Ragnarok A Playlist From Scorched Earth

Emrich


A/N: This is a prequel to the events of Ragnarok and the story of our hero Valentine. It contains sensitive *flashback* material involving Nazi Germany (hate to spoil that one but there you go...)

There is too much perfume on the air as we enter the Grand Ballroom and it is only through the conditioning of my mortal training that I am able to suppress my nausea. The distinguished guests unwittingly show us no mercy, the mill of warm bodies doused in –I take a long breath- …stale alcohol…citrus, Indian vetiver…orange-blossom and dark, heady Chypre… something vaguely faecal which I recognise as synthetic musk, poppies…all amplified by the heat of the wearer’s exertion. Something inside me growls and expands and I swallow hard to keep the grimace from my face.

At my side, Claudine is not so restrained, clapping a delicate hand over her mouth and nose, her pupils turned to pinpricks, too sensitive to the dazzling chandelier light. By contrast, Horst practically vibrates with excitement, his body not yet synchronised with the sharper sense of his wolf.

To these mortals he must appear a young man in his 30s, overwhelmed by the rare display of post-war decadence –the restored grand staircase, the salvaged gold-leaf and crystal ornaments.

To me he scents like a pup itching for its first hunt –a longing that needles my own and stirs a sympathetic response from my wolf. I yearn suddenly to feel moist earth churning beneath my paws instead of plush carpet and polished marble. To be graced by gentle moonlight instead of the merciless wash of artificial light, the eye watering glitter of polished cutlery.

I wonder if the paintings that adorn the wall alongside the buffet table are those salvaged from the Tate.

“Quite disgusting isn’t it, Emrich? We might suffocate,” Claudine says softly so that our mortal liaison –Avni- does not hear. The round little man strains to anyway, that much is clear from the sudden perk of his heartbeat. I make a noise of assent but do not speak. My grasp on English is embarrassingly simply even after all these years. It would not serve me well to encourage my companions to speak further anyway, it is my duty to see that we succeed and it will not sit well with my superiors if we fail and it is reported that we were overheard slandering our hosts.

Our liaison is a man nervous of our kind –a detail which annoys me. His fear is of course, not without reason. It is simply that those who assigned him to our little ambassadorial party are supposedly our greatest advocates, mortals who claim to be the foremost supporter of integration between our two races.

Claudine has managed to erase any traces of nausea from her visage although she still trembles from it. For one such as her the combined smells of spray-cologne, rancid sweat and pheromones must be agonising. I myself am not so old. The aroma of under arm sweat, of cooked food and fresh laundered table linens is not so much an assault on my senses as a mild irritant. That which plagues me is a far richer smell, which unlike Claudine, I am still quite vulnerable too. It is this older, more seductive scent that excites Horst, though he is still too young to place it, to separate it out from the other smells and know it for the thing which makes his skin crawl with need.

If Horst were half as old as I (and I am not even half as old as Claudine) than he would also be able to place the subtle smell of Claudine’s Heat, something which she has turned on at will to aid us in tonight’s grand purpose. This Heat which our females are –not without considerable practice- able to call even in their human form, is something which is tangible to mortals, although it slips past their conscious recognition to permeate a more base part of the brain. It works in much the same way as exuding hunting pheromones, something that many of us –including, it seems, my young companion- have no control over. Just as Claudine is able to consciously trigger her Heat for our benefit, youngsters such as Horst are unable to control the release of the specific pheromones that trigger the human adrenaline system. It is how I recognised the man who bit me and it’s how the guests will recognise us for what we are soon if Horst does not get a grip.

Indeed, a few guests who have come too close to us -as yet unannounced- newcomers out of curiosity have begun to have just such a response to Horst’s excitement. I focus on one older woman, most likely drawn by her fascination of Claudine’s blatant youth, her enviable fertility. She has not realised it yet but her pulse has begun to speed, her mouth becoming uncomfortably dry. She will soon be able to more accurately taste the rancidness of the champagne she has been drinking all night as adrenaline makes each of her five senses keen. Momentarily, her arms will begin to tremor as blood races to her extremities in a primal response to fight or flee. The primal response to a predator.

“Horst.”

Horst’s scent evaporates in an instant at the tone of my voice. The woman will never know what it is she came so close too. Well, perhaps she shall soon if we are given a formal introduction, an event which would be at once satisfying and enraging. You see, part of me longs for what our leader James calls “our coming out”. To stand in this monument to human decadence and waste, and be recognised and know that the mortal guests dare not do their hosts a dishonour in fleeing…

James’s writings had enflamed me back in my hometown where I wasted away in secrecy and crushing monotony. It was his fresh doctrines that brought me to Britain in the first place in support of the integration, only to realise that mischlings, bitten types like he and I, were not to be the benefactors of the movement but rather the soldiers, carrying out the drudge work for the true born erstlings. But in his teachings, James spoke of a unified front, of mischlings as spokespeople and erstlings as the cautionary tale –“see what centuries of separation and denial has wrought”.

James spoke covertly to us half-breeds. We would be the first wave. We would be the faces planted in the media as safe and normal. “The humans”, he said, “want to believe in a species capable of interbreeding, spared from infertility. We will give them our females.” He had drawn me close under his arm, his scent reassuring and familiar, like pack though I had never known one but his eyes had been on Claudine, naked and sensuous on our bed furs. We will lure them with the promise of mating our females…

And so that is Claudine’s purpose here tonight. In dove-grey organza ornamented with rubies she is exquisite, the sort of creature I would long for if I had a taste for women. Her dress has been cut so as to draw mortal eyes. It can only be that because us wolves have little to no appreciation for mortal clothes although the texture of some fabric is attractive to a few of us. Mortals will never understand the absolute lust that their fine, soft skin generates in us. It is such a cruelty that they cover it so often.

I again consider what it would mean to be announced. Perhaps yes, it would be a coming out, but there is also the matter of what capacity we are here.

For we are here as entertainment.

The function –advertised as a formal gala I believe- has been organised by the man James sent us to petition, Prime Minister Robert Wensley (and to some extent his detestable wife Ginger) as a sort of birthday party for their second son, Henry. Although we had originally been sent as ambassadors for the cause, somewhere along the way, after many meeting and conferences, of documents signed and political support guaranteed, we had become a novelty. Something exotic and dangerous to present to their spoilt offspring as a sign of personal wealth.

And it made we want to tear throats out.

In fact, when Ginger, her hungry eyes unashamedly fixed on Claudine’s plump breasts, had suggested we also make petition to her son at his 24th birthday party, my teeth had descended in my mouth on reflex and it was only Horst’s plaintive sound of anxiety that had brought me back to rationality. It had not occurred to me up until that moment, that James too was using us in a fashion. It had not been included in his writings that we might have to prostitute our women and make fools of ourselves. Perhaps I had been too romantic, thinking that there would be no consequences when in fact, if anything my mortal past would tell me the opposite…

“If you’ll follow me,” Avni prompts nervously.

As we walk I note that the majority of the guests seem to be middle-aged. Perhaps only half of them had a chance for children before they were poisoned and became barren. The women are dried-up and bitter, their faces twist with jealousy and want as Claudine walks past them, head held high. She looks like a goddess, our Claudine, the way the crowd parts around her.

Some eyes follow Horst and myself but not many. If there is any curiosity towards us it is because we have been forced to wear our uniforms. The erstlings wear their original clothes if they can. That is to say, they wear the rags they stumbled out of the snow in. Besides that they have been lucky in that they are not the pretty façade of the movement and need not dress at all. Horst and I are both mischlings of no rank so we do not wear any badges or stripes. The clothes carefully chosen for us are made of plain, black, serviceable fabric cut in stiff lines with undecorated epaulettes and high collars. We both wear our furs about our shoulders, not the barbaric full skins that the erstlings are fond of but small stoles much like those Victorian mortals once wore.

It is deeply secret of course, where these furs come from and somewhat amusing to listen to speculation about their origins. I once heard a man tell his friend that he knew them to come from the hides of enemy wolves we had fought in battle. That’s actually quite close to the truth about how the old ones got their ugly skins -eyes crudely-cut holes and tails barely attached. It is not so hard to picture one of the erstlings in their mortal form, naked and savage and skinning their kill with a primitive knife.

But our truth is far less romantic. Mischlings such as we must have a Turning -a night of first moon when the bones first realign and some fundamental change occurs in the guts and brain. Yes, it is quite painful. On the first moon, and only then, we yield a wolf skin upon transforming back, and if you are lucky enough to have the creature who bit you by your side to guide you in tradition, then they will show you how to take your own discarded hide and cut a piece from it to keep.

I stroke the plush blonde and white fur at my neck, shivering at the thrill of reassurance it sends me. Horst catches this out of the corner of his eye and grins, running a hand instinctively over his own ruddy-coloured pelt.

As the four of us approach the door to the antechamber some unseen cue is given and the music –something classical reworked with trance beats- is turned down til only the faintest throb of it remains. Our path takes us past the buffet trestle and ahead of me I see Claudine’s back stiffen as she likely scents the putrid food.

Avni steps forward to present out papers to the hired security at relative ease on either side of the great set of wooden doors. It occurs to me suddenly that if we are done the discourtesy of waiting I may very well start growling.

I am stilled by Claudine’s hand on my arm. She looks at me with sombre but decided eyes. Yes, she is saying to me with those sad green eyes, yes it is awful but I am willing, as must we all be, to take up the cause. I allow myself one last surge of anger –the thought of my companion forced to lie under the inept administrations of some human boy-child. And then my mortal training kicks in and I consciously remove any expression from my face. You have seen greater atrocities, I think to myself. In my mind there light snow, a child in tattered clothes, skin already turning blue where his thin arm reaches through the fence… “Bitte…Herr Hirsh …” Much greater.

The door opens and Horst has enough sense to squash his excitement down before the man with the earpiece at his right can take alarm. At any ends, it is Horst who will have to take action if things take a turn for the worse –it is his role. The creature that Horst is could very easily take out every single mortal in this room, given that the doors were strategically locked and the poor things weren’t able to flee.

The doors open in synchrony and there is a lull from the crowd who have gathered behind us to see the inner echelon of the party guests.

Claudine walks in front, she is after all, the gift, the one their eyes will be drawn to. I wonder if the spoilt mortal child will even stand by his parents’ reputation or if he will be intoxicated, lecherous, if we will see her dark nipples through the thin organza and throw himself on her lustily. It would not be the first time a mortal man has acted so revoltingly to one of our females.

In all actuality, Claudine will probably be the youngest woman he has ever seen. She wears the skin of a woman just past the losing of her innocence and her skin is golden from the Mediterranean sun where she was born, her hair a soft ash-blonde colour that falls suggestively down her bared back and curves around her supple, high-set breasts. He will see this and not the wolf, for that has always been mortal man’s mistake when confronted with our females. He will not see the pirate-girl she once was at eight years, feet scrambling for purchase on a blood-soaked deck as she chewed through the carotid of a French sailor.

The way Claudine tells it she was bitten by an intelligent creature who stalked her from brothel to brothel as she sought flesh to buy to her satisfaction. He had thought her a boy with her hair cut short and her face and arms smeared with filth. So in love with her was he that he did a rare thing for our species. He waited. He locked her in a cellar for near on six years, until her hair grew long, and then he bit her.

No. This spoilt boy will not see the lice-ridden feral Claudine once was, only the extraordinary beauty she is now. Unless perhaps…no, even if he were to have her naked he would not be so unwise as to make her remove her fine, silk gloves. In ones as old as her the nails turn to black, twisting claws and while not particularly horrible to look at, they can again trigger that fight or flight response in human beings whether they find them attractive or not. Horst and I wear supple, leather gloves as well but for different reasons. Horst does not yet know how to control the sporadic nail retraction and elongation that occurs when threatened or excited, and I find the skin of my palms unbearable sensitive –just the feel of silk or grass can send me into fits of pleasure like a kitten with catnip.

The boy is part of the faltering generation. His peers are few, born sterile, with defects. In fact, the crowd of friends his age, no more than twenty of them and perhaps the last in the city (aside from those too poor to gain admission to his circle of course) are ugly and pinched looking. Two walk only with the aid of leg braces, two are in chairs.

As we draw nearer the dais I notice with some disgust, that they have built him a throne for the party, complete with lion’s head arm rests and a tall back of red velvet. The inner circle of his friends –chosen for their exotic qualities no doubt- recline on the steps like courtiers, in various states of deshabille. There is one girl who I am particularly drawn to. She is dressed in a confusion of rubber and latex, as some of this generation are wont to do, and has skin the colour of fresh-brewed coffee. I take a long breath and find her scent, like salt and butter popcorn collecting in the sweat of her pulse points, dulled only slightly by the vodka-laced poppy tea which has made her slow and drunk. I can tell by her flat-chest and lack of feminine-indicators that she is infertile.

The little prince himself is splayed inelegantly in his chair, affecting a bored expression as his two friends banter to entertain him. His mother –Ginger- is frantically trying to interest him in having his photograph taken by a nervous-looking professional. She seems utterly ignorant of the way her son distractedly thumbs the nipple of a redheaded girl perched on an armrest.

He is quite handsome like his father but has the look inherent to his peers of having been a miracle –the last of a series of freak pregnancies. Such miracles always look faintly waxy, too pale, their parents adore them so much they are not allowed outside and as such they become weak and fragile. This boy is true his generation; his skin is unblemished but gleams with the sheen of sickness. He is not round as many of the spoilt generation are but he has a softness about his long limbs that speaks of rich food and little hard work. His skin, his soft pale skin, would feel like petals.

Someone offers him a glass of poppy-tea and when he refuses, an opium pipe –another New London luxury, I think scornfully. The pipe he takes, clasping it between his perfectly white teeth in a practiced gesture and taking a draught of the sweet smoke. Thankfully he does not wear cologne but when I reach for his scent I catch something rare and fine…something like…rosy ambergris.

There comes an annoying clanging noise I realise is Ginger tapping a spoon against crystal. “Ladies and gentlemen! Family and friends! Loved ones,” she beams. “How happy and blessed we are to have you all here today on the eve of my darling-” she sniffs, “-darling Henry’s birthday. You are our miracle. May we have twenty-four more years of your company.” She raises her glass in a toast that is repeated with much drunken fervour by the guests. The object of their celebration merely continues to look utterly disaffected.

A sudden surge of nerves from our friend Avni alerts me to our impending representation.

“Lady Wensley. Lord H-Henry, it is my humble duty to present to you for your entertainment, a gift, from your father, m-my boss-”

“Stop stuttering!” Ginger hisses and a few youths laugh, losing interest. A few of the younger men have caught sight of Claudine and the scent of their collective arousal thickens.

“Y-y-yes ma’am,” Avni manages, sweat rolling down his face. He has almost entirely forgotten his fear towards us in the face of this new trial of public speech. “Lord Robert Wensley presents to you his son on this your twenty-fourth birthday, Madam Claudine Revy and her consorts Emrich Hirsh and Horst Decher.”

There is a pause full of confusion. One guest with the skin of his face painted gold cranes his neck to get a better look at us. On his throne, the boy –Henry- sits up, posturing himself to sit with his legs wide apart in a way that is perhaps even more lazy than when he had been reclined. He bestows upon Avni an extremely bored look.

“And why would my father send me…a prostitute and two ill-dressed thugs?”

His friends chuckle loyally. At my side Horst growls and it is only unfortunate timing -a lull in the mocking chatter- that allows it to carry around the hall causing absolute silence.

A middle-aged woman figures it out first and lets out a small moan of fright. There is an overwhelming wave of scent –terror and arousal and above all curiosity. From Henry there are only the minimal signs of recognition. He sits forward in his throne, eyes widening just slightly. He pushes himself up, steady on his feet even though he must have been drinking as much as his friends. Not to mention the soporific effect of the drugs his elite group favours.

As he walks down the small flight of stairs to better look at Claudine I taste again that warm, golden ambergris scent. He is casually dressed, I realise, perhaps a rebellion against his father. His thin, loose shirt is cut to be revealing, the V spanning from shoulder to shoulder, its lowest point mid sternum. Someone has playfully decorated his chest with glitter and it shines dully, matted in the layers of sweat. His profile picture has not done him justice. He has been blessed with all of his father’s striking features and none of their harshness. His mouth is wide and full and shockingly pink against the pallor of his skin. His eyes are large and dark, framed by a sultry curtain of lashes better suited on a middle-eastern courtesan. His auburn hair sticks to the sweat at his temples –the only evidence of his drunkenness. He wears customary tight denim; the thick fabric clinging to his crotch and increasing the heat there, making his ambergris smell more pungent.

I must suppress a sigh of longing. Given half the chance, I would quite literally, eat him head to toe.

But it is not him I have been given permission to see that upon tonight.

He runs a long, pale finger over Claudine’s décolletage, utterly entitled. He has probably never known denial or discipline and it shows. He walks a leisurely circle around the female and she does us great service by remaining docile, even going so far as to push the scent of her Heat higher so that I can now smell Horst’s hopeless arousal. I feel sorry for the pup. I too am tempted by her display.

Interestingly enough I sense no arousal from him, only mild, seeping annoyance. It is true, I think, he is sterile then. And frigid from it. It is not such a rare thing for the males of a species to lose their sexual drive when confronted with a lack of suitable mates.

Seemingly finished with his appraisal, he tilts Claudine’s face up with one laconic hand to better see her pretty face. She has a ways to look, I realise, as he is astoundingly tall, perhaps even more so than myself and I am a formidable height in my human body.

His hands drop away, skimming her front. Lazily he traces a wending pattern over her belly and down to the fabric barely concealing her sex. To her credit she does not flinch away as he fondles her there although she goes out of Heat, the loss of sweet pheromones visibly rocking Horst. The insolent young man toys with her a few more minutes while his cohort looks on with lewd fascination, his mother looking embarrassed but proud. Perhaps to her this was all for some pettier goal –to have her son bed a woman and dispel the rumours surrounding his sexuality (or more accurately, lack of).

Vaguely disgusted by the entire proceedings I find my eyes wandering. His friends are a strange mix of personalities. As with all youths they adhere to different trends and cliques. There is an abundance of adorably dressed Neo-skinheads in skin-tight breeches and vintage suspenders; hair dyed green and purple, arms decorated with scarification. There are also some pale-faced creatures in heavily brocaded renaissance-style frock coats and lace up boots of authentically worn leather. One boy has had his close-cropped hair shaved in intricate patterns and my palms itch to feel the difference in texture. My butter and salt popcorn girl has pushed her way to the front of the crowd. I can tell by her complete lack of fear endorphins that she is stoned.

I snort and return to the task of watching Claudine be molested, only to find the boy –Henry’s- eyes on me, dark and speculative. Those chocolate eyes flick away upon being noticed. Ahh, so he does no shame. But perhaps it is merely because he sense that I am a different entity than my companions, a creature built for dominance even over the silver-spooned London elite. An Alpha.

“So how exactly am I to be entertained by you…werewolves?” he says with no little relish. A few older women gasp at the word. I, unlike many of my kind, am not offended by the terminology. Shifter. Two-skins. Changelings. These are all euphemisms for a creature already well defined in mortal storybooks. I care not for specifics or protocol. That sort of game is for politicians, for my superiors, for James, to play.

Claudine looks to me to answer. We had not counted on her being rejected. I sense that Horst too is looking at me. It is only natural seeing I am their leader. And I am, built to lead, built to diffuse and decide and deal punishment. That is an alpha’s calling yes, but it was intrinsic to me long before I was bitten. I have no answer however, having subjected my will to my superiors and counted on their wisdom to lead us to success this night.

“Rapture!” slurs a husky albeit female voice. The red head, still naked from the waist up, stumbles forward into the hesitant space left around us. For all that this one looks fertile –and perhaps she was specifically chosen to be the boy’s consort because of it- she is barren. It is again, a lack of some richer, vital scent that is inherent to productive females. Still, she is remarkably beautiful. Completely different from Claudine yet still attractive. She strongly reminds me of a girl who used to live in my hamlet who once fed me liquor to fend off a sore throat.

“Rapture,” she suggests again, her body language carefree and frivolous. Again, she seems to be a perfect match for this lazy mortal prince-ling, a sort of always pleasure-seeking salve to his constant boredom. “They can give us undiluted, wonderful rapture.” She almost whispers the last words into her partner’s ear and his eyes flick to mine once more. I wonder why it is I that can instil this small nervousness in him when it is the more intimidating presence of Horst he should instinctually be wary of. Horst is twice his weight over and with more weight to him than even he looks. Pack enforcers are born with some mysterious ballast to them that sets them at higher advantage to any other wolf. And they are light on their feet. It would be a mistake to think you could outrun a mammoth-wolf such as Horst.

I sense no further excitement from the boy at his paramour’s suggestion but he lazily waves a hand in assignation anyway. There is a murmur of anticipation amongst his younger guests.

“…dangerous but I want to try it.”

“It could be a laugh Sissy….”

“Well come on Henny, let’s see it then,” one boy goads.

Henry’s response is to produce a coy mannerism that prompts two of his friends to emerge from the crowd and draw warily nearer to Claudine. She is after all, the safest looking of us. The only one who seems to notice the miniscule nod of approval I send Claudine is the birthday boy himself and he appears to find it intriguing for he cocks his head like an amused sparrow.

The two youths are tentative at first, hands searching out from their bodies like blind men, but once they have felt her pliant skin, subconsciously processed her pheromones, they wrap around her like succubi, burying their noses at her neck, searching for the infamous pheromone glands. They will not smell anything so different from what Horst and I smell when a female is in her natural heat but being mortals of course, they are unused to it and fall into a prolonged state of rapture –hence the name. Some werewolves of lesser calibre had submitted themselves to research, for the manufacturing of a synthetic hormone patch to induce the same euphoria, but it could never be reproduced with the same startling, universal sensation of abandon.

Another nod to Claudine and she focuses inwards, searches out the internal trigger. It is like switching on a light. From the confused, dreary cloud of mortal arousal comes the sudden tug of her heat. To me it feel likes a physical pull from hot fingers buried in my intestine. I must remind myself that I am no newborn to be swept up in the mating fever. Horst is even more so physically effected, breaking into a sweat, cheeks flushing red and leg twitching with eagerness. Claudine cannot help but smile. It is her natural role to be desired. Amongst our kind she can pick and choose her mates. However many men might writhe on top of her and breathe in her rapture, none of them may even try to satisfy her wolf. Horst is still too young. In his true form she would send him cowering, rejected. But I can mount her. It is this knowledge,which calls to me and makes me even more drawn to her.

At the same time I know that the mortal princeling’s eyes are on me; watching my reaction instead of that of his foolish friends’. I pity him this. I am small entertainment when the two men are practically weeping their joy, gone boneless and slumped to the ground at Claudine’s feet. The other guests laugh but I sense the threads of their longing. How long must we keep at this sport?

As if he can read my thoughts Henry is suddenly clapping his hands, calling for refreshments and calmly speaking his orders to a servant. He need not bother lower his voice, all three of us hear it plainly said that he desires Claudine brought to his bed.

I breathe a sigh of relief that in this at least we have succeeded. The crowd seems to break apart and Horsts and I are ushered out into the Ballroom once more along with the bulk of the inner circle of friends who had secretly grown tired of their leader’s more focussed company.

Out in the Ballroom we are once more ambassadors for our kind, to be respected. A manservant hurries to serve us canapés which I decline and which Horst eats happily enough although soon his tastebuds will reject even that small human luxury.

“So I guess the dossier was wrong then,’ he says quietly in our native tongue, once he’s swallowed a morsel, “his member works just as fine as any man’s and it seeks our Claudine.”

“Yes, perhaps.”

I swipe a flute of sparkling wine off a passing tray and down it. And then another. Alcohol does not serve to make me drunk. Perhaps it might one as young as my companion, but to me it merely dulls the connections between my mortal body and the wolf inside. Heavy spirits are particularly useful in blunting out the near madness-inducing cacophony of a city at night. That was, James often joked, probably the main reason for our political leaders being half-mad. And I could now agree. One week in our Mayfair hotel room had had me curled up in the spa bath with a mattress pulled on top. It had seemed that the barrage of wailing sirens and screeching taxicabs would penetrate my brain and send me into seizures. Out of practice, Claudine slept through it, while Horst clattered around unaffected, so much at ease that he found it no trouble at all to call for room service.

After my seventh glass I am able to ignore the click-clack of heels, the shrill voices and the scrape of forks on china, and concentrate instead of finding Claudine. I cannot hear nor smell her, which means she’s been transported to a room substantially far away to evade my muted senses, or they have a sterile room specifically built to be untraceable to our kind.

“Oooh oysters,” Horst says, tail practically wagging. I relent, relaxing my posture just slightly to give him my permission. With a smile of thanks he bounds over the buffet trestle in a manner much unbefitting of an ambassador.

It is at that moment that the both of us are lax when I am slipped a note.

Follow.

Neat hand. Fresh ink. No signature. The servant is stiff-backed but not aware of what I am which means he was not present for the entertainment. I hold the note up to my nose and breathe in the sweet perfume of ambergris gone stale on the expensive paper.

“My Lord bids you come only if it is to your pleasure,” the servant says. His eyes are downcast yet he gestures somewhere off to his right and I realise he is asking if I wish to bring company –specifically, red headed company. Seeing that she has my attention, the mortal youth sashays forward, as heedless as ever of my nature. Her eyes are heavy with the opium stupor, her breath gently scented with poppies. She reaches out a henna decorated hand to touch my fur stole and I jerk back, caught unawares by her brazenness and stupidity. It is not something wolves let other wolves do it is so private.

“Don’t you desire my company, creature?” she purrs. I am attracted to her even though she is mortal and drunk and arrogant. To see such a beautiful, well-endowed mortal is a rare thing but she is also the embodiment of that elusive human concept espirit which is nigh non-existent post-war. And, on the occasion that I take women, I take them fiery and this wicked little thing is quite the temptress.

“Ja,” I say, deliberately speaking in German since she decided to forget my name.

She tips her head back and laughs like the tinkling of bells. Its pitch would hurt my ears if I hadn’t had so much champagne. Her décolletage is decorated only with a slender white-gold chain threaded through a rather garishly clunky letter H studded with garnets. Like a stamp of ownership, I think dryly.

“Oh you’re just as stoic as I imagined you to be, my soldier wolf,” she says, taking great pleasure in the title she gives me. “Are you from Berlin? I heard it’s still quite beautiful.”

“Shwarzwald.”

She takes a moment to translate. The elite few have an education in languages which any man would be envious of. Although, out of necessity I have come to understand English when spoken to me, I am still perfectly useless at speaking it myself. The world I was born into required me only to speak the muttersprache.

“The Black Forest. Interesting.” She turns to the waiting servant. “Go on ahead, tell Henny I’ll take him.”

“Yes Lady Violetta.” He hurries away, relief so visible in his posture I need not smell it.

The lady turns to pin me with her pretty gaze once more. “That is…if you’re willing.”

I look down to see Lady Violetta’s small, soft hand resting on the front of my uniform shirt. She is warm but my kind are warmer and I know my heat must soak through even this thick fabric and surprise her.

I consider the possibilities. This is a trap. Claudine is already caught and sedated and I am to be put with her until such a time as it suits this brat princeling to execute me. Perhaps it is not so extreme, perhaps it is as the propaganda says, that they will make circus freaks of us, put us on a leash and lock us behind bars of silver to be jeered at by human crowds. Perhaps it is really the brat’s bitch mother Ginger who summons me and wishes to take me to bed to spawn dangerous half-breeds (something which is actually quite impossible to my knowledge). Or perhaps we will not make it to the sender of the note at all and instead the impetuous Lady Violetta will throw herself upon me and make of me one story of many in her book of conquests.

I set my last empty glass down and follow her from the room.

-:-:-

I had read in a brochure that Avni or some equally put-upon staff had placed on my hotel room coffee table, that the Ballroom and its apartments, now privately owned by Lord Wensley, had once been a palace. This becomes more obvious to me as I am led by the red haired witch deeper and deeper through the twisting maze of halls to the princeling’s rooms.

The dulling effects of the alcohol have worn off only to be replaced by the pressure of my bladder. My body processes such things much faster than a human and I must ask my guide if we might make a slight detour to a latrine. When we finally reach Lord Henry’s apparent bedroom I am completely myself again, the net of my sense grown tight and accurate and I can scent Claudine, unharmed and calm but slightly off. Ah well, it was always a possibility that he would drug her. Yes, I can smell the barbiturates mixed with strong tea, as likely Claudine would have done and yet still been forced to drink it out of politeness. I feel immense pride and sorrow at this understanding. Pride because she has such conviction in our cause, and sorrow because I am not sure I would possess the same strength if called upon to make sacrifice.

I think again on our last night with James and how I’d curled sedately to one side while they coupled, teasing Horst with their easy play. Will James be enraged and have this man killed, when he finds out he has spoiled his consort? Or will he shake Claudine’s hand and promote us? These doubts are aflame in me as is my confusion at the whole situation.

I am uneasy, there should be a guard outside the door…unless the boy wants his dealings kept wholly private in which case I would begin to suspect him some sort of deviant.

At last I can smell something on the boy princeling. Anticipation, laced with only the tiniest threads of sexual desire, so small that if I scent for it, it vanishes. He looks ever so slightly surprised, and then pleased as I follow Lady Violetta into the opulent chambers.

The room is obscenely lavish and its gigantic four-poster dominates the room with obvious purpose. The decoration, while revoltingly expensive in taste, is not what I would expect. He has chosen grey and blue and the fey colour in between, the colour of Claudine’s gauzy dress. French blue, I think they call it. And there are books, not dusty tomes doomed to their shelves unopened, but dog-eared pulp novels scattered about and piled high in the corners of the room. It is utterly at odds with what I have surmised of his personality.

The man –he is twenty five, I must stop referring to him as a boy although his parents spoil him like one- catches me looking once more at the enormous bed and laughs, a high-pitched, ominous sound.

“I don’t bite you know,” he drawls and then both he and his mortal friend laugh at the clear joke.

I find Claudine’s eyes, lambent and flat in her delicate face. She is coherent but barely, likely everything filters through a haze and she cannot put her responses together with any speed.

“Tea?” Violetta asks and the potent liquid she offers me makes my nostrils flare.

“No. Thank you,” I say stiffly, my accent overly thick with emotion. I hate the both of them for what the find commonplace. It is as James says, these mortals have grown accustomed to rape and poisoning as if it were games. They need to be returned to the fold.

The mortal man moves closer, close enough that I can tell he is indeed just marginally taller than me. “Avni tells me you are a Nazi,” he says, uncomfortably close. His warm breath hits my chin and I am forced to stare him down although the alpha in me rails at his audaciousness. I want to cuff him like I would a pup and maybe give him a warning, clamp my jaws over his vulnerable throat until he showed me belly. But these displays mean nothing to a human such as he.

It takes all my will not to snarl at his childish provocation. “I was,” I say instead.

If his face weren’t so permanently bored he might look pleased at this confirmation. “And is it also true you were at the death camps?”

I think of the outstretched hand, the softly falling snow. The fence. The rifle heavy in the crook of my arm.

“Yes.” I hope I do not rasp.

He takes a step back, something akin to wonder in his dark eyes. Up close I can better appreciate the ethereal beauty of his porcelain skin, perfectly unmarred. The fullness of his lips and the long silk of his eyelashes. His brows are slanted and narrow, darker even than his auburn-brown hair. He looks more eastern European than British, although it is of course one of his father’s most expounded values that he is of undiluted British blood. I marvel at how so many sweet features could be put together so cruelly. The ambergris smell about him is cloying now, his genitals having been contained in the suffocating fabric for too long, compounding the intoxicating scent.

“Was your Maker a Nazi?” the girl asks, pouring herself some undoctored tea. I frown at the term but answer anyway. I wonder if they realise how very like my Nazi teachers they are in having me stand at attention and answer their probing questions.

“No. He was not that.” He was a much older monster, I add silently.

The both of them giggle and exchange glances. The princeling takes another step back, eyes sweeping over me once from head to toe, coming to rest on my hair. He breaks into a malicious grin.

“You are such the Aryan. It’s little wonder they had to have you. Was your Maker a Jew by any chance?” Another round of giggles. I have not the words to express how much they offend me. As if my brethren’s crimes against those people could be repaid on me in one act of violence.

“No,” I answer again. “He was not a Jew.”

The man grows tired of my simple answers. He cocks a well-shaped eyebrow. “Well, what was he then? A pederast? You don’t look young. Was it a woman?”

The girl scoffs. “Oh Henny, as if a woman could take on that.”

“You’d be surprised Violetta, even their women are beasts.”

They both take a long moment to appraise me but I am not shy. I had been chosen since birth for my looks, as an example and a poster child. It was my blond hair and my vanity in it that drew the eye of the stupid, violent creature that made me. He was not of the same wit and sensibility as the erstling that made Claudine. He had not waited. I had had only time to put three rounds in him before he was on me, teeth in my shoulder and my lifeblood steaming in the snow.

All the amused humour drains from my inquisitor’s face and he is suddenly dead serious; eyes hard and unreadable.

He turned to his girl-consort with a sharp, violent click of his fingers towards the lambent-eyed Claudine. “Put her on the bed.”

Something akin to anger unfurls in my belly. Violetta is smirking and still for a long moment -perhaps some small rebellion she can afford for being his favourite- before nodding demurely. A long spill of amber hair shifts seemingly of its own volition against her breast. She would be beautiful in bed, soft and sensuous and as easy to disassemble as wet clay. Her nipples, I think, must taste of the same strawberry her smirking lips seem to promise.

Claudine is drifting but compliant, at the barest stroke of the human female’s hands on her arm she sways to her feet and walks to pause before the foreboding four-poster bed. Violetta is at this moment, a far more dangerous creature, at her back, fingers plucking at the flimsy straps of Claudine’s gown, eyes questioning.

“No. Let him do it.”

Violetta looks genuinely surprised. I can see where a things such as she would be riled by having the game of seduction pulled out of their hands. She pouts, pulling the bulk of Claudine’s soft hair over one shoulder and resting her chin in the curve of her neck.

“I thought you wanted to have fun, Henny…”

“And we will,’ he drawls confidently, eyes finding mine. “We will have fun. But to beasts other beasts. I won’t have you touching one of them. It’s…distasteful.”

I flinch. I cannot help it. This seems to please him, his full mouth tilting up at the corners, Adam’s apple bobbing.

“A problem, creature?”

I make sure to meet his eyes with blank indifference. “No.”

He stares a long moment. “Go to her then. Undress her.”

I swallow down the part of me that would prefer to rip the tongue from his vile, snake-ish mouth.

As I approach Claudine I feel once more the scent of Violetta’s excitement. She does not skitter away from me as most would. When I draw close enough that our faces almost meet over Claudine’s shoulder, her pupils dilate and the poppy smell about her intensifies with her heartbeat. I look deference to the boy-king. He looks bored.

“Well? Undress her. I won’t see a dog dressed up in women’s clothing.” His face reveals nothing more than disgust. “Violetta come away from them.”

The girl pouts some more, finger lingering on Claudine’s pulse point as if she wants to guide my ministrations. Reluctantly she moves away, fingernails gliding over my partner’s breast. I cup Claudine’s face in both hands, searching her eyes for cognition. She is sliding and distracted but still there. She gives me the barest of nods. This, I think, I can do. Claudine and I have been playmates and shared long, lazy nights of affection with James. Besides this, none of our kind could claim to be prudish. Or even modest. Nakedness feels natural, and sex is no less sacred to us than it is to these mewling mortal children. I move to kiss her lips in a small sign of reassurance but am halted by the boy’s scathing voice.

“Did I say to kiss her?”

I push down the anger once more and smooth my hands along Claudine’s shoulders, her gown slipping over her arms and baring her breasts, her stomach and then her fine legs.

The human girl giggles. “Oh it’s true,” she says gleefully, “They’ve fur down there.”

Claudine is sensible enough to give me a discouraging look as she feels my hands trembling with resentment against her. Claudine has soft, downy hair covering her sex. Human hair. Our condition preserves the state of our mortal bodies at the point of transition. Violetta, being a true representation of her era, has no knowledge of the world once free of depilatory modifications ones such as Claudine and I were born to.

“Show us,” the boy commands.

I move behind my companion, one hand sliding from the back of her right arm to her elbow and lifting it above her head so that they might see the fine hairs there too. Violetta’s gaze is inquisitive but her friend’s is nothing but vaguely repulsed. His lips stretch thin with displeasure even as my other hand moves over Claudine’s belly to her thatch to show him the fine texture of it –some gesture of pride that I had thought defeated in me.

The boy’s consort does not read him well for she moves closer to his side, pert breasts pressed against his arm. “Oh, Henry, they’re tender are they not. Like lovers. Make them do something else.” Her white teeth pinch at the lobe of his ear. She must stand on tip toe to do this, her sweet young body stretched enticingly against him. He is predictably unresponsive, not even annoyance visible on his cold features.

“Fuck her with your fingers.”

I startle a little and feel Claudine’s uncertainty resonating with mine. It seems so callous to have her used thus unprepared and bared before a party of clothed strangers. I swallow, push the palm of my hand over her mound hoping to give her some pleasure but his sharp command stops me.

“Wait,” he holds one long finger up, bending his ear to his paramour’s excited whisperings. He smirks and flicks a second finger to join the first, and then, smirk deepening, a third. “Three fingers. Violetta assures me the tea will have gotten your bitch hot and ready.”

I swallow at the dry, suggestive way he draws out the words ‘hot and ready’ but am sure not to hesitate this time as I stroke three digits through Claudine’s slit and shove them inside her. I am shocked to find she is indeed ready; the drug has made her slick, though her inner walls clamp down around the intrusion of my fingers in discomfort. Slowly, because the bratling has not specified otherwise, I begin to fuck my fingers in and out of Claudine’s heat, wishing that I could make this something more pleasurable for the both of us, but paralysed by the delicateness of the situation, the viper who stares at us with something close the curiosity but closer still to outright revulsion.

Claudine settles more fully against me as she grows lax and heavy with arousal. For my part, suck in long breath against her neck, hoping to convey my uncertainty, some reassurance that she is not the only puppet in this show. I am slightly embarrassed as he presses directly against my half-turgid cock. She shifts against me once more and lets out a tiny moan. Violetta sighs her wonton satisfaction. Encouraged, Claudine moves more surely against me and starts to voice her pleasure in long sighs punctuated by gasps.

“Shut her up.”

My head jerks up and I meet Lord Henry’s inscrutable gaze.

“What?” I ask, knowing as it leaves my lips that out of shock I have spoken in the mother tongue.

The boy’s eyes narrow dangerously. The sudden tension in the air makes the wet heat around my fingers seem ridiculous and anything but arousing. Claudine has stopped her provocative movements but she trembles and the drug it seems has made her insensible, powerless to stop her drawn out, breathy moans.

“Shut. The bitch. Up. I don’t want to hear her keening.”

Swallowing hard so that I don't growl at the arrogant quality of his voice, I clap a hand over Claudine’s mouth, cutting her off mid-moan. Unhindered in seeking her pleasure now, Claudine continues riding out the brutal thrusting of my fingers, her skin breaking into a flush and the smell of desire thickening so that for a few agonizing minutes I am distracted with squashing down my own arousal.

For perhaps ten minutes there is only the humiliating sound of Claudine’s muffled groaning and my fingers slipping in and out of her slickness with increased violence as I strive to bring about her orgasm and end our degradation.

Violetta’s chuckle breaks “Look at how hard he’s using her, Henny. It’s…animalistic.” Her fingers creep along his chest, playing with the deep V shaped hem of his expensive shirt. His stare does not waver, eyes intent on mine. The titian-haired siren plasters her naked torso tighter still against him and her nipples brush against the fine fabric of his sleeve in a way that sends a spike of envy through me. She breathes coyly into his ear, “Would you treat a girl like that?” Her tongue touches the tiny jewel studding the rim of his ear.

He grabs her chin, just too forcefully to be the tender gesture it mocks. Something passes between them, girl lustful and expectant, boy searching, jaded; he grips tighter until her lips are pushed outward, pouting and grotesque. He seems to find something lacking, pushing her face away with disinterest. The girl stumbles back slightly, hand fluttering to her cheek in way that tells me his grip was rougher than she expected –yet not something unusual to her.

“Enough,” Henry says, “Undress him.”

It takes a moment for me to realise he means Claudine. Violetta has sought out her confidence once more and winds herself around the little princeling though the eyes she turns on our performance are dull.

Claudine is barely conscious, the drugs and exhaustion having robbed her of her usual sharp wits. I must manhandle her around so that she stands without leaning on me, and guide her slack hands to the press-studs that attach my fur stole to the epaulettes of my uniform. She stills further, expression turning blissful as her fingers sink into its luxurious texture. I breathe hard, eyes seeking out my detested audience. He makes an arrogant motion with his hand, cocking one eyebrow. Continue.

I manipulate Claudine’s fingers to the easier task of push-pulling the stiff coat fabric apart by its hidden hooks. The buttons of my shirt are loose and flimsy and provide even less dexterity and it is not long before I am easing my trousers over my hips and toeing out of my dress shoes. Both mortals crane to look at my genitals, Violetta pressing her fingers to her mouth to stifle her glee. The boy seems fascinated with my cock, eyes crawling over my body and repetitively falling to its half-interested length. I wonder if the trend of hairlessness extends to the males of this generation also. I wonder if some of the rumours about him are perhaps true, that he is defected, sexless, a born eunuch.

As Claudine clumsily pushes the undone coat and shirt over my shoulders there comes yet another directive to halt.

“Leave the fur.”

Even Violetta looks unsure of this new command. He returns her questioning look with stony silence.

“It has no tie,” I say simply, making to shrug the item in question from my shoulders along with the bulk of my clothing.
A muscle twitches in his jaw. Inside I crow at the small victory.

“I won’t have you nude,” he says, almost snidely.

“Afraid you’ll forget I am a beast?” I growl.

His lips purse in the beginnings of a sneer…before smoothing once more into blank indifference. He smiles the well-practiced smile of the spoilt birthday boy from the antechamber. Each of his sparkling white teeth glitter with more malice than could ever be found in the slavering jaws of a wolf.

“Then we’ll just have to find a collar for you,” he drawls, hand darting out quicker than I would have thought him capable of to snatch the white-gold necklace by the pendant and tear it from Violetta with a tiny, tinkling-snap likely inaudible to human ears. The same necklace is thrown irreverently to skitter across the marble, coming to rest at my feet. His eyes track my Adam’s apple as I swallow. “Chop chop, doggy.”

Claudine’s brow quirks in a miniscule frown, her eyes beginning to lose some of their glaze, her message clear enough. Do not jeopardize the mission. I scoop the tacky bauble off the cool floor and use it to fasten my furs about my shoulders though the weight is balanced precariously and the chain, thus tested, cuts at my skin.

Finally some wisp of emotion from the princeling. His nostrils flare, possession, anger or victory. Perhaps pride, even satisfaction. I wonder if he uses the trinket as visual stimulation in his sexual encounters. If it is the fancy of ownership which fires his passion. My scowl is met with a devious grin.

“On the bed.”

I do not need to be told twice. I lay Claudine down on the brocade coverlet, unconsciously moving to fan her hair out more aesthetically on the pillow. She nods, just enough for me to see and I know now that in some way she expected this, expected and knew I would be the sort of creature horrible enough to perform. Her eyes are full of sympathy at the expression of pain which must grace my features.

“Not you,” he says as I go to kneel over her, “You stay standing. I have no desire to see two mutts couple.”

A growl rumbles in the back of my throat before I can stop myself and this seems to please him even as Violetta takes an instinctual step back. Claudine makes the softest sound of warning. I regain my feet, waiting for the next humiliation.

Lord Henry grabs a fistful of his Violetta’s hair and drags her in front of him, her neck bent in a way that must be uncomfortable. Her eyes widen but she does not seem to panic. “Now,” he hisses in her ear. “Now you get to suck him off.” He throws her forward with just enough restraint that she does not fall though she stumbles, breasts jiggling almost comically.

I have been half-expecting something of this calibre since I was approached in the Grand Ballroom so I am prepared when the girl slides down my body, hands settling on my hips, lips leaving a smear of cherry pink at the tip of my member. What I am not prepared for is the sudden shocking but delightful pressure of her thumb stroking over my taint and making the blood race to fill my cock out. The sight of copper locks spilling over her sweetly-made breasts and delicate shoulders also help to quicken me, my hands moving out of habit to rest on her head as she takes me into her mouth.

Just as my legs begin to feel restless, my stomach clenching and unclenching with the stimulating rhythm of Violetta’s lips sliding over my length, the boy interrupts.

“Don’t come,” he says simply, moving to sit on the edge of the bed. I track the fingers pinching cruelly at Claudine’s bare ankle, the collar bones in sharp relief, glitter matted with sweat, raised eyebrows. He makes sure he has my attention before saying, “Fuck her mouth, I want to see it.”

I sweep a few stray curls away from the girl’s cheek so that he can see the outline of my cock distending it and am shocked to find myself aroused by the sight. I hiss through my teeth, catching the girl’s eyes and she smirks around my girth and digs her thumb more boldly into the erogenous expanse of flesh between testicles and pucker, making me jerk forward even harder. On each shallow thrust my cockhead scrapes the smooth ridges of her teeth and the effect is disconcertingly intense. It is not long before even the encouraging hand at my thigh is too much stimulation, my legs starting to feel weak. I bite my lip and find my audience has leant closer, almond eyes narrowed on my sex disappearing in and out of his paramour’s mouth. Along with the new smell of my own precum I detect from him the first stirrings of excitement. Although he is composed as ever his nostrils flare minutely, his pupils blown. There is tenseness about his hands where previously they had been wholly slack, indolent. His eyes flicker to the necklace –his brand upon me- and then to my mouth and finally to my eyes.

“This grows tedious. I suppose I’ll have you mount your bitch after all.”

Violetta pulls away with a surprisingly affectionate kiss to the crease of my thigh and a lingering stroke along my cock but my arousal has been stunted by way of his callous words and though I remain hard I am no longer preoccupied with designs of climaxing.

Fortunately Claudine has regained almost all her faculties, eyes clear and consenting which I am thankful for. She is resting on her elbows and tilts her head back in assignation as I clamber over her awkwardly, hyper aware of the two entwined mortals half-sprawled at our feet.

I try to summon the retreating dregs of arousal back to me, remembering the previous nights of languor and abandon spent wrapped in her embrace. I twitch against her soft stomach, slide my thumb over her sensitized labia, testing for her readiness and on her sigh of acceptance, thrusting in.

She is too hot and too wonderful around my cock, her inner walls clutching and releasing me in tandem with the stimulating pace I commence, my forehead pressed against her shoulder grows moist with exertion. Whether she wills it or not she becomes aroused, cheeks flushing with blood and nipples peaking enticingly. I nip unthinkingly at one and am repaid for my daring with an almost unbearable tightening of her sex around mine. If this were purely consensual she might be laughing and I the tormented pup unable to match her in talent or stamina. If we were in our other forms perhaps she would surrender hopelessly to the violent sexual appetite of my wolf. But instead we make a mockery of the act, striving against each other in a fashion just sensual enough to not be perfunctory.

At some point the mortals shift on the bed so that they are coupling alongside us, yet quick glances assure me the boy has not even unbuttoned his collar. It is a sad imitation, the rocking grinding thing they do in synchrony with my thrusts, yet it seems to please Violetta greatly else she is faking. One of her hands sneaks out to stroke the side of Claudine’s breast before it is snatched away by her partner.

“Harder,” Lord Henry says, flipping his consort over so that she is riding him. I hear the sharply stirring sound of a zipper being lowered and Violetta throws her head back and groans as if she is a virgin freshly impaled. I am unable to resist looking out of curiosity, breaking my rhythm inside Claudine I jerk my head to the side to look but Violetta’s skirts conceal their joining. The boy –no, the man- catches my eyes, smirking, the musky smell of his arousal intensifying quite staggeringly til it swamps my senses. He seems just as enthused by the wet sound of my cock plying in and out of Claudine as he is by the rapid gyrating of his female.

Violetta for her part seems outside of the exchange, having taken her own pleasure into hand, fingers slipping past the high waistband of her skirt presumably to meet the point of her pleasure where the boy enters her. I feel a surge of heat at the thought of those clever fingers rubbing furiously over the engorged cluster of nerves. With the same vigorous pace she uses one hand to massage her breast, fingers shining with spit. I turn my gaze away and breathe shakily into Claudine’s skin, surging up against her as I fantasize of burying my tongue in the mortal girl’s tight, hot pussy and bringing her real pleasure.

At complete odds with her apparent ecstasy, Henry is almost subdued beneath her, almost placed and his eyes are fixed once more on my cock fucking in and out of Claudine. Most tellingly, his hands are resting loosely on the bed either side of Violetta’s wildly thrusting hips.

The theory hits me so suddenly it mutes the sound of Claudine’s pleading sighs, Violetta’s wonton moaning. I dare not think it less I start to grin.

“Harder,” he says again, eyes pinning me. This time I do not look away, his words do not cow me. I keep my glare fixed on him as sit back on my heels, repositioning Claudine’s supple thighs around my waist and leaning over her, arms braced around her head so that my face is incidentally closer to the boy’s.

I slow my thrusts, drawing them out so that Claudine’s cunt makes wet, sucking, absurd noises around my shaft. The bed creaks in protest at the force with which I push into her and Claudine arches hopelessly at the pressure, smothering her voice in the pillows. Still I do not remove my eyes from his and this seems to have the expected effect, his pupils expanding til I think the blackness might absorb the chocolate colour of his iris. He lets out a shaky breath, throat bobbing rapidly and fingers of the hand nearest me twitching.

“Slow,” I say to the girl, going as far as to touch my hand to her hip and guide her. To my surprise the girl obeys me without reluctance or any remnant coyness. It seems she knows this game and her place in it now as I am beginning to find mine. Together we slow til we are moving in perfect rhythm with each other, the boy pressed all alongside Claudine, fingernails scraping my leg incidentally, and Violetta and I moving in tandem.

The boy’s eyes widen in realisation, mouth falling open and colour surging to his cheeks. I shiver at the wave of arousal which comes upon him with sharp clarity. I smile.

In a whir of movement he jolts upward, grabbing his lover by the shoulders and throwing her sideways with such violence that she collides with me and I slip free of Claudine.

“Get off me,” he gasps, running his hands over his shirtfront as if she has sullied him. The glitter has smeared to his cheeks somehow and a little to the damp, curling hair at the nape of his neck. He looks…desperate, dishevelled. I feel a surprising urge to reach out and comfort him he so reminds me of myself after my first moon, the terror I had felt and the sting awareness that I was no longer completely in control.

He slaps my hand away, smoothing his hair back with jerky motions that only frustrate the situation. Looking down, I see that though his fly is unzipped he remains encased in his underpants, his belt still fastened. Ah, so it was a show then.

“You’re frigid,” I say. Brutal yes, but the best words I have for him.

His eyes are full of such hatred that I would flinch, if his façade hadn’t been so damaged by what I just witnessed. He turns his glare on Violetta.

“Get out. Take her with you. Get out both of you.”

“Henny…”

He beats his fists pitifully on the coverlet, face turning red. “Out!” he all but screams. “Get out!”

Violetta tugs Claudine from the room, my companion sending me an uncertain look. I know that she must worry about my intentions but I am more determined than ever to see the mission through. On my own terms.

At last the door closes, the glass teacups rattling on the table. I sit a while, soaking in the view, the boy slowly putting himself back together, strengthening his mask, body relaxing but no longer unaffected.

I cannot help but smirk back at him, at the knowledge that he must have seen my pity for him and hated it. He breathes out hard through his nose, eyes hard and decided once more.

“Give me it.”

“Give you what?”

His eyes narrow. “You now what. Rapture. Give me the rapture.”

I smile though it is not unkind. “You would have such a thing? From a beast?”

He seems to steel himself, on the precipice perhaps of some personal surrender. Then he relents, lips parting softly, hands seeking curiously at the corded muscle of my arms.

His touch is electric as I suspected it might be. The pads of his fingers are soft and free of calluses. He has never held a gun or a sword. Never planted trees or whittled wood. But then again, these things were dead to people long before his generation. His cool hands skate over my heated skin, fingers lingering in the dip of my clavicle and drawing up the pool of sweat there. He licks his fingers tentatively, delicate as a kitten. Our eyes meet as stretches up to kneel against me and I am reminded once more that he is a hairsbreadth taller. His clothed chest is pressed flush against mine, stiff and unyielding, his belt buckle pressing into the tender flesh beneath my navel. My cock twitches but I can feel that he is not aroused where it counts, though he smells of excitement. I move to press more surely against his crotch and his hand tightens at my shoulder. The message is clear. I call the shots.

With a faint nod I still myself, waiting. He runs curious hands through the short bristles of my hair, eyes fluttering just slightly. With startling passion he plunges his hands into the stole about my neck, the thin chain threatening to snap as he pushes and pulls at the plush fur. He lets out a sigh, warm breath hitting the side of my jaw as he relaxes some more against me –and then suddenly shoving me backwards so that my legs fall askew, at risk of being squashed underneath my own weight. He is one hard, unpliable line against me, the rough material of his jeans unbearable against my bare groin, my legs spread either side of his waist like a receptive woman.

I cringe as he fastens his teeth at my jaw, clamping down as if to leave an impression, nothing like the tender nips I might deliver to a lover. I wonder if it is inexperience or pure indulgence on his part.

“Give it to me,” he hisses, lips forming the words against my ear, hands thrusting and kneading at the fur. “I want to feel…I want it.”

I pause. What I say next could very well put the whole mission in danger; could lead us very far from the path.

“There are other ways,” I say, hand sliding suggestively over his rigid back, finding the sliver of skin bared between shirt and trousers. One fingernail traces the swell there and he jerks up, putting small distance between our faces. I stop, listen to the drum of his heartbeat.

His face tightens into a mask of fury and when he speaks tiny flecks of spit dot my cheeks. “You think I have not tried other ways, creature? You think I want to do these things with a… subhuman? You are mistaken if you think I would willingly-”

I shove two fingers in his mouth before he can finish and flip him on his back so that I am covering him, erection pressed against his firm stomach. His eyes fire with rage yet he cannot help another surge of desire, his pulse speeding up, a slight sweat breaking out along his forehead.

I pull my fingers free of his mouth and draw them down over his chest, tugging the flimsy fabric of his shirt –as beautiful in texture as I had suspected- down, to bare one small, flat nipple. I press my thumb against it. He does not harden though he draws breath at the sensation. I dig the edge of my thumbnail into the sensitive flesh and he strains his neck to see, then relaxes back against the pillow, teeth gritted against the disappointment. I am beginning to understand. Undeterred I rub my wet thumb over his nipple in small circular motions meant to built sensation and very, very slowly he begins to respond. Upon looking once more and seeing the flushed flesh grown pointed and erect he gasps, eyes flickering to mine.

I pause in my ministrations, making sure that he understands the game.

“With your permission.”

His mouth is wet and open, he averts his gaze and nods, then in a moment of inspiration, grabs my hand by the wrist and forces my fingers back into his mouth, eyes squeezing shut. He sucks hard and gasps around my digits and I feel my whole body grow hot at the eroticism of it.

I pull my fingers free once more so that I can reposition him with his denim-clad legs spread either side of my waist, his back just slightly bent. He is at a loss with what to do with his hands and they seek my face and then my fur stole and then my leg in halfway touches as if he cannot decide what is more appropriate. I make the decision for him, grabbing him by the taut flesh of his triceps and pulling his arms over his head, showing the t-shirt to ruck at his armpit. He breathes hard, diaphragm trembling beneath me.

“It won’t-” he pants as I gently caress the faint line of his ribs, “Others have-” He breaks off in a frustrated groan as I swoop done and fasten my teeth around the previously neglected nipple. This time he puckers faster in my mouth as I lick up the salt of him and then bare down, letting just a hint of my wolf sharpen my teeth. He squirms with discomfort, craning his head once more and I show him the evidence, the hardened nub of rosy flesh. His lips tremble and I shove my wetted thumb between them once more, returning to laving my tongue against his chest. With my free hand I check his arousal. He is still soft, and…small, I notice. He too seems to realise the cause of my distraction and lets out an annoyed puff of air, moving to sit. I shove him back down, ignoring the affronted widening of his eyes, and manipulate his belt open with one hand, the other I keep about his throat, thumb toying with his voice box. I am careful to use just enough pressure to threaten but not to cause fear. I do not think that is the key to his awakening.

“What-”

I press a little harder and he groans, head rocking from side to side on the pillow, fine hair matted with sweat. His lips are darkly red with passion and I want to kiss him but that is not my role tonight. Instead I pull the belt from his hips with a violent tug, letting him hear the creak of leather before I drop the item at the side of the bed. His hand seeks the H dangling from my chest and I slap his hand away, throw his arms back down and sit back waiting for him to move again, but he is still and obedient, eyes blazing.

“Good,” I say because I know it must mortify him.

Deliberately slow, I drag both sets of nail from collar to groin, watching his face for response. He darts curious looks to his chest as if the check that I have not flayed him open and upon seeing only pinkish lines, resumes his glaring. I smile, run my nails down him again. And again. And again, hard enough that the lines are white, then red with tiny particles of drawn blood. I lick my lips, taste the copper on the air as the boy shudders beneath me, struggling for breath against the unusual sensation. I grin fully, let him see the distended canines, the predatory gleam in my eye and –yes, he is afraid, but also hopeful, too determined to show fear. Too invested.

I pull the fly of his jeans apart so hard that the button pings off and skitters on the floor some few feet away. He looks down the length of his torso expectantly but I ignore him, turning my attentions to the fine dark hair of his armpit. I bury my face amongst the sparse furring and sigh my pleasure before clamping my mouth over the ridge of muscle joining his arm to pectoral. He hisses between his teeth, body struggling lightly against me and I let him have this freedom as I focus on the scent and taste of him, the beautiful, salt-rose humanness of him. He tastes like acrid deodorant, like sweat and musk. I adore him. I tug at the wiry hair with my teeth, nip at the tender erogenous flesh of his side.

His body is flawed with several small, dark freckles, which spur my arousal so much that I must be digging into his leg quite obnoxiously. I sit back up, draw his pliant hands to cup my cock and feel its size, more significant than his will ever be. His eyes are hateful, jealous and undeniably fascinated. Without needing guidance his fingers quest over the distinct vein, the full sack, feel delicately at the heft of my balls. He even strains a little to feel properly at my pubic hair though I can see over the rim of his underwear that he is not without it himself.

I push his hands away once more and he provides no resistance this time, head falling back on the pillow and eyes open and vulnerable, pacified somehow by being allowed to touch me and feel that which most humiliates and arouses him. If this were not a game in power I would like to bestow kisses all along his elegant brow, his mouth more given to sneering than smiles. As it is I must settle for tugging at the trail of crinkled hair leading from his navel to his pubis. This he seems to enjoy, eyelashes fluttering and pulse beating in his neck. I tug harder and his brows pinch together in discomfort before relaxing in acceptance. I lift him up with my fingers curled around the waist of his trousers and pull the smothering fabric down his thighs. The denim clings to him like a second skin and I must peel it, shoving the uncooperative article to mid-thigh before I give up, satisfied that at least the soft fabric of his shorts are revealed in full.

His cock is small. I can tell that through the material. It’s not a child’s but it is smaller than average, perhaps more impressive erect.

“Take it out,” I say.

He swallows.

“What?”

“Your cock. Take it out.”

His lips peel back in an automatic smirk before he stops himself. Glaring at the ceiling he reaches down his body and into his shorts. He pulls his flaccid penis out, colour high in his cheeks and I cuff him lightly so that he knows he cannot look away just now. He focuses his glare on his unimpressive member even as I uncurl one finger along it, fingering it away from his testes. He is beautifully made just small, and the hair is slightly too fine to be a grown man’s. Though he is several years older than me his body is underdeveloped, fragile, yet well formed. His arms and legs are lightly muscled, as is his flat stomach. He has a softness to him that I find desirable, at odds with his stiff posture and flint gaze.

He stares at me, daring me to comment. I smirk, run a finger over the seam of his balls and then tuck him back in.

He jerks up and I stare him down until he reclines once more, though his eyes are now untrusting. His gaze flicks back to the ceiling.

“Pathetic,” he say to no one in particular.

I press a kiss to belly, stifling a laugh at how the skin there tightens in response, how he sucks in air as if the tiny gesture wounds him.

I stretch one arm out to grab him once more by the neck, lowering my head to breathe hot air over his material-covered genitals. His whole body spasms. I smooth my other hand down his chest, slick with sweat, and without warning shove one digit roughly into his navel at the same time sealing my mouth over the outline of his cock.

He does not harden instantly but his head tosses in the pillows and his chest seizes up around a shout. I tongue him roughly, letting my spit soak the thin fabric thoroughly. I close my mouth over his soft cock and breathe hard, creating a cavern of hot air. He thrusts instinctively and his throat bobs in my tight hold. I mouth him firmly until he is squirming, legs sliding up and down my sides as he seeks purchase with them. I scrape my teeth around his not-yet erect cock and he squeals, muffling the sounds as quickly as he can with one hand. I growl in warning.

For a long while I concentrate only on the careful application of pressure in a wavelike rhythm, neck – navel – groin. It takes longer than I would hope but finally he begins to swell, his cock filling out to a more suitable size. His body shakes with exertion, hair matted at the temples. He stares in wonderment at the slight bulge distending his pants and I grin.

His smell is indescribably. Rosy ambergris and copper and salt. I want to gnaw on his gorgeously full lips, kiss his eyelids and bury my face in his hair but now is not the time. Already without my attentions he begins to flag, his anxiety squashing the arousal I’d struggled to build. I bite his thigh savagely in annoyance and return to administering tongue and hot breath to his member, pushing my tongue at his small, tight balls through the damp material and at last dragging my hands to violently pull his thighs apart. He gasps at this, another embarrassing squeal escaping from his slack mouth. I massage his thighs roughly, lavishing increasingly rough strokes of my tongue to his genitals before growing frustrated with the obstacle and tearing the pants off him.

I think it scares him finally, the ease with which I do it. His eyes flick to my nails as if suspecting twisted claws. I cannot suppress a deep chuckle before I seal my lips over him again, this time sucking the whole of him into my mouth. The loudness of his moan startles me and he bucks sharply in my lap. Still I stay fastened to him, sucking til he is at full hardness and I can no longer manage the whole of him. I tug him higher so that I can lick long stripes over his cock and testicles, and the most secretive part of him. He moans in displeasure as I lick there too, dipping my tongue into the musky pucker only teasingly before sucking his cock back into my mouth and drawing my tongue up him in long, swirling patterns.

Absorbed in the seductive taste of him I press my tongue into the slit of his cock curiously and am rewarded with another disbelieving groan of pleasure, hips jerking wildly.

After a while of this we reach another wall and he sighs angrily, fisting the coverlet.

“It’s not enough,” he says in a strained tone.

“I know.”

He starts to sit up again and I use my grip on his legs to twist him around, forcing him down onto his stomach. He struggles to right himself, shaking his head.

“No, I won’t have it,” he protests even as I shove his face into the bed, gripping his sweat-streaked, feathery hair with one hand and prying his ass cheeks apart with the other.

“No!” he gasps as I trace a finger over his hole. He shivers so I do it again. “No,” he moans, less certain. I draw back, lick one finger and then slide it inside him to the knuckle, the shocking heat causing my neglected cock to perk against his thigh, probably frightening him even more than the sensation of being penetrated. He lets out a long, wide-mouthed sigh which borders on being a scream, as if he is waiting for pain. I claps my hand over one smooth buttock and sway for just a moment, feeling the blood in my cock and the tingle of arousal at the base of my spine. I take in the magnificent view, of his slender back stretched out before me, red face buried in the pillows. He trembles under my hand and I use my grip to hoist him higher, sliding my finger out and then back in, just letting him experience it. He makes an aborted choking sound and turns his face further into the pillows so that I cannot see him. I laugh, crook my finger inside him and draw it out again, letting him feel the increased pressure. His legs begin to shake, muscles in his thighs clamping involuntarily.

When I introduce the second finger he is silent, probably biting his lip. He has grown soft again. I work my fingers in him and he grunts into the bed, back arching slightly. I move my hand to jerk him off, recovering his erection with greater ease and at the same time, scrape both my fingers down over the gland inside him.

“Ah-ahhh,” he cries shakily, thighs tensing. I lean over him letting his knees more properly rest on the bed as I kiss my way up his spine and truly begin to fuck him onto my digits using his shoulder as leverage. He cries out at the sudden brutality of my thrusting fingers, walls tightening around them. His cock is not yet fully hard again yet begins to ooze precum in such quantities that it smears the covers.

He shakes his head in disbelief but I force him up with a rough hand at his chin, pulling his face from the pillows. I sit us back up and he all but shrieks at the way my fingers penetrate him deeper. I clamp a hand around his waste.

“Now tell me,” I growl in his ear, hand promising at his cock and fingers still moving hard inside him. “Tell me you want me to fuck you like a dog and I’ll make you come.”

He struggles in my arms and I hold him tighter, fingers jabbing at his prostate mercilessly. He sucks in a teary breath and shakes his head, hair so soaked with sweat it sticks to his forehead. His whole body is flushed a delicate pink.

He makes an aborted wet sound lost in a groan as I draw the pads of my fingers over the bundle of nerves and start massaging it.

“Yes, yes, yes,” he gasps, squirming for more stimulation. “Yes, ok, fuck-” he swallows, “f-fuck me like a…dog.”

I snort and let him squirm a moment longer, fully aware that I can ask for it louder, ask for him to beg. But there has been enough cruelty already and I settle for pushing him forward once more, letting my weight settle on his back which he all but purrs at, and shoving a third finger into him in a way that draws a pained squeak. The pressure on my fingers is driving me mad, the heat of it speaking directly to my cock. I growl the long, low growl of my wolf and feel him shudder uncontrollably against me, sobbing into the bedspread even as his hips thrust wantonly against my hand.

I wait til my fingers are stretching him, brushing his gland, thumb stroking the sensitive skin of his perineum and the palm of my other hand smearing the precum around the head of his cock and then I trip my pheromone response and let him feel the wash of my heat.

He keens against me, the noise building to a scream as is body comes alive with the intensity of it. His heartbeat pounds in my head, my cock pressed against his taut thigh, my hand a slick vice around his cock. He clamps down around my fingers as he begins to come, cock not yet fully hard but drooling thick fluid onto the coverlet. His orgasm is long and seizes his body up against me. He shakes so hard I fear he might break apart, his mouth open and panting raw, broken moans as he comes and comes for what seems like an eternity, eyes bulging with disbelief.

I stroke my fingers carefully out of him part way through and he groans at the loss, still shuddering his completion, soft cock oozing clear semen. At last he chokes on a cry as a particularly intense wave overcomes him and he collapses on the bed, flank twitching with exhaustion.

I run a hand fondly over his silky-skinned back, a little melancholy all of a sudden knowing that I cannot have him as I want. While he is lax I search out my uniform. The fur is rank with sweat and the scent of musk and come. I attach it to my coat with barely shaking hands, pulling free the humiliating mark of ownership, the white gold letter embellished with gems. I look at it for a long time before dropping it carelessly on the floor.

His head jerks up at the sudden noise. He does not know it but he looks more beautiful than ever, hair in disarray around his flushed features, eyes softened with pleasure.

I turn to leave but he calls out.

“Wait. I know what you came to do.”

I fix him with a sceptical look but he shakes it off.

“James Halder came to me three days ago and promised you could do this…make me c-” he chokes on the word as if it is too much to admit even now. “He told me you would do it if I gave you the access code to my father’s apartments.”

I go cold, all the blood draining from me; my erection is completely lost.

“How…”

“He said you were a surgeon at the camps. That you,” he pauses, looking vaguely disgusted. “…that you did the castrations on the gender traitors so you’d know how to…”

I swallow around the lump forming in my throat. “It’s not science. You just needed extra…” I search for the word in English but cannot find it and I trail off miserably.

It is not possible that James knows. Not even Claudine knows of my specific past. She knows I worked at the camps yes, but not that. I think again of the wasted, half-dead boy reaching for me through the fence, of the nod I gave to the other soldiers to fish him out and secure him for research.

James was wrong, I was never a surgeon. I was too simple, a soldier quick to anger, not the cunning mind of a camp doctor. But I had been one of the enforcers at the gender betrayal camps, the ones where they sent the deviants and homosexuals for reassignment and experimentation. I had picked them out by simple criteria: starving, thin, weak; I had stood by and watched countless times…

The little lord slides off the bed, moving to pick up the discarded necklace and fasten it about his neck and pulling the shirt loose from beneath his arms. He does not do up his fly and his shorts are still damp.

He runs a hand through his hair; regaining his decorum it seems and raises his eyebrows in a more familiar expression of disdain.

“Well it’s done and I am grateful, even if you are a-”

“Dog?” I suggest with no little innuendo.

He does not blush but his eyes are vulnerable for a moment before he steels himself to a glare. He smoothes imaginary dirt from his chest, picking at a rough patch of stuck glitter.

“The access key is the note I gave you, the numbers corresponding to each letter.”

I look him over carefully. “Why? Why help us?”

He sighs. “Because with my father dead I can start making changes,” he says as if this is an age old argument.

“What kind of changes. Tell me or it might be better to kill you now.”

He smirks. “That’s some language disparity you have there, Emrich.”

I am shocked he remembers my name. “I am serious,” I say, “We cannot afford to have your father replaced with an extremist successor.”

He quirks an arrogant eyebrow. “Don’t worry so much. You will kill my father tonight and escape the premises with your companions.” He pauses at the table, finger tracing the rim of a teacup absently. “And then…and then you will wonder just how much James Halder is using you for his own cause. And I promise you he has his own cause. And then you will come back to me.”

I snort but he only looks sombre.

“And I’m supposed to believe this of an impotent mortal child?”

He sneers with distaste at the word. “Believe what you will. Three things I know to be the truth. Tonight my father dies. James Halder will have his war. And you will come back to me.”

I grimace and take one last long draught of air from the room, one last look at the dishevelled mortal standing tall like a true prince amongst all the decadence and sordidness…and then I am hurrying down the confusing rat-maze of corridors to the Grand Ballroom where Claudine and Horst anxiously await, the scent of ambergris and stale sweat at my back.