#monsterfucker mansion

[lady-exophiliac-musings]

Monsterfucker Mansion: Intro

Note: This will be a multi-chapter work. Requests are wide open. Ask for a monster, and ye shall receive a fucking from it. ;)

This intro contains no sex, just some small worldbuilding and exploration. This story will include impregnation, and probably a lot of it, by all sorts of different exophilia crushes.

There's an old, abandoned building you know of. It's a far trip for you, but the rumors surrounding it are the most enticing things you've ever heard:

Anyone who goes in comes back out changed. In the case of all the women you've heard of, they come back out -- pregnant.

And not with human offspring.

Nervousness and disbelief had kept you away for years, constantly hedging over the validity of the claims and debating over the possible consequences of going there, yourself.

Lots of "what if" scenarios filled your daydreams and nighttime ponderings.

What if the rumors were true? What if you went there and met a vampire? What if you met a demon? What if you met an entire group of satyr brothers? What if a werewolf pack happened to visit it at the same time you did?

What if they fucked you silly and you came back home pregnant with some monster's baby?

How would you care for it? Would you care for it? Would you just go back after the birth and hand it off to the father? Would you keep it? What kind of mother would you be to a little half-demon or half-vampire or half-lycan? Was that even how it worked -- or would the baby take after its father fully?

Several years passed as you argued with yourself over this, constantly checking any reports you could find of continued activity in the abandoned mansion. Dozens of "interviews" were conducted in that time featuring people who'd claimed to have gone in, and they all had one thing in common:

Ecstasy.

They'd loved cavorting in that mansion with the creatures they'd encountered. And while there was nothing saying that they weren't just the lucky ones, that maybe hundreds had gone in and never returned at all, the very real possibility of you finding yourself at the mercy of a who-knew-what for a night and then returning home carrying its offspring was beyond tantalizing to you.

Eventually, you broke. You ventured to the mansion, opting to borrow a coworker's motorcycle for the trip to hide it easier once you got there. After all, you had no idea how long you were going to end up staying and you didn't want your vehicle to attract attention.

No, you'd much rather remain as anonymous as possible until the very end.

Giddy, you drive for well over four hours before finding the path leading into the spooky woods where the mansion waited. And, you soon discover, the path is notably worn by vehicle tread despite being a dirt road.

A lot of people had come here before you.

Even more excited, now, it's a little hard to focus as you continue down the road. By now you don't even need directions or your GPS; the road is so well-used it's obvious where you need to go.

Before long, the mansion comes into view.

And it is a mansion. The few images of the exterior you'd managed to scrounge up don't do it justice.

It's a massive building, four stories in the center and three for the two wings. The road winds left and right, giving you incomplete glimpses of it for a while, but it isn't hard to estimate that there's around fourty sets of windows on the front, implying numerous rooms on every floor.

It's definitely been damaged over the years, some windows badly boarded up and others visibly shattered. An overhang held up by columns create a wide front porch, and one of the columns has splintered and been semi-shredded in the middle. A set of stone stairs lead up to that porch, and chunks have been broken off from it.

Your heart's already pounding as you break free of the wooded area and follow the path as it curves up to the front of the building, a non-working three-tier fountain featuring a mermaid on a shell taking up a place of honor in front of it.

Giddy, you slow to a stop and remove your helmet so you can take a better look. No lights shine from within -- but, then, you'd expect that any monsters that frequent this place would probably be able to see in the dark. They wouldn't need the light.

Excitement hums in your veins. Was it twisted of you to find what comes next all the more appealing because you expect it to be scary?

Taking deep breaths to control the shaking in your core, you leave your helmet and riding jacket on the bike, stuff the keys in your pocket, and proceed up to the door.

It's ajar, you notice, as if inviting you to venture within.

You take out your phone and switch the flashlight on to illuminate the interior before you step inside, getting a lay of the land. After all, if it turns out this place was full of asbestos and tetanus, well -- that would be bad.

You want to get fucked by monsters, not diseases.

The area within is surprisingly clean, given the outward appearance. It's dusty, but more at the edges than anywhere else -- like it's been traveled quite frequently, you note. And there's a definite lack of broken or abandoned furniture as well.

Only a few pieces remain, and they're all visibly intact. A small table in the entryway with an attached mirror; a vintage sofa in a room to your left; a small dining table with a set of six chairs around it; a tall cabinet, empty within but the glass doors intact and clean of dust.

Someone had to be tending to this place, you realize, which means it definitely is occupied.

Now even more excited, you creep inside, the nervous part of you driving you to keep quiet just in case. It's stupid, maybe; you're here to get railed by the creatures that might be living here, yet your voice and actions are suppressed, caution and a constant feeling like you're being stalked forcing you to try and be stealthy.

Not even the recognition that you were definitely not ever going to be stealthy enough to avoid getting caught by monsters can halt the impulse for you to step quietly and avoid anything remotely wobbly.

Plus, you think, you are using your phone as a flashlight. If anything else is in here, it probably already knows that you are, too.

...Yet, disappointingly, nothing shows itself, not even after you've started to get a feel for the mansion's layout. It's a surprisingly intuitive design, actually. You feel like you don't get lost despite the size of it, able to follow the hallways, anticipate turns, and connect the three individual staircases you find without difficulty.

It becomes a secondary form of fascination to you. You even catch yourself testing your guesswork by finding your way back to the front door with increasingly roundabout paths and feeling impressed when you successfully locate it.

Still no monsters pop out at you, but by now you don't mind so much; you're having fun just exploring. And, at last, you decide to expand your search to the second floor, ascending the stairs.

...Every single room up here is, unequivocally, a fucking room.

The first one you find, nudging open the ajar door, takes you by surprise. It's a bedroom with a four-poster canopy, red velvet blankets, and a fur rug on the floor. A fireplace is situated against one wall with a desk and a 5-prong candelabra at another.

Oh yes, and there were leather cords with soft shackles affixed to each of the bed's posters.

A little stunned at the discovery, you move on to another room.

This one had a single mattress on the floor with a trio of pillows at the head and torn, bloody sheets tossed over it. Strangely, there was also a mini fridge in the corner, which -- when you checked it out of sheer curiosity -- was actively running and was full of various kinds of alcohol -- and ice cream.

A third room was dressed up nicely in pastel pinks and lace, including a vanity of pure white with gold trim, a mirror with lipstick kisses on it, and a large wardrobe across from the king-size, comfy-looking bed.

The next was a mixture of black and dark violet, everything styled in a leather-and-chains goth aesthetic, the window covered in heavy black drapes.

It went on and on. One room didn't have a bed, but rather a pile of soft fur blankets and throw pillows in front of a fireplace. Another was pristine and perfect, everything in white, black or grey and cut in sharp angles. The next was in rich blues and greens, a string of pearls embedded in the walls up at ceiling-level, the room itself notably colder than the others. Yet another was more rugged and worn-down, the floor scuffed, the walls scratched, everything in shades of brown, red and orange -- earthy, beastly, rough.

Things definitely were living here, you conclude, and there were a lot of them -- with vastly different styles and personalities.

Now if only you could figure out where the fuck they were hiding.

[monsterfucker-showdown]

Bracket D Round 1 Matchup 5

May the most fuck worthy monster win!

[likesmens]

So that Haunted Mansion movie was really for the Hatbox Ghost girlies huh

[lostlegendaerie]

.n.s.f.w. content in tags

[peachdues]

IN THE NETHERWOOD

PART I

KINKTOBER 2023 ♤ WEREWOLF!SANEMI X RED RIDING HOOD! READER

A/N: did I get carried away? Yes. Do I care? No.

Part I is plot + smut. Part II is minimal plot and a lot of smut. Like a concerning amount.

Forgive the pace/editing errors. This was supposed to be a one shot that turned into a two part fic lmao.

CW: violence/some description of gore • mating • knotting/discussions of knotting • biting/mating • feral/protective Sanemi • virgin!Reader who is a big time monsterfucker • oral sex (F!receiving) • Sanemi makes a mess of his breeches • implied murder/other violence by Douma, but left purposefully ambiguous • brief description of another human being eaten

This honestly could be a multi-part fic that continues after Part II, given how much I leave open — but I’ll let you all decide if you want that. For now, enjoy the ride, monster-fuckers. Happy Kinktober!

You’d known Douma’s band of acolytes had been pursuing you for at least a quarter of a mile through the dark wood, and you’d only grown more and more desperate as the excited titter of their voices drew nearer.

You were panicking; with every moment that passed, your legs grew heavier as the weariness of the last day and a half of your journey became a weight you could no longer ignore.

Find the huntsman of the Netherwood! Your grandmother had pled as she’d fastened the thick, scarlet cloak around your shoulders. He guides those in need to far-away villages. He will take you somewhere safe — where Douma cannot find you.

Grandmother did not dare let any of the tears sparkling in her eyes fall as she looped her hands behind you and pulled the hood of your cloak up over your head, concealing your hair from sight. Head north until you come to the river and then head west. You will find his cabin. Go!

Granny had all but pushed you out of her small cottage — the cottage you had come to regard as your home — and off into the chilly, autumn night.

You hadn’t questioned the urgency, though the realization that you would likely never again return to your grandmother — or even see her alive — hadn’t stung any less. But you knew, as well as the old woman who’d raised you after your parents disappeared in the Netherwood, that if Douma got his hands on you, you would never be seen or heard from again.

Just like his four other previous wives.

The last woman he’d taken as his bride had been a dear friend of yours — Kotoha — and she’s arguably lasted the longest, though perhaps that was because she’d been pregnant when the frost lotus containing his marriage demand arrived at her parents’ hut.

The eclectic village worship leader hadn’t apparently minded that Kotoha had been pregnant with another man’s child — she was unmarried, young, and beautiful; it was all Douma required.

The tension among the village women had dissipated once Kotoha had survived the first week of her union with the rainbow-eyed monster. After all, the other three wives had barely lived to see the next morning, never mind seven.

Kotoha had lived several more months — even giving birth to a beautiful, healthy baby boy whom she’d doted over, and even you thought that perhaps the rumors swirling through the village had been wrong. Perhaps those other three women truly had run off into the night with various lovers, leaving Douma alone in his mansion in the eastern wing of the village.

The last you’d seen her, your friend had been smiling and bright, happily making her way back to her marital home, baby Inosuke happily snuggled against her chest, as she’d cheerfully waved you goodbye.

Kotoha was never heard from again. Though the village elders had dispatched a recovery team to search for her, no trace of either her, nor the precious baby boy whom she’d loved so dearly, could be found.

A week later, your grandmother opened the front door of her homely cottage to find a single frost lotus resting on her doorstep.

No one turned down Douma’s marriage proposals; but neither did anyone survive them.

And so, your grandmother had packed a small satchel with what meager provisions she could scrounge, wrapped you in her heirloomed scarlet cloak, and pushed you out the door, begging you to find the mysterious huntsman of the Netherwood so that you would not become the village’s newest ghost.

Douma had surely slaughtered your beloved grandmother by now, having learned of her insolence.

You clamped down on the mournful sob building in your throat, knowing if you allowed yourself to give into your grief, it would only slow you down even further, and make it more likely that her sacrifice for your life would be in vain.

Though, in fairness, it might all be for naught anyways; the Netherwood was not a humble forest with only the occasional gray wolf or hungry bear to fear.

For centuries, your village had stood on the outskirts of the dark, ancient wood which divided it from the nervous system of villages and bustling little towns that made up the region. That isolation meant your village had become largely self-sustaining, though a few brave souls managed to make a yearly sojourn across the Wood to trade with establishments on the other side. The forest stretched for miles, encompassing small mountains and rocking ravines that were difficult enough to navigate on their own, especially in disagreeable weather.

But rugged and often temperamental terrain was child’s play compared to the horrors which lurked within the shadows of the Wood.

To start, as you’d come to realize over the last day and a half of your trek, the Netherwood was nothing but shadow. Though you’d surely traveled through the night and well into the following day, not a trace of daylight had pierced the thick canopy of leaves and twisted vines which loomed overhead. Your only indicator that day had, in fact, arrived, had been your sighting of a few songbirds quietly fluttering from tree to tree, as their songs swallowed by the deafening silence of the forest.

But the eerie quiet of the Wood was nothing compared to what you knew prowled within its depths.

You’d grown up hearing tales of the various beasts and cryptids that made the Netherwood their home – and made any unsuspecting traveler their meal. Your own parents had embarked on a dangerous trek into the Netherwood, seeking out a village on the other side rumored to have much-needed medication for your ailing grandfather, only to never be seen or heard from again. Your grandfather had succumbed to his illness not long after, though you’d often wondered whether his guilt and heartbreak hadn’t hastened his demise.

And so the Netherwood had taken your parents and your grandfather, leaving you with only your cherished grandmother as your family. Over the years, those who dared venture into the Wood often did not return, the dark of the forest swallowing them whole and leaving no trace of them behind.

Now, it was through this very Wood that you found yourself running, clinging to the desperate hope that perhaps you’d find this mysterious Huntsman and be saved, though the sluggishness that had entered your exhausted limbs seemed to suggest that you were more likely to be caught by your pursuers. And that was assuming you didn’t end up as something dinner’s before then.

You continued to stumble through the trees, ducking under various branches and batting away stringy spiderwebs, trying not to allow your frustration to get the better of you. After a while, the voices tracking you grew more and more silent, before the walls of the forest swallowed them completely, leaving you utterly alone. 

As you shoved brush and thorns out of your way, the forest opened to give way to a small river, though it was barely more than a creek. It bubbled merrily, as though completely unaware of the horrors lurking behind the shadows of the ancient grove of trees. 

Several lengths ahead, you spotted something crouched beside the water. Your first instinct was panic, thinking you’d stumbled across one of the nefarious creatures of the Wood, a meal being offered to it on a silver platter, but as your vision adjusted, you realized it was only a man, splashing his face with the creek’s cool reserve.

“A-are you the Huntsman?” You hated how timid your voice was, but truthfully, you’d been running for what felt like an eternity, and each snap of a twig in the Woods around had you on edge. You deserved to be frightened, dammit. 

The man snorted before rising to his feet. “I am a Huntsman; whether I am the one you seek, I cannot say.”

 He was taller than you and well-built. His tunic boasted a deep v at the chest exposing a vast swath of the man’s sculpted chest, the skin as scarred as his broad forearms. His breeches were by no means skintight, but it was clear his legs were also made from the same, sinewy muscle that covered the rest of him.

Idly, you wondered whether he was as scarred beneath his clothing as he was out of it. 

He was handsome, there was no doubt, but his appearance was striking. He had a mop of silvery-white hair, parted slightly to cover the criss-cross of scars etched into the right side of his forehead. Below a pair of startling lilac eyes, you could just make out another jagged scar that extended from his right ear to the bridge of his nose. 

He turned back to you, mouth pulled down in an annoyed grimace. “What is your business in the Wood, girl?” 

His eyes roamed the crimson cloak draped around your shoulders, and you swore for a moment there was something akin to amusement glinting in his eyes, despite the severe set of his mouth. 

You shuddered at the sharp intensity of his lilac gaze. “I seek a guide through the Wood — I need to get to one of the villages on the other side.”

Something in the forest snapped and you flinched, though it did not bother the Huntsman, who only narrowed his eyes at you. 

“Are you being pursued?” 

You nodded, your fingers tightening around the folds of your cloak and wrapping it tighter around your shivering frame. “I do not know how many, but they have dogs.”

The Huntsman nodded, stroking his chin in contemplation. “I can get you to the other side in two days; three at most, should your followers pose a problem.” 

You were floored at how easily he accepted your request, even with the additional threat of being hunted like animals by Douma’s men, but you were grateful all the same. 

“I have payment,” you started, hands shooting to dig through the small pouch fastened around your waist, but the wild Huntsman only shook his head. 

“I do not take payment. I will escort you and then I won’t have to worry about any creatures of the Wood sniffing out your bones and getting too close.”

Charming, you groused in your head, though the implication nestled in his words sent another shudder down your spine. 

“What is your name, girl?” The Huntsman’s voice pulled you back to him and the forest, his face expectant. 

You gave him your name and felt a warmth spread through you as he repeated it, mouth mulling over each syllable like it was wrapped with velvet.

“You can call me Sanemi,” the Huntsman said, reaching for the hand-axe lying on its side by the riverbank. “Follow me.” 

---

The Hunstman led you through a winding path that would have been untraceable had you not been watching the way Sanemi’s eyes marked certain landmarks — an errant tree branch here, a particular thorn bush there. 

“Since you are being tracked, we need to move right away,” Sanemi had explained as you stumbled after him, your feet snaring over the various bumps and snarls of tree roots that jutted out from the forest floor. “But I need to gather a few things from my cabin. It’s just a little ways off, and then we will leave.”

Sanemi had largely ignored you for the rest of the trek, though he’d only cut his eyes back to you to ask a single question. 

“Where did you get that cloak?”

You fingered the heavy edge of the ruby wool that your grandmother had fastened snug around your shoulders, its thick folds providing you protection against the biting chill of the autumn wind. “It is an heirloom. My grandmother said it would keep me safe.” 

The Huntsman hummed quietly to himself. “That is one word for it, I suppose.” 

“How do you mean?” 

Sanemi slowed his pace so that you could catch up and walk beside him as he spoke. 

“That cloak is enchanted. Have you not noticed the strange stitching along the hood?” 

Your hands flew to grip the edge of the hood drawn over your head. Sure enough, beneath the pads of your fingertips, you could feel the odd swirls of thread forming some indiscernible shapes along the outermost portion of the cape’s top. 

“I’d not; this was not my cloak to begin with. It was my Grandmother’s.” You did not know why the Huntsman’s tone made you feel self-conscious, as though you’d been too stupid to notice such an obvious variation in the cape snugly fastened around you. It wasn’t as though you’d been afforded a great deal to time to look over it, in those hurried moments before Grandmother had shoved you through her front door and into the Wood beyond. 

Sanemi only shrugged as he continued on ahead, putting distance between you once more, but he called back one final time. “Red is a symbol for many things, girl. I hope your Grandmother at least warned you of that.”

----

Sanemi's cabin was small, but homely. You'd been waiting uneasily near the unlit fireplace at the center of the single-room cabin, unsure whether it would be considered ill-mannered for you to drape yourself across one of the overstuffed armchairs pointed towards the hearth, as the Huntsman milled about, gathering various supplies.

"Have you any preference for which village I take you to?" He called as he rifled through a sparsely-stocked cabinet, scooping up dried provisions into a small leather pouch.

You shook your head. "No, I wish only to get as far away from the Wood as possible."

Sanemi nodded, stalking past you to open another cupboard. Glinting against the dimming light outside, you saw the curved blade of an axe, sharp and polished.

"I can make do with that," the Huntsman said simply. "Though should we run into any weather, it may take longer than three days to reach the other side of the Wood."

You picked nervously at your nails. Any response you could have given him was cut off by the faint cacophany of voices somewhere in the distance.

Brow furrowed, Sanemi crossed the floor of his cabin to a small window and squinted through the fogged glass. Over his shoulder, you could spy the faint glow of fire making its way towards the cabin.

Torches.

You did not need to guess whose torches they were; there was only one reason for a band of men to be in the Netherwood at this hour.

"It's them," you whispered in horror, your heart sinking to your stomach. "The man who is after me -- they're his -- followers. I hesitate to call them men."

Sanemi's eyes narrowed as he glanced back out the window, and you swore you saw his nostrils flare, as though scenting the air.

He gripped you by your forearm, tugging you further into his cabin. “We don’t have much time until they come knocking. I think I can hold them off — but you have to trust me.” 

You looked over the wild man, from the thick, silvery scars seared into the rippled muscles of his forearms to the thinner, more delicate scars which crossed half his face, swallowing down any fear you’d had of the huntsman upon first stumbling upon him by the river. 

You’d been scared of him, but you feared the fate awaiting you at the hands of Douma and his cronies far more; and so, you were desperate enough to place your life in Sanemi’s rough, calloused hands. 

“I trust you,” you vowed, though your voice trembled slightly. “Please just don’t let them take me.”

Something in Sanemi’s eyes tightened as he looked over you, but he nodded, hands reaching for the small pouch strapped to his upper thigh. 

“I’m sure you’re going to protest what I’m about to do,” he said quickly, producing a small hunting knife from the pocket. “But I need you to believe me when I say this is the only way.” 

“Take off your cloak.” Sanemi ordered, standing tall before you, hand out in waiting. 

Your hands flew hesitantly to the metal clasp resting just below the hollow of your throat. “But my grandmother said —“ 

“I know what your grandmother said, girl, but I’m telling you, that cloak will do you no good indoors. It is only effective out in the Wood.” 

You could tell the huntsman’s patience was wearing thin, but still, you hesitated. 

Sanemi huffed impatiently. “I swear to you I will return it the moment they leave, but you must remove it now. They will use it to track your scent.” 

You shuddered as your fingers quickly freed the small latch, and the crimson wool draped around your shoulders loosened. With some hesitancy, you held your cloak out to the huntsman, who balled the fabric up tight before crossing the floor of his cabin, shoving it into a small armoire and behind several hung pelts and well-worn leathers. 

Sanemi was before you once more before you could blink. “Turn around,” he ordered, twirling the knife in his hand to motion you to spin and put your back to him. 

You complied without protest, hands twiddling nervously before you, until you heard the unmistakeable sound of fabric tearing at your back. 

The corset worn over the cotton layers of your dress loosened and fell to the cabin floor, it’s ribboned ties neatly severed where they’d been laced at your back. 

“What in the devil —,” you began hotly, arms jumping to cross over your unsupported chest as you twisted to glare at the huntsman. 

A warm hand firmly pushed your shoulder, keeping you facing forward. “Hold still, woman,” Sanemi barked, and the heat at your back disappeared for a moment as you felt him kneel behind you. 

To your horror, you felt the outermost layer of your dress lift up and away from you as Sanemi rose, bringing the garment up over your head. 

“I asked you to help me, you dog!” You squealed, your attempts to squirm away from the mannerless huntsman at your back futile. “Not strip me bare to do with as you please!” 

Behind you, Sanemi gave a great snort. “Helpin’ you is exactly what I’m doing, if you’d shut up for one second.” 

Left in nothing but your thin, cotton shift, you silently wondered whether you should’ve taken your chances and continued your trek through the Wood. Surely, being eaten by one of the Netherwood’s more nefarious creatures of horror was preferable to being stripped nude by a half-wild brute in his isolated cabin. 

Your musings were cut short, however, as a firm hand wrapped around your forearm and tugged you towards the back of the cabin, where a small doorway closed off the hut’s only other room. 

Sanemi kicked the door open revealing a surprisingly large bed, draped in blankets made of the furs of several different animals. 

“N-no —mmph!” Your protest was cut off by Sanemi’s free hand as it clamped over your mouth as he hissed at you to shush. 

Over the sound of your thudding heart and hard breath as you planted against the huntsman’s palm, you heard the faint but unmistakable sound of male laughter and jeers, cruel and cold. 

“They will be here any moment,” Sanemi said lowly, and he removed the hand from your mouth in favor of shoving you none too gently into the small bedroom. Before you could speak, the huntsman gripped you around the waist and tossed you effortlessly onto the bed, your body bouncing slightly against the soft plush. 

“Get under the covers and lay face-down in the pillows. Let your hair cover you.” 

Scrambling up against the headboard, you looked back to your savior or your villain — you’d not yet decided under which category he fell — but saw that he was already standing back in the doorway, jaw tense and his eyes trained on the front door of his cabin. 

He glanced back to you only once. “And move that thing off to your shoulders. Make yourself appear as though you’re indecent.” 

With that, the huntsman quickly shut the door to his bedroom, just as a fist pounded against the wood of the door outside. 

You kicked your way under the many pelts adorning the bed, savoring their warmth against your chilled skin. Remembering Sanemi’s final warning, you tugged the sleeves of your shift off your shoulders, concealing it and the rest of your body below the soft fur blankets. 

The front door of the cabin opened, and you buried your face into one of the pillows resting against the headboard, begging the comforting scent of forest pine and cedar to calm your raging pulse. 

“How can I help you gentlemen this evening?” Sanemi called, and you almost laughed at how cordial he sounded, as though he hadn’t just cut your dress from you like a brute. 

Any smile you had was immediately wiped from your face at the cold, steely voice which answered him. “We’re searching for a woman. She belongs to someone who is eager to get her back.” 

You balled the pelts below you in your fists, teeth grinding. Of course, you’d never actually agreed to marrying Douma, and yet the beast felt entitled to claim ownership over you, as though you were no better than a piece of furniture. 

Though, you supposed that wasn’t quite an accurate comparison. Furniture survived Douma; women did not. 

“Is that so?” Sanemi’s hardened tone sent shivers down your spine, and you wondered whether his face matched the stony, scathing cadence of his voice. “Well unfortunately for you boys, it’s just me and the wife here. And you’ve interrupted us.” 

“Our apologies,” the scout said, though it did not sound as though he was sorry at all. “But you won’t mind us taking a peak? Just t make sure you and your wife don’t have a visitor.” 

Sanemi’s answering snarl was soft, but it did not conceal the deadly threat contained within. “Surely you understand why I cannot let a number of strange men into my home, while my wife is indisposed.” 

You had to give him credit; Sanemi sounded every bit the dominating, over-protective husband he was pretending to be. 

There was a beat before Sanemi sighed, his irritation almost convincing. “Make it quick. And do not enter the bedroom.” 

There was a shuffle of feet, heavy and booted, that crossed the threshold of the cabin, and the hair on your skin rose at the charge of violence which filled the air. Breath caught in your throat, you buried your face deeper into the huntsman’s mattress and prayed his ruse would be successful. 

The door to the bedroom banged open, startling you with a squeal as you ruched deeper below the pelts. 

“I told you to stay out of the bedroom,” Sanemi’s voice almost sounded bored, but it was thankfully close. Your eyes slid closed as you willed your heart to slow its drumbeat against your sternum as the resulting silence hung thick in the air. 

“Our apologies,” the apparent leader of Douma’s band of henchmen bit out, his tone acerbic, and his frustration evident. The bedroom door slammed shut once more, and the heavy footsteps quickly made their way back through the cabin and out the front door. 

All remained silent in the huntsman’s cabin for several, long moments, and you did not dare to rise from the bed that had become your sanctuary. 

After what felt like an eternity, the door to Sanemi’s sleeping chamber pushed open, the light from the main room of the cabin flooding in. 

“They are gone,” the huntsman said simply. “It is safe for you to come back out.” 

You turned over and rose from his bed, quickly tugging the sleeves of your thin shift back up over your bare shoulders, if not to preserve the last shred of your modesty that the huntsman before you hadn’t cut away. 

You were startled by his appearance in the doorway. Though his eyes remained fixed on the wood floor of the cabin, you saw that the man before you was nearly as stripped as you were. 

Somehow, in the few precious seconds between him throwing you onto his bed and Douma’s men barging through the cabin door, Sanemi had discarded his lined shirt, leaving everything from the waist-up bare. The only garment which remained on him were his deerskin breeches, and Sanemi had somehow undone its front laces, loosening their fit around his hips. Between the undone cords, you spied a thin trail of silver hair that begun just below his navel and disappeared below the seam of his pants.

It was admirable the dedication Sanemi had shown in perfecting your ruse. To the untrained eye, it truly looked as though Douma’s men had indeed interrupted a husband and his wife as they’d been engaged in acts you’d been told were reserved for the marital bed, the disheveled state of Sanemi’s breeches giving the distinct appearance of having been just barely tugged over naked hips. 

The thought made your mouth run dry, and something hot flared in your belly.

Sanemi ignored your apparent ogling of him, as he produced his discarded tunic from the floor where he'd tossed it and shrugged it back over his head.

Wordlessly, he gathered the shredded remains of your corset and handed it to you, keeping his gaze averted to allow you to redress. You managed to pull on your outer skirts back over your shirt, but you fingered the torn strap of your corset.

“You ruined it,” you said, nose wrinkling as you punched it between your thumb and index finger. “I cannot lace it when you’ve torn the stays.”

Sanemi frowned, and if you hadn’t known better, you would have thought he looked slightly apologetic for the state of your outer-corset.

“Corset woes aside, we need to go now, if we are to have any chance of getting you to another village before your fiancé’s men catch up to us.” Sanemi grabbed the leather satchel he'd been packing before Douma's men had interrupted and began filling it once more. 

You scowled. “He is not my fiancé,” 

“Your keeper, then.” Sanemi amended. The Huntsman stalked back over to the armoire in his sitting room and wrenched the worn doors open, pulling out several pieces of cloth.

“Here,” he said gruffly, tossing you a balled wad of crimson wool. “As promised.” 

You accepted the cloak with a small, uttered thanks, and fastened it quickly around your shoulders. The Huntsman then turned to dig through a small cabinet, returning before you with a small spool of sturdy, leather cord.

He held it out to you. “For your corset,” he said gruffly, his cheeks slightly pink. Feeling your own blush creep up your neck, you accepted the offering. Picking the torn garment up once more, you slid it over your shoulders and used Sanemi’s cords to lace the front together.

Truthfully, the finished product wasn’t half bad; the cord was long enough to cross all the way up to the top of the corset, with enough leftover to allow you to pull it and secure it in place around your bust. You tied off the cord with a pleased nod, before looking back to Sanemi in gratitude. Before you could properly thank him, the Huntsman thrust a small basket into your newly freed hand.

"Provisions. For the journey." He said by way of explanation, and you nodded, nestling the handle into the crook of your arm.

Without so much as a glance around the cabin, Sanemi wrenched the door open and allowed you to pass through the entryway first, pausing behind you only to tightly latch the door shut.

And the two of you set off into the Netherwood.

———

You were no time-keeper by any means, especially in a place like the Wood where daylight was hard enough to find; but it felt like hours had passed since you last spoke to the Huntsman, and the silence was pressing heavily upon you — especially the deeper you ventured into the dark of the Wood.

Though Sanemi had been walking ahead of you, you took it upon yourself to increase your pace, until you walked astride with him.

“How long have you been guiding others through the Netherwood?” You asked lightly, hoping that some — any — conversation you could have with the stoic woodsman would distract you from the odd growls and noises concealed within the forest’s shadows.

“A while.” Sanemi’s answer was as brisk as his pace, and you struggled to match it. 

“Have you lived here your whole life, or are you from one of the villages nearby?” You pressed, scanning your memory as you tried to recall whether there had ever been a boy with white hair and a scarred face in your village. 

“No.” 

You waited for him to elaborate, but Sanemi offered no further explanation. You sighed and fell back behind him; if this was to be his attitude the entire journey, you were in for a long few days. 

The pair of you had traveled for what felt like several more hours without a word before the silence began to irritate you. You sped up your pace until your stride matched the Huntsman’s, walking with him side by side. 

“Why do you live alone in the Netherwood?” You twirled the basket around your hand as the pair of you walked, the nerves you’d felt upon first starting the journey through the Wood having long since abated, in no short part due to the presence of the Huntsman and his axe by your side. 

Sanemi did not turn towards you, his eyes remaining fixed on the bramble ahead. “Why did you venture into the Wood alone?” 

You groaned. “Is this how our entire journey is to go? Either you give me mono-syllable answers, or every time I ask a question, you avoid answering by responding with your own?” 

“That depends, do you intend to keep asking me questions?”

You barely resisted the urge to whack the sullen Huntsman with your basket. “Unbelievable,” you grumbled. “Your time here in the Wood has turned you into a curmudgeonly hermit.” 

Sanemi snorted. “You assume I wasn’t  one to begin with.” 

“I can’t imagine someone who helps travelers cross the Wood was always so  churlish and miserable.” You shot back. 

The Huntsman remained quiet for a moment, though his air did not carry the same cold standoffishness that you’d come to understand meant he was ignoring you. Rather, Sanemi seemed to be in thought. 

“It has been nearly four years,” he said after a long while. “Since I began helping travelers cross the Wood.” 

Your eyes widened. “Four years?” That was an awfully long time to risk one’s neck for the sake of strangers — some of whom, you realized, may not have been all that good. 

Sanemi nodded and you whistled. “I’m sure you’ve seen many kinds of people attempting to traverse through the Wood.”

“There are only two types of travelers,” Sanemi disagreed. “Those who live to make it to my door, and those who do not. I try not to pry into the privacies of those who do manage to find me.” He cut his eyes at you, accusingly. “And usually, they aren’t so eager to pry into mine.”

You ignored the jab, though it bruised your ego more than you wanted to admit. “You don’t like people, yet you’ve crafted your entire existence around serving them.” You could not stop the amused edge in your words. “It is quite ironic, you have to admit.”

Sanemi refused to dignify you with a response, and so the first leg of your journey continued in relative silence.

The stifling quiet that extended between the Huntsman and you finally subsided once Sanemi announced you’d be stopping for the night and making camp. He’d been quick to notice your unease as you’d cast your eyes nervously around the shadowed trees of the Wood, assuring you that you all were in an area less-frequented by the various terrors that called the forest home.

“I will sit and keep watch,” Sanemi said as you’d curled up against the leaves of the forest floor, your red cloak pulled tight around your frame to block out the autumn night’s chill. “So try and sleep.”

“You are asking me to put a great deal of trust in you, Huntsman,” you said softly, but in truth, you did not feel nearly as afraid of him as you perhaps had earlier in the day.

He snorted, dismissively. “I’ve had you in my bed already, have I not? If I was going to harm you, girl, I would’ve already done so.”

Something tightened in his eyes as he dropped your gaze. “And I would never do such a thing to a woman.”

There was a quiet pain in his vow, such that you did not think his words were entirely meant for your ears. But they comforted you nonetheless, and so, still facing the handsome and mysterious Huntsman, you allowed yourself to relax enough to drift off into a dreamless sleep.

---

The journey was taking longer than Sanemi originally believed.

Three days into your travels with the Huntsman, and you’d barely reached the halfway point in the Wood. Though, that was not due to any fault of Sanemi’s; there’d been a few times when he’d stopped mid-stride, eyes narrowed on some unseen thing deep within the forest that you could not see, but concerned him enough to change course. When you asked, the Huntsman had only grumbled that he’d heard suspicious movement ahead, and that he knew whatever it was, it likely wasn’t human.

You didn’t bother to question his judgment. After all, it was Sanemi who was the expert in traversing through the Wood. You, however, had spent the better part of three days understanding how utterly helpless you were without him.

You hadn’t meant to stumble across it. 

You’d only meant to go relieve yourself behind a tree — a simple evergreen, that had looked innocent and unassuming enough. 

As you’d quickly learned, however, upon squatting near the tree’s base, it was anything but innocent. For no sooner had you moved to pull your skirts out of the way had you felt a spiny hand close around your forearm, its knife-sharp fingers digging into your flesh.

The withered, bony had was connected to a sinewy arm, covered in ridged, black skin that made up the panting, salivating bat-like creature that had managed to camouflage itself against the bark of the tree.

You’d taken one look at the rows of sharp, yellow teeth and screamed loud enough to startle the dead.

Loud enough to bring a certain Huntsman crashing through the brush, axe clutched tightly in hand, his eyes wild and bright.

“Duck,” he’d barked once, and somehow you’d managed to wrench yourself to the side of the devil as Sanemi’s weapon buried deep into the creature’s face, the beast releasing your arm and stumbling back with a pitiful gurgle before it dropped to the floor.

You’d hardly had the chance to collect yourself before the Huntsman was stomping over to you, yanking you up by your bicep and dragging you away from the nefarious little tree.

“A goddamned hidebehind,” he furiously spat. “Of all things to provoke, you choose a fucking hidebehind.”

Sanemi ignored your slight protests at being manhandled back to the path he’d identified as leading out of the Wood, too lost in his own raging assessment of you.

“How the devil a pretty little thing like you managed to make it to my door in one piece is the only thing that makes me consider there may be a higher power, given how foolishly reckless you act in the Woods where there’s no shortage of creatures that would want to devour you —“ 

The Huntsman continued his rant, but your ears only picked up on a single fragment of his ramblings.

“You think me pretty?” It was silly, yet the notion that the devilishly handsome Huntsman accompanying you found you worth looking at made something in your stomach flutter. 

Sanemi shot you a withering glare. “You may think me a miserable recluse, girl, but even I have eyes.”

You didn’t know why, but the comment made you smile for the rest of the night, a curious warmth blooming in your chest.

----

You settled for the night among a small circle of trees. Sanemi had helped you shake down a bed of pine needles from a nearby tree, allowing the fragrant nettles to form a soft bed for you against the forest floor.

You watched him repeat the process to make his own bed, your eyes curious. "You seem to have a great deal of experience with this," you mused.

Sanemi produced a single apple from his pouch and sliced it in half with a small hunting knife he kept strapped to his hip. He tossed you one half before he stretched out on his pine needle bed, propping up one cheek on his fist as he faced you. "I s'ppose sleeping outdoors is something of a family trait."

That piqued your curiosity. Though Sanemi had not divulged any details of his personal life with you, you'd assumed he'd been a true loner in his cabin in the Wood.

“You speak as though you still have family,” You bit into your half of the fruit, chewing slowly as you thought. “Do you?” 

Sanemi nodded. “No parents to speak of, but a younger brother — a few years younger than you. Still a boy, though in a man’s body.” He scowled. “The little brat has outgrown me.” 

You smiled at the obvious fondness belying the irritation on his face. “A boy bigger than you? I find that hard to believe.”

Your gentle praise had the intended effect of making the Huntsman look slightly smug, before the same sour look passed his face. “He has grown slightly taller than I, and by all accounts is still growing. I have a feeling he will try and hold it over my head the next time I see him.”

You wondered if Sanemi’s younger brother would literally do so, and the thought made you smile. 

“You said the next time you see him, but you’ve said you have no parents — where does he live, if not with you?” 

Sanemi grimaced, chucking the last of his apple core behind his shoulders. He remained quiet for a long moment before answering. 

“He lives with a friend; he can take better care of him than I can right now.” 

Something about the Huntsman’s tone made it clear the topic was a sensitive subject for the young Huntsman, and so you elected not to press the matter further.

“And what of you?” Sanemi said gruffly, surprising you with his willingness to engage in conversation as the two of you continued your trek. “I know you said you had a Grandmother, as she was the one to give you that.”

He nodded pointedly at your cloak, and you saw that curious heat enter his eyes once more at they combed over the scarlet wool draped around your frame. But the mention of your grandmother caused a lump to form in your throat that took you several moments to work around, the damning prickle of tears stinging your eyes. 

“I do,” you said hoarsely after a moment. “Though I do not know if she survived after helping me escape Douma. Even if she did, I know I shall never see her again.”

Though your vision had become blurred by your tears, you could have sworn you saw Sanemi’s hand twitched towards you at the sound of the wobble in your voice. 

“Douma,” he repeated. “Is that the person you’re fleeing from?” 

You nodded, exhaling a shaky sigh. “He claims to be my fiancé but I accepted no such proposal.” 

Sanemi leaned against the wood of a tree opposite from you, arms folding across his chest. “Then he does not know what it means to be a fiancé,”

You gave a watery chuckle. “No, I suppose he does not.” You chewed on your lip for a moment. “But Douma does not ask; he demands and he expects. His offer was not really a request for my hand — it was a warning that he would collect me to do with as he pleased.”

Sanemi tensed. “What do you mean by that?” 

You combed your fingers through the tangled tresses of your hair, and anxious habit you’d had for as long as you could remember. “In the last three years, Douma has taken four young women from the village to be his wife; every one of them has since disappeared.” 

The Huntsman sucked in a shocked breath. “What has happened to them? Has anyone searched?” 

You smiled ruefully. “I do not know; no one does. Search parties were dispensed each time, but those who looked came back empty-handed.” Your eyes remained fixed on the small, flickering flame of the campfire. “He claimed the first three ran away into the Wood; said they’d left him to be with a lover.” 

You wrapped your arms tighter around yourself, seeking comfort in your grandmother’s cloak. “Quite the coincidence, is it not?” 

“Quite nefarious,” Sanemi remarked darkly, shaking his head. “And what of the fourth wife?” 

Your head dropped. “My dear friend, Kotoha,” you felt the tears begin to gather in your eyes once more. “She was pregnant when Douma demanded her hand, but he did not appear to care. She gave birth a few months later — a beautiful baby boy named Inosuke.” 

“She seemed happy for a while after that, and I thought perhaps Douma had been telling the truth; by all accounts, he was kind towards her,” you continued, fighting the shiver trying to lick its way up your spine. “But then Kotoha disappeared, and Inosuke, too.” 

Sanemi stiffened at that. “When was this?” He asked suddenly, his tone urgent.

You looked up at him, startled. “Just a week before I found you.” 

Sanemi swore lowly, his hand dragging over his face. At your questioning look, he continued.

“A few days before we met, I was leaving to check on a series of caves that I frequent in the east,” he began. “I was half a kilometer from your village when I —,” he hesitated. “Spotted a few men, dragging something through the trees. They seemed to come from your village.” 

Your heart dropped to your stomach. “Did you see —?” Your question choked off as your voice cracked. 

Sanemi shook his head. “All that was left was a pile of bones. Just one person’s. But there were shreds of cloths mixed in,” Sanemi’s mouth twisted down in a snarl. “Clothes belonging to a young child. But no sign of their bones among the adult’s.” 

A cold, clammy sweat broke out across your forehead. “But Kotoha was hardly missing a week — surely that’s not enough time for her to be reduced to bones?” 

Sanemi opened his mouth but closed it before he spoke, his eyebrows knitting together as he struggled for words. 

“I have seen things in the Wood that are  capable of stripping flesh in a matter of minutes,” he said carefully, eyes trained on your face. “It would not be unheard of.” 

You felt the blood drain from your face as nausea wracked through you. “Oh gods,” you moaned, arms shakily coming to rest upon your knees to brace your head as it fell into your hands. “Oh gods — Kotoha.” 

You remained like that for several moments, viciously fighting against the roiling of your stomach, desperate to keep down what meager rations you’d managed to eat. 

Sanemi called your name, soft and gentle. You waited a moment, focusing on taking several, steadying breaths before you lifted your head to meet his gaze.

“So that is to be my fate once he catches me,” you whispered in horror. “To be reduced to nothing more than a pile of bones and tossed into the Wood like garbage.” You shuddered as another wave of nauseous dread sluiced through you. “And I cannot even fathom what will be done to me before then.” 

“It will not,” Sanemi’s answering snarl was soft but vicious, and it broke through the cold terror threatening to knock you off your axis. “I will get you out of this forest and you will be free. Mark my words.” 

“Do not make promises you cannot keep, Sanemi.” You warned, your eyes still wide, haunted. “If he catches me, he will do worse to you; death will be a kindness he will withhold.”

Despite the solemnity of your words, Sanemi only scoffed. “I assure you, he would do no such thing.” He looked to you, eyes serious. “And I would kill him before he had the chance to so much as look your direction.”

You wanted to dismiss his words as nothing more than the bragging of an overconfident, idiotic man. But something in both Sanemi’s tone and the way he was leaning against the tree — one foot resting causally against the bark, the other stretched out before him, supporting his weight, with his arms folded across his chest — made you think perhaps Sanemi’s confidence was more than mere bravado. 

Even though you knew you shouldn't, you took comfort in it; in him.

"You're a good man, Sanemi," you said quietly. "Better than most."

Sanemi scoffed, shaking his head, but the shadow over his face betrayed his own internal turmoil. "I am not half the man you'd like me to be."

You quirked an eyebrow at him, head tilting in question. “Do you care what I think of you?” When the Huntsman did not answer, you pressed. “You worry that I think ill of you — why?”

Sanemi, at best, was confusing. Maddening. He spoke to you gruffly, as though his years in the Wood had made him forget all semblance of decorum and basic human decency.

Yet, there was something else, too; though you hadn’t much experience being desired by men, Sanemi had shown you a particular level of care. He always handed you your dried rations first, ensuring you’d eat your fill before he; he always offered a hand to help you over a particularly tricky stretch of terrain, carrying your basket for you without so much as you having to ask. 

Then, there’d been the way he’d cradled you close earlier in the day, when you stumbled upon the poor man whose body had been mangled and half-eaten by one of the Wood’s inhabitants. He hadn’t needed to tuck your head against his chest like he did, holding you tight as he spun the two of you out of range, to avoid joining the lost soul whose entrails were strewn across the forest floor; he hadn’t needed to comfort you and wipe your frightened tears.

But he had. 

The realization hit you like a boulder. “You feel protective of me,” you murmured in awe, your eyes locked onto him even as he shifted under the weight of your stare. 

Sanemi tried to scowl, but it came off as more a wince. “I feel protective towards any woman who is being treated as something to abuse. What your fake-fiancé has done is abhorrent.”

His voice quieted. “You do not deserve that fate. You deserve to find something good — something that will make you happy.”

You hummed, pretending you were in thought as you began to slowly close the distance between you. “I would like to be happy,” you conceded. 

“You should be,” Sanemi answered. 

“I have felt happy here in the Wood,” you continued. “Have you, Huntsman? Felt happy here in the Netherwood, I mean?”

Sanemi swallowed hard. “Perhaps.” 

You took another step. “Recently?”

“Recent enough,” Sanemi watched you warily, his voice like gravel. 

You clicked your tongue. “Have you enjoyed our time together? However brief?” 

At this, Sanemi rolled his eyes. “You have certainly kept things interesting, when you’re not desperately trying to become a meal for some hungry beast.” 

When you did not answer, Sanemi looked nervously back to you, and his voice softened. “Yes. I have enjoyed it.”

You felt like you were stripping him back, peeling back layers of sarcasm and steel that he’d carefully erected to keep himself from getting close — from caring.

But you were doing it; and he was letting you.

“And you think I’m pretty,” you added, taking another step towards him.

“Aye,” Sanemi croaked, his eyes fixed on your face, the the flicker of the small fire only adding to the heat blazing in his lilac gaze. 

You drew up before him, the toes of your boots just touching his. “I find you quite pretty as well, Huntsman.” 

Sanemi’s eyes closed, his shoulders tense. “I am to deliver you safely to the nearest village.” Lilac irises opened to meet yours and he looked at you gently; apologetically. “We cannot do this.” 

You did not balk. “And if I wanted to stay with you?” You whispered, fingers coming to toy with the folds of his tunic. “What would you say then?” 

Sanemi breathed out a soft sigh of your name, the syllables dripping like honey from his lips. “It is not possible, I’m afraid.” 

You looked up at him through lowered eyelashes and noted how his gaze flicked down to your lips before back to your eyes. “Why?” 

Sanemi’s hand gently brushed a few loose strands of hair back from your face, tucking them behind your ear, and you leaned into the warmth of his touch. “Because you are a beautiful, little lamb, and I am a wolf in a forest of beasts. You do not wish to spend your days here, in the darkness.” 

“You cannot speak to what I want,” you challenged, your fingers rising to clench around his wrist, to hold his hand in place against the side of your head. “My life is my own now; I have no set path.”

“But I would like to travel down yours,” you added quietly, after a moment. 

“It is not one open to transients,” Sanemi warned, though his other hand rose to rest against the dip in your waist, holding you against him.

You only shook your head. “I do not intend to be temporary, Sanemi. I wish to stay with you. I wish to help others as you have helped me.” 

“I’ve yet to help you,” Sanemi said wryly. “Our bargain was that I deliver you to one of the villages on the other side of the Wood. We are still making that journey.”

You stretched up on your toes and boldly pressed your lips against the hollow of his throat, savoring the skipping pace of his heart beneath your mouth. 

“A new bargain, then,” you offered. Sanemi said your name once, as though in warning, but when he did not levy any threat, you only continued, moving your lips up under his jaw.

“You get me to the other side of the Wood. If I still want to stay with you, then you will let me. If I don’t, we will part ways at the first village we come to.”

You’d kissed your way to his lips, but held back, allowing that final line to remain in place between you even as your resolve wavered against the force of your desire for him — for this Huntsman of the Netherwood. 

Sanemi’s eyes fell to your lips, hovering so very closely to his own. “You assume I want you to stay,” he murmured, though he made no move to push you away. “You assume I want to look after a lamb forever.” 

You smiled softly. “Even a lamb can help take care of a wolf.”

Sanemi’s eyes were full of a wariness edged by the faintest trace of hope. “Aye, I suppose that’s true.” The hand against the side of your head fell to caress your cheek. “And as infuriating as I find you to be,” he leaned in close, his lips just barely touching yours. “I do think you quite beautiful, little Lamb.”

You surged forward with a breathy gasp, lips feverishly meeting his as you begged the Huntsman to consume you whole. 

Sanemi responded with equal fervor, his arm locking tightly around your waist as the hand against your face tilted your head slightly to the right, allowing him to deepen the kiss. 

You’d shared a few stolen kisses here and there in your youth with some of the village boys, but never before had you been kissed like this. Never before had you known the passion and all-consuming vigor that the Huntsman poured into you, as he walked the two of you back over roots and loose stones to press you against the roughened bark of a nearby tree. 

No, those kisses had been child’s play. For the way Sanemi’s mouth moved against yours was enough to make you feel as though you’d been dipped in lantern oil and set aflame, and yet you could not find it within yourself to care that you were burning. Not when he molded you against the rigid planes of his body as though to absorb you into his being; not when his thigh slotted between yours, its muscle brushing against a sensitive spot between your legs that had you gasping and Sanemi groaning into your mouth. 

As quickly as it began, it ended, Sanemi breaking away from your lips with a strangled pant as he leapt back, as though scalded by the inferno he’d lit within you. 

There was something untamed in his gaze as he regarded you, his breath choppy as he collected himself. Still stunned by the ferocity with which he’d kissed you, your fingers jumped to your lips, noting the slight swelling now there. 

“I was wrong about you,” Sanemi said breathlessly, his cheeks tinged an alluring shade of pink. “You may not be a lamb after all.” 

Your fingers dropped from your lips as you raised an eyebrow. “Are you saying I am a wolf?” 

Sanemi shook his head, that wildness still blazing in his eyes. “No, not a wolf.” His voice dropped to a purr as he regarded you with a look that made your thighs clench. “You are temptation given physical form.” 

——-

 Neither of you spoke of what transpired against the tree for several hours, though you’d managed to brush aside any lingering awkwardness with light conversation about Sanemi’s time in the Netherwood.

And, despite any lingering doubt as to the sincerity of your words he may have had, Sanemi seemed to naturally gravitate towards you, his hands never straying far from your form as you walked. 

Truthfully, it made you giddy. You’d never experienced the thrill of another man’s touch while in the village, though Kotoha certainly hadn’t spared you any details. Vivid descriptions furtively whispered behind hands, however, were nothing compared to reality. Even Kotoha’s most blush-inducing tales paled in comparison to the electric flash you felt each time Sanemi’s warm hand gripped yours to steer you back from a particularly darkened corner of the woods, or the flutter in your stomach when he lifted you easily up and over unsteady ground, his hands always lingering for a spare second on your waist or the small of your back as you settled. 

It became harder to imagine leaving him once you reached the end of the Wood. With each passing hour, your conviction that you would remain alongside the mysterious Huntsman grew all the stronger. 

The pair of you were resting near a blackberry bush, you perched on a small boulder while Sanemi sharpened his axe, his hand running the small whetting stone against the curve of the blade with precision.

“Have you ever been in love?” The question broke the comfortable silence before you could think better of it.

Sanemi’s sharpening stone paused briefly before continuing along the curve of his axe. “Once,” he said, gruffly.  “Though we were so young, I don’t know if you could properly call it that.” 

You sat up, your curiosity piqued. “Where are they now?” 

The Huntsman hesitated. “She is long-gone. Died here, in the Wood.” 

Your heart clenched. “I’m sorry. I cannot imagine that grief.”

Sanemi did not respond, instead refocusing his attention back to his blade. “It was around four years ago, now.” 

Four years ago. Around the time Sanemi  had begun escorting lost souls through the Netherwood.

“Have you been in the Wood since?” You asked gently, trying to focus on a loose thread handing from your cloak so that he would not feel pressured by your stare. 

Sanemi nodded. “I think,” he cleared his throat. “I think I started helping others as a way to honor her. She was kind that way.”

You smiled at that. “She sounds wonderful; and you do right by her memory.” 

The Huntsman said nothing more, his silence more contemplative as he finished sharpening his weapon. 

By the time the pair of you set back off on your path through the Wood, the morning fog had somewhat subsided, though it’s mist lingered in the denser sections of the forest. 

“Is it normal to not have encountered many of the Wood’s creatures?” You bit down on the shudder you felt at the memory of the partially-eaten corpse you’d encountered a few days prior. “I feel as though we only see the aftermath of the beasts, rather than the monsters themselves.” 

Sanemi smirked quietly to himself, though you did not know what he found amusing about your question. “I suppose that cloak is keeping them at bay, Lamb.” 

You rolled your eyes, knocking your shoulder playfully against his. “Perhaps they’re frightened of the big bad Huntsman,” 

“Perhaps. I’m quite scary.” 

Your hand found his. “Not at all. In fact, I find you quite —“

Your thought was cut off, however, as Sanemi tore his hand from yours to hold an arm out before you, stilling you. You’d traveled with the Huntsman long enough to know he was telling you to be quiet while he listened, his ears far more discerning amidst the silent noise of the forest than yours.

Only it was not silent; in the distance, you could hear raised voices, yelling, and the distinct howls of several hounds.

Your eyes found Sanemi’s, and you were certain yours were as wide as his, as your heart began to thunder against your chest. 

There was a strange melodic chant rising above the cluster of voices some distance through the trees, and you both turned back and strained to listen.

As the jeering voices and barking of dogs drew nearer, it became clearer what was being said — what thing those voices were loudly whooping and mocking amidst the excited titter undercutting their bloodlust.

Your name.

Douma’s men had picked up your trail, and they’d caught up.

“Run.” Sanemi ordered, tearing the leather satchel from his shoulders and looping the strap around yours. “Do you remember which direction north is?” 

Eyes wide and limbs trembling, you nodded, your breath hitched in your throat as every instinct within you was overtaken by sheer terror. Sanemi placed his hands on your shoulders, squeezing firmly to get your attention back on him. 

“Run north,” he repeated. “Follow the river and do not stop. It is against the wind, so it should be harder to track your scent,” Sanemi’s eyes darted up over your shoulder, narrowing as the unseen force drew nearer. “I will catch up to you. Do not drop that satchel.” 

Your mouth opened and closed several times as you gaped at him, fear, so deep and primal, engrained in your every nerve as you realized he intended to send you deeper into the Netherwood. Alone. 

“I cannot — Sanemi,” you begged, your hand gripping his forearm in a desperate attempt to stay close to him, your protector. 

Gently, Sanemi removed your hand from him. “Y/N, I promise I will find you soon. I need to get them,” he jerkily nodded backwards to the voices and dog howls drawing closer and closer to you in the distance. “Off our trail. 

You shook your head, only trembling harder. To separate surely would mean one, if not both of you would die, and you could not bear to leave him to deal with the onslaught of Douma’s men alone. 

“I promise,” you’d not realized Sanemi’s hands had cupped your face until you felt the press of his forehead against yours. “I will find you. Now go.” He urged, and with a slight shove, Sanemi sent you stumbling in the direction you assumed was North. 

With a great deal of reluctance, your legs began to move as you hurried over fallen branches and twisted roots, every pump of your legs growing stronger as your fear intensified. 

You hadn’t known how many men were in pursuit of you, and you’d left Sanemi alone with only an axe to protect himself. 

You’d as good as doomed him. 

But you kept running in the direction you thought was north, eyes frantically trying to track the watery sunlight filtering through the trees. 

The moment you’d chances scanning for the sun meant you did not see the thick, twisting root that had broken across the forest floor, not until your foot became entangled and you were sent sprawling across the dirt. 

Moaning slightly, you scrambled up, refusing to acknowledge the faint bruising pain you felt in your ankle as you moved to keep running. 

A snap of a tree branch froze you in your tracks. As stupid as you were, you turned towards the source of the sound, dread coiling in your gut. A shadow emerged from behind one of the ancient trees of the Wood, clutching something shiny.

A sword; long, wicked and cruelly sharp, and yet somehow, the blade frightened you far less than its wielder, for his face was familiar.

You’d grown up alongside it, after all.

“Well, well,” the boy — man — cooed at you. “We’ve been looking for you for quite sometime, you know?”

You took a step back, eager to put whatever distance you could between yourself and the smirking village boy who looked at you like you were his next meal. 

“K-Kaigaku,” you stuttered in disbelief. “What are you doing? We were — we were friends.”

The boy’s laugh made your blood curdle. “Don’t mock me,” he shifted his sword to rest against his other shoulder as his free hand twirled a small dagger. “I only align myself with the strong, and you are nothing but a weak and pathetic little mouse.” 

“But Lord Douma,” Kaigaku mused, his grin offset by the malice alighting his eyes. “Lord Douma is strong; powerful. I am loyal to him, not you.” 

“Lord Douma?” You repeated, your voice as sharp as the blade glinting in the faint daylight as the boy before you tilted it back and forth. “Is that what he’s told you to call him? What, pray tell, is he lord of — being an egomaniacal, fatuous, greedy murderer?” 

Kaigaku’s smirk unfurled into an ugly sneer as he shifted to point his sword at you. “Watch your mouth, girl.” 

“And what of Kotoha?” You demanded, your anger an untamable fire that burned in your veins. “You were sweet on her once — did she deserve her fate?”

There was no sign of that fondness in the cruelty which lined Kaigaku’s face as he spat, “She spread her legs for some man like a whore and bore his bastard. Lord Douma only made sure she met an end befitting of her filth.” 

“You vile, wretched creature,” you swore. “Damn you! Damn him!” 

That hair-raising smirk reappeared as Kaigaku stepped towards you. “I cannot wait to see what Lord Douma has planned for you. You should’ve seen what he did to your beloved Granny, the hag.”

Your blood turned cold and a stone like lead settled in the pit of your stomach. You’d assumed, of course, that your grandmother had paid with her life in helping you escape, but you could not bear to hear the ways she’d suffered in exchange for your life. 

Somewhere, in the depths of the Netherwood, a wolf howled. 

“Shall I tell you all about it, Y/N?” Kaigaku taunted. “Shall I tell you how your dear Granny screamed as Lord Douma flayed her alive, piece by piece? How she sobbed for your grandfather? For you?” 

Tears burned, as hot as acid in your eyes as you shook. “Stop,”

“It was quite pathetic, really,” Kaigaku sighed. “She went rather quickly. I suppose that’s what happens when you play with old crones — their pathetic little hearts can’t withstand the fun.” 

You were at a loss; part of you wanted to lunge for the boy, to sink your nails into his eyes and rip, to tear him limb from limb as you screamed with rage until even the beasts of the Netherwood could not tell whether you were human or kin. 

But on the other hand, you were just a woman, who’d spent the last five days in the Netherwood and didn’t have so much as a dagger with which to defend yourself. 

And Sanemi told you to run.

You remembered as a boy, Kaigaku had been slow; always the last person to finish a race or outrun the seeker in hide and seek. 

You, on the other hand, had always been faster; you could outrun him.

You had to. You would.

There was a roaring in your head as your mind disconnected from your body and you turned to flee. 

“Don’t you run from me, bitch!” Kaigaku thundered after you, but you did not slow; you hurtled over root and rubble, adrenaline pumping hot and fast to your legs as you ran. 

You’d thought, for one blissful moment, that perhaps you had a chance of evading him, when a silent whirring cut through the silent forest air. 

Pain, blinding pain, exploded somewhere from the side of your thigh, bringing you to your knees as you cried out. Rolling over, your stomach dropped at the unmistakable sensation of blood dripping down your leg, hot and fast. 

Behind you, you heard the thud of Kaigaku’s knife cluttering to the forest floor. 

“Hn, I missed,” the boy scoffed, eyes roaming over you as you bled. “No matter, you can’t run on a wounded leg, can you little girl?” 

Ignoring the dizzying lash of pain that flared in your leg, you scrambled backwards in a crawl, desperate to put some — any — distance between you and your captor. 

“Lord Douma only said to bring you back alive,” Kaigaku hummed, drawing his sword once more. “He did not say to bring you back unscathed.” 

Kaigaku put the tip of his blade right at your chin, tilting your head up to meet his eyes. You glared defiantly up at him, though your show of courage was a mere facade as you beheld the salacious glint reflected in his beady eyes. 

“I think I shall take my time with you,” Kaigaku decided, using his blade to tilt your head back and forth. “After all there is no one here who shall care if you scream; in fact, I prefer you do.” 

Your eyes widened, what remaining fight you still had wavering. 

Alone. You were completely and utterly alone. 

Sanemi had not come; either he was still fighting the other men sent by your cursed fiancé, or he’d been slain, and now the others were making their way to you, to take you back to Douma and let him do as he pleased. 

You were going to die; but you would not die by his hands. Your eyes lowered to the blade still pressed under your chin, its tip grazing against the delicate skin of your throat, teasingly.

Kaigaku’s blade was sharp, even if it’s wielder not; it would not take much effort to slit your own throat on its edge, and it would take even less to bleed out upon the Netherwood’s earthen floor. 

Before you could move, however, Kaigaku’s sword lowered, its tip teasingly tracing along the front seams of your dress. 

“Perhaps we could make this interesting,” Kaigaku smirked, tracing up the valley between your breasts. “He said only to ensure you were untainted for him; he did not say we couldn’t have a taste.” 

Your stomach churned with a toxic mixture of both rage and dread as the sword cut through the first stitch of your bodice. You tried to gather your feet beneath you, enough so that you could launch yourself forward and impale yourself on his blade, when a low growl sounded from behind your assailant.

Kaigaku, too enthralled by his slow torture of you, did not see the mass of white fur and bloodstained teeth leap from the shadows of the Wood; not until it was too late. 

You looked on in horror as a large beast lunged for the boy from your village, tackling him to the side, his sword arm severed at his shoulder from a single swipe of the monster’s mighty claw. Kaigaku only had time to scream once before the nightmare’s massive maw clamped around his neck and tore, spraying his blood and bits of gore across the forest floor. 

Your breath caught and died in your throat, helpless from where you were still splayed pathetically across the dirt as you watched the animal paint the Netherwood with remnants of Kaigaku. 

The monster turned on its haunches towards you, its maw dripping with blood and bits of sinew and flesh, its lip curled back in a snarl. You whimpered as the creature’s silver-lilac eyes settled on you, every inch trembling in abject terror. 

Though overcome by your fear, your brain was able to put together the sight before you that was sure to be your last. The beast slowly advancing towards you was a wolf, though it was much larger than any wolf you’d ever seen, and its brawn rivaled that of an ox’s. 

The wolf boasted a thick coating of silvery-white fur that seemed to glow, as though it bore the essence of a full moon, though its brilliance was dampened somewhat by the smears of crimson saturating it. Under the dim light of the forest, you could not tell whether the blood was that of the wolf or another. 

One colossal paw stepped hesitantly toward you again, and you felt yourself nearly go faint. Weakly, you tried to scramble back further into the wood, but your left leg had gone slightly numb from its wound, and the blood loss was starting to make you feel dizzy. 

It seemed the Netherwood had answered your silent plea to not be sent back to be killed by Douma; instead, you would serve as the next meal for one of its monstrous residents. 

The wolf drew short of you and watched you closely for a moment. With a great shudder, the wolf began to tremble and shake, and your horror melted into wide-eyed disbelief as you watched the wolf shrink and contort until all that was left was a man, blood-stained, naked, and panting on his hands and knees, fingers dug deeply into the dirt below. The man convulsed as began heaving up bile stained with blood and gore.

The sight of scarred forearms and snowy-white hair broke you out into a cold sweat. 

“S-Sanemi?” You croaked, equal parts relieved and terrified, even if another part of you desperately hoped that you were simply hallucinating the image of the nude man wretching up blood before you.

“Aye,” Sanemi grit out between great, shuddering breaths as he spat one final time at the dirt. “It is me.”

He rose, bloodied and naked, from the forest floor and looked to you, his eyes back to their familiar, lavender hue, though they still retained an otherworldly glow. 

There was a loud ringing in your ears as you stared at him, though you weren’t sure if it was from your panic or your blood loss. Sanemi took a cautious step towards you and it sent you scurrying back, a whimper of fright building in your throat.

He faltered, something like pain crossing his face. “Perhaps you should be afraid,” he said quietly. “And you can be — but I need you to throw me that satchel.”

It took you a moment to recollect yourself long enough to register what he was asking. With shaky hands, you unlatched the leather bag from your shoulders and weakly tossed it towards the Huntsman. 

Sanemi was quiet as he dug through the bag, producing a fresh pair of breeches and a clean tunic. With a deftness that seemed as supernatural as his wolf form, Sanemi dressed, concealing his muscular, scarred form from sight once more. 

He said your name once, quietly. “Are you alright?” 

You trembled, hand clutching weakly at the front clasp of your cape. “He killed my grandmother,” you whispered. “H-he tortured her.”

Sanemi approached you slowly, and when you did not flinch away from him once more, he knelt down beside you. His hand came up to gently stroke your hair, and the touch startled you out of your trance, blinking back fat tears as you looked up at him. 

“We need to go,” he said gently and you closed your eyes, nodding.

You’d known, of course, that your Grandmother had been killed; made peace with it, even. But you had not foreseen that she would be tortured for trying to secure your freedom, and the very thought made something inside your heart wither and die. 

“I know,” you murmured quietly. Sanemi straightened, extending a hand to you to help you up when your fingers closed around his wrist, your eyes urgent.

“Did you kill them?” 

Sanemi grimaced. “Yes, Lamb. I killed them all.” 

You nodded. “Good.” You released his wrist and slid your hand into his. “Good.”

Your shock had dulled the sharp, burning throb in your leg while you’d processed the fact that Sanemi was not a mere huntsman, but a wolf of the Wood. But now that the shock had worn off, the pain slammed back into you with full force as you tried to stand, your leg collapsing uselessly under you as you cried out. 

Sanemi’s nostrils flared and there was a murderous glint in his eyes as he crouched down beside you, eyes locked onto your left side, fingers clenching around the torn folds of your dress and lifting it up. 

“S-Sanemi!” You squeaked, batting his hand away but no to avail. The huntsman — the wolf — managed to pull back the skirts of your dress to reveal the torn flesh of your thigh. 

“Was it him?” Sanemi’s voice was low, his head jerking back over his shoulder in the vague direction where he’d left Kaigaku in pieces. 

You nodded, eyes wide as you watched him inspect the wound. “A knife. He threw it.” 

The huntsman exhaled harshly through his nose. “We’re too vulnerable in the open like this — especially because you’re bleeding.” 

Sanemi sat back on his haunches and pulled his small hunting knife from the leather satchel strewn on the ground. Silently, he leaned forward and wound some of the bottom fabric of your dress around the blade and wrenched, tearing a sizeable scrap cloth from the skirt in one clean stroke. 

Sanemi then reached under your skirt and tugged the shorter end of your linen shift down. “It’s not ideal but it’s cleaner than your outer skirt,” he said by way of explanation at your raised eyebrows and hitched breath. “It’ll do until I can get you somewhere safer. We’re sitting ducks out here. Your scent is bound to attract something.” 

You nodded, gulping. Words were still far too difficult to come by, so you settled for watching your handsome guide as he worked, mouth set in a firm, hard line. 

Sanemi tore another strip of linen from your shift and laid it delicately over his knee. His eyes flicked to yours, once, and you felt slightly ashamed at the way your breath hitched, as though waiting for those lilac irises to bleed silver once more. 

“May I?” His hands were stilled above the exposed flesh of your shin, and you knew he’d need to lift more to bandage your thigh. You nodded after a moment, though your hesitation did not stem from any fear you held for the scarred man delicately sliding his hands up the length of your wounded leg; rather, the heat that crept up your neck came from the way goose flesh erupted over the skin beneath his roughened yet gentle touch. 

Sanemi’s fingers were steady as he gently guided your leg to the side, rotating it in his palm so that the gash was perpendicular to the forest floor. 

At the sight of your bloodied, torn flesh, Sanemi growled. “I should’ve made the little bastard suffer far more.” He said darkly, reaching into his satchel to pull a small skien of water to clean off the wound as much as possible. 

At the first splash of water against your ragged skin, you flinched, hissing through clenched teeth as the cold fluid chased away the spare bit of blood. For a moment, you could see that the cut left behind the blade was deeper than you’d thought, though not so much so that it required more than a good bandaging and perhaps some stitching.  

At least it had not been entirely flayed open. 

The hand Sanemi had braced on your knee to keep your leg steady rubbed soothingly at your skin as he repeated the motion once more, letting the water cleanse the wound once more. “Atta girl,” he praised softly. “It’s done. I just need to wrap it.” 

It amazed you that such a hardened, rough Huntsman — Wolf — had such a gentle touch. His hands were like feathers as he wound the clean strip of linen around your thigh, the only pressure stemming from the knot he’d fastened to keep it secure around your leg. Sanemi then wrapped the other torn fabric from your outer skirt around the makeshift bandage, knotting it in a similar fashion to the one beneath. 

“To keep the one below from becoming dirty,” he offered plainly at your raised eyebrow. “Can you stand?” 

Now that the adrenaline of yojr earlier encounter had worn off, the throb in your leg had become all the more pronounced. Teeth clenched, you gripped the Huntsman’s hands tightly as you rose from your seat on the tree stump, eyebrows furrowed in determination. Sanemi did not remove his hands from you, but kept them out and ready as you tentatively shifted your weight to test your wounded leg.

It was no good; the pain shot through you like an arrow and nearly buckled the knee on your good leg. With a cry of frustration, you  stumbled back against Sanemi, the Huntsman’s arm looping easily around your waist to help lower you back down against the stump upon which he’s sat you. 

“Damn it all,” you cursed, wincing at the angry throb in your leg. “It cannot bear weight.” 

Sanemi pursed his lips as he looked over you, considering. “Allow me,” he said after a moment, squatting down next to you, motioning for you to wrap your arm around his shoulders.

You hesitated; you were not scared of the Huntsman, even after witnessing his terrifying true form, but your apprehension lingered, a primal fear baked deep within your core that told you you should be scared of the predator beside you. That, mixed with your blood loss, made you pause, even though you’re traveled alongside the fearless Huntsman for nearly a week. 

And Sanemi noticed.

“You’re shaking,” he murmured, his arm locked steadily around your waist as he lifted you to your feet, your weight pressed against his chest.

You did not trust your words so you only nodded. Despite the remaining wariness you felt, you longed for his comfort more. You lifted your hand to cup the side of his jaw so you could tilt his face down, bringing his forehead against yours. 

Sanemi whispered your name and your eyes lifted up to meet the smoldering heat of his gaze. 

A knuckle brushed against the curve of your cheek. “Are you frightened of me now, little Lamb?” 

Your fingers gripped the collar of his tunic, a desperation wracking through you at the thought he might pull away and remove the steadying warmth of his arms from around your frame.  

“No. It is not you that frightens me; it is him.”

The arm around your waist tightened. “He will not get to you; I swear it. I will not allow him to lay a finger on you.” 

Your breath shuddered and your eyes squeezed tight. You felt the discomforting press of panic building in your lungs, threatening to choke the air from your throat until a warm finger curled under your chin, followed only by a rugged whisper of your name. 

You opened your eyes and there he was; the only person left alive who you could count on; who had proven, time and again, that your welfare mattered to him. Who treated you like you meant something.

You craved that feeling — craved him. 

“Kiss me, Sanemi.” You murmured, your lips separated by a breath. “Please.” 

Sanemi did not hesitate as he gently brought his lips against yours, the hand under your chin moving to cup the back of your head, holding you steady against him like he was the only real, solid thing in the world. 

Your hands, no longer shaking, unclenched from where they’d been locked around the collar of his tunic and slid behind his neck, fingers tangling in his hair. 

Sanemi sighed against your lips, allowing himself to get lost in the way they moved against his, just as you did. Against the solid rock of his body and under the spell of his soft mouth, it was easy to allow yourself to forget the danger that threatened to creep in from the shadows.  

Lost in your kiss, you made the mistake of trying to shift your weight from your good leg to the bad, causing both knees to buckle. At your small whimper of pain, Sanemi broke away.

“You’re too injured to walk,” He murmured against your lips. “So I shall carry you.” 

He broke away with a final peck, stepping back and reaching behind him to haul his tunic over his head. “Unless you would like to see all of me, little Lamb,” Sanemi’s smirk was devilish. “Then I suggest you close your eyes for a moment.”

The heat his words sparked in your veins dulled the throb of your wounded leg. “And if I desire to see you?” 

Sanemi only shrugged. “Then I suppose I shall have to put on a show.” 

The huntsman held your eyes as his hands went to the hastily tied laces of his breeches, tugging the strings open with ease. 

You fidgeted against the broken stump he’d perched you on, just as Sanemi shrugged down the soft suede of his breeches, revealing that damnable v-line that made your head spin. A few more inches lower, and there was his manhood, hanging thick and heavy between his muscular and scar-speckled thighs. 

He was a sight to behold. 

“Is this your first time seeing a man, Lamb?” Sanemi’s voice broke you out of the reverent trance you’d been in whilst admiring every rocky plane of his body. 

Your mouth had turned dryer than a summer drought, and so you only nodded your head, unable to tear your eyes from the immaculate form that made up the huntsman of the Netherwood. 

To your dismay, Sanemi stepped back from where you sat, again and again until he was several lengths back. You opened your mouth in protest, but he only shook his head. 

“Don’t want you to be too close, my sweet.” He called from a distance.

You frowned. “Too close for what —“

Your question was cut off by a small scream as Sanemi leapt forward, that silver fur exploding forth from him as a large wolf landed only feet from where he’d once stood. 

Now it was clear why he’d put such distance between you; had Sanemi been any closer when he shifted, one of those mighty claws embedded in his law — nearly as long as your hand — would have surely ripped you clean in half. 

Your heart hammered in your chest as Sanemi’s wolf form drew closer. Now, without the weight of terror and the pressing conviction that you were about to die, you allowed yourself to fully appreciate the wolf before you. 

His scars were still visible, though less so in contrast to his human form, his thick fur providing a fair degree of cover.  In this form, you could see that were you to stand, your head would barely reach his shoulder. 

Sanemi grunted as he crouched out, the puff of air from his considerable snout warming over your legs. He looked up at you expectantly, an amused twinkle in his wolffish eyes. 

You gaped at him. “You want me to ride you?” 

Another amused chuff. 

“And how, great and mighty wolf, do you suggest I climb onto your back with a half-severed leg?” You dramatized. “Shall I flop?” 

You couldn’t be sure, but it seemed that the Wolf rolled his eyes. Sanemi pressed his large body against your good side, nudging you with his great shoulder to signal for you to grab his fur.

You took a handful of the silvery coat, surprised at its softness. “Do not bite me just because you think I pull too hard,” you warned, half serious, and Sanemi huffed in annoyance. 

Using the wolf as leverage, you heaved yourself up, Sanemi pressing steadily into your side as you found your footing against him. Slowly, and with less grace than you were willing to admit, you managed to climb atop Sanemi’s back, awkwardly swinging your injured leg over the opposite side.

Once settled, Sanemi rose beneath you, rising to his full height. Sat atop him, you were willing to bet he was taller than most horses back in the village. 

The great wolf sniffed at the air once before lowering himself into a crouch, and springing forth into the Wood.

————

Riding atop Sanemi had been the most exhilarating experience of your life. 

Though, you also could not recall the last time such a ride had left you more frightened, given that you’d spent a great deal of it crouched low against his neck, fearing that if you rose your head even a fraction of an inch, some low-hanging tree would embed itself in your face. 

You supposed you would have kept riding longer, had your stomach not given a great gurgle after an hour or so atop the wolf. With a growl that you thought sounded suspiciously like a laugh, Sanemi paused in a small clearing near a rocky, moss-covered cliff, disappearing behind the lip of the rock once he’d situated you upon a felled log.

A few moments later, human Sanemi emerged, re-dressed, but his face was severe.

“They will keep coming,” Sanemi’s frustration was clear as he shrugged the fresh tunic over his head, the delectable ridges of his abdomen and the alluring dip of his hips concealed from your sight once more. “So long as they can track your scent, they will keep pursuing you.” 

You did not need to ask to whom he referred; the very same fear had gnawed at you even despite the exhilaration of riding Sanemi’s wolf form.

Your appreciation of the huntsman’s physique stalled as fear bubbled again in your gut. “What can I do?” Your whisper was shaky and it made Sanemi pause, his hand twitching towards you. “I cannot change my scent in the middle of the damn Wood—“

“You can,” Sanemi said quickly, and to your surprise, the tips of his ears turned pink. “Or— rather, I can help.”

You raised an eyebrow. “Because you are a wolf? Should I call you that now, instead of ‘Huntsman,’ or ‘Sanemi?’”

“You can call me whatever you desire, so long as you allow me to protect you.” Sanemi retorted evenly.

You tried to keep your voice steady even as you blushed. “And how would you do that, Wolf?” 

There was a dark glint in Sanemi’s eyes at your new nickname for him. “A bite from a wolf can change your scent.”

You balked at him. “A bite?” 

“Aye,” the Huntsman said casually, as though he was merely discussing the weather. “It would leave a small mark, but that mark would alter your scent enough to make you harder to track.”

You thought for a moment, the blush on your cheeks deepening. “Where would you bite me?” 

It was Sanemi’s turn to turn pink. “Likely your neck,” he fidgeted with a stick he used to poke the dying campfire. 

You gulped. “Would you have to transform?” 

Sanemi’s small smile was handsome, even if it looked a little feral. “No, Lamb. I can stay in this form.” 

You watched your protector for a moment, weighing your options. “Come here, Sanemi.”

His eyes snapped to yours, a bottomless heat turning his lilac gaze molten. Slowly, with the grace of a predator silently stalking its prey, Sanemi made his way over to where you sat, drawing short once the tips of his boots grazed yours. 

“Do you swear it? It will keep them from being able to track me?” You asked, voice trembling slightly as you peered up at the Huntsman. 

He nodded, slowly. A hand reached out to caress your cheek, and your breath lodged in your throat as you found yourself leaning into his warmth. 

You managed to exhale around the lump that had formed in your throat. “Then I will allow it.”

Your heart skipped like a rabbit’s against your sternum as Sanemi leaned in close, the warmth of his breath chasing away the chill of the Wood’s air.

“So delicate,” Sanemi murmured, his nose skimming along the slope between your neck and shoulder. “So soft.”

“W-wolf?” Your voice was high, your hands trembling as they jumped to clutch at Sanemi’s forearms, nails digging into his skin in anticipation. “Will it hurt?”

He huffed a laugh against your skin, the gentle tickle of his warm air sending goosebumps along your exposed skin. “No, little Lamb,” his lips danced along your shoulder, back towards the sensitive spot connecting with your neck. “You will feel a prick and then you will feel warm.” 

You nodded, the ends of Sanemi’s cornsilk hair tickling your throat. “I’m ready. Bite me — please.”

Sanemi’s groan was followed by a cold, sharp sting that sunk into the tender flesh between your shoulder and neck that was quickly chased away by a soothing warmth. The huntsman’s mouth latched to your neck as he buried his teeth in you, his tongue stroking soothingly around where he now bit.

It felt like someone had poured warmed honey into your veins. It spread, thick and sweet from your neck throughout your body, making you feel like you’d sunk into a hot bath on a cold day. That warmth coiled in your belly and ignited something fluttery and pleasurable between your legs as you tilted your head to the side, exposing more of your neck to the wolf caging you in against the tree.

Your submission evoked a low growl from his chest, deep and rumbling as Sanemi pressed harder into you, his hands bunching your dress at your sides as he continued to suck at your neck. The feeling of his body molded tightly against yours and the way his mouth worked at that delicate spot made you moan out, the sound finally jolting something within the huntsman as he gave you one final kick, before tearing himself away. 

“Dear gods, woman,” he heaved, breath coarse. “Are you trying to drive me wild?”

You flushed as you panted, staring at him with wide eyes. Whatever you’d been expecting, it hadn’t been that; you’d not foreseen that the act of Sanemi biting you could feel so intimate, could make you long for him to run his hands under your dress, to touch you in your most sacred places until you begged for him.

He was dangerous; it was thrilling.

“Kiss me again,” you breathed, and Sanemi obeyed, his mouth moving fervently against yours as his tongue caressed your lower lip. Sensing the silent request, you opened for him, and Sanemi’s tongue swept into your mouth, licking at yours as his teeth nipped along your lower lip. 

You thought he might devour you; you wanted to let him. 

But Sanemi suddenly pulled away from you as though he’d been burned, eyes wide and breath hard. 

You blinked in surprise. “Sanemi, what —,”

“We need to go,” he said firmly, his cheeks flushed red. At his sides, his hands curled tightly into fists.

—-

The rest of your journey was oddly strained. Despite having grown closer with enigmatic Huntsman over the last several days of your travels, you suddenly felt as though you’d been catapulted back to square one.

Though he still allowed you ride upon his back in wolf form, gone were the amused chuffs and snorts that he used to signal he was listening to your mindless chatter. Instead, the wolf below you remained tense, a cord pulled tight that was liable to snap at the drop of a hat.

As much as you wished it made you angry so that you could snipe at him, Sanemi’s sudden introversion stoked an uncomfortable self-consciousness within you, and you found yourself desperately grappling for an explanation.

Had you tasted badly, when he’d bit you? Did he suddenly no longer find himself drawn to you, now that your scent was different?

Or, even worse, had he realized that perhaps he did not want you to stay with him in the Wood after all, and was now attempting to put distance between you so that you would be more willing to leave him once you reached the edge of the forest?

The thought made your stomach clench painfully.

Sanemi’s distance did not abate even by the time he slowed to a stop for the night. He’d brought the two of you to a clearing in the Wood that bordered alongside a winding river, crested by a waterfall. Sanemi finally lowered himself to the pebbled ground of the riverbank, muscles twitching as though to hasten you along in sliding off him to balance yourself against a mid-sized boulder, before he stalked back towards the trees, his leather satchel in his mouth.

He avoided even your gaze as he stalked into the shallows of the river, spearing two fish with a sharpened stick he’d fashioned. Sanemi hadn’t so much as thrown a word your way as he’d started a small fire, apparently relying on dusk to conceal the small smoke billowing up.

Despite the coolness of the evening air, you noted Sanemi was sweating as he’d flung out the stick bearing your flame-cooked fish dinner towards you.

In accepting the spear, your fingers accidentally brushed against his and Sanemi recoiled — hard.

“What is wrong with you?” You snapped. “Why will you not touch me? Why do you flinch whenever I am near?”

“I do not,” Sanemi answered hotly through clenched teeth, though the muscle that ticked in his jaw betrayed his frustration. “Am I suddenly required to touch you?”

You folded your arms across your chest, eyes narrowed. “You certainly had no objection to it earlier — especially not when you threw me up against a tree.”

“Threw you —“ Sanemi choked off, his returning glare both indignant and enraged. “As I recall it was you who kissed me.”

“And as I recall, it was you who started doing that — that thing with your tongue,” you accused lamely, though any bite in your words was tempered by the blush creeping up your face.

Sanemi scoffed. “You cannot even speak of it without blushing like a little girl, and yet I am the one acting strange?” He leaned back on the piece of driftwood he’d claimed as his seat, arms folded across his chest, head turned pointedly away from you.

As you mulled over a number of insults to call the temperamental Huntsman sitting across front you, the last remnants of the sun faded from the night sky, and overhanging clouds briefly parted to reveal the moon — nearly full, its silvery glow illuminating the riverbank.

The moon’s rays reached where you and the Huntsman had set up camp when suddenly your hand jumped to your shoulder as you cried out.

Sanemi startled forward with a worried growl of your name. “What is it? What’s wrong?”

You grit your teeth, fingers digging harshly into your shoulder as you winced. “Something is — is burning, but I do not know what.”

You were certain the only injury your sustained had been the wound to your thigh by Kaigaku’s knife. But you’d spent enough time in and around flame to know what a burn felt like, and it felt as though something had been branded into you, its throb almost crippling.

You cried out again and Sanemi quickly crossed the dirt and took you into his arms, though you felt him flinch as he did so. “Where?”

You gestured wildly to your shoulder, too distracted by the way his presence made the burn now pulse, sending lashes of heat throughout your body, though there was a maddening edge of pleasure blooming from every part of you that was pressed against him.

Sanemi’s fingers grasped the collar of your dress and wrenched it to the side, swearing softly as he beheld whatever it was he saw.

“What is it?” You managed to grind out, your fingers digging into the muscles of his forearms to keep him anchored to you, as though he were capable of keeping the flames licking at your skin at bay. “Kaigaku did not touch me there — at least, I don’t think —,”

“It was not that boy who did this,” Sanemi said severely, his finger gingerly caressing the spot where your neck met your shoulder. You moaned as his touch extinguished some of the burning fire which had ignited your skin, too lost in the temporary relief to note the way Sanemi’s hands tightened around you. “It was I.”

That stilled you. “What do you mean?” You turned your head, peering up at the Wolf with wide eyes. “From when you changed my scent?”

Sanemi, for once, looked discomforted. “I think —,” he swallowed once, avoiding your gaze as he stepped back. You almost cried out at the loss of his body against yours, as the burn returned once more.

“I think I marked you; but I-“ Sanemi stuttered, his eyebrows drawing together in confusion as he stared at the ground, his weight shifting uneasily from foot to foot. “But it shouldn’t be affecting you — not like this.”

“You marked me?” Your hand fluttered to the fleshy juncture between your shoulder and neck. You gasped as your fingers brushed against a curious raise in your skin that hadn’t been there before, the strange curvature burning a few degrees warmer than the area around it.

The huntsman’s eyes remained resolutely fixed on the ground of the forest. “I told you I would cover your scent.”

You stroked the the mark, fingers tracing the odd curve, like that of a crescent moon. “What does the mark mean?”

Sanemi hesitated.

“Wolf?”

“It is a mating mark.” Sanemi admitted after a long moment, hand jumping to his hair as he ran his fingers anxiously through his silvery-white locks.

A stunned breath blew past your lips, your eyes wide. “M-mating mark?” You repeated, hand freezing where the telling crescent was emblazoned upon your skin.

Sanemi looked equal parts apologetic and scared. “I swear, I did not know it would affect you — wolves have to accept the mating mark to feel it, so I did not think —.” He ran a frazzled hand through his hair, his anguish apparent. “I thought I would be the only one to feel its call. I swear it.”

In the back of your mind, it registered that the mark perhaps was the reason for Sanemi’s sudden change towards you, but the incessant burning you felt would not allow you to question him on it.

“What does this mean?” You cried out again as the mark surged, the pain reaching all the way down between your legs, making you gasp. “Are we — are we m-mated?”

Sanemi’s eyes flashed. “No,” his voice was firm, urgent. “You still have to accept the mark for us to be mated — that’s why I thought it was safe. It was supposed to change your scent enough for us to avoid those men.”

“I swear to you I do not plan on acting on it; I meant only to help protect you. I fully intend on escorting you to the nearest village, as promised, and then I will leave. That mark does not have to mean anything to you.”

You believed him. The slight panic in his eyes as you winced at the mark’s repetitive flare once more could not be faked. Furthermore, you knew Sanemi would have no reason to bind you to him; not when you’d already made it clear that you wanted to stay.

You still did.

Sanemi’s earlier words echoed in your mind. That mark does not have to mean anything to you.

“But it will mean something to you, yes?” You demanded, drawing yourself up tall even as you sat perched upon the driftwood. “The mark?”

Sanemi hesitated again. “Wolves only mark once.”

He did not offer any further explanation, nor did he need to; you understood well enough.

The Huntsman had marked you, knowing full well he’d never be able to claim another as his mate. He’d done that, knowing that if another came along that won his heart, he could not be with them completely — not in the way his nature would desire.

And he’d done it nonetheless; all for the sake of giving her a chance to escape Douma’s clutches and to be free.

He’d put you first.

You hadn’t doubted the sincerity of your offer to him earlier, but now, there was no way he’d get rid of you. You would not allow it.

“And what would you do if I said I accepted it — accepted the mating bond?” You asked, voice as soft as a feather.

Sanemi snorted, pulling away from you to busy himself with stoking the small campfire. “I would say that you are an innocent, little lamb who does not understand what it means to be claimed by a wolf.”

“I understand well enough,” you replied, indignant. “I know what it means for people to give into their carnal desires.”

“You know nothing, you’ve never even seen a man before today.” The huntsman shot back, tossing another piece of kindling into the small fire. “You have never laid with another, much less a wolf.”

“It cannot be all that different,” you pouted. “You appear before me man enough.”

Sanemi closed the gap between your bodies then, coming to sit beside you on the rock, fingers curling under your chin to tilt your head up.

His eyes glinted with a sudden predatory heat. “It is quite different, little lamb.” He murmured. “I may now stand before you a man, but I am very much still a wolf. I would not take you like an ordinary human.”

There it was again — that heat, so foreign and yet so enticing, flickered to life once more in the depths of your belly, and the urge to rub your thighs together suddenly became overwhelming. With bated breath, you watched as Sanemi’s nostrils flared softly, his pupils dilating as the grip under your chin tightened ever so slightly.

“Then how would you take me, wolf?” You whispered, eyes not wavering from his. “How would I accept the mating bond?”

Sanemi’s eyes fluttered shut for a moment, opening only after a shaky exhale of his breath. “You would have to take my knot.”

Your gaze dropped to his lips, the warmth from your mark spreading across your skin along with the sudden urge to feel them move against your own. “Your knot?”

“My knot,” Sanemi repeated, “and that is precisely why I cannot mate you, little lamb.”

You tugged your bottom lip between your teeth, a movement Sanemi’s eyes followed, his tongue flicking out to wet his own lips.

You pressed your chest flush against his front, hands seeking out his in the dark. “And what if I wanted it?”

Sabemi groaned, fingers latching onto your waist, though whether he sought to push you away or keep you anchored in place, you could not say. “Christ, woman. One would almost think you enjoyed torturing this poor wolf.”

You leaned into him, head tilting as you sought the knowledge of his soft lips against yours. “Not torturing,” you whispered, a hair’s breath separating your mouth from his. “Willingly offering myself to him.”

Your lips brushed against his and Sanemi moaned, his hands reaching to snare in your hair as he moved his mouth desperately against yours, teeth nipping and sucking on your lower lip, like he was hungry to consume you. But before he could, your pulled your head back, breaking the kiss.

“Do it, wolf,” you whispered. “Take me. Claim me as your mate.”

Sanemi grabbed you by your jaw, cheeks squishing beneath his firm grip. “Do you know what that would mean?” His voice was rough, his eyes burning with his desire. “If I did, we would be bonded. Permanently. For life.”

He said it as if you had not guessed it to be true; as if you weren’t prepared.

You gazed up at him through your eyelashes, eyes round and full of the innocence he claimed he could not taint. “Would you have it be another?”

Sanemi took the bait, a feral growl tearing from his chest as he crushed your body against his.

“No,” he snarled, and his mouth descended upon yours once more, his hot tongue sweeping into your mouth to swallow your breathy gasp as you threaded your fingers through his soft, moon-kissed hair.

You moaned into his mouth, hands greedily roaming the rocky planes of his chest, nails scratching lightly along his skin.

“You will be the death of me,” the Huntsman breathed against your lips. “You truly want to accept the bond?”

You moaned, nodding vigorously as Sanemi trailed his lips across your jaw and down your neck, his hands beginning to roam up your sides, tugging you down with him against the boulder so that you straddled his sides.

“Very well,” he murmured. “But I will not claim you here,” Sanemi said gruffly against the delicate skin of your throat, lips pressed against where your pulse fluttered. “I cannot.”

You whined and ground your hips down against his thighs, savoring the way the steely firmness of them pressed against something between your legs that made you feel electric.

“I must take you to my den,” the huntsman clarified, pulling back slightly in spite of your small whine. “When wolves like me claim a mate, we…do not like to be disturbed.”

Sanemi’s fingered the front laces of the stay secured around your bust, slowly undoing the careful lacing as he spoke, though his eyes did not leave yours. “And because it will be a full moon when I mate you, I will go into heat. It will last a very long time.”

“How long?” You fought to keep your head from falling back as you watched Sanemi work, the warmth of his hands seeping through the cotton and linen layers of your dress, making your breasts pebble with every loosened tie of your corset.

Sanemi hummed as he leaned forward, tracing his lips over the exposed skin just below your collarbone as his fingers worked the last of your stays. “At least a day; perhaps two. Other wolves have claimed it lasts shorter when one has a mate, as opposed to having to weather it alone.”

The top swells of your breasts were exposed as Sanemi finally freed you from your outer corset, allowing it to fall to the ground beside you.

The huntsman skimmed his nose over the top of your shift where the tops of your soft mounds peaked over, letting his tongue peek out to follow the trail. The feeling of the hot wetness of his mouth made you fidget in his lap, a whine building in your throat, desperate to have him touch more.

“A-and will you — ah,” you moaned as Sanemi tugged the bodice of your dress and shift down your shoulders, exposing your peaked breasts to the night air. “Will y-you mate m-me the whole t-time — oh god, Sanemi,”

“I could get used to you saying my name like that,” The huntsman chuckled, bending to take one of your breasts fully in his mouth, sucking and rolling his tongue over your stiffened nipple. The contact made the mark on your shoulder burn with a sensual heat that you felt shoot straight down between your legs, and you ground against his thigh, mewling for more.

Sanemi looked up at you as he swirled his tongue over the fleshy skin of your mound, his pupils blown wide. “Perhaps,” he muttered in response to your question, in between light sucks. “It depends on how well you take my knot, you sweet thing.”

You moaned again as Sanemi moved his mouth across the valley between your breasts, taking the other mound between his lips and teeth, his hand rising to keep the other warm. He suckled at you for a moment until you were a whimpering, trembling mess atop him, before he pulled off with a lewd pop!

“But no matter,” You shivered as Sanemi’s teeth grazed your ear. “I promise I will make you feel so good, little Lamb.”

“Why must we wait,” you asked impatiently. “I am ready to be your mate now — I promise I can take your knot right here.”

Sanemi snarled against your skin, but it was not in warning. Rather, your words seemed to stir something deep within him, as the bulge between his legs hardened even more, and the building friction between it and demanding ache in your core intensified.

Sanemi shifted your hips in his lap so the apex of your thighs was no longer pressed flush against his hardness.

“You, my flower, smell far too tempting for me to risk having you in such a vulnerable way in the middle of the damn Wood, without any cover.”

Sanemi, lips traipsed along your jaw as he hummed. “There are many creatures lurking in the shadows that would see my mating you as an opportunity to take a bite for themselves.”

You tugged on his hair, trying to get him to meet your eyes. “I thought my scent was alluring only to you?”

“You don’t just appeal to me, little Lamb,” Sanemi said pointedly. “You have a rare scent that attracts all sorts of creatures here in the Wood.”

“But it is different now?” You pondered, fidgeting in the Huntsman’s lap until the ridge of his thigh pressed against that spot between your legs that made you want to sing.

You hummed and used your grip in his hair as leverage to tilt his head to the side, your lips caressing down the side of Sanemi’s neck, savoring the faint, salty taste of him on your tongue as his fingers dug into your hips.

“Yes,” he said hoarsely. “Your scent has changed, thanks to your mark.”

You pulled away from your assault on his neck to pout at him, lower lip jutting out in a way that made Sanemi’s eyes darken. “So I do not smell as good anymore? To you, that is?”

With a low growl, Sanemi stood, hands gripping under your thighs as he lifted you before he laid you out against the river stone. “Quite the opposite, Lamb,” he quipped, voice low and heady. “To me, there is no finer perfume. Your scent calls to me; it nearly sends me into a frenzy.”

You found yourself incapable of coherent thought — much less speech — as Sanemi’s hands slid up your legs, bunching the skirts of your dress with every inch of skin he passed over until you felt the night air delicately brushing the heat between your legs.

Your legs spread and supported between his grip and the smooth of the rock, Sanemi leaned forward and kissed you, his tongue sliding past your lips to lick teasingly at the roof of your mouth before he broke away, imprinting his kiss down your exposed torso.

You watched him, enthralled by the way your body seemed to come alive under his touch. Even in the dark of the Wood, you could make out the lilac swirls of Sanemi’s eyes as he watched you, noting every gasp and sigh he pulled from you as his hands and mouth explored the planes of your body.

“What curious eyes you have, Wolf.” Your breath was short, choppy as Sanemi’s lips descended past your breasts, caressing the soft of your belly.

“The better to see your pretty face, my sweet,” Sanemi murmured, pressing a sweet kiss right below your belly button, the fire within your gut leaping like oil in a hot pan.

“W-what — oh,” you moaned as you felt his lips press against your hip, the broad expanse of his hands smoothing down over your thighs, pushing the last of your skirts up, and allowing the searing heat of his hands to meet your untouched skin. “What large hands you have.”

“The better to feel you — to caress every inch of you,” Sanemi’s voice was husky as his fingers trailed up the sensitive skin of your inner thighs, spreading them wider so he could kneel. One hand gripped the back of your knee and gently tugged your injured leg over his shoulder, so your foot rest against the middle of his back.

His hot breath danced teasingly along your inner thigh as Sanemi’s mouth drew closer an closer to where you ached for him, the night air cool as it licked at your tender, heated flesh.

The feel of his mouth drawing nearer to to the most intimate part of your body made you feel as though you’d been set alight. “Such soft lips you have, Wolf.”

Sanemi chuckled, the sound so dark and rich it sent a shiver up your spine. “The better to taste you with, little Lamb.”

Your breath hitched as you felt something warm and hot flatten against your folds and drag up, Sanemi groaning into you as he repeated the movement, again and again.

His tongue, you realized as a strangled cry fell from your lips, your head falling back against the creek stone. He was exploring you with his tongue.

“Sweet,” Sanemi groaned in between wet, sticky laps against your folds. “So fuckin’ sweet.”

Every nerve in your body felt as though it had been set alight, the mark between your shoulder and neck burning deliciously.

Sanemi’s tongue flattened against your core, his nose pressing sharply against the pearl between your legs as he rocked his face from side to side, smearing your juices all over his maw.

“O-oh gods,” you cried out, hips bucking against his ministrations.

Sanemi’s hot tongue circled your entrance once before dipping inside, his teeth grazing your most sensitive spot as he buried the wet appendage inside your core.

His name fell in a breathy scream from your lips as you bowed up off the creek rock, hands shooting to anchor themselves in his hair as Sanemi began moving his tongue in and out of your fluttering core, his nose bumping and pressing against that delicate pearl at the apex of your thighs as he moved.

“My gods,” Sanemi grunted into your folds. “You are heaven on earth.”

You bucked against him once more, though you could not tell whether you sought more of his tongue or whether your body was trying to squirm away, too overcome by the pleasurable sensations Sanemi bestowed upon you as he worked his mouth against you. It did not matter either way, however, for every time you twitched away from him, the Huntsman’s hot, silky mouth only followed you, your cunt this predator’s dinner.

And apparently, he enjoyed playing with his food.

The frequency of your moans increased as the sounds of Sanemi feasting between your legs grew louder and ever more lewd, his own sounds of pleasure muffled by the repeated wet smacks of his mouth against your dripping folds as he sucked you between his lips and teeth and continued fucking you with his tongue.

“S-Sanemi! Oh — oh gods,” you cried as something coiled tightly behind your navel, making your thighs clench around the Wolf’s head as he worked.

Sanemi only responded with another groan, his hand leaving the supple flesh of your inner thigh to stroke against your folds, making you buck all the more against the stone as his roughened fingers brushed delicately against the spot that made you see stars.

His tongue pulled out of you in favor of flicking the bead at the apex of your legs, his fingers moving to your entrance and deftly pushing in, the wetness leaking from your core ensuring that they slid in without much resistance.

You cried out then, utterly overwhelmed by the way Sanemi’s finger began to work inside you, curling and pumping and stroking along your innermost walls until your entire body vibrated below him.

The hand supporting your thigh over his shoulder tightened as Sanemi resumed his oral assault on that small nub above your entrance, sucking and licking at it until the only sound leaving your throat were feverish cries of his name, your hips involuntarily jerking against him. With each passing moment that Sanemi spent feasting between your legs, something began to mount behind your navel, like a coil being steadily wound tighter and tighter.

You thought it should concern you, this foreign feeling, but as that feeling intensified, so too did your desire to see what would happen when it — you — came undone.

You left one hand gripping harshly at the Wolf’s hair, in some pathetic attempt to keep his face locked against your core, and lifted the other to pinch and roll your breast. You jolted at the stimulation, feeling yourself grow even wetter despite the fervor with which Sanemi lapped and suckled at you.

This appeared to please him, as Sanemi’s free hand moved from your thought to grip at your hip, pressing you even closer to his face until you wondered whether he could breathe. If he could not, the Huntsman did not seem to mind; his groans and growls against your cunt only intensified.

Sanemi slid a second finger into you, and then a third, and the resulting stretch made you see stars, your toes curling in your boots.

That thing in your stomach seized even tighter and your entire body tensed, as though you were on a precipice merely awaiting a slight force to tip you over and sending you hurtling to the depths below.

Whatever was happening to you, the Wolf seemed to anticipate it; for the moment that tight coil within your belly unwound, Sanemi’s fingers pulled hurriedly out of your opening only to be replaced by his tongue, his teeth pressed against your pearl. He lapped up every drop of release that spilled forth, humming and growling as you rode his tongue through the waves of crippling pleasure coursing through you.

As you came down from your high with a breathy sigh of his name, Sanemi shuddered beneath you, a strangled groan lilting out from his mouth between lazy slurps at your cunt. Though your vision was hazy, you could see the faint whites of his eyes peeking through his lids as they rolled back into his head, his fingers tightening their grip on your thighs until it was painful, before releasing once more.

The mark on your neck burned but it was no longer in agony; instead, it felt warm, like a part of your body left too long in the summer sun. but the heat was not entirely unwelcome, especially as Sanemi untangled himself from you, allowing the chill of the late autumn wind to sweep in and lick at your exposed skin.

“That should hold us both over until tomorrow,” Sanemi said after a moment with a throaty chuckle. “Though I will be hard pressed to keep my hands off you, little Lamb.”

Sanemi’s hands eased your skirts back down over your legs. Once your nether region was covered, he helped you sit up, allowing you to cling to him for warmth as he refastened your stays and helped you lace your corset back up the front.

Gingerly, Sanemi brushed your hair back from the shoulder bearing his claim on you. You followed his line of sight, twisting slightly and saw what he did: the crescent-shaped mark, which had burned a violent lavender only minutes prior, had faded back to a pale silver, its ache apparently soothed for the time being.

Sanemi leaned forward and brushed his lips against your mark, his tongue flicking out to caress it as you felt that warmth flood your veins once more. With a moan, you tilted your head, exposing more of your neck again to him, begging him to repeat the action again and again, but Sanemi only drew back.

“Apologies, Lamb,” his eyes were dark once more, and his hands fidgeted at his sides. “Seeing that mark pulls at something within me.”

You allowed your hair to fall back over the crescent bite mark and in an instant, Sanemi’s eyes lightened and a sheepish grin spread across his face. “Wolves are territorial. Seeing your mark makes me want to claim you, even without regard to the danger surrounding us.”

You frowned for a moment. “Are you only drawn to me because you’ve marked me?”

Sanemi’s gaze softened. “I am drawn to you, you vexatious woman, because I find you brave, kind, and at times, even a little charming.”

His hand lifted to caress your cheek, tilting your head down to meet his for a gentle kiss. “The mark is only a physical manifestation of what I already feel towards you. It is simply a way to display our bond to the world.”

Sanemi’s face turned grave and the way he said your name was serious. “You do not have to accept the bond if you’ve changed your mind.”

You shook your head hurriedly. “I want the bond — I want you,” the sincerity of your words resonated with Sanemi, as he pulled your hand to his lips, pressing soft kisses against your fingers. “This is all new to me; I just wanted to know you were sure.”

Sanemi’s soft laugh made your heart thrum, and a blush spread across your cheeks. “I am certain, Lamb, that I would not want anyone else to cause me stress apart from you.”

With a quick peck against your lips, Sanemi rose, stretching his arms high above his head. The moonlight, coupled with the residual flames of the small campfire allowed you to rake your eyes over his lithe form, appreciating every scar and swell of muscle dotting his mouthwatering physique.

But your eyes snagged on a dark stain that had spread across the front of Sanemi’s breeches. “What —?”

Sanemi did not look embarrassed, but he did turn away from you nonetheless. “I told you, Lamb,” he said causually as he dug through the satchel, pulling out a spare pair of pants. “The mark affects me far more than it affects you; at least, for now.”

“That is because of me?” Your eyes trailed his form in wonder, and the sight of the stain made your thighs clench together though you knew not why. “Is that — is that your pleasure?”

Sanemi’s lopsided grin widened, a faint snicker on his lips as he regarded you once more, spread out atop his own traveling cloak. “Yes, Lamb. It is my pleasure.”

You looked up at him, head slightly cocked in question. “But I did nothing to you — not like you did to me.”

Sanemi removed his soiled breeches and re-dressed before returning to your side. “You did not need to; as I said, the mark affects me more than you right now. My body knows I have marked you as my mate, and it is eager to make you mine.”

You shivered at the possessiveness in the words and sat up as he leaned against the small boulder, reaching up over his shoulders to tug his tunic up over his head.

“So it was only the mark?” You asked slowly, eyes dropping down to where you knew his manhood lay under his clothing. “The mark brought you pleasure?”

Warm fingers gripped gently under your chin, forcing you to look back up and meet his piercing stare.

“No, sweetling,” Sanemi said, a low growl tinting his words. “It was not merely the mark. I took pleasure from giving you pleasure.” His thumb stroked the underside of your jaw. “A great deal of it, it seems.”

You shifted until you were on your knees before him, and even the dark of the night could not conceal the way Sanemi’s eyes darkened at the sight.

“Shall I give it back to you, my Wolf?” You whispered, leaning forward to graze your lips against the crotch of his breeches. “I should like to taste you as well.”

To your surprise, neither growl nor groan rumbled from the depths of Sanemi’s chest as you poked your tongue out between your lips and gently dragged it up the seam of his pants, just as he’d done to you. Instead, what fell from Sanemi’s lips was a low, breathy whine, the wolf’s head tipping back slightly as his eyes squeezed shut.

Below the barrier of his clothing, something between his legs began to stir. Curious, you brought your hand against it, palming him slightly through the material.

“Fuck,” Sanemi hissed, and the hand around your jaw tightened, forcing you to rise to your feet.

Sanemi cracked an eye open to glare at you, but he melted at your answering pout, his thumb running over the bottom lip you’d jutted out.

“I promise you, Lamb,” he said gruffly. “I will give you plenty of my pleasure once the full moon rises; so much so, you will not know what to do with it.”

Your curiosity disrupted your self-pity. “From your knot?”

“Aye,” Sanemi confirmed, his voice like gravel. “Speaking of which,” Sanemi then tapped your rear, eliciting a small yelp from you as you separated from him.

“If you’re truly committed to taking my knot, you will need your rest, you tempestuous woman,” Sanemi scolded, and before you could protest, he bent low, wrapping his formidable hands around the backs of your thighs and hoisted you up, forcing you to lock your legs around his waist with a small gasp.

Gently, Sanemi laid you out atop his traveling cloak, bracing himself on one steely arm next to your head as he lowered himself down, allowing one quick press of his lips against yours before he pulled away, stretching out on his side.

“We have a long day ahead of us tomorrow, and an even longer night.” There was a wicked gleam in his eyes that made you rub your thighs together, even as you scowled at him.

“I don’t suppose you will give me another taste of what to expect,” you sighed, resigned as Sanemi moved his head so that he could lazily dance his lips down the side of your neck.

“I’m afraid not,” his answering smirk was smug as you began to squirm beneath the hand idly fondling your breast. “But I shall make the wait worth your while.”

Your breath lodged in your throat as Sanemi leaned in close, his breath tickling your ear. “When we get to my den,” he promised, tone mischievous, yet you knew he meant every word that followed. “I am going to fucking devour you, little Lamb.”

Devour he will. Part II is fucking filthy. Stay tuned if you want to see her take his knot (again and again).

[idyllcy]

kinktober prompt 5: monsterfucking ft. Leon Kennedy

word count: 6.1k || Post re4 Plagas Lord Leon

warnings: dead dove: do not eat. monsterfucking, fingering, cunnilingus, plaga leon kennedy, tentacles, scorpion tail

summary: your mission is simple enough. bring Agent Kennedy back.

Your mission is simple.

Well, simple enough.

You're sent off back to the outskirts of Spain, off to find Agent Leon Kennedy, told that you are to retrieve him at all costs — even if all that was left of him was his jacket. You find that the branch needs him, considering that the president's daughter herself had been crying for them to save him. You're not one to say no when they're offering you more money than you could see in your life. What are you in the face of money when it comes to capitalism?

You're dropped off in a... village, and while the majority of the villagers have seemed to have grown a lot more welcoming compared to the intel that Hunnigan had provided, you're still on your toes, tilting your head, waving no to the strange delicacies they provide for you. You ask them if they happen to know an American, and they tell you no, pointing that maybe you should as their Lord about it. Whatever weird cult that was once set up has been disassembled, though everyone still looks very much... scary. At least you aren't being attacked by what Leon was getting attacked by.

You're handed a pack of gum by one of the guys with a chainsaw.

...okay.

Another man with a... cow head leads you past the mansion and into the route that leads to the castle, handing you off to a moving knight suit, your footsteps light behind him as he takes you around the outside and eventually to the welcome room. It? He? The knight nods at you, leaving you alone in the room as you glance up, hooded figure greeting you, your hand on your gun as you hold your breath.

"What brings you here?"

"You guys seen... an American?"

You watch as the man pulls off his hood, and your breath catches in your throat.

"...Agent Kennedy."

You try and do the math of just how Leon could end up like this, only remaining human features the blue eyes and faux blonde hair that you had been given a photo of. Purple streaks through his body and face, and though you can't see what's under his robe, you're sure that whatever the hell he's been infected with isn't just... the purple on his body. He's also, like, incredibly hot, whatever that means. You would curse yourself for such a thought, but to be fair, Hunnigan said it first.

"Agent." He nods. "Am I being retreived?"

"That is my order, yes. The first daughter misses you."

"It is a shame. I can not leave." He hums. "The villagers are tied to me."

"What? Are you going to try and sell me this immortality thing? They don't really expect me to go back, anyway." You tap your chin. "How's life here?"

"We make do."

"Please tell me you're actually eating edible things and not... whatever it is the villagers offered me earlier. Everything seems infected."

"You won't be able to eat anything here. I suggest you return."

"Truly?" You raise a brow. "Does money exist as a concept here?"

"Not quite. Unless you want a gun from the merchant."

"Can I eat anything?"

"The water is infected with the virus, and such is everything else. Though, there is a sanctuary in the castle with fish safe to eat."

"Raw?"

"You can try cooking it, though, it will not do you much better."

"What's my selection of food?" You raise a brow.

"Eggs, chicken, and fish. Specifically, bass."

You tap your chin. "Nothing else?"

"If you go fishing out on the coast, perhaps you will find something." He hums. 

"Are there... herbs?"

"You get three colors."

"What the hell?"

"I will show you. Let me descend—"

You hear some of the servants yell for him to stay up top, but he ignores them, opening the doors on the bottom as he nods for you to follow him, and you trail after, catching glance of a... tail that reminds you an eerie much of a scorpion, but you don't speak up on it. You follow him through some sort of a room, glancing at the servants as they turn the wheel, and you catch a glance of the back of Leon's head... bumps visible. You're not too sure if you want to think too much about it. To be fair, you're not a monsterfucker, but come on.. for Leon? Christ, what are you thinking?

You follow him out to a garden, glancing at the herbs grown, head tilting as he explains how it works and how there's a lack of the feeling of hunger, grinding it and holding it out to you, brow raised.

"What do I drink? What water can I drink?"

"The fountain." He points at the fountain, letting you step up to it and drink from it, pleasantly surprised when you find that it's not disgusting. You wonder if there's some sort of weird magic in this little plot in the middle of the castle. Yet, you continue drinking, filling your pouch as you follow Leon, letting him give you a tour of the place. It's in a lot better shape than what Ashley had described to you, and you follow Leon to the back area to the throne room. It's a little... lacking in functionality, having a knight room, a ballroom the size of a football field, a nice library but somehow no bedroom. Do they not sleep?

"You're still human, so you'll be sleeping, and I'll have the servants arrange for a bed for you."

"Do you not sleep?"

"No."

"Is the skin... from the plaga?"

"Yes."

You purse your lips. The skin of a killer, Leon. You have the skin of a kille— You slap a hand over your mouth when a laugh escapes you.

He raises a brow.

"Sorry." You mumble. "I'm supposed to take this seriously, I know."

"You won't be able to stay here for long."

"No, they barely care, I think." You hum. "What do you do in your day to day?"

"Not much."

"Nothing at all?"

"I read in the library."

"Wow, they sure didn't tell me you're a reader in the report." You mumble.

"There isn't much else to do." He mumbles. 

"Baking?"

"With what in the middle of Spain?"

"True, huh?" You huff. "A phone."

"It's 2006."

"Chess?"

"I keep winning."

"Wow, okay, wow." You huff. "Nothing else to do?"

"Shooting range."

"That's oddly... in the left field."

"Gets boring after you master the weapons."

"Um. Um. Um?????" You furrow your brows. "I'm out of ideas."

"Mhm. You sure you still want to stay?"

"Mm..." You pause to think. "Well, I mean... yeah, I'm out of ideas."

You're not telling Leon you want to jump his bones despite the weird bumps in the back of his head.

"So how does being a plaga work? Is it like... dogs? Wrong. Scorpions? Not that I would know."

"Would you like to visit the lab?"

"Depends. Does it include those freaks with insane jiggle physics?" You pause. "Ashley warned me about them."

"Regenerators." He nods. "They won't do anything with me there."

"You don't need servants?" You tilt your head. "Or does the infection give you an insane buff?"

"I am the lord of the island now. No one can go against my word." He holds a hand out to help you onto the lift, and you take it, surprised at how cold he is.

"You're so cold."

"It is the plaga."

You follow him to the other part of the island, passing just about everything humanly possible, down to the lab where the plaga had been created, reading through the files that "Luis" had left behind, details of how the amber had been procured and everything else. Leon sits on the bed behind you, watching you tilt your head and mumble to yourself, flipping through the entirety of the journal.

"This doesn't explain behavior." You huff. "Do impulses change?"

"Luis didn't have much time to study that." He watches as you turn around, tilting your head as you stare at Leon. "What?"

"Somehow, the plaga didn't change your face like it usually does." You hum. "What changes behavior wise?"

"I do not hunger anymore. Well, occasionally for flesh, but not as much since I hold the dominant species."

"That's awfully... I'm not gonna say it."

"Yes, it does have BDSM undertones." Leon shakes his head. "Since I am the dominant species, I also have a mating season."

You jump in your skin at the casual confession.

"Typically, I kick all the servants out and tear down a room in the castle." He raises a brow at you. "Why are you looking at me like that?"

You raise a brow, licking your lips as you shrug. "Just curious. Our entire unit always thought you were quite the looker, you know?"

"They weren't quiet with it. Does the body horror not phase you?"

"Not quite as much as you'd expect it to." You go back to Luis' journal. "Ah, you transform when you mate."

"Slightly. The robe comes off and the tail stays out, not to mention the tentacles on my back."

You raise a brow as you try and imagine that.

"Tentacles?"

"They grow out of my back. Think of it like fairy wings, only instead of wings, it's tentacles."

"Ah, so like the guy you defeated before sending the president's daughter back." You pause to think. "How interesting. Was it on purpose?"

"The plaga just happened to develop that way."

"Can I... see?" You raise a brow, surprised when Leon ditches the robe nearly immediately, causing you to throw the book in front of your eyes. You open an eye to look at his back, glad to see that he's at least somewhat clothed underneath, only lacking a shirt. You glance at the tentacles, letting him turn back to face you as he moves them. You reach for one carefully, slimy and strange against your hand, watching as it curls around your arm, free hand reaching to touch it and grab its end, observing the ends, blinking at it when you realize it's truly just an octopus' tentacle without the suction. 

Though, Leon watches you, eyes dark and smile on his face, a strangely threatening vibe coming from him as you play with the tentacle, letting it squeeze your arm gently, tip tapping your finger as you tilt your head, shaking it to have it let go. He complies, reaching for the robe, wondering if he has sated your curiosity. Yet, when he finds that you're still staring at him, he wonders just what you're curious about. It seems the government hadn't told you that the last agent sent had been eaten alive by him during mating season. Quite the opposite from how nature would have it, but still perhaps a warning.

They must really want him home.

"What?"

"Do you have fangs?"

"My canines are sharper, but not fangs." He bares his teeth for you, making not move to push you off as you step up to stare at him.

He could swallow you whole.

"Can I touch?"

"Be careful. They're still sharp."

Your hand reaches for the corner of his mouth, pushing his upper lip upward and bottom lip downward, opening your own mouth out of instinct to stare at his. He can feel your breath on his, watching as you crane your neck further to stare at his teeth, swapping your thumb with your index as your thumb brushes at it. He worries that he'll cut you on accident, but you don't seem to care, licking your upper teeth as he copies you instinctually, tongue sticking out and surprising you.

"Lizard tongue."

"Correct." He hums. "Scary?"

"Surprising." You let go, taking two steps back as you pick the journal back up. "Well, obviously it'd be rude of me to ask you how genitals work or have changed, and looking from Luis' journal, nothing much has changed."

"Does the government know you aren't going back?"

"There isn't any signal in the castle. Shouldn't you know?" You tilt your head. 

He smiles. "It's been a while. I left Ashley with the communicator."

"I figured." You flip to the final two pages of the journal, blinking up at Leon as you step behind him, observing the bumps on his head. "You can control the villagers?"

"That's how the dominant plaga works." He nods. 

"Do you control libido?"

"Is that any question to be asking someone you just met?"

"Apologies." You hold both hands up, flipping to the final page. "How fun. Mating season's close."

"What month is it?"

You smile. "Happy September."

Despite it all, you find that Leon's pleasing to be around, English not forgotten, snap of his fingers holding more power than anything else, showing you around the maze and the dogs, hand held in front of you calmly as he scolds the dog, and you watch in awe as it imitates a whimper, tail tucked between its legs as Leon lowers himself to ruffle its fur. You're not allowed to touch it in case the plaga infects you, but you have a fun time watching as Leon shows you how the door unlocks itself. Though, he tells you it remains unlocked now that you have the need of hopping from one side to the other in order to access your food.

The fish isn't all that bad either. 

You get used to it surprisingly fast, no food poisoning in sight when Leon shows you how to prepare it raw, brow raised amusedly when it happens. 

You also find ways to entertain the two of you, hiding behind pillars to play hide and seek in the ballroom, running around the halls to play tag, most of which has you questioning if life has really gotten to this point, but not enough that you would stop. You also play chopsticks with Leon, occasionally helping out the servants in bathing him. Leon checks for scrapes and unhealed wounds before you do, fingers gentle on your skin as he lets you sit with him in the bath, your fingers gentle and the soap on your hands as you play with the tentacles.

He wonders if you don't seem to mind that he's nude.

You've brought more entertainment since arriving anyway, letting his tentacles play with you as the servants tend to his skin.

"I'm surprised you haven't gotten disgusted yet."

"It's just some tentacles." You scoop the water in the bucket to rinse his back. "Not super scary once you get used to it. Luis' journal definitely helped too."

"Mm." He hums. "You ever learned ballroom dancing?"

"No." You pause. "Well, if you count that one lesson I got as an Agent for that one undercover mission, then yes, but other than that, no."

"You got that too?"

"Yeah. It was one of my first missions." You let go of the tentacles as Leon retracts them, waving at them as Leon dismisses the rest of the servants.

"Would you dance in the ballroom?"

"Well, we could do that, but with what music?"

"Silence."

"My dead phone?"

"We can charge it."

"My half-broken mp3, a CD, and a dream."

"I can send someone to buy one."

"When they look like that?"

"You'd be surprised at how little some of the neighboring cities care."

"Well, there wouldn't be speakers either. It's alright. We can dance in silence."

"Nothing else?"

"Not that we really need anything else." You tap your chin, making the motion to step out of the tub to dry yourself off. 

If you notice the way Leon stares at you when you do, you don't make mention of it.

"So? Dancing tomorrow?"

"Why not tonight?"

"Oh, under the stars? I didn't peg you to be such a romantic, Leon." You raise a brow. "I'm not in clothes suitable for dancing, you know?"

"You don't need a skirt for that."

"Didn't say a skirt." You step out of the room to let the servants dress him, staring out the window as you stare at Leon's room. Lack of bedrooms, yet somehow still a room with a bed. Two rooms, considering that yours is just across. Though, this is more of a formality. He has a nest, for all you seem to understand. The bed is for when he needs some rest... and for when you complain about your back hurting in that other bed. You don't know.

You settle yourself on his duvet to stare into nothing as you wait for him to get dressed. 

You need to touch grass — real grass. Not whatever was by the fountain where you would fetch your own food. Leon seems adamant about keeping you human despite your lack of resistance to the idea of getting infected. You're starting to think the villagers' stew might actually taste somewhat good, but you're not risking anything. Maybe all you'll think about when you're infected is how to serve Leon. Would you be a regular handmaiden then? You're not too sure. He seems to enjoy having a human in the house. Maybe he was a freak like that.

You thank the servant when she drapes a blanket over you.

"Let's go." Leon offers a hand, and you tilt your head. 

"Oh, you were serious."

"If you're cold, we can move back here to dance too."

"Very well." You tuck the blanket around you like a shawl, taking his hand as he squeezes it. You wonder just what dancing has to do with whatever has happened, impromptu question leading you to be back in the garden with Leon, his hand on your waist as you sway with him under the moon. You wonder if there's a reason behind this. Is there? Is he just bored to the point that he would resort to recreating one of your first classes in the command for nostalgia?

"Is this mating related—"

"I'm surprised you caught on so fast." Leon spins you gently, humming. "Yes."

"For the plaga or for scorpions?"

"Typically scorpions, but occasionally plaga. The submissive species doesn't need to do a courtship dance to please the bug."

"And you do?" You sneeze after, sniffling. "Can we go in? May we? Please, Lord Leon?"

He shakes his head, pressing your hand to his lips.

"Gotta kiss you so the bug's pleased."

"Are tentacles going to come out of your mouth."

"No." He shakes his head. "Are you into that?"

"Can't say. Never tried." You press your palm to his cheek, giving him a quick kiss. "Will that suffice?"

"We will see."

Leon grows increasingly more protective of you as the month progresses. You consult Luis' research to find out what it is, unsurprised that it's mating-related, but worried that it would mean that Leon had the chance of consuming you. You wonder if he cums sperm pouches like actual scorpions. That would be quite a situation to be in. Though, you wouldn't be surprised if just decided to lock himself in the clock tower during mating season for his people's sake. The villagers seem to like him a lot.

You bite on the end of the herb, mocking a bow with an imaginary cowboy hat, tilting your head when one of the castle workers point out at the gate.

"Mating season?" You tilt your head.

He tilts his head.

"...animales." You pause. Maybe you shouldn't have spaced out in high school Spanish.

He nods, gesturing at the gate, reaching for your wrist as you catch a flash, the man yelling in agony.

You look to the side... raising a brow.

Ah. Leon. 

This is not... only shirtless. He seems to have evolved as well.

You wave the servant off, staying still as Leon stares you down, undressing you with his eyes, smiling with way too many teeth for comfort. You glance at the way that he's got more than one scorpion tail, only humanoid part of him his face and somewhat... human-looking legs. You wonder when he had decided you were to be his mate, watching as the tentacles are much more visible, skin bare and clothes practically ripped. He seems to have sized up as well. Your neck almost hurts from looking at him.

"What's going in? Is this your mating form?" You don't move as the tentacle finds your waist, loosening your arms from its grip as it picks you up. You lift your legs out of instinct, bracing yourself as he bounces off from the ground, crawling through the opened clock tower and down to the place he had called his nest, the small area right before the opening to head to the labs. You're placed down gently as Leon sizes down back to what you're used to, collapsing on you as you glance at him.

"Apologies in advance."

"Huh—" You yell as he bites into your shoulder, drawing blood as you wince, struggling against his grasp as he pants. 

"There you go."

Your nails dig into his shoulders for support, letting Leon settle you into the mattress that he's placed in the middle of his nest so kindly, pulling your own clothes off out of a fear that he would ruin it. There was little to wear in the castle that would fit you and wouldn't feel dirty on your skin, so you valued whatever you had come wearing. You toss everything to the side, breeze uncomfortable on your bare skin as Leon presses his lips to your jaw, quiet humming rumbling on your skin. 

"You alright?"

"Are you always this gentle during mating?"

"No." He huffs. "I'm going to stop talking in a bit. The... bug is quite strong."

"Well, luckily for you, I'll do just about anything you ask me to." You hum, pressing your lips to his jaw, purring against him as he stares. "As long as you don't kill me."

"I'll stop the bug before it gets to do that." He purrs against you, prying your legs open as you stare down at him, relaxing your body as he opens his mouth, tongue rolling out as he moves his tentacles to slide around your legs, lips pressed to your clit as he sucks, earning a whimper from you. You reach for something to grab onto, nails digging into the mattress as Leon closes his mouth over your pussy, tongue darting between your folds slithering its way in your walls, your breath choking past your lips as you wince, yelping as you feel his tongue brush against your cervix gently, Leon retracting it a little for the sake of your body. 

It wasn't as if mating season was one day. It was a while, even if he was able to control his urges for the most part, he wouldn't want to hurt you or wear you out first day. So, he settles with swirling his tongue in you, which you squirm over, unused to such a feeling, but quickly replaced with muffled moans as he finds a proper pace, hands now clawed as he holds you down by the waist, tentacles holding your legs in place as you squirm. You whimper at the feeling of his claws on top of his tongue, hands flying to your face as your back arches, seeing white as you gush on his tongue, quiet cries from your lips as he sucks, tilting your hips up to lick at the rest of your cum dripping, tongue licking his face as he blinks up at you.

"Still good?"

"Mmm." You pause. "Will you fit?"

"We're going to need more than just one if you want me inside, sweetheart."

You try your best at a pout, sighing as you relax yourself back into the mattress, biting your cheek as he slides a finger inside with ease, texture catching you off guard, Leon's name flying past your lips as he leans over to kiss your cheek, cooing into your ear as he lets you grow adjusted to the feeling of his finger inside. You let Leon know to loosen his grip on your legs, letting you set them down as he presses his chest to yours, nipping on your ear as he finally moves his finger.

You curl yourself against him, voice breathy and patchy as he does, his breath in your ear as he hums quietly. Vibrations to soothe you, you suppose, but it won't do much if your head is already clouded. You let him take his time, finger textured in you, free hand resting on your lower abdomen, sitting up as you whimper, head thrown back as he curls his finger in you. It feels foreign, and though you shouldn't be surprised, you find yourself with your head thrown back and nails in the mattress, whimper spilling past your lips as his thumb finds your clit, gentle circles drawn with your bundle of nerves as you tremble.

At one point, he's tilting your head to kiss him, glass-stained eyes and half-lidded eyes earning a groan from Leon's lips, pretty head lost in something long forgotten. You wonder what it'd feel like while infected, but you're sure Leon would rather die to your hand than find out. Besides, the post-sex clarity would hit eventually, though not that it would matter to you at any point. His lips are bitter against yours, and your judgment has long been clouded, whining into his mouth at the feeling of a second finger, stretching you out. Your mouth opens almost instinctively, whining as he nips at your jaw.

"Feel good?"

"Mm." You mumble, eyes closing as he hums.

"Good girl."

Your head spins deliciously from his voice, fingers mean against your cunt as you whine, other hand finding your back, chest flush against yours as he laps at the bite from earlier, cooing into your ear when you tighten around him, your hands flying to find anything to hold onto, nails digging into his shoulders as he draws another one out of you, cheeks warm with your tears as he licks at it. Despite everything, he's still cooing in your ear, sliding his fingers out of you with a squelch ashe presses them to your lips.

"Come on, pretty baby."

You part your lips apprehensively, tongue stuck out as he rests his fingers on it, watching you as you swirl your tongue around it, arousal pooling further in your legs as your eyes roll back. You feel dirty, whimpering around his fingers as he shifts his hips to press his errection against your clit, fabric of his pants rough against your nub as you squirm. He rolls it against you a second time until he finds that the bug in his chest is far too impatient to wait, licking his fingers to stretch you out one last time, laying you back onto the plush to free his cock from the confines of his pants. The bug's ringing gets louder as it would, Leon furrowing his brows as you tilt your head at him.

"Plaga."

"Does it want me dead?"

"No." He whispers, lining his hips with yours, sighing. "If it hurts, there's a knife to the side."

You glance at where he points, and you nod. "Will it hurt?"

"Doesn't matter. It'll wake me."

You nod slowly.

You tilt your hips as Leon slides in slowly, size dizzying for your head, breath stuck in your throat as you shift against him to get used to the sizing. The tentacles hold you in place and wrap around your waist, his hand finding yours to ground you as you gasp for air, lightheaded and ditzy as his thumb brushes the side of your navel. You wonder if he's waiting for some sort of affirmation to move, as you reach up for his neck, ignoring the way his skin brushes against your arms.

Leon doesn't speak anymore, opting to just fuck you instead, snap of his hips into yours rough as you gape for air, arms around his neck as his hips buck into yours relentlessly, giving you no space for air as you cling onto him instead, body tense and chest pressed to his as you close your eyes. The lack of words makes the sound of his skin against yours alarming, but you hear his breath in your ear, enough to ground you to a certain extent. His size is hard to get used to, your head ringing each time he thrusts up into you, tentacles sliding down your waist alongside his hands. It feels weird. 

Yet, your back arches as he lifts himself off of you slightly, hand moving down to press down on where he would be inside of you, lightning jolting up your spine as you whimper, pressure making your head spin, texture sending your head into a spiral. He lets out a grunt in approval as you tighten around him from the gesture, your breath stuck in your throat still. Any longer and you would be gone, you fear. Yet, the asphyxiation is sickeningly delicious to your head, too blissed out to care if this is how you'll go out. You wonder if this is how all of the girls feel when it's mating season and Leon has to fuck something.

There's a lack of skin and a texture of his hand now, starting to feel colder, and when you peer open an eye to look, Leon's fingers are mostly gone, replaced with darker claws. You wonder if this is an effect of the plaga, too heaven-struck to care, moving your head back to look at him, red eyes catching you off guard as he angles himself to brush your g-spot, eyes rolling back with a whine from your lips. 

You'd make a joke about how it's giving 2013 Harry Styles Wattpad fanfiction, but in the state that you're in, you can hardly get the thought to form. His claws dig into your waist and draw blood, wounds fresh on your waist as you hiss, whimpering as Leon opens his mouth to bite your jaw, your head spinning. Too much. It's too much. You cum without warning, mouth open and eyes wide as you struggle under him, walls raw and sensitive from the taste of ecstasy, white stuck in your vision as you cry. Your legs squirm as Leon forces his chest further into you, hands flying for anything you can grab, one hand nailing into his back as the other finds a tail. Namely, the scorpion tail, and you tug on it, earning Leon's gasp and an immediate orgasm. The tentacles tighten around you as warmth sticks to your walls and he gasps, eyes blue nearly immediately, collapsing on top of you as you blink, wide-eyed at the revelation.

Fuck the fact that you just saw white and had the best orgasm of your life, did Leon just cum from his tail being pulled on?

You heave as Leon pulls himself off and out of you, head thrown back as he sits up, blinking slowly as you blink up at him.

"What happened?"

You give him a sly little grin, climbing on top of him as you shimmy to get the tentacles off of you, Leon complying as you take the knife, pressed to his throat as he tilts his head back, raising a brow as you reach for his tail, giggle on your lips as you stroke it. Leon squirms under your hand, and you hum.

"That's what happened."

His hands find your waist, running them up and down as he blinks at you.

"You alright?"

"I'm fine." You nod. "You?"

"You should get water." He rasps.

"Your throat doesn't sound any better." 

"It's fine." He whispers. "I can live without it."

You reach over him for your pouch, unscrewing it as you press the water to your lips, swallowing it as you wipe at your mouth, free hand finding his jaw as you force it open.

"Swallow."

Leon sticks his tongue out for the water, swallowing as you command, licking his lips as you reach over to put the water back. He takes the chance to rest his hands on your back, tongue finding your chest as he sucks, free hand pinching at the other one as you whimper, lashes fluttering. You hold yourself still, fingers finding his hair as he swirls his tongue. You try and get off of him, fingers tightening around his hair as he holds you still, biting down on your nipple gently, teeth grazing the buds as you shiver.

"Leon."

He hums against your skin, raising a brow as you look down at him, pulling yourself back up as he lets go of you.

"What's wrong?"

"Are you still?"

"It's a continual process." He whispers. "Until I am satiated."

"Will it be soon?"

"Just one more for me." He hums. "I'll let you rest after it."

You agree begrudgingly, letting him press his fingers into you again, looking much more human than before, tail still evident and tentacles still looming over you, but his body looks far more human than you have ever seen. He looks like his picture again, you think. You find it a little strange to see a lack of purple in his veins, taking the chance to press your thumb to them as he breathes quietly. 

"You're human."

"Not often." He whispers. "Can I have you again?"

"I agreed when I danced with you, Leon." You whisper. "Have me all you want. Kill me if you want to."

"I won't."

"I know you won't." You whisper.

Leon kisses at your jaw again, whispers gentle in your ear as he holds you, careful to not cut you with his claws as he holds your head.

"Did I hurt you?"

"No." You whisper back. "Your claws hurt, but <i>you</i> didn't hurt me."

"You ought to stab me next time." He brushes the wound on your hips. 

"Quite a domestic turn, huh?" You laugh as Leon slides his pointer down to curl inside of you, claws uncharacteristically sharp yet gentle inside of you. You shift your hips, curious as to what Leon could possibly need to check with his finger when you've got his cum dripping out your pussy, his finger squelching with each movement he makes.

"Yes." He mumbles. "Can't have you dying on me."

"Is the plaga sated?"

"More than sated." He slides his finger out, lips pressed to your shoulder gently as he hums. "So just me this time, alright?"

"Of course." You let him shift until you're lined up, letting you lower yourself onto him as you adjust to the size. Too big, still. You wrap your arms around his neck and flutter around him, earning a groan from Leon. 

The tip of his cock sits snug against your cervix, your body trembling as you become aware of it. You hadn't felt it earlier from how hard your head was spinning, but you try not to think about it, lashes fluttering as you hold him to your chest his face smushed between your tits as he glances down at where the two of you connect. You <i>swear</i> you feel him twitch inside of you.

"You alright?"

He muffles back an affirmative, rolling his hips against yours gently. His arms wrap around your waist as he thrusts up into you, staring up from your chest as he drinks in the way your brows furrow. He's careful not to scratch you more, fingers curled into fists against your back instead of out, angling his hips to brush all your sensitive spots, the drag of his cock inside of you drunkening. You babble his name and roll it off your tongue like a devotion, vision spotty as he holds your arms on your back, you name stumbling past his own lips like a broken prayer. 

There's a wondering if you should be devoting yourself to Leon, taking him as your lord, taking him as your savior. You wouldn't be against it, eyes closing and brows furrowing as you feel him twitch inside of you, speeding up to chase his own high as one of his fingers finds your clit. He sends you tumbling down first, body shaking in his grasp as the coil in your back snaps, gushing and trembling around Leon as he chases his own high, pretty praises easy on his lips for you. Your head spins as he spills into you once more, arms tightening around you as he does. 

His forehead rests on your chest, and your vision clears as you stare up at the ceiling.

 "You back?" 

The feeling of circles on your lower back brings you back to reality. 

"Mm." You hum. "Spinny."

"Do you want your bed?"

"Is the castle empty?"

"Always is this season. I only brought one here because it's where I spend mating season."

"I thought you tore rooms down."

"Stopped doing that after a while." He hums. "Do you want to go back?"

"'m too sleepy." You let him set you back down on the bed, your fingers gentle against his face as you look at him. "Night, Leon."

"Sleep well, sweetheart."

When Leon's sure you've knocked out, he sends a tentacle over to grab your device, stepping away from you and setting you down from his arms, stepping outside of the ballroom to the dock, radio pressed to his ear as he glances at the boat. The night breeze rustles his hair, and he feels more human than he has in the past years. Hunnigan did him right for once.

"Hey."

"She alright?"

"In one piece." He exhales. "Send some liquor in the next shipment."

"If she's not dead, then we won't need to send anything else."

He glances at the boat. "He's turned docile."

"You can get rid of him."

"I'd need her to be awake for that."

"Is she out?"

"Just sleeping."

"Wake her."

"Can't. Drew too much out of her."

"First time you've actually used a recruit, huh? Glad I can just mark her as MIA and not dead for once. Will you back once it's out?"

"Mm, most likely not. I'm getting used to life here. They think I'm dead, don't they?"

"They don't know."

"Keep it that way. Mark her as dead too."

The voice goes silent on the line.

"Get us some new passports and identities, and we'll go back."

"We?"

"A dead man can't marry, Hunnigan."

"That's awfully quick of you."

"Not taking my chances. No one just falls in love unconditionally like that."

"Well, aren't you lucky."

A chuckle.

"So?"

"I'll see what I can do."

[istadris]

Luigi's harem reactions to Luigi wearing this dress.

We all know he'd slay in this dress.

Okay so :

Daisy was the one to get him the dress. She convinced him half as a joke, just to prove him he could look very pretty in a dress he didn't borrow from Peach, but she didn't expect him to look so hot. She feels like she's unleashed a monster and is very okay with the idea of being a monsterfucker.

It's rare to see Peasley completely speechless but Luigi is witnessing it when the prince sees him wearing that dress. It takes a full minute before Peasley regains the use of words, and what he says leaves Luigi even more blushing than when he first put on the dress.

Bowser doesn't say anything either. Just punches a wall, walks towards Luigi, grabs him and bride-carry him toward his clown car or ship. What he does next is not suitable for minors but the dress isn't salvageable after that. "It's okay, I'll get you the same," Bowser mumbles while nuzzling a dazzled Luigi post-coït.

King Boo first mistakes Luigi for someone else (Luigi had his back to him when he entered the bedroom) and started yelling about how he might be a villain but he isn't some cheating hoe, he has a nemesis, thank you very much-"wait Luigi is that you ??" Yes he's a bit slow on the update and yes his first thought is how pretty Luigi would look in a painting, but also he wants to lavish him in the finest luxuries of the hotel/mansion because if Luigi dresses as a princess, he deserves the best a king has to offer.

Antasma is very fanciful but he's also a big prude so when he catches a peak of Luigi's hips, he almost trips over himself and his screech creep back in his words despite trying to look cool. Absolute loser of a bat.

Dimentio spends several minutes babbling in incomprehensible metaphors about how Luigi's forms are sublimed by the dress to the point it's hard to say if he's nice or mocking, and it takes Luigi almost leaving out of impatience before he backpedals and runs after the green bean insisting it was a compliment.

[yume-fanfare]

i would've started it with someone's car breaking down in the middle of nowhere though, so they have no choice but to spend the night in mysterious scary mansion

the detco story starts in such a classic conan way i love it

[bettyfrommars]

Part 4: My Name is Eddie

a continuation of the Gargoyle Eddie story

masterlist

18+ONLY

⚠️smut, monsterfugging, unprotected sex, gore, mention of a decapitated head, a murder, oral for all, size kink, Eddie wears glasses, Eddie is a demon and a gargoyle, creampie, language barrier, true love, impossible love. wc: 2.1k

This part takes place shortly after the events of part 3. Thank you to everyone who has encouraged this story, and to my talented friends Somna and Drac for the amazing gargoyle Eddie artwork they did here and here.

Please remember, this is monsterfucking.

--------

“Eddie?” You stifled a laugh.  “Centuries of years old and your name is…Eddie?”

You flipped back a page in the delicate binding of the antique, leather-bound book, trying to decipher the syllables of his ancient language.  You’d just been for a swim in the secluded lake behind the mansion to wash the blood off from Eddie’s latest kill. 

Your ex was dead, and while his heart pumped the last of his blood from his body, you watched Eddie’s face shift from rage to uncertainty as he wondered if he’d crossed a line and now, he was too much for you.  His black tail dripped with blood, and he'd held the severed head by the hair; tendrils of guts hanging down as the eyes twitched one last time.  

You were more worried about Eddie than anything. The defined, smooth muscles under his stone-gray flesh flexed tight and did not release as he searched your face with caution. His wings that had once been stretched out wide as a threat, fell slowly down, disarmingly so.

You went to him then, with your arms out, and Eddie’s clawed fingers released the decapitated head to pick you up into his embrace so that your legs wrapped around him.  You felt the viscous blood connect your chest to his with a sticky smack, but you didn’t care. You didn’t care that you were naked with your gargoyle lover who just murdered a man right in front of your eyes. You ran your fingers lovingly down one of his horns from the tip to the base, and then pushed some of his dark hair behind his pointed ear.  

You put your forehead to his and rubbed your noses together.  With a deep voice, he said something in his language, and even though you’d been doing your best to try and learn, it was a difficult task, and you could only speak and understand a few words.

You could’ve sworn he said, “I’m sorry,” but you weren’t sure, and your mouth found his, to seal his words in, to let him know that everything would be alright.

Now, as you sat across from him on a blanket under a tree near the lake, you asked him again, just to be sure.  

“Eddie?” You liked saying it.  You’d been calling him Goyle for so long, you felt bad for not knowing his full name, especially considering all  you had been through already, and how often he came inside of you.

He had a pair of reading glasses perched on his demon nose and he looked over the top of them at you to give a few slow nods of his head.  In his huge hand was a children's alphabet book—he wanted to learn to understand you, as well.  More so, he wanted to communicate to you how much he loved you, and he wanted to be able to comprehend the stories that you read to him at night by the fire.  

He did his best pronunciation of “my name is Eddie,” in that deep, guttural voice of his, and it made you smile so big—he was doing so good.

You were so proud, you took his book from him and crawled up into his lap.  Eddie had a huge beach towel around his hips, and you were naked under a big, oversized shirt.  

This was the fourth pair of glasses you’d had to get for him because they kept breaking.  You had to teach him how to treat delicate things, and train him not to accidentally poke one of his claws through the lens.  When you got him really relaxed, his claws would retract and sink back into the beds of his fingers like a cat.  

When your hand slotted under his ears to kiss him, you wondered—not for the first time—how you would introduce him to some of the other people in your life.  You were also struck with the realization that maybe that would never happen; maybe it would be just you and Eddie forever.  You didn’t have any close family left, but you did miss a few of your friends.  What would they think about your gargoyle Eddie?  You’d been successfully able to placate a few emails and phone calls because everyone knew you had been through a lot.  You worried about the day that one of them would come looking for you unexpectedly, much like your ex had.

But now, you could feel him getting hard as you sat in his lap, and you gave him a sheepish grin before slinking down on your knees to remove the towel.  His unholy manroot was the size of a forearm, and you couldn’t fit it all in your mouth on the best of days, but you always did your best.

He watched you wrap your hand around the base to pull the straining length toward you.  Being that he was a gargoyle, Eddie was completely hairless and stone-smooth, and you knew you could get one of his balls in your mouth, so that is what you did first.  He sat propped up against the big tree trunk, grunting at how good it felt as your tongue worked in circles around the soft skin, sucking it in your cheeks like it was a round, jawbreaker candy.

You worked your way with kisses back up the shaft and flicked your tongue at the big vein and up the slit at the head.  There was precious, demon pre-cum there now and so you sucked and wrapped your lips around the tip, offering a few fluttering licks.  When you looked up, you saw that he was watching you from under hooded eyes, lips parted.

You spat a few times on the head, and then ran the saliva around with your tongue, enjoying the soft whimper he let out.  “My King,” you mewed, right before the tip disappeared inside your mouth, stretching your lips to their max as you went down as far as you could.  Your hand worked in tandem, like an extension of your mouth, your tongue swirling whenever it reached the top.

Your eyes watered a bit as you sent it to the back of your throat, and Eddie bucked his hips at the sensation.  His cock was messy with your saliva, and when you pulled off, he liked the way your spit collected in your mouth for him.

You noticed his breathing catch and you could feel his balls tighten up close to his body as one hand massaged them.  He told you he was about to cum in his own language, growling, and you jerked the tip, holding your mouth open.  

The first hot spurt hit your lips, and then you closed your mouth down over it, swallowing, jerking him, moaning with soft pulls of hunger for every last bit your man had to give.  

You cleaned him up, not wanting to miss a drop, and afterwards, you took a nap together on the blanket under the tree with Eddie spooning you from behind, one of his massive arms caging you in and locking you against him.  The cool, early evening breeze hit your face and woke you a little first, but then you heard Eddie groan as his pelvis twitched against your backside.  The air smelled like alfalfa and sun kissed skin and the metallicity of wet earth. 

His voice deep and hot against  your ear, he whispered something in his language that sounded like a question, and you nodded, even though you didn’t understand.  His fingers scraped up your thigh, pushing up  your tee shirt so he could rub his growing length against your slit.  He kissed down your neck and your shoulder, coaxing you with his hands to take off the shirt altogether, which you did, and then his hand sank between your legs to find your cunt.  

You arched back against him, mouth open.  You were drowsy but ready as he worked the head of his beastly cock along your wet offering, talking dirty to you in that breathless way you loved—even though you couldn’t decipher any of it.  

Still on your side, he lifted your top leg up with one strong arm so he could line himself up with your hole.  When he sank the tip in, you pushed against him and his long, black tongue came out to flick the shell of your ear.  Your fingers came down to work your clit, to help open up for him as your tight entrance squeezed around his tip with resistance.

“Let me in, my Queen.  Let me have you,” he murmured in his language.  

You were already soaked, dripping down your ass, but even then—it took your muscles a second to expand.  

“Take me, take all of me,” you begged, arching your hips back so that he sank in even more.  You brought your hand up to grab onto one of his horns and turned your head to kiss him.  

You felt Eddie shiver at the way you took him; he braced himself and held your leg in the air as his muscular hips began to work.  You could feel the intensity in his cat-like brown eyes as he met your gaze; he wanted to see the look on your face when he filled you up like no one else ever could.  You whimpered his name over and over and bit your lip and pulled his head down so the tip of his tongue could dance along yours.  

“Fuck,” you gasped, desperately, finding that sweet spot on your clit again, feeling the stretch with your fingers from where he was splitting  you.  Your sex made wet smacking noises as they met and your body jerked from the force of it. 

Eddie flipped you over onto your back and pulled your legs up in the air so that your upper back and head were the only parts of you on the ground.  On his knees, he buried his face in your cunt, smelling deeply first, running his nose through your folds, and then he sucked at your bundle of nerves, pushing his tongue inside, lifting his eyes to look at your face—to make sure you liked it.

“Eddie I love you,” but you said it in his language, so it sounded more like “me is loving you Eddie” but he understood.

He lowered your hips enough so that his cock lined up with your hole again, and your feet were at his shoulders, draped in his dark hair.  

He stared down, locking eyes with you, and you saw that familiar softness there; the centuries of loneliness and yearning.  “Need…my Queen… inside.”

He could’ve been meaning to say so many different things, and they all touched your heart.  Just then he sent his throbbing cock in balls deep with a passionate thrust, making you arch your head back with a curse. You heard the crunch of another pair of Eddie’s glasses breaking, but at that moment it didn’t matter. 

He licked his thumb and worked your spot with the right pressure and speed—knowing you were close by the way you milked his cock in fluttering pulses.  He bent forward slowly as he fucked, just far enough so he could take your face in his hand and rub his thumb along your cheek. You moved to kiss his massive palm that was almost the size of your head.

“This is love?” He said it in the form of a question, and you wondered if he’d meant to, but you answered anyway, nodding.

“Yes, Eddie, this is love.”

He swallowed hard, dragging his fingers away from your face as if it pained him to do so, and then the thrusting continued slow and deep. He rocked that spot deep inside of you over and over, making fireworks explode behind your eyes.

“Fuck Eddie baby I’m gonna--oh god,” you said it all in one breath just as he snapped his hips against you, urging you with those ancient words, promising that no other man or monster would ever have you--you were his for eternity.  

Your pussy rippled around his fat cock, dripping with desire, as you spasmed and wailed.  Eddie came close to you again, bracing his hand on the ground, so that he could be closer to you when he came.  

This time it was you who put your hand on his cheek, watching his brown eyes go black as he shuddered and came so deep and so hard, that his fingers clawed into the dirt at your side.  As he trembled there, watching you, he kept his cock buried and held your hips up on purpose so that none of his seed could leak out.  

When he finally pulled out and released you, you climbed up into his lap again. He crushed you against him with an innocent urgency, spreading his large wings out fold them in and wrap them around you protectively.  

He whispered in your ear: “My name is Eddie,” repeating the phrase that had made your eyes light up earlier, hoping it would have the same effect.

You nodded against his shoulder, feeling emotional.  “Your name is Eddie, and I love you.”

[slowbrewcafe]

Good Cookies and Evil Milk (13888 words) by SpiritBounce Chapters: 5/5 Fandom: Super Mario & Related Fandoms, Luigi's Mansion (Video Games) Rating: Mature Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Bowser/Luigi (Nintendo) Characters: Bowser (Nintendo), Luigi (Nintendo), Polterpup (Luigi's Mansion) Additional Tags: Fluff, Top Luigi (Nintendo), bottom bowser, Monsterfucker Luigi (Nintendo), Soft Bowser (Nintendo), sexually suggestive humor, Humor, Gay Sex, Established Relationship, Domestic Fluff, Illustrations, Anxiety, Panic Attacks Series: Part 2 of The Inexorable Press of Time Summary: Luigi reflects on how his nightly ritual of cookies and milk came to be and the journey that led him there. And while it might have been a habit born of loneliness, he now has Bowser to keep him company late at night. When all is said and done, Luigi’s just living his best cozy homestead life with his hot turtle-dragon boyfriend by his side.

[mrshapeandmrshifter]

What your favorite Echo main character says about you: The horrors/monsters edition

Socket man

Hello thier monsterfucker also when your partner ask if you still love them as a worm you said yes and committed to your word

Samuel Ayers

You wish the voices in Your head were hot as him even though it might Just lead you to do your very impulsive thoughts that lead you to either Going to jail or running around In Circles like a child

The Embrace

You just want Chase but without his many many flaws or his plan 2 if something happens to Chunter

John Begay

You definitely would hunt a mansion and get a bunch of teenagers to solve the mystery of a incident or crime that you didn't commit, is it petty? yes but it is funny? Also yes

James Hendricks I

Your the one why haunted houses exist you shouldn't be allowed within 50ft of a school, orphanage, playground or any children. Go to prison William Afton wanna be

Mirror Man

Either you talk to yourself in the mirror because you no friends or you are clinically insane or a evil narcissistic person

Brain Dubois

I'm not mad just disappointed your favorite character is Jeffrey Dahmer please stop watching true crime documentaries, I beg of you get therapy

The Ghost Van (Yes I'm including this as one the horrors)

You got jealous when heard Leo calling someone else Chula even if you don't like Leo either that or you want all the cast in Echo to form some sort of Scooby-Doo gang

Samuel Ayers

Your Just Going In Circles

[valiantstarlights]

Black Butler (Kuroshitsuji) AU

I'm still feral over Kuroshitsuji so we're gonna have a Demon!Hob and Nobleman!Dream AU.

yes, I know I have already written demon!dream and priest!hob, but I wanna have demon butler!hob and monsterfucker nobleman!dream too 🥺

CW: dark! monsterfucking! slightly spicy

So. Okay. To start, the Endless and the Burgess families are business rivals. Randall Burgess wants to make his father proud, and decides that the way to do that is by attacking the Endless family in their own home by himself and some hired men.

He dies in the attempt.

The thing is, the Endless didn't even lay a hand on him. The people who killed him are the very same men he hired to help him attack the Endless mansion unprompted.

In the thugs' defense, they'd rather be alive with only half the payment that Randall gave them than fuck with the Endless. Most sensible folk don't, and unfortunately for Randall, the men he hired wanted to live more than they wanted to be rich.

They tell Roderick Burgess that it was the Endless who did it, though, because why damn themselves when reliable forensics doesn't exist, and Old Man Roderick already has confirmation bias?

Naturally, Roderick immediately believes them, and gets his revenge on the Endless by setting their mansion on fire, killing everyone in it except for Dream, who he had arranged to be kidnapped earlier in the night. Dream is the closest to Randall in age, and Roderick plans to sacrifice Dream to a demon to get his son back. A life for a life and all that.

And so Dream is gagged, then chained to a sacrificial altar in the basement while Roderick and the rest of his followers do a demon summoning ritual.

Except the demon they summoned is Hob, who finds Roderick's wish tedious. A life for a life? They summoned him all the way from Hell just for that? Please.

If Roderick had asked for his son back, as well as riches and fame, then Hob might consider negotiating with him. He has always loved greedy humans. They're more reckless, and they usually get killed within a year or two after the contract is sealed, leaving Hob free to take up another contract.

He has already hit quota in the 16th century actually, and is just doing this for fun, in case there are some humans with interesting enough deals willing to make a deal with him.

But a grieving father with no need for anything else but his stupid son back? Hob doesn't have time for that.

Just as Hob is about to leave, Dream manages to get free of his gag and calls attention to himself.

Hob sees him, feels the murderous aura coming from him, and thinks he'd rather make a deal with this one, actually. He's prettier than any human Hob has ever met, and he looks like he has a more interesting deal to offer him than bringing someone back from the dead.

"What about you, pretty thing?" Hob says to the beautiful being in chains on the altar. "You got a better deal for me?"

And listen. Dream is smart, so he knows not to ask to get his family and pet raven back after seeing how disinterested the demon looked after Roderick said his wish. But he's also very much not in the right state of mind to be making a deal with a demon. He needs a therapist.

Unfortunately, actual proper therapists do not exist back in the Victorian era, and Dream is in the anger stage of the five stages of grief.

He saw how the demon looked at him with lust. And the demon isn't bad-looking at all. Quite the opposite, actually. And so he thinks, fuck it.

If he's gonna be damned for eternity for wanting the entire Burgess family dead, then he better do a good job and actually wipe them off the face of the earth. From Roderick to his cult followers to the servants, all of whom did nothing when he begged them for help.

Everyone who has ever wronged him is going to pay, and he is going to stand over their corpses and laugh. And if he has a handsome demon by his side with his hands red with blood doing Dream's bidding? Then all the better.

Dream sends Roderick Burgess his most hateful look, then turns back to the demon patiently waiting for him to speak. "Help me get revenge on everyone who has wronged me and my family," Dream says, "and I will be yours forever."

And, well.

Hob can't say no to that.

Vengeance is his favorite kind of contract, and the prospect of having this beautiful man forever in exchange for doing a job he loves?

Hob gets to work.

After, when there's no one else left alive, Hob walks over the corpses in order to unchain Dream from the sacrificial altar. The nobleman is still mostly clean, with only a few blood splatters here and there marring his pale skin and white dressing gown. They must have kidnapped him while he was sleeping.

Hob makes sure to be gentle with him. The poor thing looks like he's already been through so much over the past day alone.

"You okay, lovely thing?"

Dream nods and allows the demon to remove his chains. He is not at all alright, but the sight of viscera and blood covering the entire basement apart from the sacrificial altar where Dream is, as well as the feeling of the demon's gentle hands upon him made him feel a sense of peace.

"I want to reward you for a job well done," he tells the demon, who laughs as the final set of chains is removed from Dream's ankles. His fangs look so very sharp in the candlelight.

"No offense, darling," the handsome demon says, "but what can you possibly reward me with?"

In response, Dream wordlessly opens his legs.

After, when Hob has Dream in his arms, both of them still lying on the stone altar, Hob thinks that he could get used to this. He has always longed to have someone who only belongs to him, and Dream's deal--and how he worded it, allows Hob to have him like this.

Even if Dream were to die, Lucifer Morningstar themself wouldn't own his soul, because Hob already has it, and it has been given to him fair and square and very enthusiastically.

Dream shifts in his hold so he is looking up at Hob while his head rested on Hob's hairy chest. His pale fingers feel lovely caressing his chest hair. "Something on your mind, Hob?"

"Nothing much, my lord," he replies. "Just thinking how this might be the best deal I've struck in ages."

The best deal period, but they've only just met, and Hob doesn't want to frighten Dream with how possessive he can get.

Dream ducks his head in shyness, which Hob thinks is adorable considering how barely five minutes ago, the man was on his cock, riding him like an experienced equestrian, and begging him to fill his belly with demon cum.

So yeah. Hob really lucked out.

What he doesn't know is that Dream ducked his head so he could smile a secret smile against Hob's chest, sated and victorious, his hole filled with a copious amount of demon cum, his nipples puffy and swollen, and his entire body still shaking intermittently with the pleasure of his last orgasm.

Hob made sure he had a really good time, and Dream is keen to ride him again as soon as his legs cooperate with him.

Were his very religious parents still alive, they would be scandalized to know that Dream gave his virginity to a demon. So in a way, it's good that they're already dead.

When he rebuilds the Endless mansion, he is going to have Hob fuck him in each and every room. As a reward for his continued service, of course, and not because he's already addicted to him.

The demon doesn't know yet how many enemies the Endless family has made throughout the years. He's going to be Dream's for life, and Dream is going to be his in death.

Like a true Endless, Dream has managed to strike a very good deal, and made the other party believe that it was them who struck a better deal.

Hob might get very angry with him once he finds out about the neverending vengeance plots he'll be helping Dream with, but Dream is determined to make it worth his while.

"What's on your mind, sweet Dream?" Hob asks, one hand grazing over the contract seal in the middle of Dream's chest, which was glowing as red as a ruby. The light will fade in time, he had been told, but for now, he would have to wear thicker upper garments to hide the glow.

"Nothing much," Dream says, echoing the demon's words from earlier. "Just how much I'm looking forward to our partnership."

[jo-harrington]

HEY. GIVE ME THE TENTACLES WITH THE KNIGHT.

❤️❤️❤️

Meg, my love...it's gonna start off soft but...let's just get weird with it. (Their whole relationship is a weird one anyway. Why not.)

Warnings/Themes: Smut, Dry Humping, P in V sex, metaphorical monsterfucking (just...have a really open imagination about this), soulmates(? but we already knew that...), the Knight reads a poem to Eddie.

Quoting "The Kraken" by Alfred, Lord Tennyson

Find other Hymns of Heaven here.

And find the Master List for As Above, So Below here.

October 1984

Below the thunders of the upper deep, Far, far beneath in the abysmal sea,

It was another lazy Sunday with no work or homework or any other obligations.

You had worked on Saturday morning, then got lunch with one of your coworkers from Bradley's. Eddie had spent a majority of his day at the library to find books to reference so he could finish up his plans for his Halloween One Shot for Hellfire, and then he dragged you to some party that he was asked to deal.

It wasn't your crowd; wasn't his either--the rich pretty kids that lived on the right side of the tracks--but the beer was free, and he'd sold enough to squirrel a bunch of cash away around the trailer, fill his wallet, and treat you to McDonalds for breakfast.

"Only the crispiest of hash browns for my angel," he said as he slipped back into his room after making the food run and presented you with the bag. You rolled your eyes and gave him a reluctant thank you kiss; he knew you hated that nickname.

And now you were lazing in bed, surrounded by books and each other. Your own little world. The stereo was on, softly playing some mix that you surprised him with. A perfect blend of your tastes and his.

His ancient, dreamless, uninvaded sleep The Kraken sleepeth:

"Hey this is a cool one." Your voice broke through the tranquil atmosphere and you shifted closer to him.

Eddie abandoned his note taking so he could look at what you had found. He vaguely recalled grabbing the book because the faded green cover had been embossed with tentacles. He didn't even know what was in it, it just looked interesting.

"The Kraken." You grinned and began reading, even though Eddie was close enough to see the poem himself.

Eddie chose to watch you instead.

The poem was short, so he didn't get to watch for very long, but he let his sight feed his hungry heart. And oh, how hungry it was.

He knew he would never get his fill of you.

This was where Eddie wanted to be forever.

He could try to imagine some kind of future with you but the details didn't matter. Whether it was a mansion after Corroded Coffin hit it big, or another trailer here in Hawkins if he dropped out of school and got a job at Thacker Tires. Or any and all variations in between.

All that mattered to him was that when you got to the heart of your lives, the very depths of your beings, when you took a peek into the 4 walls that constituted a home...there was just the two of you.

He wanted to be with you, alongside you, harmonious. Inside of you. Buried deep in your heart and in your mind where you could never get him out, even if you tried.

He knew the lightness in you filled and brightened all the dark parts of him and he could only hope that he did the same for you.

He would give everything.

faintest sunlights flee About his shadowy sides; above him swell Huge sponges of millennial growth and height;

You finished your recitation and went about on a tangent about divine and infernal beings, as you often did when you were inspired.

Tiamat and primordial chaos. Leviathan and the consumption of the damned.

Something stirred deep within him. A need. He would have made a joke about tentacles being a turn on, but when you looked at him expectantly, he didn't hesitate to kiss you.

Eddie looked forward to this. You both did, obviously. You basked in the emotional connection almost immediately after you met, but the physical aspect of your relationship was a journey you embarked on together after your first real date. Neither of you were inexperienced, but everything took a deeper meaning when you explored.

It was a euphoric experience the first time you kissed, touched, explored, fucked.

This was no different.

Your mouths were greedy things; they always were. Eddie preferred to bite while you liked to lick and lave. And while he was the one to initiate this little dalliance, he was happy to let you take control, to take what you wanted.

In the end he still got what he wanted too.

To be consumed by you. And to consume you in return.

And far away into the sickly light, From many a wondrous grot and secret cell Unnumbered and enormous polypi Winnow with giant arms the slumbering green.

You nudged him onto his back and he winced at the dig of his notebook beneath his shoulder blade. You sensed the hitch of his breath as discomfort turned into pain, and further still into pleasure as you pushed your body into his, pushed him further into the bed, and let the promised heat of you engulf him. Your fingers slithered through his hair, nails raking against his sensitive scalp, and gave him something to focus on as your tongue pillaged his mouth, traced the grooves of his teeth, mated with his tongue.

He could feel you deep in his very being, licking into his ventricles...searching...searching...

Eddie moaned into your mouth, a sinful sound that even made himself a little more aroused, and your body reacted in kind. Your fingers dug, drilled through his skull and implanted themselves into his brain, depositing impure thoughts and demanding precious affection. Something he so willingly gave.

You could have him, possess him, protect him, and cherish him. Destroy him if you really wanted to, he didn't quite care.

You rolled your hips, clothed core seeking the delicious friction so you could be reborn anew. He angled his own his up, bucked into you. His release would come but he would give into the demand for the rich, ripe fury of yours first.

When you found it, you refused to retreat. Fell against him. Carved the place in his chest where you could live forever. Cradled in the hollow of his body, tangled in his veins, curled around his heart.

His hands gripped you, soothed you. Offered you respite from the savagery of this ritual. And when you were ready, pushed you back.

You patiently peeled one another's layers away. Clothes and skin and sinew. You shed your mortal forms until you were raw and visceral and vulnerable.

There hath he lain for ages, and will lie Battening upon huge sea worms in his sleep, Until the latter fire shall heat the deep;

It was Eddie’s turn now. He liked to believe that he was not as demanding as you, needy little thing that you were. But he had an insatiable hunger of his own.

And much like the leviathan, he would consume what was in his path.

He laid you back and his teeth nipped. He sucked and slurped at what slickness you had to offer, then it was his turn for his tongue to breech you. To search and find the truest path that would belay his ultimate prize.

It didn't take long, and he didn't need to be as thorough as you were, unfortunately. But as your soft little whines became desperate and ear-splitting, he knew you were prepared.

Eddie offered sweet kisses to every inch of you as he ascended, to the fluttering, wanting softness of your core, to your hundred searching limbs that begged him closer, to your bared throat that pulsed with your life-force. Your cheeks, your eyelids, and finally your lips, still open and panting but eager to accept all he had to offer.

Then once by man and angels to be seen, In roaring he shall rise

Eddie sunk deep into you. The rigid, veiny thickness of his cock dragged deliciously into your channel and when he finally found his prize, as he went as deep as he could go, he reared his head and released a gnarled, baritone wail.

It shook the walls and penetrated into the very core of the earth itself. Every God and Devil would know that the two of you had found each other, had found your way home. It was destined; it was foretold. And every power that be knew that if they dared to pull you apart, armageddon would soon follow.

When the tremors finally stopped and you had all senses about you, Eddie's hips drillled and pistoned, down and deeper, to memorize the welcoming softness of you. Every cavern, every chamber, every crevice, until he could practically taste your light.

And he transcended with violent delight.

He gave everything he could, emptied his being of himself so he could accept all of you. Every spurt a plea and a promise all at once. And he didn't need to curl himself around your heart, even if he desired it, because you reached into your chest and handed it to him. It was bloody and raw and dripping around your talons.

As you forced it to take the vacant space that he just revealed to you, he collapsed upon you, panting.

You held him, whispered sweet things into his ear.

"I need you. I see you. I want you. I love you, Eddie Munson."

and on the surface die.

[skulls-soul]

<a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/50522131"><strong>R.I.P My Digital Footprint</strong></a> (3213 words) by <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/Skulls_soul"><strong>Skulls_soul</strong></a><br />Chapters: 2/?<br />Fandom: <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/tags/Super%20Mario%20Bros*d*%20(Video%20Games)">Super Mario Bros. (Video Games)</a>, <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/tags/Super%20Mario%20*a*%20Related%20Fandoms">Super Mario &amp; Related Fandoms</a><br />Rating: Mature<br />Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings<br />Relationships: Bowser/Luigi (Nintendo), Koopa | Bowser/Luigi, Bowser & Luigi (Nintendo), King Boo/Luigi (Nintendo), King Boo & Luigi (Nintendo), Booigi (Luigi's Mansion) & Mario (Nintendo), Bowuigi - Relationship, Bowigi - Relationship<br />Characters: Luigi (Nintendo), Bowser (Nintendo), King Boo (Nintendo)<br />Additional Tags: Good Sibling Mario (Nintendo), Supportive Princess Peach (Nintendo), Kinktober, Human/Monster Romance, Monsterfucker Luigi (Nintendo), Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Dubiously Consensual Blow Jobs, Hand Jobs, My First Smut<br />Summary: <p>kinktober is here and I want to practice writing smut so have some bowser x luigi x king boo</p><p>this will be one hell of a month</p>

EAT UP BITCHES (lovingly) CHAPTER 2 is OUT

[gascon-en-exil]

(Further) Beyond Dream Daddy: A Year of More Gay Dating Sims

Last year for Pride I made a video sharing my thoughts on a selection of gay dating sims, among them Dream Daddy - by far the most well-known title in that genre. My opinion of that game was rather unfavorable, to say the least, but nonetheless I had a lot of fun discussing the topic. Dating sims rarely get any significant analysis or consideration, so it was a novel experience on that basis alone.

Recently, a patron of mine expressed a desire to see me talk about dating sims again. To save myself some work on a project when I've already got so many others going on at the moment, I've opted to do so here on my blog rather than on my channel this time. This also has the added benefit of giving me more latitude to discuss the NSFW qualities of these games without needing to censor myself. When the majority of the titles in this space are explicitly erotic, that's kind of a big deal.

Anyway! Here's a selection of games that I've played in the past year that I thought were worth looking at in some more detail.

Dear Monster

As the title suggests, this one is for the monsterfuckers out there.

This is, sort of, the second time I'm discussing a project by Y Press Games. I've touched on an earlier game of theirs, To Trust an Incubus...but I found it so unimpressive that I never bothered to review it in-depth. In several ways you can tell that Dear Monster comes from the same creative team: there's a similarly large focus on plot with a bunch of variable endings including some very dark ones, all the characters are vers despite many of them playing into familiar top or bottom archetypes, and most obviously the main theme is monsterfucking.

In this case the selection is much broader, as instead of a single species of pheromone-emitting aliens you get your pick from a variety of fantasy creatures. I say "creatures" because Dear Monster isn't afraid to shy away from furry/scalie erotic content for certain scenes, although most of the time the love interests stick to their humanoid forms. There's

a Western dragon as the violent bad boy love interest;

an Egyptian-flavored god of the dead, whose alternate form resembles Anubis and who plays the standoffish tsundere role;

a kitsune for the mischievous and overtly sexual option;

a unicorn who comes off as the caring submissive choice...mostly;

and an orc, who's had a route announced as free DLC later this year but who currently exists only as a recurring NPC

As I said, like To Trust an Incubus there's a noticeable focus on plot here, with the protagonist being a young man newly introduced to the world of the supernatural and trying to locate his mysteriously vanished grandfather inside an obviously magical mansion. Also like their earlier game, there are some unexpected plot twists that I won't spoil here, and overall I'd say this game pulls them off more effectively even if the ending feels a bit unfinished currently. Maybe they're waiting for the orc character's route to properly tie off the story? In any case, Dear Monster is better written than its predecessor and comes with an appreciable variety of kinky scenarios, and despite the lack of voice acting (a very hit-or-miss topic when it comes to dating sims, as I've discussed) the production values are overall quite good. The animated character portraits have been advertised as a highlight but frankly don't contribute to much, and they have a tendency to slow down my computer. Luckily though, they're easily turned off.

Favorite route: A hard call. They all have their highlights, and I'll probably enjoy Slagathor (the orc) when his route comes out. Hikmat (the god of the dead) probably comes out a bit ahead of the others both for his story and for some unexpectedly adventurous sex scenes, like one that incorporates a variant of tentacle porn - points for creativity there. Faeryn (the unicorn) is the one I find least appealing sexually, but on the flip side his route has some of the most unexpected twists and is probably the most helpful for understanding the game's premise as a whole. There's not really a bad option here.

UPDATE: Now that the final route has been released, I can talk about it. It's fine enough, following similar tracks for its good, neutral, and bad endings. Slagathor is vers, just like every other guy in the game. As for the main plot, it does have a resolution once you've gotten satisfactory endings with all five characters, but because it has to be integrated into all of those route endings and doesn't actually impact any of them it feels rather inconsequential as a result. A bit of a shame, really, but I do respect the boldness of some of this game's narrative chioces.

Camp Buddy

Oh, dear. There are some things I need to make clear with this one from the start...stuff I definitely couldn't talk about on YouTube.

To state the obvious first: yes, the characters are all 18+. It's in their in-game profiles, on promotional material online, and on the disclaimer you have to click on whenever you boot up the game. The main character and all his love interests are specifically stated to be 18-20 years old. However...that doesn't always bear out in the writing. The premise is that they're all campers at a scout-themed summer camp, i.e. not something you'd expect of legal adults, and more than half the time these characters are written with the emotional maturity of boys in their mid-teens. That doesn't extend to the sex scenes, beyond most of them being virginal and clueless but somehow still capable of having mind-blowing sex with no lube and simultaneous orgasms and so forth - all of which is pretty standard for these sorts of games. It doesn't consistently affect their storylines either, as they range from adolescent issues like anxiety over losing a close friend to more young adult material like deciding on career paths and moving on from a bad breakup. Having spent a good bit of my own adolescence in an all-male environment, I found most of the character behavior relatable for that demographic. Outside the sex scenes, Camp Buddy is a sweet and sometimes heartwarming story about friendship and making good memories...but the sex stuff is still there, and I can understand why this game isn't listed on Steam based on the premise alone. It is not, as some online have hyperbolically dubbed it, a "child porn" game, but it can be awkward all the same, and if you, like me, are not into twinks/twunks those scenes aren't going to do much for you.

Leaving that aside, it still took me a while to get into Camp Buddy. I was mostly interested in its sequel, which I'll talk about later in this post, but I wanted to play CB in case I missed out on any context with the second game. This one does feel like a first project; the artwork isn't as clean or varied, the voice acting has some standouts but is overall just average, and the script occasionally reads like it was written by someone whose first language isn't English - where the writing isn't incorrect, exactly, but rather worded in ways that don't sound natural. Not all of the scenes are fully voiced, but I really have to wonder how some of those that are got through all those people without anyone realizing how inorganic the dialogue sounded. The humor at least is pretty consistently good, with a highlight being the one major female character who is an affectionate parody of yaoi fangirls leading to a lot of fourth-wall-breaking jokes. As I said some of the storylines work well, even if the main plot is a clichéd and sometimes treacly "save the camp" routine for most of its run. If you can accept the handwave on the characters' ages for the sexual content, it's not a bad time. Given my familiarity with Fire Emblem and its love of underaged-looking dragon girls, and knowing that there are surely far more dating/porn games that use a similar handwave for female characters, I can give CB a pass. I've never cared for how media directed at straight men never warrants more than a moment's worth of moral outrage while everything else gets endlessly scrutinized.

Favorite route: Yoichi is the twunk-iest of the love interests, and his route is easily the darkest as well. Surprisingly he's not the sole total top option...but the guy who is barely grasps of the concept of masturbation and needs to "research" sex after he fools around for the first time. I suppose someone must be into that. Taiga has the most distinctive route as it was added last and has the largest amount of story variance as well as both topping and bottoming variations, but I find the emotional beats of his story (both in and out of his route) to be paced a bit too oddly for me to give him first prize.

Camp Buddy: Scoutmaster Season

This is why I played Camp Buddy, because I saw its follow-up advertised on Steam and was impressed enough by the production values to check it out. I still bought it from developer BLits's website though because certain scenes are removed in the Steam version (for reasons similar to why Camp Buddy isn't there at all). Anyway, Scoutmaster Season is in just about every way a vast improvement over its predecessor:

Most obviously, the characters here look and act unambiguously like adults. Their storylines are also more mature, as is that of the main plot which concerns the camp expanding after it received a new wealthy investor at the end of CB. This maturity extends to the sex as well. These characters aren't experimenting adolescents but rather men who've been casually involved with one another for some time already (heavily implied in the first game) and whose romantic development thus concerns their relationships becoming grounded in emotional support instead of only hot NSA sex.

Camp Buddy is a decently kinky game in its own right, but the sequel takes advantage of its older characters and really runs with the concept. There's bondage, leather, voyeurism, softcore daddy kink, public sex, several varieties of costume role play including two that verge on pony play, threesomes, and a few types of size kink thanks in *ahem* large part to one of the love interests having such a comically oversized cock that in some encounters it can be seen distending the main character's stomach during penetration. I'm...pretty sure that's not physically possible, but I know it's a fantasy that exists. SS is just as unrealistic when it comes to things like (lack of) lube and refractory periods, but that's to be expected at this point.

I didn't talk about CB's minigames because they're frankly not that impressive, but SS's are both a bit more challenging and, in the case of the foreplay minigame, hotter and more interactive.

The writing is much improved, and flows more naturally. The voicework is overall of a higher quality as well, even with many in the cast reprising their roles. Particularly, the same voice actor plays the main characters of both games, but he sounds much more natural as the deeper-voiced lead here, in contrast to CB where he has to work to sound like a teen. The comic relief is about on par, so it's as entertaining as usual. There's even a yaoi fanboy in this one...who funnily enough never actually gets laid during the story, although the artists threw him a bone or six with a bukkake party crack scene in the extras.

SS's antagonist is both more compelling and more entertaining even though she never becomes a romance option - as should be evident from the pronoun alone. I predicted where the story was going to take her arc the first time I played, and while I was proven right the game didn't follow that thread to its logical conclusion. A bit disappointing, but I imagine that that would have obliterated the tone for the rest of the game and prevented it from ending with fluffy romance or celebratory sex.

There are enough small callbacks to CB that I'm glad I played the first game, but not so many that a newcomer would feel completely lost. As this is the only gay dating sim sequel that I can even think of, I appreciate the attention to continuity.

BLits is currently working on a third game called Jock Studio, unrelated to Camp Buddy but already looking to be an evolution of what they've learned from their first two games. The athletic university premise appears to be a self-indulgent excuse for porn - but I'm more than okay with that seeing how much the quality of their work has improved.

Favorite route: There's only two here, so naming one would be suggesting I dislike the other. In fact, both routes are really solid. I would say that Aiden's story hangs together a little better and feels stronger in its emotional moments (helped greatly by the best vocal performance in either of these games), whereas Goro's route appeals to me more based on raw sex appeal. He's a kinky daddy, what's not to love? Either way, SS is a ton of fun, and of the games in this post it's the one I recommend the most strongly.

Errant Kingdom

I'm of two minds about including this game. I really wanted to have one that would be drastically different from the others I've selected, but at time of writing I haven't done everything there is to do in Errant Kingdom. That's not for lack of time, as it's been released in chapter increments ever since last autumn or thereabouts and finally finished up in February. I've currently completed two of its stories so I feel like I have a solid grasp of what's on offer, but I realize that I haven't seen everything yet.

However, I had to keep pushing myself to play this one. It just doesn't have a very strong hook, in my opinion, but let's talk about the positives. If your main complaint about Dream Daddy is not the lack of hardcore gay sex but rather the inauthenticity of its representation then Errant Kingdom will be more your speed. Your character can be male, female, or nonbinary, and there are two love interests of each designation available. (That both nonbinary options are supernatural non-humans might arguably be a bit of a copout...but I'm not really in a position to judge.) There are also two options for poly relationships, as well as asexual dialogue options although the way the story is set up does still lend itself toward monogamous romance with occasional, vaguely-described (and never visualized) sex scenes. I'd also note that unlike every other visual novel with romantic elements I've ever played, dialogue options are explicitly marked as being romantic, asexual, or poly when applicable. This does make it much easier to get a specific outcome if you're looking for one, but in my view takes away some of the fun of these sorts of games.

Errant Kingdom's story is quite linear regardless of which if any romantic relationship(s) you choose to pursue, with the largest variance coming not from your choice of love interest but from your choice of one of three origins when you're creating your character: an ambassador, a knight, or a nomad. Having played through two of these, this decision greatly impacts the game's opening chapters but ultimately leads into the player characters being three different points of view on the same story, with all the same major set pieces. Errant Kingdom is occasionally clever about this, with the other two PCs popping up in each other's paths every now and then...unseen of course, because this is a game where the main character's physical presence is left entirely up to the imagination. On the other hand though, the different perspectives converging toward a single climax has the clunky side effect of dropping certain NPCs into the story lategame and acting as if you know who they are even if you've never met them in that playthrough.

The story itself isn't terribly fascinating, being a medieval fantasy conspiracy plot involving gods and magical weapons and an 11th hour Chosen One reveal (that isn't the player character, shockingly). If we're talking pseudo-medieval/early modern romantic visual novels, I find I prefer the Chess of Blades approach where each love interest gets his own storyline and so there's more overall variety and less tangled continuity. I've read in places that the later chapters suffered from deadline and creator burnout issues during development, which wouldn't surprise me with how much the pacing speeds up after a certain point.

Favorite route: For origins the ambassador angle suited me better and would probably be my pick overall. The choice of love interest is, as mentioned, actually not all that important, but disgraced former knight Erik hits most of my buttons. It's a shame his poly option is with a woman, because while Maja is my preference of the two female options I wouldn't be invested in her like that. This is the trouble for me with stepping outside the bounds of strictly M/M games.

[bubblegum-blackwood]

Do you have a favourite OC?

*side-eyes my hoard of like 200+ characters across several WIPs*

uhh . . . could you settle for a top fifteen? 😂

But if I try to whittle it down the three that pop out to me the most are Briar (my current pfp), Cesario (who comes from the same series, funnily enough), and Whiskey.

Miss Briar! A vampire-werewolf hybrid who loves horror, goth music, and cats. She's sweet but sarcastic, and I wish I had her energy level 😅 She befriends several ghosts, solves a murder mystery, goes toe-to-toe with a cult of necromancers, buys a spooky old mansion to live in with her found family, and really needs therapy. I've collected a few images of her over the years, including some by my own hand, but my current favourite is this one by the lovely @fofoqueirah!

Cesario! My guy! Bisexual disaster of all time! Originally a forgotten pharaoh of Egypt, his servant turned him into a vampire to save his life after an assassination attempt and they fled to the Hittite Empire together and have been in a devoted qpr for like three thousand years. He named himself after the protagonist of Twelfth Night because I'm he's a nerd. Here's a lil version of him from this Picrew:

And then Whiskey. Ey is a monster hunter turned monsterfucker who struggles with self-image because of past lovers who have made fun of eir intersex body, but it's okay, because eir monster boyfriend couldn't be more obsessed! I did end up making em on HeroForge a while back:

And I could go on, but none of us have time for that LMAO. Thanks for the ask!