The Wolf Sacrifice

The Wolf Sacrifice

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Copyright 2012 by Rosa Steel

Smashwords Edition

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is a work of fiction. Names, places, businesses, characters and
incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are
used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons
living or dead, actual events or locales is purely
coincidental.

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The Wolf Sacrifice

The day of the sacrifice was to be performed
Dasha, the most beautiful girl in
Korenovsk
, lay abed
and cried. She hated to cry, but what else was one to do when faced
with their death? Her lustrous gold hair was damp with tears and
clung to her cheeks, and the moss-green brilliance of her eyes was
only enhanced by the circles of red.
I am a grown woman yet here
I lie, waiting for death like a little chicken with his head on the
block. Soon I am for the Wolf Gods. How disgusting that they will
see me weeping like a child.

Her father, who might have normally demanded
she do her chores, let her lie there naked and alone in her small
room. Through the wall sometimes she heard him weeping, though he
tried to be quiet about it. She was the last of his family. Soon he
would be alone.

Not for the first time she thought about
escape.

It would not be hard- she was quick and
clever, and she knew the ways of these woods. Even if they took the
dogs after her she could climb a tree like she had as a child, and
wait for them to pass.

But no, that was the selfish path. It was not
the fault of the village that she had been born beautiful, nor that
they must sacrifice her to live. The demands of the Wolf Gods in
the mountains were exacting and harsh. Every twelve years, a virgin
maiden - the village’s most beautiful woman – would be given to the
wild creatures. That would stop those bright-toothed monsters from
spilling innocent blood for another dozen years.

And Dasha was that girl, without doubt. She
wished that it had been less clear, but none of the other girls
approached her beauty and everyone knew it. She could escape the
village but she would not be able to escape the guilt.

But there is another escape left to
me…
Her hand was over moving over the milky paleness of her
thigh, stroking that tender flesh. She closed her eyes. Her
fingertips brushed like cobweb over her nipple, making her shudder
with awakening desire.
In my last hours, I will at least know
some pleasure.
One trembling finger parted the lips of her sex
and dove down into that secret crevice, licking across her flesh
like the tongue of a lover she would never know. She stifled a
moan. She didn’t want poor Papa to hear her like this.

Her fingertips played across her body as only
she knew how, first rolling her nipples then raking the tender
flesh of her breasts. She imagined what she always had when she
touched herself – the strong young man clad only in the pelt of a
slain bear, whose touch was rough and yet exquisitely sensitive to
her needs. Dasha had once seen the man in the woods as she
collected kindling, and he had stared at her from afar. She had
been young then, but she had not forgotten the fire in his eyes.
Black haired, tall, and beautiful like a wild animal. Then he had
turned and vanished like smoke into the dark.

Her own hands became those of the young man
as she teased herself, biting her lip against the rising heat of
her body. His strong finger slipped inside her, brushed exquisitely
against the virgin seal, stroked the waiting pleasure from those
tender walls. His face bent to kiss her, and she smelled his wild
smell – smoke and rain on the trees – musk like the old wolf-pelt
on the floor of her room. Every smell of the woods. His eyes glowed
brilliant gold and he smiled at her with pointed teeth.

Then she imagined something else… the play of
another delicate set of fingers across her thigh.
I have never
done this before
, she thought, but was too deep in the hot well
of pleasure to stop and consider. A second finger joined the first,
sliding wetly in and out of her body, twisting hard at her tender
nipples. Pain – who had ever known that pain could be so
enthralling? It was hard not to scream as they continued to torture
her with their expert hands. A second set of golden eyes glowed in
the darkness of her mind – wolf eyes, she realized, with a jolt of
fear.

The third snatched at her roughly from
behind, and it seemed as if she could feel a huge bulk crushing
her, and hard callused hands sliding over her hips. When his
fingers slid into her mouth she cried out, and was muffled by his
hot hand.

The third stranger was stronger than the
others, and harder to her. His pain was doled out equally with
pleasure, yet still she rocked and trembled, filled with a building
cyclone of ecstasy. It felt like all three of them were probing
inside her and filling her up. Dasha couldn’t endure it any longer.
She rolled over because she knew she would cry out, and screamed
into the pillow as she erupted, feeling a warm liquid spreading
between her thighs. The wolf-men were grinning, and watching her
with their golden eyes as she lay trembling and sated, twisted in
her sheets.

When she finally opened her eyes, the room
was empty.

They came for her as the moon rose, as was
tradition -- Four elders of the village with their torches. The two
elder women took her back into the cold hall, and one of them
probed her with a cold and gnarled finger. Dasha couldn’t help but
wince, but she stayed still and steady.

“I am sorry, little Dasha,” whispered
Svetlana, the old crone who probed her. They had known each other
since Dasha had been born.

Dasha couldn’t find the words, but only
nodded sadly. It was hard not to complain, to beg for mercy, but
she refused to abandon her duty.

“You are a virgin.” Svetlana said.

Dasha’s body was washed in rose water, and
she was given a rose-tasting candy to eat so that she would be
sweet for the Wolf Gods. They trimmed away the delicate blonde
curls of her sex and washed her hair, and then brushed it until it
gleamed like spun gold. The old women were tender to her, and tried
to comfort her, but Dasha barely heard their kind words. She was
thinking of three men with golden eyes, and the scent of smoke and
musk.

They placed on her head the Wolf Queen’s
crown (which was her official title). It made her feel like
laughing. When she was consumed, the elders would retrieve the
crown and store it away for the next sacrifice, the next unlucky
‘Wolf Queen’.

The crown was lighter than she expected,
being wrought of very finely spun silver and set with moonstones –
also called wolfstone. The crown took the shape of three wolves
crouched in bursts of silver leaves, and their eyes were bright
yellow stones that she didn’t know the name of. She’d never seen
anything like it. When it was nestled on her golden hair she had a
fierce urge to tear it off and fling it away.

When Dasha was finally clean enough and
prepared for the Wolf Gods, they wrapped her naked body in a heavy
sheepskin and took her out into the cold.

The first snow had already fallen a few weeks
earlier, and her bare feet hurt at the contact with the icy dirt.
She didn’t complain. The virgin sacrifice had to be almost nude as
she walked to the peak – that too was tradition. Dasha took a deep
breath, and looked at her father. He was silent, but his face was
wet with tears.

Though it hurt to look at him, Dasha forced
herself to smile. She wanted his last memory to be a good one.

“Goodbye Papa,” she whispered.

“Sweet Dasha, my Dasha…” He gritted his teeth
and buried his face in his hands. She heard his muffled sobs, and
her heart broke.

It took all her strength not to run to him
and wrap her arms around him then, but the Dasha knew she must not
smell of human men when she went before the Wolf Gods. Instead she
shivered, and she bit her tongue, and started walking.

It snowed as she walked up the mountain –
first tiny, dancing specs of white, then delicate flakes that
caught in her golden hair like dew in a spider’s web. The pain in
her feet was bearable at first, since she was strong and used to
the cold. Soon, though, it grew to a throbbing agony. Dasha cried
out at every step, and thought she might faint. After another hour
they were totally numb, which was even worse. If she did not know
she would be dead soon, Dasha would be worried about them dying and
falling off. She didn’t look down, in case the site of them frozen
and purple made her lose her nerve. Still she kept staggering on up
the mountain, huddled inside the sheepskin cloak that she’d been
allowed and wracked with shivers.

Somewhere close the eerie keening of a wolf
howl rose up, and was joined by two others. Now her shivering was
not just from cold. She stared with wide green eyes into every
shadow that she passed, hoping desperately that these were the Gods
and not natural wolves that might kill her before she completed her
mission.

Her world was pain and fear. The moon grew
high and bright, throwing a soft silver light over the world. Dasha
struggled, and she fell many times. Soon she was covered in small
cuts, and tears rolled unheeded down her cheeks. Sometimes she saw
a grey shadow flit between the trees, and a sharp flash of golden
eyes.

She kept climbing in silence, listening to
the howls.

And then she was at the top. She waited for a
second between the trees, trying to catch a glimpse of the Gods
before they saw her. But… there was no-one there. The plateau and
the altar to the Wolf Gods were empty, bathed in the brilliant
light of the full moon. At first she sat down, startled, and
thought about this. Was it the wrong night? No, the elders did not
make mistakes like that, and the moon was full. Dasha snarled. A
hot rage welled up in her belly, stronger than she’d known she was
capable of. Fueled by her pain it boiled inside her.
I came all
this way, and they’re not even here!

“Where are you, wolves?” She screamed into
the night.

“Where are you? I am Dasha, your Queen! I
dare you to kill me! I
dare
you! I am your sacrifice!”

There was no answer but the wind. Dasha tore
off the skin cloak around her shoulders and stood naked in the
snow, staring around her at the lonely rocks and digging her nails
into her own palms. She cursed the empty rocks, and the fat moon in
the sky. There was a stone plinth, like a kind of wide table, and
she climbed up onto it and stood there, breathing hard.

“Take me, Wolf Gods!” She screamed again.

A howl answered her – shockingly close. What
she had thought was a boulder opened lambent golden eyes, and
stretched, slowly. The wolf chuckled, a sound closer to a growl
than a human laugh.

“She is loud enough to be the Wolf Queen,”
said the wolf. It stood, shaking snow from its coat and baring
brilliant rows of white teeth in a fierce grin. It was far bigger
than a normal wolf - the size of a horse - and even its breathing
was hard and loud like a smith’s bellows. Even though she was on
the plinth, the wolf looked down on her. Dasha’s eyes went wide,
but she managed not to cower.
I will meet my death
proudly.

“I am –“ she began.

“Dasha. Yes, I know.” The wolf was laughing
again, and showed no inclination to start eating her. “I am Fyor of
Winter.”

“I am Raka,” said a higher, snarling voice.
The second Wolf God skittered down from where had perched on a high
peak. This one was more slender than the first, and not quite as
tall. Still his eyes were quick and bright, and he had a wilder
look, like he was listened to messages on the wind. Raka raced to
stand next to the first, but seemed not to be content with standing
still and prowled around the platform where she stood. It was
difficult not to shrink away when that bright-eyed hulk came
close.

“I believe you already know Volk.” Fyor
said.

“You spoil my surprise, as always,” said a
wry voice somewhere behind her. It was deep and masculine, but also
very human. She turned. The young man with the bear-pelt cloak
stepped out of the shadows. Dasha could not contain a small gasp of
surprise, and the young man laughed at that, not unkindly. His eyes
were brilliant gold in the dark as he took in the moonlit curves of
her young body. Suddenly he averted his eyes, as if realizing what
he was doing.