Totoka River baby, when I whisper, can you hear?

Backdated to April 24, 2018. @Stockholm ♥

Coelacanth’s oven is preheated and ready for pupcakes.

Thirty-six hours, six baths, and a countless number of seaside sprints later, she knew —

Stockholm was never coming home, and unless he did, she was going to die, and maybe that was only fair, because this was all her fault to begin with. She never should have left him, never should have left Moorhen, and the humans in their helicopters had picked up her Gampr and taken him away, and she deserved it — she deserved to lose him as she’d lost so many others, because she was a Very Bad Dog and unworthy of good things like Stockholm and Moorhen.

Despite Moorhen’s vehement disapproval and under cover of darkness, she left Grayday and Lavender in the seawolves’ capable paws and struck out for the mainland with something like desperation sketching her silhouette with a skittish sloppiness that defied her usual elegance. A whine stirred in her throat as she backpedaled wildly and threw herself in the direction of the island — Moorhen was already so upset with her; she couldn’t bear to make the same mistake and abandon the girl a second time — but the bloodfire had already blossomed into a spiced flush that permeated her flesh with an ambrosial, sweet heat. The itch beneath her skin was not an itch after all but an electric current that danced along every nerve. The need she felt could not be assuaged by exertion of energy or consumption of food or water or soothing soaks in Skybowl’s hibernal melt — it was a blinding, whirling imperative that whipped her on and begged a wanton disobedience.

She crossed the drawbridge to her citadel and sank the toes of both forepaws into the soft sand where the Totoka River met the sea, hind paws set firmly upon the land bridge so that she was still technically standing on the sandbar — still technically connected to the island.

I gift you with a small novel that is also my 50th post. ♥

His Aralez is, and always would be, a free spirit. He knew this. He would never deny her it. She was free to roam, free to go where she wished, to dance and play on the shores with whomever she wanted. It was not in his nature to be jealous of such things; at the end of the day she was his, and he was hers. And his faith in that was firm.

But it was so very unlike her to leave without telling anyone where she was going.

He had lingered on the island as long as he could bear to take it before leaving word with Moorhen and setting out after Coelacanth’s scent. The Gampr had not been completely oblivious to the subtle shift and change in it, but he was blissfully unaware of what it meant. Too much time in the lull of domestication, too much time among humans and their altered canine companions. The natural cycle of life had slipped his mind and he was unfamiliar with the sultry tang that lingered like a shadow over his mate’s normal and familiar redolence.

He trailed her scent-path, across the ridge, through the willows – taking solace in the fact it seemed she was headed towards Morningside and not off in some strange, illogical direction. And somewhere shortly before the borders he caught a conflicting disparity in the trail, where it overlapped and seemed to go in two directions at once. Careful inspection revealed the diverging path was actually Seelie’s return trip, accompanied by two others.

Without hesitation nor care for rest nor food nor water he turned heel and followed it back towards the coast. He wanted to run, oh did he want to run until his lungs burned and his paws bled, but he knew better. His time in his homeland in the endless rolling hills and plains had taught him to pace himself, lest he take even longer to reach his destination.

He stops only once at a small pool of rain water that has collected on the forest floor, drinks his fill to soothe his parched throat and empty stomach before forging onwards. Somewhere, shortly before the coast comes back into view something clicks in his head, a subconscious realization that crashes into the forefront of his thoughts, and he recognizes the change he smells where it lingers in her tracks.

And no longer can he resist the urge to run. The long stride of his gait eats away the miles like wildfire burning through an autumn field, and he doesn’t slow even when the wash of waves on the beach reaches his ears and the taste of salt hangs in the air. Not even when he sees her, standing like a mirage in the moonlight so very much like that first night on the shore when they met.

Water splashes up under the heavy fall of his paws as he careens into the shallow water, his momentum slowed under the drag and slip of mud and sand – but he can’t be sure she is real, can’t trust his sight and his sense of smell, he has to know she is real, and he all but crashes into her, sending them both tumbling into the soft cushion of sand. And he buries his face into her neck, breathes her in. Lavishes kisses across her throat and jaw, whispers her name over and over like a prayer to assure himself she is real as relief floods his tired body. “Seelie, Seelie, Seelie– ”

The inkdark ingénue was keenly aware of the beat of her heart. In the wake of its hummingbird rush, she marveled at its heft, swollen with the bitters of regret and a sweet undercurrent of spice. She had been savaged and abandoned, scarred and bruised, but this was the first time she had ever been guilty as charged. A wild, cowardly desire to leave the island and strike out for some otherworldly shore filled her — she couldn’t return to Vargas Island and she certainly didn’t deserve to stay here; Moorhen, she was certain, would be better off with a less flighty guardian; and if Stockholm existed still in the Teekons and hadn’t been snatched up by a human helicopter, he would do well to find a more perfect mate. The sheepdog had found her flock and the wolf had found her pack but still, still, she had been capricious enough to leave it all behind, and by so doing, had proven herself unworthy! Even worse, beneath the raw wounds of her fierce self-flagellation lurked a dark certainty: she could not give Moorhen or Stockholm up. She was too needy to be noble.

She did not move when the distant storm of drumming paws reached her ears, nor when a pale figure in the distance kicked up whitewater in billowing sheets, nor when the blur of distance cleared and she saw it was Stockholm — Stockholm! — running toward her. She was affixed to the spot, her catlike paws rooted to the earth, and the nearer he drew the lower she got — her spine curved into an arched gravestone of shame as her tail trailed limply in the shallows; her Neptune eyes could not bear to see the desperate hope and fear in his golden gaze; her tufted ears folded in defeat against the gentle slope of her skull. She had failed him, and she did not deserve his love —

— or Aditya’s, or Komodo’s, or Moorhen’s, or even Amoxtli’s —

— and even when he careened into her, sending them both tumbling into the sand, she lay for a long moment without moving. The push of his muzzle against her neck and his deep and shaking breath as it stirred the feathering against her throat pulsed outward in emanating waves of heat and still she tried to deny him with her stillness. He deserved better. He could easily find better.

A good dog. A good wife.

She tried not to feel happy when the soft caress of his tongue swept tantalizingly across the hollow of her throat and smoothed the taut line of her slim jaw; she tried not to feel elated at the sound of her name ringing like a litany from his lips. Stubbornly, she wanted to feel miserable — as miserable as she believed she should feel after being so impulsive — but with equal fervor she wanted to be forgiven. She did not deserve it, and she knew he would give it to her, so she bore down hard and locked the apology inside herself where it beat against the bars of her bones like an unspent cry or a caged animal, venting itself in a violent trembling as she curled in on herself.

So caught up in the sense of relief that she was safe and here it takes him a moment to realize something is wrong. He expects a more typical reaction – for her to be writhing below him in excitement, pawing and licking in return, playful and affectionate. Instead she nearly cowers, flattening her body into the sand and curling in on herself.

A hot jolt of anger surges through his veins – not at her, but at the immediate thought that someone must have hurt her. His large forepaws press down into the sand on either side of Seelie so he takes his weight off her, hackles ridging up between his shoulder-blades, lips twitching up over his teeth in a silent snarl as he runs his muzzle along the length of her back, searching for the scent of whoever harmed her, for whatever injuries they may have inflicted.

But there is nothing there. Just her. Smelling like the sea and the island and Seelie and the thick musk of heat. His short-cropped ears fan to the side and flatten back against his skull, the anger quickly dissipating into confusion and concern. “Seelie,” he repeats for possibly the twentieth time then stands there silently a moment, his tired brain trying to play catch up and figure out what he’s missed here, because clearly he has missed something.

His gaze sweeps towards the island – maybe something wrong there? Something happened to Moorhen? No, no, she wouldn’t be here if that was the case, she would be there. Something bad happened at Morningside? Catori? No, because she would still be there. A soft whine slips his throat as his problem-solving skills fail to give him any useful information. It doesn’t help that her scent is very very distracting.

The Gampr lingers where he is though, standing over her, ever the protector even if in that moment he can’t figure out what she needs protection from. Eventually, he dips his head again, noses against the back of her neck and exhales into the thick fur of her ruff. “Tell me?” What’s wrong? What happened? Let me help fix it. Please.

She punishes herself so that he won’t have to. “See?” beseeches her psyche. “I am hurting myself so you do not have to waste effort doing it yourself.” Here’s the thing, though — every second that ticks by with his nose in her fur and his scent in her nose, his voice in her ears and his breath at her nape, she feels better. That’s his goal — to fix it, make it better — but it’s not her goal. See, her goal is to feel in this series of moments as badly as Moorhen and Stockholm must have felt every hour she’d been away — all that weeklong hurt and frustration and worry encapsulated in a poignant, agonizing mouthful of minutes. Her goal is to deny herself the comfort of his company.

“Tell me?” he begs, and his hurt is her own, and there it is again, that pang of pleasure-pain. Stockholm is so good to her — how can she ever hope to redeem herself? Her obsessive shepherd mind begins calculating and tabulating, trying to figure out how many acts of goodness she must perform in order to deserve this life and this man. Seelie shifts her weight to her right elbow so that she can turn and meet the whiskered chisel of his jaw with an apologetic flurry of kisses. In a whisper that is tiny and frail even by her standards, “I was bad,” she breathes finally, still trembling violently, though not entirely because she fears his response. She cannot deny the hormones driving the slow, serpentine lash of her tail in the water, stirring like a leviathan below the surface. “Bad dog.” She marvels at the broad, impressive span of his chest and tries not to.

His ears prick forward to catch the threadbare whisper Seelie finally answers with. ‘I was bad.’ What? How? What happened? Leaving? Because she left and didn’t tell? ‘Bad dog.’ “No,” he says firmly and immediately. Shakes his head minutely and stares down at her even if she doesn’t meet his gaze. “No bad dog.”

Perhaps it is a flaw that he trusts so immensely and deeply in her; he does not understand why she left without leaving word, and it would be a lie to say it hadn’t hurt him, but he believes without a doubt that she had good reason to do what she did. It wouldn’t matter if she never even told him why, if he never understood her reasoning, he would still believe in her unerringly and without doubt.

“Seelie good,” he reaffirms with a huff against her neck, raking his teeth through her feathery fur. It’s a bit intoxicating to be this close to her suddenly and he has to focus to hold his concentration and keep his mind from drifting elsewhere. He should probably ask her why she left, or tell her the story about the time he was a ‘bad dog’ and left the Man to follow a cat – it was a cat! how could he not! – and got lost in an unfamiliar place and the Man had to come find him. The Man had not been mad though, only happy that Stockholm was safe. That would be a good, relevant story to tell. Except when he opens his mouth to talk his brain kind of short circuits and instead he just growls low and deep into her shoulder, “Mine.”

It is probably best for all parties involved that when it comes to guilt, Coelacanth has a strong natural monopoly. She doesn’t mention her altercation with Komodo because it simply doesn’t occur to her to do so. What she says instead is, “I was — ” mmm, that feels nice; her shoulders, spine, and hips crest like a wave at low tide, one undulating motion that melts into a catlike stretch “ — I worry, Catori…” A tremor shimmies down her spine, and it intensifies when his voice reverberates along her shoulder in a warm ripple of sound and sensation. “Again,” she breathes, fascinated by the heightening frustration that beats in her blood, the shift of her heartbeat from walk to trot.

She tips her head all the way back so that her cheek rests against his. Even the brief bristling of his whiskers tickling her own carries with it something new and different. It’s dizzying, maddening, and she wants simultaneously to throw him off her back and beg him to stay here, protect her. “Am I — ” she whines, tuneless and airy, “ — am I sick?” Deep down, maybe she knows. She is not a stupid creature and by now she’s put together all the pieces in this incredibly embarrassing puzzle — Komodo’s frustration, Aditya’s pained restraint, Sunny and Grayday’s comments regarding her scent, the conversation with Catori. She knows how this ends — but she doesn’t know if Stockholm knows, and she can’t find the words to throw together to ask.

She slinks out from under him, pressing up against him like an affectionate cat, nape, shoulders, spine, and hips stroking the fur of his chest against the grain. She wants to play, to make him chase her, but she is really tired and she missed him so much! “Yours, Tovarisch Stockholm Volkodav,” she pronounces shyly, each syllable letter-perfect for perhaps the first time. She snakes her body against his, rubbing against the thorncollar so it catches inky feathers, and turns her back on him, taking a few steps onto the sandbar and flirting her tail at him. “Mine?”

Stockholm is normally very adept at translating Seelie-speak in all it’s forms, but at the moment he’s struggling to comprehend what she’s attempting to tell him. Something about Catori… worrying… something, something. She trembles under him in response to the growl of his voice and he threads his fangs into her fur again, nibbling against her neck the way he normally would as an affectionate grooming gesture – but there is an intensity to it, pushing just a little harder against her skin, tugging just a little at her hairs. Mine.

She tips her head back to rest her cheek against his and his eyes fall closed for a moment, forcibly trying to restart the gears in his brain. He purposefully catches his own upper lip between his fangs and bites, not enough to draw blood but enough to pinch and cause pain to snap himself back from the heady rush of instinct and desire.

“Am I… am I sick?” “No.” He swallows, tongue sticking to the roof of his mouth for a moment, and he suddenly feels like he could drink the whole ocean and still be thirsty. “No, not sick. Beautiful and perfect. Will keep you safe, promise.” He needs to take her back to the island, to the den, where he can make sure her scent doesn’t attract any ne'er-do-wells from the mainland that might seek to take advantage of her if she is left unguarded. It doesn’t occur to him to do anything other than that, no matter how much he may want. She is his, he is hers, but it is not his place to–

Oh.

His muscles twitch and he gives a full-body shiver as Seelie slinks out from underneath him and rubs her body across his chest, and he lowers his head so that his chin rubs against the top of her spine as she does so. “Perfect,” he repeats, a little lower in tone this time, as she proves his point with the flawless pronunciation of his name. He draws in a deep breath, leaning in to her a little before she turns away from him suddenly and moves a few steps ahead.

“Yours,” he answers automatically and without hesitation, remaining rooted to his spot in the shallow water for a moment before slowly stepping forward after her, golden-yellow eyes fixed intently on her figure, drinking in the way the moonlight plays off her silken fur. There are words on the tip of his tongue, but he’s struggling to figure out the order they should go together in order to make a complete sentence, so instead he leans forward, brushes his muzzle to her hip ever so lightly, asking permission to continue to touch.

“Yours.”

The Groenendael beckons her Gampr closer with a slow, feline flicker of her inkdark plume and a coy turn of her elegant head — but the instant his breath ruffles the silken fur at the spur of her hip, she evades him. Slivers of whalebone white betray her unease as her cerulean eyes pin him down, sheepdog-sharp, but she makes no move to physically deter him. There is something dark and troubled in her gaze for a fraction of a second; she cannot help but remember the Angakkuq’s new name for her — “fuckin’ tease” — and she circles back to the Armenian in mute disgrace.

Her movements are fluid, the aphotic feathering on her legs blurring like ink in the shallows, as she melts at Stockholm’s feet; utterly of her own volition, she tips back her fox-fine muzzle to present the hollow of her throat and the graceful slope of her abdomen for his inspection.

Stockholm pauses abruptly when Coelacanth draws away, his ears slicking back against his skull as he catches her gaze. The unease in her eyes – and something else, even if it is only there for the briefest span of time – makes him rapidly reassess the moment, trying to make sense of it. There is something wrong, something other than nerves set on edge by hormones, but he doesn’t know what it is. Maybe something had happened after all.

The Armenian is still as a statue even as she melts at his feet and exposes the vulnerable curve of her underside, and when he does move it is with great slowness, allowing her every opportunity to escape him. He dips his head as he steps forward, and though he greatly desires to direct his attention between her thighs, he instead avoids directly touching her any lower than her sternum; combs through the fur there with his teeth, moves up to lick her throat and under her chin until he is standing directly over her again.

“Love you, Seelie.” He rubs his muzzle against hers, tilts his head to nose beneath her ear, then steps slightly to the side and flops into the sand beside her – he is not above her in rank, they are equals, and his desires do not outweigh or take precedence over her own. He wants her to know this, needs to make sure she knows this.

He rolls onto his side slightly and drops his head to the ground, gaze fixed on her, soft smile on his lips as he reaches out towards her with a paw. Like this was nothing, just their normal playing and snuggling. Because if that’s all she wants it to be? Then that’s all it has to be. If she wants it to be something more? Well, he’s definitely on board for that too. “We can go back to the island, if you want. Don’t have to do anything. Or we can stay here. Can do whatever you want. Still love you, always love you, no matter what. You know that, right?”

The little sheepdog’s spine arches impossibly as her mate’s teeth comb warmly through the silken feathers at her breastbone. His touch is magnetizing. Slim hips wriggle appealingly, a soft, undulating whine wheedling from her lips, and the wavering rise and fall of her whisper is mirrored in the way every nerve seems to reach for him. Tremors ripple outward from the slow, tantalizing tread of his tongue as it slicks sleek fur against the grain and traces a meandering path to her chin — and it is here, in the tender hollow of her throat, that she seems the most vulnerable to his touch. With his mouth he will find the perfect constellation of scars left behind by Marbas — four perfectly spaced, individual punctures — he can read them like braille, if he so chooses, or dabble in margaritomancy. It is by his judgment that she will determine herself guilty or innocent.

“Stockholm,” she sighs, her breath catching in her throat as the tip of his nose meets the bulb of one sensitized ear. “I love you, too,” she tells him without speaking, scuttling close, burrowing into his warmth and finding sanctuary beneath the weight of his broad arm like a Ramsey under a litter box. It’s when he mentions going back to the island that she stiffens and almost seems to flinch — she knows now how the Earthstalker feels about her marriage and about her in particular, and she doesn’t want to think about how he might react to the Groenendael and the Gampr flaunting their affections. What keeps her from shying away completely, even with the frenetic concoction of urgency, anxiety, and desire in her bloodstream, is what he says to her next:

“Don’t have to do anything. Or we can stay here. Can do whatever you want.”

The choice is given to her. She draws back to look at him as if she can’t quite understand what he’s offering or why, finely sculpted head tipping first to the right, then to the left.

“Still love you, always love you, no matter what. You know that, right?”

Coelacanth does not reply immediately; she is always quiet, but this time she is not “talking” to him in any perceptible way. Her expression is still and withdrawn, but her cerulean eyes are alive and glimmering with a keen, if tentative, understanding. He will not keep her unless she asks him to — he will not take her unless she gives herself. At last she nods, fox-fine muzzle dipping low, and she slips from his embrace to stand over him. She can smell the spiced cologne of his need for her, but he does not act on it — and she is confused. Where is the violence, the fierce usurpation born of passion? Isn’t the struggle necessary for pleasure? It baffles and frustrates her, because she cannot articulate what happened in the Labyrinth with Komodo and why it still feels so confusing. She would be lying if she said she didn’t enjoy the medicine man’s ministrations to some extent —

“Love,” she whispers, and nudges firmly at his ribcage to coax him to roll onto his back.

Her body is warm against him as she snuggles nearer, fitting against him like she was made specifically to be there, and he flexes his paw against her spine and gives an approving rumble from low in his throat. He really could be happy like this, if it was all she wanted. Just to hold her and have her near, to know she was safe. That would be enough.

And with her pulled close he is distinctly aware of her reaction when he mentions going back to the island – the flutter of tension across her body, the sensation that she might pull away – and his thought of ‘maybe something did happen’ turns into ‘something happened’. For now though, he does not press the subject. The Gampr simply watches her as she draws back to gaze at him, silent by all definitions of the word, and he stares back, nothing but patience and affection for her in his amber eyes.

There is a flicker of understanding on her features then as she nods and draws away from him, and that soothes away some of his concerns. His tail thumps against the ground twice as she moves to stand over him, and he rolls onto his back without hesitation at her behest, wiggling from side to side as if to scratch an itch on his back before going still and relaxed under her – offering up the same pose as she had given to him earlier.

“Yours,” he tells her again with a soft smile and a tilt of his head.

Falling asleep while I write this, I hope it does not suck. ♥

“Yours,” he says, and she leans forward with reverent solemnity until the sweet warmth of her breath stirs the tufts of fur that demarcate his close-cropped ears. It sends electrifying shivers down her spine when he nibbles or licks at her caracal-like pinnae — will her own ministrations whelm him in turn? She traces the shorn edges of his ears with her lips, draws her tongue tantalizingly from bulb to tip, and becomes abruptly distracted by the dashing cicatrices that sunder the clean symmetry of his face. Soft as a promise, her nose traces the jagged diagonal scar that speaks of a violence before her time — and her lips curl in retroactive anger and possessiveness that anyone thought they could conquer this man. Her man. “Mine,” she whispers, baring her fangs at the ghosts of Stockholm’s past, her feathered tail sweeping like a scythe over the gamine slope of her hips.

The tiniest of possessive growls ticks kittenishly in her throat as her nose meanders down into the hollow of his throat. She does not fear the thorncollar — it is her ally, protecting the Gampr’s lifeblood — and allows it to comb pleasurably through the silken tresses at her cheeks and ears.

Standing over him this way, the differences between their breeds can be clearly appreciated: she is short-backed in comparison to the Armenian, narrower all the way through, and when she moves down his body it is with a shimmying, hopping motion to accommodate the breadth of his broad chest. When her fox-fine muzzle reaches the crest of his sternum she pays especial homage to his heart’s ivory-barred home, combing through the thick fur at his breastbone with her teeth. The spice of the season makes her bolder — but so does Aditya’s confession beneath the willows. So does Komodo’s accusation in the Labyrinth. She hurts, and she wants, and she fears, and she needs.

The atramentous sheepdog follows the subtle slope of Stockholm’s undercarriage to his inguinal region, nose pressing briefly to the femoral artery where she swears she can feel his pulse quicken against her mouth. She traces its path with her tongue and inhales deeply, finding his scent uniquely alluring — lets her lungs empty on an undulating sigh. His desire for her is ambrosial, and her half-lidded Neptune eyes peek coquettishly up the expanse of his body to tangle tantalizingly with brilliant gold. “Can do whatever you want,” he said, and just in case it wasn’t clear:

“I want.”

Fun fact: it is actually completely impossible for anything you write to suck. It is always wonderful and perfect, like you. ♥

His amber-yellow eyes flutter closed as Coelacanth’s breath whispers through the tufts of fur along his ears. She follows with tongue and teeth and he hums a low sound of approval and appreciation in the back of his throat. The Gampr is tempted to turn his head, bury his muzzle back into the silken fur of his mate’s neck, but he resists – for now – and remains still for her as her attention turns to the jagged line of scar tissue. Maybe someday he will have to tell her the story behind it. The past is not something Stockholm tends to linger on or give much thought. The present is so much more important. And with Undersea blossoming into not just a pack, but a family, the future is where his mind tends to wander more often than not.

His tongue snakes past his lips to wet the tip of his nose as Seelie dips her muzzle down to the hollow of his throat. With a languid stretch he tilts his head back to bare it to her all the more. Yours. And he has to suppress the desire to squirm a little as she combs the shorter fur of his chest. He is trying very very hard not to let his downstairs brain do more thinking than his upstairs brain; because Seelie may still decide that they are just going camp here and snuggle, nothing more, and that is okay, but it is easier for it to be okay if he doesn’t focus too much on how very good she smells and how very much he wants her – but, oh, she is making it rather difficult suddenly.

The muscles in his leg reflexively twitch as her nose brushes the inside of his thigh and her tongue follows the quickening line of his pulse, a wash of heat radiating under his skin like fire. He opens his eyes then so he can see her, drink in the elegant lines of her figure, the way the moonlight dances across her sleek, ink-dipped fur. Which means he is just in time to see her look up at him, cerulean meeting gold, and his heart jumps in his chest with the unseen electricity that dances like a livewire between them. She then proceeds to completely undo him with two simple words: “I want.”

And who is he to deny the world’s most beautiful creature something she wants?

He lingers momentarily, gaze locked with hers, before slowly rolling to his side to get to his feet, not even bothering to shake the sand from his fur as he moves in against her side, pressing his body to hers, his nose buried deep in the ruff of her neck. Speech evades him in this moment, desire and instinct welling up inside him as he turns his head and rubs his muzzle between her shoulder-blades, works his way down to her haunch, ghosts his teeth against the point of each of her hocks and follows with his tongue.

When she flags for him he touches his nose to her flank, asks without words one last time, and once given the permission that he seeks he covers her body with his – and they dance to a song only they can hear, sung by Mother Nature herself, a ritual deeply ingrained in their genetic code and as old as the wild itself.

Stockholm responds to her every ministration in a positive way, and small shocks of pleasure quicken the pace of her blood until it fairly leaps through her veins. Her heart is hummingbird-swift and jackknifes into hyperspeed with every rumbling murmur, every stuttered breath. The reflexive twitch of his leg is answered with a spasmodic flicker of her tail, eloquently suggestive, and as their eyes meet she shudders beneath the weight of this new, precious knowledge and offers him a pleading whine. Oh, take this from me! Oh, give me, give me, she begs inwardly as he rises to his feet, her Neptune eyes roving appreciatively over the sturdy crest of his shoulders, the thick fur and steely muscle that on some primordial level reassure her that their puppies will be stronger and greater than her, thus ensuring their survival and the continuation of their married bloodline.

It is perhaps a fortunate thing that she has no voice with which to cry his name, lest the other seawolves be alerted to their joining — they are, after all, in the middle of the sandbar and in plain view of both the mainland and the island. She fears Komodo and Aditya’s scrutiny most of all, but abruptly everything stops mattering except the hot press of Stockholm’s body against hers. She arches her neck exaggeratedly and reflexively preens at her own décolletage as his nose finds purchase in her inkdark ruff, and when his muzzle burrows between her shoulder blades and moves with singleminded purpose down the sleek curve of her haunch, her feathered plume sweeps low and to the side, and stays that way. She is eager for his claim of her to be made physical and firms her limbs like a little black sawhorse, soon adopting a stance akin to a playful bow.

Her spine curves impossibly as she peeks coquettishly over her shoulder at him — but there is no time for coyness soon, for he tenderly covers her, and his sweet invasion consumes her wholly. She is startled into a standing position as she fits her body to his, savoring the feel of his teeth against her nape and his forelimbs hooked in front of her hips. At this point, she’s pretty sure she can taste music and hear colors — it’s that amazing. All the agitation and heartache of the past week dissolve as Stockholm leads her in the most ancient of dances, and when it hits its crescendo she very nearly sings, a euphoric cry upon her lips and her tongue wrapped around his name.

Some moments later, the sheepdog stirs and awakens; she is spooned against the Gampr’s undercarriage and his heavy paw is thrown across her rib cage. From the sound of it, he too is asleep, a soft, rhythmic snoring stirring the fur of her nape. She feels bruised, but in the nicest of ways, and she shifts gingerly to bathe his face in kisses. They ought to go the rest of the way home, she figures, and reassure Moorhen — who is probably tired of babysitting her supposed guardians.

The Gampr, coaxed awake by his mate’s ministrations, murmurs a soft sound of contentment as he rolls to his feet beside her and helps her up with a tender push of his scarred muzzle. It is the first of many days like these, languid and rife with loving, and he makes no protest as they cross their beloved sandbar and flock to Moorhen’s side, curling around her to form a crude triskelion.