The Wolf Esprit: Lykanos Chronicles 3
Chapter Twenty-One

“We wait for the full moon. It’s less than a week away,” Maximillian said. It was the only thing he offered my impatience while he waited for Gabrielle to join him on a hunt. I couldn’t come with either of them this evening because they’d soon take their wolf form, and I couldn’t hope to keep up with their flight.

Each day that passed since Gabrielle’s promise to enact the transformation made me more eager for the event. It gave me the first inkling of what it might be like one day to live without the slightest urgency. A week was nothing of a wait for beings as old as they. And Maximillian remained adamant that my wolf’s first release must happen on the night of a full moon.

“But why?”

“Would it satisfy you if I said no other reason than tradition?” he asked.

“Of course not,” I answered. “I’m ready now. I’ve never been more prepared.”

“My father insisted each of his children must be born to everlasting life on a night when the Goddess was in her full bloom and strength.”

“The Goddess?”

“Father grew up honoring different gods and traditions than those of today. And his progenitors grew up with different gods themselves. He would be the first to tell you that such things are meaningless unless you want them to have meaning in your heart. It filled him with supreme joy to call upon the Goddess and beg for her strength and blessings upon his children. He never believed the moon was a being.”

“Then why?”

“Father studied the heavens with his instruments long before today’s astronomers. He observed the moon and learned everything his wolf’s eyes could see.”

I waited for him to tell me what he saw, stepping closer to draw the answer from him.

“It’s nothing, Esprit,” Maximillian whispered, “nothing so grand as a goddess whose divine mind focuses to affect the people of this world. It’s an orb out of countless that roams through eternity, just as the Earth does. Father suspected its composition was of little more than rock and metal. A simple satellite like any other encircling the neighboring planets.”

I looked up at the brilliant night sky that pulsed with the sounds of those nightingales, cuckoos, and crickets. I’d known so little about astronomy when I arrived, but I’d spent a full afternoon with Gabrielle learning the basics. The names of the planets, how they moved to orbit the sun, a star like any of the countless pins of light in the night sky, but so close to our world that it lit us up like a thousand torches when we came in view of it.

You’re ready, Max?

Gabrielle’s silent voice came as she emerged from a servant’s door dressed the part.

“Can I not even walk with you across the moat until you’re off?”

She kissed my cheek.

“Good night, mon fils,” Gabrielle said, and in moments they’d slipped out through a side door by the main gate.

With a disappointed sigh, I looked again at the sky to see the waxing moon, now shining well over the high courtyard walls.

A little less than a week, I thought to myself.

I caught a whiff of tobacco smoke on the warm night breeze. It didn’t occur to me someone would be awake and nearby at midnight. The other two wouldn’t slip out in plain view.

My eyes caught sight of an orange spark from my periphery. A man drew on a rolled leaf and released a puff of smoke that swirled on the light wind that blew through the courtyard. He stood in a nook in the stables, staring at me without a word.

I meant to retreat, but before I could turn, I heard his voice.

“Chevalier,” his smoky tenor said, just loud enough for me to hear.

I stepped toward him across the courtyard, recognizing who it must be. In the glow of the few torches still lit at the base of the fortress tower, Tumas’ face became recognizable.

He lifted his rolled tobacco to offer me a drag.

I looked around us with an involuntary sweep to make sure we were alone, still confused by how he could’ve slipped their detection.

The smoke burned as it drew it in, but settled with a strange, delicious flavor that slipped into every muscle to relax me and focus my mind.

“Why did His Lordship and the Baroness leave?”

I managed to exhale without choking.

“A private matter. They’ll return well before the house wakens.”

I took another drag, staring at what I could see of his eyes in the dim light. He seemed to watch me with the same interest, though I wasn’t sure if my mind played tricks on me.

I took a step forward to hand back his tobacco. Without reaching to receive it, Tumas looked to my right at the door only a few feet from us. It was slightly ajar, and when I caught his eyes again, he stepped toward it and held the door open as if to invite me in.

Even then, I didn’t trust my senses and rejected the gesture as my misunderstanding. I took another drag of the tobacco and let it slip from my fingers to the stone pavement of the courtyard. After holding the smoke in my lungs to let the sublime heat fill me, I released it and stepped forward to accept his invitation.

I saw little in the small room I entered. Stopping in place, I expected Tumas to light a lantern for us. But the door closed behind me, shutting out all but the dimmest light. I said nothing, now unsure of my footing in the little space, waiting in the stillness for any change.

He stepped from the door, and I turned to face him. Only a foot from me, I said nothing, feeling the radiant warmth of his body and the delicious scent of tobacco on his breath when he exhaled.

Nothing happened for several moments in the quiet stillness between us but the pounding in my ears from my heart. He was waiting for me to start, I realized. I was the young master in this man’s mind, and I would be the one who must begin this moment between us.

I stepped forward to bring my body to his. My face lingered for the briefest moment before I felt his lips touch mine. From the crook of my back, his hand pulled my hips to his. If I’d produced any reasonable thought, it made no difference. My body came alive of its own will, and the moment’s urgency took control of everything.

Tumas slipped his tongue in my mouth, an act that took me by surprise, and I struggled to keep up with him, so unprepared for the indescribable sensation. My cock stiffened almost violently, and I managed a clumsy shift to accommodate it before pressing my hips into him. He reached between my legs to feel me, and I thought I would release in my breeches at the sublime sensation of being handled.

I released a moan, and Tumas stopped and placed his hand over my mouth.

“Shhh,” he whispered in my ear.

Catching my breath, I gave an involuntary nod—one he could never have seen. I felt his breath and lips on my neck and his stubble on my skin. Nothing could feel more sublime.

He pulled at the buttons of my vest until they were free, then pushed it off my shoulders to the floor.

“Lift your arms,” he said, and he raised my shirt off and dropped it on the vest.

His tongue grazed my nipples into hard little nuggets of flesh, and I sighed sharply at the unexpected pleasure. The more he paid attention to me, the more I wanted to return the favor, but I couldn’t gather my wits at the moment. He was in charge of the event, and it was all I could do to keep my balance.

When he unfastened my breeches and drew my hard cock into his mouth, it all became too much for me. I somehow held my breath to keep from moaning, desperate to stay silent. Within seconds, my hips raced after the blinding sensation, and I shot my urgent load down his throat. It seemed the only plausible conclusion to this madness.

Tumas drew me by my wrist to his bed. The short, thin mattress barely fit us, but laying beside him, our bodies entangled as I calmed down from the climax, was as sublime as anything I’d know. He pulled my face to his lips and kissed me again. I tasted the strange bitterness of my seed on his tongue, and I chased after it, thrilled by the erotic feast. The flavor somehow made the entire act feel even more intimate and exposed—a small glimpse into the possibilities of this life, even while shrouded in darkness.

My mind raced, dazzled by the intensity of feeling that took me. I needed more of it, and I turned on the cot to reach between his legs. I found him soft, and he took me by the wrist to stop me.

“No,” he said under his breath, “touch me here.”

He rolled on his side and placed my hand on his bottom, forcing me to caress him before I squeezed his left cheek. His hips moved at the sensation as if delighted by the attention, and he released by hand to reach for my cock. It perplexed me how he wanted me to rub his cheeks when his hand on my manhood felt so much more sublime, but I was only too happy to play out this mutual affection.

Stiffened again, Tumas shifted his hips back to rub them against me, pushing at my erection as if the sensation were just as pleasurable for him. In moments, he’d unfastened his breaches, and my cock felt the soft warmth of his skin replace the rough fabric. I pulled at his torso to bring his body closer to mine, breathing in the scent of his hair as I buried my face in the crook of his neck.

Tumas took hold of my cock and did something I couldn’t fathom. He used it to penetrate himself. The sensation of entering him felt strange, and I couldn’t believe he meant to do such a thing. I thought it the most absurd, foul act.

“What are you doing?” I asked and pulled back to stop him. “Why would you do that? That’s disgusting.”

“Be quiet,” he whispered in anger. “The others will hear you.”

His quick reversal of his tone caught me unprepared. Confused, I rolled back and released a deep sigh, unsure of what either of us had just done.

Tumas went silent as if the moment had passed, regardless of the urgency I wanted to chase after again.

“My aunt and uncle wouldn’t care,” I whispered to calm him. “No one will question why I’m here with—”

“Are you mad? No one can know of this,” Tumas said, raising his voice a small fraction. He shifted at once to face me and brought his right hand to my throat. He placed his thumb on my windpipe and pressed, as if to show his resolve. The act took me by complete surprise. “I’d fucking kill you if someone found out.”

I went silent, unable to believe the sudden change in him.