FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

Devouring the Tutor

---

Written by Arian Mabe (Amethyst Mare)

Commissioned by anonymous

_ _

---

“Drake!”

Sarah put her hands on her hips, her shocking pink nails stark against her black skirt. A flyaway strand of hair stuck to her forehead and her lips twisted as she shook her head, brow furrowed. The crocodile anthro, stretched out across the full length of the sofa, barely paid her any mind at all, however, his eyes fixed on the digital glare of the flat television screen.

“Just what do you think you're doing?" She even had the gall to wag her finger at him like he was a naughty child, though perhaps her presence in his house would have been a little more understandable if he had been a young crocodile instead. “How do you ever think you're going to pass your final exams when you're sitting there on the goddamn console...” She spluttered, words thick and clumsy in her mouth. “Yet again!”

Drake rolled his eyes, sparing a glance for the sofa opposite his where his younger brother and his friends sat, all three of them grinning like loons. They did so enjoy a good show-down.

“Do you expect me to have my nose stuck in books when you're not even here too?” He snapped, jaws clacking together in his version of a laugh, throat rumbling. “What are you, my mother?”

Sarah dropped her shoulder bag on the table with a dull thump, letting the contents spill messily out of the bag. Textbooks and tools that she thought she needed to tutor the stubborn crocodile had been stuffed diligently into the bag, yet she once again wondered what on earth she needed to do to get through to him. Sarah ground her teeth together, temples throbbing. He couldn't keep taking the same exam over and over again! School should have been done with for him a long time ago!

She waited, tapping her toe against the shiny laminated wood as if that simple act alone could gee her charge into action. But the crocodile obstinately ignored her, staring ever more intently at the screen as he played against his brother and his friends. His younger brother giggled, the sound not seeming to suit the young adult crocodile, while his wolf and tiger friends – Will and Stewart – tried not to involve themselves, staying on the side lines while merely enjoying the show.

There was only one way it could end.

Sarah moved like lightning, whipping across the living room and snatching the controller from the crocodile's hand as if it was a live grenade. He snapped and growled, a vicious, rolling sound, as it flew away, only to bounce off the armchair and drop harmlessly to the floor. Sarah held her hand high in front of her body from where it had paused after throwing his forsaken controller. Chest heaving, she set her shoulders back and slammed one manicured finger onto the power switch for the television.

The screen blinked dark and the living room erupted.

“You can't do that!” Drake's younger brother shouted, leaping to his feet and shaking his blocky head from side to side. “We were playing that too! We're not the ones who have a stinkin' tutor trying to tell us what to do. Drake – tell her!”

His friends sank into the cushions, putting their controllers silently aside as Sarah folded her arms and shrugged.

“So? Go play games in your room. Or any of the other rooms in this house. Do you think I’m stopping you? It makes no difference to me.”

The younger crocodile – only a year or shy of his brother – heaved a petulant sigh and slapped his tail into the sofa. His friends jumped, the tiger and wolf shuffling away from him with a wary eye. Most of the time, their temperaments could be better trusted than that of a crocodile. It was not uncommon, after all, for predators to have disputes between one another. More common, however, was the fact that predators, even the ones that walked on two legs, would sometimes eat other intelligent beings. The tiger licked his lips, tail twitching as he kept a wary eye on his friend. Where Sarah got her guts in the face of a full size crocodile no one would ever know.

“Come on.”

She clapped her hands when Drake did not respond, making the younger trio of friends jump noticeably.

“Let's get to it. The quicker we're done, the quicker you can get back to Call of Duty and all that. I'm on paid time here and time is ticking away!”

Drake threw her a look, though the glance was as fleeting as ever, the human beneath his range of attention. The crocodile snorted. Did she really think she could make him move? It wasn't like he was a kid anymore. If he failed the test, he failed the test and that was all there was to it. In the real world, everyone knew that that shit didn't matter.

“No,” Drake said at last, lounging across the sofa as if he didn't have a care in the world, although his gaze grazed his brother's. “We're not going anywhere.”

Sarah rolled her eyes.

“You'll do what I say if you don't want your parents to hear about it. I have plenty of others I can tutor and you can find another one. But I’m the best. What do I really care if you pass or fail?”

He laughed.

“What do you think you're gonna do – make us move? Tip the sofas over?”

Sarah's eyes narrowed.

“If I have to. I have a job to do too...you know?”

The crocodile parted his jaws, anthropomorphic lips pulling up the little bit that they could at the corners of his mouth, face trying to grin.

“All right, all right,” Drake said, holding up his hands. “We'll do what you say. We don't want to cause trouble now...do we guys?”

He cast his brother and friends a look that had them nodding quickly in agreement. Sarah smirked, triumph flashing across her face.

Hah! She'd won! If she hadn't still been in front of Drake, she would have punched the air jubilantly. Perhaps now they could get to studying!

“I have one condition.”

She raised her eyebrows and rocked back on her heels.

“And what is that?”

Drake’s eyes gleamed, his brother leaning forward as if in anticipation of what was to come. The first hint of unease stirred in Sarah’s stomach, yet she brushed it away. It wasn’t as if she had to agree with him, after all.

“You have to play me in COD.”

She frowned.

“And why would I play you in Call of Duty?” She snorted and wrinkled her nose. “I'd wipe the floor with you. That's not even half a challenge.”

Drake rolled his massive shoulders in a shrug.

“Take it or leave it. It’s the only way you’re gonna get me studying that crap.” He smirked. “Scared you’re gonna lose, girl?”

She stared without blinking. It had to be a joke. The crocodile surely had to be showing off in front of his friends. But she could only imagine what his parents would say if they came back and found that she’d been there for her allotted time, only for their son to not learn a single thing. Her lips pressed together into a hard line that made her jaw ache. For all that he was an adult, they still treated him like a child. Perhaps that accounted for his immaturity.

Sarah took a deep breath in, suppressing her eye roll.

“Seriously? Why should I have to play you in a freaking video game to get you to do what I’ve been paid to come here and teach you?”

Drake shrugged, but he knew he had her. Sarah had been tutoring him for long enough.

“Say what you like, but those are the rules. Take it or leave it.” He tipped his thick jaw to the side, cocky to the bitter end. “You know my parents won’t be pleased if I fail again...”

She scoffed and made a rude gesture that her pounding heart didn’t quite back up as the wolf on the sofa snickered.

“Yeah. And it’ll be your fault. Just like every time before.”

Her words weren’t set to convince anyone, falling hollowly in the air between them.

“Nah.” Drake shook his head, the cocky twitch of his lips never once leaving his face. “It’ll be you, your fault. That’s how it goes. You’re meant to get me to pass.”

She paused, hair stuck to the back of her neck. As much as she hated to admit it, the croc had a point. If she didn’t help him pass, at the very least, his parents would have her guts. She didn’t know how someone his age could still be living with parents anyway, but that wasn’t for her to judge.

Sighing, she unfolded her arms and fiddled with a fake nail that was peeling away. Had he left her with any way out? Could she blag it to his parents? She growled under her breath as the crocodile smiled as innocently as any reptile could. Which was, as a matter of fact, not all that innocently. There was always going to be something sinister lurking behind those jaws, whether he pretended to have good intentions or ill.

He held up his controller and tapped the buttons, drawing an alluring click to her ears. Sarah swallowed her smirk and drew herself up tall.

Come on, she told herself. It’s not as if you’re going to lose at Call of fricking Duty anyway. It’s your game_, woman! Get to it and sort this damn croc out, come on now!_

“Fine!” She snapped, grabbing a controller and flopping heavily onto the sofa beside Drake, the rough skin of his tail scraping over the small of her back. “And get your tail out of the way, would you?”

The tiger and wolf watched the performance with wide eyes, Stewart’s striped tail lashing the air as if expecting tension that Sarah could not feel. Her eyes gleamed. She had it, she really did. She was going to show the cocky croc what for and get him the pass he didn’t deserve.

“Sure, sure...” He obligingly moved his tail, letting it drape down to the floor. “But we haven’t finished setting out the stakes as yet. We’ve only gone over what I’m going to do if you happen to win.”

The game blinked to life on the television screen and Sarah paused, casting him a look out the corner of his eye.

“You better not want a fucking blowjob... Not like you’re going to win anyway.”

He laughed and shook his head.

“No, not at all...unless you want to give me one. I wouldn’t say no.”

She gagged, pushing her finger into the back of her mouth.

“No, thank you, I just ate. Wouldn’t want to see my lunch again.”

Drake clutched his chest, pretending to be hurt.

“Oh, the blows...” He snapped his jaws. “But back to the matter at hand. What can you do for me, when you fail?”

He tapped his fingers against the side of his long jaw as she resolutely kept her gaze away, refusing to look directly at the slits he had for pupils. There was something about them that always set her on edge, no matter how many times she tutored him.

“Oh – I know!” He beamed as if a brilliant idea had just come to light in that very moment, reptilian eyes glinting. “If I win, you have to let me eat you.”

Sarah gaped, jaw falling ridiculously slack. It was the perfect comedic moment.

“You want to eat me? You can’t do that!”

“Yes, I can,” the crocodile argued. “Where’s the laws against it? You know it happens. And it’s only fair. You said you’d eaten already today. But I’m still hungry.”

She scowled and tried to focus on the menu screen of the game, which he set on to two-player mode, progressing without her consent.

“That doesn’t mean you just get to eat whoever you feel like!”

He shrugged, slouching as his brother snickered.

“Then don’t play me if you’re chicken. I don’t care if I pass the test or not.”

“It’s an exam! It determines your future! Why don’t you care about that?”

“Yadda yadda yadda...” He yawned. “We gonna play or not? Or you giving up already, girl?”

Sarah’s eyes narrowed and she slipped her hands around the controller, thumbs in position. No jumped up croc was going to beat her at her best game – not by a long shot!

And she should have won. She knew that. There was no way that the crocodile should have started nailing her from every angle, allowing her no space to breath as her points went down and down and down. Sweat darkened patches across her armpits as she grew increasingly desperate after a strong and promising start, Drake racking up the kills as she snarled and slammed her fist into the controller. Perhaps he’d been practicing with the bet in mind the whole time. Her mind reeled, spinning and spinning until she was practically giving the game away. Had he planned the whole thing?

She didn’t have time to think about it.

“Hah!” He crowed, throwing the controller jubilantly in the air. “I owned you! I thought you were supposed to be good at this game? What the hell happened there? Ah, who cares!”

Sarah stared hopelessly at the screen, anger roiling like a barrel of snakes in the pit of her stomach.

“I am good at it!”

“Yeah, but I’m better! And now I don’t have to study at all!”

His stomach growled as he sat up, jaws parted in a predatory grin that sent chills trickling down her spine.

“And now I get to collect my winnings...”

Sarah held up her hands and shook her head, her eyes distrusting.

“Just because you can do it doesn’t mean you have to.”

His rancid breath hit her in the face and she turned away, coughing and spluttering as the reptile inched closer, jaw swaying from side to side as if he was seeking out what was already before him.

“A deal’s a deal, girl.”

The crocodile parted his jaws and she swore that he would have licked his lips if he had possessed a tongue flexible enough to do so. As it was, the tiger on the opposite sofa did the job for him, panting through an open mouth as he looked her over in a new light, saliva drooling from his lips in long, thick ropes. Sarah sighed. Was this really what her tutoring gig had come to? Really? What a bind.

But since when had she gone back on her word?

“Fine...”

She wouldn’t have it written that she was one to go back on a bet. Truth be told, the crocodile could just have held her down and done whatever he wanted to her whether she liked it or not. Some anthros were a law unto themselves, honestly. Total brutes. But that was the way of it and everyone knew what they did. She sighed again, eyes downcast. She wouldn’t be able to go on that date with Paul after all then. Would he be disappointed?

It didn’t matter. Everything would cease to matter for her very shortly.

Standing, she brushed off her skirt and eyed him with grudging respect, although a respect that she would never admit to out loud. And she would never have to admit it if he intended to go through with collecting his prize of eating her either. Drake inclined his head with almost gentlemanly respect, indicting the coffee table tucked between the two sofas.

“Go on then, get yourself down on that. I like my food all laid out real nice for me.”

She balked.

“I won’t even fit on that!”

“Then let your legs hang off.” He shrugged. “I’m not getting your blood all over our dining table. Mom and Dad would have a cow.”

Sarah grumbled and half-hitched up her skirt so as not to catch it around her knees as she sat on the edge of the table, knees pulled up. It was too low to sit on comfortably and she begrudgingly laid back, shoulder blades digging into the hard, expensive wood. She scowled as the crocodile loomed over her, baring his blocky teeth in a predatory smirk, towering as his brother and friends shuffled closer to watch her humiliation.

Sarah shot him a dark look as the crocodile parted his jaws even wider, showing off the pink gape and black pit of his throat. Those teeth were made to rip off great chunks of meat from his meal, yet all she could see was the snarky grin of a beast who had had life handed to him on a silver platter.

And she was the next slice to be enjoyed on that very same platter.

Drake rumbled a growl as he loomed over her, jaws lunging down to her stomach. She watched, fascinated, as if from behind a glass wall as his colossal jaws closed on her stomach. The crocodile twisted his head violently, the movement nearly too quick for human eyes to catch as she half-propped herself up on the small table, eyes wide and pretty lips parted as the predator began to feed.

Throwing his head back, Drake swallowed the lump of raw flesh without chewing, throat bulging as it slid down into his gut. Smiling as only he could, the crocodile hissed, already looking for the next morsel of human he could feast on. But he had plenty to keep him occupied until his stomach bulged with the remains of his meal. Gritting her teeth, Sarah twisted her head to the side and let out a pained grunt, forehead wrinkling. The crocodile winked and rumbled, rubbing his stomach through his blood splattered shirt with a cocky tilt to his blocky head.

“Good girl, Sarah. You hardly flinched at all!”

Arching as if she could escape the throbbing ache, she tossed him a dirty look, folding her arms across her chest as her belly shot through with low-burning pain.

“I’m not a girl!” She squealed, leg jerking as she struggled to hold herself in place. “I’m a woman! And will you fucking go easy? That hurts!”

Drake chuckled, blood smeared across his nose.

“It’s supposed to hurt. That’s what happens when you get eaten, Sarah. Didn’t you know that?”

She growled and turned her head away, a blush colouring her cheeks. How could someone younger than her make her feel like she was a schoolgirl again? The crocodile had always seemed to get the better of her, somehow, and her ending as his meal seemed like the only fitting way for their relationship to end, if she considered how it had played out. After all, he’d always been obstinate, had he not? That was just the way of his kind.

He didn’t wait for her to find her tongue, diving in with his jaws agape. This time, he latched on to a breast, tearing it completely free from her torso along with a good chunk of shirt. He didn’t seem to mind the fabric dangling from his jaws as he twisted free the last shreds of flesh connecting the plump mammary to her chest, nipple pressed to his eager tongue as he tossed it down his throat. Sarah shook her head and forced herself to be still. She just had to keep telling herself to be still, over and over again if that was what it took.

Savouring her breast, he mimed chewing it, although his jaws would not naturally allow for the motion. Instead, he had to satisfy himself with playing with the breast on his tongue, jaws opening and closing in a mockery of chewing. Sarah brought her hand up to her remaining breast with a groan, fingering it through the damp fabric with trembling fingers. It wouldn’t be there for much longer if the crocodile continued to have his way with her. The pain was a constant dull ache spreading further and further through her body, though the sensation proved muted as her brain fought off the pain, receptors dulling sensation as if even it knew what was going to ultimately occur.

There was nothing more it could do to protect her.

Sarah sighed. Did eating her really have to take so long? She wasn’t sure she’d’ve been complaining, however, if it had been a different kind of eating. The crocodile’s tongue seemed more flexible than she’d imagined and, even though he couldn’t push it out of his mouth, he opened his jaws around her body at a seemingly impossible gape to lap into the pit of her breast, a hollow where the mammary should have been.

Blood drenched her clothes as he growled softly, clearly enjoying the taste, and almost tenderly closed his jaws around her remaining breast. The force with which he yanked and ripped it free of her, however, was anything but gentle. Twisting her breast free, Drake gulped it down with relish, flesh landing on his tongue with a wet slapping noise that reverberated throughout the living room. Sarah squealed and squirmed, clenching and unclenching her hands over and over again.

The woman shook her head as his younger brother snickered at the woman who was gradually becoming less and less before their very eyes. Her cheeks flushed with blood and she wriggled, self-consciously trying to tug her skirt down to cover more of her pale legs, dotted with flecks of blood and gleaming, slick saliva.

“Ugh...” She huffed and rolled her eyes, crossing one leg over the other despite the twinge in her gut. “Can you hurry it up already?”

The crocodile puffed out his chest, tail slapping the floor, and shot his brother a look. The younger reptile leaned forward, drool hanging from his jaws as he salivated, eyes on the bloodied young woman stretched out before his older brother. Sarah shivered. Perhaps he was wondering when he would next be allowed to feed on a human being, if he had ever been allowed to have one as a treat in the past. She knew the family was rich. They could really do whatever they wanted to. Most predators were so blessed in comparison to humans of their world.

“Why? Getting bored?” Drake taunted her, placing a deliberately heavy hand on her shoulder as if to pin her in place. “I’m far from done yet. You haven’t fulfilled your purpose to a predator as yet.”

She scowled and pushed her hair back from her face, sweat gleaming across her brow even though her eyes held nothing but disdain for the creature that she had previously tutored. She wouldn’t be doing that any more.

“You’re really taking this all the way then, are you? Really going to eat every bit of me?”

“Darling.” The crocodile winked. “Baby, baby... Babygirl. There’s no point in starting a meal if you don’t intend to finish it.”

“Besides,” he added, as if struck by an afterthought. “It’s rude not to finish everything on your plate. Mom taught me my manners.”

He didn’t wait for her to reply, continuing his feast by moving down to her bare legs. Although there was not as much to chew on there, he closed his jaws around her calf and crunched through bone. His jaws were made to rip and tear, but the power behind them was more than enough to force through flesh and bone as if both were as soft as butter. Her leg provided little resistance and Sarah gasped, face going white, as he angled his jaws and tore loose a chunk of flesh from the side of her calf, splintered bone poking through her skin, white and gleaming. It shouldn’t have been there, but it demonstrated even more to her that her fate was sealed.

What a brute!

“You’re being too rough!” She yelped, placing her bare foot against his chest with a scowl, as if she thought she could push a feeding reptile away with that light prod alone. “Go gentle with me, jeez!”

Drake laughed and swung his head back and forth, lips pulling up in his grin.

“What, don’t like a little bone there, sweetie?”

“Don’t call me that,” she grumbled. “You’re just being too hard on me.”

He snickered.

“Bone and too hard? It’s like you want me to make a joke here. If I’d fucked you, Sarah, I would still have eaten you.” He winked, turning his head so that she could just see one of his eyes. “Or maybe you would have gotten wetter for that.”

The woman scowled darkly and turned her head away. Even though she was not aroused at, her neck prickled with pink blotches of embarrassment.

“Keep thinking that, lizard,” she shot back as he lunged for her legs again, tearing and gulping down every shred of meat he could reach. “But we all know the real deal here. I never wanted you. I’m just your tutor.”

The crocodile smirked, a strip of what used to be part of her leg dangling from his jaws.

“Not any more you’re not.”

Leaving her legs alone for the time being, he dug back into the pit of her stomach with a growl that could only have been one of relish, dragging out lumps of intestines. He snapped them up and gulped them down, letting the organs slither down his throat as his stomach bulged with how much of her he was consuming. Sarah yipped and squealed as he pushed a good portion of his head into her stomach, digging around as he fed on her organs and hauled out the tastiest scraps, the heady aroma of blood hanging in the air. Her body had become nothing more than a dinner table for the hungry crocodile.

But he wasn’t done yet.

“Come on, roll over, don’t make me do all the work.” He snorted, her blood gleaming in the dark curves of his nostrils. “It’s like a meal doesn’t know how to be eaten these days.”

Sarah ground her teeth together and brought her hands under her body, panting as she heaved herself onto her front. Leaving a slick smear of blood from the gaping wound in her stomach across the table, she flopped onto her breasts, letting her head hang over the edge of the table. There didn’t seem to be much point in supporting her chin on the hard, unyielding wood when a predator was intent on eating every scrap of her. She sucked in a shuddering breath

“Maybe you would have been nice to fuck after all...”

Her fingers curled around the edge of the table, knuckles whitening as her nails tried to dig grooves into the underside of the wood.

“Yeah, well, now you’ve lost your chance, haven’t you, brat? Thought you’d got all you wanted with chowing down on me and you didn’t win after all, huh?”

Sarah’s heart leapt with her words, enough to carry her through the next bite of pain as he dug into her round, fleshy backside. He groaned as he cradled her flesh in his jaws, enjoying the taste and feel of her for a moment before tipping his head back and letting the flesh from her rump slide straight down his throat. The woman growled anxiously under her breath, pressing her forehead to the

It was okay, she told herself, shivering as he ripped into her more and more, destroying what had once been pretty damn close to a perfect body. It would all be over soon, her embarrassment and humiliation t becoming prey for a predator that still claimed human beings as and when they desired.

Drake tired swiftly of her backside, however, finding the meat ripped free too easily and swiftly disappeared down his throat. Her thighs and calves provided some tougher morsels, but he was well aware that there were far more delicious parts of the human that he had not yet dined on.

Rolling Sarah back onto her front – he didn’t have the patience to wait for her to grumble and shift herself any longer – he plunged his jaws into her stomach again, tearing and ripping free her stomach as he worked his way higher, ribs cracking. Sarah groaned and rolled her eyes as his tail slapped the carpet, the crocodile seeming to make a performance of eating her in front of their audience.

Laying the underside of his jaw inside her stomach, he thrust his nose up where her breasts would have been, showing her exactly how much of her body had been eaten away already.

“Deep inside you now, girl,” he taunted, nosing into the cavern of her stomach – or at least where her stomach used to be, what it had used to be. “Don’t you like having me plunder your depths?”

He grabbed his crotch and made a lewd, humping motion with his hips, tail swinging heavily.

“The ladies are never disappointed with this, I’ll have you know! Am I deep enough in you now, Sarah? You’ll never walk the same again after I’ve had my way with you.”

Sarah clenched her jaw and refused to meet his eyes, trying to think of anything else to get her through the stringent slices of pain, which only grew as the beast fed. She exhaled sharply through her nostrils.

“I always knew you wanted to fuck me, kid. We’ve been over this already.” She grimaced. “Today and many times before. How many times are you going to say it?”

He laughed, blood dripping from his jaws.

“Silly girl, I never really wanted to screw a human like you, only do exactly what I’m doing now. And I’m hardly a kid and you’re not in a position to call me one either. You’re nothing more than my meal now, meat on my table.”

She smirked and stuck her tongue out at him.

“Ah no – that can’t be true. You refused to let me get up on your table now, don’t you remember?”

Blowing him a condescending kiss, bumped her heels into the table legs, vision wavering as she blinked. Her blood seeped over the edge of the coffee table, dark splotches starting to form on the fine flooring. But she wasn’t the one who would have for any stains – not in the end. She supposed predators had something to get out blood anyway, some heavy duty cleaner they could deploy whenever they fed on live prey.

Instead of retorting with a snappier comeback, the crocodile scowled and lunged into her stomach again, grabbing a kidney and twisting it loose with a ragged hiss. There was not much of her belly and front left to devour, however, and he turned his attention to the most delicate morsel of all as the woman laid her arms down along her sides, waiting on the end and his final consideration.

He knelt by her head, choosing not to bend his back at an angle to take her completely from his world. His leathery hands pressed to the table on either side of her head as he shot her a wink and leaned down and down and down, jaws half-closing around her head. She stiffened, eyes wide, and squealed as he bore down, cracking her skull in two. Her brain gleamed, exposed to the air, as he crunched down on bone, letting it all tip down his throat with a clump of hair – it wasn’t as if it made any difference to the crocodile what he ate or how much, after all. Hair and bones were part of the process and what his ancestors had eaten anyway. Why not follow in their footsteps?

As Sarah’s breath quickened, he tenderly closed his jaws over her nose, separating it from her face as he snarled and quickly followed up by ripping off the entire front of her face. There was no delicacy to his eating as he gulped down her eyeballs, cheekbones caving in under the force of his jaws. But there was still the brain to be had even as her lips were torn away and speech made impossible as blood filled her mouth and throat. Sarah’s lungs heaved, pulsing with breath that no longer came so easily as she swallowed more and more blood, thoughts whirling.

This was it.

Drake hissed and picked through her brain, destroying her thoughts as her body strove to cling to life, resilient even in her final moments. It didn’t know there was no way it could come back from the damage the crocodile had caused. Working his way through the back of her head as she gargled and stopped thinking of how embarrassing the whole matter was, Drake chomped away bit after bit of her brain, trying to savour it the best a crocodile could. But, before long, he couldn’t stop himself and lunged, eyes wild, to take most of her head in his jaws, teeth slamming all the way through with an almighty crunch of bone, and tossed his head far back to let her memories vanish forever.

The crocodile wiped his mouth on the back of his sleeve, clothes bloodied and undoubtedly ruined beyond saving. He winked to the woman and pushed up onto his toes, legs bent under his body as he swung his tail out behind him for balance. John coughed and wiped drool away from his lips and teeth as he sat back with a huff and a longing look thrown in his older brother’s direction.

“It was nice eating you, Sarah,” Drake said with a grin, patting her shoulder as if she could feel it as she slipped away into death, life releasing its grip on her once and for all. “It was absolutely and irrefutably my pleasure.”

He paused, tilting his head.

“You taught me those words.” He chuckled under his breath, nosing at her shoulder as if still hungry, although his stomach bulged. “Funny that. I remembered some of your tutoring, after all.”

The front door swung open and the crocodile sighed as his father walked into the room, steps heavy and thundering on the old, wooden floorboards, which creaked through the carpet of the old hour. He didn’t bother to announce his presence, being the ‘man’ of the house, but stopped dead as the bloodbath in the living room came into view, looking over the scene with jaws agape. He hissed lowly, shooting John’s friends a searching look as if he had thought they had been the ones to blame – anyone but his reptilian young. The tiger and wolf shrank back into the sofa and gulped, doing their best to look as small and insignificant as possible even though they’d have absolutely nothing to do with the scene at all.

Drake swallowed, tasting Sarah on his lips. His father rubbed the back of his head and closed his jaws, the slits on his eyes flicking back and forth between the mess that was what remained of Sarah and his son sitting on his haunches with a cocky tilt to his head.

“Oh, Drake.”

His father sighed and folded his arms, shaking his head as the younger crocodile looked up, throat working as he swallowed the last lump of Sarah’s brain.

“What?” He mumbled, shoulders rounded. “I haven’t done anything wrong!”

His father sighed and snapped his jaws with a sharp clack of teeth.

“You’ll ruin your appetite for dinner!” He scolded him. “Whatever will your mother say?”

Drake shrugged.

“She’ll be glad she doesn’t have to cook. Why don’t you just go out and find another one like this? They’re pretty tasty if you find one with some meat on their bones.” He grinned and winked. “Sarah wasn’t a toothpick by any means, hey?”

His father scratched the underside of his jaw, unwilling to say aloud that that wasn’t a half bad idea. His wife would probably enjoy the break from cooking and the scent of blood roused his need to hunt, to feed as only a predator in his world could feed. Perhaps his son had a point. And it was time John fed too – properly.

But, all the same, the old crocodile rolled his shoulders and stretched out his upper back, arching with his hands pushed into the small of his own back as he shook his head slowly. There was only one problem left to them.

“And who on earth are we going to find to tutor you now?”