Dominic (12 page)

bring succor to soldiers of every rank when summoned. Refusing such aid was a punishable offence.

“How may I serve you, Peacekeeper?” he asked. He presented himself before the soldier in the traditional way, head bowed and hands clasped

behind his back.

The soldier set his weapon aside but in easy reach. “Submit,” he instructed.

Readily acquiescing, Carlo unfastened his trousers and made ready to offer himself as a
homo delicatus
, a receptive bottom.

It was what the troops general y required of him. Most were anxious for the sight of his backside. But they were understandably loath to turn their

own backs to him for fear of a swift betrayal and the feel of his knife thrust between their ribs.

“What’s wrong with you?” the man inquired, halting him when he noticed Carlo’s limp cock and the reddened cuts on his pelvis.

“I was injured in the fighting. I can now enjoy only a receptive role.”

The soldier stepped back from him, obviously horrified by his disfigurement. “How can you bear to live like that?”

“It’s not my choice, I assure you,” said Carlo, terribly hurt by this rejection on top of al he’d already endured tonight. He made to close his trousers

again. “Shal I go, then?”

“No,” the man grumbled. “Repulsive as you are, you’l have to do. At this hour, few come our way.”

“Yes, Peacekeeper,” he said, lowering his uniform to his knees. Bracing his hands on his thighs, he tacitly gave consent to let himself be used as

wife.

When he felt the nudge of a distended prick, he bore down, opening his puckered ring, and felt the man glide inside him. Hard, masculine fingers

grasped his hip bones.

It was a brief exchange, and he was pul ing up his trousers minutes later. What he did was respectable work. Considered indispensable to morale.

A year ago when he’d come here, he’d intended only to accompany Nicholas in order to see something of the world he assumed had helped

spawn him. But he’d found a home here as he had found none in Earth World.

He’d always been a misfit in Earth World. First when he lived among Humans, trying to hide his magic. Then among the virile Satyr lords, trying to

hide the fact that he didn’t lust after women as they did.

The precise nature of his origins was unknown. It had been serendipitous that Nicholas had stumbled upon him on a visit to Rome and had

brought him to live on the estate.

There Carlo had discovered others like himself for the first time. Relatives who changed with the effects of the moon as he did. It had been a relief,

at least initial y.

In an effort to ingratiate himself with his new family, he’d wooed Emma and convinced her to wed him. But then he’d found himself unable to live as

expected—regularly mating himself to a woman.

“I’m going to report you,” the soldier muttered as he righted his own uniform. “You should be taken out of service. We see enough blood and

disfigurement here. We don’t need to be ministered to by the likes of you.”

“No, Peacekeeper, please. Did I not give you succor in spite of it?” Carlo whispered, reaching toward him.

“Go! Get off with you, freak.” The man dislodged a shot from his weapon near Carlo’s boots, making him jump, and then another until he began to

move away.

A mile from home, another Peacekeeper hailed him.

With a nod of his head, he wordlessly bade Carlo to kneel at the side of the road and began opening the trousers of his uniform. Obediently Carlo

knelt, took the man’s length in his mouth and began to fel ate him. A wagonful of soldiers went past, cal ing out ribald encouragements and fil ing Carlo’s

lungs with dust kicked up by their wheels.

By the time he reached his destination, a new darkness had fal en, and he was calmer than when he’d first come through the gate. He’d been

waylaid by five more Peacekeepers on his journey. As a result, his jaw was sore, and his ass burned, but his step was light.

As he opened the door to his home, he was met with the tip of a sword.

“What brings you back so soon?” Kurr’s masculine voice demanded. “And where’s the child?”

Carlo pushed the sword away from his stomach as if it were a gate he were swinging open. “Good day to you, too, husband.”

“Did things go wrong? Speak, man!” Kurr tossed the sword away. It fel with a clang, and then he grabbed Carlo by the shirtfront and hauled him

against his chest. Grimacing, Kurr recoiled, thrusting him away just as abruptly. “You reek of other men. How often must I ask that you cleanse your mouth

of cock breath before returning home to me? I suppose I’l find that your asshole has been loosened and seasoned by male leavings as wel .”

“What you asked of me is done,” said Carlo, shaking him off. He went to the table and poured some wine from the bottle there into a goblet.

“Liar!” Kurr scoffed, gesturing toward the heavens. “To arrive this early, you had to have left them while the Moon was high. You left them together,

didn’t you? You left them before the child came.”

Carlo ducked his head. “Jealousy overcame me.”

“Fuck. Go back, you bastard!” Kurr grabbed him by the col ar and hauled him to his feet. “While there’s stil time. Before the Bonding begins.”

“Stop your ranting and listen to me. You’l not want the child when you hear.” Carlo shook free and sat. Ignoring Kurr’s impatience, he took a long

draught of spirits, bracing himself to make his disclosure. “The man I took there. The one from my regiment—Dominic.”

“Yes? The one you for whom you wish to divorce me? Your lover?” he asked snidely.

“He’s not my lover,” Carlo muttered into his glass.

“Aha! Your little friend wouldn’t fuck you. And so you pouted and ruined everything, is that it?”

Carlo hammered his fist on the table, making the dishes jump. A goblet fel and rol ed to the floor. “As it turns out, my
little friend
is the demonhand.

Do you real y want me to bring you a child that his seed helped bring to life?”

A silence fel . He glanced up. Kurr’s eyes didn’t waver.

“You knew!” Carlo guessed, appal ed. “You knew, yet you stil offered me a divorce? In exchange for a child tainted by demons? Why?”

“Fool! Where’s the amulet?”

Carlo shrugged, not considering it important. “What does that matter?”

“Where is it?” Kurr calmly slapped him ful in the face, prompting him into speech.

“On the other side,” he said, trying to disentangle himself.

Red rage fil ed Kurr’s face, but he let him sink back into his chair. “You left it in Earth World?”

“It was only a simple luck charm, was it not?” Carlo poured another drink, rubbing his bruised cheek.

“It was more than that. Much more. It was stolen from the temple of Bacchus, from the statue.”

“Your amulet was
that
amulet? But everyone assumed demons had taken it. Who gave you such an object?” Carlo asked, incredulous.

“I d—d—did.”

Carlo’s head whipped around, and he gazed into the shadows, suddenly realizing they weren’t alone. Eyes glowing white as hot coals and then

red as embers gazed back at him.

His husband sank low, genuflecting. Carlo set his glass on the table, placing it so haphazardly that it fel to the floor, where it splintered. Panicking,

he stepped toward the door. “I didn’t know. I’l return to Earth World for it.”

But the demon was there before him, moving like a flash of light. Its olive skin glistened as if wet, yet its touch was dry as a lizard’s as it stroked a

claw down his cheek. “And f—f—for the child as wel ? Our child?”

Trapped, he swiveled his eyes toward Kurr. “You’ve become his disciple, haven’t you?” he asked, already knowing the answer.

“Oh, it’s more than that,” Kurr murmured, watching the demon in fascination.

A demon’s light faded when it ceased speaking or moving, but this one was constantly twitching, keeping it in almost continuous view.

“How long?” Carlo shouted. The very day he’d arrived here, Kurr had become his first male lover. Had showered him with gifts and affection. Had

sucked and fucked him in the initiation of an orgy that had lasted a ful week. They’d wed quickly, secretly, in spite of the fact that Carlo had wed himself to

Emma only ten days prior.

“Since the beginning.”

“Did you ever care for me?” he asked plaintively.

Kurr shrugged.

“He c—c—cares only for me.” The demon’s breath was so fetid it nearly fel ed Carlo, but some unseen power held him there, locked him in place.

“What do you want?” Carlo asked faintly.

“The child, of c—c—course. But it seems I wil not have it as easily as I’d hoped, for you f—f—failed me.”

The creature rubbed the clawed thumb and forefinger of one hand together as if one were flint and the other tinder, and he were trying to start a

fire. A glowing orb appeared between the fingertips. Made of mist, it acted as a crystal bal , displaying the scene Carlo had just witnessed in his

bedchamber in Earth-World.

With a toss of demonic fingers, the bal rose and hovered above them in the air, untethered and without support.

Carlo gazed upward. In the orb, he saw the scene he’d fled in Earth World. Dominic and Emma.

“In the past, al those of my kind who have gazed upon the demonhand have been destroyed by him, their souls taken. But we know the look of him

now. You’ve shown it to us. He won’t be safe hiding behind the spel s that disguise him any longer.”

Unable to stop himself, Carlo gazed into the orb. Saw Dominic mating himself to Emma. He’d known it would happen between them. But to see it!

He jerked his face away, unable to bear any more.

“It’s more than just your desire for a child,” Carlo guessed frantical y. “It’s this particular one, isn’t it? Why? Emma is not King Feydon’s offspring as

her sister is. Possession of our child won’t afford you entrance into Earth World.”

“B—b—bah!” The orb dodged the arm that the demon sliced through the air, leaving a trail of mist. “I c—c—care nothing about that other world. I

seek power for my kind here in this one.”

“And you think to obtain that via
my
child?”

“D—d—did you think you’d created the child al on your own? With this little thing?” The clawed hand ripped through the front of his trousers with a

single draw and then lingered, flicking his limp cock. “The amulet is what b—b—brought life into your woman’s womb. Not your seed alone.”

“But why do you want
this
child in particular? Why not another?”

The demon only smiled secretively. Leaving Carlo frozen in place, he went to Kurr. Cupping Kurr’s jaws, the demon pressed their mouths together,

and Carlo watched his husband’s face slowly fil with evil. As they stood, nose to nose, the demon shuddered now, and its inner light rose and dimmed.

Within minutes, man and demon had coalesced, disciple now acting as host.

Kurr came to his side. “Submit to me, wife,” he breathed. Though the stutter was gone now, this was the demon’s voice, speaking through him now

and housed in his body.

Carlo did as instructed without hesitation, having lost any wil to resist. Though his mind shrieked in denial, he released the buttons of his uniform

jacket and the fastenings of his trousers. Naked, he kneeled upon the couch where Kurr most enjoyed mating him, and he folded his arms over its high

back.

The cushions on either side of him depressed, and warmth surrounded him as Kurr mounted him from behind.

Carlo sobbed. “Wil you turn me into one such as yourself?”

“I swear to you I wil not, my darling.” Kurr was speaking, yet his voice was now shaded by that of the demon that possessed him. It sounded as if

two voices spoke identical words in tandem.

Claws pricked his back and then drew down toward his buttocks, painting stripes of blood. And depositing poison.

Carlo moaned as a rigid cock that was both husband and demon fil ed him in stuttering fits and starts. His vision swam. His throat closed. “What’s

happening to me?”

A rough hand grabbed his hair, pul ing his head high and arching his throat. The bal of mist floated just in front of him.

“Watch. A Chosen One is about to be born,” twin voices whispered.

He wailed, a wounded animal sound, as he realized why they wanted his child. It was cursed, destined to become a monster like Dominic. He

gazed into the orb and saw Emma. Her face was wreathed in pain, the birth obviously imminent.

“The next step in your life must be your death. When the child draws its first breath, you wil breathe your last. For that’s the property of the amulet.

As it gives one life, it takes another. Balance must be maintained.”

“What of the child? What wil happen to it?”

“Once the current demonhand succumbs to death, the Chosen One wil assume his duties. Duties it wil be unable to fulfil once we take it captive.

Our numbers wil grow unchecked.”

In the convex orb, Carlo watched the child emerge. Saw Dominic’s gloved hand reach for it.

A gloved hand that held unimaginable evil within its palm, holding a child that could bring down this world.

As he felt himself dying, he felt the hot pump in his ass grow fierce.

His blood, which only moments ago had pounded in fear in his veins, now began turning to a powdery red dust that drifted from the wounds at his

back.

Oh, Hel s, the rumors were true. The demons were necrophile.

It was the last thought he would ever have.

11

“A
re you…al right?” Dominic asked Emma later that morning. His voice was graveled, hoarse as a result of their long dark hours of debauchery. His

heart was lighter than he could ever recal .

“Quite, thank you.” Behind her spectacles, eyes that were the shy brown of a faun darted to his and then away. She looked soft, sleepy.

The skin of her throat was blotchy, and her lips were red from his mouth. He’d been greedy with her, rough. His body stil remembered hers.