A steady wind blew from outside, rattling the thin window within its frame. Both hunters’ ears perked towards the sound, one lupine muzzle lifting to look, then one feline turning to follow a second later; then they returned to their tight quarters folded in against one another, Lannon squeezed up against the wall of their little tavern room, Sulla having to curl his legs up towards his chest somewhat to fit onto the bed.

The lynx nuzzled back into his mate’s shoulder, taking a slow, deep breath of his scent threaded into his fur there. His heart had not stopped pounding since he had left the hunters’ camp all those hours ago; whenever he noticed his mind had strayed from the confrontation, it just snapped right back to Mar’s face, his eyes, the way he spoke, the low, steady, malicious intent that Lannon now realized had dripped from every word.

He knew from the start. As soon as I walked in – no, even before – he knew.

Sulla’s voice rumbled against him, vibrating through his back pressed against Lannon’s chest. He turned his head a bit. “You should rest, beautiful.”

“I know I should.” Lannon rolled over onto his back, comfortably sandwiched between wall and wolf. He dropped a paw across the smooth wood of the support by the bed, tracing over the grain of the old wood. “I just don’t like sleeping beneath a roof so much, anymore. Makes me feel like…”

“Cornered animal.”

“I don’t quite like thinking of it in those terms, but… yes. Something like that.” Now he wrapped his arms around himself. “Options restricted, opportunities blocked… I want to see the stars. I want to feel the wind. I want to smell the trees and grass, I want to hear the cicadas…”

“I want you,” and here Sulla turned his head further so that his blue eye glittered in the light coming in through the window, “to not make easy prey of yourself out in the open.”

“We’ll know when he’s coming.”

“Yes. We will. And then what?”

“We’ll-”

“Fight him? A skilled, experienced hunter of our own kind, specializing in how to kill bonded pairs – and who is good enough at it to have survived this long?”

The lynx’s ears flicked. “I just mean that we’re-”

“Exactly the kind of prey around which he has made his living…”

“Not quite, beloved. He is accustomed to hunter and feral companion, not hunter and hunter, and-”

“And he has a party of nine behind him, each specializing in their own set of skills, effective on their own but even deadlier together. Fros here benefits from their presence and their work: they disperse their pelts and their income among the villagers, and since Mar assembled his hunting band a few months ago the town has already doubled in population. I know you did not miss the new huts being built out in the grasses.”

Frustration once again began to well up inside of the lynx. He took in a breath, held it until it stung, and then let it sizzle out between flared nostrils; then he reached up to rub at the bridge of his muzzle, other paw turning to slide across Sulla’s back. He shivered and leaned back into the touch.

“Not only that,” Sulla went on, “but the people here welcome him; Fros is largely comprised of refugees, from…” His voice faltered. “From towns closer to the northern forests, who lost… friends and family. About a decade and a half past, to…”

To a monstrous beast from the woods, Lannon sensed. He shifted closer to the wolf and turned his muzzle again, resting across coarse fur trained to softness over the few years that had passed, breathing in his scent.

“One thought… that I have been avoiding…” Lannon searched for the words. He turned and pressed himself up against his mate again, arm draping across the wolf’s larger form, fingers spreading among thick puffs of fur to find and follow the lines of scars layered underneath. “Is… well. He called me wolf pup, beloved.”

That caught Sulla’s attention. His ears perked; Lannon felt the surprise flash through their bond in the moment before the wolf lifted his head.

“Wolf pup?” he repeated, enunciating the word. “Pelau, specifically? He spoke to you in the Old Tongue?”

Lannon opened his mouth to deny, then thought back through the confrontation. The first thing Mar had said to him, while thinking he was another wolf, was yawa – ‘welcome’.

“He did,” he confirmed, the hunter’s voice echoing in his mind. “So fluently that I… had not even thought of it. And, Sulla, he was bonded. Was. No more.”

“I had wondered…”

“Do you think that – perhaps he might, possibly, be-”

“No.”

“No?”

Sulla’s paw found Lannon’s along his chest, and pushed it down to a more comfortable spot along his belly. The lupine pressed back against him. “No. He is not. I can tell you that now, Lannon.”

“Then perhaps he might know – I mean, as another bounty hunter-”

“It is not possible. Do not let the idea take root, beautiful. I promise you, it will come to nothing: Tul and her killer are both in the past, and there they should remain. They guide my path forward from a distance, but shall influence what I do no more than any other dream or memory.”

Lannon fell silent. He felt Sulla watching his thoughts and musings, present yet distant; their shared bond allowed their conversations to continue even beyond words, through small impressions and sensations so subtle that Lannon sometimes could not tell which end of the bond they came from. After a little while longer he once again adjusted how he lay, and brought his short muzzle forward to rest in against Sulla’s shoulder.

“At least,” he murmured, “if I must spend a night beneath a roof, then I may spend it with you.”

Sulla rumbled softly. “There is more on your mind, is there not?”

“Mar is not a name you would give to a hunter.”

“No. It is not.” Sulla shifted again, then bodily rolled over so he could face Lannon – and easily turned the lynx around as well, facing him in against the wall. Large, warm paws wrapped around his body, easily encompassing his own; Lannon could not resist pressing back into the lupine’s lap, little nub-tail twitching at the firm, pleasant heat. “When a tree is felled, is it still a tree? In some ways, yes – but just the same, it becomes something else entirely, and can never return to how it was before. When his bond shattered, so too did the hunter he once was. If I had to guess… Mar may have been the name of his companion.”

Lannon closed his eyes. “I hadn’t considered that.”

“It is fair.” He dropped his voice. “We believe that someone never truly dies until their name is given to another. I, for example, was named for my mother’s brother, who never returned from his bloodrites. Sharing the name of a loved one who has passed on is… the final stage of grief. Through holding on to their name, they never leave us, and shall continue on through those who remember them; but then granting their name anew is accepting they are gone, coming to terms with it, and then seeking to continue who they were, for nothing is truly gone forever. When his bond shattered, he likely took on his companion’s name…”

“I understand. What if you – can’t pass on their name, though?”

“Why wouldn’t you?”

“I mean… like you and Tul. It’s not like you and I could ever-”

Sulla chuckled softly. “I do not need to pass her name on, beloved. She is gone, but she is not dead: she is as much a part of me as you are. Through each other, we shall live forever.” The rumble in his voice turned into a warm, sweet growl. “And I am endlessly lucky for that. Besides – who knows? Perhaps you and I just haven’t tried enough…”

Lannon chuckled, then couldn’t help but grind back against the wolf again. “Sulla. Come on. You know I’ve – already-”

“Mmh. This is what I meant when I said there is more on your mind. You cannot hide it from me.”

“Perhaps I wanted you to feel it.”

“I know you want me to feel-” That large paw descended further, still clutching Lannon’s in its grasp… and Sulla squeezed both of them around the lynx’s sheath, forefinger and thumb nudging in along soft, plump flesh. “-this. Which does remind me: it’s not so bad having to sleep between these walls, beneath this roof. You know why?”

Lannon’s jaw fell open, his eyes still partially shut. He thrust gently into his own paw beneath the wolf’s, tender barbed length slipping out between his fingers, warm, slick, wet; his scent slowly wafted up to engulf them both. “Mm…?”

Sharp yet gentle fangs settled in against his bared neck. “It is not our responsibility to keep these sheets clean.”

“Be that as it may, we do still have to sleep here tonight.”

“From makeshift bedding in the woods to prepared sheets and mattress, even a bit sticky? I don’t mind that, so much.”

“Mmm…” Lannon squirmed in Sulla’s grasp, still riding with the rhythm of his stroking, and then pushed down at the wolf’s arms. On instinct the lupine released him; the lynx then wiggled himself around so that his back was to the wall instead, and from there teased Sulla into rolling over once more. He had to stretch out a bit to nestle himself everywhere he wanted – muzzle on shoulder, chest to back, half-arousal near the base of his tail, since their height difference meant he could not slip it under – but then in this arrangement it took both of his paws to reach around and cup the other male’s sheath, already stirring. “We’ll see how you feel about that when it’s your mess soaking into the sheets instead of mine, for once.”

Sulla’s breath puffed out in a steady sigh. “Oh?”

“Mhmm…” Stocky lynx paws, fur already somewhat matted with the natural slickness of Sulla’s musk, pushed down further – to spread his thighs, then scoop around to his backside. “Come on. Up.”

“Up?”

“Up.”

The sheets fell away as Lannon rose into a kneel behind him, still guiding with his paws as he went. Sulla looked back at him, ears perked, tail swaying… which provided him an easy target to grab and hoist up into the air, stone-and-soil fur shifting to accommodate the unexpected movement.

“But you-”

“I know what I’m doing.”

One paw hiking the base of his tail, the other came in to press along Sulla’s firm, muscular rump and spread him there. Soft, smooth fur angled away from rich, puckered pink, tight wrinkles of sensitive skin squeezing together just beneath – with his rim giving another clench and twitch in surprise response to Lannon’s attention.

Still his heart pounded from his task earlier in the day, and that adrenaline naturally still poured through his system and kept him vibrating with restless energy. Sulla’s pleasant, familiar scent wafted up around him; the lynx could not help but lean in and purse his lips against the wolf’s tailhole, just to hold himself there for a second before he flicked his tongue out, dragged it across, then slipped it back into his mouth.

Before him the other hunter rumbled, shivered, and relaxed. “Oh…” he breathed, shifting so that he could rest his head atop his arms. “You do indeed…”

When he swallowed he could taste the wolf, sharper, stronger than before, warm musk settling into a slickness that coated his mouth and tongue and throat. Already he felt the purr vibrating in his throat; Lannon shifted his focus down a little bit further and then dove in for another lick, this time letting the soft sandpaper of his tongue catch along the fur of the firm ridge of flesh between Sulla’s tailhole and his hanging sack. Then up from there to once again pass across his tailhole, and then down from further so that his balls draped over either side of his tongue, nose lifting up into the wetness of his own saliva.

Sulla’s presence gradually came to encompass him, the wolf’s growing pleasure magnified in himself through their shared bond; as always Lannon followed the trail of impressions and sensations, focusing more fully in on whatever drew the strongest response from his mate here in front of him. Before long he had shifted both paws to the sides of Sulla’s rear, thumbs coming in to spread him further, while he kept his lips pursed, tongue digging and swirling as he suckled at soft, puckered skin, teasing through the tension, working his way gradually in until tense, tight muscle gave way to sleek, supple wet meat just inside-

-where Sulla gasped and clenched around him again, tail naturally hiked to allow him access. Each twitch of muscle, each shift, his throb sent a pulse vibrating through his body; Lannon slid one paw down from where he pulled him open to cup underneath his body, first rolling his hefty sack across his palm, then grinding forward, then spreading his fingers to slip across the wolf’s full arousal. Little repeated squirts of pre jetted out between his fingers and into the coarse fabric of the bedsheets underneath them, so he continued down further to feel the puddle that had started to soak in.

The purr rose into Lannon’s throat, peaking out on his breath each time he parted his jaws to take another lick. He swallowed Sulla’s scent once more.

“I love that you love this so much.”

“It would be…” Another full-body shiver and twitch of the muscles. Lannon took the opportunity to pucker up and meet the wolf’s tailhole in another focused kiss. “...hard not to…”

Away with you, wolf pup, Mar had said, the empty void pulling at Lannon from within, hollow eyes an open glance into deep shadow. Return to your companion. I shall find you when I am ready.

His paws shook as he wrapped his fingers around the slack in Sulla’s sack, tugged his balls tight, then dragged his tongue across them again, resisting the throb that attempted to pull them back up. Sleek pink tailhole winked, then parted open to where he had teased it along his tongue; he lifted up further, dug in once more, suckled there, then drew back so that a strand of sticky saliva hung down from between the wrinkled pucker and his mouth. For a while he just remained there, panting open-mouthed, throat and nose and tongue sizzling; then Sulla shifted again, and his tail swayed, and he clenched once more.

And then Lannon lifted up behind him, and dragged his tongue across the palm of his paw, and smeared the sticky wetness of hungry drool across his hard length, and then somewhat awkward saddled into position behind the wolf, one paw angling himself forward, the other returning to its original position beneath the base of his tail.

Sulla looked back at him over his shoulder, surprise turning to interest. “Oh?” he rumbled, then shifted to lower his hind end down a bit. “You want to-?”

Lannon nodded. His gaze felt fixed at where his tapered tip brushed across Sulla’s tailhole, nudging gently forward, teasing right at the edge of pushing in. Each and every movement, no matter how small, sent a sweet shiver of anticipation and sensation through him. “I do,” he breathed, then grinded forward a little bit. The wrinkled rim puckered against him, then relaxed once more. “It’s been a while, and I’m…”

“It can be intense,” the wolf went on, “if you’re unaccustomed. Or if they squeeze and clench as fiercely as some lynxes do…”

“It just… feels so good, being on the… receiving end…” Slow, careful gyrations of his hips, tapered tip nudging up at the rim of Sulla’s tailhole to continue to tease him – with the ring of muscle flexing here, clenching there, nudging back against him. Lannon pressed his fingers down, pushing until his tip squished up along those wrinkled folds, once again squelching shut against him. “Just – let me know if I need… to…”

Sulla shifted again. “Of course, beautiful.” And then he relaxed once more, hiked his tail further, and wriggled backwards-

-and the sweet, hot shiver vibrated up Lannon’s back from the base of his short tail as soon as that sensation began to wrap around him. Intense was right, but it was nothing he had not borne before: the sleek walls of meat and muscle sleeved in around his shaft as he sank deeper, tender soft barbs nudging along the squeeze, brushing past, massaging rather than catching. Underneath him that same tension shuddered through the wolf as well, bunching within his shoulders and then slowly, carefully oozing back out the further he pressed, until hips pushed to rump – and Lannon shifted how he knelt along the mattress, shaft wholly buried among soft, wet velvet heat, twitching, trembling, pulsing all around him.

His mouth hung open, and his eyes fluttered halfway shut. “You… feel so…” And he sighed out, lapped his chops, and then bent forward over his mate, one arm wrapping around Sulla’s larger chest underneath him. Immediately Sulla reached up to enclose Lannon’s paw in his own, muscles twitching again; he tilted his head back, mirrored his mate’s sigh, then relaxed once more. “Is that – okay?”

“You can be rougher than that.”

The flame kindled inside of him. Tension and energy and need all swirled together, stoked further from the adrenaline of the day; Lannon felt himself shudder and tighten down, and then he gripped Sulla’s waist with his other paw, thick pawpads squeezing along fur and skin underneath, and drew himself back only to then thrust forward again. And then again, and again, each time reinforcing that initial angle, driving deeper, riding the growing urgency.

Sulla’s pleasure reverberated in alongside his own, each push beneath his tail mirrored along itself, making Lannon’s lift and twitch as well. He could still taste the wolf on his breath, coating his mouth and throat and dusting each exhaled breath; muzzle now resting in between Sulla’s shoulder and neck, he dug his nose in a little further, mixing his musk with his natural scent as well, breath sharpening with each grind from his hips.

“How’s…” Lannon licked his lips again. “Is… this…”

“Good,” Sulla panted. “Keep – going…”

That encouragement sizzled through along their bond, each of Lannon’s movements subtly guided by his partner’s feelings, his sensations, his distant, foggy thoughts steadily pulping into an incoherent mush underneath their union. The paw he kept along Sulla’s waist reached down underneath him, bathing in the rich, hot steam of his full arousal even before he wrapped his fingers around it; then a squeeze, a pump, a stroke, emptying out another quick jet of eager pre across the already soaked mattress, and another, and another. His balls swung in rhythm with Lannon’s thrusts, hips now smacking against the wolf’s rear; his other arm moved away from his chest so that the lynx could straighten up, eyes closed, teeth gritted, lupine tail held against his body-

He remembered Sulaya, her arms tight around his shoulders, her breath on his neck, her body working against his own, grinding, rocking, trembling, panting together in unified sensation and pleasure – and now the same with Sulla as well, sharper, closer, more urgent for their shared connection, similar yet different.

Lannon found that he had started drooling. Yet again he bent himself forward, pinning Sulla’s tail between the two of them as their bodies continued to lurch with his thrusting; the slick, sleek heat simmered back across him, burying him time and time again in succulent pleasure, bouncing back and forth between both of them. His panting came to join Sulla’s, and the sweet growl in the wolf’s throat expanded to his own as well. Bit by bit Sulla squeezed around him more tightly, tailhole clenching, ring of muscle settling in along the texture of his length; Lannon pushed his paw back along the wolf’s, fingerpads smearing easily with the slickness of his arousal, nudging at the rim of his sheath, folding that back across itself so that the growing bulge of his knot emerged into the hot, thick air underneath him.

Sulla’s front had once again lowered down to the bed, hind end raised against his mate. “You’re… gonna…” he managed through gritted teeth.

Lannon slid his muzzle forward along Sulla’s back, wiping some of his drool off into the wolf’s fur. “Yeah. You – too?”

“Good. Good.”

I can feel it, the lynx thought. He had to deliberately prepare himself for the incoming wave of overwhelming, unified sensation; the anticipation just heightened his expectation further, and he turned his head again, parted his jaws, took a mouthful of Sulla’s scruff between his fangs, pressed, thrust, huffed, thrust again-

-and then the force of his peak barreled across him like a bolt of lightning, tightening each and every muscle of his body in rapid, uneven rhythm, throbbing deep inside of Sulla where he had fully buried himself, each spurt pumping further out. Still Sulla rocked his hips even as Lannon kept himself in place there, riding through his finish, teasing at the sensitive nubs of his soft barbs; the lynx paused, then continued in his stroking, fast and hard, before diving back to the base of his knot, fingers and thumb digging within the thick, slick folds of his sheath to grip behind his root and tug there, pulling him forward and down. Each tug once again tightened the ring of muscle clamping around him and milking him dry, Sulla’s growling rising into a steady, breathy moan until, suddenly, he too jerked, and bucked, and nearly pulled himself forward off of Lannon’s still-hard shaft.

The lynx drew back anyway, shivering with the sweet sensation, and right there at the edge of Sulla’s peak he angled the wolf’s shaft back between his legs, keeping it propped along one paw while the other stroked back behind his knot, pumping up to its full size, twitching, pulsing – emptying loose ropes of his seed across the other side of the bed so that they sprayed over the floor. Each pulse tightened the parted rim of his tailhole as well, glistening wet with saliva and Lannon’s own load; unable to stop himself, the lynx leaned in, tasted his own scent there, then once again put lips to rim, slurped, sucked, dug his tongue much more easily into flexing wet inner walls of meat, and from there dragged himself down, down between Sulla’s balls, along the folds of his retracted sheath, and all the way across his pulsing knot, plump shaft, tapered tip as it continued to spray.

Then down, just a bit further, so he could rest the end of Sulla’s shaft across his tongue, and wrap his lips around the contours of his length, and just hold himself there… and feel his mouth fill up with the residual squirts of loose, salty wetness, until he had to drink it down as though he were several days into the desert.

A familiar feeling… he recalled, throat burning with the high, simmering spice of lupine musk. If only I had him with me on those field studies, back at the academy. I’d never go thirsty… He relaxed back where he knelt, right there at the very edge of the bed, so he could watch Sulla’s spurts empty out across the floorboards and occasionally splash his own fur. In front of him Sulla shivered again, body tensing in rhythm with each spurt. He looked back over his shoulder; Lannon felt the attempts to speak welling up through their bond.

“You move… like a… wild beast,” the wolf finally managed, words also spacing out in between throbs. Lannon leaned in for another lick; Sulla sighed audibly and flexed again, tailhole winking. “Haven’t felt a… mating bite in… quite a while…”

To that he flicked his tongue across his fangs. “I bit you?”

“A few times. Right…” Sulla reached up to rub at that spot on his shoulder near his neck. “Here…”

Lannon tilted his head as well, paused, focused… and could just barely pick out the telltale stinging pain echoing through their bond, a phantom sensation passed along. Still keeping Sulla’s shaft angled out and away, fingers cupped around the root of his knot, he reached towards his rump with his other paw and patted there.

“Apologies, beloved. I must have – gotten away from myself, a bit…”

“No, no. You’re fine.” Sulla rested his head on his arms. “You were exactly where you – needed to be.”

“Will you be alright?”

“As long as you keep – holding me like that?” He throbbed again for good measure, full knot pulsing within Lannon’s grasp so that it pressed out against his fingers, the greasy wet meat smearing over his pads. “Yes. I’ll be perfect. But we might want to open a window; it’s starting to smell like wolf in here… how are you feeling?”

Sulla already knew, of course. Lannon could tell that he knew, too; he shifted how he sat on the bed, letting his mate’s shaft sag down in his paw a bit, then hefted it back up along another throb. Some of that pumping, pounding adrenaline still cycled through his system, making his tufted ears flick and his tail twitch, but now a second, relaxing, refreshing energy pressed back against it, satisfaction and relief and enjoyment beating back the worry.

So he leaned in once more, brushed his lips across the slick, veined surface of Sulla’s still-hard cock, and then wiped himself up towards his knot, across his sheath, past his balls – and placed another kiss at his puckered tailhole, where he was still able to taste himself. A quick flick of the tongue easily pushed inside squeezing walls, and sticky warmth dribbled out into his maw tasting so strongly of them both.

“Never better,” Lannon answered, and both knew it was a lie. He released his grip on Sulla’s knot, smirked as the wolf’s back arched and his hips gave a reflexive a thrust, and then settled in alongside him. Sulla sighed with relief, rolled over onto his back so that rich red meat flopped across his belly instead, and turned his head to nuzzle in along Lannon’s muzzle – then lifted the lynx’s soaked, matted paw to his maw to begin licking his own mess out of the fur.

He took in a breath of both of them, tried to relax, partially succeeded… then remembered Sulla’s words, and moved to straddle the other male’s chest so that he could reach the window. This naturally put his still damp sheath right before his muzzle, feline musk mixed with and overtaken by lupine, and then Sulla’s nose pressed down into the puff of his pubic fur with both paws gripping his rear to keep him held forward, and Lannon had to brace himself against the windowsill above the bed for support as his body lurched, and rocked, and then began to thrust all over again. Teeth gritted, ears flattened, nub-tail lashing, his second finish hit him with just as much force as the first, and then afterwards he sagged down to Sulla’s side and wrapped in around him.

“How about now?”

His throat was dry. He rumbled softly, swallowed, and took in a breath, which soon turned into a yawn instead. As always, those thoughts and fears still remained, but now distant, muddled, unimportant: once again it was just him and Sulla, enclosed here within walls beneath a ceiling, but still together nonetheless.

For a while, at least, he could forget – almost.