Nicholas: The Lords of Satyr (28 page)

Lyon’s vocabulary devolved as his need overtook him. “Umm, fuck. Good,” he murmured. Then, “Come for me, sister.”

Jane was chagrined to again feel arousal burgeon. Even though she knew the elixir was responsible in part, she rejected the ecstasy his fucking of her was causing. She shook her head, fighting the rising tide of release.

His fingers parted her wet curls, searching. Her neck arched, and she hung suspended on a precipice of need. Then he lifted her clit and rubbed oh-so-softly. She cried out.

Through misty lashes, Jane saw Nick reach the end of his tether. Raine barely held him back as orgasm tore through her. It milked Lyon into a fierce ejaculation. His spurting warmth flooded her to mingle with that Raine had already deposited. He was still shuddering out the last of his cream when Nick and Raine rejoined them.

She remained draped, limp, and docile over the stone bridge with Lyon at her back. More of those guttural Satyr words were chanted over her. Again, that strange sense of melding drifted over her.

Then Lyon was gone.

Familiar arms closed around her. When she fell into them, Nick caught and lifted her down, crushing her to him. His hands stroked her damp hair and slicked over her wet skin. She relaxed against him in relief.

The sticky wetness was more profuse now. It clung to her thatch, dribbled from her apertures, and smeared her inner thighs as Nick led her away. Dazed, she went with him, scarcely knowing where.

At the entrance to a cave, three ancient trees bowed low, forming a live arch that nearly obscured the rock opening. Gnarled roots of oak, ash, and hawthorn intertwined to form stairsteps so beautiful in their design that they appeared planned by a skilled artisan.

“Where oak, ash, and thorn come together, faeries be found,” murmured Jane, quoting from England’s legend of the faerie triad.

Nick gave her arm a reassuring squeeze.

Their quartet passed through the opening the trees provided and then entered a dim cloistered room. It smelled of an ancient ferment of mosses, herbs, grapevines, and beloved souls, and she sensed its sacredness.

As her eyes became accustomed to the absence of moonlight, she saw she now stood before a low altar in the middle of a path. The path continued some distance ahead, ending in a void from which a strong aura of magic emanated.

A warm body knelt behind her. Nick. He grasped her hips and pulled her to her knees before him.

“Where are we?” she asked, her tone hushed.

“At the place where EarthWorld and ElseWorld meet,” he told her. “I have chosen this—the most sacred of all joining places—to close the circle of the Sharing.”

Raine and Lyon stood on either side of them, watching as she was bent upon this final altar. Something tickled her breasts. She patted her hands lower, finding the cushion of faerie thyme and fragile moss that covered the altar.

Twin penises found her vaginal and anal openings. Her flesh was tender, but she knew this body well and welcomed it. Her husband.

Nick groaned his relief as he drove inside her. His brothers’ leavings paved his way, making this third joining an exceptionally easy one. It was a fact he couldn’t miss. He fucked her hard and with little mercy. The strength of his coupling was, she suspected, motivated by his desire to stamp her as his own.

She looked down at her breasts and saw they were now tipped with that strange silver-blue glow. Embarrassment that his brothers witnessed it might have come at another, former time. But not now.

Nick saw and was driven wild. His thoughts pierced hers.

It didn’t happen with the others. Only for me.

Only for you
, her mind echoed.

Orgasm swelled quickly between them, each sensation building on that the other experienced. It crested and then crashed as his seed blasted into her channel to dash against her womb.

She could feel each drop of his jism meet and bond with those of his brothers. Three separate masculine potions mixed together within her to form a powerful blend that prolonged her inner convulsions until she found herself sucked into velvet blackness.

When she resurfaced, the pungent tang of fresh earth and moss filled her nostrils. Above her, low words were being spoken by three male voices. Their chant wove itself around her, sealing her within the protection tonight’s Sharing had constructed.

Without voice, she accepted what they offered and felt their gratitude in return for her understanding. Raine and Lyon withdrew from the chamber, moving out into the moonlight.

Nick grunted as his second penis retracted into his pelvis. His other penis remained thick and ready, still lodged in her quivering slit.

“A respite, husband,” she whispered.

He withdrew from her and folded her against him. “I’m sorry. You’re small, and we’ve been too eager with you.”

Over his shoulder, through the frame of trees that formed the door to the chamber, Jane watched Raine and Lyon move into the glen. Watched the mist around them glisten and then solidify into female form. Watched Shimmerskins materialize out of thin air.

One of them sank to her knees before Lyon. Her hands stroked over his furred thighs as she took his ready cock in her lips. His palms cupped each side of her head. Holding her steady, he began to fuck her mouth.

Another Shimmerskin stroked Raine’s chest, brushing his nipples. He cupped her bottom to lift her. She wrapped her legs around his waist and parted her labia with one hand while her other directed his cock inside her. His eyes fell closed as he seated himself deep and began to rock her.

Jane gasped.

“Are you all right?” asked Nick. She pressed her blue-tipped breasts against his chest and let his body hair massage her.

“I can feel their arousal, or something of it,” she said in surprise. Her brow knit. “It’s a peculiar feeling. I’m not sure if I like it.”

Nick sat and lifted her to his lap, and she felt his hardness against her hip. “It’s the result of the Sharing. You’re now linked with all of us. It will grow to feel normal over time.”

“I don’t want to physically join with them again.”

“There’s no need. You’re now sufficiently protected by the irrevocable familial links formed tonight. I’m content that you will remain safe in their care whilst I’m in ElseWorld.”

“I feel the truth of that. This has all been so strange. I never thought to mate with a male other than my husband.”

“I imagine you’ve done many things you never thought to since coming to me,” he said. “Any regrets?”

She smiled at him and slowly shook her head.

Jane heard Raine groan in the distance and started at the responding sensation she felt in her clit. Her hand moved downward, but she caught herself before she could rub at it, too shy. His hand pressed over hers, moving their entwined fingers sensuously through her slickness.

“It’s like an echo of their pleasure,” she murmured.

His breath was a hot whisper against her neck, his hand urgent over hers. “I feel it, too. An enhanced stirring that spurs me toward release.”

“A useful physiological occurrence meant to perpetuate your race, I presume.” She moaned at the sensation their fingers were causing.

“Speaking of which…” He lay her on the soft mossy bed, obviously planning to continue their coupling in the privacy of the cave.

“Will there be more surprises?” she asked, encircling his neck with her arms.

He kissed the side of her throat. “Undoubtedly.”

She tapped his chin with a fingertip. “In the future, perhaps more warning?”

He grinned at her. “Consider this a warning then. Something is about to surprise you.”

Ahh!
She gasped as the Seeker made its way inside her vagina, lapping up cream and tending to abrasions.

She relaxed into its attentions. “A welcome surprise, husband, for I’m sorely used.”

He kissed her forehead, contrite. “I’m sorry.”

“It was difficult,” she said, writhing. “
Ahh!
—but I begin to heal.”

Moments later, the Seeker’s work was done. Nick batted it aside and slid over her.

“And now, wife, be warned that my tongue, fingers, and cock plan to surprise you repeatedly over the coming hours until dawn is finally met.”

She widened her thighs and smiled at him, inviting. He spread the ruffled folds of her labia, displaying her most vulnerable heart for the kiss of his lips, the stroke of his tongue.

Sighing, she relaxed into it and let her fingers sift through his hair. When they fisted there, he rained soft kisses up her body. As his shaft found and pierced her nether heart, joy pierced her soul.

Tonight she’d truly been accepted into his clan in both mind and flesh. He had trusted her enough, cherished her enough to choose this place that meant so much to him and his kind to mate her.

“How lucky I am to have found you,” Nick murmured.

Lucky. He hadn’t said he loved her. But he needed her, at least for this. Because she’d become his preference for carnal engagements and the mother of his child, he’d offered her a home and his protection. She and Emma would be cared for just as if they’d been born into this family.

It was what she’d longed for her entire life. She would not be greedy. She would let it be enough. For now.

“I, too, am lucky,” she whispered.

That night he departed for ElseWorld through the joining wall in the cave, leaving both her and EarthWorld behind.

J
ane hummed to herself as she and Emma left the castello garden and entered the forest the next morning. They were going in search of flowers for Emma’s version of Linnaeus’s clock. They lacked only two now, having found the other ten, whose petals opened and closed in time with the hours.

Her mind brimmed with thoughts of the previous night when she’d fully embraced her special brand of sexuality and that of her husband. Carnality was theirs to explore in the years ahead. In time, she hoped he would come to love her. But in this moment, she was content.

Had she not been preoccupied with such ruminations, she might have noticed they were being followed. After they entered the forest, their pursuer finally made himself known to them.

“Papa!” Emma breathed in surprise.

Jane whirled to find her father—no, Signore Cova, who was not her father—appear behind them, a barrier between them and the castello.

“Where did you come from?” she demanded, not understanding why the forcewall had allowed a stranger to invade the forest.

“Followed you,” he mumbled.

He’d been trailing them. Because the forest now accepted her and Emma’s right to enter, it must have accepted someone it perceived to be their companion without question.

Cova stared around the glen, weaving on his feet. Drunk. She’d never seen him so rumpled and unkempt.

“Filthy place,” he muttered, “…taken my Izzy…gotta pay…godforsaken place and its heathen owners.”

Jane and Emma drew closer to one another, watching him warily.

“Nick had nothing to do with Izabel’s death,” Jane ventured.

Cova pulled a small wooden box from his pocket. “A pox on all the Satyr houses!” he misquoted woozily. He opened the box, turned it upside down, and let the crumbled leaves within flutter forth on the wind.

Jane watched, not trying to prevent him, not understanding the full import of his actions until it was too late.

The empty box fell from his fingers to the ground. He giggled drunkenly. “Pox in a box.”

Sudden horror dawned, and Jane whirled around, gazing at the bits of leaves skittering and floating to the ground on the breeze. There were hundreds—too many to collect, now that they’d blended with the ground cover.

“What have you done?!” she shrieked.

Emma dropped her basket, clasping her hands. “What? What did he do?”

“He brought the pox here on those leaves. Purposely, to infect the vines,” said Jane.

“You always were a quick study, harlot daughter,” said Signore Cova. “So hear this: As the vines shrivel and die, so will your husband. And his brothers. Izzy said the Satyr need those vines to live. My poor, dear Izzy.
Ohhh
.” At the memory of Izabel, he took his head in both hands and dissolved into sobs.

“Is it true, what he says?” Emma asked Jane.

“Run to the house and fetch Signore Faunus,” Jane urged. “Tell him—”

Cova knocked Jane aside and grabbed Emma’s arm, his tears quickly drying. “I’ll not have you stay here in this wicked place, girl. You’ll come home with me and serve your father as a good daughter ought.”

Emma looked at Jane, unsure. “Must I go?”

Everything within Jane rebelled. Emma must stay with her, safe on Satyr land. As a terrible anger rose, the quills at her back stirred.

“No. Not now,” Jane breathed, feeling the change and fearing what might happen next. Unbidden, the feathers ripped from the back of her dress and sprang forth. They unfurled gloriously into translucent fluttering wings! At their movement, her feet lifted a few inches off the ground.

Emma stared at her, shocked into speechlessness.

“Let her go,” Jane hissed at the man who held her sister.

Signore Cova shrank back in fear and then fled, stumbling his way from the forest. “Witch! Witch! I’ll tell! See if I don’t!”

Jane called after him. “Only remember everyone will say that if you’re my father, you must be tainted as well. And a witch, too.” She only hoped the threat would censure him.

In the wake of his departure, the feathers at her back folded together as neatly as a lady’s fan and slipped back into her skin. Her feet touched down to earth. She darted a glance at Emma, dreading the rejection she was prepared to see in her eyes.

But Emma was grinning! “I knew you could make the plants well. But I didn’t know you could do that!”

Jane laughed in relief. “To be honest, I didn’t either. Come, let’s go for horses. Nick and Raine are away, but we must check on Lyon and inform him of what has happened.”

Together, they raced back downhill toward the castello.

“When did you guess about the plants?” Jane asked breathlessly as she ran.

“Long ago. I could tell you were embarrassed about it, so I didn’t let on. But I didn’t know about the wings. Will I grow them, too?”

“No. Nick tells me I have them because my father was in fact someone other than yours.”

“Oh,” said Emma, sounding disappointed as she digested that.

Jane couldn’t help but smile. “For years I’ve worried that you would exhibit signs of this taint. And now you say you wish for it?”

“Why wouldn’t I want wings? They’re beautiful,” said Emma. Then her brow creased with worry. “But if Papa isn’t your father, are we still sisters?”

Jane nodded. “Always. We’re half sisters by blood and full sisters by love. You will live at the castello with me from now on.”

Emma’s small hand slipped into hers as they reached their home. “I’m glad.”

The next morning, Jane paced before the entrance to ElseWorld in the sacred cave deep within Satyr forest. She’d been there since dawn awaiting Nick’s return. Yesterday she and Emma had visited Lyon and found him already ill from the early effects of the pox. She’d left Signore Faunus and Emma to care for him before coming here.

Raine was away, and she had no way of knowing if he also weakened. But it seemed likely. Was Nick ill, too? She couldn’t sense him, far away in that other world. Should she go to him there? Lyon had made her promise not to, for he said it wasn’t safe.

Now and then, as she paced, she heard shouts of revelry from vineyard workers in their quarters outside Satyr land. A local festa was underway, so they wouldn’t come to the estate today. Their gaiety seemed surreal in view of her terror.

It was late afternoon when Nick finally stepped through the gates into EarthWorld. His face was haggard, his body exhausted.

He slumped against the cave wall and held a hand to his head. “I’m ill, Jane. Poisoned. I feel my brothers’ illness as well. What’s happening?”

Jane wrapped her arms around him, wishing she could take away his pain. “It’s the pox. It’s come on the estate and is sickening the vines. Sickening you and your brothers.”

“Fuck.”

She reached for her basket. “I’ve brought a mixture of herbs. A curative I’ve given Lyon. You must take it. I’m hoping—”

“No. It won’t suffice.” He turned his head away from the offering and pushed off the cave wall, heaving against her, one arm slung around her shoulders. “Take me to the vines high above the gathering place.”

“But—”

“Please.” His voice was a fragile, husky whisper.

Jane put an arm about his waist, and with a strength born of terror guided him from the cave. She led him past the statues with their solemn stares and far beyond the glen. His footsteps were leaden and unsure. As they climbed, he stumbled over a root and staggered, taking them both down.

“Rest,” he begged. His shoulders were bowed, hopeless.

“No! Come on!” she shouted, shaking him. She dragged him to his feet, and they trudged on.

At the entrance to the vineyard, the gates swung open, knowing and welcoming him. By the time they reached the vines, her entire body ached from supporting him.

Nick collapsed at the edge of the vineyard, falling to lie on his back upon a patch of bare soil between the rows.

Jane knelt beside him, praying he hadn’t come here to die. “What now?”

He didn’t answer. His body was lifeless, his breathing labored.

She cupped his stubbled jaw and tried to meld with him. Under her hands, she felt his mind slipping away.

“You can’t leave me, Nick,” she sobbed. “We have yet to raise Vincent. And what of our other children?”

“We have more?” he asked. His voice was slurred, disoriented.

“I speak of the children not yet conceived. Now, tell me! Why did we come here? What can I do?”

She forced herself to calm. His pain would debilitate her if she let it in. To save him, she had to keep her wits.

“Heal,” he muttered.

“Heal? HEAL?” What did he mean? She rocked back, and her hand inadvertently brushed a five-pointed leaf. It perked, filling with new green life. But the color only extended a few inches beyond the leaf onto its stem.

She stood and looked over the endless rows. “I can’t touch them all. Not in time.”

“…nourished through soil…” he muttered. “…roots go deep…”

The phylloxera had infected the vines through the soil! The soil is what her body must cleanse.

Quickly she began ripping at her clothing. Her dress and petticoats were tossed away. Her corset was impossible. It remained.

She stretched out, her skin pale upon the warm, crumbled soil. As her body melded with the earth, she willed new life to suffuse the vines’ roots.

Their pain scorched her, weakened her, but then the pox’s poison passed through her and was gone, leaving her as she’d been.

She stood again, shading her eyes to survey the hillside around them. The vines sprang green and refreshed, rejuvenated. But then she looked farther, to the next hill. The vines there remained black and withered. As did those on all the surrounding hills.

Nick murmured something.

She dropped to her knees beside him. “I’ve failed. I’m so sorry.”

His hand moved hers from his chest and lay it over his crotch.

She snatched away. Even near death, he wanted sex? “Nick! Don’t be ridiculous.”

“Heal them…through me.” He cupped himself through his trousers. “Seed—life. New. Fuck.”

Suddenly she understood. His lifeblood was intertwined with these vines. Would their mating, here on this land, breathe new life into the vines and thereby into him?

She yanked at the fastenings of his trousers, tearing them in her haste.

He chuckled and touched a fingertip to her nipple. “Wanton.”

“Hush.”

When his trousers opened, she nearly cried. His shaft was limp!

She took it between her hands, rubbing, gently tugging. Not a twitch.

She tried her mouth, working him with her lips and tongue, simulating the sex act.

He began to swell. Was it enough?

“Nick! Come on top of me,” she told him. “I need to lie on my back for full contact with the soil.”

“Can’t,” he mumbled.

She lay on her back and attempted to roll him over her. Impossible. Desperate, she straddled him instead and then moaned in despair. He’d wilted.

His lack of interest terrified her. Always before, he could be counted on to be ready for every aspect of carnal behavior.

Determinedly she slicked herself over him, teasing him with her cunt. She leaned close to whisper low, raw sex words—the kind he liked. She taunted, begged, coaxed.

Under her, his shaft thickened and distended. She lifted over him to find his tip. With her hand, she forced the semisoft shaft several inches inside her channel.

His hands lifted to her thighs and squeezed. His eyes opened.

“You look tired, wife,” he murmured.

He was silly, unmindful of their situation. But he was coming to life.

Her knees were bruised from scraping on the volcanic soil at his sides. “Roll over me. Can you? I need you to be on top.”

“So submissive,” he teased. His eyelids fluttered closed.

She smacked his shoulder. “Move, Nick!”

“Ow!” He looked at her, his expression hurt.

“We have to switch positions. I need greater contact with the earth.”

Awareness flickered in his eyes. With a mighty breath, he heaved himself from the ground and reversed their positions. It took much out of him, and he fell on her, forcing his cock deeper. Then he lay on her, unmoving.

She ran her palms over his muscled back and buttocks and let her fingers trace the furrow at his rear. A fingertip prodded his puckered opening.

He jerked, and his cock strengthened. He managed to move his hips in the barest of push-pull rhythms.

Straining, she reached to gain better access. He gasped as her finger moved knuckle deep, sodomizing him.

“Cream,” he protested against her throat.

“I have none.”

“Then, enough.” He forced her hand away. But the thrusts of his hips had grown stronger and more controlled.

Now that she had his cooperation, she shifted her concentration. Her mind drifted, willing the soil to accept their offering. Willing it to meld with her. Willing it to sharing their fecundity, share her love for him.

Her back grew hot, and she felt the melding begin. Felt the soil’s pain, knew the roots and the vines and their sickness. Offered to lessen it.

Her chin filled the notch where his shoulder met his neck. She smelled rain in the air, saw raindrops sweep the forest and reach the vineyard gates.

Nicks movement within her remained slow but steady.

“Is that the best you can do?” she taunted. “Fuck me, husband. Fuck me as I desire. Or shall I leave you and find my satisfaction with another?”

He growled, and she felt strength and determination rise up in him. His fingers dug into her hips, and he began shafting her with increased fierceness.

“You must let me in as you did the day we met,” she whispered at his ear. “Don’t shield yourself from me. I don’t have enough to give the vines alone. They need us both.”

Had he heard her?

Yes! She felt his mind come into hers. Bringing warmth. Caring. Love!

The rains came, slicking their bodies as they mated with each other and with their land. Together they writhed in the life-giving soil and became slathered with it. Mud sucked at Jane’s body, pulling her deeper, taking what she offered and giving her husband life through her in return.