Lyon (20 page)

His lips moved against her hair, sultry and seductive. “Tell me,” he said. “Were you surprised to see two cocks instead of one, when my trousers came down?”

Flabbergasted, she froze, staring ahead at the gauzy curtain that swayed to one side of the carriage window. Like her heart, their vehicle began to pick up speed. Outside, the passing scenery now showed sky and pastoral landscape stretching endlessly and broken only by the occasional cottage or patch of grapevines. She very nearly hyperventilated just looking at all that oppressive nature.

“Yes,” she answered at last, her voice nearly imperceptible.

“Ah.” It was a sound of male satisfaction. “Then you are the one who enjoys bananas.”

His arm relaxed and she sidled off him, moving back to her seat.

“You're being ridiculous—” She broke off, her mind racing as she suddenly realized to what he referred. When they had last been together, she'd embedded images of her every carnal fantasy in his mind. In view of her occupation, more than one of them had involved food. And that included fruit.

Naturally, these
would
be among the few memories he retained. Her face colored at the thought of what she'd bared to him that night, never dreaming that her most perverse imaginings would come back to haunt her. He actually believed the two of them had done those things?

“The b-bananas,” she confessed reluctantly. “And the rest of it. Whatever you recall of that nature. None of it happened between us. I only made you think it did.”

His steadfast gaze invited her to continue.

“It's an ability that came to me a few years ago. The first time I employed it was quite by accident, when a man tried to molest me. I tricked him, you see, in order to make him think he'd succeeded.”

“As you did with me in my hotel?”

“
Oui
,” she said uncomfortably.

“And since that man a few years ago?”

She shrugged in answer and her free hand crept up the front of her dress to find the reassuring bumps of the beaded necklace she wore under it. He seemed to believe her and wasn't yet calling her a witch. It was encouraging.

“Since then, I've learned to hone my skills at deceit. To gauge the nature of what gentlemen want of me, then convince them they've obtained it.”

“How many?”

“Men?” She dodged his eyes. “That's of no moment. The material point is that I implanted false memories in your mind in the way I just described.“

“I see.” His eyes closed again. “Yet it's not just my mind that remembers you. My body also remembers with infallible certainty that you took my first seed that night in my hotel. You and no other.”

His
first seed?

An odd sensation prickled over her as if he'd just made a momentous pronouncement. Her eyes flicked to the front placket of his trousers, then away. Her tongue slipped out moistening her lips.

She
had
kissed him. Down
there.

By doing so she had in fact taken his seed into her body, at least in the strictest sense of meaning. However, he had mistaken the part of her that had done the swallowing, and therefore believed she could be with child.

The truth would swiftly discredit that notion. But the thought of admitting how she'd taken advantage of him while he lay unconscious was too mortifying. She simply couldn't bring herself to do so face-to-face. Maybe later, she thought cowardly, and perhaps via written correspondence.

Though the ensuing ride rattled her teeth worse than any farm wagon might have, Lyon quickly fell back to dozing. When it seemed he'd slept for ten minutes or so, she furtively opened her bag and removed the vial.

Tilting back her head, she squeezed three drops into her throat. Undiluted, it was awful, but she managed to get it down.

The customary warmth suffused her almost immediately, lapping at her with gentle waves of serenity. As she stowed them away again, she noticed something had fallen from her bag onto the lap of her skirt. The object she'd stolen from Valmont's cabinet.

She turned it over and over in her fingers, considering it. Why, in that fraught moment as she'd stood before the shelf, had her hand reached for Fleur's bracelet, but then diverted to grasp this?

For some reason, in some way, this particular token must be significant. She crushed it in her fingers, trying to absorb its meaning through her skin. Of course, she couldn't.

Sighing, she stuffed the dingy blue swatch of fabric back into her bag.

A
cigar dropped from Valmont's lax fingers to roll on the carpet, scorching it. Moaning, he slumped lower in the chair where he sat upstairs in his private office. His eyes began to flutter furiously, opening and closing like shutters, faster than anyone could blink. He lost control of his arm and it jerked wildly, sweeping everything off the side table, including the crystal pitcher and the absinthe glass he'd drained numerous times that evening.

He dreamed of blood. Of the blood of a woman with sea-green eyes that turned the waters of the River Loire red, then pink. Then it washed over him, licking at him like a thousand sanguine devil's tongues.

An incredible ecstasy seized him, and his hand grabbed his crotch. He was alone, yet it felt as though a hot, erotic mouth had just sheathed his erection.

“Juliette.” The word was a desperate, yearning cry. In his mind, her lips were willing, sucking at him as if she couldn't get enough. He twisted on his chair, writhing under her stroke, his legs shaking and shoulders shimmying. Suddenly, every muscle in his body spasmed tight.

Cum shot from him, soiling his trousers from within, as his body bucked uncontrollably under the most violent orgasm of his life. Oh, that this heavenly sensation would never end!

Of course, it did end and he soon found himself alone again, and despairing.

Two apparitions came to him then—small, glowing creatures. They came out of the black wretchedness of his dreams as they sometimes did when he was soaked with drink.

“Are you angels?” he asked wondrously.

They only giggled in reply, their eyes mischievous. Softly nudging one another and seeming to communicate through telepathy, they began to rifle their fingers through the items on his desk. After selecting something from among them, they began backing away.

His collection! He'd taken the mementoes from his cabinet earlier, and had planned to spend the evening fondling them and reminiscing. However, he'd already been too soused to focus on them properly and had given up the attempt.

“No! What are you stealing, you spawns of Satan? Give it back!”

But they ignored him and only replaced whatever they'd taken with something else. A long slender tube. Then they faded into the fire in the grate.

“Wait! What's that you put there?” He tried to rouse himself from the chair to see what they'd left for him. But his movements were uncoordinated and he pitched forward onto the carpet and into unconsciousness.

When he woke toward dawn, he was a mess. He'd upended himself on the floor, and his chair as well, for it now lay across the back of his legs. His crotch was sticky-wet with his own spill.

Fuck! Another absinthe-induced convulsion.

And what was that disgusting smell? Apparently, cum wasn't the only thing his body had involuntarily expelled in his trousers. He'd fouled himself.

He managed to right the chair, but for the moment, standing was beyond him. With both hands, he held his pounding head. Fantastic memories of the night that had just passed came to him, making him wonder which were false and which had really transpired.

Looking toward his desk, he saw that something foreign lay atop it. The tube! Had those two glowing pygmies really come here and left it for him?

Crawling on all fours, he made it to his desk and kneeling up, discovered the gift that lay there.

It was a sheet of parchment, yellowed with age, which had been tightly rolled and tied with a ribbon. Faintly glowing fingerprints dotted it here and there, where it had been gripped. His midnight callers had not been delusions after all!

What had they left him? A treasure map?

Anxiously, he unrolled the tube, disappointed at first to see it was only a neatly recorded list of names and other information. It appeared to have been torn from some sort of large registry book. A title block in the corner caught his eye for it bore an institutional insignia. His heart stopped, then raced on when it informed him that the page had originated at the Hospice des Enfants Trouvés.

Then the name “Juliette” jumped out at him and he clutched the parchment, examining it with rapt attention. A second name leaped out almost as quickly and he groaned. Had Juliette seen this?
Non!
Even if she had, the dates would mean nothing to her. He was worrying for nothing.

But how had those imps come by this and what did it signify that they'd left it here?

Suddenly, he remembered that they had not only given him something. They'd taken from him as well. Setting the document aside, he scanned the objects of his collection that lay scattered over his desktop.

Two were missing!

The loss of little Fleur's bracelet he could've withstood, but the loss of the other—! He let out a wounded yowl and crumpled to the carpet. The blue swatch of fabric was irreplaceable—his first and most cherished memento of all!

It was too cruel to be a simple prank. The taking of his prizes and leaving of this parchment must have been intended as some sort of message to him, he decided. But what exactly had been meant?

He sat on the floor and rocked himself, mulling the riddle for an hour or more. Now and then, he struck his skull with his own fist in an effort to make it work more efficiently, but this only worsened his headache.

His faulty, drugged brain continued to ponder at a sluggish pace, forcing together puzzle pieces that should not adjoin: A dream of blood. Juliette's scrawled name. The loss of the mementoes.

How did they relate?

Eventually, he jumped to his feet, having arrived at dangerous, illogical conclusions. He'd planned to sell Juliette's virgin blood too easily! he realized. In his recent letter, he'd offered her to Satyr, full well knowing she would not be able to withstand the pressure he would bring to bear, and that he would ultimately succeed in bedding her. But now it had come to him that there were others—strange unearthly creatures—who desperately wanted his darling Juliette.

When the bright ones came again, he would go where they led and hand her over, unsullied and intact. And at that moment, he would be rewarded.

With gold. With magic. Of the kind Juliette possessed, and which he coveted.

These imagined understandings filled him with new purpose. He flew down the hall, took the steps two at a time up to the attic, and threw open the door to Juliette's room.

Her things were in place, but she wasn't there! Alarmed, he rushed back down the stairs. Passing Gina in the hall, he grabbed her arm. “Where's Juliette?”

She recoiled at the smell of him, fanning her nose. “I don't know. Sometimes she's with Fleur in the mornings.”

Gina was right. He was disgusting. Embarrassed, he scuttled to his room, threw his trousers aside, cleaned himself up, and re-dressed himself in record time.

When he found Fleur's chamber and flung the door open, relief filled him. Two girls lay there, sleeping in her bed. “Juliette? Fleur?”

“
Monsieur?
” The coverlet fell away as the girls sat up, blinking at him. Agnes and Marie.

His fingers tightened on the doorknob. “Why are you here? Where's Juliette?”

Agnes yawned. “Last night you agreed I could have Fleur's room now that she's gone. As for Juliette, I haven't seen her.”

“If she's not in her chamber, perhaps she's gone marketing again at Les Halles?” Marie put in.

Fleur was gone. Of course she was. Fool! He'd taken her to Monsieur Arlette's establishment beyond the outskirts of Paris himself just two nights ago. It was a private, bucolic setting, with nothing to offer in the way of entertainment, except what he and Arlette had planned for a few special guests.

He'd lingered there for a few hours to enjoy a drink and admire Arlette's technique. To start things off, Fleur had been given to the three men who'd offered remuneration in exchange for her purchase. They were refined gentlemen of wealth and social rank, who had paid Arlette and him well to abuse her. These events were always profitable for them and the funds would tide them over until the factory reached full production.

How Fleur had fought as her customers had cornered her! Once Arlette had smacked her around some and explained things to her, she'd gotten the gist of her new place. She'd sucked off the paying clients and him and Arlette as well. All five of them, one after the other. Then the fucking had commenced.

Eventually, an expectant silence had fallen and all had looked to Arlette. He'd gone to the weary girl and kissed her and told her she was going to die. She'd wept of course, but he'd only turned her around and slapped her rear and told her to run. Told her that if she ran fast enough, she might escape her fate.

It was a lie, naturally, but it had added spice to the chase. Seeing the open door, she'd charged into the field as they always did. Her dress had been given to the hounds and once they had their fill of her scent, the hunt was on.

He looked at his hands. There'd been so much blood. Just as there had been on that day three years ago—the day of his first kill.

“Monsieur Valmont?” Agnes prompted.

“Hmmm?” He looked up at her, banishing his memories. She looked sexy with sleep. Her large, dark nipples were visible through her rumpled chemise and he knew from prior experience that her bed and her cunt would be warm.

He was worrying for nothing. Juliette had probably only gone to the market as Marie suggested. In any event, she wouldn't wander far. She was too timid to venture any great distance from his protection.

“
Allez
, Marie,” he said, sending the girl scurrying from the room.

He kicked the door shut behind her with his heel and began unfastening his trousers. With stoic acceptance, Agnes rolled onto her back.

Sibela paced herself as she made her way from the Seine to the Rhône. She had just over three weeks left to conclude her aquatic journey. There was no reason to rush, for sufficient time remained.

She would soon cross into the Mediterranean, then on to the River Arno. From there, she would wend her way through smaller tributaries that fed the estate where the father of the child in her womb made his home.

Only a few moons had passed since she'd fornicated with him, but already she was growing fatter and more ungainly. And ever more anxious to be done with the birthing of the babe in her belly.

However, though she had no love for Satyr's offspring, she was careful with it. For it was a precious commodity. One that would ensure her future.

Occasionally, she copulated with other males her during her voyage, for it was her nature. Initially, she'd attempted to shun all things carnal, but had quickly failed at that endeavor. She'd been worried that the sperm of others she mated might join with Satyr's, resulting in a mixed breed that he wouldn't recognize as his own. Fortunately, the seed that had spawned this particular child had proven impervious to the influx of that from other species.

Still, she was determined that she'd refrain during the fourth and final week of gestation. She would be quite swollen by then and feared that male intrusions and excitements might do harm to Satyr's progeny.

Abstinence wouldn't be easy. By the time she was in sight of Tuscany, she would be desperate for the thorough fucking that Lyon would willingly administer to her under the next full moon.

Whether he liked it or not.