Dane. Elizabeth Amber
my wrists loosely with the ribbons,” she told him without meeting his eyes. He obeyed of course, and when he’d completed that task, she sent him to the cabinet to collect several elongated cylinders of varying thicknesses and designs. And a small pot of salve.
Lying there naked, tethered, and waiting for him excited her. Watching him carry these objects to her for the express purpose of giving her pleasure with them excited her as well. Fostered a momentary illusion that he was in control, not she. It was the sort of situation she craved but could never have. Not with a Shimmerskin—they were incapable of exerting command. And it was unwise to seek another sort of partner who was capable of it. Like the man in the grove.
“Beloved,” he whispered as his arms went under her thighs, splaying them for his mouth. But only because she’d willed him to do so. Until dawn, everything he would do and say would be programmed to incite her passion. She had but to imagine an action and he would perform it, no matter how debauched. Yet her experience and creativity in these matters were limited, and the ongoing necessity of controlling him would always deflate her pleasure.
The brush of his stubbled cheek as he kissed the inside of her thigh was a tender abrasion that thrilled. She gasped, tugging at her bonds as his tongue lapped at her clit, parted her slit, entered her. She turned her face toward the window, gazing at the bittersweet moon.
He felt wonderful. He would make her come. Again and again.
But it would not be enough.
How she longed to feel the hot spill of a man’s semen. Just once. Shimmerskins were devoid of it, incapable of producing or imparting it. She longed for the whisper of love words, sex words that she didn’t have to specifically request her mate to utter. She wanted to feel out of control. Bent to a man’s Will. To know she’d driven her mate wild to have her under him.
Her eyes went to the array of titillation devices her lover had neatly aligned along the surface of the bedside table, like fine cutlery at a dinner place setting. He would use them on her throughout the night as she wished, and fuck her time and time again through the hours as she directed. Though her flesh would be well satisfied by the time dawn came, it would not be enough.
She could not continue on in this way. Yet, it was widely known that if the satyr did not heed the full moon’s Calling in this manner, they perished.
Death or this. It seemed she had little alternative.
The certainty that her needs would go unappeased, that she would always live this way, and that she could not change her situation, was so terrible at these moments that she sometimes feared she might truly go insane.
3
I’m not insane.
I…am…not…insane.
Lord Dane Satyr repeated the words in his mind, trying to banish the cold terror that ripped down his spine. Pain speared through his brain like tiny branches of lightning. His heart beat a harsh, ragged drumbeat in his ears. Behind his eyelids, a blood-red haze singed his vision. Dormant, half-formed memories had him yanking sharply at his arms and legs, and rotating his wrists against unseen restraints.
Mouths, caresses, fists, cocks, slaps, bites, fingers, tongues, pinches, breasts…torturous devices. And the hands. Those wanting, needing hands he couldn’t escape. They took from him, used him without his consent. Why did he let them? Why couldn’t he find the will to fight? He was disoriented, out of control. Helpless. He, the most feared and vaunted Tracker in ElseWorld history.
But back then, he’d only been a boy of twelve.
Come now, be a good boy.
No! No!
And then he’d been free. Running.
Gods! Where was Lucien? He had to get to him. Free him as well.
But the voice in his mind—Dante—urged him on toward escape. If you go back for him, you’ll be recaptured, it had whispered. You must flee…You must live…It’s the only way to save him….
The first fingers of dawn came, stroking night from the sky. The suffocating memories that clutched at Dane’s soul like cruel claws were wrenched away. His senses returned to him in a sharp rush of panic. His eyes flew open, and he threw his head back to draw a deep draught of air into starving lungs. He felt confined, choked, and the small muscles of his large frame twitched and quivered with exertion. A fine sheen of sweat chilled his skin in the crisp morning air.
He was naked. On an altar between the thighs of an unknown female. Her eyes were closed in ecstasy, her breasts arched high and shuddering with each rapid breath. They’d been copulating, and not for the first time. He’d just pulled out of her and spilled his seed on her belly. He felt it, slick between them.
Fuck. He’d lost time again.
How much?
Only last night? Or would he look in a mirror to find that years had passed and that he’d grown old and gray? No, his skin was still smooth and his arms as firmly muscled as before. And they weren’t tethered.
With the realization that he wasn’t trapped, his pulse began to calm. The sensation of restraint had only been due to the fact that his arms were wound through those of his companion, his hands gripping hers fast to the altar. He released her and rested his weight on his forearms.
Somewhere behind him, olive leaves rustled in the early October breeze. He was on his own land. In the small temple on the slope of Aventine Hill. Under the shelter of a wide, covered portico upon a multileveled floor of patterned marble strung with tall columns. An elaborate continuous mosaic decorated its walls, filled with scenes of worship and sacrifice that had been performed here in times past.
His ancient ancestors had likely taken hundreds of females here on this very altar. However, this was the first time he’d had the opportunity to follow in the family tradition. It had only been the night before last that he’d won this temple and its adjacent house and olive grove from the Patrizzi scion in a game of cards.
Another bolt of dread crawled up his spine, catching him off guard. Gasping, he bowed forward. But it was only the scratch of the woman’s fingers as they lightly feathered up his back. She locked her legs higher around his hips, rubbing herself against his prick, basting its length in the warm pool of his own spent seed.
“Dante.” It was a feminine purr, the sound of a satisfied woman. The name froze his blood.
“Don’t,” he bit out. “Don’t call me that.” It wasn’t his name. It was that of his illicit occupier, the self-appointed fornicator who took clandestine control of his mind, body, and spirit during every encounter of a carnal nature. Dante, who had been with him for half his life now and who stubbornly withheld answers to plaguing riddles. For the past twelve years, Dane had bided his time. Existed in a sort of purgatory on the other side of the gate, performing the duties of a Tracker in ElseWorld’s Special Operative Forces. He’d waited in vain all that time for Dante to reveal his secrets. Two weeks ago, he’d finally managed to escape into this world. And now he would ferret out those secrets himself…or die trying.
“I’m sorry,” his companion murmured in a conciliatory tone. Instead of lust, curiosity now colored her expression. Damn his loose tongue. He couldn’t afford to fuel any rumors that the third Satyr brother, who’d seemingly appeared from nowhere two weeks ago, was, in fact, mad.
“That name. It’s one I reserve for nocturnal pastimes,” he explained coolly.
“Of course. I understand,” the woman replied. But she didn’t.
The excuse had sounded unconvincing, even to him. What sort of man wished to be called by one name out of bed and another in it? Not a sane one. She was wondering what was wrong with him. Most of ElseWorld already thought him a lunatic, and he’d soon have half of Rome thinking the same if he didn’t take care.
Disentangling himself, he sat up from her. His feet hit the cold granite floor, braced wide, and he rested his forearms on his thighs. The floor was remarkably