Читать книгу Dane - Elizabeth Amber - Страница 7

In centuries past, the Satyr lords secretly dwelled throughout Europe, working the ancient vineyards of the wine god, Bacchus. By 1820, their numbers had dwindled until few remained to protect the sacred gate between Earth and ElseWorld, a parallel realm populated with satyr, pixies, nereids, faeries, and other creatures of myth. Thirty years later, a treaty allowed more such creatures to come through the gate, and the satyr flourished in Italy. Other species were less fortunate. A Great Sickness arose, affecting females born of blood other than human, and in great numbers they died or were rendered infertile.

It is now 1880. Interworld travel is largely restricted, except for business or diplomatic purposes specifically sanctioned by the ElseWorld Council. Within a corridor of lands that extends from Tuscany southward to Rome, all is so thoroughly bespelled that ElseWorld immigrants go unnoticed.

Still, the magic that cloaks this territory is fragile, and discovery by humans is a constant threat to a small clan of Satyr lords in Rome. These brothers of ancient royal blood have been entrusted to safeguard artifacts, relics, and antiquities created by their ancestors, which are now under excavation by archeologists.

Upon the coming of each new month, their blood beckons them to heed the full moon’s call to mate. To deny this carnal call is to perish. To heed it, bliss.