Red As Blood - Book One of Tales of Blood and Darkness Read online

  But now I can smell Peter and I want him.

  The lowest of rumbles comes from Grandmother; a warning. And she’s right. It’s impossible. Right now, it’s impossible.

  My Grandmother steps backwards, picking her footsteps among the crisp leaves, but her footfall is silent. she moves like a flake of soot, always choosing the shadows, she curves away from the camp and we vanish together into the night.

  _______________________________

  The following morning, and human again, my mind begins to make sense of what has happened, or starts thinking up questions to what doesn’t make sense.

  “Why here Granny? If the family all know; Mother, Father, why did I have to come all the way out here, to your cottage?”

  “Because it is ‘all the way out here’, Belle. You felt it; the need to run. The need to go. If that had happened at the farm, with everyone around to see, including everyone who isn’t family, what would have happened? With cattle and sheep to smell you? The dogs wouldn’t be a problem. They already know. But the chickens would have gone mad. D’you think that would have been sensible?”

  I shake my head. It’s obvious of course. Here, deep in the wild wood, the world is ours.

  _______________________________

  Hunger burns in me, a hunger of the flesh that demands satiation. I know how where to find it.

  I walk through the forest, human for now, heading for the area where Grandmother and I had seen Peter and his father the previous night.

  There is a sound, the clopping of an axe; a woodsman. I follow the noise.

  It is further than I thought. Following the sound of the chopping, it becomes louder quickly. Is it simply that my hearing is more acute now? Even in human form? After a good way, walking through the trees, I see him.

  Watching carefully from a distance, there is no sign of his father, but Peter is there, working on a coppiced stump. I remain hidden for a while, but still his father does not appear.

  The need in me is urgent, and not to be denied. Breath ragged, my blood racing, I step out from the trees and call. “Peter….”

  He turns, framed against the sunlight, staring at me

  “Belle? What are you doing here? It’s dangerous so far out in the woods……” Then he pauses, staring at me. “What is it Belle? What’s wrong?”

  “I… I… started to bleed, a few days ago.”

  He steps forward eagerly, smiling, and embraces me. “Oh, that’s wonderful. You’re a woman now. Father will let us marry.”

  How do I say this? Do I even want to? All I know is that I want Peter.

  Or do I?

  I want a male, now.

  I look up into his eyes. “Peter, I want….”

  He sees it in me. “It’s alright Belle. That’s what I want too. And if I can give you a baby, Father’s sure to let us marry, isn’t he? We’ll have proved that you’re a woman.”

  He touches his lips to mine, tenderly, but my need is more. My arousal, instant and fierce, I wrap my fingers tightly around his head, drawing him in to me. My mouth open on his, I accept his kiss and take more, nipping at his lip, teething him down the neck and face.

  His expression is startled. “Hey Belle. Take it easy. We’ve got all day. No-one’s going to come. Father’s trailing a stag. Let’s go to the shelter.” He takes me by the hand, leading me to the little forest shelter that he and his father use when they camp to make charcoal. Peter’s horse, tethered close by, rears and stamps, rolling its eyes at me.

  In the dimness of the shed, the blood heat takes me. Peter tries to be gentle, carefully unlacing my bodice, but before he is done, I rip away the last of the lacing and drop the garment to the floor. Tugging at the laces of my skirt, it parts easily and as it drops, I simply step out of it, naked.

  Peter’s breathing is deep, his perfume masculine and strong, but I scent a touch of panic. Trying to think with my human brain; this is my first time. I should be meek and nervous; passive.

  Instead, I feel like a goddess, and this man, this male, is here for me.

  My fingers interleaved with the linen of his shirt, I start to tug at it. He waves a warding hand at me. “Slow down Belle. I don’t want it ripped.”

  Impatiently, I wait as he removes the shirt, boots and breeks. His manhood already stands tall against his flatly muscled stomach, twitching slightly with a blood pulse.

  He looks down for a moment. “I know it’s our first time Belle. But it’s not mine. My father took me to one of the girls in the city. She showed me what to do. Let me take over. I won’t hurt you, I promise.”

  He sounds as though he is reading from a script. Something in me says that I don’t really want this man, but my body calls it a liar, demanding more. My heart pounds and sweat is running down my skin. My heavy breasts glistening, the tautly muscled line of my belly heaves and ripples with need. My sex burns and throbs. I do not want words and gentleness. I want a male inside me. I need to fuck.

  Trying to control myself, I trace a line with my fingers over his chest. He is a good-looking man. His work as a woodsman has made him so. Not over tall, but with a broad-shouldered frame, narrowing to a tight waist. A scattering of golden hair over his chest leads to a narrow line of hairs, leading down to groin and throbbing cock. Using the touch as an excuse to draw closer, I breath deeply, inhaling his musk, his arousal.

  “You’re not shy are you Belle? This is your first time, isn’t it?”

  Hastily I nod. “Oh yes. It’s my first time, but….” What do I say? “….I have brothers. I know what a man looks like.”

  My fingers trace the line over his abdomen, downward, and he seizes my hands, wrapping my arms around and behind me. “A good girl, on her first time, shouldn’t be trying to take the lead.”

  And with that he kisses me hard, open mouthed, then swinging one arm under me, scoops me up and drops me on to the soft pallet he uses as a bed.

  It is only rough; unbleached linen over a pile of springy twigs and bracken, but it will do.

  He lies down alongside me, caressing my breasts, kissing my neck, suckling at my nipples, but I want more. I want him inside me. My heated sex runs hot juices, and the blood sings and pulsates in my loins.

  Scrabbling to grasp him, hands behind his buttocks, I roll back, trying to pull him over me, parting my thighs to give him entry.

  His face is flushed, eyes wide in the half light, and as he settles on me, his manhood nudges at my entrance. “I’ll try not to hurt you.” he says. “I’ll be gentle, but there might be blood.”

  For the first time, he really has my attention. “There’s always blood.” I murmur.

  He looks startled, but presses gradually inward. Deeper he goes and deeper, penetrating me, stretching and opening me, filling me with himself.

  I shudder and moan, digging my fingers into his skin. For a moment, my vestiges of control begin to fail as fingernails try to turn to claws, but I regain myself. I must be human.

  I am not human. Not now. Not ever. As he grunts and thrusts into me, part of me knows that this is what I want, what I need.

  But another part of me finds it unsatisfying. This is not…. enough….

  When he is done, Peter rolls away from me, smiling. “Ah, Belle, that was wonderful. When it’s the right moment, I’ll talk to Father about our betrothal.” He takes my hand, smiling into my eyes, then looks doubtful. “That…is… what you want isn’t it?”

  I snatch up my clothes. “I’d better go. My Grandmother will be worrying about me.” Quickly, I shrug back into my dress.

  “I’ll walk you back.” he offers. “You shouldn’t be out by yourself out here Belle. There are boar, and wolves.”

  “I’m fine.” I brush him off, and walk away, leaving him watching after me, his expression baffled.

  _______________________________

  I don’t know what is wrong with me, what it is that I want.

  But I want something.

  My tumble with Peter has left me questioning myself. I
thought what I needed was Peter, but I was wrong.

  Jittery, I feel ready to shatter.

  Wandering randomly through the forest, seeking…. something… I walk miles. My skirts are ruined, ripped on bramble and thorn. I will have to start stitching when I return home. But I don’t care. My aching sex is screaming at me for….

  There is a man, kneeling by a dead stag, and sharpening his knife with a whetstone, preparing to dress the carcass. Karl.

  He’s a strapping man. Tall and lean with well-muscled shoulders from a life of hunting since his earliest years. Good looking too, with dark hair and feral blue eyes.

  Somehow, despite his good looks, I’ve never felt attracted to him before, nervous really. Always there was something about him that repelled me.

  But it’s different now. He’s somehow…. more appealing…

  As I approach, he hears me, swinging around to look, casually at first, then with an air of concentration. Tilting his head up, he sniffs at the breeze, puts down his blade and the stone and strides towards me. He catches me by the wrist, his expression predatory.

  “I knew it had to be soon.” he says. “When?”

  I’m confused. How can he know? “A few days ago, I….”

  I want to tell him about Peter, but how can I do that?

  “I already know. You don’t have to tell me anything.” he says. “I can smell him on you. Did you really want him? Or was it just the heat lust?”

  I don’t speak, as realisation dawns.

  “Did you really think you’re the only one around here?” says Karl. “I had to wait until you came into your moon time, but now…. Tell me you don’t want me.”

  His pressure on my wrist increases. He yanks me towards him and fastens his mouth on mine.

  Fire surges through me and this time, it is right. The unappeased ache within me blossoms into sheer craving. This is meant to be. I respond explosively. The kiss deepens, not truly a kiss, but a feasting, an exultation.

  My blood surging, arousal spears through me, piercing me with the desire to have this man inside me.

  He pulls away, still holding me by the wrist, locking me by eye.

  “See?” he says. You know what you are, and now you know what I am.

  “I need… I need…”

  “I know what you need.” he says, and without preamble, leads me under the shade of a great beech, branches sweeping low over the forest floor to make a bower.

  “Wait there.” he says, and walks away, returning after less than a minute carrying his cloak. Sweeping it in a great arc, he lays it on the ground. He nods at the cloak, eye pointing me down. “I know what you need, so I’m not going to try to court you. Not now. We can be friends later.”

  Trembling and shaking with lust, I strip. He does the same, simply removing his clothes and discarding them. This is not what I had imagined when I was a girl - but things were different then.

  I stand naked before him, quivering with arousal. He looks me over, his smile sensual. “You have bloomed into a beautiful…woman, Belle.” He waves at the cloak on the ground. “Now get down.”

  I stoop, to lie on my back, but he stops me, flipping me round. “Not like that. On all fours.”

  I crouch on my hands and knees, then, awareness coming, lower myself to my elbows, raising my hips, and twist to look over my shoulder as Karl pushes my knees apart with his feet.

  He is magnificent. Stripped to his skin, eyes sharp and bright, pupils huge in the dimness. “You smell of sex Belle, like a bitch in heat. Because that’s what you are.”

  Dropping to his knees behind me, his member probes my entrance, already hot and throbbing. “Think you’re ready?” he whispers. “Let me show you what ready means.”

  And he leans forward over me, his cock teasing me, while his hands slip forward and down between my legs. At first, I don’t know what he is doing, but then his fingers find my small nub, teasing it, rubbing it between fingers, flicking it and circling.

  I howl as lust shatters through me, thrashing in rapture, but I am caged between Karl’s arms and he does not loose his hold.

  Again, he whispers. “It’s good for you to be a bitch Belle. But it’s good to be a woman too. You can’t do this as a wolf.”

  Still he works me, works my sex, while I scrabble and scream in response, until “But you can do this Belle. Or I can. Man or wolf, I can do this.”

  And kneeling up, he thrusts deep into me, deep into my core.

  I howl my joy, exultant. This is what I want. This is what I need. With one of my own kind. My breath steams in the cooling evening air, but I am not cold. I am afire.

  As he drives himself into me, piston-like, he seizes me by the hair, hands coiled tight into my long, black locks, pulling back my head tight. It is no matter. I want to howl at the moon. I want to scream to the heavens as this man-wolf of mine fucks me.

  It rises from within, as it did not before. Curling up like smoke, a sheer molten wave wells up, deep inside. My sex pulses and ripples, and then explodes through me. I wail glory to the trees and the sky, and Karl continues to fuck me, pumping me hard, until the moment passes and I drop, panting and heaving, to the ground.

  “It won’t last long.” he says. “So, don’t try to leave. You’ll be hungry again, very soon.”

  From my prone position, I look back at him, still gasping. “Will it always be like this?”

  “For a few days, then you’ll be fine again, until your next moon time.” He lies alongside me, and, suddenly tender, eyes soft, cradles me in his arms. “It’s alright. I’m here. I’ll take care of you while it’s like this.”

  A sudden worry occurs to me. “Does it matter to you that I was with him first?”

  He laughs. “Why should it? You were with him, but came looking for more. I wouldn’t expect anything else.”

  “What do you mean?”

  He cocks his head at me. “What happens when one of the village bitches comes into heat?”

  “Errr… all the dogs chase after her. She has them one after another, and usually has a belly full of pups the next day.”

  “And if someone locks her up? Say, if she’s one of those special hunters that the lord has, when he keeps her back to be taken for stud.”

  “The last time I saw that, she was locked up in the barn. She ripped down a wall to get out.”

  “You see. Blood burns hot for a bitch in heat.”

  Embarrassed, I cast around for an alternative subject of conversation.

  “How do you persuade the horse to carry you?” I ask.

  He laughs. “We’re old friends. Grew up, boy and colt together. He knows he’s safe with me. Nothing will attack him while I’m around.

  As if to prove a point, he reaches for his carry-bag and pulls out a couple of apples. Standing, he feeds them to the horse, who nickers and nuzzles him.

  “He’s quite an expensive horse for a hunter’s son.”

  “Aye, that he is. But since he won’t let anyone else ride him but me, no-one’s ever argued over whether I own him or not.”

  He swings around, facing me. “Be careful Belle. The world isn’t the same one now that it was for you a week ago. People you thought were friends, won’t be if they learn what you are.”

  I nod. “But you’re a hunter. You hunt wolves?”

  “I…. appear to hunt wolves.” He grins at my confusion. “If you are likely to be the prey, then hunter is a good disguise.” His humour vanishes. He continues. “Especially, be careful of Peter.”

  “Peter? I thought you just said….”

  “I don’t mean that I’m jealous. I’m not. But tell me truly… what do you think of him now?”

  “He’s a nice person…. a good man….” My words hang in the air. “But…. but… I didn’t want him. I mean, I wanted to use him, to…. well, you know… but I didn’t want him. Anyone would have done. He was just there. Afterwards, I felt… unsatisfied. Even a bit sick. I didn’t understand it.”

  “You need more than him.
You’re right. He’s a decent enough lad, but he’s not your kind.”

  I think about the implications of what Karl is saying to me. Am I completely isolated from humanity now?

  “And us?”

  “And us?”

  The question hangs in the air. Who asked first? I am not sure.

  Trying to gather my thoughts. “You’re saying that all this was is my…. response…. and that is will happen every time I….”