The way she looked at him...it spoke of obstinacy and determination, as if she had singled him out and would accept no other outcome than what was about to happen.
It spoke, he had to admit, of nothing less than unrepentant desire.
Deep back in his throat he felt more than he heard the beginnings of an animal sound. Too late, he stifled the growl but saw the eyes of the young woman go wide while her nipples stiffened to hard points.
"Your eyes..." she said.
Flair ducked his head. He should have known better. The heat she drew from him was barely under control and the wolf within him had surely made itself known with the yellow sheen of moonlight where it had no right to be.
He backed up, then said, "I'm sorry."
But the young woman closed the distance between them and took his hand in her own.
"No...don't be. I get it," she said, then put his hand to one of her breasts, "And I like it."
She brought his fingers to her hardened nipples.
"A lot."
Despite himself, Flair smiled.
He was the wolf and of that there could be no mistake. But suddenly he had the distinct feeling that he had been made the prey this evening and the young women whose body called to him in the oldest of all languages had surely been his huntress.
He had heard of it. Certain humans, rare among their kind, shared knowledge about creatures who exist for most only in the world of the imaginary. Only a few choose to believe the unbelievable and among them there are those who seek legends out. Rarer still, there are a few who will stop at nothing to know what it is to feel a wolf's embrace.
Suddenly, with no reason to hold himself back any longer, a growl of desire rolled up out of his throat and Flair knew that moonlight reflected in his irises.
The woman moaned and instead of being frightened, she only held tighter to him as she ground her hips to the music's rhythm, her mound pushing tight against him and the scent of her damp and humid in the air.
His hand still held her breast and Flair stroked his thumb across her nipple. It was at once soft and yielding yet hard and unrelenting.
Her breath stuttered and it was as if she panted like a she-wolf in heat.
The desire within Flair reared up as the savage beast within him rushed forward to clasp the woman to his hips and thrust himself deep inside her.
Boom, boom...boom.
She cried out and the werewolf growled, then she bent back from Flair, pushing him away hard with her hands upon his chest.
"No...wait," she said, barely able to speak.
Then she dropped down to her knees as if she meant to worship at the werewolf's feet, before she went to all fours.
"Like this. Please."
Her voice had risen high in pitch like a real wolf bitch would whine while at the height of her estrus.
"Fuck me like this."
Flair did not need to be told a second time.
~~~
A howl drifted through the otherwise still night air. Another answered it, followed by two other sad notes that rose on wavering tones that sounded of loss and sadness.
The vampire knew, though, there was no chagrin in this signal amongst his hunters. They simply called to one another so that their formation would hold while they could not see each other, running as they did down city streets separately yet together as a single beast made of four.
Their hearts beat strongly in his ears.
Boom, boom...boom.
He raced down alleyway after alleyway, zigzagging as he went, sometimes doubling back before hearing the sound of his pursuers approach only to turn to race forward once again.
Occasionally a domestic dog would answer their cries, only to stifle itself once the wolves and, by consequence, their scent drew near. They, too, knew that the wild beasts would make short work of them and that it was better to lie still and shivering in silence in the hopes that they would pass by.
If only I should be so lucky, the blood drinker thought.
He slipped round a corner to turn sharply to the left. As he did, he caught the odor of something smoldering. Something long dead and close to breaking into flame.
Slowing just enough to avoid having his own feet skid out from under him, the vampire realized he was mere seconds away from having his hair take to veritable flame before the rest of him burst into a bonfire.
A garbage can placed on top of another teetered as he burst by. With his preternatural vision, he glanced back over his shoulder in time to see it tip to one side then rock back.
He waited to hear the metal clamor if it fell, but silence was the response as it stilled.
With a supreme effort, he drew up short to listen for the approach of the hunters. He had no choice. Relent or burn.
If only I had more time.
The bargaining had only just begun. But he had been greedy and exasperated by his fellows own slow interest in what he knew, so he had turned to their foes and leaked just enough to pique their interest.
It had been a risky move. Too risky, as it turned out.
The blunt beasts cared nothing for subtlety nor for the politic of fair exchange. Instead, fangs had gleamed on both sides before he took flight.
If they caught him, it would mean his doom. But not before they would wring everything he knew out of him.
Names. Cellphone numbers. Addresses.
A treasure not to be squandered, yet the thing that called itself the Journeyman had not even deigned to give him audience.
Pompous, vainglorious fool.
Smoke wafted up along his shirt collar and wisps sifted out from around his sleeves' cufflinks. But he felt the heat fueled by the young woman and child's blood within him die back just a little. It had dimmed as he had stopped to consider his situation.
The threat of immolation had abated and it was just enough to allow him to run again.
~~~
Flair held her hips in his hands while the wolf in him forced its way forward and he buried himself deeply there in the place she proffered to him like a bitch in heat.
The scent of her desire left him no choice as he thrust deep inside her and felt the small muscles of her twitching around him.
The thought that her body did its best to clasp him to her while her hands were flat on the ground only heightened his ardor and his rhythm.
The music pounded in the background while he pounded into the woman whose greatest desire was fulfilled in that very moment.
He felt her clench around him. Then her back arched up while he felt grey fur rise in velvet over his torso. His breath came hot and heavy and his tongue grew long as he pounded into her.
Her orgasm stiffened her entire body. He felt it roll through her as he held her with hands that wavered dangerously between human and beast.
Inside her, he felt himself grow longer and slick. Inside her, he knew he had become pink and slick as she shuddered around his cock.
Flair growled. Then he roared as he fought back the animal that edgily paced the shadows between man and beast.
Boom, boom...boom.
He hammered into the woman who hunted wolves and gave her all that she wanted as his own back arched in hard and his cock drew up and up before he hunched over and pulled the woman's hips back, slamming her tightly against his abdomen.
He shuddered, then growled again, deep and low, as he jerked in the throes of an orgasm.
~~~
The vampire shuddered as he skidded to a halt once more.
The beasts were near enough he could hear them panting. He could hear the hammer strike sounds of their great hearts pounding as they came to course's end.
The blood heat within him had spent itself and he had time to think that he would have liked to hear his own heart beat like that just once more before his end.
Their claws clicked upon the macadam as they came and he shuddered again. Nothing would dissuade them. Nothing would give them cause for mercy.
His time was up.
Wide paws fell in syncopated rhythms of four multiplied four ways around him and as he drew himself back against a filthy brick wall, he readied himself for the last struggle he would ever know.
Four great hearts pounded so loudly, so clearly in his vampiric ears.
One second more and he would see them round a bend and yellow eyes would lock onto his own cold stare before a battle already lost would begin.
Boom, boom...boom.
They drew so very near.
Then, they passed him by.
The vampire's beaten, dull gaze at nothingness woke to narrow at the impossible.
Without daring to truly believe, he understood that the wolves had overshot his position. The fact that he had stopped had let his trail run just cold enough.
They had not expected him to do the one thing they would never do themselves. They had no idea that he had given up.
Then, there is time enough, perhaps.
He reached for the last of his strength, he stretched out a mental hand to grasp the fraying threads of his resolve...and he burst down the alleyway in silence and in the direction from which he and the wolves had just come.
Time enough to flee....
~~~
"Stop! Stop it!!!"
The woman on her hand and knees reared up and smacked back against his fur covered thigh with a trembling hand.
"You're hurting me!"
Flair's vision had turned red and hazy and his tongue lolled from one side of his mouth as he pumped and pumped into the female within his iron grasp.
He barely remarked the sound of her voice. He hardly felt the sting of her blows as she struck him.
"Help! Help!!!"
But the sound of her shrieking penetrated the bestial haze at last.
With a heave and a final shriek from the woman before him, Flair thrust her away and staggered back against a wall. His chest rose and fell heavily as he forced himself to return to calm...to return to something recognizable as human.
Someone whimpered not far away.
He forced his eyes into focus and saw the woman on the floor. She was no longer on all fours with her bottom up in the air. Instead, she sat with her knees drawn up to her chin and her arms wrapped around them.