Animal Instincts

by Lyons, Brenna

  “Because your scent was driving me mad. Because his scent on you was intolerable.”

  Memories of him scenting her assaulted her. “And when your pack mates touched me?”

  “I wanted to rip their throats out, too.” It was blunt, cold, the promise of a hunter, a predator who was accustomed to taking what he wanted. Mattayas met her gaze solidly. “You didn’t want their touch.”

  She shook her head.

  “But you wanted mine, even when I left you.” He didn’t question it, though his eyes pleaded for assurances.

  “Yes. Asleep and awake.”

  He nodded. “Let me see the kit, Anha. I took his sire’s life wrongfully. I won’t do the same to Thomayan.”

  As if in answer, a body snuggled to Anha’s back. Then a second. She drew her sons onto her lap, watching Mattayas for signs of aggression.

  Mittayan sighted his sire and leaned forward on his chubby hands to look closer. He made questioning noises that Missayan answered with gurgles and babble. It seemed to satisfy the younger cub, though he cocked his head to one side.

  Mattayas smiled. “Do you know me, cub?” he teased.

  Thomayan let go of his foot and turned toward Mattayas’s voice. The buck’s smile faltered, but he didn’t tense, didn’t growl, and didn’t bare his fangs.

  “I am sorry, little one,” he offered.

  Thomayan looked up at Anha, then started to work his way down to the floor. She turned him and planted him firmly next to his brothers with a rumble of a queen’s concern.

  Mattayas shot her a look of hurt.

  She found it hard to form a response. “I should...”

  “Let them, Anha.” There was something of a plea in that.

  She lowered Missayan and Mittayan to the floor, certain that they were safe with Mattayas. His jaw tightened in anger, but he nodded.

  The cubs took to hands and knees, clamoring off in investigation of the new buck in their midst. They pulled up on their knees by their grips on his jeans, burying their faces in his thighs and waist.

  Mattayas murmured to their sons...

  My sons!

  But they weren’t hers alone, and if she accepted Mattayas...

  “How do Wul rear their young?” she inquired.

  He didn’t look up at her. “What are you asking, Anha?”

  Could she say it without offending him? “Lyx toms have little to do with kits until they are half-grown, unless they are mated to the queen. Then they are intolerably pushy about their young. Still, the fems care for the kits, day to day.”

  “What do the bucks do here?” he countered, his voice clipped.

  “They are cross-bred bucks...or mated to a fem already. And they don’t dare approach and...offer as you say bucks offer to aid a queen without a mate, because...” She shrugged.

  His head came up, his eyes hard. “Wul bucks help rear their young...or any young they take into their care.” He looked at Thomayan pointedly. “We do this from the first scent of the young, at the bitch’s permission to approach, unless they are a mated couple. We care for young in all ways but nursing.”

  Anha nodded. Then he would expect to take the place of a mated tom and more. That would likely cause tension between them, since she was unaccustomed to the idea of a tom interfering in child rearing.

  “Did you know?” he asked.

  She stared at him, trying desperately to follow the conversation. “Know what?”

  “When you left your pack—”

  “Nest,” she corrected. If she had to learn his words, he had to learn hers. If for no other reason, he’d offend someone in the mixed nest, if he didn’t learn them.

  He took a calming breath and shifted his weight on his knees. “Nest. Did you know when you left your nest that you had a kit they wouldn’t kill? Or did you believe you’d lose them all?”

  Anha stiffened at the possible implications of that. “Meaning what? What are you asking, Mattayas?” And why is he asking it?

  “Perhaps I simply want to understand you, as you claim to want to understand me.”

  As if she would believe that. “And who are you to question me? Where were you the moons I carried? Or the half a moon since?”

  He didn’t reply in kind; his voice was calm, measured, nearly cold. “You didn’t know then. You left, because you were afraid you’d lose them all. You were desperate to—”

  “How dare you. You know—”

  “You didn’t know,” he pushed.

  “I didn’t know, but I still chose to leave...without knowing. I love them all, Mattayas. It wouldn’t have mattered if they’d killed all three or only Missayan.”

  Mattayas nodded, his expression softening. “Missayan was the first...the first to show signs of being my get?”

  Anha stared at the cubs, smiling weakly at the sight of Mittayan leaving wet spots on the denim that signaled he’d soon seek a nipple. “First born and first to open his lovely brown eyes.”

  His chuckle brought her gaze back to his face. Anha replayed her words, her cheeks hot in the realization that the cubs had his eyes, and she’d just called them ‘lovely.’ “Think nothing of it,” she managed.

  “I wouldn’t dare,” he teased in return.

  Thomayan made another bid for escape, and Anha slid to the floor, easing her youngest son between Mattayas’s knees.

  The buck stopped laughing and stared at the exploring kit as if in wonder. Thomayan raised his head, green eyes meeting brown.

  Mattayas’s throat bobbed, and he took several slow, deep breaths. “Thank you, Anha.”

  She relaxed hands she hadn’t realized were fisted. Perhaps, Mattayas was sincere.

  Animal Instincts

  Chapter Seven

  Mattayas sat on the bed, his now-bare feet stretched out toward Anha and the young, his still-bound hands pillowing his back against the cavern wall. Anha had removed his boots. She’d fed him from her own hand, then fed the cubs and kit.

  What she hadn’t done was fastened his shirt again, and the landscape of his chest and abdomen drew her eyes often. It gave him hope that she intended more when the young were settled.

  They were all but asleep now, nuzzling at three of her four breasts. Mattayas hardened more forcefully at the sight of the exposed secondary breasts that would shrink to dark thumb-print-sized circles when the young were weaned, the layer of fat redistributing and the nipples flattening.

  He closed his eyes, forcing his breathing to even. Luna, but he had to touch her soon. Seeing and scenting her were not enough for him.

  The bed shifted, announcing Anha’s approach. Mattayas didn’t look at her. Convincing himself not to shift to affect his release from the binding was fast becoming difficult. If tempted again, he might follow his instincts and do it, and Luna only knew if he could gain her trust then.

  “Why did you come here?” she whispered.

  “Do you wish I hadn’t?”

  “I...” Her breath bathed his neck. “I don’t know how to answer that.” But her lips trailed up his throat to his jawline, her tongue darting out to take a taste.

  Mattayas fisted his hands. “Are you ever going to release my arms?”

  She nipped at his earlobe, sending shivers of delight down his spine. “Perhaps I like you tied up and in my bed.”

  Breathing was abruptly difficult. “I could come to like it, I suppose.” Already, visions of her mounting him tied this way had returned in force.

  She worked his jeans open. “You could come,” she agreed.

  Her scent surrounded him, making Mattayas dizzy in arousal. No bitch compared to her. He was certain none ever could.

  Anha sank to his half-freed cock, her rough tongue bathing the swollen head. It was torture; it was ecstasy. She took him in, and Mattayas moaned, lifting his hips to her. Luna, but she could emasculate him with one snap of her jaws, but she was giving him mind-altering pleasure instead.

  Mattayas writhed beneath her, working his way to a more comfortable position, watchi
ng her suckle at him through half-lidded eyes. Her mouth rose and fell, coating him in hot saliva, exploring his cock as he’d explored her their first night together.

  “Oh, Luna, yes,” he panted out. “More, Anha. I--”

  He cried out harshly at the edge of pain slicing at him, pressing back to the wall as if he could escape her. What had she done to him? He smelled his own blood, blood she was sucking at as his cubs would suck at her milk-full breasts. The pleasure and pain mixed unbearably.

  Her tongue snaked through the cut she’d made in his foreskin, and he bowed up under the brutal assault of sensation. Mattayas had never known a buck could feel so much.

  The next slice was less painful, probably because he was lost in bliss. By the third, so much of the deliciously-sensitive under-flesh was exposed he would have begged for more.

  Mattayas might well have literally begged for it in is delirium. Anha was eating him alive, and he’d never dreamed it could feel so good.

  She released him, kneeling up and meeting his gaze. A smear of his blood colored her lower lip, and he hungered to lick it off.

  His jeans slid to his thighs, and his cock bobbed in the cool air, seeking more. Her roughened tongue returned, pulling away the last tattered scraps of his foreskin while he moaned and writhed under her.

  Anha retreated, leaving him gasping and dry-mouthed, shaking at the edges of climax. Sounds pulled at his muddled mind, and he forced his eyes open.

  Her jeans were open, and she was shimmying out of them, her hips swaying in invitation as the material lowered. Her fragrant black curls appeared, and he moaned in need. A trickle of his fluids stung at the raw tears on his cockhead, and he hissed in discomfort.

  She chuckled, drawing one leg from her jeans. “Now you’re making the correct sounds,” Anha teased.

  Mattayas glared at her. “If it will get you to me faster, I’ll learn to hiss for you.”

  Her second leg appeared, leaving her naked and, by her glorious scent, ready. She smiled a knowing smile. “It might.”

  He forced the foreign noise out, and Anha crawled up his body, straddling his hips. Her heated core stroked over him, setting off those mixed touches of pleasure and pain he was coming to love. It was almost too bad the damage would heal in a few days.

  His fangs extended halfway, and a more realistic hiss escaped him...followed by a growl of warning.

  “Better,” she crooned.

  Before Mattayas could retort, she’d guided his cock to her and impaled herself on him.

  He let his head drop back, baring his throat fully. “Oh, Luna,” he breathed. “Oh, Dam.”

  “It feels like nothing you’ve felt before.” She didn’t question it.

  “Yes.”

  With that assurance, she started moving, raising and lowering her body around him. Mattayas felt every ridge of muscle, every whisper of movement.

  He thrust up against her, and her eyes widened, a gasp escaping her.

  “You haven’t forgotten how good we are together, have you?” he teased.

  “Never.”

  That one word shattered his thinking mind. The next few moments passed in bodies working furiously against each other, sounds rising and melding into a mating song.

  In the end, Mattayas lasted only as long as she did. They climaxed together, sweat-soaked bodies scenting each other, his engorged cock wedged tight in her little body.

  Just as his heart started to slow, Anha slid off his length and started stroking her tongue over the cuts. They opened again, feeding her on his come and blood. He hissed, biting at his lower lip hard enough to cut two furrows that welled up blood.

  As if that was too much enticement for her, Anha covered him with her body, drinking down that blood, as well. Dimly, Mattayas reasoned that his blood was rebuilding her lost reserves and strengthening the milk that would feed their young. If she had need, he would provide.

  “Don’t you want to know?” she asked.

  He stared at her, confused.

  “I’m not going to let the wounds close, Mattayas. Not for at least three days.”

  He shivered in delight at the idea. She’d have to tongue him at least twice a day to keep them open.

  “If you please me for those three days, I will accept you as my mate.”

  Mattayas nodded. “This is how Lyx take a mate?” If so, their toms were lucky animals.

  “Yes. The mating will be often and fierce. If you perform well, I accept you.”

  “And toms that don’t perform well?” Not that he was worried about it. Mattayas wasn’t going to fail this test of his virility.

  She licked at the blood welling up on his lip. “They never mate, because the other fems consider them unworthy.”

  He nodded, an idea taking shape. “Do I have to be bound for this?”

  Her head came back, and she stared at him, seemingly considering untying him.

  “Give me leave, and I will show you how a Wul buck proves his...stamina to one he wishes as mate.”

  “Do you?” Her voice was so low, he almost didn’t hear her, even with his sensitive hearing.

  “Do I...what, Anha?”

  “Wish to have me as your mate?”

  He smiled, well aware that she could see his fangs extending for another mark. “Why do you think I marked you and ordered you to mark me?” He hadn’t believed it could actually bind. Even if it could, he hadn’t believed it would work, when the fem was a Lyx and not a Wul bitch, but he’d done it.

  “You... You’ve already made me your mate? Was that why you stalked me on Lyx lands?”

  He forced back his anger at that question. “It was the correct ceremony, though I’d want to do it again, now that you know what it means.

  “And I never stalked you. I came for what was mine, and when I was denied it, I claimed you in the only way I could...you and whatever young you carried.”

  Anha’s breathing went ragged, but there was no smell of fear from her.

  “Give me leave, Anha. Let me please you.”

  She hesitated, then reached a hand around to grab hold of the restraining cords. Taking that as permission, Mattayas transformed his hands to paws, slipped the ropes, and transformed back, grasping her head between his hands and bringing his mouth down on hers.

  * * * *

  Anha opened her mouth to protest but found herself immersed in a heated kiss. In a dizzying motion, Mattayas rolled her beneath him on the bed.

  It should have frightened her, but he hadn’t...not since his first touch. Instead of fighting him, Anha met him avidly, arching up to facilitate his first thrust.

  His mouth retreated, as he started cycling his hips, driving deep inside her, his entire body flexing and tightening in concert.

  “You could have...” She gasped.

  “I could have been free any time I wished,” he grumbled. “But I agreed to let you decide, Anha.”

  And I chose him...again. “What will you do, Mattayas?”

  “You’ll have your three days. Then I bind you to me again.”

  “If I’m pleased,” she managed. Luna, but was there any question that she would be?

  As if he took that as a challenge, Mattayas doubled his already-formidable efforts, driving her to climax and following her over a few thrusts later. She licked her lips, mired in the release of endorphins and the sweet bite of his smooth cock.

  Moments later, he was kneeling beside her, offering his cock for another go. “Unless our young need you or you require food or sleep, you are mine, Anha. I will please you until you beg me to stop.”

  She didn’t doubt that he would.

  “Anha,” he hinted.

  She took Mattayas into her mouth, opening the new tissue again, closing her eyes to his groan of pleasure.

  * * * *

  “Anha,” Siya greeted her.

  Anha shifted Missayan on her hip, offering a slight tip of her head. Beside her, Mattayas balanced Mittayan and Thomayan on one muscular arm. It was a gift that Anha truste
d him to care for the kit, and Mattayas resolved himself to earn that trust fully.

  “You’ve accepted your buck, I see.”

  She touched the fresh bite on her neck, darkening. “Yes. I have.”

  Mattayas’s matching mark throbbed pleasantly in reminder of the silent vows to protect his mate and young.

  Anha straightened. “It was my choice,” she challenged.

  “It was indeed.” The fem ranged an assessing gaze up and down Mattayas’s body. “I assume your mate will join the hunts?”

  Mattayas stared down at her, offended at the merest hint that he wouldn’t. “If you don’t fear my sire and pack tracking me, I’d be honored to join the hunt. A buck supports his young and mate. Would you prefer me to hunt in human form or Wul?”

  Siya raised an eyebrow. “You can take Wul form now?”

  He scowled, working at his buttons with his free hand.

  “I believe you,” the old fem chuckled. “Well, I’m overjoyed Anha chose to save your life then.”

  “You may not be, if my pack tracks me here,” he grumbled, tensing.

  His sire was certainly not amused by recent events. For the loss of his prized first son, who knew what retribution Dievan would seek?

  “Your pack has already been turned back, young buck. This is your nest now.”

  Mattayas was silent for a long moment, his tension increasing. “Are they dead? Are any of them?” And what would he do if she said they were?

  Siya smiled. “We don’t kill when we can...deter by other means. Now, do you accept this nest as your home?”

  Mattayas drew Anha to his side, and she snuggled beneath his offered arm. “My nest is wherever Anha and our young are. She chose this nest, thank Luna. That makes it mine, as well.”

  The fem waved the way to the inner den, where curious pack mates...nest mates waited to greet the new additions. “The hunt begins at dusk, Mattayas. Good hunting.”

  She glided away with warm words for other members of their community. Mattayas settled his small pack within the larger pack that had taken them in. It took only moments of ease to realize that he’d truly found home.