Dominic. Elizabeth Amber
ago, helping her in the selection of this extravagant gown as well as new nightclothes.
They’d spent today together, making sure she would look her best to greet her husband on the night they would become new parents. Emma hadn’t had the heart to protest to her sister that she was attempting to make a silk purse from a sow’s ear. While Jane was beautiful and skilled at enhancing her beauty, Emma was plain and devoted little care to her appearance.
The splendid taffeta gown she wore was adorned with intricate tatting at its hem and delicate Venetian glass beading at its neckline. It had been designed and delivered earlier that week by the most skilled dressmaker in all of Florence. Her hair had been brushed and styled, with fluted ribbon woven through her brown curls.
All in preparation for her husband’s homecoming. All for a man who had no love for her, except as a means by which he could produce his progeny.
“Welcome, Carlo!” The deep, masculine voice belonged to Jane’s husband, Nicholas, who’d joined them. He was followed by his younger brothers, Raine and Lyon, and their respective wives, Jordan and Juliette. The entire family had gathered here tonight to wish them well on the night their first child would be born. The other three couples resided in the original castellos on the ancestral estate, which made visiting convenient.
As they all crowded into the hallway, Emma allowed herself to be shunted aside. It was natural for everyone to be excited, for they rarely saw Carlo. He had been at war for so long, returning intermittently, only to bed her with a regularity dictated by the carnal stirrings of his Satyr blood.
The last time they’d coupled had been exactly one month ago. It had been a Calling time. The moon had been heavy and ripe, bursting with light. As it would be again tonight.
He’d been tardy in coming to her bed that awful time four weeks ago, waking her sometime around midnight. The moon had risen hours earlier, and she’d long since cried herself to sleep, assuming he’d found another outlet for his passions and would not come. For once dusk fell on a Calling night, rituals commenced that engaged a Satyr male’s mind and body beyond all thought and reason.
Because she had given up expecting him, she hadn’t been prepared, and he’d—
No, she wouldn’t think of that. Not now.
When she’d awoken the next morning, bruised by his cruelty only in places her family wouldn’t see, he’d already departed for Else World.
But she hadn’t been alone. He’d left her with child. It would be their first, and it would be born at dawn.
Emma moved to shut the door but left it ajar when she saw that Carlo’s bag still sat on the porch where he’d dropped it. Her child chose that moment to shift inside her, causing the strange flip-flopping sensation that had become so familiar in the past few days. Her hand found her belly, cupping it in a protective gesture.
The late afternoon shadows stirred unnaturally beyond the steps, pulling her gaze.
A man stood outside, watching her.
3
Twin beams of quicksilver lit the darkness, gleaming at Emma like the eyes of a cunning predator on the hunt—a lone beast lurking in the twilight while others more civilized than he had already sought the warmth of home and hearth with the coming of dusk.
At her gasp, the voyeur stepped over the threshold, immediately commanding everyone’s attention. By candlelight, his face was arresting. Its Creator had originally shaped it to be a handsome one. But time and experience had hardened it into something raw and pagan. His voluptuous lips bore a ruthless curve, his hair was a midnight tangle, and a thin scar ran the length of his strong, square jaw.
As tall as Nicholas and as massive as Lyon, he cut a compelling figure—brawny, broad-chested, and soldier straight. Unsmiling, he faced them all with his muscular arms tensed at his sides as if prepared to ward off an attack. Or to wage one.
Nicholas and Lyon were nearest to her, and she felt them bristle with aggression, rallying to protect their family. Strangers rarely visited the compound. Theirs was a small clan with reason to be secretive.
“Stay back,” Lyon growled, stepping in front of Jane and Emma.
Emma peeked around him, watching as the interloper advanced into the light. He wore the same gray uniform as Carlo. Austere in design, it had nine buttons aligned down its center, each made of some indeterminate metal mined in Else World. Oblong and plump, they had a sanguine cast and had always reminded her of the grapes on the vines of the Satyr estate. A daggerlike weapon identical to Carlo’s hung at his hip.
If this man had been on the same side of the fighting as her husband, surely he was no threat to them. She glanced over at Nicholas and Raine. All three brothers had formed a physical barrier between him and their women, their bearings rife with animosity and suspicion.
“Entrare, entrare.” Only Carlo had brightened at the unknown man’s approach. There was a lightness in his step as he wove through the assemblage in the vestibule to usher the gentleman—if he could be called that—forward. “Calm yourselves,” he told the family. Slinging an arm across the newcomer’s back, he companionably hooked his hand at the man’s opposite shoulder. Emma stared at that hand, astonished at how easily her normally standoffish husband had embraced this stranger.
“Everyone, this is—”
“Dominic Janus.” The deep timbre of the man’s voice superseded Carlo’s and sent prickles over Emma’s skin. His speech was tinged with an accent she couldn’t place, and she briefly wondered what his native tongue sounded like.
“Guardians of portals and passageways,” she murmured.
Though she’d spoken softly, the stranger heard, and his eyes flashed in her direction. “My sect serves in the way yours does, though we guard the gate between our worlds from its other side.”
The secret gate between Earth World and Else World, he meant, for it was hidden deep in the heart of the nearby forest on Satyr land. Nicholas, Raine, Lyon, and their ancestors had secured it against trespass since ancient times.
Everyone visibly relaxed at the news of the visitor’s lineage, though something in the three Satyr siblings’ expressions remained dubious.
“Come, Dom, and meet my brothers,” Carlo effused. Though he liked to call them such, his precise blood tie to the Satyr lords was actually unknown and was likely far more distant than a fraternal one.
After Carlo had presented the rest of the family, Jane surreptitiously elbowed him and nodded her way. Though Emma appreciated her sister’s good intentions, her actions had only drawn attention to his oversight.
“Of course, of course. Scusa, darling.” Belatedly Carlo gestured Emma forward and held her to stand before him so she faced his friend. “And lastly this is my lovely wife…Emma.” He sounded almost reluctant to claim her, and she cringed inwardly.
“Welcome to our home, signore.” Lord, the man was even more imposing up close. She peered up at Dominic through her lashes and found that his gaze had fallen to her most prominent feature—her rounded belly. It seemed to permeate the layers of taffeta and silk, and she fought the inclination to hide the bulge of her unborn child under her palms.
She hadn’t ventured from the estate even once over the past month. Not since Carlo had gotten her with child. Therefore, aside from the family and the servants, no one had witnessed her physical condition. Didn’t this man realize it was rude to stare so? Though she knew it was silly, it embarrassed her to think he might be dwelling on the fact that her expanded waistline was the obvious result of copulation with her husband.
Silver eyes lifted at last to meet hers. “My pleasure,” he solemnly informed her.
The velvet rumble of his voice drove a shiver of awareness down her spine. She might not have Jane’s Fey ability to read strong emotions, but her Human intuition told her she intrigued him more than the others did.
Something