FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

What Was Broken -

Chapter 8

After a visit to the local glutton-mart to restock the denuded larder for their final breakfast the next day, they pulled back into the driveway of the remote safe house not long after the sun had finally dropped below the horizon. The day had been a broiler whenever they stepped out into the sun and the unfortunate air conditioner was just barely keeping pace inside the safe house. It was definitely cooler than outside, but certainly a few degrees above frigid. "Vegh... I'll be glad to get away from this scorch." Sean commented as they stepped inside, wiping his brow after dumping their grocery sacks on the counter. He doffed his suit coat and wandered toward his room. "I'm going to catch a shower to get that court house stink off."

"Just leave some hot water for me, will you?" Oda chuckled with a growl as Sean went into the room to divest himself of the rest of his suit. "I'm going to have a pipe outside first before getting cleaned up."

"I can hardly understand how you don't just burst into flame, wolf!" Sean called out from the room. "This place is a kiln!" He heard the back door squeak and then slap shut and shook his head. The shower, though, was a cool and welcome relief that sluiced off the last of his stress and anxiety. He poked his head out the back door when he was done, still toweling his hair. "All yours, snowballs."

Oda was down to his pants, his shirt and suit coat draped over the back of a deck chair. He had the long stem of his pipe tucked neatly in the corner of his muzzle as he regarded the brush covered hillside, the lush sweep of his tail lazily wagging. When Sean announced that the shower was open he nodded and tapped out his pipe on the railing. Sean held the door open while the wolf collected his clothing and returned to the improving cool of the house. With the sun down the air conditioner's work had lessened considerably.

By the time Oda had finished his own shower Sean was relaxing on the battered old couch, clad only in the careworn pale red robe, channel surfing. "Good timing. You should have enough time to dry off before The Shattered Throne starts." It was the last of the trilogy that they had enjoyed the last couple of days. "I'll get some popcorn going while you're outside baking dry."

He actually had two full bowls completed by the time Oda, bereft of anything but fur, wandered back in. "Grab me a brew and let's see how the Paladin conquers the Adzandi." Sean gathered the chilled six pack of the local brew that he had won and returned to the living room, a sum total of seven whole paces, with the bowls of popcorn to recline on the sofa again. "And let's see if your skills have improved since your last visit."

Setting aside the bowls and bottles, Sean looked at the wolf who had seated himself on the floor in front of the sofa. "Skills?"

"Aye, yes, skills." Half turning, Oda thrust something back at Sean.

A brush. Sean looked at it and laughed, taking it from the wolf's hand. He finally recalled that on his last visit he was in charge of grooming Oda for their undercover op at the casino, Taws having elected to clean up her brother. Sitting up he turned to sit behind the wolf, his legs bracketing his shoulders, and gave his upper back a push to lean him forward. "Let's just say I've had a lot of practice. Taws sheds all year round, but in the spring it's insane!" At first he just ran his fingers through Oda's thick, dense pelt to smooth it out and look for snarls, pausing to nibble on a few puffs of popcorn. Oda leaned forward, draping is elbows on his knees, and prized the top off of a beer bottle with the claw of his thumb. He handed the first back, then opened a second.

"And you won't say anything about fur tongue, now will you?" Oda rumbled humorously.

Sean swatted the back of his neck with the brush and laughed as he took a sip his own beer. It was robust but not overpowering, with undertones of vanilla and citrus and a pleasant round bouquet. All in all, a good recipe. "No, wolf, no we won't." Setting aside the beer as the commercials finally ended and the opening scenes reprised the last two movies of the series. Raking his fingers downward he followed with the brush in slow, firm strokes. He was rewarded with very little fur. For a time they simply watched, the wolf leaning forward while Sean worked his shoulders, neck, and upper back.

"Yes, she does have you well trained indeed."

It was the first time that Sean had seen the series and he found himself drawn more and more into it, just as he had been the first two times, in between shifting from spot to spot on the wolf in front of him. After the first hour Oda got up and moved up onto the couch, pushing Sean back into one corner and turning to lay his tail across his lap. Sean dutifully gave the long appendage its due attention, working all the way down to its root and, with a grin, massaging about it a little with his fingers while he groomed. Taws enjoyed that and it was clear from his squirming that Oda did as well.

In all, the movie ended on a down note. The Paladin vanquished his opponents within the remnants of the Empire he had been bred, born, and raised to protect, and led the remnants to defeat the planet-destroying Adzandi. In the end, however, he saved a shattered empire and found himself holding an abandoned throne he had never desired to. The ending credits played over him seated upon that huge edifice, in the center of a great, echoing chamber, alone, with chin on hand and an expression of resigned sorrow on his face.

A pyrrhic victory, at best. Sean leaned back, polishing off the last of the popcorn and chasing it with the last swallow of his second beer. He stared at the screen while the credits truncated to show what was coming up on the news following.

"Ready to leave, tomorrow?" Oda rumbled from his relaxed lean at the far end of the couch, brush in hand from his own exertions grooming his front.

"Yes, and no." Sean admitted with a shrug. Levering himself upright he collected the bowls and cardboard case with two unopened bottles. "I wouldn't mind spending more time to just enjoy the town, but I really want to get back to Taws." He set the bowls in the sink and returned the unused bottles to the refrigerator. "And work, of course. Perhaps another time."

"Yeah, I don't doubt that you do want to see her again." Oda had stood as well, giving himself a vigorous shake to settle his neatly groomed fur. Padding over to the front door he flicked off the main lights and Sean killed those in the kitchen as he came out. "I hope her project is a success." They wandered into the room Sean had been using without bothering with the lights. Moonlight created a broad swath across one corner of the room through the half drawn curtains over one widow. While Sean doffed the robe and hung it on the door Oda padded over to the bed and sprawled across it on his stomach, his tail defining a lazy arch up to his back, moonlight casting the upper curve in a bright glow where it thrust into the wan illumination.

"Hard to say. There are more non-humans in California than New York, and that's where the vote comes up first, next month." Sean wandered over to the bed and grinned down at the sprawled beast that took up much of it, admiring the glow of moonlight on white fur. In similar light Taws was a mix of shadow and light, often defying the eye with the lushness of her pelt. But where it was most pale Sean could admire the darker, black secrets barely hinted beneath. Oda was a solid form of pure white, but Sean's eye was drawn by reflex and curiosity toward the same apex.

As with Taws, beneath the tail was midnight black, but slightly different as that darkness tapered down and into white where hers narrowed briefly and then blossomed once more in the flattened diamond of her sex. Beneath the wolf's tail there was no such extra contour of black flesh but the pale gray of short white fur over the black flesh of his balls. Sean blinked and paused when he realized what he was doing; staring at a wolf's presented ass and eyeing his balls.

When he jerked his eyes up he found Oda's head turned slightly upon a pillow to gaze back at him with one night-darkened golden eye. "And you still don't know how far you can go, with her." He rumbled gently, swaying his tail slowly. "Now's the time to find out." Reaching out to the night stand near the head of the bed he picked up the small bottle of lube that he had set there after using it the night before. "Time to see if that cat's gone for good." He turned slightly to hand the bottle back toward Sean, who still stood in mild surprise at the end of the bed.

Sean took the bottle and gazed down at it in his hand, then back up at the wolf sprawled out on the bed in front of him. It was not a fetching sprawl, to Sean, as he might admire with Taws, but then it was not a come-hither hint, either. The wolf's lazy stretch was pure relaxation, with only the slow sway of his upraised tail revealing what was being offered.

That shadow black triangular swath of furless flesh beneath the swaying brush was like a target. Sean closed his eyes slowly and took a long breath, his thumb toying with the flip top cap of the bottle. "If you're not sure, Sean, I'm not going to rush you, or push you." Oda offered quietly. "But I'll help of you ask."

Sean shook his head, "No," he forced out, taking another steadying breath. The bottle cap clicked quietly under the distant rattling hiss of the air conditioner. "No, I - I'll try." He stepped forward until his knees met the edge of the bed between the powerful white paws that dangled from it. Slowly kneeing up onto the yielding surface he sidled forward between Oda's strong legs. Tipping the bottle slightly he squeezed a bit of the cool slickness into the palm of his hand and began stroking his flaccid maleness. All the while he watched the base of the wolf's white tail, swaying with a slow, steady stroke in the air like the arm of a lazy, flexible metronome.

Setting he bottle aside he rubbed one thumb across his lube slickened palm and then reached out, brushing up against the underside of the wolf's lush tail with the back of his fingers as he rubbed his thumb across that hot, black flesh. Oda huffed a soft rumble and shifted his legs a little further apart, though that exposed nothing more than was already on moonlit display. With one hand slowly stroking his flaccid length Sean watched his thumb, pale against the black flesh, moving in slow, gentle circles. He had never actually done that with Taws, stroke her anal heat with his thumb to prepare her. Usually he just lubed himself and used his dick. This was - very different.

Strangely, it was also rather erotic, feeling the wolf's flesh twitch and tense and then relax. The scent was, as to be expected, somewhat potent and canine, but no more than Taws, and she had a lot more scents compounding that as well. Oda did too, but they were deeper, mellower; earthier but with a strange spicy undertone that simply defied Sean's nose. He was aware of the scent, but without bearing his nose closer, he could not pick apart the mélange of aromas.

Sean paused his ministrations for a moment to refresh the lube as it began to dry a little, adding a copious dollop to his hand before setting it aside and refreshing his thumb with a quick swipe, then reaching up beneath that long tail once more. Oda's hips rose and angled a little, the muscles under the short but dense white fur flexing with a subtle shimmer of diffuse light across the white curves. "That's pretty nice." The wolf rumbled breathily, his tail twitching and swaying as Sean's thumb circled slowly against the black flesh with a little more pressure. "Taws must love it when you do that, hmmm, yes, just like that." His low, basso rumble trailed off in a slow, grunting hiss as Sean tilted his thumb and pressed forward slowly. He could feel the tight, fluttering grasp of those muscles around his thumb as it sank slowly into the heat of the wolf's body.

Sean could feel the tumescence of his cock awakening under the steady stroke of his slick palm; it was not a swift affair, but he could not sense the cat awaiting in the wings, ready to pounce. "I've never done this with her." He admitted as he continued to slowly ease his thumb inward, pulling down ever so slightly toward the wolf's taint. Taws had explained, often breathlessly, a few things to him; that the lower half of her entry was sensitive to touch. Just a caress there would ease the tension, she explained, and sliding upward and inward was easier for her than coming down from the underside of her tail.

"Hnff? No?" Oda grunted, his back arching a bit as his muscles clamped down spastically upon Sean's thumb and relaxed in a flurry of small twitches. "Then you're just... good." Turning his hand slightly as his thumb settled fully within the wolf, Sean found his fingers and palm resting upon the wolf's balls. He found that they were surprisingly cool to the touch, the short fur soft velvet. Just the thought of handling another male's balls sent a brief chill of revolt through his mind, and he heard a distant, sinister feline growl of laughter. His erection began to flag and he hammered down those tenebrous thoughts furiously. Pumping his hand a little more swiftly to renew it he shifted forward, pressing own against the lower muscles of Oda's ass with the inside of his thumb, he looked up.

Oda's head was resting turned to one side, his visible eye half closed and his ears turned back. "You - ready?" Sean asked, easing his thumb back and then pressing forward again with a slight downward curl within the slick, yielding tightness of the wolf's ass.

"Sean, you can just keep doing that, what you're doing right now, and I'll make a mess rather quickly." Oda mumbled with a flash of teeth as he grinned. "It feels pretty nice."

Sean chuckled self-consciously and sidled forward a little closer, his knees pushing against the wolf's inner thighs, "I'll take that as a yes, then."

"A yes. A please, yes." A soft, breathy growl as the wolf drew in his legs and lifted his hips, his tail hiking up further in a curve that pointed toward his shoulders. "Let's kill the cat, Sean."

Turning his hand to catch his slick erection, Sean guided himself forward, damning himself for forgetting to get a towel. He had no place to put his slimy hand but on the covers, or the wolf's back. As he eased up and forward, sliding the slick, blunt tip of his cock against the back of Oda's velvet soft balls and upward along his own palm he drew his thumb out slowly. "I'm - I'm not like you, Oda." He cautioned as his thumb slipped free and he pressed the tip of his cock against the hot slickness of the wolf's ebony black entry. "I can't... start out slim, like you."

Oda's head shifted on the pillow as he nodded, "I know, Sean. I'm not worried, I trust you to take it easy with my poor, virgin ass."

Sean snorted a laugh and looked down, feeling a rush of arousal when he saw his erect length poised against the black of the wolf's entry. So like Taws, yet so very different. Slowly he shifted his weight forward, feeling the tight resistance of the asshole twitching and clenching before his needy girth. He did not push himself forward with undue force, rather enjoying the light caress of those twitching muscles as his cock pressed the tight ring inward. Those hot, tight muscles fluttered and slowly relaxed against his inexorable pressure and then, quite suddenly, Sean felt the wolf's ass yield before him. Oda let out a short, barking grunt that ended in a hiss as Sean sank into him almost half way before he thought to jerk his hips to a halt.

"Wow, damn." Oda grunted with a strained, hissing breath as Sean felt his ass clench down with intense pressure, muscles flexing and rippling around his sensitive flesh. "You _are_thick."

Sean quickly grasped the wolf's upraised hips with his gooey, slickened hands and forestalled himself from a needy plunge into that wonderful, embracing heat. "I warned you," he hissed a breath.

"Broken glass, motherfucker, that's what he -"

"Shut the fuck up." Sean hissed, bowing his head as he slowly drew back, until he felt the clenching ring against the base of his glans. "God damned cat, just - piss off. I'm going to enjoy this." He eased himself forward again and the wolf's body bowed, his head coming up while his torso pressed down and his knees bore his ass up toward Sean's slow thrust.

"So - so am I. Damn." Oda grunted deeply, his hips lewdly up-thrust toward the man kneeling between his wide spread thighs. "Not like Taws, Sean." He said, momentarily confusing Sean half way through his slow thrust. "With her, special, gentle as you said. With me... different." He pushed back when Sean's thrust slowed, taking the man past the half-way point before settling and easing forward again with a roll of his hips that angled Sean's cock downward slightly.

"Different? Oda, this is wildly different!" Sean protested, slowly drawing back once more, his fingers fisting in the thick fur of Oda's hips. He drew against them, his weight shifting forward as Oda pressed back. The slick sound of flesh against flesh was suffused under the swift panting breaths as both of them shuddered. "But... not... You feel the same, but different, too." He chuckled and gave a short, firm buck of his hips to finally seat himself fully, his naked human balls coming to rest against the back of the wolf's velvet swathed pair. "And very, very tight."

"It's been awhile," Oda admitted with a toothy smile, panting as he clenched the muscles of his stomach and ass causing his inner walls to tighten down upon Sean's full length in a muscular, silken slick push. Sean moaned and shivered in delight. "But, I mean... different. Give yourself to me, Sean. Fully, don't hold back." He lifted his head to turn it a little further, fixing Sean with a hungry, predatory golden look with one eye. "Fuck me, Sean. Don't hold back, just gods please... fuck me."

That wanton, uncharacteristic plea was so unlike the wolf that Sean had come to know; the wolf who gently laid him down and laid into him something that had never been given to him before; the wolf who gentled him in the same way Sean had gentled Taws, that Sean found himself both flummoxed, and incredibly aroused. The petulant half-snarls of his mental tormenter were butterflies in a gale, lost somewhere in the depths of his mind. He drew back, swiftly at first, but slowing as more of his length emerged from the inkwell black embrace wrapped around the pale flesh of his cock. Shifting his grip upward slightly to capture the curves of Oda's upper hips Sean eased forward a few inches, then drove his weight down and forward with a swift, pounding thrust.

"Yes!" Oda barked, his entire body bucking and shuddering with the blow of Sean's hips against his ass. Sean's teeth clenched, a rictus grin spread across his face as he jerked back, slowing again, then eased a few inches forward, culminating in another muffled thump of body to body. Oda let out a whining, growling snarl and shoved back to meet his thrust eagerly with an upward roll of his hips. "Fuck, yes!" Sean found his tempo quickly, reveling in his ability to give the wolf what he seemed to lust for, and his ability to offer it without his erection failing as it had for so long.

Triumphantly he jerked and slammed, slowing at the apex of each draw and slamming forward without tempering his thrust until halted by the upthrust curves of Oda's ass with a heavy, muffled whuff of flesh against fur. The scent of man and wolf impassioned filled the air, so different than Taws' musk that it only heightened Sean's urgent need to plow the willing, silken heat before him. It was an almost rank musk; sharp in some aspects, deep and earthy in others, both offensive to Sean's uncultured nose but amazingly arousing in others. He found his own arousal quickly building in response to it but, just when he felt that he would tumble pell-mell over the precipice of desire and into the bliss of release, he found himself suspended there as the hot, slick flesh of the wolf slid against him with each muscular, unrestrained thrust. Oda's body shook with each impact but he pushed back eagerly to meet them, his tail dancing and jerking against Sean's stomach, slapping his chest as he leaned forward over his paramour.

His lover, if for a brief time.

His savior, his knight in white fur, who would sacrifice his body, his will, to let himself be mounted and powerfully claimed by one so much less than he was. Oda's hands slipped back, out of Sean's sight, and he felt the brief touch of claw tipped fingers against his balls as they swung forward to thump against the back of the wolf's. "Gods Sean, yes, fuck... yes, let me have it." The wolf growled, lifting his hips and rolling them up into Sean's powerful downward strokes. He clenched to meet each thrust, relaxing as Sean jerked back, clenching with rapid flutters each time Sean slowed to catch the back of his glans against the inside of his anal ring. Sean could see one of his arms moving, but could not see what he was doing below the broad white planes of the body stretched prone before him. "All of it, Sean. The anger, the frustration. The months of trying and failing. Give it _all_to me."

With a heavy thrust Sean simply... stopped, his weight pushing down against Oda's upraised rump, as he leaned forward and down to press his face against the side of the wolf's panting muzzle. Surprising himself, he kissed those long whiskers heatedly, nuzzling back into the ruff of his cheek and then nosing up to one of his backturned ears, "The triumph, Oda. The triumph!" Sean's body twitched and shuddered in time with the rapid muscular flutter working along his seated length as Oda turned his head further, rotating his shoulders. Like a cat, that rotation continued down his body causing Sean to shift back and upright again.

Drawing up a leg, Oda lifted it as he continued to turn. Sean leaned back, sliding half free, to reach up and catch that leg, drawing it over his shoulder as he grinned down at the wolf, now stretched out on his side as Sean lifted one leg to straddle the wolf's lower limb. He saw himself, half buried now behind the wolf's velvet balls, the white fur short enough to let the black flesh beneath shade it gray. Above those balls Oda's sheath was drawn back, his proud length fully exposed, yet still not wholly visible to Sean. One of Oda's paws was wrapped around the massive, exposed knot, his other slowly stroking his hard and twitching erection as Sean watched.

Damn but that was erotic as hell, Sean discovered. Wrapping his arm about the leg pressing down upon his shoulder Sean drew back and then eased forward, more slowly lest he bruise those vulnerable lupine balls, until he was fully seated beneath the tail laid out on the bed behind Oda. "You know - that - that looks pretty damned hot." Sean grinned, panting through his teeth as he drew back again, and eased forward, ending with a short, jerking thrust that made Oda's golden eyes roll up and a glistening stream of pre spatter the bedcovers in front of him.

"So do you." Oda growled, writhing in time to Sean's slow thrusts, each ending with that short, powerful jerk to drive the last couple of inches home. "You're so deep... hitting me just so..." Oda's cock jerked and jumped in his hand, each pulse that Sean could feel through his own cock deep within the wolf sending a glistening stream onto the linens or into his own fur. Sean clutched the wolf's upraised legs, admiring the wanton display of needy lust that was surprisingly alien from the stoic mien he had grown used to. A mien that was inscrutable, yet privately playful, even seductive.

Is that what Oda had done? Had the wolf seduced him, drawing him forth from his shell of insecurity and vulnerability? Had the wolf done it for himself, Sean wondered in some distant corner of his mind, to receive the hot, hard pounding that he was now being given?

Or had he truly done it to help?

Leaning forward, Sean shifted his hips a little, pressing even deeper still, feeling how each shift of his hips moved himself about within the rippling grasp of the lust addled wolf below him. He let the heavy leg slip from his shoulder and shifted his knees again, once more resting between Oda's thighs. Now with the wolf on his back, the lush bottle-brush of his tail caressing Sean's balls as he drew all the way back, hovering at the edge of his entry, and eased forward again; slowly, feeling every scintilla of flesh as it slid against him. He leaned forward, dropping his now dry hands to either side of Oda's shoulders, and gazed down at the panting muzzle before him.

He could feel the back Oda's hands moving against his stomach, slowly but urgently stroking his erection. Warm points of dampness spattered across Sean's lower chest but he paid them no heed as he slowly withdrew, entirely, with a soft, whispering sound of slick flesh escaping. He did not draw further back than that, momentarily resting his needy erection upon the underside of Oda's tail. The wolf blinked and gaped up at him, his motions stilling as his hips lifted to press Sean against him, eager for a return of the thick invasion he had invited upon himself. "Oda - all this - why?" Sean asked as his cock twitched and dribbled pre against the lube-slickened ring kissing his tip.

"Why?" Oda rumbled, breathless, shifting wantonly as he strove to draw that cock into him again. "You - you needed it, Sean." He whuffed and grunted soft as Sean shifted forward, slowly, pressing himself against the tight clenching of Oda's ass until he slipped in with a muffled, wet pop. Ever so slowly Sean pushed forward and down, leaning further as the wolf's hips rose to meet him. Lupine pre spattered across Sean's chest and the wetness of the wolf's cock brushed his belly between strokes of the wolf's paws. Oda's lustful panting was a hot wind on his face.

"You wanted it?"

Oda chuffed a snort that clamped muscular heat fiercely down upon Sean's throbbing need. Sean was _so_close; hovering on the precipice and hanging on by a thread. "Yes!"

"When?"

The wolf's eyes rolled and his hips shuddered, bucking up and jerking as his hands moved more swiftly. A strained, hissing whine burbled up from deep within his throat as Sean jerked back with a swift stroke, hovering once more at the edge of his embrace, and again let his weight settle ever so slowly forward. Sparks jangled through his nerves as the clenching, rhythmic clenches of Oda's ass drew him close and then tightened down, choking off his eminent, explosive culmination.

"First... night."

"In the hotel, with Taws and her brother?" Sean's mind was a chaos of conflicting thoughts and emotions as he sought to prize out the wolf's motivations. He needed to know, he did not want to; he wanted completion, victory, to claim the wolf and vanquish the demon. But, for Taws, he needed to know.

Oda shook his head violently, his breathing short and strained. "N - no. Here, porch. When - when I got drunk. I wanted you. You." His hands dropped away from his erection suddenly, grasping Sean's hips and hauling him down as a rapid flurry of clenching spasms wracked Sean's cock and a swift flood of hot dampness spread across the naked flesh of Sean's chest. "You, free of... the cat. You... to release, to escape... for Her. For Him."

"Him?"

"L - Lazarus." Oda gasped, the collie's name trailing off in a growling hiss, lost in the throes of his own orgasm, as Sean hovered perilously close to his own.

There was nothing he need say now, and any words he might have vanished in the heat of the moment. With a smile, knowing the truth of the wolf, Sean drew back, luxuriating in the feel of the wolf's ass clenching in orgasmic release, and pressed himself once more into that rippling embrace. His peak rose up on him like a tsunami before he had even returned a third of himself and, with a breathless cry, he slammed down and sent the heat of his victorious release deep into the wolf beneath him. Dropping to his elbows he grasped the panting wolf's head and pressed his lips to that powerful, deadly, compassionate muzzle in a kiss of pure triumph.

It was a wolf.

It was a male.

He was a friend.

Nothing held back, everything given, Sean laid a kiss on Oda that would've left Taws breathless.

"Holy damn," Oda choked breathlessly some minutes later as his wits returned. Sean, sprawled out bonelessly upon the wolf's chest, muttered incoherently, lost in the euphoria of an explosive release. It had not been an orgasm the likes of which he had experienced in months; powerful, deep, wrenching, and liberating.

He had done it. He had conquered the demon, and that left him feeling more free than he had since the beast had seeded it like a cancer inside his skull.

Beneath him Oda shifted, stroking Sean's furless back with a hand that shook with weakness. "Thank you, Sean. That was... wow... that was amazing."

Sean grunted and pushed himself up, glancing down at the moonlit glisten of his chest and stomach and the still large wolf cock pressed against his belly. Loose fur, having escaped the exhaustive earlier grooming, clung to him. "Mmff... ehhyeah, it was... beyond amazing. It was... liberating." He muttered, and dropped back down. So there was wolf cum all over his front, at that moment he didn't give a damn.

Oda nuzzled his forehead with a soft, rumbling chuckle, "I'm just glad I could help." Sean mumbled and hissed softly as his wonderfully spent, flaccid length slipped free with a final clench of the wolf's rear. He snorted a breathless laugh and levered himself up on shaky arms.

"Help yourself." He grinned with a wink.

Oda whuffed a laugh of his own, "Well, there is that, too. I've gone a while without and I was feeling kinda needy."

"Any dick in a drought, hmm?" Sean chided jokingly, then winced at the way it sounded; querulous, accusatory, flippant.

"Oh, hell no." Oda shook his head, still too blissed out to pick up on the unintended rebuke, "I'm not that easy, that's why it's been a while." He pushed himself up on his elbows and Sean slipped back, slumping off to one side like a sack of grain. "Always, it must have meaning. And ... well, for you, for Taws... had meaning. The most important, ever."

"What about Lazarus?" Sean pushed himself slowly to the side of the bed and rotated himself upright, trying to ignore the cooling, slippery feeling on his chest and stomach.

"Lazarus?" Oda huffed, rolling onto his side, his still erect shaft dipping down at an angle toward one hip as it slowly began to grow slim.

"He has meaning, for you?"

"Yes, every time." Oda looked down, his ears backing for a moment but Sean was looking away, staring at the slash of moonlight climbing the far wall. "Different meaning."

"Now though; shower time."

"Oh yes, definitely. I'm an all over mess." Oda sat upright and leaned over the edge of the bed, his hands resting on his knees. "I just need a rinse, though... how about you?"

Sean laughed, breathlessly but heartily, "Wolf, you came all over me!"

"Yeah... uhh, sorry about that." Oda turned to look at Sean, whose back was to him. "I kinda, well, got lost in the moment."

Sean chuckled and pushed himself to his feet, bracing one hand on the bed, "It'll wash off." Shambling around the foot of the bed he held a hand out toward the wolf. "C'mon, before you decide to lick it off." Sean braced himself as the wolf grasped his hand and pulled his greater weight upright.

"Well, if you really want..."

"Shower!"

The wind was forlorn, howling through the empty city like a lost wolf for its pack. Sean picked his way past drifts of snow pristinely untouched by the pollution of the city through which it blew. He could hear its whispering, icy crackle like so many mosquito-sized crystal glasses shattering. Around him low, sprawling buildings stretched in all directions, defining a long boulevard with corpse black street lights and empty windows.

"Never!" A yowl rent the darkness, echoing and rebounding from all sides and Sean stopped where he was, teeth clenched. "I'll haunt you every time you try to dick your bitch!"

"You will not!" Sean cried back, his own voice flat and hollow, muffled by the snow without the first echo. "Never again! Now it's your turn to scream, demon! Your turn to bleed!"

"Hah! Me? You can't hurt me! You can't even touch me!"

Sean held up the pistol gripped in one hand and brandished it at the echoes, "I beat you in the closet, you spineless fuck! I beat you in the courtroom! And here - here I will fucking kill you!"

"Spineless? Ah hah, spineless? I'll show you spines, furless ape!" The cat's furious, mocking snarl bellowed from the empty buildings, the very power of it making the slow falling snowflakes dance in the air. "You'll feel them, every time you think she'll have you! That's what she will feel!"

"She can't feel what I don't have!" Sean turned in circles, wildly casting about for the cat. Not out of fear that he might sneak up from behind, but furious that he would not show himself at all. "Just like your balls, cat! They can't feel what you don't have!"

"In here, do you think I suffer from that lack?" The voice was a low, mocking growl so close it sent Sean reeling away in surprise, spinning to level the pistol in his hand toward the towering, broad shouldered feline standing only feet away. The puma raised a hand and extended a finger to point at a spot between Sean's eyes. "I'm in here, fuckshit. Right here, in your face, in your dreams, in your motherfucking cock. Whenever that bitch lifts her tail, all she's going to feel is me plowing her furry little ass."

Sean surged forward and swung the pistol at the cat's bragging visage, but found himself swinging at air. He spun about to find the cat standing ten paces away as if he had not moved an inch. "You're dead, cat. Dead and rotting. You're nothing!" He strode toward the laughing puma and took a furious swing, his fist connecting with a meaty smack that barely turned the cat's head and did not abate his mocking laughter at all.

"I'm everything, Sean, little man. And you'll never get rid of me."

"I'll make you fucking bleed, you god damned figment." Sean snarled angrily as he circled the cat and grabbed his limp tail, snatching it to the side and exposing his ass. "I'll make you fucking_scream_, because every time I'm in her, I'll know you have no more power over me."

"I don't need power!" The cat ignored Sean and turned, drawing his lax tail from his grip. "I am power!"

"You're just a cat." Oda growled, standing ungarbed and ominous a short distance away. "A cat whose time is at an end."

The puma waved a dismissive arm toward Oda, "What? What?! You think your lapdog can help you here, little man? Going to have him fight your battles, while you cower like a bitch?"

"He's already helped me," Sean retorted. "And this battle is over." Raising the pistol, Sean drew a bead on the cat's chest and squeezed the trigger. The gun made not a whisper as it bucked in his hand with a blinding flash. The cat staggered back, a gaping hole appearing in his chest with a fountain of brilliant red with a loud, meaty smack that echoed like thunder from the buildings and empty streets.

This would not be like the last time, Sean vowed; no half measures, no leaving his attacker alive. The gun bucked silently again and again in his hand, explosions of blood clouding the air with heavy, wet whacks of violated flesh. The hammer eventually fell on an empty chamber but Sean continued to cycle the action, hollow clicks the only reward. The cougar, the demon that had tortured Sean for months, was a blood soaked mess, great, gaping rents torn from his hide while the snowy ground around him glistened vibrant red. With a fading snarl, his hate-filled eyes boring into Sean's, he crumpled face first into the snow. Finally lowering the gun Sean watched him topple and intoned, "You lose."

Yet the cat's collapse revealed something even more terrifying when Sean raised his gaze; Oda, standing in the snow, holding out a single paw that dripped with blood. A hole in his chest was a livid crimson stain. The wolf's golden eyes were filled with uncomprehending hurt as he, too, began to collapse to the snow.

Chapter 7 < > Chapter 9