Nicholas: The Lords of Satyr (24 page)

T
he evening sky was painted with slashes of deep purple and orange by the time Jane returned to Satyr land. The day servants were gone by that hour, and there was only the coachman to help her. With his assistance, she struggled from the carriage and moved partway up the front steps.

Signore Faunus hurried out to her aid, waving the coachman away. She accepted his arm gratefully, and they made their way toward the ornate front doors.

“The master has been waiting,” he scolded anxiously.

“He has returned from the vines?”

“Si.”

“But he has tarried there well into darkness lately. I assumed he’d linger.”

Nick’s voice reached them. “Jane!”

As they stepped inside the front doors, Jane glanced up to see her husband beckoning to her from the balusters at top of the stairs. His face was wracked with pain, and he was paler than she’d ever seen him. Though it was barely past dusk, he already wore his dressing gown.

“Are you ill?” she asked. Behind her, Signore Faunus locked the heavy doors and withdrew from them.

“Where have you been?” Nick growled down at her.

“To my aunt’s,” she admitted, hurrying as best she could to join him. “To Izabel’s, I mean. To see Emma, though she wasn’t there after all.”

“Seven hells, woman! You shouldn’t have ventured so far in your condition. But we will discuss your foolishness another time. Come.” He pushed her along the hall toward his bedchamber and then ushered her inside it.

Slamming the door behind them, Nick reached for the buttons of her gown, a salacious glint in his eye.

Jane grasped his wrists. “What are you doing?”

His lips caressed her throat, and he whispered, “Removing your clothing, wife. It’s the Calling. We must mate.”

She batted at his hands and whirled away, warding him off with an outstretched palm. “You said we were to abstain.”

“No longer.”

“But Izabel agreed it was wise.”

He hunted her, his gait stalking. “Fuck Izabel.”

“Nick!”

She backed around his bed and found herself cornered. His eyes glittered, scalding her where they touched.

Hard hands reached for her and then checked as sudden moonlight bathed the window glass.

A vicious cramp rippled over his belly, and he staggered, his white-knuckled fingers clutching at a bedpost. Grimacing, he hunched forward.

Jane leaned over him, wrapping an arm around his back. “Shall I summon help?”

He managed a negative shake of his head. After long moments, he regained control, uncoiled, and stood. From the divide of his robe, two penises now strained upward, their bulbous crowns rich with blood. Each extended well beyond Izabel’s stated requirement.

“Jane! Do as I bid you,” he snarled. “I’m dangerously in need.”

“But you said we shouldn’t. I assumed you would take Shimmerskins—if you became desperate while I’m breeding.”

He shot her a disbelieving look. “I can’t go to Shimmerskins this night. A mating must occur between us.”

She shook her head. “But—”

“You doubt me?”

“I believe you would say anything to get your way when you’re in this, uh, condition.”

He sliced the air with his hand. “Enough. I will have you with or without your cooperation,” he gritted. “I would prefer the former. Which is it to be?”

He towered over her, and she felt a shiver of distress. She’d never seen him like this. His every muscle was tense, every sinew coiled. His nostrils were flared and his eyes wild, as though the animal in him had overtaken the man.

She glanced toward the door. He stepped closer, watchful.

Her hands went to her buttons. Reluctantly she began removing her clothing. When she was finally naked, his eyes and hands worshipped her belly as though it was a celestial globe and he was seeking the location of a particularly beloved star.

“Don’t look at me!” she said, trying to shield herself. The last time he’d seen her unclothed body, her waist had been slender.

He shot her a quizzical glance that said women were beyond his understanding. Then he shed his robe, helped her onto the bed, and knelt on the mattress, waiting.

Jutting from his thatch, his twin cocks were hard, unforgiving instruments, ruddy and thick. She reached for a jar of cream on his night table. For the first time since she’d agreed to become his mistress, it would be required to facilitate their joining. With shaking hands, she sluiced it over his crowns. The slurping, smacking sounds were stark and arousing. Her fingers smoothed over twin ridges and followed twin lengths toward his thatch.

Without conscious thought, she began to meld.

Cruel emotions rushed at her. Anguished need. Tortured desire. Her fingers sprang away, unable to bear it.

Desperate hands threaded her hair, and his mind touched hers.

Trust me. Take me.

Mesmerized by his desire, she turned and slid under him, assuming the pose she knew he required for the first mating of the Calling. Kneeling, she lowered her face to the pillow. Her buttocks were raised, both of her nether openings easy plunder.

Nudging her thighs wide, he took her from behind, groaning in satisfaction as his twin penises were sheathed. The cream eased his way, but his rut stretched her, going deep.

Her fingers fisted the sheets. “Not so deep, Nick. Take care.”

It was as though he hadn’t heard. He settled into a robust, almost punishing rhythm, punctuated by a slew of grateful curses and ancient words that were foreign to her.

Her worry increased in proportion to the strength of each ensuing stroke. She held her swollen belly protectively in one hand and braced the other on the head rail.

“Nick, not so vigorously! What of our child?”

The pillow muffled her breathless voice. She turned her head and repeated herself more loudly. “Nick!”

Immersed in a primal, desperate need to mate his fecund wife, he seemed incapable of understanding. His body continued to slam into hers.

He would hate himself if their child were injured. And surely this exercise could not be good for it.

Eventually he achieved his first spill. She was furious with him and frightened. But her channels had minds of their own. They convulsed with him in harsh spasms that wrenched at his cocks. Like hands gloved in wet velvet, they milked strong spurts of his cum.

Her moan of pleasure mingled with his of pleasure-pain as the smaller penis retracted within the haven of his pelvis. Though her tissues were still pulsing, he was already busy at turning her onto her back for another taking.

He sat on his haunches and pulled her thighs over his so she straddled him.

Tilting his penis lower with a thumb, he curved a palm under her buttocks. The head met her slit, and he pulled her forward, driving into her again and again. Transfixed, he watched her mounded belly shudder with each thrust.

“Nick,” she whispered, grabbing his wrist. “Please have a care. Our child.”

“Our child,” he echoed in bemused wonderment. His hand touched her belly reverently as he kissed her…and immediately climaxed.

Again, she fell over the edge with him.

Throughout the night, he would often kiss and caress her abdomen in this way and took obvious care not to directly impact their child. Nevertheless, she worried. How could she not?

In spite of her concern, her body achieved orgasm with reluctant consistency. It was as though each new gush of his cum sent her passage into unwitting convulsions.

When the first fingers of dawn touched his back, Nick rolled away from her at last, breathing a contented sigh. Having drained himself in her innumerable times and with regularity throughout the night, he was finally sated. He levered himself on one elbow to stare down at her.

She lay amid the tumbled bedcovers, thoroughly replete. Somehow she dredged up the energy to turn her head toward him. Her eyelids fluttered up.

His gaze on her was blazing, intense. Whereas she was utterly exhausted, he was energized, expectant.

She blinked.

Something wasn’t quite right. But she was too tired to figure it all out. Perhaps when she awoke….

Sleep called to her, and she slid into a light doze.

Sometime later, her eyes flew open to find him in the same position, watching. What had awakened her?

Pain.

A terrible cramp belted her midriff. She placed a hand over her belly and felt the muscles bunch unnaturally.

The convulsion was quickly followed by another. Then another.

Instinctively she turned on her side and curled into the hollow of her husband’s chest. “Nick!”

“I’m here.” His hand found her lower back, massaging.

“Something’s wrong.”

“Shhh. It’s your time,” he said.

The twinges continued to strike, developing an unrelenting, excruciating rhythm. Soon they were coming close together, on top of one another. She scarcely had time to pant between waves of pain.

“A doctor,” she gasped. “Please, Nick. Fetch a doctor. I—”

A strong cramp hit her, worse than all those that had come before. Under her hands, a fierce undulation of muscle rippled through her abdomen.

“Oh, Nick, the baby,” she sobbed. “I think we’re losing the baby.”

“No,” he soothed. “Everything’s going as it should.”

“What? This can’t be right. It’s happening too soon—ah!”

Another seizure hit, galvanizing her into action. Instinct drove her to rise on all fours like an animal. Nick assisted her. He murmured encouragement and stroked her hair back.

She rocked forward and backward on her hands and knees, moaning at the overwhelming need to expel—something. She reared up, arching her neck at a sudden stab of pain more torturous than the rest.

A warm gush of silvery blue liquid poured from between her legs, drenching her thighs and the bedcovers.

She crumpled against the pillow, sobbing.

“Oh, Nick! We’re losing our child.”

“What?” He sounded preoccupied. “No, Jane, I assure you everything is taking its natural course. Calm yourself.”

He cleansed the strange moisture from her and moved the soiled covers aside. The sheets were dry below them. He turned her to lie on her back and slid a pillow under her hips. Widening her knees, he knelt between them. He obviously expected her to miscarry and was planning to help.

“Have you ever done this before?” she asked.

He looked startled. “Of course not. I’ve never given my childseed to anyone but you.”

She searched his face. Why wasn’t he upset? He’d wanted an heir above all things, and now they might be losing all hope of one. It made no sense.

Sudden, acute agony knifed her, and Nick flinched at her scream. A heavy, fistlike fullness migrated from her womb into her channel, nearly suffocating her with pain. The urge to expel gripped her, and she bore down mightily. As the fullness left her, she screamed again and then collapsed, panting and exhausted.

Nick withdrew from the bed.

Jane lay a forearm over her eyes, unable to look, to accept what had happened. Silent tears leaked from the corners of her eyes into her hair. Her baby was dead, and it was her fault. She should have refused Nick tonight. Knowing it was a Calling, she should have hidden from him.

When another cry mingled with hers, she looked up in disbelief.

Nick’s face swam into her vision. He looked—pleased. And he was holding—a baby! A live, squirming baby!

She raised on one elbow and clutched her belly. The swell of her pregnancy had gone.

“Is that our baby?”

He laughed, sounding joyful. “Who else’s?”

She struggled to sit upright.

He flicked her a frowning glance. “Lie still.”

She subsided on the pillow but held out her arms. “Is he—she all right? Let me see.”

“We have a son, Jane,” Nick said with evident pride. “And he’s perfect.”

He brought the child to her, placing him in her arms. Then he lay beside her, wrapping them in his warmth.

Jane inspected the tiny child with sable hair and olive skin. When his blue eyes opened, her heart contracted. “I don’t understand. How could I have borne a healthy child in so little time?”

“It’s the way of the Satyr. A child is conceived in one Calling and then birthed at sunrise in the next. Only one month of gestation is preferable to the Humans’ nine, don’t you agree?”

“You should have told me,” Jane murmured, too sleepy to conjure up true annoyance.

“I did!” he protested. “That morning in the garden, after you conceived. I’m sure of it.”

She remembered she’d missed some of what he’d said that morning. “You expected me to listen? I was sick.” Her eyelids fluttered, and she yawned. “Oh, I can’t stay awake.”

“Rest then.”

She shook her head, fighting to keep her eyes open. “There’s too much to do. The baby…”

“Sleep, Jane. It’s tradition. The wife of a Satyr does the work of gestation and birthing. Then her husband takes over the Bonding.”

“Hmmm?” She yawned again, and her eyes closed. She heard him rise and begin moving busily around the room. “The maker of the urns in your library didn’t get it wrong after all, did he?” she mumbled abstractly. “The Satyr do have two phalluses and a tail.”

Nick chuckled. “Only on special occasions. Now rest and let me work.”

But she didn’t hear the last. She’d fallen asleep.

Nick smiled fondly at her as he bathed their child in a basin. Satyr men were never tired after a birthing, but their women often slept for a day or more afterward.

As Jane slumbered, Nick assumed his husbandly responsibilities. He bathed her with a sponge and removed her to her bedchamber where he placed her amid clean sheets. Then he brought the baby to her.

It was his task to get the child fed while his wife slept. Though how she could slumber amid this racket was beyond him. By now the baby’s cries had reached an astounding volume. His son was lusty for sustenance only a mother could provide, and Jane’s breasts were firm with milk.

He lay next to Jane and tucked their child between them. “I hope you have some idea of what to do,” he told his son. “For my instructions to you will be limited.”

He placed the baby’s lips at her nipple and waited. The child latched on and began sucking but quickly let his displeasure be known.