Tooth and Claw

by R. Lee Smith

  Vru growled again, teeth clamping down even harder (she felt one of them dimple and puncture her skin with unreal clarity; wet heat dripped down her back, thicker than his saliva, as thick as the semen smeared on her leg) before easing up and lifting away. “Fearless Nona, she-chief of Earth,” he said, every word rich with contempt and triumph in equal measure.

  “Let me go now,” said Nona, knowing he wouldn’t. “Please.”

  “Oh, did you think you were done? Get on your belly. Bare your flanks or I will cut these hides off you and take no great pains not to cut your hide with them.”

  She gripped his sheath—he was already hardening again—and resumed her careful strokes. Despite his threat, he did not throw her down and start slashing. “You don’t really want to hurt me.”

  “Ha! Don’t I?”

  “They’ll know it was you.”

  He shoved his teeth close to her eye, grinning. “I want them to know.”

  “Kruin will throw you out of the pack.”

  Vru did not laugh again, although he wanted her to think he did. “High Pack is not what it is said to be. I will not be a dog in that plant-eater’s pack. I will be chief of my own pack. And here is a thought for you to chew on, man-bitch. If I put my cub in your belly, will Nakaroth let it live? Eh? Will he even have you back when he finds you painted in my seed?”

  She supposed that was a real consideration, but it didn’t feel like one. And now that the thought of Nakaroth was in her head, it was as if he were right there with her, a shadow in the darkest part of the forest. She could almost hear his voice…

  These next moments will be terrible ones. You will be strong. You will see it through. And I will be there when it is done.

  She had no knife. But there were rocks everywhere. If she could get loose, even for a moment…

  Vru heard fear in her silence and laughed. “Now you will ask if you can come with me, eh? Ha! Then ask! Beg and perhaps I will hear you.”

  “Please,” she said obediently.

  He wrenched her arm up, slathered his tongue across her palm, and put her hand back on his cock. “Again,” he grunted, rubbing against her. “Beg.”

  “Please take me with you.”

  “Why should I? Why should I not mount you and leave you with my seed in your belly and my piss on your back? Eh? Beg, I say!” he snarled suddenly (his hips bucked). “Beg for my favor! My mercy! Bleat for it like the fawn you are!”

  Nona thought about it, thoughts like lightning, striking hot and fast and leaving burns.

  “No,” she said.

  For one long second, he did nothing. The only thing that moved was his cock, twitching in time with his pulse. She could feel it swelling even harder in her hand as he began to growl.

  “You don’t want me to beg,” she said, caressing the hard, slick knot at the base of his shaft as she looked at the dark stones pushing through the snow, measuring the distance over and over. His hand on her neck was an iron collar; his arm, a chain. That rock, too big; that one, not big enough. It had to fit in her hand, yet be solid and heavy enough to do the job in one blow, because she’d only get one. If he hit her back, he’d kill her. He didn’t need a rock. “You don’t want to fuck a bleating fawn. You want to fuck me, just as I am. Don’t you? You want me to fuck you back. And I will.”

  Another long second stretched out…and snapped with the panting of his laughter. “So, you like wolf-cock, do you, human? You like it so much, you don’t care whose it is.” His hand tightened, not enough to cut off her air completely, but enough to let her know he could. “Do you think I am a fool?”

  “I think I want to live,” she choked. “I’ll do whatever I have to do to live.”

  “Will you?” he growled thoughtfully, claws flexing as he watched her fight for breath. His free hand pushed up under her nice new shirt, rubbing aggressively at her stomach.

  “Let go of me,” she rasped, taking that hand and putting it firmly on her breast, “and I’ll prove it.”

  He leaned over her shoulder to look at the lump of his hand under her shirt, watching it bulge as he squeezed. His head cocked. He watched her face, eyes narrow, squeezing harder, twisting while she fought not to react, until she broke and cried out in pain. He eased up with a throaty rumble of satisfaction, then at last released his grip on her throat so he could fondle her with both hands.

  “Make me ready, man-bitch,” he growled.

  She obeyed, massaging down the length of his cock before reaching below to cup his balls, swollen hard and heavy. She played with them, far more gently, but in the same general rhythm as he used to mangle her tits.

  He arched, nearly lifting her off the ground, and shivered.

  This was it. It wasn’t a great opportunity, but it might be the only one she got.

  Nona hefted his balls, as full and firm as a grapefruit. She closed her eyes, picturing a grapefruit—the smooth yellow skin, the pink meat—and then she closed her fist. Her nails could pierce a grapefruit’s thick rind easily; her thumb stabbed in without resistance. She did not need to be very strong to crush even the firmest, most unripe fruit. She squeezed until the juice splashed hot over her wrist and the pulp fell steaming into the snow.

  The sound Vru made was not a scream or a howl or a whine or a roar, but all of these and a thousand other sounds besides. If he’d hit her, he could have broken her neck. If he’d bit, he could have torn out her throat. If, in his shock and pain, he had only closed those massive clawed hands on her breasts and ripped…but he did none of these things. He made that sound and staggered back. His arm swung, without intent but only flailing in agony, and still managed to knock her right off her feet.

  She landed tits-first on the uneven ground, her face punching through the stale crust of snow and into the frozen bed of leaves beneath, her hip catching the unyielding knob of a tree root, and her hand coming down right on the perfect rock. She made another fist. She lifted her head, spat blood and snow and leaves, and got up.

  Vru dropped to his knees as Nona stood. He fell onto his side, both hands between his kicking legs, churning bloody snow into bloody mud as he thrashed, and never stopped—perhaps couldn’t stop—making that sound. It came out of him, vomited noise, until his voice broke on its jagged edges and all he could manage was a rasping cough, like the chuff of a fellcat.

  The rock in her hand burned with cold. Watching him, Nona considered letting it drop. It was over enough, wasn’t it? She could run now. Hell, she could walk. He was in no condition to chase her. He was beaten.

  And just as she had this thought, Vru’s wildly rolling eye suddenly fixed on her. Focused. The pain and confusion that dulled it lit now with rage. He lunged, arms flying out, splattering her with red-black blood and bright pink meat.

  She ran to meet him, but slipped in the snow at the last second and her powerhouse blow turned into a glancing tap off his forehead. She wasn’t sure he even noticed she had a rock, not until she swung again and smashed it against his snapping jaws as he went in for a killing bite. Bone crunched. Teeth flew. Now he backed up, panting and blowing bloody ropes of drool down his chest, only to throw himself at her again.

  His weight slammed into her, knocking her off her feet. She fell with him on top of her, pinning her to the ground, but she kept her grip on the rock. She hit him, hammering at him anywhere she could—his side, his shoulder, his back, but couldn’t get her arm up to strike at his head. His size worked against him here; he was at the wrong angle to get at her throat, so he bit her in the shoulder. His broken teeth could not penetrate her leather shirt. When his jaws clamped, he howled in pain and reared back, shaking his head violently, giving her one last imperfect chance.

  She hit him with everything she had left. The rock struck the top of his head with a strangely hollow sound and it was like she’d found his off switch. His eyes did not roll back. His body did not sag. She hit him—clop—and he dropped onto her, three hundred pounds of matted fur and muscle, smearing blood and snot across her ch
eek as he fell.

  Nona lay for some time beneath him, staring up into the snow as it spun down out of the white sky. It was hard to breathe under the crushing weight of his body and harder still because every breath she did pull in came soured by the stink of him. When she turned her head to get at cleaner air, his muzzle dropped against her ear, mouth open and tongue like a slug in her hair. His own breaths were wet and labored. If she didn’t know better, she might think he was snoring. Like he was drunk or sick, but ultimately only sleeping. Like he could wake up any minute.

  Nona pushed at him, tentatively at first, afraid to rouse him, then harder and harder, grimacing at the sensation of his body rocking atop her. At last, she managed to shift enough of him to free herself. With a little more effort, she sat up. She watched him for a while, listening to him breathe, weighing risks and consequences…then hit him again and kept hitting him until it was finished.

  She dropped the rock and sat down beside him, feeling no satisfaction, no sense of triumph. Her face itched; she wiped it and saw blood on her fingers, from his claws or scraped on the snow, she didn’t know, couldn’t care. Other injuries made themselves known with throbbing or pressure or heat, but not with pain. She’d feel it later, she was sure. Right now…she felt nothing.

  His body cooled. She watched the wisps of steam rising from the wet mess that used to be his head until they were gone and when ice began to creep in from the edges, she made herself look away. She could still see him, sort of—a dim discolored ghost, always at the corner of her eye.

  She couldn’t stay here. She wasn’t sure she could go back either, but she knew she couldn’t stay here.

  Nona scooped up some unstained snow and tried to wash off the blood. It didn’t work very well. The new snow melted, the old snow turned to chips of ice; the resulting slush was abrasive and greyish, flecked with grit and slivers of decayed plant matter. She scrubbed until her hands were purple with cold, but they still weren’t clean.

  When she thought her legs could hold her, she got up and started walking.

  29. Truth and Consequences

  The wind picked up as Nona moved through the forest, blowing old brittle snow and soft fresh flakes indiscriminately into her face. It didn’t matter. The tracks she and Lura had left were gone, but that didn’t matter either. She knew they had walked mostly north and up to get here, so she walked down and mostly south and soon enough saw the distinctive broken treeline that surrounded High Rock.

  She came out of the forest almost exactly where she’d gone into it, just a short distance further down the path. She could have turned aside and gone to the pond if she wanted to, but she’d dropped Nakaroth’s gourd during the ambush and had entirely forgotten it until now, so there wasn’t much point.

  The Fringe-wolves started out averting their eyes when she first approached them, but either the sight or the smell of blood caught someone’s attention and once he reacted, they all did, scattering out of her way and into the clearing. For Nona, there was one last moment of perfect stillness, as if there had been no time lost in the forest, as if none of it had happened at all. There was Sangar and Madira, high on the slope, with their herbs and roots and clay bottles. There was Mika, stitching hides into a coat while Samatan and Laal dozed beside her. There was Heather, wincing and smiling as Basharo angrily attempted to nurse, chatting with Ararro, who was now on Heather’s other side, between her and—

  Lura.

  The stillness out in the clearing broke with Burgash’s ear-splitting howl: Blood here! Nakaroth, come! Kruin, come! Blood here, blood at High Rock! Hunters, come! The stillness inside Nona broke even louder. She seemed to take one step, just the one, and then she was rolling on the ground with Lura, fighting to hold her down for the punches while the much stronger lycan tried to get away.

  No one stopped her. No one helped her either. Burgash was there somewhere, howling and answering howls, but he did not interfere until Lura at last succeeded in flailing her way free of Nona’s manic attacks. He caught Lura when she bolted for the trees and pushed her to the ground where she huddled, her entire body arched in submission, shaking and crying. Nona got up, fell over, got up again with someone’s help—felt like Sangar, or maybe Samatan—and threw herself at Lura for another barrage of blows that only ended when she was too tired and it hurt too much to keep punching. Then she rolled off Lura and lay on her back on the stony ground, breathing hard, numb everywhere but her hand, arm and shoulder.

  She stared into the white sky for a thousand years, until the smudgy sun was eclipsed by blackness.

  Nakaroth.

  He did not pick her up. He did not ask silly questions like what happened or who did it. His warm, rough hand swept across her forehead, brushing away stray hairs stuck to her skin by frozen mud or dried blood, and then he settled beside her. He picked up her hand, limp on the stone, and held it carefully in both of his, licking and prodding at her tender knuckles.

  “Is it broken?” she heard Sangar ask.

  Nakaroth prodded some more and said, “I don’t think so, but she’ll feel it tomorrow.”

  Elsewhere, Kruin’s voice: “What did you do?”

  “Nothing,” whined Lura, then screamed as Nona flung herself at her and punched her bruised hand stupidly against the bony shield of Lura’s arms. “I did what I was told!” she howled while Nakaroth pried Nona off and pinned her to his chest. “I was obedient! I was loyal! I had no choice!”

  Kruin howled, a lord’s command with Vru’s name in it.

  “He won’t answer you,” panted Nona, hanging in Nakaroth’s prisoning embrace.

  “Find him,” Kruin said curtly. “I will have hunters. Run the dog down and bring him—”

  “He’s not running. He’s dead.”

  Kruin looked at her.

  Lura slowly lowered her arms.

  No one else moved or spoke.

  Nona gathered her feet under her, but made no effort to break Nakaroth’s hold. She leaned into it instead, leaned hard, pushing herself into him like she thought she could disappear inside him and never come back again. “I lost your bottle,” she mumbled. “Your gourd thing. I used up all your water and then I lost the bottle. I lost the knife you gave me. I killed Vru. And I ruined my clothes. My new clothes. You never get blood out, you know. You never get it out. You can wash and wash and wash. There’s always a stain.”

  Nakaroth cupped her throat, not squeezing, but only covering it from the eyes of others. He held her.

  “You killed a lycan,” said Alorak, the first to speak after a long, long silence. “You killed a wolf of High Pack.”

  Nona nodded.

  Another silence followed, not as long but much heavier.

  Without taking his eyes off her, Kruin gestured to the hunters who clustered nearby. “Find him. Be sure. Bring him here if he lives.”

  Although his order did not appear to be directed at anyone in particular, more than half the pack obeyed. Even some of the Fringe-wolves went, although they kept a respectable distance between them and the wolves of High Pack. But Alorak stayed. He stood next to his father and stared at Nona, unmoving, hardly even blinking.

  They waited. Lura tried once to speak, but Kruin shut her up with nothing but a stare, and after that, she only huddled there, hiding her face and shivering. Nona sat where she was, letting Nakaroth keep her warm against his body, watching Lura sometimes and sometimes Alorak, but mostly just listening for the howl.

  It never came. After a time—how much? Not enough and too much—Sakros came back into the clearing. The others came after, too quiet. Some stared at her as they took their places—uneasy eyes, accusing eyes—while others went to extremes to avoid looking at her at all; it amounted to the same thing.

  Rather than make a report to Kruin, Sakros came over to Nona. When she started to look up at him, he put a hand on her head, preventing her from tipping back and exposing her neck. He hunkered down with a stiff groan and just looked at her for a while, his arms resting on his thi
ghs and hands dangling, one open and the other closed.

  He was old, was Sakros. Growing old in the Land of Tooth and Claw was no easy feat. He was a hunter, a tracker, a warrior. His eyes knew how to see things. He’d seen Vru and the rock and the blood and now Nona, and if anyone here knew Vru had already been unconscious when she’d killed him, it was Sakros.

  Sakros put his closed hand out and waited until, hesitantly, Nona cupped her palm beneath it. Then he opened it and let several small white objects rattle down into her hand.

  Vru’s teeth.

  “Show our lord the proof of this murder!” Alorak spat.

  Kruin looked at him, silent.

  “He’s dead,” said Sakros, rising. “My word and the witness of the pack should be proof enough of that. I bring no witness of murder against a traitor. I bring a brave bitch the trophy teeth of a damned hard kill.”

  “Trophy?!” Alorak bristled and all his eager supporters erupted into angry protests. He cuffed one of them to shut them all up and swung on his father. “You cannot allow that!”

  “Tell me,” Kruin ordered, but pointed a silencing claw at Sakros even before he could begin to answer. “Not you.” He looked down at Lura, shivering at his feet. “You.”

  “I did nothing wrong,” she whined.

  Nakaroth’s grip tightened just a little, not in warning, but in anticipation of the need to restrain her. He needn’t have bothered. Nona’s strength was gone, all the fires of rage and revenge turned to ash. She couldn’t even bring herself to roll her eyes.

  Nakaroth was not as accepting, for all that his hands remained gentle and his voice calm. “I call you a liar, bitch of Snow Peak, and I say now you will speak truth or you will meet a blacker wolf than I tonight.”

  Kruin did not reprimand him. He gazed at Lura and waited.

  “I had no choice,” Lura said again, avoiding anyone’s eyes. “My mate gave me orders. A wolf is chief before his mates. His words are law.”

  “Greater than mine?” Kruin snapped. “I say you will admit what you have done in its fullness! Did you lure this bitch away from the pack and bring her to your mate?”