The Blood: A Denouement

Fifteen

Denouement

Could you be joy? I see you as through a cloud.

-The Black Books

As soon as he got the phone call, Kris drove at break neck speed down the winding roads of Long Lees and into town. Earlier, he’d gone to rent a car and assumed it would be in this car he would drive back to Lassador, and he would do it with Jenean. It had rained last night, and he sped through the semi empty streets until the car slid on a puddle, and Kris realized no amount of werewolf mystery could keep him from dying if this car crashed. He needed to get back to Jenean in one piece.

This was the Harrow Inn, sure enough, though it looked like any other hotel. The lobby door was open, and he went up the stairs. He checked again for the room number, and now he was knocking on her door. She was on the second floor, in a residential suite, and as he came through the door he kissed her and only as he parted from her did she say, “I thought you’d come in the morning, Kris. You look nuts. How the fuck fast did you drive?”

“Do you want me?” he demanded, kissing her as he shut the door with his back and locked it. “Tell me you want me.”

He was panting, but he had dressed for her, grey trousers, white shirt. She examined the hunger in his eyes and wondered what kind of slut she was.

These… wolf eyes. Well, all the better.

“Yes,” she said, while he stared into her, rubbing her sides, roughly, his dick visibly pushing against his trousers. .

“I do.”

He pushed her against the door, searching under her robe for panties and finding none. He undid his belt and pulled down his trousers and his briefs. Jenean shuddered and cried out as, moaning deeply, he pressed himself inside, fucking her against the door. As he fucked her like a piston, grunting, not speaking, his head buried in her shoulder, her back pressed against the door, she gripped his back and clawed into his flesh, biting his shoulder, the two of them locked together. She pulled him to the floor.

In her room they sat on the sofa, Kris with a beer in his hand.

“I don’t like funerals,” he said. “I don’t like traveling. I’m glad I did both. Believe it or not, I’m starting to feel like myself again.”

They were both naked on the floor, only halfway bothering with a duvet. Jenean wondered if they would ever graduate to sitting in chairs in a bedroom like normal people.

Kris wanted to ask, “Are you alright?”

“Whaddo you mean?”

“It was rough,” Kris said. “Even for us. I ought to be more tender. I oughtn’t to behave like such an animal with you.”

“You never make me do anything I don’t want to, Mr. Strauss. And the day you do, I’ll let you know.”

He took a hand through his thick hair.

“I feel like myself when I’m with you. Like my wild self, like the me I tried to tell myself not to be.”

“The pussy bruising you.”

“My Lady, I’ve walked away sore from you a few times. It’s not a sword no matter what they say. It’s meat—”

“I’ll say it is.”

“And you’ve bruised the fuck out of it several times.”

“Would you like me to kiss it?”

“I always like it when you kiss it.”

“Did you learn something worth learning?” Jenean asked. “Not about how tender your dick is. I mean about… whatever you were looking for?”

“Yeah,” Kris said after a while. “I actually learned a lot.”

“I actually wish I could have gone with you,” she said, pushing that ash blond hair behind behind her shoulder.

“But then if I had…”

She sat down on the carpet instead of the sofa, placing her elbow on his thigh, “I wouldn’t have gotten this bit of… research.”

“Research?”

“Yes,” Jenean said. “Research. Records. My aunt came to visit. She… is not a common aunt.”

Kristian Strauss, wary of strange relatives, raised his eyebrow, but he took a deep swig of beer and only said, “I know all about uncommon aunts.”

“A nosey aunt, a record keeping aunt,” Jenean said. “She knows about you.”

“You talk about me?” Kris said, pretending to be flattered and realizing he actually was

“I don’t have good enough relations with most of my family to talk about you,” Jenean said. “Don’t think that’s a reflection on the way I feel about you. But this bitch knows about you, and…. Just look…”

Kris was curious, semi worried, almost ready for anything, more concerned with the roundness of Jenean’s ass and its lovely undulations, that dimple at the small of her back as she walked down the hall and into her room. He would sleep with her tonight as he had on Christmas. She said she needed to come here. She said she was coming with something or someone. Was she, in fact, pregnant? Did it matter? If his father’s death was a horrible sort of present, then she was the best.

She returned with an old fashioned accordion binder, and handed it to Kris. It was embossed with a crest, a wolf’s head, and in very small letters, as he opened it, he saw, inscribed about the crest:

La Maison des Loups:

La Famille Jaquillard.

“Shit,” Kris murmured, frowning. “You mind if I put on clothes for this?”

Kris’s eyes scanned the first long sheet of paper, embossed by the wolf’s head.

Dans la mesure oùl'histoire de la famille Jaquillard touche à sa fin et dans la mesure où le cadeau que nous avions autrefois été perdu, il me revient en tant qu'historien de cette grande famille de raconter son histoire et sa lignée dans les temps anciens, mais surtout à partir avec la Dame Genève par laquelle nous sommes liés à deux reprises à l’autre ancienne maison, les Wolfemen, qui a traversé une période difficile et qui a ensuite disparu de notre histoire. Voici l'histoire de notre famille qui remonte à cette digne ancêtre, Genève, qui a acquis un grand pouvoir grâce aux Warg, l'esprit de notre maison dont le nom naturel était Stedefeld et qui s'appelle maintenant Hagano…

His French was…. atrocious, but he could make out some words. He saw Wolfemen and Hagano and when Jenean realized what he was doing, she said, “Chris, the next page.”

“Huh?”

“I translated it.”

“You speak French?”

“My name’s Jenean,” she shrugged.

The next page was far plainer, but in English, and he read.

“Insofar as the history of the Jaquillard family is near its end and insofar as the Gift once given to us has been lost, it behooves me as the historian of this once great family to recount its histories and its bloodline into ancient times, but especially beginning with the Lady Geneva by whom we are twice related to the other ancient house, the Wolfemen, who came of hard times and afterward vanished from our history. In way of counting, here is the history of our family back unto that worthy ancestress, Geneva, who gained great power through the Warg, the spirit of our house whose name in natural life was Stedefeld and who is now called Hagano…

The history was the size of a small book, and all in small font and mostly in French, for Jenean had just begun the translation. But what she had translated and did want him to see was the list of names, and names as familiar as what he and his sister and cousins had seen at Augustus’s house.

“The second line,” Kris said.

“What?”

“Jim, my…. My brother.”

“I thought Jim was your cousin.”

“It’s a very long story,” Kris waved it off, “but he said there must have been a second line. And my cousin Myron said the same thing.”

While Jenean wondered over this, Kris read:

“Mitchell Morrison, 1960, Luke Morrison, 1938, Anna Jaquillard Morrison…. Annemarie Jaquillard. His eyes went up the list of names, several women, Claudette, Eleanor, Marguerite, Nathalie, Bethune, Frederick, Jacque who was a Protestant, haha And then..”

Tomen, Louis, Henri, Geneva also called Genevieve Strausse,

“That’s the Geneva your aunt speaks of, and then, Charlotte…

• Claire 1345
• Ignito 1362
• Louis 1390
• Charles 1413
• Maximillian 1455
• Sigismund 1478
• Frederick 1501
• Charlotte 1525.”

Kris looked up at Jenean.

“This is my family…” then, as his face changed, “Your family.”

“Our family,” Jenean said.

“Then you know.”

Jenean nodded.

“Then you are like me.”

“No,” Jenean said. “Yes, but no. It’s… Aunt Clotilde will explain it to you. She wants to meet you.”

Kris frowned and shook his head.

“This… Aunt Clotilde? Is she like me?”

“I really don’t know,” Jenean said. “She told me after things happened with my father.”

“Things?”

“Yes,” was all Jenean said.

“When did you know?” Kris said. “About me?”

“I suspected,” she said. “On Christmas. Your smell. Your must, your heat. The way we were. The wolf in you. I wondered, but I didn’t know until Clotilde came, when you were gone.”

“You should have gone with me after all,” Kris said.

“I don’t know that much,” Jenean said. “I never have.”

“Me neither,” Kris said.

“We can find out together,” Jenean suggested.

Kristian Strauss nodded.

Chris Ashby nearly flew through the window. His color was high and his skin hot. His eyes blazed. Lewis saw the signs of feeding. Had they all gone out? Tanitha, Laurie and Dan too? They would have had to go to Charleston to find sustenance. They couldn’t very well kill four people in a towns around here which were so small. Chris did not detail it. In fact he was quiet when he sat down beside Lewis who thought they were both ready for a quiet night after the revelations of the day.

But it was Lewis who put his hand on Chris’s thigh, and then Chris put his hand on Lewis’s and Lewis moved closer. He began to massage Chris’s thigh, and then he opened up the boy’s shorts, and started to stroke his cock through his underwear. Chris made a moan like a cat purr and leaned his beautiful head against Lewis’s shoulder, opening his mouth a little, his green eyes closing into slits. His mouth reached up for Lewis’s the same time Lewis squeezed him, and when Chris turned and thrust his tongue in Lewis’s mouth, the flat of Lewis’s hand held Chris’s balls, and they were hot and heavy in his hand.

Lewis went to his knees because he knew Chris couldn’t ask, and he pulled down his shorts and his briefs, and pulled Chris into his mouth. He was firm and heavy, large and growing larger.

“Lewis,” Chris moaned, stroking Lewis’s hair. “Lewis.”

They were both naked, moving to the bed, then on the bed, twisting together. Chris pulled Lewis’s face up. It wasn’t just head he wanted. He wanted eyes and arms and lips and tongues and kindness. He wanted to look up at Lewis in adoration and pull his face down, kiss him, press his body into this man’s

In the end he asked Lewis to fuck him, but this was easier said than done. They’d never done it before and so it was just fumbling around, but happy fumbling. Lewis was so hard and Chris had already come all over his stomach. They had stopped to relax and hold each other after this. Now Chris, in a pinch, took Vaseline and oil and rubbed it over Lewis’s swollen cock. Lewis knew just what to do. He fitted himself tightly inside of Chris who closed his eyes and moaned with Lewis’s entry. They moved together, Lewis moaning in the shock of his pleasure at every thrust. The bed shook and they laughed in their pleasure as they fucked, and then lay side by side, breathing.

Lewis thrust, his breath whistling between his teeth and then the two of them lay side by side. Now they kissed hungrily, side by side, laughing and love was there. And maybe it shouldn’t have been there so quickly, but there it was, and so Lewis opened for Chris now and lay on his back taking him in.

“Caress my ass?” Chris begged.

He didn’t have to beg. Thin as Chris looked, he was well built with healthy thighs and buttocks that longed to be stroked, caressed massaged. Lewis had already eaten him out. He thrust his finger in the boy’s ass and massaged his asshole.

“Ohhh, fuck!” Chris cried, his dick jumping when Lewis did that.

So Lewis kept doing it, rubbing his hands up and down Chris’s back, caressing his shoulders, running his hands through his hair, pulling his face down to kiss him, running his hands back down. Chris drew close to him, fitting his cock between Lewis’s thighs.

“I’m about to…” he began, his voice shallow.

“It’s okay,” Lewis said, putting his hand on Chris’s cheek.

“But I’m about to…”

“Do it.”

With a relieved groan, Chris came, and Lewis felt the load, hot and thick between his thighs. He kept pressing his dick between Lewis’s thighs until everything was spilled out, and Chris came out, the length of his cock red and wet.

Lewis was in light ecstasy. He was moaning in pleasure. There had been many times when he had dreamed of sex, and as he approached wakefulness, it came with the regret of knowing this was not real sex. The mouth that was kissing revealed itself to be dry and open to a pillow, the loins that were thrusting, thrusting to nothing.

But right now the more he came into wakefulness the more he felt, pumping up and down, thumb massaging the head, with the gentle attention of a lover, Chris’s hand on his cock, making him grow, and grow, making the veins rise as they stroked life into, gently squirting fluid onto him, polishing his knob to ecstasy.

He blinked in the darkness and his eyes knew the face as his penis remembered the feel of the hypnotic hand. Seth standing about him, his eyes shadowed but glistening with tears, naked in the dark, his own penis, strawberry tipped, jutting out, and beside him, silent, Jim Strauss.

He lay there, milked by Seth, and Chris had awakened, and gently turned on his side, not angry, only mildly curious, watching. It was one of those things, one of those magic things where you knew your life went on a very different path, where you entered into different rites, and Chirs’s tongue was rolling in his mouth. His blue eyes, almost savage under his white blond brows, looked to Jim, and then, Chris lay on his back, his penis thick and high, arching into the air, and he stroked it, more as a symbol, then from need, and like one entranced, Jim came around the bed and began to stroke Chris.

In almost silence this pantomime went on until, finally, with an almost savage groan, Chris reached out, took the smaller blond man, and firmly placing him under him, entered him. Wolf and blood drinker, gave a great sigh and groan of relief and their bodies moved in a deep savage, fucking as Seth, quietly mounted Lewis and began to ride him.

In the night, the bed creaking in quiet witness under them, Chris and Lewis rode Jim, rode Seth, their faces slack. Power was always in their hands, but these boys had taken their power and made them into studs, and they rejoiced to be fuckers, blessed out, eyes half closed, the only pleasure the pleasure of the hard cock, the only journey necessary, the slow, gently, insistent ride home to orgasm. Under Chris, James Strauss gripped the pillow and opened his mouth, moaning at the only savageness that could undo the savageness of the wolf. Before him passed Nathan, and Granger, Delia and her madness, all the sadness and the sorrow and the terror and blood of this day. Tears ran down his face and as he moaned, he mourned, and as Chris fucked him, he rejoiced. He rejoiced, and his eyes turned to Seth’s angel face, pummeled under Lewis, and he touched it gently, and then, feeling Seth’s soft hand in his, he clasped it. Chris in him, Lewis his Seth, Lewis’s fucking thrumming through Seth’s hand into Jim, thrumming in his asshole, all through his body… All together…. All together.

Maybe it happened long ago. Something, the very feeling throbbing through him, whispered that it had. Outside of the great windows of Long Lees, the ragged indigo and white clouds opened to reveal the face of the quarter full moon, and as Lewis grasped the pillow, the steady of engine of Jim Strauss pumping through him was joined by the gentle fall of his hair of Lewis’s face, by his tender kiss, that became the graze, the bite of teeth, the wolf’s kiss. As he and Jim moved together and the bed moved under him he knew that even as in another life he had known the blood drinker’s kiss, in other lives he had known the wolf’s and knew it again, and turning around and pulling Jim Strauss’s mouth to his own, Lewis returned it.