The Wolf's Captive (2 page)

“You know I can’t give you any, no matter how sweetly you ask.”

“You’d risk her life, Paolo?” David teased. “How…unchivalrous.”

“I think he’s daring,” Jesella giggled. David stared at her.

“I’ll get you all plenty of the Duke’s Blend after Bacchanal, when it’s no longer death to do so. Agreed?” Lucia said.

“Agreed.” Paolo looked at Lucia as he poured the shimmering, tawny liquid, expertly filling a wide mouthed glass to the brim. It trembled in a slight dome above the edge of the glass, the trademark metallic sheen swirling over the surface of the wine. He had left it just out of Lucia’s reach. “Your wine, madam.”

Lucia felt his eyes on her chest as she leaned across the table, her breasts pressing against the burnished wooden slats. He was starting to flex that power he held over her, starting to feel the weight of it, to figure out what he might like to do with it.
Remember your promise,
she thought, and it was like an iron cage crashing down around her.

“Where’s your Bacchanal mask, Lucia?”

“It’s drying at David’s. We made them together.”

“I’m sure he made a very pretty mask,” Paolo smirked. David was used to the jokes by now, and only batted his eyelashes in Paolo’s general direction. “But you might regret not having them where we’re going.”

The table grew very quiet. There was only one place worth going on this particular night. But it wasn’t possible, was it? Even for Paolo.

“The Dance of the Seasons?” Marina ventured.

Paolo stood, and took a triumphant swig from the bottle. “The Dance
proper
,” he said. He surveyed the group sitting below him in cowed silence. “I have entry for myself and my party to the amphitheater.”

No one knew quite what to do with this information. They’d all heard the stories. David and Lucia exchanged worried looks.

“Is it safe?” Marina said in her tiny voice.

“Oh, shut up, Marina,” Jesella said, fanning herself with impatience. “Who cares if it’s safe? Lord
Cesare
will be there. All the nobility will!”

Paolo’s face darkened at the mention of Lord Cesare; Lucia could see he didn’t want to share the fame of this moment with any man, not even the Duke’s heir. Perhaps especially not the Duke’s heir, if the rumors of Lord Cesare’s appetites were true. Lucia felt the now-familiar shiver begin to inch up her spine. Thank the gods it was not Lord Cesare that she had to contend with.

“Lord Cesare,” Paolo said with scorn, “The barbarian pup. Trust me, he will be the least of your concerns.” And, laughing, he bent to nuzzle Jesella’s neck, reaching down to squeeze her breast. Jesella shrieked and swatted at him, but didn’t pull away. They were all starting to feel the license of Bacchanal, whether it had officially begun or not.

Lucia was glad for the distraction. She was working hard to quell the rising tide of panic from deep within her gut. The Dance, the true Dance, where the powerful gathered to lose their collective minds, represented an excellent opportunity for Lucia to lose herself, her prospects, and her future. Not to mention she might lose her facade of normalcy, and have to face that growing darkness inside herself. She thought of the Severille master again, and squirmed.

“What about Lucia?” David’s clear voice interrupted what was threatening to become a Bacchanal frenzy in microcosm, and the eyes of all four of her friends fell on the white virginal band around her arm. If only they had known that Lucia was a virgin in all respects, not just for Bacchanal.

“Lucia will be my responsibility,” Paolo said with a slow smile. “I’ll protect her.”

Somehow, it sounded like a threat.

After that, Lucia drank more cheap amberwine than was strictly good for her, in preparation for the Dance, and still she felt wound tight as a spring. Somehow she would have to both resist Paolo and to tempt him, make him love her while hiding what she thought of him, and all the while keep her true desires from taking control. One misstep could cost her everything.

Lucia didn’t even let herself think about the true purpose of the holiday: to celebrate joy, sex, and love. That was a luxury for people who could afford it. The Lyselles were almost out of money, and she’d made a promise.

~  ~  ~

They were going to the Dance.

Lucia hunched her shoulders as they walked through the mostly empty streets, unused to the potent mixture of fear and yearning that filled her. She stayed quiet while her friends joked and laughed and teased each other, her arms clutched around her breasts, which somehow felt indecent, even with her modest choice of bodice. Perhaps it was just that they felt full, and awake, and ready to be touched.

“Paolo!” Jesella shrieked as he chased her down the street. “I’ll call for Lord Cesare! He’ll kill you like a Berkari, and
then
…”

She waggled her eyebrows and giggled, and allowed herself to be caught. Lucia saw Paolo’s hands roaming quite freely, and knew it was for her benefit; poor Paolo didn’t realize that he couldn’t arouse jealousy in girl who just didn’t care. She was more distracted by the thought of Lord Cesare, out on one of his raids, killing the Berkari barbarians that threatened the city’s traders. It was said that he went through several women each week, sometimes each
night
, married or no. The nobles in the Duke’s court either sent their wives away or accepted the inevitable. It was monstrous and titillating all at the same time.

“Don’t you worry about fleas?” Paolo asked. Jesella and Marina tittered nervously, and David’s shoulders stiffened. Paolo continued, oblivious, “Doesn’t matter. Once I’d had you, you’d never think of anyone else.” He slapped Jesella’s ass with a loud
thwap
and then turned away from her abruptly, his attention coming to rest on Lucia.

“Fleas?” Lucia asked. She had been holed up in her father’s still for a month, working on the Duke’s Blend. There were always serious gaps in her knowledge of gossip.

Immediately she knew she’d said something wrong. The laughter stopped, and no one seemed to want to look at each other. It was a typically warm, humid spring night in J’Amel, the breeze from the harbor bringing a tinge of salt to the heavy scent coming off the canals, and the wet air made everything feel closer, more intimate. And now that intimacy felt uncomfortable; there was something no one wanted to be the first to say.

It was David who eventually cleared his throat. “Lord Cesare has been out in the wild a long time, protecting the city.”

“They say he came back changed,” Marina chittered eagerly, as if a seal had temporarily been breached. “The ‘Wolf!’” And she laughed.

“Shut up, Marina.”

“He’s gone native. A barbarian heir to the most sophisticated city in the world?” Paolo scowled. “It’s pathetic.”

“Changed how?” Lucia couldn’t help herself. She was met with a wall of silence.

Suddenly Jesella shrieked with laughter, and pointed to a building on the right side of the street. It had been festooned with the colorful chalk graffiti of Bacchanal, full of boasts and taunts, invitations from secret admirers, announcements and declarations of love. Lucia looked hard for something shocking, something outrageous, and followed the line of Jesella’s finger to find a drawing of a wild wolf, gifted with an enormous cock.

“Idiot!” David hissed, and snatched Jesella’s hand.

Lucia wanted to know more, but it was too late. They turned the corner, and there it was: the amphitheater, rising above the city like a massive stone wave.

They were at the Dance.

~  ~  ~

Most of the important people who came to the amphitheater arrived—by tradition and convenience—via the canal, where the water ran right up to the ancient stone steps. The entrance on the plaza side, where Lucia and her friends nervously huddled, was normally for the common people only, when the amphitheater hosted competitions, or performances, or blood sports. Tonight there would be no common people, except for them. Lucia was grateful that they at least would not arrive by the canal. Paolo flashed some special signet or token that he produced from his pocket, and the giant hooded guards, their bare chests burnished with oil, turned to show them the way through.

It still didn’t seem real.

They were overcome by a shared feeling of awe as they walked through the long, dark, arched tunnel, no one daring to speak as they followed the silent guard, not even to ask where they were going. Briefly Lucia wondered if they’d been recognized as insane impostors who simply didn’t belong, and they were being led by secret catacomb to the dreaded Basiglia Prison until the Dance was over. She’d almost prefer that dreaded outcome, if it meant she didn’t have to face the Dance. She could feel the rhythms of the Dance already begin to stir in her blood, rhythms that grew louder as they emerged out into the open amphitheater. She had no idea what was going to happen.

The amphitheater was packed wall to wall and high into the stands with nearly naked people, many of them drinking amberwine, flirting, touching each other, their faces hidden by masks. And they wore the most beautiful, elaborate masks Lucia had ever seen; these weren’t the crude, functional masks she’d seen from her window during Bacchanals past. These people were the richest, most powerful people in the city. Amongst the many cities of the Elbin penninsula, Lucia remembered; the rich and powerful of other city-states came here to welcome spring, too. No one did Bacchanal like J’Amel.

The smell of sex was heavy in the air, too, the feeling of fever thick and hot. Lucia remembered the strict edict of the Dance of the Seasons: once it began, no one could answer the call of Bacchanal—no one could actually fuck—until the Dance was over. No one would dare risk testing the limits of that taboo while in the amphitheater itself, and so the air was thick with impatient, growing desire. Lucia wasn’t immune. She felt it begin to swell from her center, bubbling up from the fire that the Severille couple had started, and took a deep calming breath.

“Come, Lucia, it’s Bacchanal,” Paolo said, pulling her back to the present. Lightning quick, he reached over and ripped away the first button of her bodice, grazing her breasts. They threatened to pop out of her dress. “You don’t want to be rude,” he smiled.

“You ass,” she said, but he grabbed her hand as it flew to her chest, holding it down at her side with an iron grip.

“It’s Bacchanal, Lucia,” he said.

He held her hand like that the rest of the way, not bothering to conceal his smile while he eyed her unprotected breasts. She felt her nipples stiffen at the humiliation, her lips tremble at the suggestion of force, and she hated herself a little for it, because it was Paolo. Bacchanal was threatening to consume her entirely.

Keep control
, she reminded herself.
Keep the promise.

The guard led them through the crowded aisles of the amphitheater, down into the pit in front of the stage. Even Lucia had to take a moment to admire the clout—or the wealth—that would allow a young upstart like Paolo and four of his nobody friends to gain access to seats like this at the Dance of the Seasons. They could almost touch the stage.

“Lucia,” David whispered. “Isn’t that Gaston Grimaldi?”

Lucia turned to look, and sure enough, poorly hidden beneath a mask that bore his family’s crest—the Grimaldis were so powerful that they had no need to hide anything, ever—was Gaston Grimaldi, heir to the bank in which Paolo’s father worked, and powerful rival to the ruling house of Lupin. Two of the most beautiful women Lucia had ever seen hung from his arms. They were both thoroughly naked, except for their masks.

“I thought
he
was to be Winter tonight!” Marina said, a little too loudly. Jesella kicked her. To be chosen as one half of the Dance’s most important couple was not only divinely portentous, but politically significant. The ever-shifting currents of power in J’Amel could often be seen in the Dances of the Bacchanal season, and Baron Grimaldi was apparently not included.

Lucia watched, fascinated, as one of the women fed Grimaldi a single grape from the well-laid table beside his seat. He caught Lucia watching, and smiled before pulling one of the women onto his lap so he could fondle her breast. He did not seem bothered at all by his place in the audience.

Lucia wondered what Lord Cesare could be doing at this moment, if he’d really gone native amongst the Berkari barbarians as Paolo had implied, and then shook her head at the absurdity. Wherever he was in this crowd, he probably had a convent’s worth of virgins lined up for the moment the Dance was finished. The Wolf, indeed.

There was the sudden, hard clap of hundreds of boots stamping the ground in unison. Lucia looked up, amazed. She hadn’t even noticed the lighting in the amphitheater, but saw now that it was provided by seemingly infinite lines of uniformed young men—the youngest sons of the most respected families, she remembered—all holding specially designed lanterns. They covered and uncovered the lanterns with hoods in time to the stamping of their feet, bathing the pit in light, cloaking it in darkness. The gathered luminaries of J’Amel fell silent and turned forward.

It was time.

In the dark she felt someone come close behind her, a hand at her hip, as there had been before, and instantly flashed back to the image of the Severille master astride his slave.
Remember yourself,
she thought
, remember it is Paolo
. To her right, she saw Gaston Grimaldi lean back, revealing the enormous bulge in his leather trousers just before one of his women dropped to her knees between his legs. She saw couples all around her prepare to hold themselves taut and tortured while they watched what was to come.

The lights on the stage came on one by one, and the hand on her hip dragged her backwards, crashing her into Paolo’s warm body, pressing her against his erection. He wanted her to feel how hard he was, and, as much as she disliked Paolo, as much as she disliked her fate, Lucia couldn’t deny that her body wanted to know what it would feel like to have that inside her.

It’s just Bacchanal
, she told herself.
Get a hold of yourself.