by Unknown
When she reached the outside, she drew in a sharp breath. More snow had fallen overnight and the whole world was white. The weak winter sun reflected off it, blinding her. When her eyes adjusted, all she could see was snow and yet more snow, reaching into the woods and beyond. Stifling a joyous yelp, she bounded towards the woods. The snow was deep, reaching the tops of her legs, and she yipped in excitement at the sensation of sinking into it at every step and having to leap out of it again. Where it touched her luxuriant gray fur, she felt nothing, her skin completely insulated from the cold. She could feel it on her feet though, and she enjoyed the sensation of the pads of her paws freezing instead of burning as they usually did. The effort of jumping in and out of it made her pant, and soon the tip of her tongue and her coal-black nose were also covered in snow, that melted with a whisper of steam moments later.
Delilah ran deeper and deeper into the woods, having no idea where she was going, but confident that her sense of smell would draw her back, as it always did, to her father’s lair. At a small clearing, she came to a stop, startled. She had suddenly realized that she couldn’t hear anything. Nada. No birds, no swaying of the trees, none of the familiar sounds from her pack – of course, since they were still sleeping. There was nothing but silence. She shook her head, and tilted it to the side. No, but there was something. It was ringing in her ears, a pure sound, like the ringing of a glass when you wet your finger and circle the rim. It was the snow, she recognized, at last. It had its own sound, the breaking down of the snowflakes as the sun heated them, the soft compacting of snow on snow on snow. It was magical to hear, but it robbed her of her second strongest sense, cloaking every other sound. A warning flag popped up in her mind. A wolf was nothing without its senses. But she took a deep sniff and smelled her family’s lair, just under two miles away, a familiar scent among the many other packs that were sleeping in the Iavanah territory. The scent comforted her, and she ran on.
She skipped and jumped, delighting in the strength of her body, as her powerful forequarters bounded through the snow again and again. She stopped here and there to play, burrowing her entire face in snowdrifts and tossing up pawfuls and catching them in her mouth. She found the snow was as good as a drink of water to her thirst, and she swallowed mouthfuls of it, enjoying the pure, clean taste.
There was a gap in the whiteness up ahead – a long black oblong. Delilah trotted over to it. It wasn’t really black, she could see that now; it was a sheet of glass lying over something dark. But what was a sheet of glass doing here? She tapped it with her paw and laughed at her own silliness – it wasn’t glass either! It was a sheet of ice, and below it was a stream. The whole stream had frozen solid. Fascinated, she tapped her paw harder and harder, trying to break through the surface. It didn’t shatter though, but remained immaculate, and so clear that she could see her own face in it – her pale blue eyes, gleaming white canines and wet black nose.
Her ears still rang with the sound of the snow, and she remained fixated on the mirror reflection, so she didn’t hear something coming up behind her. The first thing she was aware of was a low-pitched human voice saying,
“What do we have here? A little she-wolf, all alone.” Delilah jolted in shock. She needed to run away. But her body froze; she couldn’t even look around. She took deep breaths, trying to calm herself. In the river’s reflection, she could just make out the outline of a human, but no more. “What are you doing here, little wolf?” the voice continued. Its accent was strange, hard to understand, with hard, harsh-sounding vowels. In fact, it wasn’t a human voice at all, she realized. It had the deep, throaty cadences of another werewolf. Did this make things better or worse? Slowly she turned around and yipped at the sight of not one, but four werewolves, in human form, all regarding her with interest and amusement. As she looked up and made eye contact with the closest one, evidently the one who had spoken, she fought an urge to cower. He was huge, tall and broad-shouldered, and he wore a long fur gilet, with leather pants and heavy boots, and, she couldn’t help but notice, he was incredibly good-looking, with a square, chiseled jaw, dark blond hair, and piercing green eyes.
“Answer me, please,” he said. Delilah opened her mouth to speak, but her words were cut off by a searing pain that began in her chest and radiated out to each of her legs. No! This couldn’t be happening! She was a member of one of the pure-bred packs in the land, and ever since her first transformation, she’d had full control over when she shifted (apart from on the full moon of course). But it was happening! She heard the snap of her bones cracking in her back, the crunching of her rib cage, felt the clenching all over her body as her muscles retreated to their smaller, human shape. Her claws and teeth retracted painfully, her skin burned as her fur curled back into its follicles, and, at last, a violent spasm jerked her into an upright position. Her long, white-blonde hair swung down on both sides of her face. She stood panting, too exhausted to do anything else. She usually had to lie down for 15 minutes after a wolf-human shift, and standing like this made her weak and light-headed.
“And just as exquisite in your human form,” the blond man said, with a smirk, casting his eyes up and down her body. Oh my god! I’m naked! In front of complete strangers! No-one outside the pack had seen her naked before. She could just make out the tender pink rosebuds of her nipples in her peripheral vision. Her hands flew down, and one hid her breasts, and the other the pale blond hair covering her mound. Dazedly, she recalled that a forced transformation could only mean one thing: that she was in the presence of very powerful beings. She looked from one man to another, noting their huge size and the nobility of their features, and began to tremble, partly from the cold, which was now biting painfully at her bare flesh, but mostly from fear.
“Are you here for the pilgrimage?” she asked the first one in a small voice. He frowned.
“The what?” One of the other werewolves muttered something to him. “Ah – that little gathering your alliance has every now and then to stop you all from killing each other. No – ” He gave a harsh laugh. “We’re not part of these backward customs.” A deep blush spread across Delilah’s cheeks. Her parents were nobility, and so were all the other packs that attended. It shamed her to hear them being described in such desultory terms. As he spoke, the other werewolves began to circle her, inspecting her body from all angles, and her trembling became a violent shaking.
“I – I’m going to go now,” she stuttered, looking around wildly. How the hell was she going to find her way away from here in her human form? Her sense of smell had been reduced to about 10 percent of its capacity.
“And not only that, but you’ll freeze to death out here,” the first werewolf boomed, eerily picking up on her thoughts. She nodded. He was right. As he looked at her, something in his eyes softened. “Here.” He pulled off his gilet and handed it to her. Too cold to think of refusing, she snatched it from him and put it on, wrapping it tightly around her body. It went down to her ankles, and immediately, she was warm, and her shivering stopped.
“Thank you,” she mumbled. He was now bare-chested, his torso rippling with muscles, and his skin smooth and hairless. She felt a tingling between her legs at the sight of his body, a sensation she’d experienced before when she’d seen some of the young men of her pack in their human form, but one that she’d only ever satisfied by herself.
“You must come with us now,” he said.
“No. I just want to shift back into my wolf and go home,” she said.
“I’m afraid that won’t be possible. You shifted just now for a purpose, and, until that purpose is fulfilled, you’ll be trapped as a human.”
“But what is the purpose?”
“The Alpha of our pack will explain that to you, back at the palace.” She gasped.
“What? You’re not the Alpha?” He laughed a little self-consciously.
“No, we’re Omegas.” She stared at them all, stunned. They were all so big and strong, she couldn’t have imagined that they were anythin
g else than the pack’s upper hierarchy.
“I guess I have no other choice than to come with you,” she said. “But I can’t walk in the snow with bare feet.”
“No problem,” one of the other werewolves said, and, with that, he scooped her up in his arms. Together, the werewolves strode across the stream and began to walk deeper into the forest.
“We’ll be back at the palace in a few minutes,” the one carrying her said.
“Palace?”
“You’ll see,” he said, with a good-natured laugh.
Before long, they came to a vast rock face, covered in snow, and the entrance to what looked like a cavern. Two wolves crouched at the entranceway, guarding it. The Omegas carried Delilah through the threshold and deposited her at the top of a steep staircase.
“Can you walk from here?” the one who had carried her asked.
“I think so?” she replied uncertainly. The other werewolf pulled his gilet off her shoulders.
“You won’t be needing this anymore,” he said. She tried to snatch at it, but it was gone, tossed it to one of several females who had rushed up the stairs as they’d arrived. “Trust me, it’s very warm in here.” The other females were also naked, and they looked over her body with interest. With a flicker of annoyance, Delilah stared right back at them. She’d had just about enough of being examined like a specimen at the zoo today. They all had beautiful bodies, tall and lithe with taut muscles, some Amazonian, others more slender. They had round, full breasts and buttocks. Delilah had always been the chubby one of the Zephirah Pack’s teens. Puppy fat, her father had called it, taking her onto his lap and chucking her under the chin whenever the other kids teased her. For years, she’d been waiting to grow out of it, but that time hadn’t yet come. As a young adult she was curvaceous, with full breasts and an ample ass. While none of the other females would dare to criticize her now, she felt their eyes burning on her flesh, their judgmental whispers hidden behind their hands. She was as fast and as agile as any of them. In her wolf form, she was large and powerful, almost as large as some of the males, but somehow this had translated into a tall, voluptuous human form. And, compared to her leaner packmates, she sometimes felt like she wasn’t good enough.
But, to her great surprise, she saw that the eyes of these women were full of admiration. Were they faking it? They didn’t seem to be. They were staring at her curves like kids waiting for their birthday presents. Suddenly, one of them, a brunette, with tumbling hair and acid-green eyes, walked up to her and kissed her on both cheeks.
“You have come,” she said. All the other females followed her, taking their turn to kiss Delilah’s face.
“I have come, but who do you think I am?” she asked, deeply confused. They didn’t answer, but, excitedly, one took her right hand, and the other her left, and they led her down the stairs.
When Delilah reached the foot of the stairs, she gasped. She seemed to be in a giant ice sculpture. Everything she could see was made of ice – the floors, walls, seating areas. And it wasn’t made of blocks of ice; everything was delicately carved.
“Come on!” The females pulled her on, as she’d come to a stop in wonder at what she was seeing. They led her along a corridor, and she could see rooms and other corridors leading off to the sides, and there were werewolves everywhere – sleeping, lounging, both in wolf and human form. The human-bodied ones watched her with interest, and she burned to cover her breasts and the blond hair between her legs, but the girls had her hands fast, and others were clinging to her arms in excitement. They were right; it was very warm, although she couldn’t understand how that was possible when they were completely surrounded by ice.
At last, the females came to a stop in front of a heavy curtain made of animal pelts.
“Here it is!” One of them said.
“Here what is?” Delilah asked, fear rising up in her throat again. The things she’d seen had made her forget that she was scared, but now adrenaline coursed through her veins again. Once more, they didn’t answer, but thrust her through the curtain. She stumbled into an empty room. It was different from the rest of the palace that she’d seen. The floor was made of dark wooden boards, the walls were hung with furs and big, foreign-looking rugs with intricate patterns on them, cushions and beanbags were arranged here and there, and only the ceiling was bare ice, casting a pure white light onto everything. She looked questioningly over her shoulder.
“You can sit here,” one of the females told her, pointing to an area of beanbags. She walked over and sat down, and they piled around her, in a tangle of bodies, in the way of werewolves.
“Is someone going to tell me what’s going on?” she asked them with sharpness in her voice.
“You mean you don’t know?” the boldest one said, and they simultaneously drew in a breath.
“Hell no. I was running out in the woods by myself, and next thing I knew, I came across your Omegas. I was forced back into human form, and – literally – carried to your territory. Now I’m here, apparently trapped in my human form, with none of my clothes, until I find out what is required of me!” They all stared at her with huge, liquid eyes.
“As you know, today is the winter solstice, and tomorrow is one of the most important days of the year for our pack as we celebrate the bringing back of the light,” began one of them, in a soft, silvery voice that was little more than a whisper. Delilah leaned close to catch every word. “This year it’s more important than ever, because it’s also the night of the full moon, a coincidence that happens once in ten years at the most.”
“Sometimes it doesn’t happen for 70 years,” one of the others piped up.
“Every year we celebrate the return of the light with a mating frenzy that lasts many days,” the first one continued. At these words, the faces of her pack mates lit up with pleasure. “However, there’s a law in our pack, centuries old, that decrees that the winter solstice frenzy cannot begin until a she-wolf from another noble pack has come into the palace and submitted to the desires of all the powerful males.”
“We were so worried we weren’t going to find anyone, but you have come, at last!” the second one said, and the others nodded their agreement. Delilah was rendered speechless for a moment.
“What? So I’m supposed to be like a sacrificial victim?” she shouted at last. Their eyes widened in horror.
“No!” they shouted as one. The girl with the silvery voice put her hand on Delilah’s thigh.
“No, this is a great honor,” she said. “This mating will make you a queen, revered by everybody here. We’re Omega females, and we’re not allowed to mate with any of the males who will seek out the pleasures of your body. We would be thrilled to be in your place!” Delilah looked at each of their eager faces, and knew they were telling the truth.
“So, you’re telling me that I’m expected to mate with the Alpha, and all of the Betas?” They nodded, grinning hugely.
“The males tell us that you have never been mated,” one of them said. “This makes the honor even greater.” Delilah sighed. She wasn’t surprised that the Omegas had identified that she was untouched, but she wasn’t enjoying the scrutiny of her body at all.
“And if I refuse to do this?” As the pack mates stared at her in confusion, a thunderous voice rang out,
“We will take you home immediately, of course!” The women gasped, jumped up from the beanbags and ran to the corner of the room, where they cowered. Delilah turned her head in the direction of the voice. It was her turn to gasp at the sight of the werewolf standing there. He was without a doubt the most attractive werewolf she had ever seen. He was a good three inches taller than the Omegas, and very broad-shouldered, with black hair, just long enough to flop onto his forehead. His eyes were almost emerald green, and the expression in them was piercing. He wore a long black robe that almost reached the floor. He walked over to Delilah quickly, and she wrapped her arms around herself, hiding her breasts.
“I should introduce myself. My name is Bl
aine, I’m the Alpha of the Ice Palace pack, one of the oldest and most established packs in the land. And, please forgive me, the Omegas themselves have told me how they brought you here. They will be dealt with later!” he said, his voice becoming a rumbling growl as he finished his sentence, doubtless thinking of the actions of his subordinates. After a pause, he continued. “What the females have told you is correct, but you will never be asked to do anything against your will.” He reached out a huge, long-fingered hand towards her. Against her will, she found herself relinquishing her hold on her breasts and taking his hand, which enveloped her own in a powerful grasp. He pulled her forward gently, never breaking eye contact with her, and, in a daze, she got to her feet. Her arms fell to her sides, and she stood before him, as compliant as a sleepwalker. He cast his eyes over her body, as others had done, lingering over her breasts, the soft curves of her belly and hips, and the pale hair that concealed the cleft between her thighs. To her surprise, her nipples hardened and clit jolted, as if he had touched her with his glance.
“What’s your name?”
“Delilah,” she answered.
“Delilah, I ordered my Omegas to seek out the most beautiful were-female in the land, and they have fulfilled that part of their task – at least – admirably.” She gasped. Me? He had to be kidding! But, as he continued to stare at her, his pupils in those emerald-green eyes dilating, a slow blush began to creep over her cheeks, in pleasure at being desired by this handsome creature. “I hope my looks aren’t displeasing to you?” he asked.