by Loki Renard
“You’re a criminal.”
“I was a criminal,” he says. “Now I’m your mate and I’m becoming a warrior of this tribe. We have to have allegiances somewhere, Pixie. I’m choosing here, because you chose here.”
“Okay… I’m still not apologizing for anything.”
He gives me an intense look. Wait. Is this the plan? Is this what he expects me to be in on? “You need to make amends for all you did before we left, if we are going to return.”
“Why?”
“Because your days of getting away with things are over. As are mine. We both have to pay the price for our actions.”
“Who even are you? I’m not fucking apologizing for anything. I thought you’d abandoned me before we left. I thought they’d chased you away. I’m not taking responsibility for what I did…”
“The battle cry of the human,” he says, rather cynically, I think. “I’m not taking responsibility…”
“Hey, fuck you, buddy!”
“I’m not your buddy,” Scratch growls at me. “I am your mate, and you will obey me.”
“Uh, no, no, I fucking won’t.”
He leans in, his hands on my shoulders, taking firm hold of me. “You will,” he whispers. “You will at least learn to pretend. But make it look real.”
He draws back a little.
“Fuck you,” I curse, meaning every word. This isn’t what I agreed to. I thought he would find some other way of integrating us into the tribe, and making our return easier. Does he really mean this? I don't know, and there’s no time to ask.
“What will it take for you to learn your lesson?” He growls the words into my face, his fangs flashing less than a quarter of an inch from my nose.
“Everything and nothing,” I hiss back through clenched teeth.
That’s when my world spins, and his palm meets my ass. Hard.
Scratch starts to punish me publicly in front of all the adult grimalkin who have gathered in expectation of trouble. I am bared in front of warriors and hunters, my bare ass turning red before them.
Between slaps, he tears at my furs, stripping me of them, leaving me entirely naked. I don’t know where the rest of the tribe are. I’m glad they’re not here, but I’m still thoroughly humiliated by being bared before the warriors, who are all getting a complete eyeful of my naked body turning red before their gaze.
“These are real people’s lives you are interfering with,” he lectures me. “You may see us as beasts to be trifled with, a spoiled Alice in a wonderland not of her choosing, but that is not the case.”
“How the fuck do you know about books? You were a cat on Earth.”
He stops slapping me for a minute, leaving my ass to burn as he bends down and growls in my ear. “They made a movie.”
“Scratch, come on… let me up.”
“Not until you understand that you are part of this. Forever. You cannot fight what you want, not anymore. The time for that is over. You rejected the city. You rejected your world. You want this, and this is what you will have.”
His palm meets me again, lashing like leather, bringing intense pain and inescapable confrontation. I thought Scratch would help me keep getting away with shit. He’s not an authoritarian. At least, I didn’t think he was.
“The fuck!”
“This is what you need. This is what I am going to give you. Your solo days are over, Pixie, and so are mine. You chose this.”
“I didn’t choose you turning over a new leaf. Dude. I chose you because you’re an asshole who doesn’t give a fuck about the rules.”
“I’m still an asshole,” he tells me, keeping the pace of the spanking as intense as ever, making me hot and sore and so fucking embarrassed. I can’t bring myself to look at anybody, but I am sure Shanti is watching this scene with satisfaction. She always thought I was spoiled. Maybe Scratch did too. I never asked him what he thought, because I assumed he was always on my side.
Maybe that was too much of an assumption. Maybe he’s siding with them. He is a grimalkin, after all. They think the same way underneath it all. I am a human, a prize to be conquered and controlled.
Those thoughts outrage and excite me at the same time, the heat from the spanking, and the embarrassment of being seen in this position all combining in a confluence of humiliation and arousal which results in me getting very, very wet.
This is why he didn’t tell me what he was going to do. He wanted me to be shocked and surprised. He didn't want me to have any time to prepare for being made an example of. He’s showing me the very same thing he’s showing the warriors. That he can take me and do with me as he will, even if he does indulge my desires from time to time.
Scratch needs to prove to the warriors that he can control me. And after all the fuckery we’ve engaged in over the last weeks, he’s going to have to make it one hell of a demonstration. A spanking isn’t going to cut it. I know that, but I am still shocked when he pushes me down on hands and knees and mounts me from behind, his hand wrapping in my hair.
He’s not going to…
I feel the length of his cock pressing along my pussy.
My eyes widen. I let out a gasp which turns into a moan as Scratch mounts me. On my hands and knees, I crouch in the dirt and let him take me. Use me. Make an example of me to anyone who might have doubted his being my mate.
He is not tender. He is not gentle. He is rough and he is dominating. His teeth sink into the back of my neck, holding me in place as his powerful hips thrust his cock inside me, turning my juices into a cocktail of desire. All thought flees my mind as he turns me into a carnal thing of pure feeling.
I should probably object. I should maybe ask him to stop. But I am barely capable of forming words as he pounds my hot ass so fucking hard I can feel myself melting around him, my inner walls and outer lips gripping his cock with desperate greed.
I don’t care that we are being watched. If anything, it makes this hotter, more intense. My pleasure is being witnessed by a dozen virile males all of whom must have wondered what it is to take a human mate, aside from Skoll who knows all too well.
I can see more than one cock emerging from a sheath as they become as aroused as I am. The energy in the round is intense, all the warriors clustering about, none daring to touch me, but all caught in the moment as I am fucked toward orgasm, a passenger on Scratch’s cock being driven to erotic nirvana.
When my orgasm comes, it is vicious and violent, shooting through my nervous system like a freight train, making my limbs contort and shudder with the effort of containing my release which is matched with his, a torrent of seed shot into the deepest, wettest parts of me.
Once I am thoroughly filled, Scratch scoops me up from the ground and helps me find my feet. His seed is dripping from my ravaged sex, and I am unsteady on my still shaking legs. I collapse against him and cling to him. He holds me close and kisses my cheeks, the tip of my nose, and then my mouth.
I can’t look at any of the others. I can only look at him.
“Good girl,” he murmurs against my ear. “We showed them, didn’t we?”
We definitely showed them. We showed them everything I have, and everything we are. And now I am exhausted. So much so that I don’t pay attention to the conversation taking place around me. All that matters is Scratch, and his arms around me.
“Where will we be living, Shanti?” Scratch asks her the question. I hear that, because it is purred close to my ear.
“There’s a home up the hill, unoccupied,” she replies. “It can be yours.”
The houses here are so primitive, made of wattle and daub, and roofed with thatch. I could barely stand living in Shanti’s home, which is larger and more expansive and has all the touches a lived-in space develops over the years. What awaits us up there on the hill is barely suitable for a caveman. But that is where we are going to live. That is where my destiny has led me, and I cannot fight it anymore. I don’t want to fight it anymore either.
“Next to Kitty and Skoll,�
� Shanti elaborates.
“Really? We’re going to be living next to a screaming baby?” I come out of my sex coma long enough to complain.
“You’ve made more noise in the last hour than any infant in years,” Shanti says. “I suggest you refrain from complaining.”
Scratch
My palm is hot and tingling from repeated application to her rear, but I have never felt better. What I just did to Pixie stripped her of her dignity and her carnal privacy, but it was necessary. There had to be a scene made, and it had to be one nobody would forget. There can never be any question that I am in control ever again.
The tribe knows my mate is wild. They know she is rude, and borderline uncontrollable. But I can control her. Not because I am stronger than her, or because I am more brutal than any of their warriors. Because she give me that control. Because she is mine. And I am hers.
13 Convincing Conversations
Scratch
I carry Pixie to our new home and I leave her in the nest of furs. She is tired and curls up on herself.
“I’m going to deal with the rest of the tribe,” I tell her. “You rest. I will be back soon.”
“Scratch?”
Her voice is soft as I turn to leave.
“Yes?”
“Thank you.”
“You’re welcome, baby.”
Publicly fucking Pixie made a statement, but I still have some talking to do. The scene was what it was going to take to convince the warriors that Pixie is perfectly under control. But it won’t do anything for Shanti. I’m going to have to use words with her.
When I return to the roundhouse, I find Shanti and her boys in deep conversation outside.
“Knock knock,” I announce cheerfully.
Everybody turns. The expressions on their faces are not encouraging.
Skoll, Falkri, and Fenrir still flank Shanti. I can see in their eyes they don’t trust me. They are right to be suspicious. The only thing I care about is making Pixie happy.
“I am impressed, Scratch,” Shanti says. “I didn’t think you had that in you. I thought you were too lawless to ever discipline your mate.”
I shrug. “She’s been getting away with too much, and it’s my fault. I’ve encouraged her rebellion, but she needs to settle down. More than that, she wants to.”
“I find that hard to believe,” Skoll grunts.
“You find everything hard to believe,” I reply. “But Shanti knows Pixie as well as I do. As much as she wanted to be free, she wanted to come back here. We barely got a mile toward the city before she was asking to return.”
Shanti nods. “Pixie is a conflicted human being, of that there can be no doubt. I think it may be innate to their biology. They are not as singleminded as we are. They do not know what they want. Or, perhaps it is that they want many different things at one time. Pixie wants the familiarity of her own world, and the strangeness of this one. She wants her own way, but she also wants to be shown which way is the right one.”
“That’s an accurate description of humanity,” Skoll says, as if he is an expert on the matter. I spent three years watching people. I know them better than anybody here. Technically, I have seen Skoll’s mate naked as many times as he has. As an inhabitant of Mr Tiddles, I comforted her when she cried, curled up with her sobbing body and allowed her to hug me like a stuffed toy.
“And what about you?” Shanti asks. “What do you want, Scratch?”
“Skoll says he wants to let our past be the past. This is the only chance we have at making peace.”
“Is that what you want, peace?”
“For now, Shanti, yes. I’m not promising eternal peace, but for the next few years, sure. And you know what? Sometimes you need someone capable of underhand, devious, criminal undertakings.”
This is about the most diplomatic response I can muster. It draws a snort from Skoll, and hard looks from Falkri and Fenrir. As chief, Falkri could veto my presence, but he seems uninterested in asking questions. He’s the strong, silent type, which makes him hard to read.
“As long as you are on our side,” Shanti smiles. “Your mate will keep you busy.”
It’s not that simple. We all know it’s not that simple. I have to prove myself to these grimalkin. I have to prove myself to myself. I am not sure I can fit in here. I have never been part of a tribe, unless you count my criminal organization.
“There is a great deal to be done,” Falkri says. “You have aided Fenrir; it will be up to him to determine if you are a suitable addition.”
“Really? Me?” Fenrir points to himself in surprise. I think he was planning on spending the entire time standing next to Falkri and looking staunch.
“Yes. You. You have had the closest relationship with him.”
“We didn’t have a relationship. He was a roommate. He snores, and sometimes he jumps the kill, but he didn’t do anything terrible,” Fenrir shrugs. “He’d sneak off to mate with the human.”
“He did?”
“He’d come back smelling of her. She’d be smeared all over his…”
“Am I going to get a say in this?” Dwight appears, interrupting the discussion of what parts of my anatomy had human juices smeared all over them. Everybody is grateful for the interruption for all of ten seconds, before he becomes even more obnoxious.
“I have deep concerns about allowing criminals to join our tribe. This male has shown himself to be untrustworthy and opportunistic. He cannot be trusted, even under complete surveillance. I know, because I have been surveilling him from the moment he arrived. He has done nothing besides sneak around trying to mate the human. And he has managed to do so on no fewer than fourteen occasions, if you count oral encounters, and ten if you count the act of strict coitus, and fifteen if putting his member in entirely the wrong hole counts, which I don’t think it does…”
“I can be trusted to do what is best for Pixie,” I say, interrupting Dwight’s sex list diatribe. “I have never done anything to hurt her, and I never will.”
“That I can verify,” Dwight says. “He is absolutely obsessed with the human. He would do anything for her. As long as her interests and our tribe’s interests align, he can be trusted.”
“Come with me,” Shanti says. “I will speak with you in private, Scratch, and then we will make our decision.”
This is what some would call the rub. Pixie’s place here is assured. They have told me that there could be a future here for me, but I don’t know that any of us truly believe that.
I have never had to convince anybody to trust me before. This is not going to be easy, especially as Shanti has one of the most advanced bullshit detectors, as Pixie would call it, I’ve ever encountered.
“Give us the house, please,” she says to the women around the hearth. They leave quickly and quietly, and I am sure that they have been listening to every word that has been said. Today has been a good day for gossip.
Shanti stops in front of the fire and turns to face me, her body silhouetted by the flames.
“Why?”
“Why what?”
“Why do you like the human?”
I get the sense this isn’t a shallow question. I have to make this answer count. I have to tell the truth.
“Because she’s like me. She does what she needs to do to survive.”
“She takes the easy way out, and she hurts herself in the process,” Shanti says. “My fear is that she has you by the nose, dragging you to the city, then back here on a whim. If you are to be Pixie’s mate, you will have to be her rock. You will have to be the center of her world, something she can come back to when she needs strength. You cannot be led by her.”
“Because she is female? The humans have a word for this, Shanti. It’s sexist.”
“It’s not sexist. I do not say these things because she is female. I say them because she has been through a lot in her relatively short life. She bears the scars of pain and harm, not just on her body, but in her eyes. I think you sensed that pain. I t
hink it drew you. Because you bear some of those same scars. Skoll inflicted some of them on you, didn’t he?”
“What are you getting at, Shanti?”
“Pain is danger, Scratch. An animal in pain is always a risk. In you and Pixie, I see two animals in pain.”
She is good. And she’s right.
“I know what Pixie is. And I know what I am. I’m ready to change, Shanti. I don’t want to run anymore. I want to protect her.”
“What you have to protect her from won’t come from the outside. It will come from the inside.”
“I know what I’m doing, Shanti. I love her. I’m going to take care of her. And I’m not going to betray you. I don’t think my word is worth much to you, but it is all I have.”
“Actually, I have more than your word. I have your actions. You returned for Pixie when you could have fled to the city, where you are much more comfortable, and resumed your old life. Returning here forced you to face Skoll. You did that. And now you are talking to me, without attitude or disrespect. I believe you have changed, Scratch. And I believe Pixie has changed you.”
“I hope you’re right, Shanti.”
Her eyes narrow, but with warmth. “So do I. Go to your mate, Scratch. Be what she needs. Be what you need to be.”
“I will. I’ll go see her now, help her get settled into the home which just so happened to be ready for us.”
Shanti smiles. She knew all along. She knew we weren't leaving. That house wasn't there when Pixie and I were first brought to the village. I remember cataloging every house in the place, and trying to work out where the hunters lived, and with who. Skoll and Kitty's home stood alone. Now it doesn’t. Our home has been constructed since our arrival, with us in mind. I wish I knew how Shanti was so wise, but I think the matriarch will always have her secrets.
I turn around to leave.
“Scratch?” Shanti calls my name.
“Yeah?” I half-turn back, meeting her gaze.
