Dane. Elizabeth Amber
his lap, blotting his belly and genitals, wiping away evidence of a pleasurable pastime in which he’d participated, but of which he had no recollection.
A soft sigh issued from several yards away and he turned his head toward the sound. Another female reclined there, her face slack with sleep, her hair draping the floor in a sweep of red silk. He’d known she was there, of course, having scented her the moment he’d awakened. She was pale, her skin almost a blue-white hue and faintly iridescent. Nereid, he guessed. A species that relished violence in their lovemaking. Which explained the scratches he felt on his back. She wore only a slip, creased and twisted high on her hips. Her thighs were sprawled, and though her thatch was moist with his male leavings, it didn’t surprise him that he had no memory of mating her.
One of her wrists was cuffed to the scrolled arm of the marble bench upon which she lay. He’d…no…It had been Dante who’d tethered her there sometime during the night. Not he. His gaze clung to her briefly, but he couldn’t allow it to linger. He found too much pleasure in the sight of a female willingly bound and waiting. Yet upon himself he abhorred chains of any sort, be they constructed of iron, rope, silk, or flesh.
Arms slid around him. His golden-haired lover had come to reclaim him.
“Just because the dawn has broken, there’s no reason for you to go tearing off,” she said softly. Pushing away his crumpled shirt, she slipped onto his lap, straddling him. And he let her, his locked arms bracing his weight on the altar behind him. Doughy breasts compressed against his chest, and her torso slinked along his like a cat’s. Fingers stroked his nape, and soft lips brushed the overnight beard on his jaw.
“Will you have me again?” Her slick gusset rocked over his prick, trying to coax him into entering her. His hands went to her thighs, helping her ride him. He felt the faint etching of scales under his palms. Like the other female, she was nereid. Cupping her ass, he lifted her higher over him and found his cock with one fist.
Then he flinched, feeling a familiar, stealthy presence rise to lurk within him. Like a tendril of smoke curling from a latent fire, Dante was stirring. Readying. Waiting to see if the inferno of lust was to be rekindled. If Dane continued along this path, Dante would surely return. Would take control and revel in the ensuing fornication until all pleasure was finished and all lust extinguished.
It was pointless to continue. Any ecstasy would not be his own.
Still, it was tempting. In the instant before his consciousness was stolen from him, he would enjoy a single delicious spark of carnal satisfaction, like flint striking match before the fire of mating was ignited. Was it worth it? With both hands, he squeezed her ass, moving her hard against him, staring at her quivering, ruddy-tipped breasts, wanting her. Wanting to feel, if only for that instant. Yet not wanting to give up control to Dante. She moaned, her fingernails digging into his shoulders.
Delicate gold flashed between her breasts in the fallen tangle of her blond hair, catching his eye. She wore a necklace. His hands slowed on her and he frowned, suddenly recalling another woman with hair as black as a raven’s. Recalling another necklace whose pendant had been lost in the shadows of the shapely cleavage hidden within a prim gray bodice. A woman with pale pink nipples, not ruddy ones. A woman with eyes the color of new spring clover, but whose face he could not recall. Last night.
His mind worked frantically, trying to hold on to a runaway memory. There had been a woman in the grove last night! She’d run from him. No. Not from him. From…
“Dante?” The woman on his lap drew back to look at him. She appeared to have been trying to get his attention for some seconds. “What’s wrong?”
Dane snatched her away, holding her by the wrists, his eyes intense and glittering as they searched hers. “Who are you? How did you get here?”
For a moment, she looked taken aback. Then she sighed deeply, looking disappointed. “Oh. Business already, is it?”
“Che cosa il diavolo! What the devil does that mean?” Taking her weight with him, he stood and set her on her feet.
Nearby, the other female had awakened, worked her way loose from bondage, and now stood as well. The golden-haired woman nodded in her direction, including her when she spoke. “We’re Council messengers, my lord, arrived only last night. When we came upon you then, in the throes of the moon’s Calling, you bade us serve you.”
“And we did so. Gladly,” the other woman assured him. The two messengers exchanged knowing glances full of memories he didn’t share.
Fuck! He’d been discovered. He hadn’t expected this so soon. Ignoring them, he moved away, finding and jerking on his trousers.
“We come from the other side of the gate,” they jointly informed him. “We’ve traveled through watery corridors formed by the rivers and tributaries between Tuscany and Rome.”
“What for?” he bit out.
“To find you,” the red-haired one said, offering him a teasing smile.
“Nonsense,” the other chimed in. “We didn’t know he’d be here.”
“But you do now, don’t you?” He eyed them with silky menace. “How unfortunate for us all.”
“Our only intention was to bring a missive,” the golden one assured him.
Her companion nodded and withdrew a metal cylinder about eight inches long from her scant belongings. Nereids traveled by waterway and wore little to impede them. What little they had worn now lay damp and strewn on the marble floor tiles, no doubt where Dante had divested them of it last night. Coming to where he stood under the wide portico that ringed the temple’s entire circumference, she made to give the cylinder to him. But the golden-haired one, who seemed to be her superior, preempted her and usurped it.
Removing the cylinder’s cap with her thumb, she tapped its barrel with one hand, causing a parchment scroll to slide out from it. Her former flirtatiousness returning, she dragged one end of the scroll down the center of his naked chest and lower, staring up at him through her lashes. “I assure you we enjoyed this delivery more than most, my lord.”
He snatched it from her before it reached his crotch and saw that it bore the ElseWorld Council’s wax seal. Damn! Under his fingertips, the parchment twitched with magic.
His fist tightened around the scroll, crumpling it, wanting to destroy it. These interlopers had come here uninvited, fucked him without his knowledge. Did they think to take him back with them through the gate as well? His blood pounded on a burst of anger. He felt suddenly out of control, violent. “Take this and go back where you came from. Tell the Council they can go f—”
“Dane.” The familiar, deep voice calmed him. Grounded him. It was Bastian, his eldest brother. He’d come from somewhere inside the central area of the temple and now stood framed in one of its several arched doorways. He wore a loosely belted exotic dressing gown of Persian design, which he’d no doubt acquired on his extensive travels to various archeological sites throughout this world. Beyond him in the inner temple, Dane glimpsed pillows and furs spread about in a lush, haphazard manner. Several goblets lay here and there winking dully in the dimness, empty and forgotten. Dane scented the woman his brother seemed to have forgotten there as well.
An inch taller than Dane and five years his senior, Bastian had the same silver-gray eyes and muscular stature, but he wore his dark hair closely cropped instead of wild and tousled. And unlike Dane’s raw, rugged nature, there was an air of refined intelligence about him.
“Shouldn’t you be down in the Forum brushing dust away from some newly discovered bit of pottery right about now?” Dane snapped.
“The digs can wait,” Bastian said, eyeing the coil of parchment Dane held.
“Fuck it.” Dane ripped open the scroll and unfurled it. Then he frowned, tilting it so the others would see that on its surface there were but a few words and numbers. “This is what you came all this way to bring? An address?”
“The entirety of the message entrusted