He slowly raised himself onto one elbow, then the other, and drew himself from her in one long motion as he stood. After adjusting his clothing, he drew a handkerchief from one pocket and tenderly dried the peach halves of her sex, left split and shining from his ministrations. “Now, my sweet,” he murmured, and gently drew her up once more, wrapping her in his cloak and placing her before him on the horse.
Hours passed. Snow fell, at first like tufts of milkweed, hanging in the air, almost suspended by the wind, then clinging to him, the horse, the girl; then it began to fall in a deluge, so thick that he could barely see. He was thankful for the snow because it would cover all traces of their passage. The horse knew its way back and had once returned to the castle with its coat singed and eyes swollen shut after having been struck by lightning.
The muffled clatter of the horse’s hooves into the silent courtyard would have alerted even the dimmest of servants, but no one greeted him as he brought home his prize. He swung down from the horse and lifted her from the saddle, carrying the limp girl over the threshold and up the curving staircase.
He pushed open the door to a bedroom and set her down upon a red velvet coverlet, still enveloped in his cloak. Snowflakes hung in her hair like tiny seed pearls, seen in a pale slice of light coming through the curtains. “Exquisite,” he murmured, and leaned down to claim a kiss from those lips. He hovered an inch above them, then placed his lips upon her forehead instead, as one might kiss a child. “Soon,” he said once again, crossing the room to close the curtain. He then turned on his heel and left the room.
When he returned to her, the sun had crossed the sky and sunk once again beneath the edge of the world. He carried a candelabra and a white silk nightgown chased with lace at the bodice and hem. Placing the candelabra on a bedside table, he pulled his cloak from her and once again marveled at the perfection of her white skin, the voluptuousness of her breasts in comparison with her tiny waist and slim hips. Her feet and hands were petite, the nails pearlescent and dainty. This time he controlled his lascivious urges and raised her to a sitting position. Delicately, he pulled the nightgown over her head, eased each arm through its sleeve, and rolled the material over her breasts, letting it fall to her waist, then laid her back upon the bed, and raising her buttocks, pulled the gown over her legs as well.
He sat down beside her, plumping the pillows behind her head. The room was dark except for the flickering candles. Then, dragging a sharpened fingernail across the pad of his index finger, he leaned over her. A bead of blood appeared there and he applied pressure beneath the wound to force the blood’s flow. “Now my darling,” he whispered hoarsely, “now drink.”
First the red lips parted and the little red tongue slipped between them to lap at his finger as the bead trickled into her mouth. Then the lips closed around the tip of his finger, drawing it slowly into her mouth as she suckled, using her tongue and teeth to pull it in farther. A soft moan came from him, and he pricked another finger, pulling a line of blood across her bottom lip. She opened her mouth to accommodate the new finger, pulling it in next to its brother for several minutes. When he tried to pull them out she made a small mewling sound of discontent, but finally released him. Her mouth remained open this time, her lips moist and ripe as the red flesh of a pomegranate. He slashed his wrist in the same method as before and pressed it to those eager lips. Her eyes flew open, eyes the color of dark sapphires, the blue of the sky just before it turns to black. As she drew on the wound, color suffused her cheeks, and her breast began to rise and fall with passionate frequency. He moaned again, this time louder, and his wrist shifted in her grasp. A feral growl vibrated from her lungs as she bit harder, deeper, clutching the wrist with both hands so that he could not pull it away. The muscles in his arm flexed and pulsed beneath her hands, and her eyes, which had previously, though open, not seen, suddenly saw the reflection of her bridegroom in the mirror on the ceiling. Her eyes grew wide.
The man above her was bestial, furred, with sharp fingernails like claws and strange, golden, glowing eyes. Even now his transformation was incomplete; even now the dark gray fur had only begun to creep across his features, his nose beginning to lengthen into a snout, his body collapsing into the long sinews, the forelegs, the paws of the loup garou, the wolf, as his bride looked on, the copper taste of his blood in her mouth.
She released his wrist—no, no longer wrist, but foreleg—from her mouth and screamed once, loudly, rolling to the floor, bent in half, knees touching her forehead as she convulsed on the carpet. She shrieked again, longer and louder this time, as though the sound was being ripped from her lungs. The wolf leaped from the bed to her side while she screamed, and she made no move to escape it.
The animal whined softly and pushed his nose into her hair, licking gently at her face, licking the tears that had run down her cheeks. She whimpered, trying to hold back another scream that erupted from her throat. She could feel the soft roughness of his fur against her cheek, feel his hot breath in her hair, and still the taste of blood permeated her mouth.
She grabbed the sleek gray-furred body with a strength and speed that surprised her, and was surprised too, when she found herself sinking her teeth into the soft flesh of his throat. When she opened her eyes to look into the mirror above them again, her lover lay against her, spent, still furred, and her own eyes had turned ice blue.
She watched in the mirror as she grew black fur, watched her body grow tighter, her face grow longer, her sharp teeth grow sharper as she learned what it was to have four legs. She threw back her head and howled, and her lover howled with her. He took her then, from behind, and he watched as they each found their own skin again when he was through.
“My wolf,” she murmured. “Trapped by love, but by no man.”
“And my Zapada Alba, as beautiful dead as when you were alive, with skin as white as snow and fur as black as coal.”
When the moon is full, Count and Countess Wolf run through the pines, branches catching at their coats, while snow falls softly from the sky.
AFTERWORD
Rachel Caine
I grew up on dark, Gothic tales of romance and danger and death…tremendous stories fraught with terror. I loved them, and yet I also often found that there was something missing. There was always the undercurrent that went hand in hand with fear and darkness: sex. An exciting and unspoken dark mystery kept in the shadows and behind carefully closed doors, as if it had to be contained for our safety. Sex drove plots and plans and revenge, but like the ghosts that haunted the halls, or the monsters creeping in the shadows, it was never to be seen straight on—only in sidewise glimpses, whispers and the tingles the ideas woke deep inside.
We know that real Victorian society was intensely sexual, yet had very definite roles. Women were saints or sinners; the saints were wives who were expected to do their duty, while the sinners were mistresses and ladies of the night, ready to take their wanton pleasures without shame. Men lived in both worlds, moving between the two, and while it was technically wrong, it was utterly mundane for a man of property to keep a mistress on the side. At night even the most upright family man might frequent brothels, collect pornographic cards or chase the opium dragon. Through such intense divisions came conflict—the daytime world colliding with the night, in the same way that horror crept out of shadows and alleys and crypts. There were consequences to hiding these things. Sometimes, they were fatal.
And yet, it’s biology. We all secretly crave sex and pleasure in all its forms. It’s part of the human condition, and we ignore that drive, that need, at our peril. In these modern times we can safely acknowledge a woman’s sexuality and its power, and honestly examine how it changes and shapes the world around us.
We can also take a new look back at our Gothic past, with all its secrets and shadows, and unlock those closed doors, peek into the shadows and find even richer material to explore.
In this collection’s great dark tales of sex and murder, fear and love, pain and pleas
ure, we see not only ourselves, but we also shine a candle on our collective past, and that is a powerful and exciting journey.
I invite you to go with us into darkness. It hides horrors and delights beyond your imagination.
And if the candle goes out…surrender to the dark.
Rachel Caine
Author of the Morganville Vampires series
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
BENJI BRIGHT is the pen name of Bendi Barrett, a poet whose work has been in PANK, Sein Und Werden, and recently Glitterwolf. As Benji Bright he has published erotica with JMS Books, Queer Young Cowboys and Circlet Press. He is a graduate of Cornell University and lives near Chicago.
RACHEL CAINE is the author of more than forty novels, including the internationally bestselling Morganville Vampires series in young adult. She makes her home in Fort Worth, Texas with her husband, fantasy artist R. Cat Conrad, where she specializes in making the neighbors think all writers are weird.
ROSE DE FER is an English writer who loves the Gothic and decadent. Her novella Lust Ever After (Mischief Books) is a sexy re-imagining of Bride of Frankenstein. Other stories appear in Red Velvet and Absinthe (edited by Mitzi Szereto), and in numerous Mischief anthologies including Underworlds, Submission and Forever Bound.
KATE DOUGLAS’s first erotic romance was published in 2001 and she has since had almost fifty erotic novels and novellas published by both small press and traditional publishers, along with a dozen other stories for a more conventional audience. She and her husband of over four decades live in Healdsburg, California.
CAIRDE GLASS is an author living in the southeastern United States. Her speculative fiction has been published at Daily Science Fiction, Abyss & Apex, and The Beast Within 4: Gears and Growls. She’s currently querying a steampunk novel about magic, machinery and murder.
SACCHI GREEN writes erotica in western Massachusetts. Her alter ego Connie Wilkins writes speculative fiction, but the lines frequently get blurred. Sacchi’s stories appear in scores of anthologies, including Mitzi Szereto’s Wicked: Sexy Tales of Legendary Lovers and Thrones of Desire, and she’s edited nine erotica anthologies herself, winning both Lambda and GCLS Awards.
KIM KNOX (kim-knox.co.uk) is an author of science fiction, fantasy and paranormal erotic and sensual romance. She’s published by Carina Press, Ellora’s Cave, Samhain Publishing, Entangled Publishing, Cleis and others. Her story “At the Sorcerer’s Command” appeared in Mitzi Szereto’s Thrones of Desire. She lives in northwest England.
TRACEY LANDER-GARRETT teaches in the English Department at Borough of Manhattan Community College and plays Dungeons & Dragons in her spare time. Most recently, she’s published poetry and creative nonfiction in Connotation Press and Electric Windmill Press. She lives in Brooklyn, New York with her husband and too many cats.
ADRIAN LUDENS lives in the Black Hills of South Dakota. His mystery and horror tales have appeared in Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, Big Pulp, Blood Lite 3: Aftertaste, Diabolic Tales 3 and Blood Rites. His collection, Bedtime Stories for Carrion Beetles, is available on Amazon in multiple formats.
T. C. MILL (tc-mill.com) grew up in Wisconsin. Her short stories have been published by Circlet Press and Every Night Erotica, and she has e-books available from Dreamspinner, Storm Moon Press and Carina.
GARY EARL ROSS, retired University of Buffalo professor, is a novelist and playwright whose works include Wheel of Desire, Shimmerville, Blackbird Rising, Picture Perfect, Murder Squared, The Scavenger’s Daughter and Matter of Intent (winner of the Best Play Edgar Award from Mystery Writers of America).
MADELEINE SWANN’s erotica has appeared at the Forbidden Fiction website and in The Big Book of Bizarro anthology, and her surreal comedy and horror in Polluto magazine, Black Petal magazine, and from LegumeMan Books. She writes from her home in Essex, England.
ZANDER VYNE’s (zandervyne.com) work is published in several genres. Her literary erotica is featured in Mitzi Szereto’s Red Velvet and Absinthe and Thrones of Desire. Chief editor at Full Sail Editing, she lives in Chicago, Illinois with her husband, daughter and an adopted Basenji mutt named Riley.
JO WU attends UC Berkeley, where she studies biology and creative writing, and writes for the award-winning Caliber Magazine. Her work has appeared in Gothology II: Misery Loves Company, Underneath the Juniper Tree and Mitzi Szereto’s Thrones of Desire. She also models in magazines under the alias Carmilla Jo.
ROSALÍA ZIZZO is a hot-blooded Sicilian whose work has appeared on several online sites and in a number of anthologies, including Best Women’s Erotica 2012 and 2013, Stretched and Santa’s Hot Secrets. A former teacher, she holds a BA in comparative literature from UC Davis and now lives in Rocklin, California.
ABOUT THE EDITOR
MITZI SZERETO (mitziszereto.com) is an author and anthology editor of multi-genre fiction and nonfiction. She has her own blog, Errant Ramblings: Mitzi Szereto’s Weblog (mitziszereto.com/blog) and a Web TV channel, Mitzi TV (mitziszereto.com/tv), which covers the “quirky” side of London. Her books include The Wilde Passions of Dorian Gray (a sequel to Oscar Wilde’s classic novel); the epic fantasy anthology Thrones of Desire: Erotic Tales of Swords, Mist and Fire; the crime/cozy mystery Normal for Norfolk (The Thelonious T. Bear Chronicles); the Jane Austen sex parody Pride and Prejudice: Hidden Lusts; Red Velvet and Absinthe: Paranormal Erotic Romance; In Sleeping Beauty’s Bed: Erotic Fairy Tales; Getting Even: Revenge Stories; Wicked: Sexy Tales of Legendary Lovers; Dying For It: Tales of Sex and Death; the Erotic Travel Tales anthologies and many other titles. A popular social media personality and frequent interviewee, she’s known for having pioneered erotic writing workshops in the United Kingdom and mainland Europe and has lectured in creative writing at several British universities. Her anthology Erotic Travel Tales 2 is the first anthology of erotica to feature a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. Her next book will be Love, Lust and Zombies. She divides her time between London, England and various locations in the United States.
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