The Wolf Sacrifice
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,

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