Queer Werewolves Destroy Capitalism

by MJ Lyons

  “I . . . don’t see . . . how this helps . . . collect what we need,” I got out between panting, pleasured breaths.

  He pulled back, to my dismay, but only to stand and retrieve one of the glass cases Hye-rin had left for us. “On your knees, my prince,” he murmured as he climbed back onto the bed. There was a brief tussle as he got me turned over and in the right position. I plied him with kisses and tried to convince him to do away with his clothes, but he was adamant we take care of me first.

  I was face down in the fabric of the bed, my knees splayed, my vulnerable backside up to the air, when he licked up the underside of one leg and returned to his eager lapping. I squirmed beneath him, my hands clawing at the blankets, my groans muted as I pressed my face into the clouds of fabric.

  His hand reached underneath and teased my length, brushing and stroking it. In the moments of his attentions to my fundament I could not hold it in any longer, and I cried out as much to Ji-min.

  He pulled away and growled, “Don’t waste a drop, my prince,” as he shoved the clear glass case into my hand.

  “Don’t stop,” I snarled back at him, and when he laughed I could feel the vibrations of mirth through my backside.

  It wasn’t soon after that I found myself naked and spent, the potential future heir of the People of the Sacred Mountains cradled in a glass case in my hand. A strange thought, but we were in a strange place. We placed the case in the compartment, and Hye-rin’s voice intoned, “Viable sample accepted.”

  As I got my breath back and recovered from our exertions, Ji-min lay next to me on the bed and took the rest of my samples: a small prick on the finger for a blood sacrifice to the spirit, a small scraping of skin, a few strands of hair, a small device run between my lips and front teeth. We repeated each of these for Ji-min, and all of these sacrifices were soon gathered in the compartment, which ate them up hungrily. There was only one piece left.

  “My warrior,” I said, climbing out of the bed, still naked, a thin sheen of sweat covering my body, “did you know that People of the Sacred Mountains are renowned for our ropework?”

  He admitted he did not know that.

  I moved over to my pack, and pulled out some leather strips my people used for armour repairs or construction of our campsites. I had learned from former intimate friends that they had other uses, as well.

  At first Ji-min clearly did not know what I had in mind. He began to get an idea when I had tied his ankle off to one of the bed’s legs, and then the other. As I straddled him to work on his hands he put up a struggle, but I quickly had the warrior subdued.

  “I would have never thought it’d be so easy to defeat one of the Warlord’s honour guard,” I lorded over him standing beside the bed, admiring my handiwork. He swore at me, laughing. The ties were real, and unless he could snap the leather or break the bed, they would not give. “I think you’re missing one thing.”

  I took my discarded robe and twisted it, wrapping the material around his head, covering his eyes. “I will make this slow and torturous, my defeated warrior,” I murmured, running my hand over the front of his tunic, where I could see his excitement had not abated. Ji-min whimpered, pushing into my hand. I laughed and removed my hand, gaining another oath from him. “Don’t make me gag you,” I said, climbing between his legs.

  In moments I had his tunic pushed up and his small-clothes down around his knees. Ji-min struggled against his binds without success, and I breathed softly on his length, inches away from my mouth. I reached up under his tunic, running my hands over his sculpted, muscular chest. I might have admired his wit and his cunning most of all, but what I desired at that moment was his broad shoulders, his thick thighs, the swirls of soft hair on his chest and the beautiful length between his legs.

  I licked up his length and took it into mouth, and soon had him moaning so loud it was probably frightening some cats in the next room over.

  I spent the next while applying my talented lips to his favourite parts, only to remove them when his groans became heated. At first he growled and uttered insults and commands, but after a dozen frustrating cycles he began to whine and beg, his voice becoming high and desperate.

  I retrieved some oil from my pack and returned, untying the straps binding his legs and getting the twisted fabric of his small-clothes the rest of the way off. He seemed to know what was coming, and welcomed it. I slicked my length and slid it into him, musing that such a large, muscular man could submit so willingly, and what that did to inflame my desire.

  I began slowly, working into him at a tortuous pace. He thrashed beneath me, the leather straps snapping against the bed. Normally he would have grabbed my hips and taken charge of the speed, but I was in command of this warrior. He would that we go charging into battle, but a scout of the Sacred Mountains takes his time, and strikes with deadly efficiency.

  Soon I was pounding into my warrior love, holding nothing back, and he was calling out that he was close. I fumbled for the final glass case, and pressed it against his stomach muscles, just as he reached release. He produced more than was strictly necessary for the sacrifice the spirit required . . .

  I quickly put the glass lid on the case and placed it into the compartment—“Viable sample accepted”—before rushing back over and undoing his wrist restraints.

  “Lower your arms slowly, it can be uncomfortable when they’ve been in one position for so long,” I cooed, massaging the bulging muscles of my warrior’s arms.

  He scoffed, “It wasn’t as long as all that . . . ”

  I removed the blindfold and he pulled me on top of him, the remainder of his mess pressing between us. After a moment he reached down and wrapped his hand around my length. “You’re still hard,” he murmured. “We could produce more samples.”

  Hye-rin would later confirm that was the night, impossibly, that Ji-min and I conceived.

  We had been living at the Project Edion Vault for eight months when I first spotted trouble on the horizon.

  The shades down the mountain had proven themselves relatively harmless. I would occasionally scout north of the Ancients’ academy to make sure their forays didn’t take them too close to us, but they mostly hunted in the greenlands near the river, or fished. They were more organized and . . . civil than I had imagined. They wore clothes, they built tools, they cared for their young. It was disturbing to imagine these creatures the People of the Sacred Mountains put down whenever they blundered into our territory as being our own kind . . .

  The trouble came from the shades, but not how I had expected.

  Ji-min and I spent much of our time together, exploring closed sections of the sanctum of Hye-rin, or wandering the academy. On days that he retreated into the archives of the sanctum or communed with Hye-rin in her sacred innermost sanctum, her “servers,” as she called them, I would take Cheonjiwang and go hunting on the mountainside. The “sustenance” Hye-rin could provide in the sanctum was dry and paste-like, for the most part, so roasting some squirrels or a quail made for a nice change.

  It was on one of these hunts that I spotted the fires to the northwest. The occasional column of smoke signalling a campfire wasn’t unusual. This, however, was thick, black smoke that covered the horizon. The only other time I had seen such destruction was when the Warlord Warriors put a village to a torch. Was this a sign of war? I had hoped the peace would hold until Ji-min and I returned, but anything could have happened in more than a half-year.

  I reported what I’d seen that evening, over quail. Ji-min’s brow furrowed. “Hyun, there’s something I didn’t tell you when we first met, and it’s been weighing heavy on my conscience all this time.”

  I leaned back in my chair, trying to keep my face neutral. We had shared so much over all those months, there were few things I could think of that he would hide from me.

  He pushed a haughty little tom he called J.J. off his lap, an anxious look on his face. “The Warlord died just before I left.”

  My stomach burned with a cold f
ury. My voice went quiet: “This changes everything.”

  He looked frightened. “This changes nothing, Hyun. I didn’t tell you because it didn’t change my decision to meet with you. To do this with you.”

  “It might have changed mine.”

  I stood and stormed out of the room, almost kicking a cat who was stretching in the doorway. Dusk was descending over the soul city, Hye-rin would be sealing the doors for the evening soon. I considered walking away from Ji-min, from this whole cursed endeavour. I had reason to if my people were being slaughtered while we sat idly awaiting the results of a godless ritual of the Ancients. If the Warlord was dead there would a power struggle, and Ji-min didn’t think the peace would hold under new leadership.

  I found my favourite vantage spot and watched darkness consume the Ancients’ city. If there was slaughter in the Sacred Mountains my mother would be forced to mount an offensive, after offering so much to the Warlord. She would have to show a sign of force. And if she died, who would be there to unify the people? . . . Certainly not my twisted, mutilated, warmongering brother . . .

  I heard the familiar footsteps of my lover approaching up the mountainside, followed by the quiet padding of several cats who had taken to following Ji-Min about, for he was generous with treats. “Hye-rin said that to fulfill her priority to preserve life, she’s going to keep the Vault open until you return.”

  “And what about my priority to preserve the life of my people? That’s why I came here in the first place, but they might be getting cut down in their homes, their villages razed to the ground, marched over by your people. I don’t blame you for their actions, Ji-min, bu–”

  “My people aren’t killing yours,” Ji-min muttered, sadness colouring his voice.

  “I know you want to believe that, but–”

  “No, you don’t understand. It is so much worse than I told you before. My people . . . what’s left of them . . . consist of women and children, old men and war injured. The few warriors you saw at the summit . . . that’s all that’s left of them.”

  I finally turned to him. Tears streamed silently down his face. He wiped at them angrily. “I came here to save my people, Hyun. I don’t know how to tell you this, but the Vault . . . the sanctum has the capacity to save them. They need genetic diversity, they need a sustainable population. The sanctum has hundred of thousands of fertilized eggs, waiting to undergo the process of gestation and birth, but Hye-rin is dying too, slowly. She only has the ability to keep her systems going for the next hundred years before they completely degrade, maybe less . . . She’s shut down all but the most essential systems, she’s already lost thousands of viable eggs. She was only meant to be a stopgap until the chaos of the old world settled, so the survivors could repopulate, but she lost her team, and no one ever came to begin the process, and she couldn’t care for children, so she has waited all this time . . . ”

  I pulled him close. I couldn’t understand all of what he was saying, but he had kept this thing from me too. His people were dying, their bloodlines cursed and drained by war. The sanctum could save them, bring more children to them, but he’d been worried that, had he told me, I might have returned to my people and let his die, out of fear or prejudice.

  “Even if a Warlord took control of the land, he’d only be leading a few dozen warriors to their deaths, leaving his people to die. We needed the peace, I’d convinced the Warlord of that before he died. We needed to be able to cross the border and come here and produce children, but first I needed to find this place and make sure the Vault was real, and could still save us, and it can. What Hye-rin has done for us is proof that it can!”

  I could understand wanting to save his people. I could understand wanting peace. We returned to the sanctum, followed by a parade of cats. As we laid down together that night, our minds troubled, I promised him that I would do all I could to help him save his people.

  Someone had crossed the river and set fire to the village of shades.

  That much was clear at a glance. I spoke the incantation and drew out Cheonjiwang’s magical eye.

  The scene was carnage. Warriors were climbing out of old fishing boats and methodically working through the village, setting fire to the homes of the shades . . . the people . . . and cutting them down in the streets. Many of the people of the village were fleeing, and it was clear they would return to only ashes and charred remains of their friends and families.

  It was clear at a glance that the slaughter was being committed by warriors of the Sacred Mountain. Then I saw the sight of a metal sword held in a metal hand, a demon hand, and the mad, fevered face of the man who used it to behead a helpless old man, grinning all the while.

  It was my brother.

  This time it was my turn to confess a secret to Ji-min, when I had him come and survey the scene, for it was clear they were marching toward the Academy.

  “The night before I was planning to leave, to meet you,” I explained as we looked on at the still-smouldering village, and the line of Sacred Mountain warriors who were cutting through the ruins of the city, up the side of the mountain. “My brother, Dae-jung, came to me. He told me mother’s reign was over, that she was old and weak, that we would throw our peace treaty with the Warlords back in their faces and protect our lands. I told him what he spoke was treason. He told me allowing the Warlords on our land was treason to the Kingdom, to the gods of the mountains, our foundation, our strength. He . . . challenged me to a duel, claiming I wasn’t fit to inherit the kingdom . . . I’m better with a bow than a sword, but he is arrogant, and that brings him to my level. The fight was quick, he lost most of his right arm. I was sickened, mother was heartbroken. I lied, said I had insulted his honour as a protector of the mountains, and that he was right to challenge me, our laws allow it. I left before dawn the next morning, a self-exile. I didn’t believe there was any way he could survive . . . ”

  Ji-min shivered in the cold winter air and wrapped his arms around me. “And the arm? That’s . . . clearly technology of the Ancients.”

  I nodded. “The first Queen of the Sacred Mountains found it deep within our first mountain . . . among the magical weapons gifted her by the mountain god, a demon cursed device that the mountain god was keeping sealed away. The royal family kept it guarded, believing it evil, but clearly my brother understood it could be . . . attached . . . ”

  “How did they find us, though?” Ji-min asked. I couldn’t answer, but summoned my bow’s magic eye once again to survey the scene. I first found a group of the destroyed village’s people south of the academy, hiding in thick forest at the heart of the ruins, where they hunted.

  I scanned the soul city’s ruins and caught sight of the small army of men and women. As the warriors walked out of the carnage I saw a sight equally as disturbing as the butchered, frightened people of the village. Attached to a rope being dragged by three of the Sacred Mountain warriors was a Warlord warrior in demon armour, although his armour was little more than bits of metal clinging to a frame. The helmet was missing, the pauldrons and greaves were jagged bits, the man himself looked about as well as his armour, his face bleary and terrified, a dried cut on his cheek. I handed my bow to Ji-min and, after a moment, his eyes went wide.

  “That’s Genya . . . my tutor . . . the scholar I mentioned, the one who helped me locate this place in the pre-collapse records. What’s he doing here?”

  We had little enough time, they would find the academy by the late afternoon, and it wouldn’t be difficult to find the sanctum from there. Even if we sealed ourselves in, it wouldn’t end the bloodshed. Ji-min and I would face my brother and put an end to this war.

  There was an old plaza north of the academy, clogged with vines and weeds, but an open space that connected to the ruined city’s arteries. Flanked by the intimidating sight of demon armour, which stood protectively beside me, I stood on the far side from where the warriors of the Sacred Mountain began to gather. I called out to them, told them I was their rightful heir, and I
commanded them to cease their campaign immediately and return home.

  Dae-jung swaggered out of their midsts. His injury had changed him, both his body and his spirit. He was gaunt and his eyes had grown sunken. The demon-possessed arm had not attached to him well, it hung at his side at an odd angle, seemed to extend his reach too long, and twitched irregularly. He had a frenzied look as he laughed across the expanse between us.

  “Don’t listen to this traitor,” he barked at his followers, jabbing his sword in the direction of the Warlord warrior who stood beside me. “He has been seduced by this bastard prince of the Warlords.”

  There was anxious whispering among the warlords. I turned to my side, and was met with the cold exterior of the armour. “It’s true,” Ji-min’s voice crackled from within, “But it’s not the whole truth.”

  Dae-jung had the scholar, Genya, brought forward. The man was pushed towards me, stumbling deliriously. “We found this monster days ago, hiding in a Sacred Mountains village, on his way here. The village seemed to believe he had a right to travel through our lands . . . that a peace had been reached!” my brother spat. “We put the village to the torch, but his knowledge proved useful. We may have been searching the region another month or more without him . . . ”

  “My prince,” the scholar named Genya called out mournfully, his voice cracking. “I’m so sorry . . . ”

  Clearly my brother knew what we’d found. He knew in another month it would have been too late to stop us.

  “Dae-jung,” I called, drawing my bow and arrow, “enough, child. If you’ve come to kill me, then do so. I’ll stick an arrow in my own brother’s eye and end his madness if I must.”

  Dae-jung barked a laugh. “I would kill you where you stand if I could, brother, but it would be dishonourable. I mean to bring you back to the village, have you stand trial for your crimes. Not even mother will defend you for defecting, for accessing forbidden powers.”

  “She will if it brings peace,” I stated. I could see some of the warriors were looking to one another. Clearly most of them were following Dae-jung out of duty to the royal family, not out of loyalty to him. Maybe a few of his thugs would answer to him directly, but I hoped the rest would be more hesitant.