The Moonlight Mistress (28 page)

She tunneled her fingers through his curls. “I like that it’s you. You’re a good fellow. You even share your nut-milk choc.”

“I’m guessing Gabriel will make a better job of it.” He twisted his neck, so his lips brushed Gabriel’s cheek. “You’re being awfully patient.”

“Just enjoying the show.” And, he realized, he was also a bit relieved that the two of them hadn’t demonstrated overwhelming passion for one another. He wasn’t ready to share his partners quite that much, not yet. Gabriel squeezed Crispin’s waist. “Bob, why don’t you join us. I think Crispin should have a demonstration of what you like. Ladies first, and all that.”

Crispin took Bob’s head in his lap while Gabriel kissed first her mouth, then her breasts, then, after she kicked him firmly in the calf, her cunt. When Gabriel dared a glance now and then, Crispin was watching him, his cheeks flushed, his eyes hot. Crispin stroked Bob’s hair tenderly from her forehead, traced the shape of her lips and smoothed his hands over her shoulders. After Gabriel had licked and suckled her into climax, Crispin eased free. Before snuggling behind Gabriel, he kissed her mouth.

Spooned between the two of them, Gabriel closed his eyes, luxuriating in the hot press of skin all over his. Knots in his shoulders, ones he hadn’t even noticed, loosened. He nuzzled into the velvety softness that hid at the base of Bob’s neck while his hands toyed with her nipples; her hands lazily guided his in the pressure she wanted. Crispin had one leg thrown over Gabriel’s hip, one hand stroking his ribs and the
other teasing the very top of the cleft between his buttocks. Gabriel could feel Crispin’s cock hardening against him. If he shifted even slightly, his own cock rubbed against the feathery hair at the base of Bob’s spine. He pressed his lips to Bob’s ear. “I’m sorry,” he said. “Do you forgive me? You did a good job today.”

She turned her face so his lips brushed her cheek. He could see her smile. “Couple more fucks like that and I suppose I could forgive you.”

“I’ll do my best.” Gabriel closed his eyes, luxuriating.

After a time, Crispin said, “This is lovely. But a bit awkward if we move too much.”

Bob said, “Maybe I could help you. With that tin. I want to see how it works.”

Gabriel snorted a laugh into her hair. “Perhaps I should hire out for demonstrations.”

“Your idea,” Bob pointed out. She extracted herself from his embrace and clambered over him, with a great deal of unnecessary fondling that made him laugh again. “Show me how it’s done, Crispin.” Firmly, she patted Gabriel’s arse. “Don’t worry, sir. We’ll take proper care of you.”

Bob had never imagined she’d be naked with Crispin Daglish, much less having his hands guide hers over Gabriel Meyer’s naked back while Gabriel made soft noises of pleasure, for once not trying to direct the action. It didn’t feel so much like sex to her as it might have with someone else. This was more relaxed, more like playing. She liked it. It felt lovely and safe, a feeling that was in all too short supply in recent days. She asked, “Do you always have to do this first?”

“No, I just like to touch him,” Crispin said, sharing a
sideways grin with her. She could tell that he did; his cock was nearly up to his belly with interest. She wouldn’t mind getting her hands on it, or her mouth, but she supposed she ought to let him save it for Gabriel; he’d like that a lot better.

She slipped her hands from under Crispin’s and pressed the heels of her hands along Gabriel’s spine, all the way up to his neck, before wiggling her fingers into his fine blond hair and scratching his scalp. “Mmm,” he said. “You could keep on doing that.”

She ran her fingers over his ears, dipping inside, then tugging on his lobes. “What about that demonstration?” she asked. She squirmed until she faced Crispin, who straddled Gabriel’s legs.

He said, sounding doubtful, “You really want to see?”

“Sure.” She was desperately curious to know what could be so wonderful that it caused men to risk prison.

“Most people wouldn’t want to see. They’d rather not know.”

“
You
like it,” she pointed out.

Crispin flushed all the way to his hairline and he looked away, shy as a boy. His voice muffled by the bedding, Gabriel noted, “You could be fucking me right now.”

Taking pity on Crispin’s nervousness, Bob said, “Give me the tin.” Once she’d opened it, she gathered thick salve on her fingers and dropped the tin on the bed. “Hold out your hands.”

Crispin grinned shakily and extended his hands to her, palms up. “Use a lot,” he said.

She rubbed his hands between hers to warm them. His hands were tense, so she squeezed and manipulated them a bit as she applied the salve, as she might do for her own hands after a long day’s sewing. Crispin looked both startled and grateful for the extra attention, and she felt a rush of affec
tion for him. She leaned forward and rubbed her cheek against his. “That good?”

He nodded, briefly kissed her, and without further comment, set to work. It wasn’t, Bob reflected, much different than she’d experienced with her first lover, except it was the other side of course, and she thought it was taking longer. That seemed to be more Crispin worrying about hurting Gabriel than anything really necessary, given how Gabriel made pleased sounds and pushed up against Crispin’s twisting fingers.

After a while, she asked if she could try. Her smaller fingers eased in without any trouble; Meyer’s muscles gripped her snugly, and for a moment she almost forgot what she was doing, as she imagined tightening her cunt on his cock in the same way. She remembered what she was about and stroked upward, feeling for the smoother spot Crispin told her to find. Everything felt tight and hot and smooth to her, or at least she thought it did, until his skin texture changed under the pad of her index finger and Gabriel stiffened and groaned deeply.

She wanted to do that again. And again, while he writhed at her touch; her eyes were glazing over, she liked it so much. Lord, that probably made her a sodomite, too. She rubbed the spot once more, gently, and licked her lips when Gabriel made the same sound, only more pitifully this time, since she hadn’t given him as much as he wanted. She said a bit shakily, “Could he come like that?”

“Like a grenade,” Crispin said hoarsely, while Gabriel made a noise between a curse and a laugh.

“You’d better fuck him right now, then,” she said, reluctantly exchanging places. She wiped her hands on a bit of sheet. “What’s the best way?”

Gabriel and Crispin finally settled on Crispin’s standing and Gabriel facedown on the bed, his legs hanging over the side. This left room for Bob to hold Gabriel in her lap, as Crispin had done with her earlier. This felt good, too. She was in the mood to be the one holding, instead of being held. Especially once Crispin gripped Gabriel’s hips and got started, and Gabriel made more delicious groans into her thigh, his fingers clenching at her helplessly while a haze of sweat and sex rose around them. She held him as tightly as she could, her fingers digging into his muscles, and stared while Crispin’s nervous incredulity faded into absorption, then into such single-minded intensity that she wanted to grab him and sink her teeth into him. His stocky frame was beautiful in motion, his powerful shoulders and upper arms and pecs, even his belly flexing with each push from his muscular arse, each thrust ending in a twist as if to shove himself harder inside, deeper inside.

Each impact flung Gabriel’s weight into her and throbbed inside her cunt, like she was the one getting fucked. It was more than enough to keep her hungry and wet. She felt as if she was right in the middle of a sexy dream, all this show just for her eyes. Maybe it could really be just for her. Hoarsely, she said, “Stop.”

Crispin made a strangled sound and slammed his hips into Gabriel, holding there for a long moment. “Why?”

“I want you to,” she said, licking her lips.

“Fucking get on with it!” Gabriel growled.

“Pull out a bit,” she whispered, and Crispin did as she asked, his face twisted with agonized pleasure. Her belly contracted at the sight. She’d done that.

Gabriel groaned. “Don’t stop.”

“Do it slow,” she said, the words falling out of her mouth
as if they traveled straight from her cunt. “Make him feel it. Every inch.”

Gabriel’s startled cursing strangled into moans and uncontrolled twitching as Crispin slowly, slowly entered him, and just as slowly withdrew. Crispin cursed steadily, too, his eyes fixed on hers, his pupils wide and black as the Thames at night. She could barely breathe for lust. When she felt Gabriel’s muscles tremoring beneath her hands, she murmured, “Fuck him hard,” then a bit louder, “faster.”

A few thrusts and Crispin was jerking uncontrollably, coming so hard she could almost see the contractions rippling through his body. He collapsed onto Gabriel’s back and gasped for breath, his weight shoving her deeper into the mattress.

Gabriel’s hands dug painfully into her. “I want to fuck you,” he said. “Isobel, please. I need you
right now
.”

She licked her lips. “Turn over,” she said. “You all right, Crispin?”

He grunted and helped shove Gabriel’s legs onto the bed before collapsing up near his shoulder. He looked dazed and satisfied, a little smile playing around his lips. Bob gave him a quick kiss before she responded to Gabriel’s urgent hands and voice, mounting him in one long slide that made both of them moan.

Gabriel’s pale cheekbones blazed with blood. His hair was dark with sweat, even his mustache, and his eyes seemed huge, his pupils almost hiding their blue irises. She rocked back and forth on his cock, gently, and stroked his chest with her hands. She wasn’t calming him, not really. He opened his mouth a couple of times, but nothing came out; in the end he licked his lips and panted, staring into her face, his hot, callused hands like manacles on her wrists.

When she couldn’t stand it anymore, she rocked harder,
rubbing her clit against him with each forward motion, and squeezing him with her inner muscles, until she swore she could feel him swelling even more with each clench.

“More,” he said.

“Not yet.”

Crispin was petting Gabriel’s hair, watching his face more than he watched her. It was a strange kind of intimacy, each of them in their own world but also together, all focused on the same end, all of them wanting to touch someone and not to be alone, and to reach that place where for a few moments nothing else mattered.

She rode Gabriel harder, keeping him inside her and bending low enough that her nipples brushed against his chest. They were so sensitive it was almost agony, while at the same time it felt as if electric shocks were shooting all over her body. She closed her eyes, searching for climax. Gabriel grabbed her, his forearms sliding in the sweat on her back, his neck arching to touch his head to hers. She could hear him moaning softly, rhythmically, or maybe it was her, or both of them. He squeezed her with his arms and his hips jerked; she shot abruptly to a higher level of agonized passion, crying out with it, but she was wound too tight, and couldn’t make herself come.

She felt Crispin’s arm wrap around her hips and then his hand, big and square, nudging between her body and Gabriel’s, finding where they were joined. His thumb slid over her swollen clit, and she ground down on his hand, just the extra bit of friction she needed to fall over the edge. She trembled helplessly in wave after wave of orgasm until she had to pull loose of Gabriel’s cock, her cunt too tender to bear any more pleasure.

Crispin took over then, patting her softly with one hand before engulfing Gabriel’s cock in his mouth, his cheeks hollowing with the force of his sucking. Gabriel’s hands clenched in his curls, his hips pumping, Crispin riding the motion and not once letting go; then, all at once, he took a breath and Gabriel’s cock seemed to disappear down his throat. Gabriel arched and froze; it was only after a moment or two that she realized his cock was twitching in Crispin’s mouth, spurting his seed straight down the other man’s throat.

After, they lay in a sprawled, awkward pile. Gabriel, whose idea it had all been, was deeply asleep. Bob snuggled up to his back and Crispin to his front; then Crispin reached over and rested his hand on her back, stroking a little. “Thanks,” he said.

“Show me that trick sometime?” she asked.

“Trick?”

“Did you really swallow—”

“I did. Takes practice.”

“Sexiest thing I ever saw,” she said sleepily. Then, “Fuck, we’re due back. In another day.”

Crispin sighed, and squeezed her shoulder. “We’ll get leave again.”

“We will?”

“All of us. Together.”

LUCILLA CRAMMED ANOTHER WAD OF CLOTH onto the wound in Ashby’s side and prayed that he remained unconscious. The boy, Friedrich, crouched beside her, pressing more bandages against Ashby’s mangled thigh and flinching each time he moaned. He hadn’t said a word since he’d changed form. Miss Claes, still in wolf form, paced and warily swung her head between them and the three other wolves, who huddled together against the wall, as far as possible from Kauz’s torn body. It was clear she did not trust the boy, but Lucilla needed another pair of hands, and Miss Claes did not seem about to provide any.

Pascal ran back into the room, carrying an armful of cloth and wooden poles, which she soon identified as a disassembled stretcher. “Can he be moved?”

Lucilla had seen men wounded worse who suffered days of exposure with no dressings, and some of them had survived. Ashby’s inhuman constitution would no doubt aid in his survival, as well. And it wasn’t as if they had any choice.
Quickly, she began to bind on the pads of fabric. “How will we get him up the stairs?”

Pascal spoke to Friedrich in rapid German, requesting his aid. Cringing a little, the boy crept forward. Pascal gentled his tone and gave the boy instructions concerning opening doors and holding a lantern, then pointed to the other wolves, commanding them to change form.

Miss Claes stalked over to them, lowered her head and growled. Lucilla glanced up in time to see the wolves writhing into human shape. They were older than Friedrich, but not by much, perhaps fifteen or sixteen at the most. At Miss Claes’s significant growl, they stumbled forward. Two of them helped Pascal to assemble the stretcher. The third knelt next to Lucilla, uncaring of his nakedness, his overlong dark hair hanging in his eyes, which were an odd pale green, hooded beneath full lids.

“I will lift,” he said in a voice barely above a whisper.

“What’s your name?” she asked.

“Immanuel,” he said. He wrenched at his collar. Lucilla stopped him, made him turn around and unbuckled it from his throat. He seized it from her hand and flung it, hard, into the corner, onto Kauz’s body. Then he helped her lift Ashby’s supine form onto the stretcher.

The route by which Kauz had entered the room was a narrow tunnel that presumably led to the surface; after she opened the door, Immanuel whispered, “It stinks.” She gathered this was a chemical stink, specifically chosen to repel the young wolves from attempting escape by that route.

Pascal said, “We’ll retreat as we entered. We will discard the stretcher if it becomes too cumbersome, and carry Ashby in some other manner.”

“Let’s hope he’s as hardy as I think he is,” Lucilla commented. She turned to Immanuel. “Come along. And you—what’s your name?”

The tallest boy’s lips moved, but no sound emerged. He swallowed and looked embarrassed. Immanuel said, “He is Emil.” He pointed to the other boy, who now crouched next to Friedrich. “That is Kurt.”

“I’ll need two of you to help me,” Lucilla said.

Immanuel shook his head. “We cannot leave.”

“We must leave now,” Pascal said. “We have set explosions. These corridors will collapse.”

“No! We must find Bruno and Franz.”

You might have mentioned them before
, Lucilla thought irritably. “Could they be in the surface structure?”

Pascal growled in frustration, sounding uncannily like Miss Claes. “The ground will collapse, as well. Do you have any idea where they might be?”

Kurt spoke for the first time. His voice was surprisingly deep for his apparent age. “We know their scent. I will change.”

Pascal glanced at Lucilla. She said, “We must get Ashby to safety. Perhaps Miss Claes—”

Pascal dropped to his knees. “Tanneken. Will you accompany this boy?”

Drying blood spiked her blond fur, and Lucilla could have sworn her fangs had grown, or perhaps it was that her lips had drawn so high on her gums as to expose every wicked inch of shining tooth. Her eyes had a mad gleam. For a moment, it seemed as if she might not understand Pascal’s words, but then she abandoned her scrutiny of the boys, licked Ashby’s cheek and nipped at Kurt’s leg, obviously encouraging him to get on with it.

Lucilla turned away as Kurt shifted form, unable to watch what seemed to be a much more painful process than Ashby’s normal transformations. Perhaps he trained his muscles in some way. She knelt beside the stretcher and checked his pulse until Miss Claes and Kurt trotted from the room. Pascal was marshaling the rest of the young werewolves, and soon the two older boys had lifted the stretcher. Pascal led the way down the tunnel, his own pistol in hand and Ashby’s tucked into his clothing. Friedrich carried the lantern just behind him, and Lucilla kept an eye on the rise and fall of Ashby’s torso, also making sure no more blood soaked through his dressings.

The shotgun blast was bad enough. She hated to think of what bacteria might live in the mouths of werewolves, particularly ones who looked half-feral and bore an unwashed odor even she could smell with no trouble whatsoever. If she’d had carbolic, she would have doused his wounds in a gallon of it. Add the risk of bacteria to Ashby’s having attempted to shift while he’d been attacked, and she couldn’t even hazard a guess as to what damage had been done to his muscles. It worried her that his wounds had not shown any signs of healing when he’d become human again. She could not care for him on her own. He needed a hospital, and soon; his wounds needed disinfecting and irrigating and likely some delicate surgery.

Of course, all that would be moot if her carefully placed explosions completed before they had escaped the tunnels. She couldn’t stop it, not in the time allotted, and with no supplies to do so.

Immanuel said, “I know a shorter way out.”

Pascal whirled, causing Friedrich to jump. The lantern light flared wildly. Lucilla saw Pascal’s nostrils flare as he
asked, “Where,” and she wondered if he was actually scenting the air, trying to determine if the boy spoke truth or lie.

“From the big cage room,” Immanuel said. “I saw.”

“You didn’t,” said Emil. His voice was hoarse, unused.

“Did. I woke up one time.” He looked to Pascal. “There’s a box, with a rope.” He shuddered. “Small box. But it goes up.”

“A dumbwaiter,” Lucilla surmised. “It’ll be rough on Ashby, but so will an explosion.”

Immanuel had not lied. She and Emil went first, holding Ashby between them. He roused enough to whimper, then passed out again when she had to bend his leg to make him fit. Inside the wooden cabinet, Emil dragged on the rope. Lucilla chewed the inside of her cheek, trying not to choke or gag on the mingled stenches of blood and old sweat and horrid chemicals, not sulfur or acid but something infinitely worse that stung the soft membranes of her nose. It was like the powder she’d tested, though less potent. Whatever it was, it would soon go up in flames with everything else Kauz had created.

Once outside under the clean stars, she expected Emil to run, but he did not. He sent the dumbwaiter to fetch Friedrich and Immanuel. Pascal had decided to go last. In the meantime, Lucilla showed Emil how to go about a chair-carry. The two of them hauled Ashby’s unconscious form slowly but steadily out of danger. Given the choice, she would rather have been hauling him in the dogcart, and she cursed freely every time she had to readjust her grip.

She did not see Immanuel and Friedrich emerge, as she was too busy hurrying in the other direction, but the two boys caught them up almost immediately, Friedrich still tightly gripping his lantern. Immanuel took her place carrying Ashby, so she turned to look for Pascal.

He wasn’t there.

Perhaps it had not been as long as it seemed. She crossed her arms over her chest, aware of the cutting wind as it whipped across her face and throat, now bare thanks to Ashby’s excessive need for bandages. Perhaps she had missed seeing him in the dark.

She would have heard his boots thumping on the hard ground, as she could now clearly hear the soft murmur of Friedrich speaking to the older boys. Where was Pascal? How long did it take to lift one’s self out of a hole when a perfectly good dumbwaiter was provided? She reached for the watch she habitually wore pinned to her apron only to find, of course, that she wore a now-bloody overcoat over men’s clothing. She dug for her watch in her waistcoat before finding it in an inner pocket of her jacket. By the time she had it in her hand, and realized she wouldn’t be able to see the face without Friedrich’s lantern, a bloodcurdling series of howls tore the air, swiftly followed by a flood of fur running at full tilt across the frozen ground. Following them, though necessarily slower, was Pascal.

Lucilla yelled and waved. She immediately felt like an idiot, but at least the yelling had dispersed some of the terrible tightness in her chest. The wolves shot by her—three, pursued by the larger Miss Claes—and Pascal came next. She grabbed his arm and they ran together, while behind them the ground shuddered and erupted in dust and flame.

An hour later, Lucilla crouched next to Ashby and waited for Pascal to return with a lorry. Miss Claes, who never had changed back into a human, lay by Ashby, her chin resting on his knees and her eyes closed. Blood was drying on her muzzle; not hers, but Kauz’s. The two smallest wolves, Bruno
and Franz, lay curled together a short distance away under the protection of Friedrich. The four older boys had accompanied Pascal, primarily to keep them out of range of Miss Claes’s protective instincts toward Ashby, whom they had wounded grievously.

Lucilla tugged off her glove and checked the pulse at his throat. It beat strongly, if a little too shallowly A human would have succumbed to shock already, she suspected. The skin on his cheek wasn’t warm, but neither did it hold a deathly chill. As she drew her hand away, he made a small sound of protest. Miss Claes lifted her head.

“Got a Blighty wound,” he whispered. She could hear the smile in his voice.

“Yes, you’re going home,” Lucilla said. “If you don’t heal too quickly.”

“Won’t.” He sighed. “Too much. S’all right. Tanneken’ll come with me. She said.” He closed his eyes. Miss Claes crept forward and licked his cheek.

Lucilla hugged Crispin one last time, then shoved him gently toward Ashby’s hospital bed. She’d managed to obtain one of the unused isolation rooms, so none of his current visitors had been chased out after shift change.

Hailey fussed over the new uniform she’d brought to replace the one lost when Ashby had first been captured. Miss Claes sat quietly and elegantly in the corner, her feet drawn up onto a brocaded armchair that she made into a throne. Her greetings to her future husband’s friends had been equally regal; her eyes flicked warily from one person to the next. Gabriel Meyer, whom Lucilla had been relieved to find she liked, sat next to the bed in a more utilitarian chair, bent close
to Ashby and conversing with him in a low voice. He had quite enough visitors for now.

“I’m going outside for a while,” she said.

She shed her cape and apron in the changing room, opting for an overcoat instead, then wandered out to the terrace. A couple score of the ambulatory patients sat there, listening to a makeshift orchestra play whatever all of the musicians knew, or partially knew. Presently, it was some semblance of a waltz. She didn’t see Pascal. She circumnavigated the building until she found him on the path leading to X-ray and her quarters.

“Looking for me?” she asked.

He turned to her and bowed, sweeping off his kepi. “
Mademoiselle
wishes to dance?”

“My card isn’t quite full,” she said, and allowed him to sweep her into his arms. She slipped her arms beneath his greatcoat and held him tightly as they danced atop frozen mud. After a few minutes, she commented, “You’re a terrible dancer.”

Pascal bent and kissed her ear. “I am brilliant instead. Also, I know where you prefer to be licked.”

Lucilla wrestled him to a stop and kissed him. When she pulled away, she held on to his arms and studied his face in the harsh electric light from a pole nearby. “You will be careful, won’t you?”

“Always.”

“I would hate for you to come to any harm,” she said, her fingers plucking the sleeve of his greatcoat.

“I plan to stay well out of danger from now on. As much as I can do so.” He paused. “And you? Will you come to see me, at Rue Deuxième?”

“Pascal,” she said in a rush, “I’ll understand if it’s not possible, but do you think I could work with the boys, if they
agree? Examine their blood, and look at their cells? Nothing invasive, I promise.” She looked at the ground. “I can’t help it. I’m so curious I think I’ll burst.”

He laughed and kissed her lingeringly. “I’ll ask. They are eager to please. And one of them, Immanuel—he asked about you already.” He paused. He said very quietly, “I don’t think they yet understand I will not leave them to fend for themselves, no matter how I try to convince them otherwise. They believe that I will find other werewolves to be their families, but not that I do so for their good and not mine.” He looked away, then back at her. “They were not so lucky as to have a Grand-Oncle Erard.”

“Perhaps that’s one good thing to come out of this war,” Lucilla said. “There are people from all over in France just now. It might make the task easier.”

Pascal said, “And after this war ends? Will you stay here then, and study werewolves? With me?” He paused. “I could go to England, if you prefer. The food is abominable, but for you, I would endure it.”

Lucilla laughed. She slipped her arms around his waist again and squeezed. “Either. Yes. I’d like that more than anything.”