Winter Spire: Den of Desire

by Anya Merchant

  She knew what she was doing, and Felix almost couldn’t handle how good it felt. She could break him like this, through offering warmth, refuge, and sex. His cock pulsed with deep instinctive, primal need.

  He could feel himself approaching the point of no return, and knew that he couldn’t let it happen. She could not get ahold of his seed. Even discarding the potential of magical mischief, she was a young, fertile woman. The idea of a werewolf carrying Felix’s child, even just the potential for it, made his heart skip a beat.

  “I won’t!” he shouted. Felix jammed his elbow up into Gwen’s solar plexus, feeling a bit bad about it. She took the blow easily and let out a laugh. Her hand moved faster than Felix could understand, slapping him hard across the face in exactly the same place Stella had that morning.

  “You play rough, denbrother,” whispered Gwen. “That’s fine with me.”

  She rubbed her breasts against his chest, continuing to ride in sensual, ecstatic glory. Felix felt her lips against his, and was surprised to find himself kissing her back. He wanted her, though he denied the truth of it. He wanted to blow his seed inside of her, now and many times over, pushing it in until the last stroke.

  They moved with each other, two enemies come to a truce in the name of a greater goal. The goal was pure, unadulterated sexual pleasure, and nothing had ever seemed so worthy before in Felix’s eyes. He twisted again, and Gwen let him slide her back underneath him. She let out a sexy growl and wrapped her arms around his neck. Felix slammed into her, his body slapping against hers and creating a rhythm in the silent winter night.

  His cock pulsed, and he knew it was time. Felix leaned forward, kissing Gwen deeply while he fumbled with the sleeping bag’s inner zipper. He pulled it down just in time, turning to the side and blasting his load out into the shockingly cold snow.

  “Whoa!” he said, feeling both the pleasure and the biting cold against his loins sharing the moment.

  “You stupid jerk!” cried Gwen. “Why would you do that?”

  She pulled him back into the sleeping bag, zipping it up, but it was already too late. Felix was expended. She crossed her arms, pouting for a moment before curling her head against his chest.

  “I wasn’t done…” she whispered. “That’s really inconsiderate!”

  Felix chuckled. A hundred different thoughts fought for supremacy inside his head, but he pushed them aside and closed his eyes. He’d deal with it all in the morning. He could keep a truce with her until then.

  CHAPTER 12

  Felix was alone in the sleeping bag when he awoke. The sky overhead was overcast, and he could hear soft, crackling ambient noise from nearby. He slipped out of the tiny root shelter, rushing to pull his clothes on as the freezing cold air hit the exposed skin of his body.

  Once he was fully dressed, including boots and snow gear, he made his way out into the open. Gwen had built a fire, somehow, and sat holding a small branch skewered animal over it, facing away from him. Felix felt his opinion of her soften a bit more.

  “Morning,” he said. “Is that breakfast?”

  Gwen looked over her shoulder at him, her vibrant white hair moving like thin strands of silk. She had fresh blood on her lips and around her mouth, along with a wild look in her eyes.

  “Yes,” she said. “I figured you’d want to have your portion cooked.”

  She laughed and pulled the animal out of the fire. It was a small rabbit with a decent layer of char on the outside. Still, it smelled good, and when she passed it to Felix, he didn’t object to accepting it.

  “Thanks,” he said, frowning a bit. Gwen was watching him with her pale blue eyes, her body language tense, and her bloody face making her look feral.

  “We’ll travel the rest of the way today, brother,” said Gwen. “And I will bring you to our denmother.”

  Felix took a bite out of the rabbit, singeing his tongue on the hot, cooked flesh inside.

  “Gwen…” he said, shaking his head. “I’m going back to the tower. I’m not joining up with you and your… family, or whatever it is.”

  “You don’t have a choice, brother,” said Gwen. “You’re already a part of it.”

  She stood up and turned to face him. Gwen had a somewhat smug look on her face, and managed to press her breasts, covered as they were by her winter coat, out in an alluring manner.

  “I do have a choice, Gwen,” said Felix, keeping his eyes on hers.

  “You made your choice last night,” whispered Gwen, stepping closer. “Was it a hard one?”

  Felix frowned. He wanted to look away from her, but something kept him from being able to do it. It wasn’t out of fear, or pride, or anything like that. She was a wild woman, and with that came an aura of raw, angry sexuality that simultaneously made him want to fight and fuck her.

  “You could make the choice again,” whispered Gwen. “And again. Harder, and faster. Any way you want it, if you can manage to take it.”

  She leaned forward, pressing her bloody lips against his. Felix tasted copper, and rather than being disgusted, felt a rush of pleasure and primal excitement. He pushed his tongue into her mouth and pulled her against him with his free hand, his cock hardening as her body undulated against his.

  “No…” he said, clearing his head. “No.”

  He took a step back from Gwen and focused on the rabbit, eating what was left of the flesh. Gwen seemed disappointed, maybe even a little hurt. She walked back over to the fire and sat down hard next to it, like a dog staking out a spot next to the door.

  “You can’t turn away from your family so easily, brother,” said Gwen. “You shall understand soon enough.”

  The two of them spent a couple of rather awkward moments of warming themselves by the fire. Felix was having a hard time understanding Gwen, though given that she was a woman and a werewolf, he was not surprised.

  She would act like a lovey, horny teenager one minute, teasing Felix and hitting on him with openly sexual remarks. He’d respond, usually try to put some distance between the two of them, and then Gwen would swing full circle around, as though he’d announced himself as prey for her to chase down and take, a warrior woman with no reservations about her position as top dog.

  “We should get moving,” said Gwen, as the fire burned down to chars. Felix nodded.

  “I appreciate what you’re doing,” he said. “I just want you to know. Even if I can’t agree with your reasons, and give you what you want.”

  “What I want?” Gwen let out a wild laugh. “Right now, brother, what I want…”

  She moved toward him, fast enough to make Felix a little nervous. She pulled his hood back and kissed him on the neck, her now clean lips hot against the sensitive skin there, shooting sensual tickles through his body.

  “…Is to suck your cock,” she whispered. “And make you beg for release, until you see the benefit in coming home to your family.”

  Felix stepped away from her, shaking his head. He was grinning stupidly, and so turned on that part of him considered pulling her back into the root shelter and spending the rest of the day there.

  “Wow,” he said. “That’s more tempting than I can even put into words.”

  Gwen smiled an oddly girlish smile. She didn’t press on with her advances, which disappointed Felix a little, even though he knew that it would be a bad idea to give into them.

  The two of them started walking. Felix let Gwen lead, and she was good at it, picking a path through the forest that led through shallow snow, and kept them out of the thicker sections of obstructing branches.

  A few hours went by, mostly in silence. Gwen asked Felix questions about his past and personal life. Felix made jokes and dodged as best as he could, only revealing the bare facts. He told her that he was an orphan, and that he was a wanderer, and not much more.

  They pushed their way out of the forest and into a small clearing. The mountains were visible ahead, and Felix felt a stab of despair hit him as he saw how large and imposing they were. They’d looke
d small, manageable, even, from the helicopter.

  “How the fuck are we going to get past these?” he asked.

  Gwen smiled mischievously at him.

  “I know a way,” she said.

  CHAPTER 13

  Gwen led Felix along the edge of the mountains, to the north. It was opposite the direction Felix would have chosen for them from his gut feeling. They were heading away from the tower, and into colder territory.

  He didn’t question her judgement, and after ten minutes of walking, he saw exactly what she had in mind. Gwen slowed to a stop a few hundred yards away from an old train tunnel, the center of it pitch black and foreboding.

  “It leads through,” she said. “But we must be careful.”

  Felix frowned at her.

  “And, uh, why would that be?” he asked.

  Gwen’s eyes were active, slowly scanning the area ahead of them.

  “This is owned territory,” she said. “The being that owns it is a supernatural spirit of nightmares. The tunnel is her home.”

  Felix smiled slightly at that.

  “A supernatural spirit?” he asked, shaking his head. It sounded outlandish, but then again, so did the idea of werewolves.

  “We call her the Hooded Bitch,” said Gwen. She looked deadly serious.

  “And you want us to head through it?” he asked. “That seems rather brash.”

  “She has not been present for at least a moon or more,” said Gwen. “The risk is acceptable.”

  Felix shrugged.

  “Alright,” he said. “If you say so.”

  Felix walked next to Gwen as they approached the tunnel’s entrance. A musky smell came from the inside of it, like wet concrete on a humid day. The tunnel was pitch black, and long enough to make it impossible for him to see to the other side.

  “Are you sure about this?” he asked.

  “I can make out the details,” said Gwen. “If you’d accept your beast nature, you’d be able to, as well.”

  Felix started to respond to that, but stopped himself, instead considering her words carefully. He’d brushed off all of the comments related to his status as a wolfbound, from Stella, Trent, and now Gwen. Now, standing next to Gwen and being closer to the truth of it, he felt oddly curious.

  As far as he could remember, he’d never been bitten by a werewolf, or any wolf, for that matter. Felix hadn’t felt unusual or different growing up, and couldn’t remember episodes of random aggression, or cravings for raw meat. How then, he wondered, did he become an object of fixation for Gwen and her pack?

  “Stay close,” whispered Gwen.

  “I thought you said…” Felix hesitated, caught a little off guard by how his voice echoed through the tunnel. “You said that this Hooded Bitch chick wasn’t around.”

  “She isn’t,” said Gwen. “Something else is.”

  Felix stayed silent. He strained to see in the dark of tunnel, making out little more than vague shadows and black static. Gwen reached down and took his hand into hers, gently leading him forward.

  He couldn’t see, but he could hear, and there was something ahead of them. Scraping sounds came from deeper within the tunnel, along with the heavy breathing of a large animal. Gwen led him a few hundred feet further, and the two of them curled around a gentle corner.

  The white of the other tunnel’s far exit came into view, along with a shape blocking the center of it. Gwen came to an abrupt stop and squeezed Felix’s hand.

  “It’s a grizzly bear,” she whispered.

  Felix blinked. He looked over at her, and even though he couldn’t see her face clearly, he could sense her fear.

  “A grizzly bear?” he whispered. “Nothing supernatural?”

  Gwen took a deep breath.

  “We don’t fuck with grizzly bears,” she said. “Not even as a pack.”

  Felix let out an exasperated sigh. They were so close, and the tunnel would save them so much time. He took a step forward, all but dragging Gwen along with him.

  “We’ll just go around it,” he whispered.

  “This is a bad idea!” hissed Gwen. “Felix!”

  She dug her feet in against one of the rails of the train tracks and tried to hold him back. She was stronger than he was, and for a moment, Felix felt content to let her have her way.

  “No…” he said, coming to a decision. “I have to get back to the tower as soon as possible. Gwen, we have to go past it.”

  She swore under her breath, but didn’t hesitate as Felix led her forward. Her hand was shaking, to the degree that it made him wonder about what sort of experiences she had to justify so strong of a response.

  They came with fifty feet of the grizzly bear before it paid them any notice. Felix still couldn’t see more than the outline of its body at the edge of the tunnel, but he could hear it, and he could smell it. The tunnel was wide enough that they could, theoretically, make it around it without any direct contact, but that was assuming that it was a mild mannered beast.

  The grizzly bear sniffed the air, and took a single step toward them. Felix felt Gwen’s hand slip from his as a bright flash of light came from her body. He reached for it again and found fur, rather than skin. Gwen, now in wolf form, let out a low snarl and charged forward.

  “Gwen!” he shouted. The sound echoed through the tunnel, and from above them, he heard the sound of a half dozen bats flapping their wings and screeching in high pitched voices.

  Gwen approached the grizzly brazenly, intent on fighting despite her earlier reaction. It was like she was a different person, her emotions swapped for those of another. Felix thought about it for a moment and decided that it was an assessment dangerously close to the truth.

  The grizzly bear made hardly any noise as it squared off against its opponent. Even though Gwen was larger than a regular wolf in her transformed state, comparing the shadowed outlines of the two creatures was like looking at a diagram of the extremes of martial arts weight classes. She didn’t have a hope in hell, and it had been Felix’s idea to bring her into contact with her opponent.

  Gwen snarled and snapped her jaws at the grizzly. The massive beast swatted her back with an open pawed strike. Gwen tried to hop out of the way, but the brunt of the blow struck her upside the head, stunning her and giving the grizzly room to advance.

  The fight would be over in seconds. Felix knew it at an instinctual level, thousands of years of evolved instincts allowing him to predict the outcome of the two predators with near certainty. He charged, feeling a surge of protectiveness. Gwen had saved his life. He had to save hers.

  “Back off!” He screamed at the top of his lungs, acting on the only idea that came to mind. The sound of Felix’s voice echoed in the tunnel, and more bats began to stir from their roost above.

  He screamed again, this time wordlessly, working his vocal cords hard enough to make them scratchy and painful. He took deep breath after deep breath, screaming for Gwen’s life and likely his own. The sound of the bats grew louder, loud enough to cover the sound of his shouting, as a massive amount of them surged toward the tunnel’s exit.

  Felix fell to the ground next to Gwen, still in wolf form and still dazed from the grizzly’s blow. He held her tight against the train tracks and watched as a tsunami of waxy black wings and long eared bodies smashed into the grizzly. The bear roared and swatted at the cloud of bats, but it did little good, and after half a second, it charged out of the tunnel’s exit and into the wilderness.

  Gwen flashed white, and in place of fur, Felix now held a jacket covered breast. He chuckled under his breath, relief over taking him.

  “See?” he said, smiling. “That wasn’t so bad, was it?”

  Gwen didn’t say anything. Felix ran his hand up her back, stopping when touched her hair and felt wet, sticky blood.

  CHAPTER 14

  “Gwen?” Felix cradled her head underneath his hand, shaking her gently. “Gwen!”

  She stirred, but only barely. In the dark it was impossible for him to tell whet
her or not her eyes were open and aware. Felix carefully looped his arms underneath her and lifted her up, carrying her out of the tunnel.

  Gwen was lighter than she looked, even after taking the small backpack she wore into account. Felix stopped outside the tunnel to examine her. She was unconscious, and the wound on the back of her head still bled freely.

  “Damn it, Gwen,” he muttered. “This is so unfair.”

  He searched through her bag. She didn’t have a medical kit, but he found a spare t-shirt and ripped a bandage sized strip from it, binding it against her head and hoping that it would hold for long enough for the wound to close up on its own.

  North Spire was visible in the distance, down a snowy hill and across a long stretch of frozen flatland. Felix lifted Gwen in her hands and started walking. Every step took an effort, the knee high snow doing everything in its power to trip him up and sap his strength.

  He walked at a slow pace, stopping frequently to let his arms rest. Felix was surprised at just how much concern he felt for Gwen. She’d gone up against the grizzly for his sake, even if it had been stupid and misguided. It was his responsibility to make sure she got the care she needed.

  “Don’t bleed to death, Gwen,” he whispered. “Please.”

  The traveling became slightly easier once he’d made it to the bottom of the hill. He hesitated before starting toward the tower, remembering his own attempted murder. Trent’s helicopter was in the same spot he’d landed it in initially, and that could only mean one thing.

  Felix was still about a few hundred feet out from the tower when he saw two figures emerge from the entrance, headed straight toward him. He sat down in the snow, carefully cradling Gwen’s head underneath his legs, and waved a hand at them.

  Stella approached, followed shortly behind by Trent. Felix stiffened his jaw when he saw the man, but controlled himself as they drew within speaking range.

  “How did you know I was down here?” he asked. “Were you watching from the window?”