We run through the cold morning in that pretty predawn half-light before Savi sends the fog in again. There’s a sprinkling of snow on the ground in the higher elevations. I can feel the cold on my paws, and I like it. Our breath makes its own mist. I can see the heat coming off Ty’s huge body and my own, too.
The only sound out here is us, like we’re all alone in this ruined world of ours.
When he turns to look at me, we’re high on a ridge above the Applegate Valley. Once this offshoot valley was all farms and vineyards, but it long since fell from human control into the hands of various warring bands of ogres, trolls, and anarchist goblins. Among many other unpleasant things.
I can tell by that gleam in his eyes that Ty has other things in mind than a pretty hike.
Turns out, I can feel that same gleam inside me, too. I bare my teeth at him. I start the dance.
I make him chase me, because that’s part of the thrill. There’s no surrender without a fight. That’s not who we are.
Ty is bigger than me and faster than me, but I can corner like lightning. I’m not afraid of a little roughhousing, either.
I give him a good run, but the end is a foregone conclusion.
That’s part of why I find it so exhilarating, so all-consuming. It’s also one of the reasons I’ve been so wary of a claiming run. How can I possibly survive it and still bemewhen our normal, everyday runs are likethis?
Yet as I run, Ty on my heels and his breath rough behind me, it’s hard to remember why I care who I am. Not when there’s the sheer, elemental glory ofthis.
He swerves, slamming into me. I try to throw myself into the spin, but this time he’s on me.
Moon help me, the way he’sonme.
He pins me down, his teeth on my neck. I feel that huge, gloriously perfect body of his on my back, holding me where he wants me before he slams himself deep inside me.
Wolf fucking is different from human fucking in one very specific way. There is no pretending here. No frills. No experimenting with creative ideas. That’s for skin.
Fur is basic.
He holds me down by my neck, I submit, and he fucks me long, hard, and deep until he’s done.
Every version of me loves it when Ty takes control, but especially my wolf.
I start coming immediately. With every hard, deep thrust. He takes his time, letting me shake and whine.
He doesn’t hurry. He never hurries. He does exactly as he likes.
Because he knows I like it too.
When he’s done, we lie there together in the snow with him still too big inside me to pull out. We stay there and we breathe.
His snout on my shoulder. His legs caging mine. We feel each other’s hearts beat. First hot and hard. Then gradually, over time, slow and steady.
I try to imagine what this would be like if I was mating with some wolf I didn’t even like on a full moon night. When after the actual sex, there was this forced bit of intimacy.
Humans, I think, have no idea how lucky they have it that they can disengage at will.
I’m luckier still because I’ll never have to know what it’s like not to love simply melting into him. What it’s like tonotlet my eyes close,knowing that when he’s got me I don’t have to do a single thing and he can worry about the rest.
We lie there until the cold seeps in beneath our fur.
“That was a very nice speech you made yesterday,” I say as we head back toward the den.
The fog has already rolled in, obscuring any daylight that might try to peek its way through the trees.
“Wasn’t a speech,” Ty replies, in more of a grunt. “I was delivering facts. Nothing more and nothing less.”
But the way he looks at me says otherwise, and I let that warm me all over.
