She was out there somewhere, watching him. Halfway up the north postern tower of the castle, Elic paused, one hand gripping a chink in the soot-black stone, both bare feet poised on a narrow corbel. He looked over his shoulder, peering off into the darksome woods, nostrils flaring as he tasted the night: juniper and wild roses, honeysuckle, musty earth, ancient oaks...and Ilutu-Lili. The jasmine oil with which she anointed her throat and breasts, her salty-sweet skin, her heat, her desire, drifted around him on a waft of warm air. “Why him?” she'd asked earlier this evening, in the extinct Akkadian tongue she'd taught him so that their conversations, some of them, could be theirs and theirs alone. “Why Larsson?” “He's a gabru, Lili.” Gabru: a strong, mighty young man. It was what they called certain guests of the chateau, those in whom Elic took a particular interest. Inigo, in that merrily smirky way of his, had dubbed them “Elic's Alphas.” “That's not the only reason,” she said. Elic had turned without answering her. “Urkhish,” she'd said as he stalked away. Go, then. He could have invited her to join him tonight, could have shared this gabru with her, as he sometimes did, but not this time. Not this one. The oriel window of the bedchamber assigned to Viktor Larsson loomed just overhead, its stained glass casements thrown wide open on this unusually sultry night. In a whispered growl, Elic cursed those, like Larsson, who insisted upon locking their chamber doors here, as if Château de la Grotte Cachée were some public hotelinstead of what it was: the most private of private homes. The moon was full tonight, illuminating the topography of the tower wall as if it were midafternoon—though Elic could have scaled it on the blackest night, having done so countless times over the six centuries in which it had stood. Straining upward, he got a good grip on a notch meant to secure battle scaffolding, though it had never been used for that purpose. This castle was built not to repel outsiders, but to conceal and safeguard its permanent residents. Elic hauled himself up one-armed, quivering with the effort, until he could just barely reach the stone bracket supporting the window. Sweat trickled from beneath his black woolen cap, stinging his eyes, as he clambered over the projecting bay and stole into the room through one of the narrow openings. He found his footing on the velvet-upholstered window seat, curled into a crouch, and rubbed his eyes with the hem of his black T-shirt. The moonlit Chambre d'Mille Fleurs was large and opulent, its walls draped with fifteenth-century tapestries for which the Louvre or the Met would offer a fortune, if their existence were known. He breathed in a blend of musk, spices, and orange peel—Larsson's cologne—along with whispers of linseed oil, old wool, fabric softener, and lemon verbena. The bedcurtains were tied back to reveal a tall, strapping young blond man lying faceup on a mound of pillows, naked under the sheet rucked around his hips. On one nightstand sat a ripped-open box of twelve protein bars, a strip of condoms, and the June issue of Sports Illustratedwith a photograph on the cover of Larsson holding the Wimbledon cup aloft. On the floor next to the bed was the electric fan he'd demanded when he discovered, to his outrage, that the chateau was without air conditioning except for a few window units in Inigo's suite. It was an old fan, though, and made quite a racket, which was probably why it wasn't running. d In the interest of brevity, I’ve omitted from this excerpt a flashback in which it’s established that there’s white-hot sexual chemistry between Larssen, the visiting Swedish tennis star, and Lili. She’s a succubus, Elic’s an incubus, and although they’ve been devoted to each other for centuries, they’re physiologically incapable of making love. But they thrive on sexual sustenance—it’s their lifeblood—so they satisfy that hunger by seducing or ravishing visitors to their chateau. Jealousy doesn’t become an issue except once in a while, when Lili’s lust for a particular human becomes just too much for Elic to deal with. d It's time, Elic thought as he stood in the Chambre d'Mille Fleurs, contemplating the rise and fall of Viktor Larsson's chest in the moonlight. The shape of the sleeping man's penis, draped softly over his right thigh, was just visible through the rumpled white sheet. You can't have this one, Lili. This one is mine. Is she still watching? Elic wondered as he set his silent feet upon the floor and uncoiled to his full height. Can she see me through the window?Lili's vision was preternaturally keen, as keen as a hawk's, and then some. He whipped off the cap and shook out his hair, which fell halfway down his back. “Narru dishpu,” she called it. A river of honey. His skin she likened to sweet cream, his eyes to seawater. Normally he would close the window and draw the curtain even on a sweltering night like this, for there was inevitably a certain amount of noise once things were underway. But tonight he felt the need to disturb—to disturb Lili in particular, to let her hear this gabru with whom she was so captivated groan and beg and perhaps even, if Elic was skillful enough, scream. Viktor Larsson wouldn't seem so strong and mighty then. He'd have been vanquished, possessed, used. What was that Americanism Inigo was so taken with? Ah, yes. He'll be my bitch. And Lili will know it. Elic shucked off his T-shirt and jeans, drew a deep, cleansing breath, and cleared his thoughts to prepare himself. So as avoid injury during the transmutation, he lowered himself to the floor, carpeted in a centuries-old Oriental rug, and knelt on his haunches, naked and ready. Closing his eyes, he whispered the words he'd learned as a boy, the rhythmic, age-old incantation that brought about The Change. It began as always, with a slow roiling from within, then the trembling and nausea and terrible sense of wrongness. And the pain. There was always pain, but somehow that was easier to deal with than the Change Sickness, as he thought of it. Elic hunched forward, his fingers digging into his knees, eyes squeezed tight, lungs pumping, as the worst of it peaked and then faded. The only lingering discomfort was the sense of being starved for air as his bones compressed and his muscles softened. The narrowing of his ribs always incited a sense of panicked asphyxiation, but within a minute or so his breathing steadied; his pulse slowed. Then came the part that he always found both unnerving and thrilling, even after all these years: the tightening and pulling inward of his loins, as of a dark, secret furrow being ploughed into damp earth. His cock, throbbing from the excitement of The Change, contracted into a tight, pulsing little knot; his nipples itched as the flesh there swelled into buds, then breasts, heavy and soft. Where there had been Elic, there was now a new incarnation, identical to the former in certain respects—same hair, same eyes—yet with a body whose form and chemistry were fundamentally different. He was She now, the female Elic might have been but for a fluke of nature at the moment of conception. Elic was not so much replaced during these occasional metamorphoses, as subsumed, incorporated into a being whose feelings and desires were purely female, but whose thoughts and memories—whose self—was still very much Elic. Sitting back on her heels, she stretched her back and rotated her shoulders to the accompaniment of muted pops and cracks. She massaged her hands, flexed the delicate little fingers, and brought them to her breasts, which she lifted and squeezed. The part of her that was still Elic, still He, marveled, as always, at the softness of them, their weight and resilience. She pinched the rubbery little nipples, feeling a sting of arousal all the way down to her clit. And then she turned her attention to the man in the bed across the room.
