Wolf's Bane

In her arms, Alanya stared, transfixed, screaming like Sam – but unlike Sam, her body began creasing and peeling, her body aging and rotting, wizening with degeneration. Shrinking, desiccating, that look in her eyes remaining even after her eyes, and the body around it, turned to dust, joined the rest of the debris in the growing maelstrom and leaving Sam's hands empty.

Sam wondered if her own body was undergoing the same disintegration.

No.

Behind her/within/around her, she felt Fenris. Beloved?

She felt his massive arms surround her.Yes, Samantha. You should not have come back.

She turned around, facing him. He was as tall and powerful and beautiful as she had ever seen him. He looked down at her with the same naked love that she felt for him. You can punish me later.

I fear there will not be a later...

Oh God, what's happening?

Forces have been unleashed, forces not easily contained again. They're growing.

Somehow, Sam found herself able to look beyond. Men and women began to scream, cowering down as the blizzard of energy filled the area, and grew, uprooting stones and leaves, trees...

Her heart seemed to stop. How far will this go?

Too far.

What can we do?

He reached up and touched her face, stroked her tenderly.I can draw the energy back and seal the breach. You... you can go on living. For both of us. And know I will always love you.

Fenris, what-

He released her.

She seemed to drift away, her struggles to swim through the vortex and return to him in vain. Beloved, no! NO!

He drifted upwards, into the heart of the vortex.

Out of his protective touch, the pressures overwhelmed her. She blacked out...

When she came to, it was late morning, the sun higher in the sky, but all was quiet, no birds, no voices. The ground around her smoked, ashen, like the aftermath of a forest fire, and a thin dust was slowly sifting through the air and settling over everything. The circle of stones was shattered, each stone splintered into a thousand shards, forming cairns now. She rose onto unsteady feet, mouth agape at the utter destruction around her.

Trees were uprooted, stripped bare of branches and leaves, thickets burned away leaving gnarled roots. Beyond these, the former monastery still seemed to stand – until it too, now crumbled, collapsing soundlessly in a swirling blanket of dust, and what few windows that had remained intact exploded silently in arcs of glittering fragments.

She walked about, stunned, stopping at a portable power generator probably used by the Russians for their scanning and recording devices. She touched it – then stepped back in alarm as the frame split apart like a rotten husk and crumbled before her astonished eyes into pulverised dust. Cold sweat bathed her forehead, and she fell back to her knees, faint and sick to her stomach. It took several moments for the wave of nausea to pass and a faint flush of heat to seep back into her cheeks.

But of everything she saw around her, nothing compared with the loss she now faced. "Fenris... Beloved..."

Distantly she was aware of the helicopters landing, but ignored them, still calling his name.

*

"He sealed the breach, at the cost of his own life." Roshenko stated rather than asked.

Sam nodded. "Ironic. He was a creature prophesised to destroy the world. Instead he saved it."

"And all for the love of a woman who had touched his heart." The sneer in the Major's voice told her what he thought about her story. "And I am expected to brief my superiors with such an outlandish, melodramatic tale of love and sacrifice?" He shook his head. "I don't think so." He spoke in Russian.

Beside Sam, the aide prepared another injection. "Can't you- can't you check with the Special Weapons Directorate? They must have files on what Alanya was doing for them."

He grunted. "Clearly you have no idea about the political labyrinth one would have to traverse for that. At any rate, that will be a task for someone else. My task is to glean the truth from you. And you will provide it."

She winced, her head pounding. "Major... I've told you the truth. I don't care whether you believe me or not."

"You will. You are to be injected with cyanolin. And for the next three hours, you will feel like you are suffocating. The pain and terror will be unrelenting, but you will not die, or even pass out. Meanwhile, while you are undergoing that, I shall get some dinner and rest, as it's late. And when I return, I think you will be in a more accommodating frame of mind."

Samantha...

She looked up, as if Roshenko had spoken to her, her face creased with disbelief. "Fenris?"

"Miss Brennan, spare me any more of your lies."

Samantha, I am here...

"Where?"

Within you. Growing stronger. Just let me out.

"Miss Brennan, a pretence at insanity will not save you..."

"Inside me? But..."

Then she felt him.

And laughed to herself, even through the pain, a pain induced not by chemicals but a drive to metamorphosis, now coursing through every cell in her body, as it changed: bones lengthening, thickening, muscles swelling and bulging, breaking the leather straps restraining her wrists and ankles. The aide holding the vial of pain-inducing poison just stood there dumbfounded, letting Sam reach out and smack him across the head with a bone-breaking snap, sending him flying away until he crumpled against a wall. Her clothes ripped and tore at the seams, falling away as she rose to her feet, copper-brown fur snaking out from under her skin, a pain at the base of her spine telling her she was growing a tail, even as her ears rose to the top of her head and grew points, and her nose and jaw extended forward. She convulsed and spasmed, but with the pain came power.

Roshenko backed away into a corner of the room, the terror paling his face into a chalky hue, fingers struggling with the holster at his side, desperate to withdraw his sidearm. The table bolted to the floor stood between them, and she could have walked around it, but chose instead to grab one end and rip it from its bolts, sending it away as if to cover the body of the aide. She saw him with eyes that saw more than her old ones did, heard and smelled things she couldn't imagine existed. She felt the claws extend from the tips of her thick fingers as she reached out, pulled his trembling hands from his holster. She towered over him, and smelled him soiling himself.

And with a voice lined with an eternal growl, the figure who was now more than Samantha Brennan snarled, "Piotr Roshenko... You said you only believe in what you see before you.

Now, before you die..believe..."

And Piotr met the Wolf...

*

The alarms went off throughout the Aryekhi facility, and guards scrambled to their posts, bolting shut each iron door as per a thousand drills.

No door, however, withstood the juggernaut onslaught of the woman who was Samantha Brennan, in full lupine form, charging forward like a rhino through the labyrinthine brick corridors, as large as a bear but unstoppable. Bolts flew and metal protested in vain as she charged forward, and any guards that raised weapons, or even just stepped aside in confusion and terror, proved no hindrance whatsoever, leaving them battered pulp along the way. She charged forward, again and again, through door after door, senses leading her onward. She had no thoughts now, no time nor effort for them, swept away as she was by the ineffable power and emotion coursing through her veins, through every fibre of her being.

She was Wolf. She was Wildness. She was Speed and Hunger and Instinct. She was a Goddess.

And she would be free.

*

She didn't know where Aryekhi was while inside.

There was no clue outside, either; the place looked like a nameless factory, with smoked-up windows and chimneys that belched out black puffs into the night. Trucks were parked along what looked like a delivery entrance, but she had neither the time – nor the body – to drive away. Alarms were sounding, and spotlights were being trained on the corners of the building, but Samantha was already far away, crashing through the barb wire-topped fence as if it were paper, and charging forward into a deep forest rising along steep slopes, kicking dirt and pebbles out behind her. Unlike the cold, deathly prison, she was aware of everything around her out here, a riot of sensations that she fought to set aside now as she bounded forward. But- but there was so much to sense, explore, hunt-

No, Beloved. Flight is paramount.

Fenris? You're still with me?

I never left. Now stop thinking. Feel. Feel the need to escape. They may follow.

Yes, yes of course.

She strode onward, time having no meaning except for the rise of the moon overhead, ignored, until she found a shard of rock large enough to shelter her and protect her from the elements, though she felt strong enough to withstand anything.

No, don't let that feeling overwhelm you. It is seductive, but it is deceptive.

Samantha settled down onto her belly, drawing her tail – a tail! – around her. You entered me, I mean your spirit did. In the Balefire. Why didn't you say before?

I didn't want Alanya to know. And I... I wasn't sure if I could do it,and seal the breach. I didn't want to raise your hopes.

But it's been hours! Where were you?

Buried deep inside you, Samantha, trying to recover.

Inside, she smiled. I should be mad. But I'm just so incredibly overwhelmed that you're alive... She raised her head and stared down at her paws. What now, though? Am I to be like this permanently? Are we joined for life? Will you be able to-

Samantha... shut up. Close your eyes.

She did.

*

When it felt right to open them again, she found herself outside, She found herself outside, but not where she was a moment before, but on a plain that seemed more ethereal than real - a landscape of the mind. And she was Wolf, a full, normal-sized wolf, glancing up at a sky of a thousand thousand stars.

She howled, for the first time. It was a glorious call.

Beloved...

She turned. Fenris! She raced to him, nuzzled him, this mind-form feeling as real as her own body.

He licked at her face.Of course it feels real. Every woman carries within her the spirit of the Wolf: Strong, life-giving, life-affirming, cunning, discerning, loyal, courageous beyond measure. They carry tales, dreams, words and songs. They carry everything they need, and they stand with dignity and fight to the death to protect their own.

She glanced down, saw herself human again.

And saw Fenris as the same, but also not. They were in a kaleidoscope of images, constantly shifting, altering, forming new combinations as he drew her close into a rough embrace, their lips/muzzles pressing, grinding, tongues entwining. He was rough, impatient, desperate for her. All the things she felt, and more. The throbbing between her thighs, no longer to be regarded as nerves, had grown harder, more insistent, sending her sex into a fluttering, pulsing state.

But she drew back, inescapable thoughts making themselves known, no longer ignorable. Fenris, you have goals in my world? Plans? Ragnarok-

Ragnarok was an invention of man, men who shaped me to play a part in their myths. I have become far more than that, with your help.

Darkness is coming. Forces are gathering in all the worlds. No one will stand apart, untouched by it. But know I will stand on the side of light. As, I hope, will you, with me.

Tears fell down her face. Yes. Oh yes, Beloved! They embraced, clinging to each other for dear life.

Until she could no longer ignore the erection pressing against her.

And when she reached down and stroked it, and Fenris growled into her neck in reply, she dropped onto all fours, arching her back and presenting him with a view of her full, rounded bottom, and the shadowed valley between her cheeks.

She growled to herself, bringing her thighs together once to rub them, to feel the wetness seep from her sex.

Then he was upon her, his cock pressing urgently between her legs. She lifted her buttocks higher, and he moaned as he positioned himself, then plunged hungrily into her sex. The feeling was eclipsed by a climax that had suddenly enveloped her, dousing her again and again as he plunged and retreated inside her hot, moist channel.

Samantha burst into laughter, again eclipsed by the waves of pleasure running over and through her. The deep, full thrusts of Ferris's cock felt exquisite. She buried her face into her arms/paws as she cried out, the climax taking hold of her again, turning her into a thrashing whipcord demon, struggling not to escape, but to keep him behind her, within her, driving her onwards.

Soon, too soon for her, he cried out and came, and she used her muscles to milk him for every drop he had. Then he collapsed upon her, still inside. Samantha supported his for a moment, until he withdrew, and they nestled together like spoons. His arm lay over her, his wet, still-erect cock nudged between her cheeks, their come mingling and seeping quietly from her.

Fenris, will you stay with me?

For as long as I can, Samantha...

*

Morning and pain awoke her, and it took a moment's meditative focus to minimise her reactions, allowing her to watch almost detachedly as her body shrunk and reshaped back into her human form.

She lay on the cave floor, letting the shivers overrun her before rising unsteadily to a sitting position, wrapping her arms around her legs and staring outside. The cave overlooked a craggy valley of dark forests surrounded by mist-shrouded mountains beneath a roseate morning sky. Her lingering enhanced senses told her no one was around. Good.

Not that she was out of the woods - literally. In fact, being without clothes, identification or weapons in the middle of nowhere and with secret government forces after her was hardly the acme of good situations.

No matter. She carries everything she needs, and she will stand with dignity, and fight to the death to protect her own.

FIN