“Kiss me first.”
“I’ve never kissed anyone as much as I’ve kissed you,” Crispin said, stretching out beside him, fitting their bodies together. When his cock slid against Gabriel’s, he closed his eyes for a moment, catching his breath. He was going to make this last.
“I like kissing,” Gabriel said, cupping his hand over Crispin’s buttock. “I’m going to kiss you all over.”
Crispin slipped his tongue between Gabriel’s parted lips. Soon they were clutching each other and panting.
“I have to stop,” Crispin said, his chest heaving against Gabriel’s. “I wanted to make it last.”
“Next time,” Gabriel promised. His hand circled gently on Crispin’s arse. “Do you want me to bring you off first?” When Crispin shook his head, he said, “Turn over for me, then.”
Crispin lay on his belly for Gabriel and felt safer than he had in months. He rested his head on his folded arms and closed his eyes as Gabriel kissed him between his shoulder blades, leaving a warm spot behind.
“Let’s try this pillow,” Gabriel said, arranging it beneath Crispin, then stroking the backs of his thighs. Crispin heard the metallic scrape of the tin’s lid being twisted off, then felt a warm, wet kiss pressed to the small of his back. Oiled hands stroked from there to the backs of his thighs, then eased into the crease of his arse.
Velvety sensation rushed up his spine; he shuddered, sighed and relaxed into Gabriel’s gently probing, stretching fingers until his skin thrummed like a plucked string. “That’s good,” he said. “Put some on your cock.”
“Do you want to turn over and watch?”
“Just hurry,” Crispin said, grinning into the sheet. He suddenly wanted to laugh. He did laugh when the head of Gabriel’s cock pressed inside him, until he ran out of breath.
“Deeper,” he said, breathing in, then out, relaxing himself to accommodate more.
Gabriel groaned as he slid farther inside. “Oh, Crispin, that’s lovely.”
“A little more.”
“There?”
A blast of focused pleasure shot through his nerves. “Yes. There. Please.”
Gabriel gripped his hips, bracing himself. “Hold on.”
Crispin didn’t have to fear discovery or rejection. He submerged his conscious mind in a sea of pleasure as Gabriel steadily rocked in and out of his body, inexorable as the tide. The pleasure surged and receded and slapped him to a near peak and receded again, with no pattern except that he never slid too far away to feel every fraction of Gabriel’s skin rubbing against his, inside and out.
Crispin dug his fingers into the mattress, trying to hold back the climax that jolted nearer with every thrust. Gabriel’s hand, slick with sweat and salve, landed on his back and massaged and scratched there, an added pleasure far enough from his cock and his arse that he felt stretched between the two, attenuated like metal being drawn into wire, the whole of him quivering, shuddering, desperate to snap.
He dug his hands into the mattress and shoved backward, in rough counterrhythm to Gabriel’s thrusts, once, twice, then he came so hard he thought his spine would break.
In the aftermath, Gabriel’s trembling arm locked around his belly. His cock was still hard, still buried deep inside. “All right?” he said huskily.
“Finish it,” Crispin gasped, pressing his hand over Gabriel’s and closing his eyes to savor every short, sharp thrust. It didn’t take long for Gabriel to come with a hoarse cry, his arm nearly crushing Crispin in the process.
Afterward, they lay on their backs, holding hands even though the bed forced their bodies to press together from shoulders to knees. Crispin was sweaty, sticky, sore and utterly happy. He said, “The best part is, we can have another bath.”
19
LUCILLA DROPPED TO THE GROUND AND CLOSED the lorry’s door behind her. She instantly missed the cab’s stuffy warmth. The woman driver, who spoke nothing but Flemish, gave her a cheery wave and roared away into the night.
However deserted, this was enemy territory. Shells burst some miles away, brief flashes swallowed by the vast dark. The ground shuddered, but it wasn’t as bad as they’d felt at the hospital. Lucilla tugged her farmer’s cap lower over her eyes and walked to a half-collapsed shed, where another of Pascal’s agents had left certain items for her use.
A canine corpse, meant to be exchanged for one of the werewolves, was the heaviest item, and luckily was fresh enough not to smell too much. It looked nothing like a wolf, but hopefully it would pass initial inspection after most of the flesh had been burned off. The blanket-wrapped corpse rested in, ironically, a dogcart, which also held a can of petrol, a prybar, a canteen, clothing and blankets. She already carried a filled match safe, buttoned safely into her trouser pocket, and a medical kit inside a shabby rucksack.
Pascal had also given her a pistol, and shown her how to load and fire, but she had little confidence that she would actually hit anything in the heat of the moment, not to mention that any shots fired would bring guards running. She touched the pistol’s smooth, cold surface inside the rucksack, remembering his arms around her, his front pressed to her back, his mustache brushing her ear as he murmured, “Relax, grip firmly but not tightly, and squeeze the trigger.” He’d sounded as if he was speaking of another activity entirely.
She shook off the memory. “All prepared for a life of crime,” she muttered. After checking her direction with a compass, she wrestled open the shed’s poorly hung door and hauled the dogcart outside. The stars provided little light, and the air was crystalline with cold.
“I’ll soon warm with exercise,” she told herself, and set out. The road roughly paralleled a set of unused train tracks for some distance. She would know Kauz’s secret laboratory by the configuration of its buildings; it ought to be the only such structure for miles. She only hoped she could recognize their layout in the dark, and find where the werewolves were being held. She couldn’t do anything about that now, so she restricted herself to putting one foot in front of the other and not stepping into any holes.
About a mile along, she heard the roar of a motor. She crouched low by the roadside, concealing her shape behind the bulk of the dogcart as the vehicle, an unmarked ambulance, drove by, too fast for the rutted road. As soon as its headlights were lost in the distance, she hurried in the direction from which the ambulance had come. She’d gotten a decent look, but that likely wouldn’t help her identify it later; ambulances, even motor ambulances, were as common near the front as fleas on a dog. She could only hope the closed rear of the ambulance hadn’t concealed a pair of werewolves.
She needn’t have worried about finding the laboratory. A half mile farther down the road, an electric spotlight beaming down from a pole nearly blinded her. It shone directly onto the muddy ruts left by a heavy vehicle, recently departed.
The dogcart would leave ruts, as well, easily seen. “Bugger,” she muttered, and wrestled the canine corpse to the ground, still wrapped in its blanket. She would have to drag it that way, and hope the blanket blurred the tracks. For now, she took only the pry bar, which could double as a weapon.
Skirting the edges of the bright light, she soon spied a path of footprints, several layers of them beaten into the mud. The path led nowhere. “Not much of a secret entrance,” she murmured, and cautiously approached. From the right angle, she could see a wooden trapdoor that presumably led to an underground area. The trapdoor looked heavy and awkward, possibly a problem for her strength alone and single pry bar. Also, the underground was more likely guarded, by humans or dogs or mechanical traps. She would scout out the aboveground facilities first so she would be able to report on them to Pascal.
The central of the three buildings had once been a station building for the defunct rail line. The windows were boarded, the door blocked by hammered-in strips of plywood. An open shed to one side smelled strongly of petrol and oil; greasy rags lay heaped on the ground near more ruts from tires. Lucilla took note of these, as potential additions to the fir
e she planned to set.
A walled toolshed stood behind, and in front of it, a bearded man with a rifle. A chill of fear and excitement flushed her spine. Carefully, she stepped back into the shed’s darkness and looked around for other guards. When she saw none, she focused on the man she’d spotted. The guard leaned back against the shed’s door, his shoulders slumped, his arms cradling the rifle against his belly. His head wasn’t quite upright. After some minutes, Lucilla concluded gleefully that he was dozing.
Quietly, she snuck back to her supplies. She’d had plenty of experience lately in emergency anesthetization. A bottle of ether and a cloth would serve. She took a slightly different path back toward the open shed where she’d hidden before. Once concealed in the darkness, she worked out the ether bottle’s cork with her teeth and poured a measured amount onto a folded cloth. She felt as calm as if she stood in an operating theater, with the same heightened awareness of all that surrounded her. When the cloth was soaked, she walked quickly to the guard and clamped the cloth firmly over his nose and mouth.
He didn’t wake fast enough to struggle, and soon his muscles went slack. Lucilla caught his weight, staggered, then dragged him a distance away before returning to the shed. She considered claiming his rifle, then decided against the extra weight and instead heaved it as far away as she could.
The toolshed’s door was held closed by a length of chain and a newish padlock. “Oh, ho,” she breathed, inching closer then, when she caught a whiff of familiar scent, even closer. It was hard to mistake the smell of ether, much more than she had just used. The whole shed must have been pumped full of it, which explained the rags stuffed into the gap between the door and the dirt.
The chain resisted her pry bar, until it occurred to her to attack the door’s hinges instead. Cheap and rusted, they yielded almost immediately, and she had to suppress a crow of triumph. She danced back out of the way as the door hung balanced for a moment, then fell to the mud with a soft thump.
The shed was dark inside, but she could make out a bulky shadow on the dirt floor. Tucking the pry bar into her belt, she went closer. A wolf. Its bound feet twitched, reassuring her that it was alive. Ashby, or Miss Claes?
It didn’t matter which, she couldn’t leave the wolf here. Even from here she could smell blood as well as ether. Also, given that the wolf captive was in a surface shed instead of safely below, it would not surprise her if the wolf had been left here for pickup by another ambulance, or perhaps the same one when it returned.
She needed to act quickly. First the wolf out of the shed and into the dogcart, ready for escape. Then the canine corpse into the shed, and the fire. If she had time, she would go below and see if she could locate the other wolf; if the ambulance, or any other vehicle, returned, then she would flee, and leave finding the other wolf to Pascal.
Once she’d dragged the wolf, whose reddish fur looked like Ashby’s, into the dogcart, she hurried back to the shed, dragging the blanket with the decoy corpse. The ether still in the air inside the shed would catch fire more effectively than petrol, and make the fire seem accidental, she hoped. She dug out her match safe and struck three matches on its rough surface before cautiously tossing them through the shed’s fallen door. The ether caught with a gusty noise, and she hurtled backward, laughing a little in shock, which soon turned to urgency as she realized the ongoing noise was an approaching motor.
“Bugger,” she gasped, and sprinted for the dogcart. She had to get Ashby to safety, and quickly.
Hot wires of pain stabbed Lucilla’s wrists and shoulders as she dragged the dogcart down a pitted farm path, her heels sinking deeply into the mud with every step and having to be wrenched free. Despite her gloves, her hands were blistered, and she’d no energy for cursing. She’d run through all her adrenaline from earlier. All she had left was endurance and fear that she and her burden wouldn’t reach the abandoned barn before dark.
Twenty steps more. Ten. Five. The barn’s door was barred. She dropped the dogcart’s poles and shook her hands, trying to return feeling. In the cart’s bed, the wolf stirred and whimpered, perhaps returning to consciousness. She couldn’t soothe him yet. She grasped the wide wooden bar and heaved. She had to throw her weight against the door to shove it open. Wincing, she seized the poles again, dragged the cart inside, and struggled with the door until it was firmly closed. A bar hung on the inside. She didn’t dare risk leaving the door alone. Nearly sobbing in frustration, she hoisted the bar into place and pounded it down with the heels of her hands. When she’d finished, she leaned against it for long moments, trembling from exertion. Assuming she had not just locked them into the wrong barn, all she had left to do was care for Ashby’s injuries and await rescue. She could surely manage those two simple things.
When she turned, the wolf was on his feet, head hanging low, his body swaying gently from side to side. His brushlike tail drooped. “Lie down,” she said. “You’re injured.”
She wasn’t sure if he hadn’t heard or if he ignored her. Dark streaks of dried blood looked like mud in his rufous pelage. More blood smeared his muzzle. He took one step, then another, his nails skidding on the wood when he began to slide down toward the open end of the dogcart. Lucilla broke his fall, throwing them both sideways to avoid the poles. She landed panting in stale, dusty straw, pinned down by a weighty mass of fur. Though she felt his breathing, she could not help but be reminded of the canine corpse she had dumped in Kauz’s laboratory shed, in place of Ashby, before setting it alight.
After a brief inspection of his limbs, the best she could manage from flat on her back, she shoved at his shoulder. “Off, you idiot,” she said. “You might have hurt yourself far worse doing that. Just like a man.” He rolled limply to the floor and she rose, brushing straw and fur from her coat and trousers with feeble hands. The wolf whimpered, then pinned his muzzle beneath his bloody paws, a bizarre parody of a man covering his face with his hands.
“Stay there,” she instructed. She staggered back to the dogcart and opened her rucksack of supplies.
She found her battery torch first. She set it to hand, as the barn, with its sparse, high windows, would grow dark more quickly than the outdoors. She needed to be able to see what she was doing. Next, she extracted a bottle of carbolic solution, some of the powder she used for wound dressings, salve and bandages. She hadn’t thought to bring a razor, which had been very foolish, as she’d known she might be treating an animal. Perhaps her surgical scissors would be enough. He’d scraped off some of his fur through struggling in his bonds, and that seemed to be the source of most of his injuries. She wasn’t sure about his mouth. He had likely been muzzled, but she also suspected he’d been struck.
She heard a sharp rustle behind her, then thrashing. “Stay still!” she commanded, and turned. The wolf spasmed, whimpered and abruptly began to change, his body twisting in the straw. “Damn it!” She fell to her knees beside him, but could do nothing, even while he whimpered continually and writhed. “Ashby, stop it! Stop! You’re hurting yourself!”
With a last tortured growl, his spine arched, and there in the straw lay a naked human man, his pale freckled skin scraped raw at the throat, wrists and ankles. His mustache didn’t hide that his mouth looked as if someone had repeatedly hit him. He coughed, a painful, ripping sound.
“Christ,” he said, his voice like broken glass. “Oh, Christ, that hurt.” He closed his eyes and turned his face away, his mouth working.
“Idiot,” Lucilla said, running her hands over him, ignoring his flinches. The wolf’s foreleg had been injured, she was sure, but Ashby’s looked less painful. Gently, she probed the bruising that remained. “Did you heal already?” When he didn’t answer, she gripped his shoulder. His skin felt cool. Shock wasn’t a surprising outcome. She’d been distracted by the miraculous change of wolf to man. She returned to the dogcart for the blankets. By the time she came back, he was shivering. “Ashby!” she said, chafing his hands. “Talk to me.”
“Changing helped,�
� he said. “Except you pay. Christ. Hurts. Thank you. Thank you. Thought I’d die there. Thank you.” He curled in on himself, his arms protecting his stomach.
“You’re welcome,” she said. “Hold still. I’d like to wrap up these scrapes. We’re safe here.”
“Where—”
“We’re waiting for rescue. Mr. Fournier is sending a motor—”
“Miss Claes,” Ashby said. “Is she—”
Lucilla said, “She wasn’t with you, but we were prepared for that possibility, we’re sure we know where she is. Major Fournier will find her and get her out.”
“She’s not dead,” Ashby said.
“No, not dead,” Lucilla reassured him. She wasn’t sure, but it was pointless to worry him just now, when they could do nothing. “Hold still,” she said. “This will sting.”
“You have no idea—ouch!—how funny that is.”
An hour later, Lucilla sat in the dogcart, arms wrapping her updrawn knees, while Ashby, in the clothing she’d brought, paced and swung his arms, occasionally stopping to bounce on the balls of his feet and stretch his neck. Though dressed as a farmer in trousers, loose shirt, vest and soft cap, he did not resemble a farmer in the least; he looked entirely too predatory for that. She said, “It will be some time yet, I think.”
“I can’t stand this,” he said. “The door being closed.”
“We could open it a bit. It was closed when we arrived.”
He shook his head. “Best not.” He trotted to the rear of the barn and rapidly climbed the ladder leading up into the hayloft. He came down again almost as swiftly. “Thought I smelled mice. They’ve been at the seed corn.”
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