Dominic (6 page)

After he departed for Else World tomorrow morning, she would announce her own travel plans to the rest of the family. Within the month, she would

take her child and leave the estate.

Footfal s sounded on the carpet out in the corridor. Boots.

Carlo.

5

A
subtle
whoosh
of air fluttered the hem of Emma’s nightclothes as the bedchamber door swung open behind her.

Quickly standing, she slipped her robe from her shoulders, letting it drop to the footstool’s needlepoint cushion. She left her nightgown in place,

though it, too, would no doubt fal by the wayside sometime in the hours of darkness ahead. It was new and fragile, stitched by a maker of specialty

lingerie in Paris.

Would her husband ruin it as he had the one she’d worn a month ago?

Drawing a fortifying breath, she turned toward the door, planning to start matters off on a pleasant footing and hope they didn’t deteriorate. “I trust

you wil be kind for the sake of our child?”

Her determined smile wobbled and withered when she saw her husband was not alone. Two men stood blocking the doorway, both tal and

massive. And the larger of them was Dominic.

The shock of encountering those predatory eyes hadn’t diminished since she’d first noticed him standing outside on the porch. What was he doing

here?

Stunned, she sought her robe. It sprang from the stool to her fingers without her having to bend to it, but she was too rattled to mark this.

“Please, Carlo! I’m not properly dressed,” she protested, clasping it to her chest. Belatedly realizing her backside would stil be visible to the men

through her translucent gown in the looking glass behind her, she shifted a few feet away from the dressing table so her back was to the wal .

“It was my understanding that you were whol y Human,” Dominic said, frowning at the robe she’d Wil ed to lift.

“Both of her parents were,” said Carlo, speaking for her. “And she is as wel , but she has these confounding bursts of magic. Nicholas has posited

that her Human mother retained some residual enchantment due to King Feydon’s mating of her—the mating that produced Jane—and that a bit of this

supernatural ability was in turn passed on to Emma.”

“What does that matter at the moment?” she asked. “Again, I must strongly object to your joint visit. If you have more business to discuss, I ask that

you adjourn to Signore Janus’s bedchamber. Which is on the west side of the house,” she added pointedly.

“Leave off your robe,” Carlo said, moving past her. Lifting the large square of linen that hung next to the dressing table, he draped it over the mirror.

She watched him do it so that she wouldn’t have to further acknowledge his companion.

Mirrors in their bedchambers were always to be covered on Moonful nights when her husband was in residence, and the linen had been hung

there on the peg for this specific purpose. It was an odd fetish of his, and one she was accustomed to.

When he’d adjusted the covering to his liking, Carlo set his weapon on the table and began emptying his pockets. He spoke, his back to them.

“Dom is of the family.”

“I stil don’t see—” She stopped, uncertain. She’d known Dominic was a creature of Else World. However, many factions dwel ed there. His clan

could have been one of any number that existed in that other realm.

“I am ful -blood Satyr,” Dominic informed her in that formal tone of his.

Ful blood. Not half blood like her brother-in-law. Not quarter blood or less, like Carlo. He was the first ful -blood Else-World creature of any kind

she’d ever met. Yet, like the other Satyr lords, he could easily pass for Human. An extraordinarily tal , compel ingly masculine Human with broad shoulders

and an expansive chest. But Human nevertheless.

“But your name—Janus,” she said stupidly. “The god who looks both forward and backward. A protector in wartime. I assumed you were

descended from his line.”

“My wife is a great reader, brimming with a wealth of such information,” Carlo sneered, interrupting her. He picked up her book of poetry from the

table, fanned its pages, and then shut it with a disdainful snap. His actions were exaggerated, she noted worriedly, the influence of the excessive wine

he’d taken in.

Dominic ignored him, answering her instead. “Janus is an ancestor’s surname and one of a half dozen that make up the entirety of my own.”

Stil , this didn’t explain why he was here in Carlo’s chamber tonight of al nights. Why wasn’t he in his own quarters taking Shimmerskins to his

bed? Such insentient females were easily conjured from the ether at a Satyr’s whim in order to serve his every carnal need.

“I’m not dressed to receive company of any sort,” she persisted, addressing her husband.

Dominic frowned toward Carlo. “In one year of marriage, she stil has not grown accustomed to our ways?”

Carlo shrugged.

Emma glanced warily between the two giant males that stood on either side of the room. “What ways?”

“While in her mate’s presence, it is customary for an Else-World consort to display her body un—” Dominic searched for the correct word, his

expression frustrated for a moment when he couldn’t locate it. “Ah,” he said at last. “To display herself in a far more un
curtained
state than yours,

regardless of who else is in attendance.”

“Wel , this isn’t Else World, is it?” Emma protested. “And here in Earth World, we
consorts
wear clothing, not curtains. And we wear them when in

every sort of company.”

“Emma!” Carlo scolded. “Show some respect. Dominic’s of royal blood and has saved my life in battle more than once.”

“I’m sorry to be impolite,” she said. “It’s just that the moon is soon to rise.” She hesitated, glancing toward the window.

Dominic’s knowing gaze dared her to continue.

Couldn’t the man decipher so broad a hint? Save for folding his arms across that formidable chest, he hadn’t budged from the doorway. Almost as

though he was intentional y blocking any egress. The back of her neck prickled with unease at the realization.

Her husband shot her an unreadable glance and then moved to the window and flung the drape wide with one hand. Beyond him only a glistening

edge of orange remained of the daylight to outline the distant indigo hil s.

As both men’s eyes were drawn to the view of the oncoming twilight, Emma took advantage of their distraction to unobtrusively slip her robe on

over her gown.

“There’s something I didn’t tel the family,” Carlo said in a dul monotone as she fumbled to tie its single ribbon at her breast. “Something I don’t

want them to know.”

His face, reflected in the window glass, was unusual y solemn. A tremor of fear touched her. “What is it?”

He looked at her over his shoulder. “First I must have your promise that you’l keep my secret.”

“Of course,” she agreed easily, her curiosity mounting.

He turned back to inspect the evening sky. When he spoke again, his voice was low and tortured. “Something happened to me in Else World.

During a mission nearly four weeks ago, I was injured. Just after last Moonful, on the very morning I left your warm bed.”

Emma went to his side and lay a tentative, compassionate hand on his sleeve, a reflexive action intended to relieve another’s suffering.

“Why didn’t you say something earlier, while the others were stil here to help? Are you al right?”

“No,” he barked. With a hard twist of his body, he shook her off. “As it happens, I’m far from al right.”

Emma faltered under his glower and the fumes of alcohol he exhaled. He began stalking her, and she took a backward step for each of his paces

forward.

When her spine hit the bedpost, she set her hands against his chest. He towered over her, taking her shoulders in a painful grip. “My injuries were

severe. Quite severe. I lay unconscious for days. When I awoke, I was told…”

He took an unsteady breath and rammed both hands into his pockets. She wrapped an arm around the voluptuous mahogany bedpost and sank

to the mattress, her eyes glued to his.

“I was told that the injury had rendered me impotent.” He spat the admission, as if it tasted vile on his tongue.

She surveyed him blankly, trying to understand the ramifications of what he was tel ing her.

“Wel ?” he demanded in a bel igerent tone.

Emma pushed to her feet. Sidling away from his volatile mood, she inadvertently bumped into Dominic. When had he moved so close?

His broad palm branded the hol ow of her lower back, steadying her, and she started in reaction.

“
Mi scusi,
signore.” Darting an embarrassed glare at him, she edged around him and toward escape. But somehow he was there at the hal way

door before her, shutting it with a deceptively casual air.

She glanced covetously at the doorknob and then up at him. A chil swept her as she gleaned from his expression that he ful y entended to ensure

she stay.

“Did you understand me, wife?” Carlo had returned to the window where he continued to study the deepening shadows as though waiting for

something. The moon.

The fingers of one hand speared into his hair, his elbow bumping the glass so hard she thought it might crack. “Do you comprehend what this

means? To me, on a night such as this?”

Emma pressed two fingertips to the pulse at her temple in an attempt to corral her muddled thoughts. She’d once dreamed of creating a family

with him. He was tel ing her that was not to be. But she’d already decided that for herself, though he didn’t know it.

“I can imagine, but…”

Beside her, the ever-vigilant Dominic shifted, causing the muscles of his shoulders to strain the breadth of his uniform. It was difficult to think, much

less speak under the weight of his silent quicksilver study.

“Don’t mind Dom,” Carlo said. He’d been watching their reflection in the windowpane. “He’s al too aware of our situation.”

“Situation?” Emma echoed.

With a huff of annoyance, Carlo turned to lean his hips against the windowsil . “Has motherhood rendered you thick-headed? Let me put it to you

more plainly,
cara
. I cannot be to you what a husband should. Not ever.”

A smal , uncharitable spurt of gladness sprouted within her. He was tel ing her his seed could no longer sire children. From her perspective, this

was something of a gift. Never again would he be able to force another babe into her womb without her consent. Relief, immediately chased by a touch of

guilt for her selfishness, made it easy to be sympathetic.

“A loss, to be sure, but we must be grateful that your life was not taken, too. After al , it’s not necessary that we—” She’d taken a few steps toward

him as she spoke, but his next words had her stal ing in the middle of the room.

“It damn wel
is
necessary—I’m part Satyr, for pity’s sake!” he bel owed in outrage. “Dominic understands what this ‘loss’ means to me even if you

do not!”

Stil guarding the door, his guest was unabashedly eavesdropping. Was he so obtuse he didn’t know when a married couple required privacy?

Enough! She rounded on him to request that he leave.

“Signore, perhaps you wil al ow us to continue our discussion of this matter in seclusion?”

But Dominic’s emotionless eyes had left her, and he was now staring fixedly at her husband.

Behind her, Carlo muttered, “He stays.”

“But why?”

“Little idiot! Do you care nothing for our unborn child?” he bit out, gesturing toward the swel at her waist. “If I don’t fuck you tonight, it wil die where

it lies within you!”

Scandalized by his crude, hurtful words, she was slow to take in their precise meaning.

“Lust is a vital part of my makeup,” he went on, slamming a fist to his chest. “Fucking has been like breathing to me for al my adult life. Tonight I

feel sick with the need to mate from dusk to daybreak. The fiendish cruelty of my condition is that though the ability to do so is gone, the drive remains.”

Emma paled as the true horror of their situation final y dawned on her. “Do you mean to say you cannot function in that way? At
all
?”

“At last she comprehends!” He flung up his hands, bitter laughter erupting from him. “You know the ways of the Satyr. Children bred at Moonful must

be birthed during the fol owing one. A month’s gestation. Our offspring must enter this world with tomorrow’s sunrise. As the catalyst for a birthing, you

must first experience the pleasures of tonight’s Cal ing ritual. However, my cock is sadly incapable of entertaining you in the coming hours. Or ever again.”

He palmed himself graphical y, cupping and grinding his own genitals through his trousers as if he despised what they contained.

“But there must be some way,” she protested, hugging her middle protectively. “That is, could we summon a physician? Or could we—?”

Carlo blasted toward her. She backed away from the fury in his face, but she understood the reason for it now. Grabbing her by the shoulders, he

exerted his strength, pressuring her downward until she sank to the floor to kneel between his legs.

“Carlo! Our child! You must take care with me!” she cried, clutching for balance.

Hard fingers dove into her hair to hold her as his other hand wrenched open his trousers.

Lowering her eyes to the shrouded gap at the front of his trousers, she beheld the true extent of the injuries he’d unveiled. Though he hadn’t loved

her, his body had always been ready to couple with hers under a ful y waxed moon. But no more. Now his manhood hung shrunken and defeated.

“Show me how we can make it work,” he bit out. His tone was scathing, as though he despised her. “Take me in your mouth, wife. If you can get a

rise out of me, I wil gladly fuck you.”