Nicholas: The Lords of Satyr (26 page)

Izabel thrust her away. “Don’t try your sorceress tricks with me. Take us to the place where our world meets that of the other. Then you may have your son.”

Jane had no idea where the door between the two worlds occurred on Satyr land. But if Izabel realized her ignorance, she might decide her usefulness was at an end.

Jane took her sister’s arm and began to walk, with no idea where she was going. The group followed them.

“If you find a chance, run and hide,” she whispered to Emma. “Remain quiet and Nick or I will find you later.”

“What about you?”

“I’ll rest easier once I know you’re safe,” Jane told her.

“Stop your whispering!” Izabel commanded, pulling them apart.

“She’s leading us in circles,” complained Signora Nesta. “Leave it for now. There’s time enough to find the opening ourselves when the fog lifts. After our ritual.”

“Agreed. I grow randy,” said Signora Natoli.

“It’s this place,” said Signora Ricco. “It’s meant for fucking. What say you, Izabel?”

“Very well,” said Izabel.

All eyes turned to Jane.

“Remove your gown, niece.”

Aghast, Jane flattened her hands on her chest and glanced toward her struggling sister. Signora Ricco held her now with a hand covering her mouth.

“If you want my cooperation, let her go,” said Jane. “I mean it.”

“Take the girl into the forest and tie her fast to one of the oaks,” Izabel told Signoras Ricco and Bich. “Not too distant. I want her to enjoy her sister’s moans.”

Though Emma scratched and bit, she was no match for two grown women. Once she was ushered into the fog, Izabel turned back to Jane. “Now then.”

Jane stood, unmoving.

“Shall we bring Emma back and dally with her first?” Izabel threatened.

With leaden fingers, Jane began to unfasten her gown.

When it fell away, the other three women moved behind her, whispering in wonderment. Fingers roved her back, making her skin crawl as they examined her quills as though she were a bizarre species of bird captured in a foreign land.

Izabel curled around to face her, leaving the others to their petting. Her eyes were dilated, her lips eager to spill her evil.

“Don’t be shy,” she said softly, cupping Jane’s cheek. “I have seen you like this before, many times. In the bath. At your toilette.”

“How?” Jane cursed the tremble in her voice.

“Remember the holes Emma found in your bedchamber in London?”

“The spy holes? You said they’d been made by a servant. You closed them.”

“Yes. But there were more. Not made by servants but by my own hand when I visited. Through them, I watched you struggle with your powers. Saw the feathers awaken. Longed to touch.”

“Did my mother know?”

“She watched with me and was afraid,” Izabel told her, each word a stab at Jane’s soul.

“No,” Jane whimpered.

Izabel settled a kiss on her lips. “Poor Jane. When the changes first began, you didn’t know to hide them. In your innocence, you asked questions that terrified her. She sought my help, and I counseled her on how to handle you. We became close for a time. But I knew all along she would eventually have to go.”

Jane’s head snapped back. “Are you saying you had a hand in her death?”

“I had to punish her,” Izabel explained with a self-righteous air. “She married your father and took him from me, foolish creature.”

Rage flared in Jane, bringing with it a strange fluttering sensation along her back. Behind her, Signora Nesta gasped. “The feathers—they’re moving!”

“Step away,” Izabel warned. “We must begin. Show Jane what we have planned for her, Signora Natoli.”

Signora Natoli obediently came forward and lowered the front of her bodice, displaying twin silver rings hooked in the center nubs of her massive breasts.

Izabel looped a finger through a ring and tugged, stretching the large brown-colored disk in the center of the signora’s breast.

Signora Natoli sucked a quick breath.

Izabel smiled into her eyes and then released her.

Her gaze slid to Jane’s. “After we mark you in this way tonight, you will be one of us.”

“No!” Jane struggled against the other two women who now held her. The unusual sensations at her shoulder blades increased.

“Calm yourself,” Signora Natoli crooned at her ear. “The power of the ancient rings will convince you soon enough.”

Izabel’s lips closed over one of Jane’s nipples and then the other, sucking until they sprang obediently to attention. Then she took both tips between a thumb and forefinger and pinched hard. At Jane’s cry, she made a moue of commiseration. “You should thank me. The numbing helps dull the pain of piercing.”

Jane had never been more thankful she could no longer meld with anyone other than Nick, for she wanted to know nothing more of these women.

“Where are they?” Signora Nesta wondered impatiently, looking in the direction Signora Bich and Ricco had taken Emma.

“Find them,” said Izabel. “I’m anxious to begin, and they carry the rings.”

“Ladies!” called Signora Nesta.

There was no answer.

“Perhaps they are dallying with the younger girl,” suggested Signora Natoli, glancing toward the forest.

“No! Emma?!” Jane shouted.

Still no answer.

“Join us,” Izabel told her, “and your sons will be the beginning of a new race, one beyond mortal. We will guide them, worship them with our bodies. One day, they’ll be feared, powerful beyond measure.”

At the full revelation of Izabel’s plan, Jane was flooded with guilty horror. If she’d never wed Nick, his land wouldn’t have been invaded, his secrets laid bare, his child threatened. She pushed away fear and sought a plan.

“You’re right in what you said before. The Satyr are vigorous and inventive lovers. My husband has led me along a sensual path that I have at times feared bordered on wickedness. It has given me a taste for it. If you can sincerely promise more of such things, I’ll join your society.”

Izabel’s hands stilled on her. “Do you think me daft that I would believe such a turnaround in your behavior?”

Jane tried not to let her distress show. “Come, let me prove it to you by explaining how to use some of the accoutrements you found in his pleasure room.”

“I think we can figure them out for ourselves,” scoffed Signora Natoli.

“But Nick has shown me their secrets. You might never guess them without instruction.”

“Release her,” said Izabel. She waved Jane toward the devices, her eyes challenging.

Jane was careful not to go directly to the devices she most wanted to show them. Instead she picked up one of the small whips and handed it to Izabel. “Each of these imparts a special taste on impact.”

“Test it on me,” Signora Nesta said, eagerly offering her back.

Izabel took the whip and snapped it, her eyes sparkling. It cracked against her friend’s bared back.

“Peach!” shrieked Signora Nesta, smacking her lips. “I taste peach! Your niece doesn’t lie.”

Three sets of eyes fell on her.

“What else? Show us, girl,” said Izabel.

Casually Jane led them to the cylindrical devices. “My husband particularly desired me to examine these.”

“Dildos,” murmured Signora Natoli.

Jane pointed at one. “This was the phallus of a beast from that other world you seek. It still vibrates with the creature’s lifeforce.”

She held her breath, keeping her expression innocent. Would Izabel take the bait?

Izabel raised her skirts to employ the device but then drew back, her eyes slitted. “You are too eager for me to try it. And I shall. But first you will lubricate it for me. Lie back.”

Bark scratched Jane’s skin as she half reclined against a tree trunk.

Izabel shoved the cylinder between her niece’s legs and inside her, watching her expression closely.

Though Jane’s passage was dry, the beast’s phallus brought forth moisture and engendered instantaneous delight. She arched, groaning. Embarrassed, she looked away from the salacious gazes of the other women.

As she built toward unwilling climax, she divorced herself from it, staring high into the branches of the tree upon which she leaned. An elder. Amid its bark and branches, a kind face stared down at her, offering comfort. Was she hallucinating?

“If you rest under the Elder tree, it will bring drugged and dangerous dreams of faerieland,” Jane murmured, recalling an old childhood verse.

Hands were touching her, petting, stroking the device between her legs. These hands were no strangers to poisonings. Murder. Blood. People had died under their delicate caress. The cries of tortured victims rang in her ears. Long ago, their cries had gone unheard amid the crash of cymbals and drums in the seven hills of Rome.

What was happening to her? Her orgasm crested and broke, shattering the frightening images into hundreds of colored shards. But her wanting didn’t ease.

“Again,” she moaned, craving more.

“I think not.” Izabel wrested the device from her.

Bewildered at its loss, Jane sprawled in a boneless heap at the foot of the tree.

“Are there any more like that one?” Signora Ricco asked. It seemed Signoras Ricco and Bich had rejoined them while Jane had been distracted. Jane managed to turn her head toward the forest. No sign of Emma.

The five women sorted eagerly through the dildos. They each chose one of the beast phalluses and tucked it beneath their skirts, lying under the elders.

“Help me,” Jane whispered, gazing into the mysterious faces in the trees above.

Overhead, branches rustled an answering chorus of murmuring voices. Dryads crooned to her, their song comforting. Though there was no wind, their leaves drifted softly over her, forming a light blanket.

Drawn by the dryads’ call, vines crept and curled over the elder’s gnarled roots and then around ankles and under petticoats. Surreptitiously, they wrapped around shins, thighs, wrists, and waists, pinning the five signoras fast before they became aware of their presence.

“What’s happening?” Signora Nesta squealed. Silver rings were tugged from four sets nipples, and the phalluses were pulled from the cunts of all but one victim.

A vicious snaking vine curled itself around Izabel’s windpipe once, twice, a half dozen times or more, growing ever tighter. Her hands ripped at it, clawing for breath. The phallus throbbed inside her, giving her orgasm after orgasm after orgasm. It remained in her long after she was overwhelmed by its stimulation. Long after her heart ceased beating and her skin grew cold, her eyes fixed and dilated.

With the morning, Nick came, finding Jane sleeping in the cocoon of leaves and enfolding her in his arms. Lyon gathered Emma and Vincent from the forest, where dryads had watched over them, and saw them safely in their beds.

The figures of four sleeping women and one dead were gathered and deposited in the grotto of Izabel’s childhood home. When they awoke, days later, the four signoras were bewildered and changed, the rings at their nipples gone. Their minds were washed of the events of the night as well as any evil.

The fifth’s evil had died with her. Only her stepbrother cried piteously over her when she was discovered dead in the garden of the home where they’d grown up, and in their own twisted way, loved.

I
n the following days, two more missives from ElseWorld arrived. Nick grew more tense with each. When a third came in as many weeks, Raine returned from Venice, and the three brothers met at Blackstone to discuss a course of action.

“The unrest in ElseWorld is intensifying in the aftermath of King Feydon’s death,” said Nick. “His sons and daughters vie for control.”

“All this could have been avoided if Feydon had left directives regarding a line of succession,” Lyon said in an aggrieved tone.

Raine picked up one of the missives, studying it. “Do they still respect our right to vote in the election of a new king?”

“Yes, though some view us with growing suspicion, believing we hold Human welfare above that of creatures in ElseWorld,” said Nick.

“The makings of war are brewing,” said Lyon. “ElseWorld factions will soon challenge Human control of EarthWorld to enhance their worthiness as potential rulers. Our role as a buffer between the worlds will be tested.”

Nick shrugged his massive shoulders tiredly. “I’ll depart for the conclave in ElseWorld two days hence, hoping to calm the waters. I fear for Jane’s safety while I’m away.”

“You don’t believe the danger to which Feydon’s letter referred passed with her erstwhile aunt’s demise?” asked Raine.

“It has lessened—” Nick began.

“But something remains to disturb the calm,” Lyon finished. “I’ve sensed it, too, and wondered if the danger to your wife is truly over.”

“Have you considered taking Jane with you through the worldgate?” Lyon suggested.

Nick shook his head. “My focus must be on the negotiations. I won’t be able to adequately guard her from those who would try to harm me through her.”

“I’ll postpone my bride search to remain here while you’re gone,” said Raine. “Lyon and I will watch over her.”

“But will it be enough?” asked Lyon.

A potent silence fell, taut with unspoken words. Their thoughts took them all along the same path.

Finally Raine broke the tension. “There are ways of better protecting her.”

Nick nodded reluctantly. “The ancient ritual. I have considered it.”

“And?” prompted Lyon.

“She won’t easily participate. But I must contemplate what is best for the family. And for her.”

“Tomorrow is the Calling. We’ll await your decision,” said Lyon.

“I’ll sleep on the matter,” said Nick.

A sparkling of dew had begun to settle the following evening when Nick led Jane from the castello by way of the back garden. It was July now, and the rest of Italy was parched by the heat. But temperatures on the estate remained constant and mild.

Her skirt fluttered in the sultry breeze as they followed the brick of the garden path until it blended with lawn. Nick continued on through the grass and wildflowers that caught at her ankles. Just ahead, oak, olive, and elder loomed, thick and tangled.

Nick tugged on her hand when she held back at the forest edge.

“Where are we going?” she asked.

“You will see. Come.”

The forest opened and quickly swallowed them. Jane sensed none of the uncertainty the giant trees had once shown toward her. There was only acceptance.

All was inky darkness within the landscape of silvered trunks, but Nick moved quickly, propelling her forward with a hand at her waist, sure of his path. Now and then he pressed at her shoulder to duck under a hanging branch, some instinct enabling him to dodge obstacles she couldn’t see.

“A torch might have been useful,” Jane said when he saved her from tripping on an oak root.

“I’ve been this way countless times,” he murmured. “I could tread it blind.”

They continued on for some minutes in silence, when Jane again asked their destination.

“Tonight is the Calling,” he replied obliquely.

Her pulse quickened. “Yes, I know.”

It would be the first such time since their child had been born. Her body was eager, anticipating what would happen between them. She’d seen that Emma and Vincent were in bed early and well looked after by their new dryad nannies. The night was hers and Nick’s to enjoy.

A stray shaft of starlight fell across Nick’s brow, and he shot her a look filled with meaning she couldn’t interpret. “It’s my brothers’ Calling time as well.”

An image of Nick’s reticent brother Raine leaped to her mind. It was difficult to imagine him involved in a carnal mating ritual. Lyon was a different matter, but her mind veered away from envisioning either brother in the throes of passion.

“I never thought about them…doing that.”

“They require the same release at Moonful as I do. During the recent Callings, when I remained with you within the castello, they met at the gathering place in the forest without me.”

“But they aren’t wed. Who do they—?”

“They join with Shimmerskins.”

Jane digested that for a moment.

“When it happens, I experience their passion,” Nick added.

“How do you mean?”

“Satyrs are bonded by blood. We know when the others achieve physical fulfillment.”

“If you know when your brothers are having relations, does that mean they know when we’re—?”

“Having relations?” he asked, lifting her over a narrow brook. “They don’t know specifics, only that you’re giving me pleasure.”

“Oh,” she said faintly.

“Don’t be embarrassed. When one of us is stirred to arousal, the others are only too glad to benefit.”

“I wonder if I’ll have such telepathic kinship with my half sisters.”

Nick’s interest perked. “An intriguing thought. You will have to tell me after they join our family and are mated to my brothers. We’ve lived with this sense so long between us that it is second nature. But it is particularly strong in the Calling. And, of course, the Bacchanalia.”

“As in a celebration of the wine god, Bacchus?” asked Jane.

Nick held aside a silvery branch grown thick with olives so she could pass before replying. “That’s right. It’s a three-day rite held at the vernal equinox.”

“Is it anything like the Calling?”

“Wilder. Even more passionate.”

“I wonder if I’ll survive it,” she teased.

He paused and drew her close, his palms shaping her ribs. She felt his fierce erection at her belly as he murmured into her hair. “Physical joy will swell within us in harmony with the reawakening of the vines in anticipation of the grapes that will eventually swell to bursting—ripe, juicy, and sweet. The passion is stronger. Indescribable. You will see.”

He pulled away, leaving her breathless. Taking her hand, he led her deeper into the woods than the forest had ever allowed her to penetrate. Overhead, the trees rustled in greeting. Ferns and thicket parted for him.

Finally the forest thinned and they entered an expansive clearing. Pale statues loomed from the night, forming an eerily silent ring around it. Tendrils of mist curled and snaked among the dozens of granite figures. Simple stone altars dotted the landscape of the central glen, like ancient picnic tables in a public park.

Her eyes grew accustomed to the starlight, and she was able to see more clearly. This was the place Izabel had brought her that awful night.

As they moved farther into the clearing, she saw that the statues depicted creatures both fantastic and real, all shaped in lewd poses.

Rock-hard Satyrs entwined themselves with multiple female partners, feasting on their breasts and enthusiastically filling their every orifice in one lascivious way or another. Carved nymphs cavorted in orgiastic fervor. And, everywhere, wine—petrified in stone—flowed from flagons and decorative urns.

She felt guilty for studying the figures and for the moisture that formed between her legs at the sight.

“Why have you brought me back to this horrible place?” she demanded.

“It’s the sacred gathering place,” he told her. “’Tis here that the Bacchanalia I spoke of will occur.”

“Tonight?”

“At September’s end.”

“For what purpose have you brought me here tonight then?” Was the Calling to take place here in this strange, wild arena?

The moon chose that moment to show itself, filtering through the foliage overhead to bathe them in its glow. Nick groaned and lifted his chin upward to receive its sacred energy. Light bleached his skin, silvering his features, until he appeared almost a demon.

He lowered his mirrored eyes, and his hands traced the curve of her waist to mold her back. “I have brought you here tonight,” he said, “for a Sharing.”

Jane frowned, not understanding. Before she could ask him to explain, she heard the crunch of footsteps. Turning, she saw Raine and Lyon enter the far side of the sacred ring.

They stopped just inside the perimeter, as motionless as the statues. Their figures were poised and expectant, their gazes riveted on Nick.

Realization began to dawn, and with it came instantaneous repudiation. “You don’t expect me to disrobe in front of your brothers, surely. And we won’t make love here in the open while they—watch?” Her voice rose on the last word, suddenly fearing that was exactly what Nick planned.

She saw the answer in his eyes, felt him willing her to agree.

“Absolutely not!” She shook her head wildly, pulling away from him. “Why would you ask me to do such a thing!”

“It’s our way.”

“I grow weary of that explanation.”

Nick sighed and cupped her shoulders in his hands. “It’s necessary. They’ll think nothing less of you for it. Quite the opposite, in fact.”

“No, Nick. You should have told me your plans so that we might have discussed it before we came here.”

“I didn’t wish to alarm you.”

“Well, now I am alarmed. The idea of disrobing in your brothers’ company is scandalous.”

“It’s commonplace for females to disrobe before family members in ElseWorld,” he went on. “Women of this world wear far too many clothes.”

“You’ve never complained about my clothing before. Why now?”

He spread his hands as though at a loss to understand why she didn’t grasp the necessity of his intentions and go along. “It’s a Sharing.”

Jane peeked around him. Raine and Lyon hadn’t moved.

She searched his eyes. “What does that mean exactly?”

“My brothers will share our pleasure with us.”

“I said
exactly
. What
exactly
do you imagine will occur here tonight?”

“They will touch you as I do.”

“Touch? You mean, touch my body?” she squeaked.

He nodded.

“Couple with me?” she hazarded.

He nodded again.

“You wish to share me in that special way? With your brothers?” she whispered in disbelief.

His jaw hardened, but he only nodded a third time.

She stepped back from him and looked in the direction from which they’d come, at the unbroken line of trees. Where was the path? “Take me back.”

“Jane—”

She stalked from him, but an arm scooped around her waist, halting her. She twisted in his grasp to scowl at him. “If you truly cared for me, you wouldn’t suggest such a thing.”

“I do care for you. It is part of that caring that allows me to set my jealousy aside. I don’t want to share you with other men. Not even my brothers. But it is for this night only and for your good that I make such a sacrifice.”

“For my
good
?” she mocked. “Oh, please.”

His brows snapped together. “You doubt me? ’Tis true. I must leave soon for ElseWorld, where I’ll be unable to sense you. I worry for your safety.”

“The threat from Izabel has passed. What do you imagine could happen?”

“Any number of things! ElseWorld is on the brink of war, and the gate between our two worlds lies on Satyr land. There are those who would dare an attack upon us to wrest control of it. A Sharing will forge bonds that link you with my brothers, as I’m linked with them. They will sense if you’re in trouble while I’m away.”

“No.”

“Jane, see reason.”

She tried a different tack. “What if your brothers get me with child?”

He took her hands in his. “It goes without saying that they will withhold their childseed from you tonight, as will I. I wouldn’t have you burdened with overly quick birthings.”

Jane closed her eyes, wishing this nightmare away. When she reopened them, nothing had changed. Her husband still gazed upon her with expectation, and his brothers still lurked in the shadows beyond.

“I don’t want this, Nick. I’d rather remain at risk.”

“And thereby leave our son at risk while he’s under your sole care?”

Jane hesitated.

She felt the strength of his will cajoling at her mind, pushing her toward compliance. “Stop that. I never should have melded with you.”

Nick chuckled. “You will understand in time. But I dare not wait. We must undertake to safeguard you before I depart on the morrow.”

She felt a tug at her dress and realized he was prompting her decision in the direction he desired. She was being disrobed.

Beyond him, she saw that Raine and Lyon had taken his actions as a signal and had begun to remove their clothing as well. Chests emerged from tunics, appearing wider and stronger when revealed in the moonlight. She wanted to continue thinking of them only as brothers, not carnal men with desires of the flesh. She looked away.

All too soon, she and Nick stood naked within the hush of the glen.

Raine and Lyon left their clothing draped over one of the altars and joined them. The moon chose that moment to bathe them all in its fullness, and she silently cursed it. She tried to scuttle her way behind Nick. But he put a hand at the small of her back, refusing to allow it.

He kissed her with an air of finality and a whisper of gratitude. Then his hand slid from hers.

Her fingers made an abortive attempt to maintain contact and then fluttered to her side. She crossed her arms over her chest, feeling abandoned and horribly embarrassed as he moved to stand with his brothers.

The three giant males stood shoulder to shoulder, staring down at her. Their muscled torsos gleamed in the gauzy murkiness like those of the stone statues. They presented a united front, and she felt small and alone.