Fire & Flesh

by Kerri Carr

  “It makes your blood boil?” She squeezed him again, hopeful.

  “Let me get a fire going first. Let me dry my clothes, and maybe eat.”

  Dawn sighed. “Heat, clothing and food. What kind of priority list is that, compared to fucking?”

  “Language!” Evie chided.

  “You enjoy it too, so don’t start.”

  Evie poked out her tongue at the pouting Dawn.

  “Ladies…” Buzz muttered. “There’s no rush. I’ll stay another day. Maybe two. I want to help your friends.”

  “It’s hopeless. It took us years to bust out, and it was only because someone got careless.”

  “Let me think about it. In the meantime, can you please switch on the lights so I can find my stuff.”

  “Okay,” Dawn conceded. “You get your stuff, but not the knife.”

  “What happens if the bear comes back?”

  “Don’t worry, big guy. We’ll take good care of you. Won’t we, Evie?”

  “We promise.”

  *****

  Darkness was falling and Buzz had everything he wanted. Flanked by two beautiful women, he carved off another slice of roasted deer and split it between the pair. They tore into the hot meat without preamble, sighing with happiness.

  “I’ve never tasted anything so good,” Evie moaned.

  “Better than eating it raw,” Dawn agreed.

  “How is it that you never had cooked meat before?”

  “We ate whatever we caught,” Evie explained. “And we ate it in our shifted forms.”

  “We’d no need for fire. We don’t feel the cold like you do.” She indicated his dried clothes, which he was now wearing.

  “And I can see better in the dark than any animal,” Evie boasted.

  “Apart from a wolf,” Dawn corrected.

  “I can see better than any old wolf!”

  “But not this wolf.”

  “Still better.” Evie poked out her tongue again.

  “Ladies, please…”

  “She started it.”

  “Did not.”

  “Okay!” Buzz shouted. “Maybe one day we can put it to the test. In the meantime, you’re both better than I am at seeing in the dark, okay? Plus I could never have chased down this deer.”

  “Okay…” Evie muttered.

  “Sure.” Dawn reached for more meat, but quickly snatched back her burned fingers.

  “Let me get that.” Buzz carved off another slice and split it for them. As the women devoured the meat, he leaned back and watched.

  “Are you checking us out?” Dawn asked.

  Buzz shrugged. “You’re both naked. At least I can’t be accused of mentally undressing you.”

  “Maybe you’re mentally dressing us,” Evie said around a mouthful of venison haunch. Her spread fingers hovered close to her mouth as she spoke.

  Buzz laughed. “For what I have in mind, mental clothes would get in the way.”

  “Oh? You’re fantasizing?” Dawn asked.

  “Maybe. Now I know how I’m going to help you, I can focus on other things.”

  “So you’re definitely going to help us?”

  “I’ve the beginnings of a plan.” He handed out more meat.

  “Care to discuss it?”

  “Later, when I’ve mulled it over some more. In the meantime, enjoy.” He leaned back, slipping his arms around both women. When Evie finished eating, she sucked her fingers noisily, then snuggled against Buzz’s chest. Dawn, sophisticated as always, wiped her fingers on his arm, then moulded herself into his side. With two naked women pressed against him, he felt the beginnings of an erection stir once more. Dawn did her best to help him toward full hardness by squeezing and stroking him through his pants, before unzipping and fishing him out. He sighed as her mouth engulfed him, turning his head to kiss Evie. It quickly became a repeat of their earlier experience, although less hurried, less desperate. And this time, it was Dawn who straddled him first, angling his cock so she could sink down onto him. Her generous breasts rippled as she moved up and down on him. Encouraged by Dawn, Evie also straddled him, but lowered herself onto his mouth instead of his erection. Her sweet, breathless cries echoed throughout the cave as his tongue lapped at her smooth, slippery skin. The women held hands as they took turns to orgasm, clinging tightly to each other as their bodies shivered and trembled.

  Buzz groaned and bucked beneath the pair as he filled Dawn with liquid heat. She whimpered as he pushed deep, arching his body until the shuddering spasm passed.

  “He’s still hard,” Dawn whispered, squeezing Buzz with her internal muscles. “I don’t know how he does it.”

  “So why are you being so selfish?” Evie asked. “Gimme!”

  “Of course.” Dawn raised herself until Buzz slid out. She pressed a hand to her pussy, holding onto the nourishing fluids, then edged away to allow Evie a few moments of pleasure. Buzz was happy to oblige, letting her ride him for a time, then rolling her over to mount her. He began gently, unsure if Evie was able to take the pounding Dawn enjoyed earlier. But she wrapped her legs around his back and begged him to hammer her, harder and harder. Dawn held her hand as the younger woman cried out and scored Buzz’s arms with sharp nails.

  “Fuck me, fuck me hard!” she cried. “Fill me with that cock. Come inside, me, Buzz. Please come inside me.” Ever the one to oblige, Buzz managed a final orgasm before shuddering to an exhausted halt. Evie peppered his face with kisses as Dawn squeezed his hard buttocks.

  “Wow…” he whispered. “That was intense.”

  “I have to say… you really delivered.”

  “Did… my best.” He began to push himself up, but Evie clung to him tightly.

  “Don’t leave me,” she begged, “Stay inside me a little longer.”

  “Of course.” He kissed her tenderly, and although his erection was fading, he stayed put.

  “Thank you,” Dawn said. Her hand explored his hard, muscular back through the shirt he still wore. “Thank you for not freaking out when we shifted.”

  “It was the most incredible thing I’ve ever seen. Sure, I was stunned—and frightened, if I’m honest—but the sight of you both transforming into wild animals… it was… amazing.!”

  “Amazing…” Evie murmured, tightening her grip on his waist. Buzz shifted his position so his shrinking cock didn’t slip out of her slippery passage. He lasted thirty seconds more before he lost the battle. Evie pouted, and reached down to stop any leakage. Buzz shifted again so she could get her hand between her legs.

  “I don’t understand how the nourishment thing works,” he said.

  “Our bodies absorb the proteins in semen, but not everyone is the same. Some shifters need blood, others—”

  “Blood? Like vampires?”

  “They’re not undead, or anything. But blood stabilises their shifting, brings it under control.”

  “So if you’re denied proteins, your control diminishes?”

  “Exactly. We can shift without warning. We can attack and hurt others.”

  “But you became tetchy, snarky after we made love.”

  “That was the tail end of our desperation, the last remnants of our instability being driven out.”

  He leaned away from Dawn, his eyes wary. “Will you be snarky this time?”

  “Of course, not. This is our second time. We’re cool.”

  “Cool,” Evie murmured happily.

  *****

  As Buzz dozed next to the glowing embers, Dawn and Evie watched the stars emerge in a cobalt sky.

  “Do you think we can trust him?” Evie asked.

  “I think we have to. No-one has ever offered to help us before.”

  “But can he do it? Is it even possible?”

  “I don’t know. You saw the fences, the guards.” Dawn toyed with her hair.

  “If he can help Sandy, Ron, Bono, Jen, Kip…”

  “Even if we can get one of them out, it has to be worth trying.”

  “So we trust him.”


  “We trust him.” The women hugged, knowing Buzz could, on a whim, ruin their lives with only a few words.

  Or he could help free hundreds of imprisoned shifters.

  Time would tell.

  THE END

  Another bonus story is on the next page.

  Bonus Story 10 of 44

  Her Highland Love

  Description

  Beautiful, resourceful Aila lives in blatant distrust of men and road travel, a legacy from a devastating highway attack many years ago that claimed the lives of her family and left her severely injured.

  Now she lives alone on the outskirts of the quiet sleepy village of Reay, visited occasionally by obsessive Ross, a gusty laird with the highland regiments.

  One quiet morning, a Scottish mercenary turns up at her doorstep with terrifying news surrounding the murder of her family and a looming threat to her peaceful and uneventful life.

  It is a visit that forces Aila to confront years of suppressed, embittered emotions - and underneath it all, the grudging stirrings of unbridled sensuality.

  The fierce Scot in her won't go down without a fight, but she wonders about this ruggedly imposing stranger and the vulnerabilities he awakens in her.

  She wonders about the help he offers.

  Can she really trust him?

  *****

  Ye' knowin'

  Aila hurried homeward from the farm, her long skirt scooped up by the hem, as the first drops of moisture began pelting the earth. She imagined the despairing sigh of the whole village at her scandalous display of bare skin. But the whole village wasn’t there. She was virtually lost in her own world on the uninhabited outskirts of Reay, which was at least three miles from any semblance of civilization.

  By the time she got to her door, panting and laughing breathlessly, her jet-black hair was sleeked back with rain and her tartan shawl soaked. An avid onlooker at that moment would be struck by how her deep green eyes turned a radiant shade when she was excited, complementing the startling ruby redness of her full lips.

  She did not mind getting wet in the rain much. A girly fantasy of hers was dancing in ghillies in the rain to the shrill frantic wail of bagpipes.

  The smell of rain always stirred an old longing for her mother’s Arbroath smokie and colcannon, savored with a pint of dark ale out in the open overlooking Reay. Because highland air was a quintessential flavor itself, her father would explain.

  But tonight, the rain only brought an unfamiliar scent, not quite hidden under the mustiness of dampened yew leaves and rotted wood. If a person were to ask her to describe that scent, she wouldn’t be able to describe it with anything that her nose had ever experienced.

  Her mother, who would wake some nights to a stench akin to rancid flaxseed oil and then discover the mangled carcass of some stray animal the next morning, called it “ye’ knowin’.”

  But that night her family journeyed to Edinburgh, when English border reivers had swooped on their family carriage like ravenous hawks drawn to carrion, neither she nor her mother had smelled anything. Oh death, where was your stink?

  It was one of those cruel ironies of life she had made an uneasy peace with.

  When the MacLeans were robbed of cattle by—supposedly—the MacDonalds and the resulting conflict cascaded like a wild fire across the highlands, she smelled little but burning farms, burning houses and burning corpses on a daily basis. It was about this period she moved to the outskirts of Reay accompanied by a maternal uncle.

  Sebastian was a retired Scottish warrior who had fought in the Hundred Years’ War as both a soldier and a mercenary and her mom once hinted that he was sort of a swick as well. His living with her was an arrangement that afforded her some protection from the occasional local marauders and persistent suitors while providing lodgings and food for him.

  He came toting a cache of most of his old weapons, more out of sentimental attachment than necessity. He would leave his room at dawn to go and practice dagger thrusts under the huge yew tree leading up to the house. Aila would join him, admiring the grace with which his arthritic fingers still wielded the dagger. One day he held out the dagger to her, smiling. “A yoong quine main learn tae protect herself.”

  That was when her dagger thrusting lessons began. She remembered his early morning cries of “Get aff yer erse, yer lyin' aroond the hoose like a store dug" to wake her. He never said much during practice but she came to recognize his grunts of approval or disapproval. In a few months, she had not only mastered the use of the biodag, but also a halbard effectively.

  One morning, she smelled something similar to crushed common myrtle. Later that day, Sebastian passed away during his mid-day sleep. It was then she not only got back “Ye knowin’”, but she deduced that the odd smells had a relationship with the events that happened afterwards. Later, she placed a bunch of myrtle flowers on his chest, as was the custom for the dead, and erected a cairn over him.

  The muffled clatter of hooves and the neigh of a horse outside scudded away her thoughts. Her fingers tightened around the grip of an old biodag above the fireplace, its warm coarseness comforting to her blistered palms, as a set of impatient knocks landed on the door.

  ‘Who is that, I pray?’

  Perhaps it was because of the rain but the visitor didn’t respond. The knocking intensified. She approached the door. Ross was the only male who had ever come up to the house, a lone stranger who had lost his way to Kinlochleven. It might be Ross, but by the sound of their hooves and if she wasn’t mistaken there were at least half a dozen horses out there. So this was what the “knowin’” was about this time.

  She opened the door with her left hand so her knife hand was hidden behind the door.

  It was indeed Ross. He stood soaking wet in a hooded bearskin coat with a poke slung over his left shoulder, his hulk filling the door way. A certain wild animal scent suddenly filled the room. His tiny pink lips parted in a fierce grin. The edge of his lips met a diagonal badly healed scar across his cheek so when he smiled it created a rather disconcerting appearance. This appearance was not softened by his grey slate eyes which no laughter or humor ever seemed to touch. “Awrite mah hen!”

  Behind him were about seven armed men waiting on their horses, which were laden with huge rope pokes and one wooden chest. The lightning flashed briefly and she noted a hostile looking fellow with lank hair framing a bald crown.

  ‘What in Saint Andrew’s name are you doing out here in the rain, Ross?’

  The man grinned fiercely. “Jist returnin' frae some wark ower at thurso.” He held out the poke. “An' thes is fur ye, mah hen.”

  “I thank you, Ross.” She peered at the poke dubiously. “But I’m hardly done with the last portion of cow you brought the last time. It will all go bad.”

  His work may have comprised robbing families of their cattle and by the look of the wooden chest, their gold. He was a laird who stood to inherit more land with the demise of his uncle so it may have all been done in reckless fun. The thought sickened her to the very depths of her belly.

  He chuckled, stretching the poke to her. “Weel hae a swatch first. thes is nae meat.”

  She said thank you and dropped it in one corner of the room without looking into it. Her movement revealed the biodag.

  “Plannin' tae stab me wi' 'at.” He sounded amused.

  “I’m still considering it.” She tossed the weapon on an oak stool. “You came all the way out here in this storm to give me a present?”

  “Yes, ye can pretend it was fur thes wee present.” He grinned. “Weel willnae ye swatch intae th' poke?”

  “Not until your shadow leaves my door,” she smiled, crossing her arms.

  “Willnae ye at leest invite me in?”

  “No, Ross.” She shook her head. “And I won’t leave your men in the rain even if I did invite you in.”

  He turned around as though surprised that indeed some people were waiting on horseback in the rain. “They ur loch rain an' fields ay cor
n in sprin', these ones,” he cackled. “Dornt fash yerse.”

  The Ross’ of this world took a mile when you gave them an inch, The last time she had let him take off his fur coat at her fireplace, he had wanted to undress her as well. Occasionally she longed for company but there was no companion in Ross.

  “I must prepare for bed now.”

  He appeared crestfallen. “Ye ken Ah loove ye.”

  She almost pitied him but then she thought: the border reivers who had punctured her father’s torso with dorlochis, the one who had plunged a halbard into her mother’s heart, laughing maniacally as they did had probably cried at a lady’s doorsteps before. Thaur was aye a wolf in th' sheep, her father would say. There was always a wolf in the sheep.

  She would argue, there was no sheep in Ross. This was a predator that lived by his nose and his teeth.

  “Ah wee marry ye, Aila,”’ he said. “Nae matter whit it takes.”

  In the cold darkness of the evening and storm, his words sounded like a threat.

  “Ah will see ye suin again mah hen,” he said, and tugged the tip of his bearskin hood. A devilish glint lit his eyes briefly as he added, “An' dornt ye bury thes gift loch th' lest a body. th' groonds hae got een.”

  A cold shiver ran down her back as she stood watching until he mounted his horse and the gang disappeared into the storm, the muffled pounding of the horses’ hooves receding with the distance. Only then did she shut the door and bar it. So, he had been spying on her? Had one of his men sniffing around the lake house?

  She’d actually buried the last present he’d brought over to her the next morning. Was the spy hiding all night or just happened to arrive at the same time she’d buried the item? Either way, the thought Ross had a spy or might be the spy himself was worrying.

  She wasn’t sure when, but she knew that a time was coming when Ross would grow more aggressive in his advances and she would fill the space between them with the blade of a halbard. And possibly his gut. There was no other outcome she could envisage.