Nicholas: The Lords of Satyr (13 page)

“Do you live on the premises? Or in the servants’ quarters?”

“Signora?” asked another more familiar voice.

Jane turned to find that Signore Faunus had crept up on them.

“Do you require assistance?” he asked, looking anxious.

“No. That is, I was on my way from the library to my chamber when—” She glanced at the strangely placid servant she’d come upon and then back at Signore Faunus. “I had thought the staff departed each evening.”

Signore Faunus blanched to the tips of his pointed ears. “Of whom are you speaking?”

“Of this maid, of course!”

“You can see her? Ah!” He rocked to his toes and then back on his heels, nodding as though to himself. “Your heritage. It makes sense.” He dismissed the maid, who went on her way, moving in an odd sort of floating glide.

They both stared after her.

“The night staff take direction only from me,” the signore informed her. “I will relay any requirements you may have to them.”

“I see,” said Jane, not seeing at all. “But—”

Signore Faunus clicked his heels and executed a perfunctory bow. “You must ring me if you have needs to be met. We’re all here to serve.” With that, he twitched his coattails, wheeled around, and dashed off.

Jane watched him go before making her way back to her room. She got into bed and then got back out, crept to the door, and locked it.

Belowground in the cellar of the castello, Signore Faunus played softly on his panpipe, luring the night servants to him. There were over two dozen of them, each one an orphaned dryad who’d been granted shelter after her life tree had died. Once a Satyr lord bestowed caretaker status upon them, such dryads tended his castello and its inhabitants as faithfully as they’d once tended their life trees in the forest of his estate.

“You must take more care to remain hidden,” Faunus warned the choir of ethereal faces who gathered around him. “The signora sees but does not yet understand….”

F
ive nights after Jane had announced her temporary indisposition, Nick sensed her blood time had ceased. At twilight, he opened the door that adjoined his bedchamber to hers.

Once inside, he stopped short. He caught her scent, yet she wasn’t there. Annoyance assailed him that she was out of her proper place when he was ready for her. It was earlier than he normally visited her bed. But it had been nearly a week. Wasn’t she expecting him?

He was about to go in search of her when he observed a puddle on the floor just inside the door to her veranda. A spring storm had come upon them, the kind that would be brief but wild. Surely she wasn’t—

When he peered through the door, he could see that she was. Out on the balcony, Jane stood pressed against the stone railing wearing only her nightgown. Wind lashed her, whipping at her hair and gown. One of her hands was braced on the railing, the other hidden from view. As he watched, she tilted her face upward as if she were a flower seeking a drink of life-giving rain.

A part of his mind admired the softly undulating curves of her bottom, molded by wet fabric. The other wondered at his well-bred, circumspect wife’s uncharacteristically uncircumspect behavior.

He opened the door and felt the wind’s unseasonable chill. Hadn’t she noticed?

“Come, Jane. You’ll make yourself ill,” he called softly.

She started at his words, whirling around in guilty surprise.

His eyes narrowed with sudden suspicion, and he scanned the grounds beyond her. She couldn’t have been engaged in an assignation. One couldn’t see more than three yards in the driving rain.

“My l-l-lord,” she mumbled, shivering.

He was blocking the doorway. When he moved back and beckoned, she followed him jerkily inside. Her drenched gown clung and slapped against her calves as she went to stand before the fire.

“Do you enjoy storms?” he asked, closing the veranda door and leaning against it to study her.

“They refresh me. I’m sorry,” she mumbled, darting a quick glance at him.

She chose to face him rather than the hearth, he noticed. It was out of character for her to display her breasts so brazenly when she must know they were made translucent by the drenched fabric.

She was always scrupulously careful not to show her bared back to him, he realized abruptly. He had an inkling why.

The silence between them lengthened. The feeling of being shut out increased within him, becoming intolerable. He began to circle her.

Nervously she edged away from the hearth, turning as he moved. Always facing him.

He brushed a long wet strand of her hair back over her shoulder, revealing a nipple drawn taut by the cold. He touched a finger to the sloping curve of a breast and then grazed its central nub. She gasped, stepping back and covering the place where his hand had been.

“You may stand in the rain any time you like,” he said. “I don’t wish to control your every move.”

“Oh.”

Had she thought that was what he wanted? No. What he really wanted from her was a true and complete knowledge of her talents, freely given. Some Faerie had streaks of evil in them that weren’t always sensed on early acquaintance. These were traits he didn’t want passed to his children. But asking for her secrets would only invite lies.

She fidgeted guiltily under his stare, and his suspicion intensified.

The Calling would come in seven moons—one week from tonight. His labors with her then would bear fruit. A child. It was premature when he wasn’t certain what form her magic took. Yet she exerted a pull over him now, and he wasn’t sure he would be able to keep himself from imparting childseed in her once the Calling took his mind.

“I assume your monthly flux has abated?”

She drew her head back as realization obviously dawned that he’d come for his conjugal visit.

Her fingers plucked at the wet fabric that clung to her thigh. “Yes, signore. Give me but a moment, and I will prepare myself to, um, greet you properly.”

“You’re sufficiently prepared,” he growled, crowding her toward the bed.

She pushed at him in protest. “My gown will wet the bedsheets!”

“Then remove it,” he suggested. “Or I will.”

“I thought you didn’t wish to control me.”

“Only here, in the bedchamber,” he amended. “Elsewhere and in other things, you may exercise greater freedom.”

“You’re too kind,” she snapped.

“Your gown,” he reminded her.

With difficulty and purposeful delay, he suspected, she peeled the clammy fabric away. After it dropped to the floor, she sat on the bed and slid backward.

She awaited him there on her back with brittle excitement. Out on the balcony, she’d been stimulating herself—down
there
. Had he seen?

It was the first time she’d touched herself in that way without first having him between her legs. But tonight the storm had called to her, seduced her into it.

Nevertheless, fulfillment had eluded her. She was unsure if it were even possible to achieve that exquisite sensation without the catalyst of prior fornication.

The turbulent emotions the storm and her own hand had aroused still heated her blood. Her void tingled with wanting. When he came into her, would he guess?

Nick dropped his dressing gown and mounted her.

“Cream,” she whispered. She was already wet, but maybe the additional moisture would disguise it.

“My apologies.” Grabbing the jar on her nightstand, he applied some of the ointment to his penis and then slicked a single finger along her labia to moisten and unfurl it.

Without further preparation, he slid inside her.

Their coupling was the same this time but somehow different. This time, she, too, was naked and felt the soft prickle of the hair on his chest against her breasts. This time, she welcomed the slide of his warm body along her chilled one. This time, his eyes gazed into hers.

This time, she was barely hanging on to her control.

Outside, a flash of lightning illuminated the sky. Wind dashed sheets of water against the windowpane. Nature called to her to join the tumult, to give in to passion.

His cock filled her again and again, pressing at her mons and the needy hooded bud. If she were to tilt her hips, just a little…

She struggled to resist. If only he’d given her a few moments to collect herself. Silently, she conjugated Latin. Recited mathematical tables. Called on all the self-discipline she possessed in order to withstand the desire to embrace him. To move with him. To meld.

Her mind played tricks, made promises….

Take what you want of him…. It won’t arouse your strangeness…. Tilt your hips, just so….

And then, suddenly, another voice filled her head, this one deep and masculine.

Yes, tilt your hips just so. Wrap your legs around me. Move with me….

Her eyes widened on her husband’s lips. They hadn’t spoken. Yet she’d heard the words clearly. IN HER MIND.
Oh, God!

She was melding with him! Her skin had grown flushed and hot where it contacted his. Her every sense was enriched, attuned to him. She was tumbling…
no!

She flattened her palms on his chest, resisting. Stupid! The melding only intensified.

Her words of rejection were stifled by his lips. His breath became hers, and their tongues danced, mating. As the oils of their skins mixed, so did their emotions, revealing what they would keep hidden from one another.

He was burdened. Yet accustomed to it and strong enough—willing enough—to bear his burdens alone.

She could soothe him. Care for him. So easily….

Let me take the weight from you, husband. You needn’t bear it alone. Share with me.

The power of his taking increased. His twilight eyes bore into hers. His promises pierced her mind….

Share your secrets, wife. I will keep them safe, keep you safe.

Passion drugged her. Yes, she wanted to tell. Wanted to share her burden with him, too. Wanted what he offered. Wanted him….

Yes, only say you might come to love me one day, husband.

His mind grew wary, distant. Silent.

Hers railed at him.

Then take your enjoyment and leave me whole!

With a strangled shout, he drove deep. She’d taken him off guard, luring him into spilling before he’d meant to. His slick desire flooded her, drowning her in his solitary pleasure.

When he left her that night, she had no wayward thoughts of pleasing herself. Instead, worries darted about her head like rabbits. She’d thought her ability with Humans was fading, yet she’d never melded so quickly nor so thoroughly with another person. Afterward, neither of them had spoken of it. But now it would be between them.

She sat up. Hunching a shoulder, she explored the area at the base of its blade. Her fingers combed the feathery down she found there. Was it her imagination, or was it growing more rapidly?

What would he do when he discovered her secrets—what she was? Would he reject her? Cast her out?

Her aunt would have it from him why he’d done so. Condemning eyes might then move from her to Emma. Her pulse tripped and quickened.

She must not meld with him again. She must pretend tonight had never happened and continue to hide what she was becoming. It was the only way to keep Emma safe.

Her sewing box. She found it on the dressing table and pulled a pair of shears from within it.

Twisting awkwardly, with her back to the mirror, she stared at the short hollow quills folded delicately at her shoulder blades.

Gingerly, she began to snip.

J
ane ventured outside again the following morning, this time taking a new direction. Now, when she stepped into the garden, nearby plants perked without any effort on her part. Grass underfoot greened and grew lush. Her abilities with flora increased daily.

To lose this aptitude would be akin to cutting off an appendage. But she had to destroy it before her husband noticed. Before outsiders did.

If the herbs she required for a curative were on Satyr land, they would be found in a shady area, not sunlight. She turned toward the forest. Would it part for her this time?

The grass was damp, sodden in places from the violent shower last night, and she occasionally had to circumnavigate a muddy patch. Partway up the hillside, she found a clearing and turned to see how far she’d come.

Outside the castle walls, wind swept dazzling sun across a grassy meadow, bleaching it with shimmering waves of heat. Inexplicably, within the perimeter of the Satyr compound, the temperature remained constant and comfortable.

She stepped under the forest’s skirt and felt its cautious welcome. It knew her now, perhaps scented the touch of its master on her. She walked for some distance, keeping her eyes lowered, searching.

Something drew her deeper, toward the densest part of the wood. She rounded oak, elder, and hawthorn trees grown thick with ivy, then picked her way through ferns and finally stepped over an aging stack-stone wall.

Beyond, snapdragons, garlic, dusky blue phlox, and sanguine clover grew wild. Small hillocks of pink flowering faerie thyme clung jealously to the earth. The air smelled of sunroasted pine needles and climbing wisteria.

And then, without warning, there it was—the spiked, bell-shaped, golden flower of the allium moly. She knelt, examining it with trembling fingers.

Carefully she plucked it from the ground and dusted away the warm crumbles of earth that clung to its bulb. Stowing the plant in her basket, she turned toward the castle.

Judging by the diamonds of sun sparkling through the canopy overhead, it was late afternoon. She’d come some distance. Not even the crenellated tower of the keep was visible below any longer.

Ahead in the unexplored thicket, a sudden shimmer of blue light caught her attention. Another light appeared beside it as if by magic, this one rose-colored. And yet a third that was a silver hue.

Cautiously she crept toward them and peered through the greenery to discover a clearing. The lights were caged within a small open-air temple ringed by caryatids and ionic columns.

As she watched, the lights enlarged, solidified—and took female shape! The glistening females were drawn as one toward a large stone table in the center of the temple. With serpentine grace, their bodies caressed, worshipped another larger figure that waited there. It was a man. Naked.

And what in heaven’s name were they doing to him?

She stepped back, cracking a twig under her foot.

The three iridescent figures arrested and then moved together, instinctively shielding the male in their midst. Their heads turned her way, their stares oddly vacant. Amid them, a pair of golden eyes glinted in her direction. These eyes were male. And aware.

The surrounding forest fell unnaturally quiet. The caw of birds and the buzz of insects ceased.

Fingers of fear stroked her nape. The forest that had welcomed her earlier suddenly loomed like a shroud. Thick branches bowed suffocatingly close.

Turning, she fled. From the forest—from herself. Why had she seen such things? Was she losing her sanity?

With every step, a circlet of tiny, delicate mushrooms ringed each of her feet. She began to run. The circles trailed her, disappearing as soon as she stepped from a patch of ground and reappearing the moment her foot touched earth again.

A vine curled around her ankle, tripping her. She fell forward, dropping her basket. The pungent smell of vegetation rotting on the forest floor filled her nostrils. Her palms flattened on the soil. Unable to help herself, she melded. Visions came….

Of sweating bodies—grinding, twisting, and writhing together in passionate euphoria. Of women captured and held for the pleasure of men who were inhuman. Of her future, here in this place.

Overwhelmed, Jane slid into darkness.

When she woke, she was in the garden behind the castello, lying on a bench. How she had gotten there she didn’t know. Whether she’d dreamed what she’d seen, she wasn’t sure. But the hem of her gown was damp with dew, and her basket of moly had been placed neatly beside her.

“Your wife was in the forest this afternoon, near one of the temples outlying the gathering place,” said Lyon.

Nick’s heart quickened. “What happened?”

“I was fucking. I think she saw me.”

“She mentioned nothing of it,” said Nick.

“Well, something caused her to faint out there, and—”

“Seven hells! She fainted?”

“I carried her back to your garden,” said Lyon.

“Why were you fucking there in the middle of the afternoon anyway?” Nick gritted.

Lyon plunged his hands in his pockets, hunching in vague embarrassment. “As if you’d never done such a thing yourself? Anyway, I had been at work in the vines since dawn. I needed a respite.”

“If you were so fatigued, how did you manage to rally the necessary energy required for fucking?”

Lyon shot him a look. “There’s tired, and there’s tired.”

“Damn it all, Lyon!”

“When and where I choose to fuck is none of your affair, brother. I only tell you of this in case Jane raises the matter with you. If she saw the Shimmerskins I conjured, she will have questions sooner or later.”

“You’re right, of course.” Nick rubbed at the tension along the back of his neck. “I don’t understand. How was she able to approach you without being turned back by the forest?”

“The forces that protect it may have sensed her Faerie blood and become confused. I don’t know. I only know it happened.” Lyon hesitated. “There’s one other thing. She had a basket with her. It contained sprigs of the ancient moly, taken from our forest.”

“The curative? Whatever for?” Nick’s eyes went to the door, his thoughts to his wife and their time together the previous night. They’d melded, only briefly, but it had been dangerous. He couldn’t trust any woman with his secrets and would be on his guard in the future. Perhaps she was thinking the same way. This morning, she’d seemed wary of him.

“Do you think she might sense the threat and be attempting to ward it off?” asked Lyon.

“What threat?”

“The threat against Jane and her Faerie sisters,” Lyon explained in exasperation. “The one to which King Fey’s letter referred. Honestly, has marriage addled your brain?”

Nick reddened, reining in his thoughts. “As to the threat, I haven’t discovered the facts of it, but I suspect it will issue from within Jane’s Earth family.”

“At the risk of getting my head bitten off, may I ask whether you ever plan to inform her what she is? What we are?” asked Lyon.

“I’ll deal with her in my own way, in my own time.”

“Why the snail’s pace? She’s your wife and must take you as you are. I say get her with child next Calling and be done with it.”

“Need I remind you what happened when Raine let his nature get the best of him?”

They were all still feeling the repercussions from that lapse. After Raine’s failed attempt to mate his Human wife during a Calling, she had fled into the night. She’d turned up in the servants’ quarters, hysterical.

Nick had paid her a visit and managed to mitigate the damage with a simple mindspell. By the time he’d deposited her at her family’s home, she remembered nothing save a vague fear of his brother. Nevertheless, she’d subsequently divorced Raine, and rumors had circulated in the wake of the stories she’d told that night.

“Timing wasn’t the issue in his case,” said Lyon. “His wife was fully Human, and his only error was in not bespelling her.”

“Rest assured, I plan to do so when the time comes.”

“If it ever does,” goaded Lyon.

“We’ll see how easily you manage such matters when you have your own wife to deal with,” said Nick.

Lyon harrumphed and put on his hat. “Fine. Forego or delay all revelation of your true self as you choose. In the meantime, I suggest you keep her well away from the gathering place unless you intend to her to be shocked senseless by those of us bowing to our natures.”

The door slammed behind him.

Nick sat and brooded for a few minutes and then got to his feet and sought out his wife.

He found her in the solarium preparing to work.

Jane started at his approach, hoping he wouldn’t quiz her regarding what had passed between them the previous night.

“It’s time I take you on a tour of the estate,” he told her.

“I’d like that,” she said.

Not now,
she thought, her toes wiggling inside her slippers. She held the basket of moly she’d gathered earlier that day behind her, out of sight.

Nick looked at the smattering of hand tools at her feet. She was obviously intent on some project in his garden. “Would now be convenient?”

“Of course,” she said, sighing inwardly. The plant’s roots were wrapped and watered. They could wait until later to find a permanent home in the garden soil.

And if he was suddenly anxious to show her around the estate, she was certainly anxious to be shown. It was an opportunity to learn what other plants might exist. She would be more comfortable exploring with a companion, in view of her recent bizarre experience in the forest.

After procuring horses from his stables, they rode along a rocky trail, ever upward toward the center of Satyr lands. Eventually they dismounted at a pergola of gnarled twisted wisteria vines that covered a stone walkway leading into the vineyard.

They entered its gates and traveled on foot from there. Nick pointed to the various workers they encountered and explained the tasks in which each was engaged.

Jane enjoyed being among the vines, and her interest in the work was unfeigned. Grapes weren’t responsible for the brew they became nor how it was used, she reasoned. Men were.

They paused at the crest of a slope, and Jane shielded her eyes to take in the endless stretch of patchworked rows of vines below.

“It’s like an enormous living quilt,” she said. “And larger than I expected.”

“We have eight hundred acres, though less than four hundred are currently under cultivation. Of those, only three hundred are planted in grapes. The rest are in olives and fruit.”

Stepping close to a vine, Jane lifted the tiny cluster of small green balls the size of peppercorns. “Are these the grapes?”

“The blossoms,” said Nick. “After they flower in June, fruit begins to grow. A hundred clusters can grow on a vine, but the flavor is ruined if so many must be nourished. They’ll be thinned until only about two dozen clusters remain.”

“You haven’t seen signs of the pox?” Jane asked. “I heard others speaking of it at Villa d’Este.”

“Not so far.”

“How worrisome is it?”

He shrugged. “There have always been diseases and difficulties. If we have too much rain, mildew can set in. If the soil is too rich or the drainage poor, the grapes are puny. Though that’s not a worry for us here.” He bent and scooped a handful of dry volcanic soil and then let it trail through his fingers to the ground. He stood, dusting his hands. “Water, sunshine, and soil are the ingredients that make the grapes what they are at harvest.”

“When is the harvest?”

“It begins in September. Each variety matures and ripens at a slightly different time, so they’re harvested one after another. The crush follows. Then in late autumn, fermentation begins.”

He pointed to an ungroomed area where vines grew wild. There, ancient millstones sat amid wildflowers and weeds, a testament to the labors of the peasants who’d worked here in years past.

“Those vines are given over to Lyon’s menagerie. His pets descend like locusts when the grapes begin to ripen. It’s useless to try to keep them out altogether, so we’ve learned to share.”

A well-fed cat wandered by, winding around her ankles. It curled under a vine that was broken and wilting.

Nick was speaking again and had lifted a cluster for her inspection. “See how this cluster tapers upward? The weight of the grapes will turn it downward over time.”

While she listened with half an ear, her eyes kept returning to the dying vine.

Noting her distraction and the direction of her gaze, Nick excused himself to speak to one of the laborers. When he turned back, it was as he expected. The struggling vine now grew healthy and strong.

Because of her touch.

Intriguing. She professed to hate the wine the grapes produced, yet she couldn’t bear to see a single one of the vines felled.

What was the depth and breadth of her gift with plants? Did she even know herself? He sensed she was ashamed of her talent. Understandable, having lived her whole life in EarthWorld, where it would have been unappreciated.

He smiled and took her arm, and she gave him an uncertain smile in return.

As they passed the knot garden, Nick recalled his time dallying there with the maid in his youth. His cock twitched.

Laborers dotted the slopes around them like ants. Now was neither the time nor place to mate his wife. He forced his thoughts elsewhere.

“You’re more curious about the grapes than you admit,” he told her, lifting a bow of wisteria so they could pass under a pergola. “It bodes well for our future. My family roots go deep into this soil, this industry. Our wines have graced the tables of the wealthy and royal of this world for centuries.”

She remained silent.

He gave her a lopsided grin. “Am I trying too earnestly to convince you of the merit of my heritage?”

“It isn’t for me to determine its merit. Intelligence and the propensity for hard work are evident in your family and are admirable qualities.”

“So you are no longer concerned you’ve married a drunkard?”

She smiled shyly. “No. I’m pleased in my marriage.”

It occurred to him that she herself was like a grape blossom, grudgingly opening over time, loathe to reveal her special inner self.