Sevin: Lords of Satyr (28 page)

Natalia woke sometime later. She moved gingerly, somewhat surprised to find that she still lived. Her body felt battered and muscles she hadn’t known she possessed ached and protested. But she didn’t seem to be actively bleeding anymore. In fact, she didn’t feel any pain at all inside where he’d mated her. Incredibly, that intimate flesh was the only part of her body that actually felt good.

She looked at him, barely making out the shape of his face in the darkness. He was awake, sitting with his back against the wall. “What are you?” she whispered. “I don’t believe you’re a god.”

A harsh laugh left him, sounding like it had issued from deep within some ancient abandoned tomb. “Maybe you’re the one who’s addled.”

Her brows rose. “The prophecy. Do you know it?” She gestured toward the nearby sanctuary.

Somehow, Luc got to his feet and lumbered over to view what she was pointing at. His head was swirling with a strange sort of exhausted delirium. He braced himself on the sanctuary’s altar when he reached it, trying not to topple over. There were gold letters carved into the altar’s side, he realized. Writing. He turned away, unable to read it and too embarrassed to admit to his lack of education. “My vision is blurred. What does it say?”

“ ‘Who waketh him, shall save our land.’ ”

He tried to make sense of that through his dizziness, and failed. Confused, he ran his fingers through his hair and they came away covered with a fine white dust. His thoughts where whirling in a maelstrom. He’d come here to this world hoping to find something. What? Something urgent. For his brothers.

She spoke again. “The priests say you were sent here to save our land. They claim you’re a god.”

He laughed, his voice cracked and ravaged. “They’re wrong. I’m no god. Far. From. It.”

He saw her lips move in reply, but he could not hear her above the buzzing in his ears. Going lightheaded, he fell to his knees, then collapsed onto the sacred furs beside her and passed out.

Healing Center, ElseWorld

Day one

T
hree days later, Natalia stared through the one-way glass window at her new patient. He lay on his back, his body largely covered by a white sheet. He was tall—so tall that his feet hung off the end of the single iron bed he’d been given. His muscled brawn tested the bed’s strength, and his shoulders spanned almost the entire width of its mattress.

His wrists and ankles were tethered to the bed frame, tension evident in every line of his body. Even though he slept, even through the glass that separated them, Natalia could feel his silent rage.

She forced herself to study him objectively. He wasn’t physically wounded. No, his were wounds of the soul, and they had festered and boiled over into this terrible anger. He was young, darkly handsome, his muscles well-toned despite years of stasis, and if she wasn’t mistaken, he was—

Natalia felt her face flush and her startled eyes jerked from the sheet tented over his belly. She stared sightlessly at his file, then her gaze fell upon a single word written there. Abruptly, she turned away from the glass, setting the file aside on a desk and shaking her head.

“No. I don’t want him,” she told the man seated there. “I can’t take on this assignment. Find someone else.”

“Why not?” he asked. His eyes darted nervously to the other man in the room, who stood with his back to them, gazing outside from the only exterior window.

“I don’t have to give a reason, Physician. I feel no connection,” she lied. “I can’t heal him.”

“No connection? But you’re wed to him.”

“So are hundreds of other women in the community. It doesn’t make me special.”

“Ah, but you are a healer, the first of your profession to wed him. And he’s already responding to you.”

Natalia blushed. Surely he wasn’t being so indelicate as to refer to the tented sheet?

“Before you recovered enough to come to him, he was restless and struggling,” Physician went on. “See how calm he is now that you’re here? Your presence soothes him, even from a distance, even through walls.”

She shook her head, adamant. “He’s not within my client profile. I work only with women and children. And there’s my research at the institute to consider. Along with my teaching duties, they already consume my time—”

“That part of your life is finished.” This from the other man, who’d finally turned to address them. His clothing identified him as an Advisor, a government official. “I’m pleased to tell you that you are advancing in position, as of this afternoon. By taking on this patient, you will achieve the official rank of Healer.” He executed a slight bow. “Congratulations.”

Joy welled up in her, and frustration. If she were to take this patient, and delve into his secrets, the risk was too great that her own secrets would be discovered.

“No, I’m sorry,” she said, shaking her head. “I’m sure you’ll find—”

“I understand your sister is of an age to enter the breeding program.” Advisor lifted his hand, showing her a file he held. It bore Sophie’s name.

She drew in a sharp breath. “Is that a threat?”

“It’s an opportunity. I’m on the program committee and I can ensure she is excused. Permanently, even if she marries.”

“What do you want in return?”

His eyes flicked to the patient in the adjoining room, and her gaze followed.

“Do you still believe him to be a godking?”

“No.”

She considered that. “Then why is he so important? What goal have you set for me with him, other than seeing him mended?” she asked. “I won’t hurt him for you.”

“Even though he has hurt you?” Physician put in softly.

She steeled her spine, ignoring the oblique reference to the events of the festival three days earlier. With remarkable speed, she’d recovered from it physically. However, her plans to escape had come to nothing, for she’d been heavily guarded. Even now, there were guards out in the corridor who’d brought her here from her temporary room in the Recovery Unit next door.

Today she’d braced herself to fight an effort on their part to give her to Baldassare. Instead she’d been brought here. “You want me to elicit some sort of information from him?” she persisted. “Is that it?”

Advisor perched on the edge of the attendant desk, which sat just outside the one-way glass window, saying, “We want to know how he came here, by what means of travel. Who he is. What he wants in this world. Anything. Everything.”

“Why?”

“You just do your job, Healer. Don’t think beyond that. We want him well enough to remember. Do whatever it takes, as quickly as possible. You have ten days.” He smiled slightly. “If you agree.”

She turned back to the one-way window.

“He’ll wake soon,” Physician told her after a silence passed. “Will you begin now?”

With an inward sigh, she gave them a curt nod. “After you depart.” She looked to the physician. “Both of you.”

The men didn’t move.

“He’ll know if you’re observing.”

“Someone will be at all times. He’ll have to get accustomed to that. And I’ll expect daily written progress reports from you.” Advisor tucked Sophie’s file under his arm and thrust a clipboard into her hands.

“And when my work day is done? Where am I to make my bed, Advisor?”

“Your quarters will be here, in the Center from now on. Physician will have you escorted to your chamber later.”

She breathed an inward sigh of relief. Even if they planned to marry her off to Baldassare in future, taking on this client meant more time to plot an escape.

Inside his cell, Luc slowly swam back to consciousness. An all-too-familiar voice sent a surge of rage laced with terror skittering down his spine. His every muscle went rigid with the instinct to fight or flee. He yanked at his arms. He was restrained!
Oh gods. Not again.
He forced down the panic that threatened.

“Wait,” he heard a woman say. Her voice was soothing and somehow familiar. His mind latched onto it as if it were a bridge to sanity. “Why is he here?” she asked the devil outside. “And not with the other patients?”

The devil replied, “We’ve sequestered him. He’s dangerous.”

“And drugged him?”

“Of course.”

“If I’m to be his healer, I’ll need autonomy in his treatment.”

“You understand speed is of the essence?”

“You understand he could be harmed if we move too quickly with his therapy.”

“Just get it done. Ten days.”

The door opened, and Luc turned his head to stare at the woman who entered his cell. He recognized her instantly, but not just from the altar. From the way his cock went hard.

She was holding a clipboard, her back to him as she shut the door. Luc caught a glimpse of the markings she was making on the paper it held, but was unable to decipher them. Years ago, while other boys his age had been studying, he’d been imprisoned in the bowels of the earth. He couldn’t read.

She set the clipboard aside and glanced at him, smiling slightly. “You’re awake. How do you feel?”

He saw the exact moment that she noticed how his prick tented the sheets. She flushed pink.

His lips twisted. “Guess that’s obvious. I feel like fucking.”

She went silent. To him, this was a punishment. He wanted to hear her voice again.

“My body seems to be slowly gearing itself back to life,” he said more civilly.

“That’s good to hear,” she said, the smile back in her voice. “I imagine this bed isn’t helping. I’ll try to see that you are given better accommodation.”

He closed his eyes, letting her voice wash over him. It was beautiful, like some incredibly soothing balm. “Keep talking.”

“What?”

He must sound like an imbecile. He forced his eyes open again, then narrowed them to slits. The light pained him.

She immediately dimmed the lamp, as if she’d guessed.

“You’re a healer?”

“Yes, how did you know?” She gazed at him in surprise.

He shrugged, then moaned at the pull of the few last shards of marble that stubbornly clung to his flesh.

She came closer. “I’ll try to get the rest of this stone off you. If you’ll allow me to.”

He struggled at his bonds, made of some material he couldn’t defeat. “Remove these restraints, and I’ll do it myself.”

“I’m sorry. I can’t release you.”

He wanted to howl, to beg her to do it. “Then the stone stays,” he said through gritted teeth.

A small quiet fell and she moved about the cell fiddling with things here and there and arranging items to suit her.

“How long have I been here? Wherever this is,” he asked at length. “They wouldn’t tell me.”

“Three days in this Center. Twelve years in this world.”

At the news, Luc felt stricken. Gods, back in EarthWorld, his brothers would all be a dozen years older now. Had he aged as well? He felt a thousand years old. “A mirror,” he demanded. “Get me a mirror.”

“I’m sorry. We don’t keep them in patient rooms.”

“Then tell me—how old do I look to you? What age?”

She angled her head. “Twenty-one?”

He grunted, perplexed. He was eighteen, but his build had always made him appear a few years older. Yet if twelve years had passed, shouldn’t he now appear to be thirty?

“What year is it?”

“Eighteen eighty-two.”

His brows rose. “But ...” It had been 1882 when he left Rome in EarthWorld. It didn’t make sense. Unless ... had he traveled backward in time? “You say I have been here twelve years?”

Natalia nodded.

“No. That can’t be,” he said. “Let me go,” he said hoarsely. He yanked at his restraints. He had to get back to his family. They were all he had. Without them ...

“
Shh
. I can’t let you go. You need to rest.”

He turned his face to the wall. “Then leave me. Get out.”

“All right,” she said gently. “An attendant will be in to see to your needs soon. I’ll return tomorrow and we’ll talk again. Try to sleep. If you need pain medication—”

“I won’t.”

No! Don’t go!
He didn’t want to be alone. He wanted to beg her to stay and talk to him, help him—free him—but he remained stubbornly silent.

He had always prided himself on the fact that he’d never once begged his captors. Never once broken during all those years in the catacombs.

And he would not beg now.

Day two

“Mistress Natalia Lattore,” her patient announced the minute she entered his cell the next morning.

She smiled, drawing his eyes to her mouth. “You know my name.”

“Wasn’t hard to learn it.” A corner of his mouth lifted as if he were proud of his sleuthing. He was sitting up in the bed today, the sheet turned down to his waist. Still in restraints.

Turning away, she set her clipboard on the counter and gathered some instruments, but that first glimpse of him was burned into her brain. His torso was a brawny landscape of hard, sculpted flesh, his silver eyes framed by dark lashes, his hair blue-black. Attraction flickered in her, but she squashed it down, appalled. He was her patient, and such feelings were inappropriate.

She’d never worked with a male patient for any length of time before and felt foolish, at her advanced age, for being drawn to one so young. But, gods, he was so beautiful it almost hurt to look at him. Her eyes dropped to his chart, touching that single inflammatory word that had made her refuse him as a patient yesterday.

Satyr.

Ten days, Advisor had given her to tame him. Moonful came in eleven. During his Calling he would be vulnerable as were all of his kind. Did they plan to use him for some nefarious purpose during his time of weakness?

“And will you tell me your name?” she inquired at length.

A hesitation. “Just Luc.”

She glanced at him.

“Well, Just Luc, maybe when you trust me a little more, you’ll tell me the rest.”

Luc’s gaze slid over her, weighing her. “Why did they choose you for me?” She was wearing a long, drab skirt that emphasized her small waist, a blouse that failed in its attempt to disguise her lush curves, and the beautiful glossy hair he recalled from the temple had been restrained in a severe plait. “Not that I’m complaining.”