Servants of the Earth 6: Shadows Emerge Preview

Story by Rathe on SoFurry

, , , , ,

#5 of Servants of the Earth


"Ow."

Jesse felt the waves of pain coarse over his body, stinging his chest and forearms. The tiger opened his eyes and found himself face to face with darkness. He whipped his head from side to side, his orange eyes dulled in the murky ambiance as he tried to obtain his bearings.

He pushed his paws against a very soft and very comfortable mattress, sitting himself up as he slowly adjusted to the dark.

He was in a room. He was in a bed. Not his bed, he decided. Not Tanner's either. It was a single and the feline had trouble trying not to roll off the side.

"How can anyone sleep on this?" Jesse asked himself, as he shifted his weight and sunk a little into the giving bed.

From what he could make out, the room was void of almost all signs of life. There were no band posters on the wall. Apart from the tiny bed he occupied, no other furniture resided in the room. A window, with its blinds slanting down, allowed in only the meekest of moonlight, giving Jesse enough light source to adjust his eyes to.

"Where am I?" he asked himself.

His eyes swiveled to a door, four feet away. A doorknob twisted, the hinges creaked and squeaked, a presence lurked on the other side, slowly emerging into the room.

The tiger gulped and his pupils dilated. Whatever was on the other side of the door felt strange to the feline. Almost as if a crushing pressure slammed down on him, pinning him to the bed. And from this strange fur, a radiance of chaos and despair flooded out, pushing and biting into Jesse's psyche, causing him to tremble and break into a frigid perspiration.

The door opened more, letting in a slip of light that washed over the tiger's face, painting him in a slice of warmth. Immediately, the pressure released. The despair dwindled and the chaos receded. Even the pain in Jesse's chest deadened to a dull throb, as his orange fur began warm up from the hallway light. The tiger let out a breath, but kept his eyes on the door and the black wolf lurking in the doorway.

"You shouldn't have been alone." he said, as he leaned against the doorframe, his right footpaw hooked over his left. "They say bad things happen to fools and tools who go it alone."

Jesse just stared at the lupine lounging in the light, his feline eyes absorbing every detail of the black fur. His build was tall and hulky, much like a professional linebacker. His fur was of a midnight hue and shone with a silky gloss in the dim hallway light. His eyes, storm cloud grey, hardened and brittle, as though beneath a tough façade lurked a fragile cub. His ears stuck upright, more like that of a German Shepherd than a wolf.

His attire, contrasting to his fur, consisted of a bright blue and yellow Hawaiian shirt, portraying grinning flexible otters, and a taut electric blue speedo that left absolutely nothing to the imagination, which was where Jesse's eyes were currently glued.

The lupine released a short grin at Jesse's expression, before he resumed a straight poker face and nodded to the bedazzled and slightly befuddled tiger.

"You caught Kit Kat Gang on good day. They don't leave nothing if in bad mood. Folks stay clear of them." The lupine walked two steps and hovered over Jesse's form on the bed. "Guess new in town?" He shot out a large black paw to the smaller tiger, his eyes betraying nothing. "Name's Conrad."

Jesse took the paw in his own, shaking meagerly as his eyes stuck on the electric blue bulge a few inches away. "Jesse..."

Conrad's emotionless eyes glanced casually over the tiger's body, still decked out in his school clothes. The lupine's eyes caught sight of the growing tent in the tiger's jeans and he blinked.

"Well, Jesse, if you like to let go of paw, I'm to take refreshing dip in water."

The tiger let go of the wolf's paw, who then turned around and walked into the doorway, pausing only to beckon the feline to follow.

Curious, Jesse hopped out of the small bed that could not have possible fit a wolf that huge, and followed him through the doorway into the light. And that's when the tiger finally knew he had lost his mind.

From the darkened room, he walked out into a sunlit glade, complete with chirping birds and a crystal clear pond. Jesse's orange eyes had been fixed to Conrad's finely defined ass, but when he realized where he was, his head snapped to the room behind him. Or at least, to where the room used to be. All that remained was a surrounding of trees and water.

Conrad let out a dry mirthless chuckle at the tiger's apprehension, and slapped at the pond water with his footpaw.

"No to worry bout. Jesse not in danger from me" the lupine said as he hunkered down and slipped into the cool water, letting out a refreshingly garbled sigh. "I am friend, who fix you up" he said, pointing at the tiger's chest.

The feline glanced down, noticing for the first time, the rough plants wrapped around the gouges made by the crazed jaguar. The pain was receding, even as Jesse rubbed the natural bandages he noticed the lupine watching him from the water.

"Jesse, come swim with me. Refreshing swim will help cool off. Make you feel better."

The tiger looked around the glade, seeing no one else present. He shuffled his foot-paws and blushed.

"I don't have any swim trunks" Jesse replied, hoping to not be put in a position where he might betray his mate.

Conrad quirked his head to one side and shrugged.

"Is no biggie. See?" The lupine reached a paw into the water and with a focused gaze pulled off his speedo, holding it up out of the water before throwing it onto the grass. "How you say, al natural? Come, come, water feel nice, yes?"

Jesse blushed again, smiling to himself as he pushed down his denim jeans, kicking them off as he watched Conrad keeping an eye trained on him and the tight boxers that were already slightly tented.

"It's just a little swim, right?" Jesse asked himself before pulling his polo shirt up and over his head, causing a wolf whistle to sound from the spectator in the water.

"Nice muscles," the lupine called out, causing the tiger to blush through his orange, black and white fur. Jesse's tail flicked back and forth excitedly as his heart sped up.