The Wolf Subdued (2 page)

"I apologize to your father," Harlan
began, trying to hide the fear in his voice as he recounted the
death of his pack. "I did not know these were his
lands."

"And cattle," the vampire told him
just the blur flashed by again, driving him back to the ground. He
thought he heard a chuckle and knew the vampire was playing with
him.

"Nor did I know it was your father's
cattle," Harlan said, choosing not to stand again. He remained on
his knees, head bowed. "Please forgive me."

Harlan considered his options. He
could run, but the vampires were so quick he would not make it far
before the bastard caught him. The sun would not be up for hours,
so there was no help there. The moon was nearly full, and he felt
the strength of the wolf begin to fill him, but it would not be
enough to stop the monster.

"Where is your pack, wolf?" the
vampire asked, still hiding in the shadows. "Where are your
mates?"

"I have no pack," Harlan admitted.
There wasn't much point in lying about what the vampire obviously
already knew.

The vampire laughed. "A lone wolf on
a night of the moon not full and hunting on his better’s land. You
are a desperate one indeed."

The blur flashed by him once more
but this time Harlan smelt him coming. As the vampire flashed by he
reached out and grabbed his ankle, ducking under the hand that was
moving so fast it was nearly invisible. The vampire's impact caused
a small crater and a could of dust, but the creature was unfazed.
He turned over and grabbed Harlan's hand, grinning at
him.

"You will pay for that,
wolf."

The vampire was young looking,
though Harlan knew that was a fairly stupid thing to consider when
looking at one. Though the vamp looked to be in his late twenties,
he knew that their age and appearance was locked in when turned.
There was no telling how old the vampire really was but the old
dialect of English he spoke with was definitely a clue. The
creature's black business suit did little to conceal the bulging
muscles underneath and his flowing mane of hair was as black as the
night. The vamp grinned at him with perfect white teeth before
flinging him end over end across the parking lot. Harlan landed
with a thud on the roof of a Camry, caving it in.

"You do not touch me, wolf. You must
know your superiors."

Harlan cursed whatever course of
nature had made the vampires superiors. If the moon was full the
story might be different. Despite himself he launched at the
vampire, pushing off with strength more than a human man’s but less
than he’d have if he were in wolf form. The vampire caught him by
the throat and stopped him as if he’d slammed into a brick wall. He
held Harlan there, off the ground and choking. Harlan pulled at his
wrists, half trying to support himself so he didn’t choke and half
trying to break the vampires enormously strong grip. The man’s
expression was more annoyed than angry.

“You are a feisty one,
no?”

Harlan pulled his legs up under him,
wedging them between himself and the vampire’s iron like chest and
pushed free. The vampire’s razor sharp claws tore at his neck,
though, and he felt the blood trickle down his shoulder. Gasping
for air Harlan turned to run, again wishing for the full moon and
the speed of the wolf. The vampire was in front of him before he
could take ten steps.

“You cannot escape me, wolf. There
is no where on my father’s land you can escape to.”

Harlan drew what strength he had
left and launched himself at the vampire once more, intent on
driving him to the ground and pulling the dead heart from his
chest. The vampire sidestepped him and then, as he plowed into the
asphalt pavement, leapt on his back.

“If you try to run again I will kill
you here. Do you understand?”

Harlan nodded in disgruntled
agreement. “I will not run.”

"What were you doing with this
human, wolf?" the vampire asked as he shot to where the dead
Frankie lie, blood still pushing out of his slit throat. "The moon
is not full. It is not time for you to feed."

"I..." Harlan began, trying to
carefully choose his words. There was no point in lying. "I was
going to fuck him and then I was going to take him back to my den
and have him for tomorrow."

"For when the moon is full," the
vampire added, not bothering to look at Harlan. There was no fear
of him there, he knew and there was nothing for him to be afraid
of. The vampire could kill him at any time he wanted. "You were
going to fuck him? Another male?"

Harlan was taken aback by the
curiosity in the vampire's voice. The creature was obviously very
old but it sounded like man making love to another man was
something new to him. How could that be? The vampires he’d dealt
with in the past were pretty open about their sexuality. "I
was."

"And you like that?"

"I like fucking," Harlan
admitted.

"Other men?"

"It does not matter. It is the act
itself. The cock does not care the receptacle.”

The vampire flashed to him, cutting
across the parking lot in under a second. "And you'd fuck
me?"

The vampire was handsome, no doubt,
if he were a man. But he was, after all, a vampire. The vamps would
sooner kill the wolves than look at them. He felt nothing but
disgust and hatred for the creature wishing for the hundredth time
in the span of a few minutes that his pack was alive and at his
side. He wanted nothing to do with the undead creature but would
fucking a vampire save his life?

"I would,” he said calmly, hoping
the lie was not so evident in his voice.

"Come with me," the vampire ordered,
flashing in a blur to the opposite side of the car, standing at
mock attention, "and let us see just how a wolf fucks."

#

Harlan followed the vampire through
the city streets, staying just a few yards back, and was constantly
tempted to just run. He knew the vampire would kill him if he did,
though, so he stayed in line like a demure little puppy dog. Harlan
had no idea what the vampire planned but if he could hold out until
the moon rose in the night sky once again, full this time, he might
have a shot at escape. He made no bones about it, though. He did
not expect to live through the day. They passed a police patrol car
and the two officers tipped their hats to the vampire. His father
more than likely controlled every cop that came anywhere near their
hunting grounds. It was the only way to keep the prying human eyes
out of their business. Where the werewolves were brazen during the
full moon, propelled by animal instincts no human could ever
fathom, the vampires were cold and calculating. They played an eons
long game of control that was the reason that, out of the two
species, the vampires would always win.

The vampire led him to an older,
regal neighborhood just off of downtown and he was not surprised
when he saw the gothic style home. It wasn't as elaborate as he'd
expected, but the old style was unmistakable. Bronze tipped spires
shot up into the night. The brick looked as if it could have come
from England a hundred years earlier. There were even gargoyles
along the roof tops looking out at the heavily manicured half acre.
The lawn was cut to the point it looked unnatural, like a green
carpet laying across the yard and he could imagine one of the
vampire’s human minions out there each day laboring away with a
pair of scissors. The flower beds were immaculate and full of
vibrant colors that, to Harlan, contrasted darkly against the house
of death.

"Why do vampires care what their
yards look like?" Harlan asked, unable to contain himself but
surprised at the sound of his voice.

"What?"

"Why do you care what the yard looks
like?" Harlan repeated, staring at the rows of immaculately cared
for flowers. "You can only really enjoy nature in the sunlight. It
seems a bit pointless."

"Things do not appear beautiful to
you in the moonlight, wolf?"

"Point taken," Harlan said, the
image of his pack in ruins in that East Texas forest as fresh in
his mind as the night it had happened. Both species, the vampires
and werewolves, subsisted off the human cattle. The vampires,
however, were the only ones besides the humans who reveled in
destruction.

The interior of the home was
unexpected. Instead of antique furniture and hundreds of year old
objects, the interior was modern bordering on sterile. Simple
leather sofas bordered steel coffee tables. The floor was tile and,
strangely enough, there was a drain in the middle of it. There was
no art on the walls, no pictures of the vampire when he was a
youth. In the dark business suit the blonde vamp seemed as
disconnected from the home as Harlan was about to be from life. The
windows were of course covered and it would be easy to lose track
of time the sterile home.

"Not my actual home, of course," the
vamp said, reading his thoughts. "I would not bring a mongrel wolf
to my actual home. Consider this a play place, a place we bring...
pets."

"What is your name?" Harlan asked,
ignoring the dig, "and what do you want of me?"

"My real name is unimportant and
I've forgotten it long ago. You may address me as
Shade."

"Shade... do you really intend to
have sex with a wolf?"

"Would you like to live through the
day, wolf?"

"Yes," Harlan said, suppressing a
gulp, "I would."

"Then you had better make me want to
fuck a wolf, wouldn't you agree?"

"I did not know I was trespassing,"
Harlan said, trying to control his fear of the stronger creature
and again he missed his pack. In the pack, even in human form, this
sort of behavior from a vampire would not be tolerated. The two
species kept mostly to themselves, hence the designated hunting
grounds of their common food source, but when they did come
together, war invariably happened. The werewolves were stronger in
numbers, unafraid to convert more to the pack when the pack
demanded it, but the vampires were normally the stronger of the two
species. He shivered recounting the last battle he'd seen between a
lone vampire and a pack of wolves in the full of the moon. The
vampire had gone down, eventually, but it had taken the majority of
the pack to do it.

“You knew you were trespassing,”
Shade countered. “How could you not see my father’s markings
everywhere you turned? You broke the Agreement and you shall
suffer.”

Harlan stood and nodded. “Please
tell me how I can fix this.”

The vampire grinned and for the
first time Harlan wasn’t so sure if the undead man was as straight
as he’d first thought. As Harlan slowly unbuckled his denim pants
and let them slide to the floor the vampire salivated, staring at
his flesh. He pulled his shirt off next, wincing at the wounds he’d
received from the vampire in the parking lot.

“You wolves bend easily,” the
vampire commented on his pain. “You’re not much better than the
humans.”

And I’d drive a steak through your
dead heart, Harlan thought as he shimmied out of his underwear. The
lines of his body were hard, yet not overblown. He was thin but not
to the point of anorexia. He was very fit, sporting the body of a
runner. The monthly wild run did wonders for his body, both in wolf
form and human. The vampire blurred to his side, cutting across the
room in a fraction of a second, and ran his hands up Harlan’s rib
cage.

“Such a marvelous specimen,” he
commented, pausing at the broken rig and pushing, “for a
wolf.”

Harlan tried not to scream out as
the vampire taunted the wounded flesh and stood at ramrod
attention. “Here I am,” he said. “Do what you would with me to pay
this debt.”

Shade laughed. “You think a mere
fucking of a cold wolf is what I desire?”

“It would match the cold of your
heart,” Harlan said without realizing what he was doing.

The vampire lashed out so quickly he
never saw the hand coming, connecting with his face and sending him
skittering across the cool tile floor.

“I don’t want just to fuck you,
wolf. I want to subdue you. I want you to acknowledge who your
masters are, to admit that you are the weaker species. First I want
you to suffer and then perhaps, after you beg me to, I’ll fuck
you.”

The vampire snapped his fingers and
panels in the ceiling slid away. Leather straps affixed to silver
chains slid down, spaced six feet apart. More panels in the floor
parted and silver stirrups rose up, complete with leather straps
and buckles. Panels in the otherwise drab walls slid away revealing
racks of the most sadistic toys Harlan had ever seen. There were
the standard whips and chains, clamps of all sizes and shapes,
electrical concoctions, and many of the largest dildos he’d ever
laid eyes on. Shade had not been joking when he said the small home
was a playhouse. Harlan wondered how many humans had been tortured
to death right where he stood.

“And now, dog, you will start by
licking my boots.”

Harlan clenched up, ready to be
struck again when he didn’t comply, and was not disappointed. He
was not, however, expecting the whip to lash across his back. He
howled out in pain as the cat-o-nine tails flailed at his skin,
drawing blood.