No, the twinge was regret that I hadn’t pushed her harder to take me earlier. She’d been on the verge of offering, that much I knew, but she had held back, likely in favor of heeding my wishes that she only come to me when it was truly me she sought and wasn’t reacting to my blood-link to Ozzie.
I clenched my jaw and shook it off. If Deva and Bodhi were soul-bound now, I needed to find the answers fast and get back to the others. I just hoped the god I needed to speak to was still in residence in the Haven, where I’d drifted after leaving Deva and Bodhi.
The path I followed was as familiar to me as my own hand, surrounded by trickling streams filled with mossy stones. The immense, sparkling palace in the distance cast reflected motes of rainbows all across the landscape. I’d visited the other three higher realms in the past, and they were all breathtaking to behold, but the Haven’s palace was the thing I dreamed of most in my eons of captivity. It was home to me, yet there was one thing in the world that had captured my heart even more thoroughly. I hoped this visit would help endear me to that person once again.
As I crossed a gleaming mahogany footbridge over a pond, I was reminded of the day I’d pledged myself to Deva, not even realizing at the time how deep that pledge would go. It had been on this bridge where I’d bowed to her, promising her my sword and my protection, a role I’d been granted by my Dionarch, Neph, who also happened to call himself her father.
It wasn’t until the next day during the ritual to reach the bloodline that I’d understood how much deeper my feelings for her ran. She’d asked me to agree to be her mate and I’d said yes, promising to take her away to the human world to experience all the things she’d been deprived of while cloistered in the higher realms—not to mention all the things I’d missed after thousands of years trapped by our enemy.
I’d been such a fool to point out her misinformed lie that day. If I had known how deeply it would cut, I never would have challenged her insistence that she’d been a virgin. It hadn’t mattered to me in the least. What mattered was that she didn’t know the truth.
She still didn’t, but I’d promised Ozzie to keep that secret for now and understood the reasons perfectly.
The footbridge took me over into the lush outer gardens of the Haven’s palace, the stone path finally leading to the big, iridescent green doors at the side of the great hall. The entire structure appeared made of sea glass worn smooth from eons of waves washing across it. The doors themselves were more translucent than the walls, practically blending in with the reflected foliage behind me.
As I reached for the door, I caught movement from the corner of my eye.
“You don’t want to go in there, brother,” a deep voice said. I dropped my hand and stepped back, craning my head to see past the hanging fronds of an overgrown tree.
A dark head appeared through the leaves a couple feet above the branches. Horns poked up above a familiar face, and I lifted my eyebrows at the satyr who clomped forward to stop in front of me.
“Kyril, brother. What’s the news? And why are you lurking around in wild shape?”
My fellow Thiasoi snorted and gripped his half-erect shaft between his thighs, giving himself an idle stroke. “Busy doing my duty to the nymphs. We can’t all run off chasing an enigma.” He tilted his head up and gave an audible sniff. “But I scent a female on you today. Did you stray from your charge so soon? Get tired of pining for the Dionarch’s daughter?”
I gritted my teeth, but I knew he was only ribbing me. “Deva is more woman than you know.”
His face split into a salacious grin. “Oh, really? She does smell like ambrosia, if that is who you’re covered in. Does Neph know you’re servicing her so thoroughly? And what of the other suitors you mentioned on your last visit?”
“I’m doing whatever it takes to make her happy and to protect the bloodline. That includes encouraging her bond with the others. It will take all five of us for her to claim her full power—one from each of the higher races.”
Kyril let out a sigh, his turquoise eyes twinkling. “Too bad she didn’t need four times the satyr soul. We’d have been able to stay together as a squad.”
I patted him on the shoulder. “You’ll make some lusty maiden happy one day,” I said, then nodded toward the palace. “Is Dion still here? He’s the one I came to see.”
He nodded and gestured down the path toward the sea. “He is, but he’s not in the palace. I don’t recommend going in unless you want to explain to Neph why Deva hasn’t been brought home yet. Leave that to her other father to answer.”
I eyed the door with interest. “Nikhil is here?” Not all of Deva’s fathers could drift into the Haven, but Nikhil could, and he was the likeliest one to get into a fight with Neph over her whereabouts.
“It seems whatever he learned when he visited you changed his mind. He’s pushing for more action, but the Quorum insists on not getting involved. They don’t want to wind up on the wrong side of Fate.”
I snorted. “That’s why I need to talk to Dion. Lead the way, brother.”
Kyril nodded and turned on his hooves. As he passed back through the verdant curtain of leaves, his form shrank to the smooth-skinned muscles of a human man with wavy brown hair brushing his shoulders. He paused outside a secluded grotto and put his finger over his lips. I craned my head to peer inside, raising a brow at the trio of slumbering nymphs who lay within.
Taking a few more silent steps, he reached in and snagged a length of cloth hanging on a peg just inside the opening, then returned to me and walked on, wrapping the sheer sarong around his naked hips.
I eyed the tangle of naked female bodies over my shoulder. The trio lay sleeping in a pile of cushions and silken sheets on the bed in the center of the grotto, all looking well-attended.
“Have you not mated anyone yet? Those aren’t the same nymphs you had the last time I was here.”
“There are still a good number of holdouts who weren’t willing to settle for ursa or dragon mates. It would be unfair to tie myself down until all their needs are met. Theo and Dorian are in agreement. Too dangerous to deprive any nymph who wishes to bear a boy child of our essence. Besides, we have time now that we’re free.”
“You haven’t become attached to any at all?” I asked. We’d only had a year of true freedom, but until the recent Equinox, we’d held our feelings in reserve. Neph had requested we choose which one of the four of us would become Deva’s permanent guard, but we all had the same depth of a connection to her, so had found it impossible to decide. In the end, Neph had assigned me when he realized we couldn’t choose for ourselves.
Kyril frowned and shook his head. “It isn’t that easy now. Not with the link to your chimera still strong. Neph didn’t account for that link when he asked us to choose who would guard her. I don’t think he considered the depth of that bond and how difficult it would be to shake. Once she takes you, I think the three of us can let go, but until then, we all feel her need for a satyr mate.
“It makes it impossible to open ourselves up to any nymphs. We can’t break even half a blood meld without a stronger one to replace it. Besides, they’ve gotten on without men for so long, most of them just want us for breeding. Some have melded so deeply with other nymphs they’d rather stay that way.”
I made a soft sound of agreement. I’d serviced several nymphs who wanted satyr children over the past year, but not one of them had made overtures for a deeper melding than what was necessary to procreate. Many had already paired with ursa or dragon mates, and some had gone as far as blood melding with another female. It seemed my brothers and I had become extraneous in our absence.
“I have to admit it does temper my guilt over binding myself to Deva,” I said. “Perhaps you should look outside the Haven if none of the nymphs want any of you.”
He gave me an almost resigned look. “I’m afraid you already claimed the most enticing female. The link with her has a special quality to it, a spice that is reminiscent of a higher races orgy. If I’m goi
ng to bind myself to a single woman, I want one like her, even if I have to share like you do.”
“Someone like her might be difficult to find. The only females with a mix of higher races blood close to hers are members of the bloodline, but they wouldn’t carry the power she does, or have the fortitude to handle three randy satyrs at once.”
“She doesn’t need to be able to take us all. I think you already know we’re enjoying our freedom from each other. After being trapped in a tank for millennia together, we’re all a little envious of your freedom now. We’re too different to want to share the same woman if it isn’t our chimera.”
“You just said you’d be willing to share the right woman,” I pointed out.
Kyril snorted. “Yes, but not with those two knuckleheads. We’re allowed to mate outside the Haven now with the dragons and the ursa. Even a turul would be a refreshing change.” He shot a grin back over his shoulder at me. “Wouldn’t that be a blast? To have something like Assana and Calder have with their mates?”
The pair he referenced was the prince and princess of the Haven, our female Dionarch’s son and daughter, who had each been fated to mate a dragon and an ursa. Dion himself was the only one of our kind who had mated with all three of the other higher races, though.
Except for Deva. Because if I had my way, she’d have her completed soul soon with all five of us as her mates. And if she truly had accepted a soul-gift from Bodhi, my soul was the last one left to give.
“Did I say something wrong? It isn’t like you to brood, brother,” Kyril said.
“I hope you find what you seek, but I wouldn’t count on Fate to lead you to her. The bitch is not exactly reliable lately. How much farther?”
Kyril had ducked into a rough stone tunnel barely high enough for us to stand upright in. This wasn’t a part of the Haven I was familiar with, at least not until we emerged into the sunlight on the beach and I recognized the blackened sand from the final battle of the war. Even more than a year after it was over, this stretch of shoreline remained charred from the dragon fire used to burn the enemy’s remains into dust.
At the far end, a giant of a man stood facing the ocean with five smaller figures gathered around him. Immense horns curled back from his head in shining spirals, and a cascade of glossy back hair fell down over wide, golden shoulders. One of his hands was entwined with the hand of the lone female figure in the group. She was clad in a flowing green gown, her brown hair floating behind her as if dancing with the warm, western breeze.
I paused and swallowed my apprehension. The sight of Dionysus, the god who had fathered my race, was enough to give me the urge to bow even though he hadn’t seen me.
The big blond ursa at his side spied us and touched Dion’s elbow. The god dropped his head and turned with a frown, the others all looking our way when he did.
“I didn’t mean to interrupt,” I said, bowing my head and staring at his enormous sandaled feet half-buried in the sand.
“Llyr Xanthos. I’m surprised my son didn’t lock you up the second you arrived,” he said, his deep, rumbling voice tinged with amusement.
“We managed to avoid him,” I said. “I gather Nikhil’s keeping him busy today, which is lucky for me.”
Dionysus snorted. “The General is as ruthless at negotiating as he ever was on the battlefield. Neph doesn’t stand a chance, which is good for the bloodline. It means we can finally do something to help once Neph agrees that Deva’s more useful out there than cloistered in here.”
“You want to help her, yet you remain here?” I asked. “Do you have any idea what Fate has done just within the past day?”
“I am helping her. She sent me a prayer a couple hours ago, which I granted. It was a small thing to link to her lover and infuse his mind with protective magic. I’ve been keeping my eye on the bloodline as a whole too, but there is very little I can do for them. Any more power from me would only attract Fate’s attention and put themselves even more at risk.”
“But you have a history with Fate. Can you talk to her? Get her to back down and leave Deva and the bloodline alone?”
He shook his big horned head, letting out a rueful chuckle. Beside him, his lovely mate gave us a wry smile, her eyes flashing green. She was Numa, one of the six immortal dragons and the aunt Deva spoke of most fondly.
“My father hasn’t exactly been reasonable on the best of days in a very long time,” she said. “Simply talking to him isn’t going to work.”
“Then what will work?” I asked, shooting a pleading look at the pair and at the wiry, dark-haired man who stood on Numa’s other side. Zephyrus, the West Wind, was the only one of his brothers who had a permanent human body, granted by Gaia a year ago so he could become Numa’s mate. Fate had blessed Numa’s union with her five mates, including Dionysus himself, proving yet again how much Fate favored the dragons, though I never knew why.
“You three have stronger connections to Fate than any of us,” I said. “What the fuck does she want with Deva?”
“Control, plain and simple,” Zephyrus said. “That was Fate’s ulterior motive when it offered to help create the higher races: control over all their matings. But of course, it realized the work involved in having too tight a hold over one race. It wasn’t willing to relax any of its control over the turul, so it had to relinquish it elsewhere.”
“So the only reason the other three races have any freedom is because Fate didn’t have the focus to meddle in their lives? It really hates the turul that much?”
“If you’d ever met Ouranos, you would understand,” Zephyrus said bitterly. “I would like nothing more than to find out how to appease Fate enough to stop punishing generations upon generations of turul for my father’s sins.”
“None of us were given much choice,” Dionysus said. “But Fate is still bitter over Ouranos turning the tables on it.”
I barked a laugh. “Bitter is an understatement. The way I hear it, Fate merely seduced you. Ouranos opted to pre-empt his seduction by raping Fate instead. Are you telling me that this lashing out at the bloodline is somehow related to its vendetta against your father, Zephyrus?”
“I’m not defending what he did. I recognize that taking away someone’s choice is not the appropriate response to having a choice taken away from you. Dionysus, the Mother Dragon, and Gaia all had the power to refuse Fate’s offer, but they all wanted to birth or sire their own races. And in turn, they were all betrayed by Fate without any recourse. What you’re asking is something I don’t think Fate knows how to give.”
“A choice, you mean,” I said.
“Yes,” Zephyrus replied, his expression grave. “Trust me, my brothers and I have tried to argue for the sake of the turul race, but it falls on deaf ears. I don’t think words are enough.”
“Then what is going to get through to Fate? Is there anyone here who can tell me?” I asked, casting a pleading look at each of them. Numa looked worried, Zephyrus resigned. The three ursa gave me helpless shrugs when I glanced at them.
“There is one who might know,” Dion said. “And I think she might be pleased at the visit.”
My spine prickled with unease. I knew exactly who he meant, and she was the last creature I relished visiting.
25
Llyr
My skin prickled as I stared at the darkness within the rough-hewn corridor. Behind me a waterfall roared, concealing the opening to the cave I stood within. Kyril fidgeted beside me.
“I’m going to sit this one out, if it’s all the same to you. You’re the one after the answers.”
I glared at him. “When was the last time you visited the Diviner?”
He averted his gaze and I narrowed my eyes. He knew I knew the answer. None of my fellow Thiasoi had been inclined to drop in since we’d been home, and particularly not after the torture session I’d endured after Nikhil discovered me entangled with his daughter a few weeks ago.
You didn’t just “drop in” to visit a creature like her. She was effectively t
he Haven’s judge and jury, presiding over our conflicts and doling out punishment when the Dionarchs deemed it necessary. She was also the only way a nymphaea could gain a true link to the River, which gave us the power to tap into the currents of time.
“If you ever plan on leaving the Haven, you’ll need to go through with it eventually. You all will.”
“Everything in time,” Kyril said, casting a wary look at the corridor that led into the depths of the earth where the Diviner’s sacred cavern lay. “No need to rush just yet. There are still nymphs to service.”
His excuse came out half-hearted, and I wasn’t sure whether it was out of boredom with his current situation or apprehension about what he’d need to do to regain that power.
“There are plenty of male ursa to go around now, and dragons too. It isn’t all on you three to replenish the satyr population. Come with me to the human world. The Haven has never been safer, and you clearly need to get out.”
I’d made the suggestion partly because misery loves company. I’d rather go into that cavern with a friend than alone. Kyril replied with a shaky laugh.
“Ah, another time. Wouldn’t want to deprive Theo and Dorian the honor of watching her have her way with me.”
“Yet you’ll let me endure it alone?” I said with an arched eyebrow. I chuckled. “Brother, I want you to tell me when you decide to do it so I can be here to watch her torture you.”
“Fair enough,” he said, making no more motions toward joining me. “I’ll be here when you get out.”
Bracing myself, I stepped toward the darkness and dipped my head to avoid hitting it on the low ceiling of the stone passage. I walked into the dim confinement, the ceiling sloping down as I went. It didn’t take long before I was crouching, then on my hands and knees, crawling the rest of the way.
Invisible resistance met my progress, and I knew I’d reached the boundary of the Diviner’s power. From here, I’d be at my weakest and most easily influenced, but only because she required all who visited to approach with absolute truth.
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