didn’t leap to obey his idol. He only watched as, despite her opposition, Dominic easily drew lace and silk over her head and tossed her clothing to the floor.
Emma yelped in alarm and slapped a palm to cover the apex of her thighs. Wrapping a concealing forearm across her breasts, she punished Dominic’s midriff with her elbow to try to force him away.
Heedless of her efforts, he snaked a viselike arm around her, securing it just below her own at her breasts. Though he manacled her to him, his embrace was that of elegant strength rather than the crude force her husband had employed.
Jerking his head to indicate the waning light at the window, Dominic again remonstrated with Carlo. “Daylight slips away! Ready your wife for me before it’s too late!”
Carlo visibly shook himself from a torpor and then obediently bent to go down on one knee.
“And bring the cream.”
At Dominic’s low-voiced command, Carlo’s face drained of color. His and Emma’s eyes flew in tandem to the jar on the night table at the far side of the bed, both gazing at it in mesmerized horror. She had earlier placed it there herself, intending it for Carlo’s use. But now it seemed another man would employ it.
A wounded snarl sprang from Emma’s throat, and she renewed her struggles. Dominic grunted whenever a sharp elbow dented his stomach, but otherwise he ignored her. She felt him shrug the tunic from his shoulders and then rip it off with his free hand.
Her mind raced down one avenue and then another, anxiously seeking a more palatable solution to their situation. But no other viable option presented itself. She needed more time to think.
Without a word, Carlo secured the jar of cream, opened it, and set it upon a side table, which he brought within Dominic’s reach. Knowing exactly what would be required once they began, her husband moved the dish of oil and one of the basins closer as well. Then he came to stand before her at the foot of the bed.
Emma twisted her fingers in the collar of Carlo’s tunic, and her frantic eyes tried to catch his. “Summon Jane. And your brothers,” she begged. “Ask them for help. Ask them if there’s another way.”
Averting his gaze, Carlo carefully detached himself from her grip. “No.”
“They won’t think less of you because you can’t perform,” she argued, accurately gauging the basis for his refusal. “Your injuries aren’t your fault. Nor are they any cause for shame.”
Dominic’s warm breath stirred the hair at her nape as he spoke. “Do you really think the members of your family will welcome an interruption? Now? Have you forgotten they will be engaged in the same Moonful rituals as we are soon to be?”
He was right. She knew he was, yet—
The wool of his trousers rasped as his thigh split her softer ones, sending a rush of vulnerability through her. Boldly it moved ever higher between hers until her naked, gaping flesh rode the seductive rub of its long–muscled strength. She moaned, helpless under a first, unanticipated brush of pleasure.
Carlo 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
