the mirror. She watched him do it so that she wouldn’t have to further acknowledge his companion.
Mirrors in their bedchambers were always to be covered on Moonful nights when her husband was in residence, and the linen had been hung there on the peg for this specific purpose. It was an odd fetish of his, and one she was accustomed to.
When he’d adjusted the covering to his liking, Carlo set his weapon on the table and began emptying his pockets. He spoke, his back to them. “Dom is of the family.”
“I still don’t see—” She stopped, uncertain. She’d known Dominic was a creature of Else World. However, many factions dwelled there. His clan could have been one of any number that existed in that other realm.
“I am full-blood Satyr,” Dominic informed her in that formal tone of his.
Full blood. Not half blood like her brother-in-law. Not quarter blood or less, like Carlo. He was the first full-blood Else-World creature of any kind she’d ever met. Yet, like the other Satyr lords, he could easily pass for Human. An extraordinarily tall, compellingly masculine Human with broad shoulders and an expansive chest. But Human nevertheless.
“But your name—Janus,” she said stupidly. “The god who looks both forward and backward. A protector in wartime. I assumed you were descended from his line.”
“My wife is a great reader, brimming with a wealth of such information,” Carlo sneered, interrupting her. He picked up her book of poetry from the table, fanned its pages, and then shut it with a disdainful snap. His actions were exaggerated, she noted worriedly, the influence of the excessive wine he’d taken in.
Dominic ignored him, answering her instead. “Janus is an ancestor’s surname and one of a half dozen that make up the entirety of my own.”
Still, this didn’t explain why he was here in Carlo’s chamber tonight of all nights. Why wasn’t he in his own quarters taking Shimmerskins to his bed? Such insentient females were easily conjured from the ether at a Satyr’s whim in order to serve his every carnal need.
“I’m not dressed to receive company of any sort,” she persisted, addressing her husband.
Dominic frowned toward Carlo. “In one year of marriage, she still has not grown accustomed to our ways?”
Carlo shrugged.
Emma glanced warily between the two giant males that stood on either side of the room. “What ways?”
“While in her mate’s presence, it is customary for an Else-World consort to display her body un—” Dominic searched for the correct word, his expression frustrated for a moment when he couldn’t locate it. “Ah,” he said at last. “To display herself in a far more uncurtained state than yours, regardless of who else is in attendance.”
“Well, this isn’t Else World, is it?” Emma protested. “And here in Earth World, we consorts wear clothing, not curtains. And we wear them when in every sort of company.”
“Emma!” Carlo scolded. “Show some respect. Dominic’s of royal blood and has saved my life in battle more than once.”
“I’m sorry to be impolite,” she said. “It’s just that the moon is soon to rise.” She hesitated, glancing toward the window.
Dominic’s knowing gaze dared her to continue.
Couldn’t the man decipher so broad a hint? Save for folding his arms across that formidable chest, he hadn’t budged from the doorway. Almost as though he was intentionally blocking any egress. The back of her neck prickled with unease at the realization.
Her husband shot her an unreadable glance and then moved to the window and flung the drape wide with one hand. Beyond him only a glistening edge of orange remained of the daylight to outline the distant indigo hills.
As both men’s eyes were drawn to the view of the oncoming twilight, Emma took advantage of their distraction to unobtrusively slip her robe on over her gown.
“There’s something I didn’t tell the family,” Carlo said in a dull monotone as she fumbled to tie its single ribbon at her breast. “Something I don’t want them to know.”
His face, reflected in the window glass, was unusually solemn. A tremor of fear touched her. “What is it?”
He looked at her over his shoulder. “First I must have your promise that you’ll keep my secret.”
“Of course,” she agreed easily, her curiosity mounting.
He turned back to inspect the evening sky. When he spoke again, his voice was low and tortured. “Something happened to me in Else World. During a mission nearly four weeks ago, I was injured. Just after last Moonful, on the very morning I left your warm bed.”
Emma went to his side and lay a tentative, compassionate hand on his sleeve, a reflexive action intended to relieve another’s suffering.
“Why didn’t you say something earlier, while the others were still here to help? Are you all right?”
“No,” he barked. With a hard twist of his body, he shook her off. “As it happens, I’m far from all right.”
Emma faltered under his glower and the fumes of alcohol he exhaled. He began stalking her, and she took a backward step for each of his paces forward.
When her spine hit the bedpost, she set her hands against his chest. He towered over her, taking her shoulders in a painful grip. “My injuries were severe. Quite severe. I lay unconscious for days. When I awoke, I was told…”
He took an unsteady breath and rammed both hands into his pockets. She wrapped an arm around the voluptuous mahogany bedpost and sank to the mattress, her eyes glued to his.
“I was told that the injury had rendered me impotent.” He spat the admission, as if it tasted vile on his tongue.
She surveyed him blankly, trying to understand the ramifications of what he was telling her.
“Well?” he demanded in a belligerent tone.
Emma pushed to her feet. Sidling away from his volatile mood, she inadvertently bumped into Dominic. When had he moved so close?
His broad palm branded the hollow of her lower back, steadying her, and she started in reaction.
“Mi scusi, signore.” Darting an embarrassed glare at him, she edged around him and toward escape. But somehow he was there at the hallway door before her, shutting it with a deceptively casual air.
She glanced covetously at the doorknob and then up at him. A chill swept her as she gleaned from his expression that he fully entended to ensure she stay.
“Did you understand me, wife?” Carlo had returned to the window where he continued to study the deepening shadows as though waiting for something. The moon.
The fingers of one hand speared into his hair, his elbow bumping the glass so hard she thought it might crack. “Do you comprehend what this means? To me, on a night such as this?”
Emma pressed two fingertips to the pulse at her temple in an attempt to corral her muddled thoughts. She’d
