Читать книгу Lyon - Elizabeth Amber - Страница 8

A crisp breeze wafted off the River Seine, rouging the pallor of Mademoiselle Juliette Rabelais’ cheeks and loosening tendrils of her almond-colored hair as she paused at the entrance to the Pont Neuf. Beside her, young Fleur kept up a running commentary on everything and everyone they passed as she had all morning.

Juliette rarely came to this side of the river, but the Rive Droit—the right bank—was the location of Les Halles, the marketplace popularly known as the stomach of Paris. There was to be an entertainment in the salon at home tonight, so she’d gone shopping to replenish her supplies. Herbs and other cooking ingredients she’d gathered were now packed in the baskets she and Fleur carried.

But far more precious than the foodstuffs was the single sheet of rag paper rolled tightly and tucked in her basket among the figs, chives, spearmint, cinnamon, sage, and nutmeg. She’d paid Madame Elbe, the herbalist, a small fortune to have it stolen and delivered to her today and she’d been careful not to let Fleur see. Excitement fizzed inside her as it had since she’d scanned the paper and found her name. And another one that was familiar to her as well.

“Allez, Fleur,” she said, waving her younger companion ahead and indicating that she should cross the bridge alone. “Continue on and tell them I’m coming.”

“Of course, mademoiselle. But you are certain?” Fleur touched her gloved hand in concern.

With anyone else, Juliette might have been embarrassed to admit her own fears, but Fleur was too kindhearted to judge her. She swallowed a lump of affection for the girl and nodded. “Oui. Go and make yourself ready for tonight.”

Fleur grinned, bobbed a curtsey, and departed. Juliette watched her cap until the throng on the Pont Neuf engulfed it.

She usually took care not to associate with the other girls, for past experience had schooled her that doing so only brought sadness when they departed or were dismissed. But Fleur was lively and genuine and it was difficult not to like her. She feared they were fast becoming friends.

Her eyes located the townhouse set in an unrelieved row of residences along the Rive Gauche, the left bank of the river on the far periphery of the bridge. It was the less fashionable district, but Monsieur Valmont and his activities would not have been welcome in the more desirable neighborhood on this side of the river. Though the house looked pleasant enough with its gray plaster, red door, and wrought iron rails, revulsion welled at the thought of returning there.

A jongleur clutching an assortment of brightly colored balls, clubs, and rings passed her on his way on to the bridge and tipped his hat, giving her a long, significant glance. Accustomed to such sidelong glances from men, she ignored him. A group of finely dressed ladies pulled their skirts from her path and whispered as they, too, passed. She ignored them as well. Over the past year since she’d returned to Paris with M. Valmont, she and the other girls had become infamous in this neighborhood, objects of curiosity to some, and of scorn and suspicion to others.

She saw the red door open and shut in the row of houses lining the Quai di Conti, indicating that Fleur had arrived safely. It should have been a simple matter for her to dash across the bridge too.

It should have been. Yet it was not. Though she knew the bridge to be over ninety-two feet wide and nine hundred feet long and supported by twelve arches, crossing it nevertheless seemed as dangerous to her as traversing the river via tightrope.

“Move. You have to go,” she scolded herself under her breath. She’d lingered here far too long.

Determinedly she fixed her eyes on the equestrian statue of King Henri that stood at the center of the bridge. Reaching it would mean she was halfway home.

She adjusted the basket more securely in the crook of her arm. Straightening her spine, she took a hesitant step forward, then another. And then she was on the bridge.

“Un, deux, trois…quinze, seize…” As she counted her steps in a hushed voice, she combated her irrational fears by running tonight’s menu through her mind.

…Should she add the figs to the cakes again? Valmont hadn’t liked them done up in that manner, but Fleur and Gina had. Yes, she would add them…and she must remind Madame Gris to let the pear sauce cool before dousing the truffles, which must be checked for rot and the fromage as well…

With meticulous care, she trained her gaze on Henri, glancing neither right nor left, for in both directions lay the swirling waters of the Seine. Not overly fond of nature in general, she was particularly terrified of water. It was a fear that had come upon her suddenly three years ago at age sixteen and only grown worse in the years since.

Unfortunately for her, the Pont Neuf was an anomaly in that it had been constructed without buildings lining its sides. It was the only bridge in all of Paris where there was nothing to obscure the river from view except a collection of vendors that set up temporary shop here and there selling everything from scarves to tobacco.

A fleuriste pushing a colorful flower cart, a chef de pâtisserie, and a groomer des chiens, who had all been neatly tucked in the half-round bastions along the bridge’s railings by day, were now fleeing with the approach of nightfall. Entertainers—jongleurs, acrobats, fire-eaters, and slight-of-hand tricksters—were swiftly replacing them, and the air was filling with evening cold and the smells of fresh roasted chestnuts.

Some sort of impromptu festival seemed to be getting underway, and it was making her journey homeward more hazardous than usual. In fact, the pont was swelling with a riot of humanity this evening, she realized. Why, she didn’t know.

A lively farandole had begun and dancers had formed a linked chain, some by means of joined hands and others by means of holding handkerchiefs stretched between them. The meandering line snaked through the crowd, increasing in length as more participants were drawn in. She pulled the hood of her crimson-colored wrap more closely around her and sidestepped, avoiding them.

“Something’s odd here tonight,” she murmured. Absently, she resettled the weighty basket to hang from her opposite arm, the knowledge of its tightly-rolled secret comforting her.

She jiggled her free hand in the pocket of her skirt finding the flakes of oatmeal and the crust of bread there with her fingertips. Both were said to ward off ill magic. Or so her foster mother had claimed. The superstitious Madame Fouche had instilled a knowledge of such charms in Juliette and now she never left home without a talisman of some sort.

Suddenly, the chestnut cart cut between her and her goal, forcing her to veer around it and bump into a lady carrying a poodle.

“Excusez-moi, madame!” she tossed behind her not bothering to stop. She had to keep moving. She had to stay focused. If her mind wandered, there could be trouble. Tuning out the jubilance around her, she glued her eyes to the statue.

“Almost there, almost there,” she chanted. Her breath came in shallow, quick puffs, visible in the raw autumn twilight.

Someone jostled her, nudging her off course and toward the western balustrade. More shoves—harder this time—knocked her to her knees. Her basket hit the ground, spilling half of its contents. Fast as frogs’ tongues, two sets of hands shot out and rifled through the spillage, snatching items at random and leaving others to be trampled.

The familiar, pungent smell of grapemust mixed with something unearthly reached her and she gasped. A quick glance behind her told her it was exactly as she’d feared. Scant inches away were two imps, with pointed ears and grins too wide to be Human and skin that emitted an unattractive mottled glow of violet and puce.

It was them. The “bright-children.” This was the nickname she’d given these creatures as a girl, but she hadn’t seen any of them for three years. She’d begun to think—to hope—that they’d only been figments of her young imagination. So much for the talismans in her pocket. They warded off nothing.

Delighted with themselves, the hooligans giggled and tossed the objects they’d pilfered between one another, thinking it a merry game. One of their new toys was long and slender—a tube tied with a ribbon. The sheet of paper that she’d paid to have stolen had now been stolen from her!

“Arrêtez!” She lifted her skirts and lunged to snatch it back. Heads turned, but no one bothered to assist her. She hadn’t expected them to. No one ever saw these beings, except her.

Grinning, the two pixies made off with their ill-gotten gains, having no idea what they’d done. Scraping the bulk of the foodstuffs back into her basket, Juliette found her feet and gave chase. Their unnatural light flickered ahead whenever the throng shifted just right. But each time she lost them from sight, she feared it was for good.

“Wait! Let’s trade! I’ll give you something else from my basket instead!” she promised, hoping they would hear. “Pears!”

Non! They didn’t care for food. What had she once used to bribe them? Think! Think! Ah, yes! Shiny things. Pins. Polished agates.

Of course she had none of those with her now and the peak-eared creatures were getting away. “Come back!”

The cacophony of the dancers, musicians, and idlers along the bridge rose, drowning her out as the current of hundreds of revelers carried her along.

She found herself disgorged at the far end of the bridge at the Rive Droit, right back where she’d begun her crossing. Frustrated, she spun in a circle that swirled her skirts. She’d lost them—and her cherished parchment tube along with them!

At this rate, there would be no time to add the goods in her basket to tonight’s menu. The culinary delicacies she’d already prepared would have to suffice.

What to do? In her agitated state it was becoming ever more difficult to make a coherent decision. She’d let herself become over-stimulated here in the outdoors, a dangerous thing to let happen.

Frantic, she dove back into the melee, determined to search the length of the Pont Neuf. The line of dancers had grown into a mob and it careened by, nearly squashing her. The bridge almost seemed to bounce under the thunderous pounding of boisterous footsteps. Could it take such abuse? Would it fall and topple her into the river? Dizzying fear flooded her.

She tried to focus; to shut out the crowds. Someone bumped her and the basket fell from her fingers, as she was herded into one of the semicircular bastions that projected outward from the northwest side of the bridge. Bent over the balustrade and pressed there by the surge of the crowd, she almost pitched over it into the garden twenty feet below. Her slippers left the ground and her feet dangled in midair.

Flinging her head back in an effort to right herself, she suddenly found her vision filled with a river of blood that stretched ahead as far as she could see. The Seine. The sunset had turned it into a winding slash of stunning scarlet. Like some sort of immense open vein, it pumped its sanguine waters, slicing through the heart of Paris.

“Non!” she wailed. Rearing back, she tried to regain her balance, only to be shoved forward again so vigorously that the railing squeezed the breath from her lungs and bruised her ribs. Averting her gaze from the river, she peered directly downward, into the comparatively placid Parc Vert Gallant. A smattering of couples dotted its walkways and benches, embracing to form clandestine shadows under the umbrella of foliage turned a seasonable ochre and cherry. Nowhere did she see the pesky thieves who’d taken her things.

Something moved on the ground below, drawing her gaze. An apparition, fading in and out of view. It was like some sort of erotic mirage, which at first appeared only as a series of undulating curves and valleys cast in high relief.

Narrowing her eyes, she tried to bring it into focus. With shocking abruptness, it solidified into reality. She gaped then, unable to believe what she was viewing.

Directly below in the park, was a gentleman. One who was surely as handsome and nearly as brazenly naked as any statue in the royal collection she’d seen at the Louvre. He was lying face down in the grass, his backside and hair painted a brilliant red-gold by the brush of sunset.

The muscles of his shoulders were carved rock, his arms strong and straining, and his weight rested on hands braced where his shadow darkened the grass. A light-colored band haphazardly bisected his ridged torso at the waist. It was his shirt, she realized, which had been thrown back off his shoulders and had caught at his elbows. Trousers sagged low on sleek narrow hips, baring the upper swells of buttocks that were moving in a powerful, rolling rhythm.

As she watched, a woman’s delicate hands slipped under her lover’s arms and around his ribs to stroke the concave curve of his lower back and the globes of his rear. His body was massive, completely obscuring every other part of her with the exception of her long hair spread out on the grass like some dark peacock’s fan.

For the briefest of moments, he angled his head in such a way that her pale cheek peeked from below him. Then his head moved again and she disappeared from view.

Juliette’s eyes rounded. Could they really be doing what it appeared they were doing? Right there in the open? And if so, why did no one object? Her gaze made a sweep of the park and of those nearby on the bridge who still pinned her. And a terrifying realization struck her.

No one objected because…no one but she could see them! Just as no one had seen the bright-children who’d stolen her page, and whose coming had portended this other strange sighting. Mischief and unearthly happenings had always followed in the wake of their intermittent appearances in her life.

Transfixed, she could only stare at the bodies copulating in the park. For without a doubt that’s what the pair was doing. Fornicating, right there in the open as flagrantly as two jungle animals.

The man moved sensuously on his partner, grinding and rotating his hips. With the ardor of a salacious symphony, the slash of his spine arched and bowed as muscles bunched and slackened.

Juliette’s teeth tugged at her lower lip and she put a hand to the erratic thrum at the base of her throat. How would it feel to find oneself the object of all that masculine energy, brute strength, and desire? To be covered and dominated by a man so overtaken by his lustful instincts that he’d heeded them with no care for his surroundings?

How would it feel to be wanted so desperately? She could only imagine.

Once, she’d longed for such things, but she’d been punished when she’d sought them. Or at least those who loved her had. And there would undoubtedly be repercussions were she ever again to act on her base urges.

She should look away.

Yet she didn’t. Instead, she watched like one mesmerized, and an unexpected, forbidden yearning swept her chilled skin like a summer breeze infused with some exotic aphrodisiac. The folds gating her private channel pulsed gently, hinting at what that man could provide were she his.

She should look away.

Instead, she let desire swamp her, relishing its unfamiliar thrill. Her gloved hands fisted on the railing. Beneath layers of cloak, bodice, and chemise, her nipples tightened. And under her petticoats, high in her most secret place, she was a hollow void aching to be filled.

With each powerful thrust, the cheeks of the man’s buttocks contracted. The well-defined muscles of his back, shoulders, and arms flexed and relaxed in fluid harmony. As she watched, his hips lifted slightly and his hand slipped between his body and the one under him.

She should look away. She should……Yet she didn’t.

And slowly, so slowly, a touch came to her. As soft as a whisper, it caressed and comforted so tenderly that she hardly noticed it as something apart from her own body at first. It was as though a warm, knowing hand had worked its way high between her legs to gently cup her, offering to heal the hurt of her need. At first she ignored the sensation, thinking it only her unreliable imagination.

When the touch grew more tangible and masculine she wriggled and kicked out, thinking someone in the crowd was manhandling her. Whipping her head side to side, she could see that no one nearby seemed to be paying particular attention to her. Her slippers now rested on solid ground again, but she remained locked to the rail by the press of humanity behind her on the bridge.

The furtive hand molded itself to her unguarded flesh, its palm flattening against her feminine opening and its heel firm against her pubic mound. Still locked to the railing, she stood wide-eyed and perfectly motionless. Terrified and titillated at the same time.

Gently, the hand palpated her once, twice—sending waves of heat through her core. Its heel sawed at her clit as it pulled forward toward her belly, then shifted back again until its longest finger slipped just along her rear cleft, shocking her system more in this than all that had come before.

Lazily, it rocked back and forth and back and forth…back…and…forth.

Just when she thought she might be driven mad by the stimulation, it ceased and the hand folded in on itself. Its fingers brushed her intimate creases as it gathered itself into something resembling a fist.

At the very same moment, the man’s hips drew back from his partner’s.

She gulped as the fist aligned itself with her slit, its knuckles putting an upward, driving pressure on that vulnerable entrance to her channel.

The man in the park! Somehow, she’d become connected to him. To what he was doing to that other woman. A similar sort of transference had happened on occasion when she was a child, but certainly nothing so visceral as this!

Her fingers dug into the railing, fraying the tips of her gloves. She scarcely dared breathe as the fisted intruder insistently stormed her gate, wooing her with its erotic promise. Deep inside, her core began to melt for it, coating its nib with a natural feminine slickness meant to ease its way.

The crowds had ebbed around her enough to allow for breathing room, but she scarcely noticed for there was no question of departure now. Her body was weeping for this.

The muscles of the man’s back and buttocks rippled with the effort of restraint as he slowly flexed his hips forward…

With a humid sigh, Juliette’s nether lips succumbed, parting for him.

Her eyes fluttered closed and her lips drew inward over clenched teeth to keep from crying out as she felt herself give way to the masculine pressure. Her arms ached with tension and the grit of the stone rail grazed the soft skin of her wrists where sleeve and glove had slid apart. How it burned. And still the warm fist pressed on, languidly screwing itself into her.

Coiling need twisted and built, higher and higher until the innermost flesh hidden deep in her channel cried for want of the entirety of its hard heat. The sensation of it plumbing ever deeper was a completely foreign one. A wickedly delicious one. So this was what it felt like to have a man’s member come inside one’s body!

In this moment, she cared about nothing else—only that she wanted more of it. Would die if she didn’t get it.

As if reacting to her need, the man bucked into the woman under him, so hard that she was shoved several inches across the grass. Shallows formed in the sides of his rear cheeks as muscles drove him deep.

Heat speared Juliette at the same precise moment, delving farther inside her than she could have imagined her body might accept. Butting at the gate to her womb. The impact of it lifted her to her toes. She covered her mouth, trapping a cry in her palm.

In the park below, brawny sculpted haunches as sleek as those of a stallion relaxed then clenched, relaxed, clenched. Again and again and again.

She became his puppet, dancing to the tune of his slamming rut. It wasn’t just her imagination. Her body was physically yielding—opening when he bucked forward and pursing when he relented. At the mercy of sensation, she had no desire other than to go where he led.

Her thighs trembled. The tissues of her core were wet, swollen, and invaded by the man who fucked another woman down in the park. She could almost smell his male musk and feel his fresh breath on her cheek.

Somewhere behind her, the chain of dancers had doubled back on itself, retracing its path to stir the crowds again. To her right, a businessman was telling a story involving oxen, and his companions were hooting with laughter. To her left, a horn player was tuning up and two ladies were engaged in an argument over a gentleman they both admired.

Yet through it all she heard the sounds of fevered coupling—of the man’s velvet murmurs and harsh grunts and the woman’s groans and demands. His words—words meant only for the ears of the woman he caressed—were rough and carnal. Words no man ever spoke to a lady. Words meant to urge them both toward release. They tickled Juliette’s ear and sent her reaching desperately for…something.

The sensation gathered within her less quickly than she’d imagined it might, like a slow tightening of a screw that sent a wave of heat through her each time it turned. It was at the same time excruciating and exhilarating and she both feared and wanted what it promised. The other girls at Valmont’s had described this to her—this hanging on a precipice of ecstasy. But until now, she’d never truly understood.

Every ounce of blood in her seemed to recede as she waited there, unfulfilled. A single tear fell, trickling down her cheek. Her white-knuckled fingers clenched between her breasts, gripping the crimson wool of her cloak as she bent at the railing, her entire body locked tight. A mere breath away from her first orgasm.

Then a hoarse, anguished shout split the air, and the man in the park climaxed. A simultaneous, feminine wail from his partner echoed his.

Oh, God!

The avid wave abruptly broke inside Juliette and blood went whooshing back through her system. Hurtling through every vein and artery, it all rushed toward one tempestuous goal. High between her legs, the shiny-pink, hidden heart of her swelled with it and gaped in a silent, passionate scream.

With a muffled cry, she came! In rolling, wracking spasms that pounded and tripped one upon the next, scarcely affording her time to breathe. Her nether mouth gulped and gasped and choked in an ecstatic, creamy rhythm. Her hand crept low and she cupped herself through her dress, trying to hold onto the rapture of it, and hoping no one would see.

This! This was what she’d yearned for.

Forgotten were the reasons she’d denied herself this for so long. Forgotten were the guilt and the pain of loss that had led her down a path of celibacy for the past three years.

The press of bodies behind her lessened intermittently, but she was unable to take advantage of any slack. She was frozen in place, helpless to escape, her inner thighs welded to one another, as her furious coming went on and on.

Below her the woman’s face remained hidden and anonymous, but now the man had shifted so that her legs had become visible between his sprawled ones. There was something unnatural about the woman’s body, Juliette realized. In disbelief, she watched her legs curve upward between his in an odd manner that bent them in the direction opposite that which knees normally went.

Her legs—they were conjoined! And they finished in a tail whose slender fins had curled themselves around the man’s calf!

No! Don’t look! She squeezed her eyes shut, fearing what might happen if she allowed her imagination to overtake her.

But it was too late.

Horrified, Juliette slapped both hands on her thighs, gripping their long muscles through her skirts. The flesh between them, from groin to knee, had begun to tingle and soften. To reshape. One limb had begun to kiss the other, longing to join in imitation of the creature lying under that man.

Pressing her palms together in a position of prayer, she wedged them, and by her action the fabric of her skirts as well, between her thighs. She dug and wiggled and poked. But in spite of her efforts, the inner seam was turning gelatinous. Fusing.

Her legs crumpled, refusing to support her. Quickly, she hooked both arms around the rail, gripping it for dear life.

She was transforming! It had been three years since anything like this had last happened! She’d assumed she’d outgrown the ability. The curse, as her foster mother had termed it.

Oh, why had she ventured out today? Why had she stayed out so late? Why had she let herself ogle this couple for so long?

The man in the park shifted again, suddenly revealing the face of the woman under him. A pair of feminine eyes the exact shape and sea-green color of her own met hers. The woman’s hands froze on the sloping hollow of her lover’s back as their shocked gazes tangled.

Recognition slid an icicle down Juliette’s spine. Her throat worked. Then a single word escaped her.

“Elise?”

Her near-silent whisper was one no human could have heard in the midst of the uproar on the bridge. But even as the syllables still hovered on her lips, the masculine giant shuddered under their impact. Rising on his arms, he arched his back turning his face upward.

In his shadow the woman still regarded her in dismay. But Juliette saw only the man now.

Bathed in moonlight, he was a handsome pagan god. Amber eyes as bright as jewels that might have adorned the crown of Croesus were set in a face limned by the faint bluish-white glow of the skin of woman under him. His jaw was square cut, his nose aquiline, and his throat was thick and strong with a distinct Adam’s apple. Framing his face, his hair was a tousled, gilded halo, washed in moonlight and damp at the temples from his exertion.

His gaze narrowed on Juliette as though he were trying to make out her features. Gasping, she fell back a step and hit the back of her head against someone’s shoulder.

Once eye contact was broken, she was swiftly released from the strangers’ spell and her body began trying to right itself. Swamped with dizziness and feeling like a well-loved rag doll, she drooped her head to lie upon her forearm along the rail. She took great gulps of air, filling her lungs and trying to regain a sense of normalcy. For the last few moments, she’d almost forgotten to breathe. No wonder she’d been lightheaded. And likely hallucinating.

“Madame, are you ill?” someone asked from nearby.

“Wh-what?”

She lifted her head to stare blankly at the gentleman’s hand on her arm, then followed it to the face of an elderly, whiskered man with concerned eyes. Coming alive, she groped at the offer of assistance, clasping his sleeve in a death grip.

“Oui, I’ve twisted an ankle, monsieur.” She had to shout in order to be heard above the din. “Can you assist me to my destination—the townhouse just across the quai there?”

“Certainment!” Her savior tucked her arm under his, giving it a comforting pat, then took the basket she nudged toward him with her foot.

Her legs quivered like wet pasta as she pushed off from the railing and she grasped him with both hands. They moved slowly at first as she tried to stave off any further transformation. Forcing her mind away from the scene she’d just witnessed would help, she was sure, so she counted her footsteps and ran mundane facts through her brain one after another trying to keep the memory at bay.

They passed King Henri and she informed her companion of every fact she’d learned about the statue over the past year. That he’d been cast from bronze obtained by the melting of two other effigies of France’s former ruler, Napoleon. That official documents had been secreted within the statue’s base. The man must’ve surely have thought her strange, but he only smiled and nodded, likely unable to catch every word anyway.

As her equilibrium returned, her legs firmed. They grew sturdy and dependable under her as they carried her away from the bridge and toward normalcy.

She had to get home. Once inside, the bizarre changes in her would reverse more quickly. Transformation was only possible to sustain under sky. Which was precisely why she preferred to spend her life indoors rather than out. Nothing suited her better than being neatly encased in a chamber constructed of brick and mortar topped by a slate roof.

Now they were moving along the Quai di Conti. Then she was up the steps, thanking her rescuer, and she was inside. Safe.

Or as close to it as she ever could be.

“Who the devil was that?” Lyon demanded. His incredulous eyes burned into Sibela’s stunned ones.

“What?” she stuttered. “I don’t know—”

He gave her a little shake. “That woman on the bridge. You recognized her. I saw it in your face.”

Sibela’s mouth opened and shut like a mackerel’s as she obviously sought a convincing fabrication.

“Save your lies.” He pulled from her channel with a lack of finesse he knew was appalling, but the sense of urgency that gripped him was so great that he did it anyway. In one lithe move, he was standing, straddling her with his feet planted on either side of her hips.

“I’ll ask her myself,” he said, yanking on his shirt.

Sibela drew herself up to kneel between his legs and grip his thighs, her expression beseeching. “She is nothing to us.”

Lyon ruched up his trousers, wincing as he forced his still turgid cock inside and slid fastenings home. It had just achieved the most gratifying orgasm of its lecherous career, yet it was still angled high, at the ready.

Gods, what a night. “Stay here until I return,” he grimly instructed his companion.

“Damnation!” Her angry fist aimed for his groin but was deflected and only hit his thigh when he jerked back in time. “I am your chosen one. Not her!”

He bent and lifted her so they stood eye to eye. “That remains to be seen.”

“Bastard!” With her coming, her transformation had concluded and she tottered uncertainly before him on newly formed web-toed feet. Were she to remain on land now that the change was complete, all signs of her origins would soon fade. Her scales and luminescence would recede altogether until she appeared completely Human. Or near enough to pass.

Sibela wrapped desperate arms about his shoulders and lifted her lips to his ear. “If you must go, just first tell me this,” she whispered. “Your seed. Was it potent?”

He wrested her claws from his neck and set her firmly away from him, giving her time to steady before he released her. “You know it wasn’t. It couldn’t be.”

His eyes lifted to search the bridge rail. Nothing made him more eager to escape a scene such as this than a woman who clung. She had a right to be angry. Such post-coital behavior on his part was beyond ungentlemanly, but something was wrong here.

She was far too determined to keep him from the mysterious woman on the bridge, and he was conversely filled with an intense, inexplicable determination to find her.

“Do you forget that tomorrow night marks the conclusion of Bright Half?” she went on, referring to the two weeks of the monthly cycle in which the moon waxed. “You will need me then, when the full moon comes.”

“Stay, Sibela. I’ll return later.” He flicked his fingers toward her in a gesture that bolstered the magic surrounding her. “Until then you’ll remain undetectable by Human sight. But when next we speak, I’ll want answers. Truthful ones.”

“You dare speak to me as you would your dog? We have mated!” she shrieked. “You cannot leave me in this way. We are bound!”

Ignoring her, he turned and loped across the park. He’d already lost too much time and would not linger to untangle Sibela’s lies now. Her claim to him was not as thorough as she might have wished and he suspected that, rather than any true feeling for him, was at the root of her shrewishness. For until they mated under the full Moon, any bond between them was not irrevocable.

By taking the southern staircase closest to the direction in which the woman on the bridge had gone, he avoided the crowds. But when he reached the Quai di Conti, her scent had already largely dissipated. He searched the air for the path she’d taken, for once wishing his olfactory abilities were as keen as those of his brothers.

Behind him, Sibela had commenced her screeching again. He grimaced. Bacchus, please let there be some mistake! Was he truly destined to be tied to such a female for a lifetime?

A door shut along the quai. He turned toward the sound and located the scent again. He tracked it past ten buildings and lost it just short of the stoop leading to a townhouse of plastered gray with a red door.

Had the pretty voyeuse he sought retreated here? Instinct had him taking the steps and rapping the knocker for admittance. If he was wrong, he was about to embarrass himself.

Almost immediately, the door was snatched open and a majordome appeared. When his gaze swept Lyon, his nose lifted and his lips curled into a sneer. He made to shut the door.

Lyon’s palm smacked flat upon it, holding it wide. “I seek a word with the lady who just entered here…” Something beyond the man caught his attention. Just inside, a woman’s wrap had been cast upon a hook. It was crimson red.

“Thee salon weel not beegin for one hour. At nine o’clock tonight,” the man informed him with a supercilious sniff. He eyed Lyon up and down. “And eet eez by eenvitation onlee.”

A rivulet of blood trickled down Lyon’s neck and he mentally cringed, recalling his bedraggled state. His neck still stung from Sibela’s claws and his shoulders were striped with welts where she’d gripped him as they’d mated. His shirt hung open and was sliced in ribbons, and his grass-stained trousers were damp with seawater.

He was probably not the sort of guest who normally called here.

The Human obstacle before him stepped back for greater leverage and again tried to close the door. Lyon’s huge paw remained fast, preventing him. His other hand delved into his trouser pocket and whipped out an assortment of Tuscan lire and soldi, which he deposited inside the servant’s vest without bothering to determine the amount of his offering. “I believe you’ll find that to be adequate invitation,” he informed him. “I’ll expect to be allowed in when I return.”

The majordome patted his bulging vest pocket, peeked inside it, and then favored him with a grudging nod. “Onlee eef you are suitablee attired. And do not bring your entourage.”

Lyon straightened and looked over his shoulder, surprised to see that an assortment of women loitered there, some openly ogling him and others doing the same in a more circumspect manner. Behind him, the door shut with a haughty snick.

He took the steps and strode back into the lane, sighing when his admirers decided to trail him. He was weary of this inexplicable Human attention and he had no time for it. He was a mess, and he had but one hour to get himself to his hotel, clean himself up, and return.

“I’m not what you want,” he murmured to the group at large. Sending a light mindspell over the women, he crossed the quai not waiting to see them disband.

At the park’s edge, he glanced back toward the gray house. A curtain twitched at a window on the top floor. Someone watched him. Was it the woman from the bridge? Such an attic window would most likely open to servants’ quarters. Was she a maid or a governess?

Was she the woman who’d just given him the hardest orgasm of his life?

He would find out at nine o’clock tonight.