Excerpt: Ashes, Fang Volume 6
The following excerpt opens the story "Ashes" which is featured in FANG volume 6. The theme is Victorian Romance, and several formidible authors are cavorting in its hallowed pages. Upstanding, irreproachable subjects of her Majesty will be positively scandalized by (in TOC order) Whyteyote, Tym, Miriam Kurzon, Tym (again!), Sparf, and Nighteyes Dayspring
Cover art is by the practiced paw of MehndiX
Edited by Ashe Valisca
FANG Volume 6 can be obtained from the delightful purveyors of fine books at Furplanet, who are pleased to accommodate your discerning tastes.
"Ashes"
By Slip Wolf
Barstowe saw the anger in my eyes. His sigh was pained. "Even now, right here, anger has a hook in you, don't it? You need to forget your scars, master Nathaniel. Learn to bury them like the rest of us do." He said this to me as though I were a cub, and I found the rough timber of his voice soothing despite myself. "This world has many cuts to make. You can get over each of them, keep those who would spit on you from seeing their marks."
With those words he leaned and touched the ashen floor of the fireplace next to us. His dark fingers came away granulated with soot. Wordlessly, still warmly astride me, Barstowe gently touched at the scar on my forehead. The wound made by the otter, on our first night of the detente that grew between us, was still raw through my fur. He traced the scar once, and his digit returned to the soot anew. His next caress reached behind my shoulder to the truncheon's injury caused before we'd even made acquaintance on the prison lorry an eternity ago. "Don't let the bastards see you bleed Nathan, any o' them. Don't give them that."
I felt a tremble in my limbs with each touch and with shaky fingers I blindly reached over the fireplace lip. My dark paw returned even blacker. I watched my hound's chest rise and fall above me, then began to trace his scars and scrapes, much as on the night I first desired him. A hard lifetime was there, badges of ill treatment and years of hard labor, every mistake having its consequence. The soot was lost in his dark fur, but I could just see the faded remains of those scars covered by my passage underneath.
"That's better." His growling cockney, once a mark of lower-class breeding was positively melodious to my reformed ears, my very soul lightened by his rich timbre. My auspicious breeding, my berth in London society, my many possessions and petty distractions, all were worthless against the anointment of Barstowe's reassuring touch. I wanted to bask in his handsome imperfections, all the marks of his stalwart character.
Our members touched, rubbing together with growing warmth and I stole a glance at the shining pink eye that gazed back at me from the sheathing that retreated from it. So mesmerized was I by the sight that I almost didn't hear his next words. "You can leave him behind Nathan, all of it."
He dipped his finger in the inkwell of ash and reached down between his own legs to where the purses of our manhood nearly touched. Ash traced in a line on my testicles and I moaned deep in my throat as his sac touched mine and rubbed the dark mark between us. "To hell with our pains. Let's you and I find something else."