It looked like every other house in the street but, as he stared up at the slabby
Portland stone frontage and elegant portico, Elijah felt a shiver of apprehension.
This place, this bland unobtrusive building, harboured the secrets of ages;
a society contrived to protect the sovereign whose fingers now spread throughout
the realm.
“Buck up, old man.” Elijah jumped at the hand thumping down on his shoulder. “You look like you’ve lost a guinea and found a farthing,” Brutus came to stand next to Elijah and joined him in a perusal of the building.
“I remember the first time I was brought here.” The tone of the older boy’s voice, his pensive expression, managed to say more than words, so Elijah listened with his eyes as much as his ears. “Twelve, just coming into my manhood. It’s important to them,” he indicated the house and by intimation, the brotherhood. “They’re not interested in children. No power, y’see. But then again-”
“Brutus! Be a good chap and pay the cabby.” It was the others, who had taken a separate hansom, so Elijah never did find out what Brutus was going to add.
A footman in full livery showed them to their quarters. Cropper and Brolly to separate rooms on the second floor and Lyall, Elijah and Brutus trudging up another flight to reach their accommodation. Lyall was given a room containing not much more than a bed and washstand, but at least he had it to himself. Elijah and Brutus were to share. Still, the room was large, much larger than the one Elijah shared with William, and the beds were positively luxurious by comparison.
Sinking back into the goosedown mattress, Elijah spared a thought for his friend, hoping that William was thriving and hadn’t fallen into rough company.
“The Master expects your attendance at dinner, sirs,” the footman intoned and then reversed out of the door, closing it behind him.
“God, I detest the manners in this place,” Brutus said, falling onto his own bed. “They’re prettier than a high class whore and have as much faith about them.”
“Manners maketh man,” quoted Elijah and yawned, stretching out until his fingertips brushed against the headboard.
“There’s other ways,” Brutus smirked. He snaked his way across the bed and hung over Elijah, his shoulder length hair curtaining around them as he dipped into a kiss.
Elijah opened his mouth and his legs, welcoming Brutus in and luxuriating in the sensation of surrender that always swept over him when Brutus plundered his mouth. He thrust upward, using his grip on the headboard as an anchor, and groaned as his cock rubbed against Brutus’ hardening length.
“God, Eli, that’s good,” Brutus panted and replied in kind, rapidly building the heat between them.
Elijah moaned and rolled his head on the pillow. He wanted Brutus inside him so much, but didn’t know how to ask. The coarse words that tripped so easily from the other boys’ lips stuttered on his own, made cumbersome by blushes that refused to be banished. Instead he whispered, “Spoon with me, Brutus? I need to feel you.” It was as close as he could come, and even that was enough to redden his cheeks.
“Say it, and I shall,” Brutus teased and pressed harder.
The colour in Elijah’s face heightened and he stammered, “I-I cannot,” and turned away.
“Yes, you can, Eli.” Brutus caught Elijah’s chin and forced his face back around until they were eye to eye once more. “Tell me. Tell me you need my shaft inside you, hard and deep. Tell me you want to feel my spendings bathe you while you cry my name. Tell me that you want me to fuck you.”
Eyes like pools of blue moonlight quavered under the assault and Brutus knew Elijah was almost there. Almost to the point where he would surrender completely, ready spill words and fluid on Brutus’ command. It was such a heady feeling that, for a moment, Brutus forgot where they were and what they were supposed to be doing.
Elijah opened his mouth to speak, his body as taut as a wound bow, his throat working to expel the words, but, before he could force them out, Brutus leapt from the bed.
“Damn it all to hell,” the older boy cursed, “we cannot!”
“What?” Elijah asked, confused by this sudden separation when they had been so close. His groin ached he was so hard, and with that desperation came a level of bravery. “I’m sorry. I will say it, I swear,” he said to Brutus’ retreating back.
Brutus spun around and hurried back to the bed, nearly flattening Elijah in his haste to regain their position. “It isn’t that,” he said between frantic kisses. “I would fuck you in a heartbeat, even without the words.”
“Then what is it?”
“It’s here. This place.” Elijah squinted up at him, and Brutus sighed, “They won’t approve if I’ve taken you.” Then, in as sudden a mood change as before, Brutus ground his hips down and leered, “We can still have fun, though. What say you, Eli? Are you up for some sweet frottage?”
Elijah could only groan in response as the fire in his body flared anew. His hands came up to tangle in Brutus’ hair and their mouths sealed against any more words. Fingers fumbled between them, pushing aside vests and loosening braces until they were finally flesh to scorching flesh. And when Brutus enclosed them both in a tight gripping fist, Elijah clamped his thighs around Brutus’ hips and pulled their bodies closer still.
Slicked by sweat and their own arousal, Elijah knew there was precious little time before they spent themselves and he was determined to make the most of it. He plunged his tongue into Brutus’ mouth, mapping its contours, and tugged on the hair around his fingers. Brutus kissed him back harder, bruising his lips with the force of his possession and only releasing him when Elijah’s vision began to darken for want of air.
Breath scalded down Elijah’s neck as Brutus broke the kiss and panted, his thrusts forcing them higher and closer to the edge. Words, broken and barely controlled, spilled from them both, “Please,” and, “Yes, god yes,” and, when wet heat gushed onto his belly, Elijah let himself go, joining Brutus in ecstasy.
A few minutes later he opened his eyes to Brutus smiling down at him and his own lips curled in response as he asked, “What?”
“So pretty,” Brutus replied, tracing his fingers over Elijah’s face and dragging over full swollen lips. “And still so innocent. Never lose that, Eli, whatever happens tonight.”
*
“Sir.” Ballard clicked his heels and snapped a short bow. Behind
him, Brolly did likewise, whilst Lyall, after offering a similar courtesy to
the Ram, dropped into a deeper obeisance before the head of the order.
The High Master ignored the others and held out his hand to Ballard. “So good to see you, Roger, my boy. Tell me, does life treat you well?”
“Tolerably, sir,” Ballard replied and stepped around Lyall to place a kiss on the ring gracing the High Master’s finger. As a symbol of the brotherhood, the ring, at least, was due that respect, even if Ballard regarded its current wearer a bumbling fool. Herr Boehm should have taken this mantle and, but for his foreign birth, would have, Ballard was sure.
“And Timothy, my toothsome child. Will you be sharing your japes with us this visit?”
Brolly took Ballard’s place, and was gifted a slobbering kiss rather than a brusque greeting. “I am well, sir. And of course seek to please in any way I may.” Brolly’s coy giggles and squirming scraped across Ballard’s nerves and he ground his teeth. Why did the High Master do this? Didn’t he realise that Brolly belonged to Ballard?
It was Lyall’s turn. “Young Wallace,” the Master said, using Lyall’s chosen name as was proper for the Wolf greeting a ram. “You have,” Lyall rose to his feet, “not grown at all since I saw you last. Do they not feed you at that school, lad?”
“They do, sir,” Lyall answered with a grin. “Though I think it may take more than food to bring me to my brother’s towering heights.”
The High Master laughed a genuine rolling sound. “Your brother keeps you loyal, I trust, to both crown and brotherhood.”
“As well as he can, considering his own barbaric roots.”
Their brief conversation over, Lyall melted into the background, taking his place by the wall, and the High Master’s attention returned to his own kind.
“So, Roger, I was sorry to hear that Bartlett will not be joining us. I always find your choice of wolves quite a fascinating study. Does he show much promise?”
Ballard flinched visibly at the insult but hurriedly schooled his features. “Indeed he does, sir. And though at first sight, one would consider him a hart and nothing more, William conceals hidden depths behind his summer eyes.” A quiet cough made Ballard pause, but he continued, “Unfortunately the ague was far too virulent to allow him to travel.”
“Such a shame,” the Master replied, his gaze travelling over Ballard’s shoulder towards the door where a footman stood waiting for the order to speak. “It is, however, of no matter, for now we shall see the morsel that has managed to travel with you.”
*
Elijah glanced up at Brutus and swallowed heavily as the older boy adjusted his collar.
“Just remember,” Brutus was saying,” the High Master expects you to be polite. You will greet him as you would your sovereign but beyond that, nothing is required of you except silence and obedience. I will sponsor you as a ram and, as such, you will owe allegiance first to the Ram and then to the head of our order.”
Trying not to panic, Elijah nodded and breathed through his nose, willing his stomach to calm. The doors opened.
“Masters Patrick Farrell and Elijah Price,” the footman announced and then stepped aside to allow them to enter.
They were escorted through into a large hall, more like a church than a ballroom, though empty of pews. At the front, where the altar should have been, stood a throne on a low dais. Carved from dark stone, it showed a wolf and a ram rampant, though the space between, the seat where the hart should rest in safety, was empty.
But it was the man seated on a plain chair to the right of the throne who drew Elijah’s attention. Survivors of the pox were few and always severely scarred, but Elijah had never seen anyone so badly marked. The man’s face was no more than a twisted mask, his head bald, lips pulled back from his teeth making them seem fangs. He was a wolf, The Wolf, incarnate, and in the guttering lamplight, more beast than human.
This was the creature that he had sworn to serve? Elijah’s heart shattered. He had made a deal with the devil himself.
“Brutus! It is such a pleasure to see you,” the High Master warbled.
“And I you, sir,” Brutus replied, dropping to one knee.
Elijah followed suit and kept his eyes firmly closed, terrified of looking into the damnation’s eyes. A hand stroked his face a moment later; it felt dead, clammy and chill and Elijah had to fight the urge to vomit.
“Very pretty and from the church you say.”
“Aye, sir.” That was Brutus’ voice. Elijah latched on to it with his mind and refused to let go. He needed something to get him through this.
“Excellent.” The caresses continued, fingers running through Elijah’s hair and down the back of his neck. “We have so few in that fine institution since the Archbishop saw fit to turn traitor on us.”
“Elijah will be a credit to the brotherhood, sir, I guarantee it.”
“Brave words, Brutus. And yet to be proven.” A hand pressed to Elijah’s mouth and he sought the ring blindly, placing a kiss there as he had been instructed and refusing to breathe the stench of corruption that was sure to rise from this carcass of a man. “He has manners at least. Certainly more than yourself.”
“I have learned my lesson, High Master.”
“Good, then let us all become reacquainted.”
The presence receded and Elijah opened his eyes. Beside him, Brutus rose to his feet. Elijah copied him and snatched a surreptitious glance around the room. Now the throne and the High Master no longer held his attention, he spotted Cropper and Brolly standing to one side, and Lyall further away amongst a gaggle of men and women.
At the first sight of the women, Elijah’s heart skipped a beat. For some reason he had believed the brotherhood to consist entirely of men, and to see women here seemed even more blasphemous than the trappings of the church.
The High Master’s sharp clap broke the formal air and the group surged forwards coming to greet the newcomers. A slight woman, startlingly blonde, offered Brutus a beatific smile and her hand.
“My darling boy,” she purred. “I have missed you so much.”
“Aunt Ada,” Brutus replied, bowing courteously and kissing her fingers. “Not as much as I have missed you. How fares my mother?”
“She is an obedient child, which is more than can be said of you,” the woman said. “Aunt, indeed. I had thought we did away with such formality years ago.”
“Only in the bedchamber, madam,” Brutus answered with a smirk and chuckled when Ada flicked him with her fan. “Allow me to introduce Elijah Price, our prospective ram. Elijah, may I have the honour of presenting Mistress Ada Everett, my mother’s sister.”
When Brutus called Ada, aunt, Elijah presumed it was a customary name rather than indicative of a family relationship, particularly when he mentioned the bedchamber. It seemed he was mistaken. Elijah blanched at the introduction, but manfully managed to bow over Ada’s hand. “Enchanted, my lady,” he said, finding his manners from somewhere. “It is a pleasure to finally meet a member of Brutus’ family.”
“My goodness,” Ada said, grasping Elijah’s chin and turning his face from side to side. “You do have a way of finding the pretty ones, don’t you. Though rumour has it that William is more beautiful still.”
“Then you can have the absent one and leave this treasure to me,” the High Master commented and slid his arm through Elijah’s. “Come boy, I have someone you need to meet.”
Elijah cast a backward glance at Brutus as he was lead away through the small crowd. Brutus had promised to be there for him this evening, but family obviously took precedence in his friend’s mind. That thought made Elijah’s mood crumble still further and he was blinking back tears by the time he reached the dais.
“Elijah, please greet the Ram. If you are found acceptable, only I will be able to command you over her.”
Her? Elijah looked up into dark sparkling eyes, a ripe crimson mouth and the most voluptuous figure he had ever seen.
“Elijah,” the vision said. “Good to meet you. Grab a seat
and we can talk about being rams without the old man interfering. And by the
way, you can call me Lily.”