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Velvet & Bone

Persistence & Heat

© 2024 Bruno Hirschkoff

*

The following is a work of fiction intended for adult audiences. If you are not an adult, this isn't for you. All characters, situations, settings, locations, names and concepts are the intellectual property of the Author. Do not repost, distribute, alter or copy any element of this work without the express written permission of the author.

All characters, settings, religions, histories and geopolitical structures are fictional and resemblance to real-world characters, settings, religions, histories and geopolitical structures is purely coincidental.

*

Reyan had never given much thought to spending an extended amount of time travelling. The roe doe, at the age of eighteen, had never been far from her home in the Riverdock district of Amelsbörg, and her childhood as the youngest of five daughters had been very sheltered, especially for the daughter of a taverner. She was a pretty doe, with the chestnut fur speckled with white typical of a roe, and hair that her mother described as being like the light of Aror, the winter sun; the glowing russet of the forests in autumn. As she had grown she had developed the same narrow waist and modest bust of her mother and older sisters, with strong thighs and long, slender legs. And along with her womanly features, so had her imagination grown. She was naïve and given to flights of fancy, losing herself for hours or even days at a time in fantasies of princesses and knights, of the type found in the stories her mother read to her as a fawn. As a young woman with strong carnal desires, though, the tone of those fantasies had a distinctly raunchier edge than the stories they came from.

Dieter and Kristian had seemingly arrived at the Three Moons' Rest tavern at the behest of Mido, the goddess of romance, to whom Reyan routinely made offerings. Or perhaps, given how quickly and how strongly attracted she felt to them, they were a gift from Kasdall, the god of lust... Mido and Kasdall often worked in concert, Reyan knew; their temples were nearly always in the same building. The twins had behaved with absolute chivalry and decency towards her, even when she had displayed drunken hedonism and an open desire to take them both to her chambers then and there. And somehow that only made them even more appealing. Reyan had snuck out of her chambers and fled into the night that very same evening, with little in her young mind but adventure, freedom, and the promise of a whirlwind romance with one - or both - of the dashing elk twins who had caught her attention as they had raised the roof of the tavern with their bawdy folk music and roguish charisma.

It had taken her almost a full day to find them. But persistence and the notion of a fairytale romance had driven her on, until eventually she had heard the sound of Kristian's chanter pipe through the woods a few miles south of Amelsbörg. The reception she had received had been anything but the fairytale she had fantasised about. Shock had turned to sympathy, and Reyan found herself the subject of derision from Dieter and Kristian's companion Trygve, a tall and severe Lupa woman.

But Reyan had persisted. It was late summer. The nights were still warm and the weather was fair, and Reyan could see no challenges she could not overcome in her pursuit of Kristian. Reyan had not brought a bedroll with her - she did not own one, and had not even considered sleeping arrangements. Indeed, she had arrived with nothing but the clothing she wore. When she had first arrived and it became clear that she was not turning back, Kristian had offered her his own bedding. He made do with sleeping on the ground, despite Reyan's unsubtle insistence that he could share with her. In fact, to Reyan's most unpleasant surprise, Kristian seemed either completely oblivious, or uninterested in her.

After five days, she decided enough was enough.

The group was approaching Norstane, the largest city in the small state of Bryctam Brynn, and came to a stop at one of the many roadside inns that dotted the continent of Doregal to serve travellers. This would be their base, and the following day they would enter the city and conduct their business within - as far as Reyan was concerned, that meant the group would find a tavern, a town square or a marketplace and put on a series of impromptu performances to earn their coin.

Getting Kristian alone was the next challenge.

Reyan followed him discreetly throughout the afternoon, and finally saw her chance when he took a small bar of soap and a washcloth, and left the inn to wash himself.

The doe located her own washcloth, although she had no soap of her own, and made to follow Kristian as subtly as she could.

Behind the inn was an open courtyard of muddy cobblestones, around which were the stables, a small brewhouse, the taverner's cottage and a larder. A narrow path wound between birch and elm trees from the courtyard into the woods beyond. It was a well-trodden path, and a wooden sign nailed to an elm indicated that there was a stream nearby for patrons to bathe.

Reyan's breath caught in her throat as she rounded a bend in the path and clambered over a low outcrop of boulders, beyond which the stream flowed through a cascade of pools. There on a flat rock at the water's edge stood Kristian. He was naked but for his linen braies, and as Reyan watched he unlaced those too, dropped them to his hooves, and hung them from the same branch his tunic and trousers occupied. Then he dropped to his buttocks to sit on the rock's edge, and slid forward into the clear water.

Reyan was frozen to the spot, half hidden behind the trunk of a tree that overhung the water, a few paces short of Kristian. How could she approach him now? Since she'd arrived with the group he'd always been fairly private, and although she had tried, Reyan had never seen all of him, even when she'd heard him pleasuring himself a couple of nights previously in another inn.

"I know you're there, Reyan," Kristian called over his shoulder.

The doe's heart leapt into her throat. How had he heard her?

"It's alright, come on. Do you need to borrow the soap again?"

Steeling her nerves, Reyan stepped forward and stood awkwardly on the edge of the pool. Kristian was calmly scrubbing his underarm with his washcloth, sending rivulets of soapy bubbles downstream.

"Come on in if you want. I won't look. The water's very refreshing," Kris persisted.

I wish you would look... Reyan thought.

"It's alright," Reyan managed. "I don't mind."

"I know you don't," Kris chuckled. "Come now, this is no coincidence, is it? You wanted to get me alone. Now you have me."

With an unexpected awkwardness, Reyan unbuckled her girdle and lifted her dress off over her head. Then she clumsily stepped into the water, sinking into it up to her neck. The water was cool but not icy cold, and it did nothing to cool Reyan's ardour. But suddenly having Kristian alone, Reyan found herself unable to articulate the thoughts that had been whirling around her head for days. Kristian handed her the soap, a faint smirk on his handsome muzzle.

"My thanks," she mumbled.

"I am the reason you're here, am I not? Do you think I haven't noticed you following me around? Every time I look toward you, you look away as if to pretend you weren't staring at me. Say what you are thinking, Reyan."

Reyan absently scrubbed herself under the water with the soap, and then set it on the rock at the water's edge. She turned to regard Kristian. He returned her gaze calmly, and Reyan felt her blood rising. She did not know much about men, other than what she had been told by her mother. But she knew that men understood bluntness and body language. She rose in the water until her breasts were exposed above its surface, water streaming from them and plastering her downy fur to her skin. Her nipples were erect from the coolness of the water and her simmering arousal, and she presented them unsubtly to Kristian. He barely reacted. She moved towards him, wading through the water to place her hands on his shoulders and straddle his knee, holding her breasts at his eye level. His ears flicked backward and he stared up into her eyes.

"Reyan, I know precisely what you are doing. I am not a fool. Do not get your hopes up. I have been cool and distant from you for a reason, it is not out of obliviousness."

Reyan felt momentarily as if she might punch him. He'd been deliberately ignoring her?

"Wh... why? I don't understand," she said.

He delicately extricated himself from her, and patted her shoulder sympathetically.

"It is not that you are unattractive, Reyan. You are very pretty, and your desires are... quite apparent. But I cannot give you what you want, because my heart is available only to men."

Reyan's heart dropped like a stone from her throat to her hooves. She slumped down in the water and turned her head away from him, suddenly deeply self-conscious of her nudity.

"Ah, I have been such a fool," she sighed. "How did I not notice? I am sorry, I have been so consumed by my own desires..."

"We all do silly things when our hearts rule over our minds," Kristian reassured her with a chuckle. "Worry not, and I am sorry to tell you this in such an ignoble way. But... you expressed some interest in my brother Dieter as well, at the Three Moons' Rest. Arguably more interest than you expressed in me. He is not so constrained by his attractions."

Reyan turned back towards Kristian and fixed him with what she hoped was a stern glare - but not too stern. "Do you really think that all I am after is one of your cocks? That the man it comes attached to is of little consequence? You may be twins, but these past few days I have seen how different you truly are from one another. And Dieter has eyes for no one but that prickly Lupa woman!"

"Aye, he certainly does fancy Trygve."

Reyan suddenly grinned. "Is Trygve not a man's name?"

Kristian laughed. It was a musical sound to Reyan. "You're right, aren't you? Perchance we should ask her about that. Perhaps she is secretly wielding a sword, as well as a crossbow."

Reyan giggled openly then, and slid closer to Kristian in the water to lean against him softly. He laid a companionable arm around her narrow shoulders, and she felt the spark reignite in her core. Despite his confession of his masculine attractions, being so close to him filled her stomach with butterflies. That they were naked in the bathing pool seemed suddenly less relevant, although... she laid her arm on his leg, and her head on his shoulder. Then she glanced downward. The water was clear but its motion blurred her visibility, yet there was no doubt about it. Kristian's cock was standing up beneath the water, erect and staring right at her. Reyan's mouth watered and she snapped her gaze up to his face again.

"I thought you said you were only interested in men?!" she demanded.

"I did, and that is the truth. I feel romantic attraction only to others of my gender, or similar. This," he motioned to what she'd been staring at, "is a reaction in body only. You presented yourself with such vulnerability and open arousal that I... it just sort of happened."

Reyan narrowed her eyes, but decided that it would be best not to press the issue.

"Being on the road does have some interesting effects," Kristian continued. "Typically at home I would have the privacy and the time to ahh... indulge myself more often than I have been, of late."

"Ooh, I definitely understand you, there," Reyan replied instantly. Then she frowned. "This is the strangest feeling I have, suddenly."

"What is?"

"Knowing that you are more interested in men, I feel... different. Like I can speak my mind to you and not fear for anything."

"That is nice to know. What is on your mind?"

"I have never laid with another, before. It is entirely new for me, and feeling this rush of attraction for you... it has never happened before. It is confusing and exciting and frightening and incredibly arousing, all at once."

"Aye, well since we're sharing secrets, I have heard you in the night more than once," Kristian chuckled.

"And I you! I... have fantasised about you hearing me and..." Reyan trailed off, shrinking down into the water a little.

"Throwing off my blankets and joining you?" Kristian finished for her.

Reyan bleated softly and flattened back her ears in embarrassment. Kristian chuckled.

"It's not funny!" Reyan protested.

"It is, just a little. Don't worry, it's endearing. I shan't complain about you expressing your desires, but it's important that you try not to expect too much of me in that regard, hmm? I am more than happy to be a friend and a companion, but I am not able to love you the way you want me to."

Reyan sighed.

"Are we clear?"

"Yes," she said sullenly.

"Good. Come on, I am starving, and I can smell food cooking!"

Kristian rose from the water without a second thought, clambering up onto the rock to shake the excess water out of his pelt and retrieve his soap. Reyan's eyes almost popped out of her head and she stared with undisguised lust at his naked body. His erection had wilted, but not entirely, and she gazed hungrily at his cock. He did nothing to hide it. Reyan clenched her thighs tightly in the water and felt heat bloom between them. Kristian scrubbed the water from his pelt with his washcloth, wringing it out into the pool, and smirked at Reyan, who had not yet moved.

"It's not like you have an erection to be embarrassed about, Rey. Come on, don't catch your cold in there!"

"Aye, but I have the womanly equivalent thereof, thank you! Mido's skirts, it's... bigger than I thought it would be."

Kristian laughed. "Well, now you know. Come."

He extended his hand toward her, still naked, and she reached for it. He helped her up out of the pool, steadying her as she staggered on the slippery rock. Reyan stood with water streaming out of her pelt, her eyes fixed on Kristian's groin.

"It's not going to run away if you stop staring, you know," he said. "You're starting to shiver, you'd best dry off."

"If I am cold, will you hold me to warm me up?"

"You are a devious little creature!"

She just grinned, and then took a few steps away to shake out her fur and begin scrubbing the water out of it with her own washcloth.

*

After two weeks on the road, travelling first to Norstane and then south through Bryctam Brynn towards the Feuerbucht and the city of Habury, the heady thrill of adventure was wearing off for Reyan. Which was more than could be said for the doe's hormonal desires, which seemed only to be becoming stronger and stronger. It certainly did not help her in the slightest to hear her companions occasionally relieving themselves in the night, often without leaving their bedrolls right beside the others. It was even worse when they slept in roadhouses and inns along the way; somehow being indoors seemed to give everyone a heightened, but false, sense of privacy.

The arrival of Ebbo the Mino, a giant, imposing creature hired by Reyan's father as her personal bodyguard, had been quite a drama. He and a band of her father's hired thugs had caught up with the group just past Norstane, but what had followed astonished them all; instead of starting a fight and capturing Reyan to take her back to her father, Ebbo had attacked his own men and joined their group, much to Trygve's chagrin.

Reyan's relationship with Kristian, meanwhile, had blossomed into a tantalisingly flirtatious friendship. The two were rarely far apart, and Reyan flirted relentlessly with him as the days turned to weeks. Where he went, Reyan followed. It was clear that he knew what she was doing, and Reyan was buoyed that he did not balk at her advances, even if he only obliquely reciprocated them. She spoke to him of her desire not with her words, but with her body language. Subtle cues only another Cervid could see; a flick of her tail, a stance, a prolonged stare.

At night, Reyan always spread the bedroll he had purchased for her in Norstane right beside his, and to an outside observer Reyan considered that they would appear to be a couple. There was a kind of guarded openness between them, where while neither made overt sexual advances on the other, masturbation often occurred simultaneously in the darkness, inches apart within their bedding and clothing. Reyan would often find herself sleeping with her body touching his through their blankets, just to feel his closeness - little more than a brush of her fingertips through his hair, or a knee against his thigh. She convinced herself that he was warming up to her, and that he was held back by nothing more than the presence of their companions around them. Then she would succumb to her usual fantasies as she masturbated, imagining that he would awaken at any moment, notice her arousal, and roll wordlessly over on top of her. In her fantasy he would whisper into her ear about how much she turned him on despite his sexual orientation, how he'd been a fool to deny her for so long. Then he'd press her thighs apart, lift her skirt and press the head of his big, hard cock against her...

The fantasy was always some variation of the same scene, and Reyan's climax would always crash into her at the moment she would imagine touching Kristian's hardness, feeling his warmth and guiding him inward towards her. The fantasies consumed her, more and more so as the days passed. She'd never felt like that before about someone specific, and it was equal parts exciting and confusing for the doe. She prayed to Kasdall for the fulfilment of her dream, and to Mido to quench the fire burning in her loins for the elk who had captured her imagination.

*

Reyan's legs ached. It seemed like they'd been walking for weeks without end, on the sixteenth day after her abscondment from the Three Moons' Rest. The aches were not as terrible as they had been on the first few days she'd spent with the group, but the doe certainly still did not have the level of fitness of her companions. The road was uneven and rocky, and the going was slow. They were almost a full day's travel short of the city of Habury, on one of the lesser-used routes from the west that connected a string of tiny settlements around the wide, sweeping coast of the Feuerbucht - the bay of fires - so named for its spectacular sunsets.

The skies were heavy with cloud, and rain threatened for only the second time on their journey. But this would be more than a light summer shower. The deep, distant rumble of thunder - thought of as the voice of Lakesh, the Storm Goddess - lent a tense anticipation to air that was utterly without motion. No birds sang in the trees, and the few cottages the party passed were being prepared for the storm that was coming. Villages, fishing hamlets and roadhouses dotted the landscape in this densely populated region of Scordomna, and at the head of the group, Dieter was scouting out a place for the group of six to wait out Lakesh's fury.

Reyan, as always, walked alongside Kristian at the rear of the group, close enough that her arm touched his, although the road was plenty wide enough for them to always have air between them. Kristian had been teaching her to play his flute while he accompanied on his chanter, and she was learning swiftly.

"I hope we don't get caught in the storm," Reyan observed, changing the subject away from musical theory.

"We'll be fine," he replied, "Dieter always manages to find somewhere. It's part of why Magpie and Trygve invited him along on their little musical adventure, I think. He speaks Scordomnan, and isn't a dragon or a wolf."

"Or a Mino," Reyan added. "Did you see how the innkeeper at Bryn Halman reacted when Ebbo walked in?"

"Aye, folks south of the Temer do tend to be a little insulated. Ahh, here comes Dieter."

Dieter was trotting back along the road towards the slower-moving party and its oxcart, which was driven by Ebbo. He spoke with Magpie, who was riding on the back of the cart, and pointed to a narrow track that led inland into a patch of forest from the main road they travelled on.

Kristian nudged Reyan's elbow. "Come on, I can't hear him from back here."

They moved up to where they could hear Dieter's words.

"...a barn, but it's safe from the weather. He said the storms usually blow out within a night, and all he asks is that we feed ourselves, don't bother him and don't burn it down. I gave him six Sabarinian pennies for his trouble, one for each of us," Dieter concluded, fixing Reyan and Ebbo each with a stare, as if to drive home that their fare would have been four pence, not six, without them.

"Well done, my boy," the tiny dragon replied, patting Dieter on the shoulder. Then he addressed the group. "Come along, then. 'Tisn't far, and this storm looks set to break at any moment."

A flash of lightning arced across the low, leaden sky even as Magpie spoke, closely followed by a sharp crack and rolling boom of thunder. Reyan bleated and clung to Kristian's arm. He patted her hand, then guided the doe ahead of himself with a hand on her back. The track was little more than a pair of ruts in the ground branching off from the road into a patch of primordial woodland, a remnant patch of the Aethyrfiodh that had once blanketed the entirety of the Doregallian continent, and which remained sacred to all save the emergent Arahanites. The going was slow, particularly when Ebbo had to dismount the oxcart and push it from behind when it became stuck in the soft, loamy mud of the track.

Rain had begun to fall by the time they reached their destination, drumming against the canopy of the trees and falling amongst the group in heavy drops. It was a ramshackle looking barn on a small farm set amongst towering firs and sprawling, ancient chestnut trees, with mossy thatch on the sagging roof and boards hastily nailed over gaps in the walls. The farmer was an elderly Equid with a pronounced limp and few teeth. Six silver pennies would have been a substantial amount of money for him, Kristian suspected. His hospitality was awkwardly overzealous, and he greeted each of them personally and with an entirely unnecessary level of deference. He even offered to tend to the ox for them, while warily eyeing the hulking Mino in the driver's seat of the cart behind it, perhaps out of some superstitious notion that the ox might have been a relative of Ebbo's.

The barn was hardly the height of luxury, but for a group on the move, it was all they needed to stay dry and warm. The floor was packed earth, and an assortment of ancient farming implements leaned against the rough-hewn plank walls. In the centre of the barn against one of its walls was a small stone forge and a solidly built workbench. Above was a large hayloft, which was the perfect place for them to sleep - it even had a modicum of privacy, with plank walls roughly Dieter's shoulder height between storage areas for different types of hay and straw. The farmer spoke Scordomnan with Dieter while showing him around, and seemed to be indicating that they could use the forge to build a cooking fire.

Dieter thanked him, and gave him a wax-sealed pot of Brynn Halman ale for his trouble. The farmer seemed shocked by this generosity, but eventually retreated into his cottage. Trygve and Dieter set about preparing a meal for them to share for the evening. Magpie climbed up to the hayloft and its tenuous privacy to do whatever it was Magpie did when he was alone, and Ebbo tended to the ox.

Reyan watched all of this activity, feeling suddenly out of place and useless. She gazed at Kristian somewhat shyly. He gave her a friendly smile, and she fluttered her eyelashes and averted her gaze.

"Where are you going to sleep?" Reyan hedged, her ears flushing slightly pink.

Kris flashed her a cocky half-grin. "Up in the hayloft, like all of us. And no more than two feet from you, I'd wager, regardless of where I lay my bedroll."

"I... I..." Reyan stammered, feeling her muzzle burning.

Kristian reached into the oxcart and produced his own, and then Reyan's bedrolls, and handed the doe's to her.

"Don't worry your pretty head about it, Rey. I am flattered, my only concern is that I cannot give you the romance you so clearly want, and do not wish to cause you disappointment or hurt," Kris said.

Reyan nodded slowly. "I know. If I am hurt, it shall be my own fault and not an ounce yours."

"I'm glad you realise that, at least," Kris sighed. "And of course you are entitled to your fantasies. But I hardly think it to be good for you to have eloped from your home just to fawn over a man who cannot love you back."

Reyan sat down on her rolled-up bedding and sighed deeply. A wave of regret washed over her and she sniffed. "I just... I feel like a fool. A stupid, horny fool who thought she could have any man she wished, because that was what my mother always told me."

Kristian moved to stand alongside her, placed his hand on her shoulder and gave it a gentle squeeze. Warmth flooded her chest just from that simple touch, and the doe squeezed her thighs together with a gasp. Why did such a simple gesture have such an effect on her, even more so than it might have, usually? She felt dampness bloom between her thighs, and laid her cheek against his arm. His crotch was right there, so tantalisingly close... she could even see the outline of his cock through his trousers. The memory of the sight of it at the bathing pool near Norstane surged into her consciousness. Reyan's mouth watered. Momentarily, her entire world shrank to Kristian; his closeness, the warmth emanating from his hand into her shoulder, the subtly masculine scent of him oozing through his clothing, the persistent, aching throb between her thighs that seemed to be screaming for his touch...

"Reyan? Rey!"

Kristian shook her shoulder gently, and she snapped back to reality with a bleat.

"I..."

"Are you alright? You uh... you seemed to lose focus there."

"Yes, yes... I am alright. I just... I think I am just tired. I have never travelled this far before."

"One more moment and you'd have had your face in my crotch," Kris chuckled.

Reyan squealed and hid her face. "I'm sorry! I don't know what came over me."

"I do," came a husky female voice from nearby. "I understand completely."

"You've fantasised about nuzzling my cock, Trygve?" Kris quipped.

"No, you tart! Ugh," Trygve sneered. "Reyan's in heat. Or whatever you Cervids call it. She's ovulating. I can smell it from over here. Can you not?"

Reyan groaned into her hands, wishing that the floor would open up and swallow her whole to save her from the humiliation. She could feel everyone's eyes on her. They were all staring.

"Happens every month, so she should have known it was coming. I suppose she assumed you'd be railing her over the back of the cart by now, Kristian," Trygve continued, leaning casually on the edge of the old forge and smugly contemplating her claws, two of which were conspicuously filed blunt. She alleged it was to make handling her crossbow easier.

Beside her, Dieter laughed. "Aye, why do you think I've been keeping my distance from you, Reyan? It is not because I dislike you, or out of any sort of derision, it is because your scent affects me far more than yonder fruitcake."

Twins... Reyan's mind prompted her. Both of them at once... one in front, one behind... oh sweet Mido...

Kristian experimentally sniffed the air around Reyan. She was suddenly painfully aware of her distinctive scent - it was stronger than it had been when she'd first arrived; a dense, slightly grassy aroma that rose from her like steam on a cold morning. Even as part of her wanted to run and hide, another part of her wanted nothing more than to jump on Kristian, plow him to the floor and straddle his face, show him precisely where that scent was coming from the most strongly... Her thighs trembled and she fought back the urge, even as she clenched and released rhythmically inside her clothing. Abruptly, she stood up, to avoid a wet spot on the back of her skirt.

"Whoa, hey," Kristian said, capturing her shoulders in his hands as she surged unsteadily upward. "Are you alright?"

"Yes! Yes, fine, I just... I thought I would... go for a walk, get some fresh air."

"Reyan, it's pouring with rain out there, can't you hear it?"

As Kristian spoke, thunder boomed across the sky outside, shaking the walls of the barn. Reyan bleated in shock and flung her arms around Kristian's waist. Kristian stumbled backward from her body crashing into his, and Reyan pressed close, waddling awkwardly to remain close to him, her heat mingling with her fear of the storm.

"Poor little doe, you're really burnin' up, aren't you?" Trygve drawled from over near the forge, more for Dieter's ears than Reyan's. "Go up to the hayloft and rub yourself, it might cool you down a little."

Reyan couldn't let go of Kristian. She wanted to, intellectually, but she clung to him like a limpet. His body, so warm and toned against hers, was like an elixir to her heat-addled brain. And when Kristian's arms encircled her in return, albeit gently, she buried her face in his dense mane to stifle the horny bleat that rose in her throat. Her loins ached and throbbed, and she grappled with the urge to part her thighs around Kristian's leg and press herself onto him. It was a battle she lost. Subtly, as unobtrusively as she could manage, Reyan pressed her groin onto Kristian's thigh.

He breathed softly over her ear, causing it to flick subconsciously. "I can feel that," he murmured to her. "And I can smell you... and it's... very distinctive."

Reyan's fingers curled, digging into his back. She was making a fool of herself, she knew, but her heat was driving her on, seemingly controlling her body despite her brain. Kristian could smell her, and he wasn't pulling away. She clenched hard, felt fluid trickle down her thigh, and squeezed her knees together around his leg.

Kristian chuckled, and continued to whisper into her ear, the soft puffs of his breath against her feeling like bolts of electricity racing through her. "It's alright, Rey. But don't get too carried away while we're down here being watched, hmm? Pretending to be afraid of the thunder was a nice diversion, I'll give you that."

"I am afraid of thunder," she whispered. "This... this is helping..."

"I'm certain that it is," Kristian said.

Reyan exhaled shakily into his mane, then tilted her head up to nuzzle his ear. "I am... so aroused... I can hardly control it... I'm sorry..." she said, punctuating her words with slow, firm grinds of her groin against his thigh.

She felt like she might very well climax there and then when she felt him, without a word spoken, slide his hand down to her lower back and apply a gentle pressure. Was he encouraging her? It was hard to tell. But he wasn't recoiling in disgust despite his attractions, and... Reyan brought her hand around Kristian's hip, edging closer and closer to his groin.

Magpie ventured down from his eyrie in the hayloft when the food was ready, and cast a sidelong glance at Kristian and Reyan's embrace. Reyan could hear him speaking with Trygve, and over Kristian's shoulder she saw Ebbo lifting their stockpot from the forge with a thick cloth, to place it on the workbench.

"Are you two coming to get some food? Or are we just going to have to watch you pretend to hump all night?" came Dieter's voice suddenly.

Trygve and Ebbo's laughter followed, and Reyan felt her face burning with embarrassment. She took a deep breath, and mouthed at Kristian's ear in protest when he first delivered a little squeeze to her rump, and then extricated himself from her. Her eyes fell immediately to his groin, but if he was erect, he wasn't showing it. He smiled knowingly at her, and somehow that only made her face and her loins burn all the hotter.

The group ate a simple meal of stewed vegetables and berries foraged from roadside thickets, along with a loaf of bread Dieter had procured from a village baker earlier that day. The firelight from the forge illuminated their meal with its orange flicker, and despite the size of the barn, the space felt cozy and comfortable. Ebbo produced a few of the pots of ale he'd purchased at the Brynn Halman brewhouse a few days previously and passed them around. They drank, laughed and shared stories of their journey, and Magpie plucked quietly at the strings of his lute.

The ale was strong, and Reyan drank it down greedily. Anything to quench the flames between her thighs. Or to release her from her inhibitions. Her heat was burning like the fire in the forge; hot and bright and mesmerising, a constant hum between her legs and between her ears. The conversation around her seemed distant, try as she might to focus on it and participate. When Kristian produced his chanter pipe and began to play along with Magpie, Reyan's attention was more focused. She emptied her ale pot, and cast her eyes around the group. Magpie, to Reyan's surprise, was staring straight at her. He motioned for her to help herself to his ale, which was barely touched. Reyan reached for it, and before long had drained it, too.

Reyan did not remember exactly how it happened, but the next thing she remembered, she was dancing around the barn with Trygve, Dieter and Ebbo, while Magpie played his lute and Kristian played his pipes. Her skirt whirled around her as she spun and cavorted, and in those moments she was finally able to focus on something other than her own desires.

The storm outside showed no signs of easing, but inside the warmth and companionship of the barn, Reyan felt free and accepted by her new companions, and more at ease than she had since she had eloped from her chambers. But never did the flames in her core subside.

*

Magpie laid out his bedroll in one of the compartments in the hayloft, among a neat stack of dusty barrels. It was very much later in the night, well past midnight by his reckoning. Trygve had taken the compartment beside his, and Dieter the one beside hers. That left two compartments - not enough for them to all have one each. But Ebbo elected to sleep with the oxcart, as he usually did, which placed him downstairs in the barn by the forge.

Reyan and Kristian were the last to retire for the night, having drunk the most ale of any of them. In the back of her mind, Reyan was certain that the whole party were whispering about her by now, but she was drunk enough not to care, and still on an emotional high from the evening spent dancing and singing. She did not even bother to keep up appearances by first laying out her bedroll in a different compartment to the one Kristian entered. She simply followed him, all giggles and anticipation, in the darkness. The only light came from a small candle lantern hung from one of the stout wooden posts holding up the rafters, well away from the tinder-dry contents of the hayloft. Reyan's russet-blonde hair was tousled and messy, and she smoothed it back with her hands after she'd kicked out her bedroll, right alongside Kristian's. He removed his tunic and laid it over the compartment divider, and then unlaced his trousers. Reyan gazed at him with undisguised longing, taking in the sight of his mostly-naked body in the dim, flickering light of the lantern. The light glinted from his pelt and cast warm, dark shadows between the valleys of his muscles.

In a rush of giddy, ale-duelled excitement, Reyan hurriedly disrobed herself as well, hauling her dress off over her head. She wore no bindings about her chest, and she stood in front of Kristian in nothing but her linen drawers.

"You are beautiful, Reyan, I hope you know that," he murmured.

Her heart fluttered and pounded in her chest, and she stood with her hooves slightly apart, stiff-legged and tail flagged, a clear signal in a Cervid's distinctive body language. His eyes wandered her body, and he tilted his head to the side as though contemplating how to react to her. The scent of her heat rose around her like smoke, almost visible such was its density. Her body trembled with it.

"Y-you are beautiful too, Kristian," she said shakily.

She took a step towards him, until their near-naked bodies were barely arms' length apart.

Abruptly, a bright flash of lightning and a deafening peal of thunder exploded seemingly right overhead, loud enough to seemingly shake the very bones of the world. Reyan bleated in terror and launched herself into Kristian's arms. He staggered backward against the divider wall, and Reyan clung around his waist with her face buried in his mane, while the thunder ebbed from an explosive roar to a low, threatening rumble.

"You really are frightened of the thunder, aren't you?" he murmured, his lips right against her ear.

The sound of his voice resonated through her body, its sound and the feeling of his breath causing her skin to rise into gooseflesh beneath her pelt. Reyan's hands gripped fistfuls of fur in the middle of Kristian's back and raised her muzzle, stretching upward on her hooves to press her cheek against his. "Yes... but this... I am not afraid when I am this close to you."

Kristian made a soft rumbling noise into her ear that was not laughter, but something else. He enfolded her in his arms, and Reyan felt an intense rush of near uncontrollable arousal erupt in her loins. This time, however, she was unconstrained by any semblance of propriety, or by the thought of being watched, or, indeed, by clothing. She hugged Kristian tightly, almost desperately so, and mouthed heatedly at the underside of his right ear. The pearl pendant and pair of gold rings he wore in it clacked against her teeth, and she pressed her breasts tightly up against him, rolling on her hooves to slide her pelt against his, stimulating her nipples against his fur and the firm muscle beneath it. His arms tightened around her body. Her heat enfolded them both like a fog, and in the darkness, it seemed that Kristian was not entirely immune to it. His hand fell to her lower back, pressing delicately inward against it, and then wandered further downward over her buttocks. Reyan's eyes flew open in surprise when she felt his warm palm squeeze and knead her soft rump, pulling her lower body against his. She mewled quietly into his ear and parted her thighs around his leg, pushing her hips forward to grind her aching groin onto him.

"Kristian..." she whispered huskily, unwilling to ask if he was certain of what he was asking for, lest he deny her yet again.

Their muzzles hovered inches apart, heated, shaky breaths mingling in the candlelit darkness, and Reyan tentatively moved inward until her lips brushed his. He did not pull away. She pushed her hips forward, grinding her aching heat onto him, the soft mounds of her buttocks tensing and relaxing in a slow rhythm in his hand. Previously when she'd moved toward him in the night he'd always been asleep, only to awaken with her draped across him. This time was different. This time, he was awake, and her intentions were clear. But she resolved not to push him further than he was comfortable. What did it mean to 'prefer men,' anyway? Did it mean his cock wouldn't get hard for her? Would he be disgusted by her body? He had called her beautiful, but until now, nor did he stare at her tits or let his hands linger on her waist when they did touch.

He did not reply with words, but with body language. Her language. The language of her burning heat. He slowly guided their bodies downward, a soft, tremulous tangle of limbs, fur and damp undergarments, onto their bedrolls. Reyan simply followed him, clinging tightly to his body, and although Kristian had made no overtly sexual advances on her, his body language spoke of permission. Permission to indulge herself, openly, in front of him. With him. Her heart fluttered so fast it hurt, adrenaline surging through her body, and she gripped a fistful of his dense mane. Her body was half over his, her hip on the floor, her other leg raised over his, and she lifted it higher, pressing the inside of her knee over his groin. She could feel his cock through his braies, and while it was not completely erect, nor was it soft. Reyan bit her lip painfully to stifle a bleat, and felt wetness in the groin of her drawers soaking through the linen to Kristian's thigh.

Then he spoke, in that low, husky whisper that caused her whole body to tremble, an aurally orgasmic passage of sound directly into her heat-addled brain that caused her to gasp sharply. "I've never had a woman be this aroused around me before. The way you smell is... intoxicating... feeling you rubbing up on me like that. Does it feel good, Rey? Rubbing your maidenhood on me?"

Reyan raked her horn-tipped fingers down his chest and exhaled her gasped breath shakily over his cheek. The reference to her virginity might have been awkward in any other situation, but in that moment it made her clitoris twitch.

"I... I have never... been this aroused... in my life..." she gasped out, gyrating her body against his.

Her hand dropped to his groin abruptly, and he did not stop her. Fuelled by her arousal and the ale causing her head to spin, Reyan clumsily palmed over his cock, and heard his quiet groan. It was fuel on her raging fire. She squeezed him roughly and humped wildly onto his thigh, bucking her hips in a raw, instinctive pursuit of pure, unbridled sexual sensation. His hand gripped tightly to her buttock, kneading her firmly, and his other hand rose to first brush her hair back out of her face, and then lowered to her chest. Reyan felt she might combust, such was the power of the heat that consumed her. His hand played over her breast, finding an erect nipple and caressing it in a way that was equal parts unexpected and explosive.

He did not squeeze or twist it, as another man might. Instead, he parted the soft fur with the backs of two curled fingers, and ran his horn-tipped thumb around the stiffened nub. It was precisely how Reyan might have touched it herself, had she a spare hand. She hunched over him, and was unable to completely stifle the guttural moan that followed.

"Keep going," he whispered to her. "Gods, you've made my cock hard... feel that..."

Reyan squealed into his neck, descending into total carnality. She urgently rammed her free hand down the front of her drawers and raised her hips momentarily to settle her hand into her groin.

"Kristian... I am... so wet..."

"Good girl," Kristian said.

She was unfathomably pleased to hear the shakiness in his voice, a hint of the same breathless desire that was consuming every fibre of her being. She squeezed his cock firmly, then palmed over it. It was big. In a rush of heady bravery she lifted her hand, and slid it down under his braies. His thick fur was warm and slightly humid, and her slender hand quickly found the bare skin of his rigid cock. She palmed and groped it awkwardly, finding slickness at its tip. He seemed to enjoy when she ground the heel of her palm against that, so she did so to the best of her ability. She plunged two fingers of her other hand into her vagina, curling her digits upward into the pulsing, burning core of her heat, and grinding her erect clitoris onto her palm. She could hear the sound of her own wetness as she masturbated, and there was no more space for conversation between them.

Kristian turned into her, pushing his cock into her hand and focusing his attention on her breast and buttock. She felt his fingers wander between her buttocks and downward between her thighs, until they found wet linen. He was exploring her body while she masturbated. The thought was too much for Reyan to resist.

Her orgasm smashed into her like a Heladian battle galley.

Her bleat was plaintive and loud, unable to be muffled, as the aching rhythm of climax sent shockwaves through her tense, stiffened body. Kristian simply held her while she came, and continued to do so as her orgasm ebbed, leaving the doe a panting, shaking and sweaty mess.

"I have witnessed the female orgasm several times before," Kristian observed quietly, "but never like that. Even to me, that was... very arousing."

Reyan did not have the power to form words. She simply panted and gazed at him. He wiped drool from her chin with his thumb, and then cradled her head against his chest.

"I am certain most of our companions will have heard that," he chuckled.

"Yes... it's not like anyone is under any illusions any longer about my propriety," she sighed.

"Just own it, Rey. You're a young woman with needs. And it's not like you're swinging your leg over anything with a cock at the slightest provocation, is it?"

She clung to him a little more tightly for a moment in response to his bluntness.

"Thank you for putting up with me," she whispered.

"You make yourself sound like a burden."

"I am. You did not ask me to join you. I got drunk and you saved me from probably being raped by those slimy dockers, and I fell for you. Hard. You're the most... alluring man I've ever met. Like a prince, from the silly fairytales my mother used to read me. My life was so dull before you and Dieter crashed into it. The same thing every day. I've probably had my tits squeezed by more men than the streetgirls who hang around the back alleys behind the cookhouses, even if Ebbo is usually there to break their heads for doing so. Most men are repulsive, stinking animals, but you... you aren't repulsive at all."

"But I still stink?" Kristian chuckled.

"No... well... yes, but in a... in a good way. I uhm... you know... masculine smells."

"I am the best of both worlds, to you. I am emphatically male, as you can feel, but I am also no threat to you. You feel safe with me, partially because you know of my preferences. So you are unshackled, free to indulge your fantasies openly around me without fear that I will take advantage and hurt you, or use you for my own pleasure."

Reyan blinked a few times and held her silence, processing Kristian's perceptive words.

"I've been hanging around Magpie too long," Kris chuckled. "And my father. Both are infuriatingly perceptive with that sort of thing."

"You're right, about feeling safe with you."

"Good."

The rain was picking up again outside, a steady hiss and trickle, but up in the hayloft, it was dry and warm and felt cozy and very safe. Reyan felt like she could live in such a place, if it only had a few extra conveniences. Her head spun gently from the ale she'd drunk. Even when a fresh peal of thunder rumbled across the sky outside, Reyan only reacted by clinging to Kristian a little more tightly for a moment. On a whim, Reyan's hand wandered down Kristian's body once again, over the front of his braies.

"Kristian?"

"Mm?"

"Your penis is still hard."

He chuckled and she felt it pulse and flex in her hand, clearly a voluntary motion. "Aye, it will do that. I... I like how you touch it. How you squeeze and grope it, as if it's the first one you've ever touched."

"Really?" she said, arousal spiking in her once again, albeit slightly dulled. "It... it is. The first one I've touched, I mean."

"Your enthusiasm feels nice, and I appreciate that you did not immediately try to masturbate me to orgasm or try to have me fuck you."

"By Kasdall, I would love you to," she murmured. "But I... I would be... a little nervous. I have never..."

"I know."

"And you are..."

"A fruitcake?"

Reyan snorted with laughter. "Yes. A pretty fruitcake with a cock like a tree trunk!"

"Aw, it's not that big!"

"It feels like it," she mumbled, slipping her hand under his waistband again and fumbling with his penis inside his braies. "Why is it wet?"

Kristian flexed it again, and Reyan felt fresh slickness against her palm. "That happens to men when we are aroused, sometimes."

She swallowed thickly, feeling her heat rising again as easily as if she hadn't just had a seismic orgasm. "Do you need to... you know?"

His hand fell easily to her buttock once more, and his thigh pressed between hers. She squeezed his cock firmly and ground onto him again, onto slippery wetness that soaked both her drawers and his fur.

"Are you going to masturbate again?" he asked her.

She nodded against his cheek, heat blossoming in her chest and groin again. Wordlessly she unlaced her drawers and awkwardly shuffled them down her thighs, then reclaimed her hand from his groin to pick at the lacings of his braies. He assisted her, and then lifted his hips to remove his last article of clothing, which necessitated Reyan disentangling herself from him briefly. For a long moment the pair of them laid together naked. It felt immeasurably exciting to Reyan in a whole new way that she'd never felt before; knowing they were both naked, what was about to happen, and that their companions were nearby. The exposure felt daring, perhaps even slightly taboo. Reyan was laying on her side propped up on one elbow, and allowed her thighs to fall open. She stared at Kristian's body, absorbing the sight of his nudity and his arousal. His cock stood over his lower abdomen, and as she watched it twitch gently with his heartbeat, she began to rub herself once more. Two fingers split over her clitoris, squeezing it between them, and continued downward to her vagina. She dipped her fingers inside herself, feeling her wetness, and then brought those fingers upward, strings of her fluid stretching between them and glinting very slightly in the dim candlelight. In a moment of daring, she smeared those fingers over Kristian's nose.

He gasped sharply and his nostrils flared. He stared at her, seemingly right into her soul, and for a terrible moment Reyan felt like she had miscalculated, that he was angry with her.

But then that gasp left him in a shaky groan, and she saw his hand fall to his penis, gripping it in a tight fist. Then it began to move up and down over it, a rhythmic stroking motion that she'd witnessed a few times before on other men. He was masturbating. Over her. Her scent in his lungs. Her heat playing on his brain. Reyan trembled. Her hand returned to her vulva, and she arched her spine, gyrating onto her own hand. She pressed two fingers against her clitoris and began to move them in a firm circle, immediately feeling the burning pleasure of masturbation rippling through her body.

"That was a daring move," Kristian said, his voice halting and husky from his self-pleasure right beside her.

She giggled breathlessly and shuffled closer and closer to him until their naked bodies pressed tightly together in the darkness, and then she was on top of him.

Her body rose up over Kristian's almost with a will of its own, straddling the elk's thighs and bracing her free hand against his shoulder. Her hair fell about her face, and she stared down between them, to how close Kristian's erect penis was to her heat-swollen vulva. Her lips were parted in that position, her clitoris protruding slightly from between them, and on a whim she batted Kristian's hand away from his penis and shuffled upward to press her vulva against it. There was no thought pattern in her mind, only exploration and experimentation. She'd never done any of this with a man before, after all. She lifted and rolled her hips slightly, rubbing herself against him, and then brought her other hand down to lift his cock against her, holding him tight to her vulva. Precum oozed from him between her fingers, and she polished the firm, slightly spongy head of his penis with it. He gasped quietly and she felt him push upward against her touch, so she rubbed more firmly. He gripped her hips and thrust into her hand, sliding the underside of his penis against her sensitive flesh, causing their sexual fluids to mingle and lubricate them both. Reyan lifted her hips slightly higher and pressed the head of Kristian's cock against her clitoris, rubbing them together firmly and rapidly, if a little clumsily.

Her bravery heightened by their shared arousal, Reyan lifted herself up still higher. The firm, bell-shaped head of Kristian's cock slid downward along her vulva, parting her outer lips and brushing against the burning, heat-slickened flesh within. But while Reyan was comfortable with her own fingers, the thickness of Kristian's cock was daunting. She experimentally rolled her hips onto it, burying his glans in her soft flesh, and felt resistance. It stung, and she gasped sharply.

"Hey," he intoned. "Don't force it."

"It's... it's only because you're my first..."

"I don't want to hurt you."

Reyan gave a frustrated bleat and released his cock. It flicked stiffly forward, its head glistening with her wetness as well as his own. She gazed down at him, her entire body tense and trembling with the power of her heat while she urgently rubbed her clitoris. Then an idea flickered to life. Both of Kristian's hands were on her thighs, caressing her fur. She captured one of the elk's wrists, and guided his hand beneath her. He touched her clumsily, and then began to explore the entrance of her vagina with one fingertip. She moaned quietly and pushed her hips down onto him, and felt his finger slip inside. He got the message. His finger straightened, and slid deep into the doe's vagina. She clenched around it, and began to raise and lower her hips, an instinctive movement, riding his digit. She rested her free hand on Kristian's abdomen to hold herself up, and began to lose herself in the sensation. That was, until she saw him take hold of his penis and begin to stimulate it.

Reyan's eyes flew open and she faltered, her scattered focus immediately drawn to the elk's self-pleasure, right there beneath her. His eyes were open, and he was staring directly at her. His hand twisted around his slickened glans, and she watched it appear and disappear over and over again through his fist. It was a mesmerising sight. But Reyan needed more than that. He'd been so close to penetrating her, to breaking through her maidenhood into the burning core of her lust. Even now, his finger was inside her to the second joint. For the second time, Reyan stopped Kristian from masturbating. He groaned in frustration. But she had stopped, as well. She touched his cock again, but this time trapped it between her palm and her vulva, nestling her clitoris into the V-shaped cleft at the underside of his glans. It fit like a glove. He seemed to respond unexpectedly strongly to that. His cock flexed and stiffened in her hand, and a small squirt of clear fluid ejected from it over her hand and onto his abdomen.

"Oh gods. Y-you ejaculated a bit..." she murmured thickly.

Reyan squealed in lust, and clenched like a vice around Kristian's finger, grinding down onto it. He responded by pressing it up into her, naturally curling it forward. It hit a particularly special place inside her, and Reyan's legs convulsed. She resumed her rhythmic, rocking motion, rising and falling on Kristian's finger, firmly holding his penis against her and grinding her clitoris against his frenular cleft, palming over the topside of his glans. She felt his hand grip her hip firmly, and she retaliated by splaying the fingers of her other hand upward along his torso, over his chest, until she found his nipple. He gave an unexpected bleat as she brushed her fingers over it, and Reyan's ears pricked sharply forward.

"Keep going, Rey... no one has ever treated me like this before... it's so erotic..."

She was only too happy to do so. She rode his finger faster, feeling the familiar burning tightness in her core, a wave that was building in readiness. Kristian's hand rose from her hip to her chest, and while from that angle and in his state of elevated pleasure he was unable to treat it with the same precision he had earlier, he palmed at the soft mound and she leaned against his touch. She squeezed her hand rhythmically around the head of his penis, mimicking the action she'd seen him perform momentarily, and grinding the underside of it firmly against her clitoris as she rose and fell with increasing urgency against his cock and finger.

Reyan was pleased to feel and hear Kristian's breathing take on a similarly halting pattern to her own. He bucked upward against her, pushing the tip of his cock against her palm and sliding the underside of his shaft along her clitoris. Her second orgasm approached rapidly. She was not sure if he could tell, but she supposed he must be able to, the way she rode him harder and faster, a rhythm interrupted every few moments by a twitch or a clench, the pleasure to build up steadily inside her. Reyan took in a deep breath and rubbed his penis against herself all the faster. She climaxed hard, her body tense and trembling and convulsing over him in a long moment of carnal release. Her vagina clenched rhythmically around his finger, nectar oozing out around it to soak the elk's balls and trickle between his thighs.

Even before her orgasm began to ebb, she heard and felt Kristian's breathing pause, catching in his throat with a sharp gasp. His hips bucked firmly and urgently into the grip on his penis that had paused, and Reyan foggily resumed grinding her palm over a glans that was suddenly much, much wetter. Hotter. Slicker. Pulsing.

He's ejaculating!

In the midst of orgasm, Reyan forced her eyes open and stared downward. Thick, gooey white fluid filled her palm, and several long, thick strands of it had splattered upward over Kristian's abdomen. Reyan bleated thickly and gripped behind his glans tightly, squeezing and clumsily moving her fist up and down while he climaxed. She lifted upward and he withdrew his finger from her vagina, and she mashed the thick, slimy glans of his penis along her vulva and inner thighs, coating herself in his semen and holding it against her entrance to feel him spurt against her heat. He bucked and rocked beneath her in the throes of their shared orgasm, and unexpectedly his glans disappeared inside her.

Reyan gasped sharply, but this time there was little pain. She did not wish to risk it, but Kristian was inside her. His penis lodged against her maidenhood, stretching her vagina in the most erotic way she had ever felt, his seed lazily pulsing forth. Her orgasm, which had been ebbing by that stage, roared back to force and she frantically, urgently rubbed her clitoris to reawaken it fully, driving herself in moments to a third, even more powerful climax. She felt her vagina flutter and clench over Kristian's glans, and he made a noise unlike anything she'd heard him make before. His hips shook and trembled, and the feeling of his cock pulsing against her seemed to accelerate again.

Did he orgasm again?!

She could scarcely believe otherwise. Semen oozed out of her over the hand with which she gripped him, and she used their combined fluids to lubricate him to the point of barely being able to keep a hold of him. Her fingertips plucked and softly twisted around his nipple, and she held him there until their shared orgasm had finally passed beyond any hope of continuance.

For a long moment, Reyan held herself upright over him, her body stiff and tense. And then her breath left her in a loud bleat and she collapsed forward over him. His cock slipped upward out of her to rest against the underside of her buttocks, and on a whim, she kissed him. It was clumsy and breathless and inexperienced, but he reciprocated, tenderly pressing his lips to hers and wrapping his arms around her sweat-streaked body.

"Well, that was new," Kristian said after a long moment, once the pair of them had got some of their breath back.

"It's so... sticky," she giggled, observing his semen on the palm of her hand, and stringing between her fingers. "Did you really just climax twice?"

"Aye. I was not expecting that. I have never felt anything like that in my life."

"Nor have I," she admitted. "I have never climaxed so hard in my life, and I have had a lot of orgasms!"

Kristian laughed. "Oh aye? So have I! But never like that. Just be glad I am not an Equid, I suppose, else you'd be drenched in jelly from head to hoof!"

Reyan giggled, and rolled off of Kristian onto her bedroll, grimacing at the sliminess that coated her entire nether region and her torso from where Kristian's seed had transferred from him back onto her. The elk stood up slowly, and made his way entirely naked down to the barn below to retrieve a washcloth from the oxcart. When he returned, he handed it to Reyan, and she used it to mop up his seed from between her thighs. She lifted it to her muzzle and sniffed it experimentally, then dabbed her tongue against it. It was salty, and a little sour. Kristian watched her with a grin on his face, leaning against the post the lantern hung from. His casual nudity was alluring, even so soon after such an intense release.

"Are you disappointed?" she asked suddenly, rising to sit cross-legged on her bedroll.

"What? Why in all the world would I be disappointed?"

"Because I couldn't fuck you properly?"

"Gods, no. This was all about you, Rey. You had an intense urge, and... having you do that so openly with me was... well it was arousing. I never had any ambition to fuck you. Reyan, the first time you allow a man inside you should be special and because of love, not because you're in heat and need to scratch an itch."

"My father says I should never let a man touch me until we are married."

"Then your father is an idiot. I suppose he was going to be the one who chose your husband?"

"I think so, yes. That is why he is so protective of me; he wanted my virginity to remain intact."

"That's an Arahanic tradition, isn't it? The woman's virginity belonging to her father, and then her husband?"

"I think so, yes."

"What a stupid notion," Kris chuckled.

"Well, either way, my maidenhood remains intact," Reyan grinned in the darkness. "Although I think you stretched it a little."

Kristian pulled on his braies, laced them, and laid down on his bedroll once again. The storm outside was finally beginning to ebb, the rain lessening to a gentle shower rather than a downpour. The elk lay on his back with his arms crossed beneath his head, and Reyan shuffled in close to him, resting her hand on his chest.

"Should I put clothing back on, as well?" she asked.

"Do you want to?"

"No. I have never lain naked for a whole night outside of my bedchamber in Amelsbörg, and it feels... freeing."

"Then remain in your fur, Rey. Let our companions deal with it in their own way come the morning. Besides, I seem to recall that you soaked through your drawers before your fist climax."

Reyan huffed quietly into his mane and nodded in post-climactic embarrassment. Her heat was still present, still a burning ember deep inside her, but for the moment, it was sated. She pressed closer to Kristian, and felt his arm surround her.

"Getting the oxcart out of here is going to be tough going, tomorrow," Kristian observed suddenly. "It's even wetter outside than it is in here."

"Kristian?"

"Mm?"

"You got your... stuff inside me. Does that mean I'm going to have a fawn?"

Kristian's eyes flew open and he stared up into the rafters.

"No, of course not. You're a roe, I'm an elk," he said after a moment.

"Good. I just thought... we're both Cervids, that's all..."

Kristian did not sleep much, that night.

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