The Moonlight Mistress

by Victoria Janssen

  She sniffed, and he had the feeling that she did so functionally, to discern his intentions. After a moment, she nodded. “I will sit with you.”

  Pascal held out his arm, and she laid her hand on it, just barely touching his sleeve. The gesture matched her accent. He decided the dress was hers. Odd as it seemed, her feet were also a part of her, or perhaps a visible sign of her werewolf nature. Were shoes too much trouble when she changed form? And, no doubt, a corset would be impossible.

  The shop was tiny, with equally tiny tables and spindly chairs that forced him to hunch like a crane. The shop did not sell coffee. He ordered a pot of their strongest tea and a plate of madeleines and little flaky pastries filled with sweetened cream. Madame Claes sat stiffly atop her chair, hands folded on the table. She wore no rings. Her fingernails were not dirty, but just as ragged as her toenails. A man’s wristwatch clasped her bony wrist, just visible beyond the edge of her sleeve.

  She said, “You are very rude to stare.”

  “I am rude,” Pascal acknowledged. He poured tea for both of them, adding copious amounts of sugar to his. She looked as if she could use a good meal. Her fingers looked as if they could be snapped like twigs. He remembered Kauz’s laboratory notebooks and felt sick. He held out the bowl to her. “Do you take sugar?”

  “I do not want any tea.”

  “Pretend as if you do. It will give you something to do with your hands.”

  She said abruptly, “You would like my hands on you.” She didn’t sound as certain as before.

  “If I did, we would not be sitting in this lovely shop.” He glanced toward the counter. The waitress had retreated to the rear and begun washing dishes. The noise easily covered their low-voiced conversation. “Tell me about being a werewolf.”

  She gave him a pitying look and ate a madeleine in one bite, then picked up another. She chewed, swallowed, and said, “You will not lock me up. I would kill you first.” She took a third cream pastry and studied it a moment before popping it into her mouth. Despite himself, Pascal watched the movement of her lips as she chewed. It wasn’t entirely his scientific interest that led him to do so. He felt an incongruous curl of arousal simply from watching her eat.

  He had not told Lucilla he had met a werewolf before, so he already knew Madame Claes’s magnetism was not inherent in her species, or at least not entirely; he had only met male werewolves. Perhaps what he sensed was her focus and concentration, so like Lucilla when she pondered a problem.

  Deliberately, he looked down at his tea and poured in some milk, then wrapped his fingers around the cup. He imagined Lucilla sitting next to him, her expression alert with scientific interest. She would have so many questions. “Where did you come from?”

  “I did not arise from the earth like a plant. My mother gave birth to me.”

  “I meant, where is your home?” he asked, and sipped his tea. “Were both your parents werewolves?”

  “I am a Belgian. It is not always necessary,” she said, drinking down her tea. She did not expand on this answer. Pascal poured her another cup, and again offered the china bowl that held lumps of sugar. This time, she took two lumps and dropped them in.

  Pascal raised a hand and called for the waitress, ordering a plate of sandwiches. “You are few, in Belgium?”

  “Do you see us making armies and defending our land from the Boche?” The waitress set down their plate of small sandwiches. Madame Claes took one and ate it in a single bite. She did not appear to take any pleasure in the food, Pascal noted. She simply ate it for fuel, like a soldier too long in the field. “Why are you asking these questions?”

  “I am curious. It is the besetting sin of the scientist.”

  “What do you hope to gain?”

  Pascal shrugged. He ate a sandwich, and wished it was bigger. He had another. “Have you thought of all the ways in which an intelligent wolf might be useful to the war effort? Your spying was most effective, but at times bearing a simple message is even more valuable. The Boche have dogs which serve this purpose.”

  One corner of her mouth twisted. “I am not a dog. If I had a compassionate soul, I might consider this. But I told you, I have a hatred of the Boche. I prefer to strike directly whenever I am able, since my government will not allow me to be a soldier. Even though I can rip out a man’s throat in less than a heartbeat.” She picked up the last remaining madeleine and nibbled on it delicately.

  Pascal felt short of breath. Her teeth were very fine and white, her canines slightly sharp. She had spoken with calm certainty. He did not doubt she could do as she said. “If you are not willing to be guided, your efforts may be of little use to us,” he pointed out. “Some information is more valuable for when it is obtained, and how. One cannot simply blunder in and out.”

  “And who makes these decisions? You?” She sounded scornful.

  “Not I,” he confirmed. “These subtleties are not for me. However, I do believe there is a place for them when dealing in such delicate matters as acquiring illicit information. Sometimes, one’s labors are even made less dangerous when one has outside help.”

  Madame Claes picked up the last sandwich and ate it in quick, neat bites, leaving not even a scrap of crust. “Surely you do not intend assigning me a partner, and convincing him that I am a werewolf.”

  “You have convinced me.”

  “Yes. I can smell it on you. But I warn you, any attempt to constrain my activities will result in…let us say, that you will not be happy. Or perhaps even alive.”

  “And what of your life?” Pascal asked, lifting his hand for more sandwiches. He was still hungry. “I have heard that your kind is in particular danger if captured.”

  She stilled. He could not even see her breathe. “Who told you?” she asked.

  “I obtained this knowledge before the war. And I received further information from a German scientist.”

  A low rumbling arose from her throat. “And this scientist, he was your friend?”

  “Not in the least. My friend and I stole his motorcar.”

  She laughed, then looked astonished at the sound she’d made. Her gaze narrowed, grew savage and intent. “Tell me where to find him. The chemical experiments of which I spoke, they are his, but he was not there, and has not returned for many days.”

  “Alas, I cannot tell you. He is gone to ground somewhere. However, I suspect that you might be able to help us to find him.”

  “Gladly,” she growled.

  11

  CRISPIN HADN’T FELT ANY FEAR AT ALL AS HE’D led his platoon into battle, only a strange feeling of intense concentration and heightened senses. Now that the worst of the fighting was over, though, chance had left him stranded far from his company, his twisted ankle swelling inside his boot, each beat of his pulse throbbing up his whole leg. He lay surrounded by mud and metal fragments, corpses and incomplete corpses, and the shattered skeletons of trees. That was a very different thing, and he’d had to work to keep from panicking.

  Meyer had arrived after about an hour, and now Crispin couldn’t stop shaking. He’d been holding together rather well when he lay in the mud alone, waiting for death. A blanket of acceptance had eventually settled over his mind: someone else would take care of his men, and either another shell would land on his head and blow him to bits, or it wouldn’t, and he would worry about survival later. Dying that way would be quick. If his legs were blown off, or an arm, he still had his pistol. He could always shoot himself before he bled to death. He thought God would forgive him suicide, if he was dying already and in terrible pain. He needn’t fear the worst, being ripped open by a bayonet, as no German would be insane enough to venture out of his trench during this kind of assault. Being trapped in a shell hole hadn’t been nearly as bad as he’d feared.

  Now, though, Meyer was with him, and if he was killed, Meyer would likely be killed, too. Crispin carefully unhooked his pistol from its lanyard, reholstered it and buttoned the flap. His hands were shaking too badly for it to be any good. �
�Why did you come after me? Where’s your platoon?” He heard the sound of a train rushing overhead and pressed himself deeper into the mud, his arms protecting his face. The shell exploded some distance behind them. Smoke from previous impacts drifted by, like ghosts. Crispin shuddered.

  Meyer lifted his head. His spectacles were spattered with mud, his mouth wry. “I thought it was over. My boys headed back. I came to look for you.”

  Probably, he’d gone looking for Crispin’s corpse. “I can take care of myself,” Crispin growled, though it wasn’t entirely true. No one could take care of themselves in the midst of a battle. You couldn’t protect yourself from a shell, not really. Crispin wasn’t sure why he was so angry. He’d never been happier in his life, at least for a few moments, than when Meyer had slipped and skidded his way down into this godforsaken hole. Perhaps it was that he’d been ready to die, finally calm about it, and then Meyer’s arrival had reminded him that he’d left something unfinished, and he would regret it for eternity.

  “Goddamn it,” he said. Another shell whistled and he ducked again. That one had been closer. He stole a glance at Meyer, and unexpectedly met his steady blue gaze, or what he could see of it through the mud. His heart stopped. Meyer looked down, fumbled off his filthy specs with an equally filthy hand and slid them carefully into the breast pocket of his uniform tunic. His slight squint when he looked at Crispin now bore a disturbing resemblance to a look of lustful contemplation.

  Meyer said, “I’d give a hundred guineas for a hot bath right now.”

  Crispin’s mind presented him with an image of Meyer’s naked form ensconced in a porcelain bath, one leg flung over the side, his cock bobbing in the water. He closed his eyes. That made it worse. He opened them again and reflected wryly that at least it was better than contemplating his own dismemberment. “I’d give two hundred guineas for any bath,” he said. “There’s a puddle down at the bottom of this hole.”

  “Let me guess. You found it with your boots.”

  “My arse,” Crispin said. “Good thing my coat took most of the damp.” He rested his cheek on his arm and tried to slow down his breathing. Sometimes that helped. This time it helped for two breaths, until a Screaming Minnie tore through the air, then another, then a whole host of them, smaller shells ripping their way toward inevitable destruction. Terror washed over him like cold rain, then a vast numbness that he dived into gladly. He wasn’t entirely sure what happened immediately after that, but when he could see again, the shelling had stopped and Meyer was touching his face.

  He’d imagined this, lying wrapped in his blankets. Meyer would touch his face softly after they’d made passionate love such as he’d never known; he had foolish dreams like a teenage girl might have, that he would never, ever share. But now Meyer’s hand, chilled and caked with dried mud, cupped his cheek with the tenderness he’d imagined. Meyer said, “Crispin?”

  He couldn’t form words; he was shaking too hard. He turned his face into the other man’s touch.

  “We’re safe,” Meyer said. Crispin tried to believe him, but couldn’t, quite.

  “Night will come,” Meyer said. He kept his hand on Crispin’s face, so he couldn’t look away.

  “That won’t stop the shelling,” Crispin said as best he could through his chattering teeth.

  “But we won’t have to worry about snipers. We can head back.”

  “To another bloody hole in the ground.”

  “It’s full of luxuries,” Meyer said, his tone enticing. Crispin shivered inside, this time not from fear. Meyer might sound like that if he was trying to seduce someone. His next words dispelled that impression a bit. “We have our own latrine pit. And every size tin of Bully Beef.”

  Crispin struggled to smile because he knew that was Meyer’s aim. He couldn’t quite manage. He turned his face to the mud. Meyer’s hand slid to the back of his head and ruffled through his hair. Crispin suddenly had trouble breathing.

  “Think of music,” Meyer said.

  “It’s too loud,” Crispin whispered.

  “Maybe you could sing for me a little.”

  “Someone will hear.” And his throat felt tight as a twisted rope. He could barely push his breath through it, much less his voice. He turned his head a bit more and concentrated on where his forehead touched Meyer’s forearm. He smelled wet wool and mud and sweat, but there was still the barest hint of shaving lotion. He would recognize the scent of Meyer’s bay and lime shaving lotion from the other side of a room.

  “I don’t sing nearly as well as you, so I won’t try.” A pause. “Do you want me to keep talking?”

  “Please.”

  His hand tightened on the back of Crispin’s neck. “Right, then. Breathe easy, Crispin. Imagine you’re getting ready to sing.”

  Crispin’s heart stuttered with the grateful words he wanted to say and couldn’t. He let go his fistful of mud and seized Meyer’s coat instead.

  Without ceasing his steady flow of words, most of which Crispin couldn’t hear, Meyer looped his arm over Crispin’s back and pulled him closer, until his voice and warm breath fanned over Crispin’s throat. Gradually, that warmth melted invisible ice, and Crispin’s breathing slowed and deepened. He shifted closer, his body easing and stretching against Meyer’s until they lay with only the thickness of a notebook between them. Crispin’s cock was straining at the seam of his trousers, both from fear and from being so close to the man he lusted for. He shifted his hips back a bit and hoped Meyer wouldn’t notice. If he had noticed, Meyer didn’t thrust him away.

  Crispin flinched when another Minnie screamed overhead, but this time he flinched into Meyer, who seemed to absorb the fear and send comfort back. “Talk to me,” Meyer said when a brief silence fell and Crispin shuddered in relief. “We haven’t had a chance to chat lately.”

  After a moment’s stunned silence, Crispin said, “What the hell are you talking about? We’re in a bloody shell hole. Got any biscuits on you? Sugar tongs? We could have tea.”

  Meyer chuckled; Crispin could feel Meyer’s belly move, feel his breath on his neck. His hand rubbed soothingly on the back of Crispin’s neck. “A nice social afternoon,” he agreed. “What was tea like at home, when you were a boy? Cucumber sandwiches and little cream Napoleons? Or beans on toast?”

  “Depends,” Crispin said, trying to let the massaging hand distract him from the roar of the guns and the cold mud in which he lay. “Mum does the sandwiches with no crusts and iced cakes and all that. She likes to be posh. But I would go round the neighbors’ a lot, the Osbournes. They would have eggs and toast sometimes, or little mince pies, different things. They were a lot more jolly than we were, but not as much fun as my sister, Lucilla. She didn’t mind things like digging and catching frogs and the like.” He realized he’d been rambling, and said, “What about you?”

  “Oh, I was always at Ashby’s house. His mum laid out a spread that would feed a pack of starving wolves, she said.”

  “I could eat a pack of wolves right now,” Crispin said.

  Gabriel laughed, then drew Crispin more tightly to him. “Sorry I forgot the biscuits.”

  “Tell me something else,” Crispin said. “About you.”

  Meyer hesitated, but only for a moment or two, while Crispin’s stomach surged and plunged with nerves and arousal. “We had a nice house,” he said.

  “You lived near Ashby, didn’t you?”

  “Next to him.” Meyer paused. “We used to joke about all the outcasts in the neighborhood being made to live together.”

  “I thought Ashby’s family was rich.”

  “They are, but they’re also Roman Catholic.”

  Crispin blinked, for a moment forgetting they lay in the mud. “Papists, eh? That’s funny.”

  “Not really. One of the other boys used to throw stones at Ashby’s sisters, and mine, as well, until we found out and did something about it.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “What’s to be sorry for? I don’t want to be a Christian
, and Noel says, if anybody doesn’t like what his mother gave him, then fuck ’em.”

  He’d never heard Meyer use that word. He didn’t say anything for a while. He wondered, feared, if Meyer would let go of him, but he didn’t. A big Coal Box went over, and after the shell went off, somewhere to the west, his ears rang and he realized he had both hands tangled up in Meyer’s tunic. No, not his uniform tunic; that was partly unbuttoned, and he had his fingers full of linen shirt.

  Meyer was murmuring to him, and petting his hair like he was a boy. Except he didn’t feel like a boy. His nose was full of grown man and he wanted to nuzzle that shirt aside and taste his chest. He might die if he couldn’t do it. He didn’t care anymore what Meyer thought. He might die anyway, and if he did die, he didn’t want to do it before he’d kissed Gabriel Meyer with all that was in him. Crispin sucked in a breath, then another and another. It took him almost a minute to get his courage up, then he lifted his head and simply lunged.

  Their teeth banged together, and his lips stung and burned from impact. He turned his head, just a bit, and suddenly their mouths slanted across each other at just the right angle, warm and smooth, sending a shock of pleasure through him pure as a hot mouth on his cock. Meyer’s mouth shifted and opened, and then he was fairly sure he was being kissed back.

  Crispin whimpered, and then Meyer’s tongue teased at his, gentle and soft as a summer breeze. He whimpered again. It was so sweet he wanted to cry. He’d never been kissed like this, never kissed anyone like this, delicate, slow, move in and retreat, try a new angle and start again. He’d kissed, of course. A few times. But mostly the men he knew didn’t kiss, at least not on the mouth. Spectacular as it felt to have someone kiss his cock, this moved him a thousand times more, and at the same time pulsed through his cock until he felt stiff and protuberant as a rifle barrel.

  Meyer started kissing his throat and his whole chest grew warm with it, shudders rippling over his skin. Now he could die happy. His muscles melted under those kisses, his neck wilting like a flower to give Meyer more access. Meyer bit along the tendons leading down to his shoulder and Crispin thought he would die from the pleasure that punctured him like bullets. He wanted to reciprocate, but his whole body trembled and he couldn’t move or do anything except press into Meyer’s mouth. He kept his eyes closed, savoring every minute lick and suction, plunging into sensation and far away from smoke and unbearable noise.