He frowned. “Are we still playing games?”
“Cheer up, I’ve got good news for you.”
Gabriel straightened in his chair and leaned forward. “Don’t keep me on tender hooks. I know it gives you pleasure to see me suffer, but for once just give it to me straight.”
“You should really grow a sense of humor, Gabriel. Life is not all dark and without fun.”
He merely lifted an eyebrow, indicating he was out of patience.
“Fine, fine. To the news then. You’re not a full blooded vampire. I
tested your blood and it came back with -“
“What do you mean, not a full blooded vampire? Of course I’m a vampire.”
“On the surface, yes. But you have other genes in you too.”
“And what’s that got to do with my deformity?”
She smiled. “Everything.”
“And how would that be considered good news?”
“You’re a satyr, Gabriel, and that thing you’ve got is not a deformity. It’s a second penis.”
Gabriel jumped up from his chair. “What?”
“Just what I’m telling you.”
“You mean I’m some sort of beast – half man, half bull?” He tried to wrap his brain around the news.
“No. You’re talking about a minotaur. A satyr is a little different. A satyr is a mythical creature, fully man, but a highly sexual creature whose need for carnal pleasure has endowed him with a second appendage for double the pleasure so to speak,” the witch explained.
There was a soft chuckle in her voice.
Gabriel shook his head. “If you’re right in what you’re saying, then how the fuck do you explain that deformed thing? It looks nothing like a penis. Double the pleasure, my ass!” He turned away from her and heard how her chair scraped against the floor as she pushed it back and rose.
“Gabriel, listen. There’s a reason it doesn’t look like a penis.” She paused. “Yet.”
At her last word he turned. “Yet?”
She nodded. “A satyr’s second penis doesn’t develop immediately.”
Gabriel gave a mirthless laugh. Wasn’t it shock enough that he was some kind of beast? “Francine. Do you have any idea how old I am? I’ll tell you. I was thirty-three when I was turned, and I’ve been a vampire for over a hundred and fifty years. Do you know how old that makes my so-called second penis? I’d say that thing is a late bloomer. Are you telling me I have to wait another hundred and fifty years for it to turn into what it’s supposed to be?”
So he was still a freak. Well, at least now he had a name for it: satyr.
Now he was a half-vampire, half-satyr with a deformity. And she called that good news?
“No. I’d say your transformation is already starting. According to the legend, once a satyr meets his life mate, his genes go to work and change the growth. Haven’t you told me that you’ve already seen a change, as if it appears to be growing?”
He stared at her. “But it doesn’t look like a penis.”
“Because its final transformation only comes once you’ve had intercourse with your life mate for the first time. Within hours after that, it’ll turn into a fully functioning penis – hard-on and all.”
Gabriel took a step back. He’d had sex with Maya only a little over an hour ago. Could it be that something was already happening to him?
“What?” the witch asked.
“Maya and I, we -” Gabriel stopped himself. He couldn’t tell her.
This was too personal to reveal. But it appeared he didn’t have to say another word.
“Ah, I see. Well, then it’s just a matter of time.”
“Excuse me for a second,” Gabriel told her and turned around. He unbuttoned his jeans and pulled his zipper down, then pulled his boxers away from his body and stared at his groin. He couldn’t believe his own eyes. “Fuck!”
Francine shuffled behind him. “Can I see?”
He held out his arm to the side to prevent her from coming around him. “No!” His eyes glanced back at the place where his deformity had lived for the last nearly two centuries.
It was gone. In its stead was a beautifully formed perfect cock, slightly shorter and slimmer than his other one, but nevertheless as perfect. He pulled back the skin and revealed the purple head, the tiny hole in its tip indicating that it would be a fully functioning organ.
He quickly arranged the boxer shorts and closed his zipper before he turned to the witch and smiled for the first time since he’d entered her office. “Just like you said.”
She frowned a little. “You could have let me look at it. I’ve never seen a real satyr before.”
“As much as I appreciate your help, the answer is no.” The only person who would get to see him like that from now on would be Maya.
And he sure as hell hoped she liked what she saw.
“There’s something else you should know.”
“What is it?”
“Satyrs only take other Satyrs as life mates. Maya must be a satyr too, given that you and she had sex and it resulted in your second penis developing. I think it’s proof enough. It would explain an awful lot.”
Gabriel remembered Maya’s medical file. “She has two extra pairs of chromosomes.”
“Just like you. And her going into heat could have been a reaction to you. While a satyr female goes into heat several times a year, she does so more intensely and more often when she’s around a satyr male. And then of course there’s the fact that she drinks your blood.”
He felt overwhelmed with the knowledge that Francine imparted on him. “What of it?”
“Well, normally Satyrs don’t drink blood, but since you and Maya are also part Vampire, that’s natural. But what I’m thinking is that because you gave her your blood to complete the turning, her latent Satyr genes awoke and they instantly honed in on you as a source to sustain her.”
“Does that mean she’s dependent on me and that’s why she won’t drink human blood?”
Francine shook her head. “She could easily drink human blood and be sustained on it, but her Satyr
