Lyon (15 page)

He'd already opened the two shallow, uppermost drawers on either side of the desk, which he purposely left empty for these occasions. Slipping herself between him and the desk, she perched on its lip. In one smooth movement, she lay on her back and raised her bent knees. Finding the drawers with her slippered feet, she stepped inside them so they supported the weight of her splayed legs.

Valmont stood then and raised her skirts well above her knees to bunch on her thighs. He watched her face carefully as his finger touched the tender cleft between her labia, running over it until it unfurled for him on its own.

She emptied her expression, studying the ceiling. There were twenty large wooden coffers in it. Carefully, she counted how many times the egg and dart pattern was repeated in the decoration of each coffer and where each tiny defect was. Back in the Valmont family home there had been fifty coffers above his desk, each one edged with gilt.

But she took care to keep her eyes from the trophies that lined the walls. The proud red stag with its twin six-pointed antlers was the worst, only because she'd seen his triumphant father bring it home. No one but she had cared that it had still clung to life and was in pain.

Her eyes flicked to it and away. It was important not to dwell on it too long.

“I remember that day as well,” said Valmont, noting the direction of her gaze.

His hands cupped her knees, then drew them apart, exposing her. He sat again, obscured from her view by her draped skirt. She heard his chair slide forward. Felt the warmth of a candle moving closer.

“I saw how you were that day,” he went on. “The stag's pain was too much for you. I held you as your stomach emptied its contents.”

“Stop! For pity's sake.”

“You were only sixteen that summer. Remember?”

The first metallic instrument slid inside her passage, chilling her. They were physician's tools, and he used them to periodically examine the girls in the house for disease as French law dictated. Because she'd been born without the pelt of hair most women grew to protect their private parts, she consequently felt their every cold touch all the more keenly.

“I remember perfectly,” she said. “It was about the time your father's vineyard began to fail. I pitied you.”

“You adored me. It was the first time I noticed you. You were already so ripe, even at your young age.”

A finger brushed her clit. She squirmed away from it and closed her knees, horrified. He never did such things. The absinthe was making him brave.

“
Excusez-moi.
An accident.” His hand wedged between her legs rocking them wide again. She didn't believe him.

The instrument cranked vaginal walls apart, creating a slender tunnel for that which would follow. Once the device had opened her sufficiently, a finger slid inside, inspecting with thorough diligence.

His touch was always gentle as he poked and probed, examining her privates. What she hated most was having his eyes on her there. She always felt dirty after he touched her like this with his clean hands and his clean instruments.

The finger and crank withdrew and the candle was lifted away.

“All appears to be well. You have not yet become a slut like your mother. All things in good time, I suppose.”

His was a common assumption and scarcely fazed her. Everyone knew orphans were most likely the offspring of unwed women, who were deemed to possess low morals. Since moral failings were believed to be bred in the bone, she must therefore be blamed for her mother's supposed sins.

Juliette lurched to a sitting position, pushed her skirts lower to cover herself, and lifted her feet from the drawers. As soon as her slippers touched the carpet, she skittered away to pick up her petticoats, hoping it was over. Usually he let it go at that.

But tonight she was not to be so lucky.

“Before you go, remove the tray and cleanse everything.”

Grimacing, she returned for the instruments and took them and the tray to the sideboard. As she washed them in the basin, her eyes were once more on a level with the cabinet. She studied the bizarre array of objects she'd noticed earlier, each one set so neatly along that particular shelf.

Leaning closer to the swatch of fabric, she realized that it actually wasn't brown as she'd first thought. It was only stained, and appeared to have originally been dyed a dusky blue.

She examined the neighboring tokens, noticing most were blatantly feminine. A copper thimble. A coiled ribbon. An abalone comb.

Valmont's eyes bored into her back as she finished the washing and drying and set the tools out to dry on linen toweling. She held her breath, heading for her petticoats. “
Bonne nuit
.”

“Hold,” he told her and her pulse tripped. His voice was always at its most gentle when he was feeling sadistic.

“A physician likes to be paid at the time services are rendered,
Mademoiselle Trouvé
.”

Mademoiselle Found. A loathsome nickname that never failed to recall her humble beginnings. If the surname of an orphaned child was not supplied, hospital officials gave him or her a generic one, such as Trouvé, the French word for “found.”

“Come.” He interlaced his fingers over his belly and sat back in his chair, waiting.

What did he intend? Juliette eyed the door, envisioning herself continuing on her way and bursting through it to freedom.

A chiding chuckle stopped her. “If you left, where would you go? How would you go? Would you take a boat? A horse-drawn carriage? Or walk? Past forests and rivers? Don't be foolish. You are safest here. Now, come.”

“My drops.”

“Later.”

She let go of her death grip on the petticoats and they dropped in a heap on the chair. Reluctantly, she went closer. When she was within his reach, he pushed back from the desk, making room for her between it and him.

“Again? Why?”

He stood and she saw he'd released the buttons of his trousers! His pecker stood from him, stiff and repulsive.

She dodged away, but he was stronger than she and caught her. Lifting her onto the desk, he shoved his trousers to his ankles and moved between her legs, already fisting his cock in rough jerks.

“Oh God, I want to put it in you,” he groaned.

“
Non!
” Beyond alarmed, she brought her knees up and tried to close them and scoot away.

A hand at her hip locked her to him. She tried to sit up, but he smacked her back.

“I want to,” he panted. “So badly I could die.”

With his other hand, he rubbed his crown along her slit, not quite daring to act on his wish.

Her time with Lyon had left her body primed for sexual release, and as Valmont bumped and flopped against her furrow, he ignited unwilling sensation. She clenched her jaw and a tear leaked down the side of her face. More than anything, she hated that she wanted human warmth so badly that her body responded to his touch.

“Go ahead then,” she taunted, desperately hoping to frighten him away from his goal. “But I promise you'll never be the same if you do.”

His eyes widened, then narrowed. Still working his cock against her belly, he leaned over her. “Witch! You dare threaten to use your wiles on me? Do you think I won't fuck you? Do you?”

I know you won't,
she thought.
Because you're too afraid.

He'd known of her tricks since she'd first used them on one of his acquaintances when she was but sixteen. Though half the man's size, she'd tricked him into believing he'd succeeded at raping her. Valmont had watched the entire bewitching in secret and had burst into the room afterward, demanding to know what she'd done.

He'd tried to waken his friend, but this had proven impossible until the following morning. Then, in her presence, he'd questioned her assailant and had been astonished to learn that the man believed he'd had her when Valmont had plainly seen for himself that no consummation had occurred.

From that day forward, he'd kept her close and had used her talent for his own benefit. But fortunately, he'd feared her magic as well.

Little did he know he had no need to. She'd secretly tried her spells on him in the past, but they hadn't worked. If he ever discovered that he was the one man who wasn't vulnerable to them, she was done for. She closed her eyes against the thought, and him.

“God, I dream of burying myself in you. Of your mouth on me. Of watching you suck other men with that lovely pink mouth.”

“Silence!” she begged, slapping at him. “Be done with this!”

Still pinioning her, he yanked his cock so close that the backs of his knuckles plowed her slick furrow. “You want it, too. You're wet for me, my pretty putain. Just like my
maman
…My father invited other men to our home…She serviced them…on her knees…put her mouth on them all, one after the other…Her belly was fat with child then, like a big ripe berry ready to pop.”

Juliette covered ears with both hands and shut her eyes, appalled. Absinthe had loosened his tongue, but she didn't want to hear this.

His face contorted and fevered slashes of color burned his gaunt cheeks. He was bucking so hard now that she and the desk quaked.

“Oh, G-God!” His eyes rolled back in his head and he made a choking sound. Warm stringy ooze spat from him. Revolted, she forgot to breathe and the room went black.

When she resurfaced seconds later, his fingers were painting his sputum over her belly. “My sweet, sweet
fille
.”

“Are you quite finished?” she enquired with cold anger. Disengaging herself from his hold, she swung away and stood, anxious to go to her room to bathe away all evidence of this soul-destroying encounter.

Valmont fell back in his chair and began idly fondling the limp shaft that lolled in the V of his trousers. “He'll be back you know.” His voice was slurred by drink and the after-effects of a pleasurable spilling. “You're like the Green Fairy—the absinthe. Once a man has had a taste of you, he cannot help but return in hopes of more.”

Though she wanted to go, she halted in the doorway and glared at him over her shoulder. It was best to know what he was plotting. “Satyr will not return. I gifted him with an instruction to stay away.”

Valmont took no notice of her words. “He has taken liberties,” he rambled on. “As your guardian, I will insist that he must do the right thing.”

She stared at him, aghast. “Marry me, do you mean?!” she sputtered. “But, you know that's not possible.”

He rolled his shoulders, stretching. “Cease your yammering! You're obviously overwrought. We'll shelve the subject until I've thought more on it and we're both better rested.”

A thousand protests hovered on her lips, each begging to be spoken.

Noting her hesitation, he quirked a brow. “Unless you'd like me to pull in a guest from the quai for you to service with that pretty mouth,
maman
? I'd quite enjoy that.”

“I'm not your mother.” She snatched up her petticoat and left the room without a word.

Silence fell in her wake and he stared at the empty space where she'd been. Then he opened his lips and muttered, “As good as.”

L
yon opened a gritty eyelid and located the fat, glowering moon through the windowpane. Its cruel light played over his nakedness, scalding him like a thousand suns.

It was a Moonful night. A time of ritual. Why wasn't he engaged in fornication with some female or another? he wondered deliriously.

Barely conscious, he managed to lift one hand from the mattress. It landed with a thud on his thigh. Twitching a forefinger, he felt the fur that always sprouted upon him with the onset of a full moon and would disappear again by morning. He dragged his hand higher, in uncoordinated jerks against the grain of his pelt, until it found the man-cock in his thatch.

This—the larger of his shafts—bobbed at his touch, desperate for a stroke he was too weak to give. Hot as a burning poker, its entire length was so heavily roped with veins that he could hardly detect any flat expanses of skin between them.

With excruciating slowness, he forced his touch to rove beyond it, higher along his belly. The heel of his palm smacked his pelvic cock, sending shock waves through him.

Gods! It hadn't yet retracted!
Which meant it hadn't achieved the single ejaculation it required at the commencement of the Calling rite each Moonful. No wonder he was ill!

Satyr males sprouted this second shaft only with the initial rising of a fully waxed moon. After a single climax it would've retreated inside his body again, but his other, larger prick would demand repeated bouts of copulation from dusk to dawn. However, it was painfully obvious that neither requirement had been satisfied.

Yet he was too weak to summon a Shimmerskin to attend him. Too weak even to jerk himself off.

Wracked by need, he called out hoarsely. “Ciao!?”

No answer came. He was alone.

Alone during Moonful. His internal clock and the position of the moon told him it was not yet midnight. By dawn, he would be dead.

Libidinous recollections of the evening swamped him, denying what his hands had shown him to be true. Erotic, half-formed images swirled nonsensically through his brain, dissipating before he could fully make sense of them.

He remembered gazing into a pair of sea-green eyes. Remembered a willing feminine softness yielding to the thrusts of his cocks. Remembered lusty, playful, pornographic engagements with…with whom? Had someone truly been here with him? What the fuck was going on? He sought, but couldn't find a name. Had she been a stranger?

The memories rambled on, out of control, revisiting jumbled carnal scenes involving him and some unknown female. How was it possible that his mind remembered fornicating tonight, but his body did not evince the results?

He attempted to sit up, but this only caused his abdomen to roil sickeningly. Goosebumps dotted his skin and he fought the desire to retch. His scalp throbbed like six-inch vine stakes were being driven into it.

This was what dying felt like.

Once he'd reached the age of maturity, his father had made it very clear to him that the consequences of a satyr going without a female during Moonful were dire. In fact, among those of his kind in ElseWorld, the purposeful denial of fornication was used as the harshest form of punishment. Before the onset of a Calling ritual, the groin of a condemned satyr would be latched within an iron cage, so none could attend him. It was said to be a hellish death, and no one had ever lasted through the ordeal.

Was he a condemned man? Would he die here in this luxurious hotel room, far from his brothers, his animals, and the vines?

He lay there, feeling his heart's sluggish, erratic pump. Cramps hit and he panted and curled into himself. His toes and calves knotted.

He'd always been the strongest of his brothers, physically. Now, he, who had never been ill a day in his life, was deathly so. He shut off the part of his mind that linked him to Nick and Raine, not wanting them to know. Not wanting them to experience this torture with him, via the ancient blood ties that caused them to share strong emotions, even over great expanses of time and distance. There was no point in sharing this agony. They were in Tuscany and could never reach him in time to do any good.

With everything in him he sent out a silent plea for help that would permeate only the immediate vicinity, presuming it would go unanswered. For there were no creatures nearby who had the ability to hear it.

The effort drained him, and he fell unconscious.

In the shallows of the River Seine just off the Quai d'Anjou, Sibela treaded water and seethed, her eyes fixed on the door to Lyon's hotel.

He'd fucked and abandoned her to pursue another woman last evening. This was not something to be easily forgiven. However, she'd come here tonight, knowing it was Moonful and assuming he would want her again. Assuming he would need her. She had even hoped to hear him beg.

Yet now the moon hung full and high, smirking at her while her erstwhile lover trysted somewhere inside this building with another female.

Juliette.

Her presence here in Paris was unexpected and it greatly complicated matters. Did she even know of Sibela's existence? Doubtful. Things had been chaotic that day three years ago. It had been the only time she'd ever set eyes on the girl, and she'd been careful not to draw unwanted attention to herself.

Still, it was becoming obvious they must reconnect. For they now had Lyon in common, and it was imperative that she sway Juliette into abandoning any hold she had on him. Though she herself cared nothing for this third Satyr son in particular, she needed his protection. Her experience over the past few hours had made that abundantly clear.

Enraged by his defection in the park last night, she'd foolishly stormed back into the river instead of awaiting his return. Sibela languished at the beck and call of no male!

What had happened next, she considered to be entirely his fault. After all, he was the one who'd stirred her passions and left her before she'd gotten her fill of him. Naturally, she'd been driven to search out another willing partner. Unfortunately, in her haste, she'd chosen unwisely.

The two mer-males she'd encountered downstream had been a balm to her ego, for they'd proven more than willing to take up where Lyon had left off. She'd only meant to tarry briefly with them, and then return to the park. But they'd been so gratifyingly eager. At first.

She'd realized almost too late that ElseWorld had somehow reached its tentacles into this world and had tainted the mercreatures' intentions toward her. Meeting her twin lovers had been no accident. They'd been hunting her, intent on delivering her through the gate between the two worlds. Exactly the thing she'd feared might happen without Satyr protection.

Narrowly escaping them, she had fought her way upstream and arrived at the park just after dawn today. By then, Lyon had gone, but his scent had been fresh and told her he had in fact returned there for her as he'd promised. And that she'd just missed him.

Searching the wind, she'd caught his fragrance and discerned that he was on the move, heading eastward. As he'd wound through the labyrinth of paved streets, she'd tracked him from her position nearby in the river.

But she'd lost his trail somewhere, and terrified of imminent recapture by those ElseWorld lackeys, she'd circled the two islands in the Seine all day, searching for a fresh one. Around mid-afternoon, she'd found it.

Though she hadn't seen him arrive here, she knew he'd gone into this building. She'd surfaced at this very spot, hours before the moon was to come, thinking he'd eventually summon her to see to his physical needs.

Instead, she had watched in horror as Juliette had leaped from a carriage an hour ago and entered his hotel. Since then, the moon had risen. Lyon was almost certainly rutting with her at this exact moment. Giving her the very childseed she herself coveted.

Jealousy boiled, uncomfortably warm in Sibela's cold chest. How dare he cast her aside! She cursed and then spat, unsure how else to vent her wrath. It galled her to stay, but she needed his help and therefore could not depart.

She heard giggling and her gaze cut eastward. The other nymphs had gathered to idle there, smugly mocking her troubles from the shadows of a great log.

“Be gone,” she hissed, humiliated that they were witnesses to this debacle. “Do not think to pass the night gloating.”

They snickered, but dove downstream leaving her to a solitary vigil.

Various schemes to punish Lyon for cuckolding her incubated in her head as she glowered impotently at the hotel. The current was strong here at the Île Saint-Louis's eastern end where the river was forced into dividing around the island, and she had to constantly fight in order to remain stationary.

There had to be some way of righting this catastrophe. Undulating her tail, she proceeded to pace back and forth, maintaining a course that was parallel to the riverbank.

Lyon had taken Juliette to his bed in lieu of her. Why? Men never chose another when she was on offer. And why did such a thing have to happen now, when it had never been more crucial to capture a man's heart? Or his semen, at least.

She'd had him first. But her rival had won him under a full moon. Whose claim was stronger? She feared she knew the answer, and it did not favor her.

Suddenly, the hotel door swung open and Juliette appeared. Sibela's jaw dropped. The moon was still full and high! Satyr would never have allowed her to leave his bed so early.

The mademoiselle scampered down the path toward her, juggling a basket on each arm. The clank of metal and glass indicated that they contained dishware.

“Wait!” Sibela warbled, beckoning her closer. Perhaps they could reach a bargain regarding the man both wanted.

But Juliette only turned on the quai and scurried on her way, either too occupied with her own thoughts or simply too Human to hear.

Sibela's gaze swung back to the hotel. Instinct told her Lyon remained within. A low croon burbled out of her chest and she began to hail him. She held carefully still, listening for a sign he'd heard. But her calls went unanswered. Another hour or more passed, and she sang on. Why didn't he respond?

Her tail swished fluidly and her mind worked at the same clip, but her head and torso remained motionless. So much so that a turtle mistook her for a mossy rock and attempted to crawl atop her head.

Blasted creature!
She smacked it away. A Human male and female strolled by and glanced over at the sound of splashing. Though they looked directly at her, neither exhibited any astonishment.

Excitement gripped her. Perhaps the hiding-spell Satyr had woven round her last night still remained in effect. If so, that would mean she could travel on land without detection.

Eager to test her disguise, she slipped from the river to sit onshore. With efficient strokes she sluiced water from her lower body and polished herself with grasses and crackling leaves to hasten her transformation.

In a gesture so familiar she didn't even notice she made it, she patted the looping strands of jewels at her throat, adjusting them along her chest to ensure they disguised the skin underneath. For beneath the gemstones faint scars were hidden—long-healed slashes where her body had been cut several years ago and had mended itself, and a burn that stayed fresh. It was only possible to see these defects in a certain light, but the sight of them led to questions she'd rather not answer. And some males were put off by them. Hence the jewelry.

Abruptly, a sharp masculine call split the air. Her head whipped around to fasten on the high hotel window from which the unearthly sound had issued. It was Lyon, calling for help! His summons was so faint, so feeble, that she could hardly believe it had come from him.

Hastily, she returned the call, but he didn't reply. Time crept past as she did all she could to urge her Human legs to form. Damned Satyr probably had no idea what she went through for him. Did he think altering bone and reconforming skin was easy? Men!

A torturous half hour later, she at last had fresh limbs. Would they carry her? And, if so, how long would they last?

Sinking her claws into the bark of a nearby tree trunk, she levered herself into a standing position, then waited agonizing minutes for her legs to steady beneath her. Her first steps were awkward and forward progress was slow. Another quarter of an hour passed before she reached the building's portal.

A noise behind her alerted her to the fact that a man and woman were coming up the walk behind her. They passed, so near that the man's cloak dusted her. She blew a clammy breath over his neck and he shuddered, wrapping his scarf closer.

They hadn't been able to see her!

The spell Lyon had woven last night still held. For now at least. Once she reached him, he could reinforce it.

The male behind the hotel desk glanced up and came to greet the couple that opened the door. She slipped inside past the threesome, moving across the foyer with an uncertain gait.

Confronted with the staircase, she grimaced. Scaling it proved to be precisely the torment she'd anticipated. The sensation of ligament, tendon, and bone working together with each step she took was unaccustomed and awful. How did Humans stand it?