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The forest had always held sway over Charlotte.

It was a place of darkness, that place just beyond the reach of the sunny plains of her youth. A place of mystery like the darkest night, devoid of any color. She had always feared it, but not anymore.

Not while she was walking in step with another at her side, their heavy, metal boots crushing foliage beneath their feet. Not when she wielded a blazing torch in one hand to chase away the nightmares of the imagination, and her other held a sword to cleave any phantasmagoric beast who dared stay. It was freshly sharpened and the blade caught the edge of the moonlight, reflecting its ethereal twin in its surface.

“I don’t like this, Kane.”

Charlotte reminded herself to show some sign that she had heard the name, and glanced at the man out of the corner of her eye. He was tall, dressed in a dirty, brown leather jerkin with a coat of chainmail pulled down over top of it. In his hand he held a pike, the pointed tip at the end of the long shaft guiding their way through the forest. He was unshaven, bleary-eyed with exhaustion despite the lornroot they were commanded to chew on.

She had spit her own out before they were even two hours into the march. The euphoric effects of the root were nothing compared to the splitting headache she received after the momentary high had worn off. The full pouch still rested at her belt, and there it would stay until she was able to leverage it for some kind of trade back at base.

“I don’t, either,.” sShe said, deepening her voice to a dull, earthy bass. She never spoke much, better not to take the chance of letting her true voice slip through. It had earned her a reputation as a hard ass back on base, but that was fine with her.

“It’s bad enough they got the spoiled brat with us, but…” He trailed off and reached up to itch at the messy layer of hair on his neck. “Do they really expect us to do our job while we’re keeping him safe?”

Charlotte grunted and tossed her shoulders in a shrug.

Ahead of them, wrapping its way through the winding forest paths that had long ago forgotten the feet of human travelers, she watched the caravan of soldiers advance. Their torches glowed like cats’ eyes in the darkness, a malevolent wave of fire that advanced swiftly and without fail. Far down the path she could see him, the only member of their retinue that was on horseback.

The beast he rode was far fairer than the motley creatures back at the barracks. Its white fur was the color of freshly- fallen snow, its tail and mane braided with hints of gold leaf woven into it. The saddle and tack that it wore was of the finest brown leather that wasn’t so much as chipped or cracked. Charlotte had questioned the logic of bringing the horse on their march, but nobody cared for the opinion of a lowly infantryman.

Seated upon his back was the subject of Loric’s disdainful words, perched like a cat waiting for the mouse to show its whiskers.

Prince Ramos the Fair.

He was easy to pick out amongst the shaved heads of the common soldiers, for his was a resplendent field of golden grain, lush and untamed. His features were soft, bordering on feminine as some of the men had joked after he first arrived on base. Unlike their common chainmail and leather armor, he wore a solid metal breastplate of glimmering steel gilded with gold along the shoulders and sides. He hadn’t spokenspoke a word in the two days she had been in his presence, instead, he had allowed the advisor he traveled with to speak for him.

Charlotte knew she should have felt some kind of wonder or amazement at being in the presence of the king’s son. It wasn’t normal for a member of the royal family to brush shoulders with mere commoners like them, but things had changed quickly over the last few days. It had started with rumors, whispers that were sharply rebuked by their commander when he caught wind of them. Those traders that came through their fortress on the eastern edge of the Kingdom of Naydaren had been all too quick to spout it off, true or not.

The heir to the throne, Prince Belthasar, had been killed.

She had been sitting around the fire of the mess hall when she first heard it, fresh off of taking her private bath in the river that ran by the base. She had alerted none to the fact that she was leaving, sneaking off under the darkness of a cloudy night which permitted no brush of the moon on her naked body. It had been a fearful journey like always, but she refused to let the sweat and filth linger on her body for another second, and she couldn’t use the bathing chambers in the fort.

So there she had been, struggling against the new leather strap she had wrapped around her breasts to conceal them under her tunic. It was painful and uncomfortable, but the pain was more than made up for by the promise of a full meal to see her off to a warm bed. It was in a crowded barracks full of snoring, stinking men, but it was better than the streets of Veridia, the capital city where the king’s castle had been raised. It watched over the squalid streets, its stone walls a silent judge and arbiter against the sins of the common man.

A group of soldiers fresh off of their nightly patrol had walked in and taken up seats near her, just close enough that she could hear them.

Prince Belthasar had been killed by a person of the forest. It had been almost comical to imagine such a thing., Aa ‘blessed’ of the royal court laid low by one of those backwards creatures? She had every reason to doubt its veracity. What could their clubs and spears do against the bulwark of the kingdom’s armor?

Apparently, the hand of fate didn’t favor every member of the royal family equally.

“Company, halt!” The baying bark of the commander’s voice rose through the forest, silencing their heavy, thudding footsteps and bringing the flowing river of fire to a halt. “Soldiers, take up formation!”

Charlotte glanced at Loric and gave him a brief nod before they parted, sinking into the darkness of the night without a second glance. Ahead of her, the trees thinned out and gave way to a circular valley, and far below she could see one of the fortresses of the forest people. It was an interesting construction, if you could call it that, and if she hadn’t been told what to expect beforehand she might not have known what she was looking at. It was large and circular, covering nearly the entirety of the floor of the valley. A twisting, messy bunch of countless trees with interwoven branches and tangled vines formed in the facsimile of a stronghold.

They were so densely packed together that she couldn’t see so much as a hint of light from the inside, only the sentinel’s fire at the entrance.

Even from here she could see its keeper, and that familiar, unsettling chill passed over her.

The forest had always held sway over Charlotte, and its children had frightened her for as long as she could remember.

On the streets of Verida there were no nice, growing green things with which to marvel at. There were no crawling vines or twisting trees to hide the horrors of the forest from watchful eyes. A lifetime raised in the bosom of stone and steel had taught her to fear these natural places, and she could feel the hair on the back of her neck rise as the dark shape began to stand.

It had the body of a man, but twisted by some unkind god into the form of a beast. Its body was covered in dark, brown fur from head to toe, an unkempt sea left shamefully bare. It wore no clothing save for a simple loincloth to cover its privates, a surprising sign of modesty from a beast. It was tall, easily taller than Ramos, with a lithe body of coiled muscle and broad shoulders. Its arms were thick like the trunks of the trees that surrounded them; doubtless it would have been able to handle Lothric’s pike single-handed, an abominable strength that only added to its savage nature.

It stood like a man, but its face was that of a wolf.

A pointed muzzle that stretched out their face ending in a twitching, black nose. Dark, yellow eyes that burned with a silent intellect that she couldn’t begin to fathom. Its ears were long, triangular shaped and folded back like a cur that was about to be beaten for disobeying its master. Dusted across its face and chest was white ash, a chalky white powder of unknown significance. It was no armor, she reminded herself as she held her sword aloft before her. Anything that bled could be killed.

Its gleaming eyes looked up at them, at the gathered soldiers that began to take up position on the lip of the valley. They were numbered around roughly thirty, and Charlotte joined them in taking up position. A bowman stood to her right and a pikeman to her left, their weapons leveled while she held her torch high to keep the area illuminated.

“Savages, send out your leader!”

The bellowing command of the squadron commander had always carried with it a weight that left Charlotte stiff-shouldered and nervous. Hearing it now, however, she came to realize just how much gravitas he had been holding back. Benedict was short with a conspicuous gut from his love of sharing mead with his soldiers, but she had always seen him for what he was. Smart, unbecomingly clever for such an unassuming man. They had always said to fear old men in a position where men died young, and he was one such example of it.

The sentinel stood silent, watching them with a long, bushy tail raised high behind it. She watched as its lip curled up, displaying yellowed fangs against pink skin.

Charlotte wasn’t alone. She wasn’t that frightened girl in the alleyway waking from a nightmare after hearing one too many stories from the boys in their group of vagabonds. Charlotte wasn’t afraid. She was a brave soldier, and she had been one for two years ever since coming to maturity after her sixteenth winter.

The wolf man turned and disappeared through the opening in the outcropping of foliage, the last thing she saw was the tip of his tail before he vanished.

A hush fell over them, unsteady and uncomfortable. For how long they waited Charlotte was unable to tell, but soon the sentinel returned. And he wasn’t alone.

Charlotte couldn’t help herself from gasping as more and more of the forest creatures spilled from the throat of the fortress. They were all different colors and different body types, some lithe and others bulky, and to her surprise - and embarrassment - she saw bare breasts among them. They allowed their women to fight? It would seem so, as the proof was right below her.

Stepping through the crowd was a singular shape, one whose presence caused Charlotte to tighten her grasp on her sword.

She had thought the prince’s stallion’s fur was immaculate, but it was nothing compared to the ethereal glow of the white wolf that stepped to the front of his pack. Laid over his shoulders was a brown cloak with strands of colored beads hanging down from it, its presence doing nothing to hide how perfectly white his fur was. It was freshly fallen snow on a winter’s day, untouched by dirt or grime, a vision of alabaster beauty. His body, however, was covered in pinkish scars, patches where fur was missing to show old wounds beneath it. He possessed one eye that looked upon the prince with as little interest as one would afford an ant crawling across their arm. The other was a vacant hole, a yawning chasm left bare.

“Why have you come here?”

Hearing the wolf talk sent shivers down her spine. It was a voice that was used to giving orders, but where the commander had always relied on bellowing commands, this wolf was different. It was firm and to the point, as sharp as a knife’s edge. It didn’t ask for obedience, it demanded it. Charlotte realized that the hand holding her torch had begun to tremble, and in that moment he turned his gaze upon her.

Even though he was so far below her, she felt his eyes when they locked with hers.

She steeled herself, forced herself back to a place of calm that would withstand the intense presence he was exuding. Charlotte held her arm slightly higher, resolute and grim faced, though beneath the surface she could feel her heart pounding like a marching drum. Finally he looked away from her, but there was no removing the lingering sense of malaise that he left on her.

“You know why-” Benedict began to speak before Prince Ramos held a hand up in front of him.

The prince turned in his saddle and dismounted with a surprising amount of grace onto the dew-covered grass. His face looked as if it were carved from stone, a silent edifice of anger that would stand even the test of this wolf’s crushing gaze.

“You know why we’re here.” To hear the prince speak for the first time was like the freeing of the floodgates at the end of the planting season. A release of tension that Charlotte wasn’t aware existed. One hand already reached for the sword at his waist. “One of your kind has killed my brother, and I am here to see you repaid in kind.”

The wolves below began to stir, their whispered words carrying through the crowd of roughly two dozen warriors at lightning speed. Spears began to rise, clubs unslung from belts, their ears folded back and their tails lifted in threatening displays.

No armor, she reminded herself. There was nothing to stop the plunge of her blade or the burning touch of her torch. She had been trained to use both as a weapon, although the latter was typically a last resort before she resorted to the kite shield slung across her back. They would be at a disadvantage if they came charging up the hill, and with the pikemen and archer at her side…it would be okay. Humans were more frightening than them, brigands and bandits, they were just simple beasts.

So why did Charlotte feel so afraid?

The white wolf fell silent, looking to his sides at his companions and finally raising a hand over his shoulders, fingers curled into a fist. All at once their discontent began to still and their weapons started to lower to their sides.

“Your…brother came to drive us from our land. He was warned, and what happened to him was a terrible accident.” The cloak wearing wolf raised his arms and gestured to the pack gathered behind him. “We have called these woods home since your father’s father was a mere pup. We will not allow you to take from us what has always been ours.”

Ramos’ lip twitched in visible disappointment, and Charlotte was aware that she was one of many watching this show. At her side she could hear a bowstring being drawn as the archer nocked an arrow and held it at the ready. The air had grown thick, tension bubbling through the men that had been promised bloodshed, fed on lornroot until their hands shook. The pikeman in particular was doing an admirable job of holding himself together, but now she could see the way his eye twitched and his fingernails scraped the leather wrapped around the handle of her pike.

“A black wolf, bearing the mark of a skull on his chest!” Ramos shouted, his voice filling the forest glade and towering over them. “He killed my brother!” He raised the sword, pointing the tip towards the white wolf. “None of your wretched kind are leaving this place alive!” In a split second he turned to Benedict, and in the emotionless void of his face, Charlotte knew there was no coming back.

“Give the order.”

“Archers, loose!”

The twang of bowstrings sounded from across the clearing. The impact of the arrows were marked by meaty thuds as they collided with members of the gathered group below. The white wolf took two arrows, one to his shoulder and one to his stomach, but he managed to stay standing. Several fell to their knees or flat to the ground, but the tension had broken, the smell of blood on the air giving rise to a howl, one of pain, of anger, one that made Charlotte’s blood run cold.

The wolves broke free of their group, uncoordinated and undisciplined, attacking at whatever angle was closest to them. Their speed was remarkable, their dexterity allowing them to dodge arrows with incredible ease. Some fell with feathered shafts sticking out of them, others continued to run, weapons held aloft. The whistle of a spear flying through the air was followed by a loud grunt to her side, and she looked just in time to see the skewered bowman fall forward and tumble down the hill.

A lucky shot, it had to have been. There was no way stone could pierce their armor.

“Soldiers! Raise weapons.”

The furred shapes had reached the base of the hill and they surged upwards now, finding some spots more easy to navigate than others. Their thudding footfalls echoed in her mind, and she could feel her hand beginning to shake.

A large one approached her, grizzled brown with only one ear and wielding a two-handed club akin to a great branch plucked from a tree. His yellow teeth were bared, foam forming at the corners of his mouth as he drew his weapon to the side. It happened slowly as the pikeman at her side shouted something at her, something that was far away and nonsensical. She could feel her hand raising, far too slowly for it to matter, and with a great, crashing thud the branch collided with her side.

Charlotte had always feared the woods. Had always feared the creatures that lurked within.

-

The first thing she realized when she came to was the taste of iron in her mouth. The metallic flavor was familiar enough, although the last time she remembered tasting it was when she had been beaten as part of the initiation into the squadron. She still had scars from when she had been dragged from her bed on the very first night at the barracks, thrown into the center of the stronghold before being dealt punches, kicks, blows that had made her wish she were dead. Even after they had pulled her to her feet, congratulating her and wiping the blood from her broken nose, she could only think of the taste.

It was a grandiose effort to sit up, and when she did her side screamed in pain that made her worry she might have broken a rib. There was nothing for it if she had, and at least her arm and leg still managed to move.

She had been tossed a good dozen feet from the lip of the valley where the fighting continued to rage on. For how long she had been out she could not say, could only see that the Nydaren soldiers were still holding the line. The wolves fought ruthlessly, crashing into their lines like runaway steers, but just as she suspected their teeth and claws, their crude weapons couldn’t break the might of imperial steel.

Prince Ramos still stood by the squadron commander and his horse, his sword returned to his scabbard and his arms crossed over his chest. Charlotte had thought him the type to retch at the mere sight of blood, but she was quickly being proven wrong. He looked unfazed by it all, a silent judge that had deemed the forest folk no longer welcome in this world.

Prince Ramos the Fair, indeed.

Screams and howls, cries of pain and sharp, barking grunts.The crash of stone on steel. The impact of metal on flesh. It all rained around her in the cacophonous chaos that only battle could bring.

Charlotte forced herself to her feet after verifying there was nothing wrong with her, although she did stumble when she managed to finally find the ground beneath her. One arm reached out to brace herself against the body of a tree, its firm surface giving her some moment of reality in this world torn asunder by blade and blood. The ranks of the wolves were thinning out by now, and she could see that some had begun to turn tail and run back for the entrance to the fortress, pursued by soldiers and Prince Ramos.

The white wolf still lay where he had fallen to his knees, three arrows now protruding from him with a fourth ripped free in his hand. He breathed heavily, raggedly, a dying beast that bared his fangs at the approaching prince. Above the din of battle she could hear him as he called out, that voice so impossible for Charlotte to ignore that she might as well have heard it whispered into her ear.

“You fool. You have no idea what you’ve done.”

Prince Ramos regarded him and tilted his head to the side momentarily. Rushing past him, soldiers with torches were setting light to the base of the fortress, blocking off the entrance with flaming branches. The fire was a living beast that demanded more, never sated and with a bottomless stomach. After the dry summer they had been suffering, there was plenty for it to devour. It raced upwards at an astonishing rate, soon engulfing the base of the fortress.

If Prince Ramos said something in return to the wolf, she didn’t hear it over the crackling of the fire.

With a mighty plunge, he drove his sword straight through the chest of the wolf and out his back. The spray of blood changed the color of his fur from white to red and sent a crimson fountain spurting forth when Ramos swiftly withdrew his blade. With a callous flick of his wrist, he wiped away the blood that coated his blade and returned it to its sheath in one swift motion. Even when he delivered a swift kick to the gored chest of the beast and knocked its carcass to the side, Charlotte couldn’t shake the feeling that the eye of the wolf was still on her.

At least, that was until she heard a snort from behind her and felt the exhale of warm breath on the back of her neck.

Her eyes widened, her fingers grasping at nothingness as they searched for a weapon, a blade, anything she could use to defend herself. An arm wrapped around her waist, a hand clamped over her mouth before she could scream, and as she was pulled back into a firm chest she heard a voice whispering into her ear.

“If you struggle, I’ll snap your neck.”

It wasn’t a warning, it was a promise.

It was the soft whispers of falling stone that turned into a crushing landslide, the twitch of the earth before it cracked open into an endless ravine. It was commanding, so utterly and completely that she didn’t realize that she had gone silent.

After a few moments the voice behind her let out a grunt, and then she felt the brush of a warm, wet nose against the back of her neck. It sniffed at her briefly, inhaling her scent and causing the chest behind her to puff up considerably. When he exhaled, the fetid scent of his breath made her nose curl up in distaste and nearly left her eyes watering. Charlotte remembered when she had first been given hunting lessons in the army and had found her first rabbit caught in a snare. It had exhausted itself to the point that it didn’t so much as move when the inevitable plunge of the blade ended its life. She had never believed fear could strike her in the same way.

“I was right.” The hand over her mouth clamped down harder, and to her horror it began to rise higher until it covered her nose. “You’re a female.”

Charlotte couldn’t breathe. Panic began to set in, alarm bells ringing in her head as that previous warning faded into the back of her mind. Darkness had begun to appear in the corner of her vision as the fortress roared, a mighty conflagration that bathed her in radiant light. She grabbed at the wrist denying her oxygen and tried to pull it away, but even with all her strength there was nothing she could do to budge it. She might as well have been fighting the will of the Gods themselves, and as she began to fade away she heard a growl in her ear.

“Patience…I need you.”

That was the last thing she heard before her world gave way to darkness.

—

The rain came down in heavy sheets upon the streets of Verida. It made a dismal environment even more lifeless and kept the streets empty. Under the alcove she was tucked into, Charlotte hugged her knees closer to her chest and rested her chin upon them.

The wooden bowl she had set out before her was empty save for a single copper coin, a meager thing, but certainly better than nothing. That wouldn’t save her from the scolding she would receive from the alley mother when she returned. It probably wouldn’t even stop her from using the switch on her, and the thought made her tremble and close her eyes.

It was days like today she remembered a time where she sat in front of a great, stone fireplace that roared with burning wood. Days like this she remembered the smell of cooking bread and a hearty stew being prepared.

Her mother would sing of places far to the west, across the distant ocean and into lands she had only heard of. Charlotte possessed the same naturally tanned skin as her mother, and that was why the other kids would sneer at her and not allow her to join in their games. On a day like that, however, she didn’t need to worry about such things.

The sound of footsteps approaching made her look up, although her gaze grew disheartened when she saw them.

Soldiers, wearing the banner of the Neidaren army.

No doubt on their way to spend their pittance at the local tavern where they would be warm and dry, could joke and boast of what they must have seen on duty. In a way, Charlotte envied them. From what she understood they had each other, and surely that meant far more than the ‘family’ of the alley that had taken her in. Charlotte doubted they needed to fight each other for the best begging spots in town.

She turned her head back down and closed her eyes, not bothering to so much as spare a glance at them. It was better not to let them see her dirty face or the black eye that had begun to swell after she told off Thomas for once again stealing from her plate. She was at least pleased at the thought that he was probably still feeling the after effects of the swift kick she had delivered between his legs. That would do well to warn the others, at least for a while until she had to prove herself again.

Clink!

Charlotte blinked and pulled her face from her knees, looking around in confusion for the source of the noise. The soldiers had moved past her, laughing about something without sparing her a second glance. It wasn’t until she looked in her bowl that she saw just what it had been.

A silver coin.

—

The slap across her face was enough to rip Charlotte free of her dreams. She gasped, sputtering and trying to comprehend a magnitude of sights, sounds that didn’t make sense to her, and when she struggled she realized that her arms were bound to a post above her head. Her legs were spread apart, each tied to a separate stake.

To her horror, she saw that she had been undressed until all that remained was the strap that hung tight over her breasts, and the scrap of cloth between her legs.

“Good, you’re awake.”

The wolf that stood before her was jet black like the midnight sky, his fur like chiseled obsidian that swallowed any light cast upon it. He stood with arms crossed over his chest, burning eyes like glowing embers from the belly of a roaring oven locked on her. They seemed to possess the same power that the white wolf had, for when she looked into them she realized that she couldn’t look away.

“I was starting to worry that you had slipped away from me, little one.”

He turned away from her and in that moment the spell he had over her broke. She took a breath she didn’t realize she desperately needed and began to tug on her arms and legs, hearing the creaking of the bounds they had used to hold her in place. The wood was solid, the rope expertly crafted, no doubt stolen from an honest Neidaren merchant, since she had no doubt in her mind these savages couldn’t produce anything of similar quality.

“I will allow you to call me Malice, for that is all I harbor for your kind.”

They were in a rounded room, a tent, perhaps? In the center of it a small fire blazed, the smoke drifting upwards to disappear through a hole in the center of the ceiling. It was a modest space, a bedroll slung across the ground across from her, a table - that he now stood in front of - with various bottles and bowls. Urns lay upon the ground, some without lids bursting with their contents of strange vegetables and roots she had never seen before. There was a rack along one wall, holding a spear, a club, and what looked like a crude attempt at a blade, albeit with a curved edge to it .

“What is this…?!” She spat, hissing in outrage as she struggled even harder against the ropes. “I…I demand you release me!”

Be angry. Be angry so he doesn’t see how scared you are.

The wolf paused, and when he turned back to her she saw that he held a bowl in one paw. In another he held a large stone that he was using to crush the contents of the bowl in smooth, quick patterns. His amber eyes drank her in, for she could think of no better way to describe it as they gave a quick sweep of her body from her feet all the way to her arms raised over head, and as he fully turned to look at her, Charlotte gasped.

He wasn’t entirely black-furred, she realized. Perhaps it was fate that saw fit to leave him with a patch of white fur on his chest that mimicked that of a skull. Perhaps it was some strange tribal marking. Either way, she still remembered what Ramos had said.

“You,” she began, making the wolf’s ears perk up, “you were the one that killed the prince.”

“The man who came to our tribe and demanded we give our ancestral land to him?” He scoffed and turned back to the table, setting the bowl down before grabbing a glass vial. It swirled with a greenish-brown liquid that he splashed into the bowl before switching up the stone with a spoon and beginning to stir. “Unfortunate. My uncle was right, it would seem. You humans are petty little creatures.”

“You murdered a prince! What did you expect of us? To allow this insult to pass without justice?!”

Charlotte remembered the king’s advisor standing in the marshaling grounds of the barracks, his words bellowing forth with fire and vitriol that shook the ramparts. He had said the exact same words, called them to action and challenged their pride for their nation. For a prince, one of the royal family, to be so callously slain there was nothing short of hellfire waiting for him and all his kind.

“Justice? Is that what you called that? Killing the lame and the old, those that are no longer able to properly fight? If my war party had been there…” He trailed off, and for a moment Charlotte felt a pang of doubt.

Surely, that was the best his species could offer? They were warriors, were they not? The thought that they may have been past their prime, reservists left behind while the true warriors of the pack were away…

“Oh, did you think us so easily defeated?” The wolf approached her and reached down to tenderly run his paw along the ugly, purple bruise that had begun to form on her side where the tree branch-wielding wolf had struck her. “I saw you struck down. In his youth, Tolivan would have crushed you with that swing.”

“You’re…you’re no threat to the empire. I do not fear you.”

If only she could retain that fury when his eyes met her, instead it cooled like a fire doused by a torrential downpour. He approached her slowly, creeping with all the cadence and speed of a predator on the prowl, and before she could say another word his hand shot out and grabbed the bottom of her chin. It pulled it roughly upwards so he could better regard her, making her look into his eyes against the overpowering voice in her head screaming at her to look away.

“You hide yourself as a man, why is that…?” He murmured, his thumb tracing along the edge of her cheek with a tenderness that sickened Charlotte. “Does your kind not believe that women can fight? Or do you find shame in your gender?”

The wolf’s prowling eyes held her steady while he reached down with his free hand to grab the strap along the front of her breast. His fingers curled around it, and with a swift yank of his hand he pulled it free. It made Charlotte gasp and struggle in her bonds when the cool air of the tent hit her bare chest and sent bolts of shame racing through her. Her breasts were tender, reddened somewhat where the strap had lain for so long, and any comfort she might have had at having them freed was snatched away in seconds.

“Bastard!” She snapped, almost spitting the words, “I’ll have your head for this!”

“Will you?” He asked, his head cocking to the side in a very canine-like manner. “And how will you do that? By all means, however, keep struggling…”

His thumb gave one more tender stroke to her cheek and he leaned in closer to her, close enough that she could smell his rank breath as it billowed across her face. What happened next she couldn’t have predicted, and when it happened her heart leapt into her throat, silencing her in an instant.

The wolf pressed his lips against her mouth and kissed her, forcibly holding her in position the entire time.

Charlotte’s eyes widened and for a moment she forgot to struggle against her bonds. She forgot that she was a trained soldier, all she could think was that this disgusting, revolting creature was kissing her, and when she felt the lap of a rough, slobbery tongue against her mouth she finally snapped back to reality. She opened her mouth to scream, but this just helped him further as he quickly slipped his tongue into her mouth before she could resist. It was strange kissing a creature with a muzzle such as this, it required him to tilt his head to the side so his drool-drenched tongue could explore the interior of her mouth. The tip darted deep enough for it to unsettle her gag reflex, and the taste was atrocious, far worse than anything she could have imagined.

Only when she tried to bite down did his tongue dart backwards into his mouth with a wet snap, the only sign of its passage being the viscous layer of drool that coated the interior of her mouth.

“You taste as good as I imagined…” He mumbled, before callously tossing her head back and walking away from her.

“You sick…bastard!” She screamed, no longer willing to hold herself back or stick to some asinine decorum after that humiliating treatment. “I’ll cut your tongue from your mouth when I’m free of this! I’ll see you dead before me! I’ll, I’ll-”

Once again she was stricken silent when a pair of paws reached around her from behind, both grabbing the underside of her breasts and giving them a firm squeeze. Soreness and pain raced through her, choking off her words and making her groan in discomfort. The palms of his hands were rough like leather that hadn’t been properly treated. He forcibly rubbed them against her nipples, slowly coaxing the delicate buds to life against her will. The wooden bonds she was tied to creaked under her efforts to pull herself free, but they refused to release their prisoner, not while their creator toyed with her body.

“So much fire for such a little pup.” He laughed and grabbed hold of her nipples, giving them a firm squeeze which made her grit her teeth. “No, I don’t believe you will.”

His hands released her as quickly as they had appeared, pulling away as the wolf walked back around to stand before her. To her horror, the front of his loincloth was jutting upwards and when he realized she was staring at it, he chuckled.

“Are you curious, human? I have always been curious as to why our people differed in such…fascinating ways.” He inhaled sharply when he said this and slowly let out a sigh, before grabbing the front of his loincloth. “Are you a scholar like me? Perhaps I should give you a look.” With that, he pulled aside his loincloth, instantly eliciting a groan of disgust from his captive human.

Between his legs was a hairy pouch, plump and swollen. It hung just above his black-furred testicles, swaying with the movements of his hips and the attention of his paw. His fingers curled along the delicate flesh while he watched her, slowly working their ways towards an opening at the tip where a sharply pointed, dark red tip jutted outwards. It had the shape of a pike, a grotesque thing that she just couldn’t look away from.

“The way you look at me…” He growled deep in the back of his throat, the rumbling of a coming storm that was set to descend on her. “It excites me.”

True to his words, as she watched his manhood twitched and forced another inch free from its furry hiding place. It glistened in the fire light with some kind of natural grease, and as he rubbed himself more and more of it was freed to the air. Try as she might, Charlotte couldn’t help but give in to his perverse display, it was so strange, unlike anything she had seen before. Was he enjoying seeing her react like this? From the way his lips curled up in a grin she was certain that he did.

He grunted under his breath and finally pulled his paw away, instead crossing his arms over his chest with his manhood standing tall. If she had to have guessed, it was damn near eight inches, a mighty weapon that twitched every time her eyes fell upon it. How shameful a thing that he would so callously present himself to her, and how revolting the knowledge that he possessed a tool so feral and obscene.

“When I first took you in my arms, I truly thought you were a male.” He rocked his hips forward, and from the tip of his manhood dribbled a clear liquid that dripped to the ground. “Perhaps it was fate’s wish that I took a female.”

“You…are repulsive.” She whispered. Her mind raced with some kind of answer, but the only one she could come up with hit her like a blow to the gut. “I will not beg.”

“No, I’d rather you didn’t. That would be so…boring.” He turned and grabbed the bowl he had been preparing before walking up to her. “I do not wish to hear you make a blubbering fool of yourself. No, I desire you like this…I want to see the hatred in your eyes when I sink into you.”

He shot her a toothy grin before dipping two fingers into the bowl and drawing them free. A green mixture dripped from his fingers like paint, and although she tried to pull away she was unable to stop him from wiping a streak down her cheek. It tingled where it touched her, cold and sticky with an earthy aroma that made her nostrils flare. He added another streak to her opposite cheek and then a third across her forehead, his fingers dutifully working along her bare skin.

The final one wiped just under her nose, and instantly her eyes widened as the scent hit her. It was of overwhelming vegetation, of freshly grown things that had been uprooted. It made her eyes begin to water, and no matter how she shook her head she couldn’t remove it.

“What are you doing?!” She hissed through clenched teeth. Her head was starting to feel fuzzy, her mind quickly becoming a quagmire that her thoughts began to sink into. “What…”

“I do so wish you could be alert for this. Perhaps we’ll get to the point in our…relationship where you will become a willing participant in my experimentation.”

Through it all, Charlotte could feel the press of his shaft against her inner thigh, a hot, sticky sensation that never pulled away from her. He rubbed himself against her bare skin shamelessly, his fingers dipping into the bowl again and again as he worked himself lower on her body.

Charlotte blinked to try to clear the double visions appearing before her eyes, but there was no exorcizing them. He hung suspended in her image while the room began to spin around him, and she squeezed her eyes shut to try and center herself. It made it so much worse when he suddenly pressed a glob of the mixture on both of her nipples before circling her areolas. Her tender stomach was his next target, and she heard him mumbling under his breath as he worked.

“Open your eyes…”

That voice came from so far away, and she did her best to ignore it only for a thumb to roughly pull her eyelid out of the way. She was panting, she realized, her tongue feeling far too large for her mouth and her salivary glands working in overdrive. She was drooling, could feel it pooling in the back of her throat and running from the corners of her mouth.

“Pupils dilated…increased saliva production. Tell me, do you feel this?”

After he said it, Charlotte felt nothing. Not until a dull ache began to form on her chest which was quickly becoming more and more painful. Her eyes fell downwards as if she could no longer hold her up, and she gasped when she saw the curvature of one of his claws digging into the flesh of her painted nipple. It dug deeper, deep enough for a blot of red to quickly mix with the green, but as soon as the wound came in contact with the paint the pain immediately faded into the noise of the universe.

“We use this for our soldiers to numb the pain of their injuries, I wanted to see how it would affect a human. It’s fascinating how you’re reacting to it…”

Was he still talking, or was that just the whisper of the wind in her ears?

The fire was so fascinating to watch, she realized. The fires were dancing figures, conjoined together and pulsating with life that faded away into the rising clouds of smoke. All at once, Charlotte felt a pain of sorrow for them, to know that they had burned so beautifully only to disappear in the end. She reached forward to capture them in her hands, but to her surprise something was holding her back. The entirety of her upper body felt numb and unresponsive to her urging it to move, to do something.

The only thing she could do was try to kick out with her legs, and she nearly sobbed in disappointment when she felt bonds there as well.

“W-What…what is…?” She was pretty sure she had spoken, or was that just a trick of the mind? She was alone, head lolling from side to side in the great expanse of nothingness that existed outside the range of the fire. “Where…?”

“I’m right here…” Whispered a voice from behind her, and she shuddered when she felt fur so luxuriantly soft pressing against her back.

Charlotte wanted to sink into it, to let it swallow her up into a realm where she could just exist without the pain or knowledge of loss. She blinked a few times as her eyes began to water, and she fought to clear them away. There was something pressing into the small of her back, something hot and sharp. It jabbed into her bare flesh and began to drag itself downwards, smearing along a warm liquid that quickly began to cool.

“Do you know what I plan on doing to you?” That voice again, so close yet so far. “I’m going to breed you.” Malice’s voice, his image flashed in front of her, a specter of a bad memory hanging before her eyes before it faded away and she was reminded the real thing was standing right behind her. His teeth nipped at the nape of her neck, digging into her bare flesh with increasing urgency. “I made sure not to paint your lower body, I want you to feel every moment of this.”

Charlotte whimpered as he pried apart her muscular ass cheeks and let that heat slide in between them. She felt him grinding himself against her, that intense heat radiating off of him and soaking into her bare flesh to make her pant more intensely. Then she felt it, the first brush against her womanhood, and she found herself struggling to keep herself from sinking beneath the surface of lucidity.

Malice drew his hips back slowly, making her feel every last inch dancing across her bare flesh before his tip wedged itself between her lower lips. It hung there on the verge of penetration, threatening to claim what she had always managed to preserve even while living on the streets.

She saw herself as a youth seated next to the fire, holding a silver coin in her hands in wonder.

Then, Malice drove himself into her.

It came with a gasp and a hiss of pain, for her body wasn’t used to anything larger than her fingers. She had taken care of her needs in the past on more than one occasion, but nothing she had ever done compared to this. It was hot, hot enough to make her feel as if she were melting from within, and she was just able to feel the stinging pain radiating up through her body. Whatever had existed as a sign of her maidenhood was gone, lost in the growl of the feral beast on her back.

Charlotte panted like a dog on a hot summer day, her breaths coming in short, desperate gasps to feed the fire in her chest. It was panicked and fast, as if she might suffocate at any second. By the gods, what was this feeling?

“That’s it…” When Malice spoke to her, it was with all the praise of a master whose dog had just performed an excellent trick. It was cruel, condescending, and his words bounced off the walls of her head without a sign of stopping. “You’re squeezing me so tightly, girl…”

Charlotte felt the pinprick of claws in her hips as he began to pull back on her, pulling her into his groin and forcing another inch to slip into her. She could only imagine the natural grease on his cock and that watery fluid she had seen it dripping was easing this transition, for her body certainly had nothing to offer him. There was no pleasure for her, only a pain that radiated up through her entire body and caused her to clench her stomach in discomfort. It forced a groan from her lips as if she had been stabbed, which at that moment she truly felt like she was. It might as well have been a dagger slipping into her cunt, a desperate, feral tool well suited to this purpose.

The thought of fighting, of struggling and trying to get free exploded into her mind before being dashed into cinders mere moments later. The struggle, the effort, it all seemed so futile, especially when she felt his tongue against the back of her neck. It was surprisingly tender in its ministrations, bathing her in warm saliva and forcing another gasp from her lips, this one far higher pitched than the last.

“You squeeze me so differently from a woman of my species…” Malice mumbled to her, “so…excellently tight…!”

Charlotte felt like a toy that was being pulled apart, for there was no possibility she could withstand this onslaught. She looked downwards, half expecting to see her stomach bulging out with the insane amount of cock that had already been sunk into her. She was soon to be disappointed, however, when she saw that he hadn’t so much as sunken half his cock into her. She could see it now, an ugly thing covered in spiderwebs of veins against a purplish-pink surface. It made her sick to her stomach to watch such a thing slipping deeper into her, forcing her walls to give in to his feral desire despite her attempts to keep him out.

Oddly enough, there was a thick bulge at the base of his cock, still hidden under that hairy sheath. It was large and rounded, and the further he pushed himself into her the further back the skin was drawn on it until it finally burst forth. To say she was horrified was an understatement, for the grotesque lump at the base of his cock was enough to make her cry out in revulsion. Lucidity was a fleeting thing, however, and she soon forgot that she had been meant to panic and struggle away from it. Her body soon went slack in her bonds, drool spilling forth from her mouth as Malice began to rock his hips against her.

His growls were a chorus in her ears, the only music she could ever remember and one of an animalistic cadence that captured her attention. It spoke to her of the darkness of the forest, of the woods and its people. It spoke to her of how she was being claimed against her will, and how that was the natural order of this world. The strong took what they wanted and the weak suffered, a truth that all knew.

Malice grunted in her ear with every powerful thrust, his hips working against her with increasing dedication and desperation. His manhood scorched her bare flesh leaving her feeling as if she were going to melt from the inside out. There was no stopping him, nothing she could do in that moment to make it end. His claws tore into her hips, digging deep enough that their scouring pain was amplified whenever her body jerked in his grasp.

Looking downwards she could see it, watching as his veiny cock sank deep within her folds and caused her womanhood to stretch obscenely around it. There was no love, nothing but raw passion that she couldn’t handle. At the edge of her gasp carried a whimper, a small whisper of something deeper. Charlotte didn’t realize the noise had come from her, but Malice was quick to nuzzle his cold, wet nose against her cheek.

“What was that…?” He whispered, voice so sickeningly sweet in her ear, “did I find a good spot?”

The skewering tip of his cock had jabbed deep within her, opening her for the rest of his fat cock to invade at his leisure, but it was where it had planted itself that made her groan. It was a spot within her that she didn’t know existed before this moment, one that flooded her brain with a sense of well-being, of satisfaction she had never known before. It was a spot within her that was soon brushed against again when he gave a particularly firm thrust, and with it came the slap of his black, hairy testicles against her inner thighs.

“That’s all of it…for a human, you look so beautiful wrapped around my cock.”

Charlotte had just enough sense to be embarrassed by his words, the whisper of his power over her forcing her to once again turn her gaze downwards. True to his words, that ugly ball of flesh at the base of his cock had been jammed against her cunny lips, looking so large that it didn’t quite hit her at first that he might desire to put that in her as well. How would it fit? Then again, she hadn’t expected her body to be able to handle all eight inches he had given her.

Pain radiated up from her lower body, from her hips being cut to ribbons and her womanhood struggling to contain a cock that was too big. But it was that jabbing tip, probing and teasing her that made it bearable, that left her groaning under her breath. Her head bobbed and lulled around like a drunkard’s, the room spinning around her and the only way she could center herself was to push back against Malice. He was firm, unyielding, the only thing in this world that was real in that moment, and she heard him chuckle in her ear.

“Oh? I had thought to spare you it, but…if you’re so insistent.” His voice radiated animal lust, breath coming in hot, heated pants that scoured her flesh where it touched.

Malice began to pull back, drawing his body away from her and leaving her hanging on the edge of a precipice which had no bottom. When he slammed his hips forward, slapping them against her toned ass and bottoming out in her, Charlotte couldn’t contain herself any longer.

She moaned, for the pleasure had finally begun to outweigh the pain, and as her mind began to ascend higher to join the drifting clouds of smoke, she threw her hips back to meet him. His movements were swift, demanding, taking from her with no regard for her pleasure or comfort, and that was what she found herself wanting. Rough, brutal, an animal that couldn’t contain his lust and was constantly growling in her ear. He was a rock against the storm, a bulwark for her to cling to, and every time his knot banged against her cunny she tried to throw herself back on it.

“Ah! Ah, yes!” She cried, desperation spilling from her mouth and hanging vapid in the air. Even when Malice released her hips so he could draw back a hand and swing it down brutally on her ass she was left moaning for him. “Fu…fuck me!”

When she was still a young girl on the streets, she had passed by the alleys where the wanton women sold their bodies to men for pittances. She had heard them cry out so desperately for more, she had always thought it a performance for their partner, nothing more than an attempt to assure them that they were admirable partners. Malice dashed the thought of performances from her mind, for she could think of nothing but his veiny cock pounding away into her with increasing ferocity that left her body quaking.

She moaned, spittle flying from her lips as the wolf began to bend her forward, testing the strength of her bonds and pushing them to their limits. Her wrists and ankles burned from the friction of the fraying rope, but nothing could deny this feral beast its due course. With a mighty snap one wrist gave way, and in seconds he had it gripped in the palm of his hand. He snarled at her and yanked back on it hard enough she feared he might pull it from its socket while he tugged her body back against him. With a slash of his claws the other wrist was freed, and before she could regain her composure he put the entirety of his weight into her back.

Her knees hit the ground and she had just enough sense to catch herself on her hands and knees. Charlotte’s world swirled around her as her partner took up position behind her, not letting so much as an inch slip from her before he returned to his brutal, soul rending pounding. The wet, slick noise of his flesh burying itself between her walls was growing louder as her body finally grew wet for him, forcing her to become a willing participant in this depraved act.

Charlotte dug her nails into the rough fabric of the floor of the tent, anything to hold her body steady for the insane pace that he was setting for her. It felt as if every second was punctuated with the slap of his hips against her ass, and in this position she was treated to a new torture. His balls, heavy as they were, were the perfect height to swing and collide with her clit, sending jolts of pain and pleasure racing up her spine.

The air was heavy, thick with the scent of raunchy wolf musk, far more powerful than any scent she had ever experienced in the barracks. It was a physical presence that clung to the walls of her lungs and caused her nipples to harden, a scent that she found herself desperately gasping in.

That knot, that thick ball…it had been so desperately pummeling her womanhood, but Malice had grown tired of this game. When it ended, it came with his hands grabbing her around her haunches, and with all the strength he could muster he pulled her back into his groin. At the same time he dropped the entirety of his weight on her back, crushing her body to the floor and driving the breath from her lungs. Pain radiated through her, and in her mind she could envision that moment where his cock hung on the edge…and her weak womanhood finally gave way.

Malice howled above her, calling out to the heavens of his claim to her body. He announced his victory as the ball began to swell within her, growing larger and larger and forcing her walls apart with every passing second. He sealed it with a hot burst of thick seed that blasted deep within her body, a jet that was quickly followed by another, and then another, more and more of it spilling out with every twitch of his balls.

There was no way Charlotte could hold herself back. In that moment, as an orgasm ripped through her and clarity cut through the haze like the swing of a sword, she insisted there was nothing she could do otherwise. And then the pleasure was upon her and she knew nothing but the toe-curling desperation of arching her body beneath him, her moans so alien to her ears that she couldn’t believe they were coming from her. She sounded like one of the women of the streets, a shameless creature that knew no purpose but this.

Pain started to build in her upper shoulder around her lower neck, and moments later she realized that Malice was biting her. His fangs sank deep into her bare flesh, and the only thing protecting her from the pain was the tribal markings he had decorated her with. She watched him out of the corner of her eye, her breathing heavy and vacant. He was biting her, and she could do nothing, nothing but sit there and take it.

He pulled his jaws away after quite some time, and in the moments that passed he tended to her with his long, rough tongue. He didn’t try to pull his weight off of her, instead, he seemed more than intent to crush her beneath his heavy body, forcing her to endure despite any objection she might have made. Her body was drenched with sweat, both her own but mostly his, and that feral aroma that had so captivated her now clung to her like a cloak. His fur welcomed her into his hold, and she could do nothing but allow her eyes to flutter as the drug coursing through her body began to reach its zenith.

“Oh, my little toy…we are going to have so much fun together.”

With those words ringing in her ear, Charlotte felt the floor give way beneath her. She was falling, falling into an inky void of darkness that swallowed her without a second thought, leaving the last thing she remembered the feeling of his knot tugging against her walls as he adjusted his position on her.