The Wolf
She runs. Though I can feel that she doesn’t want to. She's low on energy, and I smile to myself. I need my Little Doe too exhausted to run but not exhausted enough for all the things I have planned to do to her.
Every muscle in her body calls to me—each stride, each gasp through parted lips, each frantic brush of her hands against the trees. The forest answers her with rustling leaves and snapping twigs, a rhythm that feels like my own heartbeat thrown back at me.
The scent of her—smoke, fear, heat, need—cuts through the cold like a blade. It catches in my lungs, burns there. I breathe her in, and I can feel my control split apart.
I prowl after her, quiet at first, letting the distance stretch just enough to keep the ache alive. Every sound she makes sharpens me; every stumble tightens the leash around my instincts until it’s ready to snap.
The time is coming. The moment I’ve been waiting for all night, the moment I finally show her how much I’m craving her, how everything I’m doing is for her. Every thought. Every action. Everything, all for my Little Doe.
Branches whip my arms, scratch across my throat. I don’t care. The sting is nothing compared to the feral need pounding through me. My vision narrows to her shape—a flash of her mask in the moonlight, the auburn of her hair, the way her body moves with desperate purpose.
She’s faster than most would dare, but I know the terrain. I’ve hunted here since I was a boy, spent countless days and nights prowling through these very trees. The ground bends to me; the trees shift at my passing. I am the dark she runs through, the breath at her neck she can’t shake.
Her scent deepens—sweat, adrenaline, that sweet edge of surrender. She’s tiring quickly. I can hear the hitch in her breath. The soft cry when she catches her skirt on a branch and tears her stockings. There won’t be anything left of them when I’m through with her.
I imagine pinning her wrists above her head with one hand, while my other hand traces the stiff peaks of her nipples.
My tongue tasting the sweat on her throat.
The breathless sounds she will make when I push her over the edge, when my tongue finds her center, and finally gets to taste her. My dick pulses at the thought.
I growl under my breath, low and rough. The sound startles her.
She freezes for half a heartbeat, then bolts left off the trail she was on.
Smart, but not smart enough. I follow her, faster now, the ground blurring beneath me.
My breath comes in hot bursts, my teeth clench.
Every heartbeat screams mine. She trips once, catches herself, and keeps going. I almost admire her for it. Almost.
The moon spills through the trees in fractured light, silvering her skin where the mask’s ribbon slides against her throat. Her pulse flashes there—wild, beautiful, untamed.
I lunge forward, close enough to hear her whimper when she senses me. My shadow merges with hers. My fingers twitch at my sides, craving the contact I’ve denied myself all night.
“Run,” I whisper, again. This time it’s not an invitation. It’s a promise.
She stumbles into a small clearing, breath ragged, chest heaving. The firelight from the festival is only a distant memory now, a dying ember swallowed by the night. Here, it’s just us—the darkness and the need that’s been building for years.
I can feel my restraint crumbling. If I don’t feel her body beneath mine soon, I won’t be able to contain myself.
There will be no stopping the things I will do to her when I get my hands around that tight body, my fingers in what I know will be the sweetest pussy I’ve ever seen.
Each image—her pressed against a tree, her ass against my hips, my fingers slick with her arousal, the taste of her pussy on my tongue.
I stalk closer. Her back is to me, but I know she feels me there—the way her body tenses, the way her breath stops.
“Keep going,” I murmur. “Don’t stop now.”
The words are rougher than I mean them to be. They scrape out of me like a growl. She obeys, barely, moving deeper into the trees.
I could end this. One leap, one hand on her waist, and the game would be over, but I don’t. I want her trembling, dizzy with it, unable to tell if what’s chasing her is danger or desire.
Her mask catches the moonlight again as she turns her head, and for the briefest moment, her eyes lock on mine through the dark. The world stops moving. She knows the time is close.
The sound of her breathing hits me like a blow. My control slips another inch, the line between man and beast wearing thin.
I imagine what will happen when I catch her. How she will feel under my hands. How she will taste on my tongue. I can almost feel the heat of her body against mine. My dick pulses in my jeans. I want her so badly my balls physically hurt.
I step closer. The forest tightens around us, thick with smoke, pulse, and hunger.
When she picks up her pace again, and I chase—faster this time, no more patience, no more restraint. The night itself seems to tear open with us, and the rhythm of our bodies merges into one sound, one heartbeat.
She glances back just once, eyes wide, mouth parted in something that looks like fear but tastes like invitation, and that’s all it takes. I break into a run, closing the space between us until I can feel the heat of her skin in the frigid air.
The moment before I touch her feels like the edge of a storm—everything waiting to break. There is a crackle of heat in the air, and I can hear her heartbeat. She wants this as bad as I do; she just won’t admit it aloud yet, but her body is betraying her at every turn.
She slows, breathless, shaking. I stop just behind her, close enough that my breath stirs the loose strands of her hair. She doesn’t move.
Neither do I.
The silence between us hums — hot, fragile, dangerous. The forest watches, waiting to see which of us will break first. She exhales, and the sound of it wrecks me.
The hunt is over.
The claiming hasn’t begun.
But it will.
Soon.