This story is inspired by historic events.
1. THE HIDDEN LIFE
It was 1603. Barely five years had passed since Rowan emerged from his studies. In that time he’d worked to suppress the cadence in his speech that still, on occasion, betrayed his Gaelic origins. His new, refined life—leveraged by a few family connections, diplomacy, and the currency of his own beauty—was young and tender.
The advantages of his family had been adequate to open doors in the Church’s sprawling bureaucracy, but not enough to live without occasional, carefully chosen patronage. Trading on his natural gifts of mind and body was a necessity. Maintaining the favor of men like Archbishop Valois, and the discreet assignments that came with it, was essential.
A shaft of dawn’s light crept through his chamber—modest but well appointed—a jewel box where every item spoke of tastes beyond Rowan’s means. Venetian glass caught the morning light on a small shelf. A silver inkwell gleamed beside a single, exquisitely bound volume of Pliny’s Natural History. Against one wall stood a pair of narrow marble slabs, cool and inert—few would guess their purpose.
Beside him, a boy stirred—a messenger or hired hand, he couldn’t recall—from a nearby household. Handsome, lean and supple—not yet worn by menial work—nearly Rowan’s age but without his education.
A soft groan escaped the boy’s sculpted lips as Rowan’s hand traced the bare shoulder. Dark, curling hair tumbled over the pillow, a striking contrast to Rowan’s meticulously tied-back copper strands.
There was a rush to these pairings—an understanding that certain appetites were best indulged in hushed hours as the city slept. But with the new day intruding, Rowan felt a fresh surge of desire.
He leaned in, inhaling the scent of their pairing still on the boy’s skin. His lips found the hollow of the throat, salty with dried sweat. The boy’s eyes fluttered open. “Not yet,” Rowan murmured, pressing a finger to his lips, resting a hand on his hip, kissing his chest, latching onto a nipple.
Rowan shifted, turning the boy on his side, his hardness pressing into the contours of the lad’s body. A palmful of spit, a practiced slide, the first deliberate thrust. The boy gasped, yielding—perhaps tender from the night before—a sound too loud for the hour. Rowan’s hand closed over his mouth, fingers splayed, feeling the heat of the boy’s quick breath, the moan hot against his palm. A spark of domination flared in his chest.
He groaned too, as the rhythm quickened, sensation building until a wave of blinding pleasure washed over him. He drove deep and hard, spilling inside the boy, shuddering with the final, heady release. He turned onto his back, breathless and damp with sweat, the last wisps of pleasure fading into the morning air.
A sharp rap on his chamber door shattered the peace of the moment. Rowan’s body tensed, the afterglow replaced by controlled alarm. The boy’s eyes widened with genuine fear, darting toward the door. Rowan pressed a finger to his lips—an unspoken command—and tilted his chin toward the large velvet-draped wardrobe, just big enough for hasty concealment.
The young man scrambled, disappearing into the shadows of the wardrobe, as Rowan donned a heavy silk dressing gown that masked the lingering flush on his skin.
He felt no shame—only the cold pragmatism of a man who knew these intimacies, if discovered, would cost him everything.
He opened the door to a waiting acolyte, instantly recognizable by the cassock and surplice he wore. “His Eminence requests your presence, Master Rowan, with utmost urgency.”
The summons from the complex world he so carefully navigated pulled him away from the simple warmth and dangerous desires of his private life.
2.THE ARCHBISHOP’S BRIEFING
Rowan moved more quickly than he’d have liked, quietly dismissing the young man and making himself presentable. He did not make a habit of leaving powerful men waiting, and Sens lay most of a day away.
At the grand entrance of the Archbishop’s palatial residence, he was met by a different acolyte—this one older, with a more solemn air—who led him through now-familiar, hushed corridors, past tapestries of saints in ecstatic agony, and into the Archbishop’s antechamber. The cool air there smelled of beeswax and old paper.
Valois sat behind a massive oak desk, his face drawn as if under perpetual sigh. His drooping eyes took in Rowan’s posture. The fair reddish hair was tied back to frame a sharp, angular jaw; Rowan’s gray eyes were cool and calculating. Slightly shorter than some men, he carried himself with a quiet authority that belied his stature, lean strength evident beneath fine fabric and leather.
Rowan was accustomed to such scrutiny from certain men. He understood the unspoken reason behind it, and met the gaze with practiced composure.
“Rowan,” the Archbishop began, his voice a low murmur, “I trust your… private studies do not entirely consume your intellect?” A flicker of something—amusement, or perhaps a subtle caution, Rowan never could tell—passed across his eyes.
Rowan offered a deferential nod. “Never, Your Eminence. My mind remains at your service.”
Valois sighed—a deeper exhalation this time—and pushed a stack of rough parchment across the desk. “Good. I have a matter, quite vexing, that requires precisely your… discreet approach and dispassionate thinking. It comes from La Roche-Chalais, in the Dordogne region, of all places.”
He leaned back, his gaze fixed on some distant, unseen point. “There have been many wolf attacks in the area—infants taken in their sleep, disappearances blamed on wild beasts.”
Rowan’s eyes narrowed.
“A boy, eighteen years of age, named Jean Grenier—filthy, by all accounts, and dressed in some tattered wolfskin—approached two servant girls and ‘coarsely complimented’ them, they say, asking which would marry him. They called him ‘dirty,’ to which he replied, ‘Ah, that is because of the wolf’s-skin I wear.’ Claimed he was a priest’s bastard, too, if you can imagine.”
Rowan raised his brows, feigning shock.
“It gets worse,” Valois continued, letting his eyelids rest. His withered finger traced the air as he spoke. “The boy spun a truly abominable tale. He claimed to be a loup-garou. A werewolf, he told them. The very one who had attacked one of the maids, recently. Later, when questioned by the local magistrates, he claimed that he and his ‘master’—a man named Pierre Labourant—don pelts and, with magical salves, ‘course the woods and fields as wolves.’ He even spoke, quite calmly it seems, of lusting for the flesh of newborns. Said he’d consumed—fifty, was it? Yes. Fifty.”
Rowan felt a prickle of curiosity. Why? Why on earth would a boy volunteer a confession to such monstrous, self-incriminating fantasies? To speak of such horrors, even under the guise of an animal, was to invite a death sentence. True or false, what could motivate a young man to make such an admission?
“The local magistrates, predictably, are in a frenzy,” Valois observed, pulling Rowan from his thoughts. “Every wolf-killed child in years is now laid at this boy’s feet. A trial is set, the villagers are clamoring for blood. But, Rowan, it is 1603. We are in an enlightened age. This… primitive superstition—it is a stain upon the Church, upon reason itself. It must cease. I want you to go to Dordogne.”
He pushed a folded parchment across the desk. “This letter bears my seal. It may open some doors for you, but Dordogne is not my see. Use it sparingly—and discreetly.”
Rowan’s brow furrowed slightly at the weight of the task. “I understand, Your Grace. I will proceed with caution.”
“Find the truth, Rowan. Find the rational explanation for this wretched boy’s confession. Make this werewolf nonsense go away.” He waved a thin hand, fixing Rowan with his milky gaze. “I do not wish to see another pyre lit for a man who is merely mad, or worse, merely… human.”
3. THE JOURNEY TO DORDOGNE
The journey from Paris was a slow drift away from the comforts Rowan had long taken for granted. For the first two days, the road remained well maintained, inns clean and welcoming. But as the days bled into one another, the paved roads gave way to rutted tracks of dirt and mud. Cultivated fields yielded to wild forests, thick with shadow.
The small towns they passed through grew grim—houses of rough stone, residents with weathered faces wary of strangers. A constant, damp chill clung to the air like a warning.
Each jolt of the rattling post-chaise reminded Rowan just how far he was from the ordered world of Paris. He missed the city’s measured pace, the opportunities for fleeting pleasures, the hum of life beyond his window.
He caught his reflection in the carriage glass—full lips, unblemished skin, a sharp jaw, a cloak perhaps too refined for the untamed lands looming ahead. His gray eyes drifted to the rider beside the lead horse: the postilion. Broad-shouldered, sun-browned, reins steady in strong hands. Turning, the man’s gaze briefly met Rowan’s through the glass—a flicker of recognition, perhaps—the subtle, charged language beyond words that passed between certain men.
Rowan’s lips curved in a faint, knowing smile. The postilion’s eyes narrowed just a fraction before he turned, urging the horses onward. Rowan felt that peculiar thrill of possibility mingled with danger—the risk that accompanied every such encounter. One had to be an expert in reading the signs.
His vision blurred, and his thoughts drifted back to his own travels years before—leaving his father’s home behind for the Irish College in Paris, a place he’d never return from. There, he found a new life, some measure of anonymity, and the patronage of powerful men. And work, after a fashion—assignments such as this.
He resolved to treat the mission as a scholarly expedition. The grotesque details of Jean Grenier’s confession—the cannibalism, the magical salve, the transformations—were little more than bizarre curiosities, distractions in a case as strange as any he’d faced.
He knew enough natural philosophy to dismiss werewolves as peasant superstition, relics of a darker age. These people wanted monsters to blame for the mundane horrors that plagued their lives. Ignorance, poverty, fear—these were the true wolves.
Still, confess to the wrong thing, and the world will burn you. He understood that intimately.
He would need to peel back the layers of delusion to expose the simple human frailty beneath. Comforted by his own sense of reason, he settled back as the coach pushed deeper into the wild heart of Dordogne.
4. THE INTERVIEW WITH JEAN GRENIER
The Archbishop’s seal opened doors—Father Martin, local officials, even the jail itself. Rowan followed the magistrate down a dim passage to a bolted wooden door that groaned as it swung open. The cell was nothing but a stone box—cold, damp, smelling of sour straw, urine, and unwashed bodies.
Rowan wore his best deerskin jerkin, the fit flattering his build, the silver-braided cloak catching the eye. The stiletto at his belt—Florentine, polished—spoke to his station, though its blade was sharp enough for real defense. All those signals of status, he could see at once, were lost on the boy.
Jean Grenier crouched on a pallet, filthy and wild-eyed, his dark hair matted and tangled. Rowan lowered himself onto a splintered stool, careful not to breathe too deeply. The boy watched him from the corner of one eye.
Rowan pulled a piece of dried meat and a hard biscuit from a leather pouch, setting them on the floor at arm’s length—as one might to entice an animal to trust. Jean sniffed, quick and feral, then snatched the food and tore into it, oblivious to his visitor for a few frantic moments.
Rowan studied him, pity and revulsion tangled with curiosity. The boy’s body was compact, wiry, with the rawness of youth. Beneath the grime, there was a rough handsomeness, if one had the eyes to see it. Not the clawed and fanged oddity the accounts described. He must have been a fine looking lad once—before all this.
“Jean Grenier,” Rowan began, voice calm but firm, asserting authority without intimidation. “My name is Rowan. I have been sent by the Archbishop of Sens and Paris to understand what has happened here.”
Jean nodded, lips twitching and eyes flickering to life.
Rowan recounted the accusations—the story Jean had told the magistrates. “They say you approached two young women. When they called you dirty, you said it was because of the wolf’s skin you wore. That you called yourself a priest’s bastard.”
Jean leaned forward, launching into his tale before Rowan could ask more. “Yes! It was given to me as a boy, when our neighbor took me deep into the woods and introduced me to… to the Lord of the Forest, who signed me with his nail and gave me a wolf skin. My master, Pierre Labourant, keeps it for me. He wraps it around me, and one about him, with a… special salve…” He choked on the word. “At dusk, we become wolves.” The words tumbled out, precise and practiced.
“Only the two of you?” Rowan asked. “The priest says your confession first spoke of your father.”
Jean blinked, then shook his head rapidly. “No, no—just me and Master Pierre. Only us.” He said it with conviction, then hesitated, as if rereading a script.
“And what do you do as wolves?” Rowan pressed.
“We do things men may not do,” Jean answered.
Unprompted, the story grew darker—hunting by moonlight, lusting for the flesh of small children—“tender, plump, and rare”—killing dogs and lapping their hot blood. He described, with chilling detachment, biting “great collops of fat, luscious brawn” from the thighs of young boys. At one point, he stopped to rephrase a term, backtracking, correcting himself.
Rowan leaned back, letting the boy talk. The self-corrections, the strict adherence to his rehearsed lines, and the words themselves—far beyond his years—reminded Rowan of amateur performances at the Hôtel de Bourgogne. This was no interview; it was theater. The boy recited a script given to him, a story the wolf-fearing locals were all too willing to hear.
It was clear Rowan would learn no new truths by asking the same questions.
He let Jean finish, then leaned forward, catching the boy’s eyes.
“Jean,” he said softly, encouraging. “Tell me how it felt. When you did those things men may not do. How did you feel?”
The performance stopped at once. Jean’s eyes dropped and he twisted his hands. The energy vanished from his voice. “I… I do not know,” he stammered. “I was a wolf then. Not in my right mind. Not a man, with a man’s feelings.”
A sudden wave of pity washed over Rowan, momentarily overtaking his revulsion. Despite the filth and horror, Jean was just a boy caught in a trap, even if partly of his own making. Rowan pulled out the last piece of dried meat, holding it out as a gesture of comfort.
Jean burst forward, not just taking the meat but grabbing Rowan’s hand with both of his own, gripping tight. He pressed his grubby face against Rowan’s hand. “Thank you,” he mumbled, the intimacy uncomfortable. “Thank you, master.”
Stepping outside, Rowan drew a long breath. The cell’s filth lifted slightly, but the weight in his chest remained. Closing his eyes, he let fresh air fill his lungs, wondering if the prison’s stench would ever leave his cloak.
His thoughts turned to the boy. The puzzle had only deepened, twisting into something darker than superstition. Jean’s story was a lie—of that Rowan was sure. A comforting lie for simple folk who had lost children to real wolves—and for reasons Rowan couldn’t fathom, for Grenier himself.
But why this particular lie? What truth was so terrible that this wretched boy would rather condemn himself with such monstrous fiction?
Whatever the answer, it would not be found here. Rowan squared his shoulders and turned from the jail. His next destination was clear in his mind, even if the road ahead was anything but.
5. THE INTERVIEW WITH LABOURANT
Rowan arrived at Pierre Labourant’s small farm the following afternoon—a hardscrabble plot of land where a bare living was wrung from the earth through endless toil. His fine boots sank slightly with every step, the earthy scent tinged with sulfur rising from the limestone beneath. A stark contrast to the perfumed air of Paris, no matter what odors it tried to mask.
Labourant was there, sleeves rolled, forearms corded with muscle as he drove a fence post deep into the wet Dordogne clay. He straightened slowly at Rowan’s approach, broad shoulders spreading, weight shifting on sturdy hips and thighs built for breeding sons into farmwives—a form chiseled by labor, a rougher but no less impressive sculptor than the great masters of Florence.
Closer, Rowan saw how the sun caught the sheen of sweat on the farmer’s tanned skin. The man looked to be around forty, weathered by sun and wind, ruggedly handsome, framed by a strong jaw and a brow that swept low, topped by short, roughly sheared brown hair.
Rowan’s gaze traced the contours of Labourant’s body—the thick neck, muscles flexing beneath damp linen, mud clinging to the fine hair on his forearms and collarbone. Calloused hands gripped the post with steady authority. His eyes squinted as they met Rowan’s approach.
Labourant said nothing at first, wiping his brow on his forearm, his movements coiled with natural power. A tightening gripped Rowan’s chest and his breeches—an uneasy stir at the raw maleness of Labourant, a man unlike any he’d met before.
“Master Rowan,” the man said at last, voice low and rough like gravel under worn boots. Of course he knew who Rowan was, and why he had come—news traveled faster than carriages in the countryside.
“Master Labourant,” Rowan replied, measured and careful. His deerskin and fine woolen clothes, his velvet cloak, now felt soft and garish beside a man who lived by the labor of his body. Authority here was muscle, not silk. “I have come to inquire about Jean Grenier. The boy mentioned you and—”
Labourant’s mouth curved briefly in a modest smile. His gaze flicked to Rowan’s lips, then drifted lower, assessing, before returning to meet his eyes. “Did he now?”
Heat rose to Rowan’s cheeks, though not from the weak sunlight. “He claims you gave him a wolf pelt. That you and he applied a salve, wrapped in pelts, and became wolves together.” His voice was thinner than intended.
The farmer chuckled softly. “A wolf pelt? The boy’s imagination runs wild. Maybe he found a scrap of fur. He’s a foolish lad. I told the magistrate as much.”
“He said you wear an iron chain about your neck, which you are always gnawing,” Rowan pressed, struggling to maintain control. “That you live in a place of gloom and fire, and taught him such things—”
Labourant shook his head, then pulled open his loose tunic to reveal his chest. The sight stole Rowan’s breath—the spread of muscle, the fine down of hair, faint scars telling of a hard life. “Do you see an iron chain, master? And this… a place of gloom and fire?” He gestured toward the simple farmhouse.
“The lad says he fled his father and was taken in by you,” Rowan went on, fighting the urge to linger on Labourant’s exposed flesh. “That he was marked by a black man, the Lord of the Forest—”
“You’re far from home, master,” Labourant interrupted, dark eyes unreadable. “Where are you from?”
“Paris,” Rowan answered.
The farmer nodded slightly. “No. That’s not it.” He raised a finger to his ear, indicating the sound of Rowan’s speech, then dropped it. His eyes ran over Rowan, again. “The countryside has its own ways, Master Rowan. Ways the city folk cannot understand.” He paused. “Maybe the boy misspoke.”
Rowan forced his gaze away from the cleft of Labourant’s chest, the thick tendons of his neck, the curve of his jaw. “Why would he confess to such things?” His voice dropped, betraying more than he intended.
Labourant rested on the post, meeting Rowan’s eyes. “Sometimes boys tell stories they think others want to hear. Sometimes they tell stories they wish were true.” His voice lowered, intimate. “And sometimes,” he added, “they confess things that are true, but not in the way they seem. We should be cautious making dangerous charges, don’t you think?”
Rowan’s pulse hammered, his boots sinking slightly in the mud. “I only seek the truth.”
Labourant nodded slowly, taking a half step back, standing taller still. “The truth? Boys tell wild tales. You understand how boys can be, Master Rowan.”
For a moment, Rowan felt that gaze pierce past scholar and courtier, right through to parts he kept hidden. The line between hunter and prey blurred, and Rowan was uncertain which role he played.
Labourant turned back to his work, dismissing Rowan without a word.
Rowan hesitated, then turned to leave. But the weight of unanswered questions pulled him deeper into the farmstead. His steps slowed, drawn toward a low, rickety pigsty tucked in a shadowed corner of the yard.
As he approached, the air thickened with acrid manure and something fouler still. His eyes caught scattered bones near the entrance—gnawed and weathered. His hand brushed the hilt of his dagger, a steadying touch amid the swirling uncertainty.
He crouched among the snorting pigs, brushing dirt from the fragments. Not human, he was certain. His fingers traced the ground, catching on tiny tufts of coarse hair—dark, wiry—possibly remnants of a wolf’s pelt… as the stench near the earth overwhelmed him. A sudden wave of nausea hit. Bending forward, he dry heaved into the mud.
A heavy hand landed on his shoulder, feet at his side—Rowan jerked back, heart pounding, eyes wide, gasping for his stiletto.
“Master Rowan,” the rough voice murmured, “you’ll find no secrets in the filth of pigs.”
He looked up to find Labourant standing over him—towering, solid. Like a predator, relishing the moment of control.
For a breath, the farmer said nothing but held Rowan’s gaze, the unspoken warning clear.
Then, with a slow nod, Labourant stepped back, the moment broken.
6. THE DEEPER INQUIRY
The visit with Pierre Labourant weighed on Rowan’s mind as he returned to the village.
He sought out Father Martin, finding the priest hunched over a worn breviary in the small, damp church. “Father,” he began, voice firm, “I need to examine the evidence taken from the boy. The wolfskin he mentioned.”
After a pause, the priest led him to the sacristy and unlocked a small chest. Inside, among a few mundane items, lay a ragged piece of wolf pelt. It was no grand cloak, just a small, grim fragment stained with a greasy residue that caught the dim light with a sinister gleam.
The scrap seemed less an instrument of power than a discarded lie, barely holding its shape. Rowan traced the coarse fur with his fingers, noting the dark, sticky substance.
He recalled Jean’s whispered tale of the magical salve rubbed into the pelt—the key to transformation. The scent was repellent—like rancid bacon—a far cry from anything magical. His thoughts drifted back to Labourant’s farm. The sulfur earth, the stench of manure.
“Was Labourant’s farm searched?” Rowan asked quietly. “For salves, bones… anything unusual?”
Father Martin hesitated, then nodded. “The magistrate’s men looked, but found nothing. No sign of forbidden potions or remains.”
Rowan’s voice hardened. “And Labourant? Why was he not detained for questioning or held in custody?”
The priest shifted, startled. “Labourant? He was questioned, yes, by the magistrate. But he knew nothing of the matter.” His hands wrung nervously. “He has no stain on his name—no record of grievous sin or madness. A simple man of the land, always present at Mass, never a whisper of trouble.”
“And the boy’s father? What is known?”
Father Martin’s fingers traced the worn edges of his breviary. “A widower. He lived alone with the boy for a time…”
“When Jean claims they ran as wolves together—but then recanted?”
“Jean Grenier was turned out of his father’s home when his stepmother found the boy… odd. The father and new wife deny any knowledge of wolves or strange happenings—only that the lad was peculiar. A relief when he left. He passed through several masters before Labourant took him in.”
Rowan’s mind turned over the image of a runaway boy searching for footing in a harsh world. The priest’s words echoed in his ears—“no stain on his name… never a whisper of trouble.” He knew the rules of deception—how learned gentlemen cloaked monstrous appetites behind impeccable respectability.
The burden of Archbishop Valois’s assignment pressed down heavier than before. Rowan longed for the ordered safety of his chambers, the narrow streets of Le Marais, far from these tangled lives.
That night, sleep came fitfully. Labourant’s powerful form moved through the half-light of fields, his skin rough and ruddy. The soil beneath his feet seemed to pulse, and hair shone, clinging to his muscled chest and back.
Beside him, a figure stirred—Jean Grenier, Rowan assumed—until the features sharpened into Rowan’s own—the pale skin, the full lips—staring back at him.
He awoke with a choke, sweat beading on his skin, his cock heavy and hard beneath the coarse sheets. A cold certainty settled within him: the answers lay not in dusty tomes of demonology or wolf pelts, but in the twisted recesses of the human heart.
At dawn, he dressed quickly and returned to the priest, voice firm with new resolve. “Father, I intend to return to Master Labourant’s farm for a more thorough inquiry.”
There was nothing incriminating in what the man said, but Rowan knew better than most how to read the unspoken cues men conveyed—the glance that lingered, the shift in posture, the subtle inflections. He’d learned to observe these signals with a precision others lacked. For one such as Rowan, to misread a man’s nature could be dangerous, even deadly.
He held the priest’s gaze a moment longer than necessary. He wished to ensure there was a witness to his intent.
7. THE CONFRONTATION
The farm lay quiet beneath a grim morning sky when Rowan dismounted, loosely tying the reins to a weathered fence post. The countryside stretched around him—harsh, untamed, indifferent.
The farmer’s cottage itself was little more than mud and rough-hewn timber, nestled in a hollow where the air hung heavy with woodsmoke, damp earth, and animal dung. A scrawny dog barked once, then slunk away.
Pierre Labourant emerged from the low doorway, sleeves rolled back, tunic open at the neck. “Master Rowan.” No greeting, no welcome—just that steady, unyielding presence. A complete man, utterly absent the deferential flicker Rowan was used to—seeking neither approval nor favor.
“Master Labourant,” Rowan replied, voice stripped of pretense. “We both know why I’m here. The boy, Jean Grenier, made confessions—vulgar and self-damning. I don’t know why, but I believe you are the source of his monstrous tale.”
Labourant’s mouth curved into something like a smile, flashes of uneven teeth catching the light. “You seem quite taken with the boy’s tales.” He wiped his hands on his breeches and looked Rowan over, assessing, then turned into the small house.
Rowan followed, wary but determined. Inside, the room was spartan. A rough-hewn table and stools, a hearth, a corner strewn with straw—presumably where he slept. Rowan longed for the ordered safety of his own chamber.
Labourant gestured to a stool, and Rowan sat, immediately regretting the concession—lowering himself further before the man who already towered over him.
“The boy,” Rowan tried again, striving to regain control as Labourant paced with a muscular stride, circling him, “claims you taught him to put on wolf skins and commit unspeakable acts. But he is no werewolf. Why invent such self-damning lies?”
Labourant stopped just behind him. His voice was low, rough as gravel. “Perhaps for the same reason people believe such tales at all. Why clutch at werewolves and devils rather than face the uncaring cruelty of nature?”
“Fear… needs a face,” Rowan whispered, looking down at his clenched fists. “It’s easier to blame a monster than reckon with the darkness in our own hearts, or the cruel indifference of life. The devil is a villain you can name…”
“But the sins of men—those are harder to bear,” Labourant finished.
Rowan shifted uncomfortably, the weight of those words settling like a stone.
“Oh, we put on the pelts, Master Rowan,” Labourant whispered, voice laced with dangerous thrill. Turning to the hearth, he opened a pot of cold, hardened kitchen grease. Dipping his fingers, he held it up, letting it drip. “And a magical salve.”
He wiped the grease onto a rag, forearms flexing, jaw muscles working. Smearing the remnants across the front of his breeches, where his cock rested, he said, “And we’d lose control. Do wild, sinful things no Christian man can do. Things men burn for, if they’re caught. But wolves…”
The farmer approached from behind, bending low, hands planted on the table beside Rowan—close enough that his breath brushed the sensitive skin at the nape of Rowan’s neck. His rough tunic rubbed against Rowan’s cloak, sending a jolt through him.
“Wolves mark their place in the pack. They mount one another, fierce and raw. Not cruelty, but nature’s own law.” His voice against Rowan’s ear carried a strange, almost fond pride. Rowan tensed, muscles tightening involuntarily under the farmer’s nearness. “That story—the wolf pelts—was mine. Jean’s favorite.”
Rowan’s throat tightened. Eyes closed. “He tells that story to make sense of… what happened. His father… you…”
Labourant’s face was beside his—a smile deepening, dark and tender simultaneously. “And others before me.” His voice softened. “I did nothing the boy didn’t wish. But the pelt… the pelt was a cloak I gave him. A skin to wear in a world that would tear him apart. Sometimes, the wild way is kinder than man’s.”
Rowan was silent. The unspeakable truth was no longer myth but sordid reality. The only wolves here weren’t creatures of folklore, but the men who used the boy—with or against his will—giving him a dark legend to make it tolerable.
“A wolf does what a wolf will,” Rowan muttered. “Knows no sin. Sometimes you give someone a story so they can survive.”
His mind flickered to his own whispered excuses offered to boys after urgent, fleeting couplings—too much wine, cold beds, exhaustion. Whatever story was needed for those without his strength to face the world as it is?
Labourant’s gaze lingered on Rowan, reading him, seeing him. “You understand.”
Rowan swallowed hard, something aching in his chest. “The world is not kind to those who are different.”
Labourant nodded once and stood, the understanding passing between them—ancient, dangerous, needing no words.
Rowan’s breath caught, heart pounding. He turned, meeting the farmer’s dark, glittering eyes. “You made your denials. Why admit these things to me now?”
Labourant reached out, calloused thumb brushing the rich fabric of Rowan’s sleeve, then his velvet cloak, streaking it with a trace of kitchen grease.
“This fine… velvet, is it? The soft wool,” he murmured, voice a low growl, “it’s a skin in its own way, isn’t it? Sometimes the skin we put on reveals, sometimes it hides… what’s truly underneath.”
Rowan opened his mouth to protest—a desperate, scholarly objection. “It’s not the same,” he croaked.
“No?” Labourant’s gaze never wavered. Lips curled into a feral smile. “Why do I admit these things to you so freely? Because,” he whispered, finger tracing Rowan’s sharp jawline, “I see a wolf in you.”
8. THE ACT
The words struck Rowan not as insult but recognition—an unavoidable truth. He’d spent his life building walls of refinement, artifice, secrecy around his own desires. Now, under Labourant’s steady gaze, those walls crumbled, leaving only the wolf Rowan had carefully caged.
Labourant’s rough, calloused hand clamped the back of Rowan’s neck. He pulled him in—not tenderly, but with the surety of a man who never needed to ask. Labourant pressed his mouth against Rowan’s—a harsh kiss, all teeth and want, wet and hungry, nothing like the games of Paris. Rowan’s hands, trained for script and subtlety, scrabbled at Labourant’s shoulders, searching for something solid in the blur of sensation.
Whatever the boy had known, Rowan felt a sudden, sharp pang to know himself. That was the answer he’d come looking for, was it not? The raw, bared truth.
The farmer’s hands tore at his cloak, yanking it aside. Fingers fumbled at the buttons of Rowan’s doublet, snapping one free with a sharp pop before ripping it open with brutal efficiency, buttons tearing away to expose the finely laced tunic beneath. Even as Labourant’s hands tore at his clothes, Rowan’s fingers reached for his stiletto’s smooth handle, then let go, a last thread of control slipping through his fingers.
Labourant yanked the breeches and leggings down in one swift motion, pushing the tunic up. Rowan’s bare skin met the chill air, muscles taut and exposed. Labourant’s hand roved across his flat belly and chest, as if testing the truth of what he’d guessed.
“This is not the body of a scholar,” Labourant rumbled, dark eyes narrowed. His fingers trailed Rowan’s lean torso. “You work on this. Proving you’re more than paper and ink.”
Rowan tensed, pride sparking beneath the humiliation of being revealed. Yes—he’d forged his body in secret, lifting marble slabs in his chamber, sculpting flesh beneath silk and wool. In Paris, it bought him glances, favor—a currency of its own. Here, it was simply there to be taken.
A harsh shove sent Rowan to the dirt floor of the farmhouse, the cold earth gritty beneath his knees. Labourant shed his own coarse leggings, thick cock slapping hard in his hand. Without hesitation, Rowan’s mouth opened, tongue tracing the thick vein beneath the stiffening cock, tasting sweat. His lips closed around the head, sucking as it slid in, the head pushing against Rowan’s throat. His hands clutched the strong thighs as it rammed into him.
Labourant’s breath caught, fingers threading into Rowan’s hair, holding tight as the scholar’s wet mouth worked him with raw devotion, taking his cock into his throat—gagging and choking, but holding on, as the farmer pumped into him, murmuring satisfaction.
When Labourant’s hips jerked back, Rowan broke away, breath ragged. A thick stream of spit ran from his wet lips to the thick erection before him. He moved to take it again, but the farmer grabbed at his shoulders, pushing him, bending him forward until his hands hit the ground, putting him on all fours. His shirt bunched at his shoulders, breeches and leggings tangled at his knees. Enough to bind, enough to leave him half-dressed, half-defenseless, exposed.
The farmer opened the crock of kitchen grease and scooped some into his broad hand. He smeared the cool stuff between Rowan’s cheeks, thick fingers prying him open. The pain was sharp—a burn that made him gasp, bite his lip, tense. There was nowhere for his mind to go but here—no city, no sanctuary—just the ache and stretch, the fact of being forced open by another man’s will.
“Will you call for help?” Labourant asked, voice almost gentle.
Near trembling, Rowan managed only a small shake of his head—no—and raised his haunches.
Then the weight of Labourant pressed down on him, thighs tight against thighs, hips locked. With a hard thrust, the man drove in, filling him. Rowan groaned, his body arching, caught up in the animal instinct to flee the invasion—but Labourant’s hands anchored him, pinning him down as he withdrew partially and shoved in again, and then again—rough and raw, nothing like the careful couplings Rowan had known—just a man taking what he wanted without apology.
Each thrust drove Rowan forward, finally dropping to his elbows, haunches raised. The pain ebbed, replaced by a sense of fullness and a dark relief he’d never known before. His hand drifted to his own cock, leaking clear fluid shoved out by the brutal strikes in his gut.
Labourant’s hands roamed Rowan’s back and sides, never slowing his rhythm, reaching under to clutch at his chest, digging in, fingers bruising muscle. “Not the body of a scholar,” he murmured again, almost admiring.
There was no need for comforting stories between them. Only this.
Labourant thrust harder. Rowan’s breath caught, clawing at the floor, falling to his shoulders. As the pounding deepened, he felt his body driven beyond what he’d known before, breathing labored. His hand worked his own cock, vaguely meeting the pace of the slams filling him.
The farmer’s hands crushed Rowan’s hips, holding him tight as his own body tensed, veins bulging with effort. Then, without warning, he dropped his full weight onto Rowan’s back, arms wrapping around him, fingers digging in, grasping hard as grunts tore from deep in his chest. The cramped room echoed with the fierce sound of their coupling.
Rowan gasped beneath the crushing weight, breath catching as the pace doubled, hips driving relentlessly, pressing him into the gritty floor. Then, with a final, punishing thrust, Labourant’s knot swelled inside Rowan, locking them together in fierce, unbreakable connection.
Rowan’s world narrowed to sensation: the farmer’s heat spilling into his gut, the pulse of blood in his ears—and the frantic beat of his own hand, stroking in frantic time with the farmer’s last, bruising slams. His body arched, and his own seed surged out over his fingers, hot and wet on the dust, driven out of him.
His breath stuttered, eyes wild and unfocused, lost in surrender. Labourant rested on him, heavy and unyielding, grinding out the last shudders of release. For a while, there was only breathing, uneven, the sharp smell of sweat and sex. Rowan’s cheek pressed to the dirt, heartbeat thudding in his ears.
When Labourant finally pulled free, he rose up to his feet. He stood over Rowan, chest heaving, breath thick and heavy. His cock dripped, smeared with Rowan’s own mess—dark, stark, undeniable. He made no move to clean it.
There was no hint of shame or regret in his gaze as his eyes raked over Rowan, only a faint sneer on his lips—part contempt, part challenge. “Go tell your Archbishop what you found, Master Rowan. Tell him there are no werewolves. Tell him what you saw. What you felt. But I warn you—the world has little love for men who hunt alone in the darkness. What is the penalty for sodomy, Master Rowan?”
There was no need to answer. They both understood.
“Go,” he growled, voice low and rough. “Run back to your careful life.”
Rowan lay on the dirt floor, sweat cooling on his skin, the secret he now knew curdled deep inside.
9. THE REPORT
Rowan found his horse where he’d left it, the reins loosely tied to a fence post. The ride back began with a dull ache in his gut, soon twisting sharply—a violent spasm forcing him to dismount hastily. He barely made it to a roadside ditch before his body betrayed him, a hot, humiliating release of his own feces mixed with the raw ache Labourant left inside.
The journey back to the inn blurred into weak limbs and ragged breaths. His fine clothes, once symbols of order and rank, hung torn and stained. The innkeeper’s wary glances barely registered; Rowan’s senses had narrowed to a grinding knot of shame and exhaustion.
In his chamber, he shed the ruined garments, letting them fall in a heap. Bruises bloomed beneath his skin—silent witnesses to the night’s violation. Yet beneath the pain stirred something else: the echo of Labourant’s musk on his skin, the memory of pleasure tangled with humiliation.
He barely made it to the chamber pot before another wrenching spasm seized him, the ache inside twisting with merciless grip. He knelt, gasping—just a beast, undone.
When he steadied himself, Rowan moved to the small writing desk. His hands trembled faintly as he uncapped the inkwell. The quill felt foreign in his grasp, a relic of a world that now seemed distant. He dipped it into black ink and began to write, his words cold and precise—
To His Eminence, Archbishop Valois,
I submit this report regarding the inquiry into the peculiar circumstances of Jean Grenier, as commanded. My investigations have been exhaustive, including interviews with the accused, clergy, witnesses, and examination of physical evidence.
Despite all reasoned inquiry, I find myself at an impasse. The boy’s testimony, while detailed and disturbing, resists explanation by any known human motive or manipulation.
Therefore, with the greatest reluctance, I must conclude this matter lies beyond the reach of natural philosophy or secular judgment. The evidence, anomalous though it is, aligns most closely with the conclusions of the local magistrate—loup-garou, or werewolfism.
Though such a conclusion pains me in this age of enlightenment, I find no alternative to reconcile the accounts and observations.
I confess my inability to penetrate this particular darkness with the lamp of reason, and therefore, must commend the case back to Your Eminence for such spiritual or judicial determination as you deem fit.
With profound respect and continued fealty,
Rowan.
The quill scratched sharply as he signed. The letter—folded and sealed—was both a tombstone over the truth and a shield against his own damnation. He condemned Jean, but saved himself.
10. THE RETURN
The journey back to Paris was a haze of rutted roads and coarse inn fare. Rowan watched the countryside slip away, shedding a foul skin with every league.
At the first chance, he replaced his ruined clothes with fresh finery, discarding the remnants of his ordeal, stuffing them in the fire. By the time the city spires pierced the horizon, he was Master Rowan again—impeccably dressed, composed.
The post-chaise bumped onto the cobblestones of Rowan’s street. The familiar noise of the Marais district enveloped him once more. The postilion swung down from his horse, reins slack in one hand. His sunburned cheeks were roughened by wind and long hours on the road. Thick lashes framed dark eyes steady and unreadable beneath a furrowed brow. His jaw was strong, dusted with stubble, and a sturdy leather belt cinched his worn riding coat, practical and well-used.
Their eyes met, sharp and assessing. Rowan searched the postilion’s gaze, reading what untamed heart might beat beneath the steady exterior. He offered a faint, deliberate smile. “A long journey, my good man.”
Rowan’s heart hammered as he stepped closer, voice dropping low. “Perhaps you would care for a respite. My rooms are comfortable, and the wine excellent.”
Time held its breath between them. The postilion’s gaze flicked to Rowan’s lips, then lower, then back to his eyes. His lips twitched, a flicker of deeper understanding. Then he nodded. No words were spoken, but the promise in the silent exchange was clear.
Rowan stepped away, and the city’s noise roared back. He was home.
His chamber awaited as he left it—a jewel box of order and refinement. The matter with Valois would require careful smoothing. The Archbishop would not welcome Rowan’s report, but the wolf he sought was no longer mere superstition, but a secret to be carefully contained.
Within the hour came a knock—lower, more insistent than the acolyte’s. Rowan opened to the postilion, allowing him inside. The door closed behind him. Without a word, Rowan reached to unbuckle the man’s belt.
The boy, Jean Grenier, was tried and sentenced to death. On review, the Parlement de Bordeaux, seeking an enlightened yet firm resolution, spared him the gallows, owing to his youth and ignorance. Instead, they ordered his strict confinement to the friary of Saint Michael the Archangel. There, the friars noted he often fell to all fours, moved with unusual agility, spoke longingly of wolves, and rejected plain fare for offal—held in thrall to his self-condemning delusion.
Pierre Labourant was questioned by local authorities but maintained his innocence, claiming no knowledge beyond the boy’s ravings. With no prior stain and no evidence beyond Jean Grenier’s wild testimony, Labourant was released, free to return to his farm and his wild, unburdened existence.
END
Author’s note:
The case of Jean Grenier is historic. A poor runaway who had several masters after fleeing his father’s home, he voluntarily confessed that he transformed into a wolf using a wolf pelt with Pierre Labourant. After his death sentence was commuted, he was confined for the remainder of his life—another seven years. He claimed to have twice been approached by the Lord of the Forest while under the care of the friars, but successfully fended him off. Pierre Labourant was questioned but not charged.
The Irish College in Paris was the first of its kind in France, established in 1578 following the suppression of monastic schools in Ireland.
Jean Grenier’s age has been adjusted for the purpose of this story.
Both Master Rowan and Archbishop Valois are inventions of the author.
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