Wolf Omega: Lykanos Chronicles 2

When Duccio seemed satisfied that he’d given me time to examine the sight before us, he proceeded to lead me forward.

As we approached, I looked up anxiously at the soaring roof, no doubt weighing tons. I marveled at how something so immense could float above us. We walked through the center two columns to a rectangle cut into the building’s face, which stood almost to the roof. Within it was an exquisite bronze relief depicting a forest of evergreen trees, each defined in spectacular detail by some master’s loving hand. The trees rose several feet above our heads to end at a sky populated by men and women flying in flowing robes around a giant orb. A dozen shafts of light emanated from this orb, and the people who soared around it seemed drawn like moths to a flame.

Duccio reached forward to touch the relief and then pulled on a bar that was cleverly hidden among the bronze tree trunks. I heard a lock disengage, and he revealed a tall door that broke the relief’s facade. When he had it open fully, Duccio nodded for me to pass through before him.

Inside, my breath was retaken from me as I stepped into a giant, circular chamber that rose unimpeded at least one hundred feet. I squinted to see the endless details of its design. At the top was the dome I had marveled at from outside, though now I realized it was incomplete. The builders had left an enormous space open at the very top.

“The oculus,” Duccio whispered.

It was a perfect circle that let sunlight beam down into the chamber, lighting the walls, and at least a dozen marble statues that surrounded us. These statues were of magnificent people with perfectly shaped bodies in stately poses, each easily twice the height of any man or woman.

Despite the wonder of this place, I could not stop the pulling sound from filling my mind. It was as if I could sense it through my very bones.

The circular room had several doors around its perimeter, and Duccio led me forward through the largest. We came to a long hallway with walls filled with stunning murals of more forests. Breaking this visage were windows of colored glass that filtered sunlight into dozen colors that blazed across the shimmering white stone floor. Above us, the rounded ceiling was adorned with more gold patterns, the whole reflecting the light such that we could well have been walking outside.

At the end of the hall, we descended a flight of stairs that opened to another epic room. The style here was dissimilar to the places we had passed, much more like the designs I knew, only far more decadent than anything standing in Morbegno. Black stained wood covered the ceilings, intricately cut and styled into countless distinct shades, each lacquered into a glassy shine. The floors were covered in large red carpets, each woven with inlaid gold and black thread designs. There were furnishings of every sort: desks, lounge chairs, dining tables, and more golden oil lamps than could ever be needed.

Sitting together in one corner were two people, a man and woman, dressed as impeccably as Duccio in delicate, noble garments. They looked up from their books to stare at me, and I turned my eyes away out of intimidation. After several steps, I wanted to look back, but Duccio’s pace made it impractical, and I continued to follow him down another corridor.

Here, windows filled the walls down the entire stretch as we walked. Through the glass, my heart stopped to see a sweeping vista of Como and the lake before it. Both sat under the soaring rise of the gorgeous mountains beyond. The striking site, amplified by our astonishing height, cause me to stumble as it drew my attention.

Duccio caught my arm and steadied me.

Be careful, he thought.

“Forgive me,” I said instinctively.

I would have said more, but the words got caught in my throat when I looked ahead through the open doors ahead of us.

A very old man rose anxiously from a large chair. He was taller than me but shorter than Duccio. Dressed in simple garments of faded linen, he seemed out of place among all the splendor that surrounded us. His frame seemed very lean, as was the case with most older men, but this one stood with a graceful posture that made him appear to float forward. The man’s bald head was crowned with a ring of silver-white hair, slightly unkempt.

And then I realized he was the source of the sound. It somehow emanated from him.

“Father, I return with a gift,” Duccio said to the man. “One you will not soon forget.”

It shocked me to understand this man was Duccio’s father, the lord of this magnificent home. As he drew closer, I could see his face more clearly. There were heavy lines on his brow, and he wore thick eyebrows of a darker substance than his crown of white. He had vivid blue eyes, almost like a child’s perfect crystal color, and he never took them from me. He stared almost as if I perplexed him. He seemed purely baffled by my appearance or what I was doing in his home.

Duccio didn’t speak to introduce us. He neither said nor thought anything I could detect. Instead, he beckoned his father to approach us without impedance.

The old man stopped in front of me, his scowl becoming sharper by the second. Until, as if shocked by some monumental discovery, his face relaxed, and he exhaled with a powerful burst. He might have been holding his breath.

Then the lord’s formerly harsh features reassembled. Light overspread his expression, and he adopted a child-like smile. He appeared at once happier than anyone might believe such a face was capable of.

“Gabriella,” he whispered aloud with wonderment.

I didn’t understand how he knew my name. We’d never met—of that I was sure. Yet, this lord spoke to me with absurd familiarity.

“You may call me Sempronio,” the old man offered with an accent new to my ears.

For such a man to address me, even standing within the walls of his own castle, was not the way of the world. But I didn’t sense the slightest bit of malice from him, in the same way his son had posed no threat. I had no logical reason to believe it was true. Yet, it was—I knew I was safe with these men.

“Sempronio,” I repeated in response and bowed deeply, my knee almost reaching the floor.

He reached out to take my hand, and I stood back up. I noticed the sweet fragrance of his simple robe, filled with light fruit and flowers. His whimsical smile left his face for a moment as if he would say something important to me.

And then I heard it again.

The sound coming from within him rose. It came through his gentle grip. I felt it resonate in my chest and through my jaw. It was as if I were floating in the pond on my father’s farm like I did when I was a child—like the day I chose to die in those murky waters.

My vision spun, and the room we stood in disappeared.

I was on the farm again and could feel the warmth of the sunlight on my hair. I played hide-and-seek in the wheat field with my sister, Savia. When we heard Mother call us, I tagged her and laughed as she tried to chase me back to the cottage.

“Don’t run in the house,” Mother demanded when Savia refused to give up the game, though she’d certainly lost.

At the table, Father sat eating his lunch. He said nothing to us, but my sister and I knew well enough without receiving Mother’s order to sit down quietly and not disturb him. I wanted him to speak to me, though I knew his mind was far away. Perhaps he was melancholy; maybe he was disinterested. Whatever the reason, Father remained silent.

My head spun, and I stood in the bedroom with Mother on my wedding day. Anxiety seized me.

“What if I can’t?” I asked.

“You will,” Mother insisted.

She seemed so confident, but I didn’t know how she could be. She’d lost so many children, another just last year. She confided silently to bearing a boy. He had been stillborn, and Father had taken his little body from the cottage, not to return for several hours. When Father reappeared, not another word was spoken. We each acted as if none of it had happened.

My head spun, and I found myself standing in the main room of our home in Morbegno.

“You are the greatest blessing of my life,” Cecco told me tenderly. He kissed my lips over and over before allowing Apollonia to escort me upstairs to bed.

I woke up hours later from the wrenching pain to feel blood seeping out from between my legs.

My head spun, and I stood downstairs, watching Cecco thrust his cock into Apollonia. I saw the details of the moment clearer than before. I was hurt and jealous and angry. I was also envious. Again, the blood seeped from between my legs, and the pain that followed attempted to rip me apart.

My head spun, and Cecco slapped me in the face.

“You will confess to murdering my son!” he screamed wildly.

My head spun, and I felt Cecco driving into me from behind, as he’d done to Apollonia. There wasn’t time to feel anything other than pain, and I felt his anger cut into my sex without the slightest concern. He pulled at my breast ruthlessly, as if it pleased him to hurt me.

My head spun, and Cecco kicked Father over and over. I heard a sickening snap as his boot collided with Father’s ribs for the last time.

My head spun, and I felt the chilly water of the pond consume me. I opened my eyes to see the faintest shimmer of light through the murk above my head.

My head spun, and felt my arms pulled forward. They pushed my chest down upon the crate with such force that I could hardly breathe. Ferrante Vervio thrust into me from behind. I heard him spit at me and felt the revolting fluid land on my sex. He spread it over me with his cock, then thrust into me again.

He came soon enough, and I felt the relief of his semen as it soothed the violent motion, even though it burned where his abuse had torn me.

“Don’t touch her face,” he told his men, soon withdrawing up the stairs.

One after another, they penetrated me. When some became impatient for one man to finish, they turned me over to get at my breasts. They ripped at my dress to expose me further, pinching my nipples mercilessly. One man even drew to suck at them with his mouth.

The feeling of pain mixed with pleasure caused me to scream with revulsion. The piercing sound of my voice shocked me into a unique breed of alert consciousness. That was until the wicked man smothered my mouth with his hand to stop me.

My head spun, and my eyes immediately focused on Sempronio. The old man held my head in his soft hands, and I heard my wounded scream from a distance as if someone had removed me from my body.

Tears flooded his eyes, and I realized what he had done.

Sempronio pulled me close to him, releasing my head to lie against his chest. He drew his arms around me and held me tight.

I’m sorry, he whispered in my mind. He was sorry for what had happened to me, for all I’d endured. He was sorry for intruding upon the memories. He was ashamed as if he’d committed a crime just by looking upon it all.

I held to him as tightly as he held me. Even as the pain flooded still through me again, it satisfied me that someone else knew.

I cannot remember how long we both wept in each other’s arms.