42. A Furry‑Tail Ending
A Furry-Tail Ending
Twenty-Seven Days Later
Cian
By the time the Hunter’s Moon had arrived, word had spread about the wolf shifter who’d been accepted into the Cassidy pack, and the marquee was heaving. At least double the number of wolves were here than at the last full moon.
Mash looked around the tent at all the people. Occasionally he waved, occasionally he gave a cute little frown and a shrug when he didn’t recognise someone.
“It’s busy for a few reasons,” he told me. “One, the Hunter’s Moon is the most important of the three Harvest Fest moons and always draws in a bigger crowd. Also, wolves have arrived specifically to watch me accept the call. There’s gonna be like a ceremony . . . sort of. I dunno what happens, I never really remember them. And also also, they all heard you’re a shifter and want to see your foreskin.”
“Fuck off,” I said, slapping his bicep with the back of my fist. But just in case Mash hadn’t been joking, I kept my boxers on until the last minute, until almost all the wolves had shifted and Mash was shoving his big wolf head between my legs.
I ran a hand through his fur—softer than air—stashed my pants, and shifted too.
A second later, someone’s nose was at my anus—practically in my anus. Fuck, I’d forgotten about these violations.
I whirled around, ready to growl, but caught sight of the cubs waiting for their first shift. Except Felix wasn’t waiting patiently. Felix was on his hands and knees, looking like he might throw up.
“Oh my gods!” I yelled, pivoting Mash towards his nephew.
Clem burst past us. “You’re doing it, honey. It’s time,” she said.
Mash and I rushed over as Clem wedged her muzzle under her son’s arched body. Felix wrapped his arms around Clem’s neck, but instantly let go and dry heaved. Fur erupted along his bare chest, his shoulder blades. It sprouted in a wave along the length of his body. His agonised face morphed, lengthened, his limbs elongated. His underpants tore and fell to the marquee floor.
Moments later, a reddish-brown wolf pushed shakily to its feet, like a newborn deer standing for the first time.
“Fee, you’ve done it. My perfect boy,” Clem cooed, digging her snout into his fur and sniffing him as Kimmy had sniffed Mash and me that first day at Howling Pines. Felix’s tail swished frantically.
“Knew it would happen tonight,” Mash said. He bent his front legs, his tail also wagging. An invitation to play rough.
Felix did the same. He flipped his weight from left to right, then pounced towards his uncle and mouthed his jaw, but didn’t bite him.
“Come on, boys, no fighting in the tent,” Clem said, muscling between the pair. Both the fourteen-year-old Felix and the thirty-five-year-old Mash whined in an “aww, no fair” way. “Mash, you’d better get to the dais. We’ll meet you there.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Mash said. He sobered instantly, standing up to his full height. He was nervous. Understandable.
“It’s call-acceptance day,” Mash said, as we left the marquee together. “Which means we can’t immediately go running off into the trees like we usually do. We have to gather at the stone dais for the power . . . transfer thingy. People come from all over to watch. It’s kind of a big deal. Like a ceremony, I guess.”
“Will you remember it?” I asked.
“Probably not, but it’s always done this way.”
The dais was the large flat rock where Mash and I had found ourselves last full moon. Where that fight started . . . sort of.
I still hadn’t told him all the specifics of that night; I didn’t think he needed to know. If there was a chance it would upset him, why would I bother? It wasn’t as though he’d done anything wrong or had anything to atone for either. He’d been honest with me, and I had taken it all the wrong way.
Neither of us had been upfront about our feelings for far too long. We were both to blame.
But we had forever to make it up to each other.
When we reached the rock, wolves began aligning themselves around it in a horseshoe shape. Rita, who could no longer shift, arrived a moment later on a mobility scooter. People made space for her to pass through. To my left, I recognised Zach and Kai. They nodded their greetings to me. To my right stood Clem and Sean and a small wolf with reddish-brown fur—Felix—and next to him, another even smaller wolf with reddish-brown fur . . .
“Juno? You shifted as well?” Mash said. He bounced over and greeted his nephew and niece by digging his muzzle into their scruffs. “I can’t believe you both shifted on the same night, you little legends.”
“I still shifted first, though,” Felix said.
“First the worst,” Juno sniped.
“Kids,” Clem cut in. “Shut it, will you? This is a historic occasion.”
Rita hopped out of her buggy and climbed atop the rock. She placed her hand on her hip and stared at us, waiting for something.
“Right, yeah, that’s me,” Mash said, rushing to stand next to his grandmother.
His wolf form dwarfed her. The top of Rita’s head lined up with Mash’s chest. Silence fell. Like the curtains being opened at the theatre, people knew the show was about to begin.
Rita said nothing. At least, nothing we could hear from our spots near the stone. She held out her hand and Mash lowered his head so her fingers slid through the fur between his ears, then she wrapped her arms around his neck.
The silence was a presence of its own. Even the trees seemed to stiffen, as though they were pulling in their branches and holding their breaths. Mash’s gaze landed on me, and never left.
After a few moments, the stillness became disrupted by a rumbling, like distant thunder or a lorry idling on the road. It buzzed through my paws, up my legs, even rattled my teeth. The hackles of every wolf surrounding me stood to attention.
Something was happening. I just didn’t know what.
Mash whimpered, the sound overloud in the vacuum of noise. Rita eventually let go of her grandson, and he dropped like a sack to the stone. His left legs twitched violently, his eyes were now locked tight, his tail was glued to his underside.
I wanted to run to him, help him, tell him everything would be okay, but I couldn’t move. Physically couldn’t move my paws. Couldn’t open my mouth to speak either, but I realised I was whining too.
Then beside me, Clem howled. And Sean, and Zach, and Kimmy, and some other random wolf, and another, until every single wolf, including Felix and Juno, were tilting their heads up to the full moon and crying out.
As though the noise was being dragged from my throat by an invisible force, I felt myself howling alongside them.
Mash stopped twitching and went deathly still, but the howling continued. It was almost sorrowful, lamenting. A song of sadness and finality.
Rita knelt next to him.
Please let him be okay.
Moments passed by . . . seconds or minutes, I couldn’t be sure. Time and space felt stretched, pulled, like toffee. Like Mash was close by, but he also seemed so small and far away and unreachable at the same time. The howling never ceased, yet somehow the noise died down until it was only whistling in my ears. I could see the puckered shapes of the wolves’ lips, but I could no longer hear them.
And then, abruptly, every strange sensation in my body stopped at once. No weird noises or time and space stretching. I could move my feet again.
Mash pushed himself to a standing position. His legs wobbled at first, like Felix’s had, but because of his size, it seemed so much more pronounced. He shook his coat and then looked at me.
He was the same as before the alpha call. Everything was the same, except . . . the air felt different.
Charged, electric, exciting.
All around me, wolves bent their front legs and dipped their heads in respect and deference towards the new alpha. For most of them, not their personal alpha, but the power Mash commanded was undeniable. I didn’t need to know anything about werewolf culture to understand these packs would follow him without question.
I felt myself bowing too. Not because some mysterious unknown force was making me, but because I wanted to. I wanted to show him solidarity. Show him he’d done a good job. That he would be incredible as my alpha.
That he’d been brave, was still brave, and that I supported him.
The crowd hushed and Mash spoke. “Wow, that was fucking weird.” Everybody laughed. I didn’t know how to explain it, but his voice sounded bolder, louder, more assertive. “I don’t really want to make a speech, and I realise I’m wasting your one night of the month to run around, sniff butts, and hump everything.” More laughter. “But I just wanted to say thank you for being here, and it will be an honour to serve you all. Now go and have fun. And while you’re at it, try to stay away from the ravine in the east clearing. I’ve got someone I need to make mine forever.”
Wolves bowed once again and scattered into the trees, barking, howling, yapping as they ran. Rita hugged her grandson and climbed down from the rock. She looked frailer than a few moments ago, her skin paler, her back a little more bent.
Unless it was simply that Mash seemed bigger, more powerful, more commanding.
Being an alpha suited him.
Rita got onto her mobility scooter and waited. Silently, she wiped tears from her cheeks and smiled at us. It felt like she was closing a chapter in her book. Now it was someone else’s turn to read.
Kimmy approached Mash. We were the only wolves remaining around the stone.
“I always knew you could do it,” she said, her voice quivering with her emotion. “You were brilliant.”
“Love you, Mam,” Mash said.
“Love you too, sunshine. Right, I need to get your nana indoors.” She turned to leave, but then bounded back over to us. “I’m so incredibly proud of you. My boy.” She looked at me. “My boys. Perfect little family.” She returned to Rita’s side, and the pair disappeared down the pathway.
“I’m already power drunk,” Mash said once we were alone.
“I have this strange urge to lie on my back and show you my belly,” I replied. “Come on, let’s go to the ravine. You need to make me yours permanently. And after that, I’ll fuck you as a wolf.”
The air was much crisper than last month, colder, and the night stiller. Stars twinkled overhead. The moons hung fat and round and perfect in the sky, unobstructed by even a wisp of a cloud. Even the trees had shed their leaves as though to give us a clearer view.
Mash rubbed the top of his head underneath my jaw. “It might hurt,” he said. “Everyone tells me it doesn’t hurt, but they also said that about my jabs when I was a kid, so I don’t believe a word of it. Apparently, the most important thing to remember is to do it with conviction. Don’t chicken out halfway through, okay?”
We were standing on the edge of the ravine, in a place I now mentally referred to as “our” place. The ground was bare, the dirt solidified through weeks of cool, dry, hardy weather.
“Don’t lose my nerve. Got it,” I said, voice breathy.
“Ready? I’ll do you first.” He positioned himself so he was in front of me. “Once we have the mate bite, we won’t technically need to do the pee thing any more. I kinda like it, though, so maybe we could still do it like, now and then?” It was adorable he’d asked.
I knew he loved it. He might pretend he was indifferent, but indifference didn’t explain why I sometimes found him “flirting” with women—though only when he knew I was looking—then he’d loudly complain these women couldn’t smell the bond on him, and that’s why they were trying it on. I didn’t care. If Mash wanted a golden shower whilst being leashed, Mash would get a golden shower, and I would tell him just what a good boy he was the entire time.
I would give him everything he wanted.
“Mash, I love you, but please mark me before the sun comes up. I can’t go another month without officially being your mate.”
With no further words, he closed his jaw over the soft part of my neck where it met my shoulder. He took his time finding the exact spot. I wondered how he knew, and whether I would know the right spot on him when the roles were reversed, but he paused once he’d settled on somewhere. I said nothing. He said nothing.
And then his teeth sunk in.
A harsh pressure and then popping, like bubble wrap being twisted, as his canines pierced my flesh first, followed by his other teeth. A second of blinding agony, and then it ebbed, like the tide drawing back. Only, when the waves crashed to the shore, the feeling wasn’t one of pain, it was warmth, and memory, and belonging, and love.
So much overwhelming love.
I thought I loved Mash before, but it was nothing compared to how I felt now. It was like nostalgia, and intimacy, and a sense of union.
I was irrevocably bonded to him.
I needed to do the same. This instant.
“How was that?” Mash asked, pulling away from me. “Did I hurt you? You’re bleeding.”
“Yes, no, not really. It’s . . . it’s . . . I’m yours,” was all I managed to say.
“Of course you are.”
“No, I can’t . . . explain. Mash, I love you so much. You’ll understand when I bite you.”
“Do it, then,” he said.
“How will I know if it’s the right spot?”
“Oh, yeah, I was worried about that, but you just know. Instinct or some shit . . .”
“It’s a werewolf thing,” we both said at the same time.
So I copied what Mash had done to me, placing my open mouth around his collar area. I moved it down a little more towards his shoulder and paused for a couple of seconds, both to give Mash a moment to prepare and to gather my nerve.
And I bit him.
Gently at first, increasing the pressure until my teeth burst through his skin. The taste of iron flooded my tongue. Mash’s blood. I’d hurt him. He whimpered, but I didn’t stop. Kept the bite firm until my instinct told me to release him. Then I pulled away.
The blood was more obvious against Mash’s blonde fur than my gunmetal grey. My gut churned, my heart ached.
“It didn’t hurt,” he said, as though reading the sadness in my eyes. “How do you feel?”
I tried to gather my thoughts. The guilt from hurting Mash had subsided. “I feel . . . like I never want to be apart from you. Like . . . if you walked over there to that tree, I might die.”
“That’s the mate bond talking. It can be a drama queen,” he said.
“Maybe. But then, part of me has always felt that way with you. Perhaps now I just have the courage to say it out loud.”
Something rumbled deep inside Mash’s sternum. Not a growl, but not quite a purr.
“Okay, sniff me now,” he said, and angled his head upwards to give me better access.
I pushed my nose into his fur and breathed him in. And like that time in his shower, the reaction was instantaneous. He smelled of things that weren’t even possible to smell of.
He smelled like the ravine. Like fresh air, and moss, and damp dirt beneath our dress shoes. Like that first stolen kiss, and like glittering cloudless star-strewn skies. Like watching out for shooting stars, and making hopeless, fanciful wishes at the age of twenty-four.
He smelled like our first student flat. Like experimenting with my cooking, of freshly baked bread, and exotic fruits, and overpriced coffee. Like smoking too much weed on the balcony, and listening at his doorway to his breathing patterns while he slept. Like yearning to sneak in there and crawl into his arms.
He smelled like Mum and Dad’s town house during Winter Fest. Like waiting up all night in the armchair next to the open fireplace, glued to my phone in case he found a bar of signal to call or text me.
He smelled like the ocean at Kuda Bay. Like the coconut sun cream I used, and sitting under the beach umbrella reading while he ran back and forth to the sea, splashing me with the salty spray and digging holes in the sand.
He smelled like that birthday crown we took turns wearing, and every smile we ever shared. Like all the songs I had ever listened to that made me think of him. Like all the times I ached for him. All the times I sat alone—a park bench, my car, my bedroom in all its various locations—and prayed things were different.
He smelled like “good morning, Bangers,” and “love you, bro,” and “Cian, I’m so fucking in love with you, sometimes I can barely spare a thought for anything else.”
Mash smelled like us.
“Wanna rail me now?” he said.
“Yes. Gods, I need you. Holy crap, I need to fuck my mate.” My mate.
Mash was my mate.
He nipped at my collar and then spun around, extending his front paws until his legs were flat on the ground and his butt was sticking up in the air. His tail swooshed magnificently from left to right. It was even fluffier in wolf form.
“This might be uncomfortable for a while. We don’t have any lube.” Even if we did, we lacked opposable thumbs to pump the bottle or apply it.
“Don’t care. Just need you now. I showered before we left for the shift, by the way,” he said.
I knew what he was asking for, so I wasted little time dragging my tongue from his balls, up his furry taint and over his hole. He groaned. His voice human-like, but quickly morphing into something more beastly. I used my saliva as lube, moving around his hole in small circles, pushing my tongue inside, lapping at it until I was satisfied it was as lubed up as I could get it. Mash’s back legs were shaking so much he looked on the brink of collapsing.
“Holy fuuuuuuuck,” he whined. “I told you getting rimmed as a wolf would feel amazing. Your tongue is so rough.”
“Are you ready?” Please, please be ready. “Or do you need more prep?”
“No more prep. I’m gonna fucking come all over the dirt if you keep doing that. Fuck me now, please. I need you to fuck me right now.”
Thank gods. I wasn’t sure how much longer I could wait. I mounted him. Hopped up onto his back, wrapping my front paws around his waist and lining my cock up with his hole. My knot was already tingling, ready to inflate. It was going to expand as soon as I felt his heat, I knew that much. I needed to get inside him fast.
“This isn’t gonna last very . . . I’m sorry in advance, that’s all. I should have prepared for this.” Knocked one out earlier so I might have stood some chance of making it beyond a minute.
“It doesn’t matter. I won’t last either. You should see the precum gushing out of me. It’s like someone left a tap on. Besides, I probably won’t remember it anyway.”
“True,” I said. The thought was both comforting and sad. On the one hand—paw—it didn’t matter how shit my performance was, but on the other, he wouldn’t have these memories. A part of Mash that was only ever for me.
I gripped him around the waist. “I love you, by the way.” Another apology for the lack of lube and prep, and I tilted my hips towards him. My cock slid in, gently at first, but the resistance wasn’t as great as I’d imagined it would be. In fact, it was . . .
“Do werewolves have self-lubricating assholes?” I said, laughing at my joke.
“Maybe,” Mash said, decidedly not laughing along with me. “How else are we gonna comfortably butt fuck? Apparently, we’re more fertile during the full moons.”
“Wait, what?” My hips, which had begun thrusting of their own accord, stilled. “You’re taking the piss.”
“Nope.” He turned his head to look at me. “Don’t you have mpreg in shifter . . . genetics?”
“No, we do not. We are much more human in that respect.” What a time to find out I could impregnate my mate, when I was balls deep inside him. “So you knew? You knew that this might result in . . . there being three of us?”
“Yeah, but I never really thought about it until just now,” he said.
“But you wanted me to fuck you before we were mated. When you assumed I’d be moving back to Remy.” I didn’t want to jump to conclusions, so I stopped my train of thought right there.
“Only mates can procreate,” he said. “In wolf form, I mean. In human form I could get anyone pregnant, but in wolf form it can’t happen without the bond.”
“I’m not true were. Does that make a difference? Do the rules still apply to me?” It was near enough impossible not to thrust into him. To keep the friction as minimal as possible in case he changed his mind.
“I . . . don’t know. But I really, really need to find out.”
“Look at me,” I said. Mash flipped his head to the side and looked at me with one eye. “Do you want me to breed you?”
Mash didn’t answer with words. He groaned and lowered himself even more, so that I slipped in deeper. Holy shit, he felt incredible.
“Mash, are you gonna regret this tomorrow?” Maybe there was such a thing as the werewolf morning-after pill.
“I want this so bad. I want you and all your cubs. Breed me. Fill me up. Tell me I’m a good boy. I want your family, Ci.”
Fuck, I wanted that too.
“You can pull out now if you don’t want that,” he said, though his ass bounced up and down, stealing friction I hadn’t permitted him yet. “I’m sorry. I assumed you knew. We probably should have discussed this before.”
I couldn’t have pulled out of him even if I’d wanted to. He felt too damned good, and I wanted to breed him. Part of me hoped we’d have a few years of just us before we had cubs, but another part thought about how magical it would be if it happened tonight—on the night Mash became alpha and the night we mated.
I hadn’t realised it, but I’d begun thrusting again. Mash whimpered beneath me. He was so warm, and soft, and solid, and he smelled so fucking incredible.
I’d never fucked anyone as a wolf before. Plenty of guys had asked for it, yet I hadn’t felt as though I could show them that part of myself. With Mash, it just felt right.
His tail was trapped between our bodies, but I could feel it twitching against the base of my cock. The sounds he made were mostly human moans of pleasure, though occasionally, a guttural canine growl slipped out and rumbled throughout the ravine. It was raw, and incredible, and I already decided I would spend the rest of my days chasing that sound out of him again.
Mash’s back legs eventually gave way, flattening and splaying like a starfish. He bucked against the dirt, and I wished we’d thought about this beforehand, given him somewhere softer to lie on. He was going to come exactly where he was and have to wait around in his mess while my knot deflated inside him.
“Ci, fuck. Oh, gods. Are you close? Please tell me you’re close,” he whined.
“Yes. I’m so close. Are you ready? My knot is going to lock you in.”
“Yes, fill me up.”
“I love you,” I said, picking up the pace.
My knot swelled. Mash whined, his hips jerked erratically, and then they stopped. He stilled, and cried out, and I felt myself rolling over that peak with him, both of us howling into the night as I filled him with wolf cum.
I collapsed on top of him, thankful he was so big and fluffy and a perfect pillow. “Mash, are you okay?”
He hummed in response, but didn’t move. “No talky now. Only sleepy,” he said.
“Okay, you sleep for a bit. I’ll wake you up when my knot has gone down and we can move somewhere cleaner.”
It was a moment before he spoke. His voice soft and sated.
“Was I a good boy?”
“The best.”