#howling like a wolf on period

[nguyetdahuong]

Oh shit here we go again

Once read a fic describe sam's eyes as animalistic and cant stop thinking about this

anon request | sam and the lip snarl thing (for science)

[digifag]

its a melancholy reflection kinda night

[lavandulawrites]

Yandere Genshin Men Eating Out Their Darling

Characters: Albedo, Alhaitham, Ayato, Baizhu, Capitano, Childe, Cyno, Dainsleif, Diluc, Dottore, Gorou, Heizou, Itto, Kaeya, Kaveh, Kazuha, Kinich, Lyney, Neuvillette, Ororon, Pantalone, Pierro, Sethos, Thoma, Tighnari, Venti, Wanderer/ Scaramouche, Wriothesley, Xiao, Zhongli (all separate)

MINORS AND AGELESS BLOGS DO NOT INTERACT

I decided to do ca. 100-200 words each character to keep it nice and simple:) (some are over 200 tho). This took me longer than expected haha. My requests are open, but read my rules before requesting <3

Masterlist

Warnings: NSFW 18+, cunilingus, all sexual acts are consensual, female reader, obsession, possessiveness, some of the yandere tendencies are more subtle than others, future imprisonment, face sitting, jealousy, fingering, Stockholm syndrome, manipulation, forced marriage, reader is indifferent to some of the yandere behaviour in some of the parts, translation at the end, power imbalance, THE BLOOD IN CHILDE’S PART IS NOT PERIOD BLOOD, BUT BLOOD FROM SOMEONE HE HAD TO “SETTLE THINGS WITH”

Word count: 4779

Albedo

The unforgiving wind of the icy mountain howled against the treetops. The fireplace was lit given you much needed warmth. It had been 2 months since you had moved up into the cozy cabin high up in the mountain with the famed researcher.

His hand scissored skilfully into your cunt before his tongue joined them. The cold left you quickly as his tongue dove in deeper into your fluttering cunt.

You were glad you had taken upon the offer of the blond haired man and followed him up to Dragonspine. Here you had been happier than ever before and you believed him when he said that others would just do you harm.

Alhaitham

The scribe was a calculated and well composed man. So who would have thought he would lose his composure so easily when it came to you? Your presence was enough to make his seemingly cold manners crack and turn into poorly hidden admiration. Alhaitham did anything he could to keep you as shielded from the outside world as possible.

His muscular arms kept your legs open as he devoured you with uncharacteristic vigour. He sneered like a starved animal as he left mark after mark on your thighs. A guttural sneered left his lips as he dove his face further into the warmth of your cunt. You cooed at him lovingly as shivers of pleasure ran through your body.

Ayato

Ayato had always had his way with words. He had always had the upper hand no matter the circumstances. He was a beautiful man and he reminded you of a siren. His lilac eyes enchanted you to no extent. His touches intoxicating, leaving you wanting more. He was a dangerous man, that much you knew, but it didn’t stop you for seeking him out time after time. He was a wolf in sheep’s clothing, but he loved you, oh so much and he kept you safe.

His bed was soft as and comforting. The doors open and welcoming in the breeze from the sea. The moon was high and clouds covered some of its white body.

The pale blue haired man was busy with burying his face between your legs were he ate you out with precision. His eyes never leaving yours as he showed you what it meant being the wife of the head of the Yashiro Commission. You found yourself melting in his touches and any thought about your parents disappeared without a trace. The smug smirk of the ethereal man was out of your understanding as you lost yourself to pleasure.

Baizhu

The Bubu Pharmacy was empty save from the two of you. The lights were dimmed and the window closed to keep the cold autumn night air out. Candles were lit to give you some much needed light. Baizhu’s trusted companion, the snake that often accompanied him, was in another room far away.

Orange reptile like eyes gazed down on you gently as he moved slowly down your body and to where you wanted him the most. His light touches teasing and making you hunger for more.

He parted your thighs skilfully as he kissed up your slit before he entered your hole with his tongue. The very same tongue which had driven your family and loved ones away with elegantly spun lies and well hidden treats.

Now the only thing you needed was him and his gentle, loving touches.

Capitano

The 1st Harbinger was a big and righteous man. He was stronger than any human that walked the earth and he never broke his word. He had first intimidated you with his size (and he still did at times), but you learned that underneath his helmet was a charming man. His charm was difficult to pinpoint as it was different from most, but it had greatly intrigued you.

His large hands held your legs firmly as they rested in his shoulders. He was kneeling at the foot of the bed with his head buried in your soaking cunt. His helmet was carefully placed on the dresser. Capitano’s long black hair fell against his shoulders as he lapped up your juices. His dark midnight blue eyes stared up at you, making you shiver under their intensity.

“You are so beautiful [Name]” his voice a groan.

You let yourself get lost in the pleasure and you couldn’t care less about the havoc he had caused when a rowdy man had accidentally bumped into you.

Childe

Blood were still coating the ginger strands of the warrior who had you pressed down on his face. The first thing he had demanded when he got home from yet another business trip, was for you to sit on his face. Who were you to deny your husband?

His grip on you were as intense as the rest of the man. His blue eyes were shut in bliss as he ate you out like it was his last meal. And if he had the choice he would die happily between your thighs as he told you at every given moment.

You didn’t last long with that damned tongue of his and before you knew it, you were clutching the headboard for much needed support. Instead of letting you get off, he simply glanced up at you with big eyes full of love and utter devotion.

As he continued to stare, it became obvious of who the blood in his hair belonged to.

Cyno

The white haired Mahamatra had his gazed locked onto your weeping cunt. His calloused hands ran down your sides till they got hold of your hips. His tongue plunged into you like a starved man and drove moan after moan out of you. He had finally managed to convince you to stay at home in his fine house as he would take care off you. Given his mannerism you could tell he was greatly pleased with himself.

His skill full tongue drove you quickly to your climax and you intertwined your hand in his white locks as he licked up your sweet release.

His red eyes looked up at you lovingly as he continued his previous pace. You were in for a long night.

Dainsleif

Blond hair tickled the sensitive skin of the inside of your thighs. The Khaenri'an’s hands were digging into the flesh of your skin as he lapped at your sweet juices. Dain had told you time after time that you were the only person that relived him of the pain that was caused of the curse that was cast upon him. As following he never let you leave him. You had long since learned that the soothing effect you had on his curse was only a tiny tiny fraction as to why he never let you leave his sight.

His groans and your soft moans were echoing through the empty halls of the ruin. The blond man drove his tongue deeper and you felt you were close. You chest heaved up and down in a rapid motion as you tried to calm down form your release.

Cerulean eyes stared up at you with devotion one normally only found in a worshipper of a god. How ironic. Words feel from his mouth which you had no means to understand, yet you felt the meaning through his unrelenting gaze. “Jeg elsker deg, jeg elsker deg, jeg elsker deg, min kjære [Name].”

Diluc

The soft glow of the fireplace warm against your naked skin. The light from the fire lighting up the muscular chest of the redhead that leaned over you. His lips locked against yours in a passionate kiss. Your tongues danced in a seductive tango which made you ache with need between your legs. Diluc hummed as he noticed your thighs pressing together.

With his head between your thighs he worked you closer and closer towards or orgasm. His movements passionate and filled with love. You ran your hair through his red locks. You were truly happy in the arms of the man who loved you more than life itself. You ignored the words of others. So what is he was overprotective and so what is he didn’t want strangers talking to you? He was only trying to protect you.

Dottore

The Doctor was a talented man when it came to the art of intimacy. It was a rather shocking discovery at first, but you was happy he had showed you his ways in the bedroom.

The threat of being imprisoned forever within the walls is his lavish manor hang low over your head like a guillotine. Despite that you couldn’t care less. Not when he was nestled between your legs and lapped at your cunt with such gentleness and love you almost wept. To awaken such emotions within the second Harbinger was a defeat in itself, one which you treasured greatly.

His groans synchronised with your moans in a symphony of love and lust. It made you curious for the future and uneasy for what he had done to your loved ones.

Gorou

The life of a general was busy and dangerous. His days existed of leading battles and giving out orders. So it was only natural he was extremely touch starved when he returned from war and to you.

When you greeted him in the hallway of their cozy home he almost leaped into your arms. You hugged him tightly, glad he wasn’t hurt. He buried his face in the crotch of your neck. “Oh how I have missed you” his voice a whisper.

Pale hands gripped your thighs in a tight grip. Blunt nails digging into your skin. Your hands held onto the headboard with enough strength so you wouldn’t collapse on the man underneath you. His tongue drilled fast and deep into your drenched cunt. He was eating you out like a wild dog. Your every nerves was haywire.

Your breath hitched as Gorou drove you faster and faster to your climax. The brown haired man beneath you muttered chants of “I love you” against your clit over and over again. He had promised you when you pulled you onto the bed that he would never ever leave you again, and judging by his intense look you believed him.

Heizou

Slim fingers ran down your thighs leaving goosebumps in their wake. Dark red hair brushed against your nose. Light green eyes gazed into your eyes with lust and love. Your lips locked in a soft kiss. He tasted sweet like cherries. Your lips pulled apart and you could feel him smirking.

“You have no idea how much I love you, need you” his sensual voice whispered against your lips. He gave you one last deep kiss before he lowered his head down and kissed trails down to where you needed him the most.

You kissed your inner thigh till he reached your sweet cunt. He kissed it once, twice, before he gave it a good lick. You moaned at his moment.

He snickered teasingly as he pushed his tongue inside your spongy walls. He moaned loudly at your taste.

“Archons, you tasted heavenly” he sighed in between licks. His thumb found your clit which he stroked and rubbed skilfully.

You could feel the knot in your lower abdomen getting closer and closer to snapping. Before you knew it you came all over the beautiful face of the man between your thighs.

In your blissful trance you were completely unaware of the documents on his nightstand that read the reports of your future disappearance.

Itto

The horns of the oni was hard and cool underneath your hold. As you rubbed the base the large oni groaned in pleasure. He had you on his face in a tight hold as he ravaged your cunt with such hunger only an oni could posses. As his tongue swirled over your clit in a slow harsh manner, your dread upon seeing him tear the men who had backed you in an alley, in half slowly disappeared.

Your chest heaved as you tightened your hold on his horn which egged him on further. His movements speed up and it didn’t take long before you saw stars. You slumped forwards, but his strong large hands kept you upright.

“I love you so, so much” he murmured against your thigh.

Kaeya

The blue haired captain had without no doubt murdered the annoying tavern patrons in cold blood. Despite that, you felt safe in his arms as he pleasured your cunt with his slivered tongue. His lone eye glanced up at you with a hooded lid which sent a warm jolt down in your cunt.

He was as skilled with his tongue when it came to pleasuring you as he was at whispering you lies that fuelled your dependence on him.

He held you in a tight embrace as you came down form your high. His honeyed voice whisper sweet nothings into your ears and you felt safe in his arms.

Kaveh

Blond locks tickled your thighs as the architect lapped at your cunt. He had been extremely stressed and panicked when he came home to your shared home. He had admitted that he was afraid of someone better coming to whisk you away. You were the only thing that kept him sane. You had stroked his hair reassuringly and told him you would never leave him. Before you both knew it you had ended up in to sofa, with him nestled between your thighs.

You pulled at his soft locks which earned you a grown which reverberated against your cunt. You threw your head back against the cushion. Kaveh had always put your pleasure before his and he had always had a talented for making you feel better than anyone else could.

With a swirl of your clit and thorough the lapping of his wet muscle you came so heard you saw stars. You thought that he must be a gift sent by the gods beyond the sky as he licked up your excessive juices with loud moans.

He leaned over you as he started lovingly into your eyes. “You are never allowed to leave me, ever” he kissed you passionately. His grip on your shoulders was hard as if he was afraid you would run away.

Kazuha

The white haired samurai had always intrigued you. He was a wise man with a connection to nature you could only hope to fully understand. He was so so kind and gentle towards you, yet you had just witnessed him slashing down a group of drunken sailors who had gotten a little too friendly with you. His snowy haired had been stained red as he pulled you into a tight embrace, relived you were okay. You were shaken up by the sight you had just seen before you and he had kissed your face as he had whispered reassuring words. Every word he utters from his pale lips felt like a warm blanket. They always seemed to calm you.

You had helped him wash his hair and as his hair grew more and more white, his desire for you became more and more visible. You had pulled him into a kiss with led to you being laid out on the soft sheepskin rug in the middle of the bathroom.

His tongue wasn’t only good at uttering poetic words, but it was also extremely skilled in the art of pleasure. He ate you out gentle and sensual with his hands gripping your thighs. Every time the started close do to you being so lost in please, he pushed them open firmly. His red eyes held your gaze through the many orgasms he drew out of you. You had now completely forgotten all about the sounds of Kazuha’s katana slashing through the throats of the sailors.

Kinich

The ancient name bearer was a honest man. He believed in getting straight to the point and he rarely kept secrets. Hence why he told you quite early on after he had realised his feelings, what he felt for you. You had been foolish in believing it was just a normal crush and not an endless abyss of love and obsession which had scared his little dragon companion.

You had invited the hazel eyed young man into your home, without knowing that day would be your last day of freedom. After his visited, he would bring you home with him.

You laid spread out onto your bed with the dark haired man planted between your legs. His tongue hungrily ate you out and he swallowed as much slick he possible could. You whispered a soft “I love you” which made him completely lose his composure.

Lyney

White doves, flashy card tricks and well thought out magic performances became a part of your daily life after you accepted Lyney’s love. His feline eyes never left your form and his hand was always near you. He sneered passive aggressive threats at everyone who dared getting close to you. It had starting to get exhausting calming down your possessive lover. Luckily you had come up with a solution.

Burying his head into your cunt had surprisingly calming effects on the magician. He moaned at your sweet taste as his pale lilac eyes fell shut. His tongue was as talented as his fingers and brought you to orgasm after orgasm. You had started to wonder if he actually possessed magical powers after he brought you to your fourth orgasm that night.

Unbeknownst to you, was that the cunning magician had purposely lashed out more than normal at the travelling market you two had visited in order to be granted access between your legs. It was a grand feast for him and a pleasurable act for you, so it was a win win for both parties, wouldn’t you agree?

Neuvillette

The dragon had laid you down on the plush bed. Your skin flat against the silk sheets. His hold on you were gentle, but possessive. Despite his perfectly crafted façade he was only a dragon, and dragons did not ever want to share their treasures. Seeing you surrounded by so many who wanted to congratulate you on your marriage shouldn’t have bothered him, but it did. He had clenched his jaw and dragged you upstairs to his private quarters.

His tongue was skilled and held an authority which made you blush. His pale fingers joined his tongue and brought you to a pleasure you knew you would never find with another man. You let yourself lose control of your body and gave your entire being to the awaiting dragon.

Ororon

The dark haired man was a desperate man. He clung to you as if you were his lifeline and for all you knew, maybe you were. His mismatched eyes held an obsession that ran deeper than the well that was outside his home.

He kissed your lower lips sloppily, but with such passion the poets of Mondstadt could never hope to achieve. He whimpered at the sweet taste of you and his kisses deepened. His lips parted from your sweet cunt and shifted to your inner thigh were he sunk his fangs into. You hissed as he sucked a purple hickey onto your sensitive.

“I should mark you up so no one gets any funny ideas about who you belong to” his sweet voice drowning out any other thoughts and filling them all with him.

Pantalone

Ringed fingers stroked the inside of your thighs as the dark haired Harbinger held your thighs. His pretty lips curled up into a smile that made your cheeks redden. He laughed at your embraced appearance. “Aren’t you the sweetest?” he purred as he kissed the inner of your thighs slowly, teasingly.

When his lips finally reached you were you wanted it the most you couldn’t help the small sounds that escaped your lips. The sounds only pushed him further on as he quickly and suddenly plunged his tongue deep inside. He moved his tongue skilfully as one of his hands found your clit which he rubbed gently.

The ring on your finger which symbolised the eternal binding you had to him felt like a part of you as you came undone on the silver tongue of the banker. It was as if your distaste of the marriage had never happened at all.

Pierro

The director of the Harbingers was a cold and collected man, but when it came to you he was different. The coldness thawed and was replaced with a warmth that lulled your senses. His large hands moved in precision that came with the many years he had lived. The marriage he had forced upon you didn’t seem as bad as you laid in the bed of his elegantly decorated bedroom with relics he had collected throughout the years.

His right hand held onto your thigh as the other held onto your and. Your hands intertwined. On of your legs were popped up on his shoulder as his tongue worked inside your tight hole. He was rather quiet save for a few grunt here and there, but it was obvious he enjoyed himself greatly.

As you came you tightened your hold on his hand and he kissed your thigh gently in a sign of his undying love.

Sethos

The tent was cramped, but with a miracle he had made it cozy. Blankets were covering the ground followed by pillows. Sethos was pressed between your thighs as he worshipped your cunt like it was an ancient goddess. His wild locks had fallen down his shoulders and framed his beautiful face. His gemstone like eyes found yours as he continued to please you with his tongue.

You could tell he was relieved to find you unharmed after the encounter with the bandits. You hadn’t dared to ask what he did to them afterwards, but you decided it was best to ignore it. You knew he would never hurt you, but you couldn’t help but feel bad for the bandits that had the misfortune to encounter the clever young man.

Thoma

The blond housekeeper had always been so very gentle and careful when it came to you. It made you wonder if he was scared you would break if he applied a little more pressure. Tonight however was different.

His hands dug into your skin as his tongue worked you up with fast and harsh movements. You couldn’t hold back the soft moans that fell from your lips. You closed your eyes as he ate you out.

His jealousy was evident in his tight hold. He had been seething through his usually calm and friendly expression. He couldn’t stand seeing other men lay their slimy hands on someone who belonged to him. Who knew what they would do to you?

Tighnari

Soft ears flicked as a deep groan sounded from deep within the chest of the forests watcher. His was eating you with carnal desire that had first surprised you. His arms snaked around your waist in a protective manner.

Tighnari had always been extremely overprotective for as long as you had known him. You had after a time, welcomed that side of him after you realised he only meant you well. His company was all you needed and you had started to forget how it was being with your friends.

A groan left his lips as he lapped up your release with a hunger fever. You let your fingers run along his ear which earned you a strangled moan. His hazel eyes gazed up into yours which such love. Why seek freedom when you had the sweetest lover?

Venti

The playful bard was happily lapping at your wet cunt. His fingers gently caressed your skin. His nose pushed against your clit as he angled his head in order to reach deeper into you.

Venti was a firm believer in freedom, and freedom he had given you. It had surprised you at first how a man with so deep feelings for you at the point you could envision him creeping into the cavity of your chest in order to be closer to you, letting you roam freely within the city. He had let you do as you wished, except talking to other men alone. Whenever a male counterpart approached you, his green eyes filled with rage was he stepped in and dragged you away.

Wanderer/ Scaramouche

Cold breath fanned over your lower half as he bent his face down. His beautiful face ethereal in the moonlight as his eyes found yours. Love and desperation swirled in the violets.

He swirled his tongue around your clit which made you gasp. His cold hand intertwined with yours in a gentle, but firm hold. He had always had the need to know where you were at all times and when you weren’t within his reach he became irritable and lashed out at anyone who dared to talk to him. You had long suspected that there was more to him than what he had told you. One thing was sure, his love for you ran deeper than the roots of the giants trees in the rainforest.

He ate you out with such emotion you were taken aback. The usual snarky man was now glossy in the eyes as his eyes raked across your face.

The moonlight cast long shadows over the bedroom as you came. At that very moment you didn’t care about how he didn’t want you to spend time with your friends. For was it really that bad to only be with him? Was it really that bad to be with the man you love?

Wriothesley

Strong hands held your hips in place as his face burrowed into your crotch. A few groans escaped his lips as his tongue works up your slit. His nose against your clit. Your eyes started up into the ceiling as you moaned. The Duke had had a bad day and he had wanted nothing more than to burrow his head between your thighs and eat you out for hours.

It had become an everyday occurrence with him nestled nicely between your thighs. You had long since stopped complaining about not being able to see the sun that hung high above the blue Fontainian waters.

“You are such a good girl, [Name]. Let me take care of you” his chin was glimmering with slick. His tongue swept over his chin in a hum. “You’re gonna be safe here. I’m glad you finally realise such” he kissed your inner thigh before he dove back in. What he said was true. You were going to be happy with him down in the Fortress.

Xiao

Golden predatory eyes held your gaze as the long fingers of the adeptus plugged into your cunt. The slick sounds filling the room accompanied by your uneven breathing. His mouth locked around your clit as he gave it a hard suck which sent shivers down your spine. Xiao was a man of few words, but that didn’t bother you. He had his own ways of showing you his love.

His ravenous tongue accompanied his fingers as he began his feast. The bedroom at his private quarters at the inn was dimly lit. A lone candle was burning on the nightstand. Your gaze wandered to the open window which overlooked the marsh and the land that stretched beyond. You longed for your freedom, but you didn’t want to part from the adeptus you loved so dearly. Maybe one day you two would traverse the world beyond the surrounding land of the inn.

Zhongli

Strong warm hands pinned you down as soft lips kissed down to your cunt. His hauntingly beautiful eyes met yours as he gently bit down onto your skin. His sharp teeth almost breaking the skin, but he parted before it started to hurt. He had time after time showed you he knew both you and your body better than everyone else.

The contract that laid neatly on the dark wooden nightstand was temporarily forgotten as he worked your through your nth orgasm for the night. His long silky brown hair fell over his shoulders as he tipped your head up into a deep kiss. His tongue invited yours to a dance of pleasure and love. He parted with your lips after a moment that felt like an eternity.

“I will make you happy for eternity. Just sign the contract and I will take care of everything else” his deep voice reverberated through his broad chest.

You nodded, oblivious to what would happen to you when you signed your name onto the golden paper. Your faith was in his hands, but he promised he would take care of you. You were his future wife after all.

Translation

Norwegian → English

“Jeg elsker deg” = “I love you”

“Min kjære” = “My dear”

[halcyone-of-the-sea]

PREY

PAIRING: Hunter!Simon 'Ghost' Riley x F!Werewolf!Reader

SYNOPSIS: There’s blood on your hands again.

WORDCOUNT: 16.8k

WARNINGS: Intense gore, body horror, death, mutilation, weapons, firearms, knives, intended harm, violence, blood, descriptions of wounds, angst, fluff, protective!Simon, religious mentions, period time standards for men/women (1700s), etc.

A/N: The first of my reverse AUs is finally here! Enjoy!

*I do not give others permission to translate and/or re-publish my works on this or any other platform*

The tale of the Werewolf extends back to around 2100 BC. It was written in The Epic of Gilgamesh, scored into a clay tablet by hands long buried—a corpse forever still in the earth so deep, the bones have yet to be found by greedy eyes. Perhaps the oldest surviving story in human history, and there is still a passage that bleeds into stories hundreds of thousands of years later.

In such, Gilgamesh, a man on the search for immortality, rejects a woman for the reason of turning her previous husband into a wolf. 

“You have loved the shepherd of the flock; he made meal-cake for you day after day, he killed kids for your sake. You struck and turned him into a wolf, now his own herd-boys chase him away, his own hounds worry his flanks…”

And then, the tales spread, changed, through history and through spoken words of caution. Like water trickling from a well, down the shape of the wooden bucket delving deeper and deeper into a pit of age—of caution. 

“The Beast of Gévaudan. Man-eater.” Through France

“He has a wolf-head, you know? Tall thing—short brown hair all over him.” Through Scotland

“Beware the man that changes shape under the full moon.” England.

Now, in the late seventeenth century, it all comes to a head. Even the people in 2100 BC knew that someone who changes into a wolf, or some bastard-like imitation of one, was very much real; it is very much an affliction that overtakes sense and reason. A curse. 

Transferable down to the saliva of one entering your bloodstream.

You must never get within the beast’s sights. 

—

There’s blood on your hands again. 

Hunched over, your body quivers, and the bareness of your flesh in the moonlight is of little concern to you—trapped in a fetal position while the chilled wind howls.

Howls.

Howls.

“Get out of my head.” Your fingers grasp at your scalp, pulling; ripping. A sob jaggedly slashes your throat open. “Please,” you rattle in a fast breath, the grass snapping as you writhe. “Get out of my head.”

It had happened once more, and you can’t remember any of it. 

The forest is deathly still. No birds sing their songs—no breeze moves the long grass, patches trampled down around you as if a beast had staggered into the small clearing you’re lying in. Maybe it had. There are shadows that listen to your quiet panic, the low whines and gasping quivers of your throat; from behind the trees that speak in the way that only they could. The deep night creeps into you, and the moonlight bathing your flesh doesn’t push back the terror in your bloodstream. 

Your body burns like you’ve broken every bone twice over, and judging by the blood stuck in between every line and dip of your skin, to anyone walking past, the analogy could be very real. Fingers flexing and bending, you try to force out the venom inside of your head with desperation befitting a dying dog, spine visible out of the skin of your back as you sob all the harder. 

You tried to stop it—you had; you always do. But, just like every month when the full moon mocks you with its silver-hued face, it never works. 

It never works.

Your eyes stare at nothing as you lay here, in this place of grass, blood, and bile, of corruption as deep as a vile sin of flesh. It came over you like a wave, fingers trapping your throat and bearing it to the caress of fangs. There were different names for it here, miles from your village and the terrified eyes that search the tree line; names coming from the hunters and their black deeds. 

Shapeshifter.

Demon spawn.

Werewolf.

“I can’t take it anymore,” you shove the side of your head into the ground, pushing the torn earth away from the cuts of long claws. Tears flood the dirt until it’s wet and muddy, pushing the crimson stains on your skin away in long streaks. “It hurts, God, please, it hurts.”

The sound of your hysterics rises and falls in the stillness—the inactivity of fearful birds and beasts wondering if your fangs would rip from your gums and your claws would tear from your fingertips. Fur along your body the color of which leads to stories of their own spreading far and wide. 

The White Wolf. The Specter of St. Francis’ Village. A hound from Hell. 

More pale than snow, and sharper seen than a knife or blade through the black trees. Even if the memories of your shifts were fuzzy at best, there were flashes of those who’d seen your gargantuan form from the confines of their stone-cut homes. Those wide eyes. Yelling—screaming; sprays of blood as heads were separated from bodies—

“Stop!” You scream, your legs kicking out as your toes scrape the grass. “It’s not me! It’s not!” 

There’s a call of alarm from deep within the woods, the flash of torches and bellow of hunting dogs. They’re running you down, you’d forgotten that in the depths of your breaking mind and body, and by the time your elongated limbs had set themselves back into a more human-like appearance, your spine cracking at every vertebrae, it had slipped your thoughts entirely. It always took you a long time to understand what had happened after…everything. 

But even now, the shouts of the hunt are pointless to the visceral breaking of your consciousness, stuck between leaving bloodlust and knowledge of horror. There’s flesh in your teeth, and you wail before your fingers drag down your face, cupping over your ears. In the back of your skull, the panting of dogged breath echoes; running, blood, blood, blood. It’s a dance of fangs, of pale fur, staining every inch and flooding the back of your mouth. Drinking it down like water.

Flesh—lovely, disgusting, flesh rent and torn to the bone with smacking gums belonging to a square snout. 

Who had you killed this time?

By the time the dogs had tracked your scent to your curled body, it was already too late. 

“Here!” Male voices shift in and out on the backs of crows, hard and cruel. “It’s here!”

“Get the dogs on it!” 

“It’s not me,” you mutter incessantly, not truly understanding what you’re saying as hounds burst through the bushes, all snapping teeth and slobbering tongues your eyes widen in an instant. Panting, your jaw clenches; long whines move your throat. 

“What…?” Blinking quickly, the dogs surround you—having to be at least ten of them on their nimble legs and thin tails. Everything is distant to you; separated. A knife could be driven through your heart, and you wouldn’t even realize it until minutes later, bleeding out on the grass. 

The hounds are afraid of you. 

They dart forward and balk back, your scent driving them up a wall until rabid slobber drips from their maws. Torchlight pulls through the trees—quicker now, running. Fangs nick your shoulder and you yell, shoving up to your backside as the world swirls, shuffling away as the dogs snarl. Their eyes are red-huen. Drunk off fear and order. 

Your head darts and shifts, blood dripping off your chin to travel down the flesh of your stomach and navel—so much crimson that the whites of your eyes are violent under the moon. Hands slipping over the wet grass, your face pulls and slackens in delirious confusion as you try to stand but fail. You cry out in sharp pain, and the dogs go wild in their kill circle, nearly attacking one another in anticipation. 

You glance down and see the black crossbow bolt sticking out of your thigh. 

The scent of wolfsbane in the air only then becomes clear to you, and the realization is slow. Wolfsbane—you’d been told about it by the village priest. It makes beasts of the night dumb and weak; minds unclear. 

In a moment of clarity, the reason behind your incurable hysteria becomes clear.

Lungs heaving and eyes far-off, the hunting party bursts through to where you stay, and you look up in animalistic fear. Figures dip and slip into one another, faces becoming demons as the visages melt into twos and threes. You yell out, sniffling and sobbing, trying to back up until the hounds grapple onto your shoulder and rip a chuck out of your arm. Screaming, your hand moves back, shoving at its snout before hands staple themselves to your wrist. 

“No!” You wail, injured leg dragging as you’re forced back into a heavy chest. Hot breath fans against your neck as multiple grips pull and touch you—shackling you down with rope and chains. Your throat screams itself raw, kicking and struggling futility. “Let go!”

You’re too weak—too drugged off wolfsbane and blood loss. Rotting teeth move across the canvas of a smeared painting, you can’t focus beyond the riot of your heart inside of your ribs.  

Grubby hands snap under your chin, digging into your flesh as you cry, not able to move as the restraints are tightened. A silver muzzle is slapped over your jaw. Dark eyes shimmer as you rage—aggravating the bolt wound until fresh blood forms a puddle on the ground, which the dogs lick their lips at. 

“Look at that,” a low, lust-filled voice eases out, and hands around your body tightening as you squirm, head spinning. Silver and wolfsbane. Your eyes snap to fight the sudden flood of fuzzy heaviness in your body.  “Pretty little Hell-Beast, eh? Almost seems a bit strange to have the Spector be her. Think that hunter shot the right bitch?”

“Course,” another grunt, a hand grabs the top of your head, jerking it up as your head lulls along with the force. You can barely focus on the words being said. “He isn’t a fuckin’ twat. Killed a werewolf in the next village over, too. Heard he skinned the fucker and took its head for his mantlepiece—just like the vampire skull he wears.” A pause. The dogs are still barking—echoing out in the trees. You can’t feel your legs. “Isn’t that right, Hunter?!”

A shout is sent into trees as your panic breeds with the drug, eyelids drooping as your head is snapped and moved by your hair. Your buggy eyes don’t focus on the man until he steps into the torchlight, the crowd parting for him as the metal of your chains drags and clinks together. 

It’s as if the very blackness of night takes human form. 

The man, the Hunter, is tall—very tall. He looms like an aloof animal over most of the others here with his dark boots and his black hood, and yet, under the fabric, there is no whisper of his face. 

Only the upper visage of a pure white skull, and two long, needle-pointed teeth where canines should be. 

“Ghost,” one of the men laughs, groping at your bleeding thigh before you shriek, muffled from behind the muzzle, and weakly kicked out. “Good shot, Mate. Right in the meat of the thing. Gave a good trail for the hounds.” 

Ghost blinks slowly, grunting under his breath as the large crossbow in his hands is shifted. He stays silent as your visible pulse hurries on as if you were a rabbit and not a wolf, watching from under the cover of his hood. The darkness of his clothes is blue in the moon—silver buttons down the length of a loose shirt and pants stuffed into boots. The hood is attached to a jacket, which itself extends down to his knees and sways lightly with every shift. The silent resting of weapons and tools is not lost to anyone. 

Belt of filled vials and large knives; a firearm over his back, and two pistols hidden on either thigh. That crossbow was still in his hands.

Brown eyes openly dig into your soul, dead as a corpse, and your voice whines as your thigh is finally released with a laugh. Your vision blacks and comes back a moment later as you try to breathe from behind the muzzle, gasping. That skull on his face…you don’t like it. It scares you. 

And the Hunter only continues to watch numbly as his wide shoulders stay stationary.

“Get the cage!” Someone roars, and you flinch, shrinking until a dog with short fur comes and nips at your ankles, the man holding you grinning sharply as you sob and shake.

“C’mon—expected more of a fight from you, Spector. Getting bullied by dogs, now? Ain’t that a twist of fate, then. Bet this devil’s whore can’t even walk with all that wolfsbane in ‘er, eh?”

A grumble of chuckles as the rattle of metal is in the distance. You grow more fearful, mind flashing to a burning stake and the trials you’d seen in village after village. No—no they can’t put you in a cage; they can’t put you on trial.

They’re going to make it hurt.

“Say we try it out.” A shadow comes closer and grabs you by the arm, ruthlessly shoving you to the ground. You cry out as your spine meets the earth, arms and legs kept under chains that tangle and screech in their metallic way. The rope that holds the muzzle pulls against your neck until you can’t breathe except in ragged wheezes. 

“Go on,” they taunt, some holding back the rampaging dogs just to watch you flail and shimmy. Your face grows hot as you struggle to sit up—shaking so violently you can’t focus on anything but the quiver. “Put on a show for us, Beasty!” 

Death would be better than this.

Tears hit the ground as the cage is finally brought into view, the men all groaning and annoyed that you hadn’t even attempted a forced shift or a desperate run into the trees. 

Ghost’s fingers, you notice from the side of your blurring eye, tighten minutely around the body of his weapon. You do not doubt that he’s wondering if it would be easier to just put a bolt through your eye right now. 

“Get it loaded up,” the Hunter’s voice is accented and gravel-like. As if rotting wood is being peeled back and scraped along gravel, he stares at you for a long moment and then glances at the dogs. “And get those fucking mutts under control.”

“Which one?” Is the low-blow joke, and the ruckus of loud amusement that follows makes you want to die. 

It’s not your fault, how do you tell them that? It’s not your fault.

Your throat bobs in an attempt to speak, but you can’t move your jaw from behind the restraint of your face—held tight to you as the men come back over and grapple for you again. The priest was right, wolfsbane makes werewolves sluggish.

You can do nothing as you’re ruthlessly dropped into a silver cage, borrowed, no doubt, from the Vatican itself, and christened with holy water. But it was a funny thing, really, and the dark humor wasn’t lost to you even like this. There was nothing godly about this contraption.

Locked in, you shove yourself immediately into a corner and hunch over, grasping at your thigh as the bolt still leaks fluid in a long trail over the ground. The pain is so great in your head, that the physical agony is little—a bullet wound to a sliver. 

Your temple slams into the metal, smacking into it as your eyes shove themselves closed. 

Head hurts—hurts. I can’t think. Can’t think. It’s humming, my skull is breaking open.

Bile pools in the back of your throat, but the muzzle keeps it in, leaving you gagging as the cage is lifted with a grunt and carried by long poles; back to St. Francis' Village, no doubt, but you can’t…focus.

“Think you might ‘ave given her too much, then, Hunter,” one calls, slapping Ghost on the shoulder as the crowd follows after the panicking quarry. The large man only gives him a look from the side of his eye and the villager pulls away immediately, awkwardly chuckling before hurrying off after the others.

Brown eyes watch your bare body hunch and spasm, pupils wide as you’re carted off. 

He’d been generous with the wolfsbane, truth be told. He’d expected you to be…Ghost’s dark brows pull in from behind his grim mask…he’d expected you to be different.

Humming under his breath, the Hunter watches the torches disappear into the trees and lets his gaze linger on you. 

There was something…off.

Blinking, he turns, eyes studying the place where they’d found you with sharp attention that misses nothing—not even the birds that come back to settle into the trees again. Large boots shift through the grass, and as he’s re-settling the crossbow in his hands, his eyes find something glinting. 

Watching, Ghost takes another step and brings his body to the item in the grass, hidden, before he kneels. Digging with large digits, the Hunter’s hands loop through the chain of a necklace, dragging it through the torn earth until he can gaze at it fully under the light of the moon.

Blinking in slight surprise, Ghost finds the body of a silver bullet hanging from the confines of a leather strap. Brown eyes shifting to look over his shoulder, the man listens to the cheers and merriment of the hunting party mutely. A simmering understanding brews in his gut. It’s only one that you could know from years of experience doing just as he had—hunting and being hunted in turn with a knowledge of all things dark and unholy.

It could never be easy, could it?

A low grunt later, the man sighs out a deep, “Fucking hell,” and moves to slowly stand, slinking back into the darkness. 

—

They kept you in the cage and set it on display in the middle of town for days.

Shivering now from the cold more than the wolfsbane, you stay collapsed into yourself as people come past to poke and prod at you—even sticking knives into the slits of the cage and digging them into you like an animal until your flesh was marked and brutalized. 

You don’t remember what it’s like to not be bloody.

The bolt wound was festering; infected. You dare not touch it, because the pain only makes you want to vomit, and if you do, you’ll most likely suffocate on your own bile before the trial ever happens. 

Yet, on the fourth night of this, as your eyelids flutter and your body grows weaker, a shadow comes to visit. 

“You weren’t born one.” It isn’t a question, but the sudden voice makes you startle. 

Eyes locking onto Ghosts’, your mind flies with fear—thinking that perhaps there’s more abuse that you’ll be put through. But no…the man has no weapons on him tonight. Only a long knife at his belt. The mask stays. 

You stare, unable to speak as your fingers twitch.

Grunting, Ghost’s head tilts, gaze moving up and down as you curl in tighter around yourself. A cold breeze rips through the square, and your eyes clench closed with breaking will. When you open them again, the Hunter is kneeling by the cage, and holding up something in his hand loosely. 

“You going to behave if I take that muzzle off?” You nearly gasped at the hanging image of your necklace—a silver bullet on a leather strap; that dark and heavy thing usually kept around your neck. A reminder.

After a moment of wide-eyed staring, you nod quickly to his question, a desperate, pleading thing without the need to utter words. Please, you want to scream at him, take it off.

Ghost’s eyes are as dark as a mound of dirt, sharply intelligent and filled with an unflinching reality. He doesn’t care what you are, and he won’t until you speak to him and let him judge your character far before any courtroom can. The man knows what a lie is better than any priest. 

“Good,” he says curtly, accent far more deep as he thinks, re-capturing the bullet in his palm and standing before he shuffles it into his pocket. 

You can’t help the anxiety as Ghost moves forward, loping to the side of the cage with the side of his eyes on you incessantly. It’s obvious how his other hand lays limp on the hilt of his blade that, with only one wrong move, you’d feel the chill of the edge with no time at all. 

But the temptation of getting this muzzle off was too good to ruin, and so, you stay as still as you’re able as crows call in the distance and the deadness of the town leaks into your blood. 

Ghost moves his free hand and orders, blankly, “Closer.” 

You hesitate, body tight before you drag your face closer to the bars, angling it parallel with the metal so the tight bind on the back can be taken up. The fear can be smelt the second your eyes have to break contact with his with the turn of your head—neither of you trusts the other. 

Ghost hums under his breath at the sight of your broken body coming farther into the open light of the moon, the whites of your eyes all the more visible from under the slathering of blood and tears. He hadn’t been absent to witness the abuse you’d been put through, even if the coin from his successful hunt was feeding him at the inn, a small window allowed the tight view of your torment at the hands of the people you’d once lived around. 

But the reality was that you’d killed people—scores of them—and yet the worst part of it was that he wasn’t sure if you even knew that.

It took four nights for him to break his only rule: never get involved after the job’s done.

But the hunch he had was too important to ignore. 

Large fingers latch onto the knot at the base of your skull through the cage itself, Ghost grunting at the sight ahead of him. The rope had been gradually chafing over your flesh, peeling back hair and skin until only the bloody meat was left—Simon had to wonder if the people of this village even wanted you alive for the trial or not at this rate. You’d be dead by tomorrow if that infected bolt at your thigh wasn’t taken care of.

Despite himself, a part of his chest tightens at the sight of the thing sticking out of your leg, dripping a yellowish puss. It had been a good shot, and he had overcoated the bolt in wolfsbane. 

Ghost hadn’t expected you to be so susceptible to it—most werewolves only got slower, but you…you seemed to have a stronger reaction. He files that fact away and tilts his masked face to the side. 

Grasping at his blade, the sound of a knife being slipped out of a sheath makes you startle, jerking your head back and shoving away even as your muffed whine of pain falls out. Ghost momentarily readies himself for an attack, but the way you force your mangled body to the opposite corner has him grumbling out a hard, “Easy.” 

The Hunter raises the blade, watching you with unblinking eyes. Your body shakes; panting. It was like calming a feral dog.

“You want the thing off or not? Have to cut it.” Once more, the man rises and walks over, boots almost silent over the small raised platform the cage had been set on like a trophy, you inside are comparable to the golden coins that greedy eyes touch and run their dirty hands over. 

Your mind is a troubled thing as you watch this Hunter and his crude knife come closer, kneeling again, and motioning with two fingers to shift your head. 

“Out ‘ere,” Ghost says, brown eyes not letting you guess anything about his true motives. “Don’t have time to fuck around. Guards’ll make a round soon and I’d rather not get caught wide-eyed.” 

Your brows pull in, hands clenching and unclenching in your lap as goosebumps travel the length of every limb. You were tired—hungry and thirsty; there were open wounds that burned with infection and ones that were crusted over with dirt and grime. You can’t feel your toes, and the tips of your fingers have long since gone numb. 

The thought of getting this muzzle off was like the promise of heaven being dangled in front of your nose. Your hesitation this time is far longer than the first, moonlight glinting off the visible blade in Ghost’s hand as he stares. That mask holds death. 

The hood is gone from him—only that pale bone left and sewn into dark, dark, fabric. The sharpness of the teeth leaves your throat bobbing in a nervous swallow as your head carefully shifts to rest on the bars. Bending, you present the knot once more and try not to focus on the way Ghost’s attention is fully on your expanding lungs; the pulse that is seen through the meat of your neck. 

But he says nothing before his fingers once more grasp the rope and the tip of the knife slips up. You don’t even feel it before the sudden slackening of the muzzle, and then the thing slips from your face before it slaps the bottom of the cage with a dull thump. 

The first thing you do is vomit. 

Spine pulling in, your body jerks as the bile that had been in the back of your throat rockets out, restrained hands slapping the ground as the acidic concoction leaks from between your torn lips. Face on fire, you choke and retch for what seems like minutes before you can finally breathe in the damp air—the innate shame and disgust rolling through as you cough raggedly. 

It’s only after you’d forgotten the man kneeling outside that he seems to remind you of his presence with a grumble. 

“Breathe. It’s no use if you can’t speak to me.”

A weak, quivering glare comes across your eyes, saliva dripping off your chin as your tongue moves to lick at your lips. But the brown gaze is as immovable as stone. Finding it pointless, your hands come up and delicately touch the base of your skull, only making you flinch when the fresh blood pools down and over your neck, licking at your shoulders. Tiny droplets fall to hit the metal one at a time. 

Ghost’s fingers twitch as he puts the knife away. 

“Who bit you?” You stare at him, hands falling before your wrists rub at the aggravated skin of your jaw. He shifts his head, voice slow but heavy. “Speak.”

“...I’m not a dog,” your voice is scratchy, hoarse. You send a small glance his way, mouth open and nostrils flaring in an attempt to bring in the oxygen you’d been lacking. 

“Really?” A hidden eyebrow is slowly raised. “Hell, coulda fooled me.” 

“Damn you,” you whisper, not meeting his gaze as you shuffle back. The crossbow bolt catches on one of the cage’s bars and you bite on your lip to stop the shrill yell that threatens to exit. Head moving, you lightly slam your skull into the wall in pain. 

Breath hitched, you clench your trembling jaw tight. 

“Speak or don’t,” Ghost grunts, and he makes a move to stand. “Your funeral.” 

A spark of fear stabs you as he begins to shift, and you can’t explain why. Perhaps it was because it was the first conversation you can remember having lately that wasn’t one-sided or on the edge of a blade.

“W-wait,” you stutter, blinking through the blood. The Hunter doesn’t slow, and then he’s on his feet and fixing the gloves over his fingers, flexing his hands before his foot begins to pivot— 

“Please, don’t go,” your voice is thin and pleading, echoing through the street. “I’ll answer your questions, any of them you want,” the sentence cracks through a dry throat, tears welling. “Please, don’t leave me here alone.” 

Ghost had half of his body turned away before it went rigid; the side of his dead eyes flash to you, swirling with specs of moonlit silver. A hunter and a werewolf lock gazes, great beasts respectively brought together in seconds that seep into slow minutes of delicate need.

Knowledge and company. Understanding and a horrible fellowship. 

The Hunter’s eyes twitch in their ever-narrow resting place, glancing away before he mutely moves back to where he was before. 

He wastes no time.

“Who bloody bit you?” 

You stifle a pathetic sigh of great relief, taking company with a man who had shot you not days before. Yet the ability to speak and be heard was a commodity that was dimming each and every day.

“It was already fully turned,” you speak quickly, tongue tripping. “A big wolf—a gray one with eyes like the sky.” 

Ghost glares to the side. Gray? There were no contracts for gray werewolves with blue eyes in the area. Only you—only Specter. The next question is just as stiff. 

“When?”

“Three years ago,” your lips move. “Only three years, I promise.” Brown eyes narrow slowly, fingers tapping the fabric of his pants once before he makes a noise in the back of his throat. Ghost’s jaw clenches, mind working through the hoops that need to be jumped. 

To you, the questions might seem pointless, but to a hunter, they were important—very important. Werewolves who are born afflicted with this moon-drunkenness are different from those turned by a bite. Not only are shifts from turned werewolves more violent, more deadly, but they rarely know their own actions from that of the frenzy under their skin; those that are born as such are rarely out of control, unlike your faction. 

The only question now was if Ghost could condemn you to death when it was obvious your human form was entirely different and you had no semblance of an idea of what was going on. Was it even his problem to care about? Even looking at you now, the man blinked away from cuts and inflicted injuries—the muzzle on the ground. 

The blood and the bolt.

He’d known it had been a foolish play to bring all of those townsfolk with him on this hunt but he needed their knowledge of the terrain; he hadn’t passed through St. Francis’ before. At the time, Ghost hadn’t been averse to assistance as long as he got the job done in his own fashion: capture or kill, the contract had stated. Rarely was he known for capture.

Maybe, deep down, he’d known something was already wrong about this.

“Show me it,” the Hunter grunts, staring you down, a deep anticipation growing in his bones. He had to make sure you weren’t lying.

You lick your lips, face pulling with every twitch and sway of your form. The black at the edges of your vision was coming back, and you blinked quickly, chains dragging before you shifted your back with a quivering breath. The punctures were difficult to see through all of the gore, but Ghost made do as he grabbed at the waterskin at his waist and the rag hanging from his belt. 

Flooding the fabric in the lukewarm water, he hums out a firm, “Don’t move. Cleanin’ it,” before you feel the press of the rag to your back. 

Gasping lightly, you almost jerk away before the sensation becomes a nearly welcomed one—the drag and slight scrape of rough material. Your averted eyes dip lower, staring at nothing as your heart momentarily slows to a normal pace. Ghost cleans the areas where the swell of scar tissue is the most obvious, and, one by one, the violent groves spread out like a slash of paint over canvas. Along the left side of your waist, the blood gives way to a dented ‘v’ shape of healed punctures. Deep, dragging; a point to where your side was almost ripped away before it broke off swiftly. 

Ghost’s dark eyes fight the need to widen, and that hidden blankness stays. 

A great gray wolf with blue eyes…

His mask tilts, head shifting as his gaze moves slowly. Gloved fingers twitch to touch them, moving in an almost examining way that befits a surgeon and not a decapitator. Your breath is held in the back of your throat, but you sag nearly entirely into the bars of the cage, growing more unsteady by the second. 

The scent of infection is so strong it makes your head burn, and you’re overtaken by it as Ghost’s presence suddenly disappears. 

You don’t know if it’s minutes or hours before you understand that you’re alone again, but when your limp neck finally turns to wonder where your silent captor is, you are greeted with nothing but moonlight. Blinking through the sludge behind your eyes, the sinking in your gut was stark and sudden—like a knife dragging itself from gullet to navel. 

But all you offer is a light whine as more blood moves to cover the places where Ghost’s rag had just cleaned. You were scared of him, no doubt. A hunter through and through down to the vampiric skull on his face and the shroud of death at every inch of his form. 

He’d shot you and drugged you with wolfsbane. Found your necklace. 

So why had he talked to you?

Your head is too muddled for this, too delicate. Like the crimson under your nails, it dries and flakes off of your brain as the lack of distraction breeds stored agony. There wasn’t anything left to focus on besides the upcoming trial, your death, and the pain that doesn’t let you sleep except for now, on the brink of not rest but unconsciousness. 

And at the sound of a key being slotted into the silver of your cage’s door, only then does your body slump with the weight of doom. 

You don’t even feel the hand that grasps at your ankle.

—

The sway of the horse makes your teeth clatter with every clop of hooves. 

Your conscience mostly comes and goes, only staying in thin seconds where you feel the press of clean bandages on your afflicted flesh and the tipping of warm broth into your mouth. Grass under your head. 

Blankets being shuffled over your clothed body when you shiver. 

When you’re finally able to speak, when the horse is moving along and hands keep your back stuck to a strong chest, it’s a low, garbled, “Ow.”

Ghost barely blinks down to your head as it slumps to the gait of his horse, glancing before his attention returns to the thin forest trail ahead of him. You’d made noises in your sleep often enough—this was no different except for the fact he felt your shoulders flex.

Slowing the horse with a pull on the reins, the dappled mare settles to a walk. 

“You up, then?” Ghost hums, his hand around your waist tightening as you groan under your breath. “Good. Thought I was dragging a corpse—would have wasted my bandages.” 

Your eyes shudder as they open into the light, having to focus on moving them before the sting of the sun makes them water. But you do, and then the confusion outweighs the numb stinging of tended wounds. 

Head shifting, you look behind you slowly with wide eyes as the horse under both of you snorts.

Brown eyes watch you before a dark brow twitches upward. “What is it?” 

You just blink, mouth slightly open. 

“Where…am I?” 

“Forest.” Ghost states matter-of-factly. 

If you had the energy to glare, you would have. Seeing that nothing will get the man into a proper conversation—he was a brick wall even now—you look down at yourself and land on the scarred forearm that keeps you secure on the saddle. Ghost’s gloves were still on, but the sleeve of his dark shirt had ridden back to his upper forearm, and in the wake of pale skin, you find the black ink of all manner of warfare. 

Werewolf skulls; vampire fangs and fire. The slash of inkish chains with skeletons. 

Your lips thin, your senses slowly becoming your friend again as you stare at the snarling face of a needle-hewn wolf. Eyes tightening as the horse moves to the left, your body follows the reactive action before Ghost’s pressure tightens once more, visibly veins behind the pale flesh. You move on, seeing the thin tunic and pants over your body—feeling under that, the bind of wrappings with the scents of mashed yarrow leaves in the fabric. 

They’d been re-applied recently, too. 

“Stay still unless you want to re-open them,” Ghost utters, eyes scanning the trees for unseen threats. It was midday by now, the sun high above the trees watching the both of you on your trek to seemingly nowhere. “We’re far enough away, but I want more distance before I take the time to close them fully.”  

“The trial,” your arm moves up, fingers grazing the side of your nose before it falls back down. Ghost can feel the air heat with unease. “The…the cage?”

“Trial was two days ago,” he draws, thighs shifting over the saddle. “Give or take.” 

The confession isn’t as shocking now that you have woken up here, but the lack of remembrance on your part of that time startles you. It’s a blank slate—just like the aftermath of your shifts. You don’t like not knowing. 

The next question comes out with a haggard cough, sweat dripping off your nose. “Why?”

“You’re going to tell me ‘bout the werewolf that made you,” the Hunter grunts. “And you can’t speak if you’re lit up like a pig on a spit. Took you the night we met in the square.” 

Through it all, Ghost barely looks at you—always his attention keeps to the trees and the shadows that linger; seeming to listen. He knows more than anyone that they do. 

The horse continues on, your pain surfaces again, and with a shuddering breath, you fall into a fitful sleep once more. The arm around your body tightens, and the warmth it lends is accented when Ghost’s shifting gaze glances at the top of your head. He wears an expression he can’t name yet.

When the throws of fever pull their curtains back for the last time, it shows you the slats of the attic above your head, wood polished and clean as the heat of fire moves over your body. Pulling a large inhalation of air into your lungs, you blink softly as if clearing away cobwebs with a broom—willing sense to return in the few seconds it had flown away. 

The furs are warm. 

In the village, you weren’t anyone of standing. A simple woman—unwed, and, thus, unimportant due to the era the world sees itself in. It wasn’t all bad…namely, it hid your affliction far longer than you could have hoped it did. You had a small piece of family land passed down to you on the edge of the village, and that was where you stayed. Nothing fancy; a hearth, a large, single-room property with a garden and a well. You were known to keep sheep, a fact that had caused perhaps a few hysterical chuckling fits when, every full moon, one or two went missing, but it gave you the ability to accumulate money and, more importantly, an alibi. 

Who would suspect a werewolf to own sheep?

But this home already had a more detached feel to it—something removed. The air was sterile, somehow. Groaning, your face tightens before you rise to the palms of your hands, muscles quivering to keep the strength your stubbornness gives to them. Half-vertical, you turn and study the area. 

Square, the four walls are stone with mortar and clay to keep the rounded blobs together. You’re on the ground floor, a staircase to the far right while the bed is stuck into the left corner; a nightstand sitting void of all except a single chamber-wick holding an unused candle. A sturdy table with one wooden chair, a stone fireplace set into the same wall the headboard is level with, and a large oak door.

There are runes written on it. 

You can’t make sense of what they mean, but when you see them, your tiny-pupiled eyes slip to the rest, all placed at windows or near some point of entry—unassuming things until you realize why they were red in color.

Your shoulders tighten, and whatever bit of magic moves through your skin lets your nose pull to the scent of human blood. 

You clear your throat and look away, licking your lips with a dry tongue. Moving your toes under the two bear furs that rest at your abdomen, you notice the lack of earth-shattering pain that accompanies it, and, shifting a hesitant hand, you grab the edge and push it back a bit farther. 

Bandages with perfect ties meet you, void of any crimson staining. 

Truth be told, you expected more of a Hunter’s home—skulls; trophies. The town always spoke of burnt bodies strung up on crosses that mark the property of those in this profession, a ward and a sign of grim hope. Vampires mostly, wasting away in the brutal sun. Others as well. Werewolf fur and witch bones shoved in blessed boxes. 

This place is almost normal, you think, thighs shifting over the dip of the bed as your finger runs the white wrappings where the bolt should be. Your mind dares not go to how he got the thing out of you, and at the stretch of sutures, you take your curious grip off of it entirely. 

Looking around once more, your brows furrowed tightly. 

Where was the man? The hunter responsible for your current predicament? Ghost. With his vampire skull mask and his black attire—a hellhound with dark ink and intentions. More importantly…

Why were you still alive?

Your memories come back slowly as you stand, bare feet moving to the floor as the tunic over your upper half falls to your knees at the verticality of your spine. They creak a bit, the bones, at the ability to stand fully upwards and not be impaired by bars of silver. A strength seeps through you slowly. 

In the deafening silence, you clear your throat tinily and lightly itch at the clean flesh at the back of your neck where the muzzle sat; rubbed raw now scabbed and healing with the spread of natural oil balms. Taking in a slow breath, you step forward with a heavy limp and watch the door, glancing at locked trunks and cupboards, eyes blinking. Your muscles ached, but the sting only served as a way to remind you that you were still here—living. Few in your position were granted second chances. 

You’re about to study the runes at the door when you’re called to with the creak of the stairs in your left ear. 

“Wouldn’t recommend it.” Your head snaps over, blinking quickly. 

Ghost carries the leather holders of his twin pistols in one hand, the bodies of the weapons in them hanging as he comes to ground level one step at a time. Brown eyes glance over through the confines of his skeletal face-covering as he walks to the table, placing down the items. 

“Keeps the spirits out—smudge ‘em and the house gets haunted,” he grunts. “Rather not bleed myself again to get the runes copied.” 

You stare in mild shock, sound sparking from the back of your throat. “...Right.” 

Side-eyeing the markings, you shiver and step back from the door, silent as Ghost seems to focus on his task at hand—looking over his weapons.

Large hands running the metal and wood, the pistols in his grip shift as the drying light of the day streams in through the curtains of the windows. He touches them intimately, knowing every grove and dip until he tilts one and rubs away a slash of dirt from the barrel with his bare thumb. 

You quickly turn awkward, looking down at yourself and the bareness of your lower legs. It wasn’t lost to you that the man was the reason you were in this situation in the first place. 

“You shot me,” you grumble—not unlike someone who had a knife to their throat. 

“Affirmative,” Ghost says nonchalantly. You get a slow, blank glance and nothing more. 

“Have you drugged me?” You ask, heart speeding up. There wasn’t anywhere to go—not without an escape plan and with Ghost in front of you.

“Wolfsbane?” The Hunter shifts his thighs, boots moving over the hardwood. “Negative. Not yet.” 

“Yet?” An attitude seeps in, lips thinning. 

Ghost sighs under his breath, slipping the pistols back into their holsters. “Forgetting about how we met, Love?” 

“No,” you huff. “Not really.”

“Perfect.” Eyelids pull down slightly. “Don’t.” Ghost nods his head to the table's chair, crossing his arms over his chest. “Sit.” 

“I told you I’m not a—” A sharp, numb look makes your snappy reply stall itself, and you stand there for more than a minute before you find the pointlessness of this.

You limp forward and sit in the chair.

Looping your arms around your waist, you glare to the side as your skin crawls at the unblinking eyes that stare. Ghost rolls his shoulders, tilting his head. 

“What do you know about the werewolf that bit you beyond appearance?” 

“Nothing,” you chuckle hopelessly, moving a finger in confusion. “I…I don’t know why you’re asking me about it—it’s not like I had a conversation with him.”

The Hunter blinks at your sudden confidence, unable to separate your form now from the one in the cage; blubbering ceaselessly in a grassy clearing. But lesser pains always bring out someone's true colors. As long as you told him what he needed to know.

Ghost explains with a sheen of dull annoyance. “Every turned werewolf holds a connection to the one that bit them. It’s pack mentality.” At your blank look, his brows pull in, the mask shifting. “You telling me you’ve never come back into contact?”

“...No?” Your lips dip. “For three years I’ve been by myself with this.” 

Brown digs into your face, a small sheen of confusion slipping in to tighten them, around his biceps, Ghost’s fingers twitch. 

You lick your lips, speaking up in the impending silence. “I don’t remember anything after I turn. Is that normal?”

“For you?” He mutters, still not taking his eyes off of you. “Yes.” 

“I’m not going to pretend like I know what’s going to happen,” you shrug. “But at the very least I want to try and understand why I’m like this.” You open and close your mouth for a moment. “Before you kill me, anyways.” 

“If I wanted you dead,” Ghost grunts through a half-amused tilt of his head. He doesn’t beat around the bush. “...You would be.” 

“‘Capture or kill,’” you huff. You’d seen the flyers; heard from word of mouth. “Right.” You sigh. “They’ll track you down, you know. They’re not going to just let you take me.”

“They won’t make it through the forest. Bastards would get lost on the trail.” The Hunter moves until he can grasp the waterskin from the counter, dragging it over with his hand. He tosses it to the main table in your direction after he comes back over, and you hesitantly reach forward and pull the top off. Ghost changes the subject back to his studies of your condition closely. Dark eyes slip down your front as your lips part to take up the liquid. “Before your shift, tell me what you see.”

Your throat bobs as you drink the water, thirsty as it soothes your dry mouth. You hum, but the inquiry makes your hair rise. Your arm wipes at your mouth as you lower the waterskin, a small thankfulness in your heart. “It’s less of what I see and more of what I hear and smell—blood; metal. River water. I…” Your chest tightens. “I feel my bones breaking and I hear howling mixing with whispers.”

“Whispers?” Ghost leans, eyes alighting with dim interest. “What’re they saying?”

“I try to block it out,” you whisper, not exactly answering. “Makes it go faster.” 

A long nothingness ensues. 

The impending night grows deeper, and then Ghost finally speaks again after you begin to shift with unease. He nods firmly, tilting his head as if it’s already been decided. 

“Next full moon, you’re going to listen to them.” 

Your horrified face snaps up. It’s a moment of stuttering before you force out a heavy, “What? No!”

He’s already turned, moving back over to the stairs and placing one foot on the steps. 

“Ghost!” You yell, face devoid of blood.

He side-eyes you. “Go back to bed. You’re dead on your feet.” 

And then the same man who shot you in the thigh with little remorse disappears into the attic.  

—

The Hunter was a strange beast.

The days the two of you spent together were mostly silent—left with tight stares and tense shoulders. Clipped sentences. 

Ghost, for what it was worth, gave you space in this small house; as much as you could get. He kept himself up above while you stayed on ground level keeping yourself occupied. You’d gotten spare trousers and socks, a jacket, and the bed was practically yours with how your scent rolled off of it now. Yet, you had never been permitted to go outside. 

You’d seen the land from the windows—careful of the runes, of course, and it wasn’t anything… ghastly. A vegetable garden, a single-stall stable with a dappled mare, and a beaten-down trail out the front. 

No livestock.

No bodies. 

It was only when you had become ever more curious about your lupine curse that you braved the stairs to the attic—one week into the impromptu stay. It’s funny due to the fact that Ghost had never said that you couldn’t go up there sooner.

You stand now in the flat room with a sloping roof and find the man making bullets. It’s a long table, parallel to the walls in the center of the room; dark and covered in all manner of books and tomes. Grimoires tied up and locked. Racks of weapons with markings and blessings tied to sheets of ribbon…it was something you’d never seen before. 

Studying it now, the contents were a dark fascination. 

Ghost fiddles with his silver shell, mixing in gunpowder into the hollowness. He doesn’t speak until you do, but he knows you’re there.

“Tell me more about werewolves,” you speak through the air, and he waits before answering. “The ones who are born with it.”

“Rare,” Ghost comments, and you���re stuck by how willing he is to tell you about this. He puts down his bullet and picks up another. “Harder to find, even harder to kill. Unlike you, they know what goes on when they’re running ‘round. Fuckin’ nightmare to pick up the pieces—bloodbath.” You thin your lips. “Not all of ‘em are murderous, but they’re unpredictable. Can’t help but make packs.”

“Instinct,” you murmur, coming a bit closer. Ghost pauses, looking at you before huffing in the form of a gruff ‘yes.’ Your wondering continues. “But why am I alone then?”

“That’s the question,” the hunter says slowly. “Need to figure out why.” Brown eyes slowly move to you. “‘Fore more people end up dead. Or turned.”

“Can I,” you stop at the table, standing opposite the man. “Can I turn people, too?”

“No,” is all you’re given. Ghost’s eyes glint. “And I’d rather you didn’t bite on me to try.”

Your face heats.

Your attention focuses for a while on how he works—prepares for something unseen. He’d said he’d kept you alive to help him find the one who bit you, but he’d also cleaned your infected injuries, bandaged you, and fed you. Kept you warm. Safe. It was far more than could be said about your village.

However, it was strange how Ghost’s stark muteness was something that you found in the darker hours, a small comfort. When the moon was coming in from the windows, and you hid from its rays as if being stalked down, he once found you sleeping under the bed on the floor because of it.

He never said anything, just offered you a silent hand and helped you back out with a slow blink and a tilt of his head.

There was a distrust, obviously, but there was also an unspoken nearness. No one would make any sense of it—you couldn’t either. It was like a wolf and a raven; something built on hesitence but necessity. You didn’t like Ghost’s mask or his brutalist profession of shooting his wolfsbane-coated bolts, and he didn’t like that once a month you turned into a rampaging werewolf. 

Comparable things, really. 

But even here, in this workshop in his attic, you saw the need for this—for hunters. If you couldn’t stop yourself, there came a time when you had to be stopped. Truth be told, you expected it to be a quick and final end. Maybe that was just a foolish hope. 

A silver bullet would have always been your final song, you believed. Perhaps the very one that had once swung from around your neck; the one you’d never taken off until now. 

But then, perhaps that would have been your own brutalist profession.

“Thank you,” you nod. Ghost pauses, fingers stained with gunpowder. He blinks at the bullet in his hand as you continue. “I know you don’t care about anything beyond your work, but if you hadn’t gotten me out of that cage they would have burned me alive. Skinned me.” Your tongue pokes out of the side of your mouth. “I don’t know, but it wouldn’t have been kind. Job or not…thank you for getting me out of there.” 

“I shot you,” he utters, voice gravel. Ghost seemed confused.

Your lips flick. “I never said I forgave you for that part.”

A smooth chuckle wafts out over the attic and your own softly mirrors. Your head tilts somewhat quizzically. “But, about that…did you mean to put so much wolfsbane on it?”

Ghost shakes his head, grumbling. A small sense of honesty leaks out. “...Expected you to be bigger.”

You blink, and then, a few seconds later, a loud snort echoes like a ringing bell. 

The Hunter's unimpressed look only leads you to find him all the more enjoyable. “Shut it. Fuckin’ hell.”

A hand is waved from your party, dismissing the harsh snap. “Sorry, sorry.” You puff out amused air. “Spector not up to your expectations?”

Ghost nearly rolls his eyes, trying to focus on the task at hand. He didn’t mind your company, at the very least he knew he needed to keep an eye on you for any potentially forced shifts or hostile attitude. What he hadn’t expected was to find you so…different from your muzzled counterpart, your shared physical inhabitant. 

He could almost call you endearing if he wasn’t so numb to the sight and scent of reality. 

“Sightings were far between,” Ghost grunts. “Here-say. I took an educated guess—better to put something like you out of commission than drag my way out of a forest without legs.”

“No apology?” You try, tilting your head.

“None,” is the drawn response. “I don’t have regrets. You’re alive.” 

Your fingers touch the outside of one of his journals, tracing the bumps and grooves of age and wear. You hum, but don’t reply. Most of your pains have been pushed back now, even if you still weren’t up to full strength. Food and rest helped, but the anxiety that perpetuated only lengthened the healing process. 

When you can’t trust even yourself under the drunkenness of the moon, it only makes your fear of the sun worse. Everything made you afraid—most of all your mind; most of all, the future. 

“Why do you want to find the werewolf that turned me?” You have to speak this, have to push. Your curiosity demands it.

Ghost puts the bullet down and grabs a rag from his belt, mask turning to look your way as he brushes off his hands. He pauses, looming with that gargantuan height—natural intimidation in the span of his chest and the trunk that makes up his front. You find yourself in his shadow as he rubs at his fingers with the rag, taking it away and slotting it back into his belt a moment later. 

The man’s heat leaks into your body as he blinks over, glancing your form up and down in a single look; keeping a respectful distance but still making his attentions known. 

He stares. “If it keeps biting people, there won’t be any villages left to take up contracts from.”

“Money?” You frown.

“Principle,” Ghost counters, chest rising and falling steadily. “There needs to be a middle ground. Too many feral werewolves, too few people. Cut off the head.”

“Ominous,” your form turns to his, itching at the back of your head again—the scabbing skin. “If what you said was true, how do you know the thing isn’t already dead? If it hasn’t tried to get to me, what was the point of making me?”

“Because you hadn’t left St. Francis’ by the time I put a bolt in you.” Ghost grumbles, rubbing a hand on his bicep, itching above the fabric of his tunic. He stretches with a grunt—and you see his shirt ride up and the pale skin underneath. You gawk for a moment at the length of scars and brutal muscle.

“Charming,” you dryly utter, stuttering in a brief second of pulling back your senses, but the Hunter continues on, ignoring you.

“That was where you were turned—your territory. You stayed because your leader is still close by waiting.” Legs shift, and all of a sudden, a body is over you, hands are on the base of your skull, pushing your own away as brown eyes dig into the injury you pick at. 

Your breath hitches, tensing for a second as your spine straightens. You watch widely from the corner of your eye as Ghost runs a careful hand over the flesh. He puffs a breath, chest moving in a grunt that is both commonplace and expected, yet the brush of his chest to your shoulder is not. 

You restrain a shiver, nostrils moving to the overwhelming swell of leather and gunpowder. Bone fragments; the tang of whiskey. 

His skin as he runs a thumb over the edge of your wound.

“It’ll start cracking.” Ghost utters, and through his fabric, you feel the brush of speech. “Have to apply more balm. Stop messing with it unless you want stitches soon.” 

It takes a moment more of his surgical study and a small clearing of your throat before you can speak. Your mind changes the subject for you.

“So…if my bite can’t turn anyone,” you breathe, nearly sagging as Ghost’s fingers catch in your hair, shifting it under his attention to get a better look. He listens, you know. He wasn’t good at talking, but he always listened. “Why did they muzzle me?”

For a brief instance, you think you feel the Hunter’s fingers jerk a tiny amount—some reactionary muscle twitch that leads your body to still. 

Ghost can’t say why he did that, though perhaps it was the sudden flash of the injuries that he’d wrapped on the road back to his property that went over his eyelids. Or the cage—your pleading face aching for whatever small sliver of brutish company you can get. 

The silver bullet that he still had in his pocket, attached to that leather cord. He knew the purpose; the intent. Just as he knew the scrape of scabbing under his fingertips. 

“Control,” he grumbles, and it’s all he’ll say. 

Your burning face is somewhat down-turned, letting him do as he must, study what he can. He hadn’t made any moves to endanger you, and besides the upcoming full moon, there was nothing here that screamed imminent danger. Danger as a general, yes, of course. You were a werewolf in a hunter’s home—it would always be…your eyes flutter when his fingertips drag over your scalp…it would always be danger….dangerous.

Ghost doesn’t think you notice it, but your eyes are drooping. 

He watches after the slight shock wears off, a tiny smirk flickering the hidden skin of his lips after he realizes the reason. If you had a tail, he’d assume it would be moving in a soft arch by now. 

The man was mildly amused at that, and before he moved away fully, he had to stop himself from uttering a sarcastic, ‘like that, then?’ 

He had to remind himself not to get attached to whatever…this was. He was using you as bait, as some key to his problem. Not a companion. The distance here had to be firm and heavy-handed. 

“The balm is down in my packs,” he grunts, leaving just as his name implied before you had the chance to gather your bearings and the lack of caressing heat. You startle back to the attic room, eyes wide and face loose before Ghost’s retreating footsteps echo on the stairs. “Don’t bloody use it all, then.”

The front door opens and closes with a pull of weighted wood.

—

“I can’t do this,” you mutter, pacing alone in the middle of the night down in the living room 

The full moon was tomorrow. 

“I can’t do it,” you itch at the back of your head, peeling at the nearly healed flesh harshly. Your nails dig into the soft tissue, drilling like a knife. A bead of blood slips around your fingers, but it doesn't stop you.

It’s late—late enough to know that Ghost should be asleep by now. For days, the paranoia, just like always, builds until you are nearly as mute as your Hunter. No more curiously searching his attic; no more questions about his job or how he got into this business. Brown eyes had been lingering more as the days went by, this strange companionship growing. You knew, in his own way, he was…worried.

So silent, even he had been getting noticeably uneasy. Shifting legs and quick glances. Nights where you hid under the bed from the moon until lunch came around, Ghost speaking as easily as he could to try and coax you out to no avail. You, a feral dog with white-rimmed eyes. 

At supper, only hours before this panicked pacing, you had told something to Ghost that made him double-take. 

“If I can’t stop it…I need you to shoot me. In the head.”

He’d never answered, but his eyes seemed to get ever-sharper as the hours continued on. More tense. Ansty.

But…that was his job, wasn’t it? 

“Can’t do it,” you murmur. Blood slips down your wrist. “It isn’t right—”

“Spector?” Ghost’s voice had become so familiar to you that the only thing that made your heart skyrocket was the sudden call of it. Your gasp is sharp from behind a panted breath, hand flinching away from the crater you were steadily digging in your skull. A long string of blood trails into the air as your fingers jerk away, and it’s only then that you notice the deep pangs of pain.

Your eyes shudder for a second as Ghost’s form makes it to ground level. He comes over slowly, attention staying on the way the moonlight makes the crimson stains glint from the dripping line seeping into the sleeve of your tunic. He blinks, and you both stand.

The man’s skeletal adornment was missing, though the fabric under remained. A loose sleep shirt and pants, stained by the rays of night. 

“Let me see,” he sighs under his breath, a tiny rasp telling of the sleep he’d been awoken from.

“I didn’t mean to wake you,” you utter. He doesn’t seem to care, grabbing your wrist and pulling the limb away as his body takes up presence behind you. 

“Was already awake,” Ghost grunts, eyes narrowing in hidden worry. You calm down a bit at that, one less problem to worry yourself about. 

The Hunter, quietly, leaves for a second and grabs his pouch near the door. With a muffled command, he nods to the bed until you’re backing up and hitting the back of your knees off of it, sitting. 

Ghost lights the candle on the nightstand and opens his belongings with stiff glances your way. He noticeably doesn’t ask why you’ve harmed yourself like this.

“I can’t,” you say it like a plea for help. “Ghost, I can’t do it again.” 

Hands fiddle with clean bandages and take out his waterskin. The man douses a rag with the liquid and comes over, shifting onto the bed and lightly turning you so your back is to him—legs half hanging off. 

The hard press of cold water makes your breath hitch, and you bite your lip.

“It hurts,” you push out. Ghost knows you’re not talking about the newly opened wound. 

“Breathe,” he says to you, seeing the way your sides expand with heavy lungs. Brown eyes flutter from the push of his large hand to the warmth of your shaking flesh. “Tell me about your home, yeah? Heard you lived in your own place.”

The question makes you double-take.

He’s asking me that? Here? Now? Hours away from perhaps another catastrophe?

Yet, you can’t help the slippage of your tongue as Ghost’s fingers rub into your scalp. The rag is lessened, and, soon, the material is rubbed gently over the sore itch of weeping skin. You fight a whimper and reply with an addled mind. 

“It…it’s quiet. Calm. I always keep the candles going because I don’t like the dark.” Ghost works quietly and quickly. 

“There,” he grunts, glancing at the flickering light of the candle he lit. He’d have to remember that. “And?”

“I kept sheep.”

He pauses, and, without meaning to, a soft scoff bounces off the confines of his chest. It catches your attention far better than a bullet could. Ghost shifts a needle and thread out of his gathering of items, taking away his limbs only for the short while it takes him to loop the two together. 

“How many?” The masked man asks, amusement gone just as quickly as it had come. 

“Only a handful,” you whisper. Your mouth opens and closes, glancing over your shoulder as the candle-light spills out over the room; casting shadows over Ghost’s face, catching on his long eyelashes. Those browns of his glint like tree trunks covered in dew.

“Please,” your words are muffled. Eyes wide and fearful, there isn’t anything that can console you on this. “You need to kill me.”

There was a dichotomy to you—a violent thing. You didn’t want to die, no, you feared it heavily, more than the moon, but the truth was that you couldn’t keep going through this. The unknowing. The breaking bones, the blinding pain. The understanding that nothing that you do can stop it. 

“It hurts, Ghost,” your breath stutters. “More than taking off a limb, more than slicing yourself open and ripping out your intestines—it burns more than the light of the moon.”

The Hunter listens through all of it. He sits, he stares, and he hides the brimming sense of concern behind his dead eyes.

With a pulling of his eyebrows, Ghost’s free hand moves upwards and grabs your chin. Freezing, you study this phenomenon from over your shoulder, face on fire with eyes wide to the pale skin visible to your view. You hadn’t realized until now, but this was the most you’d seen of the man’s face. 

You could make out the point of his crooked nose—the strength of his jaw under the form-fitting fabric. Cheekbones and the heaviness of his brows. Wisps of hair. He had eyes like a cat, you had to admit; something sly about them despite the numbness that seemed to extend bone-deep. 

But his hands had been kind to you. 

Firmly, Ghost’s fingers run your flesh, and he blinks softly before a low sound echoes in his throat. He pushes carefully on your jaw and shifts your head back forward so he can help you. When he lets go, your heart quivers in your breast

“I’m ‘ere,” he mutters, and you feel the first stitch enter the thin flesh of your head. You take down deep breaths, focusing on the scrape of his fingertips and not the point of the needle. Ghost can understand the fear of it—of pain. It’s instinct. He tilts his head and pushes out, “I can only ask for one full moon from you, yeah? No more. I just need one.” 

“And if I can’t find the werewolf?” Your voice vibrates with emotion, staring down at your hands as Ghost’s chest brushes your spine. The scent of him was addling your brain; the rub and slide of his hands.

The Hunter’s jaw clenches softly. “...Then I let you go.”

It wasn’t what you were expecting, but anything from the time you’d gotten a bolt through the thigh was unknown territory, and, like a dog without a leash, you’d run into it. Your brows furrow, blood oozing down your neck before Ghost’s grip shifts to place the rag back again, swiping away firmly. 

“Go?” He nods, but you can’t see it. “But what about the hunt?”

“I can manage.” The stitching pauses. The air is broken up nearly a full minute later. “You’re not evil.” Before they start up again as if nothing was uttered aloud. 

The confession makes the sting in the back of your eyes start up again—a strong thing of confusion and vulnerability. Ghost continues his task, pulling together your skin one suture at a time until the injury is fully closed; clean. 

“Chin,” he lowly states, and you allow him to tap your jaw, shifting it up so the wrappings can loop above your ear and over your forehead—securing them. 

Even far after the blood has seeped through, the two of you stay.

—

Come morning, you already feel wrong.

Your body stays in bed, shaking—sweating. A large pain flairs in your chest over and over like a pulsing well in the earth, skin twitching with the spread of blood. Ghost sits beside the bed all the while, having dragged over his chair. He leans back into it, one arm over the side, hanging with the thing ever so often moving to rub at the back of his neck. 

You don’t think he’s moved since he brought it over last night; since he got another candle to stick into the holder—push back the dark. To watch, to study, or just to stave off your rising anxiety is another question. 

It’s only after the fourth time you try to rip at the stitches at the base of your skull that he finally grabs your hand and holds it silently. Now, his thumb moves over your knuckles—his gloves back on. 

At noon, he tries to suggest eating.

“Hungry?” Ghost asks. 

“No,” you say instantly, sweat dripping over your temple, your body partially buried under blankets. “No, I’ll just throw it up.” 

Brown eyes glint. “Just one bite?” 

Your mouth is already salivating—thoughts of wet flesh and blood in the forefront until you whine and shove your face into the pillow; panting heavily. 

Whispers dance in the shell of your ears. 

I’m here.

I’m here.

I’m here.

“Go away,” you whisper quickly to them. 

Ghost pauses, hesitating. After a moment, his thighs tense with the action of movement, thinking you’re speaking to him. Something swirls in his chest, but he starts to stand nonetheless.

Your eyes widen.

“No!” Both of your hands latch onto the Hunter’s wrist, fear a needle stuck in your gaze. “No, not you. Stay, please.”

A silver cage covered in blood slides across Ghost’s slightly shocked look, but he only licks at the corner of his mouth and slowly leans back once more. 

“Not going anywhere,” he says, accent dipping. “Tell me what you’re hearing, yeah?”

His hand slips back into yours, and he presses into your pulse softly, counting. The sun continues across the sky.

“I don’t like how it sounds,” you say, shaking your head. “It’s wrong.”

“Focus,” Ghost breathes, looming closer. His grip squeezes once. “It can’t hurt you.” 

You shiver, eyes tightly closed as tears burn the back of your nose. “It’s howling.”

A suddenly gloveless hand spreads up your cheek, resting there and pushing back the sweat that pools. It’s calloused—scarred. You whine, head spinning.

I’m waiting. 

Find me.

Find me.

“I don’t want to,” you utter under your breath, words an amalgamation of slurring gasps. 

“Spector,” Ghost calls, head moving closer. “Eh.”

“I don’t want to hurt anyone,” your hurried panic is similar to a mind overdosing on wolfsbane. “Gotta go away—gotta get out—”

“Spec!” The Hunter’s quick bark makes your eyes pop open, and you lock instantly with brown orbs. 

They’re tight, unblinking just as always. They offer just a few moments of clarity. 

Ghost holds your head still while the rest of you shivers with cold sweats, you can hear the blood inside of his veins; his heart pumping. The scent of his skin was addicting to the point of memorization on the airwaves. You watch, gulping down breaths as your throat bobs. 

Eyes dart you up and down, fingers spreading out to offer what little comfort he can. The man wonders if he’s completely in over his head. 

Ghost pulls his face-covering up to his nose, and your heart skips beats at the sight of ravaged skin and stubble, scars spreading out like your own. Long ones, short ones, burn marks, and hyperpigmentation. He wasn’t pretty, but he was real. 

Oh, he was real. 

His grip on you strengthens until all you can focus on is him. 

Ghost blinks, and you see his lips move. The gravel of his voice was never more clear. “Fucking hell, keep that head on, okay? Nothing’s going to happen as long as I’m here. I’ve got you.” He sighs out a low breath, thumb running your undereye as the small dribbles of tears begin to sneak out. Ghost murmurs. “I’ve bloody got you, alright? Let it happen—we can figure it out.”

He’d grown fond of you over the course of a month. You were curious; not pushingly so. Honest. Good. You’d been dealt a bitter hand, and damn him if his stone heart wasn’t stretched thin at the raw fear on your face. This wasn’t your fault, but he needed to find who turned you and stop them before it got any more out of control than it already was. If more unstable werewolves went running through the woods, there wouldn’t be anyone left in the territory alive.

“When you turn,” Ghost says as clearly as he’s able. “Go. Don’t fight it. I’ll find you.”

“Promise?” You ask, a weak flicker coming to your lips—eyes vulnerable. 

Ghost nods once, and it’s all you need. “I’ll find you,” he repeats. “Doubt me?”

“No,” you ease, clearing your throat. “But…one more thing?”

“Anything,” the Hunter instantly says. 

“Just don’t shoot me in the thigh again.”

When the claws start protruding from your nailbeds hours later, you’re bolting to the door with only one last glance at the Hunter and his half-pulled-up mask. Booted feet hitting the wood as he stands, he lets you go even as his thighs tense in a need to run after you. Patience was his beast to tame, but it seemed to have left him in the form of a woman disappearing into the tree line. 

There is companionship in broken things.

Your body slips into the forest just as the creak of your bones begins to shift and bend. You fall into a heap, hearing the gargling of marrow under your skin like a call to sea. An urge grows to infect you; a feral need to run and hide. Biting back a shrill scream, a hoarse yell escapes instead—flesh rippling as your mouth opens, fangs breaking the supple mushiness of your gums as blood floods like a river. 

Find me. 

Find me.

Find me.

“Ghost,” you whisper, hands snapping to your head. “Ghost, please.” 

Your bullet, you want your silver bullet.

A rabid scream rips from your throat, and back in the house, Ghost’s hands tighten into fists as he glares at the open door. He growls under his breath, eyes tightening in a certain type of anger that brews in his gut. The nights your shuffling woke his light slumber were more common than when you hadn’t, and every utterance was clearly heard to his ears. It had become a curse to him—how you’d met.

A regret was seeping in, a care, and now, as he forces himself to back up and head into the attic, Ghost clenches his jaw tightly. So unaffected by the horror of monsters, he was now at a loss of sense for this growth of feelings. 

He wasn’t dull, he knew that some of the contracts he took marked him as a tool and not a person of stable mind. He’d done things he wasn’t proud of, and he would continue to do them for no other reason than they were the orders he was given.

But you had broken a piece of that off of him, somehow, someway, your face had seared itself into his retinas—speared him at the brutality that your community had treated you with. The muzzle. It was cruel, and while Ghost was precisely that, there was a limit. 

He did his job, and that was that. Anything after wasn’t his problem. 

You became his job, and the one who turned you was an add-on. Maybe if he justified it to himself, he could understand his actions better. 

But he was already sprinting to grab his gear when the first howl shattered the night.

—

A white beast prowls the forest. 

It stands on two legs, but it isn’t human—isn’t natural. It’s taller than a grown man is; snout pulled back in a soundless snarl that puts dogs to shame with rows of teeth so sharp, they look like pale knives. Its feet—large, splayed—soundlessly skate the ground until clawed fingers slam to the earth. 

A nose inhales the scent above the dirt, tongue lulling as a shaggy tail lays limp behind a curved spine. In between the erect ears, under the thick skull of the werewolf, the rolling bumps of a brain spark. A pull.

Find me.

Your eyes are tiny black dots—and they blink once before you rise once more. A great growl moves inside of your chest, the large collection of hair around your neck standing on end.

I’m waiting.

But there’s something that keeps you here—standing in the grass as the moon shines atop your head, your fur nearly glowing even with the stain of bloody injuries. The remains of clothes are about a meter away; only strips of what was. 

Your gaze looks over your shoulder, and your gargantuan frame lumbers backward until you can stoop to them—nose once more sniffing with your arms reaching.

Your fingers twitch, blackened claws digging through the ground as a near purr echoes in your throat. The scythe-like additions card across the strips.

Gunpowder. 

Leather.

Whiskey.

Something you can’t quite name, but feel drawn to despite the tightening noose at your throat. There was something there you can’t focus on…something that you need. 

Your drooling jaws snap, saliva coating the fangs until they drip off one at a time to stain the grass. Body shifting, your head lowers until your wolf-ish visage rubs against the fabric, licking at the sides of your gums as delicate grumbles slip out of your mouth. 

A far-off howl leaves your frame freezing.

Eyes slipping back into the feral-inhumanity of a wild animal, your body jolts up, gaze to the forest trees and the rustling of bushes. The swell of rain on the clouds is in the back of your nose, and the previous attraction to the ripped clothes is lost as simply as it had come. 

You were being summoned. 

Ears twitching, the entirety of your body refuses to move to the sound; tensed and ready to spring on anything that moves if only to let off the spike of anger at the lack of control. The pull grows stronger, and it feels like something is trying to drag you away into the wilds.

This was the sensation you were always trying to fight—the one that led to the aggression; the hunt. You knew that if you followed that howl, whatever was left of your human sense would be gone entirely before you could stop it. 

Yet, this time, there’s a nagging need to find the owner, and you can’t remember why.

Your large head tilts, feet spaced as the curve of your spine grows more aggressive—hunching forward as you snarl at nothing, claws shaking as your fur is more bristly than sleek. 

Like pure white spikes. 

In the back of your head, a thin sliver of a memory slips in. Fingers on the back of your head, caressing calluses and dark, dark, eyes. Clean bandages and gentle touches.

I’ll find you.

If the side of your vision picked up the shadow shifting from far off into the trees, your curled lip never turned that way. If your nose twitched to the heavy weight of a man’s sweat, it never shifted to point as a mutt would to the rustling bush.

Your body bolts after the resounding echo of a wolf’s howl, and it’s no later that Ghost slips after your clawed prints to follow.

—

Crossbow in hand, the hunter’s mask gleams in the darkness, his pale eyes twinkling. Bending down, he glazes at the long pushing tracks of your form—seeing the spray of dirt to the side and the broken branches. Ghost blinks, shoulders tense before he swiftly stands and continues on. The firearms at his thighs lightly rattle, and the bolts in his crossbow are already laced with wolfsbane; silver tips smelt a week ago. 

He passes a river with only a single glance at the tossed rocks from the bed, sloshing through the water as the bottoms of his pants get weighed down. Ghost’s mind is on one thing only: make sure this plan won’t get you killed. 

The bolts aren’t for you—the silver bullets aren’t for you. 

He grunts under his breath, the dark woods casting phantoms over the ground. The Hunter’s legs shift through tall grass, and he carries himself with the ingrained confidence a man of his station requires. If he were anything less than a monster himself, he would have died ages ago. Ghost shoots and lets others come up with the questions, but he could never be called dumb. 

Seeing what fast glimpse he had of your shifted form after the last time, he was struck by how erratic it acted. Snapping head, twitching ears, and roving eyes. If he didn’t know any better, Ghost would have called it rabid. 

Yet, your actions with his borrowed shirt were…body-stilling, to say the least about it. It had made his gut swirl.

“Give me a trail,” Ghost utters to himself, brown eyes still picking up the dash you’d taken. His agile feet splash through a puddle, the beginnings of raindrops hitting his head. 

The man grabs at his hood and pulls it up stiffly, frowning under his mask.

Rain would wash away the tracks.

“C’mon, Love,” he grinds out, body hunched. “Leavin’ me to do the dirty work, eh?” 

It’s too quiet—even a collection of minutes later of hard hiking, the trees barely move. There aren’t any birds; no animals beyond the black bodies of crows in the far-up branches, waiting, watching with obsidian eyes that don’t blink. 

Ghost isn’t off-put, but the length of his strides gets far tinier, carefully stepping over twigs and rocks like a soldier at war. Then again, he was at war. And if he was caught unawares, there wouldn’t be a bullet to pull out of his side, but, instead, a chunk missing. 

His ears were almost ringing from how hard he was focusing. 

Brown eyes shift from one area to another, and then, suddenly as if a deer, he freezes. 

Ghost’s body winds up, fingers twitching from the stark trigger discipline of his crossbow downward instantaneously. No one but him can explain what just happened, but he knows when he has to listen instead of act. Stuck in a clearing not unlike the place he’s first met you, his feet rest shoulder width apart and his eyes stare blankly into the trees ahead.

Your tracks end here.

From behind him, just as the large raindrops slap the side of his bone-ed visage, the small crack of a twig makes his ears twitch.

A low snarl sets his hair on end. 

Looking over his shoulder, Ghost is met with the same color that he’d become so accustomed to in a full month completely blacked out. Void. Lifeless to anything besides rage and bloodlust. 

Your white fur was infected with dirt, blood, and leaves—a mosaic of ferality ingrained into your body; pale fangs snapping. The beast slips through the treeline, slapping a veined hand into the soggy earth. 

Ghost only watches, eyes a mystery. 

His finger shifts over the trigger, and for the first time in his life, he hesitates. 

The man looks into your glinting orbs, the dripping saliva on your lulling tongue as your esophagus pants for breath. One hesitation, he always knew, would mean death. One mess-up. 

You’d asked him to end it, he shouldn’t feel remorse, guilt, perhaps—he was still human, despite his appearance, but remorse was deeper. It left wounds that were harder to lick clean again. 

…So why isn’t he sending a bolt into your forehead?

Ghost remembers the times he’d found you under the bed, your shaking, and the way you hadn’t allowed him to change your bandages the first few weeks you’d stayed with him; didn’t want him to touch you. The nightmares and the small smile you’d gain when he’d spew his dark, sarcastic words as if this was a joke. How you’d always thank him under your breath for the food he’d give you, hunted by his own hand. 

A silver cage. Crimson blood. The sight of your pleading eyes when you’d told him to shoot you.

Maybe the two of you were far more alike than he’d dare to admit. And he currently won’t, not even on his deathbed. Not even now.

Ghost watches, and he waits. 

He can’t do it.

Your body slinks closer, stalking with the sound of anger, nearly rib-shaking in its volume. Ghost’s jaw clenches, and his body shifts to face yours head-on. At the sight of the crossbow, your snarl turns into an air-biting rage, saliva flying through the rain.

“Spector,” he keeps his voice low, even. The sight he’d seen as you smelled his clothes had to mean something. Ghost tilts his head, moving out a hand from the side of his weapon in an appeasement gesture. “I’m not going to shoot you. We have a job to complete…get those fangs away.”

He wonders if ordering you around will even work. You had told him before—you’re not a mutt. Ghost agrees. No mutt was the size of a fucking boulder.

The werewolf’s claws drag—goring the mud as if a pig to tear apart. 

“Spector,” the Hunter tries again. But something’s different about his tone; he drops it, letting it pull on a softer string. “I’m here to end this. We’re here to end this.” He blinks and lowers the crossbow completely. “Breathe. The night can’t last forever.” A breeze whips the trees. “I made you a promise.”

There’s a second, he thinks, where he can see something shift in your gaze, pupils slightly widening above the deluge that wets down your fur into a sopping mess that hangs off muscle.

“That’s a girl,” Ghost grunts, taking a small step closer. “Never told you,” he utters, eyes locked with yours. He sees your nose twitch minutely. “But if we get this right, Spec, there’ll be no more painful shifts, hear me?”

Your dog-ish mouth is closed, hanging off every word as Ghost comes even closer.

“I kill this bastard,” the hunter breathes, gloved hand still outstretched, nearing closer to the near-silver of your form. “The moon’ll have no claim on you. She’ll let you off the leash, Little Wolf. You get to decide when it happens.” 

He thinks he has you now, back to some state of recognition in the addled brain that tries to see him as prey; as competition. Ghost’s fingers are close enough to almost touch you, but just before he can brush his gloves over your wet fur, your mouth opens in a display of untamed challenge. Your growl is enough to make the man unconsciously reach for his pistol, and in the time it takes him to realize the fault of it, you’ve already rampaged forward with an unhinged jaw.

Ghost’s eyes widen, taking a quick step back. 

Your legs push off, and you shove the hunter out of the way just before the fangs of an immense beast can clamp down on him, your own finding the shoulder of gray, thick fur.

Fighting as wolves do, Ghost only needs a moment to recover and get to his feet, though the sight in front of him can rival any that he’d seen before. His crossbow clatters a few feet away, sending the bolt off into the trees with a metallic ‘twang’.

The two werewolves roll around the pouring clearing, snapping teeth and rending claws drawing blood that’s deep enough to swim in to the green grass. White and gray meld together—blue eyes like a knife to Ghost’s chest when he takes it in from between the sound of tearing fur. 

“Bloody fucking…” the man trails, staggering as his palms slap to the pistols at his side. He blinks, shouting in more of a bark than even a dog could imitate. “Spector!” 

The wolves pull and rip the other to shreds, flesh torn and limbs grasping for purchase. Bodies are slammed to the ground before getting tossed to the side, fangs flashing in the moonlight. Ghost watches crimson stain your fur a pinkish-red.

He can’t get a good shot.

The werewolf that turned you sinks its claws into your sides, dragging them downwards as you yowl, eyes tiny with aggression before your jaws connect with its snout, biting down with more force than a horse’s hooves. The monster screams—a garbed thing of fangs and saliva. 

Just as easily as it called you here to it, as it stalked your Hunter, it bashes your body back into the earth and takes you by the scruff of your neck. Eyes wide in that lupine way, you lock on Ghost’s profile before your body is lifted, and tossed away violently. 

Spine slamming into a tree, you hear the cracking and bending of your bones in your ears just after you hear the sharp shout from the man in the clearing, body dropping to a heap into the grass and mud. Angled head flopping back and forth, black infests the edges of your vision, coughing up blood that seeps from between your gums and slips down the back of your esophagus. Fur and flesh are stuck at the base of your throat. 

Whining, your limbs drag and pull futility, eyes flooded over with crimson and fogged by rain. A great roar worries the air, sending long shivers over your spine as you try to rise to your limbs, a five-fingered hand slamming you back down. 

Just before the fangs can clamp your throat, two great booms burst through the forest. 

The wolf atop you reels back, great bellow escaping its throat when you can finally drag your head to look over. This beast was clawing at its chest, shaking its large head in an arch to try and dispel the shock of having two silver bullets entering its back—the gray head snapped around to Ghost, who held his twin pistols aloft with eyes burning with anger from behind his mask. An avatar of vengeance; a bringer of death. 

The orbs inside of your sockets widened, nose twitching wildly as you bleat a quick warning bark. 

Blue-Eyes rises, body far larger than yours would ever grow to be—on two feet more powerful looking than a bricklayer many years into his craft; tall enough to reach to the sides of black-shingled homes and pull itself up. Ghost takes one look and growls under his breath, knowing there would be no time to reload the weapons in his hands. 

So he drops them and pulls slowly at the cruel blade in his belt until the gleam winks in the low light like a curved smile. Setting it in his hands, the small flicker of a sharp smirk on his lips is lost to you. 

Yet, there isn’t a chance for some brawl between two beasts—there’s only the flash of pale fur and the final crunch of a body hitting the ground. 

You bury your fangs into the wolf’s neck; the one responsible for all of your pain and torment spanning years of isolation. You feel the body seize as it drops, the last remnants of a dying brain trying to fight the inevitable nothingness that ensues, and, you only hold on the harder, the bloodlust seeping back in with every drop of life pooling into your locked jaw.

Your throat releases tiny growls of pleasure, biting a bit to make sure there wasn’t a sliver of a chance that something living was walking away from this scene. 

Ghost pauses, and in the back of his head, he knows he should stop you. Brown eyes see the animalistic sheen of enjoyment at a fresh kill, the way you pull at the flesh until chucks peel away from a gurgling wolf. Even when the thing is long dead and the rain still slaps the earth, you barely let go until you get a hold of the meat and tear with a backward jerk of your snout.

“Love,�� the Hunter sheathes his knife, taking a step forward. The blood was pooling under your body. How many of those were treatable? He had to know. “Let me see what’s—”

The eyes that lock on him are not yours. 

Up to your ears, the entirety of your face was awash with the stain of life, dripping off the whiskers at your cheeks; your chin. 

Before he can utter another word, he finds himself on his back with a snapping snout right in front of his face, two dead eyes staring deeply into his own. Ghost sucks down a quick breath, hand snapping to the large wrist shoving down on his chest.

He pants out, gravel accent far more deep than it was before. 

“Easy, Spector. Easy. Eh—focus on me.” Your tongue licks at your fangs, body shaking. Ghost pushes out, “That’s it, then. It’s over, yeah? You did it; let's pack it up and head back home.” He grunts. “Recon even dogs get cold in weather like this—the bed’s waiting. Get a nice fire going.”

Ghost sees your face move closer, and his hand minutely shifts to the vial of wolfsbane on his belt. It wouldn’t kill you, but it could put you out of commission until your body shifted back into its proper form. He could carry you back—that wouldn’t be a problem at all. 

But he was worried about your injuries. Even now the droplets of blood roll off of you faster than the water can. 

Too much.

Brown eyes crease, darting a look down. 

“Fuck,” he growls, seeing the carnage and the open meat. “Sweetheart, we need to get you checked out—you need to listen to me. Can you do that?”

He can see the conflict; the internal fight. 

Your mouth moves with fast pants, claws stuttering over his gear futilely. You blink rapidly, shaking your large head in fast increments with small snarls. 

“C’mon,” Ghost says slowly, fingers looping the vial. “Keep listening. Know my voice is utter shite, but only you can tell me it.” 

Your head drops to his chest just as the wolfsbane is popped open, and, for whatever reason, Ghost pauses. He waits. 

You take a long inhale of his gear—of the leather and the gunpowder, and just before the Hunter can dump the vial over your skin, the long blackish claw on your finger loops the bottom portion of the fabric under his bone attachment. 

The man’s breath hitches as you let it rest along his nose bridge…holding it there as you drag your head upwards as if it were an impossible chore. Your mouth dribbles out gore to his cheeks, but the Hunter stares upwards into your eyes as they soften in a lupine way. 

Inexplicably, you let out a bone-rattling sigh and slump into oblivion. 

—

Come morning, you sleep under the spread of large fur blankets—clean bandages over your bare frame as the man has tended to you for hours. He mutters for you to slip your arms into a spare shirt after he finds your eyes open, not uncomfortable by your nakedness, though he wants you yourself to be at ease. 

His brown eyes are creased, and you can’t remember what you’ve done. 

You comply with small grunts and moans; more sore and cut up than you can recall ever feeling as a large tunic is slipped over your head by scarred hands. 

Gunpowder. 

“What did I—?”

“You finished the job,” he says, sparing you a glance as he shifts back with his eyes averting themselves from your visible legs. The sun seeps in through the windows. “It’s morning.”

You blink slowly, and the man eases you back down into the furs. 

“I’m tired,” your voice yawns out—weak and brittle like the hope you’d had that this plan of his would work. Eyes half-closed, they blink at the hunter with a soft kind of care that you can’t remember showing before. Whatever pain medicine he’d given you, it was working. The underlying itch was still as strong as ever, though. 

“Tired is good,” Ghost nods slowly, standing still until he crosses his arms and sets his feet. He’s in a fresh shirt and pants. There’s blood under his fingernails; traces smeared over his flesh. “Means you accomplished something.”

“Don’t think that’s entirely true,” you breathe. A pause. “...Why is your mask like that?”

It was half pulled up—showing off his lower jaw and the stubble. The scars that you already have memorized. Ghost shrugs, blinking those dead eyes of his. 

“Ah,” he grumbles. “Forgot. Here.”

He reaches up and slips the thing off in one motion. Your loose brain takes a moment to realize the entire face you’re staring into, but the second it does, the image is engraved into your mind forever. You make a noise in the back of your throat. 

“Better, Little Wolf?” 

“W—” Your lips stutter, new sutures pulling tight. “Why would you…?”

“Hungry?” Ghost asks, quickly changing the subject. “Know you like that venison that I caught.”

“No,” you breathe. “No, I’m not…I’m tired, Ghost. My head hurts.”

A hand sweeps over your forehead, staying as you sag into it with a hum and a fluttering of your eyes. 

“Bloodloss,” the Hunter murmurs. “Normal. Go back to sleep; take however long you need. I’ll be here.” 

The bond between the two of you has strengthened to that of a silver rope.

“Stay,” you plead under your breath, already slipping back into nothingness with no promise to wake up again soon. “Hold me, Ghost?”

“Simon,” he grunts to only himself, knowing that the words are lost to you. Perhaps that makes him all the more eager to share it with you when you’re better. “Stay still.”

It wasn’t like you could protest.

The broad man slips in, shifting the furs until you’re covered back up and your forehead is to his chest—keeping himself closest to the door where the runes still sit in their bloody glory. If he listened hard enough, he could even hear them humming him a tune.

No song was better to him than the one of your breath at this very moment. Alive. Moving. There were many times in the night that he thought...hm.

“Better, then?” The dry tease slips out. 

A kiss to the side of his mouth is what he gets in answer, and he doesn't say a peep more until he knows you’re back in the clutches of a dream—a good one, he knows, because he watches your expressions like a loyal guard dog would.

Ghost, Simon, rests his lips on the top of your head, and in a delicate murmur, eases, “You did good, Love.” 

There was much to do, but for now, all he had to do was hold you a little bit tighter and let his stone heart beat a little bit faster.

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[somereaderinblue]

In your Odysseus of Troy au what's the relationship between Telemachus and Paris.

Does Telemachus like him or he hates him for making his dad sad?

And does Paris really want Telemachus to be his son or does he just see him as a tool to make Troy stronger?

Unserious answer:

Paris: Your atta will love me, right? He was literally given to me to love me.

Telemachus, booping his nose: Bah!

Paris: I'll take that as a yes.

Serious answer:

Paris' first son was Corythus. How old was he when Paris left him & Oenone? As old as Telemachus was when taken from Ithaca and his mother's arms? Was he big enough to take his first steps but small enough for Paris to carry on his back while he herded sheep?

One thing's for sure: Corythus is more likely to know Paris' back than his face. And that's arguably more painful than a child not knowing what their father looks like, period.

Paris insists that Telemachus is his son. He is besotted with the babe, fawns and dotes on him, spoils him with the luxuries and riches Paris himself never got to enjoy in his childhood.

But at his core, Paris views Telemachus as a second chance; a do-over at best & a replacement at worst. If he can be a good father to this boy, who is not his blood, surely it means something, it means he's not a horrible person, not a complete failure, it means he can atone somewhat-

Still, anyone can sire a child, but it takes a man to be a father. And Paris, as many were wont to remind him, was no man.

Telemachus Pasipheros wasn't living up to his name as his wailing continued. He's been fussy for days and fitful for nights, irritable when not clingy and the fact that Paris was the one who reacted fast enough to grab the boy before Odysseus could spoke volumes of the Ithacan's exhaustion.

The prince struggled to keep a squirming Pasipheros on his lap as the boy howled and howled like a little wolf into his ears so loudly, Paris wouldn't be surprised if his earrings were caked in blood after this. Offered toys were smacked or tossed aside, words of comfort drowned under the child's woes and more and more stares were drawn towards the eye of the storm Paris was suffocating in.

"Hush, hush....." Paris murmured, awkwardly bouncing the fussy toddler.

"NO! NOOOOOOO!" Pasipheros roared with the raw ferocity of a wronged child. "NO! NO! NO!"

"Don't shout." it was almost as horrible as the eyes picking him apart with vulture-like precision. "Don't-"

Pasipheros' hand smacks him in the eye as his tantrum reaches a volume loud enough to make Hector visibly cringe.

"CORY, PLEASE!" Paris snapped.

Silence, at last.

But it was far from a reprieve.

Paris opened his misty eyes (when had they closed?) and the sight of Hector's furrowed brows and pinched lip, Andromache's tense shoulders and Odysseus' penetrating gaze, that damn eye the silver of arrowheads rather than coins, almost made him wish Pasipheros' hand had simply gouged both his eyeballs out to spare him this.

Pasipheros' lips quivered, fat tears spilling past chubby cheeks as he cried, softer than his previous sounds, and all the more damning for it.

"It's his nap time." Odysseus said and his son is in Charis' arms before he even finishes talking. "If you'll excuse us."

"Of course." Andromache waved them away while Hector continued to look at Paris with eyes too pitiful to be a glare but too tense to be anything resembling comfort.

Paris also leaves, but does not follow Odysseus. That night, he finds another wooden sheep on his pillow. He adds the figurine to his growing flock.

Odysseus and Pasipheros spend the next day in the nursery. Paris doesn't visit them. He sits in the courtyard alone, and the silence is still no less damning than before.

[painted-flag]

Little Red Riding Hood (Part 2/2) - Cregan Stark

Story 2 in Between the Pages: a HOTD x Fairytale Series.

.𖥔 ݁ ˖ PART ONE .𖥔 ݁ ˖ series masterlist. main masterlist. .𖥔 ݁ ˖ pairing: cregan stark x f!reader (no use of y/n) .𖥔 ݁ ˖ warnings: 18+ MDNI. descriptions of violence/blood, period-specific misogyny, aegon, and smut (oral f!receiving, nipple play, and biting) .𖥔 ݁ ˖ wordcount: 7.5k .𖥔 ݁ ˖ notes: this was going to be shorter than how it turned out, but then i got caught up in writing the smut at the end so... it is longer than originally planned.

That shriek of hell spurred you from your bed. You fought the imminent feeling of danger, of something lurking beyond the surface of your consciousness, to steel your emotions. The sound was almost inhuman, a cry reverberated from depths of eternal despair. Whatever fresh nightmare was outside demanded attention and your soul was calling out to it. 

Your bare feet thudded against the stone flooring as you rushed outside your room. The chill of the night was not felt as you rushed to the door to leave your grandmother’s house. Your nimble fingers gripped the steel doorknob with a fury of strength as you yanked it open. Wearing nothing but your nightclothes, you venture out into the night. The door closed and the final rush of air breezed passed your scarlet cloak - hung up and forgotten in your frantic movements. 

You weaved between the streets of the town, looking back and forth for any sign of life. There was nobody outside. No signs of anything. The pubs were oddly closed and no fool stumbled through the streets drunk on ale or wine. Your feet made crunching noises on the snow-laden ground. 

It was then that you saw a figure in the distance. The haze of darkness, only partially alleviated by the moon's light, shrouded the person. They moved like a hunter, impossibly fast and calculated. You stopped moving and watched in paralyzed fear as they came closer. Adrenaline pumped through your body more than blood. Fear clouded your judgement and incapacitated all means of movement; both physically and mentally. 

It was only then when the figure got closer that relief doused those flames of horror.

“Cregan?” Your voice, terribly quiet, floated through the cold chill of night. Cregan stood before you in nothing but a tunic, pants, and leather boots. His chest heaved and a sheen of sweat covered the exposed parts of his skin. 

You had never seen him so uncovered before, and the white tunic he wore had the sleeves cut up just below the elbow and showed the top of his chest. On his skin, you could see the presence of countless scars. They marred his flesh and you could not help but wonder what creature could make such marks on him. The veins in his forearms flexed as he brought his hands up to grip your biceps. 

“What are you doing out here?” His voice was deeper than usual, and the timbre sent vibrations through your bones. 

“I… I heard something…” You stuttered out. 

Cregan’s squeezed your flesh gently and looked down for a moment, “Fuck,” He lifted his gaze to look at you and that is when you noticed the unusual tint in his eyes - an odd glow, “You need to go back home. Lock all of the doors and windows and stay inside.” 

“I don’t understand. Cregan, what is going on?” You had not heard the unknown shriek in a while, but the calls of wolf howls sounded closer and closer. 

“Please just go inside.” His tone bordered on a plea, something completely out of character for him. 

You blinked at him as his face got closer to yours. It was then that you realized what little clothing you also possessed. Your thin white shift with silver embroidered details glowed in the moonlight, but the thinness of the fabric left little to the imagination. Cregan took notice of your hypervigilance and his gaze swept over you quickly. He flushed slightly and looked at your face, unwilling to compromise the situation any further. 

“Where is your cloak?” He questioned. 

“I left it… the screaming… what in the seven hells is going on?” You tore your vision from Cregan and scanned around the empty street. The pounding in your head came back and you winced in pain. 

You looked up at the full moon and the pain intensified. It felt like your skin was being peeled off. Tingling needles shot across your limbs. Your knees buckled and you lost your balance. Cregan cushioned your fall as the two of you reached the ground. His arms wrapped around your body and held your upper body off of the snow, resting it on his knees. 

You tried with all your might to not voice your pain, but with each second it was becoming increasingly harder to resist. Tears pooled in your eyes and a sob ripped from your throat. Your eyes were locked onto the moon, its light enchanting you. 

“Sweetheart, hey, look at me.” Cregan cupped one of your cheeks and patted it gently. You were not responding, completely unable to do so. 

“Darling, you’re okay. Just come back,” His thumb brushed a stray tear from your skin, “Come back to me.” 

The edges of your vision got dark, but the call of his voice drew you back, “What is happening to me? Why does this hurt so much?” 

Your questions elicited a broken look from Cregan and a defeated sigh, “It’s alright. You’re okay, I got you.” The warmth of his embrace shrouded you from the cold. He gave off an unusually high temperature, but its comfort eased the intensifying pain. The wolf hows got closer. 

Movement in the corner of your dimming vision caught your attention. Turning your head caused immense tension in your neck. Behind Cregan, in the distance, was a collection of a few wolves. They were larger than you had ever seen before and stared the two of you down. None of them moved forward, all watching carefully. 

You wanted to warn Cregan of the danger - to have him make a run for safety - but your body could not take the anguish anymore. You collapsed into blackness as snow fell around you, in the arms of your friend. 

⋅───⊱༺ ☾ 🐾☽ ༻⊰───⋅ 

There was no way any ounce of sanity remained in your body. It had been a few hours since you woke up; breathing heavily and stuck in a sweat. You had awoken in your room with your grandmother sleeping soundlessly in a chair next to your bed. It took a long time to get a grasp of your surroundings. Your grandmother helped you drink water and get your bearings. 

However, what little consciousness you acquired soon fled with the conversation that followed. 

It felt partly like a betrayal. Having information - vital information - about your past, family, and self withheld from you for so long was an unknown horror. Your grandmother explained it as calmly as she could, but truthfully there was little one could do in that situation. 

Learning that your family had a history of werewolf tendencies was never a possibility one could consider encountering in their lifetime. Your grandmother had informed you of it all. How it had been a part of her family and typically skips a generation. You had pieced it together after that. Her being one and your mother not had led you to conclude that you were one. 

In your grandmother’s words, you had been repressed. One typically knows if they inherited that trait when of age, but it had been purposefully hidden. The gift from your grandmother, that beloved scarlet cloak, had been the reason for your lack of transformation process. A simple enchantment that your grandmother had gotten passed down from her grandmother. 

It was an attempt to keep you safe but ended up hurting you more than you could truly grasp. 

Truthfully, you had not believed it. It took more convincing but you eventually relented. To your little gained knowledge, those who can transform are able to do it in the few days leading up to and after the full moon. Outside of that window, transformation is not possible. Though the person benefits from other skills. The possession of unusual strength, the ability to bear the cold, quick healing, and faster speed and agility.

It would have been a win if not for the fact that you were freaking out internally and had your entire worldview shattered. 

You and your grandmother sat in chairs by the fireplace when a knock sounded at the door. Cregan walked in with a nervous look. It felt all too familiar to the first day you arrived in Winterfell. Yet, in just a week, the circumstances of the situation had changed drastically. Your grandmother, ever the peacekeeper, stepped away to allow privacy. Cregan did not sit in her seat but chose to kneel in front of you. He made no attempt to reach out to you and kept his hands on his knees. His eyes were kind and understanding, and his hair was put up in his signature knot.

You wanted to curse him out for looking so perfect in a situation where your trust was strained. For if he asked, you would fall into his arms. 

“I know you may have a lot of questions, all of which you are entitled to. I promise that.” Cregan spoke, his voice soft and caring. 

“Questions?” You huffed out with a hint of a laugh before channelling your frustration, “I have more than just questions.” 

Cregan nodded, “Hit me, if you feel like it, just don’t be angry with me. I can’t take that.” 

You were looking at your hands placed in your lap, “I am not angry at you. I couldn’t if I tried.” You heard a relieved sigh escape his lips before you spoke up again, “Are you… one too?” 

“Yes,” Cregan answered. You looked at him and he continued, “Many people in Winterfell are. I am the leader.” 

“I am just trying to wrap my head around all this.” You explained. 

Cregan gave you a ghost of a smile, “Take all the time you need. But, now that you know, I need to warn you.” Cregan leaned forward and took your hands in his. His fingers swiped along your knuckles and he prepared to speak. 

“Aegon is not who you think he is,” He spoke, “Darling, he is one of us and he is not a good man.” 

You almost scoffed at his words, “Aegon isn’t one of us. He has also been nothing but kind and treated me with respect.” You were curious as to what angle Cregan was getting at. What gain did he get by undermining the man you were with? 

“Be honest with yourself. Have you noticed anything unusual about him?” Cregan pressed further. 

You leaned back in your chair as Cregan stopped rubbing your hands, but still grasped them. Your back hit the chair and you looked at the crackling fire. You could not curse your past self for being so oblivious, for you had no knowledge that such a world existed. 

All of the quirks Aegon possessed seemed to compound; adding to another startling realization. It was curious how often a person could experience such amount of life-changing realizations in a short period. His unnatural strength for such a lean figure and how he never seemed cold. There was also a time he had injured himself - a long cut down his forearm - that healed within the week and left an almost indecipherable scar. Aegon claimed it was a good balm, but now you knew the truth. 

“Seven hells,” You whispered. You were not fully satisfied with getting caught up with the events from last night. “What happened last night? What was that shrieking?” 

Cregan hung his head in shame, “Someone from Winterfell was found outside of the walls… murdered. All signs point to it being a wolf.” You did not think of doing so, but your fingers instinctively traced his hairline down to his chin and he lifted his head at your touch. 

“Is Winterfell safe?” You asked. 

“As safe as it can be. Constant watch around the wall. I truly don’t know how this happened.” He seemed to get lost in thought and began to rant, “I am the Lord of Winterfell and I cannot even keep my people safe. For all I know, it could have been one of my men and I have no way of knowing.” He had got off his knees by you and moved to face the fireplace. His right arm rested against the stone mantel. 

You got out of your seat and approached him. Cregan, in your time at Winterfell, managed to seize your heart. A feat not yet achieved by any man in your life. It drove you mad, how easily his mere presence made nerves harbour your stomach. While he had spent so much time ensuring your comfort, you felt as though you had failed to do so for him. 

You rested your hand on the spot between his shoulder blades on his back. His muscles tensed for a moment before relaxing into your touch. You brushed that spot gently. Cregan slightly turned to you behind him. Your other hand cupped his cheek. He leaned into your warmth like flowers to the sun drinking in its light; their life depending on its radiance. You moved your hand to the back of his head, threading your fingers through his hair. You pulled him in to duck down and rest his head on your shoulder. His nose brushed the crook of your neck and his breath tickled your skin. Cregan’s arms circled your waist.

You knew he was often a man of little words and action. A large part of you wished to fill that wordless void in his life. 

“You are a good lord, Cregan. Most importantly, you are a fine man. There are times when you will be challenged when events beyond your control transpire. It is not how they come about that is of importance. It is how you act afterward that dictates who you are.” Your words seemed to strike a chord in him and his hold tightened. He did not say anything, but his breaths seemed to ease. You stroked his back in comfort and gently swayed side to side. 

It was there, in front of the cracking fire, that you felt your relationship with Cregan had begun to expand past the bonds of friendship. 

⋅───⊱༺ ☾ 🐾☽ ༻⊰───⋅

“Do you get fleas?” The question you voiced as you sat on a wooden fence outside of the blacksmith building in Winterfell was met with laughs from both Cregan and Ser Dustin. 

It had been a while since your morning conversation with Cregan and the tension between you two was palpable. You had followed him around for the day, asking countless questions regarding any detail of being a wolf. Cregan took your questions with grace and answered them all with no hesitation. 

You had ended up at the blacksmith, where Cregan liked to help when he could as it was a skill he preferred. Normally, had it been Aegon, you would have excused yourself to be spared from the boring process of smithing. However, the image of Cregan in a thin white shirt, covered in a sheen of sweat, and with exposed forearms as he showcased his strength was not a view you wished to part from so easily. 

You acted rather nonchalant for the view in front of you. Each time he hammered down on some fiery sword, you had to avert your gaze afterwards as he had a habit of looking at you. You know he knew you were looking, and you knew he did it on purpose. That damned man sure knew how to infuriate you, as stoically as he portrayed himself to others. 

Ser Dustin placed down a tool he was wielding, “No we do not have fleas. I must leave for my shift of wall patrol. I’ll see you both later.” While Cregan was focused on his hammering, Ser Dustin sent you a teasing wink and gestured to his friend. You returned his glance with a look of disbelief. Once you and Cregan were alone, that tension that had been building only intensified. 

Cregan grabbed the heavy sword and picked it up with one hand, his bicep flexing, and dunked it into water. He glanced at you briefly before looking back down on his task, “If you could tell ten-year-old me what would happen in the last week, he would not believe it.” 

“It's a big thing, all of this stress.” You replied as you munched on a piece of bread. Your feet swung back and forth. 

“I don’t mean that,” Cregan spoke before letting out a laugh of disbelief, “I spent most of my years as a child waiting for your summer visits and all of my summers competing for your attention.” He seemed focused on his task, but there was trepidation behind his actions. 

You finally understood his actions towards you. How he was so quick to welcome you to Winterfell and spend every available moment around you. In your family’s absence, he took it upon himself to look after your grandmother. Cregan displayed a heartfelt dedication all these years since he was but a boy, just for the possibility of seeing you again. 

Nobody had ever dedicated themselves to you with such fervour before. That fact alone had you stuck in shock upon the fence. 

After a moment of your heartbeat skipping, you spoke up, “You’re rather bold to say such things.” 

Cregan moved to you, his figure towering over yours. The tops of his thighs brushed your knees as he leaned in towards your right ear, “I am,” he declared, “Do you think I would be a fool and let this opportunity pass?” He tucked a strand of hair behind your ear and let his touch linger. By now your faces were close and breathes intermingled. If you could just lean in… 

“And what is this opportunity that you speak of?” You whispered. 

“Do not dance around the subject. Must I cut my heart out and show it to you? Show you the lines in it which spell out your name?” Cregan matched your whispered voice, “Or will you continue to torture me so? Please give me an answer, for in both sleep and awake I am plagued by you. This is the closest you have been to me in years, yet you are impossibly far away.” 

His nose brushed over your cheek and you saw him close his eyes and inhale your scent, “Tell me now if you do not feel the same and I will leave you alone. I will cast myself out as lord if you simply wish to never see me again. But please, do not leave me with no answer, for I fear that is worse than death. Do you share, to any degree, the familiarity I feel for you?” 

Cregan opened his eyes to look into yours. You were stuck by their intensity, the sheer volume of care confined into such a small area. You remember your mother saying they were windows to the soul and as a child, you thought it silly. Now, you understood. You truly understood the gravity of such words and relished in it. 

He showed you, at that moment, that he could be a man of words if he willed it - if it was worth it. You saw that you were worth it to him. You nodded to his question, unable to form words other than some shaken breaths. 

“Words, sweetheart, I need to hear you say it,” Cregan responded. 

You swallowed before answering, “Yes, Cregan, I do.” 

He pushed his body closer to yours - erasing what little room was left. Cregan’s forehead rested against yours and his nose brushed across your cheek as he leaned in. He paused, staring at your lips with intensity before coming to look into your eyes. He did not move but rather waited. You leaned towards him and brushed his lips with your own. The moment contact was made, it opened a floodgate. Cregan’s lips were soft and warm and he kissed you with an intensity not felt before. 

He took it upon himself to slot his body between your legs with one hand splayed on your lower back and the other at the base of your neck; his thumb brushing your skin just above the collar of the pelt that rested on your shoulders. Your hands moved to his chest, feeling the small scars that marked his skin and his thumping heartbeat. His lips melded against yours, moving to express his feelings beyond words. 

You were lost in the comfort of it all. His scent, pine and firewood, engulfed you and sent a tickling feeling to your stomach. It all dulled your senses to everything around you. Each moment you two slightly parted to breathe would quickly come to an end as you found each other’s lips again. Cregan drank you in like a man poisoned and given an antidote; his life just grasping for that reprieve. 

His ability to drive you crazy no longer angered you. If Cregan could hold and kiss you like this again, you would forsake your mind and drown in madness. 

He pulled away only slightly with his forehead resting on yours. The two of you breathed in and out erratically. You finally opened your eyes to meet Cregan’s already looking at you. His gaze never wavered. It was then when he gave you a full smile, the first one you ever saw on him. It almost left you as breathless as the kiss you shared. One of his hands cupped your cheek, its size engulfing a portion of your face. 

“You need not make a final decision now. I have no doubt this last day alone has drained you. Know that I will wait for your answer, and I will obey your wishes.” Cregan left a searing kiss on your cheek and squeezed you in his hold a final time before pulling away. The sudden increase of cold as his warm body parted from yours could have sent you into shock if not for the fact that you too possessed that strange ability. He nodded his head to you, “Sleep well, my love.” 

You stayed sitting on that wooden fence, replaying the last few minutes in your mind. Cregan had been waiting for you, waiting since your shared childhood. Those days of running through flower fields hand in hand as children were behind you. Childhood innocence melted away into devotion. You felt hurt, just slightly, for having forgotten about him but him still thinking of you for all that time. 

You shuffled off of the fence and walked home slowly. Snow began to fall once again. The silence that came with snowfall muffled the world around you. The people of Winterfell were in their homes, each chimney erupting smoke into the air. You could not leave Winterfell to go back home, for the concept of home shifted more and more in favour of wherever Cregan happened to be. 

When you arrived at the house, the fluttering in your stomach had yet to go away. You shrugged your cloak and furs off and hung them up by the door. “Grandmother, I’m home!” 

Your grandmother had her back to you as she fussed over something in the kitchen. She was dressed up in her cloak with the hood up, a detail that made you halt in your steps. She did not greet you back. You looked at her figure and felt off. She was taller than you recalled. You walked closer, each step taken slowly as if approaching a wounded animal. Uncertainty plagued your features.

“Grandmother?” You questioned. 

The figure turned and the hood slipped off their head. You were met with a flash of silver hair and a wicked grin belonging to Aegon. The enchanted smile you once held after your moment with Cregan morphed into fear. 

“Welcome home,” Aegon spoke, “Why the sad face? Aren’t you happy to see me?” 

You knew you had to act like everything was okay. You needed to pretend you had no knowledge of who he was and plastered on a fake smile, “I am just so shocked to see you, my love.” 

You forced yourself from gagging at those sugar-coated words and moved to wrap him in a hug. He accepted it and buried his head in your hair. He sniffed you and his hold strengthened. 

“You think I would not smell that foul man on you?” Aegon’s tone was sharp and laced with venom. You pulled away and gave him a puzzled look. 

“What are you talking about?” You left his hold. Aegon looked down on the ground, nodding his head and laughing sardonically. This moment of distraction is all you need to rush towards the door. You pulled it open. Just as you were about to call out, a hand covered your mouth and an arm wrapped around your waist. Aegon pulled you back into the house and threw you on the ground, his strength causing you to tumble into the nearby table and to the ground. 

Aegon locked the deadbolt on the door and sighed in disappointment, “A man can give, and give, and give… Yet all women seem to do is take.” He stalked towards you and kneeled to where you were. His hand stretched out and stroked your cheek with his index finger. 

Without thinking, you spat in his face. His head turned away from you as he used his sleeve to wipe it from his skin when he turned to you with a fire in his eyes. You took that momentary lapse of awareness he had to land a punch to his nose. It was the first time you exerted that super strength you had inherited recently, and it shocked you to see his body move back with force. 

“You fucking whore!” Aegoin shouted as he pulled back his hand to show a flood of blood dribbling over his mouth and down his chin. 

The front door pounded once. Both you and Aegon looked towards it. The deadbolt rattled against the wood. One final push was given and the door swung open and hit the wall. Your tense body eased slightly on the ground having seen Cregan enter. The man stepped forward to move towards you, but Aegon was faster. 

He moved towards you and picked you off the floor. Aegon pulled a knife that had fallen from the table and wrapped his arms around your neck, holding the blade against your throat. Cregan immediately halted his steps. 

“One move at all and I’ll gut you,” Cregan spoke. His face was not one morphed into anger. The expression he held was calm and neutral. No twitch of the brow or bead of sweat - despite pummeling down a heavy oak door just seconds prior. There was an air around him as if he knew who held the real power. The only indicator of his grievance, besides his voice, was the unadulterated malice in his eyes. It was a look that chilled the bone yet set the soul ablaze with animosity. 

Cregan was, if anything, a calculating man. 

“We are leaving,” Aegon spoke, “I am taking my woman back.” His grip on the knife tightened. 

“You are threatening the life of the very person you wish to seize… Not exactly a wise move.” Cregan looked Aegon up and down with silent judgement. 

“She means nothing to me, but she has wronged me and will pay for it. So tell me, Lord Stark, will you let anything happen to her?” Aegon sent him a taunting smile. 

“If you so much as make one more wrong move towards her, do you think there is a corner of the continent that you could hide from me?” Cregan’s voice was steeled and calm. Your fear spiked at the feeling of cool metal against your throat. 

Aegon cackled, “Oh, I am positively frightened,” sarcasm dripped from his mouth, “If I do not make it back to this little one’s hometown in two days, I made sure her mother and brother will not live to see a moment longer.” He then held out the knife towards Cregan, “We will go now.” 

He pulled you along with him, past Cregan and out the door towards the gates of Winterfell. Tears stung your cheeks as the monster of a man paraded you down the streets you came to love. You knew Cregan stalked closely behind, unable to interfere for risk of your safety. Once outside the gates, Aegon turned around. 

“Not so close, Lord Stark,” Aegon moved the knife to rest under your chin, the blade cradling your face, “You will stay here in your shit home.” 

Aegon seemed lost in whatever high he achieved through his perceived victory. The blade moved and nicked your skin. It did not cut deep, but enough to draw blood. The once neutral expression on Cregan crumbled. His eyebrows twitched and his nose flared. An almost thundering-like growl emitted from his throat. 

Cregan’s gaze moved behind Aegon and suddenly that anger cooled down a bit. You sent him a questioning look. His eyes communicated to you then - a message of safety and assurance. 

Cregan feigned defeat and raised his arms in surrounder, “You’ve won, Aegon.” While the words sounded pleasing to the silver-haired man, you could sense the falsity of them. 

A quick whiz sound shot through the air behind you. It was fast and ended with a thunk. The force of whatever it was pushed Aegon forward and released you from his grip. You tumbled down to the ground with him but used the momentum to push yourself back up and run to Cregan. You slammed into his chest and wrapped your head around his neck. Your neck arched behind to see Aegon, splayed on the ground, with an arrow lodged into the back of his shoulder. 

Ser Dustin came out of the woods with a bow in his grip. You sighed in relief knowing it was someone you trusted. The man came up to you and Cregan while Aegon laughed hysterically on the ground, rolling in the snow while clutching his wound. 

Cregan looked to his friend, “Take her to my home and see to it she is guarded well. Wrangle up a group to go to the town over and find her mother and brother - bring them straight back here and get there fast. Instruct other guards to patrol for her grandmother.” 

“Yes, lord.” Ser Dustin nodded to him. Cregan unwrapped his arms around you and nudged you over to his friend. Ser Dustin reached his hand out and offered it to you, “My lady?” 

“Your whore is not worth the trouble,” Aegon coughed as he lay on the ground. His body began to shake and you could hear the sounds of bones cracking.

Cregan kissed your temple hastily and spoke to his friend, “Get her out of here, quickly.” 

“No, I am not leaving you.” You responded. Cregan did not listen to you and nodded to Ser Dustin.

“Apologies, my lady,” Ser Dustin spoke before he lifted you by the waist, your head and torso hanging over his back. You fought back against his hold, but it was futile. The man moved back and you lifted your head to watch as you were carried away from Cregan. His back was to you, but you could see his muscles flex under the fabric. 

Once inside the walls of Winterfell and a street down, you could hear the animalistic growls and shouts of two wolves mixed with the slashing of flesh. 

⋅───⊱༺ ☾ 🐾☽ ༻⊰───⋅

You had been pacing Cregan’s chambers for longer than you would like to admit. Ser Dustin took you here, posted guards outside, and left with a group to save your family. You were given a bowl and salve for your cut, but it did not matter to you. All of your thoughts were scrambled. Your mother and brothers' safety was at risk, your grandmother was nowhere to be found, and Cregan was fighting Aegon. Yet here you were, cooped into a room and unable to do anything. The powerlessness was crippling. 

Shuffling sounded outside the door to Cregan’s chambers. The wooden door opened and Cregan walked in. You did not think before flying into his arms. He winced but wrapped his arms around you. His face nuzzled into your shoulder and he breathed heavily. His shoulders sank and exhaustion caused him to lean against you. 

You helped him move to the couch by the hearth and set him down. Now that you were looking at him, you could see the dried blood that covered his shirt. Cregan’s white shirt had been torn to almost shreds and newer cuts adorned his old scars. His eyes were closed as he struggled to stay alert. When you sat next to him with supplies to clean his wounds, he reached forward. 

Cregan lifted your chin gently to see the cut you had received. His thumb brushed over it, “I should have killed him all those years ago. Exile was not good enough.” His voice was scratchy and the timbre reverberated through the room. 

“Is he…?” Your voice trailed off.

“Dead? Almost. He is in a cell,” Cregan spoke, “It is your justice that needs to be met, not mine.” 

You nodded at his words and made quick work of your movements. A wash basin with a cloth was on your lap. Your fingers gripped the cloth and soaked it through the water. Only the sounds of sloshing water and crack of firewood as it burned filled the room. Candles littered the space, giving you enough vision to assess the marks on his skin. Cregan used what little energy he had left to shrug off the tattered shirt. You started with one of his arms, the one closest to you. 

It was when you moved to the other arm that Cregan talked, “Your grandmother is okay. She was found outside the walls. No injuries except a bump on her head - from Aegon knocking her out and taking her cloak. She is home and being tended by healers with guards posted both in and outside the house.”

You leaned in to place comforting kisses on his shoulder, slow and meaningful. You moved from there to his collarbone while staying careful to not brush over any of his wounds. 

“Thank you.” You whispered. It was then that you moved to his back. Cregan turned so you could clean the blood and put a salve on the cuts without any trouble. With every few swipes of the cloth, you would place a kiss on his back. He would sigh with each one. 

When you reached his front, it was hard for you not to be distracted by his muscles. You cursed your brain for focusing on that when he was injured. Your hands mended the cuts, trailing down further and to the muscles over his stomach. The cloth in your hands brushed over one of the v-lines peaking out from  his pants. You blush under his gaze.

Once finished with your task, you got up and placed the supplies on a small round table by a chair next to the fire. You spotted what appeared to be a wardrobe and opened it. Shuffling through the shirt you found a nightshirt similar to the one he wore previously. You went back to him and helped him put it on as he winced to the movements. 

Your hands went to adjust the collar. Cregan grabbed your right wrist and held it up, kissing the pulse point a few times with his eyes closed and brows furrowed. You wordlessly guided him to lie down on the couch with you. Your back hit the plush cushions as he rested his body partly over yours with his head on your shoulder. His arms encircled you and yours wrapped around his back. Mindful of the wounds, you rubbed his back gently. It was not much long after that he fell into slumber. 

You waited a while before allowing yourself to sleep, for you wanted to make sure Cregan would rest. 

⋅───⊱༺ ☾ 🐾☽ ༻⊰───⋅

The days following had been more eventful, but less chaotic. That next morning you had rushed to your grandmother to check on her. She was in good condition and more worried over your state, but when she saw the cuts and bruises across Cregan that peaked from his clothing, she fussed over his state. You remembered the words she uttered when Cregan told her he was alright. 

“Do you think I was born yesterday, boy? Sit down and I’ll make some food.” 

That day was spent drenched in worry for your mother and brother. However, Ser Dustin came back with his company of men and your family; completely safe and out of harm. That day you had cried in Cregan’s arms from relief. The stress of your trip, from your sick grandmother to discovering everything about your heritage, and Aegon had finally come down on you. 

Aegon was executed after five days in a cell. Not an ounce of care was to be found in your heart. The trial he had was quick. Evidence collected by Ser Dustin caught him guilty to the murder of a resident of Winterfell, the one you heard screaming the night of the full moon. Cregan cut Aegon’s head from his body, and the remains were burned and discarded in the woods. All that was left of Aegon were memories - which would fade through the years to come.  

Everything got easier as winter melted into spring. Your relationship with your mother healed over time, as you both got into a fight regarding her keeping such a secret from you for so long. To rectify this, you and her sat your brother down to tell him - to avoid every keeping secrets in your family from then on. Of course, that had quickly become a mistake as he began to hang around Cregan and his other friends who were wolves as well, asking an insurmountable amount of questions and counting down the days until he could become one. Cregan did not mind and reminded you of all the questions you had when you found out, to which you whacked his shoulder. 

Over time, you and Cregan got into a routine. You continued to teach the children of Winterfell while taking on more duties to ease the stress off of Cregan. He welcomed your help and in exchange would visit the children often to give you breaks. You quickly found yourself spending more nights at his home than your grandmother's. 

It was here, during one of your many nights together, that you found yourself under the furs of his bed. Both of your bodies were exposed and covered in a sheen of sweat. Cregan was on his back with your head resting on his chest. Your fingers traced the scars across his skin as one of his hands stroked your arm gently. His hand moved to cover yours and still its movements. 

“My offer still stands for your family. There is plenty of room for them in this house.” Cregan brought your hand up to kiss the palm. 

“I’ve been trying to convince them, but they feel you have already done enough to help.” You responded. 

Cregan squeezed you closer to his body. “How bad would it look for the Lord of Winterfell to let his betrothed’s family stay in such a small cottage?” His tone bordered on teasing.

“Almost as bad as taking her virtue before the wedding.” You jested. You had lifted your head to look at him and Cregan feigned a look of offence. 

“How dare you question the sanctity of my bride?” He began and then lowered his voice to an almost threatening tone, “That is a punishable offence.” 

The two of you both laughed gently. You rested your head back onto his chest and sighed. Cregan adjusted his body to be turned and your back was lowered onto the bed. He sat up for a moment before trapping your head between his forearms, his body hovering over yours. Cregan lowered his face to be just inches above yours. You stifled a yawn and he raised one of his eyebrows. 

“Why is my lady so tired?” He questioned. 

You moved your hands up to push lightly on his bare chest, “Well, if you were not so insatiable with your appetite, I may have time to rest.” 

A cheeky grin formed on his face, “And are you rested?” 

“I could stay awake for a little while…” You answered. Cregan nodded at your words. 

“That is good.” He lowered his face and captured your lips in a kiss. His lips were soft and pillowy against your own. It was slow and searing. Some of Cregan’s hair tickled your face. His mouth parted slightly with yours as he used his tongue to explore your mouth. You let out a whine and he responded with a low, almost indecipherable grumble from his chest. 

His mouth moved to the side of yours, down your jaw, and to your collar bone; leaving open-mouthed kisses in his wake. There were newly formed marks on your neck created just minutes prior and others over the past few days. He kissed each one again, marking his pride. His mouth would clamp down on the skin, biting and sucking ever so gently. Your eyes closed as you entered a state of relaxation. 

You craved him more and more. Each day was a newly discovered ache of want, of need. Your attitude matched his own, though his unquenchable hunger for you had been undefeatable.

Cregan moved down further and further. One of his hands cupped your breast and began to massage it gently while his mouth went to the other. His finger teased your nipple, flicking it gently. He dedicated slow movements that made you suck in a breath and arch your back up closer to his touch. Cregan’s favourite activity in recent weeks was discovering every little thing that made you tick. Every inch of skin surveyed, most times more than once. 

Keeping a hand on your breast, he shuffled down further to your stomach. His lips brushed across the smooth skin. The pelts were on his back but moved down with him, exposing your body to the cool air of the stone bedchamber. He kissed your hipbone, eliciting a sharp inhale of breath from you. You bit your lip as his hot breath brushed over your sensitive core. What exhaustion you previously had was completely abandoned as you felt your body come alive with an unrivalled energy. 

Cregan could sense your newfound energy and chuckled lightly. Both of his hands gripped the sides of your thighs, parting your legs just enough for him. His fingers dug into the pillowy flesh and his thumbs rubbed hypnotic swipes back and forth. His mouth hovered just above your core when he stopped. 

“Cregan,” you whined, “Please.” Your hips bucked up in desperation. He gave a quick swipe of his tongue along your core and pulled back. The single action made your head dizzy and your body thrum. You wriggled under his touch and intense stare, body shuddering in anticipation. 

Cregan wasted no time in burying his face in you, ravishing every inch possible. His nose brushed your bud. The lewd moans that slipped from your mouth egged him on, encouraging him more. He groaned into your skin, sending a rumble throughout your core area. Your hands could not bear gripping the sheet below you so they moved to tangle in his dark locks. 

When you tuged on the strands, Cregan growled lowly and picked up the pace of his movements. His tongue moved to your bud and sucked as one of his fingers moved up to rub your core, gently sinking into you. Your back shot off the bed and you let out a startled gasp. Your reaction only sparked more from Cregan. 

His actions became feverish rather than carefully planned. His tongue worked in circular motions as he inserted another finger. His hand moved with reckless abandon, set on making you reach your peak. Your breaths became more erratic and lewd noises escaped your lips; each word encouraging Cregan more. 

You were quickly reaching your peak when Cregan pushed another finger in, making your walls clench. The familiar pressure that coiled in your lower stomach built up. His tongue began making circular motions on your bud, speeding up intensity and pressure. Your body squirmed while it trembled under Cregan’s care. 

In a moment of white-hot light, you reached your climax. It washed over you in waves, spreading out from your stomach. Cregan’s hands gripped your thighs and held your lower body down as you huffed and writhed on the bed. He pulled his fingers out but continued giving your core attention with his mouth. By then you were lost in the throes of ecstasy as he pushed you to overstimulation. 

“Cregan!” Your shout was high-pitched as your lungs sucked in air. Cregan lifted his face and made eye contact with you. He smirked before kissing his way up your body again, similar to his trip down only minutes ago. 

Cregan, now hovering above you, leaned down to give you a soft kiss. It was not feverish and rushed, but wrapped in care and devotion. You moaned into his mouth as his hands grabbed your hips and flipped you over suddenly. You let out a startled shout that melded into a joint laugh with him. Your thighs wrapped around his hips and it was then when you noticed the feel of him against your core. 

You leaned down to kiss him and sighed knowing you would not get much rest that night.

.𖥔 ݁ ˖ if you want to be added to any taglist, click here.

___________

This was my second time writing smut and I think I'm starting to get the hang of it!

Thank you all for your continued support!

series taglist: @uniquecutie-puffs @dracaryxzs @beebeechaos @libdarkheart @aisselasstuff @whodis? @void21 @l-uminescent @idontlikelizards @poppinspops @nixtape-foryou @bluryar14 @mynameisjxlia @asteria33

[fandomnerd9602]

Wedding Daze (Pt. 1)

Bambi!Wanda x Reader

Why did you and Wanda agree to a one week engagement period? The planning. The venue. The cakes. You could laugh or you could cry.

Luckily all of your friends and family were close by anyway. So it wasn’t a problem with travel or time for you and your amazing doe Wanda.

You and Wanda spent the days leading up to your nuptials finalizing everything. Natasha, your wolf hybrid pal, took the maid of honor duty extremely serious. Well except she also had recently spent a lot of time with your future in law Pietro.

The wedding was less than three days away. You had just finalized a deal with a charity, a media marketing push with Tony, and then picked up the cake with the boys.

You were about to go into your office when Pietro ran up and took a hold of you.

“Listen bratok,” he said so slick and cool, “tonight is the infamous ritual for both parties.”

“The bachelor/bachelorette parties? Piet no stag clubs!”

“Done,” he huffed, “Nattie told me I couldn’t do that. Besides it’s just you, me and the boys”

Billy and Tommy came running up to you excited as could be. “Guys night!!!” They shouted excitedly.

You gave a chuckle and shake of your head.

What you didn’t notice was Wanda, peering out of her own office. She loved that the guys in her life got along so well. And then Natasha came running up and took a hold of her, “come on bride to be”

“Where are we going?”

“To a little night on the town for just us!” The wolf pal responded before letting out a playful little howl.

Wanda, Natasha and Yelena went out to a local karaoke bar. Yelena brought her best friend and Labrador hybrid Kate Bishop with her. Wanda found herself having a blast. Singing along to old karaoke songs and getting a little drunk with friends old and new was amazing to her.

“You have no idea how free I feel right now!” Wanda giggles as she settles down in a booth with her gal pals.

“I think we got an idea, Bambi” Natasha giggles, taking another sip of her drink.

“I think we all know how Natasha feels free” Yelena giggles.

“Shut up, sestra!” Natasha retorts.

“What are Wanda and I missing here?” Kate asks with a drunken giggle.

Yelena smirks, “I saw Pietro sneaking out of her den the last few nights”

Wanda shrieks a little, maybe it was the alcohol or the fact that her best friend was hooking up with her brother.

“What?! Are you kidding me?!” Wanda asks, lightly punching her wolf pal in the arm.

“He treats me right” Natasha gives a little wink.

“Trust me. I can tell” Yelena snorts.

Meanwhile across town, you and Pietro decided to have your stag party at the local bowling alley. Billy and Tommy were having a blast.

“I would’ve hired you a dancer,” Pietro admits, “but you got kids now”

“I’d rather go bowling with you and my boys anyway” you smile.

“Your boys.” Pietro smiles, “I like the sound of that.” He takes a sip of his drink, “thank you for being their poppa”

You give your boys a kiss on their antlers, “that’s my privilege.”

Pietro chuckles, “Wanda chose well”

You give your brother in law a gentle smile. Yeah you considered yourself so blessed that out of all the people in the entire world, Wanda chose you.

The night was beginning to wind down as you got Pietro back to his condo on the sanctuary grounds and got the boys to bed in the comfort of your home.

You couldn’t help but think that in less than twenty four hours you’d be marrying the doe of your dreams. The one who gave you strength to keep going as much as you encouraged her to do the same. Where was your doe anyway?

Your question was answered a second later as you heard your door open. Natasha carried a tipsy Wanda in.

“Your princess awaits you,” Natasha gave you a slurred smile.

“Princess? I’m a queen” Wanda giggles as she falls into your arms.

“Yes you are” you kiss the top of her head, “need a place to stay, Nat?”

“Nope. Kate’s our designated driver”

You look outside and see Kate waving to you and Wanda. Yelena stands next to her, offering you a salute.

“Thanks Nat” you hug your wolf bestie before helping to guide Wanda to your bedroom.

Wanda giggles as she passes her old room, “we’ll have to redecorate that one of these days”

“Why’d that?”

“Cause some day I wanna little teeny baby girl” she slurs her words a little. You let out a little laugh.

You lay Wanda gently down on your bed and grab a couple bottles of water for her. You give her a kiss to the forehead.

“Good night, my doe”

“Good night my buck” she mumbles back. “Until tomorrow”

And with that you grab your pillow and head to the couch.

Tomorrow. You couldn’t help but smile. Tomorrow couldn’t get here fast enough.

Tags @lifespectator @olsenmyolsen @supercorpdanbeau @scarletquake-n7 @idkwhatever580 @pinklawyerwinnerzonk @aloneodi @multi-fandom-enjoyer @russianredassassin @revanshand @texaswolf23

[sleepinthrumyalarms]

— old dog, new tricks

pairing: wednesday addams x fem!werewolf!reader

warnings: smut, lesbian sex, slight petplay, deragadation, topping from the bottom, strapon referred to as cock, wednesday is STILL a sadist, all characters are aged-up

summary: the control wednesday has over you is frustrating. you're put back in your place the second you try to rebel

word count: 2.5k

“So yeah, since the Furs are gonna be the ones hosting the party, every wolf gets to bring a plus one. There’d be enough of us as it is, we should keep it low. The last time they held a gathering, it ended up... badly,” Enid refrains from going into details, which most likely involved a lot of destroyed furniture and saliva, clearing her throat as she slurps on her orange juice, leaning forward in her seat to gauge your reaction, “It’s free alcohol though! Courtesy of the Scales, so we have to let them in, too.”

Wednesday is sitting next to you, her hands clasped together on her knees, the plate in front of her already clean by the end of the lunch break. Her face is unreadable – but you grin, the thought of having drinks in a nice company of fellow werewolves providing a surge of enthusiasm to finish the school day.

“Sure– “

“I’m afraid we won’t be able to join you, Enid. (Y/n) and I have business for tonight.”

The toothpick you clench in your mouth almost snaps in half.

Enid raises an eyebrow, looking between the two of you, but nods, seeming to take Wednesday’s words as final. It vexes you even further.

The ravenette doesn’t let you say another word. She dabs at her lips with a tissue, caringly grabs both of your trays and walks off. The werewolf’s sky-blue eyes meet yours – she looks like she wants to say something, but the irk in your gaze serves as a good enough warning, and she keeps her mouth shut.

A sigh mixed with an exasperated groan leaves your mouth, and you get up to follow your girlfriend, now staring holes into the back of her head instead.

Recess is over, and with it goes your faux relaxed attitude – you sit with your arms crossed, your knee jumping in an annoyed tick as you stare unblinking at your biology book, almost burning through the paper with your glare. Ajax, who’s unfortunate enough to have to share a desk with you, cowers at the angry aura you induce, the snakes of his hair peeking from under his beanie cautiously.

When your last period ends, you pack your bag hastily and throw it over your shoulder before all but storming out of the class. As you walk through the corridor, you notice Xavier out of the corner of your eye, the brunet artist falling in step with you. When he absentmindedly asks if you’re coming to the party tonight, it takes you all of your willpower not to punch him in the jaw.

The door is slammed behind you as you enter your dorm, your nostrils flaring.

You’re mad. And now that the party is totally out of the question, you need a different way to let out steam.

You don’t waste your time undressing yourself, opting to change for something easy to dispose of and claw into, before you reach for the nightstand, opening the bottom drawer.

The toy inside holds a lot of rather pleasant memories – of Wednesday bending you over the balcony railing, of her driving her hips into you as you all but begged her to fuck you right on the floor of your dorm.

Well. Werewolf heats are known for their feverous intensity. Howling isn’t the only reason one should wear muffled headphones with wolves around.

You grab the silicone toy, quickly tightening the straps around your waist, which surprisingly comes rather natural and makes you wonder why the hell you haven’t thought of doing this before, then tug on a pair of grey sweatpants over the strap-on, glancing at the clock – you still have a few minutes before Wednesday comes back.

You give yourself a once-over in the mirror. The shirt’s neckline is hanging just above your breasts, exposing your collarbones, your hair is disheveled with all the exasperated running your fingers through it you’ve been doing, and the outline of the silicone cock is pretty much visible through your pants. Exactly what you were going for.

The faint sound of footsteps reaches your sensitive ears, and it’s a pattern you recognize easily by now – you step away from the mirror to sit back on the bed just in time with the door creaking open.

“Business?” You mutter instead of a greeting. “I didn’t know we had plans.”

Wednesday freezes in the doorway, eyeing you. Her gaze drops to your pants, and a small, barely noticeable smirk makes its way to her pretty plump lips before its gone like it was a mirage.

“Why, don’t you just sound so eager to spend time with your significant other,” the ravenette deadpans sarcastically, walking over to her desk to abandon her backpack there, her lithe fingers working to undo the buttons of her uniform blazer – slowly, deliberately, the same way she drags her words out as she speaks, completely unbothered, “Would you really rather prefer a... frat party with a bunch of uncivilized mutts?”

She turns to look at you, misty eyes shining with a challenging glint.

“Addictions run in the family. Along with my last name I happen to bear a habit of drinking my stress away,” the mattress creaks in protest as you get up, step closer to Wednesday so that you’re towering over her smaller frame, “That, and valuing my freedom and independency.”

Wednesday doesn’t look intimidated in the least. She looks up at you, her eyebrows raised slightly, “But I can’t really help it. You’ve always been like this – so pliant and submissive,” the girl takes her blazer off, draping it over the back of her chair, never breaking eye contact with you, “It’s just so... entertaining to order you around sometimes, knowing you’d follow every single one of my commands.”

You grit your teeth at her words, partially from irritation, partially because they’re true – Wednesday has had you wrapped around her finger from the first day you met her, and it was a given you’d be so smitten to submit to her every whim. The ravenette’s influence on you is omnipotent.

And now, you’re not sure where it’s coming from, but there’s hot, rebellious fire burning in your chest, and the young woman in front of you is the spark responsible.

“I’m not a dog.”

“Oh? Is my perception wrong, then?”

Wednesday steps closer, her chin raised slightly, and before you know it you’re backing down to your shared bed, the backs of your knees hitting the wooden frame.

“Am I wrong? You’re not my pet, then?” She asks again, “Can you prove it? Can you make me shut up and take it?”

Suddenly you remember what your original plan was supposed to be. You mentally facepalm yourself – Wednesday’s been in the room for less than five minutes, yet you already feel the remains of your pride and resolve crumbling apart and proving her right.

Frustrated, your grasp at her hips, your talons coming out at your exasperation, tearing into her skirt, and turn the small girl around, pressing your mouth to hers hotly.

In a few moments you’re a mess of tangled limbs on the bed, Wednesday’s hands sliding towards the waistband of your pants to slide them down, the cool silicone of the toy pressing against her clothed cunt.

You pull back slightly, hovering over her, your claws catching at the lace of her panties, and it takes you a minute to tear them away – your hands are practically shaking with anger and anticipation. You don’t bother with the skirt, flipping it away for easy access, and Wednesday parts her thighs gently, your gaze subconsciously trailing down to the supple pale skin of her lower body.

Jesus, you want to bruise it so badly.

But no. Not now.

Focus. Focus.

Your hands grab ahold of the plushy flesh, fingers digging in as you part her legs even further, and Wednesday lets out a small sound at the aggressiveness. You’d grin at the small victory of yours, but it’s not really worthy yet – her expression is still unfazed, and you know you’ll have to try harder than that.

Or maybe not, you think as you suppress a chuckle at how positively drenched Wednesday is – of course, you could smell it before you could see the pretty wetness covering the inside of her thighs, and you’re damn sure she knows it, too, judging by the way her jaw tightens before she speaks.

“Do not gloat, dog. That is not your doing.”

Okay, that. That actually makes an angry vein pop on your forehead, the thought of someone else getting Wednesday hot and bothered and gorgeously dripping like this is akin to bothering a hungry animal during its meal.

You align yourself with the beautifully dripping cunt of the small ravenette, pressing your palms into her thighs to keep her still – fuck it, you have to bruise her – and push the tip against the feverish skin, sinking in slowly. You watch her walls wrap around the toy deliciously, the sight almost making you forget the reason for your fury, and an involuntary sigh escapes your mouth as you’re halfway to being sheathed inside Wednesday – the girl herself is silent, except for the wet sound of her pretty pussy taking your fake cock in. You look up to see her watching you with half-lidded eyes. She looks bored.

Her smirk is almost as taunting as her words.

“Is that all you’ve got?”

An irritated huff escapes your nose, fingers digging deeper into her, and in a single sharp thrust you bottom out, your legs pressing flush against the back of her hips.

Wednesday sighs, finally, eyes fluttering shut as all the air is pushed out of her lungs. You wrap your hands around the bottom of her thighs to pull her in as close as possible, and this time you actually grin as the ravenette has to bite back another choked noise, hanging her head back on the pillow and taking a deep inhale.

Then she opens her eyes, meeting yours again. Irritation paints her face at your smug expression.

“Are you getting cocky now, (Y/n)? It was but a mediocre start,” she tuts. “I thought you were going to show me how good you can make me take it. How strong you are.”

Her manicured hand caresses up your bicep, scratching idly.

“Alas, the only thing that’s giving me pleasure right now is telling you you’re not good enough.”

All the thoughts of being gentle and sweet with Wednesday are slapped out of your mind as soon as her words register in your already pussy-drunk brain. With a nearly animalistic snarl you pull out so that the head is barely visible before driving back in, the silicone sinking between her lips, disappearing in a red-hot embrace as you immediately fall into a swift rhythm. Your abdominal muscles contract violently, screaming at you that the pace is too much. Too fast. Too hard.

But you don’t care. You want Wednesday to scream those things.

The ravenette stretches one of her long shapely legs to rest it on your shoulder, the angle pulling you deeper into her with each thrust. You grunt, turn your face to nibble at her ankle through the stocking, making Wednesday shudder.

“You look... angry.” She observes, her words a bit broken, breath stolen by your merciless pounding into her. “Are you angry with me, puppy?”

You growl in response. Her palms reach to cup your face, a condescending smile on her lips.

“For teasing you? Oh, don’t be angry. It is simply the natural way of things. Whatever you do, you will always belong underneath me. Taking me like a good girl. Pretty puppy always wants to be my good girl, doesn’t she?”

You whine, and Wednesday chuckles, satisfied that her words are causing the effect she desired – you melt despite the fact that you’re the one fucking her into the bed, ruining the mattress with how much of her slick is dripping down between your bodies.

“You’re so lucky that I’m letting you do this,” her voice is breathy, and your attention snaps to the way is sounds rather than the words she speaks, “Look at me and say it— Don’t you dare scowl at me.”

Wednesday scolds your bared canines and your furrowed eyebrows, the hold of her palms turning rough on your chin.

“Say thank you. For my letting you be in my cunt right now.”

Her tone sends an array of shivers down your spine – you feel reminded of where your place is supposed to be. It takes some time for you to finally find your voice, your mouth slightly open as you still your hips for a moment, cock buried in Wednesday’s soft heat.

She watches you expectantly. You lean down to press your nose into her shoulder.

“Th... thank you...” You murmur into her neck shakily, hiding your face in embarrassment.

You’ve lost.

The ravenette hums, wraps her legs around you, a gesture of pity and generosity on her part – she knows how much you love it when she does that, the balls of her stocking-clad feet pressing into your back.

“You’re welcome, puppy. Now get back to work.”

Your pace turns slow, meaningful, and Wednesday seems content with the change, her back arching at a particularly strong and deep thrust of your hips, pretty mouth falling open with a breathy sigh, “Oh, mia grande forte cucciola… Trying so hard to make me feel good…”

Her walls flutter around the shaft, her heavy breathing mixing with the obscene sounds of your skin slapping hers.

“Should I cum on you? Should I let you have it just this once?”

At that you perk up, and if you were wolfed out at that moment, you’re pretty sure your tail would be wagging like crazy as you whine a few pathetic ‘please, please’ into her neck.

“I will. I will, amore. But not because of you fucking me so good… Just because I pity you.”

Wednesday brings you closer to her, your chest flush against hers as she tilts her head back, her pussy turning impossibly tight around your cock, a choked moan leaving her burgundy lips, right into your ear, making goosebumps trickle up your neck. You fuck her through her orgasm obediently, wishing you could feel her throbbing around you.

When Wednesday’s hold on you relaxes, your jaw goes slack around her shoulder, her ruined uniform the last thing on your mind as you try to catch your breath.

She sighs with content, pressing a kiss to your cheekbone.

“Good dog.”

There’s no strength left in you to fight the title, so you accept your defeat, leaning most of your body weight onto the small girl and muttering something unintelligible.

“Pull out.” She orders, and you comply, watching as her slick drips down the toy, before the ravenette pushes you back onto the bed, her thighs bracketing your hips. Her warmth against you makes you shudder.

“Now,” her hands reach for the straps, undoing them with masterful precision, “I’m going to reclaim what’s mine.”

The toy is tugged down your legs, and Wednesday licks her lips.

“I hope the ache you’ll feel with every step you take tomorrow reminds you of who you belong to, puppy.”

[goquokka00]

Stray Kids on Weed

The Bangchan Strain In which the love of their life smokes the mary jane, and they give it a shot for the first time...

Bangchan | Minho | Changbin | Hyunjin Jisung | Felix | Seungmin | Jeongin

A Few Notes: This is purely just supposed to be funny and a joke. I've also never been high and while I am friends with those who have either tried weed or do weed on the regular, I only know so much. So please just bear with me and have a good laugh, okay? Okay. Love you guys ❤️❤️❤️

I have a very firm belief that Mr. Bangchan over here in the corner's first time ever even dealing with weed is through a joint. He gives me the vibe that if he ever did smoke, it would be from joints, and he'd be good at rolling in general.

He sees you smoking it from time to time, and this time, he wanted to give it a shot. Of course, with any first time smoking, he ends up going into a coughing fit. I mean, you're breathing in smoke, why wouldn't you cough the first time? Hello?

But once the initial high kicks in, I see Bangchan as someone who'd be very giggly. Like, anything and everything is funny to this mother fucker. The picture that has been hanging for forever on your wall that was honestly really beautiful is immediately the funniest thing Bangchan has ever laid his eyes on because, and I quote, "The bear be kronked."

It isn't just the picture. It's watching dance practices, his own music, texts he's had with you in the past, need I say more? And if he found something funny when he was sober, then you bet your ass Bangchan's pissing his pants laughing. One time you had him rewatch the video of Jisung twerking that the younger member had sent out to just the members specifically, and Bangchan was on the floor, struggling to breathe from how hard he was laughing.

I also have this feeling that Bangchan would end up being way more emotional. Since he doesn't really show emotion when he's sober, I feel like more of his emotions would come out when high because you're relaxed, and riding the vibe train to who knows where. But I'm not talking just being more susceptible to his emotions.

I'm talking the stereotypical "Teenage girl is on her period and literally can't control her emotions." Bro will literally hear one sad thing and start bawling, only to giggle a few minutes later because he thought he sounded funny and saw you laughing at him crying.

And don't even get me started on the stripping issue.

I have this gut feeling that Bangchan would find clothes...uncomfortable...when high. They're clinging to his skin, tickling his arms, his jeans just feel weird, or his sweats are too hot. And so he'd just take them off, right then and there. And I mean everything.

If you're not there to watch him, or if he gets into the mary-ja-mooch when you're not there, you're gonna end up walking into the living room to see Bangchan ass-naked and laughing at his schlong because of how it's moving.

By the time his high is finally dissipating, you're usually able to get him back onto the couch curled up with a blanket and some water. And once he's sober, you both agree that this strictly stays between you two and that the kids will NEVER find out about his.

Do I think that Chan would go back to smoking? Maybe, probably not? I feel like he'd only do it on occasion, maybe if he's had a really stressful day and needs a break, but I feel like since he always ends up like...y'know...he tends to keep it on the down low.

Hey! Firstly, thank you so much for reading this post, and I really hope you enjoyed! If you did, please like, reblog, or comment so I can see how I'm doing with writing and getting feedback! I hope you have a lovely day! Sleep well, stay in good health, and eat something if you haven't! ❤️❤️❤️

Taglist: @miss-daisy04 @kayleefriedchicken @wolfs-archive @stayyyyyyyyyyyy21 @wolfs-howling @rose-w-00-d

[greenwitchcrafts]

January 2024 Witch guide

Full Moon: January 25th

New moon: January 11th

Sabbats: None

January Wolf Moon

Known as: Bear Moon, Chaste Moon, Cold Moon, Disting Moon, Goose Moon, Moon of Little Winter,  Moon of Strong Cold, Quiet Moon, Snow Moon, Stay at Home Moon, Sun Has Not Strength to Thaw Moon & When Snow Blows Like Spirits In The Wind Moon

Element: Air

Zodiac: Capricorn & Aquarius

Nature spirits: Brownies & Gnomes

Deities: Freya, Hera, Innana & Saraswati

Animals: Coyote & fox

Birds: Blue Jay & pheasant

Trees: Birch & Hazel

Herbs: Cones, holy thistle &marjoram

Flowers: Crocus & Snowdrop

Scents: Mimosa & musk

Stones: Chrysoprase, garnet, hematite, moonstone, onyx & jet

Colors: Black, blue-violet, grey, silver & white

Energy: Adventurous, ambitious, awareness, beauty, beginning & conceiving; business, career, conserving energy, energy below the surface, organization, political matters, potential, protection, recognition, reputation, reversing spells & spirituality

The name for the January full Moon is believed to have originated from Celtic and Old English roots, which European settlers then brought to the New World.

At one point, gray wolves were among the most widespread land mammals on our planet. According to the Wolf Conversation Center, gray wolves “inhabited most of the available land in the Northern Hemisphere.” Habitat destruction and persecution by humans have reduced their range by about a third worldwide and 90 percent in the lower 48 states.

The wolf’s adaptable nature to survive in a wide range of habitats and ability to prey on the largest mammals living in those regions made it widespread. Basically, if there are enough deer, moose, elk, caribou, bison, and musk ox, wolves can survive. Predation of domestic animals caused friction with European settlers and early Americans who aggressively hunted the wolves.

Werewolf myths can be found in ancient Greek and Roman societies, throughout European history and among some Native American tribes. In modern storytelling the transformation from man to wolf has been closely tied to the full Moon in films like “The Wolf Man” and “American Werewolf In London.”

Howl at the Moon means to waste energy pursuing something unattainable. It’s shorthand for doing something crazy. However, howling is hardly a waste of energy among wolf packs. And they aren’t howling at the Moon. The Moon just happens to be shining during times when wolves most often howl.

A wolf’s howl can be heard miles away. The vocalization helps wolves locate separated members and even communicate between packs marking their territories. One study recorded spontaneous howls and responses happen most often between 11 p.m. and 6 a.m.

The cry of wolves doesn’t play into the Sioux name for the January full Moon, which is known as “The Time When Wolves Run Together.” Wolves do plenty of running to defend territory that can stretch hundreds of square miles to find enough prey to support the pack.

Other Celebrations

• Hogmanay | January 1st: is the Scots word for the last day of the old year and is synonymous with the celebration of the New Year in the Scottish manner. It is normally followed by further celebration on the morning of New Year's Day (1 January) and, in some cases, 2 January—a Scottish bank holiday. In a few contexts, the word Hogmanay is used more loosely to describe the entire period consisting of the last few days of the old year and the first few days of the new year. For instance, not all events held under the banner of Edinburgh's Hogmanay take place on 31 December.

The origins of Hogmanay are unclear, but it may be derived from Norse and Gaelic observances of the winter solstice. Customs vary throughout Scotland and usually include gift-giving and visiting the homes of friends and neighbours, with particular attention given to the first-foot, the first guest of the new year.

• Compitalia/ Feast of Lades | January 3-5: was an annual festival in honor of the Lares Compitales, household deities of the crossroads, to whom sacrifices were offered at the places where two or more ways met.

Dionysius said that Servius Tullius founded the festival, which he describes as it was celebrated in his time. Dionysius relates that the sacrifices consisted of honey-cakes (Ancient Greek: πέλανοι) presented by the inhabitants of each house; and that the people who assisted as ministering servants at the festival were not free men, but slaves, because the Lares took pleasure in the service of slaves. He further adds that the Compitalia were celebrated a few days after the Saturnalia with great splendor, and that the slaves on this occasion had full liberty to do as they pleased.

During the celebration of the festival, each family placed the statue of the underworld goddess Mania at the door of their house. They also hung up at their doors figures of wool representing men and women, accompanying them with humble requests that the Lares and Mania would be contented with those figures, and spare the people of the house

Sources:

Farmersalmanac.com

Llewellyn's Complete Book of Correspondences by Sandra Kines

A Witch's Book of Correspondences by Viktorija Briggs

Llewellyn's 2023 magical almanac: practical magic for everyday living

Wikipedia

Encyclopedia Britannica

[breelandwalker]

Wolf Moon - January 24-25, 2024

Shake off the cold and sing to the sky, witches - it's time for the Wolf Moon!

Wolf Moon

The Wolf Moon is the name given to the full moon which occurs in the month of January. The name is said to be derived from the sound of wolves howling with hunger while prey is scarce in the midst of winter. Given that we now know that wolves howl mostly for communication, my personal opinion is that people huddled in their homes during a very dark and dangerous time of year probably noticed these sounds a lot more readily with little else to occupy their time as they waited out the winter, and thus were set to worrying about ravenous beasts invading their villages and farmsteads. (It's worth noting that wolves preying on livestock was a very real concern for most people outside major cities for many centuries, so this isn't entirely unfounded.)

The name also calls to mind the howling of the wind during winter storms, or whistling around the eaves during the long cold nights. And for those of us who might not have been careful with our spending over the holidays, I might cite a tongue-in-cheek reference to the wolves being at the door when those credit card bills come due.

[For those not familiar with the phrase, to have "a wolf at the door" is a saying that refers to some imminent hardship or disaster. In modern parlance, this is usually applied to poor finances or looming bankruptcy.]

This month, the moon peaks at 12:54pm EST on January 25th, so the moon will likely appear to be full on the nights of the 24th and 25th, depending on where you are in the world.

Some North American indigenous names for the month of January and its' moon are Cold Moon (Cree), Center Moon (Assiniboine), Severe Moon (Dakota), Ice Moon (Catawba), and Spirit Moon (Ojibwe). Other names include Mantis Moon (South African origins), Quiet Moon (Celtic), and Moon After Yule (Anglo-Saxon).

What Does It Mean For Witches?

As a new year dawns, it's time for rest and reflection before we set out on the next phase of our journey. While the cold weather lingers, take some time to sit by the fire, literally or metaphorically, and take stock of where you stand, what resources are available, and what you plan to do with them.

Check in with your near-and-dear following the mad rush of the holiday season as well. Make sure that friends, family, and community members around you are doing all right. Offer support and kindness where you can, but don't overextend yourself. It's your time to recuperate too, and it is good and healthy to set boundaries which allow time and space for yourself.

What Witchy Things Can We Do?

Winter is a prime time for storytelling. Back in the days before internet or television or radio, people would often read to each other or tell tales to pass the time. Consider re-reading a favorite book that inspires you or exploring some region of folklore or mythology you've been meaning to look into. If you have children who are of an age to enjoy stories, read them some of your favorites or introduce them to something new. Share stories and discussions with your witchy circle too!

While you're at it, take a moment to examine the role that folklore and stories play in your practice. If you subscribe to a particular mythos, be it through deities or just general belief, consider which parts of it resonate the most with you and why.

Consider also the lessons of the winter season - the necessity of rest between periods of growth and activity, and the role of death, cold, and darkness in the natural cycles of life. What do these things mean to you and your practice? Are they a source of fear or fascination? Do you come alive in the winter or bundle up and wait for spring? How can you best remind yourself to pause for breath as the year goes on?

And of course, the beginning of a new year is an excellent time for goal-setting and divination. You're making resolutions for your mundane life, so make a few for your craft while you're at it, and pull out your cards or runes or pendulum for a New Year forecast on how things might go.

Happy Wolf Moon, witches! 🐺🌕

SOURCES & FURTHER READING:

Bree's Lunar Calendar Series

Bree's Secular Celebrations Series

Wolf Moon: Full Moon in January, The Old Farmer's Almanac.

Full Moon January 2024: Discover the Wolf's Thrilling Spiritual Meaning, The Peculiar Brunette.

Moon Info - Full Moon Dates for 2024

Calendar-12 - 2024 Moon Phases

Image Source: What Is A Wolf Moon?, The Fact Site.

[ghost-bxrd]

So with Fae!Dick, we all know that Bruce is just… not gonna say anything bc of his own mental health, but do you think the other batkids notice anything once they come along?

On one hand, I think someone would have to notice. If not Jason, then Tim, Steph, Barbara, or Damian bc, well, they’re BATS. They literally have been trained to notice things.

On the other hand, though, I think it would be HILARIOUS if they just attributed Dick’s Fae nature to him just being weird. Like, completely unaware he isn’t human. Maybe not entirely realistic but I think it leaves for some interesting comedic moments 😅

Honestly at one point I think it all devolves into plausible deniability. 😭😂

Jason is the first to notice something amiss, obviously. But he joins Bruce in pretending it‘s just Dick‘s general weirdness. After all, as long as the dog just howls once in a while it’s not necessarily a wolf, right? And Dick, after the initial hang up and trying to kill him a little, is sweet as a summer‘s day to him and viciously protective to boot. Galas and all the rich people there that used to treat Jason like a circus animal aren’t a problem anymore because Dick always swoops in like a bat out of hell and distracts the creepy old ladies with a charming smile until they walk away with vacant eyes. It‘s all pretty funny. And very weird. But hey, Jason gets a laugh out of it and that secretive little grin from Dick so whatever.

Tim I headcanon has Dick all figured out within a month of officially meeting him (the opposite of this would be Tim never figuring it out which is also kinda funny and just attributing it to his circus past or something) and is veeery cautious about interacting with Dick for a time. It makes Dick kind of sad and Tim can only withstand the puppy eyes so long until he caves.

Steph just kinda shrugs and accepts Dick‘s strangeness at face value. It ain’t hurting her so why should she bother? Dick is cool. She likes Dick. End of story, thank you and good day. And yeah, fine, some of his habits are downright weird and everything but who is she to judge? And he‘s always down to cause mischief with her which is?? Super cool???? Even the more devious pranks she can bribe him into joining by handing him a jar of fresh honey or hand picked fruit!! Anybody trying to say shit about Dick lands them on her hit list, period.

Cass is Cass. Nobody can fool her. She may not know what Dick is, but she‘s painfully aware he‘s other. Most wildlife treats him like bees would their queen, there‘s always the scent of pines and rain following him. Dick‘s body language says ‘playful-content-happy’ but his eyes say ‘dark-dangerous-predator’. It’s all very conflicting; a study of contradictions. Cass learns to go by what his body language says and quickly finds a kindred spirit in Dick, who somehow always seems to know exactly what she tries to express but has trouble translating into words.

I headcanon Damian grew up with folklore so while his first theory may not be “fae” he definitely has Dick down as something other than human. Which means he must be powerful. Which means Damian must keep himself in Dick’s good graces in the hopes of making the creature teach him how to be powerful in turn. And, well, the kid grew up with a grandad that regularly takes dips in a magical swimming pool. I don’t think there’s much that can genuinely shock him lol.

Duke is… well, he’s the sensible one so of course he’s the first one to actually ask questions. And then proceeds to go nearly insane because??? Nobody seems to?? Care???? That Dick just rotated his head a full 360°???? Or that the manor sure af isn’t supposed to??? Randomly add hallways???? Or that there’s a whole ass SWAMP that appeared in the basement overnight???? Or a door that leads straight into the forest?????? Duke very nearly nopes the hell out because that’s too much even for him. But finally, finally someone takes pity on him (I headcanon it’s Cass) and she doesn’t explain anything per se, she just kind of… shows Duke. Shows him around the manor, introduces him to twisting halls and strange rooms, takes him to where Dick is lounging with the rest of the family, purring like a content cat. And Duke still doesn’t understand, not completely, but Dick smiles at him with too many, too sharp teeth and tugs him into the huge cuddle pile and?? Are those feathers on his neck?? No, he must have imagined it. Anyway, Duke thinks he can handle this… strangeness, if it scores him a family like this. It’s Gotham, right? Weirder things happen here on the daily.

Omg this turned into a whole ass essay I’m so sorry 😰😅😭✨

[mayasaurusss]

pls pls pls more warewolf lottie i beg🙏

Slice of life: werewolf Lottie headcanons

Warnings: fluff, crack fic treated seriously, one sexy hint, not very long and not proofread (did this pretty quickly) and probably bad grammar sometimes.

At first, she hides from you, too preoccupied with looking like a monster, but as time passes and you show her compassion and understanding, she starts to open up to you more.

Lottie gets angry whenever you try to hang out with her during full moon, but she makes it up to you by taking you out as soon as she can.

Not all the times that there's a full moon Lottie becomes a werewolf: the transformation seems to occur only when she's in immense distress and under the influence of the moon. Most times she remains her normal self but she becomes grumpy. God forbid if the full moon coincides with her period...

One night, as you were hanging out togheter in the forest -one of the last few places Lottie feels comfortable in- you spot a beautiful purple flower growing on the side of the path. Lottie grews interested as soon as you point her to it. When you get closer and Lottie reaches to the flower, a red hue starts to spread on her fingertips. From then on, Lottie was always very careful around wolfsbane.

Music bothers her now: something that she loved very dearly once has become annoying. If you hum a song it's fine but the problems come around whenever you play loud music, or, even worse, when your noisy neighbors party through the night.

Once, Lottie and you were having a sleepover. The neighbors had decided to loudly interrupt your dreams with their awful music, waking both you and Lottie up. It lasted for 20 minutes before Lottie furiously stomped down the hallway. After 2 minutes, you heard the music and voices stop. Lottie walked back in your appartment with their smashed stereo in her hands.

Music does bother her, but loud noises don't stop her from trying to howl with the dogs at night. Whenever she's in her wolf form, be it at her house, yours or at the forest, if she hears dogs howl, she'll join them. She wouldn't dare to tell you, but she feels the need to howl even when she hears them in her human form. But she wouldn't ever do something like that, her pride is too precious to her. If you ever saw her do something like that, you would be a tease, and she knows it.

Lottie is smart, and she knows for a fact that she can use her newfound wolf form to get away with all she wants. Killed a rabbit? It's not her fault, she's not in control! Ate one too much leftovers? It's not her fault, she's just too hungry! Made a 'nest' with your clothes and now they're covered in fur? She was just so cold, and your clothes are so comfy!

Lottie has a hard time coming to college now. It's not that the sun hurts her in any way, she just feels too uncomfortable to be walking down the hallways. It almost feels like she doesn't belong here anymore. So, she continues to follow the lessons, but she's not as present on campus as she was once. She mostly hangs out at night, gazing at the moon. Sometimes sadness overcames her when she remebers that she won't be able to look at the full moon in her human form, ever again.

When she does feel like begin alone though, she volountarily steps out in the night and allows her emotions to take hold of her, to make her a monster once again. She will run to the forest and gaze at the moon in it's full form with longing.

Lottie has never been too fond of chocolate, but she does enjoy it from time to time. One night, as she was eating some chocolate, there was a full moon. As it reached it's peak, Lottie started to feel very, very uncomfortable. Her stomach gurgled and before she could understand what was happening, she threw up all she had eaten. As she came to know in the hours after, dogs really shouldn't eat chocolate...

As the years go by, Lottie's werewolf form gets slightly skinnier and the fur looses it's colours; but remains fulffier as ever.

The pull of the hunt beckons her, so sometimes, you won't find Lottie in the bed with you. She will disappears fror days and return at night, her mouth caked with blood.

She grew more calm as time went on. Now, during full moon, the symptoms of lycantropy have lessened, thankfully; but has gained an almost scary libido...

She will spend hours researching ancient lycantropy studies to better understand how it works and if there's somebody like her somewhere.

Her favorite activities are gazing at the nightsky and watching horror movies with you, which, are usually about werewolves. She has remained a tease, and often insists on watching those kinds of movies; almost as if she wants to see how you'd react near her. Whenever the werewolf kills somebody though, her eyes would get watery and she'd take and kiss your hand, whispering "You know I'd never do that... right?".

Something you have noticed ever since the first transformation, is that Lottie's body has become stronger. There's almost not one trace of fat in her muscles, despite the amout of meat she'd eat during full moons.

When you see her laying on your shared bed, reading with those -nerdy- glasses of her on, you almost want to jump her right there, but foreplay is important.

Life with Lottie ever since the change has been interesting to say the least.

You smile contentendly as you lie in the arms of your lover, with the moon's rays glowing dimly on you.

[maverick-werewolf]

Werewolf Fact #75 - Cynocephali (dog-headed men)

This month's folklore fact is a long-awaited one from over on the Patreon: the cynocephali or "dog-headed men."

Some depictions of cynocephali (the one above is from the Nuremberg Chronicle, 1493) are mistaken for werewolves fairly frequently; there are several differences of note, including but not limited to the fact that they are otherwise very, very human (normal hands and feet, no tail, etc) and that their ears are not always shaped like a wolf's/pointing directly upright. They often are, however, so don't take the ear shape as a surefire thing, either. When in doubt, make sure the depiction is actually meant to be showing a werewolf before using it for, I don't know, a royalty-free image in your werewolf publication (I've seen several). The cynocephali do not shapeshift, nor are they associated with wolves. They have nothing to do with werewolves. Yes, it was just a plot to make you click this link and read about cynocephali.

Cynocephali, or singular cynocephalus, is a term derived from the original Greek word "kynokephaloi," meaning "dog-headed." They have other names as well, which mean a range of things such as "dog-faced" and "half-dog." They were mentioned in assorted accounts and tales of travelers in Africa and India, appearing in sources as old as ancient Greece, and some similar beings can be found in other cultures, such as China. Likewise, depictions of and discussions of such beings continue into the Middle Ages. This same term was later used to refer to baboons, to which no-fun modern day scholars now attribute all cynocephali legends (although we do have at least one Ottoman depiction of a cynocephalus battling a monkey).

There are many quotes across various sources and time periods about these beings, including but not limited to this one from the fifth century BC Greek historian Herodotus, Histories 4. 191. 3 (trans. Godley) [source: Theoi]

"For the eastern region of Libya, which the Nomads inhabit, is low-lying and sandy as far as the Triton river; but the land west of this, where the farmers live, is exceedingly mountainous and wooded and full of wild beasts. In that country are the huge snakes and the lions, and the elephants and bears and asps, the horned asses, the Kunokephaloi (Cynocephali) (Dog-Headed) and the Headless Men that have their eyes in their chests, as the Libyans say, and the wild men and women, besides many other creatures not fabulous."

Some stories of the cynocephali are also frightfully specific as to how they live, rear livestock, grow fruit, weave baskets, wage war, and much more, even including details of their society, clothing, how long they live, etc. It's all quite interesting. If you'd like to read more specific quotations, you can find many on one of my favorite websites, Theoi.

Sources seem to dispute one another as to whether they bark, do not bark but only howl, only shriek, or whatever other sounds they may make, and there is also a range of descriptions including elements such as if they have beards and whether hair covers their bodies as well as the dog-head. Overall, probably the majority of sources say they wear the skins of animals as opposed to having fur, but there are those that also call them hairy all over.

Please note that I will not be covering/discussing any gods from ancient Egypt in this post, because despite what some modern day scholars like to discuss, I don't consider them "cynocephali." They were wolf-headed deities, not dog-headed (or even jackal-headed), and are overall only related to cynocephali legends by proxy and by modern scholars always putting everything into blasted categories for their next thesis. There were some dog-headed deities in ancient Egypt, and Anubis, Wepwawet, Duamutef, etc, were not among them, and even then, we can't really assert that the dog-headed deities among the ancient Egyptians are actually related to other legends and records of cynocephali.

With that out of the way, let's continue...

One of my personal favorite stories involving a dog-headed man is a version of the tale of Saint Christopher, though these depictions and this tale are not seen as canon by churches and has been proscribed in Eastern Orthodoxy (where such depictions were generally most common). Some of these depictions still survive, however. Some sources believe that Byzantine depictions of a dog-headed Christopher come from mistaking "Cananeus" (meaning "Canaanite") for "caninus," i.e. canine.

In the story about a dog-headed Saint Christopher, there lives Reprebrus (among other variations of his name; ultimately, they all essentially mean "reprobate"), who is captured by Romans in battle and made to serve among them. Reprebrus was said to be of "enormous size," with the head of a dog, said to be typical of his kind. He was later baptized and martyred. However, in another version (this one from Germany), Saint Christopher is depicted as a giant cynocephalus who ate human flesh and performed many atrocities. He meets the Christ child later and carries him across a river, as in tradition (the name Christopher means "bearer of Christ") and repents for his sinful behavior. He is baptized and becomes human, dedicating himself to serving Christianity and became a soldier saint.

There are far more fascinating details in the story than I relayed here in extreme simplicity, but that's a very simple view (the story is actually very specific about different regions and even the unit in which he served).

Other depictions of cynocephali exist in certain Christian traditions, with Ahrakas and Augani sometimes being depicted with dog heads in Coptic Christian tradition, in the life and legend of Saint Mercurius.

Bestiaries also got pretty wild with the creatures depicted therein, many of which were also mentioned in classical sources (such as the Herodotus quote earlier in this post). The image above is from between 1357 and 1371, in a work called The Voyage and Travels of Sir John Mandeville, or simply Mandeville's Travels, the memoirs of a man who traveled across the Middle East, India, and even as far as China. Medieval bestiaries also recorded all the same creatures shown here: a monopod or sciapod, a cyclops, a blemmy, and a cynocephalus, each different civilizations of beings said to dwell across the world (and often cited in multiple sources over considerable spans of time, which generally cite the same or similar regions for each civilization, which I've always found very interesting).

Mentions of the cynocephali span across centuries, such as in works by scribe Paul the Deacon, a Benedictine monk, and they are even mentioned in the Nowell Codex, a surviving Old English work containing Beowulf (as well as a work of the life of Saint Christopher and Wonders of the East, among others). They are also acknowledged in the works of multiple noteworthy explorers, including but not limited to Marco Polo, Christopher Columbus, Giovanni da Pian del Carpine, Ibn Battuta, and Piri Reis.

With that, I think that's a decent overview! Hope you enjoyed the post.

And stay tuned for news and updates on a major [werewolf/fantasy/adventure/horror/epic] book release later this year!

If you like my blog, be sure to follow me here and elsewhere for much more folklore and fiction, including books, especially on werewolves! You can also sign up for my free newsletter for monthly werewolf/vampire/folklore facts, a free story, book previews, and my other sundry projects and works, such as plushes.

Free Newsletter - maverickwerewolf.com (personal site + book shop + free fiction)  — Patreon — Wulfgard — Werewolf Fact Masterlist — X — Vampire Fact Masterlist — Amazon Author page

[adrift-in-thyme]

do you have any thoughts about Twi? 🥺

- hero-of-the-wolf

Ooh YES I have many many thoughts. Get ready lol

If Time’s the dad friend of the group, he’s the big brother friend XD He’s extremely protective — often to a fault — and he’s unafraid to tackle difficult problems in trying to help his brothers. But he’s also a whole lot of fun to be around

He tries really hard to be intense. He’s just not. Anyone who talks with him for more than five minutes can see he’s a huge softy.

He wears his heart on his sleeve. The secret of his wolf form is the only one he’s ever successfully kept for a long period of time, because literally ANYTHING he feels is on his face or in his eyes. It drives him nuts sometimes

He gives THE BEST hugs. Big bear hugs that can make someone laugh and cry and break down because they just feel safe there

His laugh is very loud. Big and booming and boisterous. It’s infectious. No one can resist it

Ilia taught him to make flower crowns when they were little and he’s loved them ever since. Now, he secretly makes them for the Chain and leaves them in their packs as little gifts

Despite being an older brother for much of his life he’s not that great of a leader. He’d rather just do the thing himself so no one else has to

All the Links are extremely sensitive, but he’s easily one of the most out of the group. He doesn’t want to cry easily but he does. He feels everything so deeply it hurts.

He can and will get distracted by the appearance of any animal, no matter how small or large, scary or adorable. He wants to pet them all.

Animals love him back. They’ll sometimes follow him around like he’s the Pied Piper

He wears the wolf pelt as a reminder that he is not the monster — a reminder he often needs given how people view wolves

He’s terrified of fire. This is because of an incident when he returned to Ordon Village, only to be chased out of his own home with torches. He still bears the scars from that

Twilight makes him sad now cause of Midna, but he LOVES nighttime. He’s guilty of sneaking away to howl at the moon

His favorite food is pumpkin soup. But his guilty pleasure are these tiny cakes Zelda introduced him to. He thinks they’re adorable and delicious. Zelda loves that he loves them and she gives him a box of them every time he comes to visit her (they’re friends by the time LU happens)

Although he tries to distance himself from Time in case he can’t change his terrible fate, it’s really really hard for him to, especially with how much Time cares about him. The two of them grow very close as their adventure continues. Their relationship still can be strained given Time’s sometimes standoffish, strict, and intimidating nature. But Twilight knows the sweet gentle fairy boy that’s hidden behind all that. A fairy boy who would do anything for him (and that terrifies him)

He and Warriors are besties. Their relentless teasing is their love language

[ssereinopheliah]

Drabble - euphoria

There Oscar stood in the club. One of his hands holding onto an uncomfortably warm beer bottle while he watched Lando make out with a guy.

Another lady was holding onto his other hand, playing and toying with it as she tries to get his attention.

He remembers something vaguely about her when she first approaching him a few minutes ago. The thoughts of.. oh I’m from Vegas… I’m here alone.. drip out of his head like warm butter as he watches the scene infront of him.

Lando’s hips were bumping wildly to the beat of Shakira’s she wolf as he leans into a guy.

Oscar’s eyes slowly make its way up from Lando’s perfectly swaying hips to the guy who was holding him.

His hands were rough, body hair course as he rubs his hands side to side, guiding Lando. His body was curling into Lando, covering and smothering him like a weight blanket.

He probably wanted to smother Lando anyways. Trying to get close enough to the man so that he leaves with him for the night.

Oscar wanted to replace that hand with his own. Guiding and grinding on him from side to side. God knows it would be the first time that Lando let anyone else take the lead on him.

“I like to be in control” Lando would look so good in Oscar’s arms.

As the song reaches its Chorus, Lando increases his flirtatious behaviour, one of his hands pulling at the other guys, moving one hand up to his shoulders. He leans forward to mouth the howl at the chorus of the song. As he leans in closer, the guy slides his hands down from Lando’s shoulder to his neck, gripping as he pulls in closer, seeking for a kiss.

Oscar’s hands unconsciously tightens into the girls as he tries to imagine himself in that position.

This real Lando chuckled as he leans forward, playing subservient for the guy.

Oscar’s own imaginary Lando would frown and try and push away, retain control. And Oscar would tighten his grip around his neck, pulling him forward with his body weight until Lando was toppling onto him. Forcing them to stick together on the dance floor.

He would then drag Lando away into a secluded corner.

But fuck, the guy was getting sloppy with Lando, and he wasn’t.

.

Lando watches from the corner of his eyes for Oscar’s reaction.

The man’s eyes were stormy in the club lighting. His hands was clutching so tightly on the bottle that Lando was pretty sure that it was a few good squeezes from shattering.

The kiss was sloppy at best, a messy of tongue and slobber that was dripping down towards his chin.

Disgusting.

He leans back, wiping the spit away from his lower face with the back of hand. Before he quickly swipes it on the man. As a joke? Maybe.

Pulling away from the man’s grasp, he walking his way towards Oscar again. He’d performed enough today anyways.

“Osc…why the long face? You won today! Lighten up a little.”, he had said, jabbing a light finger at Oscar’s side. This caused the winner to flinch slightly, his eyes shifting periodically from his eyes to his lips and to his hands, then back up again.

Lando tilts his head to the side, oh he knows what Oscar was thinking.

“What this? It’s just some spit Osc… got a little carried away, wanna clean it for me?”, he said playfully, lifting up his hands to Oscar’s face.

The hand was slightly sticky now. The spit he wiped off on the guy had mostly been wiped off, but there were still a little left, and mixed with his sweat, it was a gross concoction.

He expected Oscar to look disgusted, to pull away and slap his hand with a, “Gross mate, go wash it.”

What he didn’t expect was for Oscar to lean in. For one of his hands to find its way up to grip at Lando’s wrist tightly. And while maintaining eye contact, take a lick straight across the back of his hands.

Oh what the fuck.

Oscar 2 : Lando 0