Night of the Wolf Read Free Page A

they first create it, then encourage it until the obsessed and goaded male became a creature of his desires rather than the possessor of them? A creature of the woman who gratified him.
    He had encountered her in a dark wood, she who changed his mind about men. To his nose, the aromatic signals their bodies were giving off would have attracted him in preference to food.
    The men were clustered at the edge of the wood, and raw sexuality and violence hung about them like a thick mist. At the other end of the wood, the sacrificial victims were gathered. The dozen young girls, standing with the dark-robed priestesses, were grouped near a pile of smoldering logs. They were naked and their skins gleamed with oil. Some green herb had been thrown onto the fire and the women were dancing slowly, uncoordinatedly, in the thick fumes, half steam and half smoke, rising from the sputtering fire.
    The wolf knew the rite. He had seen it before. He also knew men fought among themselves for the privilege of joining the chase.
    The procedure was a simple one. When the rising moon’s tip touched the top of the standing stone, the girls would be driven into the grove. The men would follow. The girls were sixteen, at most, and all virgins. They would not be virgins when they emerged in the morning. Some would be weeping. All would be bleeding because if they didn’t bleed when entered, they would be flogged by the men until the blood came. And some, not a few, would be crowned with flowers and have strange smiles on their faces.
    The gray wolf found himself drawn into human shape by the powerful magic hanging over the grove. Every hair on his body had stood up like a cat’s. Then, as though drenched with icy water, he was a man, the spring night air cold against his skin. He gasped, shivered all over as the canine in him tried to shake off what felt to it like a waterfall of ice. He stood shivering violently, his eyes fixed on the women.
    The priestess who had been watching the moonrise shouted something to the group guarding the girls.
    He heard the slap of a switch on flesh. The girls milled near the fire like frightened mares; one screamed. They tossed their heads, long hair flying. The priestesses held long, flexible willow canes. The women twisted and turned, screaming, trying to escape the blows. But still they fought, refusing to enter the wood, less afraid of what, after all, amounted only to a switching rather than face what awaited in the darkness under the trees. It wasn’t until they saw the men coming full tilt across the meadow—charging silently, fists clenched, eyes wild—that they broke and ran.
    The one he’d chosen, a lithe, black-haired girl, flew through last year’s autumn leaves like a wounded deer. Fast as she was, he could have had her in seconds, but with the deliberate skill of a predator, he held back until they were deep in the grove, enmeshed in thick, black, velvet night. The only light from the stars, dense, brilliant, glowing dust everywhere the sky could be seen through the branches above.
    He caught her.
    She screamed.
    His wolf senses told him about a bed of ferns. He threw her down, knocking the wind out of her for a second.
    Not for a wolf was the savage penetration. She was already screeching and kicking, clawing at where she hoped his face was in the darkness. He wanted to smell, to touch, to taste, and, finally, to drink her substance. He buried his head at the most exciting spot his wolf’s brain could find. A place whose emanations outstripped all the rest. Her groin. He lapped vigorously. Her screams and struggles changed to something else. She lay still. He found structures not existing on wolves. Delve . . . the place was soft with a rich taste.
    She was kicking violently, but not at him. Something else here to suck. She gasped, moaned, laughed wildly, then howled, giving rent to such noises as he felt might shame a bitch in heat. Arching her body back with her buttocks pounding the ground.