Page 15 of The Wolf Professor

After Mary scurried away and they were left alone in the room, Max said, “Please feel free to browse, Charlie. I know it’s a real treat getting to handle these books. I’m going to spend most of my time with the gargoyle volume, I want to get a better idea of how they carried enough Malibar stone to build the old city in a matter of days.”

Charlie walked around and looked at each volume, turning the pages, and when she finally got to the one on wolves, she glanced over at Max, who was deeply engrossed on the other side of the room.

Very tentatively, she opened the book. What would she learn about wolves? Their anatomy? Their mating rituals? She got an illicit little thrill as she turned the pages, until she reached the section on werewolf anatomy.

Her eyes widened as she surveyed the illustration before her, a beautifully drawn naked male figure, its legs and arms spread-eagled within a circle. She’d seen a classical drawing of thehuman form done similarly somewhere. And to all intents and purposes, this form was human… except for its… sexual organs.

Charlie’s hand crept to her lips. Oh goddess. The penis of a werewolf was huge, dangling halfway down those powerful thighs. And close to the thatch of dark hair at the apex of the thighs was a thick meaty swelling.

She’d heard about wolf knots—who hadn’t?

But she’d neveractually seen a picture.

Another drawing on the opposite page showed a profile of the erect penis, the knot swollen at the base, just above the werewolf’s ample ball sac.

She kept turning pages, finding more illustrations—early etchings, she guessed, by the look of them, naive and medieval in style, showing shaggy wolfen creatures with huge paws and claws chasing human women. It was hard to tell if the women were fearful or excited. Their eyes and mouths gaped wide as the wolf bore down on them, fangs bared.

One particular etching held her gaze; of a limp woman held in the embrace of a huge wolf man, her eyes rolling back as if in ecstasy, or terror, the wolf’s huge muzzle at the base of her neck, its teeth about to sink into her skin.

On the opposite page, Charlie read:

During the rut, the wolf and man merge. In the act of mating, the female is chased o’er woodland paths and across rugged hills, her wild emotions of joy and fear intensifying her sexual pleasure, thus making conception more likely after the rut.

At such times, a mate-bite at the base of the neck will bond the female to her wolf for life.

Charlie had already taken off her coat, but now she had to undo the top two buttons of her blouse as well. Those images were grafted onto the back of her eyeballs, and nothing would dislodge them.

She stood squeezing her thighs together to stop the flood of sensations. This was not the time or place to get turned on by old drawings of rutting. She glanced around to see Max still engrossed in his reading on the other side of the room.

Quickly she turned the page, to a list of medications for werewolf ailments.

All kinds of tinctures were listed. Rosemary for treating memory glitches after shifting. Witch hazel and wolfbane for stemming bleeding. According to the text, werewolves bled more easily when they shifted back to human form. This lotion would quickly avert a hemorrhage after an injury.

She was so immersed, she didn’t realize Max was behind her until he spoke.

“Ah,” he said, “you’re looking at the Wolfen Almanac.”

Quickly—well, not too quickly, because she had to be very respectful of these old texts—Charlie shut the book. “Since I’m working for a wolf, I thought it would be useful to understand them,” she said lightly. “Will you be needing to look at this volume today?”

He shook his head. “Not now. We’ve almost run out of time.”

“Has an hour passed already?” Charlie said, surprised.

He gave a rueful smile. “Clearly you and I both go into a time warp when in the company of books.

Charlie smiled back. If he’d known what she’d been engrossed in, she’d die of embarrassment

Luckily, she didn’t have to elaborate as Mary bustled in. “I must put the Almanacs away now, I’m afraid, it’s not good for them to be out in the air for too long. We had one volume that was written in magical ink that disappeared completely after viewing. Only Waldo was able to reinstate the words.”

“Which one was that?” Charlie asked, curious.

“The volume on Elementals.”

Max shook his head, laughing. “Should have guessed.”

“Some folks think working in a library must be boring.” Mary beamed as she locked the volumes behind glass. “But in Motham Library, there really is never a dull moment.”

As they walked out, Charlie had to hide her smile.

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