by Ophelia Bell
“Easier,” Nyx said. “They don’t even have your need to dominate. As long as a satyr is able to take pleasure in it, he doesn’t care whether he’s on the top or bottom.”
Gavra raised an eyebrow. “Did Nereus have a preference?”
Nyx’s eyes twinkled wickedly. “Wouldn’t you like to know? Perhaps I’ll share that secret another time. For now, allow me to indulge my maternal needs and include my daughter in the conversation.” She rose from her seat with a warm smile and walked toward the entrance to the room with open arms.
Assana and Silas stood in the doorway, and Gavra finally allowed himself to turn in their direction.
His heart clenched at the sight of the pair, cleaned up and dressed in typical Haven finery—garments of moss, vines, and shimmering gauze that appeared as though they’d been grown right on the wearer’s skin. When Assana accepted her mother’s embrace, her gaze met Gavra’s across the room. Her aura flared brightly and her eyelids fluttered as though that simple glance had conveyed his need to touch her.
He quickly averted his gaze from her, looking at Silas instead. The dark-haired ursa had a hand at Assana’s waist, sticking close to her even as her mother pulled away and greeted him.
“Silas,” Nyx said with a nod. “Please sit and join me and my new guest. The main course will be served shortly.”
Assana eyed Gavra for a second, then shook her head. “I’m not hungry, Mother. We just wanted to stop in and show you that we completed the melding. We’d like to … well, we’d like to go back to bed, for obvious reasons.”
Nyx turned back to her daughter and gripped her shoulders, holding her at arm’s length. She reached down and grasped Assana and Silas’s entwined hands, a shimmer of liquid power seeming to drip from her palms and trickle between their fingers.
The ancient Dionarch smiled. “My, my, you two have forged quite a deep bond today, haven’t you? There is plenty of time for you to conceive my grandchild. We have a special guest tonight, and he deserves the honor of your presence as much as I do. Please sit.”
Nyx urged them both toward the table again, her brusque manner allowing no more argument from either of them. Gavra braced himself, his traitorous cock already rousing at the mere sight of the pair, much less their approaching scent. Thankfully they’d succeeded in removing any trace of him from their bodies, but their own aromas combined were a heady concoction from just a table’s width away. He swiftly covered his arousal by dropping his napkin in his lap and leaning over to snag the decanter of wine.
He filled the two glasses set before Silas and Assana before refilling his own and Nyx’s, and merely nodded to the others in greeting. He was under no illusions that Nyx’s statement had elevated him beyond the status of prisoner, so he chose to wait to speak until he was addressed directly.
Assana gracefully covered her flustered state as she sat. Her arousal blossomed this close to him in a way it never did with Silas alone. At least Silas’s presence lent an excuse for it, where Nyx was concerned, but he couldn’t help but smile to himself.
“You look beautiful, Assana,” he whispered into her mind, which caused her to clumsily bump her glass, nearly toppling it over if it weren’t for Silas’s quick reflexes. Silas glared at him and Gavra raised an eyebrow.
“You look good enough to eat, too, Silas,” he said. “In fact, I have the most delicious image of the pair of you lying back and letting me lick each of you in turn until I taste both your Nirvanas thick on my tongue.”
Assana let out a desperate little moan.
“Are you all right?” Nyx asked.
“Just realized how hungry I am, Mother,” Assana said, waving a hand. “How soon until we eat?”
“No need to wait,” Nyx said, snapping her fingers. The sunshine-clad nymphs appeared in an instant, laden down with dishes that they placed on the table. The rich aromas of the food just barely obscured the scents of his lovers, and Gavra finally succeeded in diverting his attention to his stomach instead of his dick.
The four of them indulged in the meal for several minutes, and Gavra was grateful for the feast, realizing how famished he was. His body’s other needs tended to take a lower priority to his carnal needs when he had a particular craving for a lover.
Gradually Assana’s aura calmed as she took sustenance, though it still retained a vibrant red glow. It was lucky that her mother didn’t have a dragon’s ability to see auras, or they’d have been found out by the way Gavra’s power so strongly infused Assana’s energy.
“Did you decide to release the prisoners, Mother?” Assana asked. “I’m surprised you only invited the red one to supper and not his brother too.”
Assana seemed a little stronger now. Strong enough to challenge her mother, at least. Nyx’s jaw clenched and she stared at her plate.
Without looking at Gavra, Assana shot a thought to him. “Being near you gives me strength, even though I feel my resistance fading. I want you, but I … I think I can resist while the meld is strong.”
Gavra could only give her a silent mental nod in acknowledgment. He was far more interested in Nyx’s response to her daughter’s question. He gave the female Dionarch a pointed look.
“Why isn’t my brother joining us, Nyx?”
She lifted her antlered head and set down her fork, regarding the three of them imperiously. “You know what that dragon has done. He was apparently missing the same sense of honor that you have. Perhaps Nereus managed to rub off on you, but not your brother. He is safely confined to a place where the Lamia won’t be tempted to seek him out. Allowing him so close to the Haven—even in the confines of the Sanctuary itself—was too great a risk.”
Gavra tilted his head, perplexed by the utter lack of irrational language or emotional posturing. She sounded reasonable in her explanation, even if the punishment was severe. She was exceptionally good at masking her insanity, that was clear.
“What risk is Aodh to your home? How does he bring any more danger here than I do? None of my siblings or I ever threatened the Haven. Aodh would lay down his immortal soul for it, if it came to it … for your brother, especially.”
Nyx’s serene exterior faltered only a tiny bit, the buried animosity blazing in her eyes for a split-second before she controlled it again. Gavra wasn’t sure whether it was a testament to her self-control or merely evidence of how close to the surface her madness really was.
“His intentions have very little to do with it. Blood melds never completely die. Once an exchange is made, it sticks. It may fade over time, but once that stain sets, the mark is permanent and offers its original owner a beacon to reach the one who possesses it, across any distance, in any dimension. Your brother was tainted by having Meri’s spirit inhabit his body. To have him within the boundary of the Sanctuary could have risked all our lives. The safety of the Haven had to be preserved at all costs. He is somewhere … some-when … inaccessible to the Lamia now. We will be even safer once you have helped sire an army of new satyrs to defend us.”
Tainted. Some of her madness made sense now, but if what she said was true, they could use the lure of Aodh’s taint to their advantage when they were ready. He forced himself to relax.
“He is comfortable, at least?”
“He is in no danger of going hungry.”
“And what of your own brother? He’s conspicuously absent too.”
Nyx shrugged. “Neph wouldn’t have allowed me to quarantine your brother the way I did. His absence is only temporary, at least until he can find a way back in. For the moment, he’ll simply have to remember what it feels like to be human.”
“Maybe he’ll help look for Father,” Assana said as she took a sip of wine.
Nyx went rigid at the comment. She stood abruptly and set down her goblet with a loud thunk on the table. Wine sloshed over the edges.
“Supper is finished,” she said, her eyes a stormy churn spar
king with volatile energy.
Assana’s eyes widened and her already tenuous hold on her self-control wavered. Her skin rippled with evidence of her primal nature awakening within and she let out a low, long moan. Silas immediately stood and wrenched her chair around to face him.
“Assana, baby, hold on. I’m here.” He gripped her hands, then cupped her face, but she only stared blankly at him. Then her head flew back and she let out a piercing wail, her entire body bucking out of the chair and nearly knocking Silas off his feet. A pair of majestic antlers as beautiful as her mother’s erupted from her head. When her transformation was complete, she turned that familiar wild-eyed look to Gavra.
Too quickly to track, she lunged across the table at him, clawed fingers grasping, a look of pure hunger burning in her eyes. Silas barely managed to grab her by the ankles and haul her back, but she twisted away. She let out an incoherent shriek of protest and tried again.
Gavra ached to go to them both, to complete another melding that he knew would calm the wild beast in her, but didn’t dare let on his true desires. He shoved his chair back as swift as a breath and pulled Nyx away from the table with him, as though protecting her from her daughter’s insane outrage.
“Your daughter doesn’t seem well,” he whispered in her ear.
“And here you probably thought I was the mad one,” Nyx said. “Let her mate handle her.”
Nyx didn’t seem inclined to leave, however, though Gavra knew without a doubt that his proximity was making things worse as long as he stayed on the sidelines. He would either have to get involved, or leave.
“She isn’t settling down,” he commented when Silas spun her and then bodily climbed on top of the table to pin her down. She twisted beneath him, turning crazed eyes to Gavra. Inside his mind he heard her plea.
“Need you now …”
“She will,” Nyx said, though her frown suggested she might be having doubts herself.
“Perhaps she needs to be serviced by a dragon,” Gavra suggested. “See how she looks at me?”
Nyx shook her head. “She chose her mate. The only females you’ll be servicing are my Thiasoi as soon as they are fully melded by me. Come.” She gripped him by the arm and turned, leading him away.
The back of his neck prickled with the dark glare Silas shot him, along with the string of mental curses the other man filled his mind with.
“Perhaps she needs to be serviced by a dragon? You fucker, that’s exactly what she needs, but you know you can’t do it in front of her goddamn mother or she’ll see firsthand how deeply melded we are. Get the fuck away from us and stay away until you can actually be with us the way we need you.”
Gavra clenched his fists in frustration, but kept his eyes focused straight ahead, only half paying attention to the path Nyx led him down along the fountain-lined corridors and waterfall-adorned staircases of the palace.
Chapter Thirty
Gavra
After a few minutes, Gavra and Nyx came to a door with bottle-glass windows so thick he couldn’t make out what was on the other side.
It wasn’t until they stopped and she failed to move farther that he realized she was shaking. He looked down at her in alarm. Her body had shrunk into its human state, her black waves no longer topped by the huge antlers, only a delicate, pearl-encrusted crown.
She appeared about to collapse, but when he slid an arm around her waist to offer support, she cried out and smacked at him.
“No! I can’t. You aren’t him. You aren’t my love, my Nereus! Get out!”
Taking a deep breath, he steeled himself for more potential madness and pulled Nyx bodily into his arms, ignoring her protests and her stinging smacks and clawing hands as he held her tight against his chest.
“Nyx, I have no interest in replacing your mate. Please let me be a friend to you if I can. Shh.” He continued to hold her and murmured words of comfort while she flailed in his arms. He was alarmed by the delicate feel of her frame against his much larger body. She reminded him of his sister Belah in those anguished days after he and his brothers had resurrected her after bargaining with their own blood to reclaim hers from their enemy. Belah had rejected the idea that her true love was lost to her, at first, but once she’d resigned herself to the truth, she’d grown strong again.
As much as Nyx insisted Nereus was dead, this fragile bundle of chaos in his arms spoke differently. Her love still thrived, so the man must be out there somewhere.
He hoped Assana was right and Neph was lending his power to the search, because it broke his heart to see such a strong, fierce female brought so low as to compromise her own morals for the sake of what she believed must be done.
Once her fighting subsided and she clung limp and crying in his arms, he lifted her up and cradled her against his chest, then pushed the doors to her chamber open.
He carried her into the room, which had a wide, open veranda on the far side that overlooked the entire Haven. The view stretched all the way down to the crashing seashore of the cove where he remembered once fantasizing about making love to this very woman he held.
She’d long since belonged to another man, and her heart did still, but the time hadn’t diminished how much he still cared for her. He carried her out onto the porch and sat with her on his lap, gently stroking her back while she cried.
Eventually she grew quiet and he glanced down, curious whether she slept, but she was only staring at the glorious sunset that was one of the things he had always loved about this place. It was the only time the sky seemed to hold dominion over the otherwise mist-shrouded valley. Only for a few moments at the end of the day did the air clear as far as the eye could see across a calm, mystical sea that led Mother-knew-where.
Nyx took a long breath and said, “Do you believe he lives?”
“I believe that you must, or else you wouldn’t ask that question.”
She nodded and closed her eyes. “I don’t know how to be without him anymore. I managed well enough with Neph … my brother is my true balance and always has been. But without Nereus all these years, I’ve just been an empty buoy, tossed about in the surf with nothing to anchor me, no ballast to keep me steady.”
“You were right before,” Gavra said. “I believe if Nereus lives, he would find a way back to you. That he hasn’t yet only means he can’t, but not because he’s dead. You said the two of you were blood melded …” He hesitated, uncertain whether this was a safe line of questioning, but he had to know for his own reasons as much as to illustrate to Nyx what she likely already believed.
She sighed and extracted herself from his arms, giving him a gentle squeeze on the shoulder when she rose to face him.
“Yes, and his mark on my soul is as inexorable as my own would be on his. I have no idea if the mark would disappear if he were dead. All I know is that it hasn’t. I was able to bide my time for ages, because even in his absence we were still connected by the River. That mental link kept hope alive. But that went away several months ago, and all I have left now is the blood mark.”
“Not enough to give you balance,” Gavra said, looking up at her.
“Not even close,” she confirmed, stepping into her room.
Gavra stood, aware that their conversation was far from over, but uncertain what she might ask of him next. Even if he wanted to, seduction was likely the exact wrong course of action, at least tonight. Besides, he couldn’t get the image of wild and wanton Assana being pinned down to the dinner table under Silas.
He stepped off the balcony into her room and bowed his head. “If you’d like to call your guards to escort me back to my cell, I will say good night.”
“Nonsense.” Nyx glanced up from the tipped decanter she was emptying into a pair of glasses. “You’ve proved yourself a loyal friend tonight, Gavra. You’ll remain in the palace as my guest for the rest of your stay in the Haven, but please accept my invitati
on to join me for a little while longer and talk.”
“I would like that,” he said, accepting the overfull wineglass and realizing as he brought it to his lips that it wasn’t wine—she’d apparently graduated to stronger spirits and was intent on getting drunk. Taking a sip, he girded himself against the potential disintegration of her sanity.
She took a long swallow from her own drink and the subsequent warmth that infused her aura seemed to steady her. She straightened her back and looked at him.
“I would mate you, if it made any sense. Perhaps in time it will, if Nereus is truly dead. I remember how well you admired me, and what a good friend you were to Nereus. You favored me over my brother, at any rate. I know I shouldn’t appreciate that so much, but I do.”
“You still hold Neph partly responsible for the Lamia, even though it was my brother who made the mistake of falling into her trap.”
“I’ve always forgiven Neph his poor decisions. Save for that one. He tied himself to your brother to save him. Without Neph’s blood, your brother would have been lost. I think that’s what kept him from mating all these years.”
Gavra held his tongue. It sounded like Nyx was oblivious to the fact that their brothers had been carrying on a love affair for ages before the incident that redefined their world.
She drained her glass and refilled it where she stood, then moved past him, heading back to the balcony.
Outside, the sounds of waterfalls harmonized with the faint rush of crashing waves that grew louder the darker it became. The distant sunset was a deep, blood red, the orb of light sinking past the glassy horizon.
Nyx paused at the railing, taking a sip from her glass and staring off into the distance. She had a haunted expression that cut deep into Gavra’s heart. She’d been waiting too long for her love to return, hesitant to take action, because Nereus was always the one who fixed things for her. Nereus or Neph or her son, Calder.