Sevin: Lords of Satyr (13 page)

“No,” said Luc, slowly shaking his head. “Dane can stay. I’m coming with you. I know the catacombs by scent from my time spent there. I’ll be better able to find Alexa and the chamber of artifacts again.”

That caught Bastian’s attention. “Artifacts?” he echoed, immediately intrigued.

“Luc and I discovered a treasure trove in the catacombs last night,” Sevin told him. “Artifacts of ElseWorld make.”

“Smugglers at work, we presumed,” Luc put in.

“Let’s get going,” Sevin said impatiently. “The longer we delay, the more likely it is that Alexa is getting herself lost.”

“Luc’s right. He and I should go with Sevin,” Bastian told Dane. “Don’t worry. We’ll watch out for him.”

Luc rolled his eyes at their concern, looking as if he’d had quite enough. Taking the rope coils from Sevin, he looped one over each shoulder, and then struck out for the front exit. With the bag of clothing in one hand and a lantern in his other, Sevin followed. “Bring the other light,” he called back to Bastian.

Behind them, he heard a frustrated Dane acknowledge the wisdom of the plan and agree to remain behind and see that all ran smoothly.

On their way out, Sevin, Luc, and Bastian passed a queue of salon patrons—ElseWorld males, who’d been stopped at the exits by guards. They were being searched and interrogated regarding last night’s incident, as Sevin had requested. After all that had happened, he’d almost forgotten about the explosion. Giving a last instruction to the one-eyed sentry in charge of security, Sevin departed with his brothers.

“Without the use of Luc’s talent, how are we going to find the entrance to the catacombs that’s closest to this chamber of artifacts you spoke of?” asked Bastian once the three of them were in the carriage.

“We’ll use the same entrance Alexa used to access them last night,” Sevin explained. “It’s inside her home—a secret door hidden behind a shelf in her mother’s library.”

He tossed a fresh set of clothes to Luc. The two of them began shucking off last night’s garments and donning the fresh ones the servant had brought from Sevin’s office, no mean feat for men of their height and brawn to accomplish inside a carriage.

“Will she cooperate?” Bastian asked.

Nodding, Sevin shrugged his broad shoulders into a crisp white linen shirt. “She was innocent in her family’s wrongdoing.”

Bastian lifted a brow in his direction. “You know this for a fact?”

Sevin nodded. “Through the use of my talent, I saw the very moment she learned the truth of what Bona Dea was. It came from her own mother’s lips only a few months ago. Alexa’s surprise was genuine.”

Bastian’s eyes narrowed, noting his brother’s vehement defense of a woman he’d sworn to hate only yesterday. “And does she know she spent the Calling with you? Or did you cause her to forget?”

“She knows,” Luc said before Sevin could answer. “Sevin bonded with her last night.”

Sevin didn’t need to ask how his brother knew. They’d all grown used to Luc’s quirky, confounding abilities.

“Gods.” Bastian ran a hand over his face, swearing under his breath. “This is surely more news than any man should have to digest before eight in the morning.”

A doorknob twisted under the hand of Signorina Ella Carbone—the newest employee at the
Salone di Passione.
She slipped inside the small, well-appointed chamber allotted to her in the salon and slammed the door behind her with a strength born of misery. Only then did she allow her shoulders to bow under the burden of what she’d just learned.

We passed our Calling with Alexa Patrizzi.

Her dressing gown was a billow of silk and lace around her as she sank to the floor. She pressed a hand over her heart. She could almost feel it breaking. When she’d overheard Lord Sevin speak those very words to his brothers a few minutes ago, she had thought it surely would.

The very instant the sun had risen this morning, she’d ushered her male client out of the salon, and had then gone eagerly searching for news of Sevin. She’d passed no other women when she’d skulked to linger in the corridor off the main bar. They were all sleeping and would be until well into the afternoon.

Normally, she would be doing the same. But only because she was spent after seeing to the needs of her client throughout the night, not because she was like the other females employed here. For her blood was not ElseWorld blood like theirs. She was human, masquerading as fey. Her little secret.

It was a secret she kept through the use of a small bottle of fey scent hidden in her room—contraband from the Bona Dea Cosmetics empire, a family enterprise that rumor said had recently fallen into bankruptcy. She’d gone to great pains to obtain it. This scent was the only way she had managed to secure a place here within Lord Sevin’s orbit. However, she would soon need another bottle of the stuff, and like a back-alley addict, she would seek out her clandestine supplier.

To gain and keep her employment here, it was necessary that she pass herself off as a creature of ElseWorld. After all, the salon did not employ humans. During her interview, she’d taken care that Sevin would not recognize her from their past acquaintance, for he might have turned her away.

Ella struck her fist on the rug by her knee. Oh! It wasn’t fair. She’d so desperately hoped he would be lying here with her now. If her plans had come to fruition last night, they would have spent the Calling together in this very room. Perhaps at dawn, he might have even brought her some tea and croissants from the perfectly prepared victuals set out for patrons every morning in the main bar.

Instead, Lord Sevin had disappeared last night in the blink of an eye. She had waited for his return for some time—flirting with various patrons, but fending off all offers. Finally, she’d realized to her dismay that he must be going to spend his Calling elsewhere. And with little choice left to her, she had let herself be wooed by the stranger she’d just escorted out the salon’s exit door.

She dashed away tears, her anger rising. Getting to her feet, she began to pace. Who was this Alexa Patrizzi? And why had Lord Sevin chosen her? Was she some uncouth harlot? A lady of refinement? Not a Shimmerskin certainly, for they were insentient and went unnamed.

Which meant that this Patrizzi wench must be flesh and blood. And Sevin had touched her, lain naked with her, pressed his lips to hers! And worst of all—fucked her. Hunted his pleasure within her body over and over last night. A wounded sound welled up from Ella’s core, and she stifled it with a fist.

Sevin hadn’t chosen a flesh-and-blood female in many months, not since she’d been employed here, certainly. The fact that he hadn’t had seemed to her a good omen. It was almost as if he was saving himself for her, or so she’d fantasized.

Damnation!
She’d been so certain she could coax him into her bed last night. If she could manage it with him just once, she was sure he would finally understand the truth. A truth she’d known herself for years.

That they were made for each other.

Ella flung herself onto her bed to lie amid sheets still scented with the semen and cologne of last night’s client. His cock had not been generous, nor his stamina sufficient to suit her, but he’d showered her with compliments, coins, and a nice bit of jewelry. She’d already amassed a healthy cache of coins and baubles from similar clients. She’d only been here a few weeks, but she’d worked hard to please.

She’d thought Sevin might hear of how popular she was, become curious about her, and seek her out of his own accord. She knew what she was about between a man’s legs. If only he would give her a chance!

Rolling onto her side, she lifted the gold necklace her client had gifted her with from the bedside table. Lying back again, she draped it over her throat, hoping the cold weight of its metal would make her feel better. More worthy.

But she was inconsolable and let out a small sob. Desolate tears leaked from her for several minutes more, trickling onto her pillow. This was all the fault of his youngest brother, that freak—Lucien. He’d transported Sevin away against his will last night. And then he’d introduced him to this other woman.

If not for him, Sevin might have stayed here and chosen her. Might have fallen in love with her as he was meant to.

It was well known among salon employees that Lucien selected the females that Sevin fucked, and then fucked those same women in his wake. Though this youngest Satyr lord was strange, he was handsome and she’d been willing to fuck him as well. Whatever it took to get closer to Sevin.

However, Lucien had spurned her and all others, only mating once a month when the fever in his blood forced him to. And even then, he always chose to lie with Shimmerskins.

Desperation and a sense of urgency seized her. She must think, and think well. What was her next move? She hadn’t plotted and planned all this time only to see Sevin stolen out from under her very nose by another female! She’d done too much to lose him now, just when she’d finally found him again.

Jealousy soared in her, hot and destructive. When she found this Alexa Patrizzi, she would make her sorry.

Very sorry.

Sevin gazed impatiently from the carriage window as they approached the luxuriously appointed Patrizzi town house. In the cool mist of morning, the valley below looked otherworldly and desolate with its jumble of broken walls, odd lumps of stone, and occasional soaring column.

Within that valley lay the remains of the ancient Roman Forum. Its excavation was the sole reason his family had been brought here to Rome. He’d still been a young boy when they’d arrived in this world through the Tuscan gate, and Luc had not yet been born.

Much of the ancient Forum was still buried under sixteen feet of soil and refuse deposited by flooding from the Tiber River, war, and the passage of centuries. But large-scale excavations were underway now, and as lead archaeologist, Bastian had already uncovered the remains of the House of Vestals, as well as other of the Forum’s buried secrets. And he was determined to discover them all.

Bastian was the only one of the brothers who’d found the same fascination in this valley as their father had before him. The ElseWorld Council had sent their family to this world with a mandate to uncover and hide any Forum artifacts that had been created by magical means by ElseWorld hands, lest they fall into the clutches of humans. Sevin had a few thoughts regarding that particular mandate, which he would share with his brothers as soon as he’d firmed up his plans.

Upon reaching the town house, he leaped from the carriage, eager to find Alexa. His brothers followed him up the steps to the front door. When there was no answer to the bell, Sevin tried the door and found it unlocked.

Bastian raised his brows as they went inside. “No staff?”

Sevin frowned. A lone female was taking a dangerous risk in not locking her door or employing servants for protection. Anyone could wander in from the street. “Alexa! Alexa!” he called out. When there was no reply, his heart twisted with worry.

Stalking through the house, he poked his head around each door he passed. Luc checked the upstairs bedrooms and called down that she wasn’t there either.

“She must still be in the catacombs,” Sevin announced. “The entrance to them from this house is beyond a tall shelf in a library of some kind. From the vision she shared with me, I’ll recognize it when I see it.”

As they moved deeper into the house, he noticed a decided lack of furnishings. There was an expensive rug rolled up against one wall of a sitting room. That and a bare side table were all that occupied it. Paintings had been removed from some walls, and shelves were bare. It almost looked as if everything in the house was being packed up.

“Were you aware of any plans she had to move her household?” Luc asked him.

“She’s not going anywhere, unless it’s to my lodgings,” Sevin asserted. But had she finally taken to heart his demand that she leave Rome? Now that he wanted the opposite? No, she couldn’t have moved so quickly on the matter. Which meant this packing must have begun the minute she’d returned from Venice. What was going on here?

“You can’t be thinking of installing her in your apartment in the
Salone di Passione,
” Bastian said doubtfully. “Respectable women don’t like to build their nests in their lovers’ places of business. Especially within a business such as yours.”

His eldest brother was right, Sevin realized. Perhaps he hadn’t thought everything through as well as he’d believed. Just then he ducked his head into yet another room. A sense of
déjà vu
struck him as he beheld the chamber’s coloring and the placement of its contents. There were the display shelves he’d seen in Alexa’s vision, standing tall and empty against the far wall.

“This is it,” he announced, bursting inside the room. Going over to the shelf, he gave it a test pull, then found a lever. Quickly discovering how it opened from the wall, he and his brothers shoved it wide, revealing the dark, endless tunnel of catacombs beyond.

Bastian gazed into the abyss, fascinated.

“Alexa!” Sevin shouted, and his voice echoed down the tunnel. “An hour has passed since we left her. She could be well lost by now. Keep calling for her, while I secure the ropes.”