The Satyr's Curse (The Satyr's Curse Series Book 1)

by Weis, Alexandrea

  Jazzmyn moaned and then his tip pressed into her, and as he forced himself deeper, a sharp pain ripped through her groin.

  “Julian, no,” she yelped, balling the quilt in her hands.

  “You must take all of me, Jazzmyn.”

  He thrust into her once more, and Jazzmyn shrieked, “You’re hurting me!”

  “Not for long,” he murmured, and then he pushed himself all the way inside her.

  The beads of sweat begin to collect on Jazzmyn’s forehead as her body screamed with protest. “Julian, please stop. I can’t,” she insisted. She fought to try and break free of his grip.

  “You must,” he ordered while he firmly held her beneath him. He pulled out and plunged into her again.

  She whimpered as the punishing assault catapulted through her.

  “Now, you’re mine,” Julian declared.

  With his every thrust, Jazzmyn noticed that the pain was quickly subsiding, and her body was beginning to vibrate with pleasure. As he drove himself into her, harder and faster, Jazzmyn pressed her hips into his, wanting more of him. The ecstasy he generated with every deep penetration was like nothing she had ever known.

  “Harder,” she begged.

  She could hear their hips smacking together as he grunted against her back. Jazzmyn’s body pulsated as the tingle building in her gut spread throughout her limbs. Guided by pure instinct, she bucked and grinded against him, delirious with lust.

  “Yes,” she called into the darkness.

  Julian slammed into her, sending her quickly to the heights of bliss.

  She screamed at the top of her lungs as her whole body convulsed in the most intense orgasm she had ever experienced. The riveting waves of satisfaction went on and on, longer than anything she had ever thought possible.

  Julian’s strong hands clutched her hips as he pounded into her. His grunting noises filled the room, and for a moment she thought he sounded more like an animal than a man. He gave one almighty, guttural cry and then came inside her.

  They collapsed on the blue quilt together, breathing hard and drenched in sweat. Julian curled his arms about her and began laughing.

  “You are the one. You’re my salvation.”

  Jazzmyn wrapped her arms over his. “If you mean you had a good time, well, ditto.” She rolled over to face him. “I’ve never known anything like that, Julian. It was unbelievable.”

  “Do you know how long it has been since I have enjoyed myself with a woman?” he mumbled into her hair.

  “What? A day?”

  “No.” His arms tightened around her. “A hundred and fifty-seven years.”

  Jazzmyn gazed into his face. “Very funny.”

  But he was not laughing. His eyes were cold and deadly serious. “I was changed a hundred a fifty-seven years ago, Jazzmyn…turned from a man into something not of this earth, and cursed to roam the land until I found the woman who could free me. The woman who could love me and make amends for my sins.”

  She sat up. “Are you drunk?”

  He eased up next to her and kissed her shoulder. “What I’m about to tell you is the truth. I am not crazy, or drunk, or on drugs. You must listen to me and try to understand. I need your help, Jazzmyn. I need you to help set me free.”

  “You’re scaring me, Julian.”

  He examined her face for a moment and then sighed. “My name is Julian Philippe Devereau, and I was cursed by a slave named Eve to become a creature who can never be satisfied by mortal pleasures. No wine can ever quench my thirst, and no woman has been able to tame my desire, until you. Your ancestor Odette was my intended. I was cruel to her. I disregarded her affection and flagrantly flaunted my drinking and whoring in front of her. I shamed her. When she killed herself, this curse was placed on me to live as the mythological creature I had admired so much in my youth; the satyr.”

  Jazzmyn backed away from him in the bed. “You’re crazy.”

  “Think about it, Jazzmyn. You were beginning to suspect all was not right with me earlier this evening. I could feel it.” He shimmied toward her. “I’m not crazy, and I can prove I am who I say I am.”

  She scooted to the edge of the bed. “Julian, perhaps you should go.”

  He pursued her. “Allow me to prove it to you, Jazzmyn.”

  “How can you possibly prove something like that?”

  He held out his long hand to her. “Let me show you.”

  She glimpsed his hand, but reason entreated her to flee.

  “Please, I need to share my story with you,” he implored.

  Despite the remonstrations of her common sense, Jazzmyn reached for his hand. She did not know why she wanted to believe him; all she knew was that she had to listen. She feared the explanation she had been searching for was about to be revealed.

  Julian stood from the bed and pulled her to her feet. He clasped her hand tightly in his. “I promise I will not harm you.”

  “After what you just did to me, how can I trust you? I thought you were going to split me in two with that thing.” She nodded to his crotch. “You could have warned me.”

  “I had to find out if you were the one.”

  “The one? The one what?”

  He said nothing and walked toward the bedroom door.

  When they stepped into the second floor hallway, the bright light from the brass sconces along the walls made Jazzmyn reflexively wince. She looked over at Julian’s naked body and was amazed to discover that his chest, back, and arms were covered with a mat of black hair. He appeared thicker, and his muscles, his hands, even his feet were larger than she remembered. She glanced down at his member and her jaw dropped.

  “Jesus,” she whispered.

  Julian followed her eyes and smiled. “I am as the satyr described in ancient texts, built for pleasuring a woman.”

  “But you appeared so normal.” Jazzmyn waved her hand up and down his body. “I never noticed any of this before.”

  “Clothes hide a lot, don’t they?”

  He urged her down the stairs to the first floor, and then into the living room. When he strolled directly over to the left wall and switched on the lights, Jazzmyn eyed him suspiciously.

  “How did you know the lights were there?”

  “The same way I knew where your bedroom was.”

  Jazzmyn tugged at his hand. “You’ve been in my house before?”

  Julian nodded. “Many times. The first time I came here was when I was betrothed to Odette.”

  “But how did you know where my bedroom was?” Jazzmyn’s mind suddenly raced with thoughts of how to retrieve the gun from her purse in the foyer.

  “I have been guarding this house since I was changed. I have stood outside your bedroom window on many a night and watched you.”

  “Watched me? Why?”

  He let go of her hand and motioned to the painting above the walnut mantle. “That was Odette,” he said in a reverent tone. “She was sixteen when we met at a Mardi Gras ball. Shortly after that, her father and my father arranged our betrothal. I thought Odette childlike and spoiled. All she talked about was her horse and her small lap dog, Edgar.” He smiled as he studied the painting. “I was twenty-three and never thought such an innocent girl would ever please me. Some of the gentlemen in my circles said they envied me, marrying such a girl. But I didn’t want to marry her.” He lowered his gaze to the fireplace. “One night I came to this house and found her alone. Her father and mother had gone to the opera at the old New Orleans Opera House, and her maid, Eve, had snuck away to the slave quarters to see her husband.” He turned to Jazzmyn. “I was drunk and forced myself on her.” He sighed and ran his hands over his face. “I raped her,” he softly admitted.

  “A few weeks later she hung herself from one of the tall oaks out back. Eve must have suspected what happened because the night after Odette died she appeared at the front door of my French Quarter home. I remember there was a full moon in the sky that night. After Eve spoke some incantation and blew dust in my face, I laughed
at her and told her to return to her master before I had her whipped for running away. The next morning I awoke to find myself as I am.” He waved his hand down his body. “When I went to Eve, she told me about the curse. She said I would never be free of it until I made amends to Odette. Until I earned the love of another Livaudais woman, I would be forever cursed.” He moved back across the room to Jazzmyn. “I have watched this house and your family for over a hundred and fifty years. I have been waiting for another female heir to the Livaudais name to be born. I have been waiting for you.”

  Jazzmyn stood by the living room door, gawking wide-eyed at Julian.“Why do you think I’m the Livaudais woman you’ve been waiting for?”

  “I could only find satisfaction with the woman who will free me of my curse. If you had not been her….”

  “What? What would have happened?”

  Julian reached for a tendril of her brown hair. He felt the silkiness of it between his fingers and then let it fall from his grasp.

  “If you had not been the one, I would have killed you.”

  Jazzmyn clenched her fists and stifled the scream rising up her throat.

  Julian saw the alarm in her face and held her arms with his immense hands. “When my desire is not satiated I become like an animal. I don’t remember anything until I wake up next to them. I cannot control it, and every day I’m haunted by the faces of the women I have killed. I was a cruel man in my former life, Jazzmyn, but I swear to you I was not a killer.”

  She tried to back away from him, but he held on to her. “You killed those women, the ones found ripped apart around the city. What about the murders from the seventies, the thirties and even back in 1895? Was that you?”

  He let her go. “How do you know all of that?”

  She backed into the foyer beyond the living room door. “I went to the newspaper today. I looked up some old articles in the morgue about the murders. Susan, your former chef…you failed to tell me that her last name was Livaudais.”

  Julian slowly followed her into the foyer. “I did not want to scare you. I cannot help what I am, but you can end all of this. You can stop the killings.”

  She inched her way toward the front doors. “Me? How can I help you?”

  “You are my match, the one I am supposed to be with; the one who can end the curse.”

  Jazzmyn backed into the double doors. She reached behind her and fumbled with the deadbolt. “I can’t help you, Julian. You need professional help…doctors, lots of drugs, and years of therapy to get over this.”

  He came up to her and wrapped her in his arms. “I need you. On the night of the full moon—in three days’ time—you must declare your love for me, and only then will I have made amends to the family of Livaudais. I will have fulfilled my obligation and married a mistress of their house.”

  “Married? I can’t marry you! Julian, listen to what you’re saying. This is insane.”

  “Jazzmyn, I know how this sounds, but if you marry me, you can free me. I can be a mortal man with a mortal wife. We can have children and grow old together.” His dark eyes peered deeply into hers. “You must marry me. If you do not, I will go on killing.”

  “Julian, please I can’t just….” Her voice gave out as his naked body pressed against her.

  “I’ve known since the first time we touched that you were the one. Every time I’m close to you, I feel the heat rising from your skin. I see the desire in your eyes. I know I do something to you.”

  She put her hands on his chest, hoping for the strength to push him away. “But you have killed innocent women. How can I—?”

  “I have not killed anyone!” he adamantly professed. “The beast I am cursed to be kills. I have no memory of killing anyone.”

  She trembled in his arms. “How do I know you won’t kill me?”

  He breathed in the scent of her hair. “Because I have been inside you, Jazzmyn. I could not do that with any other woman. If I wanted to hurt you, I could have done it many times before now, but you are my chosen one. I will never hurt you.”

  “Julian, please let me go.”

  He kept his arms locked about her. “Do you believe me?”

  “Yes, I believe you.” She fought to keep the panic from creeping into her voice.

  He sighed into her hair. “Liar. I can tell by the way you feel that you don’t believe me. What will it take to convince you?”

  “I don’t need convincing, just let me go,” she pleaded.

  He released her from his arms. “There is one thing I can show you to prove my story.” He took her hand. “It’s in the dining room.”

  Jazzmyn’s mind was hunting for ways to escape from him. There had to be some way she could get free from him and run for help. As he pulled her along the hallway to the dining room, she tried to think of all the self-defense moves Kyle had forced her to learn over the years.

  Kyle. His handsome face floated in her mind, and suddenly she regretted all that had happened that night at the restaurant. He had beseeched her to stay away from Julian, but she had been too stubborn to listen. No, that was not right. She was not being stubborn, she had simply been too afraid to accept her true feelings for Kyle. Jazzmyn had tried to distract herself with Julian, and now she feared she was going to pay the ultimate price for denying those emotions.

  Julian flipped on the lights in the dining room with its dark mahogany paneling and oval table that seated twenty. On the walls were numerous paintings of dead relatives. As a child, Jazzmyn had hated being in this room. All of those ghostly eyes staring back at her from the portraits on the walls had always frightened her.

  Julian released her hand and proceeded to the far corner where several antique, oval, miniature portraits hung on a wide piece of red ribbon.

  Jazzmyn stood a few feet from the entrance, keeping a wary eye on Julian. Wanting to seize the opportunity to get away while he was preoccupied, she began inching closer to the door.

  “Your mother, Noreen, put this on the wall after she found a box of them tucked away in the attic,” he called from across the room. “I remember your father telling me how much he had appreciated her regard for his family heirlooms.”

  Dumbfounded by his comment, Jazzmyn stopped within a foot of the dining room doorway. “You knew my father?”

  He turned back to her. “Your father invited me over after we met at a jazz concert. I told him I was starting a new recording studio and was looking for musicians. You and I would often spend time together and talk about dogs and your favorite Sesame Street character, Oscar the Grouch. During one of our visits you invited me to tea with you and your imaginary friend, Clara. I was Julian Paul Devereau then, but you always called me Mr. JP.”

  Jazzmyn’s raised her hand to her mouth. Her mind raced back to the days when a tall man had come to see her father and had always spent time with her instead. She remembered Mr. JP as big man with a wonderful, musical laugh, and the way he had smelled like a green forest in the middle of spring.

  “Oh, my God.” She reached for the wall. “That was you!”

  “Now are you convinced?”

  Jazzmyn shook her head. “No…I mean…that couldn’t have been you. Mr. JP was a man in his middle thirties and—”

  “It was me, Jazzmyn. I used to come and visit you every Sunday, remember?”

  She anxiously searched his face. “That’s right. Mr. JP would come over and spend Sundays with me. My father thought he was just being kind, and my mother used to tell my father never to let him come back. They would always fight about it. Every time, after Mr. JP left, they would go into their bedroom and yell at each other, but I never understood why.”

  “Noreen was not a very subtle woman,” Julian admitted with a shrug. “I knew the marriage was doomed from the moment I met her.”

  Jazzmyn put her hand against her forehead as the sickening swirl of doubt gripped her. “I can’t believe this is happening.”

  “You need to believe me, Jazzmyn.” Julian stepped closer to the miniatur
e portraits hanging from the red ribbon and pointed to the third one down. “This is Julian Philippe Devereau. It was the keepsake given to Odette when our betrothal was announced. You used to always call this your Mr. JP picture.”

  Jazzmyn cautiously approached the far wall while keeping her eyes glued to the portrait he was gesturing to. When the miniature came into focus, it was readily apparent it was Julian. The gentleman in the picture had the same facial features, eyes, and even his thick, black, curly hair. But the subject in the portrait appeared leaner and had a paler complexion than the looming man beside her. Her memories came rushing back to her as she stared at the memento. She recalled showing it to her childhood playmates and telling them about her special friend, Mr. JP.

  She grabbed at her stomach, fighting back the urge to vomit. “You were Mr. JP! How can this be possible? How can a man like you exist?” She placed her hands against her head as the room began to spin. “I must be having a breakdown. All the stress has finally gotten to me.” She leaned over, gasping for breath.

  Julian placed his arm about her shoulders, but Jazzmyn shoved him away. “Get away from me!”

  “Calm down, Jazzmyn. You’re not having a breakdown, I assure you. Just breathe and let it sink in.” He stepped back from her. “I must admit it is nice to have someone to share all of this with after so many years.”

  She stood upright and glared at him. ”It isn’t like you just told me you’re a secret agent or something. Christ, Julian!” Black spots started dancing in front of her eyes as her need for air became more desperate. She felt her legs giving out beneath her as the room began to grow blurry. “But you…you killed people.” It was getting harder for Jazzmyn to talk. “You murdered….” Her lips were growing numb.

  “It’s all right. I’m not going to hurt you.” He swept her into his arms. “I’ve got you. Don’t be afraid. Nothing is going to happen to you, Jazzmyn.”