***
Pan knocked on the bedroom door, causing Katerina to glance up from the book she was flipping through. She started to smile at his approach but quickly disguised it with a blank expression. He found it captivating. She’d ceased scowling at him at least, always catching herself as she attempted to appear nonchalant. Candlelight bounced over her face and the wall. The candles were unscented, but to his enhanced senses, the burning wax left a saccharine warmth in the air to overtake the musk of old wood and weatherworn walls.
“What are you reading?”
Katerina lifted the thick volume from her lap and revealed the shabby leather cover. It was one of his many mythology books. Pan could only guess which myth she was perusing.
“Learn anything interesting?”
“Yeah, that oral storytelling must have been one great, big game of telephone.”
“Come again?”
“Telephone is a game we mortals play in school. One person whispers a sentence in another person’s ear, and by the time it makes it through the whole class and to the original speaker it is a different sentence entirely. It’s a game used to teach us how gossiping about people can result in false rumors. If the stories behind the myths were true, the written accounts of them are misconstrued by years and years of oral storytelling changing the details.”
One of the reasons he kept mythology books was because he was often amused by the changes made because of the retellings Katerina alluded to. Yet sometimes, like with the book she held in her lap, he was saddened by their inaccuracies. Once more, he found himself curious about what she had been reading before he interrupted but was reluctant to ask again. He had a pretty good idea which it was.
Katerina scooted over to one side of the bed and patted the area beside her. When he stared at the spot and didn’t move, didn’t dare to breathe, she laughed.
“I’m not inviting you to sleep in the bed with me. I’m inviting you to sit and talk.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s hard to be at ease in a conversation with you while you stand there hovering.”
He didn’t hover. “No. What I meant was why do you want me to sit next to you and not at the foot of the bed or on the other furniture?”
She turned the book over on her lap to keep her page and sat up a little straighter. “I’m not going to bite you, Pan. You’re the one who brought me here, and I am trying to understand you. It doesn’t help when you always seem to regard me differently every time we are in a room together.”
“No, I don’t.” Pan shifted uncomfortably from hoof to hoof. It was strange how he could be wearing clothing but still feel naked in front her observatory gaze. Even stranger when that bothered him.
“You do. When we first met, there was lust in your eyes. Curiosity too, I think. You wanted to know about me, but you were there for sex. A woman knows these things.” She tilted her head. “Then when you brought me here, you were as unsure as you are now, but you disguised it by being bossy. Telling me not to run. Crossing your arms and being intimidating.”
He didn’t care for this conversation. He didn’t want to dwell on the past, of scaring her or intimidating her after he abducted her on impulse.
“The next morning was different yet again. You were a bit more hesitant. You saw to my comfort in finding a way to make the toilet work without insisting I had to use the bathroom in the woods, which wouldn’t have bothered me. I’ve been out in the woods for days or weeks at a time before. I forgot what a toilet looked like when I was studying the leopard in the middle of Africa. I was actually surprised you went through the trouble.”
His face felt hot. Pan didn’t blush, ever. He refused to believe he was doing it then. He didn’t know how to respond, so he focused on her riotous curls and the smirk that played across her lips.
“But then you got all defensive when I laughed at you and became the alpha male, with using the existence of your penis to bully me into submission, which I was not amused by.” She arched a brow.
Then you threatened to bite it off, and gods help me, I wanted you more because of your defiance.
He cleared his throat. “Yeah...sorry about that...”
“I get it, though.”
“You do?”
“You have the blood of the ancient gods in your veins. You’re prideful. You’re used to having your way when you want it.”
“I rarely have things my way when I want them.” He would not admit she had a point.
Katerina allowed herself to smile fully then. “Neither do I. So quit pouting and sit down.” She patted the bed beside her once more.
He didn’t even notice he’d moved toward her until he was standing there, looking down at the space she’d indicated. Pan felt as though sitting next to her would change things. He wanted them changed, yet he still wasn’t sure if he really did or why. He wanted her, but if Dionysus had chosen her, there had to be a reason. The other god had to have known Pan would react this way, and giving in could have consequences. He just hadn’t figured out what.
Pan sat down.
The area was warm from where she had been utilizing the center of the bed. Her citrusy smell wasn’t as strong as the day before, but lingered still. His arm brushed hers, and she didn’t flinch or seem repulsed. Instead, she looked up at him, her cheeks pinkened, and she peered back at the book in her lap.
Katerina flipped the book back around, and Pan’s gut knotted. It was the myth of Syrinx. The one known to the world, as inaccurate as it was. It portrayed him as a would-be rapist and a murderer.
When Pan took a glimpse toward Katerina, he found her watching him, taking in his reaction. Feeling shamed by what had happened and the lies she held in her lap, he turned away. The crack in the wall above the door became incredibly interesting. How long has that been there, though? Really. He squinted at it. Had to be the past five years, if that.
“I know this isn’t what happened. I saw the reality this morning.”
“I’m not sure if that makes it better or worse.”
She sighed. He heard a thump as the book shut. “The myth says you watched Syrinx bathing and wanted to have sex with her. You chased her around until she hid in the water as the reeds, then you cut the reads and formed the syrinx with them.” She snorted. “It makes it sound rather silly in that version, don’t you think?”
“I did chase her wanting to have sex with her. Got my way too. Then, because of it, she was murdered, and I did form the syrinx from the reeds that grew where her body returned to the water.” The point was there—the events were different.
He felt a hand rest against his forearm, and he stared down at it. There was dirt under her nails, his fault for bringing her here to this house of filth and decay. He couldn’t provide for her here. She should be clean and polished and surrounded by beauty at all times.
“It’s been centuries. More than that, even. You need to let it go.”
Pan considered her words before answering, “I can’t.”
“You won’t. You hold on to it and use it as a reason to blame yourself for your current circumstances. There is nothing you can do about it now. It’s past time you move on.”
Pan bowed his head. “You’re right. You must be a phenomenal zoologist because you see everything clearly.”
Katerina snorted. “I’m a terrible zoologist. I can study and observe, sure. But I am always messing up and endangering myself. Look at me now.”
“You think I’m a danger to you?” He searched her features for the answer.
“You’re a satyr, Pan. A god. I am the delicate damsel lost in the woods. Yes, you are a danger to me. But I don’t fear for my life, not anymore.”
“Not even your virtue?” he asked.
She hesitated. “Not even that.”
“I would never go further than you asked of me.”
Even in the dull candlelight, he could tell Katerina blushed again. She pushed herself out of the bed and wandered over to the shelf to replace the book on
the bottom with the other mythology tomes in order to retreat from the conversation. The one she had instigated. A gentleman would allow it, but Pan had never been considered a gentleman.
“Now you’re hiding something you don’t want me to know.”
She turned back toward him as he spoke and then made a show of returning to the shelf to find another book.
“Katerina, if I know what I am doing that makes you uncomfortable around me, I can make a better effort not to do it.”
He watched as her shoulders slumped. “It’s nothing you are doing. At least, I don’t think you are doing it.”
“Doing what?”
She didn’t reply. Pan rolled out of the bed, sidled up behind her, and then put his hands on her shoulders. He pulled her around to face him but didn’t remove his grip.
“What’s the problem?”
Katerina shrugged out of his hands. “It’s embarrassing!”
“Vixen, I have hooves on my feet. Hooves. Like an animal should have. And horns on my head. I look like a cartoon devil. That’s embarrassing. Do you think I’d make it two steps into a church like this?”
Katerina chuckled. “I don’t suppose you would. They’d sling holy water at you and run for their lives.”
Pan smiled. “Please tell me what is bothering you.”
“You’re not going to let this go, are you?”
He knew he should, but he couldn’t. “Nope. You analyzed me and my actions. It’s my turn to know something about you.” He reached for her arm, meaning to draw her back to face him. She danced out of range.
“Fine. It’s my reaction to you, okay. It’s not...natural.”
“Your reaction to...oh.” He dropped his hand.
She turned and faced him once again. Still blushing profusely. “Yeah. Oh.”
“Do I repulse you that much?”
“Repulse?” She laughed then. So much so, she had to take a seat on the floor and there was the sparkle of tears in her eyes. Pan didn’t speak. He felt like the monster he sometimes looked like. He nauseated her so badly that repulse hadn’t been a strong enough word for it.
Just when he thought he should remove his disgusting presence from her sight, she elucidated, “You don’t repulse me at all, and that is the crux of the problem.”
She didn’t find him hideous then? Women needed a handbook or a decoder ring or something for the males of the world to decipher from.
Katerina cradled her arms around her knees from her spot on the floor, resting her chin on top of them. “I have never felt desire as strongly as I do in your presence.”
Pan was sure he heard her wrong. She couldn’t possibly want him, not as he was. Peter she had desired, but once he’d become a satyr in front of her, or the Jersey Devil? Then again, he had never attempted to sense her arousal as he did at the hotel. He was too afraid he’d find it lacking and was content with not knowing for sure.
When he didn’t reply, Katerina said, “It’s overwhelming. Beyond reason. In the hotel room, I was still freaked out by the stunt in the woods, which I assume was your doing. I shouldn’t have wanted to pounce on a complete stranger, but I did. Want to, that is. I feel it even now, though not as strongly as I did then. If I wasn’t sure you hadn’t drugged me, I would have thought something was influencing me somehow.”
“Did you hear any music when you first felt it, like when I played you to sleep or showed you my memories?” It was doubtful he wouldn’t have heard the music himself, but if something was influencing her to desire him, a set of Arcadian panpipes or the syrinx could do it.
The syrinx.
Had Dionysus found it? Was he using it to play with Katerina like she was a puppet?
“No? Why? Could your panpipes do that?” She stared at him then, eyes wide.
“To an extent, but I should have heard them too, if they were the influence. The ones we all carry were enhanced by the syrinx, so they hold magical properties as well. We can entice females to us, but it only works on women who are looking for a sexual encounter of some kind, on a subconscious level. It still allows for freewill, but they see the satyrs as the men they were, not as the satyr, and they make their choice. It’s hard to explain it. But in short, it only works one time out of ten. For that particular purpose.”
“What about the syrinx? Would it be capable of causing me to react this way?”
“Possibly.” Pan sat on the floor as well, his back against the book case. “But in all honestly, I am not sure what all it can do. When I started to realize how powerful the instrument was, I knew it had to be hidden. I could influence people, their thoughts. Their dreams. I could gain entrance into buildings and realms I shouldn’t.”
Pan shook his head, dispelling the memory of Syrinx in the Elysian Fields. He hadn’t approached her, and she hadn’t seen him there. But Hades had not been pleased when he discovered he had an unwelcome visitor in the Underworld. No one enters or exits the Underworld without Hades’ permission. No one but Pan, anyway.
“Why didn’t you destroy it? Something like that could be used as a weapon.”
“I tried to. I tried to crush it, to tear it apart. It was like it had been made of steel. I tried melting it, but the fire didn’t work. When I removed it from the flames hours later, it was cool to the touch.”
“How is such a thing possible?”
“Magic is unpredictable. The syrinx was created from the remains of a magical being, on the eve of her murder. Only the Fates truly know, and those bitches refuse to talk on the matter.”
“But it is hidden away, isn’t it?”
“It was. Hopefully that remains true.” It may be time to track it down again. His brow furrowed.
Katerina shook her head. “If it isn’t the syrinx influencing me, what is it?”
“Maybe I’m just sexy. Why can’t that be the reason?” Pan grinned and hoped she couldn’t tell he wasn’t keen on the fact she believed her desire for him was unnatural.
“Well, yeah. But even if I was locked in a room with a naked Joe Manganiello after an invisible something was running around us in the woods, I would have appreciated the scenery but would not have wanted to go all erotica on him. At least not then. Maybe later...” She thought about it, eyes glossing over. Was she fantasizing about this other man?
Pan wasn’t sure who this Manganiello person was, but he would die if he was ever naked in a room with Katerina. She did have a point, though. She’d reacted as strongly as he had at first sight. He had a curse he could blame, but her... Masturbation was an odd reaction for someone who’d been frightened, let alone experiencing an intense reaction to a stranger. Pan had never given it much of a thought before, too caught up in knowing he’d been the one who caused her arousal. Maybe, if he had let himself sense her arousal since that day, he would have realized there was a problem. Magic didn’t work like a dog’s sense of smell, where he would just know. He had to set his mind to it and push with his power to know. It was intrusive, so he didn’t do it very often.
“The Boeotians, er, satyrs that follow Dionysus, don’t use panpipes, but they have similar abilities. I don’t think they can stimulate females without being present though...” Pan suddenly had a moment of clarity.
The wine!
“Something was in the wine Dionysus gave you.” Pan stood to his feet. “I’m going to fucking murder that asshole.” His body practically hummed in his fury.
Katerina scrambled to her feet as well. “I didn’t even consider it, but it does make perfect sense. How observant am I? I even thought how peculiar it was that my boss was sending me wine, but I drank it anyway like a dumbass. If this had been a horror movie, I would have been the first big-boobed bimbo to bite it.”
His gaze immediately zoned in on her breasts, and he had to snap himself out of his lecherous thought process. “I’m sorry for everything that has happened to you. There was no reason Dionysus needed to bring you into this. His issues are with me.”
“I know you had nothing to do with it.�
�� Katerina took a few steps away from him. “But we’ll talk about it more in the morning. Right now, I need sleep.”
Sighing, he nodded his head and crossed the room, stopping in the doorway to take a final glance at Katerina before he closed the door. “Good night, vixen.”
Chapter Twelve
Pan was as nervous as a teenage boy with the aspirations of getting laid for the first time. Not that he was about to get laid, unfortunately. His nervousness stemmed from the fact he had no idea how to act around Katerina after sharing so much of his past with her. Then of course there was the wine Dionysus had spiked to make her horny in his presence. It would be unfair to take advantage of her when she couldn’t distinguish if her arousal was genuine or not.
He’d never felt so awkward, which was saying a lot because he was old as hell. He paced back and forth in the courtyard of his home, hands folded behind his back, head bent as he meandered from one side of the unkempt lawn to the other. The grass was high but had ceased growing at about mid-calf. He should probably cut it.
You’re thinking about cutting the grass? He had it bad.
It no longer mattered that Dionysus planted Katerina Silverton in New Jersey to entice Pan for whatever nefarious purpose. The pull of desire gripped him every time he looked at her. His groin tightened with need, desperate for release. But he couldn’t have her, and he needed to take her back to her friends. Even if it meant he had to let Katerina leave him. Actually, if Dionysus had anything up his sleeve, it would be better if she did.
If he could have one night with her, one, well...maybe it would be enough to hold on to. He was just too damned nervous to make a move based on how much he had screwed up since that first moment he laid eyes on her. Pan ran his hands through his mess of dark hair. What would be the best approach?
Sorry for kidnapping you. Let me help you remove your clothes now?
He didn’t think that one would go over really well. Gods weren’t supposed to care about things like human emotions and fear. Zeus would have been like, “Knees. You. Now.” Ah, such a lady’s man, Zeus. Pan shook his head sadly. Not his style. Why Hera hadn’t castrated him in his sleep was a miracle in itself.
The Cursed Satyroi: Volume One Collection Page 15