Lyon (22 page)

“It's a way station for travelers like yourselves caught in inclement weather,” the driver was saying. “You'll be safe passing the night here.”

“Are you certain there's no inn close by?” Juliette asked. She stood somewhere behind him now and she sounded upset.

Though he couldn't hear the driver's response, Lyon discerned that the tone of it was in the negative.

He lost the train of their conversation then, as he fell into a light doze. And when he woke again, the driver had gone. He was still slouched on the chair and Juliette had come to sit before him on an ottoman. She was holding a bowl out to him, and whatever it contained smelled delicious.

“What's this?” he muttered, staring suspiciously at the spoon she'd stuck under his nose.

“Chicken soup.”

“And that's all?”

“I mixed a dash of this and that to improve the taste, but I haven't drugged it. Nor is it an instrument of magic, if that's what you're implying.”

He grunted, pushing himself straighter. His chest was bare and a blanket had been wrapped around his shoulders like a shawl. It made him feel like an invalid so he shrugged it away. Beyond her, his sodden shirt was hanging on a rope strung from the ceiling beams near the fire, but his damp trousers remained molded to him. There was a round, wet spot on Juliette's dress where his blood had dripped. She must've sponged it off while he'd been asleep.

“You need sustenance,” she urged. “Eat.”

He opened his mouth, allowing her to slip the spoon inside, if only so she wouldn't leave. Taste exploded on his tongue, bringing with it memories of beguiling smells from the kitchens of his childhood, where he'd often begged snacks from the cook. This was no ordinary soup. It might not be tainted with fey glamour, but it
was
magical. He swallowed and then took the rest of it, spoonful after spoonful, without complaint.

“The Cossacks took the driver's provisions,” she explained as she fed him. “But we—the driver and I—found more here in the cabin. It's surprisingly well stocked. He helped me start the fire, then left almost immediately to make the next village before nightfall. Before he went, he saw to the single horse he left us in the lean-to.”

All the while, she kept darting glances at something that hung somewhere above him. Having finished the soup, Lyon tilted his head back, but an overhead shelf blocked his view. “What are you looking at?”

“Hunting trophies.”

With a soft curse, he closed his eyes. “A hunting cabin. That explains the provisions.”

He heard the scrape of the bowl as she set it on the side table next to his chair. “You don't hunt?”

“Only when it's necessary in order to eat, and I don't take trophies.”

He heard her move away and forced his eyes open, wanting to watch her. “How much food is there?”

“Enough for tonight.”

“No more? The driver may not return right away.”

“He assured me he would. However there are provisions enough for a week.”

The rain was still pounding and had no doubt rendered the roads impassable for a day or two at least. But he was too tired to explain all that at the moment. “How long…have we been here?”

“Less than an hour. You look exhausted,” she told him. “Now that you've eaten, you should get some rest. There's only this room, but it contains several beds.”

He shifted uncomfortably on the chair, despising his weakness. In spite of it, with the coming of night, the need to bury himself in female flesh was growing critical. For as long as he could recall of his adult life, not a day had passed in which he had not done so. Until this week.

“I need to get out of these trousers.”

“I'm sorry,” she said, contrite. “The driver offered to help with that, but I refused him since I wasn't sure what might be, um, on display. I thought you might rather he not see any, um,
unusual
differences.” She looked flustered at having made that remark and rushed on as if to prevent further discussion of it. “Can you manage getting them off on your own?”

“
Si
. Let me get to a bed first.” Gritting his teeth, he levered himself onto his feet. She put an arm around him and he soon found himself ensconced on one of the narrow beds in the room. When she made to withdraw, her fingers inadvertently brushed the masculine hardness at the front of his pants.

Liquid fire shot through his veins and his hand whipped out to clamp her wrist. They remained there, frozen for a long moment. The crackle of the fire and the pound of raindrops permeated the air. Blushing, she looked everywhere except at him.

“Are you not at all tempted?” he asked, his voice low and dark. “It would help pass the time.”

She shook her head and he let her go. Lying back on the mound of pillows she'd adjusted for him, he gazed at her, brooding. “Do you require payment?”

“
Non
! Why would you ask such a thing?” she demanded, looking stiff and affronted. But for some reason secretive as well.

“Because I need sex. From you. And I'm willing to do anything to achieve it.”

“You said you wouldn't rape me.”

“And I won't. Do I look capable of it?”

“Yes!” she sputtered incredulously, gesturing toward the voracious bulge at his crotch.

He adjusted the blanket over his shoulders again, suddenly chilled in spite of the fire. “My cock is the only part of me that doesn't seem to realize the current sorry state of my health.”

“Don't put any more of your propositions to me,” she scolded. “I told you in the carriage that I've never lain with a man. And that means I didn't lie with you.”

A ragged laugh left him. “Yet you do lie. I may have forgotten much of our time together, but I do know we—”

“Don't you dare say it again! Even if I had done what you believe, I would be under no obligation to do so a second time.”

Wearily, he covered his eyes with a forearm. “You're right. Forgive me. Circumstances have destroyed my manners.”

At that, she came nearer and sat at the foot of the bed closest to his. “If you did have a woman in your hotel, can you not conceive of the possibility that she was someone other than I?”

His eyes glinted at her from the shadow of his arm. “There was no one else.”

“I saw you in the park with a woman under the bridge,” she countered defiantly. “Fornicating.”

He lowered his arm to his chest, digesting that information. “When?”

“Thursday night,” she informed him. “Once you saw that I'd noticed you, you followed me.”

“To the gray house with the red door.”

“I thought you didn't remember.”

“Only unconnected snatches and bits,” he assured her, for it was true.

“Your partner that night was the one that I mentioned to you earlier,” she went on. “You told me that she was a Nereid.”

“It's possible,” he said, shrugging off what he considered to be an insignificant detail. “My brothers and I have lain with nymphs before.”

“As long as we're on this topic, would you care to enlighten me as to how you come to keep company with mythological creatures?”

“This from someone who has the knack of implanting memories and can transform herself into stone on command?” He wasn't averse to revealing family secrets to her, but other matters took precedence at the moment.

“
Touché
.”

His voice turned serious. “I need sex from you, Juliette. By tomorrow, or the next day or at most one day beyond that, I'll be dead for the lack.”

She stood and moved away to warm her hands at the fire. “Perhaps tomorrow in the village, you'll locate someone else to accommodate you.”

“No one else will do.”

“Oh, please,” she said, scowling at him over her shoulder. “I've heard better excuses from other men seeking to bed me than to believe such nonsense.”

He, lay his head back with a long-suffering sigh. “I am pathetic, am I not? You may find it difficult to credit at the moment, but I generally do not find it necessary to plead with a woman for the use of her body.”

A small silence fell, then she shattered it with a quiet admission.

“I don't find it difficult.”

His gaze shot to hers, but she wouldn't allow him to catch her eyes.

“I don't find it difficult to believe women want you,” she repeated. “But I can't indulge you. It would be…unwise. For both of us.”

“Why?”

“The traditional reason, among others,” she said. “It's easy for a man to treat such matters lightly, but the disposition of a woman's chastity defines her expectations in this world. Whether she will be labeled maiden, wife, or whore.”

A frail virgin's membrane was all that stood in the way of saving his life? “I'll wed you then! I mean to anyway.”

“Don't be cruel,” she said, refusing to believe him.

“Do you intend to remain celibate to your grave?”

“I don't know. I hope not.” Clutching her hands, she turned to him, earnest. “You must understand that I can't give away so easily something I've guarded well for nineteen years. Simply on your whim.”

“Whim? This is no whim,” he said, outraged. “For those of my kind, sex is a crucial bodily function.”

“Of your kind?” she echoed, wary now.

“The kind with carnal needs that must be seen to regularly, in the same way a Human's body craves sustenance in order to survive.”

Her eyes widened. “But you're human. What else could you be?”

“We're both a little different from the norm, wouldn't you agree?” he asked softly.

But she wasn't ready to let it go. “That night in your hotel,” Her gaze darted to his groin, then away. “I saw your body. Saw how you are shaped.”

“Two cocks?”

She looked pained at his frankness, but nodded.

“And you want an explanation.” He paused, deciding how much to reveal. Too much and she might run from him. And in his condition, he might not be able to stop her.

“My brothers and I sometimes…change. In the way you saw.”

A charged silence fell.

“Are you like that now?” Her voice was barely audible.

His eyes narrowed on her, seeing the interest she couldn't hide. His hand went to the front of his trousers and popped open the uppermost of four buttons.

“Come find out.”

J
uliette watched in fascination as Lyon began to slowly unfasten the front of his trousers.

A second button fell and he toyed with the third.

“Is it only your hymen that deters you?”

“Hmm?” Her covetous eyes scalded the V that was his half-unbuttoned placket. Was that merely a shadow or could it be the sparse beginnings of his nest?

“Juliette!”

Embarrassed, she jerked her gaze to his. “What!?”

“If there is a way for me to join my body to yours, yet avoid disturbing your hymen, would you still be averse?”

Was he asking if she'd allow him to mount her from behind? At Valmont's, gentlemen paid double the usual fee for this, so she assumed it was a considerably more arduous undertaking. Though the concept of it had long appealed, she couldn't trust him. Once he was under her skirts, more could happen.

However, something must be done, for his health did appear to be declining. Already, his beautiful features were more drawn than when she'd first seen him today. Was she truly responsible for this illness in him? He'd seemed so stubbornly resistant to her spells that she had forced them on him harder than she did on most men that night in his hotel.

Non!
He was attempting to play her for a fool. Gina and Agnes would laugh themselves silly if she ever told them what he was claiming in order to entice her to lift her skirts. Men didn't die because a woman refused them sex. Of course they didn't.

“I don't—I'm not sure.” She shook her head. “I'm sorry.”

The third button gave. “I am as well,” he said softly.

Just one button left.

Her lips parted and she craned forward ever so slightly. As if he were a snake charmer and she a snake, she watched, waiting for him to release himself. Waiting to see if two cocks would unfold from him as before.

But to her supreme disappointment, that final button remained in its anchor. Instead of satisfying her curiosity, he shrugged his shoulders. This had the unfortunate effect of repositioning the blanket around him so that one end of it fell to cloak that which she most wished to see.

The muscles of his forearm bunched again and his hand moved beneath the annoying drape as, she assumed, he released the final button and himself.

Her eyes met his, and she wanted to protest. To demand. To beg.
Oh, please, please, do show me your cock. Or cocks, as the case may be.
It was absurd to even contemplate saying such words aloud to a man.

So she only watched like one starving, as his hand commenced a rhythmic, seductive stroking. Were all those bumps really knuckles she saw moving under the wool, or were two of them actually the tips of something else? Her fingers gripped the folds of her skirts. With each tug of his hand, she felt a corresponding tug in her womb. It was an agony to stand idly by and not participate. Or at least see!

Frustrated, she went to the window and gazed out at the weather, folding her arms across her waist to hug her elbows with both hands. The world outside was a maw of blackness, and she saw only her own reflection in the glass. Wind lashed, driving rain against the windowpane. Minutes passed. A void of silence yawned between them.

Behind her, a sudden groan welled up from his depths like the howl of a predator, alone and searching for his mate.

Her head whipped around, startled.

Beneath the blanket, Lyon's hand now lay motionless. His head lolled back on the pillows and his jaw was slack. Was this some kind of trick to draw her within his reach? If so, it worked. She lifted a taper and hurried closer.

When the candlelight shifted so she got a good look at his face, she gasped in shock. He seemed to have aged a year in the last few minutes. The robust energy that had seemed so much a part of him was fading. Golden skin had been cast with a dull burnish and bruised half-moons cupped his lower eyelids making him look incredibly weary. It was as if he were turning into the sculpture she'd once thought him, unearthly pale and beautiful. And still.

“Monsieur? Lord Satyr?” She shook his arm. His chest rose and fell with his anemic breathing, but he didn't stir.

Had he been telling the truth? Was this illness of his her fault? Some sort of fatal combination of her spells, her furtive tasting of his seed, and her refusal to bed him?

What if he died here and left her alone in this place? she wondered, turning selfish in her burgeoning hysteria. What if the driver never returned? What if that Cossack returned instead, or someone like him? They might not ask for her compliance as Lyon had. Men like that simply took.

“Lyon! Wake up! I don't wish to be found keeping company with a dead body. Such situations can be misconstrued. Gendarmes might take you to be my victim.”

Surely she couldn't be twice unlucky in this regard. Arlette and Valmont had been right in what they'd said. With a previous stain on her record, she would be more easily thought guilty of another murder. Yet, she was innocent!

If he died, the alternative to being discovered here with him would be to walk or ride out through the countryside on her own. She could do neither.

And above all, something in her simply didn't want this beautiful man to die. Setting the candle aside, she shook his shoulders.

“I agree!” she railed at his unmoving features. “To what you asked before. Do whatever you wish to me if it will keep you among the living.”

At her words, he gasped suddenly, his breath rattling in the cave of his chest. His eyes slitted open and a faint satisfaction colored them. His hand sought hers and gave it a small squeeze. Then he peered beyond her, a look of fixed concentration shading his features.

She glanced over her shoulder in the direction of his gaze. Seeing nothing unusual, she twisted back toward him in time to see his lashes flutter closed again.

“
Grazie, mademoiselle,
” he whispered, so quietly that she almost didn't hear.

Then he went unconscious.

“Lyon!” She felt his forehead and found it feverish and clammy. He was considerably more haggard than he'd been only a few moments ago. His blanket had slipped askew and she saw that in fact only one shaft lay in the slit of his trousers, rooted in his thatch. But her mood to witness carnal things had faded with his increased illness, and she only peeled the damp trousers away and then readjusted the blanket to cover him.

Why did he still suffer? She'd given him the answer he desired, yet it was having no effect. But perhaps he only needed rest. After all, no one died from a dearth of copulation, she reassured herself again. Such a notion was preposterous. Wasn't it?

A sudden sensation of warmth came from behind her as though she had moved to stand with her back to the fire. A hand fell on her shoulder.

“Juliette.” It was a man's voice.

With a curt shriek, she leaped higher on the bed fleeing the touch. Tangling in the bed linens, she took a tumble to the rug, bruising her hip yet a third time.

In her shock, she hardly noticed.

Impossibly, two men now stood not a yard away at the foot of Lyon's bed. Two
identical
men with amber eyes, tousled golden hair, and strong jaws. They were built on a massive scale, and tall, especially from her vantage point on the floor.

And perhaps most noticeably and most scandalously of all, they were both
naked
. And erect. Exact copies of Lyon in every facet and dimension, for he was their triplet.

She spidered backward until she came up against the wall behind her. “How did you get in here?”

But they didn't reply and only stared down at her with hungry, jeweled eyes. Eyes that catalogued her every twitch. Eyes that were the precise shape and color as those of the man lying on the bed.

Clawing her way back onto the mattress, she snuggled against Lyon, keeping a wary eye on his twins all the while.

“Lyon! Wake up!” she hissed. Patting his cheek and jiggling his jaw, she attempted to rouse him.

“He's ill,” said one of the phantoms.

“Unconscious,” added the other.

Their voices were so similar to Lyon's that it was as though he'd spoken. She even looked down at him to check, but saw he still slept.

“Who are you? His brothers?” She shook her head, pooh-poohing her own suggestion, for she'd seen his siblings in his thoughts that night at the hotel. “
Non
, you resemble him, not them.”

“We
are
Him,” they told her in harmony.

Both took a step closer.

“Wh—what do you want?” she squeaked.

“To heal him. Through you.”

She shot another glance at Lyon. His eyes remained closed, his face relaxed, and his breathing so shallow now that it barely lifted his chest. Scarcely knowing what she did, she planted a fervent kiss on his lips, thinking it could be a last farewell.

“I'm so sorry for my part in this. Please don't die,” she whispered. “Please.”

Then, giving the twins wide berth, she left the bed and sidled toward the fireplace where she snatched up a poker. Gripping it in both hands, she brandished it back and forth before her like a sword. Her gaze darted between the two men, threatening them with harm should they approach.

The two new Lyons had done nothing to prevent her from garnering a weapon, but they had shifted, strategically relocating themselves between her and escape.

“Who are you?” she demanded, trying to sound intimidating.

“We're what He promised,” said one.

“We'll not hurt you,” said the other, eyeing her makeshift saber.

“If you were to clothe yourselves and move away from the door, I might give that claim more credence. There are blankets on the other beds.”

They ignored her suggestions and only stood there, silent and watchful.

“Where did you come from?” she ventured.

“He brought us,” said the first one, glancing toward Lyon. “In the same way you transformed yourself into stone in the forest, He can conjure beings like us from the ether.”

Her poker wobbled. “How did you know about that?”

The other one spoke this time. “Because
He
knows. We have His memories. His needs.”

“We are Him,” they repeated.

They couldn't have known about what happened to her in the wood earlier, unless they were telling the truth. Was it really so unlikely that Lyon, who was acquainted with Nereids and was at times possessed of a superfluous extra phallus, might also be possessed of an ability to conjure a pair of mirror-image saviors?

With the coming of that thought, she began to believe.

“We are Shimmerskins,” the first of the clones continued. Since he seemed to take the lead in their conversations, she privately dubbed him One and his brother, Two. “Most of our ilk are female. The only males He can bring forth are like us. Replicas of Himself.”

He nodded to his look-alike, who then went to Lyon and sat beside him. Curving a hand to his stubbled jaw, he fondly brushed a lock of hair from his cheek. “Not much longer,” she thought she heard him whisper.

“He needs you to keep your promise,” said One, drawing her attention back to him. He'd moved close without her noticing.

She stepped back. “What promise?” For her every backward step, he took another stride forward as if they'd begun a bizarre waltz.

Two's eyes pinned her from the bed. “To heal Him. To let us to come inside you.”

“
Non
,” she protested. “This—all of this—
c'est impossible
.”

But when One reached for the poker, she allowed him to cover her hands with his so they both held it. His hands were warm. Strong. Alive. How could that be?

“You will be left chaste,” he soothed. “As He agreed.”

There was a new heat at her back as Two left the bed and came behind her. She flinched at his touch, but his palms were gentle at her waist, then smoothed upward until they curved around her breasts, pulling her back against him. Her body recognized his as Lyon's and instinctively began to yield.

One dropped his gaze to stare fixedly at his brother's hands as they plumped and kneaded, learning the plush contours of her through her gown. His own fingers flexed over hers on the poker as if he were imagining that he caressed her instead.

“If I say you nay, will you force me?”

His eyes rose to hers again. “Don't say no,” he coaxed.

It wasn't a reassuring reply, but something in his face had her slowly releasing the poker to him.

Tossing it heedlessly to clatter on the grate, he covered his brother's hands, which then eased away from her breasts to begin unfastening the back of her bodice. This new set of hands was warm as well, and as if impatient with the layer of fabric that barred them from her skin, they found the shoulders of her gown and pushed them onto her upper arms.