“Do you know how beautiful you look in the moon?” he’d asked.
“My natural habitat.” Her expression had remained cold then. A layman would’ve thought the compliment lost on her, but it was nice to hear, even if she’d never admit it.
“Our natural habitat.” Aetius slipped a powerful arm around her buttocks and squeezed until the sensation was stimulating.
She moaned in surprise and dropped her mouth, refusing to indulge his lust. “You do get all worked up after a slaughter.”
Aetius took her in his arms and forced her back against the carriage wheels. Protruding spokes were uncomfortable and she wiggled for freedom, his strength keeping her pinned. His arms were like bulging tree stumps pressed against her shoulders as his mouth slathered her neckline with wet kisses.
Her mood was cold and disinterested, but she allowed him to continue without resistance. Elisabeth liked that Aetius cared enough about her to take what he wanted. She saw it as a seed planted. And that seed would grow into astonishing pleasure the next time she allowed him inside her.
The sloppy kisses soon grew tiresome and she shoved him with a dominant growl. When she felt like being conquered, she would foster the illusion that he was in charge. That was a delicate balance, though, because men were no fun once they’d been emasculated.
Aetius grinned, amused by her aggression.
“Once we are on the road,” she said, “perhaps we shall pass the time however you see fit.”
They loaded one of the carriages with burlap sacks that brimmed with looted riches. It was a shame that her pups had gone to war in Freywald to buy them the time to slip off like this. Whatever happened there would take attention off this robbery. The body count would be catastrophic, and plebian superstition would reign supreme afterward. No one would know for sure what happened, and that was always for the best. They’d blame God, wonder if they were being punished for something they had no control over, and spend the rest of their lives atoning in misery.
Aetius pulled open the door on the second carriage and groped Elisabeth again as he lifted her up and inside.
This escape had been planned and plotted: ramp up the children and see their journey to voracious creatures made complete. Freywald was to be their final test. Many would not survive it, but those who did would be forged into hardened predators that would stake their claims in the evening shadows.
It was also their opportunity to make a clean break. She’d deprived her frustrated lover of fleshy pleasures throughout the last month of meticulous planning. Six estates sacked, wealth removed with precision, but every bit of their attention in between heists had been focused on the pups. Raising their confidence and then fortifying their capabilities.
She’d felt guilty about withholding her body, but got off on Aetius’ desperation: the hopefulness that flashed whenever she bounced her hips, or happened to glance his way with only a hint of suggestion in her eye. Aetius was starved, nearly crazed, and could think of nothing else.
Elisabeth liked that. So much that she’d allowed him to bathe her one evening. As she rose from the piping hot and spiced water, her eyes caught his bulge. Weakness penetrated her. The constant wolf sitting in darkness urged her to take that gratification. Instinct drove her to it. The need to be sated grew like his cock.
But Elisabeth wouldn’t.
It was more fun this way, especially as his anger and frustration increased. To wield that much power over someone was not something she took lightly.
You are mine, she thought while watching him climb into the carriage. He slipped an arm around her shoulder, an innocent gesture that became a firm caress. His muscles eased hers after two months of road-weary tension.
She shut her eyes and placed her head on his shoulder. His lips fell over them, kissing her lids with gentle puckers.
She turned upward and placed two small kisses on his neck, and then savored the silence.
Outside, two of their cubs feasted on a banquet of drivers and passengers. The two children they had come to like the most. Those who could be trusted in matters beyond satisfying their animal instincts. Claude and Jean were their names, and they were fine additions to Alina’s unsanctioned army.
Elisabeth and Aetius always enjoyed eating mixed company: withered and tired buggy drivers, and the wealthy lords and ladies traveling beneath them. The quality of their flesh and innards ranged, but everyone died the same.
Once their bellies were full, they regressed and cooled off in the roadside lake, turning Claude and Jean loose on the leftovers.
The cubs were only now finishing their meals and returning to the road as naked young men. They were covered in blood that was somehow blacker than the evening around them.
Elisabeth made it a point to turn the other way, ignoring their flopping manhood. Not out of respect for Aetius, but to deny them the satisfaction.
They will lie and say they had me anyway.
The young ones dressed in whichever spare clothes could be scavenged from the luggage boxes. Then they climbed atop the wagons and started them off.
Her army was behind them, part of her past, and she was glad for it. Elisabeth was never much for following orders, and even less for giving them. The cubs were Alina’s now, servants of chaos. It was better that way. If they happened to live as long as she had, they’d have their own opportunities to grow tired of such things.
Elisabeth had considered sacking more estates, including Freywald, but stashed her bloodlust for the sake of the pups. They wouldn’t have any fun out here if there remained no one to terrorize.
“Will you miss it?” Aetius asked after the carriages had been rolling for some time.
“I never wanted to be a leader.” That was true. She knew it was probably different for him, a Roman centurion taken by wolf bite during a barbarian hunt. The sole survivor of that attack, he’d crawled on his knees back to a legion encampment, forever changed by the animal’s kiss.
For someone like that, who fought in the Midnight War alongside Alina and the first vestiges of the varcolac, battling a Church-led inquisition so secretive that it’d been stricken from history books, it was easier to understand why a life of regimen was a difficult thing to kick.
Elisabeth couldn’t understand why he wasn’t more compelled to settle down beside her, and that bothered her when she allowed her mind to dwell on it.
“You know,” she said and traced the lines of his hardened stomach with two of her fingers. “I could not ask you to leave everything you value behind.”
“There is one thing I value.” Aetius put a gentle finger on her cheek and lifted it to his mouth with a soft press.
“Why do I sense disappointment in you, then?”
“We killed many and turned a few. Our legacy is intact for the immediate future, and the queen inherits a faithful army of pups on behalf of us. They will serve her every word gratefully. As long as my future holds you, what else do I care? Why would I be disappointed?”
She cocked an eyebrow and shuffled across the coach to the opposite seat, studying his face for an answer to that rather cryptic statement. When she couldn’t find one, she asked, “What do you mean?”
“I mean whatever is to come of us, huntress.”
“And what will come of us? Build a home and live out our days while the world changes a hundred times?”
“That thought had occurred to me.”
The carriage continued along the winding mountain pass that broke them free of the ‘Holy Roman Empire’ as she considered this. The huntress was an idea, as predictable as any over-performed duty. If she had the ability to age, she would’ve written it off as a young woman’s game. Even now, the conceit remained accurate. Those in other corners of the world wielded the mantle just as well.
But they were not the first.
As if that mattered. It was a distinction without pride. All that said about Elisabeth was that she’d been at this a long time. All that said was that Elisabeth had more reason to want
to step away.
Aetius took her foot and placed it in his lap, rubbing the sole. “I have a surprise for you.”
She didn’t answer, only tilted her head back to enjoy his caress.
“Once we are back home, Claude will depart us to carry out a very special assignment.”
A wide grin spread across her face. She loved surprises. There were so few of them these days.
He lifted her toes to his mouth and kissed each one before closing his lips around them, sucking. It made her giggle and she tugged it free, offering a playful kick to his chin.
Elisabeth couldn’t fight her swollen smile. She dogged him for details but he would say nothing more. Her grin curved, making her cheeks pop. Her tongue fell out in a wolf’s pant. She caught herself but didn’t retract the smile. In all her years, this might’ve been the most thoughtful thing anyone had done for her.
The only thoughtful thing.
It made her feel so good that she refused to taint the moment with superfluous speech or additional questions. Her eyes held his and the smile faded, replaced by something more.
Hunger.
Aetius sensed it too, lunging across the way and kissing her, tearing at her robe and massaging her breasts.
She felt the change beneath her bones but pushed it off like the first tremors of orgasm. It wasn’t always easy to suppress the wolf, but it was worth the effort.
Aetius tugged at his own clothes, kissing and blowing on her nipples while his fingers gave gentle squeezes. He growled as a dark mane spread across his chest, then rippled up his back like porcupine needles.
Elisabeth curled her legs around his naked body; the sensation of his vibrating and shifting bones heightened her pleasure. She flexed her thighs in acceptance, but squeezed his arms and whispered in his ear to discourage the change entirely.
“You,” she said. “Not the wolf.”
“It is both me.”
“Like this,” she said.
Both wolves wanted to come out and play, but she kept hers leashed, gnashing her teeth and scraping them back and forth to keep the animal down. Aetius trembled and groaned, treading between pleasure and pain as a human on the verge. Her flesh tingled beneath his hot breath and wet licks.
Aetius stood hunched inside the coach, so large his shoulders seemed to extend from one wall to the other. His dark and swirling eyes burned with controlled lust.
This was going to hurt, but how he loved having her this way.
And this was all for him.
His teeth were sharper in the moment, and his jaws came down on her shoulder, tearing her. Her nails dug into the skin behind his stretching, pulsing head, screaming out as he slipped inside. She was moist enough to take him, but cried like a little girl as he thrust forward. A blood rain fell from her shoulder, painting her breasts red.
The wolf lapped it like water.
He was right, even as a human, he took her like an animal.
Her eyes swelled and tears ran down her temples, every thrust sending crippling pain through her. Each became easier to bear until the pain was suddenly pleasure.
She ruffled his cropped hair and pulled him closer, moving her hips to match his rhythm as much as she could stand.
Maybe he’s more in charge than I thought.
When he took her to orgasm and kept going, she decided that she didn’t care.
And it was all the stuff of memories now.
The morning sun hadn’t yet risen when Elisabeth was snapped from them. She tried again to encourage the wolf’s return but her muscles only sputtered. Alina had been right. She couldn’t depend on the animal for this.
It was impossible to combat three men with a dulled blade. She relied on the wolf for these things and knew little about survival otherwise.
Taking on the familiar one and his followers meant that her body would only be wrecked once more, and maybe worse, if she couldn’t change.
In the distance, they emerged from the mine and she stole a sigh of relief. She’d been so discouraged by her inability to get at her wolf that she hadn’t realized the magic around here had faded. No more charms or wards, and no lingering threat from the depths below. They were unlikely to come back this way, but she stood her ground, holding her breath as they marched in line and without words, disappearing down a stone-laid trail.
They’d be easy to find.
Come on, she thought and tried the wolf again.
Her will echoed, but the wolf didn’t hear it.
Defeated, Elisabeth reached the cave’s mouth and paused.
She felt worse about her chances. If they could defeat black magic, they were more dangerous than she wanted to admit.
Her eyes dropped to the dagger in her hand. It was so dull it wouldn’t cut wet cheese.
“Bastard,” she said and took a step inside to see what could be salvaged.
The Village of the Moon
Garrick ordered them to stop just before dusk, and even then, no one felt like speaking.
The forest pushed in on them from all sides as they made camp and waited for first light.
“No longer concerned that Raven is nipping at our heels?” Timothy said. He folded his legs in the dirt, cleaning his blunderbuss’ barrel with a bristly rod.
“That’s my only concern,” Garrick said. “So ready yourselves. We’re taking shifts.”
Sebastian volunteered for first watch. He needed rest, but the possibility of sleep was tenuous. Not because of his throbbing shoulder, which continued to ache and burn with relentlessness, but because he was scared of meeting Tulcea there. He saw bursts of her whenever he closed his eyes; flashes of a nightmare that startled him like thunder in the sky.
Timothy offered the use of his blunderbuss for night’s watch. Sebastian took it and circled the encampment. Without long lines of sight, the kid’s scattergun was preferable to his flintlock pistols. He hoped he wouldn’t need it at all, listening with envy to snoring men and inquisitive owls.
Sometime later, Timothy rose and took point. Sebastian dropped onto his bedroll, eager for the last few swigs of gin. Blacking out from exhaustion was the way to go. If he dreamed then, he wasn’t likely to recall it.
You have no power over me.
That was a lie. A piece of him remained excited to see her. Longed for her. Tulcea didn’t indulge his reverie, though. Sebastian imagined her tiny frame glowing hot by torchlight. Recalled her small breasts and hard nipples gliding against his chest. Savored the memory of her intoxicating scent.
And the talons on her feet.
Don’t think about that.
“Lower your weapons.” Timothy’s order came on full-tilt. Sebastian lunged upright at the sound. His shoulder screamed out as agitated nerves protested the unexpected movement. He was more disoriented than he realized at first, wondering how long he’d managed to sleep.
Two men stood at the forest’s edge.
Timothy held them in place, brandishing his weapon and stabbing it forward every so often to sell his seriousness.
Sebastian drew his flintlocks and rushed to join him, gnawing on his cheek to quell the beating pain.
The strangers wore nondescript tatters of clothing and their faces were bruised and bloodied. These weren’t hard men, but survivors. Harmless.
“We are merely passing through.” The stranger’s breath was tortured. “Neither of us would be foolish enough to engage the likes of you.”
They brandished farmer’s weapons: wood axes dripping with fresh blood. Their expressions were haunted, decidedly not the scowls of highwaymen.
Of that, Sebastian was certain.
“Where are you coming from?” Garrick stepped from the shadows. His six-shooter flashed against the unsteady lantern glow. “I believe you when you say that you mean us no harm, but that does not explain those.”
“We ran into trouble, these were all we could find.”
“What trouble?” Sebastian said. “Where?”
“You follow this road through the fo
rest, you’ll find out soon enough.”
“I’d rather hear it from you,” Garrick said.
The more talkative of the two strangers swallowed, throwing his friend a sideways glance. Sebastian read it as despair.
“Back east,” he said, “caught a bunch of looters inside my family tomb. We got them before they got us.”
“Try again,” Garrick said.
The strangers shifted like children caught in a lie.
“And know that if I do not believe you this time, I may come to believe that you do intend us harm.”
“It’s not like that…”
“Good,” Garrick said. “Tell me what it is like, because you’re not happening past a family tomb in the middle of the night. In those rags. A man lives the way you do, looks hard and worn like you do, he’s got more problems than someone breaking into his ancestral crypt.”
“Okay, suppose it was us doing the breaking and entering…”
“I buy that more,” Garrick said.
“We’re not evil men, not by a long shot, but these lands are wilting. Families back home depend on us, you know.”
“Something wrong with Constanta?”
“Yes, they caught us thieving there already.”
“Fugitives, then. The puzzle pieces snap into place. Yet, you still neglect to mention why those run red.”
“You already heard the truth where our axes are concerned.”
“Amidst your desperation, you thought it best to visit the old family plot to pay your respects?” Garrick’s gun cocked in disbelief.
“No, we were breaking in…as a last resort. I am nothing if not ashamed of our actions. But our families…tell me, why should jewelry adorn the dead when our living sons and daughters starve? Once we were inside, we found them…”
There was silence then, as if they were supposed to know what them signified.
“They had yellow eyes,” the second stranger said. “The smallest girl reached for me like it was a game of hide and seek. I thought my eyes were playing tricks on me before I heard the laughing…”
DEVIL’S ROW Page 11
