He moved hard against her as they dived and she smiled at the humour of his eyes and the urgency of his touch. He controlled her, pushing and rolling her again, his flippers hard on her sides. Then his belly pressed on hers and she shivered and became still. He held her there, a little below the swinging, heaving surface of the waters with the dazzling dancing reflections like jewelled froglets leaping amongst the water ripples just above. When he entered her, deeper than she had ever imagined possible, she held her breath. The pulse was instant within, one white burst of energy. Then he was gone from inside and his mouth rubbed her neck, fins soft, eyes open and watching her, tail clamped to hers, so they remained gently floating in the swell of the ocean under a sparkling sun. For some time they lay twined in spray, where he held her close with flippers and tail and she stayed, lulled, and waiting.
When he took her again, it was slow and lazy, caressing her inside like a tongue, both explorative and gentle. She felt his eagerness but it was assured and no longer urgent. She swayed, pressing to receive all of him.
Finally, he let her go. They rose together, breaching and blowing, joyous again in the thrill of the water and all its wonder and variety. When he took her once more, it was in the deeps, where he led her. Butting and calling, he excited her to spin against him. He was rough, and bit her neck, but his teeth were careful and his power aroused rather than cowed her. They were so deep in the water when he entered her again, she felt the thunder all around, pressing her down, a weight even greater than his. The noises of the swell boomed. He moved with the tide, forcing into her and holding her down. Then suddenly she was free, and spun upwards in one mighty twist. He was immediately behind her, and passed her, and the up draught of his wake dragged her behind him.
He had not yet finished with her, and took her hanging upright in the water as if they stood on liquid, facing each other with a flick of each tail fluke slapping lazily together, head to head in the circle of bubbles he wove like a chain of transparent delight. He kept her there, rubbing his beak to her neck and his tail to hers, clasping her with his fins and entering her over and over. Finally, when the great cold seemed steaming hot and her thoughts were utterly lost in thrill and fantasy and the freedom of the water, he released her one last time and she relaxed, passive a moment and floating, with her face a little above the water, enjoying the sun sparkle and the soft rolling spray. She thought he was gone but he returned. He brought a tapestry of kelp, weaving it around and across her, studded with bubbles. She laughed and took it from him so they each held it in their mouths and tugged, playing and chasing, until the weed sprang apart and they parted as he breached and she curled, and came back to herself.
She was once again in Thoddun’s bed and soothed within the circle of his arms, her legs wrapped around his back, ankles linked. He was inside her, thrusting slow and long and hard. His mouth was on her neck and she could hear his voice clear in her head.
“The orca’s prick is nearly four times longer than your little foot, and enough to shame any man. But both his and mine are all yours, my beloved, if it pleases you.”
He stilled, but stayed hard inside. She felt deliciously, provocatively scorched. She was conscious of the curled silk of his hair against her thighs and the soft damp heat where they touched. Her breasts were flattened against his chest and she was faintly aware of the small push of his nipples just above her own. They were both quite naked. He had undressed her, but she had felt only the surge and throb of the seas and the caress of the orca. Now she was a woman and herself again, but still heard the swirl of the waters far beneath.
Thoddun’s voice continued but now it was a whisper, a little husky, vibrating against her cheek. “Come back very slowly, my love. Don’t open your eyes yet. Slip back into your own skin upwards from your toes. Breathe with me, take my rhythm. Your breathing is fast and shallow, it must slow, and deepen. Do you hear your heart thumping with the tides? It has danced enough and must slip back to a human beat. Don’t think for yourself yet, just follow, for I control your body, and your mind, and your life. Now, up from your feet, feel them tingle as the blood comes coursing through each separate toe. Loosen your ankles from my back and bring them down to the bed. Feel the change up your legs in a long warm massage; ankles to calves, through the knees to the thighs and into the groin, relaxing the buttocks, bringing your consciousness of yourself inside, filling you as I leave.” He slipped out from her but continued speaking, still holding her tight, his palms flat and hard on her back, her head now snuggled into the curve of his shoulder.
She sighed and whispered. “It was only a dream of course – your dream – given to me. But is it like – Shifting?”
He smiled, murmuring against her ear. She felt his smile, as if that entered her too. “Yes, my sweet. You are Shifting back, and must come very, very slowly. Becoming yourself again is the final orgasm.”
CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN
A different bed and a sunset of pale orange creeping through the high arrow slit. Thoddun lay back, sighing. The pillows were damp with the sweat of misery and restless unfulfilled dreams. It was Grimr’s bed but Grimr stood with his back to his brother, staring through the window. He was half naked, wrapped in his own embrace, arms crossed tight, rocking with a small panicked shudder, recreating for himself how a mother might take a small child, and relieve its suffering.
“You know then,” Grimr said.
Thoddun closed his eyes. “I believe so,” he said briefly.
Grimr sat suddenly, slipping down the ice wall to the bare ground. “His ghost howls. What shall I do?” He continued to clasp himself, rocking gently, but his eyes were glazed and wild and he was not soothed. He stayed hunched on the cold floor of his room, which being always locked, had become his cell. It was a large chamber and Thoddun had given him considerable comfort, but the tapestries, lamps and furniture were broken and scattered as if Grimr had raged, throwing everything either in temper or in desperation.
“Tell me then.” Grimr’s eyes were wolf brown and no longer his own blue. His face had become refined as if the bones had narrowed, striving towards a point they could not achieve. “Is the wolf irretrievably inert?” he demanded. “Is he utterly dead? Am I infected with his decay?”
Thoddun swung his legs to the ground and faced his brother. “I gave the wolf my breath. I forced life into the muscle of its heart. I told you how to stay quiet and nurture it, giving the food of peace. I told you not to Shift. But you persist.” He leaned forwards, frowning. “Yet there’s always hope.”
“Lies,” Grimr snarled, turning away. Down his back, from the russet tinged man’s hair across his bare shoulders, a bristled line of grey fur followed the ridge of his spine. Small wolf grey whorls across the shoulder blades tinged down into threadbare stains covering the muscles of his back and upper arms.
“Or simple comfort,” said Thoddun. “Sentimentality? But I did not invent hope.”
“Perhaps just cowardice.” Grimr’s lips curled out over small sharp cub’s teeth. “I’d have killed you for telling me once. But you hold the power again. No need to fear my temper now. So tell me the truth.”
“I’ve never been frightened of you, my dear.” Thoddun stood, then came beside Grimr and squatted down next to him, sliding his arm around his brother’s waist. “And you never had power over me, even when you thought you had. I’m telling you the truth. To a transanima nose, you’ve carried the stench of death for many years. I always thought you inert. But the lupus mortis is a strange beast, and perhaps the lives we carry within us are more within our control than we realise. One boy Shifts alone and achieves his first climax with a careless ease. Another must be tutored for several years, and must Shift many, many times before his channel can run, or fly, or swim.” He paused, leaning back. But Grimr said nothing, so Thoddun sighed and added, “I’ve learned a great deal about the diversity of our race since I’ve brought so many here. I don’t pretend to understand every possibility.”
Grimr leaned hi
s head against Thoddun’s. “Before this, I could never Change. You’ve given enough life for me to Shift - in part. Now this is the third time. Does that prove anything at all?”
“It proves my own breath entered the wolf’s body and pumped its heart. It proves something can be done against simple logic. It proves you’re impatient, and a fool.”
“It proves we have a link. I can use your breath to Shift.” Grimr suddenly clasped Thoddun’s neck and his claws scratched, drawing blood in a shallow stripe within the open collar. “You think I’m infatuated with your human bitch. I was once. I wanted her so much my crotch burned. If you’d given her back to me, I’d have made her my queen. But it doesn’t matter anymore.” He shook his head. “You think I want the boy whelp I used to call my son. But no longer. You, big brother, and me, we’ve only ever had each other. There’s never been anyone else, my dear.”
Thoddun sighed. “When we were cubs, perhaps. But long before the first Shift, for me there were only my channels. For you there’s only the wolf. It’s the madness of its corpse that deludes you.”
“As a cub, you were the only protection I ever had.”
“You still want my protection, little brother?” Thoddun smiled, lacking humour, a twitch of ironic cynicism. He stretched, relaxing comfortably on the ice, bending one knee up to take Grimr’s weight against him and his long fingers crept into Grimr’s hair, touching where russet blonde became wolf grey. “So I’ll try again, if you believe in hope. I can still give your wolf breath.” He paused before continuing. “But anything else I could give would be utterly useless,” he said. “And remember – I read the ramblings of your mind.”
Grimr crept closer. “I don’t believe in your puerile promises and whimpering of hope,” he whispered. “Don’t play games with me, big brother, or pretend threats. So you know my mind? Well then, you know I believe in action, as I always have.”
“It’s long years,” Thoddun replied, “since your actions proved anything except corruption. Now I’ve given your wolf its first breaths and three times you’ve attempted the Shift. Yet you disbelieve so soon.”
Grimr wrenched at him, spitting words. His shoulders hunched and his claws dug into Thoddun’s neck. “You think I’ve turned mouse-nosed? I may carry the lupus mortis but I’m still transanima, and no coward to hide behind illusions of comfort. The Shift proves the truth. All the glory, and the joy of the Change? What foul lies. It’s been burning agony. Father’s buggeries never hurt like this. And I know about pain, big brother, more than you with your easy simpleton Shifting.” He glared into Thoddun’s eyes. “Ask your human bitch. What I did to her, she’ll never forget. And nor will you, my dear, since by now you’ll have read all her mind.”
Thoddun sighed again. “Hush boy. Make me speak of Skarga, and I’ll leave. Yes, I know what you did. Leave it at that. Or I’ll take a quick revenge for her, and for what’s now swimming through your own mind.”
Grimr laughed. “Like old bones in a watery soup? Take your revenge, placid fool. I carry the rotting corpse of the only thing I’ll ever truly love. His howling interrupts all my nights. No revenge of yours could ever be worse.”
Thoddun frowned. “If he howls? Then is he truly dead?”
“His ghost howls. I carry his corpse. His ghost begs for freedom.” Grimr slumped down again, releasing Thoddun’s neck.
“If the Shift hurts you so much, then it hurts him too.”
“I won’t let him go,” Grimr whispered. “I won’t be some sluggard human. If I can’t have my wolf alive, then I’ll have him dead.”
“But it’s not his shade you carry,” Thoddun said quietly. “If you’ve lost hope in giving him life, then it’s his decaying carcass you support. He doesn’t howl into your dreams. It’s you who howls, my dear, and you who suffers the pain.”
Grimr flinched. “Then I’ll love his rotting hide,” he said. “And be his walking grave.”
“There can be no comfort in that.”
Grimr paused, curling tight again, slipping his arm back around his brother’s neck, pinching at the scratches which were still bleeding. “There is another way.”
Thoddun said softly, “Not a way that works.” He kept the loose clasp around Grimr’s waist, but his other hand no longer caressed Grimr’s hair. “You always knew, little brother, what our father did never worked.”
“It did, sometimes,” Grimr whispered. “Sometimes, after milking one of us, his eagle flew.”
Thoddun thrust him away, glaring directly into his brother’s wolf eyes. “Did you understand so little? Do you still understand so little?” Thoddun sat straight, holding Grimr from him. “His eagle hadn’t died, you fool. Wing beaten and lame but alive. Fucking us seemed like medicine perhaps, tearing out some of the channelling we carried to give his eagle strength. But pitifully little, in spite of all that shitting, bastard effort. All that pain, all that misery for a chance of flying high. And then it failed and he came flapping down to earth for mother to lick his torn feathers while we lay in a heap and sobbed for the shame and the loneliness. How could that ever serve you, Grimr? When your wolf is long years dead? You think I’ve enough channelling in me to bring a maggot ridden lump of stinking flesh back to life that way?”
Grimr winced but his fingers crawled back around Thoddun’s neck, tugging him close again. “You have. You channel three, for pity’s sake. You owe me. What if it was father killed my cub? Took my wolf in return for his eagle’s flight? So give me one of yours.”
“That’s not in my power,” said Thoddun briefly. “It can’t be done. And I don’t believe father killed your wolf. For each attack on you, there were five on me, yet my channels live.”
“Because yours were always stronger.” Grimr’s other long naked arm slid around Thoddun’s heavy belted waist, fingers teasing around the leather, hooking tight with curved claws. He leaned his head on Thoddun’s shoulder. “The sea wolf,” he crooned softly, “give me your beautiful orca, big brother. I swear I’ll swim off and never bother you again. Sweet Fricco’s prick, I’d never ever come back. Live a human life with your human bitch. Take the boy. Be king of my valley, take everything. I’ll be off under the waters for ever.”
“I wonder sometimes,” Thoddun sighed, “if you and I, being twinned, are more than brothers. I’ve wondered, perhaps, if you’re truly my shadow. My reflection in some dark lake, distorted by ripples.” He turned to Grimr and leaned back heavily against the wall, pushing off his brother’s grip on his belt and his neck. “Because your reactions are so opposed to my own. But I never realised before, how much of a fool you can be.”
Grimr stared. “You won’t try then?”
“By all the gods,” Thoddun whispered, “you could have my body, if I thought it would help. After all we went through as children, you think I’d mind a little more buggery if I believed it would give your channel life? Is that what you want me to say? Does it prove some twisted affection, does it give comfort? And I mean it, my dear, though I know you’d try a little jealous torture if you thought I’d not retaliate. I’ve seen enough from my girl’s mind of what you like to do, and I wouldn’t care about that either. But it’d prove nothing but a deepening bitter hatred between us, not from me to you, but from you to me, when you realised another failure.”
“You loved me once,” Grimr whispered. “When father leaped on us, you pushed yourself between him and me, over and over. You took it, to save me. You were my only protection. Why won’t you protect me now?”
Thoddun laughed. He pushed Grimr off. “By Loki’s ashes, do you expect an answer?”
Grimr cringed back. There was no light in the room and the sullen twilit window had darkened into night. Grimr’s half Shifted wolf grey merged into the shadows. “I’ll answer it myself,” he murmured. “You claim to read minds, but you’ve listened to my excuses, and not understood the truth. I know the wolf’s dead. I wear his coat. Wouldn’t I know? His ears push up through my scalp, but they hear nothing. His eyes colour mine, but I s
ee no further than I ever did. I remain transanima, but can’t sing. I cannot make the chant, or even smell the stench of my own wolf’s corpse. The Shift is agony instead of joy, for I Shift to decay. There’s no living channel in me, and neither your breath nor your fucking could ever bring my wolf alive.”
Thoddun nodded slowly. “Then you know.”
“And what if I want you anyway?” Grimr whispered from the gloom. “You killed Ingmar. You stole the only woman I ever craved. I brought you your son to claim, and I never touched him, I swear. It’s you I want.”
“Fool,” Thoddun shook his head and sighed. “I don’t pity you, Grimr, not enough for that. Any channel deserves to live, and I’ve worked for it, for the sake of the wolf. I understand your terrible solitude. And I understand the wickedness in you, because of carrying the corpse. But all the wanting, whether it’s for me or another, all the twisting and squirming, is only to fill the emptiness you have inside, which only the wolf can fill. Do you know yourself so little?”
“Pity your feeble little human for what I did to her,” Grimr said, “But I don’t want your pity.”
“I couldn’t pity Skarga.” Thoddun smiled briefly. “I admire her. She’s utterly wondrous to me. But making me think of her now is most unwise, little brother.”
“Making you remember how much you’d like to kill me? But of course, that’s one thing you can still do.”
“I think of it often.”
“Sweet brotherly love.” Very suddenly Grimr sat forwards and stretched out his hand, rubbing his fingers hard between Thoddun’s legs. The rough woven linen of Thoddun’s britches did not respond.
“You can’t rouse me, little brother,” Thoddun said softly. “I share none of your passions. My memory of what happened when we were little is a black misery to me, nothing more. You killed both our parents. Do you want to take their place?”
Stars and a Wind- The Complete Trilogy Page 85