Stormfeather Ch. 14

From her side of it, she was thinking much the same thing.

The thing was, she wasn't here to convince him that she was crazy, though she was sure that it was how this must appear by her behavior. She actually had a plan. She wasn't here to try to tame him, though that would have been a lot more convenient. She wanted to find one of what he was in order to see if it was possible to develop some kind of friendship. She wanted protection and was prepared to give a lot for it, and after a lot of thought and self-doubt, she decided that she wanted that protection enough to try something as insane as this.

She was tired of being hunted by mages. That was why she was here, besides feeling more comfortable in a wilder place. Mages and watchers seldom came here. To her way of thinking, she'd lost far too much to them already. That was why she'd thought of this desperate plan.

She'd given herself about a little less than an even chance at success. This might work, and then again, it might not. The trouble was that in the event of her failure, the odds were long against her surviving the attempt.

For all of her long hours at observing his kind, she only had something of a very loose handle on how he'd react, and she knew that if she failed, she'd likely never see the end coming to her. These things were just that fast.

But there was a complication – a serious one, too. What she was after would require a clear head at all times. She'd just thought that if she could earn a little of his friendship, then she could maybe maneuver things to go her way, and if that worked, then she could maybe feel something emotional in it for herself. That had been her hope and her plan, anyway.

But watching these creatures for a while to learn their habits had given her an appreciation of them. By now, she could tell the brighter ones from the dimwits, the weak from the strong, and the ones with drive and spirit from the lazy and self-absorbed ones. So she knew what she was looking for, she thought.

And then one day, she'd seen him and everything went out the window.

He was a little older and could handle himself. He never gave in to rage, and she could see that he fought the way that a master would play chess. There was no such thing as wasted motion to anything that this one did. Every move was calculated, even in the middle of a fight with another of his kind. He knew exactly what he could expect in terms of tactics and he had proven counters to every move and blindingly fast follow-ups that few opponents walked away from – ever.

She saw more than elementary problem-solving ability in him. Other than for the simplest quandaries, these things weren't supposed to have that, but he did. Not that he'd shown that he 'd been aware that she'd been watching, but she'd seen things which told her that he wasn't particularly cruel – he was just usually hungry, and given his size, she thought, that was understandable.

But then she'd begun to appreciate his body and made what was perhaps the strangest discovery to her, and it had nothing to do with him – other than that it concerned the way that she saw him. All things considered in light of her plan, her cross-hairs settled onto him with a loud click.

She wanted him.

Her problem was supposed to be what she was going to have to do about getting him.

Her other problem was that she wanted him far too much for her own good, and that wasn't even supposed to be possible.

Everything had been going along fairly well, considering that he hadn't taken her life yet. But now she came to the part of her strategy where she'd try to get a lot more of his interest, and given what they both were, this was where she knew that the highest likelihood of failure lay. This was where she'd be taking her life in her hands at any moment and risking everything.

And this was where she couldn't tear her eyes away from a thousand details about his magnificent body. She'd been trailing him for a month or more, learning all that she could about his habits. She'd have thought that seeing the same one over that time would earn her at least a little immunity.

But right here, this close to so much masculine power in one body, what she had in mind seemed absurd. She'd seen females of the right kind take swipes at each other impatiently for a chance at having him notice them. Half of them weren't even in season, but they'd been hopeful anyway.

What chance did she have? She wasn't anything like what he'd be looking for. She could see that he thought that she'd lost her mind for the way that she'd been acting.

She looked at him again.

She'd become obsessed and she knew it.

She just couldn't help herself. His lips had felt so good against hers, ...

He'd been just about to allow himself to doze a little more when he saw it - or thought that he did - the moment when she'd made up her mind and gotten her incredible courage and daring on-side at the same instant. He watched through almost closed eyelids as she turned herself around very slowly to face him, and her paw drifted slowly down between her thighs. She was looking at him. He watched as her eyes moved from one part of him to another, sometimes lingering on something for a moment or two before moving on. She brought her pawed hand to her mouth and licked it for a moment before bringing it back down to tease herself.

He wondered if she knew that he was watching her. It was possible, but it didn't make much sense. Then again, by everything that he'd ever learned in his long journey in the business of staying alive in his dangerous world, nothing that she'd done so far had made any sense at all to him.

He let his mouth open a little as he often did so that his tongue could slide out a little and he pretended to pant just a bit as though from the heat. He did it as a test. The day was cooling off already. He just wanted to see what she'd do.

She noticed it and stopped instantly, freezing in place. She stared at his eyes, but he kept them still. She must have assured herself that she was still unnoticed because she began again a moment later. It didn't take long before her own eyelids drooped a little and she opened her own mouth. If he listened hard, he could just hear her soft panting.

He was surprised, but he knew what she was doing. He just couldn't understand why she would do this now, right here. It was almost as though she felt a want for him. Why would she? There wasn't anything at all wrong with her from what he could tell about her. A female like her probably had her choice of many of the males of her kind.

Then again, he thought, if they were as nutty as she was, she might have to wait a long time for one to notice her. If they were anything like her, they were probably all busy trying to screw termite mounds or something.

What she did seemed to leave her a little unsatisfied, he thought, because she slowed down after a while and stared at him again, looking at his paw on the ground for some reason. She stopped what she'd been doing and leaned forward onto her knees very slowly.

Alright, he thought, now we'll see just what she really has in mind. She was creeping closer to him very slowly. He didn't tense, and the only reason for that was that he couldn't see any way that she could really harm him. If he thought that there was a way for her to do that as she came nearer, he'd end this nonsense by ending her life instantly. He forced himself to be still and not flinch.

She positioned her knees on either side of his foreleg, most of the way to his elbow with great care so that her sex was directly over the back of his paw.

If this wasn't a test of his self-control, he didn't know what was. He had to fight off the need to open his eyes and stare, but he came to a decision.

If she urinated on his paw, he'd kill her for it.

But she didn't. She only lowered herself incredibly slowly and began to move her hips a little as she brought herself down. Eventually, he felt her mound begin to graze across his knuckles very gently, back and forth. It all made sense now.

She was using him to pleasure herself. He didn't know whether he ought to feel disgust or honor. He decided to allow it. It wasn't a bad thing, necessarily. Any of her scent which she might rub onto him would only help to mask his own.

He watched her face peripherally as she kept moving in light contact with him. He could tell that she wasn't finished with her amazing show yet. She turned her head to look at him and he watched her mouth close on her lower lip as she looked at him. He didn't even have to strain to hear her soft breath now.

She decided to go for broke apparently, and she very carefully placed her paws on his shoulder. He guessed that she was too far gone in her need to do much more than throw the rest of her caution to the wind. He held still for it, though barely. Part of him wanted to bat her away and the rest of him wouldn't dream of it, fascinated now by the languid motions of her back and her hips as she leaned into him a little more so that her breasts could graze against the short thick fur on his bicep. She seemed to like that a lot, he decided.

This crazy she-wolf might be nuts, but she was the most fascinating creature that he'd ever seen, hands down.

He was actually starting to like her.

And she was starting to forget herself completely, because she laid her head down on his shoulder facing him.

From the corner of his eye, he could see that her eyes were closed and she was lost in her pleasure. Her motions against his paw were no longer subtle, and they certainly weren't gentle anymore. She was riding his paw hard in her need, pressing down now with more than her light body weight. She was driving her mound down against him.

He turned his head and opened his eyes fully. He had to see the ending of this show.

Her mouth was open a little and her breath whistled slightly over her teeth and the full weight of her head was on his shoulder as she worked herself harder and then he felt her release begin to come to her. One of her thighs was just against the side of his foreleg and he could feel the tremors as they began.

He thought that she'd better be at least a little careful now. The ground here wasn't baked hard by the sun. That was why they were here, after all. It was comfortable. But the way that she rode him so hard now was pushing even his wide paw into the dirt and if this continued, she'd be dragging her tender parts through the dirt.

He did something a little unusual for him at that point. Life here was hard and even for someone like him, death might be hiding just around the next boulder. Almost every creature tended to think about only themselves unless they were mothering their young for a time.

The cost to him was nothing, so he gave a thought to her for a moment and stiffened his paw so that she couldn't push it deeper into the dirt.

The result was instant. He hadn't though about it at all, but it made things even better for her and she went to town, throwing her head back and bucking hard with her eyelids clamped tightly shut. He was sure that she didn't mean to, but she brought her vocal chords into it then and she began to grunt quietly. He could feel her thigh vibrating against him just as her head went so far back that he was afraid that she'd break her own neck and the single loud moan that came from her throat raised his hackles as she froze mostly, though he could feel that her mound was still making slight motions against his poor knuckle.

He hoped that there would still be at least a little fur left on it.

Suddenly, she remembered just where she was and her eyes opened wide as she stared into the darkening sky, frozen completely still. Her head came up in horror and she saw that he was looking at her. It didn't take any thought on her part at all to realize that he must have witnessed almost all of her little exhibition.

She wondered what had gotten into her, but tossed the thought instantly. That wasn't the problem. The problem was, what was she going to do now?

They looked at each other.

He felt her thigh tense. He knew that she was going to jump just about straight up and run for her life.

He'd give her just a second longer to choose her moment. He knew that his other paw was out of her field of view, so he flexed his pads wide and felt the claws slide out of their sheaths.

There was nothing that he enjoyed more than a test of his reflexes.

He felt the beginnings of her motion and it was over before it had begun, really. She tried to jump up and backwards, but he shifted his weight instantly and before she was even aware of it, she'd lost the race.

His other paw was in her mane, on her shoulders, pressing her down. She struggled for a moment, but he only increased the pressure. She'd either stop fighting him, or he'd snap her spine. It would be her choice.

She was so different and he'd decided that he liked having her around him now. He really hoped that she was bright enough to be able to make the right choice. She stopped and he eased off just a little.

Then he began to pull her toward his shoulder, the one that she'd had so much fun leaning against. She tried to resist, but it was no use. Every time that she'd thought to move in any other direction, his strength was there backed up by his claws, countering her effort. He kept up his slow pull and he finally felt her breasts touch his bicep.

She'd turned her head as her face came near to his huge shoulder. There was nothing else to do now but watch as he decided her fate. They looked at each other's eyes and she felt his pressure ease off more until he began something which completed her surprise and her fear and horror faded from her.

He leaned his face closer to hers and he licked her lips.

She stared for a long moment and then she closed her pretty eyes and sighed as she realized that he wasn't going to kill her for her transgression. He felt her relax against him and she even began to rub herself just a little more against him as she reached to touch his head. She sighed again as her tongue slipped through her lips to glide over his.

He even knew what she was thinking, though it surprised him a great deal. He didn't know her reasons for all of this, other than perhaps that she was needy and had been overtaken by it. But the way that she melted against him so comfortably now spoke volumes. He liked the way that her paw held his head and he even felt it when she opened those pretty eyes again to look at him while their tongues danced.

They couldn't speak to each other - he couldn't speak, after all, but her soft sighs told him enough.

She knew that he liked her and that he wouldn't hurt her. He'd even tried to force her past her panic to show her that it was alright, and for that alone, she thought that he was wonderful.

She slowly got up a little and made a bit of a sensual show of her long slow slide downward. When she rolled onto her back in front of him, she kicked him very gently a few times in a playful way so that after a moment, he'd had to reach out to her and pin her under his huge and heavy foreleg. He saw her eyes grow wide right away as she looked at him from where he'd pinned her under his claws and he surprised even himself as he'd taken a good deal of the weight of it off her a second later. He retracted his claws and licked her foot in apology.

Right then, she'd surprised him again. She didn't mind being held down by him – as long as he wasn't crushing her. She even seemed to like it. Her expression changed right back to the happy one that he'd seen an instant before, but this time, there was something else there as well. He had to think about it, remembering the times when his travels had brought him near to her kind.

She was looking hopeful, lying on her back and moving her hips as she rubbed herself against the underside of his foreleg. He watched her reach for his foreleg to hold it against her as she rubbed. It didn't make sense to him. His type of females didn't do this, unless, ...

He stretched out his neck and brought his face closer very slowly. When she saw it, her motions became more urgent. He sniffed, detecting none of the things that he'd normally be sniffing for. But he liked what came to him, and so he began to lick her there. She let go of his leg instantly and watched him through half-open eyes.

He got the same wide eyes after a moment and then he eased off a little, remembering that his tongue was not the same as hers from her earlier cleaning of him. He heard her sighs then and her eyelids closed down again in pleasure.

After a very few minutes of this, he noticed her shudder and become rigid again. He even liked the strange sounds that she'd made. As soon as what she'd felt had passed, she was up and seeking him with her mouth, eager to reciprocate. He'd never felt anything like that before and he liked it, the way that she'd thrown herself down and was now licking the swelling penis there between her lips, taking him in past her own sharp and pointed teeth very carefully so as not to hurt him.

And so they'd formed an alliance between them. The bond grew deeper as the days went by. They hunted together, and even he had to admit that she had pretty much taken the place of a mate for him, knowing instinctively where she had to be as they stalked and when she needed to be there. He'd hunted with females before, but never as successfully as this.

After a time, he became aware that she was in his mind somehow. There was never anything deep to the conversation beyond her simple queries over how far away he wanted her to be as they stalked so that she could run the game right to him or the other way around, depending on what it was that they hunted. In a sprint, she was faster, since he wasn't built for tremendous speed, though he was fast enough. But once he got to where she needed him, whatever it was that she had begun, he always ended it quickly.

And once she'd begun to eat, absolutely nothing dared to chase her from their kill. Whole packs of hyenas waited their turn, and if even one tried to run her off, he'd die for it and they'd be left to eat undisturbed. The reason for that was pure physics. Unless whatever it was that he was fighting at the time weighed well over five hundred pounds, he'd only have to connect one time to end it.

He was almost eight times her weight, and almost all of that was power. His shoulders and forelimbs were massive, though overall, he was built a little more like a hyena himself than a jaguar. Still, he was a cat, and they found that they could spend long hours looking into each other's eyes, fascinated by their differences. It always led to their tongues touching and that led to, ...

She'd been so thrilled the day that they'd pulled a bison down together, though she'd only just managed to get out of the way so as not to be crushed when it fell, whereas he'd only kept his hind feet on the ground and pulled the large bovine down. She was already into the side of the thing's throat when she'd seen his two long dagger-teeth sink in from the other side and they'd ended up looking at each other as they waited for the bison to lose consciousness and pass, and she spent those moments looking at his powerful limbs holding the bison immobile. Looking at him like that made her wet for him. She'd never reacted to anyone like this in her life before. She'd have needed a pack like herself to do this, but it wouldn't happen anywhere near as quickly, but for him it was only a bit of work.

Once the bison was dead, she'd amazed him again by licking him hungrily while he rested to get his wind back. He'd nudged her gently with his nose in thanks and when she'd looked at him, he'd reached out a little ahead of himself to slam his paw down purposefully and look at her.