Dane. Elizabeth Amber
seconds, their middle brother appeared from the far side of the portico, fastening rumpled trousers he’d obviously just donned. “What’s so important?” he growled. “It’s fricking dawn and I was in the middle of something.”
“Two Shimmerskins?” Bastian hazarded.
Sevin shrugged, but a telling grin curved one side of his lips. This was the Sevin that Dane remembered from their youth, sweeping in with his usual humming energy, his dimples in evidence. With the looks of an angel, he’d been gifted from a young age with the luck of the devil. Gentlemen lost their money to him at every sort of game of chance. Their wives offered him their best biscotti and cannoli, and pressed fond kisses on his cheeks. And their daughters offered him far more than just kisses.
Dane had been thirteen when he’d left his brothers for ElseWorld. Sevin had been fifteen then, and Bastian seventeen. Though they’d been apart for twelve years, the three of them had quickly fallen back into their boyhood roles in the two weeks they’d been reunited.
Sevin flicked a glance toward the messengers and his face turned teasing. “Nereids, Dane? Didn’t know you had it in you.”
Dane favored him with a long-suffering glance and a rude hand gesture, both of which only served to widen his brother’s grin. When he tossed the scroll onto the altar, Sevin nodded toward it, a question on his face.
“It’s an address as usual,” Bastian told him, shrugging one shoulder. Sevin rolled his eyes. Dane’s brows rose, finding his brothers’ reactions inexplicable. But before he could query them, the messengers sought everyone’s attention.
“We bring a communication from the Council of ElseWorld,” they announced in tandem. Steepling their fingers under their chins, both bowed their heads in the traditional salute afforded to ElseWorld sovereigns, having apparently been informed that all the brothers bore more than a hint of royal blood in their veins.
“Go on, then, if you must,” Dane grumbled, for it seemed as if they awaited an invitation.
Standing shoulder to shoulder, they began reciting their message from memory:
A good Moonful Dawn to you Lords of Satyr,
We write today to express our concern over the recent unexplained deaths in Rome—nine Else bodies found in the Tiber in the past year alone. Add to that a host of minor indiscretions in the use of magic by some of our kind in our Italian colonies, and eventual discovery of our presence there seems inevitable. In that event, our access to the grapevines and olives will be in jeopardy. As will your ownership of land, your wealth, and your citizenship. It is imperative that you maintain a foothold there. And we have a suggestion in that regard.
“I’ll bet,” Bastian muttered. The messengers frowned at him, then continued on.
All of ElseWorld has a vested interest in ensuring the continuation of your royal bloodline, as it is one of the ancients. Since it is nigh onto impossible for you to breed in our world now due to the Sickness that affected most of our women, our best hope in securing the future of your line lies in the wombs of human females. We compel you to wed with expediency. To acquire human wives who, by the grace of our Gods, will bear you many satyr sons and human daughters.
Gods be praised,
The Worshipful Council of ElseWorld
“Ah, there’s nothing like a good ElseWorld directive in the morning,” Sevin noted with a mighty stretch of his well-muscled arms and back, and a total lack of concern at what he’d heard.
“Does it require a reply?” Dane asked. As a defector with far more reason to be wary of the Council than his brother, he carefully sifted their words in his mind.
The messengers looked a bit surprised, but only shook their heads. “It’s assumed that you will do your duty.”
“Then gather your belongings, ladies,” Sevin told them affably. “I’ll see you both back to the Tiber to ensure that you aren’t intercepted.” The messengers would travel through the network of magic that stretched from Rome to Tuscany, where they would return home through the ancient interworld gate. Hybrids of olive tree and grapevine brought over from ElseWorld had been planted throughout this network and now emitted a constant scent that bespelled every human within. This had the fortunate benefit of allowing Else creatures to go about their business in the guise of humans and made paranormal events seem normal to this world’s inhabitants. Still, the magic that cloaked this territory was fragile. The Council was right that exposure seemed inevitable.
After Sevin and the messengers struck out for the river, Dane located one of his boots, sat, and tugged it on. “You were here all night?” he asked Bastian. “And Sevin as well?”
His sibling nodded. “Didn’t you feel us here?”
Dane’s head snapped up, and each brother somberly searched the other’s face. During the Calling, the satyr were inexorably drawn to congregate for the rituals of Moonful. Ancient blood ties linked them, causing them to share emotions and sensations. The rut of one fueled that of the others, increasing the pleasure of all. But last night, Dane had been cheated of all physical gratification by the phantom presence that lurked within him. He remembered nothing.
And he could see in his brother’s eyes that he had sensed something peculiar about him during the night. Of course he would have, and Sevin as well. Damn. Dane had hoped to hide this from them a while longer. But the rigors of Moonful had exposed him.
“I wasn’t exactly myself last night,” he admitted.
“What does that mean exactly?” Bastian asked carefully.
Dane speared the fingers of one hand through his hair. “Gods, I hate this.” The rest of the world was welcome to think as they liked, but his brothers and he had been close, before. He couldn’t bear it if Bastian thought him mad once he learned the truth. Still, he would lay the facts out without apology, and his brothers could take him as he was or disown him. Their choice. He’d been alone half of his life. He would survive.
“I mean I don’t fornicate,” Dane said baldly. “Another does it for me, in my place. A separate part of my personality takes hold of me—mind and body—during any carnal experience. He forces me out at Moonful dusk, and I am left with no memory of the Calling time when I awaken again at dawn.”
“He?” Bastian’s set face gave away nothing of his thoughts.
Dane went on, determined to speak the raw truth. “Dante. Because of him, I only mate during Moonful when our bodies demand we succumb. Otherwise, I’m celibate.”
“Gods, Dane. One night a month? That sort of denial would kill some men of our kind,” said Bastian, with new respect in his voice.
Dane shrugged. There had been times he’d wished he were dead over the years. But the thought of Luc had kept him going.
“Did your physicians in ElseWorld shed any light on this?” Bastian asked. “The Council swore to us you’d be cared for. We wouldn’t have let you go otherwise.”
“I went into the asylums.”
“Fuck.” Bastian’s clipped curse was a tangle of frustration and fury. Dane’s crazed behavior—convulsions, sleepwalking, incessant nightmares—after his abduction had worried his brothers to the extent that they’d agreed to have him deported to ElseWorld for treatment when he was but thirteen.
“You couldn’t have known,” said Dane. “And the doctors there did have some experience with my disorder.”
“Disorder?”
“Dissociation, they called it, caused by a psychological trauma. Something happened to me that resulted in a fragmenting of my personality. It is as if I am divided into two distinct men. One that goes about life, another that fornicates.”
“This trauma—it was something that happened during the year of your disappearance?” hazarded Bastian.
“Yes,