Pendant of Fortune

Pendant of Fortune

by Kyell Gold

This is a work of fiction. All characters and events portrayed within are fictitious.

PENDANT OF FORTUNE

Copyright 2006 by Kyell Gold

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book, or portions thereof, in any form.

Published by Sofawolf Press

St. Paul, Minnesota

http://www.sofawolf.com

ISBN 0-9769212-3-5

Printed in the United States of America

First trade paperback edition: January 2006

For my own white wolf,

who inspired, loved, supported, and never stopped believing in

both this book

and myself.

If I have not been able to convey love and romance in these pages,

the fault lies only with my skill in writing,

not with any lack of experience.

This book,

my heart,

and all my love go out to you,

my dear.

Thank you.

Contents

Chapter 1

“
You’re not going.”

Volle looked at the white wolf’s blue eyes and set jaw. “I have to.”

“
Then I’m going with you.”

“
You can’t. It’s too dangerous.”

“
It’s dangerous for you, too.”

He waved the letter from Tish. “I’ll be protected. They don’t have any witnesses to testify against me. The worst that will happen is that I’ll be found guilty of impersonating a noble, and I can claim it was all a mistake. You’re a deserter from the palace guard.”

The white wolf waved a paw. “Deserters leave all the time. We never had any in the jails when I was there.”

“
But Dereath knows you’re important to me, and he’ll take any excuse to put you away or hurt you.”

“
Let him try.”

Volle sighed at the wolf’s defiant pose. “Streak, you’re not going.”

“
Then you’re not going.”

And so the whole conversation came around in a circle again. “I know you think you need to protect me, but you don’t. I’ll be fine, and I’ll be back here in a month.”

“
Why do you need to be there at all?”

“
I have to defend myself. If it were just me, I wouldn’t care. But Ilyana…she’s still my wife, and if I’m stripped of my honor, then so is she. If there’s a chance I can save her status, I have to take it. Fox tells us to look to our pack.”

Streak looked at him and then sat down on the bed. He was naked, but the tail that curled over his waist covered his sheath and the black streak on his hip that was the only mark on his white-furred body. One paw twisted the tip of his tail as he kept his eyes on Volle. “I know you’ve been bored,” he said in a low voice.

Volle’s ears twitched. He put the letter down and walked over to the bed, trying to find the right words. “It’s been a difficult adjustment,” he admitted, “but not boring.” His slender muzzle touched Streak’s broader one, and he smiled at the wolf.

Streak smiled back weakly. “It’s okay,” he said. “I know you’re used to the excitement of the castle, and the farm is quieter. And I’m not as clever as your other friends.”

“
Hush,” Volle silenced him with a soft kiss. “I love you, okay?”

“
I know. I love you, too. But I don’t think you’re happy here.”

There was more than a little truth to that. Volle
had
been bored over the last year, ever since he’d finished debriefing with Seir and Duke Avery at the palace in Caril. The farm had been nice and restful at first, and he enjoyed having the minor title of Count of Farrian, but he missed the palace at Divalia in Tephos, the intrigue layered upon intrigue, spying for the Ferrenians on the Tephossians, for one faction of the Tephossians on another faction, and the intricate workings of the political machinery that six years had brought him only a few steps of the way to figuring out. And he missed his friends.

Seir had been recalled at the same time he had come home, and she visited him from time to time, but the visits were always brief. She was engaged to a tradesmouse and expecting a family, and so her visits were less and less frequent.

“
It’s a relief to be free of all that, isn’t it?” he’d asked her once, hoping she would contradict him.

“
It really is,” she said thoughtfully. “I thought I would miss it, but I don’t. Jordan is wonderful, and we’re planning a family. I spent ten years in the service of the King, and I’m glad it’s over.” She smiled. “You got off easy with only six.”

“
You really don’t miss it?” he pressed.

She shook her head. “Life goes in stages, Volle, and you can’t keep looking back at the previous stage or you’ll never enjoy the present.” She patted his paw with her tiny fingers. “You’re lucky. You’ve got a farm and a mate, and I’m sure if you petitioned the King, he’d grant you a child to adopt. If you wanted one. Do you?”

He shook his head, then shrugged. “Not now. Maybe. We haven’t really talked about it.” He changed the subject then, feeling more and more uneasy with his desire for the life he’d led when he’d been pretending to be Lord Vinton. It wasn’t just the perks of lordship that he missed, though Fox knew he could use a personal servant again some days; it was the game that called at him, woke him in the middle of the night at least once a week wondering what the conspirators over in Tephos were hatching since he’d ruined their latest scheme to foment war between the countries, wondering whether they’d decided he was a traitor or not, wondering whether Tish’s peace-loving group had gained any ground, and wondering what his old nemesis Dereath Talison, the rat who was the assistant to the Minister of Defense and in charge of all the Tephossian intelligence now, was doing.

All of this rushed through his head as he knelt beside the bed, one black paw on Streak’s knee, trying to express the conflict that made him want to be both in the arms of the young white wolf and far away in a cold room in the palace of a foreign country. The desire frustrated him because it was so obviously impossible, yet he couldn’t dismiss it from his mind, and the fact that Streak had noticed it meant he was worse at hiding it than he’d thought.

And the harder he tried to forget it, the more forcefully it would return.

“
I am happy,” he insisted.

“
Then why are you trying to run away from me?”

Volle looked into the wolf’s clear blue eyes. He couldn’t lie to him, so he avoided the truth. “I said I’ll be back, and I will. I don’t need to be there for more than a week.”

Streak met his gaze, then lowered his head. “All right,” he conceded, and tugged Volle’s paw toward him, rolling back onto the bed and smiling up at the fox.

Volle smiled back, aware that the argument hadn’t been resolved, just postponed. He slid his pants off, enjoying showing off for the wolf, and stretched his arms up. He’d gained a few pounds in his year on the farm, but he still felt he was in good shape. Streak wasn’t looking at his stomach, of course; his eyes were fixed a few inches lower, and Volle shook his sheath gently from side to side, grinning. Slowly, he slid the golden pendant he wore off his neck and placed it on the side table, then climbed onto the bed and over the wolf. On all fours astride the prone white body, Volle lowered his muzzle and met Streak’s in a gentle kiss, feeling the wolf’s paw rise up to cup and rub his sheath as they kissed.

Really
, he thought,
why am I so anxious to leave this behind?
He grinned at his own pun and rubbed into the paw more forcefully, arousal growing as he did so.

After a few more panting minutes of snuggling, he slid his hips back and lowered the tip of his erect member to rest below Streak’s sac. The wolf responded by lifting his hips eagerly, and after a quick application of scented oil, Volle slipped familiarly into the warm tightness there. He closed his oily paw around Streak’s own erection and stroked gently as he pushed his hips forward and back, rocking in a gentle rhythm and letting the sensations wash through him.

Streak wriggled a bit around him, and he lifted the wolf’s member further from his chest as he stroked. He knew Streak liked that tension at the base of his sheath, knew just how tightly he liked to be stroked, and how fast. Sometimes he teased the wolf, bringing him close and then stopping, bringing him close and stopping again, until Streak whimpered mock-piteously at him and he relented. Tonight, he preferred a slow, leisurely lovemaking, setting his own pace and bringing his lover along to match.

He felt his knot swell as the blood surged through him, but restrained his desire to thrust more quickly. His legs trembled at the effort of maintaining control, just as he saw Streak’s paws were trembling and clawing at the sheets. Each stage of the wolf’s arousal was familiar to him, and he did enjoy being able to move him from one to the other, to the final one, which was not too far now, judging from his panting growls and the size of his knot.

Volle, panting quite a bit himself, thrust into Streak only up to his knot, letting it swell a bit more (and giving himself some relief from the shivering pleasure of pressing it through the wolf’s tail hole), and then, when he felt about to burst, pressed hard forward. A moment of resistance, then a soft pop that he barely heard because his ears were suddenly alight with the rush of blood through him, and he was locked inside the wolf, his body singing for a release that could no longer be postponed. His paw moved swiftly, but his timing was a bit off; Streak howled softly and came onto his paw, his last spurt trickling out a moment before Volle moaned and filled him.

They writhed together, sharing the physical pleasure and emotional joy, and when the peak had passed and they were basking in the warm ebb of the sensations, Volle leaned forward to kiss the wolf, paw still tight around his warm and sticky hardness. Their muzzles touched, merged, and slowly drew apart, tongues brushing. Eyes met and warm smiles were exchanged as Streak slid his arms around the fox and pulled him close.

Volle rubbed the fingers of his spare paw up and down Streak’s side, eyes half-closed as the wolf rubbed down his back with both paws, fingers pushing through the fur and then smoothing it down. To have this, to know this wolf so well, to have this bed to come to every night—that couldn’t be bad. And yet, something in his heart missed the joy of discovery, of that first time with a new partner, the hesitant exploration of new territory, the delight that came with the formation of new bonds, and the pleasure in bringing a gasp of excitement to a new muzzle. That part of him, quietest at times like this, still looked critically at all the aspects of sex that were the same and thought,
for ever and ever, just this. Is that enough?