The Crimson Tithe

He stood upright and looked at one who was holding his interest. It was like she was just waiting for him to do something the way she was kneeling upright, knees slightly spread, in perfect posture; totally unmoving. Geir extended a single claw, drawing it upward underneath the lip of the hood. Slowly he drew it backwards to bare her head. Still, she stayed there not moving. If anything, she seemed to be staring at up him through the lace blindfold as if wanting him to get on with it. He brought his claw back down, inadvertently caressing her cheek with it, to hook her lace blindfold.

Ever so gently, he brought the blindfold up and off of her head. Ah, now he knew who she was. This was the last one to arrive at the town hall in the Crimson Village. Her bright blue piercing eyes shot open, glaring at him. "A werewolf... well it is called the Lupercalia for a reason then," she commented as she looked at his black, furred body from the tips of his pointed, alert ears down to the reverse haunches of his legs and hind paws. "I figured as much based on the stories we hear in regards to the treaty." Geir noticed that her gaze settled twice on his manhood that was now starting to show signs of life now that he was near her.

He cocked his head, regarding her again, this time looking at her with increased curiosity. Her hard stare, her body posture, her whole attitude was telling him to hurry things up already. "You," he said, voice deep and rumbling. "You are not afraid of me."

She shrugged indifferently. "I'm just hoping that you make your choice soon because I do not fancy the idea of being stuck out here all night listening to the incessant whining of the others, especially this one beside me." She indicated the one to her left with a jerk of her head. "She's really loud and annoying."

Geir looked at the petite pale one in the golden cloak who was still shaking with abject horror. For laughs, he flipped the girl's hood back and the brunette that he revealed openly wailed. Geir chuckled in agreement with the blonde's assessment. "Yes," he said gruffly, "I share that sentiment." Turning back to her, he reached down and pushed the crimson cloak off of the blonde's bare shoulders and took a really good look at her trussed up body. She was precisely proportionate; good birthing hips, slender waist, with a bust and shoulders to match her curves. She also had strong arms and legs, but not overtly muscular, that told him that she was no stranger to hard work. Yes, she had both strength and courage which will serve her well in the pack.

He reared back as if preparing to strike. The girl in crimson merely arched a curious eyebrow. Strange, even when faced with such a threatening pose she did not flinch. It was almost as if she knew that she wasn't going to be hurt by him. Geir made two precision slashes down along the side of the girl's body, raking the ropes that kept her legs bound but never coming into contact with her smooth skin. The severed ropes fell to the ground around her. She then stood up, stretching her long, slender legs in relief before looking up into his eyes, looking quite lovely standing there wearing nothing more than her village's crimson cloak and the knee high leather boots.

"You are mine." Geir said formally.

"I gathered that by the fact that you cut me loose," she replied evenly.

He cocked his head again. "You are not going to try and run?"

Another indifferent shrug from her. "What would be the point?" she asked. "The outer gates to the five villages are closed and barred and you could be on me within seconds of me making a move. Besides, running away would only serve to break the treaty made between my people and yours." She flipped her head back to get the hood off and shuffled her shoulders around to get the cloak around her body, not for modesty sake but more to preserve warmth in the cool night. She looked down at the basket and up at him expectantly. He picked up the basket; breaking the handle just enough so that she could weave the handle through the crook of her still tied arms. "So where do we go from here?" she asked.

Geir liked this woman more with each passing moment. Perhaps being forced to choose a mate this year would not be such a bad thing after all. "To my home. Into the woods," he said, turning on his heel and beckoning her to follow. To the other three he growled over his shoulder. "Your people will come to collect the rest of you at the dawn and take care of you." He pulled the golden cloak hood back up over the brunette's head to keep her warm for the night. She sobbed with visible relief at not being chosen.

Once they were down the path that led into Mormor Woods and out of sight of the other sacrifices, Geir looked at his chosen mate. She was walking alongside of him, eyes straight ahead, as if this were a normal everyday occurrence. She looked back at him. "So what is your name?" she asked finally. "Or do I just call my new mate, Wolf?"

"Funny," Geir said with another one of his rumbling chuckles. "My name is Geir. Yours?"

"Kara," she said.

"I find it interesting that you are already accepting that you are my mate." Geir observed. "From what I have observed in the past your kind are usually still fighting it by the time they are taken back to the pack. Most by this point are still in denial over the whole thing and are usually running for their lives by now to the point that we have to chase them down," he said, his voice almost hinting at the idea that she do just that.

"And ravish them, perhaps? You seem disappointed that I'm not resisting." Kara quirked a smile on her lips. "Is that why you want me to run? Thrill of the hunt and all that?"

"Partly," Geir admitted, his own mouth curving into a smile that was almost a snarl. Kara could see the large size of his pointed teeth. "The hunt and the chasing of prey is an exhilarating experience for us."

"So I can tell," Kara said, her smile becoming broader as she looked down his body and noticed that his teeth were not the only thing that was large about him. She stopped and turned to face him. "So would that be something that would please you; chasing me down so that you can have your way with my tied up body?" She arched her back to broaden her shoulders a bit and to thrust her breasts out toward him, accenting her nudity and vulnerability. "Is that how you would prefer to take the one you have selected to be your mate?"

"Yes," Geir snarled with delight, his own desire now obvious to them both.

Kara cocked her hips to one side in a defiant pose, bumping the basket out a bit. "I might have been prepared for you this afternoon," she said, lips curling into a mocking sneer. "Although I don't think that you've been prepared for me."

"Is that a challenge?" Geir stepped forward so that they were a mere breadth away from each other. His nostrils flared and he could smell her better now that they were away from the others. She was primed and ready for sex. Close up with his superior night time vision he could see the dilation of her pupils, the slight flush of her skin, the raised goose bumps on her skin, all of it in anticipation. Her breath was husky and the sight of her breasts swelling with each intake made her absolutely irresistible. "I know these woods like the back of my paw, human," he growled. "Like you said; I will be on you in seconds."

"Perhaps," Kara said, smiling. She brought her leg up in a kick. Geir saw it coming and moved to block. Kara had feinted low and then brought her leg up higher to catch him in the side of the head. Laughing, she continued to spin in place to plant her kicking foot on the ground to take off running.

By the time he regained his senses, she was already disappearing into the woods with her crimson cloak billowing behind her in her wake. Geir threw back his head and howled with delight. Oh how long has it been since he'd been near anything with such fire and passion inside of them! He dropped onto his haunches and loped after her. The hunt was on!

***

CHAPTER 4:

John grunted, then let out a loud "GAH!" as he thrust his hips forward into Diana one last time to blow his load deep into her pussy. He ground his hips into her round bottom while his cock spat out his seed in continual waves.

In front of him, down on all fours, Diana was in the process of filing her nails and blowing the dust off of them. "Ya done yet, pup?" she asked indifferently as she felt his cock throb a bit inside of her. He wasn't the largest lover she'd ever had and he was far from the most imaginative. Diana was beginning to see why Kara broke it off with him to begin with.

At first she'd run into him at the village pub, drowning his sorrows in a beer at Kara's selection and the fact that he'd be alone this evening. It was always Diana's philosophy that no one should be by themselves on Valentine's... especially when so many young lovers are sharing drinks, whispering innuendoes to each other, and even necking in darkened corners. So she felt sorry for John as she sat by the lad, chatted him up, and then made sure to take him back to her place before the grand parade just so that he wouldn't have to see Kara's trussed up body being hauled off to the waiting stones. It was that or spend the evening alone with her assortment of hand carved polished phalluses that she'd made herself.

The evening devolved from there and Diana was starting to think that having alone time with the phalluses would've been better. Once she'd had enough liquor in her, she started shedding clothes by the fireplace in open invitation to him. John protested at first but once he had some of the wine that she kept in her cottage, he was all over her. He was an eager lover, she had to give him that. But he was all about himself and not about his partner. Diana was past the point of sympathy and was now to the point of this just being an all-night pity fuck for him. Her getting off was now a long, distant memory.

John growled at her. "Talk about being such a downer," he mumbled as he pulled out of her. Diana paid him no heed as she shifted her focus to doing the nails on her other hand. "You could at least pretend to show some interest. I mean what does a guy have to do around here? Hold you down and pound you hard or something?"

"At least that'd be more interestin' than you getting' hard, pumping a few times, then blowing yer load into me as you've done so many times already today." She muttered as she stretched her legs out to settle down onto her stomach and ample bosom. Grabbing a nearby cloth rag, she shoved it in between her legs to clean up the latest load of his that was now seeping out of her pussy. She silently vowed to find a real man tomorrow to give her a proper fucking.

John wasn't listening though as he stood up and walked naked over to the nearby window, grabbing up one of the open bottles of wine along the way to take a swig out of. He stared thoughtfully towards the dark and foreboding woods off in the distance beyond the perimeter wall. "I wonder what's going through her head?" he wondered aloud. "Is she scared? She has to be if any of the stories I've heard are true."

"Oh Gods above... not this again," Diana moaned with dismay, rolling her eyes in the process. "Valkyries take me now to Valhalla..." if she had to listen to his bemoaning about Kara's selection one more time she swore that she was going to either kill him or slit her own wrists... one of the two.

Before John could launch into his loathing that Diana could now recite by heart now, there was a loud, unearthly howl that came from the woods that made John jump. "What was that?" he asked with trepidation as he turned back to Diana.

"Them," Diana said. She'd heard it many times in her lifetime. "The first howl means that they're approaching the circle. The second means that they've chosen."

"Is... is there any way to know who they chose?"

Diana shook her head. "Not til mornin', pup." She said. "So ya might as well get back over here and cozy up by the fire with me until then."

"But Kara could be chosen by those... those things!"

"Yes... hence the whole reason for the Lupercalia Festival Sacrifice. We rather they take one of our choosing rather than put up with incessant raids from them just so that they can increase and sustain their breeding stock not to mention having to endure what Gods know what else is out there in those woods." Diana sat up and back onto a pile of pillows nearby, taking a moment to wipe pearls of John's seed that had been trapped in the brown curls of hair between her legs. She let out an involuntary moan as her hand put pressure onto her sex and wished that John would do something about it already. Then decided to hell with it, she pushed her fingers up into her sex and started to get things done with or without him.

John watched her pleasuring herself for a moment and decided that he could go another round. He sat down at a chair by the window and watched Diana as she played with herself. Diana seemed to forget that he was even there as she leaned her head back, gripped one of her tits in her hand and squeezed, and sighed with pleasure. He was determined to properly remind her that he was in the room and that his cock demanded attention now.

Before he could get to her there was another howl from the woods. John's head whipped around. "Is that another one? Is there two out there?"

Diana let out a huff of frustration. She'd been close to orgasm until he talked. "No, it just means that they've made their choice and they're heading back to their den now."

John felt his blood run cold and his heart skip a beat. "I have to do something. I have to go check on her!" He went for the door, grabbing clothes along the way..

"You keep yer lousy ass inside my house or I will have the Mayor on it!" Diana shouted at him as he hastily donned his clothes. "Hey! Get back here, pup! Ah Gods dammit all," she swore the moment he was out the door. She was torn with the need of her body and her duty to the village. "Gods fuck it all," she muttered, pulling on her clothes and running off into the cold night, heading for the Mayor's house. "If that pup manages to get out of this weekend alive, I'm going to kill him."

*

John's blood pumped through his body and thundered in his ears as he ran all out thought the dark, snowy village. Only the light of the moon above and the occasional torch at a doorway was his only guide in the night. Eventually he made it to the gateway of the perimeter wall. Normally the gate was well guarded to keep people like him in and whatever lurked beyond out. Tonight was the only night it was left unguarded per the terms of the so-called treaty that these villages were under. It was to ensure that no one laid eyes on the 'beasts' as they came to the Stones of Sacrifice to claim their prize.

So it was no trouble at all for John to clamber his way up one of the watchtowers that flanked the gates to peer over the fifteen foot wall. He shielded his eyes against the glare of the lit torches here toward the circle where the tithed girls were at. "Purple... Blue... Green..." he muttered as he laid eyes on the cloaks. The Green Cloak in the center idly waved in the gentle breeze as it had no one under it. It was just erected up on a pole. "Yellow... Oh shit!" his eyes fell to the last stone in line where the Red Cloak... Kara's Cloak... should have been. "Fuck! She was chosen!" Of course she'd be the one chosen. God had a habit of laughing at his misery in that way.

Without so much as a second thought, John quickly located a coil of rope nearby and used it to rappel down the front of the wooden wall. He sprinted over to the cleared out circle and felt instantly warm the moment he crossed it's boundary stones. I wonder how they do that? He half-wondered as he got up to the girls, all of whom seemed to register his presence at once.

"W-who's there!" the girl in the Blue Cloak asked with trepidation. "It can't be morning already!"

"Kara..." John panted out. "Where's Kara at?"

"Who?" That was Purple Cloak.

"The girl in the Red Cloak at the end of the line. Where is she?"

"She was selected," Purple Cloak said matter-of-factly. "Why do you care?"

"Because I'm taking her back home, that's why!"

Any fear that the girls might've had earlier at being the beast's prospective choice now paled in comparison to the sheer, stark terror that now gripped them at the mere thought of the treaty being broken. All three of them at once started shouting, yelling, and pleading with John in variations of "You can't", "You mustn't", "Don't do it", "Don't go after her", and similar such calls of dissuasion.

John looked at them incredulously. "What the hell is it with you people?" he asked in utter disbelief.

"You can't violate the treaty!" Yellow Cloak cried out. "You'll put us all in danger!"

"Look," Blue Cloak said, rolling her shoulders to knock her hood back and to show him her naked, tied up body. "If it is physical pleasure you seek then take it from me. But please do not go after them into the woods. It is forbidden! Please, come here so I may service you with my mouth." She leaned her head back and opened her mouth expectantly.

"That goes for me as well," Purple Cloak said, getting her Cloak back far enough to show off her body as she leaned back as far as she could go. "You can even take me right here. I can be comfortable enough leaning back like this. Just... just don't put all of our families in danger, I beg of you."

"I'm a virgin!" Yellow Cloak called out. "You can be the first man to have me any way you want me! In my sex, in my bottom, in my mouth, I do not care! Just don't go after them! Please! Take me!"

"I don't believe this," John breathed. Granted, he was tempted. He could have any one or all three of them but Kara... Kara seemed to fill his mind. He shook off temptation. "No. I have to go get her!"

"NO! DON'T!" All three girls yelled at him.

"I'm sorry." John said, turning to look into the woods down the only path that was available to him.

"We're sorry too," Purple Cloak said.

"Why?" John asked over his shoulder.

Purple Cloak took a deep breath and then screamed at the top of her lungs. "GUARDS! GUARDS HELP US!" she bellowed out as much as she could. "A TREATY VIOLATOR IS HERE! HELP! HE'S GOING TO BREAK THE TREATY!" Yellow and Blue Cloaks then took up the cry along with her, adding their voices to hers and giving the call for help even more volume.

John dashed headlong into the woods before anyone could show up.

*

Kara laughed, happy and carefree, as she dashed though the dark woods. She found it oddly liberating being selected to be the mate for a werewolf. Having hunted normal wolves in the woods before she had a chance to study pack mentality and if the humanoid version was anything like their quadruped versions, then she would be well cared for. Females often were and they were regarded as equals to the males and assisted them in the day-to-day duties in caring for the pack.

Already Geir was treating her more like an equal and she found that she loved him for just that alone. Even if he was chasing him this was more for play than it was for wanting to scare or hurt her. She glanced over her shoulder briefly and saw that Geir was running after her, gaining ground as he loped through the woods down on all fours, with a savage smile across his human/wolf face.

When Geir was just about to pounce, Kara took a hard left to start heading east in the woods. She was off the beaten path now and was extremely grateful for the knee-high leather boots that the Acolytes had dressed her in earlier. Catching a momentary look of horror on his face as she tore through the underbrush, Kara laughed again.

"Not that way!" Geir yelled after her.

"Why not? Can't keep up?" Kara called back in a sing-song voice.