I was caught in a limbo of in between, feeling the needs of my animal self, unable to fulfill it in my human form. And before me stood something that could sate my hunger, something that still looked like prey. I pushed away from him, gasping, falling onto my back, crawling away from him, hysterical giggles choking my throat. I didn't want to drink him anymore. Now I wanted to eat him.
"Don't... don't..." he warned, and as I watched, his eyes turned from emerald green to autumn-leaf brown. The eyes of his beast, his wolf.
"I'm sorry," I said, knowing I was triggering his own hunting instincts, "but I... I can't stay here." I turned, scrambled to my feet, and ran. Fleeing from my fear, my hunger. But, unfortunately, I couldn't flee from myself.
I ran blindly, desperately. Without that natural liquid grace that had always been a part of me, that came from my Monere blood. Now, for the first time in my life, I stumbled, tripped, almost fell. I ran with human clumsiness, as if that limbo I was caught in shut down other parts of myself, my gifts of strength and grace that I had taken for granted, always there like the air I breathed. Only it wasn't there now. I ran and knew even in my panicked confusion that I could not hunt like this. I could not capture, much less bring down even a rabbit in this condition, and without sating that bloodlust, I could not free myself of this state. I lurched up against a tree, felt the hard uneven bark dig into my palms. I pressed into it with my gripping fingertips, and rested my cheek against its cool rough surface, breathing hard.
A sound, an instinct, brought my head up and I found myself looking into the eyes of a gray timber wolf less than three meters away. Its eyes were feral, wild, hungry. Seeing me as food. For one wild moment I thought it was Dontaine, changed fully into his wolf self. But another sound, a low threatening rumble, swung my gaze to my right. Dontaine stood a stone's throw away, still in his human form - mostly, at least. Only his arms and hands were that of his animal self.
He stood tall, beautiful, and silent, and was somehow frighteningly wild and feral. Even more dangerous than the natural wolf that hunted me. His eyes locked with that of his wolf brother, and a shuddering roll of electric energy rolled off him like silent echoing thunder. He growled, a deep, vicious warning. A totally animal sound coming from a human throat, and the pure menace it contained alarmed something primal in me. Was even scarier than looking up and finding myself face-to-face with a hungry timber wolf.
The wolf turned and slipped away, ceding his prey to a more powerful predator. I turned back to look once more at Dontaine, at those reflective autumn-brown eyes, not because I wanted to, but because I was afraid not to. He came slowly forward, toward me, his body strong, fluid, deadly, a graceful killer with monstrous claws that could rip you apart with the added power of his beast upon him. I tensed to leap away, to flee, even though I knew I could not hope to outrun him.
"Don't, please," he said, voice raw and deep, as if growling like that had hurt his vocal cords. "Don't run... If you do..." He took a harsh, deep breath. "I cannot leave you unprotected, and you cannot hunt. Please, my Queen." He stopped several yards away and dropped to his knees, begging me with those animal-brown eyes. "Please."
And I knew suddenly what he asked of me. What he would not put words to. There was only one other way to rid us both of our bloodlust: To channel it into sex. There was no other choice, really. Had Dontaine not followed me, in my almost human state, stripped of my Monere strength and quickness, the timber wolf would have killed me. Only now did I shudder at coming so close to death.
Adrenaline surged like a flooding tide of life within me, and my eyes fixed upon the man kneeling blonde and beautiful before me, asking me to save him, save us both. If I ran from Dontaine now and triggered his beast's hunting instincts fully, instincts that he was vulnerable to only because I had asked it of him, he might end up killing me himself. I'd left him in a terrible dilemma. It was up to me now to get us out of the mess I had gotten us into.
With trembling hands, I reached back, unzipped my gown, and let it fall from me onto the ground. My underwear followed and when I stepped free and naked toward him, I saw his eyes fill with almost overwhelming relief. No heat yet, just plain and painful relief. I came to him, trusting him not to rip my throat out while I still must look like prey to him. Trusting that though I felt not one iota of sexual attraction for him at the moment, not when a part of me was still screaming for me to run away... I knew, knew, that the innate chemistry between Monere male and Queen would flare to life with close enough proximity. And it did when I was a hand's reach away from him. My aphidy - that innate chemistry, that power that all Queens possessed - sprang out with a force that made me gasp and sway toward him, almost fall upon him. I didn't. Fall upon him, that is. Not physically, at least. But that part of me invisible, not seen but felt... oh yes, felt... that hit him with the force of a flying arrow aimed true, burying itself deep in its target, in a perfect bull's-eye.
Dontaine quivered, his body tensing with a different kind of tension now, his eyes brilliant, almost glowing. I inhaled the musky fragrance of his arousal, and of mine. And welcomed the forceful attraction that sprang up between us, embraced its overwhelming intensity willingly, gave myself over to it fully.
"You're wearing too many clothes," I said, surprised at the seductive huskiness thickening my voice.
"My hands," he said and my eyes fell to his hands - his claws, actually - which he kept lowered at his sides. Monstrous, deadly, and supremely ugly, especially in comparison to the rest of his perfect masculine self. Hands that bothered me hugely. I had no choice but to put aside that discomfort. It could be worse. Oh yes, it could have been much worse.
"Let me," I said, and knelt before him.
My hands whispered down his shirt, freeing the buttons, pulling first one sleeve off, then the other, unable to hide a tremor when my hands brushed over fur. Unable to appreciate the loveliness of his naked chest because of what also had been revealed. Fur covered him up to his elbows. Great hooking claws, looking like curved black exclamation marks, the ends sharp and pointy. It broke the mood of my lustful, blissful state, and I forced my appalled gaze away from it. Don't look at them, I told myself, closing my eyes, inhaling the musky scent of his arousal, concentrating on that lovely pull between us instead, a pull that seemed to originate deep within me, from my very womb. A womb that felt empty, aching. Clenching in its need to be filled.