SWNOVELS Chapter Chapter Six
When the performance began, I avoided the quick-change tent, opting to linger on the fringe. I peered into the audience from beside the stage, addicted to the sounds of their appreciation, but caught no trace of Maximillian.
When the last rays of light receded in the west, I assisted Monsieur Devault with lighting the camp torches. I took the north side while he focused on the south, where the night’s performance was well underway.
When I’d finished all but one torch, I saw Maximillian in the distance among an outcrop of trees. Dressed in the same laborer’s tunic as the night before, he raised his hand in greeting and smiled at me.
I’d thought for most of the day about him, about what I’d say to him when he returned to speak to me. But I expected he’d return in the early morning hours like the previous night.
I considered what I meant to do for a moment, though I knew nothing would keep me from slipping away to speak with him. Exhilarated but intimidated, I held tight to my torch and shot a quick glance back to the camp.
“It’s the traveling songbird,” I heard a man say from behind me.
My stomach dropped as I shot my eyes around to find how close my attacker and his companions had crept up to me in my distraction.
“Oh,” he winced when he saw my face in the light of my torch. “Not so pretty anymore, is he?”
“But he stuck around,” said another.
“I guess he didn’t get the message,” the third man resolved as if it were the only point that mattered.
Their leader glanced at the torch in my hand and I drove the flaming timber out in defense. He was the very fiend who’d attacked me with my viol and destroyed it.
“Drop it,” he said, but I gripped the torch all the more firmly.
“Keep back,” I muttered, but my legs trembled from fear.
“Don’t be a fool, now. Drop it or I’ll take it from you. Don’t make me kill you, traveler.”
In the glow of my torchlight, my eyes missed the approach of a dark shape until it was upon us.
The second and third men drew in a simultaneous gasp and fell to the ground. When their leader turned in confusion to find his friends struggling in the dirt, I saw something I didn’t understand. Both men lay with their torsos separated from their legs. Their arms and heads shook for moments with unfocused confusion before life left them.
Nothing came from the remaining man. He didn’t understand the carnage anymore than I did, and looked back to me for an answer. The confused accusation in his eyes lasted only a second before a monstrous beast slammed him from the back and tumbled past me several feet. They came to land between the camp and where I stood. Shocked by the change, I stumbled backward over what remained of the other men and dropped my torch.
I watched in confusion as the man struggled against the beast from the ground. It had the head of a wolf, though its giant, tailless body was closer to the size of a bear. The monster swept razor-sharp talons across the man’s face with such ferocity that it all but removed the skin from his skull.
Flooded with panic and separated from the camp, I got to my feet and ran toward the trees. My legs moved of their own accord, racing on instinct to find cover. I couldn’t see well, and I stumbled several times as my foot caught saplings in the dark or my clothes snagged on branches. I managed not to scream, exerting every ounce of control I had to keep the beast from hearing my flight.
When I’d separated myself by hundreds of feet, I turned left, bent on working my way back to the camp via one large arc.
Esprit, his voice called to me and I stopped in my tracks.
Maximillian?
My breathing labored at such volume that I struggled to hear an answer, even in the silence. In time, I turned back to run off but he appeared before I could advance more than a few steps.
In the forest’s dark, I struggled to see the details of Maximillian’s body but recognized how he stood naked. Only fifteen feet away, I saw black splotches mark the alabaster skin of his torso and face. I realized they were blood.
“You’re hurt,” I whispered as quietly as I could.
No, it’s all right, he promised.
But the beast. Your clothes?
I stared at his body, at his long and powerful legs. God had sculpted his wide chest and shoulders finer than I’d ever seen. He was a man in the prime of creation, and the heavy sway of his cock and balls when he approached captured my attention as much as it intimidated me. I averted my eyes, but the sight had etched into my mind forever.
I left them behind. You’re no longer in danger. Please, wait here for me until I return.
His words confounded me. Had he slayed that terrible beast somehow? Did that account for losing his clothes?
My breathing wouldn’t slow, and I shot my head in all directions, searching for anything in the dark, listening for the terrifying growl that might find me at any moment.
Unwilling to wait, I stepped forward toward where I believed camp was. If I listened, I might hear the audience’s cheers in the far distance.
After only thirty feet, I heard a twig snap and froze. But Maximillian appeared from behind a tree, again dressed. He’d wiped away the splotches of blood on his face.
“What happened?” I whispered. “Did you kill it?”
He stepped over and placed his large hand on my shoulder.
“The beast you saw was me,” he answered.
I shook my head at the impossible statement but stopped when a flood of images poured from his mind. All of it came in vivid flashes—the beast in horrifying detail, packs of them flying through the forest. As startling as the sight of it was, these images came drenched in something other than horror. For Maximillian, their ferocity bore an overwhelming sense of love and pride. They were his family; his beloveds. And more unsettling was that he considered me to be one of them.
Yes, he said. You’re our brother—our child—newly emerged to begin his life. We are lykan. Loupes-garous. Vovkulakas. Werewolves.
For a moment, I remembered the dream. Parts of it returned to me. Not the details, but the feeling of safety, of running beside a magnificent wolf who guarded me.
I shook my head with refusal.
“You’re a sorcerer!” I spat at him. “Some demon from hell to lure me away.”
I meant every word. I remembered my father, and I knew why this devil had chosen me for his designs. My deviant nature and immoral choices had marked me and drawn this devil. All they’d ever told me was true, and I felt my legs tremble again.
Maximillian released a deep sigh, and I saw great pain take his eyes. He approached me again, and though I would’ve moved to run away, I only stood defeated. How could I ever run from such a being who could transform into a waking nightmare and slaughter me without effort?
He reached for my face and held it with his warm hands, running his thumbs along my jaw.
None of that is true, he said. I slaughtered those men because they harmed you and would not hesitate to do so again. We each have a choice to do good or evil in this life, and my family and I choose to do good. We choose to defend the people of this world who cannot defend themselves. This is who my father taught me to be, and who I hope you will become.
I stared at him, dumbfounded, unable to process his words while they echoed in my mind.
With another sigh, Maximillian pulled me to him and took me in his arms. He laid my head softly against his chest and embraced me, his mind filled with love. The man would become my father. He told me this not with words, but with every fiber of his being.
The sensation of his affection, bathed in such honest hues of devotion, changed everything at once. I felt the tension in my spine release. My muscles slackened, and I enfolded into his embrace.
Somehow, I’d become certain of everything he’d told me. I exhaled into the chest of this stranger I knew now with impossible intimacy. All I could do was weep in response as the fear released from my body.
Minutes passed. I felt I could stand there with him forever. From his mind came a perfect acceptance, colored in hues of love and affirmation, such that I thought I might become overwhelmed by his unqualified adoration. But that didn’t happen. From that moment on, all I felt was peace. Maximillian cared about me in a way I’d always dreamed of, and the true and viable flavor of his devotion was better than anything I’d ever known.
Come with me to my house. Let me show you who we are—the life we offer you. My wife awaits you. She wants to know you as much as I do. We’ve not known another of our kind in so long that… Please, won’t you allow us to love you?
I gathered myself, alone with this man in the woods, and raised my eyes to stare into his. Nothing but truth animated his handsome face. I realized then he was incapable of lying, that his words came unmasked from his very soul.
Yes, I whispered once I could. I’ll come with you.