Dane (3 page)

She pressed trembling hands flat on his chest. “No! I don‟t know what you‟re talking about. I—“

“It‟s beginning in me now, here,” he interrupted, slicing through her lies. He took her hand and forced it low on his abdomen so she could not help but feel the hard, knotted muscles there. So that she could not deny the truth of what she knew him to be. A male of her kind.

She hesitated and he fought a desperate craving to pick up where he‟d left off; to ram himself inside her, welcome or not. “You won‟t change in the same way I will tonight, but you must be feeling something. When you turned eighteen, didn‟t you—“

“No!”She yanked her hand away and struggled against him, denying what she‟d guessed he‟d been about to say. “I‟m not like you!”she shrieked.

Before he could call her on this untruth, his fingers went suddenly clumsy and uncoordinated. He flexed them, trying to shake off the numbness. “No. . Gods, not yet. Not now.”

Dante had returned. And he wanted this woman for himself.

It is how things must be, the voice in his head whispered.

Dane locked his jaw in a grimace, fighting the takeover with every fiber of his being. Knowing it was useless. He studied the woman before him intently, memorizing her every feature. The knowledge that he would not be able to conclude what he‟d begun with her was a bitter pill. But he would find her again later, he vowed to himself. One day he would rid himself of Dante and he would have her. Meanwhile, she must be protected. Somehow.

“What‟s wrong with you?”Dane saw her lips move, forming the words, but she sounded distant, as if she were floating away from him.

She was staring at him with round, frightened eyes. Well, not at him exactly. She seemed to be gazing all around him—to his left, his right, above his head—but not directly at him.

“Stay. You‟ll need me soon, between your thighs,” he murmured.

“No! I can‟t.”

But she wanted to. He could read it in her face. “Stay, “he rasped again. “If nothing else, you will need my protection. Because of what you are. There are those who would harm you—“

She backed away, shaking her head. Denying him, herself, and what she was.

A lightning bolt of pain shot through his skull. He staggered, catching his weight against the trunk of the nearest tree. What‟s your name? he demanded desperately, but his words were soundless now. He was losing her. Losing himself.

He pressed his knuckles to his forehead, trying to force the usurper back. But it was no use. He felt himself subsiding, his mind sliding away from him like the tide washing out. He was succumbing. . being overtaken by..

Dante found himself in control again. He swayed, then shuddered, quickly regaining his equilibrium. He was in pain. His hand went to his belly and felt the hard clench of muscles there. The air in the grove had turned cooler with the night. And the moon had come, bathing him in its glorious light, swamping him in carnal need.

Where was the woman? He glanced up and found her. She‟d shaken free of him and his spells, and moved away. Far enough that she might be able to elude him, in his current debilitated state, as the Change overtook him.

As if hypnotized, she watched his fingers in fascination as they smoothed over his belly. In the gathering darkness, the gap he‟d opened in the front of his trousers was shadowed, leaving her to guess at what was happening within. Her conflicting emotions were easily read on her face.

She was frightened of lingering here with him but could not bring herself to leave.

He stroked himself. “Come here, “he beckoned softly. He was between her and the road, and hoped it was enough to deter her from attempting departure while he was in the grip of the Change.

She stepped back, shaking her head. “How dare you cast your spells on me.”

He lifted one brow, his gaze on her steady, his voice quiet. “You are wet for us, and not because of any magic. And for all your protestations, you‟ve stayed for more .”

But he didn‟t hear her reply, for a sudden, fierce agony seared him and he doubled over, his hands gripping his thighs to keep from falling. A muscle jumped in his jaw and a raw groan left him as a series of cramps rippled over his pelvis. Long moments passed as he waited for the pain to subside.

He sensed her creeping closer, closer still. Coming to him! He opened his eyes and saw her crouched before him, at his feet. Her pale fingers reached out. He felt her rip something from underneath his boot.

He managed to grab her wrist, staying her. Their eyes locked and he frowned. “Why aren‟t you affected?”

“Because I‟m not what you think,” she whispered. She yanked loose. He was weak now, too weak to hold her.

And then she was scrabbling away from him, dusting up leaves in her haste to leave him. She was clutching something. The book. She‟d dropped it earlier. It had been under his boot and she‟d only come closer to retrieve it.

Wordlessly, she backed away, eyeing him as if he were a dangerous viper. Her little book was pressed high to her breast as if she were trying to keep her heart from jumping out of her chest. She looked uncertain and wary of lingering here with him, but utterly fascinated at the spectacle of his Changing. So much so that she was unable to bring herself to leave.

He leveled his gaze on her. “Don‟t go. Denying your nature won‟t change it. You‟ll need us soon, between your thighs, “he said. An echo of what Dane had told her.

Then the moonlight‟s drench intensified, leaching all color from his skin and strengthening his lecherous desire almost beyond endurance. His back arched on the primal roar of pleasure and pain that erupted from his throat, shaking the very leaves on the trees as the last physical change of the Calling night occurred in him. Standing in a pool of silver, he felt his arms stretch wide, his hands clench tight. His face lifted to pay homage to the luminous orb in the blackened sky.

Moments later, all was ready. He was changed, poised to begin the night. His palm slipped around the thick shaft rooted in his dark thatch.

His other fist found the twin column of newly awakened flesh that was rooted only an inch or so above. Moonful had gifted him with this second shaft of bone and sinew—this second cock ripped from his own belly. It extended high and hard from his pelvis, and jerked with hunger. He stroked upward along all ten or so inches of both pricks until his thumbs found and smeared the droplet of moisture that pooled in the crease at each tip.

In the distance, he heard the woman crashing through the brush.

Then he heard the clop of her pony cart moving down the hill. She was escaping. Running from him and from her own need. Deaf to anything he might wish to say to her. He would wipe any memory of her from Dane‟s mind before he departed from it at dawn. Just as he‟d wiped the memory of other, far crueler lovers from his mind twelve years ago.

Instinctively, he moved toward the temple situated on Dane‟s land, saw it gleaming just ahead. Far below in the valley, he could see the glow of archeologists‟ lights as they toiled far into the night. The excavations in the Forum went round the clock, week after week. They were uncovering relics and artifacts that had been hidden for centuries.

And secrets, too.

Secrets that must be kept from Dane.

2

Heart pounding, Mademoiselle Evangeline Delacorte struggled to fit the slender blade of the bronze key into the lock in the ornate ironwork gate. A difficult task when her lace-gloved hands were shaking so badly.

Her face was flushed, fevered with an unfortunate illness that came to her with regularity and ever-increasing force. Human females of her acquaintance might complain about their monthly flow to confidantes over tea in the privacy of their salons. Yet for her own safety and that of those she protected, she must remain silent on the subject of her own more unique monthly discomforts.

“Odette? Pinot?”she called, rattling the key in the lock with growing desperation. Why wouldn‟t it catch? In contrast with her frenzied struggle, the lazy Italian moon eyed her just above the horizon.

How long did she have? Fifteen minutes? Ten? She‟d never cut her time so close. Just beyond the gate lay a small garden; then beyond that the door to her townhouse. In moments, she was going to fall apart.

Sudden illuminations splintered the sky above her, bursting like fiery snowballs. She started violently, and the key clanked to the cobblestone lane at her feet.

She cursed under her breath. “Must every night bring another celebration to this ridiculous city?”Bending, she swept her skirt aside and searched the ground on all sides of her.

Footsteps sounded and she glanced up, alarmed. Had the man from the grove followed her? But it was only a group of human revelers scurrying past, on their way to a Roman festa of some sort. Decades of excavations in the Forum along Via Sacra had caused a rampant fascination for all things mythological. They were dressed in costume.

How ironic that they chose to disguise themselves as the very species that she and other ElseWorld transplants took such pains to hide.

The lone Bacchus among the group wore a garland of olive sprigs and held the arm of a delicate sprite. Accompanying them were several maenads, a fairy with wings that glittered in the dwindling light, and the Roman goddess of love, Venus. A faux satyr was costumed in a dark demi-mask and a cloak. A large, multicolored phallus meant to draw the eye bobbed at an upward angle from the codpiece he wore.

You‟ll need me then, between your thighs. She shivered, recalling the words of the man in the grove. Gods! How had he guessed when no one else had before in all of her twenty-two years?

Beside her foot, her hand touched metal. The key. When she stood again, a dour face stared back at her through the curls of iron in the grillwork of the gate. She flinched and lay a hand over her heart. “Odette!

You nearly scared the life out of me.”

The mulatto woman‟s eyes, startling blue against her coffee skin, narrowed on her. She‟d had the uncanny knack of ferreting out Eva‟s secrets ever since she‟d been a girl. Would she guess what had just occurred in that small olive grove on Aventine Hill?

But Odette only darted a meaningful look at the moon. Clucking, she lapsed into the colloquial mix of her native ElseWorld and an obscure Italian hill-country dialect as her hands worked the stubborn lock from inside. Then, “You late, mademoiselle! I sent Pinot out looking for you,”

she said, referring to the diminutive pixie who served them as a combination coachman, majordomo, and bringer of gossip. “I worry you could be out there dead like the others, floating in the Tiber River.”

“Obviously I‟m not. I‟m careful.”Eva wrung her hands. “Hurry, will you?”

Finally, the gate budged. It swung open with a protesting shriek—one they did not oil away for it offered advance warning of visitors. At last she was admitted into the garden. As Eva darted inside, Odette peered both ways down the street, eying those who idled there as she shut the gate again. She hadn‟t yet gotten used to the fact that they no longer dwelled in the dubious district they‟d inhabited in ElseWorld, rather than their current, more respectable address on Capitoline, the smallest of the Seven Hills of Rome.

Odette swung the gate shut with a bang and followed behind her, her step ungainly. “Where you been?”she demanded suspiciously.

“I followed the map in Maman‟s book to the grove.”Eva paused long enough to stuff the handful of olives from her pocket into Odette‟s hands.

“This all you could get? It won‟t see you through the month.”

“I‟m lucky to have gotten that much. The land has been occupied,”

Eva threw behind her as she scurried through the garden‟s small courtyard and toward the house.

“By whom?”

“Not now.”Eva shook her head, nodding toward the two wide-eyed girls who stood barefoot in the doorway. Clad in white linen nighties, they almost appeared to be apparitions. They weren‟t, of course. But they weren‟t entirely human either.

“Mademoiselle! You‟ve come!”said five-year-old Mimi. She bounced on her toes in childish excitement. Next to her, eight-year-old Lena was nervously stroking the end of her braid over her lips, looking as if she were nibbling a paintbrush.

“Vite, bebes! Come inside—all of you,” Eva scolded softly.

Bending to give them slapdash hugs, she gently tugged the braid from Lena‟s mouth, offering her a reassuring smile. Then she skirted the pair and ducked inside.

Lifting her skirts high on either side of her, she raced up the stairs in an unladylike manner. On any other night, Odette would have scolded her.

But tonight, she only called to her from the bottom of the staircase,

“All is as you like!”Behind her, the girls peeked from either side of her aproned skirt, fascinated as always by any hints of what was to happen to Eva during this mysterious monthly event.

“Off with you!”Odette shooed the girls toward their room on the opposite side of the house.

“Do as she bids you, “Eva called. At the top of the staircase, she rushed down the corridor and flung herself into her bedchamber.

Shoving the door closed with an elbow, she half fell against it, the weight of her body slamming it shut behind her. Her head fell back and she wrenched open the neck of her bodice. Her corset had become a device of torture. Breath was strangled in her chest, struggling to escape. She ran her fingers down hooked fastenings, popping the uppermost of them open.

Released from their decorous silken prison, her breasts swelled within the deep vee. Ah, sweet freedom!

But tonight, these four walls would serve as another sort of prison.