at Dominic. “No. You will do as We have directed.”
Dominic heaved a frustrated breath and stalked away. Standing in the arched entrance of the chamber, he watched the votives at their work. The twelve marble statues that ringed the room regarded him coldly, unspeaking. Accustomed to their unwavering, brooding gazes, he ignored them.
Slamming the side of his fisted, gloved hand against a limestone column, he felt the familiar bolt of lightning zap up his arm, a cruel reminder of his duty. Free will was a luxury he had not enjoyed since the age of ten. The three males behind him ruled his sect, and he would obey their directive.
“How am I to get through the gate?” he gritted after a moment.
“Ingratiate yourself with her husband. Cajole him into offering you safe passage. He’s one of the Earth World Satyr, but he serves here in our regiments.”
Dominic’s brows rammed together, and he whipped around toward the female in the mirror.
“She’s wed? To one of our fighters?” he demanded. “And you would have me usurp his rights with her?”
Another page flipped under the touch of a feminine hand, reclaiming everyone’s attention. Gold flashed on the woman’s finger. She wore a wedding band.
“She’s not of our blood,” he was hastily assured, as if that would render the unsavory task he’d been assigned perfectly palatable. “Her sister is King Feydon’s offspring. One of the infamous half-Human, half-Faerie brides wed to the three Earth-World Satyr lords. But this one—” he tapped the mirror with a gnarled finger, causing the woman’s image to undulate for a few seconds, “this one doesn’t share the deceased king’s blood.”
“How strong is the blood of her husband?”
“Him? He’s hardly fit to call himself Satyr,” the Facilitator scoffed. “He boasts that he’s a quarter blood, but We believe him to be less. And he doesn’t ‘fight,’ as you assume. No, he serves himself up to the other soldiers in a base manner, as one of the cinaedi. You’ll find him in the regiment camped closest to the gate. He chose to be stationed there so that he might easily return to his world regularly at Moonful.”
“To fuck his wife,” Dominic conjectured. “As you would have me fuck her. Why?”
The Acolytes whispered again, gently rebuking his plain speaking. The Facilitator overlooked it, preferring as always to gloss over the more sordid details of the sequential duties that made up Dominic’s existence.
“She’s newly plowed. Her husband lay with her last evening,” the elderly man remarked significantly.
At that, Dominic returned to stand before the woman, his eyes dropping to her waist. He opened himself to her for the briefest of intervals, learning what he could.
Her belly was not yet rounded, but even with a world of distance between them, his instincts quickly informed him that she did house another man’s seed within her womb—seed planted there only last night.
On the heels of that realization, another struck him with the impact of a giant fist. He staggered back from the mirror, his accusing gaze flying to his companion.
“Yes,” the Facilitator affirmed, refusing to meet his eyes. “She’s with child.”
A heartbeat of silence passed. Then another and another.
“Not just any child, though, is it?” Dominic inquired with soft menace.
His right hand vibrated as if the evil that dwelled in its palm had been agitated by his suspicions. He raised the hand between himself and the other man and carefully flexed it within its silver-threaded glove.
The Facilitator shifted uncomfortably. Darting a glance at the glove, he subtly distanced himself from it.
The Acolytes began to hum. Nervously they cupped their long-fingered hands together, catching the rays of the moon overhead in their palms—an act believed to ward off demons.
Dominic’s lip curled, cruelly voluptuous. His lashes lowered to shadow the slits of his eyes. And for just a moment he savored the latent power that made others—even these influential beings—fear him.
“As you…” The Facilitator cleared his throat in a rare display of uneasiness. “As you’ve no doubt guessed, the child will be a Chosen One. Your successor.”
A chill crawled up Dominic’s spine. He stared at the Facilitator, thunderstruck.
“This can come as no surprise,” the Facilitator rambled on. “You were aware your replacement would be selected one day.”
Yes, he’d known. But he’d been too engrossed in the never-ending hunting and killing that comprised his nightly routine to dwell on the matter. This news had taken him completely off guard. Did it imply that his death was imminent?
“Now, then, you have four weeks,” the Facilitator informed him crisply. “With the coming of another Moonful, it will be imperative that you mate her in order to endow her child’s powers. Four weeks. Is it time enough to find her husband and secure an invitation to his world?”
Dominic nodded slowly, his fascinated gaze returning to the mirror where it resettled on the woman. On the delicate blush of her cheek. On the inviting slope of her shoulder.
On her flat belly.
Like his own mother, she would have no inkling she was to bear a Chosen One. Wouldn’t be informed of her child’s destiny until Dominic’s eventual death.
His own predecessor had been unknown to him, for the demonhand—quite literally a hand that held demons—didn’t pass to a successor through bloodlines. It selected its hosts seemingly at random, one after another. Only once in a generation was a single child given the power—the curse—that had been bestowed upon Dominic as a boy. A mirrored palm.
“Excellent.” The Facilitator nodded to his two companions.
Snap!
At the sharp sound, the woman’s image wavered as if it were a reflection on the surface of a pond that had been abruptly disturbed. Then it shrank to a pin light. And then she was gone.
The distant, tranquil scene had evoked a peculiar fascination in Dominic, and he found himself strangely sorry to see it go. His own world was in constant turmoil. Perhaps this woman’s son might be the one to ultimately bring peace. Something Dominic had failed to do despite his dedication.
The two Acolytes extended their right hands to the Facilitator and then to one another. Palms came together in the traditional way that served as both greeting and farewell.
“As the moon reflects the sun,” their three voices droned in harmony, signifying that this meeting was at an end.
No one offered such a gesture or valediction to Dominic, nor did he expect it. No one ever touched him voluntarily. Not once they realized what he was.
Without another word, he turned and made his way outside. Soon his boots were striking the nine marble steps in front of the temple with determined, resigned thuds. The votaries scurried from his path, dropping their brooms and falling over themselves in their efforts to avoid him. Though he disguised himself from
