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The red wolf had begun showing signs. I was horrified to behold it, but over the proceeding month, her stomach had distended noticeably. She had been restless, clearly wanting to prepare herself some sort of den. King was taking her out on walks regularly, as he had me. I was, of course, still his source of blood. He dared not bite her, dared not use her in the ways he had me. Ironically, he'd stopped hunting. The carcasses that were rotting in our yard continued to do so, but no new carcasses came. King would wake, make breakfast, sometimes just for the two of them, and then disappear to the woods for hours at a time. I went about my business as usual, waiting for the day this strange surgery was supposed to take place. I was aware of the horror of it all, but I had no means of escape.

King was out in the yard with the wolf, washing her in the creek, as he had once done with me, and I sat in the loft, watching from the window. A dust had settled on much of our home, a dust that had collected since the first day King had swept the place clean for us. I could taste it when I breathed, the dust of everything that had been collecting in this house. King splashed about in the water and I watched him, thinking about him, about what it would sound like to grab him by his upper and lower jaw and pry them apart, snap open his face and pull him into pieces. The red wolf had grown quite fond of him, it seemed, having had accepted him as the father of her upcoming children. I couldn't bear to see it, for her sake or mine. The weight of reality had grown too heavy to bear. I made a decision, in that moment.

I waited for King to return to the house, informing me, as expected, that he was taking the wolf out for a while. I responded in kind, and gave him a hug before he departed. Once the woods were quiet, once their footsteps were too far away for me to hear anymore, I left the cabin. I walked to the creek's edge, and stared into it, into the rippling reflection of someong I no longer recognized. How beautiful it was, on this glorious spring day. The temperature was fairly warm, the sun generous on the water's surface, and I waded into the deeper part of the creek and stood facing downstream, about waist deep in the water. It felt so wonderful, as it always did, like it carried my problems away as it flowed around me.

I closed my eyes, and sat down in the water. It was just at my lower jawline, some of the waves of the current rising over my nose. I held my breath, and reclined, lying back in the water, letting it wash over me. I wondered how they would find me, if my body would be in any sort of dignified manner, perhaps floating beautifully downstream somewhere, or perhaps I would simply wash ashore somewhere else, face down, covered in dirt. None of it mattered. I wondered if I would even be found before I decomposed. My body was beginning to struggle, a burning in my chest that begged me to rise for air. I could feel the muscles of my abdomen tensing, trying to force me to sit up, but I fought it. I fought it through the cramping, through the way my arms began to instinctively fight to force me to rise, to survive.

As I felt myself unable to hold any longer, I surrendered, finally, opening my mouth and inhaling, taking in lungfuls of water. It burned severely, and after a few seconds of shock to the system, it was cold, very cold, and I felt sweet release. The pain had left my body, and I felt suddenly as if I was relaxing, sinking, into the water. There was no struggle anymore, and I opened my eyes to see minnows fluttering by in the water above me, leaves, pine needles, twigs, the beauty of nature floating in a space all around me. I thought about Buck, in those few seconds, and if he was happy. I thought about how grandpa was doing. I thought about if dad would miss me. It was only around ten seconds that I was in this state, but I felt like I had all the time in the world to think about them all, and how one day I would be a distant memory to them. How sweet it was, to free myself from King, from all of this. I felt like I was floating, like magic was real, and I could feel myself fading from consciousness like falling to sleep, the snuggling into the warmth of a bed, knowing rest is seconds away.

"Nico?"

I lost control when I heard my name called, my body jerking upward, rising from the water. I could feel the weight my lungs, and I immediately began to cough. The first coughs were simply regurgitations of water, large amounts of water, hot, slimy, followed by a ragged gasp of life to my system once more. My eyes were bloodshot, my vision blurry. I couldn't see a thing, and I was certain I had largely blinded myself. Another heave, another cough, hacking up water as each repetition of the survival instincts offered me marginally more air into my lungs. This hurt far worse than dying, and I went through the motions as I crawled to the edge of the creek, on my hands and knees, one hand pounding my chest to help expel water from my lungs. I called out, asking who was there, though my voice was raspy and mostly unintelligible, continuing to wheeze and moan as I spit up water.

Who was there? I found it still impossible to see, my vision a bunch of indiscernible shapes, my ears ringing, full of water, sounding like the singing inside a sea shell. I could hear the voice so clearly, though, a second distinct "Nico?" that penetrated the murkiness of my hearing. I crawled around and grabbed at anything I could find, discovering a tree nearby and using it to pull myself to my feet as I looked about in the blindness, in the fog of shapes. Something stood by the cabin, clear as day, as if it was pasted over top of the confusing world behind it. It was Croibhriste. He was standing on what seemed to be the porch of the cabin, near the doorway.

"Nico, what are you doing?" he asked. My voice sounded like I'd been smoking cigarettes since birth, and I continued to cough and belch water as I struggled to talk, struggled to come to any of my senses.

"Just resting" I lied.

"Resting? You have work to do. You cannot be lazy now."

"Work?" I asked, still wheezing leaning my weight against the tree as I struggled to find myself within my body once more.

"You have not finished your reading. There is no time for swimming. He will be home this evening, you have time to get some work done."

"Reading? The tome?" I sputtered up hot water more, finding that I had bits of seed and stick in my mouth, my fingers finding my maw and picking them out. "I read all I could about King, there's nothing remarkable in the tome."

Croibhriste took steps toward me, off the porch, and the way he moved through my field of vision was like a strange optical illusion, like my eyes were a two-dimensional surface and he was escaping from them, moving toward me in another dimension. He approached impossibly quick, and as he stood before me, I could see he still had the shotgun blast through his torso, and he was still without eyes.

"My bride was a beautiful creature, Nico. It is a shame he chose her to eat."

I could feel my body coming to rest, feeling as though the water was finally free of my lungs, though my voice was still ragged. I asked him, "your bride?"

"He is not cursed, Nico. He is simply branded. I do not have the power to curse anyone, only to provide information."

"Branded?"

"The symbol in the woods, where he would take you, that is where he killed my bride, sick with envy. I had nothing to do against him but grieve, and to mark him. His symbol is his mark, the mark of a terrible killer."

"Sick...with envy?" I asked. I felt so stupid asking such simple questions, but it was all I could conjure, my head still swimming with pain and confusion from the water.

"He is a gluttonous beast, but he is weak. He has always been weak, and thus has never attracted a partner. He was sick with anger when he found the two of us, and he killed my bride in that sickened state. I am but a firefly, I can do nothing more than light the way."

I could feel my vision coming to, around Croibhriste, finally. The water had freed itself from my ears, and as we spoke, I felt myself collected. I could see then, though, that Croibhriste was truly in front of me. His feet occupied the earth right in front of mine, and as he spoke to me, I reached out and touched him. I could feel him, his fur, his warm body.

"I didn't expect you to be warm..." I spoke quietly, Croibhriste stepping closer to me, his head brushing against my torso, like an affectionate cat. I brushed his head and neck, down to his back, and stood there gently petting him as he touched bodies with me.

"You must carry on, Nico. Your journey does not end in these woods."

"What can I do? He's got my keys, he's always around. Even if he left for days, I have no way to get back into town by foot. He'd find me before I made it to the road."

"I cannot tell you more than what I know, the threads of fate do not allow it. You are stronger than you believe, though. He knows this, it is why he is careful with his use of anger."

"I appreciate that, but I couldn't possibly stand up to him. I've seen what he can do."

"True, but has he seen what you can do?"

I stood there in that moment, my body touching Croibhriste's, our frames sharing what little warmth the two of us had left, both broken-hearted and lonely, both weak, both fatigued by the unkindness of the Wild.

"I wish I could be around you more..." I whispered to him, dreading that this moment would have to pass, and that he would have to go away once more.

"And I you, Nico. You are the only hope I have seen cross his path in a century. I hope you will make good use of that."

We stood there in the silence as I lowered myself to my knees, hugging him tightly around the neck, rubbing my face in his fur as he brushed against me, experiencing his smell. He smelled...just like any other deer, but I found that comforting. We stayed that way for a while, each other's only sense of warmth in a world that had become so incredibly cold to us.

"I must go. I will never see you again, Nico, but please be strong. What happens is always necessary. Do not surrender to it."

"You'll never see me again? Can't you come visit?" I asked, but as I spoke, my vision would blur again, this time Croibhriste blurring with it. I lost my sense of sight entirely, and when it returned, he was gone, my arms hugging onto empty air, eventually falling to my lap, and I stared into nothing. What sorrow could sink into the vacancies in the body when love is gone, I thought.

He had told me, though, to keep reading, and thus I decided to pull myself together and make my way to the house, where I dug up the tome, and began to read the notes once more. I could not find, amidst the whole book, anything substantial, anything else about King. As I looked up, past the edges of the paper, I could see them though. On the floor, outside of King's belongings, were the notes, the notes that I had previously forgotten. The notes, the photos, were lying on the floor next to his open bundle, which must have slacked until the point of spilling while I was out with Croibhriste. I frantically scrambled for them and snatched them in my hands, my key at my side as I began to read the slips of paper, the information on the backs of photos.

The blurry photo of King said the same thing the book had said, "MALLEUS GALAIR", unimportant notes about what he was doing in the photo, or about how he had been spotted near the environment seen. Every photo had the word "MALLEUS" written on it in that rune, and as I turned one over in my hand, I deduced the "M/" I had seen months ago on the one particular photo was perhaps an attempt to write his name in English that was unfortunately never finished. The information on the photos was largely uninteresting, but as I began to translate the small pages of notes, I uncovered what appeared to be a stranger's journaling about King.

"December 4: First sighting of a solitary Sluagh. Male. Despite being alone, he seems to have an understanding of survival, as he hunts and has made himself a shelter in a nearby cave. He seems remarkably intelligent, he has expressed the ability to start his own fires. He has taken notice of me, but seems uninterested in approaching. Proceeding notes will refer to him as Peculiar Male."

"December 15: Peculiar Male is childless and without a mate, unlike other Sluagh i've seen in woods. They normally travel in packs, but I have never seen him in any sort of group. He wanders alone, and though he expresses regular Sluagh behavior of vampirism, he has atypical proclivities of sadism with his prey. I have not seen this behavior out of other Sluagh. Will continue to monitor this one closely."

"December 25: It is Christmas, and I saw the peculiar male again today. I noticed thinning on the fur of the face, presumably from a hunting altercation. He appeared tired, but I attribute that to the bitter cold we are experiencing this winter. Returned to his cave."

"January 17: There have been a family camping in the woods for a few days now, father and son. Peculiar Male has been fixated on them, particularly on the child. I am cautiously keeping watch, in the event he expresses interest in causing them trouble. Though he is an unusually violent one, I have not seen this behavior extend to anthros yet."

"January 18: Peculiar Male has been orbiting closer to the father and son, especially when they separate for any reason. When the father went out deeper into the woods, I witnessed Peculiar Male approaching the son surprisingly close, only a few feet behind him. They have not noticed him yet, it seems."

"January 20: Father and son departed from the woods this morning, and Peculiar Male has seemed noticeably distraught. He has caught and killed several animals this morning, none of them used afterward."

"January 27: Peculiar Male has developed a fondness for digital penetration of his prey. I have noticed him frequently inserting fingers into the orifices of various mammals before killing them. Twice, this has aroused him to masturbation. He seems to no particular preference between sexes."

"February 3: Peculiar Male killed a pair of foxes today in the midst of intercourse, beheaded the male before digitally penetrating them both, masturbating."

"February 7: Peculiar Male appears to be growing ill. He has been losing weight, and I have noticed the fur on his face has thinned substantially, leaving mostly bare skin."

"February 9: Whilst Peculiar Male was out, I made way to his cave and inspected it. There is an overpowering musty smell coming from the entrance to his cave, like a water damaged home. I will be returning in a few days to go inside."

"February 10: Peculiar Male seems unaware I was in his cave. He has hunted twice today, neither used for blood. Masturbation has become chronic, often after hunting, before rest."

"February 11: Peculiar Male has began scratching himself quite a bit, particular on his face and under his tail. I have noticed he is wounding the skin on his face in the process. He captured a squirrel today, and proceeded to dismember it before killing it."

"February 14: Peculiar Male did not leave his cave today. After he returns to scheduled excursions outside, I will be exploring his cave more fully."

"February 17: Peculiar Male has been back on schedule for two days now. I will explore his cave tomorrow."

"February 19: Peculiar Male's cave is surprisingly tidy. His collected items are kept in a corner, and he has several preserved pelts, presumably scavenged from wanderers in the woods. Among those preserved pelts appear to be pelts he attempted to collect himself off his prey, which are in far worse shape. The smell in his cave is unbearable, a mixture of rot and an awful staleness. Mold is growing in several spots on the stone, spots where he seems to frequent. There is a spot by his fire place and a particular pelt on which he probably sleeps, both covered in a sooty fungus. Appears to be of genus Stachybotrys, but I can't be certain."

"February 21: I collected samples of Peculiar Male's mold and have sent them off for examining. I have been recording these under the guise of studying coyote activity in the area. If anyone knew I was studying esoteric creatures, I would surely be ridiculed. I hope the search yields some sort of results, alongside the photos, and that we can bring legitimacy to these studies. Peculiar Male still seems unaware anyone has been inside his home."

The diary detailed many more entries over the month of March about King, or "Peculiar Male", about his increase in violent behavior, how his behavior was becoming sexually fixated, and how he seemed particularly bothered by familial structures, mated pairs and parents and children. In early April, though, the notes took an interesting turn. I found myself belly down on the floor, reading them, captivated.

"April 4: I returned to town today to find a letter detailing Peculiar Male's mold specimen. As suspected, it was of the Stachybotrys genus, but the species was indiscernible. It appears to be currently undiscovered, and I was requested to collect more samples and send them in with information as to where I had found it. This could be a huge breakthrough in my studies, especially if I provide some sort of fur sample along with it. I will be returning to his cave once more for as much as I can collect without him noticing. In this past month, Peculiar Male has had a large amount of damage to his face. I worry he has contracted some sort of disease that is not only consuming him physically, but perhaps psychologically as well. His behavior is becoming progressively more erratic."

"April 5: Peculiar Male regularly makes eye contact with me while I watch him, but today it was prolonged. The skin around his eyes seems to be rotting, as if some sort of bacterial infection is eating it. I am assuming it is the Stachybotrys infection, which only seems to be spreading. The way he looked at me has me convinced that he wanted me to take notice of that. I am tempted to make closer contact."

"April 7: Pardon the vulgar nature of this note, but it is an important one. I have noticed that Peculiar Male has stopped defecating entirely. He is rarely eating, but when he does, he regurgitates it later in the day. I am concerned about his health, and I fear he may be terminally ill."

"April 8: While Peculiar Male was out hunting, I went to his cave, and collected not only a large sampling of his mold, but fur samples and what I believe to be bones from a regurgitation. I am sending them off tomorrow for testing, and I hope it will show to the laboratory that we are working with an undiscovered species. His cave is nauseating to be in, the smell is terrible, though the carcasses in the cave have been picked clean. I believe the smell is coming largely from him at this point. I fear he may be close to death."

"April 10: The samples have been shipped off, and I have spent the last two days watching Peculiar Male acting out again. Today, he brought home another fox, violating it with his fingers before killing it. While he usually pleasures himself doing so, today he waited until after it was dead, and used it's body instead. I worry the Stachybotrys infection has spread to his brain, and is perhaps causing neurological damage. He has stopped eating and drinking entirely."

"April 22: It has been almost two weeks since Peculiar Male has stopped eating, and he has grown even thinner. Some of the flesh on his face has sloughed off, and bone is visible. One of his eyes has fallen out of his head, and there is a hollow socket. Insects were flocking to his face for a few days, but have since stopped, despite there still being meat present. If infection does not take him in the next day or two, starvation surely will. I will probably cease studies and return home for a few months to collect myself. I have grown weary, watching a creature decay in such a horrific manner."

"May 1: The lab results returned, and again yielded no definite species. Scientists believe it is a completely undiscovered species of Stachybotrys, though speculate from DNA collected in the samples that it may have originated in his body. There is nothing that indicates it occurs organically on anything other than his own cells. It is a mold unique to him, and I believe it is exacerbated by his behavior. The more erratic his behavior has gotten, the worse the mold has gotten, and one can deduce they are correlated. I speculate the mold is the cause, though there is certainly potential it spreads through his body's dispensing of adrenaline, in the thrills I assume he gets from violence. Fur and skin samples yielded no discernible results, as expected, though regurgitated remains were identified as raccoon. I was requested to allow a team to come and investigate this with me, and I have denied them access. Peculiar Male is my study and my study alone. I will discover what is happening to him."

"May 2: I had a dream last night about Peculiar Male, wherein I entered his cave to find him speaking English. He told me his name was Malleus Galair, and that he is deathless. I do not wish to detail the other contents of the dream. Moving forward, I will be referring to him as Malleus."

"May 4: Malleus has lost both of his eyes. His face is skeletal, almost entirely devoid of any remaining flesh, save for the tongue and residual skin under the jawline. It is as if his body, despite decaying, wants to ensure he can still consume food, though to my knowledge he has not eaten in almost a month. I have not even seen him imbibe from the water source outside his home, as he used to. His killings continue, though, every few days, and I find he has taken to bringing them home before killing them, leaving their carcasses around in the grass near his home. All other sadistic activities are still occuring with semi-regular frequency."

"May 10: I am beginning to wonder if my dream about Malleus perhaps was correct, that he is deathless. It has been over a month, and he has not consumed anything. He is wasting severely, and yet he seems to carry on without much issue. Today, he brought home a deer, something I had not seen him get in some time. He mostly collects smaller prey, but he had collected a buck that seemed to have it's neck twisted backwards when he dropped it in front of the crevasse to his cave. He spent a good while trying to force the carcass up through the sliver in the cave, but the antlers proved to be unyielding, too big. Malleus then threw the beast onto the ground and proceeded to fornicate with the body, something I had not seen him ever do before now. He had digitally penetrated many of his prey, alive and dead, but he had never actually sodomized any of them. It was a difficult thing to witness, but I watched it in entirety to keep record of everything. I assume he achieved climax, based on the way his body moved before relaxing. He then, after a month of not doing so, finally ate his prey, headfirst. He was ravenous, and first smashed open the skull and consumed the brains before working down the body. He picked it clean, like maggots would, over the next several hours. He then went to his cave, and I later heard him vomiting. I am unsure why, but I believe the digestive tract below his stomach is no longer operational."

"May 27: Malleus' sexual violence has become so intense that I hesitate to put it into words. He uses both living and dead captures, though he only eats prey around once a week. I am suspicious of my previous assumptions that the mold had gotten into his brain. I believe it to be something that perhaps simply resides organically in his body. His behavior, while erratic, seems too calculated to be that of neurological decline. He knows what he is doing, and he has preferences for prey. I have decided to name his mold species Stachybotrys Perniciosius, after the Latin word for "destructive". He is a destructive creature, and it seems his infection is unique to him. Malleus is something to behold, but he is something that most likely should not be alive."

"May 31: I want so desperately to go home, but I cannot stop watching this horrific creature. Something incredible happened today. A pair of deer wandered through his territory, strange deer. The male appeared to have been born deformed, without eyes, and the doe seemed to guide him. It was a beautiful sight to behold, but she did not see that Malleus was stalking the pair. I could only watch, following behind the three of them. Malleus followed the pair down the hill from his cave before he attacked the doe, mutilating her, violating her before consuming part of her entrails. He spared the stag, though, and would return home afterward. I watched the stag for a while, as he stood there staring at his doe. Though he had not eyes to see her, I could tell he was aware what had happened. He was still there when night fell, but he was gone in the morning, a strange circle seeming to have been burned into the earth where he'd stood. Malleus, the Latin word for 'hammer', seems fitting. While he certainly has the strength to do something incredible, he prefers only to destroy."

"June 17: Malleus has stopped eating again, and has grown to only killing and abusing his prey. He left his cave today and, when he returned, he was missing much of the fur on his stomach and back. It had all shed in a day, and I wondered if it was a result of some sort of altercation with another creature. He had no blood on him, though."

"June 29: Malleus has lost all of his fur. It has shed remarkably quick. I had suspected first that it could've been mange, but he is entirely hairless now. The mold between his legs has spread up his back and stomach, as well as his skeletal face. He is still killing, as he can."

"July 10: Much of Malleus' skin has sloughed off his body. I can see exposed bone and organs in their peritoneum. He has not hunted in over a week, and he has not eaten in over a month. He has only laid about, visibly weakened."

"July 17: I did not see Malleus leave his cave today, so I went to peer inside. He has lost most of his skin. He looks like nothing I've ever seen, except in horror films. He is a skeleton, lying breathing on the cave floor, his organs still in a membranous sack lying in his torso. I do not think he can move any longer. I am going to enter his cave tomorrow, and speak to him."

"July 18: He speaks common English. Imagine my astonishment. He spoke plain as day about who he was, and why he was in the state he was in. He told me he did not have a name, though, and I told him I dreamed his name was Malleus. He rather liked it, and said I could refer to him as such. He said he is about to die, as he lacks the strength to hunt any longer. I neglected to tell him how much I had seen him doing, the sadistic acts he'd inflicted on his prey, but I told him I knew he was a hunting species and that he needed nourishment. I am considering offering him blood, tomorrow, just a bit, to nourish him. Perhaps this can be the start of a kinship, and he can tell me more about his life and his species. This could make me famous."

The next entry was written in the same rune, but it was written terribly, poorly legible in comparison to all the previous text. It said simply:

"July 19: He is alive and well again. He consumed my writing arm."

The entries ended there. The booklet had more pages left, but there was nothing more to read. It took no deeper thought to understand what had happened to this poor man, and I sat back for a moment as I made the realization that I was merely one of several, if not many. The weight of it all was crushing, the cycle beginning anew with my drunken mistake in the woods. I stood, leaving the belongings on the floor, and went outside to stare into the spring sun. I needed the warmth on my body, the heat on my head, to quell the cold that had settled into my body from the depth to which I had dived into King's past. How grandiose it must have been, to be given another name, and have it be King. It made me sick, how highly I had considered him.

I had to act carefully, though, and I knew that. I knew I couldn't just accost him when he got home about his dishonesty and his past, because he was still far larger than me, and far stronger, regardless of what Croibhriste thought of me. He still had my keys in his stomach, too, or so I hoped. I had to be careful, I had to be calculated, and I had to deduce how to starve him.

King came home that evening with the red wolf, bringing her in the home and tying her to one of the table's legs as he turned to me, sitting on our bed. I smiled to him, and his posture straightened as if he didn't expect me to do so.

"Afternoon" I said, and he replied with an uncertain sounding "afternoon" as well.

"You seem surprisingly cheerful" he remarked to me, making his way to the bed next to me, sitting down, a hand on my thigh. I allowed it, as much as I wanted to flinch.

"I hadn't been feeling well, but I took a bath in the river earlier and I feel a lot better" I admitted, returning the touch with a hand on his thigh as well, looking to the red wolf, to her curiosity as she watched us. I hated her, but I knew she didn't know better. It wasn't her fault she was King's new pick, nor that she had been misfortunate enough to bear his child. I wondered, though, what her fate was going to be. She was going to die, that was certain, but what of her child? Would he let her birth it? Part of me felt remorse for her, at her oblivious to her future, to the matricidal beast she had for a partner.

"Has she been handling the child well?" I asked.

"Yes, so far. She will make a marvelous womb for you, as long as we can ensure she can gestate to completion."

"You've gotta be careful with her, then. Don't go messing with her now that she's carrying, you could hurt the baby" I informed him, assuming he probably didn't know that.

"I suppose so, yes. It is tempting, though. Two partners, and neither of them are soothing my desires" King said, disappointment subtle but present in his voice.

"I could do that thing with my fingers that you like, if you'd like" I offered. King sat quietly for a moment before he would stand, informing me to follow him, and to shut the door behind us. I did so, assuming nothing unusual, and King lead me into the yard. We then walked well into the yard, into the midday sun, and into the tree line, where the forest began to grow dense again. I stayed close to him as we walked, but I finally asked "where are you taking me?"

"Somewhere fun" he replied, which immediately made me nervous. It didn't take long, as we navigated through the forest we'd both grown to know well enough to navigate blindly, before we came upon a terrible smell, a smell I had grown to know was the stench of fresh death. It was a smell all too familiar to me, as our yard had only recently began to lose that lingering stench, allowing me just enough time away from the odor for it to make my stomach turn as we approached it. In the debris of the forest floor was a fox, a beautiful fox with a striking orange coat, her back legs broken apart and partially ripped off her body.

"You did this, didn't you?" I asked, staring at the carcass, at the way there were tears in the illustrious coat where red broke through the surface of white, orange and black, dry, matted to the fur. He nodded.

"I could not fit inside her, and it made me angry."

"I asked you not to do this sort of stuff with foxes..." I spoke quietly as I looked to her, her wide open eyes, her open mouth, as if she had died screaming for help.

"And I asked you to be a good husband. Get on your knees."

"What?" I turned to look at him, just in time for King to grab the scruff of my neck, or rather the entire back half of my neck. His fingers gripped around, close to my arteries, and threatened to bear down as he grit his teeth, repeating "get on your knees". How familiar this felt. I obeyed, and knelt next to the fox, King releasing my neck from his grip a short while later.

"Run, and i'll kill you" he said.

"You won't. You need me for blood." I replied.

"Fine. I'll break both your legs and leave you in bed." he answered as he knelt as well, at the face of the fox. He picked the beast up by the head, it's limp body remaining slumped as his thumbs began to explore the gums, the teeth, opening the maw and looking inside, at the throat.

"That I can believe", I answered. I was afraid, very afraid, but I didn't want to show it. I didn't want him to know he had any effect on me. I watched as he fondled the fox, pulling it's tongue back and looking into it's neck, his head lifting to face me he as he told me to "hold it". I did so, it's head cold, a bit clammy, the fur oily and riddled with little pieces of dirt, bugs.

"Hold the mouth open" he ordered me, and I followed. I knew where this was going, and as he began to stimulate himself, I thought about other things. I thought about how good it felt, the first time I drove my first pickup truck. I thought about how good it felt with the windows down, the musty smell of the old cab mingling with the summer air, the breeze in my fur, the radio playing. As he broke the jaw so he could penetrate, I thought about how much fun it used to be, back in town, hanging out at the local dives, drunk off my ass and talking to anyone that would have a conversation. Most folks talk, when they're drunk, and I'd sit at the bar stool and chat with anyone and everyone. I thought about how much fun it was to just be around others, to have friends, to have people who remembered who I was. I thought about how people would smile when they saw me.

"Move his head" was ordered to me, snapping me out of my dissociative episode. King was fully inside the fox's throat at this point, and he would grab my hands and force me to push and pull the fox on him, using the beast's carcass like a sex toy. I squinted at the sounds, the jellylike consistency of the throat slime that emerged from it's mouth and stuck to King as he pulled back. I squinted until my eyes were shut, but it only seemed to amplify the sounds as he guided my hands to use it to pleasure him. They would release me, and I knew to keep going.

"I thought we were gonna do somethin' together, King..." I spoke softly.

"We are."

"I mean, somethin' with...just the two of us."

"You no longer wish to let me mate you, so we're doing things differently now."

I found my mind wandering again, to whatever pleasant memory of my past it could grasp. I remembered how fun it was, despite how frustrating he could be, to go places with dad, to just sit at a diner and let him tell me stories and us both crack up laughing at the stupid things he'd done. I missed Buck, and how smart he was, how calm and collected he'd always been. I missed the guys at Jupiter Motors, stopping by for lunch, hanging out with Buck and watching them rib him for dating a guy. I missed my life back home, my real home. It made me so sad, the possibility that I might never see it again.

A hand would grab my arm forcefully, because apparently I had stopped pleasuring King with the fox, and he'd bark "DON'T STOP" to me as I looked down and returned to reality.

"I don't know what keeps causing your mind to wander, but it needs to stop." he said, and so it did. I looked down, as I was told, to the fox, to my hands guiding it's lifeless body to pleasure him as he used it like it was nothing to him, like he did all other creatures. Nothing was anything to King except for a source of pleasure, and I knew that. I knew his narcissism was in a category of it's own, festering, malignant inside him like the mold disease. His entire being was disease, rotten disease that festered in his body. Forced to look at the fox, my mind wandered again, but to something much more real. I thought about King again, about what I'd like to do to him. I thought about how much I wanted to break his jaw like he'd broken the fox's, to grab him and pry him apart and splinter the bones of his stupid face. I thought about how good it would feel to choke him, to stick something down his throat and watch him struggle and gasp for air, to beg me to let him breathe and to deny him of that.

Unlike when I would stare at the fire, I felt no guilt. My mind remained there, on the thought of brutalizing King, on the thought of him suffering by my hands. I wanted to kill him. I wanted to kill him and I wanted it to hurt. I wanted to peel away the sickening smile he must've had on his face while he was inside the fox, I wanted to rip it like paper from my mind, tear him apart. I wanted to see how much he could bleed before he would be still, lifeless. My heart was pounding at the thought, excited, and I let my mind feed the desire to me, I let it feed my body the adrenaline, thoughts of dismembering him, hearing him cry. It filled me with such excitement, such euphoria, that I didn't even notice when he climaxed. I was still moving my hands thoughtlessly as my mind guarded my body with delightful thoughts about what it would be like to tie him down and pull out his teeth, one at a time, then drop them in his throat and have him gargle them in his own blood.

"Thank you, Nico" he spoke suddenly, snapping me from my daydreaming. I looked up to see King's head was tilted toward the sky, and he was panting. I could feel him pulsing, emptying his body of seed, and I released grip on the fox as the head tilted downward to look at me. His mouth was open, like he was smiling, and he told me he was happy we could do something together again. His hands pulled me into a hug, and my hands would tentatively return it, their palms on his torso, almost as if I wanted to push away from him.

"Perhaps, if you refuse to open yourself to me, we can do this more. I feel our bond strengthened. I love you, Nico."

"Yeah. I love you too, King."

I rose, and he would remove the fox himself, picking it up and bringing it with him as I started back to the cabin. I turned to look at him, asking why he was bringing it with him.

"I want to keep it and use it again. That was marvelous."

"That's fine" I said, knowing I had little choice in the matter.

"What did you do today?" he asked me as me walked, and I thought about my day, about all I'd read, replying "nothing really".

"Why do you smell like deer, then?" he then asked, his body close behind me. It then occurred to me, suddenly, that I had not washed off the smell of Croibhriste. I had no answer, though, nothing coming to my mind to save me in that moment.

"I..." I spoke quietly.

"You're unfaithful" he replied.

"N-no? No, I just..." I was at a loss for words. I didn't have a good excuse, and I was so nervous and felt so visible that I couldn't collect myself enough to fabricate a good lie.

"It matters not. Once you're successfully given a womb, I will give you a child, and I will not leave your side. Whatever has happened today is unimportant, but from here on out, you will not be left alone."

I asked an incredulous "what!?" as I looked back to him, and he looked to me, a disgusting nonchalance in his voice as he repeated "what?" back to me.

"You have no reason to be left alone. From now on, when I go out, you will come with me. It was my mistake, leaving you alone, letting you out of my sight. You seek out others, you run from me. I will not have that any longer."

King grabbed me suddenly, hoisting me up onto his shoulder, slinging me over him as he loved to do.

"As a matter of fact," he began, "there's no reason to wait. She is clearly capable of carrying. Today, we will give you the womb."