Dominic (25 page)

26

Satyr Estate in Tuscany, Italy

Earth World, six months later

E
mma paced the library of the carriage house, anxious as she always was when Dominic took Rose on their regular excursions to Else World. Though

they left her only for a day and a night each month, it was a dangerous time.

Dominic told her little of what went on there in that other world. She knew only that Rose was kept sequestered in the temple and that its heavy

bronze doors remained locked and guarded while he did what he could to protect his people. There was pride in his voice when he’d told her that no

matter how the demons howled and battered at the temple wal s in frustration, their daughter didn’t cry.

Understandably there was some resistance to their visit among his sect because their presence caused the demons to temporarily rise. Yet the

two of them needed to cross to Else World periodical y, or both would sicken for the lack of breathing its air.

Fortunately Dominic’s world was wel aware that it benefited greatly from the tithe of wine this estate provided and the regular exchange of vines

and grapes that enriched both worlds. This ongoing trade was necessary to secure the health and survival of al concerned, for without it, al would wither

and perish. So an uneasy system continued in which Dominic’s people grudgingly accepted the necessity of his and Rose’s coming.

Negotiations had been initiated, and it was hoped they would lead to a permanent interworld treaty. When the subject of the missing amulet had

surfaced as a point of contention, an exhaustive search for it had been undertaken upon the Earth-World estate. However, it hadn’t been found and was

presumed lost.

Emma ran a finger along one of several dozen bookshelves, over the gold-leaf bindings of ancient tomes Dominic had brought her from his world.

Always he lavished her with fascinating gifts of books, urns, jewelry, parchments, toys for the children, and exotic perfume and clothing, as though he stil

didn’t believe himself to be gift enough to keep her love. As though he didn’t want her to rue her decision to stay with him rather than go to London.

She took care to reassure him that she had more than enough to occupy her mind and spirit here now—two children, a flourishing vineyard, and a

growing col ection of books and artifacts. When Jane teased her that her home would soon be transformed into the museum that Nicholas’s
castello
was,

Dominic had simply responded that they would enlarge their accommodations if necessary. In fact, Dominic and Nicholas had become close friends, with

much in the way of common interests.

Her eyes fel on the object she’d had framed and positioned prominently on the fireplace mantel in their growing library. She went and picked it up,

studying the threadbare, dingy square of linen behind glass. Her handkerchief.

To some it was a shocking eyesore. But when anyone questioned her about it, her gaze always found her husband’s as she informed them that it

was a reminder of what a good man she’d wed.

For she now knew him to be a man who bore a terrible burden, yet who carried himself tal and straight and met every conflict, every duty with

bravery and honor. A man who loved his family and made certain they knew it.

Arms came around her, strong and solid.

“Dominic!”

Her husband was home.

VINCENT

Satyr Estate in Tuscany, Italy

Earth World, 1839

H
e was a boy of twelve years, teetering on the cusp of manhood, when he first discovered the object on the floor of the olive grove.

While playing a game of soldier with the other children, he had gone where he’d been forbidden to wander. To an isolated area of the estate where

employees of the vineyard and even the children of the Satyr lords themselves were not al owed to trespass.

How innocuous the object had seemed that day! It was smal , round, and flat. He didn’t think much of it initial y, only slipped it in his pocket and

carried on with his game.

But that night, tucked up in his bed, he’d remembered it. Lighting a candle, he’d pul ed it out for closer examination.

It was the size, shape, and burnish of an old coin, and it had an antique look about it. He’d turned it over in his palm, growing excited. Could it be a

treasure left here on this ancient land by Etruscan or Roman soldiers? He scraped it with his thumb-nail, removing some of the grit.

It was gold!

With escalating enthusiasm, he scrubbed it clean. On one side was a low-relief likeness of Bacchus, the wine god. And on the reverse was a

depiction of vines and other markings—words he wouldn’t manage to decipher until years later when he was grown.

Putting it in his pocket again the next morning, he carried it there for several days, considering whether he should give it over to his father. He’d

been a sweet boy then. A good boy and a smart one. One with a bright future and a family who loved him.

But the amulet, for that’s what it was, slowly and inexorably became the center of his life to the exclusion of al else.

It began to cal to him, softly at first. Beckoning him to do things he knew he oughtn’t. Things he knew were dishonorable. In the beginning, it was

only simple, naughty things. Stealing a friend’s favorite toy. Lying to his mama.

Then it escalated to acts far more sinister.

After each transgression, the satisfaction was intense, providing a sexual thril he could obtain by no other means. He would tug at himself until he

spil ed, knowing it was wrong to get pleasure from such things as he’d done. And he was always repentant afterward.

But the mesmerizing, ever-present voice of the amulet drove him to commit such acts again.

As time passed, he began to keep to himself more and more when it became clear that his development from boy to man was occurring at an

unnatural y slow pace. The matter of a male organ’s size was important, he knew, because others began to tease him when he pul ed out his pitiful y smal

sausage to piss. It wasn’t his fault that the thing in his pants had never grown larger like those of other boys. Eventual y he began to suspect that carrying

the amulet in his pocket so often had cursed him with this malformation.

Furious, he’d tossed the golden disk away countless times. Buried it occasional y. But he always retrieved it again, for something in him knew the

amulet wouldn’t have asked such a sacrifice of him without giving him something in return.

The years passed, and he kept it close, tel ing no one of its existence. Waiting. Waiting for it to reveal more of itself. Waiting for it to guide him

toward the glory he’d convinced himself was his due.

And then, one day, he final y discovered its purpose. His purpose.

Resurrection.

1

Satyr Estate in Tuscany, Italy

Earth World, 1850

L
ord Vincent Satyr, firstborn son and heir of Lord Nicholas Satyr and his wife, Jane, gripped himself in an urgent fist and kneed apart the pale thighs of

the woman who lay beneath him. He groaned as he fed the crown of his cock to the plump lips tucked high between her legs. Teasing himself back and

forth, he glossed her erotic nether mouth with the first milky pearls of his pre-cum.

There was no need to rush this, for the entire night lay ahead, rich with the promise of carnal pleasure. He’d been anticipating his time with her al

day. While his nose had been buried in the hefty tomes plucked from his library shelves, he’d been imagining this moment. This pussy. Craving it.

On the morrow he would travel to Else World and gather nine bitter enemies together at one table in an attempt to catalyze peace between them.

Negotiations would be delicate. Crucial. Lives and worlds depended upon his skil as a mediator.

When he should’ve been concentrating on the careful construction of the treaty that would unite these disparate Else-World factions into a single

governing body, he’d been distracted.

With thoughts of this woman.

His hand curved at her jaw, and sapphire eyes that were so like his father’s drank in her flawless beauty. Her forearms were lax on the pil ow on

either side of her head, her elbows bent and her fingers loosely entangled in long waves of shining moon-blond hair. Pale blue veins at the underside of

her wrists pulsed with need.

And with blood that ran cold.

“Watch me open you,” he murmured, though it was unnecessary to say the words aloud. She would sense what he wanted.

The thick fringe of her dark lashes rose to reveal violet eyes that were the same rich color as the Sangiovese grapes he and his brothers

cultivated in their vineyard here on the Satyr estates. She looked upon him with adoration, as though he was her entire world. And he was. Stil , he

avoided those startling eyes as he often did, not wanting to acknowledge that they were vacant, completely void of life.

Her gaze lowered obediently, and he watched her expression as he began his push. Felt her breath hitch and saw her skin flush as her slick furrow

eased apart for him. For now, he was stingy, offering her only his crown and another inch, enjoying the hug of her plush labia as he rocked back and forth.

Her breasts gave against the hard muscles of his broad chest as he leaned closer. Her head fel back, and her long, white throat arched for his

mouth.

His lips brushed the skin below her ear. “Do you want al of me inside you,
cara?
”

The question went against one of the primary tenets of successful negotiation. Never ask a question to which the answer required could be only

either, yes or no.

But in this instance, her response was a foregone conclusion. It came as expected, tremulous and sweet.

“Yes, Vincent. Gods, please, yes.” Her soft cheek nuzzled his granite jaw.

At the sound of her voice, an odd panic to drive himself deep inside her swept him. But he forced himself to go slowly. He wanted this to last.

Her fingers dimpled the bed pil ow as he sought to further occupy the haven that was her body. She was delicate. A foot shorter than he when they

were standing, and ninety pounds lighter.

And he wasn’t a smal man by any measure. Everything about him was big—hands, feet, shoulders, intel ect. Cock.

It was the latter of these endowments that rendered him an object of awe, envy, and consternation among his peers. He knew his rod’s measure

wel . So did half of Italy.

In fact, its dimensions were the stuff of legend—al because of a much sought-after courtesan he’d visited three years ago. Her bed had been

comfortable enough, and after hours of fucking, he’d made the error of fal ing asleep there. Like some sort of conniving, nocturnal tailor, she had taken

advantage of this lapse to measure him. From root to cockslit, she’d pronounced him to be possessed of eleven thick, ruddy, vein-roped inches. In

circumference, he boasted seven inches, and his knob even fatter.

She’d been wel connected, and word of his extraordinary size had spread through European society like wildfire. According to her tale, she’d

swal owed the entirety of him in al variety of manners and had brought him to climax eleven times that night, rewarding him for each of his shaft’s inches.

Although he recal ed matters differently, it made a good story, and he and his prick had become infamous almost overnight.

“It’s good,” his companion whispered as he plowed deeper, “so good.”

Lifting his chest slightly, he fixed his gaze on the perfectly formed twin mounds that rose and fel in time with her shuddering breath. They were

beautiful breasts, lush and high.

Touch them.

He’d barely completed the thought when her hands slid between their bodies. The curves of her palms cupped the under-swel s of those

voluptuous breasts and began an erotic massage meant to tempt him.

She closed her eyes and moaned.

The sound shot a surge of lust straight to his groin, causing him to convulsively sheathe several more inches of himself inside her in one involuntary

shove.

Her gasp was muffled by the sharp crack of a log snapping in the immense stone fireplace set in the corner of his bedchamber. Flames sparked

higher, drenching her hair with Titian highlights and limning her pearlescent skin with gold.

In this light, she looked almost Human.

But she was not. No, the woman he lay with now was a expendable, lovely, necessary counterfeit.

A Shimmerskin.

With little effort on his part, he’d summoned her from the mists of Else World tonight for a single, specific purpose—fornication. She was

incapable of complaint or refusal. Incapable of experiencing a myriad of emotions Human women possessed. Anger. Fear. Desire. Love.

And the moment his body tired of this current occupation, she would be easily dispatched into the ether once again. It was a circumstance he took

for granted, for al the Satyr had been accustomed to employing Shimmerskins in this way for centuries.

Transfixed, he watched her hands move on her breasts in an upward sweep that brought thumbs and fingers together to twist and tauten rosy

nipples. She could lift those nubs to the kiss of her lips if he Wil ed her to. Could fondle them with the lap of her pink tongue and suckle them until they were

reddened and stiff.

Later perhaps. In his current state, the sight of that would have him shooting off in her before he’d even managed to ful y glove himself.

Lingering in the cradle of her thighs, he stil teased at her, penetrating in slow increments, only to retreat and delve shal owly again. She would

need time to adjust to him. And the voyage inside her would be as much a part of the pleasure as the eventual docking.