The Heat #WATTYS2019

Chapter 19

     The large whitish wolf trudged through the snow, his large paws indenting in the icy substance. Cold mist blew out from his nostrils and panting mouth, spreading into the chilly air before transforming into small crystals of ice and depositing on his head's fur and his whiskers. He glowed like a moon, or a thousand stars.

     Only one though occupied his mind, crystal clear. Find her. It was what kept him up at night, walking, walking, walking. It was what let him sleep merely five hours at a time, and it was his drive to hunt faster. He'd crossed paths with many males, and many unmated females, and he'd ignored them, stalking on. He had to get to Deep Snow City. Something pulled him through the Wulf Fangs, and to the city, and, he know somewhere, that he would meet her there, or that he would meet her on the road. It was a gut-wrenching feeling that drove him to the edge of his own sanity, his need to get to her overpowering everything.

     Mates.

     He'd known it from the start, when his soul had remembered hers, had recognized her. Magic had always told him what would happen when he met his mate.

     Fenris must have been so into his thoughts that when the scarred Feral jumped on him, he could only roll to the ground, maw open to reveal white teeth. He sunk the deadly daggers into his attacker's neck, tearing through rolls of fur and skin and muscle and reaching out for the vein of life. Finally, his pearly whites caught onto it, and he pulled, tearing out his opponent's throat. The beast let out a strangled cry of pain that ended in a gurgle as blood pumped out of his neck. Finally, he went limp.

     Fenris got up, as if nothing had happened. Nothing would keep him from accomplishing his oath.

•••

     The white hair of the female flew in her back like a flag— though it would have announced death instead of peace. She sat atop one of the many pine trees in the Pyrennees as she waited for Lycaon to come back with the food. She had hunted the day before, therefore he hunted today. The icy wind of mid-winter stung her face, whipping at it with a ferocious desire to kill. It did not know that she was more powerful than a simple human, and even than an average Wolf.

     She slunk down the tree like a squirrel as her sharp ears picked up the sound of pawsteps on the ground. She landed on the rug of pine needles and rotting leaves, splattered with snow, without a sound, just as the muscular outline of large black wolf detached itself from the surrounding shadows that crowded around him like faithful friends. Lycaon had always been loved by dark things. It reminded her of another male, one she longed to meet again.

"You make a lot of noise, Lycaon," she uttered when the wolf was at her feet.

     The beast melted into its naked human form and Lycaon took the pants the female was handing him. He slipped them on before opening his mouth with a crooked grin.

"That's what my one night stands have said. They liked it," he replied in a rocky voice.

     Rocky and rugged like his features.

"When will you ever grow up, brother?" the female tutted.

"Oh, Morrigan, I am over two thousand years old. It is time I go back to my teenaged tendencies. And I am not your brother," he laughed, a full, open-mouthed laugh that ricocheted off the trees as a lonely crow flew off, startled.

"You may not be my brother in blood, but in soul you are. And that is much more important than the ties of the blood and the marriage."

     She bent down on one knee, taking out a couple dozen stones from her backpack. She set them in a circle, around a pit she had previously dug in the ground, and proceeded to light a blazing fire.