#wolf (cod oc)

[yeyinde]

PRAIRIE WOLF | hinterland

John Price x Reader

MASTERLIST. AO3. [PREV]

“So,” he drawls, eyes skirting down the length of your body before coming to a pointed stop on your midsection, belly hidden under a thick cable-knit sweater he gave to you to wear. “What's the plan?” 

It takes you a minute to realise he's talking about the baby.

allusions to abuse. descriptions of injury. trauma.

The sound of rain pelting against glass rouses you from a threadlike sleep, one full of loose, spooling dreams and fractured memories. 

(dirty, blood-drenched snow. a hole in your belly. the acrid burn of heated, melting metal in your nose. a grunt—

come on, Coyote, hold still—)

It hums there, even with your eyes open. Even as you blink into existence. Sitting on the edge; little clots, microcosms you can reach out and pop like bubbles. Hypnopompia. A strange place where dream and reality blur—surrealism in fatigue blue. Ghosts pulled into consciousness. 

It's dark in the truck when you blink again, sluggishly mapping the features that stretch out before you, all shaded in black. 

Through the windshield is a world of dark green. Thick, dense clouds gather above the angular tops of conifers and giant evergreens. Thunderclouds rumble overhead, groaning with the heavy rainfall that pours down over everything in a howling baptism. 

Only the orange of the truck cuts colour through the thick deluge of blue-green and slate. Warmed by the heat of the engine. The cable-knit throw covers the red leather seats. It's as close to comfortable as you think you've ever been. Swaddled in a Levi's jacket tucked under your bare feet resting on the bench of the truck, hanging loosely over your shoulders. It smells of smoke—thick and dense, but sweeter, earthier than nicotine. Scorched pine and soot. Bonfires. Laced with sweat and oil and dirt—humus. Like the soil after a rain shower. A summer storm. 

It smells good. You sink into it a little more—into this cosm that you know won't last. A blanket of succour, soft wool that tickles your nose and warms your cold hands. Chases away the tendrils of a grasping dream reaching for the edges of your periphery—all claws and teeth and misshapen memories. 

Fractured bones. Burst blood vessels. A knot your belly—

The radio crackles as the truck drives down the winding highway, crooning something low and melodic through the static:

—stopped into a church I passed along the way—

The clock on the radio reads that it's just after seven. A jarring thought; the slow, sinking realization that everything happened in the span of hours. Ended only an hour ago. And now—

He's a wild animal you're not sure how to breathe around. A bear. His hand curls loosely over the steering wheel, the other braced on the ledge of the window, fingers tapping to the music spilling out, filling the cab. 

He doesn't look over at you, but you get the feeling he knows you're awake. Watching him. Hunter. Hunted. 

—well, I got down on my knees and I pretend to pray—

You thought you knew better. Come on, Coyote—

“Gonna stop and grab some burgers,” he grunts, a low growl barely an octave higher than the brassy singer on the radio. Softly spoken—or as soft as a man like him could manage—to not startle you. “Takeout. Tha’ alright with you?” 

You're not sure what to make of it. Him, this. Being asked, maybe. That alright with you?

When you don't speak, he peels his eyes away from the road, glancing towards you. A brow raises. Waiting. 

You shrug.

He grunts again. “Fine.”

His eyes slip down briefly to the metal name tag still pinned to the faded pink of your shirt, staring at the slanted words stamped into the enamel pin. 

Taking them in. Their shape. Then: 

“Why Coyote?” 

Another shrug. It pulls at the hand-shaped, fist-sized ache in your shoulder blade. “It's what everyone calls me.”

“It's not your real name.”

“No.” 

“Why do they call you Coyote, then?”

You think of a different weight on your shoulder. Heavy metal. Stale, warm beer and cigarette smoke coming in a puff of air over your cheek. Stay still for me, pretty girl. Gonna be in a world a’hurt if your squirmin’ makes me miss my shot—

A hand on your thigh. On your neck. 

Hole in your belly. Blood on the snow. 

“They just do,” you mumble around the crooning verse that swallows the tremble in your voice. “They always have.” 

Come on, Coyote.

John brings to you a small, rustic-looking drive-thru with a menu that has less than ten items on it. 

It's made of log and glass and smells of sizzling grease. There's a small parking lot to the left of the rectangular shack with a big moose's head on the front. All long antlers and a broad snout. 

MOOSEHEAD the sign reads in faded, firetruck red. home of the moose burger. 

When he said drive-thru, you assumed McDonald's. Burger King. Harvey's. The small shack nestled in front of a looming, slate-coloured mountain was not what you were expecting, and as he twists the wheel, navigating the winding path to the bright yellow menu behind a brown box, something shifts in your belly. A knot. Hunger, maybe. 

You can't remember the last time you ate. Not good for the baby. 

“What d’you want?” 

You blink through the haze of rain, the thick plume of condensation that gathers at the bottom of the window, and read the boxy letters pressed into the lit board. HAMBURGER. CHEESEBURGER. MOOSEBURGER. FRIES. SOFT DRINKS. MILKSHAKES.

John rolls the window down. The heavy scent of wet, oil-slick pavement and rust fills the cab. 

The speaker crackles. “Hi. What can I get you tonight?”

“Moose burger and fries,” he grunts. “Coke to drink.” A glance is sent your way. “And—?”

“Um. The same.”

“Make it two of those.” 

“Sure thing, hun. Come ‘round the front. Your order will be ready. Total is twenty-two seventeen. Thank you.”

He doesn't roll the window back up. Mist sprays against your arm, glistening under the smear of neon lights glistening through the wet windshield. It's cool outside. The mountain air is clean. Crisp. 

You've never been to this part of town before. To this town, you suppose. An hour out from the flat valley that made up the port city. The bay at your fingertips. Claws in your neck—

It's nice here. Green. Dark. Everything shifts, like it's on an angle. A slope. And you know it is with the towering mountain that looked like craggy chevron from the valley below pressed, imposing and massive, at your back. Your ears pop at the elevation, and breathing is both easier and heavier at the same time. 

The air is thin here, but you're so far away from that city, from him, that it doesn't matter if you suffocate now because it'll be your choice and not—

His hands on your neck. Ever try to run away from me again, Coyote, and it'll be the last thing you ever fucking do—

The bag is wet when he presses it into your arm. Dropping it down on your arched legs when you don't take it from him quick enough. You startle. Blinking. He doesn't glance over, just slides your drink into the cupholder beside his, and after a moment, mind reeling because how much did you miss just—

Thinking.

You hurry to settle into place. Legs twitching, sliding out from their protective curl against your chest—

A hand on your covered ankle stops you. “Don't need to move,” he murmurs, glancing at you briefly. But not—

Not really. Not looking at you but out the window, you realise, the truck dipping down on an angle as he hovers near the exit, waiting for the thin line of cars to pass before he turns back onto the highway. 

“Get comfy.” It's a suggestion. “Eat.” But that's a command. 

Your inside twist at the sound of it. Military, you remember Elliot saying. You feel it acutely in your bones, still thrumming, pulse tripping over that growling demand. Eat. 

Your body moves without thought. Obeying. Hands snaking out of the warmth cradled on the back of his Levi's jacket, one he must have thrown over you in your sleep, and peel back the rolled paper bag that smells of grease and meat. It's warm in the bag. You fish out the first burger and can barely close your hand around the thick of it, blinking slightly in startled awe at the size. 

Moose burger. A fitting name, but you think of home, suddenly, painfully, and wonder if it's real moose. Feel the clench in your belly at the thought. Of moose steak drenched in fat, seared on the stove. Moose stew in the slow cooker, left to tenderise in the simmering broth. 

“Ain't real moose.” 

You wonder how he knew, and can't be sure if you like the fact that he did. Guessed right. Chiselled inside of your head. Read you like an open book. It makes your pulse thunder, a roaring in your ears that dulls the scattered thunderclaps from above. 

“Oh,” you say, and feel the disappointment trickling in, thick in your throat. “Just the size, then?” 

He hums, and reaches into the bag, rifling around for a handful of fries. “Yeah. Jus’ the size. Ever had it before?” 

You think of then, of being tucked inside pants that don't fit. A shirt that's too loose. Feet in boots a size too big. All tattered and aged, worn down. Holes. Patches where the fabric was ripped and sewn back together. Jagged lines from an unpractised hand. Loose threads. Knots. The scent of cigarette smoke clinging to your skin. A plastic bag. A bruised apple that your teacher slipped you during the first recess. Leftovers. 

Moose meat stew. Rabbit. Ew, Coyote's eating something weird again—

Thirteen and crouching behind a bush as your dad angles the gun over your head. Big boy, he whispers. Gonna be eatin’ good this winter. Look’it the size of ‘im. 

The smell of duck fat sizzling in a pan. The crack of a beer can. Squeals of wood on slippery, cheap vinyl. Fried dough resting on the counter next to a tower of pop cans and an old Costco popcorn bottle filled with tabs. remind me t’send Robbie in the mornin’ to drop ‘em off. need the money for cigarettes. 

Then:

Moose tonight. Go’an an’ get your sister.

It's mild. Like beef but better, you used to think. Less tangy. Less thick. Depends on the season, your dad would say. Best cut is when they're just on the end of their rut. When they're eating big. Getting nice and fat. Tastes better like that. A bull not in rut, a skinny one, ain't as good. 

Moose is a strange meat. Prey animal, but it tastes nothing like a caribou or a deer. Rabbit. Not gamey, like a predator, either��like bear (braised black bear with gravy to make it tender; the fat stored away for later—another staple you think about). It's good. Different.

You miss it—even if the idea, the memories, that come with it make you feel scraped out and raw. Hollow. Empty. 

Your tongue thickens. You don't think you can speak. Not right now. So you nod instead—this shallow, jerking thing. Too solemn. Too low. Chin to your chest. 

John hums, and sinks the handful of fries into his mouth before he turns on the highway, one hand on the wheel. Knuckles raised. Marbled mountain peaks. Purple and red. Blotchy in the washed out glow of the dashboard. Swollen and painful looking but he doesn't even flinch when he grips the wheel, and the clotted scab peels, lifting off skin. Oozing thick, syrupy blood out from under the cracked shell. 

He pulls back when it beads too much, wipes it on his shirt, careless and unbothered by the stain it leaves, and then puts his hand back on the wheel. Smeared ink black in the gloom. 

That hand sunk into his—Sam’s—face. Caught on his sneer, knuckles tearing. Leaving blood between Sam's teeth. A split on his lip that made you think of the one—the ones—he left on yours. Tender and painful and swelling up in an instant. A pulsing throb, a heat. 

Over and over again—

His hand rifles through the bag. “Eat,” he says again, low, muffled around the dangling end of a fry. “s’gonna go cold.”

It already is. Somewhat. A soggy, grease-soaked bun. Patty still warm. Dripping ketchup and mustard down the sides and onto the plastic wrapper. It's heavy. Thick. You bite the end flattened by the press of your thumbs, teeth sinking into the burger. Taste familiar on your tongue. 

It's good, you suppose. Filling. You eat half before dropping it back onto the paper, reaching for the fries in the bag. Thick cut and crispy. Salted. 

The truck smells of salt and grease, and when your stomach knots—too much food after too little for so long—you wrap the leftovers up and slip it back into the bag for later. 

He doesn't say anything after that. His hand slides over the wheel as he turns up the winding road. Up, up. Deeper into the mountains where the air thins, and the trees thicken. An endless sprawl of darkness cut only by the muted gold glow of his headlights illuminating the wet, twisting pavement. 

You sink into the silence. Feeling the heavy, warm weight of the half-eaten burger on your thighs. The stretch of leather beneath your ankle. 

Heavy-lidded. Stuck in the sticky cobweb of fatigue and hyperarousal. Never really sleeping for more than a handful of hours at a time. Survival, you think. It's what the text in the pamphlet said, the one the lady shoved into your hands when you went to buy a pregnancy test from the store. It's not your fault: how to seek help for domestic abuse. 

Her eyes were kind—like the paramedics. Oh, hun. It ain't your fault. 

The problem is you don't think that's true. 

He—Sam—was a good man before he met you, wasn't he? 

But every so often, your gaze will slide towards his hand still curled around the steering wheel, knuckles split. Eyes suddenly heavy enough that you think you could fall asleep again.

His cabin is perched on the maw of a bay, accessible only by boat. 

He seems hesitant as he unloads the luggage from his truck, throwing them into a sleek-looking fishing boat bobbing from where it's anchored in a dock. Wary. Watching you closely like he expects you to run. 

And you know there should be trepidation. A strange man you've had less than a handful of conversations with, one who stuck his nose where it didn't belong, and is now herding you into a boat late at night. 

Jarvis Inlet, he grunts. A place called Dark Cove. And then he looks at you, just stares, as if waiting for something. A fight, maybe. More questions. But you've slept in worse places, and the idea of being out of the rain as quickly as possible is more appealing than your potential doom. 

You slide into the boat, hands curled into his jacket. He follows after a beat, unlatching the ties holding it to the dock, and steps inside, murmuring something when it shifts under his weight. Starts it up. He digs under his seat for a moment, rifling through a box, before grabbing something out and turning towards you. A blanket. He tosses it your way, grunting under his breath about keeping warm. 

It's a short trip through the water. You spend most of it huddled under the blanket, hands squeezed between your thighs as he navigates around a massive, jutting rock with thick, dense conifers clustered along the sloping edges of the island. 

You expected it to be higher up. Hidden in the mountains. But it sits at an arcing curve that cuts through the ocean. Tucked in the protective curl of his land is the still, ink blue waters of the bay before it bleeds into the sound. 

Mainland is a craggy, green rock on the horizon. The ocean dips, dizzyingly vast and unfathomable, behind the jagged mass littered with the lights. A city in light polluted pointillism. 

He pulls the boat up to a bigger one. A yacht. Sleek and white and bobbing in the waters. It's tethered to a dock out in the lake. A bridge connects it to the shore. 

He reaches over when he cuts the engine, yanking on the makeshift hood you crafted from the loose throw until it covers more of your face. “Hold onto the railings when you walk. Gets slippery.” 

John turns away after, hefting your meagre luggage on one shoulder as he pulls the tarp over the boat, shielding it from the rain. You step back onto the dock, back nudging the pristine boat behind you. 

The world is awash in shadows. Dark, jagged peaks. Crooked trees drooping in the downpour. Ink black. An abyss that yawns out for an unfathomable stretch before kissing the dark mass of a mountain cutting out from the sprawling pool. 

You've heard people say before that places like this can swallow you whole. Slip beneath the waves, turn behind a tree, and no one will ever see you again. But you've always found that sentiment to be wrong. 

Cities are where you disappear. Indifferent places made of concrete and money. No one cares if you go missing, but out here—

You think this land spit you back out. 

“Come on,” he grunts, sliding beside you. His hand is heavy on your waist. Urging. “This way.” 

You follow, clinging to the firm hold he has on your back as you wobble along the slick bridge to the rocky embankment just up ahead. 

The bridge continues even on land, sloping up in a set of stairs before coming to a stop on a small cliff above the beach. 

You turn back towards the mainland when John stops, hand rifling through his pocket for the keys. 

The distance, the knowledge that this mass you stand on—all soft, wet moss; peat soil—is so far away from that place that it clumps, black and jagged and imposing, against the shoreline is calming. In shades. Small increments, like the loosening of your shoulders. The ache there, too. The breath in your lungs comes a little easier when you stare down at the mainland, at the stretch of blue between it and you. The little thread in the distance that ties it together. 

He nudges you quietly with the muted clearing of his throat. Not touching you, but—

Hovering. In sight. On the edge of your periphery. Making his presence known. 

You're not sure what to make of it. 

What to make of any of this. 

His chin jerks towards the cabin bracket between a dense thicket of trees. “C’mon. Let's get you outta the rain.”

His cabin is modest in size. 

The entrance is on a deck overlooking the bay. All open. Big, ceiling-to-floor windows. French doors. It's framed in thick cured timber. Logs stained a warm, honeyed brown. 

Inside is simple in design, too. 

The kitchen is to the left. A living room to the right. Straight across is a loft with a staircase angled into the kitchen. A small, dark hallway rolls out from beneath the balcony and leads to two bedrooms, the laundry room, and the bathroom.

The living room is cosy. An old, worn couch is pushed against the vaulted window overlooking the deck. A chair tucked beside it. Against the right wall is a hearth next to another big, open window angled into the forest. 

A coffee table sits in front, cluttered with stacks of books—carpentry, woodwork—and pieces of wood. Blocks shaved down into the idea of an object. Incipient creations. A knife lays overtop. Pens, markers scattered around. 

Along the log walls—all the same warm honey-coloured—are trophies. A moose head. Antlers. Books line the shelves. Newspaper rests in a thick stack by the armchair.

The kitchen is tucked into a nook, hidden behind an island. The same rustic brown as everything else, save for the faded, yellow refrigerator and the off-white stove. 

Where a dining table might sit, is a workbench. Tools. A saw. It spills over the surface.  

It's lived in, you know, but something about it feels detached. Cluttered madness, but—

Not really. 

Everything, even in this disordered chaos, has a place. From the scattered markers to the books on the walls. It all fits some unseen cohesion even if you thought his house would have been neater. Military. 

There's a blanket on the couch that catches your eye. The design—the pattern. Achingly familiar. 

“Loft or bedroom?” 

You tear your gaze away from it, swallowing down the acrid longing that surges in your throat. “What?”

He jerks his chin towards the balcony. “Wanna sleep up there or in the spare bedroom?”

“Don’t you sleep up there?”

“No. Used to. S’more of an office now.”

There's a guest house to the left of the cabin. A bachelor with the kitchen running into the bedroom. The washroom closed off. But it's not finished, he says, something frissoning over his expression. Knotting between his brows. Something about the look on his face screams don't ask because he'll never tell. 

You glance away. It's not in you to pry. To care. Whatever secrets he keeps are his and his alone. Just like yours. Why Coyote—

The only other choice is the spare bedroom tucked inside the dark hallway beside his. Close. Barely an arm's length away—

“Loft.” 

He nods like he expected it. Jerks his chin again towards the back, holding your duffle bag out for you to take. 

“Showers through there. Go get warmed up. And I'll heat up some stew.”

The bag dangles on the width of his hand, swaying from the momentum. This ugly, tattered black backpack—

“I don't—I didn't bring any clean clothes—” it's embarassing to admit now that inside your meagre bag is nothing but four hundred dollars and an old, tattered blanket. A sweater. Dirty, bloodstained pants. Everything else is with—

With Sam. 

The plan had been to cash your last cheque, and go back to the motel. Grab the rest. A stupid decision in hindsight. 

There's a tick in his jaw. A terse set to his shoulders. He lowers the bag, letting it fall to the floor, collapsing in on itself. Empty. 

“Nevermind,” you say, slipping the wet blanket from your shoulders, letting it pool in your arms. “I can just wear this—”

His eyes rive over the crumpled, wet uniform shirt. Faded pink—bubblegum, you think; with chocolate brown trim—and stained with grease. Coffee.

Another tick. His brow furrows. Knots. Anger slashing over his face, rucking three, jagged lines through his forehead. 

“No. I'll bring you somethin’ to wear. Somethin’ warm. Gets cold out here. Go.” Another jerk of his chin. A command. 

He does that a lot, you realise, shivering at the bite inside the cabin, the chill ghosting over your damp skin as he turns away from you, walking deeper into the house. Towards his bedroom. The broad expanse of his back bigger than anything you'd ever seen—

All height, and heft. Soft in the middle, but thickened with muscles. And with it, he commands. All biting, unignorable demands. Do this, eat. Go. Get warm. 

You're used to it, you think. Being told what to do. How to act. Marionette on strings. All you're good for. 

Sam used to say the reason you made him hit you so much is because you never listen. Gotta box you around the ears a bit, just for you to even pay attention to me, Coyote. It's not my fault, baby, you make me do it—

But there's something about his commands that sink beyond noise. Reaching into the slick, pulsing gyri, and sending off his own current of obeyance. Innate. Unconscious. He says eat and you find yourself taking a bite of a burger you didn't think you even wanted. Weren't hungry for. Chewing. Swallowing. Another bite. Chew. Swallow. Again. Again. Again. Utters watch your step and your eyes drop to the slick ground, carefully treading the planks. 

Get warm. Go shower. You drop the blanket on the back of the chair, covering up the other one, and walk towards the bathroom. Thoughtless. Head silent. Empty and still. Quiet for the first time since you were thirteen—

It's because you're tired, you think. Exhausted. 

That's all.

But when you finally sink into the bed—lumpy and thick and perfect—sleep evades you. Skirts just out of reach until you're staring up at the log ceiling, thinking about nothing. Everything. 

Sam. Blood on the pavement. The split in his knuckles. Grease. Burgers. Come on, Coyote—

The knot in your stomach—

Your hand goes there. Slips under the thick cable knit sweater he gave you to sleep in, the boxers that fit like loose shorts, and curls around your lower belly. Flat and empty because this thing inside of you isn't even really there. Small, the book said. Tiny. A speck. 

A life-changing, mind-melting thing. 

You—

A mother. 

The thought is soaked in the rotten, fetid sludge of the past. Of your own mother with her dark hair and her hard eyes. Her strange moods. Don't touch me, Coyote. I don't wanna be touched right now, fuck. Can't you ever listen? Mercurial. How come you never hug me? Actin’ like I ain't your mom an’ shit. Shifting. Evolving. Changing shape depending on who she was with at the time—

Unravelling at the seams ever since your dad died. You look like your dad, Coyote. It makes me fuckin’ sick—

You can't think about it. Won't. 

So you don't. Swallow it down. Cotton in your ears. Noise in the back of your head. 

Memories on your skin. Ghosts in your veins.

Come on, Coyote. 

You'd be a terrible mother, you think, and peel your hand away, knotting it into a fist by your side until your nails sink into skin. 

There's something a little grounding about the pain this time.

You stare up at the ceiling all night until the sun rises, golden and warm, and spills in through the vaulted window. 

Below you, you hear John stir. Rising. 

You follow his lead.

He does odd jobs, he says. 

Carpentry. Woodwork. Makes things that people want. That they need. Most of it gets sold in town—patio chairs, kayaks for the tourists—or by the few locals in the bay who need things made. Repairs, too. Easy fixes. 

Most of it is on backlog, but he'll get the occasional phone call asking for something to be done. 

And that's where you come in. 

The loft has a small space made up of a makeshift office. A phone. A ledger. Papers. Pens. It's pushed up against the railing of the balcony, right across from the top of the stairs. 

All you really have to do is answer when people call, take their information, and find out what they want him to build. He doesn't do cabins, he grunts. Say no. Always. 

Everything else goes into the ledger for him to look at later. 

“Don't worry,” he rumbles, scratching at the thick curls beneath his chin. “Most of the orders come from Elliot. You'll just be fielding local work. Kayaks, mostly.” 

And he's not wrong. The first week, you get all of a single phone call—a woman down in Osoyoos who wants a kayak. Her information is penned into the thick, waterlogged ledger next to the other names. Contact information. He'll get back to you soon, you say, but John just grunts when you tell him about the woman. 

Its mostly just—

Laying around. Organising the mess in the loft. The boxes he shrugs at, and tells you to put them in the closet along with whatever else is clogging the upstairs. Forgotten remnants he seems disinterested in going through. 

Or watching him. 

John fills space as easily as breathing. Makes noises. Commands. The order he's working on is spread out over the deck, and spills into the cabin. Little saws on the workbench. Tools. He wanders in and out with purpose, grabbing things, using them, putting them back. Silent as he works. 

He's a mystery. An enigma. Seems unbothered by you being here, sinking your fingers into his things. He adjusts in that strange, quiet way of his. Makes dinner for two as if he'd been doing it the whole time. Leaves clean towels in the bathroom. Runs into town and comes back with clothes—from Savannah, he grunts out, thrusting the bag in your direction; Elliot's wife, said she'd be about your size—and pads, tampons, that he shoves under the bathroom sink. An extra toothbrush. Shampoo that isn't five-in-one and smells of honey and oats. 

But it's not seamless. 

Sometimes, you think he forgets. Walks in—caked in sawdust and covered in sweat—and peels his shirt up, baring his thick, hairy damp chest without a second thought, scrubbing his face, his neck, with the bottom of his stained shirt. Or rips it off. Comes in drenched in sweat, and reaches behind himself, one hand curling into the fabric against his nape, and pulls—

Broad, slick skin. All covered in a dense layer of fur. 

Bearish. 

Remembers himself only when you make a noise. A huff. Silent laughter because this whole thing is a little unreal—

He doesn't apologise, though. Just shrugs. Reaches for a face cloth he keeps slung around the back of the couch and pats himself dry. 

Dinner is quiet, too. Sombre. He leaves food out for you, but eats between work. Often outside, reclining on the patio chair on the deck. Pours himself a glass of whiskey. Has a cigar. Inhales his food before you've even put together a plate, and then the saw starts up again. Back to work. 

It's tense. The atmosphere is thick. It feels like you're dancing around each other, trying to make room in a space too small for even just himself. 

You stay upstairs most of the time. Staring out at the sprawl of glinting blue. The jagged green.

The bay is prettier in the daylight when the sun is high in the sky casting a golden yellow arch across the veridian world around you. Still. Silent. 

The city was loud. Cars on the pavement. Horns. Chatter. Noise. People. An endless spill, a cacophony of life. Sirens. Motors. Barking commands. 

Sam's condo downtown was never quiet. Too close to the harbour—foghorns, the roar of ships entering the port. Television playing something he was interested in at the time. The radio on. The sounds he made spilling out—fuck, Coyote. Can't you do anything right?

Noise, noise, noise—

More coffee. When's my breakfast comin’ out. Hey, cutie, what time you done work at? 

You should really leave him, Coyote, because what the fuck? Have you seen your eye? It looks worse with makeup, come on, girl, you're fuck up our tips!

And now—

The saw. Scrape of a knife on wood. A grunt. Fuck. A loon in the distance. A splash. Watch your step on the deck, Coyote. Got shit everywhere. The lap of the sea against the rocks. The rustle of the trees in the breeze. Makin’ stew tonight. Want some? The ringing of the telephone. Etta James crooning on the radio. The knock of the metal boats against the dock. Grab yourself a beer if you want. Only got that or whiskey. Help yourself. The soft shlick of the fridge peeling open. The hum. Clink of a bottle on glass. The hiss when you open it. A saw. A splash. Rain on glass. The thunk of his boots across the deck. The soft thud of a door. 

Anyone call? A grunt. The rip of laces as he peels his boots off. You shake your head, reaching for a bun. No. A sigh. Good. 

Most of the noise is in your head. 

Memories. Malformed dreams dancing in the recesses of your mind. 

Crack of a twig. Hands on your throat. Come on, Coyote—

Inescapable. 

Inevitable. 

And that's what it all is, isn't it?

He stares at you, too. Sometimes you catch him watching in that careful, measured way of his. The same look on his face as before, in the diner—anger: what happened to you; wariness: whatever it is, don't bring it over here—but morphing. Shifting. Dropping from the curve of your neck tucked under the fold of a pink collar, bruises melting seamlessly into your skin, to the roll of his sweater over your midsection. Pausing there, like he's expecting to see something more than the curl of cream yarn woven together. 

It makes you a little sick. Like that time when he and the paramedic hovered. You hate them both, you thought. Felt. An acid burn in your chest. Go away, stop staring. Stop gawking. Leave! 

The woman in the drugstore. Oh, you poor thing. Pushing an unwanted pamphlet into your hands. Don't worry, hun, it'll get better. 

People look at you and see what they wanted to see. Unwrapping you until they found the hurt below. A reason for their sympathy. 

Because girls like you aren't deserving of pity unless you're all broken up. Shallow graves and forgotten names. A box collecting dust. 

They looked for the marks, the bruises, and sighed with relief when they found them. Oh, you poor thing. 

It's petty, and you hate yourself for it. Just a little bit. But you know how far sympathy will go before it dries up and oh, you poor thing becomes well, you kinda deserved it. 

You're not special in this regard. All of your friends had similar stories growing up but what always set them apart is that people would have looked into that room, seen a grown man with his hand on their thigh, a sixteen-year-old child, and thought oh, your poor thing.

When it happened to you, their lips curled in disgust. Stay away from my husband, you slut—

Because at the end of the day, it's always your fault for looking the way you do.

("Like you want it," he grunts into your ear, spiteful and ugly, fingers digging in because they can.)

You figure it's only a matter of time John, too, stops finding reasons for his pity. 

His charity. 

Because, really—

"What makes you so special, Coyote?"

A pretty face. Split thighs.

The only thing you're good for is being on your knees—

Come on, Coyote. You should know this already.

But the dance continues. 

He leaves in the mornings. Goes on runs. You haven't gathered the courage yet to go farther than the deck, too worried about the call of the forest. The sprawling blue. Of sinking into evergreen and sleeping forever—

John doesn't seem to mind your reclusiveness. Only a matter of time. He brings back books when he leaves the island. Little things for you to occupy yourself with. You never ask, won't. The fewer favours you owe, the more of yourself you can keep when the good Samaritan act has run dry. 

You don't say thank you. It wasn't your choice to begin with. You clean up after yourself, but that's it. A guest in his house. Nothing more, nothing less. 

You do your job, even though it's obvious it was a joke. 

No one calls besides the woman in Osoyoos and Elliot—

Something that shouldn't have surprised you as much as it had. Military dogs, he once said as you poured him another cup of coffee. We tend to mingle. 

But hearing his voice is a cruel relief. The only exception to the rule has ever been Elliot, a man who seemed to adopt an uncle stance when it came to you. 

Kin, he'd said, and laughed when you scoffed. We're practically cousins. 

“Might stop by soon. See how you're holdin’ up.”

“Don't bother. I'm fine.” 

“Well, maybe I'll come bother Price. He loves it when I visit.” 

“I'll pass on the message.” 

“No, don't do that,” he laughs, loud and free. It tickles your ear. “He'll call the dock and tell ‘em not to rent me a boat.” 

“Should take it as a sign, then. That John—Price doesn't wanna be around you.” 

“Ah, cruel girl. You wound me.” 

“You don't wanna get hurt, then stop calling.”

“Gotta check in on ya. You get into all kinda trouble when I���m not around.” 

It makes you tense. Belly knotting. “No one asked you to do that, Elliot. I didn't ask you to.” 

“You're a lot like Price, you know. Both of you…you don't like askin’ for help even if you need it.” He breathes into a line. A heavy sigh. 

Elliot is a good man, you know. The best. But—

“I'm fine, Elliot.” 

You tend to hurt people like that. 

“You're a good kid,” he says instead. “Just—be gentle with him, huh? Been through a lot.” 

“He's six foot and like, three hundred pounds. How much damage could I really do?”

More’in you think, is what he says after a long pause, low and solemn; voice full of things you can't unravel. Unwrap. And you scoff in response because what does he know? Huh, Elliot? Be so serious, ta. 

A man like John—Price—could rip you apart before you even put a scratch on him. 

“Not everyone hurts with their hands, Coyote.”

John's been through a lot. Please remember that. 

Something has to break, you think. 

And you can feel it, too. This thickness in the air. In the coil of his shoulders. The line between his brow. Anger, inward. The heavy, measured way he stares as he dances around you. Moving in circles. A clumsy routine built on mutual avoidance. 

It's I didn't ask for help and don't bring that over here merging into a whitewater confluence. A narrow channel where one must go under first in order to fit. 

You're tired of it being you, but you don't think a man like Price has ever backed down from anything in his life. 

Stalemate, maybe. 

Or—

It cracks after dinner when he lingers. Hovering in the kitchen as you slip down the stairs in search of something to fill the chasm in your belly. The thing growing—

He meets you there, shoulders tense. His head is bowed between them, hung low as he looks over the plans spread out on his workbench. You make to skirt around him, but he looks up when you get close. Pins you in place with his stare. 

“So,” he drawls, eyes skirting down the length of your body before coming to a pointed stop on your midsection, belly hidden under a thick cable-knit sweater he gave to you to wear. “What's the plan?” 

It takes you a minute to realise he's talking about the baby. 

“Adoption,” you force out, squeezed between the ache of the past chiselling inside rotted marrow and the shape of your future; a hole in your belly. Blood on the snow. 

You were always meant to die, you think. Snuffed under the heel of a boot or at the end of a shotgun—the how never mattered much over the spread of a carcass on the ground. Inevitable, maybe. Just like—

Just like your mother. 

But at least this way, this little thing leaching off of you, an unwanted seedling, will grow. Might have a chance to be different. Escape the generational trauma that plagues your lineage—an inherited curse. Inescapable. Maybe it'll be different. Better. 

“I think—adoption might be best. Maybe.” 

He says nothing, just stares in that strange, measured way of his. But then—

Why would he? It's not his kid. Not his choice. 

It seems to dawn on him all the same. His jaw clenches tight, bruised knuckles peaking as he curls his fingers into a fist. 

Something fractures over his expression. Gaze turning inward. Shuttered. Haunted by ghosts older than you, maybe. But he's good at shaking them off. Putting them away. 

He catches your stare, eyes following it down to his bloodied knuckles, and his mouth pulls into a taut, absent smile. He knocks them on the wood once, twice. Leaves a drop of blood smeared on the grain. 

“Alright,” it's strained, pinched. “If that's what you want.” 

It is. It's an unfathomable kindness you wish your mother graced onto you. It—it—will understand. Eventually. With time. Once they realise the only thing in their future was sleeping in the back seat of a car while you worked odd jobs—waitress, stripper, labourer in a factory—and barely having enough money to scrape together to get a happy meal, they'll come to thank you for this choice. 

You nod instead, and his lips twitch again in that mockery of a smile. Something shatters. Breaks. 

There are more ways to hurt, Coyote, than with teeth and claws. 

He peels away after a beat, muttering something under his breath about an order. A kayak the neighbours ordered. 

You don't watch him leave. You're too busy staring at the smear of blood left behind, the smear he didn't seem to notice. 

for those wondering what John's cabin looks like. Jervis Inlet is just perfect for this little fic.

[sentientcave]

Masquerade

You've come to this masquerade ball to finally dispatch the man you've wanted dead for nearly ten years, but he's always ruining your plans, one way or another.

Contains: 2nd POV OC (sorry about all the blushing), werewolf MMC (sadly he doesn't do any fun werewolfy things he's just a guy with sharp teeth here), vague fantasy setting, murder attempts/reminiscence of murder attempts, a long and storied history only alluded to, what do you do when your bitter enemy turns out to be a silly little guy who just wants you to love him?, oral sex (w receiving), P in V sex, this spawned a whole ass novel and it's so so different but this lowkey holds up.

See end for Notes

~10k words - NSFW - 18+ MDNI

“My, don’t you look exquisite,” a voice purrs in your ear.

You freeze in place, glad that the mask hides the colour that springs to your cheeks. You feel like a naughty child caught with your hand in the cookie jar, an unwelcome guest at his masquerade. You thought you could escape notice, slip through the crowd of finely dressed nobles and plunge your knife into his chest at last. But he had managed to find you first. You weren’t ready. You hadn’t been to the garden to pick up your hidden cache of weapons, you had nothing but your silver hair-stick to dispatch him with.

His heavy hands land on your shoulders. “Don’t muss up your pretty hairstyle just yet, darling,” he whispers in your ear, his voice rasping like sandpaper. It’s as if he can read your thoughts. Or perhaps, after all these years, you’re simply predictable. “There will be plenty of time for that later.”

You flinch at the cold press of his mask against your bare shoulder. You shouldn’t have disguised yourself as a guest. You feel defenceless, wrapped in silk and sheer chiffon, a neat little morsel delivered straight into the wolf’s jaws. He could shift in a second and shred you into little pieces, like he had threatened to do so many times before. You try to still your frightened, thumping heart, and pull away, turning to face him at last. “I’m afraid I’m not sure what you mean,” you say, because it’s worth a try at least, but he’s laughing before you can even finish, the smiling mouth of his gold wolf mask mocking you. His yellow eyes glitter from it’s depths, watching you.

“Oh darling, I would recognize you anywhere. I hoped you would be unable to resist my invitation.”

“Your invitation?”

“Yes, dearest. All of this was for you. I knew you could not resist the chance to get so close to me again.”

“To kill you,” you remind him hoarsely.

He chuckles and takes your hand. “Perhaps. For now, a dance, I should think. You haven’t danced all night.”

You dig in your heels, trying to resist his insistent pull, but he simply wraps an arm around your waist and tugs you closer. “I don’t dance,” you tell him sharply. “Let go of me.”

“You’re a liar,” he replies, spinning you into place, one hand on your lower back, pinning you against his chest, and the other still clasped around your wrist, sliding up to engulf your hand. He simply tugs you along with him as he moves, sweeping you along to the music, holding you so unbearably close. He could lift you off your feet with ease, if he chose to, and you don’t have enough power to resist. His scent clouds your mind, cedar soap and clean, animal musk, one of many hints of the wolf that dog him even in his human shape. “You forget, I knew you in your past life. Or have you forgotten that I once sat in your father’s halls? I have seen you dance.”

It was so long ago now, another life, before he was only the wolf to you, and before you were the thorn in his paw, that you almost had forgotten. You had hardly given him a second thought at first, he was just another visiting knight, here one day and gone the next, handsome, but beyond the concerns of the girl you once were. “You failed to make an impression,” you tell him sharply, although it’s not true. You do remember his yellow eyes watching you one night, though he never asked you to to dance. He never spoke to you at all.

Not until after. He saved you, of course, from the bloodbath, because he had claimed you. He hadn’t so much as said a word to you before he burst into your bedchamber, monstrous jaws dripping with your fathers blood, yellow eyes wild. You still remembered beating him back with the fire-place’s iron poker, and jamming the tip into his chest before you ran for your life.

“I knew you were mine from the first,” he continues. He seems frighteningly aware of your thoughts, as if his own version of the memory is playing out behind his own eyes. “My lioness, avenging her wicked father with a poker. I still bear your mark, just above my heart.” He presses your entwined hands to his chest for a moment. “I’m certain you remember that, at least.”

“Unfortunately.”

“The only unfortunate part,” he says patiently. “Is that I did not take you as my mate that night.”

His words lance through you like lightning, burning everything in their path. Your knees nearly buckle, and if he were not holding you so securely, you would sink to the floor in a useless puddle of silk. How dare he make you weak, after everything he’s done to you? But anger gives you strength, reinforces your spine with steel, and you wrench away, glaring at him, wishing you could set him ablaze with your eyes.

The music falters. You look up, at the musicians gallery, then around the room. Everyone watches, pretending not to, jewelled masks concealing furtive eyes and whispered words. Your own mask feels insufficient, lightweight and flimsy under the wolf’s eyes when your eyes return to him. He takes your arm, his grip tight, but not bruising, and guides you out of the ballroom, into the cold night air. The dark gardens are just a little too far for you to jump down from the wide stone balcony, and there are no stairs leading down. If you jump, you’d probably break your leg, and then you’d be helpless.

“What do you think of our home?” he asks. “Have you snooped around yet, my darling? Planned all your exits and hidden away your weapons and armour? I made sure you’d have plenty of opportunity. I know how you love to prepare.”

“I’m surprised you haven’t found them already.”

“I have been busy with other preparations,” he says mildly. “But I thought I smelled something of you in the corridor by the library.”

You flinch, only confirming that you had in fact been there, hiding your leather armour inside a large vase. “Preparations for what?”

“Your homecoming. The king has made it clear that it’s time to reign you in, or he will have someone else deal with you.” He pulls the mask off at last, setting the golden wolf on the balcony. Sweat glimmers at his temples, catching light from the ballroom behind them. He offers you a wry smile, his sharp white teeth flashing. “I’ve been too lenient with you.”

“Lenient?” you ask, incredulous. “I’ve been trying to kill you.”

“Those who attempt such things do not usually live long,” he reminds you. “I don’t often show mercy. I’ve allowed you to live free, in the hopes that you would come to me willingly, in time. Now it seems I can no longer afford to continue our little game. You will stay with me, or someone else will be sent to arrest or kill you.”

You press your palms into the smooth railing, wishing desperately that you could absorb the cool, dependable steadiness of stone through your skin. You look at him for a moment while he stares out over the dark gardens, his yellow eyes tracking movement you can’t see.

He’s always dressed in black, like a man in mourning, his black curls cropped short around his slightly pointed ears, beard neatly trimmed. He wears little jewellery for a man of his station, just the yellow-gold signet ring with it’s heavy, dark blue sapphire on his finger, and the gleam of jet buttons down the front of his tunic. You were more used to seeing him in his armour. The heavy black plate suits his brutality better than black-embroidered silk.

Silk offers no protection, no shield over his wicked black heart.

You pull the hairpin from your own neatly arranged curls and move fast, striking at his chest, but he catches your hand easily, his amber eyes meeting your fury with amusement. “You just can’t help yourself, can you?” he asks. “Stubborn creature.”

He plucks the pin from your hand and spins you around, pushing you into the railing with the oppressive weight of his presence. Your protests are weak and hardly noticed, but you fall silent when you feel the rough pads of his fingertips on the back of your neck. He gathers your hair up and pins it back in place, not as neatly as you had done earlier, but sufficiently.

“What are you doing?” you ask numbly.

He turns you around, still standing far too close. You stare forward, at the point where his skin meets the collar of his tunic, your eyes glued to his pulse. You wish for teeth as sharp as his own, so you could tear out his throat. His fingers curl under your chin, nudging your face up, forcing you to look him in the eye again. “Just returning your pin,” he says, smirking. “Why do you seem so flustered, darling?”

“Why don’t you just kill me?” you ask. Your hand lifts up to knock his away, but you touch him instead, fingertips ghosting over his knuckles. You know he’s capable of crushing you with hardly a thought. You’ve spent the last ten years learning all you could about him, hunting him down again and again and again with a single-minded determination. He likely could have killed you a thousand times over, if you’d been just a little less careful, or he a little less eager to capture you instead. He should have killed you. You don’t know how to stop anymore, you don’t know how to let go of the terrible anger that burns you up every time you think of him. You want him to suffer, to lose everything, to hurt the way he hurt you. “I’ll never stop.”

There is a flicker of sadness in his eyes, and it pings against your heart uncomfortably. “I never could,” he says, all traces of his smirking, superior air gone. His thumb strokes along your jaw. “I begged the king for your life. Your father may have been a traitor, but you were an innocent girl, and I do not enjoy killing innocents.”

“I’m not innocent anymore.”

“No, I suppose not. But you’ve committed no crimes that I cannot forgive.”

“I don’t want your forgiveness.” Your voice is hardly more than a hoarse whisper. You want to shout, but his hand on your skin seems to leech all the power out of you.

“You have it regardless,” he whispers back, low and intimate as a lover. He touches his forehead to your mask, his eyes boring into yours, twin suns scorching everything in their path. “And someday I will earn yours.”

“Never,” you hiss. You return to your senses and push his hands away, shoving hard against his chest. “I hate you. I’ll always hate you.”

He tugs your mask off and tosses it to the side, tired of pretense. “If you hate me so much, why does your heart beat like that?”

“I’m afraid of you,” you snap.

He laughs harshly. “No you’re not. You’ve never been afraid of anything, my darling. It is one of the things I love best about you.” He leans in closer, the tip of his nose just brushing yours. You can feel his breath on your skin, the sharp smells of whiskey and mint setting your nerves on edge. For a moment, you think he’s going to kiss you, and you freeze, heart pounding, face turned towards him, waiting for the axe to fall.

But he withdraws instead, leaving you to face the consequence of unrealized want. His words prick at you like the point of a sword. Love. As if he would know the first thing about it. As if he knew you.

But he does know you, you realize with a start. He made you. His actions had set you on your path, and his choice not to kill you, each time that he should have, had created the determined, single-minded, furious woman that you had become. The carefree girl who you had been was long gone, dead the first time the wolf’s jaws closed around your throat. It burns you to think that he’d shown you mercy all along, that you had escaped capture or death by his leave, rather than by your own cunning and skill.

His eyes remain on your face, reading your thoughts like you’re a book laying open, waiting for him to happen by and discover all your secrets. “You have become worthy of me,” he continues ardently, pressing your hand to his chest again, anchoring it with both of his own. “I would have kept you like a bird in a cage if I’d taken you then. A pretty thing to amuse me and adorn my halls. But you are no trophy, my love. You will not survive in captivity. Even now, with the king’s sword hanging over your head, I will not force you to stay.”

“Is this some sort of trick?”

“I used to wonder the same thing. A cruel trick of fate, that my mate would hate me so fiercely.”

“You killed my father,” you hiss at him. You yank your hand away, desperately stoking the anger that has kept him at bay all these years. Each time he calls you mate and darling and love your resolve quakes, and you have no sword in your hand to make him regret it, like you usually would.

“He was a traitor. I had orders.”

“And what comfort will that be when your orders are to kill me?” you ask, sneering up at him. “What will you do when your orders are explicit and undeniable, and you are to kill me on sight?”

“I’ll never see you again.”

You aren’t sure what you expected, exactly, but it always trips you up when he speaks plainly. “What’s that supposed to mean?” you snap.

“What do you think it means?” He hurls the words back at you, his anger lighting from your own. “It means I would pluck my own eyes out before I’d kill you. If the king ordered me to hunt you down I’d stay one step behind you until we reached the very ends of the earth. If he came outside this very moment and told me to snap your neck—” He shudders, shaking his head like a dog shakes off the rain, and when he looks back at you the anger is gone, hidden away again behind his steely resolve. “Loyalty only goes so far. He knows not to make an order I cannot follow. If he truly wants you dead, he’ll ask another.” He glances over his shoulder, keen yellow eyes fixing on a point somewhere inside. “I hope it does not come to even that.”

“But why?”

He lets go of your shoulders and turns around, stalks a few feet away, and turns again, pushing both of his hands through his hair in frustration. Because I love you!” he snarls. “You had me the first day you tried to run me through. Oh I wanted you from the first moment I laid eyes on you, beautiful thing that you are, but it was the first moment that you tried to cut my heart out that I knew there could be no other. You have no idea what it’s like, to love such a stubborn, foolish, bitch of a woman? Do you understand what it will do to me, when you leave? But I have never been able to keep you by force.”

“But you let me go,” you say numbly. “You said—”

“Let you go?” He laughs, striding back towards you. “Oh my love, you misunderstand. Just because I couldn’t kill you does not mean I didn’t try to keep you. But you have slipped every chain I’ve placed upon you. I’ve never pulled my punches. I would not disrespect you so.”

“You called it a game—”

He inclines his head towards you. “I did. Perhaps I should not have. But it was easier to think of it as a game. A test of my own worthiness. I admit, I have always looked forward to your attempts on my life. It’s good, I think, for a man to be beaten once in a while, to keep him sharp. Otherwise he forgets to be vigilant.” He sighs, touching the edge of an old, silvery scar on your shoulder, brushing a loose strand of your hair out of the way. “Besides. We’ve both made our marks upon the other.”

“I’ve gotten you more times than you have me,” you say, lifting your chin imperiously. “Two or three times I really thought I’d finished you off.”

“Are you so certain of that?”

You think about it. “Yes.”

“Care to make a wager, dearest? If you’ve left more marks on me than I on you, you may ask anything of me.”

You draw in a steady breath. “And if I lose?”

He grins. “Not so confident now, are you? I only want what is freely given, so you needn’t worry. You can name your own penalty.”

“How magnanimous.”

“I can be,” he says. “Now, shall we inspect each other here, or would you prefer somewhere more private?”

The thought of being alone with the wolf makes you shiver, but it’s not revulsion that you feel, it’s something far worse. The dark, cold balcony seems a world away from the golden ballroom with all it’s legions of beautiful, elegant guests, but it’s only panes of glass that separates you from them, hazy from condensation, opaque enough that you doubt anyone can see through them. It makes no material difference, in the end, but it’s winter, and the cold seeps through your dress easily, your skin only warm where he touches you. “Ah, yes,” you say nervously. “Perhaps somewhere more private.”

“And warmer,” he adds. “As stunning as you look, I do not believe you are dressed for the weather.”

As if on cue, a snowflake descends from the dark sky. You reach out your hand, catching it against your palm. A moment later, the sky is thick with snow, fat, fluffy flakes catching the light and turning the world white. You look back at him. He looks softer, somehow, with that little dusting of snow catching in his thick curls, melting flakes glittering like diamonds on his shoulders. For the first time, you’re struck by how young he looks. He was a man grown at your first meeting, and you had always thought of him as much older, but you know now that he couldn’t be ten years your senior. You suspect it’s much less than that.

It changes something in your perception of him. Softens him.

“Why are you looking at me like that?” he asks, stepping in close again. Although you’ve hardly moved an inch since you came out to the balcony, he’s full of restless energy, moving away and back again like he’s tethered to you by some invisible string. He tilts his head to the side, his keen predator eyes practically glowing in the soft light.

You were glad your face was already flushed from the cold. “I was just thinking. You look so…” You trail off, thinking of the best way to phrase it.

“Handsome?” he suggested. “Strong? Irresistible?” He wiggles his thick black eyebrows, grinning wickedly, making you laugh despite yourself.

“I was going to say young, actually,” you say. “I was wondering what sort of boy you were.”

He holds a hand out to you. “I’m sure there’s a portrait somewhere, if you’re curious. Now come along, pet, I don’t want you catching a cold out here. I do have a wager to win.”

You hesitate. All the ancient, bitter anger and sadness wars with something new in your chest. It’s been so long since you wanted anything more than vengeance. Ages since the last time you felt deep, aching want for someone’s hands on you, if you ever even had. The obsession between you, at least, was mutual, and you had traded the excitement of romance for the thrill of the hunt, the clash of your sword against the wolf’s. His taunting sounded better than flowery poetry to your ears, and you could not help but seek him out every time the loneliness of your new life became too much to bear. He had been your focus, your centre, your reason for existing for so long that you can no longer deny what this is.

Love is not always kind. Between the two of you, it’s become a desperate, wretched thing, living on scraps of attention and hungry looks traded in battle.

His fingers close around yours, and you realize that you’ve reached out and taken the offered hand. You look at him, and he’s smiling in a way you haven’t seen before, half-hitched up on one side, almost shy.

He twines his fingers through yours and leads you back through the ballroom, slipping around the edges of the crowd like the wolf he is. No one seems to pay either of you any mind, although you feel curiously bare without your mask, as visible as a hare in a field to the eyes of a hawk. But your hunter is holding your hand, his thumb stroking over yours soothingly, like he can sense your unease.

Despite that small reassurance, you’re grateful when you step into a nearly empty corridor. A few well-dressed servants carrying trays bustle between the ballroom and the kitchens at the far end, but your wolf leads you the other way, through a few hallways littered with decorative items and portraits of long-dead nobles with eyes that seemed to follow you. You had been there only a few days earlier, but it looks different now. Perhaps it’s that you aren’t on constant guard for the wolf. He’s already here, holding your hand, pretending that he’s not watching you, just as you pretend to look at the portraits and statues and expensive looking vases you pass by, stealing glances at him only when you think you can get away with it.

The silence between you is almost comfortable, both of you too caught up in your individual tumble of thoughts to put anything to words. It’s impossible to tell what he’s thinking. You wonder if he feels like he’s won already, but there’s none of his usual taunting or his infuriatingly handsome smirk. He looks serious, black brows lowered in a sort of pensiveness that you’ve never seen from him. Of course, you had only once gone so long in his company without attacking him physically, and you had been tied to a chair, at the time.

“Do you remember, a few years ago, the hunting lodge just above Lake Pym?” he asks.

You laugh. “I was just thinking about it. Why?”

He stops in front of a door and leans against the frame. “Do you think you’ll be able to go as long without trying to stab me this time around?”

“That depends on whether or not you tie me up again,” you quip back.

“Don’t say such things,” he warns you, opening the door and holding it open, letting go of your hand for the first time in ages. Your fingers feel cold without his touch. “You’ll give me ideas.”

“You’ve made far too many confessions tonight for me to believe that you didn’t already have ideas,” you tease. Funny how easily that comes, like you’re old friends and not enemies. A tidy little fire burns in the stone fireplace, with a cozy arrangement of rugs and furs laid out before it. A low table sits ready, carrying wine and glasses and a few plates of the sort of interesting finger-foods that they had been serving in the ballroom. Raising your eyebrows, you look back over your shoulder at him. He hadn’t spoken to anyone on the way in, which meant that it had been all prearranged.

He closes the door behind himself and leans against it, grinning sheepishly. “I live in hope.”

The room - his room- is neat, a big bed with four posts carved like small trees, green-velvet curtains tied back neatly, is the first sign that he might actually like colour. You imagined him always in sombre black and white, dark hair, white teeth, dressed like the reaper and often so employed. But perhaps he isn’t as stark as you’d always thought. His furniture is solid and well-made of warm-toned wood, and the bookshelves that flank the fireplace are stuffed with books, the odd space cleared out for knick-knacks and trophies. You had never considered that he might like to read. It isn’t something that has ever come up before.

The wolf sits down on the furs and nudges a black lump by the fire. The shape uncurls into the biggest, fattest, blackest cat you’ve ever seen and pads over to you, sniffing your skirts suspiciously.

“You have a cat?” you ask, because it seems unlike the picture you’ve built up of him over the years. Another thing you missed. You had been so focused on him as an enemy that you had hardly stopped to consider him as a man. You sit, and the cat drapes itself across your lap, purring already in anticipation of a good scratch.

“I don’t have a cat,” he corrects you loftily. “Smudge is the matriarch of a proud line of excellent mousers, and she is a valued member of the household. One cannot own a cat, I have learned. One co-habituates with cats.” He leans over and gives the cat a little scratch under the chin, his knuckles just barely brushing your knee as he withdraws. “She isn’t usually very friendly, but she must recognize a fellow assassin when she sees one.”

“I’m not much of an assassin, I’m afraid she’d be terribly disappointed in me. I’ve failed to kill my only target, and I have been at it for quite some time.” You give the cat a scratch behind the ears. “I’m sure her record is much more impressive.”

He frowns and looked at you in a funny way. “Have you never taken a life?”

“I’ve tried very hard to avoid it. You’re the only person I ever wanted dead, and I— I wanted to be better than you. I wanted my hands to stay clean, so I could beat you and still keep my sense of…” You look down at the purring black puddle of fur in your lap rather than at the wolf. “Oh I don’t know. Righteousness, I suppose.”

“So sweet that you wanted me to be your first,” he teases.

You know he means first kill, but you turn pink anyway, and there is no cold wind to blame for your rosy cheeks this time. There were many firsts that you had missed out on, in your bid for vengeance. “Perhaps I still do,” you snap, not thinking about the double meaning until after the words have left your mouth. You scramble to clarify. “My first kill— Not— Ugh.” He begins to laugh, and you cover your face with both hands, wishing the floor would open up beneath you and swallow you whole. “Stop laughing!” Your voice is muffled by your hands, but there is no way that his keen wolf’s ears don’t hear you perfectly. “That’s not what I meant!”

He snorts. “I know, pet. It’s a bit late for that, I should think.”

You peek at him between your fingers, and his eyebrows shoot up.

“Darling.” He leans over and gently takes hold of your wrists, prying your hands away. He is mercifully no longer laughing, but the look in his eyes only makes your face burn hotter. “Please don’t tell me that you’ve never taken a lover.”

“There was never a good time,” you manage to squeak out. It was half true. There had been offers, and moments when you’d been sorely tempted to share someone’s bed for the night, but the few fumbling kisses you’d shared with young men had failed to thrill you the way that crossing swords with the wolf did.

He sits back with a groan. “You’re always throwing wrenches into my plans.”

“How on earth could that have anything to do with your plans?” you ask hotly.

“Darling, don’t be so naive. My plans were obviously to seduce you into my bed so I could out-perform every man who had ever touched you, forcing you to admit to yourself that we belong together. But I suppose that would have been too easy.”

“Too easy!”

“I would never imply that you would be easily seduced, my love, only that I am fairly confident that you would have a harder time denying what we are if I were to employ my considerable athletic ability with the task of making you come undone.” He smiles ruefully. “But seduction isn’t fair if you’re a virgin. I’ll have to win your heart the old fashioned way.”

“The old fashioned way?” You stare at him, incredulous. “What, you’re going to court me?”

“I’m certainly going to try,” he says, turning toward the table to pour you a glass of wine. “It’s the long road, but you’ll find I’m usually more than willing to take the scenic route.”

“You’re insane,” you say weakly, accepting the offered glass. “You must be.”

“Must I be? Like you said, I’ve made far too many confessions tonight, you must know that I do not mean this as some passing fancy. I think it would be a waste to continue this bloody crusade of yours. For both of us. I confess my bias in the matter, as I rather enjoy living.” He shrugs, looking at you over the rim of his own glass. “Do you? Has your life been all you wished for, these past ten years? You’ve forgone comfort, education, friends, romance, children— Do you want none of those things?”

“Of course I do—”

“Then take them. Everything you want is yours if you stay.” He takes a sip of wine and winces, face screwing up like a child tasting something bitter. “Ugh, I hate wine.”

“I know. I was wondering if you were going to drink from that glass you’ve been waving around.”

“I just wanted to indicate that it wasn’t poisoned.” He sets the glass to the side, still grimacing. “Just in case you were wondering if I was still trying to trick you.”

“It had crossed my mind.”

“Perish the thought, my love.” He stretches out in front of the fire, propped up on one elbow. “I’ve laid down my arms. If you must end this once and for all to free yourself, so be it. But I do think my alternative is better.”

You set your wine to the side as well and reach back to pull the silver hair-stick from your curls. You consider it, for a moment, pressing the point into your fingertip, not quite hard enough to draw blood. He watches with an inscrutable expression, making no move to disarm you. The cat slips out of your lap and stretches, moving off into the shadows again, either unaware or uncaring of the danger to her house mate. Or perhaps she’s simply more aware than you that there is no longer any danger.

You reach out and place the make-shift weapon on the rug in front of him.

The crackle of the fire is the only sound for a long moment. The wolf was rarely rendered speechless— getting him to shut up was usually the more difficult task. But he simply looks at you, like you’ve performed a miracle in front of his very eyes.

You slide one of the plates of food off the table and set it on the floor between you, something to hopefully distract his attention a little. You pick up one of the little triangle pastries and take a bite, catching crumbs with your other hand. You eat two more, realizing that you haven’t eaten in hours, and wait for him to break the silence.

He sighs and rolls onto his back, tucking both hands under his head. Firelight dances over his skin, burnishing his features like well-polished bronze. Although you have known him a long time, you’ve never studied him like this, while his eyes are closed and his usual grin is smoothed out into a peaceful smile. He looks noble, like a hero from the epics you used to read as a girl, more like you remembered from the days before everything changed.

“You’re staring,” he says without cracking an eye.

“How would you know? You haven’t opened your eyes in ages.”

“And how would you know that, if you haven’t been staring?”

He has you there. “Alright, fine. I suppose I was. I was just thinking about… about before.”

He opens his eyes. “How long? We do have a rather storied history, don’t we, love? I myself have been thinking of Lake Pym.”

You smirk. “I bet you have. I had a feeling you were rather enjoying yourself.”

“I was. It would have been more fun if you were a more willing guest, or if I at least didn’t have to keep you tied to a chair the whole time.”

“You wouldn’t even let me feed myself,” you lament, though you can’t help the traitorous note of amusement in your voice. “It was terribly humiliating.”

“Revisionist drivel!” he snarls playfully. “I did untie you so you could feed yourself, and you tried to stab me. You forced my hand.”

You blink. “I suppose I did.”

He leans closer. “I suspected you just wanted me to take care of you. You were too proud to ask me for what you wanted, so you forced the situation. And snapped at my fingers the whole time like an absolute menace.” He holds up his right hand and displays a white mark around the first knuckle of his thumb. “That’s one, by the way.”

“I only bit you because you stuck your finger in my mouth,” you reminded him.

“Ah, I suppose I did get a bit carried away, didn’t I? There was just this moment when I touched your lip…” He reaches out as if he wants to repeat the remembered gesture, perhaps hoping for a better outcome, but he hesitates, dropping his hand. You almost wish he hadn’t. “Are you still too proud, my love?”

“Yes,” you whisper.

He senses your weakness. The way the answer drips with doubt like blood from a wound. “Will you let me kiss you?” He moves closer, anticipating your answer before it leaves your lips.

Your breath catches in your throat. “Yes.”

At long last, he closes the distance between you, hands cradling each side of your face. He just barely brushes his lips against yours, and holds you back when you try to chase him, his familiar wolfish smile lighting up his face. “Not so fast, my darling. You’ll have to ask nicely, if you want a proper kiss.” He unbuttons the cuff of his black shirt only a moment later, his eyes dropping away from yours for a moment, and then rolls up his sleeves. “Two and three, respectively,” he says, pointing out two more scars along his forearms. They were both from similar situations. Two times that you had disarmed him and made him bleed for it. You reach out and touch the silvery marks, feeling the smooth gap in his arm hair and the fully repaired muscle underneath the flawed skin. “You’re a better swordsman than I,” he says, reaching up to unlace the top of his tunic. “I might have had the edge of experience, at the beginning, but you quickly caught up to me, didn’t you? It was a good thing you were so scrupled about killing people other than me, or I’d have lost far too many good men to your blade.”

“You’re just trying to flatter me.”

“Is it working?” He pulls the tunic and shirt off in one go, baring his chest. There are a few scars there that you could not claim, and two that you can, although your eyes are drawn to one in particular. The ugly, uneven star right next to his heart, where you had run him through with the iron poker on the night of the wolf. “This one is my favourite,” he tells you, pressing one of your hands to the scar. “The first time you tried to kill me. Jon had to half-heal me himself, or I wouldn’t have made it to a proper healer in time. It’s partially why there’s such a scar. He’s always been terrible at the more subtle magics, but if you want something blown up, Jon’s your man.”

You laughed. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

“Make sure you also note, in that treacherous little mind of yours, that he will not employ his considerable magical gift with the task of making me explode. He is still rather fond of me, even after all these years.”

“It is good, I think, to have a king that is so well-versed in the art of restraint,” you say mildly.

“Oh yes, I imagine it is.”

“So is it really just the five scars?” you ask. “That’s all?” Despite the truce the two of you had settled into, you felt strangely disappointed that your obsession with killing him over the last decade had resulted in only a handful of scars. It all felt like a waste. You try to console yourself with the knowledge that he heals more rapidly than most men. The scars you have left are despite that.

“There’s one more, on my thigh, but I imagine you probably don’t want me to take my pants off.”

You do want him to take his pants off. “Yes, that’s very thoughtful of you,” you say instead. “I suppose you’ve won, anyway. I have a lot more than six scars from you.” You had expected that his life as a warrior would have marked him more significantly. You’re covered in scars, faded and fresh alike, and there is no getting around the fact that you feel like you’ve stitched yourself up so often that you look as worn down as your oldest, ugliest shirt.

The disappointment in his eyes is gone so quickly that you aren’t entirely sure you hadn’t imagined it. “Well, I suppose I’ll have to take your word for it, won’t I?”

“You’re just trying to get me out of my dress,” you say hotly.

“Obviously. You look very lovely in it, of course, but I have been hoping for the chance to peel it off of you.”

You shake your head. “I think you’ll be a bit disappointed.”

“Never. What would possibly deter me at this point, darling? If stabbing me through the heart didn’t erode my affections, what could?”

“Oh I don’t know,” you say thoughtfully. “I could have scales, or a tail—”

“I have a tail,” he reminds you. “And I’m quite positive that you’re human, so I’m not worried about scales. Or strange birth-marks or stretch-marks or scars, either, by the way.”

You take a deep breath and stand up, turning your back to him. “It would help if you could undo all these buttons for me,” you say, sweeping your hair in front of your shoulder. “There are so many of them.”

He jumps to his feet and scrambles to help. A few buttons plink to the floor, torn free in his haste. “I’ll have it fixed,” he says hastily. “And I’ll buy you new gowns. As many as you can stand.”

You glance over your shoulder, nervous laughter stilling on your tongue when you see the look in his eyes. You turn forward again, sliding your arms through the sleeves and shimmying the gown to he floor. He gives you a hand to steady yourself as you step free. “I— I don’t want— I won’t stay.”

He hums in response, gathering up the gown and laying it over the back of a chair.

“I won’t,” you repeat yourself, as if the words will sound convincing the second time. They don’t.

“I already told you, darling, I won’t make you stay. It’s up to you.”

He draws you back to your seats in front of the fire, and you offer him your arms. You’re riddled with fine scars, most of them faint, little nicks from his blade. His hands slide up to your shoulder and gently tug the capped sleeve of your chemise to the side, baring the imprint of his jaws. His thumb runs across the marks, his other hand landing on your knee.

“I wondered if I’d bitten you that night.” He moves closer, his tongue moving over his sharp canines as he sighs. His fingers trail down your arm as his touch drops away. “You never turned, so I wasn’t sure.”

“It doesn’t always take,” you say, using his shoulder to help you back up to your feet. “I think it depends on the moon. New moon, that night. If you were any other wolf you never would have shifted.”

“I suppose that makes sense.” He settles back on his heels, looking up at you. “I can’t say I’ve thought about why some bites take and some don’t. I’m not as observant as you, my love.”

Laughable, when his senses are many times greater than your own. It’s not his observations that are the problem, it’s the connecting cause and effect, thinking about consequence for more than a moment. He’s faced so few consequences in his life that it doesn’t come naturally to him. You, on the other hand, are a mess of consequence, action and reaction measured and weighed, failures poured over until you can see every mistake you’ve made, follow the tracks to how things could have been, if you’d done it all just a little differently.

You pull your skirt up so you can untie the ribbon that holds up your stocking, and he slides it down to your ankle. “This one’s only indirectly your fault,” you say, angling your leg so he can see the trail of pocked scars that wrap around your knee and up your thigh. “When I jumped down that ravine. Scraped myself up on the rocks.”

He tuts, hands reaching for these scars too. It’s just an excuse to touch you, certainly, but you make no move to stop him. You just hold your skirt up, giving him unfettered access to your skin. His amber eyes flick up to your face, and he leans forward, pressing his lips to your knee.

There’s no halting the soft “Oh” that falls from your lips, but he would have heard even the softest catch of breath. There’s no hiding from him, and it terrifies you, leaves you so unsteady.

His eyes flutter shut for a moment, his exhale warm against your skin. “You shouldn’t show me any more,” he tells you. “I find myself wanting to kiss every inch of skin you show me, and I worry that you won’t stop me if I try.”

You sink back to his level and pull your stocking back up, tying the ribbon around your thigh again. “Would that be so bad?”

He groans and lays back on the furs, hands neatly folded on his stomach. “I am trying to be a good man for you, darling. You deserve more than I can give in one night. I need at least a few weeks to make you fall hopelessly in love with me before I can do anything that would tempt me to take you to bed.”

You run your palm over his stomach, feeling the soft pelt of hair over his warm skin, letting your curiosity guide your fingertips. You feel the expansion and contraction of muscle as he breathes in and out, tucking one hand under his head so he can watch you more easily, his eyes barely open.

You have to admit, he is handsome, especially relaxed like this. Only a few short hours ago you would have found the idea of him kissing any part of you abhorrent, but now you find yourself similarly compelled. You take his hand and kiss his knuckles, the tips of his fingers, the palm of his hand.

“Come here, you little minx,” he growls, trying to pull you down on top of him. You pull back, and he lets go, still worried about pushing you when you’ve made so many overtures in such a short time.

You had expected him to hold on tightly, however, and overbalance, tipping over the other way with an inelegant little squeak. He laughs as he sits up, and you do too as he helps you back upright. He lays back again, and there’s no resistance when he takes you with him this time. He tucks you into his side, and you look down at him, chin propped on your hand.

“I rescind my earlier statement,” he says.

“Which one?”

“You don’t have to ask nicely for a kiss, darling. I worry that you’re too prideful to admit that you might like one, but if you can steal one whenever the mood strikes you, I might be lucky enough to receive a few impulsive ones that your good sense isn’t fast enough to stop.”

You huff. “Is this your way of asking for another?”

“It’s my way of asking for as many as you might want to give me,” he says. “There is, of course, a standing offer of anything you might like that is within my power to supply. I think it prudent to remind you.”

He’s a ridiculous kind of man. You’d always thought his tendency toward verbosity was just him grandstanding, but now you see it for what it really is. He wants to be understood by you so desperately that each sentence becomes overwrought, less clear for his efforts to imbue each word with meaning. Your own tendency toward blunt, inelegant language is an almost laughable counter. You say little, and hide everything you can, and he reads you plainly. He speaks like a poet, puts everything out in the open, and you misunderstand him on purpose.

Perhaps that’s why you didn’t see this for what it is a long time ago. If you were not so determined to make an enemy of him, perhaps you would have noticed the softness in his eyes, the way he looks at you as though you’re the sunrise and set, like you’re the moon and all the stars in the sky.

You kiss him, before he can open his mouth to speak again. There’s nothing lacklustre about the way your lips slide over his, the way your breath mingles, the way he makes little noises of satisfaction, unable to be quiet even with his tongue flicking over your top lip, encouraging you to open up for him. Angling your head to keep your noses from smushing together, you oblige, letting him lick into your mouth, his arms circling you, holding you tight against his body.

You can't put a name to the feeling that sparks between you, but it's the thing that's been missing from every kiss you've had before.

The heat, the need of it all burns away all that remains of your carefully maintained resolve. He loves you, fool that he is, and you're not sure you could survive without him now. Is that what love is? To mourn even the thought of their absence from you, to cling tightly and never let go? To sink into each other until you're one, two halves of the same whole?

He kisses you until you're breathless, lips swollen from the tug of his sharp teeth, jaw curiously sore from moving in a new way. You pull back first, braced on one arm as you look down on him. He's beautiful, more than human, wild-eyed and fey, but solid and warm beneath you in a way only a man could be. His imperfections make him dearer to you, not just the marks you've drawn on his skin, but the gap between his two front teeth, the way one brow arches a little more than the other, giving him that permanently skeptical look that had always made you feel he was making fun of you. The crooked smile, the notch in one ear.

You know his face more intimately than your own, but you still want to look at him, especially through this new lens.

“I don’t think I want to wait,” you admit. You’ve waited long enough, haven’t you?

“Are you certain?” he asks.

“I don’t see what difference it makes, really.”

“It makes a great deal of difference. I’ve taken enough from you, I don’t want you to regret it.” He gazes up at you, tracing along your jaw with careful touch.

Your heart races rabbit-quick in your chest, and although you're the one looking down at him, you feel pinned in place by the wolf's eyes alone. "Then make sure I don't," you say softly. "I can even promise not to make another attempt on your life until the morning."

"Darling…"

"Please. I don't know how I'll feel tomorrow, but tonight I think I want your hands on me."

"You think?" His fingers catch around the back of your neck, as though he's waiting for some cue before he pulls you back into his arms.

“I know.”

He pulls you down for another kiss, rolling the two of you so his big body stretches over yours, your underskirts bunching up as he slots his thick thigh between yours, pressing against your core. He holds most of his weight off of you, but you’re still trapped beneath him. For the first time in a long while, there is no panic, no desire to fight furiously for freedom. You feel quite content where you are, especially when his thigh flexes, rubbing against you firmly, sending a shower of sparks through your belly. You gasp against his mouth, your hands skimming down his sides gingerly. When he does it again, you dig your fingers into the muscle of his back reflexively, murmuring apologies as his lips leave yours and slide down your bared throat.

“Don’t,” he growls against your pulse, dragging his tongue roughly over your skin. “Don’t apologize. You won’t hurt me.”

His teeth graze the slope of your shoulder, finding the older scar from his lupine jaws. You let out a shuddering gasp when he bites down lightly, not even hard enough to leave a mark. There’s a part of you that wants him to leave a mark, a bruise if not something more permanent, but you’re not sure you’ll be able to convince him out of gentleness tonight.

He kisses down your chest, grinning up at you when he reaches the top edge of your corset. “You are still wearing far too much clothing, my love. Come here.” He stands in a smooth movement, and you’re untethered without the weight of his body against yours, but only for a moment. He helps you to your feet and leads you to the bed, taking a seat on the edge and pulling you between his knees, turning you so he can loosen the laces of your corset.

You shed the garment as soon as you’re able, as well as the extra petticoats. Your chemise is thin, loose material, obscuring little, but you leave it on while you sit beside the wolf, toeing your heeled slippers off and nudging them under the bed and out of the way. Hands folded, you wait, heart beating like a drum. You feel so strange, almost outside your own body, watching him unlace his boots and tug them off impatiently.

He stands to strip off his trousers, and you quickly avert your gaze, looking down at your hands rather than see him in his fully undressed state. You have a rough idea of what you’d find, you’ve been in the public baths more than a few times, and even doing your best to be respectful, it’s hard not to see something. But seeing something in a setting where everyone is minding their own business is a lot different than seeing something up close, especially when you might be expected to do more than just look.

“We don’t have to do this, love,” he says, kneeling in front of you, clasping his hands around yours. Your eyes fly back up, landing on his face. His chuckle makes your cheeks burn. “If you’re nervous—”

“No,” you say quickly. “I want to. I’m just— I hate not knowing what I’m supposed to do.”

“I wouldn’t worry about that darling. It’s your first time, I should think the responsibility rests on my shoulders. All you have to do is tell me when you like something and when you don’t.” He leans forward, forcing your thighs apart to accommodate the bulk of him, and kisses you, all sweetness. “And if you want to stop, we stop. Anything more than that can wait at least until the second or third time.”

It sounds so simple, put like that.

“Besides,” he adds, giving you a wicked grin as his hands move to your hips, the movement rucking your chemise up further on your thighs. “You’ve always been a quick study.”

Well, he’s right about that. His lips find your throat again, pressing languid kisses down your chest until he reaches the edge of your chemise. His eyes flick upwards, seeking permission before he goes further. You untie the simple knot with one hand, the other petting through his soft curls.

He noses aside the thin fabric to find your nipple, latching on with a contented hum. The act sends tremors down into your core, intensifying as his tongue flicks across. You pull in a shuddering breath, and your exhale becomes a whimper when his teeth nip at you, his other hand coming up to grope at your other breast, his touch warm and appreciative before his grip slides down to your hips and he tugs you to the edge of the mattress.

He pulls away from your breast and kisses you properly again. “Do you want more?” he asks. “Can I taste your pretty cunt, darling?”

The desire in his words sends a shiver down your spine. You nod, and he sits back on his heels and kisses all the way up your thigh, although he pauses and pulls back to your other knee, kissing his way up again, this time sinking his teeth into your inner thigh, not hard enough to really hurt, just enough to make you jolt, your pearl begging for any kind of friction. When he passes over your cunt to mouth at your other thigh, you whine, shifting even closer to the edge of the bed. You can feel your cunt dripping, the air strangely cool on your wet skin.

A pair of mischievous eyes glance up at you. He’s doing this on purpose. He started all of this, and now he has the gall to tease you. Glaring in response, you grip him by the hair and pull him in, determined to put his clever mouth to better use than smirking and biting you when you need him elsewhere.

To his credit, he makes no complaint and does what he’s directed, slipping his tongue between your folds, lapping up the slick arousal. His big hands push your thighs up so he can get a better angle, and he kisses your cunt with as much passion as he did your lips, if not more.

The feeling is electric. His mouth scorches, sets you alight in ways you’d never imagined, the occasional scrape of his too sharp teeth against you thrilling. It’s too good, has you fighting his grip even as your fingers are still tightly wound into his hair, holding him close. It’s too much, but if he stopped it would be so much worse.

If he minds your writhing, he doesn’t show it. You can’t help the sounds he pulls from you, but he’s louder, as though this is more for himself than for you. He groans when your hips buck against his mouth, pants when he lifts himself away enough to breathe, his amber eyes gleaming, fixed on your face, except the few times they flutter closed, just for a moment, savouring your taste.

His nose nudges your pearl as his tongue presses inside you. You grip him so tightly to your core, your hips shaking so hard that you’re surprised you don’t break his nose. The hot, molten cataclysm that’s been pooling somewhere behind your belly button overtakes you, sweeping you away, limbs seized, unable to out-swim the current. You can’t see past the stars in your eyes even after your legs relax and you force your hand to unclasp his hair, finger by finger, so you can lay back on the mattress, breathing hard.

He crawls up onto the bed and pulls you toward the centre, a self-satisfied grin on his face. His cock presses into your thigh, insistent for attention, the tip peeking out and leaking against your thigh. He ruts against you when he kisses you again, his close-cropped beard soaked with your arousal. You can taste yourself on his tongue, tangy and bitter-sweet.

You lay twined together, forehead pressed against his as you both catch your breath. One hand gently brushes up and down your spine, the other pulling your leg up over his hip. “How was that?” he asked.

There may not be words for what you feel. Maybe there are, but they’re beyond you right now, washed away with all the resistance in your body. You settle on nice, which makes him laugh.

“Only nice, hm? I suppose I’ll have to work harder.”

“Better than nice,” you assure him. “I— I liked it a lot.” It’s still insufficient, so you kiss him again, hoping he won’t ask any more questions.

He does, after a long moment. “Are you ready for more?”

“There’s more?” you ask. “Or— for you? Do you want me to—”

“No, there’s no need for you to do a thing, love. The next part is for both of us.” He rolls onto his back, taking you with him effortlessly. He reaches past you with one hand while he kisses you sweetly, tongue pushing into your mouth at the same moment you feel his cock slot against your entrance. He pushes in gently, halting when he meets resistance, fucking shallowly into you until you relax enough to let him bury himself deeper into your body.

You tuck your face down against his chest, focusing on the feeling of his cock stretching your cunt, so deep inside you that his presses against your womb. He tries to keep himself still, but his hips buck slightly, tearing a groan from your chest. There’s no stopping the way your cunt squeezes down on him in response, nor the way your hips grind against him. He makes a choked sound, breathing out shakily when you push yourself up to look at him.

The angle change nearly has you collapsing back down, but he takes pity on you and flips you both so he can take the lead. “Hello, pretty thing,” he says, giving you another kiss and a firm grind into you before he starts moving his hips, slowly working himself in and out of your cunt, lips settling against your ear so he could tell you how well you’re taking him, how good you feel around his cock.

Any ability to respond is quickly fucked out of you, your breath punched out with every deep thrust, your world shrinking down to a handful of sensations: his lips on your ear, the weight of his body and the delicious drag of his cock against your inner walls.

He works his hand between you to rub at your pearl, the heel of his hand pressing down on your lower belly. The thought that he can feel himself inside you with your hand is one of the last fully formed ones that cross your mind, because he growls and picks up the pace, unrelenting until you’re shaking and babbling and clinging so tightly to him that you’re certain you’ll leave permanent marks.

He drags you up another precipice and throws you over, his forehead pressed to yours, watching your face as you shake and cry out. He ruts into you, and you can feel him fill your cunt, his cock twitching, rooted firmly inside you. He doesn’t pull away, just throws himself onto his back, holding you tight to his chest.

His heart beats like a drum under your ear, slowing gradually as he catches his breath. His cock slips free, and you stiffen slightly as his spend leaks from your swollen cunt, spilling onto his belly. He pops his head up as soon as you tense, and huffs out a laugh, kissing the tip of your nose.

“Sex can be a bit messy. Come on, love. Let’s get cleaned up.”

Your legs wobble when you try to stand, but he happily slides a supportive arm around your waist, leading you into the adjoining tap room. Once you’re both cleaned up, he coaxes you out of your sweat-soaked chemise and wraps you in one of his shirts and you both sit back down in front of the fire.

You pick up your abandoned wine glass, holding it with both hands as you eye the wolf. He looks content, satiated, like he’s had his fill of you. There’s a little tremor of unease that settles in your belly. Now that the chase is over, will he still want you? Do you still want him to want you? At the beginning of the evening you had been determined to kill him, and now…

He looks back at you through half-closed eyes, and unfurls his arm. “You’re too far away,” he tells you, voice a warm purr. “And you’re thinking too much.”

It’s still unfair, how easily he reads you. An open book, pages left open for him to flip through at his leisure. Despite your trepidation, you walk forward on your knees and sit against him, knees tucked under his arm. His fingertips trail up your thigh, over your knee, down your calf, and back, over and over, as he waits for you to speak.

“What happens now?” you ask at last. “Do we go our separate ways?”

Hurt flashes across his face before he can hide it behind a neutral mask. “If that’s what you want.” His fingers continue retreading their path while silence builds between the two of you. At last, he pulls in a fortifying breath. “Is that what you want?”

There’s raw desire in his eyes, not tempered in the least by your coupling. He offers you everything so easily that it feels like it must be a trick, but he wouldn’t work so hard to hide his feelings if he didn’t care for you, if this were a trap. If you stay, it has to be your choice, not made because of his own want for you to remain by his side.

The anger that kept you warm in all your years out in the cold is gone. Killing him won’t bring your family back from the grave, it would just place another soul in one. The desire for revenge truly burned out a long while ago, and you couldn’t admit that only embers remained. It was why you were so desperate to end it tonight, to close the chapter and look forward to something new.

It’s so like your wolf to ruin your plans. This time, you’re not sure you mind.

“I’d like to stay,” you say at last.

He’s on you so fast that you drop your wine glass, spilling red over the furs. It’s hard to stop laughing enough to kiss him back, trying to point out the mess to him. He growls something about not giving a damn as he gives up trying to kiss you through your smile, and presses his lips to your pulse instead.

In the end, with all the history between the two of you, what’s one more mess?

It's been almost five years since I started writing this short story, and I had fully expected not to finish it. I was caught up in the story in the peripherals, the potential history between Cat and Valter. This scene no longer fits in the overall narrative, even if there are still threads of it that remain unchanged, so I feel like it's safe to share. I'm working on the third draft of The Night of the Wolf, sorting out the mess of my second draft (so many changes it might as well be a second first draft) and I think there's a very real possibility that I can actually finish it, and that's in no small way thanks to all of you. I have been writing for a long time, but it's only been in the past year that I've shared my work with anyone, and it's been a really lovely experience. Thank you for reading my silly fanfictions, thank you for reading this, and I hope to share more bits of original work going forward, if there's any interest. (But don't worry, I'm still gonna finish the fanfictions. I show no signs of stopping yet)

C. T. Cutter

(Also, special thanks to my best human person @dragonnarrative-writes for making me finish this and being so so kind to me about my work and encouraging me always. I am bad at accepting compliments but I appreciate them all the same)

Image Credits: 1 - 2 ~ Dividers by @/cafekitsune

[c4ninemaw]

Agere oc art + the inspired outfit⭐️

[tw1nkee28]

Chat, more art...

I'm trying to get back into the swing of things now that I'm no longer on Christmas break, so I'll hopefully be getting better with posting again hshdh

A vast majority of these I've done on stream in Shadow Company Discord at like 1 am HSHDH

You can see me beginning to tweak with the last picture LMAO

Also, I forgot to share this

I'm happy to at least see some improvement, and much love to the people who have helped me get to where I am 🫶

Glancing at the SC discord..

[gamergirlbonestaskforce141riot]

Mr and Mrs more-issues-than-vogue

[theartgremlin]

wolf!König and wolf!Peggy!!! Peggy wandered outside the KorTac pack’s territory and into Specgru territory while she was playing, but she doesn’t know. And of course, having a gigantic, scary Papa who comes snarling to the rescue every time has given her some serious false confidence. König needs to teach his tiny pup some manners.

German translation (via. Google translate, sorry!):

“I apologize for my pup’s behavior. But threaten her again, and we will have your liver for our dinner.”

@demothers-empty-blog I’m sorry it took me so long, but here’s that König and Peggy content I promised <333

[rejected-reapermain]

[pampanope]

Hi hi my friend ❤️

I’m curious who are the people closest to 7-11 and why? 👁️👁️

HIIIII ALYYYYYYUU AAHHHHHHH✨✨✨✨✨

Thank u for stopping by!!!!!

Allow me to ramble U v U

Okay, so, these are the ones closest to 7-11 currently:

Emile Hartly|[REDACTED]: 7-11’s Number One, the Beloved, the Sweetheart, the reason the sun shines brighter, the fiancé, his ride-or-die—

7-11: “Keep going 👀👀👀”

I think they get it pats his ball capped head

They met on an op with Emile as lead intelligence officer and Efren as his assigned support (May, 15, 2016).

Both see the darkness in each other and accept it. Both also see the light in each other and bring it out. They match each other’s freak lol

7-11 will do anything and everything for this man. (INCLUDES TOUCHING WATERMELONS FOR HIM CHDJSJSJDISNS)

Graves: I mean, a bond forms after tucking your boss into bed a few times XD

They trust and respect each other. 7-11 is forever thankful to Graves for the home ha has in Shadow Company. 7-11’s 2nd favorite blonde 🤣

Azelea Helms: Her caring personality naturally drew 7-11 to her. Despite the…..conflict between Azzy and RED, 7-11 grew to appreciate her company and admires both her ferocity and capacity for love despite her hardships.

Pixel: 7-11 kinda unofficially adopted Pixel, looking after him whenever he needed help, and wants only comfort and happiness for him. The relationship between both isn’t always smooth due to their personalities, but both mutually care for the other and have each other’s backs.

Wolf (Carter Austin Andrews): It was a rocky start because of Wolf’s affiliation with T141 and 7s wariness towards them, but they grew close and recognize the same level of loyalty they have for their factions. 7-11 was sad to see him go after spending a month with SC.

Lock (Erin Castillo): He can be his unhinged self around her and finds her both easy to talk to and fun to be around. Whenever she’s up to something, 7s is there, watching XD They’ve been through adventures together, including a road trip over several states in a tiny car with zero air conditioning.

Sentinel (Atlas Osmerova): She cool, calculating, and efficient, all qualities. They spar regularly, greeting each other with a flying kick from outta nowhere. And although she claims to care for no one but herself and her interests, 7s knows theres a softie hiding beneath the cool exterior :))))

This is based on the amount of interactions he’s had with em~

Emile belongs to @kings-out-of-pocket-hell

Azelea to @doodling-doodle

Pixel to @mr-1-2-3-4

Wolf to @whitewolfmystery

Lock to @tiredbi-peach

Sentinel to @kalys-404

[welldonekhushi]

"Bell and the Wolf" 🔔🐺

A small moodboard gift for my fellow mutual @piouswolf with their OC, Oscar Yamaha and mine!

For context as we both discussed, Vasili and Oscar are canonically enemies. Started as friends, but later turned against each other. Oscar faked his friendship with the Soviet when he was brainwashed, while being truly loyal to his very country.

Meanwhile, Vasili post-brainwash, decided to teach Oscar a lesson after being freed from MK-Ultra's treacherous methods. It's like a war between strength and psychology. Oscar and Vasili.

Can't wait to develop more lore about them, their dynamic is unique yet interesting! Hope you like it <3

[mr-1-2-3-4]

I hope you guys like this because this took me a while to

Also I wanted to add Jackrabbit but @tw1nkee28 doesn’t have Jackrabbit’s eyes with out sunglasses but I tried and just colored in his sunglasses, and thank you @pampanope for giving me the Flannel and KitKat drawings

@mythrite @whitewolfmystery @spadesento @shadow18-1 @shadow1-6 @olibird

I don’t remember everyone’s blog name

[hoperiley]

Eliyahna "Wolf" Jordan-Riley

[wiggy-worm]

I love how ginormous wolves are compared to husky’s so here’s könig and angel as dawgs

[bandanapir8]

might end up deleting this later because I'm so nervous about sharing my art but--

HI EVERYONE meet Wolf!!

he's one of my CoD ocs! Wolf is his callsign and he kinda hates being called anything else-

he's former SAS turned captain in a PMC (that is run by my oc Morven who I may or may not draw soon too)

he's 6'4", beefy, has been shot in the head and somehow survived

please enjoy him, I know I do

[gamergirlbonestaskforce141riot]

Thanks to @rubyspring I have the mask I always wanted for Riot, with a wolf's jaw

I'm so happy I could cry <3

[socially-awkward-skeleton]

Skelly's Masterlist

Updated to include only fandoms I am actively writing in: Call of Duty, and Far Cry 5

All my fics can be found on AO3 as well. If you're here for the art you can search #skelly sketches (my art tag). All of my fics and art are oc and oc x canon based.

My two main ocs are: Kit Cross (FC5) and Rory Sinclair (COD: MW reboot)

Rory Character Profile

Kit Character Profile

** All fics considered 18+ - Minors DNI

I do not give permission for anyone to put my fics/art into AI

Ten Years Earlier... (18+ smut)

All Along the Watchtower (Complete)

Evening of Score (Complete)

Shadow Dance (Complete)

The Proposal (Complete)

My Head is Bloodied, But Unbowed (Ongoing)

Enjoy the Silence (18+ smut)

I'm Your Man (18+ smut)

Stay Awake With Me

The Beast in Me - Monster Hybrid AU (Kinktober 2024 smut)

American Beasts (Ongoing Fic)

Kakia (Herald/Role Swap AU - Ongoing Fic)

The Animal in Me (Werewolf AU) - *ON HIATUS*

Only You (Soulmate AU) - *ON HIATUS*

The Wolf and the Wildcat (Jacob Seed x Fem!OC)

Wind Me Up (18+ smut)

The Hunt (18+ smut)

The Game (18+ smut)

Prompt: "I told you to stay still" (18+ smut)

Prompt: "I think you lost your underwear somewhere" (18+ smut)

Adaptation (18+ smut)

House Broken (18+ smut)

Great Motivation (18+ smut)

Will to Power (18+ smut)

Reunion Kiss prompt

The Baptist and The Blade (John Seed x Fem!OC)

The Baptist and the Blade (18+ smut)

Just Say Yes (18+ smut)

Temptation (18+ smut)

Absolute Opposites Attract Absolutely (Staci Pratt x Fem!OC)

This is Love (18+ smut)

[snootlestheangel]

Shifter AU where Bailey meets Ghoap

Just a little blurb of a fic idea/wip I may not get back to for a while.

@stuffireadandenjoy

If cats could cry the way humans did, with rivers of tears and runny noses, Bailey would be sobbing.

But cats can't cry like that, and she didn't dare make a noise as something flew overhead. It was a bird, this much she knew, but a threat nonetheless. She was still rather small in her cat form, and large birds of prey still posed a threat.

The bird circled once again before landing on the ground next to the truck she had taken residence under. She tried her best to hide against the large tire and hope no one would notice her and would continue on. But the bird, a raven, seemed intent on searching every little nook and cranny for something. Bailey wanted to relax, wanted to believe that the raven posed no threat to her as they were typically scavengers, but something just felt off.

It was a rather large raven, in her defense, and it seemed very determined to find what it was looking for. Almost too intelligent to be just a normal raven, but rather a Shifter. The thought didn't ease Bailey's anxieties about getting discovered, as the Raven could easily be a ploy, a way to trick her into thinking she was being saved only to throw her right back into hell.

Bailey can't tell if it's a miracle or a curse that her little heart didn't stop the second the raven laid eyes on her and excitedly hopped up and down.

This about confirmed her suspicions that the feathered stranger was in fact a Shifter, but it certainly didn't make her believe they were here to save her. She hissed and swatted at the bird's beak as it hopped closer, making soft calls to her. She managed to hit its beak, and the Raven jumped back in surprise, hitting its head against the bottom of the truck. It shook itself out and quickly hopped up onto the fence in her view. It settled there, quiet and looking down at her with a tilted head. A light on the outside of the building next to them casted an eerie glow around the Raven, and all she could do was sit and stare at it in hopes it would get bored and fly away.

And then it began to call. Every few seconds it would let out a series of calls, beckoning for another of its flock to come near. Bailey wanted nothing to do with the flock, or with this Raven, but she was frozen, stuck in place with fear gluing her feet to the concrete.

Then the footsteps. Quiet to a normal person's ear, yet loud enough for her sensitive cat ears to pick up. Big, heavy boots tramping through the grass nearby as the person approached.

The Raven seemed to recognize the person, as it called a final time while bobbing its head up and down. As the boots hit concrete, just behind the truck she hid under, Bailey watched in horror as the Raven hopped down from its perch and landed next to the truck. It motioned at her with a thrust of its head, yet keeping its distance. It was almost funny to her, the way this large bird respected her space after being barely scratched by tiny kitten claws.

"Got something, Johnny?" A gruff voice, barely above a whisper yet so loud all the same, called out to the Raven. The Raven hopped up and down a couple of times before beckoning back towards Bailey's hiding spot, one which was honestly poorly thought out on her part.

The light from the building quickly disappeared as the man got on his knees and peered under the truck. Brown eyes shrouded in darkness widened slightly upon seeing her, yet she backed slightly at seeing the intimidating figure. A skull, presumably a mask, covered most of the man's face, and what it didn't was swarmed with dark cloth.

"Easy, not gonna 'urt yah." The man muttered as he adjusted his position to reach under the truck and pull her out. He was British, as best she could tell, and sounded nothing like the people that did this. But she didn't care. She didn't want anyone near her, she didn't trust anyone, and simply wanted to go to sleep and wake up to see this had all been a terrible nightmare. So she hissed and growled and swatted as his gloved hand came near, and he simply pulled it back with a quiet huff. She thought it was exasperated, frustrated that she refused his "helping hand", but it turned out to be a laugh as his eyes crinkled, head shaking ever so slightly.

"Wanna come out yourself, then?" He asked, but she didn't answer. Didn't nod her head or give any indication that she even understood him. She curled in on herself, the heart wrenching desire of just wanting to go home burning under her skin. She wanted to shift only so she could cry, but she couldn't. Not here, not now.

"We're gonna get you out of this, yeah? I know it's hard, and it's scary, but you just gotta trust us for a bit." The masked man said, once again reaching his hand out, the palm up. Bailey took a deep breath before slowly unfurling herself and crawling towards his open hand. She let out a nervous cry as she was hoisted into the air before being gently tucked against the man's chest. She was sitting on the top of his vest, safely nestled away.

And she only just realized how cold she was, and just how warm the stranger was. She let out a soft sigh as she tucked herself into the little spot, and the man's other hand came up to gently hold her in place. Warm, and safe.

The Raven landed on his shoulder, cawing quietly. The man nudged him with his head, helmet knocking against the bird.

"Good bird."