Dominic (30 page)

come from?”

“I summoned her in the usual way, for the usual purpose.” Vincent paused and then admitted significantly, “Last night.”

“
Last night
?” Marco echoed.

“And she’s
still here?
” asked Anthony.

“As you see. It seems she has achieved sentience. And I assure you she is more confused about how this has happened than we are.”

“But that’s impossible,” Anthony said slowly. “Shimmerskins never outstay their welcomes. They don’t have such impulses. They aren’t…real.” His

hand lifted toward her as though to test the truth of his assertion.

Vincent nonchalantly pul ed her out of reach. “Apparently if you conjure the same one once too often, she can become so.”

“You fucked her sentient?” Marco chortled in spite of himself. “That’s quite a feat, even for your monumental cock.”

The Shimmerskin paused in her examination of the gown’s bodice to glare at him.

Vincent winced inwardly as he worked at the fastenings along the back of the dress. His brothers had never ful y appreciated the difficulties

brought on by the proportions of his masculine appendage but rather had assumed his dimensions were something in which al ladies took delight. “I’m

pleased that my predicament amuses you.”

Fingers brushed his arm. The Shimmerskin. She’d turned before he’d managed even one closure, and the gown’s bodice gaped, exposing her.

His eyes searched hers and saw she’d meant the gesture to comfort him. Somehow she’d guessed his vulnerability.

Like a bolt of lightning, a shocking realization came to him. This impulse to hide her stemmed from the fact that he was unsure of her. Unsure of his

hold on her. He’d created her. But if she was truly sentient, she could choose to leave him.

Taking her shoulders, he turned her and then gave her a little push upstairs. “Go. I’l join you momentarily to help you finish dressing.”

She rol ed her eyes, eliciting a gasp from Anthony at her audacity.

“Upstairs!” Vincent ordered, pointing in the direction he wished her to go.

Looking a trifle wounded by his rebuff, she nevertheless bunched the skirts around her waist and made to go, pausing only to gather the shoes

and stockings.

“What are your plans for her?” Landon asked dragging his attention from her as though it were a supreme effort to do so. “Besides the obvious.”

“She’s not interested. In the obvious.”

“A Shimmerskin not interested in fornication?” Marco scoffed. “Unheard of.”

“Yet true. And it leads me to speculate that other rules common to Shimmerskins may not apply to her either.”

“You don’t suppose Humans wil be able to see her, do you?” Anthony interrupted.

The ear-shattering clang and clatter of a tray crashing to the ground drew al attention to the landing at the top of the stairs. An elderly servant was

poised there, her face blanched and her gaze on the glimmering, disheveled, half-naked woman ascending the expanse of staircase between them and

her.

“If it isn’t Lady Godiva herself, returned from the dead!” she squeaked, crossing herself.

“I suppose we may consider that sufficient answer to your question,” Landon muttered.

Taking the stairs two at a time, Vincent lifted the Shimmerskin in his arms and then smoothly reversed his direction, heading downstairs with her.

Glancing at Anthony as he descended, he jerked his head in the servant’s direction.
Deal with that
, his expression ordered.

Anthony immediately understood and deferred to him, as al the brothers did in serious matters. Once Vincent had quit the stairs with her, Marco

and Landon trailed him into his study.

From somewhere behind them came Anthony’s voice, speaking to the flustered servant. No one lingered to see him stretch out a hand to her

shoulder as he murmured, thus initiating a bespel ing that would obliterate from her mind any recol ection of the female apparition she’d witnessed.

Vincent inhaled, enjoying the warm, sweet scent of the woman he carried. It was a scent he’d created to appeal to him on the basest level

possible.

Once in his private library, his eyes went to the treatises and legal documents he should have been poring over at this very moment; then they

shifted to the massive clock on the opposite wal . He had to leave within the quarter hour.

He set his pretty burden on her feet and cupped her cheeks in his hands, concentrating in order to initiate a temporary bespel ing. It would render

her skin’s appearance normal in the eyes of the servants, though not to his family.

When it was done, he stood brooding over her. His brother was right. She could become a danger to him if he let her. Anything a man in his

position wanted this much couldn’t help but put him in jeopardy of blackmail. Or, as Marco suspected, at the very least she could prove a distraction from

the negotiations.

Marco stepped closer then, separating their tangled gazes. “Please tel me you aren’t imagining some bizarre set of circumstances that might

enable you to keep her here with you. Among the family.” His voice seemed oddly distant. “Vincent! Did you hear me?”

Vincent blinked and stepped back from the Shimmerskin, glancing at the others.

Landon had already comfortably ensconced himself in the chair he often occupied in the evenings and crossed a booted ankle over his knee. And

when had Anthony had rejoined them?

How long had they al been gathered there, watching him gaze at her in this besotted manner?

“I go,” said the Shimmerskin, obviously sensing she wasn’t wanted.

“There, you heard her,” said Marco, gesturing toward her as if matters had been settled to everyone’s satisfaction.

“Where would you suggest she go, precisely?” Vincent reached for her again and twirled her around so he could close the fastenings at her back

at last. Though Marco’s wife had an excel ent figure, the dress was large on her, particularly in the waist, even without the benefit of a corset.

“You real y don’t know how to send her back?” This from Anthony.

“No, and she doesn’t know how to get herself back either. Shal I open the door and shove her out to fend for herself? Or perhaps one of you is

wil ing to drive her to Florence and drop her from your carriage into the street? You can imagine what would become of her.”

“You’re going to the council in Else World today, are you not? Why not take her with you through the gate and deposit her there?” Marco

suggested.

Landon spoke for the first time, and though his voice held little force, it commanded. “That’s hardly different from dumping her in a foreign city here

on our side of the gate.”

“Marco’s idea is sound,” said Anthony. “The magic from which she emanated is thick on the other side of the gate. Perhaps she’l be reabsorbed

somehow.”

“And what if there are complications? My attention must be on negotiations. No, she stays here, for now. And she can’t be left without supervision

until we know more of what to expect from her. One of you must take her for the day.”

“Define ‘take,’” murmured Landon. His tone was shaded with a hunger for her that he appeared to be having surprising difficulty repressing.

Hearing it, Vincent’s own lust surged. His mind formulated a completely impractical scenario in which he would usher Marco and Anthony out and

then bend her over his desk. And then he would lift the back of that ruffled red skirt she so adored and enter her from behind while she took Landon in her

mouth.

His eyes lifted and snagged hers. Saw they were fil ed with a doelike awareness of his erotic imaginings.

Slowly her head turned toward Landon, meeting his gaze. Gray eyes heated, dilating.

“Right.” Aware that Landon’s unwitting attraction to her might wel overwhelm him were he left alone with her, Vincent had no intention of al owing

that to happen. Not yet.

So, instead, he surveyed his brothers. “Normal y Julius would be my choice as caretaker since he’s the most virtuous when it comes to women.

Unfortunately he’l be with me today, which leaves the two of you. And as you are wed, Marco, you are hereby crowned with the dubious title of the most

trustworthy brother I possess.”

“And how am I to explain her to Mil icent?” Marco protested.

No one cowed Marco, save his wife, a fact that Vincent privately found humorous in view of the fact that she was surely little more than half his

strength and bulk. But as they were al wel aware, Marco was happily married and would not stray. Even under a ful Moon, he’d remained true to his

spouse of two years.

“Your wife has gone to Florence until tomorrow, has she not?”

“Yes, and only think how delighted she wil be to discover upon her return that I’ve housed a naked Shimmerskin under her roof as a favor to you.”

In spite of the protest, Vincent sensed his brother’s capitulation. “It’s settled then. I must be off.”

With that, he turned to the Shimmerskin and kissed her forehead. “I must go. For the entire day,” he told her. “My brother Marco wil see to your

needs. Stay with him until I return.”

She flicked a glance at Marco, hesitant.

“Stay,” he said, realizing it was the last word he’d said to her the previous night.

She smiled slightly as if she, too, recal ed, and then she inclined her head in acquiescence. “Stay.”

“
Grazie,
brother,” Vincent threw behind him as he departed the study. “Anthony. Landon.” With these brusque farewel s, he slipped out the door to

make his way to the gate.

Marco fol owed him and caught his arm on the front steps.

“She’s a danger to you,” he warned. “To us al . When you return, I urge you to find a way to get rid of her.”

Behind them, the Shimmerskin stood in the window of the study, listening to that which no Human ear could’ve overheard through distance and

glass. Placing a palm on the windowpane, she watched Vincent cross the courtyard.

“Danger,” she whispered. “Rid of her.”

5

Else World

M
inutes later, Vincent arrived in the midst of the ancient forest that lay at the heart of the vast Satyr estate. There, he slipped through the secret gate that

joined Earth World to Else World and then made his way through the mist-laden channel until it expel ed him in semi-darkness some fifty feet farther on.

As day dawned in his world, night was fal ing here.

His brother Julius, the most serious of the triplets, stood waiting at its far end. Looking vastly relieved at the sight of him, he nevertheless irritably

slapped a sheaf of careful y arranged and clipped documents against Vincent’s chest.

“You’re late,” he said by way of greeting.

“Unavoidable.”

“I traveled through war-torn territory this evening yet managed to arrive on time,” Julius groused. “Don’t think I didn’t sense what you got up to last

night. Now we wil both be made to appear tardy on the most important day of negotiations.”

Vincent drew back to read the documents with which he’d been accosted. “There’s more to it than what you imagine, but I’l explain later. What’s al

this?”

“The usual. Disagreements over ultimate ownership of fertile lands, seaports, vineyards. Petty dickering with regard to the redrawing of borders

and the tithe we pay from our wine cel ars in Earth World.”

“Two hundred thousand casks of the finest vintage in existence is hardly a petty matter,” said Vincent, skimming the first page.

“Signores Vincenzo and Julius! Welcome, welcome.” It was a Facilitator come to greet them, though his real purpose was to ensure their safe

passage to the meeting place. The elderly man would accompany them alone, for it was assumed none would dare to attack them while they were under

the aegis of such a sacred and revered figure.

His gnarled hands waved them forward. “It is indeed an honor. A pleasure. Step this way, please. Yes, that’s it, that’s the way,” he said as he

directed them both toward a uniformed brigade of what appeared to be military personnel.

“Is this meant to be some sort of official welcome?” asked Vincent, eyeing them. There were at least fifty of them in al , forming an impenetrable

wal and blocking the path to their destination.

“They’re inspectors,” he was told.

“Why so many? And so heavily armed?” Julius stroked the ebony mustache he’d been cultivating for the last month with two fingers, looking

concerned.

“Do not be offended,” the Facilitator rushed on, sensing his discomfort. “Extra precautions are necessary. Al who come this way must be

searched. There have been threats.”

“Of what sort?” Julius demanded.

“Threats against your lives and those of the leaders who wil gather on this side of the gate with you. Some in our world cannot bend with the winds

of change.”

Vincent flicked his hand in a gesture meant to end the discussion. “We’re late, remember? And it grows dark here in this world. Let them do as

they wil , brother, so that we can move on.”

As they approached the regiment, three men and one woman stepped from the ranks and came toward them. Vincent sat on one of the benches

and al owed them to remove his boots. When he was directed to, he stood, raising his arms to be patted down. With a huff, Julius fol owed suit. Fingers

combed through their hair and rifled through their pockets and boots, presumably searching for weapons or contraband.

And al the while, Vincent paid them little heed as he continued to scan the information that had taken Julius days to research, col ate, and put to

paper.

A hand slipped between his thighs, startling him, and he grabbed the arm attached to it in a harsh grip. His eyes met those of the sole female

guard.

“What is it?” another of the guards cal ed to her, sensing trouble.

“A suspicious bulge.”