Love and Whiskers

by Olivia Myers

“Don’t,” said the man. “Be calm. You must be calm if you are going to hear what I shall tell you.”

  “Pierre told me everything,” she spat in defiance. “I don’t care about fate and I don’t care about your past. What I saw you do to Diane is enough to convince me of who you really are.”

  “Who I really am,” said Bly. He laughed. It was a terrible, thunderous laugh, like the sound of glass breaking against glass.

  “Who you really are,” said Celia, dismayed but fierce. Her eyes blazed. “A pitiable man, a victim, but still a monster.”

  “Pierre is an idiot. You knew this when you met him at your university. You knew this here but you haven’t had the courage to say it. Though you have the courage to call me a monster. Please—” he said, anticipating Celia’s retort “—if a monster is a victim of his fate, you are as much a monster as I am. You are as pitiable as I am.”

  “I would not say that,” she huffed.

  “Yes,” said Bly and Celia caught a trace of pathos in his voice, a deep and profound sadness she did not think he was capable of producing. “I know you wouldn’t. And that is your tragedy.”

  “What do you mean?” Celia asked. His tone was worrying her, its intimacy, its concession. “What are you trying to say?”

  Thomas Bly looked at her. His eyes were full of anguish and remorse and self-hatred. They burned so fiercely Celia feared his own passion would engulf him. “I am saying that that fool Pierre had everything wrong in the story except for the truth. The truth that this is not my tragedy. It is yours.”

  “What do you mean?” Celia’s voice was a ghost, floating into the cruelness of the sky.

  “I can only be brief,” Thomas Bly spoke like a man giving his last testimonial before the fall of the guillotine. “The story is much too large to tell you here.”

  Celia’s heart overflowed—but with what? With fear. With tenderness. With the desire for mercy. With misery. With love, the pure love for a fellow, suffering creature.

  “But you must tell me something.” Celia pleaded. “I never asked for a story! Only, tell me something so that I know what to believe!”

  “What to believe,” Thomas Bly repeated, twisting the words around in his mouth, as though he were sucking acid from them. “And what would you believe? Would you believe that the menaces of the past have risen up against us, are threatening to destroy us by the sins of their past life?”

  He thrust his savage, pale face into Celia’s and kissed her hard, painfully on the lips. It came as swiftly as a snakebite. “Now I’ve kissed you. I can betray you.”

  “Thomas!” she pleaded, her eyes filling with tears. “You must—you must tell me something!”

  “Very well,” he said, his passion ebbing. “Then let me be blunt in the telling. Diane is your sister, not mine. It is your parents, George and Margarette Barnette, who are the brother and sister that caused you and your twin sister such torment. They did not die when you were younger as you were told. Your father was crippled in the mines and passed his days away in pain, at his mother’s bedside. Your mother fared better for a time. Pregnant with a sailor’s bastard child, she married my father and then bore me. But he learned of her scandal as she lay dying of a fever. Only too late, because he’d fallen in love with the baby who was not his own!

  “After she died, my father went with me, his infant son, to live far away, but not before his family got news of the entire scandal and cut him out of the family. And for what? For shame! For the shame of being associated, for being related to a man who’d been passionate and taken for a fool! How could my father’s ignorance be his fault? How could he know what crime she had committed before he married her? Yet my grandfather’s didn’t care about fairness or justice when he disinherited my father—yes!—and let a family treasure, a castle that has stood for centuries, rot in disuse. He’d rather it rot than go to a man who would see it restored and renewed!

  “You see how brief and simple the truth can be!” Thomas Bly said, his face cracking wide in a hideous smile.

  His passion thrilled and horrified Celia. She felt as though the man before her could do anything. Could crawl inside her skin and control her. She felt her soul cascade into the passion of his fire. She felt her body glowing in the heat of his ardor.

  “And now!” said Thomas Bly. “Why, what is there now? You have met your twin, my stepsister—a poor, mangled creature! I have done what I could for her in the years I’ve known her but she has lost touch with reality entirely. If she is not lost then she is nearly there. And as for us!” He seemed to notice Celia for the first time, being drawn into the flame of his magnificent being. “My other stepsister! What a happy reunion we’ve made! What a fortunate fate has brought us together! Come—kiss me again!”

  He flew towards her and kissed her passionately on the mouth. Celia didn’t have the strength to resist him. She was held down by her terror and fascination which had mingled within her into a passion of her own.

  “Thomas!” At first she tried to fight him off, but then she held him closer. “Thomas!”

  The man seemed lost in the craze of his desire, but he suddenly stopped. “Celia?”

  She pulled him to her again. “I want this,” she said. “I want you.”

  And then he moved against her, into her, again. He was pouring himself out for Celia, offering himself—a wretched, broken creature—so that she could make his destruction complete. He sucked her lips with abandon, willing Celia to destroy him, forcing his power into her.

  And Celia was drunk with the passion and the strength he poured into her. She knew it was a kind of love that drew them together. Love, and need—his need to be broken by her, and her need for the power that his body was channeling into hers. She knew now why she had resented Pierre, why she could not love him with the force with which she was loving Thomas. This impossible strength, this will, was not in Pierre’s power. It was only in Thomas’s. And now, it was in hers.

  Thomas climbed onto the bed with Celia. He tore off her shirt. The maniacal action made Celia cry but she attacked back with equal fervor, struggling to pin him down, tearing his clothes away until he became a mass of naked muscle on top of her still-clothed form. She would subdue him. She would take this passion into herself.

  Struggling, clawing, she managed to get free from where she was trapped beneath so she could position herself on top, straddling him. Her mouth locked to his in a wild, permanent kiss. Her tongue seared through his mouth, drinking him, consuming him. She grabbed his hair with her fists and held for all she was worth as her kiss cut him deeper and deeper.

  Thomas kissed her back, just as hard. His powerful hands worked the loose pajama bottoms down past her knees where he tore them away from her like they’d been on fire. She was burning him but he held her like fire in the power of his grasp and in the strength of his indomitable will. Her panties came next, discarded roughly like the pajama bottoms. Now he had all of her in his grasp. All of her white heat.

  Celia gave little shuddering cries as the clothing was torn away from her, as though it were a past life she was shedding. She was naked now, purified to enter the fire of his being. She ceased kissing his lips and maneuvered down his chest, past the massive pectorals, strong as armor plating, until she reached his cock, nearly splitting apart his briefs, it was so hard. As hatefully as he’d ripped away her clothing, she ripped away this last barrier, and at last cupped him whole in her hands, like a powerful animal.

  She touched him with her mouth. She wanted to show what control she had over him and so she teased him, lubricating his shaft with the softness of her tongue, taking only his delicate tip in her mouth and then pulling it back out again. It must have been torture for him. That was what she wanted. To show that she could torture him.

  But at last the torture grew too much even for her. She was done teasing. She would have him now. Celia mounted his body and moved his formidable hands onto her breasts. Instantly they began squeezing her. He seemed to know exactly what she
wanted him to do. He knew exactly what she needed of him. Her clit was as soft and as moist as a sponge, but she was careful when she positioned herself. She wanted to show him that she could wait, that she was still in power, that she was capable of prolonging not just his torture but her own.

  And then finally, she let his huge girth slide inside her, filling her with the undisguised splendor of another living being. Celia gasped with the breath of two. The firm trunk inside of her was like the trunk of her own soul, taking root in the soul of the man beneath her. She rose, elevating herself, and she felt the weight of two rise with her, towering over earthly pain. And when she sank back down again, with a gasp and a little shudder, she felt the reconnection of her soul with his. The connection was savage and it was beautiful. Again and again she rose up and came down, pumping Thomas inside of her with each rise of her thighs, breaking him more and more with every blow, consuming him.

  “Come for me, Thomas,” she said. She felt her soul rising into the bliss beyond herself. She knew she had to have Thomas ejaculate to catch the fleeting bliss and cement it to her being. She needed his essence to become complete. “Come for me.”

  Thomas groaned, and Celia could feel his body, willing his release, willing the connection. It was slipping out of his power. She had taken it from him.

  “Celia,” his deep voice quaked. And then he shuddered, as though an earthquake were passing through his body. Celia shuddered as it passed through her, ricocheting through her muscles, and ending with an explosion deep within her—a white-hot burst of his being. She threw her head back and howled.

  ***

  Afterwards. In the dead of night. In the cold and clear sky that poured in through the windows, Thomas pulled on his trousers and told Celia that they would never see each other again.

  “Old sins have followed us, infected us,” he said. “We will be driven to inhuman and impure lives. We will suffer hell and madness if we pursue each other. We will suffer as Diane has already suffered. And I do not think there will be sanctuary for us as I have managed for her.”

  “Where is she?” Celia asked as he struggled into his clothes.

  “Safe,” Thomas said. His words were razors again. Celia had stripped the armor of his soul, but it was still there in his being, in his person. She resented him for it, yet she knew that he needed his armor to survive.

  “You will see her in the town,” he said. “Talk to her. Hold her. Maybe you will never learn to recognize her, but she has already recognized you. She gave you her picture, didn’t she?”

  Celia nodded.

  “You won’t rescue her past identity, but you can remind her of it.”

  “And you,” she said. Her voice was surprisingly cold, as his was cold. “Where are you going?”

  “I would never tell you.”

  “What if you fall into trouble?”

  “I have already fallen into it. Now I shall climb out.”

  “I could help you, Thomas,” she said, and pressed her tender hand against his chest.

  “No,” he hissed and pushed away her hand.

  Celia felt shock, but it was replaced quickly by neutrality. There was no change in Thomas. He had become amorphous again. A ghoul.

  “I will be alone,” he said. “I have always been alone. I prefer it. But you, for you I leave the Bly family inheritance. It’s yours if you want it.”

  Thomas took a sizeable house key out of his pocket let it drop limply on the floor. His disgust was obvious. “I’ve left instructions for it to be transferred to Diane, and from Diane to the sister that she recognizes. If you want it. You can easily refuse and let it pass away into rubble.”

  “I want a family, Thomas,” Celia pleaded. “I don’t want your damn inheritance. I don’t want this rotting place.”

  “Then it is yours to refuse,” Thomas swept across the room and gathered his overcoat. He paused before the door. For a moment Celia was sure he was going to say something, admit some regret.

  But there were no final words. No last goodbyes. Only the sound of retreating footsteps and, at last, the crunch of snow beneath the million million eyes of the cruel, cold night. Every eye Celia knew was watching her, waiting, anticipating her fatal next step.

  And Celia stared back. She was in control. She could conquer all of these million million staring satellites, as she’d conquered the man who walked beneath them now in the dark hinterlands, off and away to an unknown and perilous future.

  THE END

  Forbidden Shifts

  The breeze rustling through the trees behind me. The bite of the cold air on my fur. The spots of rain that dripped on my ears and rolled down my nose. God, it felt good to be out again as a wolf.

  I couldn’t really form thoughts when I was shifted, except to consider what I was feeling and seeing and hearing. It was so satisfying to have everything stripped down to its most basic form. It was liberating not to have to worry about bills or worry about how I was going to pay the rent this month. It was even better to not have to worry about her.

  Lifting swiftly and immediately back into my human form, I scolded myself. I’d promised myself that I wasn’t going to let my mind linger on Lindsay any more. It was stupid to think I had anything even resembling a chance with her.

  I was only a few feet from where I’d parked my car, and I walked over to it to get the clothes I’d stashed in the trunk. Driving a car naked, as I’d discovered, wasn’t exactly the best way to go about the whole not-getting-noticed thing. Opening the trunk, I pulled out some jeans and a t-shirt, and pulled them on. I was still speckled with sweat and rain, and my skin smelled like grass in the cool midnight air. But even as I tried to focus on pulling myself back into being a person, her face was there in my mind.

  Damn these post-shift hormones.

  Sure, I could blame it on the hormones. It wasn’t like there was anything more to it than that…at least, I could keep telling myself that.

  I’d been the beta in our pack for more than a year before I met Lindsay. Her father was the alpha, and he had always done a careful job of keeping her away from us, a bunch of horny, hot-blooded werewolves. But she turned up at the bar one evening, curious to meet the rest of her father’s pack, and Mark, her father, wasn’t around to keep an eye on us. I was smitten. Smitten in a big way. She was tall, as tall as me, with generously long legs and small, perky breasts, the kind that would have fit perfectly into the palm of my hand. And she spent the whole evening flirting with me as if her life depended on it. We bought beers, we laughed over our mutual love of stupid sitcoms and our teenage taste in music, and Lindsay invited me back to her place when the night was over. But I’d said no. I had to. Mark would have finished me if he found out I was putting the moves on his beloved daughter. What kind of beta would I be if I was screwing the boss’s kid? No matter how cute or charming or flirty Lindsay got, I had to make sure that Mark and the rest of the pack knew my loyalties lay with them, and not her. Plus, banging your friend’s daughter is probably bad form, even in the non-shifter world.

  I tried to shove the thought of her to the back of my head as I climbed into the car and drove off, heading back toward my apartment in the canter of town.

  I put on some loud music and tried to blast any thought of Lindsay from my mind. The roads were quiet. Trying not to think about Lindsay, I spent the whole journey thinking about the couple of beers I had in my fridge that I would throw back as a reward for not driving straight to Lindsay’s place and fucking her brains out, no matter how tempting the thought was. She’d slipped me her card and told me to come down whenever I wanted, but I’d tried to forget the address etched on the crisp white square. Despite my attempts to forget, it was still carved into my memory. I could get there in minutes if I changed my mind. The testosterone from my run was still pulsing through my body, and I knew that this time, this time it might be different.

  I pulled up to a red light and pressed my head against the steering wheel. Was I really going to do this? Was I really
going to go there after all this time spent fighting the urge? It was reckless, sure, and she might turn me down, but I knew I had to try. After all this time denying myself, I still wanted her. And I wanted her now. There was no ignoring the chemistry between us, and maybe this one, quick encounter would put her to the back of my mind for good. I sure as hell hoped so.

  Turning the car around, I repeated her address in my head to make sure that I knew where I was going. 14 Appleton Road. I knew I was going to the right place. My heart practically in my mouth, I pressed my foot to the pedal and hurried through the quiet city night.

  I was in front of her house in a matter of minutes, my breath heavy, my mind racing. Was I really about to do this? Stepping out of the car, I mussed up my hair and adjusted my shirt, trying not to let my brain process what was going on. If I didn’t realize what I was doing, I couldn’t be doing anything wrong, could I? Oh God, but what if she turned me down? Or she’d gotten a boyfriend since we last hung out? I tried to ignore my rushing brain as I pressed the buzzer for her door. There was only one way to find all of that out.

  “Hello?” Her crackly voice through the intercom took me by surprise.

  “Hello, Lindsay, it’s…it’s Kellan.”

  There was a pause at her end, then I heard the door click open. “Come on up.”

  Walking through the door and up the stairs, I found myself outside her apartment, my heart pounding in my ears. She let me in. Did that mean she’d spent as much time thinking about our connection as I had?

  The door opened and there she was, standing in front of me in a thigh-length silk dressing gown, the kind that looked like it had been thrown on just as she’d gotten out of bed.

  “I’m sorry, did I wake you?” I apologized, not wanting to enter her house until she invited me.

  “No, no, it’s fine. I was just up reading for an essay I have due next week,” she replied, yawning, gesturing for me to go past her. Her hair was done up in a messy ponytail, tendrils escaping around her face and neck. I wanted to brush them out of the way, but I wasn’t sure how she’d react. No need to push my luck more than I’d already pushed it.