by _Anthology
Karen stared at him, unable -- unwilling -- to believe what she was hearing. But then the demon snapped his fingers and a small metal band appeared around her wrist.
Just like the one Iris wore.
The Black Violin
By Cindy Rosenthal I was never much of a fan of classical music. I liked it well enough as background when someone was trying to seduce me, or while we were having sex, but I'd get bored sitting in a concert hall. But my last boyfriend was studying music composition at the conservatory and because it was important to him, I let him convince me to go to the graduate concert with him.
If only I'd known. I enjoyed the first performance, a piece for classical guitar, but I was dozing off by the time the violinist took the stage. He carried a black violin, something I'd never seen before. I couldn't tell if the instrument was stained or painted or if the wood itself was black, but it sucked at the light in a way that drew the eye more than if it had reflected the spotlights back to us. A friend of mine, a former lover who was an artist, would have called it negative space.
The violinist looked to be in his mid-twenties, dressed in black pants and a black shirt with a mandarin collar. He had a beautiful face, a face I associated with Romantic poets, sensitive and sensual, dark hair curling across his forehead and past his ears. He bowed to us, lifted the black violin to his shoulder and began to play, and I sat up in my seat and sucked in a breath and my fingers tightened around my boyfriend's hand. He squeezed back, probably pleased that I was enjoying the concert that he'd dragged me to.
But it wasn't really joy that I felt. The violinist was striking, no question, and a part of my brain filed him away for future fantasies, but it was the music that reached out and grabbed me. I could feel the power in his wild playing, power that stirred something deeply buried in me. My cock twitched and when I closed my eyes all I could see were men in obscene poses, hands and mouths and tongues and asses and hard, eager cocks -- myself, my boyfriend, strangers. I bit my lip. My boyfriend whispered something to me, but I couldn't hear the words, I could only feel his breath in my ear. My head was full of fierce, wild music, more so than anything one instrument should be able to produce, otherworldly music that should not have been capable of filling an entire concert hall.
It was power and passion, and suddenly I understood the stories of the sirens, how men could be so enchanted by a disembodied voice that they would sail into the rocks. I opened my eyes to watch the stage; my boyfriend and I were close enough that I could almost make out the violinist's expression. Then the music changed, slowed down into something more sensual, untamed, but not as ferocious. The violinist was as beautiful and otherworldly as his song and he swayed with the music as his bow stroked back and forth across the strings and his other hand moved up and down the neck of the violin. I'd never heard or seen anything so overwhelmingly erotic.
My boyfriend let go of my hand to stroke my thigh and while my body responded -- I could feel my heart racing, could hear my shallow breaths -- my mind was somewhere else. The violin had begun to climb back towards the almost savage music of before. My boyfriend's fingers crept higher up my leg. The music reached a crescendo. I trembled with an incipient climax.
And then there was silence. From the stage, from the audience. The violinist bowed, apparently unperturbed by the lack of reaction, and walked off the stage. The audience seemed to draw a collective breath and come back to itself and then applause filled the hall, loud enough to bring down the ceiling. I stayed in my seat, afraid to move, and stared at the heavy velvet curtains on either side of the stage. I watched them shake slightly in the wake of all that thunderous applause. I waited for the violinist to bring his black violin back onstage, waited for an encore, another piece, something, anything. But there was nothing.
A chamber music quartet followed and after them a pianist, but I couldn't pay attention to any of it. I closed my eyes again, hearing that passionate violin, seeing the violinist absorbed in his playing.
That night I fucked my boyfriend like a man possessed. I couldn't explain to him what had gotten into me any more than I could explain to myself why I'd been so drawn to the violinist at the concert. I could hear the music almost beyond my reach, teasing me and driving me, and after a while it was more important than anything else. My boyfriend was no longer enough for me. He humored me for a while and then grew annoyed and said he felt abandoned and we broke up.
I don't miss him. I know I should at least feel guilty for driving him away, but he was a composer, not a musician. He didn't play. He couldn't help me. He hadn't even gotten a program at the concert, which is absurd considering how important those concerts were to him, so I never learned the violinist's name. I suspect my boyfriend threw the program away because he was jealous of the impression the violinist had left on me.
Sometimes I feel as if my life has spun out of my control, as if everything I do is now lacking. For a time I haunted the conservatory, trying to catch a glimpse of the violinist. I cornered a professor and described him, but all I got was a vaguely threatened look. I bought all the CDs I could find that contained violin solos played by pretty dark-haired young men, but I couldn't listen to any of them more than once. None of them sounded like him, or pulled the same response out of me that he did.
Now, because searching for it is fruitless, I try to drown the sound of that violin in dance clubs, spend my nights gyrating to electronica, to techno, to songs that are more beat than melody. I listen to DJs constructing their set lists out of man-made music, I dance under hot lights to throbbing bass lines and repetitive beats, I fill my head with music without a soul. But I can still hear it late at night or early in the morning, a haunting melody following me home.
I keep looking for the violinist, keep listening for him. I don't know what I'll do or say when I find him, but I will find him, because he's the only person who can make me myself again. He put this music in my head with his demonic violin and only he can take it out.
Crimson Moon
By Sara Bell Nuncio Patrin grasped two handfuls of his auburn hair and pulled, hard. "Damnit, you aren't even listening to me. Can't you see how serious this is?" His green eyes pleaded with Kyran's brown ones. "You can't just sit idly by while Elias carries out his plan."
Kyran sank onto the sofa in his father's study. Correction. It was his study, now. Morgan Durand's death meant that all his worldly possessions now belonged to his son, including Morgan's position as Alpha of Clan Thorn. It didn't matter that Kyran loathed the very thought of leading his pack. The job was his, like it or not.
"What would you have me do, Nuncio? Until Elias makes an open play for the throne, my hands are tied. I can't call a man out for something he hasn't done." Nuncio sat down on the couch next to him, not at all intimidated by the difference in their sizes. At six-four, Kyran was a full foot taller and a great deal more muscular than Nuncio, but they'd been friends too long for Nuncio to be afraid to speak his mind. Again, he all but begged Kyran to listen to reason.
"The Luzernes are a powerful family. You know that as well as I do. As the oldest Luzerne son, Elias has the automatic support of at least fifty men. Add to that the number of supporters he could conceivably draw from the rest of the clan, and you've got the makings of a coup on your hands."
Kyran closed his eyes and leaned his head against the back of the sofa, his shaggy, white-blond hair fanning out against the red velvet. "I'm not without my own supporters." Even as he said it, he hoped his voice gave away none of his doubts.
"No, but there are some who question your ability to lead because-" "Because I'm not going to take a female and whelp out a litter to carry on the Durand line." Kyran cut him off and finished the sentence, then opened his eyes and turned his head towards Nuncio. "Not everyone can be a breeder."
Nuncio actually smiled at that. "You make being a heterosexual sound like a bad thing." "Of course not. You know how much I adore Cynthia and your children." He smiled when he thought of Nuncio's sweet wife and the t
wo adorable little terrors they'd brought into the world, but the smile quickly faded, and he sighed. "I just don't believe a man's sexuality has anything to do with his ability to rule."
"And that's exactly what you have to show the rest of the clan if you hope to hold your place as Alpha. You can start by quashing this rebellion before it starts."
Kyran stretched his legs out in front of himself. "To do that, I would have to set my followers against Elias and his band of usurpers. What you're suggesting would start a civil war."
"Not necessarily." Nuncio's eyes fairly sparkled and Kyran could tell he had a plan. "Not if you issue a blood challenge to Elias, first."
Kyran sat up straight, then. "Are you out of your mind?"
Nuncio didn't seem offended by the question. "There's no way Elias could best you in wolven combat." Kyran stood and began to pace back and forth across the Oriental rug that ran the length of the small room. "The problem is, Elias knows he can't beat me hand-to-hand. He never could, even when we were kids in training together. If he's as bent on taking over Clan Thorn as you say, he'll put a price on my head the minute the challenge is put forth." When Nuncio didn't respond, Kyran pinched the bridge of his twice-broken nose and prayed for patience. "Think about it for a moment. If my grasp on the clan is really so tenuous, Elias will have no trouble infiltrating even the ranks of my own guards. When that happens, I'm as good as dead."
Kyran should have known Nuncio had an answer for that, too. "That's why we have to bring in someone who will watch your back. An enforcer who won't take sides as long as the price is right."
"And just where do you suppose I find one of these impartial bodyguards?"
Nuncio rose to his feet and crossed to where Kyran stood. Clapping him on the shoulder, Nuncio said, "That, my friend, is simple. We're going to bring in a rogue."
*** Nuncio really was crazy. There was no other explanation for it. Rogues -- wolves who'd been banished from their clans -- by their very natures were unpredictable, dangerous creatures. Some of them were even criminals. How could Nuncio expect him to bring someone like that into the fold? That was the reason Clan Thorn lived in an isolated spot just west of the Appalachian Mountains to begin with. Safety.
But as he stood in front of the pack leaders that evening and gave his first accounting as Clan Thorn's Alpha, Kyran began to understand Nuncio's reasoning. The select looks of doubt and the subtle taste of hostility in the air of the council chambers had Kyran weighing his options. It was what happened at the end of the meeting, though, that made up his mind.
As soon as Kyran finished assuring the other twenty-four members of the clan council that he was well and truly ready to take over in his father's stead, Elias Luzerne stood. Kyran had been waiting for the man to make a statement, and Elias didn't disappoint him. "Excellency," his sneering tone made the title sound like an insult. "I have some questions for you, at your convenience, of course."
Though Elias was no more than two years older than Kyran's own thirty, his much scarred face made him seem far older. He wasn't ugly. The marks actually gave him a look of rugged distinction, as did the long, black braid that ran the length of his back and stood out in stark contrast to his pale skin. His amber eyes followed Kyran's every move, waiting for him to reply.
Kyran nodded once. "Go ahead." Elias propped his wiry frame against the rosewood conference table. "I was wondering how you plan to procure heirs to lead this pack into the next generation. It's a well known fact your taste in bed partners is a bit... unusual."
His second in command Nuncio started to speak, but Kyran held up his hand for silence. Once assured he had Nuncio's compliance, Kyran turned back to face Elias, looking down on him from his position at the lectern. "I believe the word you're looking for is 'gay.' It's not exactly a new concept. And as for heirs, I have plenty of time to decide how best to handle the issue, but I would like to bring the council's attention to the fact that more than one of our past Alphas has been unable to produce natural offspring. I believe most of those leaders chose to adopt." He grimaced. "God knows the last clan war produced a great enough number of orphans."
A couple of the other councilors nodded their heads, but Elias was far from finished. "That may be, but when taking orphans, one never really knows what one will get. Make the wrong choice of successors and Clan Thorn will be doomed." Kyran knew what was coming and Elias was all too happy to get to the point. "However, if you were to say... abdicate the Alpha position to someone who's already proven himself capable of having children, the clan's future would stabilize. Especially if your choice was someone from a long established family with solid bloodlines."
Kyran stretched his arms across the lectern and looked Elias in the eye. "Know someone like that, do you?"
Elias braced his hands on the conference table and leaned as far toward Kyran as he could without blocking any of the other councilors' views. Kyran guessed he wanted them all to see his next move. "As a matter of fact, I do. Having four sons of my own and coming from a noble heritage, I believe myself to be the best choice."
"No."
Elias snapped back as if slapped. "What did you say?"
"I think you heard me, but just in case, I'll be happy to repeat it. No. I'm not abdicating my position, not to you or anyone else." A couple of the councilors again nodded their approval, but most were simply watching the show with quiet reserve. Elias was too smart to challenge him, so he was trying to undermine Kyran's authority with the council instead. Kyran had to cut him off before that happened and there was only one way to do it. He cleared his throat and signed his own death warrant.
"Any man who questions my right to rule will be met with a blood challenge."
Elias didn't believe him. Kyran could see it written on his face. "You? Issue a blood challenge? I thought all you were interested in was fucking men, not fighting them."
Amelia, an older lady and the only female on the council, put her hand over her mouth at Elias’ coarse reference to Kyran's sexual preferences, but Kyran ignored her and kept his eyes on his rival. "You don't have to worry about me being after your ass, Elias. Not to screw it, anyway. You're not my type." Nuncio and a few others laughed but quickly fell to silence as Kyran stepped away from the head of the table and came to a stop just in front of Elias. The other man went paper white as he realized what Kyran was about to do.
Kyran extended his right hand, allowing the change to come over just that part of himself. He winced as muscle and sinew shifted, but the pain ended as soon as a single claw appeared at the tip of his index finger. Kyran yanked the white shirt he was wearing open and used the claw to make a shallow slash just over his heart. Retracting the claw, Kyran dipped the thumb of the same hand into the small trail of blood and then lifted it, pressing a scarlet print into Elias’ forehead. Kyran stepped back to admire his handiwork and said, "For demeaning the authority of your leader and insulting the integrity of this council, Elias Luzerne, I hereby issue against you a blood challenge, to be fought against the light of the next crimson moon."
Elias staggered back. "But that's in less than three days."
Kyran nodded. "I guess you should have thought of that before you opened your mouth. Of course, you can always decline." Declining a blood challenge was unheard of. Elias would be branded a coward, and every member of his family would suffer for his disgrace. Elias’ eyes flashed at the suggestion. "Don't worry about me, Lord Durand. I'll be there. The only one who might not show up is you."
The threat was said softly so that only Kyran could hear. Not that he was surprised. He'd told Nuncio this would happen. Elias was going to do all in his power to see that Kyran didn't live long enough to fight him. Now Kyran was locked in. He had no choice but to go along with Nuncio's scheme. With a tight nod to Elias, Kyran turned and walked back to the lectern, aware that every eye in the room was on him. Reclaiming his place at the fore of the council, Kyran addressed the room as a whole. "Gentlemen," he smiled at Amelia, "and lady, a challenge has been is
sued. I propose to adjourn this meeting until such time as the challenge is finished and the matter is settled. Any objections?"
No one said a word. Kyran took that as answer enough. "Until we meet again, then." He tipped his head in a formal show of respect and turned towards the exit.
Nuncio was right behind him. "That was incredible. I swear to God, I thought Elias was about to piss his pants."
"Elias wasn't the only one, my friend." Kyran took a deep breath as he headed outside towards the fresh air he so desperately needed. "I was close to that, myself. It isn't every day a man forfeits his life." Nuncio rolled his eyes as they stepped into the dark of evening, the cool October air swirling around them and trailing wispy tendrils of fog at their feet. "I'm telling you, if you approach this thing the right way, you can be kept safe."
"Meaning, I have to hire a rogue."
"Exactly."
"And of course, you just happen to have someone in mind." With his wolf's vision, Kyran could see the smile on Nuncio's face, even in the darkness. "As a matter of fact, I do, but my candidate is not just any rogue. This man is legendary. It's said he can put down ten men all by himself. And the best part is, he lives only three hours away, in a tiny village nestled in the mountains. I have directions already written out for you."
Kyran had to admit, he was intrigued. Not to mention desperate. And Nuncio had never let him down before. "Get them for me, then. I'll leave at first light."
Nuncio said, "You won't regret this, Kyran. I promise you that."
He prayed Nuncio was right.
*** Kyran steered his Chevy Silverado around a bend in the gravel road and found what he'd been looking for: a weathered wooden sign with the words "Camden Township" painted on in dark red letters, an arrow signaling passersby to take a rutted road to the right.
