sank to his knees in front of her in much the same way she had earlier knelt before him. His hand ran upward along the length of Dominic’s thigh, which retreated to make way for him.
Catching her knees when she made a futile attempt to close them, Carlo held them wide. His thumbs parted her pursed slit, and he leaned close until his hair tickled the underside of her belly. “Resign yourself, Emma. Another course of action could prove disastrous.”
His tongue flicked out. She jerked at its first lash, then drew an unsteady breath as it stroked the length of her opening. Once. Twice. And then on its third pass, it snaked inside her and out again, and then again as quickly, mimicking the thrust of a male organ.
He’d only performed this service for her once before, on the evening of their marriage. She’d found it interesting. But it had been a brief exercise between them then, a mere tantalization too quickly withdrawn.
Now his lips and tongue worked their wiles on her far more intently and with obvious skill. Where he had honed such skill, she couldn’t help but wonder. He seemed determined to woo her body into submission, but she had a niggling suspicion that his performance was for some reason intended more to impress his comrade than to please her.
Though her channel dutifully moistened, her churning thoughts kept true pleasure at bay. For the moment, it was easy to deny any further stirrings of it.
She felt Dominic’s stillness, his keen awareness that another man was working between her legs, servicing her with his mouth. His grip on her arms tensed, and she sensed his covetous desire. Somehow she knew he was imagining himself acting in her husband’s stead. Knew she would soon be handed over to him to do just that.
Warm, unfamiliar lips touched the column of her throat and traced it downward, pausing to savor the angled nook where throat eased into shoulder. Lightly he suckled her skin, mimicking Carlo’s attentions to her elsewhere. She shifted, stiffening when the soft skin of her bottom encountered the masculine thatch at Dominic’s groin. And something else. Something thick and hard that prodded her hip.
He’d unfastened his trousers! This somehow made the ultimate goal of this entire engagement suddenly seem far more shockingly possible.
Gasping, she pulled away and glanced at him, putting a hand over the place on her neck that he’d just marked with his mouth. His head lifted, and silver tangled with brown. Thick, charcoal lashes lowered to half mast as he read the new awareness in her gaze.
Something simmered deep within this man, she realized. Something evil that warred with the good in him.
Her eyes fell to his lips, saw they were wet. The place they’d kissed was wet as well and cool in the night air.
“Please. Summon my family. Or a physician from Florence,” she entreated. “I’m Human. Perhaps my child can be born in the usual way of Human children.”
Warm, silken breath drifted over her cheek, but Dominic’s tone when he spoke was stark and implacable. “Your child bears the blood of the Satyr and must therefore be born by means of the ancient ritual. In the hours that lie ahead, I will service you in your husband’s stead. But only so your body can perform the function of giving birth come dawn. Carlo will remain with us throughout the night. If it comforts you, imagine I am he when I come into you—”
His words were abruptly severed as his entire body ripped taut. Ridged abdominal muscles contracted and clenched against her spine, hardening to iron. The arm that manacled her ribs tightened, stealing her breath.
She and Carlo both stilled as a bolt of recognition struck them.
Dominic was beginning to undergo the Change.
Behind her, he bit out a low, gravelled groan that was a blend of both joy and suffering. Then, with a rough, animal snarl, he shoved his trousers lower to sag and bunch haphazardly over the tops of his black boots. He fought the fabric’s restraint for a few seconds and then kicked them off.
He was fully naked now except for those boots. A light coat of faun-colored fur was sprouting on his haunches, tickling her bottom and the back of her thighs. It was one of the first of the changes that would come over him on this sacred night.
Unable to help herself, she twisted, peering downward between them. Her breath hitched at the daunting sight that met her eyes. His prick was enormous! Straining high and eager from the coarse, tangled nest at his groin, it was easily as thick as her wrist and as almost as long as her forearm.
She swallowed audibly and looked toward the window as panic rose to a boil within her. The moon had not yet shown itself. But soon.
With its appearance would come another more profound change. One that would gift this untamed male animal with a second rod that was twin to this one. Then he would open her with them and slide those shafts as deep inside her as it was possible for a man to go.
And then he would give her his seed.
It seemed impossible that he would fit. Yet already, high in the waiting aperture between her legs, her tissues were moistening, beginning to ready for him, yearn for him. A long, low growl emanated from his throat as if he knew.
His handling of her changed subtly, becoming more purposeful. His hands were more possessive now and sensuous as his body realigned itself with hers, pressing her right shoulder into the cushioned bone of his pectoral muscle. The plush globes of her buttocks gave against the rock of his thigh.
And all the while, his breath came in steady, deep draughts. Those beautiful lips nuzzled her shoulder, her nape, and her throat. He was locking on her scent. Marking her with his.
Soon, very soon, he would lose his grip on the power of higher reasoning. The primal need percolating in his veins would begin to dictate his every action. Once completely in the throes of the Calling, he would kill in order to mate with her. Not Carlo—not even the Satyr lords themselves—would be able to stop him then. Not without killing him.
Carlo’s tongue found her again, more voluptuous in its duties now, as if Dominic’s altered physical state had excited him. She glanced toward her husband where he still worked between her thighs. Unlike his friend, he didn’t grimace and groan. His cheekbones weren’t flushed with desire.
It was true then. There could be no question. Carlo remained unaffected by the moon’s pull. He wasn’t going to experience the Change.
If she didn’t accept this other man—this stranger—into her body tonight, her son or daughter wouldn’t emerge at sunrise. It would die inside her, unborn.
Carlo’s need to prove himself in Else World’s war had exacted far too terrible a price. She felt angry at his sacrifice. And a trifle guilty. For she’d long suspected that the only reason he’d retreated to that other world had been to escape her. To escape the burden of her need for a love he didn’t feel for her.
Was this one night too much of a sacrifice for her to make in return so their child could live? So he could become a father and she a mother?
This reasoning calmed her as nothing had before, and she gave in to the inevitable necessity of what must happen in the hours ahead. A naked male stranger was embracing her. Planning to copulate with her. Her husband condoned this. And she would allow it. For tonight. For her child.
Once her struggles ebbed, it became impossible to ignore the potent stimulation her two lovers were providing.
Under Carlo’s attention, her feminine flesh had plumped and swollen with the heated rush of lustful blood. Her splayed thighs trembled now, and her hips swayed languidly back and forth, aiding his tongue in its stroke. Her channel had become a slick void, ready to welcome him inside, if only he could oblige.
From the corner of her eye, she saw a masculine hand reach out. Dominic’s. Transfixed, she watched him scoop a dollop of cream from the jar on the table.
The muscles of his left arm shifted along her back. She jerked when blunt fingers came between her rear cheeks, daubing her pruney ring with cool cream. Gently he began oiling it.
For