She frowned and pursed her lips. “The fever is not something I would wish on any of my sisters. There are too few males among us to aid if it occurs. But the chimera is well-attended. She will probably be okay.”
“Probably? You make it sound like it’s a chronic condition.”
“Because it is. Unless she is given whatever it was she lost that caused the fever, it won’t go away. Nyx herself suffered from the fever a year ago, just before the war. She nearly destroyed us in her madness because she had no males to ease her need. Her mate was still a prisoner of the Ultiori, and she pined for him greatly. Some of the nymphs say that it was the same need that broke Meri at the beginning, and that she crossed the point of no return once she took another’s blood without love for them.”
I was still getting used to the idea of a rogue nymph being behind all the strife in my old world, but having seen enough crazed nymphs, it didn’t surprise me.
“Do you believe that?” I asked her.
Clio fidgeted, and I realized I was making her stand outside the door while we talked. I gestured for her to enter and she sauntered in, settling on a hassock in the center of the room. An orgy scene was embroidered on its surface.
“I knew her,” she said, leaning coquettishly on one hand and toying with the design beneath. Her fingertip traced the obvious outline of a satyr’s erect phallus and my dick twitched in response. “I don’t think she felt love, and it takes the loss of it to trigger such madness. So no, I don’t believe she had the fever.”
“She didn’t feel love?” I asked, a sick feeling crawling through my gut, my arousal disappearing. Had I been corrupted by her somehow and not realized it?
She tilted her head and regarded me, her eyes swirling. I averted my gaze. You never met nymph’s eyes directly—they could hypnotize you with a look.
“No,” she finally said. “May I kiss you?”
My eyes widened. I knew they were forward creatures, but I’d relaxed into the idea of simply having a conversation with this one.
She raised her hands in a placating gesture. “Not to seduce you . . . unless you would like that. But I am curious about you, and a kiss is an easy way to discern things that are difficult to share in conversation. Your true desires, for example. So I may better serve you.”
I chuckled. “All the better to serve me, huh? Fine.”
I settled on the sofa across from her and spread my arms. I was no saint, but sex was honestly not on my mind after all the shit that had happened today.
Well, that was a lie . . . I couldn’t stop thinking about sex, but not in the sense that I wanted to have it. I was too busy thinking about the orgy going on over my head and what it all meant. I wanted to be a part of that in the strangest way, to have a taste of that pretty, dark-skinned beauty who claimed we belonged together. The satyr she was with also struck a chord in me that I couldn’t explain.
Clio rose and came toward me, her aroma like fresh moss. She stopped just before bumping her legs against my knees. I parted my legs for her, but she came no farther, only rested her hands against my shoulders and bent down.
The dress she wore was an almost transparent mesh that left nothing to the imagination, and I couldn’t help but stare at her tits. Then her lips were on mine, tongue sweeping into my mouth in a cool lick, tasting, but not lingering.
By the time I’d overcome my dizziness, she was seated across from me again, fingertips pressed to her lips as she frowned.
I cleared my throat. “Ah, what’s the verdict?”
“You’re not as complicated as you think,” she said. She closed her eyes for a moment, features shifting into a different face entirely before returning to their original shape.
A few moments later, another shadow darkened the glass of the door, followed by a light knock. This time the visitor didn’t wait to be admitted before carrying in a tray.
This new nymph was followed by another, who cradled a guitar as if it were an oversized baby.
Clio took the tray and set it on the table beside the sofa, then filled one of the glasses with the clear liquid from the decanter. I wasn’t thirsty, but when she handed me the glass and I sniffed it, my mouth instantly watered and a rush of pleasure engulfed me. Turul vodka—and high-quality stuff, at that.
I resisted taking a taste for a moment longer, smiling at her. “You got all this from a kiss?”
Clio grinned. “Like I said, you are not that complicated. Drink and music are a language we speak well here in the Haven. Sex too, but you didn’t want that.”
The nymph with the guitar bowed slightly and presented the instrument to me like it was some kind of prize. I set my glass down after a brief, indulgent sip and took the guitar, settling it on my knee and grasping the neck in one palm. With the barest brush of my fingertips over the strings, it came to life, as responsive as a lover.
“Well, you sure made excellent choices here,” I said, plucking a slow melody. While I played, I looked up at the trio. The other two had settled on the rug at Clio’s feet and were leaning against her legs now, watching me.
“How did they know?” I asked, frowning at them. “Last time I checked, telepathy wasn’t a nymphaea skill.”
“It is if we are blood-melded,” Clio said. She gave the nymph on her right a light caress. She closed her eyes and rested her cheek on Clio’s thigh.
I paused. “Blood-melded,” I said, reaching for the glass of vodka. “Llyr said we were blood-melded, as if I should know what that meant. I was afraid to ask. Can you explain it?”
I took a long swallow and closed my eyes, savoring the burn and hoping for fortification against whatever they might say. The liquor was amazingly good and worth sipping slowly, but I tilted the glass back and downed the rest in another gulp, sensing I’d need it.
“Yes,” Clio said. “It means he loves you very deeply. The Dionarchs do not allow blood-melding without a love bond. Had he done it to you without one, he would have been executed.”
“He knows the law. He’s a Thiasoi,” one of the other nymphs said. “You must love him too, yes?”
All this talk of love left me with an uncomfortable emptiness inside, and I began strumming the guitar again to try to fill it up with something. I’d never been good with silence, and that was what it felt like—the absence of sound and sensation.
“You felt it once,” Clio said. “Even if you don’t feel it now—you believe you aren’t capable of it.”
I lifted a brow at her. “So now you’re reading my mind too?”
She gave me a sly smile and a shrug. “The kiss can tell me much, but the link fades quickly. If you gave me your essence, I could tell you more.”
All three nymphs slipped their gazes down my body and my cock twitched with interest. I ignored the traitorous thing.
Clio shook her head and stood, touching her girlfriends on the shoulders. “Come, let’s leave him alone with his thoughts. There are more than enough male visitors in the Haven to entertain us for the evening, or we can have a night in.”
“I like that idea,” one of the others said. “Let’s stay in.”
She opened the door and paused after the other two departed, giving me one last look. “Our link from the kiss should last until morning. If you need anything else, just think my name and I will hear you. Good night.”
She closed the door behind her and I fell back against the cushions with a sigh, the guitar wrapped in my arms. The sounds from above were still going strong, and I couldn’t help but imagine Deva tangled up between those four men—Llyr, especially. We were blood-melded, which he’d suggested meant I should be able to drift like him. Did it mean we could communicate telepathically too?
I closed my eyes and focused, though I was a little buzzed from the vodka. After a moment I found a thread of strange, almost foreign emotion and focused more closely on it. This was a desperate, wild hunger, almost bestial—definitely not something I’d experienced before.
I focused harder, and a naked, feminine fig
ure appeared in my mind. Her back was arched, her shoulders tensed. Her black hair draped in thick, tangled ropes over her deep aqua skin. She smelled like the ocean.
Next came a series of sensations. When they hit me, my cock hardened in my jeans so quickly my head swam. In that split-second, I experienced the purest sensation of being buried deep inside a tight, hot pussy, fucking it with utter abandon.
Abruptly the scene went black and silent, like a door had been slammed in my face. I jerked upright and opened my eyes. “What the fuck?”
I stood, setting the guitar down on the sofa and wincing at the tightness in my pants. I paced the room, rubbing my face and shaking my head to try to clear it of that enticing visual I’d just had. A small part of me regretted that Clio and her girlfriends had left, but after that bizarre vision, I wanted that more than a substitute.
Was that Deva’s lovely backside I’d seen? It hadn’t been my dick inside her, but it had sure felt like it.
From above me, the sounds grew in volume, and within moments fresh, desperate orgasmic cries crescendoed, followed by silence.
“Forgive me,” said a voice inside my head.
I closed my eyes and sat again. “Llyr?” I asked. “So this blood-meld thing is real.”
“Yes, but I don’t think she’d like the idea of you looking on unless you meant to participate. And not just to fuck her.”
“Yeah, she made that pretty clear already. I’m sorry about peeking in. I was just testing this thing out . . .”
He didn’t answer for a moment, but I got the distinct impression of amusement before he replied, “You aren’t the least bit sorry.”
I chuckled. He was right. “You got me. But I won’t do it again. This is pretty new to me. Guessing the old Ozzie was comfortable with the whole idea. I admit I don’t get it. Most of what you’ve told me about how I was just sounds wrong.”
“You were new to this. She only showed up a few weeks ago. You and I have only been blood-melded a short time. You hadn’t had much time to get used to it, but you adapted without fuss, surprisingly.”
That hint of humor was still there, and I wished we were having a vocal conversation, because I sensed his words were laced with subtext I couldn’t hear without his breath helping form the words.
After the day we’d had, the way he’d looked at me, the way the back of my neck heated and tingles raced down my spine when I looked at him, I had a feeling what was between the two of us might be pretty damn heavy. I was just a little too chicken-shit to ask, because I didn’t think I was ready to go there. He was a satyr—his entire race was known for being even more sexually fluid than the dragons. They were the water race, after all, and you didn’t get much more fluid than that.
“Did we fuck?” I blurted before I could talk myself into knots over it. My ass clenched involuntarily at the same time, and it wasn’t until he answered that I relaxed.
“Yes. You’ve actually fucked everyone in the group, except for Bodhi.”
I winced as I shifted the guitar off my hard-on. Everyone but Bodhi, the tattooed human. I supposed if anyone were straight in the group, it’d be him. But Llyr was wrong about one detail.
“And Deva,” I said.
“We went over that already . . .”
“According to her, we made love. Somehow there’s a big distinction in this world, and it’s really fucking important, so I want to keep it straight.”
“Fair enough. You’re right. The rest of us have fucked each other. You and Deva made love. You will again.”
I sighed and let my head fall back on the cushions. I needed another drink.
Setting the guitar aside, I rose and poured myself a second glass of the delicious vodka, then picked the guitar back up and wandered to the balcony. Another set of comfortable reclining lounge seats with intriguing contours and suggestive designs on the cushions were situated in the shadows near the hip-high glass posts supporting a wide railing.
Sitting down, I could see through the posts down to the courtyard fountain. Clio and her girlfriends were playing in the water. I squinted, trying to see whether they were naked or still wearing those practically invisible dresses. It was too dark to make out much, but small shimmering lights flitted around them like fireflies wanting to get in on the action, casting the whole scene in a soft glow. Apparently staying in for the night hadn’t been an appealing choice after all.
My dick was already hard, but not from them. Why the idea of having gotten busy with three other men turned me on, I had no clue. I’d never been into men before. And despite creepily watching three women get it on, I kept picturing Llyr’s cock sliding into Deva, along with the rest of that glimpse into their exploits I’d gotten when I slipped into his mind.
The human had been at her other end, back propped on pillows while she sucked him off, and beside him the other two had been fucking each other, the ursa’s broad, tattooed back bent over the golden haired dragon’s while he was on all fours, stroking his own cock in time to their fucking.
Where the fuck would I fit into all that? It certainly hadn’t looked like anyone was making love, at any rate.
“We weren’t. She doesn’t need us to make love to her to get through the fever. She only needs that from you,” Llyr said.
I cursed, surprised by his voice inside my head again. “Fucking hell, man,” I said out loud. “Don’t just lurk in there, all right?”
“Until she gets what she needs, I reserve the right to keep tabs on you. I need to know if there’s even a glimmer of a memory—a sense that you feel something close to what you need to feel to follow through. No pressure.”
I snorted and took a gulp of my drink. “What happens if we never hear back from my grandmother? Or these . . . hound things I can’t even see?”
“We come up with another plan,” he said, then was silent for several moments. Finally he added, “Forgive me, she’s waking. I must see to her needs again.”
“No problem, dude,” I murmured, sensing something like a door closing between us.
Again—this would make the third time tonight, if my count was right, and here I was still only on my second drink.
The nymphs in the fountain below were hot and heavy. I set the glass down and settled the guitar on my lap, shifting slightly to avoid my hard-on, then started to play a slow, sexy song that had been running through my head since meeting Deva.
Out of the corner of my eye, one of the small firefly lights floated through the air, and I glanced up while I played. Within the luminous glow, I made out small wings and a tiny female body.
She lit on the edge of the rail and sat down with legs crossed, propping her small chin on one fist and her elbow on her knee. So pixies were real. I chuckled and bent my head back to the guitar.
I couldn’t begin to understand what had happened to me in the past day, but the music still made sense. The notes still rang true, and as I played, the words began to flow from me out of the blue.
What came out was a love song, of all things, and I knew it was for her, even if I couldn’t back the words up with real emotions. Not enough to give her what she needed. Not yet.
7
Ozzie
The more I drank, the easier the music flowed, but at the same time it became more difficult to drown out the wanton cries echoing from above. The palace was a sturdy place. All it would take was a goddamn wall to add privacy, but I supposed the nymphaea weren’t shy about the whole world knowing whether they were fucking.
I didn’t have the luxury of closing a door, either, and I’d tried to sleep only to be awakened to the sounds of Deva’s shouting, “Fuck me! I need . . .!”
She always trailed off after that, as if her need was the only thing she could process and she couldn’t fully articulate what she needed. Occasionally another voice would rise up in song, rich and deep, and the desperation would subside . . . but it never lasted.
I eventually gave up on sleeping at all. When I did gain a few moments of peace, the song I’
d begun composing itched at me. I took the guitar to the bed and sat against the pillows with my legs stretched in front of me, trying to work through the second half, but it kept eluding me. I’d never had this much trouble finishing a song before. The interruptions probably weren’t helping.
But I kept at it, starting from the top every time to see if the rest would come to me once I got to the second verse. I hadn’t registered the silence until my door suddenly swung open with a crash.
I jerked my head up, the room swimming in my drunkenness. An unfamiliar figure stood in the doorway, a creature unlike anything I’d ever seen. She had Deva’s beautiful face, but her skin was tinted a deep blue and multi-pronged horns rose up from her temples, grazing either side of the doorway.
Her naked skin glistened with a sheen of moisture like she was a coated in diamonds. She panted as she began to close the distance between us, her wild eyes darting between my face and my hands where they still plucked the guitar strings.
This probably wasn’t good, but my cock took interest immediately, my fingers stilling.
When the music stopped, she halted, her brow creasing.
“Please,” Deva whispered, the sound so plaintive and desperate it tugged at my insides. Perhaps I really did have a heart somewhere in there.
“You need me to play?” I asked.
She tilted her head, her rainbow eyes a wild swirl betraying a madness not unlike the crazed nymphs I’d come into contact with. But she wasn’t leaping at me with gnashing teeth, begging me to fuck her.
“Please . . .” she repeated, nodding at the guitar.
I plucked at the strings again, restarting the song and finding my voice. Despite a tongue clumsy from drink, I had no trouble singing clearly. Call it my superpower; I may not have been able to walk a straight line, but I could still make flawless music while wasted.
Her eyelids fluttered closed and some of the tension in her expression eased. Her spine became less rigid and she seemed to flow across the room toward me. The way she moved may have been the most graceful thing I’d ever seen. She was just walking, but it felt like a dance, each step matching the beat of my song. My pulse raced, my body heated, and I could hear my heartbeat in my ears, thrumming to the same tempo.
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