need. Two openings for your cocks, and…”

She reached for his gloved hand again, but he held it high and away. Undeterred, she captured his other in its stead and drew it beneath the loose

skirt that lightly draped her from the waist down. Under the translucent fabric, she helped his fingers trace over her bel y.

Pressing, she pushed them into a moist, unnatural opening there, just above her pubis.

“…and one for your hand,” she whispered, confirming his worst suspicions.

She’d gone to one of the parlors and had herself mutilated in a way she believed would make her more appealing. Her pelvis had been pierced,

and an additional nether throat constructed inside her beyond it, so that as many as three men could fuck her lower body.

Or a man with two cocks and a gloved fist.

He knew her kind. There were others like her on the battlefield, always lurking about the amputee wards, their eyes covetous on the stumps of the

maimed.

He recoiled in distaste. She whimpered as he pul ed his fingers from her, but she remained fixed on her goal.

“Later, then, when you have more need of it,” she cooed. “For now, perhaps a more traditional joining?”

Insinuating herself closer, she led his shaft between her thighs and attempted to manipulate it inside her. The traitorous appendage bobbed with

enthusiasm, wanting to be housed in female flesh. Not this particular female’s flesh, but he must make do with someone, and she was wil ing….

A dozen stone-cold faces watched from the alcoves, effigies of ancient, lustful deities, al silently urging him to take what was on offer. Sorely

tempted, he reached for her.

As if in reaction, a single moonbeam abruptly infiltrated the surrounding dusk. Then another and another, until al nine smal er mirrors in the circle

around him had become cups brimming with light.

In a glory of il umination, the moon burst into ful bloom. Its radiant face fil ed the aperture overhead and, finding him, it demanded that he undergo

the Change.

Arms outthrust, Dominic arched his spine, and his face rose to the heavens, accepting its salacious command. Muscles rippled and bunched

along his shoulders and torso, and a downy fur sprouted to dust tree-trunk thighs.

Itala avidly monitored these changes. But he’d forgotten her. Forgotten everything. His entire being was now focused only on a lecherous

anticipation of what was to come.

His ridged abdomen spasmed as if an invisible hand plucked at its muscles, playing a cruel, carnal melody to which he must dance in the

forthcoming hours. A strangled groan of pleasure-pain tore from his lungs as a second cock ripped itself from his bel y. Its distended length speared the

air to stand just above the cock that already angled from his masculine thatch.

Hands came, uninvited, caressing his genitals. Itala. “At last, you’re ready for me, lover,” she whispered at his ear. “Come. Come fil me.”

His eyes opened to the barest slits. Her breath wasn’t sweet. Her hair was wrong.
She
was wrong.

Beyond her, he glimpsed the mirror. Emma stil reposed there, an angel with a child at her breast. Her face glowed with a quiet, maternal love. She

was his wife, but he could not go to her. Not without that damned invitation.

Stil , he would not be reduced to this.

His hand wrapped itself around Itala’s throat, squeezing. “Have you a soul to give me?” he taunted ominously.

She closed her eyes and turned her palms to the skies, euphoric. “Yes, Savior! Take it as you fuck me. Take my soul!”

Though he was sick with libidinous need, he nevertheless shoved her away, thoroughly revolted. She clung, her fingernails striping his skin.

She had no concept of what she asked for. He could demolish her with a single touch of his ungloved, mirrored hand if he so chose.

“Go from me. Now!” he snarled.

When she didn’t obey, he took her by the arms and half dragged her across the room, where he flung her toward its arched exit. Then he

staggered back to the obsidian disk, every step away from her an agony of physical denial. Although the temple’s protective aura diminished the Cal ing’s

effect on his wits, its physical impact on him was every bit as overwhelming as it had been in Earth World a month ago.

Taking a cock in each hand, he drew from roots to crowns and back, masturbating himself. Behind him, her voice rose, castigating him. “Fool! Do

you truly think the prim woman you watch so hungrily would wil ingly take your loathsome flesh into her straight-laced body?”

He took one menacing stomp in her direction. She leaped back and scurried the rest of the way to the portal.

“I trust you wil enjoy your own evil hand on your cock,” she spat, “whilst I find others more wil ing to take pleasure in what I can provide. There wil

be many who want me, I assure you.” With that, she flounced from the room.

Her smug steps faded down the corridor as he watched her walk. Almost immediately he heard eager voices—male ones. She was speaking to

the two guards posted halfway down the corridor at the entrance to the nave. Offering herself to them. Hoping he would see and hear and become jealous.

He angled his jaw, observing the transaction through cynical eyes. The men she solicited were of the Satyr. They set down their weapons, quickly

agreeing to her lascivious proposal.

One positioned himself before her and one behind, both enthusiastical y fumbling at their trousers. The moon had affected them as wel , he saw

when buttons and ties released. A set of two cocks extended from the gap each opened in his uniform.

There were no preliminaries in negotiations such as the one Itala conducted. As soon as their pelvic shafts sprang free, one guard stabbed

himself into her anus and the other took the gash she’d had dril ed in her abdomen.

Sandwiched between them, she shot an angry dart of pewter in his direction, wanting to know if he watched. He did, stil massaging himself with

both hands. When pre-cum wel ed in his cockslits, he siphoned himself in firm strokes from bal s to tip, bringing more. Fat droplets beaded, quivered, and

then fel to soak linens that had been laid upon the floor for him.

Tomorrow votives would burn these cloths on sacred pyres while humming ancient incantations. Any inadvertent spil of his seed not expel ed into

the safe haven of a Shimmerskin would be summarily destroyed as tradition dictated.

As matters in the hal way progressed, Itala let out a joyful shriek. The cock rooted low at each of the guard’s groins were piercing her now—two

squeezing together as one to invade her vaginal channel and stretch her as a child never would. By defiling herself in the parlors, she’d ruined any chance

she could ever conceive.

Regardless they would likely take care to withhold their childseed from her. With anyone but a Shimmerskin, it was the safest course. The hours of

Moonful were the single span of time during which a Satyr male could sire offspring, and even then it was possible to choose whether or not one’s seed

would be fertile. Tonight some would breed sons and daughters on their concubines and wives.

However, were Dominic to defy law and do the same, the demons would inevitably learn of it. And they wouldn’t rest until they’d crushed what he

loved.

No, he would sire no children tonight. Nor any other night.

Yet he
would
fuck.

21

W
ith the ease of long practice, Dominic gathered his Wil, concentrating it on an empty space just in front of the mirror. From the unearthly ether that

eddied thick along the ground on nights such as this, he summoned forth a female Shimmerskin. One whose cheek had the same gentle curve, whose

back had the same slope, and whose eyes and hair were the same winsome brown color as she for whom he pined. A virtual twin to Emma.

An insentient being, she stood before him, docile, sensual, unashamed of her nudity, and eager to please him in al things. He curved a hand at

her breast, and her fingers combed down his thatch to find and cup his bal s. At her touch, his shafts surged in unison, bumping her bel y.

Sex with her would be a meaningless exercise, like that which took place even now in the corridor where the guards bucked themselves into Itala.

As they ruthlessly rutted her, she goaded them on with coarse words and greedy hands, jouncing like a rag dol between them.

He could’ve told them to go, to continue on in another place where he wouldn’t bear witness to their fornication. But the crude, passionate violence

of the act they performed fueled something dark in him. Sent his unrequited lust soaring. Made him reckless.

Hungry, silver eyes flashed to the mirror. To Emma.

Her child was gone again, presumably to its crib, and she’d wandered to stand at the window of her room. The leftmost of its two expansive glass

panels had been unlatched and swung open. Resting a hand on the edge of the one that remained fixed in place, she leaned out and lifted the point of her

chin, breathing in the night air. The breeze hugged her figure, gently tailoring fabric to outline her curves.

In her chaste gown, she looked beautiful, endearing, bereft.

Fuckable.

Heat churned through him, and with it came a fierce longing, stronger even than the one he’d felt when he’d first seen her in this mirror weeks ago.

A longing to hold her. To ease her loneliness and his. To feel her come.

But she was not here, and the Cal ing ritual beckoned him into its furious maelstrom. At his unspoken command, the Shimmerskin turned,

presenting him with her smooth back. She lol ed her head on his chest, and her arm rose, her palm coming over her shoulder to wrap the side of his neck.

Though his own hands boldly traced her curves, his eyes were on Emma. Though he would join himself to the replica in his arms, he would pretend that

she and the original in the mirror were one in the same.

“Dominic.”

He froze at the sound of the voice.
Her
voice.

“Emma.” Without thinking, he extended a gloved hand…and did what was forbidden. Touched the obsidian disk. Touched
her
.

Looking startled, Emma’s reflection clamped a hand to lips his fingers had just brushed.

His pulse stal ed, then raced. She’d felt him!

He tapped the edge of the mirror, this time purposely honing its focus so that she and the Shimmerskin’s visages and figures became a similar

size. Emma hadn’t moved, and for a moment he feared the mirror might punish him for his transgression by fading to black. Affecting an offworld being via

the obsidian disk went against the primary laws of the ancients. It was an act punishable by death. But he was fearless, for he existed outside these laws.

A weapon such as he was simply too valuable to be done away with.

Emma’s hand dropped to the window ledge, and relief fil ed him as he determined her temporary stil ness hadn’t meant that she was to be

summarily removed from view. Wearing a dreamy expression now, she swayed, beginning to fal under the supernatural spel of the disk. Gazing into the

night, she spoke again.

“Dominic.” His name on her lips was a gentle prayer. A wish. A yearning sigh.

A month ago, there had been two men attending her in this ritual. This month there would be none. But she’d cal ed for him.

She wanted him.

By the Gods, he wanted her as wel . His entire being was quaking with need for her, his every muscle tense, his cocks straining with a lecherous

desire to have her. And he
would
have her—in the only way open to him tonight—by means of the surrogate he embraced.

The staunch grip of his fingers tightened, dimpling lush hips. Leaning forward, his body pressed the Shimmerskin’s to the mirror until her breasts

gave against it.

In her room, Emma’s body pressed itself against the windowpane as if held there by an unseen force. As he’d expected, when he relayed an

instruction to the Shimmerskin or physical y adjusted her, her human twin dutiful y mimicked the action.

Emma’s profile turned his way and a look of wary anticipation colored her expression. “Is that…? Are you…?”

“I’m here,
cara
,” he murmured. “Are you ready for me?”

The Shimmerskin’s hands flattened on the mirror at either side of her head. Emma’s crept up the window to brace themselves in a similar