Dominic (18 page)

here, I plan to dawdle with you a while before getting on with…things.”

“I’m hardly the type to inspire dawdling.” She nudged her spectacles higher on her nose, a barrier between them. “How old are you?”

“Twenty-five.”

“There. I’m older than you, and for that reason alone we wouldn’t suit. Men don’t wed older women. Unless the women are wealthy, which I’m not.”

A hint of a smile touched his lips. “Two years is nothing. I assure you I’m centuries older than you in experience. And I’ve wealth enough for both of

us. My people tithe a portion of their incomes to me for certain duties I perform on their behalf, and I’ve used little enough of it.”

The reminder of duty seemed to strengthen his determination to persuade her. His forearms flattened on either side of her, and he crowded her,

surrounding her with his masculine body and scent. Yet, keeping to the rules now, he was not touching.

Without warning, he plucked her spectacles away, blindly setting them on a high shelf to his right, out of her reach. She raised her hands to stop

him but then thought better of it. Touching him would only make her want him, thus aiding his cause. Any outward sign of physical awareness in her would

bolster his right to rehusband in the eyes of the others.

“Six minutes,” she informed him in a thin voice.

His mouth hovered over her skin, and his breath came, fresh and warm against her throat, her jaw, her cheek, her lips. She quivered, and a smal ,

betraying moan escaped her. Did his breath count as touching? It should.

“Your words reject me. But your flesh remembers mine,” he whispered close to her ear as if he had al the time in the world.

She concentrated on the ticking of the clock.

“It remembers our night together like it was yesterday. It remembers the feel of my cock slipping between your legs, invading you. You could have

that again, Emma. Every night. The slide and thrust. The delicious ful ness of me inside you.”

Her feminine void throbbed dul y, craving what he offered. Another moan wel ed up in her, but she quel ed it.

“Not so ful as you’d obviously like to think,” she fibbed. Was that besotted voice real y hers? Her eyes flicked to the clock, desperate. “Four and a

half minutes.”

He only smiled, supremely confident, but his voice when it came was solemn. “Let me have you, Emma. Do you not wish to lie with me? To feel

your softness open, yielding to my hardness? To feel the hot, wet pump of my seed greeting your womb? To feel your flesh gasp and weep and pulse with

the coming of ultimate release?”

Under her skirts, her nether mouth gulped, hard, parched for a taste of what he described. She pressed her eyes and lips firmly closed, trying to

shut him out. Only three minutes left.

But already she knew it was too late. For she’d felt the flush of blood rush to heat her chest. Inside their confinement, her breasts swel ed above

her corset, their nipples hardening to points that were visible through her bodice. They poked the cool leather of his jacket, and he slowly rocked his chest

side to side, grazing them and sending shivers over her flesh. She couldn’t argue that he’d cheated, for her traitorous body had touched
him
in this, not

the other way around.

Her hands rose, grasping the rocklike, mounded muscles that were his upper arms. He stil ed, waiting until she opened her eyes. Then,

deliberately, his knowing gaze dropped to her bosom.

She flattened one hand over her bodice, and when she pushed him away with the other, he al owed it. Bursting past him, she stood with her back

to him and tugged the neckline of her dress outward. And saw…

Gods! Her body had betrayed her as she hadn’t believed it capable of doing. For beneath her black mourning, her nipples had taken on a barely

discernable, peach-hued glow. She’d read about this phenomenon in the ancient texts. The breasts of Else World females luminesced like this, but only

when a male partner with extraordinary pul had aroused them. Dominic had scarcely touched her!

Behind her, he stood with one shoulder braced on the wal where she’d been, his arms folded. Smug. The bulge at his crotch was tremendous.

She moaned, cupping her hands over her pink cheeks. What would her family think when they saw?

“But I’m Human!” she whispered. “How can this be happening?”

He shrugged. “Your mother lay with King Feydon. I lay with you. A potent blend of our Fey and Satyr seed is part of your makeup now.”

She straightened, pleading. “You cannot truly wish to shackle yourself to an unwil ing wife? For both our good, can’t you just go?”

Silver eyes flickered over her. “I Bonded with you and your child.”

“Carlo’s child.”

He nodded. “Yet I have a claim, too. As a result of that night, I feel a pul to be with you. To protect your daughter. It was strong in my world, but now

that I am here, what’s between us is even more overwhelming. Don’t you feel it?”

“No,” she lied. Then, more honestly, “I don’t want to.”

He chuckled, his face softening for an instant and offering her a glimpse of the man he must have once been. “It gladdens me that you are a poor

liar.”

She glared at him.

“Marriage to me wil not be so horrible. I’l visit you often enough to remind you that you’re a wife and to remind your land it has a keeper. Your

share of the vines wil wither and die without one of Satyr heritage to occasional y tend them.”

“Nicholas and the others can—”

“They have their own vines. Yours wil be a burden.”

She shrank from the words fearing they were true. “They don’t consider me or my vines a burden. We’re a family.”

“Stil , your refusal could cause strife among them. Could mean an escalation in the war in my world.”

“So much hinges on me?” she scoffed. “And yet it would al go away if you would take yourself off.”

His expression hardened. “I cannot. There’s more at stake than you realize. More than I’ve told—”

A sharp rap sounded on the door. Nicholas entered, immediately fol owed by his brothers and Jane.

“Wel ?” he asked.

“Wel ?” Dominic asked her, his voice low. His eyes hadn’t left her despite the intrusion.

“I’l not have another absentee husband, and I won’t entrust Rose to an absentee father of whom I know so little,” she said only for his ears.

Though he didn’t move, his body seemed to loom larger and closer, intending to hold her. She sidled past him, seeking the safety of the others,

and he let her go. “No matter what the ritual’s outcome, I’m Human and not bound by your ancient rules. I won’t wed him,” she announced.

“There. You have her answer,” said Lyon.

“We’l escort you to the gate,” Raine added.

“Wait,” Dominic said quietly.

“She has said no.” Standing back from the door, Lyon swept his arm wide, indicating that Dominic should precede them from the room and then

the
castello
.

“There’s another reason this wedding must take place,” Dominic went on, not budging despite Lyon’s threatening tone. “Tonight.”

A new tension permeated the air. Dominic lifted his right hand, immediately drawing every gaze to it. Before their eyes, it shimmered briefly. A

silver-threaded glove swam into view, one that had not been discernable before, at least not to eyes other than his own and Emma’s.

Emma and Jane glanced at each other, understanding that some momentous Else World force was at work here, but not knowing what it al

meant.

“Remove it,” said Nicholas, nodding toward the glove. His face was grimmer than she’d ever seen it.

Dominic tugged off the glove and then slowly opened his fingers, displaying his palm. Its concave center was slick and silver. A mirror that flexed

with his hand’s every movement. He purposely caught the candlelight in it, blinding them al for just a moment. Then he replaced the glove, and his hand

fel to his side.

“I don’t understand,” said Emma.

“Rosetta is a Chosen One,” Dominic informed her somberly. “It matters little who fathers such a child. But it’s imperative that the existing Chosen

One bring him, or
her,
in Rose’s case, into the world a month later during Moonful. It’s why I came here with Carlo that night. Why I was sent here. To help

birth my successor.”

As if they were a sharp rocks thrown upon an icy pond, his words broke the atmosphere and cracked through the superficial calm around them.

“Fucking hel s!” said Lyon. “We can’t wed Emma to a demonhand.”

“A what?” asked Jane.

“I’ve read about them in the ancient books in your library,” said Emma in swiftly dawning horror. “They’re protectors of some sort. Apprehenders of

Else World creatures cal ed demons.”

Dominic inclined his head and regarded her with flat, stoic eyes. “When I die, your child wil assume my duties.” He held up his right hand again.

“She’l wear a glove like this one. And imprison the evil souls of demons in her own mirrored palm.”

Emma backed away. “No! She doesn’t have a such mirror.”

“It wil come. In time.”

“There’s some mistake. You can’t have her!” Feeling a sudden need to be certain her child was wel , Emma fled the room. Shooting Dominic a

hard glare, Jane went after her.

“A female demonhand?” Nicholas asked once they’d gone.

Al three brothers were glowering at him as though they would happily see him disappear. But he was accustomed to animosity, and theirs didn’t

wound him.

So he only nodded. “A first. It has been decided that it’s best to keep her here in this world where none from mine can penetrate without your

invitation. She must be safeguarded by every possible means. Wedding her mother to me wil bolster that protection. I believe you wed your own wives at

King Feydon’s behest for similar reasons, did you not? To protect them from forces that would do them harm?”

18

A
clergyman in Florence was rousted from his bed and brought to the
castello
to preside over what was likely the briefest and most hostile nuptial

ceremony of his career.

Thus it was that seven hours after Dominic had arrived in her sister’s salon, Emma found herself wed to him. A short time beyond that, the pair

stood together under the candlelit portico, and she was bidding her new husband farewel .

“Night comes soon in my world,” he said into the near darkness that preceded another dawn in hers. “The demons wil begin to stir. I must go but

wil return if I’m needed. You have only to let me know.”

“I won’t be here,” she said quickly. “I intend to depart this estate as I’d planned and make for London.”

In the flickering light from a dozen or more candles set in elaborate sconces, his silver eyes turned implacable. Far different from those of the man

who’d earlier flattered and wooed her in the library.

“That I must forbid. You cannot go. Nor the child.”

“Then my daughter and I are to be prisoners here?” She twisted the ruby-and-diamond-encrusted ring on her finger, donated for the ceremony

from Nicholas’s gem col ection. It had once belonged to Cleopatra VI of Egypt, a pawn of powerful men. Fitting, she thought.

“You are not the only one whose plans have been disrupted. In Else World, I was betrothed to another,” he informed her.

Her heart jolted. He was in love with another woman?

“It was to be an arranged marriage between two strangers,” he said, reading her thoughts. “Before I journeyed here, I reneged.”

“You’re quite the martyr where I’m concerned. First you do Carlo a favor by bedding me. And now you’ve done your world another by wedding me.”

She spread her hands in pique. “How do you imagine al this is to work between us? It’s assumed that I cannot cross into your world without injury, but I

won’t send Rose there without me. Ever. Even if she’s cal ed by your people.”

“As long as I am alive, she won’t be cal ed.”

“Then I wish your death to be a long time in coming.”

“As do I,” he said with a rare trace of humor that was quickly gone. “As for how our marriage wil work, I wil visit your bed when I’m al owed

passage into your world, but we wil live apart as did you and Carlo.”

So she was to be trapped in another loveless marriage. To a man who considered her an obligation and an occasional vessel for his seed. A sob

escaped her, and she crossed her arms over her middle, trying to rein in her emotions.

“Emma.” His voice softened, and he stepped nearer as though to touch her.

“Don’t,” she spat, pul ing back. “Just tel me one thing and then go—why Rose? Why choose her for this horrible duty?”

He froze. Though her animosity appeared to wound him as her family’s had not, he only said, “Remember the amulet I spoke of—the one you used

as a contraceptive? It was from the Temple of Bacchus and had special properties. I think they may have somehow contributed to her selection.”

“So I’m to blame?” she chal enged, her voice rising.

He shook his head. “No, but neither am I. It’s impossible to know al the factors that went into her choosing, just as it was impossible to know why I

was elected to wear the glove fifteen years ago. Since that day, each sunrise has been a victory for me because I’ve survived one more night of battle. I

live to fight evil so that good people may go on about their lives.”

“I don’t want that life for my daughter.”

“It’s her destiny. I can’t change it.”

“She didn’t ask for it.”

“No demonhand does. But I can teach her how to survive it. Prepare her. If I’m al owed to come.”

“You don’t want this for yourself either,” she guessed in slow surprise. “I assumed you’d sought this life out, but…”

His shoulders shifted, as though he was uncomfortable that she’d found a chink in his armor, and he sought to rebuild his defenses. “I’m a weapon,