Werewulf Journals 4: Sated Pleasures (16 page)

He covered her hands with his, found hers cold under his grasp. “I do. I swear I do!”

She snatched her hands from under his and backed away across the mattress. “If you really loved me you’d have given me a chance to prove I’d matured, wasn’t still so shallow I’d judge you by appearances. Instead, you didn’t trust me enough to be honest with me.”

He slumped, acknowledging the truth of her accusations. “I’m so sorry.”

She gaped at him in disbelief. “You’re sorry!”

“Please forgive me, Kaila --”

“You’re sorry? By that, would you mean the, I’ve-got-a-footlong-fissure-in-my-chest-where-my-heart-used-to-be-and-you-want-to-put-a-Band-Aid-on-it kind of sorry?”

It was his turn to flinch.

Her gaze turned hard. “And just what the hell was that out in the office -- you telling me not to hide my body from you when you were doing that exact thing with me? Double standard, much?” She sneered.

He couldn’t but agree with her. “Yes.”

She burst into tears, and it wasn’t dainty or ladylike. Her pain was primal and raw.

Beholding it made him sick at heart. Her anguish ripped at him like steel barbs imbedded in his flesh. Wanting to comfort her, Pavel reached for her. When she flinched back, shaking her head, he froze in midgesture. Fisting his hands, he let them drop to his sides. His entire body ached. He needed to hold her so badly, wanted to fill his empty arms with her soft round curves, but he’d lost that privilege.

Pavel wanted to howl. If anyone else had been responsible for hurting her like this, causing her to cry such agonized tears, he would’ve had their guts for garters. That he alone was the culprit, the reason for her sadness was almost more than he could bear.

94 Camille Anthony

Rickard was right. For all his high-sounding words, he was nothing but a cowardly low-life bastard. It was time to stop protecting himself and start putting Kaila first.

Unable to face her, seeing her rejection mirrored on her face, he moved and stood at the foot of the bed, turned away from her.

“You deserve to know the truth, the whole truth. I murdered my father.”

He heard her gasp, heard the mattress springs squeaking as she plopped down. The rustling of the covers told him she’d settled under the blankets. “You fought him in a fair challenge fight. That’s not murder.”

Pavel started to turn, stopped himself. Taking a deep breath, he let it out in a rush of air. “Mother Moon, I’m scared to death sharing this with you, Kaila. I can only get through it if you let me do so without interruption.” He hated hearing the shakiness in his voice.

He waited in vain for an answer. “Well…?”

“What do you mean, well? Make up your mind. Do you want me to talk or not? Never mind, just get on with the story.”

At her snippy tone, the tightness in Pavel’s chest loosened up. He was actually glad to hear it, for it meant she was regaining some of her normal spirited behavior. With renewed determination to win her at any cost, he closed his eyes and picked up the long buried details of his past.

“In the wulf society, there are three levels of challenges. The lowest, a challenge for position in the pack, is rarely deadly. The second in magnitude is the honor challenge. A wulf that has offered insult, or a mate found cheating, could be subject to this type of duel.

This challenge also is rarely to the death, usually ending with first blood spilled. Accidents happen, so I cannot tell you that these two types of challenges never end with someone dying. What I can tell you is that a challenge for leadership, a hostile takeover of the Alpha position, always ends in the death of one of the combatants.” He paused. “Are you with me so far?”

A heavy sigh sounded behind him. “Far as I can tell, you haven’t gone anywhere yet.

I’ve never before known someone who likes to beat around the bush so much.”

His shoulders shook with suppressed laughter. Even in the mist of angst and anxiety, she brought him that relief. He refused to contemplate the arid desert his life would become without her in it. Now, more so than ever, he renewed his vow to see that never happened.

“Unlike the two lesser challenges, the battle for leadership is bound about with tradition and rules. So stylized has the contest become that a participant could actually win the fight yet lose his life if it is determined he has broken the law governing the fight. The entire pack would feel justified in joining to rip apart the offender. The foremost law of a leadership challenge is the stricture that the entire fight takes place with both wulves wearing fur form. At no time is either wulf to assume the battle, or mid-form. That form is Werewulf Journals 4: Sated Pleasures

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for enemies, for executions, and we consider its use a dishonorable alternative to fighting in our natural four-legged bodies.”

“Gee, Pavel, I’m finding this history lesson fascinating, but could you speed it up? I don’t have much time. I found a new gray hair just the other day.”

This time he chuckled aloud. “What did I say about interruptions?”

“You’ll have to refresh my memory,” she drawled. “That conversation happened so long ago.”

Pavel rejoiced. Thankfully, his Kaila couldn’t hold a grudge. Those were jokes she lobbed at him, though served with a side dish of her sharp acerbic wit. “I’ll try to hurry.”

“Huh!” She sounded exasperated. “Let’s see if I can help you cut to the chase. You obviously broke one or more of the dueling rules. That’s why you say you murdered your father.”

Pavel snorted at her oversimplification of the facts. “It was a little worse than breaking the rules. I never issued challenge, just caught him unawares and killed him.”

The bedding rustled and he couldn’t resist a quick peek over his shoulder. Kaila was sitting up on her knees, the expression in her light brown eyes one of shocked speculation, as if she couldn’t believe what she’d heard. “Wanna run that by me again?”

“I’d barely turned sixteen, hadn’t developed much muscle, and definitely was nowhere near my father’s weight category.” Pavel began recounting the events that had changed his life, his voice droning on in level tones, his emotions distanced by the passage of years. “I never could have taken him in a head-on fight. I was only able to ambush him because he had taken pains to make sure I was far away from the remote cave where he planned to deliver Rickard to his uncle, Doryian.”

The bleak memory of a bound Rickard -- face wan, pale eyes wild with terror --

sparked an echo of the blazing conflagration, that vast anger he’d felt so long ago, and a growl rumbled in his throat. “Traitors!” he snarled. “They were oath breakers and destroyers of dens who would kill a father and his innocent boy to rule a kingdom!”

“Whoa, calm down!” Kaila’s worried voice reached through the mists of memory, pulled him back into the now.

Pavel opened his eyes, but he could still see the oddly warm, multichambered cave he and Rickard had dubbed their fortress, comfortingly playing make-believe soldiers all through the frozen winter months. He could still hear the men talking, preparing to snuff out a life dear to him, a life he had vowed to protect.

“Destiny hinges on such little things sometimes, things as small as a wooden yo-yo.

He’d left it behind the day before, you see, and I went back for it, though he told me not to bother. I knew how much he loved the silly thing.”

“That was sweet of you, Pavel.”

96 Camille Anthony

Pavel cocked his head, taking a deep breath, stared at her without really focusing, deeply immersed in that another time. “Strange, I remember Doryian saying something to that effect.” After years of suppressing the painful events, he marveled at how easily it all came back.

“It was fun sneaking away from home. I ran to the cave cluster, keeping to the woods, downwind from the sentries at the edges of pack land. Instead of simply going through the front entry, I decided to climb down what we called the blowhole; a smooth narrow fissure in the rock leading down several hundred feet to open out in a small chamber at the back of the second biggest chamber. Rickard and I had planned to climb it together, but I couldn’t resist the opportunity of going first to navigate it so I could have bragging rights.

“As luck, or providence would have it, the room served as a funnel for the entire labyrinth of interlocking caves, sort of a natural exhaust system. The wind blew up in the direction of the blowhole, gathering scents from all areas of the cave, masking my own scent.

I smelled them before I saw them. At first, I wasn’t alarmed. What had I to fear from my father? Grand Duke Doryian was also familiar to me, if not well liked. I had started down the corridor to greet them when I heard the duke saying, ‘How sweet of you. I thank you for delivering this wonderful gift, my Yanosh. You are my sweet, sweet lover.’

“There was a something in his voice that made me uncomfortable, and here was another strange thing” -- Pavel stopped and thought about how he wanted to word this -- “I knew my father was in the room because his scent was strong in my nostrils, but I could not hear him. By that, I mean his mental presence was missing. I could not access him with my thoughts. That in itself was enough to make me cautious and so I crept along the walls, keeping in the shadows and staying downwind.

“A gust of wind passed, carrying the mingled odors of sex, male wulf, and…blood! I was tempted to doubt my nose, but my father had instilled within me the truth that scent does not lie. There was a natural blind, a crevice in the rock between the second and first chambers. I slipped in, going to my knees to peek around the corner. I needn’t have worried; it would have taken an earthquake to get their attention.

“My sire was crouching on his haunches in fur form. The man standing over him was the Prince’s brother, Grand Duke Doryian Orloffberg, twin brother to our ruler. He was stroking my father’s thick ruff, patting him and praising him like one would a dog that’d brought back the stick. Running his hands up and down my sire’s flanks, fingers brushing along the outside of his balls, he kept passing his thumb across the head of my father’s cock.

The hugely distended organ protruded out of its sheath, the red swollen tip already leaking fluid.

“The Duke kept chanting, ‘Does doggy want a bone? Doggy want a big thick bone?’

while he unfastened his pants and pulled out his own limp cock. At least, it was limp until, with a needy whine, my father sat up and buried his muzzle in the other male’s crotch, mouthing and licking his flaccid member until it rose and stiffened. Once the duke’s dick Werewulf Journals 4: Sated Pleasures

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was hard, he snapped his fingers and my sire turned like a well-trained pup, presenting his flanks. Doryian grabbed Yanosh’s tail, used it to yank his hindquarters up, and proceeded to butt-fuck the Alpha Prime of Pack Drestovia.”

“Yuck! Watching your father take it up the ass.” She shuddered. “Damn, I bet that was a visual from hell.”

Pavel blinked at Kaila’s exclamation, thankful she’d recalled him to the present. He sucked in a lungful of much needed air. “I believe that pretty accurately describes my sentiments, once I overcame my first response of shock. It wasn’t the anal sex. Our race has too few females for male/male sex not to be prevalent. I think mostly my negative reaction came from seeing a male that had always been the strong, controlling force in my life allowing anyone to treat him so cavalierly.

“The second shock was seeing him in that situation at all. As you know, bonded wulves are faithful, never straying from their mates. That my father was here with Doryian Orloffberg, sexually responsive to him could only mean one thing.

“I was young and naïve. I wanted my parents to be in love. Realizing Doryian Orloffberg was my father’s true-bond mate meant having to accept that my mother was not.

I wanted to hate Doryian for that, but I couldn’t. Finding one’s true-bond mate is a rare thing, but when it happens, the connection is instantaneous and unbreakable.”

He gazed into Kaila’s eyes, feeling vulnerable as he opened his soul to her, begged her to see him. “The term ‘true-bond mate’ is simply another way of saying soul mate. You are my soul mate Kaila, and if you are honest, you’ll admit that I am yours.”

He watched as the expression on her face grew distant and remote. His spirits fell, though he refused to give up hope. She just needed more time to reconcile her anger with her love. He’d give her what he could, but he was fast running out of narrative and time.

“At that point, I had no concerns, other than feeling disappointed that adults had found our secret hideaway. It was as I was making my stealthy way back to the far chambers and the second, secret exit that I heard the words that chilled my heart.

“‘You have done well, my love. With Draven taken care of, we can now tie off loose ends. I want to watch you rape the boy,’ Doryian was saying. I snuck back in time to see him brandishing a pistol. ‘I’m going to blow his brains out once you finish, so do try to give him an orgasm, darling. He ought to have at least one before he dies.’

“My sire shifted to skin form and told him, ‘I can’t do him in fur. You’re the only one I want that way.’

“Doryian’s heavy cologne and the overwhelming aroma of their mingled lusts and emissions had cloaked Rickard’s presence. I had scented him all along, but discounted what my nose tried to tell me because over the long months of playing fortress we’d layered our scent throughout the caverns. It was also probably why my sire hadn’t registered my actual presence.

98 Camille Anthony

“I think I went a little crazy. My father was a large male, larger than I. His organ was thicker and longer than mine is now. He knew he was too big to take Rickard anally, knew his cock would rip my friend inside. He didn’t care because they were going to kill him anyway.

“I don’t know if I’d have acted the same if they hadn’t threatened my oath brother, but I couldn’t let them hurt Rickard. I’d sworn an oath to him and I was faithful to my word, unlike my sire. It made me sick inside to know the wulf who’d taught me honor had broken oath with Rickard’s father, his overlord.”