him toward release with methodical precision.
Distantly, he felt his brothers’ exultation in their rut, and it fueled his own. Satyr blood linked them, causing them to share emotions at times of heightened stress.
For long moments, the stark slap of heated flesh was loud in the hush of the glen. Nick bucked with mindless, merciless strength, scarcely registering the attentions of the other Shimmerskins whose hands entwined and caressed him, as they awaited a turn.
Fauns, nymphs, faeries, and maenads sculpted from rock and forever locked in carnal embraces gazed down on the scene with lusty approval. Bacchus smiled indulgently, pleased.
Rapture spiraled, each brother’s passion building on that which another experienced. For a time, Nick lost himself to the animalistic mating.
Eventually, his sacs drew up, tightening. Raw need twisted in his gut.
Three triumphant shouts of release sounded almost at once. Hot, wet seed blasted forth. The Shimmerskins’ inner passages convulsed in acceptance.
Nick’s breath sawed in his lungs in the aftermath of the anguished, empty gratification.
He gritted his teeth against new pain as his second cock, now satiated, receded from the Shimmerskin’s anus and back into his pelvis. The razor’s edge of need hadn’t dulled. But he would require only one female opening now.
The golden Shimmerskin faded into the nothingness from which she’d come. Nick took a fresh victim under him.
Masculine commands and grunts mingled and floated on trails of mist. All were captured by a gentle breeze as the three Lords of Satyr slaked their lust until dawn.
1
Lord Nicholas Satyr lifted the dagger from the desk before him, anxious to have the task ahead complete. The blade flashed, reflecting the intensity of his strange pale gaze, before twisting to slice through the tasseled cord encircling the roll of parchment.
The missive’s arrival that morning had been both unexpected and unwelcome. Dispatches from ElseWorld were infrequent and usually portended mischief of some kind. Trouble was already threatening the vineyards, which lay at the heart of Satyr lands. He could spare little time for any nonsense.
As the cord fell away, the coiled document unrolled with a will of its own, releasing a faint hint of magic into the room. Nick spared a quick glance for his younger brothers, Raine and Lyon, whom he’d summoned an hour ago from their adjacent estates within the Satyr compound. They would have sensed it, too.
Raine stood at the window, hands clasped at his back as he surveyed Nick’s manicured gardens. Whirls of fog obscured the tangled forest and grapevine-covered hillsides beyond. He was, as usual, meticulously outfitted in gray, his cropped hair and garb as restrained as the early spring morning he observed.
Restless energy crackled from Lyon as he prowled Nick’s salon, wending his brawny frame among elegant furnishings and curious artifacts. Occasionally he paused to examine one of his brother’s newer acquisitions in his pawlike grasp, but he didn’t linger. He was impatient to learn the document’s contents and return to the business of overseeing his property.
Nick’s fingertips tingled from the hum of ElseWorld magic caught in the parchment, but nothing in his face revealed his thoughts as he read. Over the course of three decades, he’d learned to disguise his emotions. They’d all found it necessary to hide their true natures, having grown up half Human, half Satyr in an EarthWorld intolerant of their kind.
Turning from the window, Raine glanced toward the parchment. “Is it from an Elder?”
Nick nodded, a curt inclination of his dark head. “King Feydon himself.”
Lyon halted midstride and whipped around. “What the devil does he want?”
The leather of Nick’s chair creaked subtly as he shifted all six and a half feet of his well-muscled form. “It seems he has managed to sire three Earth daughters.”
Raine digested this news in silence, a slight stiffening of his shoulders the only indication that he’d heard.
Lyon snorted in amusement. “That randy old goat of a Faerie Elder sent us a birth announcement? From his deathbed, no less.”
Not fully grasping the import of the news, he blithely twirled a globe of EarthWorld upon the tip of one finger. Jeweled continents, sapphire oceans, and an emerald dragon or two sparkled in the candlelight.
“His announcement is somewhat belated,” Nick clarified. “The birthings occurred some twenty years ago. Apparently he’s had an attack of conscience at this late date. And it’s his dying wish that we remedy the situation he leaves behind.”
Raine folded his arms, suspicion coloring his eyes a stormy gray. “And how precisely are we to do that?”
“According to his instructions, we are to locate his progeny and marry them,” said Nick.
A bark of astonished laughter escaped Lyon. “What?!”
Nick tossed the parchment on the desk. “Read it yourselves if you doubt me. And have a care with my orb, Lyon.”
Lyon looked down at his broad hands and saw they were very nearly crushing one of Nick’s precious objects. His strength belonged to the outdoors and served him well in the Satyr vineyards. However, it didn’t suit Nick’s fashionable rooms, and he constantly had to be on guard lest he fatally upset something.
Grimacing, he set the globe back to rest in its cradle and headed for the letter on Nick’s desk. He snatched it up and read aloud.
Lords of Satyr, Sons of Bacchus,
Be it known that I lie dying and naught may be done. As my time draws near, the weight of past indiscretions haunts me. I must tell of them.
Nineteen summers ago, I fathered daughters upon three highborn Human females of EarthWorld. I sowed my childseed whilst these females slumbered, leaving each unaware of my nocturnal visit.
My three grown daughters are now vulnerable and must be shielded from Forces that would harm them. ’Tis my dying wish you will find it your duty to husband them and bring them under your protection. You may search them out among the society of Rome, Venice, and Paris.
Thus is my Will.
“This is absurd,” Lyon muttered in disgust. He slapped the letter to Nick’s desk, causing the crystal bottles in the inkstand to rattle. The small act of violence did little to mollify him, and he turned to prowl the room again as though he were a caged animal seeking escape.
Raine took up the parchment and silently scanned its contents, assessing each phrase, searching for nuances of meaning. When he finally set it aside, his expression was grim.
He’d been wed before, three years earlier, but the marriage had ended in disaster within months. He had no plans to marry again. But he didn’t speak of that now.
“Interesting that Feydon chose to produce three female offspring, and in locations so obligingly convenient to us,” he remarked.
Nick slanted him a considering glance. “Almost as though he intended his
