The Wolf Esprit: Lykanos Chronicles 3
Chapter Fifty

How does one describe the sensation of being free from harm while never feeling more afraid?

I walked through the city arm in arm with Guccia, followed by her servants, feeling we somehow floated. I felt naked to be apart from Duccio’s protection, which I’d worn like a heavy coat for so long I’d forgotten what it felt like to be without it.

The city of Venice was more than I was prepared to understand. Its buildings sang a strange melody of Moorish and gothic influences, each crafted with stunning precision and beauty, all rising above the streets of seawater dotted by small boats instead of wheeled carriages. What might be wild and untamed elsewhere was gilded to perfection here. It espoused a unique beauty I might have fallen in love with had my mind not been so distracted.

Walking by Guccia’s side, I couldn’t shake the alien sensation of jealousy. This arrangement of escorting the woman my lover had cast me aside for made no sense.

It wasn’t that, of course. Duccio hadn’t even laid eyes on her yet. And Adelchi had made the choice of marriage for him. I nevertheless saw her as the harbinger of doom, one I forced myself to smile at and thank to near pantomime effect. Each time my injured emotions flooded to the forefront of my mind, Guccia took notice and asked if I was all right. To each query, I smiled and told her this magical place had overwhelmed me, which seemed to satisfy her.

To her credit, Guccia did far more than I could’ve expected to apologize for her unintended insult. She dragged me to the finest shops in the city, places with goods only wealthy, fashionable ladies might even know of. It was another reason I felt like I was going mad. My consolation prize for the death of my love affair was a princess who lavished affection and baubles upon me.

“You’ll be my cavalieri servanti when I’m married,” she smirked as we left her favorite jeweler. I wore a stunning emerald ring on my finger, chosen and placed there by Guccia to brand me as her own. She quickly made me her newest ornament, happy to fall into step as if we’d been best friends all our lives. “I’ll rely on you to escort me everywhere to escape your uncle.”

When I returned to the Doge’s Palace door, I found Duccio seated and waiting in the apartment where he had left me.

“You were with her?” he asked, his brow tensing incredulously. From my mind, he took the image of Guccia’s lovely face filled with peals of girlish laughter. No doubt, he also took the rest of my emotions that swirled between jealousy and delight.

“She arrived looking for you a moment after you left me here alone,” I said, the last words tinged with resentment. “She came to tell you she’ll have nothing to do with you or your marriage aims.”

“She has no say in the matter,” Duccio answered with a disregarding tone. “What did you tell her?”

“About you? About us?” I goaded him. “Not much, really. Your favorite pipe tobacco. Your penchant for crimson velvet and long hot baths. I attempted to charm her on your behalf with my witty banter and dazzling good looks. Realizing how ill-equipped I was for that performance, she took me out shopping to console me.”

Duccio stared at me as if I were drunk. A look of astonished disgust sharpened the fine lines of his eyes.

“Have you gone mad?” he whispered.

“Possibly,” I nodded. “I certainly felt mad while floating through the watery streets with your fiancee. Is that how this is to go, then? I’ll take her during the days, and you’ll have her at night?”

“Is this a game to you?”

“I was just going to ask you the same,” I answered. “What’s your play here? Are we to hide our relationship in plain sight? From your new father? Somehow from your wife? I suppose that’ll be easier for you. If she catches on, one swift penetration will distract her. Calm her nerves, right?”

“It’s not like you to be vulgar.”

“I apologize if my concern bothers you.”

“No, I like it,” Duccio said, rising from his chair to approach me. “Perhaps that’s what you need, a swift penetration to calm your nerves.”

I grunted with disgust and turned away, tugging at my jacket buttons to undress. I was unprepared when Duccio reached to tear the panel off me in one violent rip. The movement caused me to stumble back, but he steadied me by the neck.

“What are you doing?” I asked, the question coming without thought as he maneuvered me roughly down to my knees.

“Take me in your mouth,” he said, knocking my hat from my head with a quick swipe.

I looked up at him with outrage, my anger growing as the beginning of a smirk took his face.

“Must I discipline you? Do as you’re told,” Duccio said, stepping forward.

I moved back from him with an angry push against his upper leg.

Bending over calmly, he all but whispered, his smirk growing, “I said, do as you’re told.”

Gently, he slapped my face. He did not mean it to harm me, only to focus my attention, but I reached for my cheek all the same. I was wholly unprepared for the humiliation and stared back at Duccio in shock. With greater force, Duccio slapped my other cheek. Still, it was only shocking, not painful.

“When I give you a command, you’ll answer me, ‘Yes, sir.’”

From his mind, I sensed he was playing with me, that his actions didn’t mirror my anger, but I couldn’t believe he would do such a thing.

Once more, he slapped my face. “That’s yes, sir.”

Again, I did not answer.

Duccio sighed with disappointment as I reached again to cover my face, but then his eyes fell on the emerald ring I wore.

“Where’d you get that?”

I didn’t answer him, but the images of my memory informed him. He saw the table in the jeweler’s private room, covered by trays inlaid with velvet and displaying the most exquisite men’s rings I’d ever seen. Duccio no doubt felt my elation as Guccia slipped the ring on my finger and told me I’d be her knight servant when she was married. It delighted me when she explained I’d be the one to escort her to the opera and parties and private shops like the one in which we sat. Despite my hesitation, her sweetness had won me over at that moment, and I felt something akin to love for her; the emotion mingled with my heartbreak and jealousy.

Darkness fell over Duccio’s eyes. He took me by the hair and dragged me several feet. Lifting me by my neck as I scrambled, he shoved me over the side of the sofa and pushed my face down into the seat. I moved instinctively to get my bearings, but he ripped open the back of my breeches to expose me. Duccio grabbed my hands and held them behind my back when I tried to move away. He pulled the ring off my finger and flung it across the room.

“You think you can make me jealous?”

Duccio released me only long enough to unfasten his breeches, then seized my hands again to stop me from moving away.

“You think I’d let that bitch claim you for her own? Is this what you want to hear me say? That you’re mine?”

“Please stop,” I managed to say, though different words came from another part of my mind. My wolf was awake and stirred beneath my skin.

“Stupid faggot,” Duccio muttered. “That would be the worst decision of your life.”

From his mind, I felt a cool sensation flood me. Just as the Viscount du Chastain and his bishop had silenced my wolf in Dijon. The faculty numbed and quieted, falling from my control altogether.

Duccio spat on me several times, rubbing his cock against my cheeks to harden and lubricate himself.

“This must be what you want,” he said, kicking my feet aside to spread me open.

He pushed to penetrate me, but I didn’t relax to accommodate him.

“Come now, boy, you know how this goes. You’re an old pro by now. You could teach lessons in a brothel.”

Again, he pushed, but I still didn’t relax.

“Don’t be stupid, now. You know I’m coming in either way. Don’t make me tear you open.”

Afraid, I exhaled and let him inside me. Tears occluded my vision, and I closed them. No part of it was gentle, and I struggled to open myself, making the pain searing.

“There you go,” Duccio whispered as he thrust again and again, pulling out only to spit on his cock for more lubrication.

Everything about the moment felt strange, as alien as this foreign city. Duccio had changed into someone else. Obscenities poured from his mouth as he thrust into me without love or tenderness. It wasn’t even the passion of lust. Nothing came from him but anger and cruelty.

When he finally exhausted himself inside me, and his rage settled, Duccio reached down to take hold of my neck and raised me to him.

“Fine, I’ll say it then,” he growled in my ear, his hand firmly around my throat, cock still throbbing inside me. “You belong to me and me alone.”