Dane (4 page)

One that kept the world out and rendered her safe within. The doors and walls here were thick and the windowpanes doubled. Whatever happened here would be buffered from the outside world and from the two girls who‟d become her family. When she‟d come here three months ago, a neighbor had told her that a madwoman had been kept here in this chamber a century ago. And would she not turn mad herself soon? She supposed she was fortunate that her lunacy would only be of a ten-hour duration. From dusk to dawn.

Her eyes opened, darting to the tall cabinet along the far wall. The small door inset at eye level was normally kept locked, but it now stood open to reveal an assortment of crystal jars, vials, cylinders, and other curious items. Pushing off from the door, she crossed toward it, kicking off her boots onto carpeting that had been woven on ElseWorld looms. Eva paused before the cabinet, which had been constructed by fey woodworkers. In fact, the very house itself was under the covert ownership of the ElseWorld Council.

Sitting prominently on a low shelf within the cabinet was a slender glass bottle that to the untrained eye appeared to contain ordinary red wine. It was an ElseWorld relic, found somewhere by Odette, who knew how to locate such things. Beside it was a goblet, which had already been poured, awaiting her. Odette had obviously been here recently, preparing things.

She put the goblet to her lips and took a long draught from it, feeling the sanguine elixir burn its way down her throat. She followed that quickly with yet another gulp. Gasping, she wiped her lips with the back of one wrist. This was ancient drink, a necessary component in initiating tonight‟s ritual. A ritual that took place only once a month under the fullness of the moon.

One of the powders she‟d taken that morning was meant to soften the effects of this Calling, delay its onset. When she‟d first begun taking the powder four years ago, it had allowed her to pass nights such as this one with relative calm. But with each successive full moon, the powders‟

effectiveness decreased. Darkness had only just fallen and already she was near to leaping out of her skin.

Fortunately, the wine would calm her and set her on the inevitable path she must follow tonight. She took a third swallow from her goblet.

The entire bottle would be empty by night‟s end. Would somehow become full again a month from now without anyone having replenished it.

Seconds later, she heard the smooth glide of metal upon metal.

Tumblers groaned, falling into place. Her door was being locked from the outside. For a moment, there was waiting silence beyond it. Odette was listening from the hallway.

“I‟m all right,” Eva called softly. After a slight pause, she heard her servant‟s familiar uneven step fade down the hallway.

In truth, she was beginning to feel far better than just all right. The elixir was doing its work. Already the pace of her blood was slowing, and her jittery mood was altering to one of arousal, anticipation. In just a few moments more..

Eva stared into the goblet, tilting it toward the window in order to see the moon‟s light upon the wine‟s wavering surface. Dipping a finger into the drink, she stabbed the reflected orb, watching it turn bloody with the juice of Sangiovese grapes. When she lifted her finger again, several drops fell from its tip upon the breasts that swelled from her gaping bodice. The crimson droplets trickled lower between her curves. She caught them on the pads of two fingers and painted their slick moisture in a light circle over her nipple.

Where he had touched her. A prurient thrill prickled over her skin, and her nipple became a hard bead. Umm.

Her head lolled lazily to one side and her gaze fell to the bedside table. A basin and linen toweling had been placed upon it. For later—toward morning, when all this would end.

Through lowered lashes, she noted other preparations. Two lengths of silk-twisted rope securely tied to the head of the bed, one anchored at each bedpost. Her eyes skittered across these cords, a little shamed by them. By her need for them. The coverlet had been removed and folded on the dais, leaving only pillows and batiste sheets atop its mattress.

She took another long drink. Then the base of her goblet hit the low shelf with a thunk. And without knowing quite how she got there, she found herself standing at the foot of the bed. Her maman had found it for her at an auction of antiquities in ElseWorld, and it had been dismantled and brought here when Eva and Odette had crossed through the gate three months ago. Just after Maman had died. Its origins were uncertain, but it had almost certainly been wrought by satyr craftsmen. Her mother had said the owner didn‟t understand its secrets, but that Eva would.

It was beautiful and stately, made of lacquered olivewood. The head and footboards were done in an elaborate design of stylized grapevines and mythological figures. These disguised a number of intriguing features Eva had discovered on her own over the years. She skirted the tall leather trunk that stood at the foot of the bed rising to the same level as the mattress.

Tracing along the foot rail with her fingers, she found the indentation she sought underneath and pressed. There was a soft click and the rail began to rotate. A smooth cylinder about six inches in length and an inch or so in diameter slipped from its moorings within a sculpted design of vines, tendrils, leaves, shoots, and grape clusters in the footboard. Once the rail had twisted half a rotation around, it locked into place with another click. Now the cylinder stood upright, still rooted in the railing. From there it curved upward, angling slightly away from the nearest bedpost. A highly polished phallus of flawless olivewood, it had been purposely placed here for precisely the use she would make of it tonight.

You‟ll need me then, between your thighs.

A small, anguished moan escaped her. A carnal engagement with the flesh and blood man in the grove had posed too great a risk. But she‟d wanted him. And she could still have him. Here. Tonight. In a manner of speaking.

Gazing intently at a vacant space just beyond the bed, she began to whisper her summoner‟s spell. The one her maman had taught her to help ease her suffering on these nights. Although her mother had imparted the spell, only Eva was gifted with the ability to utilize it. Her mother had been fey, but little of her blood had passed to her offspring. No, Eva‟s other parent had had far more influence in defining what she was.

As her words were diffused into the room, the air in front of her started to vibrate. Strands of translucent mist slowly began to appear there, where before there had been nothingness. Concentrating, she called up her memory of the man from the grove. The memory of how he‟d made her feel, the details of his appearance. He‟d been dangerous and forbidden, exciting, handsome.

Stay. Stay with me tonight.

She clenched both fists to her chest to still the wanting that leaped inside her for something she could not have. For the truth was she had longed to linger there with him. Even though it would have been beyond foolish. Even though he‟d terrified her with his strangeness and his suspicions about her origins.

But in truth, she was far more strange than he.

On both sides of the gate, it was nothing for satyr males to scatter their fertile seed far and wide among females of human, fey, or any of the dozens of ElseWorld species. And when a satyr son was born of any such alliance, it was deemed unremarkable. The birth of a daughter elicited no special comment either, as long as she bore only the blood of her mother.

But what if another sort of daughter were to issue from such a union? A daughter with only the blood of her satyr father, but no hint of her mother‟s blood?

That eventuality was quite simply unheard of. In all of ElseWorld history, not a single full-blood female satyr had ever existed in either world.

Until her.

The man had been right in his suspicions. She was like him.

Despite the fact that a female of his species was deemed an impossibility.

Of course there were hints of such things in the ancient petroglyphs in the caverns. And the rumors. But ElseWorld scientists and philosophers had long proclaimed the feasibility of a satyr girl-child to be preposterous. A myth. Some even said, an abomination. Yet, here she stood—in danger from both worlds. Simply because of her blood.

Just beyond the bedpost, the mist began to whirl and spin in a blurred confusion of magic. Swaying gently side to side, she continued her mantra in sotto voce. With all her skill, she tried to summon a particular likeness from within it. In the past, she‟d occasionally conjured a single amalgam of the features of various men she‟d met in passing. But never had her desire been so specific to one man that she sought to bring forth a precise replica of him.

Within the swirling mist, a form began to take shape and solidify.

Then, born from the ether itself, in the middle of her bedchamber, there stood a man. One that was tall and virile, with silver eyes under straight jutting brows and hair the color of fire-blackened wood. His cheekbones were flushed with vigor, his strong jawbone brushed with a hint of an evening beard. This was a copy of the man from the grove, or as near as she could remember.

But this was no human man. Nor was he satyr. Nor true flesh and blood. He was an insentient being. One of the ranks of those who‟d serviced the satyr since ancient times. A Shimmerskin. His singular purpose here tonight was to obey. To serve her. At dawn, he would disappear.

She circled her creation, enjoying the sight of smooth sloping valleys, hills, and plateaus of muscle and bone. His skin was resilient and glimmered preternaturally in the light. He was a head taller than she, with broad shoulders and strong arms and narrow hips. And he was naked.

“I don‟t have time for this, you know,” she murmured to him, knowing he wouldn‟t be able to comprehend what she spoke. “I have other important business here in EarthWorld, in Rome.”Sharing her confidences with an insentient being was foolish, but it gave her solace.

“I‟m searching for my father. The one who made me what I am.”

Her eyes fell to his genitals. Even in repose, they appeared pleasing.

If she‟d remained in that olive grove on Aventine a few moments longer, she might not have been forced to guess at their dimensions. Regardless, she‟d based her creature‟s phallus on an extraordinary model. Just prior to her eighteenth birthday, her tutor had taken her to view one of the ancient ElseWorld Wonders—the famous series of marble statues of the wine god Bacchus that lined the mirrored Hall of Vitis Vinifera.

Throughout her inspection of this effigy she‟d fashioned, he only stood there, gazing docilely at her. She sighed. This was the difficulty with these beings. They required instruction.

“Come,” she bade him softly.

Obediently, he came nearer to tower over her. His stride and movements were strange in their otherworldly fluidity.

Dark lashes amplified the piercing silver of the eyes that stared down at her. Eyes that were vacant.

She lay a hand on his arm. He was warm and smooth. “Bend me to your Will.”

He hesitated, unsure. Of course, since he had no Will, he didn‟t understand. He required more specific commands.

“Remove my clothing,” she instructed, and his fingers came to her gray silk bodice, unfastening. He made quick work of it and her corset, skirt, and petticoats as well. Long, blunt-tipped fingers pulled at strings, untying her pantalets, then unrolling her stockings. Soon, only her chemise remained. He reached for it as well.

Suddenly, a ray of moonlight found its way through the window, burnishing her pale skin to gold. And with its coming, a great longing came over her. She shivered and pushed his hands away. “No,” she whispered. “Leave it.”

Hurrying unsteadily to the bed, she climbed up and swung one leg over the footrail, straddling it. With one knee on the mattress and the other atop the tall leather trunk on the opposite side of the rail, she kneeled there, open. Poised inches above the protruding, olivewood phallus.

High between her legs, her flesh was flushed, warm and plump with her desire—the effect of the full moon. Her fingers found and threaded through the soft triangle of down, parting her folds and slipping between them. She was damp, creamy. A sound that was half moan, half sigh welled from her as her need turned unbearably urgent.

She glanced at her companion. Remembered how the original version of him had wanted her, there beneath the murmuring olive trees.

“Come close. Behind me.”

“Yes.”He moved toward her like a beautiful automaton, dutifully preparing to fulfill the role for which she‟d designed him. She grasped the bedpost before her as he straddled the rail on his knees, coming close to warm her spine.

She turned to look at him over her shoulder, catching his eyes.

“Take me, “she whispered.

As if she‟d flipped a switch, his pupils dilated on cue and his expression filled with lust. She felt his prick harden at the small of her back and her breath quickened. With soft words, she told him what she needed from him.

Hands came, big and firm on her hips, positioning her and then guiding her downward. Olivewood kissed her feminine nether lips, parted them. Impaled them. Her eyes fell shut and her chin lifted on an excited murmur.

Hands tilted her hips back and another phallus, this one just as smooth, planted another kiss on the pruney ring tucked within the crevice of her bottom. And then he was pushing, and she was sinking and spreading and gasping at the exquisite, hot bite of him. The fat greedy plum of his crest slipped inside her, a move synchronized with that of another entrance of polished olivewood. She felt them push on, deeper.