Lyon (27 page)

L
yon slammed his front door shut, causing its frame to shudder. Then he forced himself to face three obvious facts.

It was Moonful.

The Calling had begun.

And Juliette was gone.

The knowledge reverberated in his skull, shocking his entire system.

Standing on the uppermost step of his
castello's
rear garden porch, he surveyed the courtyard and property beyond, as if expecting that by doing so she might magically reappear. When he'd returned home from Nick's a few hours ago, he'd sought her out. But she'd been nowhere to be found.

The servants had all just now departed, as they traditionally did at dusk, adjourning to their quarters just outside the estate. Before they'd gone, he'd rallied every one of them in a search of his entire home and its immediate grounds, but to no avail.

Gods!
He ripped a hand through his hair in acute frustration, then took the only action left open to him. Loping down the stairs and across the bright mosaic of the courtyard, he banged the back garden gate wide.

She wasn't comfortable in the outdoors. Yet she'd run from the protection of his home. From him. Had she gone of her own free will?

Her scent was fresh in the garden. She'd been here recently, but was gone now. As she'd grown more comfortable with him and her own origins, she'd stopped holding herself so tightly leashed and her fey fragrance had slipped the reins that had once held it bound. The soft whispered tease of it was now such an integral part of his life that he couldn't imagine losing it.

“Juliette!” he called out, knowing it was useless.

He traveled on, making his way in the direction of the sacred glen. Secreted in the forest at the center of all the Satyr landholdings, it lay at a location equidistant from his and his brothers' homes. He moved surely toward it through the twilight, for he knew this path well, having trod it once a month for his whole adult life. But rarely had he done so with less enthusiasm.

Perhaps her flight was his fault. He'd tried to properly prepare her by explaining the upcoming ritual, but had he only made her afraid? If only he could find her. Calm her. He could convince her—

Arrgghh!
His swiftly changing body forced him to a halt. Doubling over, he braced his hands on the bunched muscles of his thighs. His fingers bit into his flesh as he sought to endure the pain-pleasure phenomenon of his cock thickening and lengthening in preparation for the night to come.

“Down, boy. The one you seek isn't here,” he muttered caustically.

After a moment, he was able to move on. His swollen prick cried out for release, straining in the now excruciatingly tight quarters it occupied in his trousers.

His state would only worsen. Soon he would be incapacitated, overtaken by an instinctive drive to fuck. Going into Human society to search for Juliette was unthinkable in his condition. Any search of his land or beyond its confines would have to wait until morning.

His legs began to sting from hip to ankle, as pores widened to sprout a familiar downy fur. The short sepia pelt tickled at his genitals and rasped his skin. Within minutes he would transform into something closer to beast than man.

The Change that occurred at each monthly Calling had always seemed to hit him more keenly than his brothers, sharpening primal instincts that lay dormant between Moonfuls. Perhaps it was why he felt such a kinship for the animals in his menagerie. They too were driven by instincts too savage to be palatable to some.

At the first of the ancient gnarled oaks, he faltered, gripping the silver bark until it scraped his palm and fingertips, as new agony engulfed him. Immobilized, he gritted his teeth against the building of a terrific cramp. A strangled curse escaped him when his second cock forced itself from the region of his pelvis, nearly ripping through his trousers in its voracious search for female flesh.

He wrenched buttons open and enveloped it with his hand, using a milking motion to momentarily soothe it before tucking it back within the fabric and moving on. Need drove him now, and he picked up his pace, cantering on furred, muscular legs toward that deepest, most secret part of Satyr Forest.

By the time he reached the edge of the sanctuary, his thought processes had begun to devolve and his utterances had deteriorated to monosyllabic grunts.

Moss. Soft. Good. Cunt.

On silent feet, he entered the lair where he and his brothers had met every month since they'd achieved manhood. Here, they gathered in supreme privacy to assuage an all-consuming lechery brought on by a moon waxed full. Humans never came here for they sensed the strangeness of this place and turned away long before reaching its perimeter.

Nicholas was already within and glanced over at him, having no doubt scented his approach. His eyes were a narrow glint of sapphire, turned almost black by lustful intentions. Jane stood with him, shadowed in his embrace. Her bodice had been loosened by his brother's hands, which were busy beneath it and her skirts.

A vaguely confused expression flitted over his face at Lyon's appearance in the glen, for he hadn't expected him. They'd met earlier in the afternoon to initiate the ritual with sacred drink, and Lyon had explained that Juliette wasn't yet ready to come here. Since Nick had eased his own wife into such matters only a few months ago, he had understood.

And yet now here Lyon stood, alone. But any explanation would have to wait. He threw off his shirt, boots, and trousers, leaving them where they fell.

Nicholas had already turned back to his wife. As Lyon's feet took him across the soft mossy floor, he felt his brother's hunger for the woman he held, and it sent his own need higher. Raine was still in Venice, and likely with Jordan. Their fraternal emotions came to him now as a feathery brush of salaciousness, and they provided a link that kept the three of them bound with the ancient Satyr, particularly during the Calling.

His physical metamorphosis from the waist down was complete now, and he moved with the mist, among pale stone shapes and the earthy smell of decay. Larger than life statues hovered in a frozen, waiting silence. Writhing figures with enormous phalluses and others with lush breasts posed together in lewd embraces, their faces wreathed with an ecstasy engendered by their couplings.

The monuments were meant to inspire lust in those who ventured within the bounds of this secret circle. He could feel them watching; knew that they were pleased by his arrival. The wild orgies of his ancestors had once taken place here for weeks on end during the Callings and Bacchanalias of long ago, but the statues witnessed less frequent bouts of debauchery these days. They were hungry to gaze upon his naked flesh, urging him to immerse himself in carnal pleasures.

At his approach, one of the statues moved, startling him. It was a female. A live one, not a statue after all. And she was nude. Nick glanced over, having noticed her as well. But her scent was fey, and obviously sensing she was no threat, he turned back to his wife.

Lyon took eager steps in her direction. He'd planned to conjure Shimmerskins for his mating, but now—

“Juliette?” His voice became a question, as he realized there was something wrong about her scent. It was familiar. It was Juliette. And yet not.

She came close and touched him with her pale hands. He stroked her hair. Why was it dark instead of the color of almonds? Some fleeting memory flitted into his mind and was as quickly gone.

“I have something of yours,” she crooned, distracting him. She tugged his fingers from her hair and spread them over her swollen abdomen.

His eyes dropped. “Mine,” he whispered shaping her belly with his broad hands.

Cunning sea-green watched him, and she covered his hands with her own. “Yes.”

The moon chose that moment to show itself and he groaned, his throat arching as he tilted his head and felt the heady caress of its light. Nearby, Jane moaned as his brother entered her.

“Come.” With a hand at the back of her neck, Lyon urged the mother of his child toward the stone slabs that dotted the glen.

“Come. Yes,” she told him. “That's exactly what I hope to do. I've not had a male between my legs for a week and I'm desperate for a fucking, my love.”

Love.
The word resonated through his system, swirling through his mind and pricking at his skin.

The numerous horizontal slabs were as big as tables and were conveniently placed here and there at just below waist height, so a female could easily recline upon one of them while a male took his comfort between her thighs. Lyon threaded among them, leading her to a particular destination—the horseshoe-shaped birthing altar at their center.

There, he helped her to kneel in the moss so her belly was protected in the lee of its stone U. Then he moved behind her, positioning himself between cool thighs and bracing his hands on either side of her.

She splayed her legs wide and tilted her rear, clearly offering herself to him. Though he wanted Juliette, he would fuck this woman—whoever she was—for she carried his child. And with the one he preferred gone, he had little choice but to take a substitute.

In one smooth motion he slammed into her, his twin cocks spearing her anally and vaginally with all the force this ritual demanded of him.

“Yesss!” the woman shouted. Her channels were experienced at welcoming a man and she ground her plump flesh against him, angling herself as he wished, when he wished. But he felt the wrongness of her.

Love.
The word was an ache, a wound on his soul.

Above them, the moon was as cold and unfeeling as a crystal ball, perfectly round and satisfied at the sacrifice it was requiring of him. He'd fucked hundreds of Shimmerskins here and as many Humans and other assorted female creatures elsewhere in every location imaginable. But now he craved only one woman. And she wasn't here.

A quarter of an hour later, he shouted his release and his creamy seed pumped into the body he embraced. His voice echoed and entwined that of his companion and that of the other two occupants of the glen, as they, too, found their pleasures. His spill was the first step in assuring a safe birthing for his offspring, and a need to bring it safely into this world would see him through the long hours of fucking that lay ahead.

Cool air wafted over his sweat-slicked back as he stilled, both of his cocks momentarily as empty as his heart. His sides heaved with the force of his breathing, yet he felt utterly unfulfilled. He had just spent seed meant for Juliette in the receptacles of a Nereid for whom he felt nothing.

Love.
The word blossomed in him. Warmed him, winging his thoughts away to another.

Gods, Juliette. Where are you?
She was never far from his heart as he proceeded to pass the night in a way that would satisfy ritual, duty, and a bloodlust that was innate to those of his kind.

Dawn came, and with it, a girl child was born.

Its mother screeched her way through its delivery, cursing and scratching him. Once the babe arrived, Lyon tended it, bathing it in the warmwater spring next to the birthing altar, and then patting it dry. Satyr males always took over the care of their newborns during the early hours after their birth, and joy filled him at doing so. This was his daughter. His firstborn. And he would protect and care for her for all of her days.

Wrapping her in his shirt, he carried her to her weary mother, who had curled up on the altar after bathing herself. Females were always exhausted after the Calling—particularly after a birthing—and usually slept the following day away. However this one would not sleep until he had some answers.

The baby began to fuss and its mother stirred. “Hush her, will you?” she complained. “What came before was nice enough, but that birthing business is something I don't care to repeat.”

At the sound of her irritated voice, a flash of recognition lit his eyes. His brow furrowed as he tried to place her. He'd never frequented the Nereid beyond a brief time in his teens, when he'd discovered they were not to his taste.

“I know you,” he said.

She opened one irritated eye. “Obviously!” she said, gesturing toward their daughter.

He shook his head, trying to clear it of the last vestiges of the Calling haze. Then suddenly, all clicked into place.

“Sibela,” he snarled softly, as the memory of her came back to him. “Damn. We were together in Paris. Under the bridge.” He frowned, glancing at the child in his arms. “But that wasn't Moonful. So how—”

“And who is this?” Nicholas interrupted, studying the babe Lyon cradled. The first streaks of dawn were fingering the sky and the Calling had released him from its grip as well. He'd brought a sleepy-eyed Jane along with him and was still refastening the hooks at the back of her bodice.

“My daughter apparently,” said Lyon. He handed her off to Sibela. “Who needs sustenance.”

Sibela looked ready to argue, but his glower had her acquiescing. With a long-suffering sigh, she put the child to her breast. “Ow! Damnation!”