“No! Are you forgetting the best of them all? That young choirboys were to be sent in to piss on our vines.”
Everyone save Raine and the bishop burst into gales of laughter.
“That was my suggestion, sent in to the French a month ago,” the bishop protested. “I firmly believe the acid in the urine would act as a deterrent.”
“Not to mention the stench,” someone else muttered.
“It’s an illogical suggestion,” said Raine. “They all were.”
“And have you a better one?” asked the bishop.
Raine shot him a stern glance. “Hybridization, as I described in the lecture.”
“Didn’t you hear?” another man piped up. “He was brilliant on the subject. Convinced me that the breeding of vitis vinifera with resistant species is the way to go.”
“I must beg your pardon,” the bishop demurred. “I took myself off at times during the lecture due to momentary indigestion. What was the gist?”
“Satyr posited that creating a resistant vine is the best hope for a cure,” someone explained.
“Oh?” The bishop raised his brows in a way that asked him to elaborate.
“Thus far, my experiments with cross-pollination of blossoms of different species of the same genus have resulted in a hardier vine,” Raine told him. “However the taste of the grape is still not satisfactory.” It was an unusually lengthy explanation for him.
“Well something must be done,” someone else insisted. “Two-thirds of Europe’s vines have been felled. Can you imagine? It’s only a matter of time until it reaches us. We all remain under a real threat until a practical cure is found.”
“Yet the Satyr vineyard has been spared,” the bishop said carefully.
Quiet fell. Raine could easily discern the direction of his companions’ thoughts. Everyone knew the rumors. His former wife had helped to spread them, claiming he and his brothers wielded some sort of magical force that protected their lands and them from harm. It was true.
Fortunately his ex-wife hadn’t convinced many. And rarely did anyone go so far as to bring up the matter in his presence. He and his brothers were wealthy and powerful, and it was wise to keep their favor.
“We had an outbreak,” Raine confessed, drawing all eyes.
“And?” someone prodded.
“The affected plants were routed and the area burned,” said Raine.
It was only partially true. The Satyr vineyard had in fact escaped an attack. A relation of Nick’s FaerieBlend wife, Jane, had intentionally brought in the pest. But it had been she who’d helped eradicate it before it had felled their vines. And them.
For the grapes were not simply a hobby or a means of earning a livelihood for his brothers and him. The sap that flowed through the vines was entwined with the blood that flowed in Satyr veins. Healthy vines would ensure his brothers’ children’s legacy. Healthy vines would allow his brothers and him to live on. Healthy vines would ensure that the secret aperture between ElseWorld and EarthWorld that was hidden on Satyr land remained secure.
The bishop hurled a proclamation. “Perhaps this plague was sent from the heavens as judgment for man’s sins of overindulgence. I also suggested that processions of the pious might weave through the vineyards of God-fearing believers slinging incense. Did the French consider that?”
“Men of science must scoff at such nonsense,” said Raine, uncaring that he might embarrass the bishop. “Offering a reward does no good. Better that the French turn their prize money to relieving the hardships that Napoleon caused the people of Venice. They now suffer from poverty as widespread as the phylloxera.”
He gestured toward the ragged beggars and prostitutes who loitered in the shadows of an adjacent alley. Mistaking his gesture for a summons, the desperate surged forward. Since the bishop was the closest to them, he bore the brunt of exposure.
“Be gone, you poxed creatures!” he cried, batting them away. Two passing constables joined in the fray, quelling those whose only crime was that of indigence.
In the confusion, Raine slipped away from the group. They’d been talking of attending a conversazioni in the salon of an exalted acquaintance nearby. But he was tired of talk. He had no patience for idle gossip and certainly no gift for conversation.
Before he left Venice behind for the night, he had but one last piece of business to attend to. Sex. Quick. Easy. And preferably Human.
When the bishop turned his attention from the fracas, the group of vintners had dispersed. Aghast, he glanced around for Raine.
Spotting one of the others from the lecture, he raced to catch up with him. “Where has Signore Satyr disappeared to?”
“I would guess he is headed off along the Canalazzo to find himself a companion for the evening. The others in our group departed to do the same. On my part, I’m off to my wife. Buona sera.”
But the bishop hadn’t remained to hear his bid of farewell. He was already trotting down the Riva del Vin, in search of his tall, handsome prize.
Raine made his way along the Riva del Vin, the promenade formed by the foundations of the buildings lining the Grand Canal’s northeastern edge. The cargo of wine he’d seen earlier had been unloaded and whisked away to be sold to restaurants, hotels, and individual buyers in Venice and beyond.
The Rialto Bridge lay ahead, spanning the canal. On its far side were the Riva del Ferra and Riva del Carbon, where cargoes of iron and coal were traditionally delivered. His gondola already awaited him there, dockside.
But he didn’t signal to the gondoliers. He’d hired them until morning and they would wait.
Soft sirens’ voices crooned to him from above. The courtesans were out on their covered balconies subtly hawking their wares even in this weather. At the sight of him, they leaned over the decorative iron railings, fluttering painted fans and posing provocatively.
Unfortunately his control had slipped too dangerously to chance taking one of them. The blood of his ancestors boiled in his veins tonight, and he was in no mood for holding back.
Because of the hermaphrodite. It was she who’d dredged up this sudden longing to feel the warmth of Human female flesh against him. The sight of her had revived the fierce carnal need he normally kept tamped down. His cock had been hard ever since he’d spied her, and it craved relief.
It was on an evening when he was in just such a state that he’d managed to frighten his former wife into leaving him. It had been Moonful then, when she’d run to the neighbors with tales of his wickedness. Of his physical strangeness. Of the way he’d Changed before her eyes with the coming of the moon. Though Nick had followed her and used a mindspell to mitigate the damage, her words had set the gossips humming about Raine and his family. Regret for his part in that still haunted him.
He hadn’t found his ease with a Human female since that disastrous night. Instead, whenever the moon was full and overwhelming lust drove him to the sacred glen at the heart of Satyr lands to rut the night away, he’d taken other creatures under him. Unreal creatures the Satyr could conjure at will but who felt nothing. Shimmerskins.
A week from now when Moonful came yet again, he would do the same, here in Venice. He’d find a private, isolated residence to hire for the night where he would lock himself inside, away from discovery. It was of paramount importance that he keep himself from Humans then. He’d be vulnerable.
One of the more comely courtesans on the balconies caught his eye. Noting his interest, she trailed a hand along her voluptuous cleavage to draw his attention there. At the crest of one breast, the barest hint of an areola was visible. Her finger slipped inside the fabric, swirling lazily over the nipple it concealed. The tip of a pink tongue stroked her lower lip,