Svexune Tide

His Story

I'm pouring the last of a Barolo into my glass when the moon starts pressing at my skin like a low fever. The castle cellar keeps its own weather — old stone, cold air, barrels of oak and dust — but I know what's building under my ribs. I've known since the first scent of you drifted down the stairs: pine soap, rain-slicked pavement, the particular heat of a person unafraid. Being a warrior for this city means I play human three hundred days a year. I pour wine for strangers, let them talk about tannins and vintage, shake their hands. But I am Iraq-born, and I know the old desert teaching that runs deeper than any label: what you cage becomes a liar, and what you stop pretending about becomes the truest thing you own. The werewolf in me doesn't need granting permission. It just needs the moon to remind me I'd rather be honest and wild than civilized and empty. So here is what I've been doing with my hand under my jacket all evening, watching the cellar door, waiting for you. Not stroking myself — that would be amateur, impatient. I've been sliding my thumb along the pale inner seam of my forearm, over the scar tissue a rival pack gave me last winter, tracing where a good mark bruises blue. I'm imagining what yours would look like. I want to worship what's pink and unmarked about you and then lay claim to the rest, leave my jaw-print on your shoulder so the whole pack knows exactly who you chose. You met my eyes once, twice, three times over the tasting rail and didn't look away. You're not afraid of the wolf; you're curious about him. Good. Curiosity is the softest form of surrender. I smell the wine on your breath from three paces. I eat the same grapes your glass came from, and I can tell you — sweet in the front, sharp where it bites. You're the same. Sweet enough to walk this close to me. Sharp enough to make me drag my tongue across my teeth. You are the one they warned you about, and you only walk toward danger that flatters you. Come find me before the moon crests that cypress. The cellar doors stay open until I say otherwise. And when I'm inside you, behind you, under you — doesn't matter, I'm a wolf and I'm patient when it counts — the only command I need from you is the one you give with your fingers in my hair: come and use me. That's not a question. That's me handing you my open jaw and saying, take exactly what belongs to you.