The Mark
I make no excuses for what I am. Excuses are for weaklings who justify their actions to those above them. But I am not weak. And no one is above me. Do you find me arrogant? How else should I be, when killing one of you is so laughably easy? Yes, you...sitting in your comfortable room in your civilized house in your pedantically predictable little neighborhood. You are nothing but a rabbit trapped in its den, afraid of the night.
And I? I AM the night. I am what makes your pulse quicken and the hairs on your neck stiff when you walk a dark street alone. Say I am a fairy tale. Try to banish me away with your scientific explanations. In the end, I will come for you. And I will catch you. All of you unlucky enough to bear the Mark.
I do enjoy a good hunt, especially when the prey is challenging. Despite what you may think, there are a few of you who's thinking is almost predatory. Almost. Any quarry who manages to keep himself alive one night longer than I intend is a quarry worth hunting. No quick gorging on them, no. Those happy few I like to take my time with. This man had evaded me for three nights. Three!
Which meant a full month's reprieve. Not that I stopped hunting him, never doubt that. Once I have your scent, you will never be safe. But there are rules, even for one such as me. So I hunted him, tracked him, and learned who this elusive stag was.
The first full moon of July brought with it the tang of a building storm. It feels delicious on bare fur, but I forced myself to dress for the occasion. This prey I had to take down face to face. I owed him that.
I followed the scent of his exhaust for miles before I came to a remote hotel, set up to resemble a log cabin. Rustic hunting lodge type of place, where the "logs" smelled of plastic and varnish, a fire crackled in the lobby, and a moose's head stared glassily from the ceiling.
The thunder muttered to itself over the hilltops as I strode in. The receptionist did a double take. Already, I could see her throat move as she suppressed a gulp, her nostrils dilating ever so slightly, perspiration like fine mist on her upper lip. She sensed I was dangerous, and the danger aroused her. A girl who fantasized about "bad boys," and I'm not small, even in a human skin.
I held her with my dark blue eyes.
"Is Mr. Bierce staying here tonight?"
She tore her gaze away long enough to check the computer.
"Yes he is. Room 112B, top floor, near the back. Is he expecting you?"
"He should be."
She glanced at me. I gave her the ghost of a naughty half smile. Her breath shivered slightly like a dove's.
"I can let him know you're here."
"Don't. I want it to be a surprise."
I waited in the lobby while the storm grew closer. I drank the cheap hotel coffee, fingered the magazines. Why hurry? I had a full three days to kill him, and had had a month to study him. It was almost not fun anymore, so I was providing myself my own entertainment.
A couple, newly weds by the sound of their supposedly whispered conversation, strode by me on their way to the pool. The groom gave me a glance. I flicked my eyes into his to give him a shiver I knew he'd feel in his loins. Bisexual.
The thunder shook the ceiling. I couldn't help the smile that crept over my lips. I love it when the weather turns as animal as I am. This was going to be a good one. It was close to midnight. I didn't have to guess what Keith Bierce was up to. I knew.
On days he didn't work, my stag liked to read for one or two hours, then practice tai chi to calm himself for sleep. No television. Art in his spare time, sparring at the local karate dojo, not that it would help him. An active, visionary type of man, one who took initiative rather than wait for change. And pretty. Innocent, soft eyes and an athletic body, a little on the thin side. He ate very healthy, and it made my mouth water to think of how he would taste because of that. Red meat's flavor improves the healthier the source.
The wind picked up. The rain began, great, lashing sheets of it that set the street lights to swaying. Lightning in chains and loops, as frequent as strobes. I rose and climbed the stairs to the second floor.
I could hear the singing of the wind around the hotel, the particular high-pitched whine of strained power lines and circuit breakers on the verge of breaking. I reached 112B. The power died. I knocked.
When he looked through the peephole, he would see a feral eye like a gold coin gazing back at him. I wanted him to know that I knew he was looking. I heard him pace, debating. No other exit but the balcony, and a 20 ft drop is risky, even in good weather. He was trapped, and he knew it. I flexed my fingers in anticipation.
He whipped open the door. His hair was still wet from the shower, and he'd thrown on a shirt above the towel at his waist. I'm a big enough man to block a normal doorway just by standing in it. The Mark was all over him. It was all I could do not to rip out his throat. My stomach growled.
"Hiya, Keith," I said and showed the tips of my teeth as I smiled.
"Do I know you?" Keith asked, backing away.
I entered the room and shut the door with a soft click.
"Only from a distance. I was that guy you were checking out in the park on Friday."
Keith blushed.
"This really isn't the best time to talk, is it?"
He gestured at the dark room, lit only by flickering lightning that danced across the grey wallpaper.
"Then," I said, pulling my shirt up from my six pack abs, "don't talk."
"Whoa, wait a sec."
Keith held up a hand, laughing nervously.
I had my shirt over my head. I still wore my trenchcoat. The casual way I was stripping unnerved him. It was like getting ready for a bath, nothing suggestive about it. I had my pants unbuckled and unzipped.
"Look, stop! I don't even know you!"
Off came the shoes.
"What are you going to do, call the receptionist? I put on one little disguise and you can't figure out who I am."
Keith's eyes narrowed. His mind was trying to make sense of what I was saying, even though his gut already knew. Prey always recognizes the presence of a predator. You spent too long running from jaguars on the plains of Africa not shrug those instincts off. Keith bumped into the wall next to the window.
I walked toward him, my cock swaying freely within the coat, still hidden, but he knew there was only cloth between him and me. He raised a hand as if to ward me off. I pressed my body to him. My nostrils twitched, taking his scent. My lips brushed his.
He whined like a pup. The thunder shook the room. I cupped his jaw in my fingers and pushed my tongue past his teeth. Fresh saliva in his mouth, smooth, healthy gums; active, responsive tongue. Delicious.
His hands rested on my chest. His breath came in short bursts.
"Know me now?" I murmured against his ear.
"Oh God," Keith moaned.
Cold sweat washed him. Good thing he was getting hard or he'd have spoiled everything by pissing himself. That won him a few more hours of life.
"I...I thought things like you were..."
I chuckled, flashing teeth again.
"Who do you think inspired Hollywood?"
I slid a finger between the seams of the towel and ran it on the underside of his hard penis.
"Why are you doing this?" he whispered.
"You deserve it," I whispered back. "For being the best prey I've ever hunted. I'm not cruel all the time."
"Why me? There must be easier guys to..to.."
"True, if only I could choose who I kill. But that right belongs to my mistress, and she's Marked you, Keith. You're my next victim."
"You don't have to!"
I ran my hand down his warm testicles, along his hairy inner thigh.
"Keith, even if I let you go, even if I ignored you, I'd still kill you before the month's end. We don't have a choice, either of us. This is fate. So I choose to hunt."
To his credit, Keith didn't break down. He didn't beg. A noble stag to the end.
"Why this month? I started running from you in June and broke the deadline. What does that mean?"
I snarled. Stags of the four-legged variety can't debate with their hunters.
"The moon writes the rules for my kind, ask her!"
I was rapidly loosing the mood. I so hate killing in disgust. It taints the meat. If Keith turned into a staller, I would decapitate him out of sheer disappointment.
One last chance, human.
I gripped his chin in my fingers and forced him to look at me. The urge to flinch was overwhelming him. Big game hunters are used to looking wild predators eye to eye, not investors.
"I have other needs besides hunger, Keith," I growled. "and the body never lies. Protest with your tongue all you want. The rest of you screams 'yes.' "
Thunder backed my statement, as if God Himself approved. Keith shuddered and moaned. I watched the psychological damn break in the way his tension shifted. From flight to fight. A last, desperate attack to go down happy. The stag gives himself to the hunter so the hunter might live.
I welcomed my prey into my mouth. The least I could do was give him an experience most of you have dreamed of but will never know. Even an omega is a wolf under the sheets, once his instinct is up. I was an alpha.
Amid the lurid waltz of chain lighting outside, our tongues danced from mouth to mouth. I breathed my air into his lungs. Be alive, be alive in every nerve of your body until the death bite. No meat is sweeter.
Keith melted against me, moving away from the wall. His towel slipped free. I grabbed his ass, squeezing, pulling him toward the bed. Tonight we both would feast. His teeth bit my neck. Sign of submission. I faintly wondered if that was deliberate.
Keith shuddered and pressed his lips to my ear, as if I were a human lover. I would have heard his whispered request from the hotel lobby, even with thunder. I stared at him. He made to repeat himself.
"I heard you," I said.
Keith bit his lip.
"Is it...forbidden?" he asked.
A slow smile slid across my face.
"No, just...unexpected."
Keith lay back naked on the bed, letting the lightning's reflection play on his skin. The storm was reaching its peak. I heard sirens in the distance. I backed to the window, my eyes already beginning to gild.
"You're sure," I rumbled.
"Show me," Keith panted.
I slipped the leash on the wolf. Power...POWER...surging up from my heart like a second form of orgasm, and just as unstoppable once begun. I welcomed the agony, the way a bodybuilder or football player welcomes it, learns to take joy in it because of what it means. My moans were no longer those of a human cursed to loose his humanity. They were wordless prayers. They were the urges of a man to his lover, his mistress, cavorting hidden behind the chaos in the sky framed behind me. Harder..harder..yes! YES! MORE!
My voice melted, baritone and bass separating until one became a bestial snarling through widening nasal passages, and the other, deep within my expanding ribcage, dropped lower and lower until it shook Keith's bones with its potency. I saw him writhing on the bed, the spice of precum in my awakening nostrils. Keith was...ENJOYING this?
I stared at him as he moaned and watched me free myself of my human skin. It was as if he were watching a god being born rather than a man dying. No sense being modest, then. If he wanted to behold the real top of the food chain, I would show him!
The ice-fire flowed from bones to muscle, prickled over my skin as fur. SHOW HIM!
The glass window behind me shattered, letting in the storm. I roared and tore the puny trenchcoat to shreds as my body swelled and burst it beyond its ability to contain me. I towered over Keith from nine feet high, eyes glowing like harvest moons. His spunk smell drove my saliva wild, and it leaked out from my lupine jaws. I strode toward him on rippling legs, my feet pounding the floor.
Instinct took over. Keith slid backward on the bed. My eyes widened and I rolled my head on its powerful neck, laughing, spraying spit from my huge ivory fangs and thick tongue. I pounced the bed and drug him, moaning, into my arms.
So fragile. I couldn't squeeze him very hard or I'd shatter his skeleton. But oh, how I wanted to! He screamed as my passionate embrace snapped a collarbone. I didn't care. The urge to feed and to mate were dueling within me.
Keith kissed me and it saved his life. Lust won. I growled and grabbed the back of his head in one paw, claws racking through his hair while the howling wind swirled my fur. My fangs tore his lips, blood filling our mouths. Keith only kissed harder, growling right back.
His legs gripped my waist. He'd cummed watching me change. But he was ready for more. I let him hump his bare ape body against my massive muscled lupine one. We fell to the bed.
I bent over him, grinning, growling unlike any wolf ever had. My lungs were too massive. It sounded more like a lion's purr. My claws tore the sheets as I rolled my tongue over his nipples. His pathetic human teeth bit my abs. Marvelous sensation. I rewarded him with a long set of scratches down his back.
I rose up onto my knees. This was no longer a hunt for me. Keith had gone from stag to bitch in my mind. And I would take him as a wolf was taken. My eyes widened again as Keith's lips suckled my pointed, canine cock. I groaned. I made a mental note. On future hunts, force my male prey to do this to me every time. The heightened sensations of being the wolf made the pleasure almost unbearable. I felt as if I were shifting all over again.
I yanked him back with a commanding growl. I slapped him with a paw, sending him him rolling onto his belly. Keith panted, moaning. He knew exactly what was coming. My paws gripped his waist, slid up to his arm pits. He raised his rump for me.
At my massive size, my cock filled him almost beyond the stretching point. It slid it far easier than a human one. The pointed end made thrusting an instant pleasure with none of the pain of taking a wide humanoid head. I could hear Keith's appreciation in the moans he was making.
I raised my head, opening my maw. Then I descended, and sank my teeth into his back between the shoulder blades as I slammed my cock home. In and out, in and out, rough and hard as a spear in a battle, while Keith screamed and whimpered and made noises I thought no human throat could make. More akin to the squeals of pigs.
His blood flowed down his back, mixing with sweat. I ran my tongue through it. First rate, which meant the meat would be five star quality. I slobbered more, and used the drool to lube him up in order to take my knot. I sank my claws into his chest, crushed him to my own thick, massive pecs and fucked it into him.
By the time I began to howl, Keith had exhausted all of his cum and was having dry orgasms that left him with tears in his eyes. Everyone in the hotel would hear me. Let them.
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!"
Everything glass within range of my howl shattered. I felt Keith shudder beneath me, and suddenly there was a second howl, very weak, twining with mine.
I had never howled with another before. I have been to concert halls and operas. I have never heard anything that moved me so deeply as Keith's howl. And I felt the tragedy of what I was and what I had to do strike me with the force of silver. I did not want Keith to die.
Keith was weeping. He already knew his time was up. He bared his throat to me. It was too much. The wolf demanded meat. Now. I hugged Keith to me, carefully this time, and tears fell onto his skin. My tears.
"You're beautiful," Keith whispered.
I melted back into the human skin.
"Stop," I whispered, half begging him. "Stop it! Stop!" I yelled.
I hurled myself off the bed and braced my body against the shattered window frame. Rain fell in a mourning shower, but the fury of the storm was gone.
"It's okay," Keith whispered. "You deserve it. Come on, do what you have to do."
"No!" I howled. More tears stung my eyes. I hated them. I hated myself for them and I hated Keith for giving me human tears and I hated the moon for making me want to tear into his flesh to sate a hunger that never died.
Keith came to the window. He wasn't afraid of me any more. Big mistake. He touched my shoulder.
I snarled and snapped at him. He drew back his hand but didn't retreat. I turned away, staring at the rain.
"Who are you?" he asked.
"One of the last," I said. "Stalker of the Hunter's Moon. Use whatever human name you wish."
"You don't have one?"
I snorted. Poor pathetic fool. And yet...I wanted him to know. I sighed.
"The human skin is a disguise. What I am...what you saw and mated with is the truth."
"And why do you have to kill me?"
"Because you are Marked. A werewolf sees the Mark of the Prey on his next victim. I see it as a bloodstain, bite or claw mark that hasn't happened yet. If I don't kill you by choice, fate intervenes, and I kill you out of hunger. There is no use running."
"Have any of your victims ever offered themselves freely?"
"Of course not."
His hand stroked my hair.
"I have."
I looked at him. And I froze..
"What?" Keith asked.
I ran a hand over his face, unable to speak.
"Something happened, didn't it?"
I nodded.
"The Mark has changed."
"What does that mean?"
"It means" I said, wrapping my hands around his shoulders, "that the moon's saved you from one fate and condemned you to another. I see you bathed in moonlight, Keith. She's wedded you to me. You are my mate, now."
"I'm a werewolf?"
I snorted.
"Hardly. You were born human, human you remain. But you belong to me."
"So...I'm safe from other werewolves?"
"Yes. No one will dare to attack someone with the Mark of Mating. They would face the wrath of the mate."
I flashed him a wolfish grin.
"How long does it last?"
"Wolves mate for life, Keith. You are mine forever." I drew closer. "But that also means I'm yours."
Keith looked halfway between weeping and laughing. I smelled the flood of adrenaline leaving his system now that his life wasn't in danger. But he didn't understand.
"Keith....I can't be with you as your husband."
"Why?"
"Because in the morning I'll be gone. And after Monday night, you won't see me again for a month."
"You mean....only as long as the moon is full."
I nodded.
"You can already feel it, can't you. The sense of panic."
Keith nodded, mute.
"The tie's already been made. I feel it, too. Animal magnetism. You were attracted to me, but the wolf made that attraction irresistible. Now, a part of you loves me, and so the wolf makes it more intense than anything you'd feel for a human."
"I can't bear to think of you leaving for a whole month. It...hurts!" Keith whispered in surprise. His voice was slightly choked. "I feel it, right in my throat and my heart."
"So do I," I whispered. "But I still have to hunt."
Keith nodded and wiped fresh tears away.
"I know but..why this way? It's not fair!"
I glared out at the night sky.
"Because the moon is a cruel mistress."
I climbed up onto the ledge. Keith watched me drop my human skin and rear up in my full, powerful magnificence. I turned to him.
"What is my name?" I rumbled.
Keith took my paw in his hand.
"Connor."
I slipped free of his grasp. The moon freed herself of the last rags of cloud, calling to me to run with her, to laugh to the skies with the voice that makes humans cower. Calling me to the hunt.