Part 14 (1/2)

. . . and as the carca.s.s s.h.i.+fted Syd suddenly realized that it wasn't a deer at all, it was human, naked and gutted and gleaming on the forest floor. The beast dug deeper, jostling the corpse. Its head flopped and tilted toward him, revealing its face.

”NO!!!” Syd's eyes opened wide, staring blindly up. Nora snapped out of her trance, was back in the room again. She took hold of his face, brought hers close.

”Oh G.o.d,” she cried. ”Syd!”

”NO!!!” he screamed.

”Syd, listen to me!”

Syd's consciousness reeled as his own eyes stared back at him, dead and caked and opaque. The wolf wrenched and tore a new hunk free, making the cadaver's head bob and nod as if in recognition. . . .

”OH G.o.d STOP IT!!” His voice boomed off the bedroom walls, his arms and legs curling inward, going fetal. ”MAKE IT STOP!!”

”Look at it!” Nora told him. ”Look in its eyes!”

”I CAN'T . . . I . . . STOP IT!”

”Concentrate, Syd! Make it see you!”

Her voice echoed back to him like a lifeline as the great wolf stopped and withdrew, its snout red and dripping. It turned, revealing a face gone monstrous, distorted: human features stretched over canine skull, a grinning abomination rendered in obscene lupine parody. The wolf licked its chops, and Syd's soul shrieked as he realized . . .

. . . the beast had his face, too.

It stood, regarding him with eyes utterly devoid of conscience or pity. They were predator's eyes, and they fixed him mercilessly as the beast started toward him, growing with every step until all he saw were eyes and teeth and eyes and jaws and bright s.h.i.+ny eyes. . . .

He could hear its breath, smell the fetid stink of it, feel the deep rumbling in its chest as it advanced. And he found himself drowning in those twin s.h.i.+mmering pools of light.

As the wolf took another step.

And was upon him.

Syd came to: his head nestled in Nora's lap, his mouth loosely gaping. He was staring at the ceiling. A track of dried saliva graced his cheek. Nora was stroking the spot just between his eyes, making tiny little circles. Over and over, over and over. Calming. Centering him. Syd gazed at her with infant eyes, his mind filled with questions he didn't even know how to ask.

”Now you know,” she said.

His eyes stared a moment longer before fluttering shut. Nora laid his head to her breast, and his mouth found her nipple, settled there. She slumped back, exhausted and drained.

Syd drifted off, leaving Nora to watch over him. Listening to him breathe. Tracing tiny little circles. Over and over. Over and over.

Until, together, they fell into a dark and dreamless sleep.

19.

He awoke hours later, with her nipple still in his mouth. The first stirrings were uncolored by words, or names, or memory, as he emerged from the oblivion that had claimed him. The sky outside was dark, the room steeped in shadow. The moon shone pale and high through the windows. The clock said eleven-eleven. He could not remember quite who he was or even what he was, or what had happened. There was only his need and her presence, quietly entwined.

Syd's lips encircled the swollen rim of the areola, feeling the ripe fullness of her breast. As his tongue touched her nipple, she stirred as well, unconsciously responding.

And every point of contact expanded his map, sent another sensation to remind him that yes, there was that, too, as her belly pressed into his chest and her hands found his back, traced lazy patterns across its breadth. Their bodies s.h.i.+fted position; she drew him closer and he felt his entire nervous system light up, transmitting desire at the speed of thought.

And that was when she moaned, a husky rumble that started in her chest, filling his ears with exquisite sound, sending energy pulsing through his body, recharging and revitalizing him. His hands found her hips and her hips were glorious, her hips were the cradle of all creation, her hips held the heart of the mystery.

And that was when she turned and tipped him on his back, straddling him; as he slipped inside her she leaned forward so that her b.r.e.a.s.t.s dangled before his lips.

”Bite,” she whispered.

Her nipple grazed his lips, raked across his incisors. She moaned, picking up the tempo.

”Do it harder,” she told him.

Syd obliged, his teeth pulling at the erect flesh. He sucked the point of her breast deep into his mouth; Nora's hair cascaded around his face as her head began to shake from side to side, rocking in counterpoint to her undulating hips.

”Harder,” she urged. He did, felt something stirring at the base of his spine. Her head was whipping wildly back and forth now, as she urged him on.

Syd bit her harder, until he felt like any second he would saw it off and swallow it. A distant part of his mind told him this wasn't right, this must hurt like h.e.l.l. But Nora wasn't complaining. Far from it: her rhythm was ecstatic, frenzied, verging on violence. She rode him furiously, impaling herself again and again as he gnawed her breast, felt unyielding incisor meet resilient tissue and strain it to the breaking point. He loved it. Wanted it.

Wanted more.

Nora cried out. The feeling inside him began to rise: he rose with it, half-sitting now, lunging and snapping, leaving crescent-shaped welts on her chest. A high whining sound came up and out of her, the sound of a psychic fuse being lit. He answered with a fiercely guttural growl, a voice that came wholly of its own volition.

Nora flipped her hair back and away from her face. Her eyes rolled up, showing white. Her lips skinned back. She sucked air and hissed, snapping her pelvis in visceral punctuation, each thrust sending another spike of pleasure into and through him.

He was going to explode. Her torso arched and writhed. She tipped her head back, and Syd saw the open expanse of her throat pulsing inches from his face.

. . . and at that moment he wanted nothing more than to tear into her windpipe and taste the steaming copper spray. It would be so good. It would be the best. Syd rose, his jaws opening wide. . . .

And that was when he hit the wall.

”No,” he gasped, and immediately felt something snap inside him. It was like dropping a lug nut onto a buzz saw blade; there was a ping and a chug and suddenly the balance was off, the whole mechanism spinning dangerously out of control.

”No!” Nora cried, her body suddenly out of sync with his. Syd tried to hang on, to keep from being pummeled to death by the wave he'd moments ago ridden the crest of. ”Don't stop. . . .”

But the moment was gone; there was no longer any pleasure in the pain. The crescendo faltered, fizzled; her motion turned savage, radically overcompensating. The more she advanced, the more he withdrew. He didn't want to, hated that he couldn't control it.

And Nora . . .

Nora was all over him, crazy with need; Syd withered in response. She kissed and bit and slammed with the desperation of the d.a.m.ned. ”Don't stop,” she whispered, ”don't . . .”

Vainly he rallied, brought his teeth to her neck, torn between l.u.s.t and revulsion. He bit her as hard as he could, but it was feeble now, a toothless imitation. And that just made her crazier, like tossing a rabid dog a rubber bone. He tried again and she twisted away from his mouth, glaring at him. A naked fire burned in her gaze.

”G.o.ddammit!!” she hissed. ”Not like that!

”Like this!”

She fell upon him: her hands grabbing his arms and pinning them as her hips hammered his loins and her mouth found his neck and locked on.

Syd heard a snarl and felt a hot slash of pain. He writhed and tried to get out from under her, discovered that he could not, that he was trapped, she was much stronger than she looked, and all the strength he could muster was not enough to pry her off.