by Chanel Smith
The Turks seemed unstoppable in their numbers when Michael caught his first sight of their army spread across the valley. The only way to stop them was to unite: Walachia, Moldavia and Transylvania must become one. It was a feat that had never been conceived, much less realized—yet ‘Michael Raya the Brave’ would accomplish it.
The unification lasted six brief months, a single Romanian Prince ruled over all Romania for the first time. Unfortunately, one short month after Michael’s unbelievable triumph, Basta had him executed. The name ‘Michael the Brave’, however, would resound throughout history as the ‘Hero of Romania’.
The stories of both Michael the Brave and Elizabet Bathory are well known. What was never known was that Michael Pătraşcu was not then executed by Basta, as legend would have us believe. Instead, must like Petra’s story he made the choice to disappear from the world he knew. He bribed his executioner, asking him to take him deep into the forest so he might return to life he born to. He’d had enough of castles. He changed his name, became Raya, his middle name; shaved his head and discarded his armor. The change was complete. No one would know he was once everything to do with ‘Michael the Brave’.
As Raya he hunted and fished with friends he knew from his happy youth. He was content with his new life of the old. But then came unwelcome news; Elizabet Bathory had been arrested and was destined for death. As disgusted as he’d been by her, she was his first love and he couldn’t sit in the woods whilst she was executed.
He back to the cache, deep in a cave to recover the weapons he left behind him to start his new life. And so began the long trip back to Bathory where Elizabet had been locked in the tower of her own castle.
The years had not been kind to her, in spite of her bloodthirsty skin regimen. But his heart still skipped at the sight of her wide set brown eyes and pale blond hair. He stayed with her a while to do what he could to brighten her immediate mood. They were served a paltry meal of boiled meat and bread that night. Afterward, Raya wanted to take Elizabet for a walk but learned she couldn’t leave her prison.
“Sorry, I shouldn’t have suggested it,” he said as the meal was cleared away.
“How were you to know?” Elizabet asked, and something in those deceptively soft brown eyes sparkled for a moment.
In those eyes Raya saw the woman who had infatuated him years earlier; it was as if the years simply melted away. He stood, walked to her side where she sat at a small table, grabbed her shoulders gently and pulled her to her feet to face him. Abruptly a wave of uncertainty flashed through Raya. What if she no longer wanted—Before the thought was complete, the tiny woman stood on tiptoes as she always had and brushed her lips against his own tentatively, as if afraid he’d pull away in disgust. It was all the invitation Raya needed. Her lips still pert and lush and her eyes clear from want, humbled. He swept her small frame into his arms and kicked the dividing curtain aside with one boot. The bedroom was poor: a tattered blanket on the floor served as her mattress. He did not care. He kissed her deeply and felt her nipples harden to life under his seeking hands.
A mattress was naught but frippery to a soldier at any rate, Raya thought as he threw himself onto his back and brought Elizabet to his wide chest. She moaned softly, and Raya lost himself in her familiar scent. Normally he’d have ripped her clothes off, but he was acutely aware that these robes might be her entire wardrobe. He unhooked them and carefully laid them aside, then was finally able to feast his eyes on that body that belonged to him and his dreams.
She was carrying a few more years, but her breasts were still large and heavy. Her bush still sprung up under his hand like a hedge in the spring. And her lips still tasted like honey from bees who’d feasted on anise. He kissed his way down to her core. Elizabet passionately thrashed in his arms with a desperation that was entirely new. Christos, how long had it been for her?
With a conscious effort Raya slowed himself down. This had to be special for Elizabet it would be the last time she’d ever fuck and he was damned if he’d rush it. He removed his mouth from that inviting slit and began brushing light butterfly kisses down her plump inner thigh; something he remembered had driven her nearly to madness in their youth. She moaned softly, her eyes flashing nervously around the small chamber. He noted her reluctance to really let go, he realized she was afraid they’d be caught.
He’d see about that. He worked his way back up to her snatch but casually skipped over it to her lower belly. There, he sank a questing tongue into her belly button with small thrusts. Elizabet didn’t make a sound, but thrust her lower torso high in the air against his hand. He pushed up and captured the peak of one large breast between his teeth, then bit down lightly before flicking it with his own tongue. Her mouth opened wide in a soundless scream and unwillingly he saw where several teeth had been yanked from her jaw. Only holes remained; those bastards!
With his right hand he captured her other nipple and rolled it back and forth until it was as hard as her left one. With that, his hand shot downward until his fingers tapped lightly across her damp lips. At every touch, Elizabet let escape from her, the tiniest moan possible.
Raya kissed his way up her neck, her chin, over large lips until he tasted the dampness of tears. Shite. No matter what this woman had done in her life, she was still a human being and should be treated as such. He would do what he could to remind her of who she’d been. He undid the laces on his britches until his large cock sprang free. Grabbing the shaft he rubbed the head over her still-flat belly up and towards those breasts he remembered so well.
Using both hands, he squeezed her breasts together and shoved his cock between them. Christos the bliss! Nobody had breasts like this woman. Nobody. It was as if they had lives of their own. He wondered if she could still...
“You certainly haven’t lost that particular talent,” he muttered as he felt each breast twitch against his straining cock, “How could I have forgotten a sensation like this one?”
He pulled his cock from between her breasts before they could shorten what he intended to be a lovely long act. But before he could do anything else, Elizabet reared up and caught the tip of his cock’s head between her lips. He froze. She gave his shaft a series of long wet licks from the base to the tip, then circled the head with her tongue before sinking it down her throat with one deep suck. It was Raya’s turn to stifle a yell and he had no idea how he managed it as Elizabet began regular, deep sucks punctuated by a nibble or a lick here and there.
He flipped her onto her back, slid his cock out of her mouth, and kissed his way down to her drenched core. Yes! Her juices were as sweet and plentiful as ever. He could fill a small cup and drink it in two gulps, he thought as he forced his tongue into her tight orifice.
Her head jerked upward and cracked into his chin with such force that both of them saw stars. Raya shook his own head rapidly to return the sense to it. He couldn’t stop a roar of laughter. Beneath him Elizabet had begun to grin. Now he was getting somewhere! Before she could do anything else, he grabbed his shaft and aimed himself directly into that well-remembered orifice, watching her face closely as he slowly entered, then pushed himself all the way inside of her, deep to his straining balls.
Her eyes lost focus as she began grinding blindly against him. Raya planted one hand on each of her ass-cheeks and yanked her down onto his cock time after time. Her fluids squirted all over his cock and thighs, soaking the thin blanket as her moans grow louder. He opened his eyes and looked down just in time to see her eyes roll up in her head just as they always had, just as before—
His balls sprung together tightly, and energy raced down his body to his cock just as he felt her cunt spasm around him, gripping his shaft like a grasping hand. He exploded, unable to stop himself, pumped hard into her as she bucked against him and wrapped her legs around his hips.
For several moments neither could move, straining against each other with all their might. Then the spasms began to relax and with that, Raya slumped gently on top of Elizabet
with her legs still clamped around him.
“Love you, I always have.” The words barely reached his ears, and to his shock he felt his eyes well up.
She who’d always feared aging so greatly, feared being alone because of growing old and ugly—that woman now trapped in this dingy room. She ended up living the life she feared; she created a life that was more alone than even she could have imagined. For a moment, his heart welled with pity before images of her sadistic cruelty flooded his mind. Young girls hanging from hooks from her ceiling; their pleading eyes fixed on his even as their life’s blood had been fully drained from dangling wrists into her special bath below; the piles of desiccated bodies that lay in waiting behind the castle to be burned, not even the compassion to give them honor in their death with a Christian burial.
Convulsively he shuddered, unable to restrain himself.
“And it didn’t even work,” she murmured as if she’d read his mind. Her old cocky voice was back and there wasn’t so much as a scintilla of regret in it.
Raya rolled to his side to sleep. He’d stay with her one more night, but was certain he couldn’t bear any more than that.
Two days later, there was excitement in the air when Elizabet’s old servant hobbled in and whispered in her ear. Her eyes lit up, and Raya knew. He didn’t know how, but he did.
The servant had managed to procure a young girl for his mistress.
Well, this was as good a time as any to leave.
“Going out for a bit,” was all Raya said as he strode to the door, opened it, and walked through.
He stopped dead in his tracks, eyes riveted on the three women who stood casually leaning over the railing. One looked younger than fifteen, just the age. Raya shivered and the girl turned to face him. She had the coldest golden eyes he’d ever seen. She used them to rake him with evident disgust, from his face to his shoes and back again. Finally she stared deeply into his eyes and frowned as if she hadn’t found what she’d sought.
“You’re never going to...” Raya was unable to complete his statement; distracted by her frame. His eyes ran over that slim form, tiny breasts and a tinier waist. She didn’t even come up to his belly button and shortly she’d be hung from that old familiar hook—the fuck she would! He reacted as rapidly as the fighter in his prime that he was. One moment he was staring at the girl, the next she was over his shoulder as he pounded down the tower steps.
As he reached the bottom and raced for the courtyard door, he noticed that both of the other women were right on his ass.
“Don’t try to stop me,” he yelled back in warning, “I don’t want to hurt a woman: don’t make me do it.”
Then with several leaps he was at the door and through it even as voices rose in panic from the tower. At a dead run he headed for the dense woods, and not until he was at least a mile inside and had crossed a river did he stop to catch his breath. It was then that he noticed the other two women, impossibly, were still with him. And neither of them had so much as broken a sweat.
***
Sitting around a small fire after a successful hunt that night, Raya addressed the women, “You were there to kill her, weren’t you?” It wasn’t a question as it was the only reasonable answer.
“And you were there to fuck her,” the younger woman said with no inflection in her voice whatsoever.
“Back off. She and I were close many years ago, just prior to her obsession with the youth of her skin,” Raya stated.
“Yet you stayed,” one of the other women said.
“For a short while,” he admitted. “Then I left and haven’t been back till now.”
The three women looked at each other and it was plain to Raya that something passed between them. The younger one nodded decisively and turned back to Raya.
“Why did you come back now?”
“Because they’re going to kill her. She was my first love, no matter what else she was, and now they’re going to kill her.”
To his horror he heard his own voice crack. Christos, they’d run from him now. Couldn’t blame them, he’d run from himself, he thought as he hung his head.
There was the slightest disturbance in the air and his head shot up, his warrior instincts taking over. But what he found was nothing he’d ever expected or encountered.
Where the younger woman had been, a large, grey-spotted wolf sat on slender haunches, dark eyes pinning his. The other two women were still totally relaxed, watching him with an air of curiosity.
Raya’s jaw dropped. Could these be... when he was very young, his mother had taunted him about such creatures, “Do that again and the wolf-men will get you!” How many times had he heard that threat?
Mom had said their teeth were almost as long as his little arm. Now he stared at the wolf’s mouth, silently wondering. Suddenly she yipped, leaped to her feet and walked toward him. Raya didn’t dare to breathe much less move, and his eyes never left hers. But suddenly she blurred as she scrambled into motion so rapidly he couldn’t see what she was doing. Then teeth sank deeply into his arm, she let a short howl and vanished into the night. Speechless once again for the second time in as many days, Raya looked at the two remaining women who looked back calmly as if nothing had happened.
At last he said, “Would someone care to tell me what the fuck is happening here?”
Part Two
Chapter One
Learning
“Moonrise in an hour,” Petra proclaimed, “All will be clear then.”
Michael waited with ever-increasing nerves as the night grew steadily darker, until a small ray of light appeared in the horizon. The girls promptly lay on the ground and rolled onto their sides, to Raya’s mystification.
Everything seemed to happen at once. The moon, enormous, rose majestically over the horizon just as Raya, who’d been standing, fell to the ground. He made an attempt to stand and toppled sideways, all four legs out-stretched. At that realization, he froze. He was no longer human that was clear. But how on earth would he learn to move in this body? Eat? Would he ever become human again? Questions arose at the speed of light, but all he could do was growl out his frustration.
Abruptly there was a cold, wet nose where no nose should ever be! Outraged, Raya rose to all fours in a liquid movement that took no thought at all. A wolf-grin on the exquisite grey wolf that reeked of Petra assured him who that snout had belonged to. Somehow Petra exuded a different scent tonight, something he’d never smelled before and it was absolutely compelling. He had to have that wolf, and now or there’d be dire consequences.
He howled his discomfort at the moon, and then Petra took off like a shot with only the slightest peek over her furry grey shoulder. Instantly Raya followed, and discovered himself moving at a speed he’d never dreamed possible. The joy—the incredible freedom of flying through the woods on four feet instead of two—Raya nearly stopped to howl again, but Petra’s new scent was all around him and grew stronger by the second.
It was imperative he caught her, and that he get it done right this second.
No sooner had that thought crossed his mind than she took a sharp right around a large tree, Raya leapt to his left, guided by instinct alone. He literally bowled her over just beyond the tree. As she made a deliberately pathetic attempt to stand, Raya sauntered stiff-legged to her side. She turned, reached out her lovely long snout, her eyes liquid as she stared into his. Raya’s heart flipped in his chest at that look: he touched her snout with his then gave her shoulder a fast but hard nip. She squealed, and with that he was on her and deep inside her in one movement.
Both wolves howled at the same moment, their intertwined bodies and voices rising to the heavens. Elsewhere, ecstatic wolves joined in. The act of love was all too brief: several fast entries and he was done. But the act itself was only part of wolf lovemaking. Raya would learn that the hours of foreplay before, the cuddling, running and playing would continue after. Wolves had it made, Raya thought as he followed Petra deeper into the dense woods at a solid trot. S
he came to a halt and body-blocked him from moving further.
“This is almost as much fun as what we just did,” Raya heard clearly in his head. “Dinner is about two leagues away. I’ll go to the right and come up behind her while you carry on toward her. Wind is at your back so you’ll have the advantage.” Petra was gone before Raya could ask her exactly what it was they were hunting. With a wolfen shrug, he trotted straight through the trees until a different scent wafted up his long snout. He slowed and inhaled deeply, until he tasted that scent in the back of his throat. It was familiar, if he wasn’t wrong: as a human he’d hunted and eaten venison countless times. Surely Petra was after a deer. Ten minutes later he learned he was right. In a clearing just ahead, a doe pawed through leaves which formed a dense ground cover.
Just beyond the doe, a pair of golden eyes blinked at him from the middle of a pile of brush. The scent was heavy now, intoxicating. God he was hungry! He went to his large furry belly and crawled forward, careful to make no noise at all. He must have succeeded as he came within ten feet of the deer before she flung her head in the air, spooked. Ten feet was as nothing now, Raya learned, as with one massive leap his teeth landed directly in the doe’s neck. He instinctively leaned into the bite and sank his fangs into her jugular. Blood spurted, and Raya reveled in the scent. He allowed it to wash over his face, squirt directly into his mouth before he thought of Petra.
The silvery-grey wolf was sitting on her haunches a few feet away, a wolfen grin pulling at her beautifully black-lined lips. Raya leaned over once again and ripped the doe’s throat out: to hell with niceties! Then Petra trotted forward, the very picture of grace and style compared to other wolves and Raya was sure. To him, she was something more—not that he understood exactly what, as yet.