“Damn woman is crying again, Sy I swear her unhappiness is tearing me asunder.”

      “Then you must go to her, Darius.” Sylus handed his companion an opened bottle of chardonnay. “You should have never allowed yourself to bond with her during that performance. You know what happens when you link to a human. They are such emotional animals.”

      “It’s different this time, Sy, because I couldn’t help myself and usually when it’s a general link it wears off. I linked to Selby well over a year ago and her essence is as nourishing to me as…as the wine we need to survive. It only confirms to me that she has to be a descendent of a Nymph.”

      Sy rolled his eyes. “How many times have I heard this?” Sy came up behind Darius and wrapped his muscular arms about his waist leaning, against his familiar and natural form. His musty scent in animal form was powerful, making Sylus extremely aroused. 

      Darius made a formidable human being at 6’2”, with the body of a gladiator. However, in Satyr form, he was glorious in stature as his hooved feet increased his height another two inches.

      Even though the world had changed and battle between warriors in the coliseum ceased to exist, Sylus noted his friend had taken a shine to using modern exercise contraptions that reminded him of a few pleasure apparatus he had used on the Marquis de Sade.

      Now that insidious bastard deserved all the pain he gave him, and he had the gall to have taken credit for everything Sylus had taught him. 

      “Sylus…I am in the middle of an emotional crisis with this woman in my head and you look as if you are miles away.” 

      Darius felt irked by his companion’s aloof manner; but after all these years, he knew Sy rarely demonstrated emotions except for anger and passion.

      “No, simply centuries,” Sy sighed softly against the broadness of Darius’s broad back. “Remember when life was so much simpler and we were accepted amongst the humankind in true form?”

      “It wasn’t that times were simpler; it was because our true form was all we had and people accepted it as they accepted the gods. It was because of Pan’s drunken mishaps that the Satyrs’ reputation was altered.”

      Sylus snorted a laugh. “Please, don’t remind me. Pan wasn’t even a true Satyr, he was the bastard-born son of one of the god’s indiscretion with a sheep Nymph and because he was half-man, half-beast, he was assumed to be one of us.”

      Sy moved away from Darius as he begun to pace. Darius turned, sensing a tirade about to begin and knowing there was no sense in even trying to temper it. 

      “Pan! He was nothing but a runt and such an ugly little goat creature. You know what pisses me to no end? The little shit is the one mankind chose to depict throughout history. Why, you may ask?”

      Darius narrowed his eyes and glared at him. “I didn’t ask.” 

      “Because some artistic ass decided to paint the runt of mankind and misnamed him as a Satyr!”

      Darius chuckled for it was true and he didn’t know how many times he had stopped Sylus from posting banners and shifting to prove historians had made an error. 

      It was one of the reasons Sylus could no longer return to the Musée du Louvre, an incident that occurred in 1813. Of course, leave it to Sylus to misbehave in a museum owned by a fellow Satyr. 

      This only incensed Sy more because he wondered how a satyr could sanction art pieces depicting them as “drunken, flute-playing idiots.”

      He and Sy chose to stay on the move from city to city and country to country. It was easier than pretending to grow old, die, and become your own children. Some of the fellow Satyrs liked staying in one place for a sense of stability, and some stayed because they had grown attached to some humans.

      Yes, a few humans knew they still existed and were not creatures of myth. These humans held their secrets sacred and made life bearable for them. The human witches who didn’t mind tumbling with the beast under the moonlight kept loneliness at bay, but only for a moment.

      “Damn be it to Zeus for this curse! You would think that after all these centuries, he could be forgiving.” Darius frowned.

      “Fuckin’ gods love their trickery,” his companion said and added, “He created eternally-virginal Nymphs to roam naked in the hills of Greece and tells us that they must never be touched. We could eat of all the pussies in the land, but never the twat of the Nymphs.”

      Chuckling, Darius clapped Sylus on the shoulder. “Of course, once we did go against Zeus’s wishes, we found their pussy juices were the sweetest.”

      “You’re right about that, but you’d think we would have learned to control our lust and do as we were told after that Adam fellow was tempted.” 

      Darius continued to laugh aloud until the persistence of Selby’s sadness overwhelmed him. “Enough, Sy, my head is already killing me.” With deep longing to go to her and ease her loneliness, Darius sat on the side of his large king-sized bed.

      “Selby Maison leaves me no choice. I can wait no longer. I must go to her when she falls asleep and finally make sure she is my eternal mate. Once our souls and hearts merge into one, then this insatiable curse of loneliness will go away.”

      “At least for you and her,” Sy stated, his anger fleeing as quickly as it appeared. “Darius, if this is true love and she is your mate…once you make love to her you may have no need of me. This will leave me completely alone since I have yet to find a female or male human playmate to tryst with in this city.” His long, pale hair fell forward over his shoulders as he lowered his gaze.

      Darius reached out, grabbed at Sylus’s hand, and pulled him to sit beside him on the bed. “There is no need for that, Sy.” 

      His fingers trailed down Sy’s temple; tenderly he traced the lines of his masculine cheekbone and square jaw, caressing stray strands of hair so pale in pigment it appeared white. 

      ”Darius the Dark” and ”Sylus the Fair“ they had been called as they teamed together in their human appearance, utilizing the cunning strength of the Satyr. 

      In their days of glory, they reigned in the arena of the coliseum and brought the citizens of Rome to their feet. Orgies of the flesh flowed like wine and debauchery was normal. Once word got out that a human could gain immortality from a Satyr’s sperm, they took full advantage of the misinterpretation.

      In truth, only the females chosen by the gods received immortality from the Satyr’s sperm nectar.

      Sylus was his life partner and for centuries this man had been his only friend, his constant brother, and his unselfish lover. Darius would not add physical isolation to the emotional loneliness that already burdened their hearts.

      “You will not walk alone, Sylus. I am here for you and always will be. If it’s true that Selby Maison is my mate, I will become faithful only to her. She, however, is not bound by our restrictions and she will have both of us.”

      “It won’t be the same.” Sylus reached up and stroked one of Darius’s curved horns. He received an immediate reaction as Darius’s noble cock unfurled from the fur-laden bottom half of his body.

      “No, Sy, it will be better, for I will no longer have this cursed sense of loneliness and we shall make sure you are entertained.” He teasingly nuzzled his companion.

      Darius gasped as Sylus wrapped his large hand around his member; the tips of his thumb barely touched his middle finger and the more he stroked, the further apart his fingers separated to accommodate its girth.

      “You are already speaking about her as a ‘we’ so you are already one with her and I am on the outside looking in with envious eyes.”

      Darius unbuttoned Sy’s silk shirt and placed wet kisses upon his broad muscular chest, allowing his long tongue to swirl a wide, flat trail to his small salmon-colored nips. 

      He pulled away and placed a soft kiss to his lips as he pushed the shirt off his wide shoulders. 

      “Sylus, you are my erastes, lover. Sex is not what binds us. It’s the companionship and all of our history together.” His _expression was passionately intense; he placed a loving kiss to his lips. “Trust me, all will be well. I don’t even know if Selby will accept me for who I am. I know I must try and if she is the one, I cannot lose her.”

      Sylus watched Darius’s muscles playing beneath his skin as he pulled his trousers from his slim hips, leaving him naked. Before his pants hit the ground, he shifted into his true form, his lower body completely shadowed with a layer of silken white hair, except for the long phallus that became alive in his lover’s hand.

      Darius knew to make this last time as a one-on-one sexual session with his friend a special time for the both of them. He wanted Sy to be happy for him and to be a part of the new beginning that would come into their lives with the addition of the woman he had waited centuries for. 

      Darius knew that after living as long as they had, life had become comfortably habitual and making changes difficult to accept. But Darius couldn’t help but see this as a good change.

      Darius wanted Selby to be a part of their world. He trusted that she would have enough love for his withered soul and Sylus’s jaded heart.

      He felt his body raging and he wanted nothing more than to take Sylus without thought or tenderness. He knew his companion could relate to passion and aggression. It was this newfound sense of patience and tenderness he was gradually inheriting from his bond with Selby that was causing Sy to feel insecure.

      There was no time like the present. Darius decided to allow Sylus to experience first-hand the glorious sense of fulfillment Selby brought into his life. He reached out to Selby. She had finally cried herself into a deep sleep and he knew that she would be waiting for him to come to her in her dreams. This night would be different; he would use his mental bond to both of them and bring them all together.

      “I want you to completely merge with me, Sylus, so that you may know Selby as I know her.” 

      “She was upset just moments ago, are you sure she will welcome an intrusion on your dream time together?” Sylus’s gaze drifted the length of his body. “Besides, weren’t we in the middle of something?”

      Darius wasn’t fooled; he knew Sylus was trying to put off the inevitable. His companion never liked giving up complete control of his senses as required for this merge to succeed.

      Taking a deep breath, looking deeply into his wary brown eyes, he said, “If for some reason you and Selby do not get along, I will break the fusion and allow you to withdraw.”

      Sy cleared his throat, composure firmly in place. “I will open myself to her completely and trust you to release me from her if she becomes distraught by my presence.”

      “Of course, I would never do anything to make you or Selby uncomfortable.” His voice was overpowering, generous, and soothing as he completed his mental link to Selby.

      He managed to hold on to Selby as he felt Sylus tense from the unfamiliar feminine invasion. Darius knew he was requesting much of Sylus. The link between a destined Satyr and Nymph female created a life-force of overwhelming uninhibited emotions. To another Satyr, the feeling would be almost unbearable. 

      “Relax, Sy and close your eyes. Allow her to explore your body through me. Yield to me and feel her touch through my fingers.”

      Darius sighed with relief the moment he felt Sylus give himself over completely. He became a dream observer and allowed Selby’s spiritual essence to use his flesh as her own.

      ***

      Sylus could discern Selby’s compassionate heart and hesitant touch in the masculine fingertips that caressed his heated flesh. 

      Fingers trailed lightly down his sides and around his hips. Imagining that she was in the room with them, it became real for him. With eyes closed, he gave a shudder and quivering exhalation of breath as fingers took hold of his hardened penis, gripping it very firmly just above the glands.

      Sy released a moan on the first upward stroke of the shaft. He arched against the continuous motion and hissed between clenched teeth when the pleasuring hand reached the sensitive head of his cock and twisted slightly.

      The up, down, and twist motion continued until he thought he would go mad as he reached for his ejaculation.

      Sy grunted his protest as the hand paused just when he was about to tumble into the vortex of no return. A gasp of surprise caused the muscles in his washboard abs to tighten. Full, searching lips suckled the round head of his cock while the flickering tip of a moist tongue teased the opening slit of its head.

      He opened his long, muscular thighs wider and accepted the intense pleasure of hands and lips paying homage to his huge erection. Gently-applied pressure to his scrotum caused the muscles around his ass orifice to constrict and his toes to curl into the mattress. A deep longing for more of this somewhat gentle form of lovemaking seized his senses and he felt a tear escaped from behind his tightly-closed eyelids. 

      Sylus de Gauls felt the tightness of his heart unfurl as he gave way to his longing for the gentle touch of a woman. Secretly, he envied Darius’s good fortune in finding his mate and could only be thankful that she accepted his role in their lives.

      ***

      Darius removed his wet mouth from Sy’s cock, tasting the pre-cum on his lips. He wiped the stringy thickness away with his finger and used it to circle the dark hole, allowing his lubricated finger to penetrate and massage. 

      He and Selby were one as his lips returned to the administration of passionate care to Sylus’s penis. Through this connection, he allowed her to feel what he felt, to touch and have her way with Sylus. Darius’s heart swelled because Selby was a tender lover and not only loved with her body, but her heart. He could only love her more for being so accepting of his male companion. 

      His fingers continued penetrating Sy’s anus, manipulating and encouraging his rectal muscles to relax and accept the intrusion. Joy and sheer pleasure radiated from Sylus’s handsome face.

      Darius knew that not only had Selby won his heart and soul, she had won acceptance and an open hand of guardianship from his life partner.