Raine: The Lords of Satyr (20 page)

“I enjoyed undressing you before you woke,” she went on as she tasted him. “Having you in my power. I could have done anything to you. To your body. Did you feel me take your phallus in my mouth as you slumbered? It stiffened under my lips, so I wondered.”

He didn’t answer, but she felt his interest, and his cock quicken at her words.

“It became quite erect. Thick and ready for my passage, as it is now. I thought of taking it inside me as you slept. But I decided to wait until you awakened after all. Still, it pleased me, knowing the decision was mine. Knowing the control I had over you.”

His hands convulsed on their bindings.

She took him deep in her mouth then, until his crown crossed into her throat and her lips met his groin. Then slowly she released him again. “Tell me before you climax. I will be annoyed if you come without my permission.”

He laughed in disbelief. “What?”

She fisted his wet crown and stroked the notch in its underside with her thumb. “I must have your agreement on this matter or I won’t continue.”

Long seconds passed.

“Do I have it?” she asked.

“Do I have a choice?” he muttered.

“Yes. You may agree. Or you may misbehave. In which case I’ll dress you in my nightgown and leave you here to be discovered by your steward in the morning.”

He snorted. “Then I suppose I agree.”

“Excellent.” With that, she began to suck and tug at his cock as if it were a favorite treat.

“Ye gods, Jordan, of course I’m going to come if you keep that up.”

“No. Tell me if it becomes too much for you, and I’ll stop. Remember, you have given me your word.”

Her moist lips sheathed him again.

His head fell back and he groaned. “Bacchus, I’ve created a monster.”

Over the next half hour, she brought him to the precipice of orgasm a dozen times, but each time he forewarned her and she desisted before he climaxed.

He accepted her game stoically at first, but soon was urging her to relent. “If I get any stiffer I’ll only be fit to pose on a pedestal among the statues in the glen. Now take me into your passage,” he snarled.

“Very well,” she agreed. “But once you’re inside me, you must give me your seed immediately. Or I’ll leave you again.”

“Yes, yes. Gods. Just hurry.” His voice turned greedy at the promise of impending release.

She moved over him and did as he asked. As soon as he was fully embedded in her, she felt him erupt. His body arched like a bowstring. Leather strained, creaking oak bedposts as he silently spurted into her. She removed the scarf from his eyes, wanting to watch his beautiful face caught in ecstasy’s grip.

The next time he came, she came as well, spilling her semen on his belly. This time, silver glinted through the darkness, watching her as she undulated her hips, massaging the unguent between them.

Much later, when she remembered, she reached toward the table. His eyes followed the movement and narrowed on the small glass plug she’d found there. She sucked it into her mouth, wetting it, then slipped it low between the cheeks of his rear, touching it to his pruney ring.

He tightened the muscles of his buttocks effectively sealing off the divide between them and gave her a fierce look. “No.”

Sensing she’d pushed his control as far as she dared for tonight, she relented. Perhaps he’d never give up that part of his body to her.

For now she was content with what he offered. But could she be truly and completely fulfilled engaging in coitus solely as a woman to his man? On occasion, her cock would long to be buried deep inside
him
when it came. What then?

She would suppress those masculine desires, as she’d suppressed her feminine ones all these many years. It would be worth it to be with this man, to sleep in his arms and explore his body. Yes, it would be worth it.

For now.

“W
ill you lie with me again?” Jordan asked Raine the following night. She’d found him in his bedchamber standing in front of the corner cabinet.

She watched him insert the strange pewter key in the cabinet’s lock and withdraw the decanter. The same one from which he’d bade her pour herself a draught exactly a month ago.

Raine took a long drink of the elixir. He dabbed a pristine handkerchief across his lips before answering her. “No.”

“Are you punishing me for last night’s tricks in the cellar?” she asked.

“No, I enjoyed them. As you well know.” He flicked a glance toward the night sky beyond the windowpane. “However, it’s soon to be Moonful.”

“I know that,” she informed him. “I want to spend it with you engaging in the same activity as we enjoyed last Moonful.”

Though Raine could have her—
would
have her many times on all other nights—the ultimate bliss of a Moonful with her was never to be his again. He’d vowed to avoid taking her in another Calling, and it was a vow he planned to keep. Though it galled him to admit it, he simply couldn’t trust himself not to impart childseed on a night such as this. And bringing another child into this world who would be troubled by the duality of EarthWorld and ElseWorld blood was an undertaking he’d leave to his brothers. He would not become a father.

“No,” he told her. “I can give you all my nights save those of the full moon. Be content with that.”

“If you’re worried I’ll conceive, don’t be. I’ve told you I can’t.”

He let out a bark of arrogant laughter. “During a Calling there’s not a woman I can’t impregnate if I don’t regulate my childseed.”

“Even a woman without a uterus?”

“It’s not a certainty that you don’t possess such an organ.” He eyed her. “Do you want children?”

“I would gladly bear your children, Raine, if only I could. I love you.”

“No. You love fornicating.”

“True.” She grinned, trying to tease him into granting her wish. “Fornicating with you.”

“You’ve never had relations with another man for comparison.” He replaced the bottle. The lock snicked shut.

“Shall I?” she teased. “Then you could no longer taunt me with that obstacle to my claim of wanting only you between my legs.”

“Let’s put an end to this discussion. It’s time I made my way to the glen. I’ve bolstered the forcewall around the castello. None will enter to disturb your rest.” He kissed her forehead and went to leave her. She clutched at him.

“Jordan,” he warned. Firmly, he removed her hand from his arm. “I must go. Now. Alone.”

She folded her arms at her waist, gripping an elbow in each hand to stop herself from reaching for him again. She wanted to beg him not to banish her from his side, even for one night.

Because she loved him.

Because she wanted him to love her.

Because she needed him to keep the dreams at bay.

But she said nothing more and watched him walk away.

T
hat night the dreams came to Jordan again as she’d feared they would. Though Raine had strengthened the protective forcewall around his home, it was no match for intangibles.

She had sought her bed early and shut the drapes, not wanting to know when Moonful arrived. Raine had been adamant that he would not visit her. He would spend this Calling away from her as he had vowed to do every other such night forever.

Every month when the moon rose full and lush, the silver of his eyes would glaze with lust and his Satyr blood would send him to the sacred glen. There he would summon those ElseWorld women—Shimmerskins. The sight and smell of them would swell his cock. He would run his broad hands over their smooth skin. Grip their hips. Rut with them. Spill his seed in them.

It was a cruel betrayal, and it hurt.

Were she to wed him, she would be sentenced to bide every Moonful for the rest of her life in her solitary bed.

But tonight, though she slept with no one, she was not alone. A dreamlover sought her out. He took the form, the scent, and the sound of the one she truly loved. His words slipped into her mind and captured her. Held her more surely than real tethers ever could.

He beckoned, wooing with false, honeyed words that drew her like a hummingbird seeking his nectar.

Come to me. I await you, here in the glen.

Her head turned feverishly on the pillow, mussing her hair. “No, you spurned me tonight. Told me to stay away.”

I was wrong. Forgive me. Come to me tonight and I will treasure you. Give you children.

“Children.” She echoed the word on a sigh as a kernel of hope blossomed in her heart.

Like one of the undead, Jordan rose.

“Raine?” she breathed. “Where are you?” The words were pulled from her against her will, tasting foreign on her tongue. A strange language spilled from her as easily as a trickling waterfall though she’d never spoken it before to her knowledge, nor been taught it.

I’m close. So close. I’ll guide you. Come to me.

In a slumberous trance, she slid from her bed and found her way down the stairs. The massive front door of the castello opened soundlessly, letting the night into Raine’s home. A breeze blew her gown against her, outlining her breasts, slender thighs, and the short taut phallus that hung between them.

Leaving the door swung wide behind her, she stepped outside into the front courtyard. The tiles were cold under her bare feet, and the fountain was a muted splash. Wandering beneath Bacchus’s lascivious gaze, she glided around the side of the castello into the peace of the back garden. There, all of nature seemed lulled by the magic riding the air.

The moon had not yet risen and the night was a black void. But she found her way effortlessly, pulled by a force beyond her ken. A force, which though she had no way of knowing, was determined to pull her into another world forever.

Her nightgown was thin, but she didn’t notice the crisp chill in the air that lifted her witch-black hair. Didn’t recognize it as a harbinger of the winter that was to come. The sweet smell of grapes grew stronger as she trod the well-manicured lawns. Diamonds of dew on the grass bathed her bare feet and slicked her ankles.

Something drew her deeper, toward the densest part of the wood. She rounded oak, elder, and hawthorn trees grown thick with ivy, then picked her way through ferns, and finally stepped over a brook.

The velvet voice of her dreams turned more urgent.

Come. I await you, need you. Want you with all my being and soul.

“I’m coming, Raine. I’m coming. Where are you?”

This way, my lovely. This way.

Her footsteps quickened, taking her farther into the forest.

Nearby there were others who’d come to the glen as well. Two male and one female. Their bodies were strong, beautiful, and naked in the blue-black twilight.

They’d paused together beneath a large statue—the most imposing of those that ringed the isolated glen. Above them Bacchus stood on a pedestal, grapevines wreathing his hair and a chalice extended in one hand as he reigned over yet another sacred Calling night on Satyr land.

They’d been taking wine in preparation for the ritual that preceded Moonful. But when they heard her light step, their three handsome faces turned her way.

Nick’s grip on his wife tightened. “Who the devil is that?”

“My houseguest,” Raine gritted. He swirled the ancient goblet he held, and then slung its contents down his throat.

“How was she able to approach without being turned back by the forest?” Jane wondered.

“The forces that protect it may have sensed her Faerie blood and become confused,” said Nick.

Both looked to Raine, waiting.

His jaw had turned to granite and there was a dangerous glint in his eyes. He’d told Jordan he planned to keep himself from her tonight. Yet she’d defied him and sought him out. In moments it would be Moonful. His cock was aching to plunder female flesh. He’d been moments away from conjuring Shimmerskins with whom to take his ease. But now that he knew Jordan was near and within his grasp, there could no longer be any question of taking Shimmerskins tonight. Only she would do.

At the sight of her, his cock had risen tight and hard. Needing her. Not just any woman. Her. Bacchus help him, he wanted her with a desperation he’d never known.

“We’re here!” Raine called, thinking she must have lost her way.

But Jordan didn’t seem to hear. She moved on past them, obeying some other summons more powerful than his own.

“Jordan!” he called, the first stirrings of worry prickling his spine. “Something’s wrong,” he muttered.

“I’ll go after her,” Jane whispered, pushing from Nick’s arms.

Nick held her fast. “The hell you will. Did you see her face? She’s under some sort of spell. I’ll not take the chance you’ll be drawn into the clutches of whatever pied piper calls her.”

“But—” Jane protested.

“I’ll go,” said Raine, cutting her off. Dropping his goblet to the moss, he stepped away from the stone altars.

“I bid you both good night,” he told them, letting them know he would stay with Jordan once he found her. By then he would be completely in the Calling’s vise. No matter how he tried, it would be useless to try to keep himself from her. He would be in no state to make his way back to them.

In the pitch darkness that preceded Moonful, he lost sight of her. Still, he tracked her easily by scent alone. She smelled of dew and warm skin and Faerie perfume. And of the humid warmth of arousal. She was sexually excited.

His cock—already impossibly hard—swelled. It swung like a pendulum, thick and long, as his steps quickened.

Now and then he could see flashes of her pale figure between the trees that separated them. He outpaced her, drawing closer.

Where was she going? She’d known he would be in the sacred glen. Had her sense of direction misguided her? Or was it something else?

“Jordan!”

A faint aroma reached him. Papaver somniferum—the sleep-bringing poppy. She’d entered a vast field of them.

His heart quickened as he perceived her destination. In the midst of the poppy field a pedestal of rock rose some nine feet in all dimensions—height, width, length. Upon its surface reposed three life-sized statues all carved from ebony marble. They were gods—brothers—who held themselves distant from all the other gods and creatures immortalized in stone within the glen.

Under their influence, the tissuelike poppies bloomed in the surrounding field night and day year-round, bringing sleep but never sleeping themselves. The bright splashes of pink, mauve, and red were almost garish by daylight, but their colors were leached now under the gloom of the unlit forest.

In the center of the trio on the pedestal Morpheus reigned in sensual abandon, lying on his back. He was flanked by his two brothers Phantasos and Phoebetor. The stone of his body and that of his siblings was untarnished, strangely immune to the ravages of weather or the infiltration of flora.

One arm was folded to pillow his head of tousled dark hair and his jaw was cocked at a rakish angle. His smile was one of sexy beguilement, and his eyelids drooped as though he himself were half-asleep.

Why had Jordan come here? Unless—she’d been
called
.

Phantasos ruled the objects found in dreams, and Phoebetor had the ability to assume animal characteristics. But in the world of dreams, Morpheus held the most power, for he could assume the shape of any living creature.

Raine broke into a run, surefooted even in the pitch of night. He was no more than fifty yards behind Jordan now.

She was whispering. He heard her speak his name but couldn’t understand her words at first. Then he realized she spoke in the language of ElseWorld, which she didn’t know at all. A chill washed over him. Someone was putting words in her mouth.

He drew closer, within thirty yards. The moon chose that importunate moment to show its face with shocking suddenness.

Like a giant oak, Raine was felled to his knees by its light. A second cock burst from his pelvis. Gripping the emerging appendage, he staggered to his feet and limped on in agony. But again, he stumbled and fell.

In minutes the Change would be complete. In minutes the pain would subside. In minutes Jordan could be lost to him forever.

Mesmerized by the spell of her dream, Jordan stood amid the poppies that reached to her knees and stared unblinking at the massive statue before her.

Here, all was dim under the cool umbrella of the conifers. The surrounding forest had fallen unnaturally quiet.

Yet all around her hundreds of unreal, translucent beings watched, as motionless as trees. Some had twigs sprouting from their scalps instead of hair, others sported hirsute thighs and hooves, and still others had beautiful white wings that reached from their shoulders to points that dusted the ground. A curious sort of tension surrounded them, like a giant, sticky cobweb. They were waiting for her to do something.

Above her on the pedestal, she didn’t see Morpheus and his brothers. Instead, it appeared to her that Raine and his brothers reclined there.

“Raine?” she whispered. Eyes that were not Raine’s and a smile that was not his smile seemed to beckon her closer.

At last you’ve come to me. My brothers and I have worked hard to bring you here.

“Why are you and your brothers lying here? Where’s Jane? I don’t understand.”

All will be clear to you soon. Come closer, my darling, and let us gaze upon you.

A labyrinth of vines as thick as her arms forked up the side of the statue’s foundation. Unseeing, but guided by some strange force she couldn’t comprehend, she found her footing on one of the thick vines. Gripping another, then another, she scaled higher, then higher still.

Soon she was atop the platform, standing among the prone males. To her eyes, they weren’t Phoebetor, Morpheus, and Phantasos. But rather it was Nick who lay to her left, Raine beside her, and Lyon beyond him to her right.

A frown creased her brow as she surveyed Nick and Lyon. There was something wrong with the way they were staring so fixedly at her. But the reasons why their presence should disturb her seemed fuzzy and distant.

Touch me, so that I may touch you, my darling Jordan. Lay your hands upon me.

She smiled at Raine, pleased by his soft words. Putting her hands on his cheeks, she caressed their smoothness.

At the contact, Morpheus’s hold on her intensified.

So beautiful. Draw closer that I may gaze into your eyes.

As Phoebetor and Phantasos watched, she knelt beside their brother.

Put your lips to mine.

Embracing him, she touched her lips to his in a long, lingering kiss.

The strangely still audience of hundreds broke into hushed whispers like the rattling of dry corn husks.

She pulled away. “You’re cold,” she murmured.

Then warm me. Ready me.

She ran her hands over his chest. Felt his granite muscles. She glanced lower, to the cock that speared eternally skyward, then back at his face.

Take me with your mouth.

Unable to deny the hypnotic voice, she leaned over his hips and took the ebony snake of her nightmares between her lips. Willingly, she slicked it in her mouth, slowly taking its unforgiving length to the root.

Yesss. Again. And again. Ah. That’s it. That’s good. Now—it’s time. Come over me.

She wiped the back of a hand across her lips and stood, ready to obey.

“Jordan!”

She paused, cocking her head to listen. The masculine voice was faraway and familiar.

But the strange crowd of onlookers urged her on with their whispers, drowning out the distracting voice.

Love me, my darling,
Morpheus crooned.

Unconsciously feminine in her movements now, she lifted the hem of her gown. Placing one knee alongside his hip, she swung her other leg over him until she straddled him, poised high on her bent knees. Her skirts floated down to obscure her genitals and his. The stone on either side of the altar was hard beneath the bones of her knees, but she didn’t notice.

Hurry, my darling. I ache for you.

Though she didn’t see his brothers move, suddenly they were beside her, touching her, kissing her. Yet when she turned her head to the left toward Nick or to the right toward Lyon, their handling of her desisted and she saw that they still reclined in the same oddly frozen positions as before.

Look at me, my love. See the wanting in my eyes. The loving. Accept me. Accept the loving touches of my brothers.

She dragged her eyes back to her dreamlover. Immediately, the caresses of his brothers came again. Lyon’s broad hand clenched on her buttock and his other held her breast for his hungry mouth. Nick brushed her hair back and put his hot lips on her throat.

She swayed. “Yes…” Suddenly, it somehow seemed right that Raine’s brothers were here, gazing upon her like this, petting and wanting her.