Chapter 2 - Territorial Dispute

The first whiff hit like a dirty secret: feline, sharp, musky, male. Not native to Silver-Bark, not prey. Not even a timid little scout, either. The scent was brazen, sprayed on a jagged pine like a challenge. My hackles rose, fur bristling along my neck and shoulders. I crouched low, my toes digging into a tangle of leaf mold, claws flexed for the kill.

I'd been following a game trail just east of the ruins, chasing the memory of last night's fuck and the faint promise of fresh venison. This new smell put a steel rod up my spine. It didn't belong here. Nobody got to bleed in my woods unless I said so. Not since I'd torn the old stag's throat out and left him as an altar offering in the Moon Grove.

The prints were easy: bipedal, feline, and smug as hell. They padded up the bank, two sets, side by side, claws only half-retracted like they owned the place. I crouched and sniffed the mud. Sweat, arrogance, and a sickly-sweet undertone I'd only ever smelled on rutting toms. Outsiders. Not just lost, either. The way their trail sliced through my mapped-out ambushes meant they were hunting something. Maybe me. I grinned, all canines, and let out a slow, possessive growl. "Outsiders. In my woods."

I slunk forward, keeping low. My nostrils flared as I sucked in every change: the ozone tickle of old magic, the earthy perfume of rot, the high tang of crushed fern. I could smell every nerve in my own body thrumming. The Silver-Bark Expanse responded in kind. Branches dipped lower, silver bark gleamed in the gloom, even the roots seemed to pulse beneath my feet. I was the pulse. The living, howling heart of this place. Everything else was just meat.

Ten paces in, a bird called out, three high notes, then silence. I froze. Overhead, a shadow rippled through the canopy, all feathers and mystery. I didn't have to look to know it was him: Tillioron, the winged bastard, always watching. He'd get his beak wet soon enough. For now, he circled like a judge, ready to tally the bodies.

I doubled my pace. The ground was thick with moss and not even my paws made a sound. I hopped a tangle of roots, heart thundering, and took a shortcut through a copse of fungal torches whose bio-glow lit up my fur in blue and green, enough to dazzle prey if I cared about subtlety. I didn't. Let them know I was coming. Let them run.

A rush of wind pulled my hair back, and I bared my teeth to the trees. I was hard inside my loincloth, knot swelling just from the anticipation. I imagined their faces when they realized they'd been hunted all along. I imagined my teeth in their throats, claws raking their backs, the scent of their fear mixing with something sweeter.

I crested a ridge and slowed. Below, the two catboys strolled through a patch of white flowers, every step a cocky performance. One was jet black, muscles cut and polished like obsidian, tail high and swaying. The other was striped, smaller, eyes darting everywhere. Their voices carried, arrogant, reckless, brash in a way only idiots or heroes could manage.

I watched, licking my lips, as they paused to sniff the wind. The black one made some joke and the striped one punched him in the ribs, laughing. They didn't know they were already dead. Or maybe they did and wanted to see what it was like to fuck a wolf before they bled out.

I circled left, moving downwind. The ground dipped here, soft and spongy underfoot, so even their sharp ears wouldn't catch me unless I wanted them to. I tensed, ready to lunge, but forced myself to wait. Every second ratcheted up the tension inside me until I was vibrating with it. The trees above leaned in, silver bark flexing as if the forest itself was desperate to see the kill.

I let my tongue loll and pictured the aftermath. One would scream, the other would beg, both would rut until their legs gave out. And then I'd let Tillioron have the scraps. Or maybe I'd keep them, just to see if they'd try again.

Somewhere behind me, a root shifted. Not a sound, but a tremor in the ground, a message from the Expanse. I acknowledged it with a flick of my tail, then crept forward. Another ten steps, and I could taste their sweat on the breeze.

My cock throbbed. I imagined mounting them right here, in the open, their faces pressed into the moss while I made them howl. I clenched my fists, claws biting into my palms, and steadied my breathing.

This was the best part. The moment before the chase.

I gathered my legs, ready to spring, and waited for the perfect instant: when both would sense me, when both would freeze, when their nerves lit up like fireflies under their skin.

Above, the winged bastard circled lower, anticipation radiating off him like heat.

I grinned. Time to hunt.

---

The two catboys didn't just walk, they owned the damn clearing. The black-furred one led, tail cocked like a flag, every step telegraphing "come at me." His friend trailed a half-pace behind, stripes and nerves on full display. They weren't being careful. They wanted to be seen. To be chased.

A few more steps and I caught their banter, loud as a bark in the hush of the Expanse.

"—Told you these woods are ours now," Blackie crowed, voice as smooth as fresh cream. "I marked the ridge myself, and if anyone's left, they're hiding in the shit-pools with the sprites."

"Yeah, yeah," Stripes muttered, eyes darting between every shadow. "Just don't like it. Feels watched. This place isn't right. Should've taken the lower route, just like I said."

Blackie snorted, baring neat white fangs. "We run from a couple ghost stories now? Piss off, Tom. First wolf I see, I'm plucking out its teeth for a necklace. If there's even any—"

I made my move.

Not a direct attack, too soon, too cheap. I crept close enough to count the tremor in their whiskers, then jammed my heel down on a deadfall. The branch snapped, echoing off the silver trunks like a breaking bone. Both boys stopped cold, ears swiveling, muscles ready to coil or flee.

Stripes hissed. "The fuck was that?"

Blackie smirked, but I could smell the jitter in his glands. "A twig, dumbass. Or maybe the legendary Werewolf of Silver-Bark come to drag us off to its lair." He made claws with his fingers, faked a snarl. "Grrr, see? Boo."

I howled. Not a polite warning, not a challenge. I let the full-throated, wet-lunged violence of it blast through the trees and send every bird in a hundred-yard radius straight up into the morning haze.

They didn't wait. Nobody ever does.

Blackie led the bolt, feline reflexes, sure, but still just a cat in a crisis. He dove for the thickest stand of bramble and vanished, Stripes a heartbeat behind, tail fluffed to double-size. I leapt from the brush, eating up ground with great, loping strides. Every muscle in my legs burned, every pump of blood made my vision sharpen until I saw the sweat flying from their ears, the terror painting every move.

I trailed them for a hundred yards. Not because I was slow, hell, I could have pounced in ten, but because watching them realize they'd already lost was the best part.

They crashed through a patch of mushrooms, bio-luminescent spores erupting in blue clouds. I followed, sucking in the scent of their panic, the pheromones in the air making my tongue swell with want. I dropped to all fours, faster this way, and roared again.

Stripes yelped and almost lost his footing. Blackie risked a look over his shoulder, eyes huge, and nearly brained himself on a low branch. I kept the pressure on, not even pretending to pace myself. I could already picture what came next.

We hit the riverbank. Blackie tried a desperate leap across, barely made it, claws scrabbling at the mossy stone on the far side. Stripes didn't even try. He skidded, spun, and threw himself right instead, vanishing into a tangle of stinging nettle.

I followed Blackie, because that was the smarter one. My paws splashed cold water up my shins, mud sucking at my heels. I hit the other side and rolled my shoulders, shaking off spray.

The trees here grew closer, blocking out the sun. I saw every tiny motion, the quiver in Blackie's thigh, the subtle way his chest heaved. He was running on fumes already. Good. I wanted him to remember this when he woke up in my den with my scent all over him.

I let him get thirty more yards, then upped the volume. "Run faster, little cats. You're only making me harder."

I saw him glance down, and even at this distance I knew he caught the bulge under my scrap of loincloth. He made a wounded noise, some mix of fear and disbelief, and dug in for one last burst.

I matched pace, teeth bared, letting the bark of my laughter chase him just as hard as my feet.

We crashed through a ruin, just some ancient stone, long overgrown, but enough to slow him. I angled wide, cut him off, and sent him stumbling back with a snarl. He dropped low, baring his own teeth, but he didn't stand a chance. His tail flicked once, twice, then his muscles bunched for a last, desperate dodge.

I let him try.

He shot right, then left, feinted low and almost slipped my grasp. Almost. I caught him by the scruff, lifted him off the ground, and slammed him back against the mossy wall. He spat and clawed, but my forearm across his chest pinned him easy.

He tried to hiss something clever, but all that came out was a shaky, "Let me go, you mutt."

I leaned in, close enough to taste the bitter panic on his lips. "Not how this works, kitten."

He shivered, and I could feel his cock twitching against my thigh even as he pretended to hate it.

I licked his cheek, slow and mean, then twisted him around to face the wall. His struggles were weaker now, more ritual than real resistance.

The chase always ended like this. And I was always, always hungry.

---

I let Blackie struggle for a long, sweet moment. Nothing tasted better than that last desperate surge of pride before the break. He bucked under my weight, claws raking my forearm in furious little stripes, but my pelt drank the pain and asked for more. I laughed low against his ear, then dropped my full weight down between his shoulder blades and pinned him flat to the moss.

"Keep fighting, kitten," I rumbled, mouthing at the ridge of his neck. "It makes your hole clench so fucking pretty for me."

I shoved his face down into the dirt with one hand and used the other to tear his rags off his hips. The cloth ripped wet and easy, and the sudden cool of the forest air made his tail lash against my belly. His scent punched up at me, sweat and panic and the sour-sweet musk of a tom who hadn't decided yet if he was going to fight or beg.

I dragged the leaking head of my cock up the cleft of his ass, smearing pre-cum into his fur, painting him with what was about to ruin him. He went rigid under me, every muscle drawn so tight I could feel each tendon strain.

"Don't," he gasped, voice cracked clean through. "Don't you fucking dare."

I spat thick onto my shaft, worked the slick down with a slow stroke, and pressed the fat head against the tight, twitching ring of him. He bucked. I held. I rolled my hips, just a tease, letting him feel the heat and the size and the inevitability of it.

"Last chance to ask nice," I murmured.

"Fuck. You."

"Wrong answer."

I pushed.

The head popped past the rim with a wet, obscene sound, and Blackie cried out, a raw, broken noise that punched straight through my chest and lit up every nerve below my belt. I groaned, deep and ugly, at the impossible heat of him squeezing the tip. I held there. Let him feel it. Let him try to clench me out and learn he couldn't.

Then I started feeding him inch by thick inch, slow and relentless, while he sobbed curses into the moss.

"That's it. Take it. Take every fucking inch."

I rolled my hips forward, and forward, and forward, until my pelvis met his ass and my balls rested heavy against his. He was shaking. I held there, buried to the root, and bit the back of his neck the way my kind bit prey we meant to keep. He whined, high and helpless, and his hole fluttered around me like it couldn't decide whether to push me out or pull me deeper.

"Look at you," I growled into his ear. "Stretched open on a wolf's cock, leaking into the dirt. You walked into my woods talking shit, and now you're moss for me to fuck. Say it."

He shook his head, wild, tears bright on his lashes.

I pulled back. Slow. Long. Until just the head stretched him. Then I drove home in one mean stroke and his whole body jolted forward in the moss. He keened.

I set the rhythm. Long pull, mean slam, grind deep. Long pull, mean slam, grind deep. The wet slap of my hips on his ass cracked through the trees like a drumbeat, and the silver bark above us seemed to lean closer with every thrust, drinking it in. I matched my breath to the strokes, and I made sure he matched his to mine.

Behind me, brush rustled.

Stripes had crawled out of the nettle, scratched bloody, eyes blown black with something he didn't have a name for yet. He'd meant to creep up. Of course he had. The little bastard meant to do something brave. I felt him spring before he finished the thought, all eight stone of him launching for the back of my neck with his fangs out.

He bit. Got fur. Got skin. I let him have the taste, just long enough for him to think he'd done something, then I reached back without breaking stride, fisted his tail, and tore him off me. He yowled. I slammed him down into the moss beside his friend, face to face, and pinned him there with a flat hand splayed across the side of his skull.

"Stay," I said. "Watch."

His eyes rolled to Blackie, an inch from his own, drooling into the dirt with my cock buried to the hilt in him. Stripes whined. His own little prick was already tenting his rags. Liar.

I never stopped fucking. Not for a beat.

I leaned forward over Blackie's back, weight on the hand that pinned Stripes, and ground a slow circle deep inside the black cat. Blackie's breath hitched, hitched again, then broke into a moan he'd been trying to swallow for the last minute. His tail curled up between us, the tip flicking against my belly with every roll of my hips.

"There he is," I purred. "There's my good boy."

"M'not," he slurred into the moss. "M'not your good boy."

I laughed, mean and warm, and pulled back until the head of my cock kissed his rim. Held. Watched the little ring of him gape and clench around nothing, hungry for what I'd just taken away. He made a sound. A small, awful, honest sound.

I drove back in. Hilted him. Ground.

"Try that again."

He didn't. Just shuddered and pushed back, one inch, two, asking with his hips for what his mouth wouldn't say.

I gave it to him, harder. The pace stepped up: pull, slam, pull, slam, pull, slam, grind. I could feel the knot starting to fatten at the base of my cock, a thick warm pressure that wanted to lock and breed. Not yet. Not yet. I wanted him a wreck before I gave him that.

Stripes was openly trembling under my hand now, tongue caught between his teeth, watching his friend's face crumple stroke by stroke into something soft and broken and beautiful. I dragged my thumb across his cheek, slow, and he leaned into it without meaning to.

"You see how it works, pretty?" I asked him. My voice came out a low rasp, my chest still pumping bellows-deep with each thrust into Blackie. "First he hated it. Then he wanted it. Then he begged. That's the order. You're already on step two. Skip ahead, save us both some time."

He whimpered.

I grinned, lifted my hand off his head, and let him stay anyway, because we both knew he wasn't going anywhere.

Then I turned all of me back to Blackie and started in earnest.

---

I fucked Blackie like I owned him, because I did.

Long, brutal strokes that drove the air out of his lungs in chopped little gasps. Deep, grinding rolls that stirred him from the inside until his claws shredded the moss for a grip he couldn't find. Then short, mean, jackhammer thrusts, the ones that made wet noise and nothing else, no breath, no words, just the slap of skin and the squelch of him taking more of me than he thought he could. I cycled the rhythms on purpose. Long. Deep. Fast. Slow. Long. Deep. Fast. Slow. I never let him learn one before I took it away.

"This is what happens to little cats who walk into my woods talking shit," I snarled into the back of his neck. "This. Right here. My cock in your guts and your friend watching you cry."

He sobbed. He pushed back. Both at once.

I fisted his scruff and dragged him up onto his hands and knees, arched his back the way I wanted it, then drove in from the new angle. He wailed. The change of line caught some sweet spot I'd been grazing all along, and his cock, untouched, kicked hard against his belly and slapped a thick string of pre-cum into the moss.

"There," I purred. "Right there, isn't it?"

He couldn't answer. His mouth was open, drool running off his chin, eyes glassy. I aimed for that spot every stroke after, mean, repeated, deliberate. Pull, slam, grind across the spot. Pull, slam, grind across the spot. His whole body started to tremble in a long, building wave, his hole clutching me in tight, fluttering pulses.

I reached under him, wrapped my big hand around his leaking cock, and squeezed once, slow, base to tip. He keened. His balls drew up tight against his body. Then I let go and pinned that hand back on his hip, bruising, and laughed at the wounded sound he made.

"Not yet," I told him. "You come when I tell you to come."

He shook his head. "Please."

There it was.

"Please what?"

"Please. Please, please, please."

"Please what, kitten?"

A long, broken moment passed before he found the word. Then, smaller than a whisper: "Please let me come."

I rewarded him with a perfect, deep, grinding thrust, and the head of my cock kissed that spot inside him over and over and over, three, four, five, six grinds in a row, until his arms gave out and his face hit the moss and he wailed into it.

But I still didn't let him come. I pulled out instead.

He cried out at the sudden empty, hole gaping pink and ruined and wet. I flipped him in one motion onto his back, threw his ankles up onto my shoulders, folded him in half so his knees pressed his own chest, and drove home again. The new angle put me deeper, made his eyes roll, made his cock slap wet against his stomach with every thrust.

"Look at me," I growled. "Eyes on me. I want you to watch the wolf who broke you."

He looked. Through tears, through the sweat in his lashes, he looked.

I felt the knot fatten harder. The base of my cock swelled thick, thicker, pressing against his rim now with every withdrawal, demanding entry. Each pull-back tugged at his hole, dragged a moan up out of him, and each push-in pressed the fat bulge of the knot against him without quite popping in. I worked him there, knot kissing rim, knot kissing rim, knot kissing rim, until he was babbling.

"Gonna knot you," I told him, low and dirty. "Gonna lock this pretty hole around me and pump you so full you'll be leaking into your own footprints for a week. Every cat in these woods is gonna smell me on you. In you. They'll know who you belong to before they see your face."

"Please," he sobbed. "Please."

"Please what."

"Please knot me. Please. Please knot me, please, please, alpha, please."

That word, unprompted, undone, that word did it.

I slammed forward hard. The knot popped past his rim with a wet, obscene crack of pressure and Blackie screamed, back arching off the moss, every muscle in him going rigid as his cock kicked once, twice, and shot thick white ropes up his own belly and chest. His hole clamped down around the knot like a fist, milking, fluttering, pulling me to the edge.

I roared and ground in. Short, possessive, locked thrusts, just the half-inch the knot allowed me, deeper, deeper, deeper into the hot dark of him. My balls drew up tight and the heat rushed up the length of my cock and I unloaded into him in long, heavy pulses. Pulse. Pulse. Pulse. Each one a fresh hot flood deep in his guts, and the knot held it all, sealed it inside him where it belonged.

"Mine," I snarled into his throat. "Mine. Mine. Mine."

He was past words. He just nodded, dazed, tears tracking through the dirt on his face, lips moving around the shape of yes.

I stayed locked inside him, panting, while my knot pulsed and pulsed and the last of my seed pumped deep. His hole spasmed around me with little aftershocks, each one pulling another small groan out of me. I rolled my hips just enough to grind, gentle now, almost tender, and watched his eyelids flutter.

Then I turned my head, slow, to where Stripes was kneeling in the moss with his rags pulled aside and his small, slick prick in his own fist.

"Your turn, little watcher."

His hand froze on himself. His ears flattened. His eyes were wet.

"Crawl here," I said. "On your knees. Slow. I want to see it."

He came.

---

I couldn't pull out yet. The knot saw to that. So I made Stripes come to us, knees through the moss, head low, the way a cat comes to a wolf when it has finally figured out which one of them is the bigger animal.

He stopped a foot from my hip. I caught his jaw and turned his face down toward where I was still locked deep in his friend, where Blackie's stretched, gleaming rim was sealed tight around the thick swell of my knot, where my cum had nowhere to go and was pumping in pulses he could probably feel through his palm if I let him touch.

"Look at it," I told him. "Memorize it. That's where you're going next."

He whimpered.

I dragged his face lower, until his nose was almost in the mess of fur and slick at the join of us, and I made him breathe. Long, deep pulls of the smell of his friend mating-marked from the inside out. His pupils blew wider with every breath. His own cock twitched against his thigh.

"Open your mouth."

He did, slow.

I lifted his chin and spat into it, thick and slow, and watched him swallow without being told. Good. He licked his lips after, chasing the taste, and that was when I knew the work was already most of the way done.

I rolled my hips, gentle. Blackie moaned underneath me, soft and ruined. The knot was easing, slow but sure. I didn't rush it. I petted Stripes' ear with one hand and stroked the hollow of Blackie's hip with the other, and I let the forest do the rest.

The Silver-Bark Expanse breathed around us. The silver bark above shimmered with the same slow, post-coital pulse beating through my own ribs. Somewhere in the canopy, feathers rustled. Tillioron, still circling, still patient. Still waiting his turn the way he always did, the smug, beautiful bastard.

When the knot finally slipped free, it came with a wet, obscene pop, and a long thick rope of cum slid out of Blackie's wrecked hole and down his thigh into the moss. He whined at the empty. I dragged two fingers through the mess on his thigh and pushed it back into him, deep, slow, just to watch his eyes flutter and his hole clench around me.

"Stay full," I told him. "I'll know if you waste it."

He nodded into the dirt.

Then I turned to Stripes.

I didn't throw him. I didn't have to. I just pointed at the moss beside his friend, and he went, face down, hips up, tail flicking nervous over his back. He was already trembling. He was already wet at the tip of his little prick. He was already mine, and the only one in this clearing who hadn't admitted it yet was him.

I knelt behind him. I dragged the head of my cock, still slick and hot from his friend, up the cleft of his ass, and he shuddered so hard his arms nearly gave.

"Tighter than your friend, I bet," I murmured. "Smaller. Greedier. Yeah?"

"I, I don't, I."

"Shhh." I pressed the head against his rim. "I know."

I pushed.

He was tighter. Sweet christ, he was tighter, and the heat of him punched the breath out of me on the first inch. I fed him slow, slower than I'd given Blackie, because I wanted him to feel every ridge, every vein, every thick inch of me opening him a little wider. He whined, a long thin sound that climbed and climbed and broke into a sob when I finally bottomed out.

"Good boy," I crooned. "Good, good boy."

Then I started to move.

Slow at first, long pulls, slow grinds, the rhythm I'd used to break his friend in. He took it differently. Where Blackie had fought, Stripes melted. He pressed back into every stroke, his small hands fisting in the moss, his tail wrapping around my forearm in something close to an embrace. He cried, but not from fear. He cried because he didn't have the words for what was happening to him and his body had decided to make the noise for him.

A shadow detached from the canopy.

Tillioron landed without a sound, light as fallen feather. He was already naked, the way he always was when business was about to be pleasure, and his cock stood out sleek and hard and gleaming against the soft down of his belly. He paced over to us with that lazy, predatory grace, crouched in front of Stripes, and tipped the catboy's chin up with one curved talon-tip.

"You started without me, wolf," he said, voice all sugar and mockery.

"You took your sweet time, bird."

He smiled, slow. Then he guided the head of his cock to Stripes' open, panting mouth and pushed in.

Stripes gagged once, eyes watering, then his throat worked and he found the rhythm. His tongue lapped at the underside of Tillioron's shaft on every withdrawal, and his nose pressed soft into the down of feathers on every push.

We found the rhythm together, Tillioron and I. When I pulled back, he pushed in. When I drove forward, he pulled out. Stripes' body became a single line of pleasure between us, two cocks owning him from both ends, every thrust on my side driving him deeper onto the bird's, every retreat on the bird's side pulling him back to take more of me. He was sobbing around feather and flesh and loving it, and somewhere underneath us Blackie had crawled close enough to watch with his cheek against the moss and his hand lazy on his own slowly-stiffening cock.

"He's pretty when you fuck him," Tillioron told me, conversational, hips never breaking pace.

"He's prettier when you both fuck him," I answered.

We both laughed. Stripes whimpered between us, the sound vibrating up the bird's shaft, and Tillioron's wings shivered open a handspan before he caught himself.

I cycled the rhythm again. Long pull, slow grind. Short, fast slams. Long pull, slow grind. Short, fast slams. The knot at the base of my cock began to swell again, faster this time, fed by the heat and the smell and the soft small body shaking apart under my hands. Stripes felt it. He made a sound around Tillioron's cock that was pure animal want.

"Gonna knot this one too," I told the bird.

"Do it," Tillioron breathed. "Lock him on you. I want to feel him scream around me when you do."

I drove forward, hard. The knot pressed his rim, pulled back, pressed his rim, pulled back, three teasing rolls, then I planted my hands on his hips and shoved. The knot popped through with a wet, brutal sound and Stripes howled muffled around feather and cock. His body locked. His untouched prick spasmed under him and he came in long, thick spurts into the moss, painting Blackie's wrist where his friend had laid it under his belly to catch.

I roared and emptied into him. Pulse after pulse after pulse. The knot held it all, and his little body shook and shook around me as I pumped him full.

Tillioron pulled out of his mouth at the last second, fisted himself twice, and painted Stripes' face in long white ropes from cheek to jaw to lashes. Stripes' tongue came out, slow, dazed, to catch what dripped past his lips, and Tillioron groaned low and pressed his forehead to mine, the way he did when he was satisfied and didn't want to admit it.

"Wolf," he murmured.

"Bird."

We held there a long moment, locked inside the catboy between us, breathing each other's air, while the Silver-Bark Expanse pulsed slow and warm around us. The silver bark rippled overhead in long, contented waves. The fungal torches dimmed and brightened in time with my heart. Below me, Blackie nosed up under my elbow and licked, soft and reverent, at the join where my knot disappeared into his friend's body, cleaning what leaked, taking it on his tongue, swallowing it.

I petted his ear.

"Good boy," I told him.

He shivered.

When the knot finally let me go, I pulled out slow, savoring every inch. Stripes collapsed boneless into the moss, leaking, marked, grinning in a stupid, fucked-out way I'd be thinking about for a week. Blackie crawled to him and curled around him and started, with a tongue as careful as any mother cat's, to lick him clean.

I sat back on my heels, chest heaving, cock still half-hard and slick with the proof of conquest. Tillioron settled beside me, one wing thrown casually over my shoulders, his thigh warm against mine.

"Two new pets," he said.

"Two new bitches," I corrected.

"Same thing, in your mouth."

I grinned. The Silver-Bark Expanse was quiet now, save for the wet, lazy sounds of one catboy cleaning another, and the slow pulse of the forest's approval thrumming up through my knees.

The two ruined catboys lay tangled at my feet, shaking, satisfied, broken to my will. Their scent had changed already. Underneath the panic and the sweat and the cum, there was something new now, soft and settled, the smell of belonging.

No one would challenge me here again.

And if they tried, I'd be ready.

Always hungry.

Always the hunter.