Deepwood Weald you waiting at ho[m]e for me saying what time do you call this?

Despite that Arturo did not venture too far from Ravensblood Forest he found his legs carrying him past Blackrock Depths, towards the towering trees of The Sentinel. He had spoken to Furiosa of his small trip and that he intended to be back within the night. He had faith that his red herring would hold down the fort in his brief absence. He informed Chusi as well though if she had heard his words when he'd woken her up or not went unknown to the Fearghal monarch as he had cut through the Gyrfalcon Keep and the Honeyed Pasture. He drew nearer to The Sentinels and cut off into the Deepwood Weald, his pace slowing as he shrugged into the tangled mess of red and green ferns that brushed against his long legs. The trees were thin and stretched tall, their limbs spindly where a glimpse upwards told him they tangled together allowing the golden rays of the sun to filter to the ground under foot in distorting angles.

He had cut through the Weald only once before when he'd reached the Ravenshook Cliffs and had taken his fall from them, but Arturo did not wish to remember that time and thus blocked it from his mind. Ceannasach knew why he'd came this way, why he lingered near to Donnelaith. A very small part of the trip was unselfish, seeking to find a safe path for Chusi to follow when she decided she want to visit the lovely bard. Or rather, the lovely mummer for she had divulged her true identity to him. His invitation to her was an open one but it was not fair to constantly expect her to make the trip to Teaghlaigh. With his claim strong and growing stronger with each recruit he rallied to his cause he felt confident enough to travel further than just the immediate territories surrounding Ravensblood Forest.

He thought of @Lotte often; but with mentoring Chusi and her “father” reappearing in the picture and all the work Teaghlaigh required of him (which he did happily) the gangster had let it fester until he could stand it no more. He desired to see her again, to steal a few hours of her time and cherish them as if it were a dying wish granted. Though he could smell Donnelaith's borders a good number of miles away favoring the heart of the eerie Weald he maintained the distance. He did not call for her. He realized that without his summon she would have no way of knowing he was there, waiting, hoping, but he was not aware who all knew of her true identity and though he could have easily called for Kitku he found that he much preferred her as Lotte. Even if the gangster's wishes were left unfulfilled it would not be an entirely unsuccessful trip — he, at the very least, had a relatively safe route mapped out for Chusi to use at her leisure now; though he would stick resolutely to his condition: she would go with a Guard until she had more warrior experience under her belt.

With a deep breath Arturo took a moment's pause to survey the strange woodland he found himself in, making mental comparisons to it and Ravensblood Forests, wondering if there were native Teekon legends about the Weald as well.

I had ideas for this post but it feels really clunky. ;-;

The weald just south of Donnelaith was warmly familiar to Lotte, who delighted in its sepulchral abundance of shadow. More and more, she found the press of Donnelaith’s sequoias to be stifling, and even the prospect of visiting the Blackrock warband held little interest for her. She missed her twin, but whenever she set out to visit him, the feeling that she should wait stayed her impatient paws. It was infuriating to remain in one place when she did her best thinking on her feet, but the soot-stockinged rogue had good reason to trust her intuition.

On this day in particular, Lotte’s restlessness grew to such magnitude it threatened to shake the sequoias from their century-old roots — her broad paws ached to pit themselves against wolves in battle or roughhewn planes of mountain ice. After doing her part to freshen the territory borders and adding a fat rabbit to the pack’s reserves, she dove into the weald with a sigh of contentment. Light flowed through the canopy at odd, haphazard angles, the entirety of the place cast in a miasma of ash-colored fog, and Lotte melted into it like a living eidolon. Her coloring was perfectly suited for weaving between the spindly trunks, and the plush, matte nature of her pelage drank in light and darkness with equal vigor rather than reflecting it with a glossy sheen. It was purely by chance that she caught the Ceannasach’s scent, and when she did, her youth and inexperience were quick to explain away the quickening of her heart and the heady way her blood rushed to her cheeks by attributing these symptoms to mere playfulness and excitement. Her thoughts toward the masked coywolf remained utterly chaste, for she did not yet know the pleasures of the flesh. What she did know was that she wanted to be chased by him — a recurring theme, it seemed, given their previous meeting.

Throwing her voice with the effortless ease of a practiced bard, she sang: “turo-luro-luro — ” and slipped away on soundless paws. She rubbed herself against the tree trunks, her rich alto warm and inviting as she offered him a melody to follow:

“My sweetheart, come along!
Don’t you hear the fond song,
the sweet notes of the nightingale flow?”

That she was singing for Arturo alone was unmistakable — his nickname, combined with the impromptu moniker he’d given her, made it unreservedly clear. Still, the smoke-and-shadow rogue moved as swiftly and silently as possible; she could, if she wished, make the game easier by deliberately cracking twigs or rustling ferns, but there was a great part of her that fed upon the anticipation of waiting to be found.

Arturo was upwind of his nightingale, but the sound of what he swore to be footfalls caused his ears to perk atop his skull, alert, as his fiery gaze scanned the sequoias for sign of whom else inhabited the forest with him. He turned, ears swiveling atop his regal crown as he heard the tell-tale notes of the song as he listened, breathless, as her song called out for him in true siren fashion. He tried to locate where her sing-song beckon had risen from only to feel his brow furrow when he realized that he could not. A soft scoff left his lips as his tail twitched against his hind legs, lifting his muzzle to draw in her scent, his legs working of their own accord to follow it. It led him to a tree trunk and beckoned him on further, he paused for a moment to sniff at the bark that wore her perfume, his eyes scanning the shadows for a glimpse of her. He deduced, quickly as he brushed himself against the same trunk, mingling her scent with his on the bark and his own fur before prowling to the next tree that she wanted to play and that if he desired to see her he would have to find her.

Her voice rose into song once more, and he pushed forward, following the scent trail she left in her wake, his lips twitching as the words of her song reached his ears. He did not part his lips to call to her, instead continuing forth in his search of her, his pace steady, feeling the crescendo of anticipation and giddy jubilation build within his chest as he pursued her eagerly.

Your posts are never poop!

Emboldened by his pursuit, Lotte began deliberately to lay a trail for the Ceannasach — it was sure to end the game, but her impatience to see him overruled her desire to prove her capability as a rogue. With her broad muzzle, she snapped twigs and scored low-lying boughs as she passed them; now and again, she used her blunt talons to score deep furrows in the fern-blanketed earth; and she continued to rub her sterling-and-obsidian fur against the spindly trunks. She knew the weald well, and when she arrived at a badger sett she knew to be abandoned — she backed into it, the thick plush of her fur yielding to the root-riddled entryway. Even Lotte was surprised that so much of her managed to fit, but she wasn’t about to question her good fortune. The trail she’d broken for Arturo ended at a sharp turn that double-backed just slightly — if all went according to plan, she would be able to catch him by surprise and bound out of her mediocre hiding place with a flourish. Eagerly she awaited his arrival, up to her shoulders in the badger den with her nose peeking through the ferns — and to encourage him, she sang:

“My sweetheart, come along!
Don’t you hear the fond song,
the sweet notes of the nightingale flow?”

His ears swiveled to the sides only to cup forth, alert, atop the regal curve of his skull as she snapped twigs, and rustled the shrubbery of the Weald she led him through. Unconcerned about his lack of proper knowledge of the territory he followed her blindly. She left her trail in the earth too, in recently marred earth, uprooted soil beneath the green ferns that partially concealed it, aiding her scent in pointing him in her direction like a map. Her song rose, nearer, the gangster deduced as her trail took a sharp turn that had him back tracking, he realized. His steps slowed, fiery gaze sweeping the area as his ears slicked back to rest at half mast atop his skull. Unfamiliar with the Weald and ignorant of Lotte's well concealed hiding place he paused in full, though Lotte bound out of her hiding place before disappointment and uncertainty could settle.

Arturo's fiery, red-orange gaze, like embers set aflame took her in greedily, drinking in her scent as he drew nearer to her, this time deigning to be more gangster than gentleman as he sought to steal a touch of his muzzle to her's, and if she further allowed it, a draw of his tongue against her jaw in a stolen kiss. It had been too long since they'd last seen one another and the Ceannasach sought to with a burning desperateness to make his intentions known before another swooped in and stole from him whatever chance he had. He did not like to linger, to let precious time tick by. “Lotte,” He drew in her name in greeting, the deep, accented, smoky timbre of his voice low, hushed though there was (presumably) no one around them for miles.

The exhilarating anticipation of lying in wait for the Ceannasach, compounded with the elation that sang through Lotte’s blood at finally having him near, freed itself in a rich, warm peal of laughter that bubbled mirthfully from her lips. “I have been missing you,” she realized in a breathless rush, nibbling lovingly at his cheek. Though she thought of Arturo often, the depth of her feeling for the fiery-eyed male was something she didn’t examine too closely. It wasn’t an avoidant behavior — it simply wasn’t Lotte’s way. The sense of rightness — of wholeness — that she felt clicking into place now was all the analysis she needed, and she found that she quite liked this daring, assertive side of the black-masked Fearghal. It pleased her to be pursued so ardently, and she responded in kind. Boldly she rubbed the bridge of her broad muzzle along the underside of his tapered one, eager tongue laving whatever part of his face she could reach as her coal-tipped tail stirred up a miniature whirlwind behind her.

“Arturo,” she breathed at last, her hindquarters dancing with the force of her wagging tail, “how are you? How is meidän päiväperhonen, minun pikkusisko Chusi?” Her thoughts went immediately to the little girl who must have grown so much, then to the new alpha who surely bore a great weight upon his shoulders. The soot-stockinged rogue nosed at Arturo perhaps too insistently as she took stock of him, her body sidling up against his in a catlike way as she circled him closely. Satisfaction settled within her impish smile as she drew away and looked up at him with starry argent eyes. He looked well, but she offered her shoulder to him anyway: “if you are burdened, Ceannasach,” she murmured, drawing the word out appealingly, “my shoulders are strong enough to help carry them, and my legs are strong enough to bear you up.”

Her laughter was warm and rich as it left her lips and easily one of the most pleasing sounds he swore he'd ever heard in his life. The gangster realized in that moment (perhaps he'd begun to realize it some time ago) that Lotte had stolen away his heart. No, that wasn't quite right. Lotte was no thief and she could not steal something that he had so freely given her without resistance. Despite having an ex-lover Arturo could not claim that he'd ever truly been in love before. Perhaps there was much more of Lotte that he had yet to discover but as far as the gangster was concerned he knew all he needed to about her. It only aided favor that she was real good with Chusi and that Arturo was confident that his young daughter adored the scarfed mummer (not nearly as much as Arturo did, of course ;-) ). Her admittance caused the gangster's lips to twitch upwards into a unbidden albeit extremely genuine smile as he felt the nibble of her teeth against his cheek. For a moment Arturo contemplated on how he wanted to respond to that, striving to be a gentleman to her always (because she was a queen among women) but also to subtly implore just how much hearing that she missed him (too) pleased him. “Is that so?” The gangster hummed, the deep, smoky timbre of his accented voice sly as it left his lips. “You should know that I have been missing you.” He murmured as he she lavished his face with kisses. He did not add “too” to the end of it for he did not wish for her to feel that he was simply repeating the words to her. Essentially, he was, but not because he felt obligated to. Because he spoke the truth. When he was not with her, he thought of her often and when he was with her she consumed him until the world melted away and it was just them.

Arturo did not understand the language that she spoke but found it beautiful all the same. “Better now,” He admitted. He was loathe to leave her and the deeper he fell the harder it would become. His mind had already been made about his intentions and he knew now that he would not seek to waste time. “She is well. Growing. She is starting to rebel against my rules.” To say that it did not concern him would be a lie. He was very concerned about her. Still, he was struggling how to find a balance that suited the both of them equally without compromising more than what made him, as her father, comfortable. “I fear I have spoiled her too much.” So, perhaps, it as time to stop.

The Ceannasach shuddered when he felt Lotte's body brush against his own as she circled and nosed him only to fix his burning gaze upon her once more as she moved away and looked up at him. The words ...the offer that she spoke Arturo spent a few silent moments contemplating. Staring into her moonbeam gaze with unbidden affection. In a strange way he felt it sort of fell in line with what he intended to seek of her: a partner not just in love and life but in the family business as well; and it was true that the gangster saw in Lotte his own equal. These things he wanted but he did not yet know if his wants fell in line with her own; but there was only one way he was going to find out and he knew that. “Lotte,” He drew in a deep breath. He wasn't nervous, not exactly. Given their interactions thus far he couldn't even say that he feared her rejection. Expressing feelings, however, was not something the gangster had done often in his life and found that he was not so suave at. It made him feel vulnerable though he had never been so vulnerable to her as to when she'd been close to his throat. Not a physical closeness he afforded many, if any. Emotional closeness, however, was a whole different gamble. Arturo liked his odds. He was not so sure he was ready to reveal the depths of his feelings for her but he wanted his intentions known. He would willingly fight any other that sought to court her but it was much more preferable that he be her first choice and not a choice of victory. “I want to court you.” Arturo confessed. It wasn't ...necessarily romantic or subtle as he had grandly envisioned of him making his intentions known but in some things Arturo very much wanted to be straightforward about and this was one of them. He sought clarity and conciseness so there were no misunderstandings. Giving her the ability to advance them into something stable or sever it cleanly.

Tagging for reference. ♥

The Ceannasach readily responded to Lotte’s affectionate overtures in kind, and she basked in the knowledge that he had missed her — it was something she suspected given how ardently he’d sought her, but hearing the words spoken so staunchly in his deep, alluring timbre satisfied an insecurity she didn’t realize she possessed. News of Chusi’s progress buoyed Lotte’s spirit all the more, and as joy and vivacity renewed themselves in the marrow of her bones, she recognized a stirring restlessness in her heart that seemed to quiet only when she was free of the sequoias. It was on the tip of her tongue — “I want to come home with you,” — but she kept quiet, freeing her voice on a warm, rippling chuckle as Arturo confessed that Chusi had reached the rebellious stage. Privately she believed that the ocher-eyed warrior princess would have been a handful for any wolf, and that it had little to do with the Fearghal’s parenting skills — but she held her odd silence, feeling that there was something lurking beneath the surface of this meeting that she needed to recognize in full before she spoke.

It was there in the fiery intensity of his gaze — in the strange heat that seemed to simmer and arouse her plush fur into a blanket of prickles — in the deep, primal satisfaction she felt as she watched this strong, intelligent, kind wolf tremble at her touch. Lotte did not quail beneath the coywolf’s citrine gaze, instead meeting his eyes with a piercing intensity of her own as she groped wildly for understanding. Her ears tipped forward upon her skull at the sound of his name, but still she did not speak — she stood, quietly receptive, her eyes watchful and warm.

“I want to court you.”

Kitku would have smirked and offered challenge, claiming he had to catch her to keep her; Kaniini would have quailed and curled upon the earth, claiming she was unworthy of such an honor; Solene would have cast a solemn glance at the man and flatly expressed that she was married to her work — but Lotte Ansbjørn, both composed of these roles and wholly separate from them, responded with equal clarity and conciseness: “I want you to court me.” It was a clumsy response, particularly from a wolf known for her eloquence in multiple languages, but it was as honest a rejoinder as she could make. “No one else,” she tacked on, already beginning to make her demands. Though hers was a playful spirit, she was anything but coquettish now. “And I want to come home with you,” she added, giving voice to her earlier thought, but her ears fell back against her skull as she murmured, “but I pledged myself to Donnelaith — I must support the noitakuningatar through the winter.” Too, there was Dagfinn to think about. “I have a twin — @Dagfinn,” she said, unsure whether she had mentioned her winter-eyed littermate already. “He is the other half of my soul,” she uttered with feeling, “and he will always be.” Her argent eyes were earnest as they sought Arturo’s. It was best he be informed now of her kaksonen, for who knew what would happen if the black-masked Fearghal saw the two of them locked in their usual tangle of limbs as they fussily pecked and groomed at one another.

In a heated whisper, she confessed: “I have seen no other wolf clearly since seeing you, Arturo.”

Arturo waited with baited breath for her response, his heart beat loud in his ears. She took his calm demeanor and shook it to it’s very core until he wanted nothing more than to pace and fidget to rid himself of the rise of anxiety the moments where her moonbeam gaze tempered the hellfire of his own, the tick of seconds between his stated intention and her response. Nervous was not something Arturo was often and his nerves were proof of just how deep he had fallen for Lotte. It had not been intended, not in the slightest but he’d been helpless to it and he knew that he would not have it any other way. Were she to reject him he was not so sure it was a blow he could recover from but he was faced with a cruel reality that he might have to try. It hadn’t ever occurred to him that there might be another, someone younger than him, and pureblood, absent of the coyote blood that coursed strong through his veins, that tainted his sharp appearance. He was tall as any wolf but the sharp angle of his muzzle and plains of his face gave him away easily. Arturo wished, with suddenness that he hadn’t considered that there might be someone else.

For a long moment Arturo was sure that his heart ceased to beat entirely when Lotte responded that she wanted him to court her and when those words sunk into his mind Arturo offered her a cheeky grin as she made her demands: that he would court her and no one else. Despite the cheek of his grin he was serious when he responded in a quiet rumble, like a thunderstorm as it brewed upon the horizon: “There is no one else.” and it was the truth. He was surrounded by women and yet the only one he thought of was Lotte. For better or for worse Arturo’s heart belonged to her. He offered her a sage nod to show that he understood that she had to see her time with Donnelaith through. Though he wished that she could return to Teaghlaigh with him right then and there he admired her tenacity to keep to her word. “I will await the waning of winter with breathless anticipation.” He murmured in a low purr, his eyes heavy lidded as he studied her, set about to memorize her.

The mention of her twin was the first time she had brought Dagfinn up to him but Arturo nodded. He could not claim that he understood, because he didn’t as he was not a twin and did not have any siblings, even. But he would never begrudge her a family relation so very close to her. Arturo’s heart felt light, buoyant even as Lotte admitted to him that she saw no other clearly since she saw him. The gangster let out a soft noise of contentment, not quite a growl and not quite a chuckle but some strange hybrid. “The gentlemanly thing would be to apologize but I’m not sorry for it.” With those words Arturo did chuckle and made to move his muzzle towards her ear. “Looks like I’m not always a gentleman after all.” He mused thoughtfully with a soft, mischievous snort.

Turning her head to seek more of his touch, “I like when you are not a gentleman,” Lotte informed Arturo with typical forthrightness. Having grown up surrounded by boisterous, life-loving wolves who spoke plainly and were just as likely to burst into combat as they were into song, the soot-stockinged rogue saw little reason to hide her feelings and thoughts beneath a coquettish simper. She wasn’t working, after all. Around those she loved and trusted, she said and did precisely as she wished — and perhaps that was why the next thing that popped out of her mouth was: “You’re to put me to work, Ceannasach.” Though her smile was mischievous and her laughter warm and low, the glint of her argent eyes was utterly earnest. “Your word is law — the Family before everything else,” she quoted prettily. “It is more than your bed I want to share — if the Bear was still here — ” she began, intending to rattle off her credentials, but the clench of pain that came from missing Lærke stopped the words in her throat. Treading carefully, as though tiptoeing around the subject would put an end to the ache, “If my older brother was still here, he would tell you — I am quicksilver in combat and silver-tongued besides.” The quip fell a little flat, but Lotte found a smile for the Fearghal nonetheless.

The worry that Arturo would soon regret his decision to court such a bold, straightforward girl stewed briefly in Lotte’s gut, but she saw no merit in hiding things unless they were meant to be hidden. “I love my freedom,” she said softly, forcing herself to meet his citrine gaze, “and I will fight to protect you and Chusi — and Furiosa. I have met her, you know.” Distractedly, Lotte turned a tight circle around the black-masked coywolf, drawing away to lie on her back in the patterned ferns. “I have never been courted,” she admitted, “and I do not want you to regret your decision, but I would not be content being only a wife. I want — I want cubs with eyes like yours. Fat cubs in winter coats, slender cubs with bandit masks. I want to taste the blood of your enemies on my tongue and sing your victories.” Absurdly, her silver eyes grew misty as she thought of a winter away from the Fearghal. Stupid girl, she thought fondly to herself. “What I wish to say, kullanmuru,” she murmured, using her first term of endearment for the fiery-eyed gangster, “is that if you court me, I wish for you to use me well.” Her wording was clumsy, but her intentions were pure. It was a line a more wily female might have employed to allude to other things, and although Lotte certainly hoped those other things were included in the Fearghal marriage package, she was presently more focused on her place in Arturo’s Family.

“Arturo,” she said finally, putting a stop to her whirring thoughts in favor of satisfying a much more urgent desire. She wriggled appealingly on her back in the ferns. “I am sorry for talking in waterfalls — do you remember when I swept you off your feet in your forest, gallant soturi that I am?” She was referring, of course, to the time they had collided with each other in an unceremonious tangle of limbs — the time she had nearly given him a concussion if not for the helpful pillow of her décolletage to break his fall.

“Can we do it again — slower this time?”

Lotte was forthcoming with him and it was a skill that Arturo admired greatly. His smirk was terse and he wondered if she truly understood just how ungentlemanly he could be. If she would feel the same if she saw just how devoid of mercy the gangster could be. Thankfully he had yet to be pushed to that point in Teekon Wilds thus far but it was never far off. His thoughts were pulled back to their conversation as Lotte continued with her demands. The gangster offered his beloved a sweet smile as she told him that he was to put her to work and continued on with that it was more than his bed she wished to share. Oh, she was definitely a queen fit for a gangster; perhaps even bit of a gangster herself. Despite that Arturo was used to being the one to dole out demands he accepted her demands as her equal. “I’m sure we’ll think of something that will utilize all of your talents.” He didn’t mean it in a suggestive manner, but the low purl of his smoky timbre might have given that impression. The truth was: he intended to see how her characters could be utilized to advance Teaghlaigh, and as Lotte knew them the very best, he would seek her input and ideas.

“You sound like Chusi,” Arturo remarked fondly when Lotte made clear that she loved her freedom. Of course the difference was Lotte was a woman full grown and capable of taking care of herself. Arturo supposed that his daughter was, too, but he still saw her as the little girl he took under his wing. Which was a problem for Arturo when it came to his daughters: he did not want them to grow up as fast as he willed it of his boys. He was …working on that. His gaze followed her, his head moving to the sides as she moved in a tight circle around him. He was curious as to why Lotte brought up Furiosa but decided not to ask (perhaps he truly didn’t wish to know if he had competition in his red herring). “I will never regret my decision,” He protested briskly, earnestly. Of that, Lotte never had to worry. Lotte continued stating that she would not be contented to just be his wife, that she wanted children as well. Mini-me’s of them and perfect little mixtures of them. Dark babes with hellfire eyes and masked babes with moonbeam eyes. How Arturo wanted that as well. In that, he was glad that their desires meshed. “I will give you as many babes as you want. A litter every year until the day I die, if that is what you desire.” He already knew it was what he wanted: one litter and the gangster had realized that there was little loved more than being a father. There had been disappointment that this year had not bore him any children but though he’d had opportunities he was glad that he had held out for there was no one he wanted to bear him children more than Lotte.

His gaze had followed her as she rolled onto her back in the plush ferns, calling him from his thoughts of their future offspring to watch her wiggle among the greenery, enticing him. “Mmm, I recall,” He drew with a twitch of his lips and an amused glint in his fiery eyes as he stared down at her. Her inquiry of if they could repeat it (without the collusion this time, surely) but slower. He eyed her for a moment before he moved closer to her. “I think that’s manageable.” The gangster murmured, teasingly as his tail gave a flick against his hocks as he made to stand over her, bowing his head to drink in her scent and if she allowed it draw his muzzle against the plush fur of her bosom in an attempt to tease. ”Is this slow enough, Miss Ansbjørn?” Arturo inquired with the pretenses of a gentleman but the glint in the coy wolf’s eyes and the twitch of his lips was nothing short of devilish. “Or should I go slower yet?” He asked, prepared to recoil.

The alluring mixture of chivalry and cheek that Arturo offered enchanted Lotte wholly, and a low, wheedling whine spilled warmly from her lips. “Slower yet and I might die,” she quipped, chuckling throatily. Her argent eyes widened briefly in surprise, then fluttered closed at his daring caress; she tipped back her head to expose her throat, surrendering utterly to his touch. A wordless murmur of pleasure hummed within her throat as she wriggled appealingly in the foliage beneath the Ceannasach and reached up with greedy arms in an attempt to draw him nearer still. “As many babes as I want,” she sighed with unabashed elation, a mirthful giggle rollicking behind her swift rejoinder: “I think twenty would be a nice, conservative start.”

Quite suddenly, “It is heat that scares me,” she confessed, looking up at the coywolf with a glint of trepidation in her moonbright eyes. “I want to want you every day the way I want you now — because I wish it, not because a primordial urge tells me to. My wanting for you is special and separate, kullanmuru, and I do not want the first time you have me to be when my season blooms at last.” She hesitated, trying to recapture the strange, sweet sensation that had made her blood sing earlier, and entreated at last in a hopeful lilt: “Will you teach me?” The more she thought of it, the better the idea sounded. “Will you teach me how to please and be pleased by you?” Though inexperienced, her movements were far from clumsy as she pressed the tip of her nose against Arturo’s collarbone, preening and nibbling ardently at the sensitive flesh. She knew how to comfort and soothe, nurture and mother — and she know how to lure a wolf with the sweet sashaying of her hips — but the actual giving and receiving of pleasure was something Lotte had yet to experience.

Coming up for air at last, “Teach me,” she demanded, imperious and bashful and just a little impatient as she nipped harmlessly at his shoulder. Lotte would never be a meek, weak-willed creature — but Arturo didn’t need a woman like that at his side. “I am a very hardworking student, my — my love.”

Arturo’s chuckle was deep as it echoed her own as she responded to his devilish inquiry with a quip of her own. "Twenty, eh?” He drew, the deep, smoky timbre of his accented voice a quiet, contemplative murmur as it slipped from betwixt his lips. Arturo appreciated his beloved nightingale’s wit, but the truth was simple in and of itself: if she desired twenty pups or a litter every year until the day he drew his last breath than she would have it. If there was one thing Arturo couldn’t imagine it was denying Lotte anything she wanted in life.

The conversation changed with a confession from Lotte who admitted that the idea of her estrus cycle scared her. Admittedly, it wasn’t anything that Arturo ever gave much thought to and though he knew well enough the influence, the saccharine temptation it poised for males — a temptation he did not fall prey to this year though the gangster knew that was largely Lotte’s hold upon him — and in (typical) male fashion he did not stop to think about how it influenced females. Arturo wasn’t sure what to say when she voiced her concerns and thus remained to his contemplative silence, considering her words and his own with careful precision only to let his eyes take her in when she admitted that she did not want their first time together to be the rush of hot passions induced by the instinctual urges that a woman’s estrus cycle awoke. While he was no green boy at heat cycles and intimacy Arturo didn’t want that to be their first time, either. He wanted to love her in every way a male could love a female without the heedy and demanding presence of hormones.

Arturo drew in a sharp breath as he felt the warm touch of her nose against his collarbone, the preen and nibble of her teeth against his flesh. Words failed him under her touch, and Lotte’s demand brought back to attention the fact that he had yet to answer her. Yet, she was no longer requesting. The twitch of his lips carried with it his admiration for her brashness with him. Lotte wasn’t a meek woman which was a blessing as the world that Ceannasach had created had left no room for the meek at his side. He’d found his equal in Lotte and it resounded within him as she nipped at his shoulder, her demand still lingering in the air between them. “I will teach you everything.” Arturo promised her in a low purl, reluctantly moving from where he loomed over her so that she had room to stand back up.

There was something of the femme fatale in Lotte as she rose, her stockinged legs straightening with deliberate grace as she shook the crushed foliage from her matte colorpoint pelt. Tipping her dark muzzle over one Chartreux shoulder, she fixed the Ceannasach with an unblinking stare — in a very Lotte-like way, she was prepared to fight the sensations of her body, and the agitation sparked by her uncertainty found release in a catlike lashing of her coal-colored tail. It wasn’t that she regretted her demand — she was too plain-speaking to play coy unless she was working — but she disliked the idea of being a weak, spineless woman. “Arturo?” she said, finding comfort and security in his equally straightforward nature and his frank declaration of his plans for their joined future. The upward inflection was not a question as much as a request for reassurance — Lotte had always been able to depend on the swiftness of her paws and the strength of her jaws, but now her body seemed a traitor, filled to the brim with a brewing restlessness that she did not know how to assuage. She tossed her head like a wild filly, awaiting his command.

Arturo watched as Lotte rose to her paws as he made a wide circle around her for a moment his heartbeat filled his ears which smoothed back to rest against the sharp angles of the crown of his skull. There was a flick of his tail against his hocks — the only indication that besides the anticipation that buzzed deep within his veins was a heightened sense of nervousness. Despite his experience Arturo placed upon himself the pressure of making it perfect for her, of wanting to be worthy of her. For though he was not one to believe in such things he’d already painted his gangster queen as a goddess among mortal women and his desire to impress her was as strong as ever. His name upon her tongue drew his ears up from his skull and reminded him that he was not the only one to be nervous. It reminded him that she looked to him to guide her in this. He drew up alongside her slowly, ensuring that their bodies brushed, and made to draw his tongue against her jaw before he would offer it a soft nip. “Just relax Lotte,” He murmured huskily to her before he circled her again, tightly this time, staying close. “quiet your thoughts so that you can listen to your body.” Instincts would do what Arturo could not: she would know what to do on her own and in the end her body would tell her what she wanted. He drew close with the intent place a soft love bite against her left hip, pulling back to gauge her reaction.

The soot-stockinged songbird issued an appreciative murmur as her black-masked suitor drew up alongside her, his lean, angular musculature pressing intimately through her plush pelage to trace the feminine curves beneath. His tongue traced a line of fire along her jaw that was spiced with a soft nip, and the murmur became a low hum. Though she did not precisely relax as she’d been bidden, Lotte stretched languidly and felt some of the knots of nerves untangle. She made no verbal response aside from the pleasurable hum that continued to reverberate on a deeper register, turning to watch curiously as Arturo’s fangs scored the unsullied flesh of her left hip. Oh! Her hips skittered reflexively away from him, but the heated tingle his love bite had wrought was something she wanted to explore further. Suggestively she offered herself to him again, her hindquarters swaying readily within his reach.

The appreciative murmur Lotte made was fuel to the low fire that burned in his belly, spreading down his abdomen where it settled insistent in his loins. It was a slow burning fire — the kind that he knew would consume him achingly, sweetly, with heightened senses to better appreciate the intimacy they would share — as opposed to the burning rush of an inferno that dulled his senses and brought with a heady need to rush. He did not strive to rush this. Not with Lotte. He wanted to savor it, savor her and make it perfect for her. Especially because he was her first. That added to his desire to make it special for her, to make a lasting impression of the kind of lover that he was. The gangster’s burning gaze was upon her as he watched her watch him nip at her hip, drinking in her reaction with both a curiosity and a hidden eagerness and when his nightingale’s hips moved away from him he did not deign to follow allowing her to decide what she liked and what she did not. For once in his life Arturo played the willing subjugate allowing her to make the calls. A few moments passed before Arturo watched her offer herself to him again, the sashay of her hips his invitation. Once more the gangster moved nearer to her, this time placing a soft love bite to her opposite hip, with the intent (if she did not squirm from him) to draw his nose along it’s curve, placing smaller bites where he would place a coy one at the junction of where her spine met her tail.

A strange, tingling awareness darted hotly through Lotte’s bloodstream; even when her moonbright eyes drifted blissfully closed in a prolonged blink, she was keenly attuned to Arturo’s every movement. If she focused on it hard enough, she felt she could become his very breath — dancing upon his lips in coy tendrils, sinking deep into his lungs, emerging from him in a richly accented murmur of affection. The Ceannasach nipped lovingly at her opposite hip, eliciting a sharp gasp and a widening of starsilver eyes, and when he laid a nibbling trail that led toward the base of her spine, she issued a low, undulating whine that was prelude to a moan. She whipped around abruptly at the risqué close of his fangs over the flesh at the junction of her tail and spine but did not curl her lips in aversion or flee, instead snaking her body boldly along his and gauging his reactions to her. Her own muzzle traced brazenly down Arturo’s spine, her lips and tongue slicking the fur along the grain before she paused and nipped at the hollow of his flank where it met his hip.

The sharp gasp that wretched itself from betwixt his beloved’s lips in response to his ministrations was without a doubt a pleasing sound to the gangster. In these moments with Lotte, Arturo was stripped bare of rank, of power. Ceannasach held no place here: for Lotte he was just Arturo. Though he undoubtedly saw Lotte as his equal in all things he wanted her to see him even if he though he was certainly more of a devil than he was an angel. If she minded she held her peace. The gangster continued with his ministrations, with the coy draw of his tongue and heated love bites upon her flesh: enough pressure so that she felt them through her plush fur but never hard enough to cause harm. Her reaction to the nip at the junction of where her tail met her spine was, perhaps, her most animated yet. She whipped around, quite abruptly, and Arturo became a living statue, muscles taunt as he waited for her fight or flight. Neither came. What followed was indefinitely much more pleasing as she turned his own ministrations against him. That was a first. Though Arturo was not opposed to doing all the work her actions only affirmed what he’d already seen as concrete fact: that Lotte was truly his equal (and perhaps not to be outdone). There was a flutter of uneven breath as it involuntarily left Arturo’s lips as her tongue moved down his spine. The slow burning fire in his belly and loins blazed hotly when he felt her nip at the junction of his flank and hip, the slight shift of his weight accompanied by a low smoky rumble of pleasure in his chest to let her know that he enjoyed her ministrations even if it caused his ache for her to move from slow burn to nearly tormenting (which it undoubtedly did).

“Mm,” hummed Arturo’s nightingale in a low, throaty murmur, “so you do sing, rakas.” She drew the sibilant tail of her endearment out on a hiss of pleasure as she savored his reaction to her ministrations, a greedy glint in her mischievous moonbright eyes. Circling around his hindquarters, she moved up along his back, ruffling the fur of his spine and flank against the grain this time as she trailed a series of slow nibbles from his hip to his nape. There, she snaked her body under his chin with a saucy flick of her tail and swiveled to stand parallel to him, her shoulders in line with his as she buried her face against his neck. One small, triangular ear lay flush against the column of his throat as she bathed him in kisses, her sinuous musculature wriggling with unveiled excitement. The lightning was in his eyes — now she waited with bated breath for the thunder. “Talk to me, please,” the songbird begged, finding his husky, richly accented timbre as alluring as his touch. Her own voice was breathless with longing as she nipped insistently at his chin.

A low chuckle spilled from betwixt Arturo’s lips melding with the ambiance that they created around them, when she mentioned that he did sing. He supposed, in a way, it could be considered a singing of sorts but he was not blessed with the voice of a bard, not as his nightingale was. He lacked the spill to piece together poetic words to a melody. The gangster didn’t know what her word: rakas meant but he knew that he liked the sound of it as it left her lips. It was almost as good as hearing her speak his name. Almost. A sharp inhale left the usually so composed gangster’s lips in a rattled breath as Lotte left a trail of nibbles from his hip to his nape, her tongue mussing his fur against it’s natural grain. Her ministrations were wonderful, a delicious and contained amount of heightened pleasure to the slow burning fire that flickered insistently in his belly and loins. Arturo Fearghal was no inexperienced lover but he felt like he was in this moment. “Lotte,” Her name formed on the accented, smoky timbre of his voice in a controlled groan laced with an archaic need at her request. If she expected him to say much more then she would be solely disappointed because her name was about all he could muster at the moment.

“Lotte.”

Coherent thought was cast upon the shore as Lotte slipped deeper into a sea of sensation; the sound of her name on the wings of a rumbling groan sent a sweet, sweet shivering from the quiver of her waiting ear down the sinuous curve of her spine. Heat balled in her belly, centering somewhere lower, and a keening whine fluttered from her lips — the likes of which she had never issued before. “Arturo,” she gasped, made agitated by the cries of her body, distantly aware that she wanted and waited for something only he could give her. Her paws danced where she stood, the trembling having taken hold of them; she shifted her weight from side to side as though she stood upon hot coals. Heated, she drew in great, shuddering gulps of air, incorporeal in the face of her breathlessness as her heart galloped at a breakneck pace. “Please — ” She didn’t know how to phrase what she wanted and restlessly turned her head, angling her muzzle to bathe his face in kisses that were wild and distracted with a new kind of urgency. Her lips curled, fangs gleaming as she nipped at his jawline with growing need, and she pressed insistently against him as her searching mouth found the base of his ear. “Arturo,” she breathed, her vocabulary bare but for two words. “Please — ”

“Lotte,” Rasped the gangster with feverish anticipation at hearing his own name leave her lips. For a moment he wondered what celestial being needed his thanks for gifting him with the beautiful and strong woman before him, that she returned his affections, that she wanted him in every way that he wanted her. Except Arturo did not believe in such things and those thoughts, brief and hazy though they were, were cast aside. Though it had never been his intention to make her beg him, her pleas coupled with her wild kisses nearly drove Arturo to the brink of insanity. The fire burned hotter and higher than it had and it was a delicious torture but one that he knew he’d enjoy the release of much more. He could withhold from his passions no more and with a low reverent growl he moved so he stood behind her, his chest pressed flush against her. “Lotte,” Her name was a gruff plea and uttered like a prayer to the corporeal goddess he intended to worship before him. He hooked a front leg around her hip to give her time to prepare before he rose along her spine, grasping her hips in an embrace with the intent to draw her back so their hips were flush and so their bodies could melt together until he could not deduce where he ended and Lotte began.

For a moment, the unlikely ingénue longed to evade her masked suitor — an anxious whine clawed its way from her lips as she whipped around to observe him — but as his chest pressed tightly against her hindquarters, the last of her nervousness fell away. Instinctively her coal-colored tail swept to the side and her long legs shifted, bracing themselves to take his weight. “Please,” she whimpered to him softly, having seen how her pleas had incited him. “Arturo,” she purred, the sound half-whine, half-growl, and then she found she could make no sound at all for a prolonged moment. She stood, rock-still, as he slid forward, his touch dancing up her spine and deeper still, and her eyes drifted shut as a new kind of awareness and understanding broke over her and swam through her bloodstream. The tension that sat heavy and electric in her muscles didn’t abate, though, and she allowed — with a brief rumble of discontent that her body should so control her quicksilver mind — instinct to guide her. Without instruction or permission, she arched her back, pressing her hips more firmly against her lover. Oh! “Pyydän, pyydän, rakas, rukoilen sinua — haluan — ” she breathed, the words bounding in gasps from between clenched teeth. Chuckling breathlessly at her lapse, the sound husky and sensual, “Arturo, I want — need — ” she ground out.

The gangster rolled his weight to his back paws, finding his balance and distributing it on his hand legs and paws so that it would not burden her. He grasped her scruff between his jaws, a partial growl, partial moan left his lips, muffled by her scruff as she arched back against him — eliciting a throaty groan of pleasure from the coy wolf — minimizing what very little distance had existed between their hips. She spoke in her native tongue, a lovely sound. Though he could not be sure what she spoke as he found his rhythm, taking it slow for her benefit, he judged that it was not bad from the breathless gasps she spoke them on. Soft pants drew from his lips as she pleaded with him cutting herself off before she could tell him what it was she needed. In a way, he supposed she didn’t have too. His thrusts increased in their pace, another low, muffled rumble tore its way from his throat. “Lotte,” He managed to gasp around her scruff tightening his grip upon her hips.

Mature Content Warning