The Wolf Sacrifice Read online

  The Wolf Sacrifice

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  Copyright 2012 by Rosa Steel

  Smashwords Edition

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  All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the author or publisher except for the use of brief quotations in critical articles or reviews. This is a work of fiction. Names, places, businesses, characters and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, actual events or locales is purely coincidental.

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  The Wolf Sacrifice

  The day of the sacrifice was to be performed Dasha, the most beautiful girl in Korenovsk, lay abed and cried. She hated to cry, but what else was one to do when faced with their death? Her lustrous gold hair was damp with tears and clung to her cheeks, and the moss-green brilliance of her eyes was only enhanced by the circles of red. I am a grown woman yet here I lie, waiting for death like a little chicken with his head on the block. Soon I am for the Wolf Gods. How disgusting that they will see me weeping like a child.

  Her father, who might have normally demanded she do her chores, let her lie there naked and alone in her small room. Through the wall sometimes she heard him weeping, though he tried to be quiet about it. She was the last of his family. Soon he would be alone.

  Not for the first time she thought about escape.

  It would not be hard- she was quick and clever, and she knew the ways of these woods. Even if they took the dogs after her she could climb a tree like she had as a child, and wait for them to pass.

  But no, that was the selfish path. It was not the fault of the village that she had been born beautiful, nor that they must sacrifice her to live. The demands of the Wolf Gods in the mountains were exacting and harsh. Every twelve years, a virgin maiden - the village’s most beautiful woman – would be given to the wild creatures. That would stop those bright-toothed monsters from spilling innocent blood for another dozen years.

  And Dasha was that girl, without doubt. She wished that it had been less clear, but none of the other girls approached her beauty and everyone knew it. She could escape the village but she would not be able to escape the guilt.

  But there is another escape left to me… Her hand was over moving over the milky paleness of her thigh, stroking that tender flesh. She closed her eyes. Her fingertips brushed like cobweb over her nipple, making her shudder with awakening desire. In my last hours, I will at least know some pleasure. One trembling finger parted the lips of her sex and dove down into that secret crevice, licking across her flesh like the tongue of a lover she would never know. She stifled a moan. She didn’t want poor Papa to hear her like this.

  Her fingertips played across her body as only she knew how, first rolling her nipples then raking the tender flesh of her breasts. She imagined what she always had when she touched herself – the strong young man clad only in the pelt of a slain bear, whose touch was rough and yet exquisitely sensitive to her needs. Dasha had once seen the man in the woods as she collected kindling, and he had stared at her from afar. She had been young then, but she had not forgotten the fire in his eyes. Black haired, tall, and beautiful like a wild animal. Then he had turned and vanished like smoke into the dark.

  Her own hands became those of the young man as she teased herself, biting her lip against the rising heat of her body. His strong finger slipped inside her, brushed exquisitely against the virgin seal, stroked the waiting pleasure from those tender walls. His face bent to kiss her, and she smelled his wild smell – smoke and rain on the trees – musk like the old wolf-pelt on the floor of her room. Every smell of the woods. His eyes glowed brilliant gold and he smiled at her with pointed teeth.

  Then she imagined something else… the play of another delicate set of fingers across her thigh. I have never done this before, she thought, but was too deep in the hot well of pleasure to stop and consider. A second finger joined the first, sliding wetly in and out of her body, twisting hard at her tender nipples. Pain – who had ever known that pain could be so enthralling? It was hard not to scream as they continued to torture her with their expert hands. A second set of golden eyes glowed in the darkness of her mind – wolf eyes, she realized, with a jolt of fear.

  The third snatched at her roughly from behind, and it seemed as if she could feel a huge bulk crushing her, and hard callused hands sliding over her hips. When his fingers slid into her mouth she cried out, and was muffled by his hot hand.

  The third stranger was stronger than the others, and harder to her. His pain was doled out equally with pleasure, yet still she rocked and trembled, filled with a building cyclone of ecstasy. It felt like all three of them were probing inside her and filling her up. Dasha couldn’t endure it any longer. She rolled over because she knew she would cry out, and screamed into the pillow as she erupted, feeling a warm liquid spreading between her thighs. The wolf-men were grinning, and watching her with their golden eyes as she lay trembling and sated, twisted in her sheets.

  When she finally opened her eyes, the room was empty.

  They came for her as the moon rose, as was tradition -- Four elders of the village with their torches. The two elder women took her back into the cold hall, and one of them probed her with a cold and gnarled finger. Dasha couldn’t help but wince, but she stayed still and steady.

  “I am sorry, little Dasha,” whispered Svetlana, the old crone who probed her. They had known each other since Dasha had been born.

  Dasha couldn’t find the words, but only nodded sadly. It was hard not to complain, to beg for mercy, but she refused to abandon her duty.

  “You are a virgin.” Svetlana said.

  Dasha’s body was washed in rose water, and she was given a rose-tasting candy to eat so that she would be sweet for the Wolf Gods. They trimmed away the delicate blonde curls of her sex and washed her hair, and then brushed it until it gleamed like spun gold. The old women were tender to her, and tried to comfort her, but Dasha barely heard their kind words. She was thinking of three men with golden eyes, and the scent of smoke and musk.

  They placed on her head the Wolf Queen’s crown (which was her official title). It made her feel like laughing. When she was consumed, the elders would retrieve the crown and store it away for the next sacrifice, the next unlucky ‘Wolf Queen’.

  The crown was lighter than she expected, being wrought of very finely spun silver and set with moonstones – also called wolfstone. The crown took the shape of three wolves crouched in bursts of silver leaves, and their eyes were bright yellow stones that she didn’t know the name of. She’d never seen anything like it. When it was nestled on her golden hair she had a fierce urge to tear it off and fling it away.

  When Dasha was finally clean enough and prepared for the Wolf Gods, they wrapped her naked body in a heavy sheepskin and took her out into the cold.

  The first snow had already fallen a few weeks earlier, and her bare feet hurt at the contact with the icy dirt. She didn’t complain. The virgin sacrifice had to be almost nude as she walked to the peak – that too was tradition. Dasha took a deep breath, and looked at her father. He was silent, but his face was wet with tears.

  Though it hurt to look at him,
Dasha forced herself to smile. She wanted his last memory to be a good one.

  “Goodbye Papa,” she whispered.

  “Sweet Dasha, my Dasha…” He gritted his teeth and buried his face in his hands. She heard his muffled sobs, and her heart broke.

  It took all her strength not to run to him and wrap her arms around him then, but the Dasha knew she must not smell of human men when she went before the Wolf Gods. Instead she shivered, and she bit her tongue, and started walking.

  It snowed as she walked up the mountain – first tiny, dancing specs of white, then delicate flakes that caught in her golden hair like dew in a spider’s web. The pain in her feet was bearable at first, since she was strong and used to the cold. Soon, though, it grew to a throbbing agony. Dasha cried out at every step, and thought she might faint. After another hour they were totally numb, which was even worse. If she did not know she would be dead soon, Dasha would be worried about them dying and falling off. She didn’t look down, in case the site of them frozen and purple made her lose her nerve. Still she kept staggering on up the mountain, huddled inside the sheepskin cloak that she’d been allowed and wracked with shivers.

  Somewhere close the eerie keening of a wolf howl rose up, and was joined by two others. Now her shivering was not just from cold. She stared with wide green eyes into every shadow that she passed, hoping desperately that these were the Gods and not natural wolves that might kill her before she completed her mission.

  Her world was pain and fear. The moon grew high and bright, throwing a soft silver light over the world. Dasha struggled, and she fell many times. Soon she was covered in small cuts, and tears rolled unheeded down her cheeks. Sometimes she saw a grey shadow flit between the trees, and a sharp flash of golden eyes.

  She kept climbing in silence, listening to the howls.

  And then she was at the top. She waited for a second between the trees, trying to catch a glimpse of the Gods before they saw her. But… there was no-one there. The plateau and the altar to the Wolf Gods were empty, bathed in the brilliant light of the full moon. At first she sat down, startled, and thought about this. Was it the wrong night? No, the elders did not make mistakes like that, and the moon was full. Dasha snarled. A hot rage welled up in her belly, stronger than she’d known she was capable of. Fueled by her pain it boiled inside her. I came all this way, and they’re not even here!

  “Where are you, wolves?” She screamed into the night.

  “Where are you? I am Dasha, your Queen! I dare you to kill me! I dare you! I am your sacrifice!”

  There was no answer but the wind. Dasha tore off the skin cloak around her shoulders and stood naked in the snow, staring around her at the lonely rocks and digging her nails into her own palms. She cursed the empty rocks, and the fat moon in the sky. There was a stone plinth, like a kind of wide table, and she climbed up onto it and stood there, breathing hard.

  “Take me, Wolf Gods!” She screamed again.

  A howl answered her – shockingly close. What she had thought was a boulder opened lambent golden eyes, and stretched, slowly. The wolf chuckled, a sound closer to a growl than a human laugh.

  “She is loud enough to be the Wolf Queen,” said the wolf. It stood, shaking snow from its coat and baring brilliant rows of white teeth in a fierce grin. It was far bigger than a normal wolf - the size of a horse - and even its breathing was hard and loud like a smith’s bellows. Even though she was on the plinth, the wolf looked down on her. Dasha’s eyes went wide, but she managed not to cower. I will meet my death proudly.

  “I am –“ she began.

  “Dasha. Yes, I know.” The wolf was laughing again, and showed no inclination to start eating her. “I am Fyor of Winter.”

  “I am Raka,” said a higher, snarling voice. The second Wolf God skittered down from where had perched on a high peak. This one was more slender than the first, and not quite as tall. Still his eyes were quick and bright, and he had a wilder look, like he was listened to messages on the wind. Raka raced to stand next to the first, but seemed not to be content with standing still and prowled around the platform where she stood. It was difficult not to shrink away when that bright-eyed hulk came close.

  “I believe you already know Volk.” Fyor said.

  “You spoil my surprise, as always,” said a wry voice somewhere behind her. It was deep and masculine, but also very human. She turned. The young man with the bear-pelt cloak stepped out of the shadows. Dasha could not contain a small gasp of surprise, and the young man laughed at that, not unkindly. His eyes were brilliant gold in the dark as he took in the moonlit curves of her young body. Suddenly he averted his eyes, as if realizing what he was doing.

  “You grew up very beautiful, Dasha.” He whispered.

  “You spied on me so you could eat me later!” Somehow Dasha fear had melted into a new and deeper anger. What a betrayal, that the man she had dreamed about since she was young about would turn out to be this… this monster. He was a murderer of young women, terror on her village.

  “How dare you! I have lived in fear because of you, ever since I was young. Beautiful, is that all you care about, you fools? The people of the village are good and strong, and you are a curse on them!”

  Volk laughed, but he didn’t seem so sure now.

  “Hurry up and kill me, I don’t want to look at your face.”

  Dasha’s eyes blazed. She folded herself up, and lay down on the stone slab. The rock beneath her was ice cold, but she no longer cared. She stared at the moon and bared her teeth.

  “I told you she was our mate.” Volk said, to the others.

  Dasha listened in spite of herself.

  Fyor answered with a growl. “You were right, happy? She also hates us. We are doomed because of you, Volk. You walked too long on two legs and you’ve lost your sense. We should take her and kill her.”

  “No!” Volk snarled, but Raka’s high and knife-bright voice cut in.

  “We should show her pleasure, and promise not to eat her dull villagers.”

  Dasha sat up at that.

  “What does that mean?” She demanded.

  Volk spoke for them as the others circled dangerously, sniffing at her exposed body.

  “You are our mate - you are the Wolf Queen.” He explained grudgingly. “The real one, not like the other weak, pretty girls they keep sending us. They read it wrong… it was never ‘beautiful’ at all. It was …” Volk paused, hesitant, before saying a word that was half howl.

  Then he snarled.

  “There is still no word. ‘Fierce’, maybe. Perhaps you are beautiful, we don’t care. You smell like our mate. If you stay with us we will never harm them again -- those dull, stupid humans in the valley.”

  Dasha remembered rough hands on her body, and bright gold eyes in the darkness of her mind. Her feet were warm and her body seemed not to hurt any more. Am I dying, or am I healed? Some undeniable heat was welling in her at this prospect… the three wolves and her alone…

  “You are ours now.” Volk seemed to answer the question in her mind. ”Wolves do not die of cold. Dasha… please…”

  He met her eyes, this dark-haired, gorgeous monster. There was snow caught in his hair, dusting the bear-skin he had draped over himself. She could see a sliver of skin at the throat- he was naked beneath it. What she saw in his eyes she had not expected. Because it was… love. Undeniable love.

  She worried that he could see the love in her eyes, too.

  “Fine,” she announced. Her voice only trembled a little. “Do I have to wear the stupid crown?”

  It was as if the morning were a pale shadow of what happened now in the light of the moon. Tall, hard Fyor became a man of hulking proportions, and his hands were like the hands of a blacksmith’s apprentice she had once kissed. He was the one who took her from the stone, and laid her down on the skin she had discarded. The soft wool tickled her arms deliciously as he pressed her into it. In the moonlight she could make out with extraordinary clarity the hard ridged muscles of his bo
dy, the rough line of a peasants jaw. His eyes were bright in the darkness under a heavy brow, and all over his chest there was rough hair that smelled of sweat and dirt. Yet he was almost gentle to her as he touched her body. She was nervous, and flinched away at first, but soon his warm hands had her squirming with delight as they roved over her.

  Three men, I will be an outcast. Yet she didn’t care, and these were not men, anyway. The longer she looked into the wolf’s golden eyes the less she trembled to feel his rough hands on her breasts, teasing the nipples… he growled softly. He moved somewhat like a wild animal, like he didn’t know quite how to be a proper human man. He moved fearlessly. His hard fingers slipped down her belly and into the soft crevice between her thighs. She was suddenly afraid again and she made a small and unwilling noise. Suddenly she felt another pair of hands on her sides, and then hot lips were pressed to her nipple. A wickedly dexterous tongue curled around it, and she couldn’t help but let out a slight moan.

  When she peered down she saw that Raka too had taken human form. He was a slight young man with pale hair that gleamed in the dark. His body was muscled too, but not like Fyor's hard bulk. More like the body of the hounds her father kept – lean and strong. And his tongue was sweet and sure and he worked her whole body, while he made a whine of deep need in the back of his throat. The two wolves were touching her everywhere they could reach, ravaging every inch of skin with teasing lips, sharp raking teeth, hard hands. She was moaning and writhing beneath them soon with a lust she had never dreamed of in her own self-pleasuring. Was this what it was to know a man’s touch?

  No… the heat of the gods’ skin, the bright glow of their eyes, this was beyond any man. One of Fyor’s strong fingers had parted the lips of her sex, making her yelp and squirm away. But his other hand on her shoulder pinned her down as easily as if she were a pup, and the finger stroked slowly, roving, and she realized suddenly that she was wet. Very wet. His finger drew out her own slickness and spread it over her thighs, and dipped just slightly into the hot, liquid well of her sex. Hot flushes raced over her. She could see the two wolves’ manhood’s standing tall and hard in the moonlight, quivering with wanting. Where is Volk?