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Disclaimer: The following story contains sex between consenting anthropomophic adults. If you are too young to legally view such content, or if such content does not appeal to you, leave now.

The Recovering Deity

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Ileni stormed down the tower's hallways, her thighs twitching every so often as she continued her aimless progress through the labyrinthine building. She couldn't believe she had just done that, gone to Sophan willingly in the one moment she knew he would be unable to take her by force. Or the first moment, rather, she corrected herself. Sophan would never be able to rape her again.

The thought brought her up short, but only briefly. No one would be able to do anything to her against her will ever again. She was too strong, now. Yet for some reason, that recurring epiphany never brought her any satisfaction in the many times it had occurred to her since she'd woken up in the tower and found herself almost completely healed from the injuries she'd taken at the Arena. If her strength had been some form of accomplishment on her part, a lifetime of training and exercise, she would have been proud of it, but it had been given to her as a gift from the ghosts of her family. A gift, and a task to complete.

She began walking again, thoughts of her family a mere distraction when they should have been the only thing in the world that mattered. Her newfound strength wasn't the only thing that couldn't bring her any satisfaction.

Ileni had to willfully force her hand back down to her side when it rose of its own accord toward her reddened chest. The nagging, continuous itch between her breasts was far too deep for her blunt claws to scratch away. She knew that it was from the impossible rape she had suffered at the hands of the black stallion at the arena, but knowing what caused the insufferable itch didn't in any way help her to cure it. She had hoped that having sex would sooth the deep irritation away, or at the least provide more distracting sensations, but she had been wrong. Even while mounting Sophan as she had, the rabbit's inner ribs and lungs had burned as though she had inhaled a swarm of fire ants that were trying to eat her from the inside out.

Her swift strides had carried her nearly to her destination before she even realized she had one in mind, and when she noticed where she was headed, she hesitated again. She had gone to Sophan so that none of the refugees would think of her as the same kind of impulse driven monster as their old captors, but she was only two doors away from the large chamber that the stallion had claimed as his temporary home. She couldn't ask that of the traumatized male. Could she?

Ileni drew a deep breath to collect her thoughts, but as her lungs inflated fully, they rubbed against the tunnel that extended from her womb deep within her chest, and her legs began moving again without a conscious thought from her. She had no choice. She had to get rid of the itching before it drove her mad.

As expected, the vast room had only one occupant. The big male stood with his back against a pillar, facing at an angle slightly away from the door that Ileni entered through, his eyes closed and his breaths slow and peaceful. Was he sleeping standing up?

While he still hadn't noticed her, Ileni took the opportunity to take in the sight of the stallion and gather her courage for what she was about to do. He was twice her height and width, likely eight or so times her weight, and even though he was fairly lean for his size, the way his muscles stood out under his shaved skin made him look like he should have been pulling a farming plough. She shuddered, unable to look at the big horse without remembering exactly what he had done to her at the arena, the way he and two other males had subdued her and taken her against her will, and how the stallion in particular had continued raping her long after the others had finished. The fact that they had done so under threat of death was small consolation. It was the stallion's fault that her insides were under such constant torment.

Ileni gritted her teeth. Despite everything, the memory of that brutal rape brought an unsettling warmth to her lower belly, and she couldn't stop her eyes from being drawn between the horse's chiseled thighs. She knew exactly how large his member would be once coaxed erect, even though it was completely hidden within his black furred sheath while he slept. It was the length and width of the hollow itching that was burrowed within her body.

She took a single step into the large chamber, her paw silent against the cold, cracked tile floor, and the stallion's eyes opened. "Ileni?" he said, surprised, and stood up away from the pillar he'd been leaning against, coming to attention as though preparing to pass some sort of test. As though, now that he'd been awoken, he expected his physique to be inspected.

Ileni was startled again by the youthful timbre of his voice. It wasn't really high pitched, but it was a breathy, soothing tenor where she always expected a rumbling baritone to come from a male his size. "Um, hi," she said awkwardly, her steps faltering before she'd crossed a quarter of the distance between them. How in the world was she supposed to go about this? The last thing any of the refugees would want after their torturous captivity would be to have sex. Besides that, the stallion was looking at her with that terrible mix of awe, gratitude, and barely-veiled fear that made her feel like she was from another planet. She could read in his expression that he fully expected to see her do something impossible, whether it be miraculous or calamitous.

The stallion looked as intimidated by her as she felt by him. "H . . . hello," he stuttered nervously. "Uh, how have you been holding up?"

She swallowed past a nervous lump in her throat. This had been so much easier with Sophan! At least the cheetah would welcome her attentions. What she wanted to ask the horse to do would be like taking him back to the imprisonment she had helped him escape from. "That's . . . actually why I'm here," she began. The male waited expectantly, saying nothing, though he did shuffle in slight embarrassment when her eyes slid down from his face to the black testicles dangling heavily between his thighs. Realizing where she was looking, she winced her eyes shut. "I need your help," she said with her eyes closed, and heard his hooves clack against the floor as he took a few steps toward her.

"I'll do whatever I can," he said, and despite his clear uneasiness around her, he sounded heartbreakingly sincere.

"Are you sure?" She opened her eyes and forced herself to keep them on his equine face.

"Of course. Any of us would do anything to repay you. Whatever you need me to do, just ask."

That was a generous assertion, but he couldn't have known just what it was Ileni was about to ask him. She closed the distance between them and held out her paws. "Let me see your hand."

He knelt so that she wouldn't have to crane her neck to look up at him, and likely so that her face wouldn't be on a level with his pendulous genitals, then placed his huge hand in her smaller ones.

"What's your name?" she asked. Despite having known all of the refugees for a day or two, and having gone through such life altering events with them, she had only learned a few of their names. She had been too distracted to be anything more than distantly polite with any of them since the arena, and their behavior toward her made her feel like she was standing on a pedestal every time she was in the same room with them.

"Colt," the shaved stallion answered after a brief hesitation. His ears flicked back against his head in slight embarrassment.

Ileni blinked in surprise. "Your name's Colt?" That was like her parents naming her "Bunny."

The stallion nodded. "At least, that's what the masters called me. The captors, I mean," he corrected himself hastily, his ears flicking again.

She shook her head and frowned angrily, though not at the big male. "You don't have to answer to the name those predators gave you ever again. What were you called before that?"

He swallowed noisily and muttered something so quietly that she couldn't make it out even with him kneeling close enough for her to hold his hand in hers. When she just tilted her head at him in confusion, he repeated himself. "There wasn't anything before that."

Ileni's eyes widened. "You mean you can't remember your life before you were captured?" she asked, but the stallion was already shaking his head.

"No," he whispered. "I mean that I never was captured."

She looked away from his face, uncertain what he was trying to say. "I don't understand," she finally admitted.

The stallion took a deep breath, staring at a spot on the cold floor over Ileni's shoulder. "The others all think I had been a captive of the hunters for four or five years, but that's only because four or five years was the longest the last great competitor lasted in the arena before I beat . . . before he lost a few months ago. No one was around before that to know that I've been a slave since I was born."

"You mean, you've been a captive all of your life?" Ileni said slowly in dawning horror. She was careful not to pull her hands away from his when the horse flinched, apparently expecting her to be repulsed by his confession.

"My mother was pregnant with me when she was captured," he explained. "Usually they would have just thrown her into the arena, anyway; some of the predators have a fetish for that. But one of them convinced the others to leave her be until after she gave birth, since she was already so close, and I was raised after that by the predators. They made sure I grew up healthily so that I would be unstoppable in Domination. I was an experiment. If I did well, they planned to start a breeding program to raise a force of sexual gladiators."

"That's terrible," Ileni said, her eyes as wide as they could go.

The stallion just nodded numbly, still unable to look her in the eye. "I think they already started breeding others. Over the last couple years, I could hear babies crying some nights when it was very quiet in my pen."

For a short while, she could only stare at him, and he only seemed able to watch that vacant spot on the floor without a word.

Eventually, he looked back into her wide eyes. "But that's all in the past now. Thanks to you, I have my own life to look forward to. I never even dared to imagine what that would be like." A nervous smile ticked up the corner of his equine muzzle. "I don't really know what I'm going to end up doing with myself now that I'm free, but for now, whatever you need, you have but to ask."

"I can't," Ileni sighed, and tried to pull her hands away from his, but he gently caught the paw that had been under the pad of his hand.

"Whatever it is, Ileni, I'll do what I can. Please, if there's any way that I can repay you. . . ."

She looked into Colt's pleading expression, and her insides chose that moment to start itching furiously again, just when she'd begun to be able to ignore the irritation. Shaking her head, she pulled the stallion's paw over her furless breast, his palm covering the entire soft organ. This time, when she let his hand go, he didn't catch her, but neither did he pull away from her chest. He just held his paw over her breast and gulped audibly, his eyes glued to the back of his black furred knuckles.

"Ileni, I don't think. . . . Do you really want help with . . . with that?"

"It's from what we . . . from what the hunters made us do in the arena," she explained quietly, careful to include herself in the act rather than sound like she was accusing him. "I don't know how it was even possible," she said slowly, choosing her words carefully, "but after taking something so deeply inside myself, my insides haven't been able to stop burning. No matter how much I scratch, I can't reach the itch. It's like I reaching up into me from my belly button, and I just don't know what to do about it. The only thing I can think of is to scratch it from the inside, but I can't do that on my own." There. She'd said it. Now he would recoil from her and remember that she wasn't like him, that she had been irrevocably changed. Not only did she have impossible strength, but now he would realize that she had the same predatory hungers as the carnivores that had murdered his mother and raised him as a sex slave.

Except he didn't recoil from her. His hand stayed planted over her breast, and if anything, when he held her anxious gaze, he looked more guilty and apologetic than repelled. Nonetheless, he shook his head slowly. "I'm sorry, Ileni. That's the one thing I don't think I can help you with."

"I know," she said hastily, pulling away from him. She turned her back on him and shuddered as a flare of irritation pulsed between her lungs, and tried to forget how pleasant the pad of his hand had felt over her nipple. "I shouldn't have even asked; it was stupid. There must be something wrong with me, and it doesn't have anything to do with what happened at the arena."

"No, it's not that," Colt told her. "If there's something wrong with you, there's something wrong with everyone else, too. Have you smelled the air in any of the rooms where other rebels are staying? This entire tower is filled with more aroused musk than I've ever smelled in the predators' camps. After spending so much time doing almost nothing except having sex, I think everyone is . . . I don't know, having some kind of withdrawal, I guess. And then there's what the Seer's told us all."

Ileni half turned back to him uncertainly. "I have noticed everyone's arousal. Some of the males are having trouble keeping themselves sheathed." She sighed, though, and scratched her fingers through the fur on the back of her head to keep them away from her chest. "The only musk I smell in here is coming from me, though."

"That's what I mean about not being able to help you," Colt explained, not moving from his squatting position behind her. "I'm not suffering from the same withdrawal as everyone else seems to be. I don't even know if I'll ever be able to get aroused again."

"After everything you've been through, I can't blame you for feeling that way," she said, moving back toward the stallion. "You probably don't ever want to have sex again. I just can't think of anyone else who can reach that deep inside me. Maybe the other horse, the zebra, is big enough, but. . . ." Ileni rested a hand against the male's broad shoulder and, feeling so much shame that she thought she should have melted on the spot, she reached her other paw down between his crouching thighs. "Males don't usually have any trouble getting aroused where I'm concerned," she said, her fingers grazing across the underside of his dangling ball sack.

As soon as she touched his scrotum, though, Colt leapt back away from her, springing upright only to hunch over and cover his loins with both hands, groaning. Ileni hopped in the other direction, surprised and frightened by his reaction. Had she used her newfound strength by accident? She thought that her finger had barely grazed his pelt, but she still hadn't gotten used to being able to damage things with so little effort.

"Are you okay?" she exclaimed, stepping toward him with her hand still outstretched, thinking to comfort whatever pain she'd caused him, despite the part of his anatomy in question. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to. . . ."

"It's from the arena," Colt explained, waving his hand dismissively even as he hobbled backward out of her arm's reach. "When I dominated you then, I hurt myself, too, maybe beyond repair. I haven't even been able to sit down since then."

"You mean because I head butted you before we were chosen?" Ileni asked, her stomach sinking.

The stallion hesitated only a moment before nodding reluctantly. "You were trying to save the two stags that refused to compete," he said.

His reassurance fell on deaf ears, though. Ileni had been feeling like some sort of monster ever since the battle at the arena, unable to dream without nightmares plaguing her of the terrible number of people she had killed. Whether or not they deserved to die wasn't an issue. Ileni didn't deserve to be a murderer. But that's what she was, and her supernatural strength had little to do with it. Even before her power had manifested, the only thing she had accomplished when she tried to help someone was hurting someone else. Colt might never be able to sire children because of her.

And before the arena, before she had been gang raped by wolves and claimed by Sophan, she had brought about the death of her entire family. She could still remember Andrin's promise that she could join them after she taught the predators a lesson, but. . . .

Before she realized what she was doing, Ileni turned and angrily punched the metal support column the stallion had been leaning against, and it buckled under her fist, the pillar bending and the vast room's ceiling shuddering downward a foot or two. Colt backed away from her farther, his eyes wide with unveiled fright. When she saw the near-panic in his expression, when she realized that another blow like that might very well bring the tower's upper floors crashing down over their heads, Ileni froze in shocked horror. Colt made as if to step toward her, but as soon as he stopped backing up she bolted in the other direction, finding the nearest door out of the chamber and running down the hallway beyond it with tears blinding her.

She wasn't running only because of her shame, or just due to the fear that she might have another outburst and kill everybody in the Seer's tower. She was also running because, just as the stallion had moved toward her, her eyes had locked onto his injured genitals and another flare of irritation washed through her insides, stronger than any that had struck before.

Her legs carried her to the tower's upper floors almost of their own accord. She had no destination in mind, except anywhere away from the other refugees. She was too dangerous to stay around anyone else; the rabbit had half a mind to turn around and descend the tower's endless staircase to make her way into Chicago's ruins. At least the people she might accidentally hurt there would deserve it.

She kept running up the stairs, though, her thoughts in too much disarray to formulate any real plan. At random, she left the staircase through an unmarked door and found herself in one of the tower's large storehouses, ancient human relics piled as far as she could see in every direction.

It was the humans who had made her pairing with Colt possible, she had learned from Cill and the Seer. Or rather, it was Jonathan Vanderhaus who had made it possible, following in his human creator's footsteps. If the humans had been intelligent enough to manipulate their own genes enough to give their female anthropomorphic descendents extended vaginal tunnels, surely they had been intelligent enough to invent something that would cure the blasted itching that tunnel would cause after it had been opened.

If they had created such an invention, Ileni doubted Vanderhaus would have included such a thing in any of the time capsules he had left future generations. Even if there was something in that store house that could help her, she would never know what to look for. She could have spent days rummaging through the numerous machines and trinkets, even if she did know what such a thing would look like.

The ancients might have caused Ileni's current aggravation, but they weren't going to be of any use in removing it.

She gritted her teeth as yet another flare of irritation made her start scratching the raw skin between her breasts before she could stop herself. Leaning with her hands on a sturdy table nearby, barely seeing the strange box contraptions that were occupying the table around her paws, she came to a decision. There was no one in the tower equipped and able to douse her inner fire, and the humans hadn't left her any tool to use to that end. She was just going to have to come up with her own invention.

The table's wooden legs were long, straight cylinders, polished to a dull brown gleam under the dim light filtering through several cracks and holes in one of the tower's walls. One of those would do.

Gripping the nearest table leg at its base, Ileni gave a slight twist of her wrist, and the solid wood snapped off in her hand easily. She jumped back when the table toppled to the side, its square human relics cascading onto the floor, but as she inspected the table leg she held in her fist, all thoughts of humans escaped her. The wooden length was at least three feet, more than long enough for her purposes, and it was polished smooth by age down to its circular foot. She swiped the dust off of that foot with a thumb, then trailed her digit around the circle's edge. It was rigid rather than curved to allow as much of its surface to stay planted on the floor as possible, but that somewhat sharp edge would make things very uncomfortable if she went through with what she intended.

At that moment, Ileni really didn't care.

The rabbit got onto the floor, settling herself on her back and spreading her legs wide enough to reach both hands and the table leg between her thighs. She positioned the wooden rod at her entrance, then rubbed her fingers against her puffy, shaved mound. She was already easily wet enough, so much so that she was surprised she hadn't been dripping during her climb up to that room. Taking a deep breath, she parted her labia with two fingers and slid the table leg's tip into her, gasping as its first inches pierced her vagina.

It was more narrow than any erection she'd taken before, but the ridge at its base was far less gentle about parting her inner walls than Sophan's tapered length, or even the softer, bulbous head of Colt's enormous penis. Still, she didn't stop pulling it into herself until she felt it bottom out against her cervix, making her cringe in discomfort.

Ileni couldn't let herself stop then, though. If all she needed was something long enough to reach her cervix, she never would have abandoned Sophan as she had. The table leg's end was too blunt to part the walls of her cervix, though, where a pointed tip would have been able to wedge between them. Panting in a combination of pleasure and slight pain, she began sliding the table leg in and out of herself, bouncing it off that inner barrier with each plunge until the muscles of her cervix loosened enough for a particularly hard thrust to drive the wooden stave into her womb.

The rabbit tensed, which only caused the deep penetration to hurt worse. She had used her own strength against herself before she was ready. Whimpering quietly, she reminded herself to go slowly enough that she wouldn't do herself irrevocable harm, and began sliding the table leg gradually deeper within her womb, until it grazed her innermost wall, making her cry out in brief agony.

Pulling the wooden rod back slightly, she tried again, but was met with just as much pain the second time she prodded the back of her womb, and the third, and the fourth. Inhaling deeply and trying to force herself to relax, she slumped back against the cool tile floor and pulled her hands away from the table leg, leaving it embedded deep within her. One hand she brought up to her breast, dragging it up the skin of her belly and collecting the thin gleam of sweat on her shaved body before gently massaging her mammary. Her other hand stayed between her spread thighs, rubbing around the wooden shaft where it parted her folds and tracing her fingers back to graze her sensitive clitoris.

As good as her paws felt against her skin and flesh, they were doing nothing to purge the burning itch from within her chest. Groaning, Ileni reached down to take the table leg in both hands again, shifting it inside her lower belly until its tip brushed against her womb in the raw spot where the inner chamber gave way to a second, extended tunnel. With a gasp, she pressed the wooden rod against that spot, but without enough force to further penetrate herself. She tried again, a little harder, but had to stop just before the back of her womb parted around the table leg as a fit of trembling convulsions overtook her. No creature was supposed to be able to take an object so deeply into itself. This entire plan was a mistake, she knew, but the knowledge couldn't make her stop. She had to scratch that itch.

Once her trembling abated, the rabbit drew in a deep breath, preparing to skewer herself no matter how much damage it might cause. With the table leg prodding her womb's walls, her deepest tunnel's irritation had flared up to a new intensity. She was going to end that irritation now, one way or another. She braced herself, tensing even though she knew how important it was that she relax.

"Ileni!"

Her hands flew away from the stick as though she were a child caught stealing a pastry from a neighbor, and by dropping the pastry she believed she might somehow shed the crime's blame. Unable to otherwise move with the table leg still buried within her, she twisted her neck to see the Seer making his way into the vault from the same doorway she'd used to enter.

"Ileni, what are you doing?" he asked, his muzzle gaping open in astonishment and, Ileni expected, no small amount of horror.

Blood rushing to her face until she was fairly certain her ears had started glowing, she looked away from the winged fox in shame, unable to think of anything to say in her defense. "I . . . I couldn't stand it anymore," she finally muttered, tears pooling in her eyes.

"You couldn't stand what anymore?" the Seer asked quietly, and she could hear his quiet footsteps padding toward her.

"The burning," she whispered, an uncomfortable moan tingeing her voice embarrassingly. "It itches, inside. . . ." Caught as she was just before she might have dealt herself a terrible injury, she couldn't seem to come up with complete sentences. It was all she could manage not to reach down and start thrusting the table leg in and out of her, but some part of her mind felt that merely touching the stave would somehow make her situation more shameful, even if only to pull it out of herself. It wasn't reasonable, but with the aggravation still flaring between her lungs, reason seemed to be beyond her.

"From what happened to you at the arena, you mean?" the vulpine asked. He knelt beside her, and she tried to scoot away from him when he touched her furless shoulder, but didn't use her unnatural strength to wrench herself free when his paw held onto her. Settling under his paw, she just nodded wordlessly in response to his question, still unable to make herself look up at him.

"Well, it's no surprise that it itches," he said logically. "You're still healing. Of all the injuries you took at the arena, that was probably the worst of them. Most females would have been bedridden for a week at the least after going through what you did. Thanks to your gift, though, you're healing much more quickly than normal. All the discomfort of several days are combining in just a few hours."

Ileni sighed, her hands reaching again for the raw spot between her breasts before she could stop them. "It doesn't seem like much of a gift to me," she muttered, hating the sulkiness that she couldn't keep out of her voice.

The fox smirked down at her with an eyebrow lifted. "At the moment, I suppose it wouldn't." He gestured down toward her thighs, though he never took his eyes off of her face. "That's not going to help you, though. Reopening your extended tunnel before it's had a chance to heal will only make it keep itching as soon as you're done with the table leg. Once you've healed up, though, you should be able to take males of that size without doing any damage to yourself, if you ever want to."

Ileni whimpered and cringed away from the Seer's attempted reassurance. "Believe me, that's not something I'll ever do again willingly."

The fox just shrugged, smiling kindly down at her. She wanted to believe that smile was sincere, but coming as it did from a predator's muzzle, she couldn't help but be suspicious of his intent. "I won't force you to take the stick out, but it's really not doing you much good, is it?" he asked.

Ileni blushed again, but at least the winged fox had gave her the courtesy of sitting back on his haunches and looking away while she reached down and pulled the table leg out of her loins. "I don't know what else to do," she said, sitting up and tossing the broken piece of wood to the side. She hugged her knees against her chest protectively, but lowered the leg closest to the male when she realized the position gave him a clear view of her crotch. There just wasn't any way to hide her private parts without being obvious about doing so, not without clothing, and the Seer's storehouses didn't contain any samples of that part of human culture. She and a number of other refugees had asked. "I feel like it's driving me insane. Down in Colt's room, I almost . . . I mean, I wasn't trying to, but I think I came close to knocking the tower down."

Unexpectedly, the Seer chuckled at that. "This tower was built to withstand more than a punch to one column, even one coming from you. It hasn't stayed standing for a thousand or more years while the city crumbled around it for nothing, you know."

"Still, I. . . ."

"You're worried about what might happen if you forget yourself again," he finished for her when she found herself unable to manage the rest of the sentence on her own. She just nodded mutely. "You're going to have to learn to trust yourself, Ileni," the fox said, and when she opened her muzzle, he went on without giving her the chance to point out how untrustworthy damaging his home made her. "In time, you'll gain enough control over your new strength that it becomes just another familiar feature. All you need is someplace to experiment with it, to see just what you're capable of and how to keep yourself from crossing the line from normal strength to supernatural."

Ileni's ears perked up at that. "Do you think I should leave the tower for a while and get used to myself out in the ruins, where it's safe for everyone?"

The Seer shook his head at her. "I won't stop you if you want to go, but wandering the ruins would only be safe for everyone else, not you. You can handle yourself now, I know, but even as quickly as you heal, I don't think you'd survive a shot to the heart or head from one of the predators' guns." She wanted to argue, but again, the fox kept talking before she had a chance to come up with a reasonable protest. "Just wait here a while longer. I think Cill has an idea that might help you, but until she brings it up, I know I can trust you to keep your strength in check."

"How can you say that?" Ileni asked. She had to look away from the fox's face, she was so unused to and unnerved by the rare openness in his eyes. "All it would take is another slip on my part to hurt someone, maybe everyone here. Just one more chance for this itching to drive me to distraction."

"Well, as to that," the winged fox said, mimicking Ileni and turning his head slightly to look over her shoulder rather than directly at her. His ear flicked in a brief signal of embarrassment. "If you want me to, I may be able to help you with your healing, if only to soothe the itching for a time."

And there it was. Just like every other male carnivore Ileni had ever encountered, the Seer wanted to have sex with her, even if he was unwilling to take her by force. For all she knew, he could have been putting on a show of empathy for her benefit because he didn't think he would be able to take her against her will now that she had become so strong. She didn't want to believe that; she wanted more than anything to take his polite kindness at face value, to believe that there was at least one person in the world who was neither prey nor monster. But even then, she noticed the tip of his red member peeking from his sheath, the fur concealing most of his flesh swollen with arousal. The sight of exposed masculinity and scent of arousal had become so commonplace for her that she hadn't even paid any attention to the fox's crotch until that moment. Thinking back past her haze of distraction, she realized that his phallus had been partially exposed from the moment he had walked in on her.

Trying to make the motion subtle, she scooted slightly away from him in an attempt to put a little more distance between them. "I mean no disrespect," she said stiffly, unable to hide the fact that she'd put her guard up, "but I don't think you're equipped to help me in that regard."

The fox tilted his head at her for a moment, appearing genuinely confused, then his eyes widened, and he raised his hand in front of himself placatingly. "That's not what I meant," he assured her. "I told you, forcing something solid that deeply into your body would only prolong the irritation."

"Then how. . . ?" she began, once more unable to finish her question.

"Here. Let me show you," the Seer said, but he only closed his eyes, making no move toward her. She began to think he was waiting for her to make the first move, but after a few moments, felt a cool wetness against the smooth skin of her arm. Recoiling from surprise more than from discomfort, she stared at the long tendril of dense mist that had brushed against her skin. As soon as she moved away from it, the misty arm began to dissipate into the air, dissolving into the nearly invisible circle of fog pooling around the Seer's feet. "I would just have to slip my mist inside you, and I'd be able to wash your injury from the inside. It might feel strange, but I can promise it won't hurt, and I don't think it will be too uncomfortable."

"And what about for you?" Ileni asked suspiciously.

"I won't lie to you, Ileni," the fox told her. "It won't be at all unpleasant for me, either. But it won't be the same as mating with you. It's your choice, of course, but try to think of it as a medical procedure. It should be able to soothe your itching, for a time, at least, and will hopefully speed your healing process so that you can get over the irritation completely more quickly."

She eyed the fog nervously, unable to stop glancing between the Seer's white inner thighs. Though she didn't think his arousal had grown at all, it certainly hadn't receded, either. But then, even if he'd claimed that they had to have sex for his mist to work, would she have refused? After so willingly mounting Sophan and trying to do the same to Colt, she knew that she would have let the fox do whatever he asked if she believed it would help cool her internal burning. He waited patiently for her decision without extending his mist to give her another sample of its dampness, but she remembered its cool touch against her arm vividly, and thought that it might have been just what she needed inside her chest. Looking up at the Seer's face, Ileni nodded with a resigned sigh. If it would help her to think clearly again, she would have agreed to anything.

"All right," the Seer said calmly. "Just relax. If anything makes you feel too uncomfortable, let me know, and I'll stop." His eyelids drooped as he concentrated, and she considered telling him to stop the moment an arm of mist slid over her thigh and grazed her mound, feeling like a cold, wet lick. In the next instant, though, she gasped, feeling the mist inside her. It slid into her vagina without needing to part her slit, filling the natural gaps and creases left after her work with the table leg. In almost no time at all, the Seer's mist had filled her womb, its chill working quickly to sooth the harm the table leg had done to her. "This . . . shouldn't take long."

As the fox's eyes closed completely in concentration, the moist chill inside Ileni's body probed against the back of her womb, its pressure increasing only slightly until the mist found the half healed crease at the lowest point of her burning inner tunnel. More quickly than she had expected, the Seer's cool presence slithered deeper inside her, behind her diaphragm and between her lungs, until she felt like she'd been stuffed with a rope of soothing balm. She gasped at the foreign sensation, breathing as deeply as she could so that her lungs would press the walls of her extended canal more tightly around the Seer's mist. Her hand reached between her breasts and pressed against the skin over her ribs, but she quickly pulled her finger pads away when a flare of external irritation distracted her from the pleasant chill behind her ribs. The mist was working wonders inside her body, but she'd still scratched her skin raw between her breasts over the course of the day.

A moment later, a thin layer of mist lifted off of the floor and wrapped itself gently over the front of Ileni's torso, as though the winged fox had read her mind. Of course, for all she knew, that may have been exactly what he'd done. She gasped anew as the curtain of moisture slid across her reddened skin, tiny drops of water beading across her furless body from her neck to her navel. The rabbit could feel blood rushing to her face in embarrassment when her nipples stiffened at the chill touch, and when the Seer shifted slightly beside her, she realized he must have been more aware of his connection to her body than she'd realized. His glistening member had emerged another inch or so from his sheath in the same instant that his mist had covered her breasts.

Strangely, Ileni found that she didn't mind the male's arousal. She could scarcely walk down one of the tower's hallways without someone becoming visibly turned on by her passing; if anything, the parallel rise of the fox's phallus and the thickening of his musk did little more than prove that he was mortal.

Ileni had to turn her head away, though, when she realized the effect the Seer's scent was having on her, especially after combining with the muted pleasure her flesh was absorbing from his mist. Fortunately, the moisture trickling down the back of her mound and between her buttocks appeared much the same as the condensation the fog was leaving over her body, but she could do nothing to hide her own scent. When she glanced at the fox's face, she could see his nostrils flaring, though his breathing remained steady and controlled. His penis, though, was almost fully erect, and while he was doing nothing to flaunt it, he made no move to hide it from her view, either.

"All right, Ileni," the Seer said after a few silent moments. "There's not much else I can do for you. The mist inside of you will linger for a while, but the rest will leave when I do. You should get a respite from the worst of it for an hour or two, at least." With a gentle smile, the fox got to his feet and turned away from her, walking toward the vault's door with his bushy tail drooping wearily behind his legs. The curtain of mist over Ileni's chest followed him.

"Wait," she said, blinking in surprise at his abrupt departure from where she still sat on the cool floor. The fox stopped in the threshold of the vast room's doorway, his wings spreading slightly, but he didn't look back at her. "You're really not going to . . . ?" the rabbit began, but she couldn't make herself finish the question.

"Going to what?" the Seer prompted.

Ileni swallowed past a lump in her throat. He was really going to make her say it. "To . . . use me . . . ?" she stuttered slowly, staring at the floor in front of her legs.

The fox turned halfway back toward her, looking over his shoulder to consider her with an expression that she couldn't quite read. The position of his wing fortunately hid his lower stomach from view, so she didn't have to see the profile of the erection she knew he was sporting. "No, Ileni. I'm really not going to use you."

Before she could help herself, she asked, "Why not?" then cringed inwardly. Why couldn't she just let him walk away? He'd fixed the itch that had been plaguing her since the arena, if only temporarily, and had asked nothing of her in return, but here she was giving him yet another chance to change his mind and decide to claim her. But Ileni knew why she'd stopped the Seer from leaving her in peace. He may have soothed the injury she'd received in the arena, but she was still plagued by an inner fire, a different, deeper burning than the one that had tormented her chest. She had used the table leg to stoke this new fire while she had been trying to stamp the first one out, and only at that moment did she realize how strongly her arousal was burning.

The fox kept staring at her for a short while longer before he answered. "Because you didn't ask me to," he said, then turned away from her again.

"Wait," Ileni said a second time before he could close the vault's door behind him, feeling like the word was being pulled from her against her will. She got to her feet awkwardly, the cool presence moving within her as her inner muscles shifted subtly. She saw the Seer's dark furred fist clench at his side as he stopped mid-stride. "What if . . . what if I did ask?"

"Don't," the Seer said hoarsely without moving, even his wings and tail held tensely motionless behind him. "Not unless you really mean it. Not unless it's something you actually want. Sex isn't at all a bad thing, but if you only ask me to mate with you because you feel like you need sexual release, and not because it's something you want, you're really only letting your desire rape you, letting it control your actions against your better interests. In a very real way, your desire would be raping me, too."

"But I do need it," Ileni said plaintively, and was horrified to realize just how true the statement was.

The fox sighed and lowered his head, his tail twitching slightly. "So do I, after the day I've had. Fortunately for us both, we have hands."

Ileni looked down at her fingers thoughtfully, surprised that she hadn't considered masturbating until the Seer mentioned it. Then she looked up at the winged fox's back, at the shapes of his shoulders and finely toned legs that she could see past the smooth edges of his wings, and was set upon by another flare of arousal, one that her paw couldn't hope to induce. "I think. . . ." she began, but hesitated until she was certain of what she was about to say. "I think I do want you."

He looked back over his shoulder at her again, for a wonder appearing as uncertain as she felt. "If all you want is a willing male, you could always ask Sophan again."

Ileni shook her head vehemently. "He'd be happy to have sex with me whether the desire was mutual or not. I don't ever want to mate with him again; what I did earlier was a mistake."

"So what you're saying is that you don't just want me because I'm an available penis. You value my intentions and my integrity as well."

"Of course," Ileni said, and the Seer smiled when she nodded, turning back to face her with his erection bobbing in front of him unashamedly.

"There may yet be hope for humanity's children," he murmured quietly, watching her face carefully as he slowly closed the short distance between them. "You'd be surprised by just how many people fail to understand how important respect is between lovers, even those who have been through what you have and experienced first hand the attentions of those who see no difference between respect and fear."

"I don't think anything can surprise me anymore," she said, looking down at the floor in front of her feet again. Even knowing what they were about to do, she couldn't make herself look at the shaft rising from between the fox's thighs for more than a few seconds at a time. It felt rude to stare at it.

The Seer sat cross-legged in front of her, his foot pads almost touching her own. "Then it will be all the more surprising the next time something does surprise you," he said, sounding amused.

She glanced up at his face quizzically. "What is that supposed to mean?"

The fox shook his head dismissively. "Nothing to worry about. It's just something Cill told me, a surprise that I would hate to ruin for you." His toe grazed her right foot pad, making her tense up nervously. "For now, try to enjoy the moment as much as you're able."

The rabbit gulped, waiting for the fox to pounce on her, or take her ankles in his hands and force her legs apart, but he only sat and watched her expectantly, rubbing the sole of her foot with his toe. That was the only contact between them. She leaned back away from him with her hands on the floor behind her, unsure of what the Seer wanted her to do. Her eyes gravitated down his white chest to the bright red phallus rising past his navel, and the soft, white furred spheres dangling below it and between his spread thighs against the floor. Sitting back up, she glanced at his face for any negative signs while reaching forward and tentatively grazing the side of his shaft with her fingertips, but pulled back when his body shifted with a deep breath. It wasn't even a gasp, and shouldn't have startled her as much as it did, but her nerves were coiled so tight it was a wonder she wasn't hyperventilating.

"I'm sorry," she said, her voice little more than a whimper. "It's just, I've never . . . I mean, there was Sophan, and some wolves, and the arena, but. . . ."

"This is the first time you've ever paired with someone willingly," the Seer said gently. "It's okay. Just take your time, and do what comes naturally. As long as you remember to keep your strength in check, I promise you can't do anything I won't enjoy."

Swallowing again, Ileni reached for the fox's member once more, but hesitated before her fingers touched the heated flesh. Try as she might, she couldn't make herself forget her recent experiences with other males. No touch she had ever received from an erection had been pleasant, aside from the unwilling pleasure that her body inflicted on her mind to further humiliate her when she was raped. The Seer's comforting insistence alone wasn't enough to calm her terror of his masculinity.

Of all the males that had bred her over the past few days, the fox was the smallest, both in stature and in endowment, though his penis was of a good proportion to his body size. Standing side by side, he wouldn't be more than a foot taller than Ileni. Nonetheless, sitting inches away from the male, with his toe still tickling her foot and her fingers a hairsbreadth away from his phallus, she couldn't help but feel intimidated by him.

"Here," he said quietly when she remained paralyzed for several unsteady breaths. He took her wrist gently in his hand and guided it up his body to the side of his ribcage, a few inches below his armpit. "Despite what many might tell you, there's a great deal more to a male than his penis. Just ignore it for now, if it helps." He let go of her wrist, leaving her fingers nestled in the thick fur of his side.

Lightly feeling over his ribs, Ileni watched his face carefully for any signs that she was doing something wrong, but he just smiled back at her. She had to lean forward awkwardly in order to reach his torso, but wasn't yet willing to move off of the tile floor into a more comfortable and intimate position. Every once in a while, his eyes shifted subtly to watch her breasts where they bobbed below her, swaying slightly under her chest with her movements as she leaned forward to touch his side, but despite the appreciation she could see in his gaze, he kept his hands on the floor beside his thighs, never reaching out to grope her.

In a way, she wished he would grope her, or pull her to him, or take control in any manner. She knew he was trying to let her set her own pace, but as nervous and hesitant as she was, they could be there for hours before she worked up the nerve to do more than knead her fingers in his chest fur. Somehow, she didn't think the fox would have complained about such a wait, anyway.

Gathering her courage, Ileni moved forward onto her knees, and the fox opened his calves from their cross-legged position to a lazy sprawl to give her room to shuffle forward between them. His new position put his erection on flagrant display, but she made herself think only about the warm, velvety pelt underneath her palm. She watched the curves and angles of his neck, because it was safer than his crotch and didn't make her as uncomfortable as his open, inviting stare, while she moved close enough that her furless knees brushed against the soft fur of his inner thighs. Lifting her other hand, she touched the other side of the fox's ribs, stroking his sides lightly as she would a feral animal who may or may not have been dangerous.

When she'd been much younger, Ileni had had a blanket of deer pelt that felt much like the Seer's fur beneath and around her fingers. Her village never used to hunt deer, of course, but they had been very good scavengers, and the scraps of hide left by both feral and two-legged hunters were more than enough to clothe the rabbits' small statures, if oftentimes somewhat scantily. That blanket had been large enough for Ileni to curl up beside two or three of her siblings underneath it, where they would giggle and tell stories and play word games when their parents had urged them to go to sleep.

Leaning forward, the rabbit pressed the side of her face against the Seer's pelt just below his collarbone, wrapping her arms around his sides. She had to hold her forearms vertically along the sides of his back, prevented from properly hugging the male by the leathery bases of his wings, but when she closed her eyes and ignored his musky scent, she could almost believe she was holding that old, worn blanket against herself, shrouding herself in the security it had always offered.

She didn't realize that she was crying until she felt the dampness in the fox's fur against her cheek. He finally moved, but only to wrap his arms around her back and embrace her, one of his hands moving up past the line of fur between her bare skinned back and her unshaved neck to gently caress the back of her head.

Far too long ago, her mother had held her in exactly the same way when she'd fallen and bruised her knees, or when other village youths had teased her into tears.

That was all it took for Ileni's floodgates to open. Her body shuddered with a wracking sob, and she buried the front of her face into the Seer's chest, trying and failing to muffle the mourning wail that built up within her and escaped in an unearthly, keening cry. It was all too much. It had all been too much before she'd ever encountered Sophan. Everything since Sophan had all been too much, even if all that had come before had never occurred. She felt so weak as she clutched the Seer as though he was that old blanket, plastering her face and body against him, because if she were to let him go, she knew she would fall forever, lost in the world's impossible cruelty. She felt weak, and after her inner transformation at the arena, after she had killed so many of the hunters that had tormented her, she embraced that weakness and wept all the harder. She should never have been as strong as she had physically become, yet that strength had manifested too late to save the two stags that had helped to invoke it with their integrity and resolve. It had manifested too late to save her family when she'd condemned them all to death.

She wailed again, a noise even louder than the first that only dwindled to a keening whimper when she'd pushed all of the breath from her lungs.

Her old blanket held her without a word throughout her sobs. Her mother's hand patted the back of her head just as it always had when her mother had known exactly what to say to quell her tears and bring a smile to her face, but there was nothing the owner of that comforting hand could say to calm her now.

For a wonder, cool drops of moisture landed between Ileni's ears, and when she looked up at the Seer's face, she found tears of his own flowing down the sides of his face and dripping from the short fur under his chin. "I'm . . . s . . . sor. . . ." she began, her sobs preventing any coherent words from leaving her, but she was cut off when the fox moved his muzzle down to her own and pressed his vulpine lips against hers, breathing into her with a kiss more compassionate than she had ever imagined possible. She gasped through her nose, then through her mouth as well, tasting the fox's breath. She would have expected the taste of carrion to permeate a kiss from any carnivore, but somehow she wasn't at all surprised by the sweet, meatless flavor of the Seer's breath. Closing her eyes, she let her sobs subside and sagged limply in the fox's embrace, content to let that kiss last until she had no more breath to give.

Getting dizzy, Ileni wondered if that was exactly how long the kiss would last, but the fox finally pulled away from her once she began to see sparks in the corners of her vision, his hand moving from behind her head to caress the side of her face. She was surprised to feel the coolness of the Seer's mist enveloping her, a shroud of fog concealing them from the world around them, the cool floor under her knees the only thing to remind her that they were still in the tower's vault. His wings had curled around them both, as well, gently surrounding her sides and back to hug her against him. Perhaps she should have felt trapped, with the winged fox and his mist touching her from ever angle, but she knew that he would let her go the moment she asked.

Ileni nuzzled his neck affectionately, her tears still flowing, but her wracking sobs soothed away by his kiss. She'd forgotten her hesitancy and nervousness, wanting little more than to let the Seer know how much she appreciated his comfort. Strangely, she had largely forgotten the burning urges in her loins, as well. She was still aroused, but that arousal seemed unimportant now. The only thing that mattered was the feel of the fox's fur against her bare skin and the side of her face.

She gave his collarbone a tentative lick, unsure what she should do after breaking down and bawling as she had. When he made no complaint, she continued lapping at him, moving slowly up the side of his neck and his jaw with an occasional kiss or nuzzle joining her licks. When she reached his lips, they kissed again, and this time their jaws parted at the same time, both of their tongues meeting between their teeth and sliding over each other to explore the other's mouth. Ileni pushed herself off her heels so that her muzzle was on a level with the Seer's, moaning lightly into his mouth when she felt his chest fur brush down over her bare skinned breasts. She'd been pressing herself against him for some time, but that light tickling over her nipples reminded her vividly of the reason she and the winged fox were holding each other.

Breathing through her nose and keeping her lips against the fox's, her tongue inside his mouth, Ileni let one hand glide down his back beside his wing's ridge until it passed his hip and was touching the softness of his rump where it was pressed against the floor. She'd never let herself explore a male's body before, and though most of the Seer's bottom was hidden from her fingers by the floor's tiles, her paw could still appreciate its rounded shape, the firm muscles that rested beneath its softness.

When her fingers glided over the root of his tail, the Seer gasped, pulling his muzzle away from hers, and she immediately took her hand off of his backside. The fox shook his head with a gentle smile, though, and nuzzled the side of his face against Ileni's. "It's okay," he whispered. "Better than okay. I just wasn't expecting. . . ."

Rather than returning her hand to the Seer's bottom, though, Ileni leaned back away from him, looking down between their bodies at his rigid member. Leaning against him as she had been, she'd still kept her stomach far enough from his exposed crotch that his erection hadn't touched her.

Setting her jaw in determination, she steadied herself with a hand on his white and rusty orange thigh, bringing her other paw down to wrap around his phallus. The Seer drew in a deep breath, his body visibly tensing, but this time Ileni didn't withdraw her hand.

Rubbing her thumb against the bottom of his pointed, canine tip, Ileni marveled at the heat saturating her paw. It felt like she was holding an ember with the mist's chill surrounding her. She almost recoiled when the pre beading at the fox's urethra oozed down over her thumb, but forced herself to keep hold of his member. The liquid was sticky, but not at all unpleasant when she reminded herself that she was touching it of her own volition.

Reaching down with her other paw, Ileni hesitantly cupped the Seer's scrotum, watching his face to make certain she wasn't doing anything he didn't like. His eyes were closed and his face turned vacantly in a direction above her shoulder, but she didn't think those were negative signs. His hand caressing the back of her head was encouraging, at least.

The fox's genitals were a heft proportional to the rest of his endowment in her palm, of a satisfying size, though not quite as large as the fluffy white pelt covering them made them appear. Ileni was surprised that she actually enjoyed their weight sitting in her cupped hand; like the erection in her other paw, the Seer's testicles weren't at all repulsive when she was holding them by choice rather than feeling them touching her body against her will. She actually felt a growing warmth between her legs when she rolled the fox's nuts between her fingers and gave them an experimental squeeze.

At that squeeze, though, the fox's body began trembling, and his erection twitched in her grasp. "Oh, Ileni," he moaned, "I'm not going to last much longer."

She blinked up at his face in surprise. "Already?"

He nodded, a cringe on his vulpine muzzle from the effort it was evidently taking him to hold himself back from his peak. "I wasn't far when I found you here. You're not the first person I've paired with today."

"Oh," was all Ileni could think of to say, unsure of how she should respond to such a revelation. By all his talk of her choosing him because she valued his integrity, she had thought that he meant it worked both ways, that his assent to mate with her had significance. Of course, it was no slight to her if the Seer respected someone else enough to pair with them, as well.

But it did mean that their pairing wasn't quite as special as she had imagined when the Seer had held her in his arms while she wept away the stress and grief that had been building in her for so long.

Sniffling, the rabbit cleared her throat and looked down at the penis straining in her hand, giving both it and the fox's furry testicles another squeeze. After a few more moments of fondling him, of using her fingers to rub his nuts against one another, the Seer's scrotum jumped, tightening up against his groin as a jet of thick, milky white liquid streaked from his member straight onto Ileni's stomach. She didn't react as the fox's orgasm splattered against her abdomen and began drooling down to her thighs, though his thick semen's musk made her head swim. She just kept his throbbing member pointed at herself, feeling despondent as she let the Seer mark her. Males liked to mark the females they'd had sex with, she knew.

"Ileni," the Seer gasped as his peak subsided, a few last tremors in his scrotum sending a small flow of semen oozing down over her fingers. "Ileni, what's wrong?" he asked, using a finger under her chin to make her look up at his face.

"It's nothing," she told him, feeling embarrassed that she'd misinterpreted his apparent affection for her.

"I know nothing when I see it, and this isn't nothing," he said, frowning at her worriedly.

She tried to look away from his intent stare, but he held her face steady with a gentle hand on her cheek. "It's just . . . I thought this was supposed to be significant." She swallowed an audible gulp, fighting back more tears, surprised at how quickly she'd begun to need the Seer's friendship, at how great a blow it was that his pairing with her didn't mean as much as she'd first assumed.

"Of course this is significant," the fox told her, his eyebrows lifting in surprise. "What would make you think otherwise?"

Ileni sighed, but made herself hold the fox's stare even when he lowered his hand to caress her neck. "You said you've already been with someone else today."

"That was significant, too," the Seer said, an edge of sternness tingeing his voice. "It was with Aubur, one of the other rabbit refugees." he explained. "Then almost with Sophan after you left his room, though I admit that would have been markedly less significant." When she continued to look unconvinced, he went on. "Aubur was having a similar problem as you; he was being driven by a hormonal need that he never asked for, but was too strong for him to fight. So I helped him with it."

"He actually asked you to . . . ?" Ileni asked hesitantly, unable to believe Aubur would actually seek out someone to mate with after the time he'd spent as the predators' captive. Ileni had been getting raped for a few days, but from what he'd told her, Aubur had been a captive for several months. If their positions were reversed, she didn't think she would ever be able to make herself want sex again.

"It was completely mutual, I promise," the Seer said. "You can ask him after we're done here, if you want, though I expect Griss has managed to spread the story throughout the tower by now. What's important is that my mating with Aubur takes nothing away from being with you here, now. I like and respect Aubur, and find him immensely attractive, just as I feel toward you."

"But you don't actually want to be my mate," Ileni said quietly, unable to keep the hurt out of her voice.

The fox's eyebrows rose again. "You mean as a life partner?" he asked, his surprise unmistakable. Ileni just nodded, and he cleared his throat. "Ileni, I don't have anything against lifelong commitments, but they're not something to take lightly. We've known each other all of two days. I'm fond of you, but I'm not actually in love with you."

"But. . . ." she began, but the fox wasn't finished.

"I'm sorry if I led you to believe otherwise. It's been a very long time since I've been in a committed relationship, and I expect it will be a very long time before I choose that lifestyle again. I hold nothing against those who can be content with only one lover for their entire lives, but I'm just not very good at reserving my love for one person alone."

"But you just said that you don't love me," Ileni protested, trying to smother her confused emotions enough to think clearly.

"I said that I'm not in love with you," the Seer corrected. "There's a very big difference between loving somebody and being in love with them. I love you in the same way that I love all of the refugees here: We fought side by side and survived a terrible conflict together, even if I was only there for the last few minutes of the battle. I suppose I love you somewhat more than I love Sophan, and a great deal more than I love a certain chipmunk; I won't pretend my love is unconditional. I may actually love you a little bit more than most, because you were the first of them all to have the courage to fight back."

Ileni shook her head and finally broke eye contact with the fox to stare at the floor beside him, her ears folding back on her head in embarrassment. "I was the only one who could. None of the others have my unnatural strength."

"Be that as it may, the way I heard it, you didn't find your strength until after you found your courage. That's something to be proud of, and something I value very highly in a lover. So you can stop thinking that I'm only using you to satisfy my own urges. Okay?" He squeezed her shoulders as she nodded, then stroked lightly up and down her smooth upper arms. "Good. Now, we've gone and made a mess of you. Would you like me to clean it up?"

It took her a moment to realize that the fox was referring to the sticky liquid still drizzling down her abdomen and over her inner thighs. "A . . . all right," she stammered nervously.

Instead of bending to reach her stomach, though, the Seer guided her hand to his muzzle and gently took her fingers into his mouth, sucking the sperm that had dribbled onto her paw out of her fur. One finger at a time, he suckled on her, finishing slowly with her ring finger and pinky even though his semen hadn't touched them. Ileni couldn't help but feel uneasy with her paw held between a fox's sharp teeth, but she let out a surprised giggle when his smooth, wet tongue tickled her finger pads, her response bringing a smile to the corners of the fox's muzzle.

Giving the pad of her palm a playful lick after letting her pull her pinky out of his mouth, the Seer looked her steadily in the eyes. "If I do anything you don't like, tell me, and I'll stop."

Ileni just nodded with another gulp, setting both of her hands against the tiles beside her calves to steady herself.

He moved slowly, leaving her breasts untouched as he lowered his face below her rib cage. Ileni tensed when he touched her skin with his tongue above her navel, then stifled another giggle as he began drawing the wet muscle up from her belly button to her lowest ribs over and over again. He gradually made his way lower, and she couldn't help but squirm each time his warm tongue teased inside her navel, but it wasn't long before he had cleaned most of her stomach and was working on the lowest parts of her belly, slowly licking at the softness of the front of her mound. Ileni trembled in anticipation, but the Seer moved his snout to one side before his tongue could encounter the front of her slit, lapping the sperm off of her inner thigh. Once he had soaked her leg in saliva halfway to her knee, he moved to the middle of her other thigh and worked his way up that leg back to her groin.

He paused then, as if waiting for her permission, but with his warm breath washing over her mound, Ileni could do nothing except whimper. Fortunately, the fox seemed to take the noise as a good sign, and began licking at the creases between her thighs and belly, his hands moving up to caress her outer thighs while his tongue slathered its way in toward her slit, tugging at her swollen outer labia with each lap. Ileni's legs spread of their own accord to give the Seer better access to her groin, and she closed her eyes with a moan, unable to believe how much pleasure he was able to bring her with only his tongue. She'd never had a sexual experience that hadn't hurt before. There was nothing to compare it to.

Ileni was in heaven.

Just when she started feeling like she needed more, the fox pressed his nose into her mound above her clitoris and pressed his tongue against the front of her slit, curling it up to cup her sensitive nub between his tongue and his upper teeth. Despite the danger of getting cut on the Seer's fangs, Ileni lifted her hips off of her heels, shoving her crotch forcefully against the fox's muzzle. The rabbit's torso leaned back to give her more leverage, and she was amazed to find her hand at her breast, fondling it as though her paw belonged to a different person entirely.

Coming to her senses, she sat heavily on her heels again, planting her palm against the floor and turning her face away from the Seer's so that he wouldn't notice her embarrassment. She kept her legs spread, though, and panted in blissful pleasure as the male's tongue worked around and over her clitoris, his paws stroking her legs.

After another few moments, he pulled his muzzle away from her mound and looked up at her face past her trembling body. "Lay back for me?" he asked, his voice an erotic growl.

"Y . . . yeah," she stammered, shakily doing as the fox asked and lying down, letting her legs straighten as much as they could on the floor in front of her. "Sure." It took all of her effort to keep her hands from darting between her thighs to continue where the Seer had left off.

She only realized that she was holding her legs together, squirming under the minor sensations that her thighs brought as they brushed the sides of her mound, when the Seer gently took her knees in his paws and urged them apart. Leaning up on her elbows, she watched as he crawled between her spread legs, somehow feeling even more exposed than she had been before now that she was on her back.

Stroking her lower belly with his paws, the Seer hunkered down and brought his muzzle to her groin again, and wasted no time reintroducing his tongue to her body. He licked up the full length of her slit repeatedly, straight up the center of her body from just in front of her tail hole to her clit, and her hips moved of their own accord to meet him, humping up and down with the motion of his tongue. The fox braced himself with one hand on the floor beside Ileni's leg; the other paw stroked back and forth between her navel and her mound in time with his licks and her humps, pressing firmly against the soft flesh between her legs each time it slid down her belly to the front of her crotch.

Ileni began moaning when the Seer's long tongue began pressing between her slit's folds in the middle of each of his slow licks. After several more laps, the wet, prehensile muscle slithered straight into her vaginal tunnel, the fox's nose and chin pushing against the soft skin around her entrance. Ileni's arms gave out on her, and she closed her eyes as she fell back onto the cold floor, lifting her hips off the ground to meet the pressure of the fox's muzzle. His free hand moved down to the front of her slit and pinched her clitoris between thumb and forefinger just as his thrusting tongue curled up against a rough patch of flesh at the front of her tunnel, and the rabbit cried out, arching her back as her rump fell back to the floor and lifting her legs around the Seer, one curling up over his shoulder and neck, the other wrapping around his side below the arm that was fondling her crotch.

She hadn't been far from orgasm when he'd begun. It was really a wonder she had been able to hold out as long as she had.

The Seer's surprised yelp was muffled by Ileni's vagina, and she didn't realize how forcefully her legs were clutching him until he began struggling in their grip. Remembering her unnatural strength, she forced her legs back down to the floor again, but couldn't stop her loins from clenching sporadically around the fox's tongue.

Not just his tongue, she discovered as she leaned back up on her elbows through her fading climax. Her leg had been pulling at his neck so mercilessly when it had been wrapped around him that the fox's entire muzzle was trapped inside of her stretched entrance, only his startled eyes visible past the curve of her mound. Mortified, Ileni tried to force her body to relax, but the sight of the Seer's face burrowed into her groin up to his forehead triggered another, smaller orgasm that made her fear that she might crush his jaw. Her thighs squeezed around the fox's fluffy cheeks, further pinning him in place.

Incredibly, the male was still pinching and rubbing her clitoris, drawing her climax out to its fullest. When she finally felt her body begin to slump into its afterglow, the Seer pulled his muzzle free from her vagina, using his forearms to gently spread her thighs enough to slip his head out of their grasp.

"Well," he gasped, panting as hard as Ileni was, "that was an experience."

"I'm so sorry!" she breathed, but couldn't make herself move from where she lay to see if the fox was unharmed. "I didn't hurt you, did I?"

"Far from it," he said, a self satisfied grin on his drenched muzzle. "You have a great deal of strength, but you're not without your internal padding. I only wish I'd thought to take a deeper breath before taking the plunge."

"You mean you did that on purpose?" Ileni asked incredulously. Her voice was still little more than a breathy whimper.

"Narrow muzzles do have their advantages," he said with a quiet laugh, laying down on his chest between her legs and resting his chin on her belly to watch her from between her gravity-flattened breasts. He stroked her hips lightly with his fingertips while she recovered, his warm breath tickling her ribs while his mist swirled languidly around them both. "Well," he said after a few luxurious moments, his chin bouncing on her abdomen as he spoke, "I suppose we should get downstairs. Cill will be gathering everyone by now."

"Gathering everyone?" Ileni repeated. Now that her climax had faded, she didn't want to move. She felt truly relaxed for the first time for as long as she could remember. "For what?"

A flap of his wings pulled the Seer to his feet, scattering the mist around them on a brief gust of wind, and he offered a hand to help Ileni up. "You'll see. We've just been waiting for Sophan to get well enough to make the trip to a room large enough to hold everyone at the same time, so that he would be able to hear what we have to say first hand, too. From what I saw of him a little while ago, we've given him more than enough time to heal."

Ileni took his hand and let him pull her up beside him, but couldn't help but notice that several inches of red flesh had risen from his plump sheath again. Her knees almost buckled as another twinge of arousal sparked between her thighs, surprising her at how quickly she was able to be turned on again after her orgasm. "Are you sure you don't want to take care of that, first?" she asked, nodding toward his partially exposed shaft.

The fox followed her gaze down his body at his gleaming phallus. "Well, I know Cill won't start without us. . . ." he began, but shrugged with a little squeeze of Ileni's hand. "But I expect I won't be fully sheathed again when we leave this vault, no matter how many times you help bring me off."

"I think I could use one more," Ileni said, amazed at her own boldness. She'd surprised the Seer, too; he brought his eyes up from his crotch to her face and studied her with lifted eyebrows as though seeing her for the first time. When he didn't say anything, she pulled her hand free from his and turned away from him, lowering herself to her hands and knees, knowing full well the effect her shaved rump would have on him. She lifted her small tail to further display the white spikes curving down around her buttocks from its base, keeping her knees together and flexing her rump slightly so that her mound and tail hole were concealed behind its crevice.

"Ileni . . . ." the Seer said breathlessly, and as expected, when she looked back over her shoulder at him, he was staring at her round bottom as though he'd been hypnotized. "What male could refuse such an offer?" he muttered to himself. "Has anyone ever told you what a gorgeous. . . ."

"Yes," Ileni said, cutting him off. "They have." She wanted to have sex with this male properly, but she'd heard predators give her backside enough semi-derogatory compliments to last her a lifetime. She knew the Seer meant well by what he'd been going to say, but she couldn't help but remember Sophan telling her how much trouble her rump would get her into just before he'd raped her the first day they'd met.

"Of course," the fox murmured as he knelt behind her, setting his palms lightly on the tops of her buttocks. It was as close to an apology as he came.

When his paw pads traced the curving lines of fur that a diabolical mouse had left to decorate Ileni's rump and slid his thumbs between her smooth cheeks, she made herself relax, letting him gently part her buttocks enough to get a clear view of her sex between them. Her tail twitched as his thumbs' claws brushed against the creases between the sides of her lust-swollen labia and her rump cheeks, still damp with his saliva. After giving both halves of her bottom a firm squeeze, one of his paws lifted away from her, letting her left buttock bounce back into place over her groin, and she felt his furry shins against the sides of her calves as he scooted closer. "Are you absolutely sure about this?" he asked, his voice hoarse with lust.

She hadn't been sure until he'd asked that question. "Just take me, Seer," she said, and felt a grin tug at the corners of her muzzle. Ileni was enjoying this so much, simply because it was something she wanted rather than something she was being forced into doing. When she felt the tip of the Seer's overheated phallus brush against the bare skin of her bottom's inner curves, though, unpleasant memories came back to her vividly, and she added, "Just not the tail hole," in a whimper that put the lie to the confidence she'd felt only a moment before.

"I can't claim not to have thought about it," the fox admitted, leaning close to her ear as he spoke quietly, his thick chest fur brushing against her bare shoulder blades. "But I want you to enjoy this as much as I do." His tip nestled between her folds, then, and he added as an afterthought, "And you can call me Alan."

She moaned as he began sliding into her. As talented as the fox was with his tongue, she enjoyed his member even more, finding it a perfect fit as he pushed slowly through her tunnel until his genitals were pressing against the lower curves of her soft rump. He was thick enough to spread her euphorically, but not enough to make her uncomfortable, and wasn't quite long enough to hit her cervix while hilted.

Keeping his hips hunched, he pressed his body down against her back, his heartbeat thumping through his chest's warm fur as it covered her like a blanket to ward off his chill mist. Caressing her upper arms, he kissed and licked the side of her white furred neck as he pulled slowly out of her and sank just as slowly back in. She gasped, feeling his warm breath against the back of her jaw as his kisses worked their way up to the base of her long ear, his sharp teeth nibbling gently and provocatively halfway up its length while his hips began working into a steady rhythm against her haunches.

Moaning, she lifted a hand off of the tile floor, bracing both herself and the fox's weight as she caught the hand on her shoulder and guided it down her side to her breast, swaying below her with the Seer's movements. With Alan's movements, she reminded herself while he kneaded her breast between his fingers, his palm's pad pressing up against her bare nipple. His name seemed to have all the more significance, given the moment that he told it to her, and she felt now like she was pairing with a new friend rather than with the imposing protector of a strange ruin's enormous tower.

She felt the fox's growing knot sliding in and out of her entrance, forcing her folds wider with each of the male's thrusts and making her whimper. "Don't worry," he murmured breathily into her ear, his lunges growing short enough that the bulges at the base of his erection only bumped against the back of her mound rather than forcing their way into her. "I won't tie with you."

Ileni craned her neck to look Alan eye to eye. "You can, if you want to," she whispered.

Holding the back of her head with the hand not cupping her breast, he pulled her into a deep kiss. "I'd love to," he panted after pulling away, "but we shouldn't make Cill and the others wait for as long as it would take for my knot to go down."

Ileni shrugged as best as she could with the fox draped over her back. She missed the extra inch or two of his length that had been pistoning through her, but was still enjoying Alan's attentions too much to complain.

After a few more thrusts, though, he hesitated with only his tip left wedged between her walls, and when she tried to push herself back against him needily, he stopped her with a whispered, "Wait. I want to try something." He pushed himself off of her back, then, kneeling upright behind her and looking down at her presented rump. "Tell me if you don't enjoy this, and I'll stop," he said.

Ileni just looked back at him in confusion until she felt the soothing coolness inside her womb and chest gradually become more intense. It started as a slight increase in pressure against her inner walls, letting her feel the conjured mist within her more than before, but ever so slowly, the cool pressure became warmer, until it felt like she was taking a hot bath from the inside. The rabbit faced forward and arched her back, the pleasure welling inside her a combination of lust and luxurious relaxation.

"Are you okay?" Alan asked worriedly, the pressure inside her tapering off slightly.

"Whatever you're doing," she gasped, her body shuddering, "keep doing it."

The fox chuckled behind her, and she felt the warmth grow within her again, seeping into and pressing against every crevice made by her flesh until it reached even beyond the point inside her that Colt had penetrated in the arena. Ileni could feel the heat rising up to the base of her throat.

"Keep your mouth open," the Seer advised, sounding as breathless as she felt.

She could hardly do anything else, panting as she was, and when he slowly pushed himself inch by inch back into her vaginal canal, Ileni could see steam rising from between her lips to mingle and dance with the mist above her head, wafting out of her mouth each time she exhaled. Thin streamers of steam rose from her nostrils as well, making her feel like a fire breathing dragon from the camp-side stories she and her departed friends used to tell each other. "This . . . is incredible," she stammered as the fox resumed a slow rhythm inside of her, the pressure and heat increasing each time he pressed in, decreasing with each of his member's retreats, forming a gradual, heated pulse through her entire body, like a lake's surging and receding waves.

"The feeling's mutual," Alan murmured, gradually speeding up his thrusts until he matched his earlier, gentle pace. His paws rubbed over Ileni's bottom above and around his phallus, pressing her soft cheeks against the sides of his knot each time it squeezed through the spikes of fur pointing at her entrance. She barely noticed, the condensed and heated mist throbbing inside her competing with his erection for the last scraps of her attention.

Closing her eyes and lost in a sea of sensation, the rabbit lifted her hand again to squeeze the breast that the fox had abandoned, pressing the smooth flesh up against her rib cage. Her paw soon dropped her breast and moved down her body between her thighs, fingers finding and swirling around her clitoris, matching Alan's movements. She closed her mouth, then, wanting to feel more of the heated pressure inside her chest and belly, and within moments, the moist heat grew almost unbearable. Ileni could feel her vaginal walls growing hotter around the fox's shaft, and by the sudden increase in his moans' volume, he had noticed her increased heat as well.

Every muscle in her body tensing, bracing themselves against the pressure that threatened to make her burst, Ileni held her breath until the breaking point, squeezing her vagina around the Seer's thrusting length to keep the pressure from escaping out either end. Pinching her clit between her finger pads, she finally opened her muzzle again to moan in euphoric release, a torrent of pent up steam pouring out of her down-turned mouth and washing up around her face, drenching the fur on her face with its moist warmth while her body quaked around Alan's erection.

Gasping behind her, the winged fox pushed himself as deep into her as he could, his hands clenching around her buttocks, fingers digging into her bare skin as he grinded his furry pelvis and shuddering scrotum against her rump and the backs of her thighs, long jets of liquid spraying against her cervix. Ileni shivered as the fox fell onto her back again. The Seer's semen was cool, compared to the heat he'd filled her with.

She didn't know how long they stayed like that, motionless save for their bodies trembling against each other. Alan nuzzled the side of her neck affectionately while their peaks merged smoothly into satisfied afterglows, his tongue darting out to tease her white neck fur every so often. His heart thumped rapidly against her back, and she could feel its echo throbbing within her loins until his penis retreated into its sheath. Still he held her, and still she supported him, kneeling against each other until Ileni realized just how much her knees ached from being planted against the unyielding floor for so long.

"We should get going," Alan whispered, just before she could ask him to let her get to her feet. "Cill is probably waiting for us by now, and we'll want to wash up before we meet everyone."

Ileni nodded wearily, shivering as she let the fox take her hand and help her to her feet. Now that the heated air had escaped her, and without a living blanket draped over her back, she felt very cold. The Seer's mist was still inside her, but it had returned to its soothing chill as soon as she had released its pressure during her climax. "I'm curious to hear just what it is you and Cill want to tell all of us," she said, pressing herself against Alan's side and wrapping an arm under his wings' ridges to hug his warmth against her. The fox draped his arm around her shoulders companionably, returning the embrace.

Walking side by side from the vault of human relics to the tower's hallway, Ileni said, almost as an afterthought, "Alan?"

"Hmm?"

She waited until his narrow muzzle turned down to look at her, then turned her own muzzle up to meet it in a gentle kiss.

"Thank you."