Cedar Sweep romance

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The participants have indicated the following reason(s) for this warning: gore and innuendo

once picking her way down from the mountain without another look back at what's left of her mother's murderer—and with the breath of the bear imagined hot at her heels—Avicus re-enters the low part of the hinterlands and regathers her pack.

no one had been harmed too badly, she thinks. still, she has Ashlar see to the injured, and they make camp here to rest and recuperate for the journey home.

she prowls through the leafless cedars. the fading light casts long shadows along the white forest floor, and her patrol breaks them up one by one, darkness coming in waves over her ruddy pelt.

a yip, then movement, a mirror image. almost—

a red fox, leaping into the air to dive into the snow, looking for prey tunneling underneath. Avicus watches for a moment with quiet dispassion, then feels the anger and sorrow bubble up within her belly once more as the vixen surfaces, fur dusted pale;

it should have been them; red and white, fur tangled together; she'd die happily if she could take the woman and her coward daughter down to hell with her—

without another thought, she strikes. the fox is caught off-guard but still tries to run, and her customary snap of the neck misses the mark, teeth slicing through the jugular instead. 

blood, hot and heady, spatters her face;

good. let her suffer

bright-white rage blinds her to all but the smell of dying, and she rips at the belly of the vixen who can only gurgle in protest, her screams silenced for good and 

Avicus rips gut by gut, conquest by long strings of sinew and spilling over the ground she rolls in the viscera with abandon covering

her own fiery pelt with dark and crimson and in this reverie

her heat begins. and she thinks of @Prophet, and calls wildly for her warrior-lover.

He felt singed by something beyond.

Had he failed in some way? To have not brought the woman down with Avicus before she had seemingly been taken by the universe instead. He had spent too much time looking over the bodies of the Rise, wondering and pondering his position.

Doubt had disgruntled his mind.

Enough that he steps away from the healing bodies of their own to pace the sweep, to make sure. As if he might find redemption in cedar trees and snow drifts.

But he is called and he moves at once.

For he did not doubt the one he treasured most of all. Only himself.

Yet she is there, smeared in the blood of something not from their fleeting war. Smelling of iron and that rippling, burning intoxication of her own doing. He never doubted her and this mission. He never doubted her any step in their long dance of living among one another.

He misses her touch in that moment of seeing her first, before he had come near.

Now he moved on tired limbs, closer and closer. Devoted to her utterly, filled with a grand appreciation. Some part of him sickly hope she'd reach with teeth and mark his flesh in the way she had marked his heart.

if he wishes violence, she'll give it to him. 

perhaps it's just the state in which she finds herself or maybe her own moral failings slamming the door on contact—damned if she'll let anyone in—

she rises and before he can touch her, she nips at his shoulder, hard enough to draw blood.

he can take it, mountain-made man that he is;

Avicus wheels and struts in a fashion that would be called coquettish in any other woman. but this savage creature dressed in the intestines of a hapless would-be enemy is no woman.

she flags her tail up, her spring perfume enveloping the both of them.

she looks at him, everything and nothing all at once whirling in her midnight-depth eyes.

if he wants her, he'll have to take her.

she's nothing left to give.

Marred, marked, touched.

He cared not if his shoulder bled into the open air, if it boiled an infection or took the whole damn limb from it. For it had come from her and he would wear it with pride.

His voice hummed and vibrated in the back of his throat. He knew no words could be spoken in this moment, that they would not find a home here.

It was why he devoured the land on long limbs.

Why he reached with a stronger touch to him now, so that he might grab even only tufts of her. To taste the blood she wore as well as any other shade of red she owned.

Let them devour one another.

he takes her fur;

he takes her fur!

and her costume with it.

Avicus whips 'round and lunges, snarling, rearing up to grip his nose between her teeth, to force his head down, to look hard into those crimson eyes and ask—

"what next?"

the very reason she had claimed the Rise and borne children had been to rain vengeance upon Nyra, and without that goal. . .

what's the point of their coupling now?

and why does she still want it so badly?

Electrified by the fire that she was.

He could feel the tugging and tearing of skin beneath her teeth. She might taste the punch of his slowly raising blood.

And he is there, head held down by her while his back twisted, legs pushed his hind weight up so he may still be standing even while held.

A growl started in his chest, broke through clenched teeth bound by her jaws.

Slowly he began to lean his weight back into her hold.

she feels him push back, slowly but surely, and pleasure at his strength elicits a quick, sharp gasp. she lets go, steps back, toes curled hard downward into the fresh snowfall.

catch me, she whispers,

and breaks into a loping gait that begs to be caught.

evening wind whistling past her cheeks, the heat at her core pulsing in time with the steady thunder of her heartbeat.

she lets her ragged tongue loll, tasting the air and savoring the icy flakes that find its surface.

And how could he not?

He took off. It mattered not if his body yearned for rest. It yearned for her twice as much.

Closer, closer.

He drifted in and out like a tide to her pull — and then he is reaching with dark limbs and a warm taste for her. Uncertain that she'd let herself be captured yet.

the anticipation has grown unbearable. she reduces her speed, feeling his breath hot on her flanks, then slows to a stop altogether—

whether that sends them both tumbling into the snow or if he'll anticipate and slow with her, she doesn't know.

all she knows is that when motion ceases, she'll surrender.

this time, on her terms.

She slowed, and he was there to catch them.

To send them into the snowy earth, to taint that ivory with her crimson covering. It riled him entirely and he wished for her wholly in that moment.

In all the moments to follow.

If she allowed, he aimed to wrap his legs around her own. Yet he would pull away just as quick if she did not seem ready for him in such a way.

down they go, into the snow;

brilliant flames and the myriad embers and wreckage that follows.

Avicus sighs as he engulfs her, body held fast against his, and while she is not entirely submissive—her lips are still curled in a snarl, her eyes flashing—she eases herself enough to allow him to. . .

well.

they'd danced this dance before, and they most surely will again before her time is up.

i am fading to black here :) we can continue or have a more current thread, whatever you prefer!

tiny little fading! something new at the rise soon pls <3

Devoted.

Utterly, wholly.

It will always be her. This he had realized long, long ago.