Sevin: Lords of Satyr (33 page)
Tears filled her eyes now, spilling over on to her cheeks. She wiped them away. “Oh, Luc. Thank you.”
“We’ve been discovered in the human world. There are many ElseWorld kind there who need the help of a healer of your talents. Work with them, if you like. Or don’t. Only come with me now, and I swear we will return soon to visit your sister.”
“Oh gods, yes, Luc.” She threw her arms around him and kissed him.
“Thank the gods.” He murmured the heartfelt oath against her mouth. And then they were stepping toward the gate together.
“Stop them!”
At the sound of this voice he hated above all others, Luc hesitated, started to turn back. A long-held familiar call to revenge momentarily threatened to consume him.
“Forward,” Natalia whispered, laying a hand on his arm. “Remember?”
The need for revenge warred with the need to take her home to his world and keep her safe. Then she smiled encouragingly at him. He put his hand over hers and squeezed it. And together, they stepped into the light emanating from the center of the fountain. Within it, voices whispered for his ears only, imparting the mysteries of it. Teaching him how to use it, how to bend time to suit him. Whispering that this particular gate only afforded passage to those who were worthy. Only to the Satyr and those they escorted.
Behind them, the last of his abusers leaped into the gate in a desperate attempt to learn those very secrets, only to be caught there in torment for hours that felt to him like an eternity, before he finally disintegrated in transport, never to be seen again.
And on the gate’s other side, in EarthWorld, Luc and Natalia emerged whole and unscathed.
Luc burst through the gate into the salon, his face wreathed in a beatific smile and his hand upraised with the basket of fruit. “I bring you grapes of ElseWorld!” he announced to one and all. “And my new maenad wife.”
Only an hour had passed in this world since he’d left it. By now, Bastian and Dane had been joined by Sevin. All three brothers were there in the salon just as he’d left them that day he’d first entered the fountain. They welcomed him eagerly, and with open arms they embraced Natalia.
Luc put his arm around the woman at his side and gazed down at her with all the love he felt for her. He would never tire of her touch, her embrace, her kiss, her voice. He would make a home with this woman, a life for them here in the bosom of his family. It would be a long life filled with joy. They would make a home together. And children. And for him, peace would come at last.
There would be a Calling night, come tomorrow. It was to be a night in which he would worship his family’s god through a carnal ritual that would last from dusk to dawn.
And for the first time in his eighteen years, with this woman alongside him, it would be a joy. Already, his body was quickening in anticipation.
He looked forward to it.
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Copyright © 2012 by Elizabeth Amber
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ISBN: 978-0-7582-7896-8
Table of Contents
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10
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12
PROLOGUE
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