FSE

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The striped hyena glanced out the open window of his car as he drove, the padded crunch of twigs and fallen leaves beneath the tires and the whispering of a gentle autumn breeze in the trees keeping his tall ears perked. The notable drop in temperature these past few weeks didn't quite agree with him, nor did he with it, but everything else about the season's change put a soft, satisfied smile on his lips.

This smile widened, of course, when he turned back to look at the aardwolf sitting in the passenger seat beside him, black fur striped with touches of deep indigo, a series of rings lining one of his huge ears and jingling with each bump in the unpaved road. Those ears belied the smattering of fennec fox in him, along with his pathological need to be audible at all times, as well as a few... _other_particular traits.

Feeling the hyena's gaze on him, the aardwolf's ears gave another flick and he turned away from the window to look at him in turn. Soon a similar smile blossomed across his muzzle, and familiar warmth glittered in his violet eyes. "Hey Shekh?"

The hyena held those eyes for a moment, then turned back to the road. He had to be careful here on the dirt path; with his phone having lost service a few miles back, the two were just running on guesswork now as to whether the campsite was really down here. "Hey what?"

Then there was a warm paw on his thigh, softly squeezing. He lowered one of his own from the wheel to intertwine his fingers with his boyfriend's.

"I love you."

Shekh breathed a soft chuckle, and turned to look at the aardwolf again. "I love you too, Ano."

"Oh. Look." With his other paw, Ano pointed forward along the path. "Is that the camp?"

"Is it?"

The thickly-woven trees that had started to choke the dirt road stepped back a short ways ahead, giving way to something of an impromptu roundabout encircling a solitary little booth. The two hyenas shared another glance, and Shekh drove slowly forward and came to a stop beside the booth.

It was empty. He frowned, lifted himself up a bit to make certain, then looked back to Ano again and shrugged. Beside the window of the booth hung a plastic case bearing foldable maps of the campsite, a couple small pamphlets with generic information on fishing and hunting and the site's history, and not much else. The plastic was dulled and scuffed with age, and more than a few of those pamphlets showed the signs of sun-bleaching in their faded ink and cracking finish.

"Huh." Once again Shekh looked back to his boyfriend, who also shrugged. "I guess we go right in. I had trouble finding anything about an entrance fee or anything online."

"Oh yeah, me too. I kinda just figured it was one of those free places. It's not a state park, is it? Or a national park or something?"

Another shrug. The hyena rested his arm across the open car window as he gently urged the car back into motion towards the sparse parking lot, visible between the trees from here. "I don't think it said. There was some pictures and a few reviews, and a general overview of the site..."

"Yeah. I remember that much. And the picture of the campsite's keeper, right? That... park ranger guy."

"Oh yeah." Shekh nodded toward the road. "Look, I think that's him. Speak of the devil."

The figure coming towards them alongside the road walked with a deliberate, practiced gait, as though out of habit hiding a weak leg or some other ailment. It was indeed the fellow from the website: a slim yet built timberwolf, broad-shouldered with a tight chest and arms, short black fur tinted silver along the bridge of his muzzle and a few other places. He raised a paw in greeting to the two as they drove closer, then used that paw to adjust his wide-brimmed hat; in his other he carried a long, smooth walking stick, split at the top from age. After a moment the ranger crossed the road to come towards the driver's side of the car.

"Howdy," Shekh said as he came close, and looked him up and down again. The wolf looked a bit older than the photo on the camp's website hinted: those patches of grey had spread a bit, and the exhaustion evident in and around his bright yellow eyes added to the effect. That part stuck out to the hyena: not gold, not amber, but _yellow._Yellow like the midmorning sun, reflecting off of the surface of a lake.

Or like the end of a tongue of fire.

"Afternoon," the wolf replied, voice surprisingly smooth for his weathered appearance. His sharp gaze flicked to Ano in the other seat and lingered there for a moment; the aardwolf leaned forward and waved, and the ranger gave a small nod in response. "You two here for the camp?"

"Yessir," the aardwolf said.

Shekh sat back. Those eyes were so bright, but so tired. The wolf's thin whiskers at the end of his muzzle drooped, shifting with each word he said; the little holes cut into the sides of his hat showed one tattered ear and one with a roughly-torn edge halfway up; now he held his walking stick as though leaning his weight against it, and his right arm displayed a long, finger-wide silvery scar snaking up through the fur towards his wrist; and finally, he wore a soft velvet-hide vest with no shirt beneath, showing the taut muscles lining his arms towards his shoulders and a single green stone hung from a pendant around his neck.

Those muscles shifted and strained, showing their strength beneath smooth fur, as the ranger adjusted his stance against his walking stick. A little nameplate pinned to one side of his vest read SOLOMON from beneath a layer of rust and grime. "Well," he went on in that same steady voice, "good. It's nice to see some folks. We don't get too many visitors this time of year." He pointed further down the road. "Parking's up there, and then the site's just a short walk past there. When you pass my cabin you'll be halfway there - it's really not far."

"Oh, cool." The hyena smiled again, expecting one in return, though instead just received a blank stare. Yet again those eyes flicked over to the aardwolf beside him... and then down and back up again. Even hunched over like this, Solomon still stood well above the top of the car: no way to say for certain with the two of them sitting, but Ano would likely only come up to the center of his ribs, ears not included. "Um. Thank you."

After a second the wolf looked back to him, nodded again, and then continued trundling down the path in the opposite direction. Shekh watched in the mirror as he went, then finally rolled up his window and started forward again. It looked like one other car sat in the parking lot, pulled in way back at the far corner; Shekh took the other corner, knowing it would take the two of them a few trips to move everything down to the site.

Once there he turned the car off, unbuckled his belt, and stretched his arms over his head. "God. Good to finally stop. Hour and a half drive out - not awful, y'know, but..."

"Oh, I know." Ano reached over to nuzzle beneath his boyfriend's jaw, earning a warm rumble in response. Then: "Also, that park ranger was kind of hot."

Shekh grinned. "You noticed that too?"

Ano pushed his door open. "I mean... that vest, those arms..."

"I think he was checking you out, too."

"Really?" The aardwolf thought about it for a moment, then hopped down out of the car. "Nah. There's no way."

"Of course he was. You saw the way he looked at you. Also, hey - let's get the tent out there first..."

~ ~ ~

All in all, it took three trips between the two of them to get everything down to their chosen site, a little section nestled back into the trees off of the main path. Another group, assumedly the owners of the only other car in the parking lot, had taken the spot just around the corner a bit, with a view of one of the rivers crossing the area visible through a break in the trees.

The hyenas _would_have taken that one, had it not already been claimed. Halfway through setting up their camp, the current inhabitants of that site strolled over to introduce themselves, and also to offer a helping hand. Shekh and Ano shared a glance, shrugged, and invited them in.

One of them was an African wild dog who looked like he'd already grown into his winter coat for the year, carrying a hell of a camera on a neck-strap and looking as though he'd rather be elsewhere, while the other immediately planted himself between the hyenas and sounded more than glad to have someone else to talk to. That one was a dark-furred silver fox with warm, honey-gold eyes, and a distinctive half-skunky musk about him.

Yet another glance passed between the hyenas. Both of them recognized that scent, and they had to stifle a shared giggle.

"So," the fox went on, "what brings you two out here? Are you guys here to find the beast?"

"No, we're just..." Ano began; Shekh picked up the thread. "We're here to take some time off, see some new sights... we both kind of like hiking. That kind of thing. Wish it wasn't right as the weather was getting colder, but... took this long for both of us to get enough PTO, you know?" He shrugged and reached for another tent stake, then frowned at the fox. "Wait. Beast?"

"Hell yeah." The vulpine motioned up to his companion, who stood a ways off with his arms crossed. "That's why we brought his camera."

"That's why you brought me, you mean," the wild dog interjected.

The fox laughed. "Yeah. Apparently there's all kinds of fuckin' rumors about this place."

Ano straightened up a bit, interest on his face and his tail swishing across the ground behind him. "Oh yeah?"

The silver fox turned to him, tent hammer held in one paw. Shekh slowly reached for it. "Hell yeah. Like - it's probably bullshit, of course, and he's a skeptic, but it's always fun to pretend it's not, right? Anyway, it's, like... folks that live on the ranches nearby," he motioned with the hammer, "sometimes they report seeing something huge out in their woods scaring and sometimes taking their animals. Something like... something twice the size of a bear, on two legs, and that howls like a dog or wolf or something if it had human vocal cords."

"God." Shekh sat back on his haunches, having given up on the hammer. "Like a Bigfoot kind of situation?"

"Yeah. Sorta."

Ano stood up to brush off his legs. "We didn't see anything about that on the website, or... well, anywhere."

"Yeah!" The fox pointed at him with the handle of the hammer. "That's the weirdest thing. There's no info on it anywhere. Like, you'd expect the people running the camp to try to cash in on that stuff, y'know?"

"Like the Bigfoot thing."

"Yeah." Then, he looked up towards the sky: in the spaces between the nearly-empty branches of the trees overhead, the sky had started to close in on an uneven, roiling grey from thickening clouds. "Ah. Well. Looks like that rain's about to come in. We should get back to our site." He stood up and, finally, handed the tent hammer back to the striped hyena. "Good to meet you two. We're just at the - well, I'm sure you know. We're the only other folks at the campgrounds right now."

Shekh raised his other paw. "Yeah. Good to meet you, too."

The two watched them go off, the wild dog cradling his camera in his arms and the silver fox still chatting energetically. Shekh shook his head and got back to setting the tent up, watching out of the corner of his eye how Ano went to their bags to rummage around for something.

"You know," the aardwolf said over his shoulder, "I think I've heard of that before."

"What?"

"The, uh - beast thing. It's one of the quieter myths, and I hadn't heard about it until we moved here." He straightened up. "'Here' as in, y'know, the hour and a half drive away."

"Yeah. You think it's real?" Shekh squinted. "What are you doing?"

With a wide grin, Ano held up the bottle of rum that the two had purchased for this weekend. "Tent's almost up. I figure a little of this will go a long way in the cold rain. As for the myth... I dunno. I've learned not to discount stuff like that just 'cause it sounds fake."

Having pounded that second-to-last stake in, Shekh rose to his feet to look over their work. Instead of heading around to get the final one, though, he continued going and rested a gentle paw along the aardwolf's shoulder, leaning over the smaller hyena from behind.

"Why's that?" he rumbled, reaching around to swipe the bottle into his paw with the hammer. "Knowing it's fake ruins your fantasies of it stumbling across you in the woods and pounding you senseless?"

The aardwolf shook with quiet laughter and leaned back against him. "That's not the reason _I_was thinking of, but now that you mention it..."

It was a good thought, all things considered. Or, most_things considered: it could be ugly, or maybe it wasn't _that kind of beast, or perhaps it was just rude... the two joked back and forth about it over getting that last stake hammered in, and then retreated into the tent to set their double-wide sleeping bag up and pull everything else inside and away from the coming rain. Dinner was a quick and simple affair, done via a can of chili heated over the fire in a lidded pot and shared with the particularly tasty tortilla chips from the local grocery store - baked fresh in store every day, the bag said - and one of the bags of cheese carefully stashed into the mini-sized cooler they had taken along.

As it turned out, the dinky little plastic cups that the aardwolf had pressured Shekh into buying did indeed come in handy out here, and soon after the rain started gently pattering down along the sides of the tent, the striped hyena had a giggly, wobbly boyfriend to deal with, pacing around the small space - Ano's ears just barely brushed against the slanted roof - while talking about what all had happened to him at work this week.

The weather forecast predicted jacket temperatures and recurring clouds, but all of that felt miles away here in their tent. The heat from dinner and warmth of the closeness kept them isolated and comfortable from all of that, even as the wind picked up and the rustling began in the trees overhead and all around. Before long, of course, each became too involved with the other to even notice the world outside their tent, with fingers intertwining, breath mingling, tongues meeting and twirling.

The rain continued.

~ ~ ~

I want them.

_ _

"No."

_ _

Outside the swirling wind sounded like voices, like whispers in the nearly-empty branches, like quiet howling between the trunks. It wouldn't become a thunderstorm tonight, or at least shouldn't, but still the rain pounded down from above as though it might never end. Sometimes it seemed better were that to actually happen: wind and rain could easily drown out other, less pleasant sounds. This was known.

Want! Need!

_ _

"No! I gave you what you wanted last week."

A week passes, and it stays. You know this. We know this.

_ _

"I'll find something for you when they leave."

_ _

Not soon enough. A week passes, and the need deepens.

_ _

"Be patient. Maybe this time it'll go away."

_ _

Have I ever gone away?

_ _

The solitude of the forest never fully crystallized. Perhaps the interruption came in the form of an airplane streaking across the sky, or a handful of visitors to the campgrounds, or a discarded bag caught on a rock in the river, or a torn shred of clothing caught on a low branch, or a dropped phone with a shattered screen. Often that complete solitude could be desired, and yet, it was never met.

"Will you be satisfied with something else?"

_ _

I always get what I want.

_ _

"It'll come later, maybe. But will you be satisfied with something else?"

_ _

No 'maybe'. Never 'maybe'. Always.

_ _

"Aren't you hungry?"

_ _

Even the carefully maintained comforts, the self-indulgent pleasures, the buffers and cushioning... all of these did little to help what the solitude would have ensured, could it ever come. Not exactly peace of mind, since that part at least had truth to it: it never did go away, and as more time passed, the problem tended to worsen. But it did help, in whatever small amount. And that was something.

Hungry...

_ _

"I can feed you. I can find you something out there, in the woods. Will that calm you down?"

_ _

Hungry!

_ _

"Be patient."

_ _

Now!

The rhythm of the rain felt like fingers drumming against the inside of his skull, searching for a crack, trying to find and force a way out. Solitude would - might - suppress it somewhat, and without that, the break always came.

~ ~ ~

Thankfully, the rain had passed before the end of the night, although its presence meant that Shekh still had to pad through damp leaves and soggy mud on his way out of the tent to the bathrooms early that next morning. The forest clustering all around the campsite remained dark and dank with the early morning, the sun making its mark known on the sky without actually being visible through the branches; deep, solid shadows out in the distance twisted and shifted, drawing the hyena's eyes and keeping them there until something else claimed his attention.

In contrast to the constant drumming of the rain among other sounds last night, this morning the entire campsite felt... not quite silent, but close. Where he expected the cracking of leaves and twigs beneath his footpaws, instead came soft squishes and quiet rustling; the sound of a breeze through the trees seemed dampened, too, brushing along wet bark and around thick trunks, humming tunelessly as it went. Sometimes it almost sounded like a low, distant, lonely howl.

Of course, the so-called beast had been on Shekh's mind since he first stirred awake earlier in the morning, warm and snug with Ano's arm heavy across his chest. The so-familiar pressure in his lower abdomen, straining and squeezing with every tiny movement, eventually persuaded him to extricate himself from the aardwolf's grasp and make his way out here, though, already fully clothed against the autumn chill. Quickly his thoughts had turned from whatever brief flashes of his dream remained and to what that bouncy silver fox had told them yesterday: something huge, more animalistic than humanoid, with fangs as long as his forearm and eyes that could cut through the shadows of night as though the thing stood right in front of him.

Those thoughts had held him in the tent an extra few minutes, actually. Imaginings of heavy, plodding footsteps just beyond the border of their campsite, the breaking of a few low branches, something that could just as easily have been a low exhalation of breath as a quick breeze. Then the sound of those footsteps, careful yet not careful enough, quickly receding into silence - or, maybe, that had been just a few final drops of rain shaken loose from branches overhead.

Suddenly the hyena stopped, the wan yellow lights suspended above the bathroom doors visible out along the pathway. This time there could be no denying the movement there from the other side of the building, the lengthening of the shadow as it came around into the light: the lupine muzzle shape, the slightly stooped gait, the...

...the walking stick held against one arm, and the characteristic outline of a park ranger's hat?

Glad that nobody else had been around to see it, Shekh let out the breath he'd been holding, and then raised a paw. "Hey, Solomon. Good morning. What're you doing out this early?"

The ranger jumped, apparently startled at the hyena's greeting, then let out his own sigh of relief. "Ah. Oh. Good morning." He remained in the light, clutching his walking stick as he leaned his weight against it. It looked as though he wanted to glance behind himself, yet kept himself from doing so.

Shekh came closer, noted the expression, and frowned. "God. You look... uh, awful."

The wolf really did. The bags under his eyes had deepened, and today his whiskers drooped further, his eyelids looked heavier, his ears sagged, his fur looked unkempt. Not the day-without-a-shower kind of unkempt, but rather, the week-without-a-shower.

"Oh," he said again, and cleared his throat. Still his bright yellow eyes remained as such, when in darkness like this they should have appeared brown. The small gemstone pendant hanging around his neck caught the weak light of the bulbs overhead and gave off a dim glow. "Yeah. I have a, uh - a condition, y'know, that makes it so I... well, it makes it hard for me to get much sleep at all." He shrugged, then rolled his head on his shoulders. "I've... mostly gotten used to it."

"Jeez. I'm sorry about that."

"Yeah, well..." Solomon shrugged again, then motioned at the dark woods all around. "Being out here helps, sometimes."

Shekh smiled. "That's good to hear." A moment passed between the two, and figuring the conversation done, the hyena stepped to the side to head towards the bathroom door - and then stopped as soon as he passed the ranger. "Oh. Wait. Those other campers-"

From behind him he could hear Solomon give a scoff. "Ah yes.Them. They're regulars. I'm, uh... surprised nothing has happened to them, with how often they're here."

A frown crossed the hyena's muzzle with a stray thought, but he dismissed it. "Yeah. Um - they mentioned something about, like... a rumor of some Sasquatch-type of thing out here? I figure that'd be something you know about, if you run the place..."

"Oh. Hah. That." The wolf shifted his posture against his walking stick, coughed to the side, met Shekh's eyes, and then rather conspicuously glanced away. "Yeah. Yeah, there's... something out there. I haven't seen it myself."

"Me and-" Shekh nodded towards his site. "Ano, my partner-"

"You two are together?"

"Yeah." The smile came on its own. It always did.

Solomon returned that smile, too, quieting the little flicker of doubt that usually stirred in the hyena's chest whenever he admitted it. The ranger nodded then, his smile seeming to temporarily melt some of the weight of exhaustion along his muzzle. "That's sweet. I'm happy for you two."

"Thank you! Anyway, um-" Shekh looked out through the trees again. "We thought that a rumor like that would be something, like... I dunno. Something to put on t-shirts and keychains and stuff, something to make a souvenir shop out of. So we thought it was odd that there was nothing of that sort, and I thought I'd ask you about it..."

"Yeah, I don't know too much about it myself..." Another shrug. "And, besides, it sounds... dangerous,_too, you know? So we want to investigate _that_side of it more before capitalizing on it. But." He scoffed again, though this time it came out almost like a cough. "Once I - once we get a more secure handle on it, then yes, that _will be the move. However, you might find _this_interesting..."

Shekh slid his paws into his pockets. Maybe his urgency could wait a moment.

Yellow eyes flicked back to his face, and the slightest of sly smiles touched the wolf's mouth. "A couple of years back, some college kids did a sort of Blair Witch homage thing out here in my woods. Thing was, though - they left all their props. As in, pig innards and pieces and things."

"Ew."

"Yeah. One of their fathers was a butcher and another worked in a chemistry lab, so they had coolers full of the stuff. Literal coolers. All soaked in some preservative that kept the rot off for a handful of weeks. And the wildlife, too. I went out on one of my walks one night and just found these... intestines, hanging from branches and wrapped around tree trunks. Down by the river there was a bag of tongues sitting on a rock, and then half of a pig's head jammed into the fork of a tree." The ranger half-turned to look down the pathway leading up here towards the bathrooms, picking at a tooth with one of his claws.

"God. That sounds horrible."

"Oh yeah." Solomon turned his head back to him, eyebrows raised and bright eyes still seeming to glow with a light of their own. "It was terrible. Started to smell shortly after, too. Not the smell of death, which is characteristic on its own, but the smell of whatever chemical bullshit they put on it. Nobody noticed until a handful of weeks after they finished their project, and then that resulted in this whole... police investigation..."

The wolf chuckled and shook his head, yet again looking down the path. His tongue flicked out over his lips, and for a moment his yellow eyes unfocused in brief thought. Then, suddenly, he turned back to the hyena again. "Sorry. What were we talking about? I think I got sidetracked there."

"Oh." Shekh forced his own quiet laugh. "Don't worry about it. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm gonna... go..."

"Ah! Yes. Sorry to keep you." With a friendly nod, the ranger started hobbling his way down the path again. "If any of you need me, I'll be in my cabin down the road."

"Yeah. Thank you."

The hyena raised a paw in farewell, though stood in place a moment to watch as Solomon went off. The sun had just barely started to show itself above the trees now, casting a thin, wan light down between the branches overhead and speckling the lupine's back as he left, black fur remaining matte and dark even as those shafts of light fell upon it.

~ ~ ~

"Oh, hell yeah." The silver fox took another slow sip of his drink, a mix of the rum the hyenas had brought with some obscure dark soda the other pair had purchased in town. His slim muzzle briefly scrunched up with the bite of the alcohol. "You bet we saw that movie. It was... kinda cheesy at parts, sure, but overall good. _Very_well-done when you remember it was just a bunch of college kids."

"Was all that stuff true, though?" Ano asked from the other side of the fire. The shimmering orange light made his violet eyes seem metallic; Shekh had caught himself staring a few times, only becoming aware of it when the aardwolf fixed his gaze on him and gave him that same, familiar smile. "About the - guts in the trees and other shit?"

"Yep." That was the wild dog. Still he sat back in his lawn chair thumbing through whatever photographs he had gotten on their little excursion earlier that day along the trails. The silver fox had given them a thorough play-by-play of the four-hour walk, and though Shekh had listened to most of it, he couldn't repeat a word of what had happened. "One hundred percent."

The fox raised his cup. "You fuckin' bet it's true. The crew released this bigass formal apology a little later and got everything cleaned up, but like, the thing is - they kept a detailed inventory of all their gross pig parts beforehand, and included that list in the apology, right? Alongside a list of what they retrieved from the site, as a way to show they had cleaned everything up. They didn't bring any attention to it, but if you look real closely, you can see - that bag of tongues by the river, and the heart with the words burnt into it are still out there somewhere. Isn't that neat?"

Aside from Shekh's brief encounter with the park ranger early in the morning, the day for himself and his partner had gone fairly uneventfully. Ano had stirred awake by the time the sun was well in the sky, and after heating up breakfast and relaxing at their site for a bit the two decided to take to some of the trails themselves, eventually ending up at a bend of the river down in the woods. There they sat and relaxed for a bit, leaning against one another and listening to the quiet sounds of the water and the forest, and maybe they would have stayed for longer had the autumn not forcefully reminded them of its existence with a cold, stiff breeze that cut right through those trees all around them. They didn't notice it so much while moving.

So, instead of getting up and heading back to the trail, Shekh rolled the smaller aardwolf onto his back against the sandy bank, climbed up on top of him, and pressed his muzzle against his neck - and slid his paw somewhere else. At first Ano yelped and squirmed with the shock of cold, but then warmed up to the touch and all those that followed.

Shekh actually ended up so hot that he had to toss his jacket off halfway through, and then regretted it afterwards with his paws all sandy from grabbing at the bank above the aardwolf's head for support in his movements. He'd had to lean way over to his right, gripping his boyfriend's hips with his thighs so that he wouldn't fall over, then intentionally repeated the motion after both seeing and feeling the effect it had on the aardwolf. That nearly led them to a second round right there in the cool sand, Ano's little claws gripping at the waistband of Shekh's pants halfway down his thighs, but another breeze came through and stiffened them both in a much less pleasant way.

On their way back to the site, though, he told him about the story the ranger had shared in the morning. Ano looked excited, curious, and nervous all in one, so of course Shekh waited for the right moment later to fall silently back along the path and then startle his boyfriend with cold hyena fingers digging into his ribs from behind.

He coughed into his paw, blinking against the fire in the center of the site, and looked among the company here. Ano beside him; the cooler the other two had brought with their collaborative dinner set on top of it; then the wild dog across the fire just now setting his camera aside; and the silver fox himself, making a not-too-graceful show of eating his chili dog.

Thick, chunky red clung to the black fur around his lips; his broad tongue flicked out to lap it off a moment later. Warm golden eyes zipped over towards the hyena's face for a moment, then back again.

The hyena leaned over the other side of his chair to attempt to stifle a sneeze. Afterwards, he took a moment to settle back in. "Did y'all find your monster yet?"

"Mm." The fox took a moment to swallow, shaking his head. "Nah. We were out hiking all day yesterday, but by the time we got back it was already raining, so we headed to bed. They say it comes out at night; nobody's ever seen it during the day." In the space between sentences he took another bite. "Thought we heard something clomping around the paths early in the morning, but I was too tired to go and look."

To that Shekh tossed his head back and let out a cackle; beneath it he could hear Ano's chuckle, too. "That was - probably me. I had to pee."

"He always does..." the aardwolf rumbled, hiding his grin behind his own meal.

The wild dog reached out for the bottle of rum, about half gone already. "It was heading over towards the bathrooms, I think. Before the sun came up."

"Yeah. I've got a confession, guys." Shekh raised his paws. "I'm your monster. Ooh."

The silver fox squinted at him. "You're not tall enough."

"Oh. Well, then, it's certainly not Ano..."

Another quarter of the bottle's contents disappeared before the hyenas said their goodbyes and wobbled back over to their own campsite, just a short way down the dirt road. Shekh had to keep his arm around Ano's waist to keep the aardwolf walking straight, and even then he had to carefully maintain their pace or else have to pick Ano back up off of the ground. As usual, the dark-furred aardwolf became a lot more touchy and cuddly with this much alcohol in him, leading Shekh to find himself pinned back against their sleeping bag in a reversed mirror of what had happened along the river bank. This time, though, it was Ano whose muzzle dove between Shekh's legs, and then the striped hyena who lay back with his hips firmly thrusting up into the aardwolf atop him.

The weekend was just getting better and better.

~ ~ ~

Hungry...

_ _

"What? Again?"

_ _

Not again. Still.

_ _

What a terrible thing hunger could be. It gnawed at the insides, at the throat and stomach and mind until it consumed all focus. Ignore it and it got worse; sometimes it seemed to go away, but no matter what it always remained, lingering there beneath the surface, just shoved off to the side. Always there. Always present. Inseparable, unavoidable.

"No. Was last night not enough for you?"

_ _

It is never enough. We know this.

_ _

"I said no."

_ _

As you have before. You do not control me. I do.

A different kind of hunger broiled underneath as well. That was always there, too, a side-effect of the very solitude that had been so desperately sought: the kind of hunger that tightened the loins and further dulled awareness, that buried coherent thought and burnt away everything else once the path to satisfying it began. If anything, that type of hunger was worse.

"I said no. I gave you something else last night-"

_ _

You did not give. I got it myself.

_ _

"-and you know that I cannot have this happening again so soon. Is something wrong?"

_ _

Always.

Twin fires, these two hungers: turn attention to dousing one and the other only grows higher, stronger, brighter. More difficult to combat; more ferocious; more capable of consumption and destruction. Soon enough it always burns itself out, though, and then all that remains is char and ash and ruin, until the fire begins again.

"Can you hold off for two more nights? Until the end of the weekend. Make another deal with me."

_ _

No.

_ _

"I can give you what you want. I always do, don't I? Just - wait until after."

_ _

No. Not enough. Never enough. Hungry now."

_ _

"No-"

_ _

Then I will take it for myself.

~ ~ ~

The darkness of the closed tent held still for a moment, and then seemed to swirl and shift when the striped hyena came to his senses. What was it that had awoken him? No rain tonight, and just the slightest whispers of wind rustling through the trees and along the tent walls; Ano snoozed softly beside him, muzzle resting across his bare chest, with the occasional snore coming from his half-open mouth. A small pool of wet warmth soaked into Shekh's fur there, right near the side of the aardwolf's mouth.

Frowning, the hyena pulled himself up a little bit and looked around. He had never had good night vision, a trait passed down from his mother, and as such each little ruffle from the wind or shadow of the trees yanked his eyes to it and put a kick behind his heartbeat. Maybe it was what little remained of his dreams in his head that put him on edge like this, since it really seemed as though there was nothing out of place.

Although... he tilted his head and cocked an ear to listen to the abundance of... nothing. Once the wind died down, nothing remained. No night birds or bats; no crickets or grasshoppers or whatever other little bugs often made noises; no foxes or squirrels, no quiet steps along distant foliage of wild deer. Nothing.

And then something. Something off in the distance near the other pair's campsite, something that certainly did sound like footsteps. Slow and deliberate, heavy, careful, yet not careful enough. Coming gradually closer; the crunching of leaves, the crack of a twig, the busy rustle of a bush pushed aside. Then a pause, and the wind started up again - and Shekh fully expected the footsteps to disappear by the time it ended.

They didn't, though, and instead had come much closer, enough so that his poor hearing limited by the tent walls made it seem as though whatever it was stood right at the edge of their own site. Shekh sat up a little further and looked from one wall to the other, imagining each ripple in the shadows to be whatever, or whoever, was standing there... and his eyes kept on sliding off the shapes, unable to hold them in place.

The next thing to perk his ears was the sound of snuffling at the air, of someone drawing a deep yet broken breath in through their nose. It sounded too throaty to be a person, though, too... hungry, maybe. Unknowingly he clutched more tightly onto the aardwolf beside him waiting for what would come next; and sure enough, that indrawn breath soon rattled slowly out, sounding to Shekh's ears as though it misted out from between sharp yellow teeth.

And then it was gone. Fast, running footsteps diving further back into the trees, plodding one after another in a rhythm too fast for someone on two legs. He, too, let his breath out, unaware that he'd been holding it; Ano shifted and yawned quietly, briefly lifting his head to try to nuzzle under his chin.

"Shekh?"

The hyena waited in place for a moment longer, then slowly lowered himself back down. The warmth inside the sleeping bag welcomed and comforted him, as did the gently mingled scent of himself and his boyfriend - with the unmistakable touch of alcohol, still underlining the aardwolf's breath.

"Nothing. I just... thought I heard something." The hyena started to fake a yawn, then felt it turn into a real one. He was going to say something else afterwards, but by the time he had snuggled back into place around Ano, it was clear that the aardwolf had already fallen back asleep.

That was fine. At least in here, together, he could put the thought of whatever it was out of his mind before long, and then give himself back over to the indistinct trails of sleep and dreams.

~ ~ ~

Later that morning Shekh awoke again in the same spot, though this time with the colors of the tent's material illuminated by a sun probably halfway to its zenith. The hyena felt a bit... heavy, so to say, as he usually did when he overslept; unsurprisingly Ano still snored atop him, too, though the aardwolf stirred awake as soon as Shekh sat up to stretch his arms over his head.

"What time is it?"

"I don't know. Ten-ish?"

"Oh, wow." Ano pulled himself up as well, the top cover of the sleeping bag slipping away from his shoulder and chest, and then stifled a yawn behind a paw. "At least it'll be warmer when we go outside. Well - less cold."

"Yeah." Shekh smiled, looking over his boyfriend for a moment, then leaned in for a hug even though the two had just extricated themselves from one another. "Are you hungry? I can go get the fire kicked up and we can do up those burritos."

There was that sweet little smile again. The aardwolf nodded. "That sounds good. I gotta go pee, and then I'll be back to help."

Shekh recalled a little bit of how to "properly" go camping from a single-semester outdoors class he had had in high school, though that faulty memory couldn't quite aid him in getting the fire lit. By the time Ano returned he still hadn't managed it, though with him back it took just a handful of minutes longer to get the eggs sizzling in the skillet and their tortillas heating up near the fire. During that, Ano leaned in to smooch Shekh on the cheek and told him that he was going to head right over to say good morning to the fox and wild dog-

-and then returned hardly two minutes later.

"They're not there."

Shekh stirred the eggs a bit more. "Well, that's not too unusual for them. Probably went out early in the morning to try to find their... whatever."

"No, I mean, like... they're not there." Ano came closer to kneel down beside the fire, pulling his thin jacket a little closer around his body. His violet eyes flicked down to the cooking food, then back up to Shekh. "But everything else is. Like... he left his camera, and their backpacks are still there. Their tent is open, too. Just the front flap, and I took a peek inside, but they're not there."

The hyena shrugged. "I dunno. Maybe they just went on a walk."

"Well..."

"I don't know. It just gave me, like... a weird feeling, you know?"

"Maybe they got nabbed by their monster." Shekh looked over towards Ano and grinned at the suspicious squint he received in return. "Nah. I'm sure they're fine. Speaking of walks, how about you and I head out on one when we're done with breakfast? It's pretty comfortable out here right now."

Some of the ingredients in their cooler had gotten a bit soggy due to the spare ice melting, but overall the breakfast came out fairly alright. Those were Shekh's words, "fairly alright", while Ano just gave a nod and a "yeah, it's fine". It was all that could be expected of ingredients dragged all the way out of town, at least. Before too long after finishing their meal the two got ready and made a brief detour back up to the entrance to the camp to look over the map, then picked another trail and started down that way.

The forest had a certain kind of beauty to it during the day, even with the steady advance of autumn. A good number of the trees still retained their leaves, and the recent rain kept the trunks a rich, damp brown; there were few blooms or flowers or fruits around, but still the wooded walls keeping close to the path burst with fresh life. Looking out through the spaces between branches and brush, something in the back of the striped hyena's head tickled at him, but he couldn't quite grab onto the fragmented memory before it fizzled away into nothingness. It went like that sometimes: he had a dream or woke up and did something during the night, and then almost remembered it the next morning.

Still, though, looking out into the depths of the woods along the path, he ended up slowing down to a stop without realizing it. It took Ano tugging on their intertwined paws to get him moving again. What was it that had distracted him right then?

"Wait a second."

This time it was Ano who paused, squinting forward. Shekh did the same... and a moment later the familiar hunched form of the park ranger wobbled around the next bend in the trail, this time without his walking stick and instead with a bag slung over his back. His eyes, two yellow pinpricks among rich brown and dry green, caught the two of them immediately. Solomon raised a paw in greeting.

"What're you doing out here?" Shekh asked, looking him up and down. Just like every other time he had seen him, the wolf looked as though he'd gotten a cumulative forty minutes of sleep the previous night, with the bags beneath his eyes looking deeper, his cheeks appearing thinner, his whiskers and fur and himself in general a bit more frazzled. Maybe something had happened, or maybe he had had some particularly bad nightmares. Shekh had never asked just what his condition was.

Before he answered, Solomon turned to Ano to give him his own greeting nod, then reached up to swipe his ranger's hat off his head. His paws were hidden beneath elbow-length cleaning gloves, originally canary-yellow but now spattered with mud and who knows what else.

"I can enjoy nature, too, can't I?" was his response. Then a second later, as though an afterthought: "I _do_run the camp, after all."

For a moment Ano's head turned, following the flight of a bright red bird. "That is true..." He focused on the ranger again. "You do actually live here, right? That's what you said?"

Pink tongue flicked out over his lips, showing a brief flash of sharp teeth. "Indeed I do. And every time I head out and hit the trails, I find something new. Especially after rainstorms... and speaking of," and here he patted a little sack hanging from his belt, "rain makes for good mushroom hunting."

With his free paw Shekh motioned towards the wolf's arms. "Is that what the gloves are for?"

"Gloves?" Brief confusion flicked through those yellow eyes. He frowned, whiskers pinning forward, and then seemed to shock back into himself. "Oh! Right. The... uh, the gloves. Um." Another lick of the lips, followed by a swallow. "Yeah. Oh - how many more days are you two staying?"

The hyenas glanced at each other, then both shrugged. It was Ano who answered. "We were planning on leaving tomorrow morning, I think. That's why we wanted to see more of the trails today."

"Ah. Alright." Solomon slid his hat back on, then gave it a couple small twists to fit his ragged ears through the holes. That done he made to lower his paws back down to his sides, though briefly ran his pendant between a finger and thumb as though to reassure himself of its presence. He cleared his throat. "Well, come back sometime, yeah? It's nice to see folks. I appreciate the... solitude, but it does get lonely sometimes." Then, deeming the conversation done, he tilted his hat to the hyenas again and made as if to move past them.

They watched him go by for a moment - and then Shekh reached out and lightly grabbed the wolf's arm, almost surprised to find thick, taut muscle tense beneath the tight skin and matted fur. That's right, he reminded himself; that was one of the first things I noticed about him. This close, the striped hyena had to tilt his head back a bit to look at him.

"Wait - do you know where the other campers went?"

A pause. Shekh felt Ano shift beside him, then squeeze his paw. Solomon pursed his lips, mouth open and brow furrowed as if to ask who, and then changed course. The wolf's ears flicked.

"No," he finally replied. "I haven't seen them. I wander a lot early in the mornings because of my, um..." His gaze briefly slid over to the aardwolf. "...condition, so I sometimes don't see where folks go during the night."

"Oh. Well-"

"We were just wondering," Ano finished. When Shekh looked at him, he had that smile on again. Ano had always been better with people than himself. "Thanks anyway."

"Yeah." The wolf gave another lick of his lips, eyes flicking between the two of them before finally breaking away again. "Um. Bye." And he was back on his way, doing his little lopsided bustle down the trail. Shekh and Ano watched him for a moment longer before returning to their own business, getting right back to pointing out little mushrooms or birds along the trail and chatting about how much _different_things were here than at the parks closer to home, as though nothing had happened.

For Shekh, at least, that odd conversation remained in the back of his head, tingling his senses just like the fragments of his dream last night that he couldn't quite recall. No doubt it bugged Ano a little bit too: the many times he looked over at his boyfriend while they walked, a hint of confusion and deliberation lingered on the aardwolf's face, though it always disappeared when he realized he was being watched, to be replaced with that familiar smile. It nearly always led to a returned grin and a kiss.

Then, his suspicion was confirmed. At another smooth, wide bend in the trail, this one overlooking a turn of the river, Ano angled his head towards the striped hyena. "That was a bit... weird."

"What?" Down below the water burbled on, rhythmic ripples casting out towards the banks around a protruding rock. It was a fairly clear, shallow river, though at the far side of the bend it visibly deepened until the bottom disappeared from view. All sorts of smoothed rocks of varying sizes sat along the bottom, and if Shekh squinted, he thought he could pick out a couple of small fish from here, back up along a slight cliff. It was precisely the type of slope that he loved to scramble up and down as a pup. "You mean Solomon?"

"Yeah. Though, I guess that's what chronic sleep deprivation does to you..." The aardwolf trailed off and shrugged, then slid his paw out of Shekh's to briefly wrap his arms around himself against a soft breeze. "You wanna go down there?"

"Hell yeah I do."

Just as Shekh moved to start down, though, Ano's arm came out to press gently against his chest. "Wait."

"What?"

"Do you... see that?"

"See what?"

He pointed. "Down in the river. Is that... clothing?"

Shekh had totally overlooked that. Sure enough, caught along one of the boulders downstream, a tattered bunch of rags drifted and wiggled in the current. It looked like it had been a pair of shorts at one point in time.

"Maybe someone had some fun here, huh?"

"And left their clothes here?"

"Well, if _mine_ended up like that..."

Shekh took a closer look at the scene before them. There was that odd little thing, sure, but the rest seemed fine... until his gaze drifted towards the near bank, and a shift in the shadows showed signs of something having happened. The muddy sand had been disturbed at some point during the night, with scattered footprints having kicked up trails; half-hidden behind a tree there was an abandoned firepit, the surrounding rocks skewed out at one side as though it had been forcefully kicked over; and then another tree, nearly out of view behind the others, had its lowermost limb shorn almost completely off, showing fresh yellow-white wood inside.

The hyena chewed on his lip. "You don't think that was them, do you?"

"I don't know. Let's keep on going." Ano leaned forward a little bit, looking down the slope. "I'd say let's go down there, but it still looks slippery."

"Yeah. That sounds good."

The two looked at each other again before moving on. Shekh could tell from that one look that Ano had had the same thought. Maybe this was that weird feeling that the aardwolf had gotten from the other pair's campsite, this... odd unease, something close to the so-familiar, so-strange feeling of being watched. An uncomfortable tickling and tingling, so slight that it might as well just be imagination. Something putting an extra little jump into their steps until the bend of the path and river lay far behind them.

The hyenas resumed their chatting, though this time that feeling lingered beneath the words as well. The ranger, the other campers, the river... they had picked this particular trail for its middling length compared to the others, though by the time the two returned to their own campsite, they decided to lie down for a quick nap. This just put the sun further over in the sky when they woke back up, and by that time it was too late for lunch yet too early for dinner.

So, deciding a fire would still be in order with the temperature starting to trickle down with the deepening afternoon, the two hyenas bundled together beneath a blanket and just enjoyed one another's company for a bit, gently dozing in the misty half-awareness that usually came after an impromptu nap.

Shekh shrugged against his partner. "Hey."

"Hmm?"

"What do you say about, like... packing up before dinner and then heading out afterwards? Like..." He shrugged. "All of this would've been more fun if we'd been _expecting_these... urban legends and the spooky stuff. Y'know? But there's just been some things going on that have made me feel... weird."

The aardwolf remained quiet for a moment. The crackling of the fire filled the silence. "Maybe," he replied after a bit. "I've got that same feeling, too. There was just something... strange about the other campsite."

"They're not back yet, are they?"

"No. I checked before our nap."

"I guess we could wait until they show up." The hyena forced a smile. Ano did the same. "You seem like you wanna hang out with them more."

"I do," he said, with a soft chuckle. "Besides, we still have to finish the rum..."

"You're totally capable of doing that on your own."

Bright purple eyes turned to him, with a big grin illuminating the aardwolf's face. His tall ears perked up. "Can I? Are you giving me permission? I didn't have a hangover this morning, somehow."

Shekh chuckled, too, and leaned away a bit. Ano just followed him, eventually knocking them both off-balance so that he fell atop the striped hyena, who took the opportunity to nuzzle in along his neck. "Behave. Be_have._"

"Hmm." Ano propped himself up above him, paws pressing against his chest. "Make me."

Shekh lifted up a little bit. "You know as well as I do that I am fully capable of that."

"I sure do..."

~ ~ ~

It began as it always did, and as it always would. As soon as the sun finished its descent below the horizon, as soon as the last rays of light winked out from between the skeletal tree branches, the feeling began. At first it came on as a general unease, a strange, uncomfortable malaise tingling at the insides of the bones and tickling at the whiskers and ears. When it strengthened, when it became a constant, deliberate prickling at his skin through his fur, he had to sit down and grip onto the chair to keep himself under control; in fact, wooden surfaces throughout the cabin all bore the same wounds, deep rents crisscrossing and stacking over one another, dug from sharp claws tightening in resistance.

Sometimes he was given a choice. That awful, deep voice in his head toyed with him in that regard: sometimes he was given a choice, and yet he was almost never allowed to actually make_that choice. Solomon could feel the changes coming on even before that voice came back to him, though it was always there - just out of the edges of his awareness, like an unseen watcher following him through the words. In a way, that's what it _was.

I am hungry.

The wolf swallowed, gritted his teeth, and clutched his pendant in one paw, the claws of his other already sliding into the habitual valleys in the arm of the chair. "No,"_he sent back to it. _"I fed you last night. Again."

_ _

You did not feed me. I fed myself. And they were delicious.

An odd sensation, these... other_thoughts. He knew, fully and without any sort of doubt, that they were not his own: rather, it felt like someone, something _else occupying the same mind-space as him, the same skull. Something thinking these thoughts so that he could hear them. Like a radio caught between stations, receiving both frequencies at once and muddying everything.

That is not the hunger I feel now.

Solomon shifted his paw from his pendant to his head. Sometimes he thought that if he clutched it, if he squeezed hard enough, he might be able to squash this vile thing in its tracks. Maybe he would squash himself, too. That would be fine.

You know this. You can feel it, too.

And so he could. That was another appealing facet of solitude: the lack of temptation. That had been a subject of... some disagreement between Solomon and his father all those years ago as well as a large factor in why he had moved out here, two cities away and then a good hour and a half outside that city.

There was just something _about_those two, about the striped hyena and aardwolf that had come to his campground this weekend. Something that reminded Solomon of his own first boyfriend, back in high school: the way they looked at each other, the way they spoke to each other, they way they entwined themselves in their tent when sleeping at night. The way the aardwolf whined and squeaked and moaned in the hyena's lap; the way the hyena gritted his teeth and grunted and panted with his thrusts.

Solomon's finger gave a twitch and tightened along the chair's arm, again cracking the lacquered wood.

Now. You cannot resist me.

_ _

"No. I can't."

_ _

You know this.

_ _

"I know that."

_ _

It advanced as it always did, too, vibrating and echoing out from those origin points - the base of his skull, between his shoulder blades, the center of his palms, his loins - until it became impossible to hold back. Every muscle in his body, each tendon, tightened as though wound along a spool until it felt like they would all snap at once; then they more strengthened rather than relaxed, resisting the tension and overcoming it. The rippling and shifting of his insides, the bulging of his body... it used to be painful, the first few times he had gone through the shift, but now it came as smoothly as anything else with which he had some twenty years of practice.

He could still remember the first time, of course. First times rarely ever faded out of memory. The snarling and growling and screaming, the fear from both himself and his boyfriend at the time, the awful deepening hunger in his stomach and between his thighs. Relieved once, relieved twice, relieved again. He no longer had a boyfriend the morning after. Just remnants, remains, tatters; a stained set of bedsheets, an awful, cloying stink that hung in the air, and the weight of guilt dragging down along his shoulders.

Solomon felt the so-familiar changes set into his body, from the lengthening of his fingers and claws to the hunching and snapping of his legs, becoming more feral in function and appearance; from the broadening of his shoulders and muzzle to the sharpening of his fangs, until they protruded from his slavering maw; from the shredding of his clothing suddenly too small for his hulking form - usually he remembered to strip naked first - to the way his pendant tightened around his neck yet held; and finally the strengthening of that desire, brought on from the beast itself as well as the crashing flood of feral hormones.

The wolf had already been well-off, so to say, when in his normal and natural form - that much, he had heard from several of his partners - but so many factors embellished and enhanced that in the beast's form. Weight and heft and masculine scent hanging between his bared thighs, a sack that could easily more than fill someone's cupped paws; a suitably plump sheath, bristling with fur damp from desire; and then the shaft, slick wet pinkish flesh thoroughly veined like a wild wolf's, halfway out from that sheath already.

It wasn't exactly _willingly_that he gave himself over to the change tonight. Just like how he had roused himself as soon as the sun began rising for his first job, just how he moved all the way out here, Solomon went along with it since he knew he had no other choice. Since he knew it would happen anyway. That was why he left his cabin door unlocked at night: he would make his way out of the small room anyway, and replacing a door could be expensive, as he had learned.

Then the final piece of the shift set into place, the keystone at the spine of an archway: that voice became his own. During his shifts were the only times in twenty years that he had just one voice in his head.

Solomon the beast stretched his long, powerful limbs; he popped his neck and back, hunched nearly half-over in the cabin; he lifted onto one leg to stretch out the other, knees unfolding, then alternated to the other. His long, broad tongue slid out and over his dripping chops, wetting the sharp yellow fangs that stood out from the black flesh and fur. He swallowed, growled deep in his chest, reached down with one massive paw to feel himself, satisfied with the changes and the result; he wrapped a thumb and forefinger around the base of his revealed length, slid his sheath back a little further, and rumbled with the shiver of pleasure it sent through his body.

I am... Solomon turned towards the door and cocked his head, listening to the whisper of wind through the trees outside. _Hungry._All of his senses had sharpened and intensified, from vision to hearing to scent, and even - of course - pleasure. He stepped forward, braced his shoulder against the heavy wooden door, and then effortlessly shoved it open so that it swung out into that breeze.

The beast could finally rise to his full height out here, and lifted his nose to the air as he did so. Thoughts and memories came in fragmented pieces in this form, and _control_might as well be the moon for all he could seize it, but he still had an easy time finding the hyena and the aardwolf on the wind. Their scents, caught when he had passed them by on the trail earlier in the day after burying the remains of the other campers, felt familiar and enticing... and irresistible when he tasted the also-familiar spike of arousal and release, faint yet undeniably there.

A grin touched his lips. So they had gone at it again. It had been so hard to resist these past two nights, but tonight... without another thought Solomon lunged out into the woods towards the campgrounds, targets already fixed well in mind.

It didn't take long to find them - one of them, at least: the little aardwolf was padding his way back from the bathrooms, the slight unsteadiness to his step and general miasma of alcohol leading clear tracks as to what he had done that night. His fur blended in with the night, black like the shadows and deep indigo of the sky, but Solomon had no trouble picking his movement out against the backdrop of trees and branches. Nothing evaded his notice when in this form. Slavering still, with a hungry rumble still purring in his throat, the werewolf lunged forward in three quick, long strides, and then was on him.

All the breath went out of the aardwolf when his back hit the ground, as did his senses for a moment. Gradually his eyes fluttered back open, though by that time Solomon had already torn his shirt open and had the tattered remains of his shorts and boxers between his sharp teeth; it took another moment for the aardwolf to realize what was going on, for his dizzied, dulled senses to fixate on this _beast_atop him. His muzzle spread in a silent scream and those short arms came out, trying to push the thing off of him, but it was like a gentle morning breeze against the thickest, oldest tree out there in the wood.

Hungry. No, I just - need to - want to... I want...

_ _

With immense effort the wolf held himself back, tipping the so-delicate balance just a fraction back to himself_instead of _the other. Still the aardwolf beat and batted at him, squirming beneath his massive forepaw - he could nearly spread his fingers and grip his entire upper chest in his palm - and still Solomon did not let him go, but instead of sinking his teeth into that smooth, slim-muscled body, he held eye contact with the wriggling creature, licked his chops, and lowered his head down. The movement actually heightened the prey's panic, and it continued even as the werewolf's nose touched against the side of his sheath, then dragged down along his sack.

Only when his thick, broad tongue slid up between the smaller male's thighs did the struggling begin to subside. Intense fright still glimmered in his eyes, but with each lick between his legs, each slow, deliberate draw of his tongue up beneath his sack that fear started to ebb slowly away, to be replaced with reluctant, begrudging interest. The pounding of fists against the werewolf's shoulders slowed and weakened, and turned instead to a loose grip at his rough, greasy fur.

The rumble continued in Solomon's throat, the beast satisfied for now with the turn of events. With his nose pressed up against the aardwolf's sheath and his tongue repeatedly lapping up across his tailhole, he could look up along the smaller male's body and stare into his eyes, knowing that his own glowed bright, flawless yellow in the dim light of the bathrooms just a short way down the path. The aardwolf gasped and panted, breath still restricted by the massive paw pushing down against his chest; Solomon shifted his grip on him, digging his fingers beneath the aardwolf's back and lifting him up a bit.

A little chirp came from his prey's lips with the sudden shift in movement - and then his legs were splayed around the werewolf's thick neck as the smaller male was hoisted upside-down off the ground, Solomon kneeling on his haunches as he dug his tongue ever more forcefully against the tight ring of muscle, weakly resisting just like the small hyena himself. His panting and quiet moans of pleasure turned to little whimpers of dizziness, but the hunger inside the wolf prevented him from caring enough to make for a more comfortable angle for the poor drunk creature.

So he held him in the air there, aardwolf's shoulders braced against werewolf's thighs, legs around neck, and tailhole around tongue. Each slick, hungry press into him caused a twitch and clench in response, muscles squeezing back against the invading tongue yet unable to resist the beast's superior strength and determination. As he licked and lapped Solomon continued to draw slow, steady breaths in through his nose, picking both the aardwolf's musk as well as the hyena's on him - as well as tasting something else of the hyena down here inside of him.

That was good. That meant that the aardwolf had already had some stretching done to him tonight, though surely this broad tongue pushing its way into him, pressing past his pulsing ring and digging steadily deeper into his body, was quite a bit thicker than whatever he had had in him before. What little of the original Solomon remained in the wolf tonight didn't want to hurt him too badly.

"What're..." the aardwolf managed. Sharp predator's eyes easily caught the motions of his arms, hanging uselessly down in the open air and trying to grab at the wolf's legs for support. "What's... ah..."

He tasted of sweat and sex and seed and desire, with just a little bit of lingering fear and panic. These last two Solomon had never really developed a taste for, like salt for his regular self: it could make the meal much better, but couldn't stand on its own. With his other massive paw the wolf reached up towards his prey's backside, firmly pressed against his dripping muzzle, and while careful with his thumb spread him a bit so that he could more easily slip his tongue into and pull it back out of him, scooping against the wet flesh and further weakening the muscles. Still the aardwolf tried to resist him pressing deeper, still he clenched and squeezed around him, and still Solomon pushed further.

The beast had to purse his lips against the aardwolf's rim before long, the entirety of his tongue buried in his rump and still wriggling and squirming inside of him, feeling its way around among warm, slick flesh. Solomon rumbled deep in his throat again, parting his lips for a moment to let it out across the aardwolf's rump, hungry breath misting in the cool air.

"Aah..." the little creature sighed again, apparently incapable of voicing a coherent thought. He had managed to bring one paw down and around to cover his muzzle; a thin strand of drool dangled down, swinging gently in the air. Then he let out a little _"oh!"_with Solomon's shift in position, slipping all of his tongue free from the now slightly-stretched rump - and leaving a thick glob of feral saliva rolling down towards the base of the aardwolf's tail as he did so.

There was more that Solomon wanted than the taste of his prey on his tongue and in his throat. The wolf slid further back onto the balls of his footpaws; still holding his prey in two paws, he turned him back up and around. After a moment of dizziness and maybe some motion-induced nausea, the aardwolf looked straight forward at the thick muscles weaving along the beast's belly and chest, then tilted his muzzle back to look him in the face. What he saw there would be sharp yellow teeth about half the length of his forearm, a maw dripping with hungry saliva, and bright yellow eyes.

For a moment the fear returned and showed itself as a flattening of his ears, a pinning-back of his whiskers, an unconscious wrinkling of his snout and lips... and then the aardwolf noticed the slick cock tip poking at his tailhole, pushing up into the warm wetness left by the deep animalistic kiss. Solomon held him in place with both paws, each coming up around his shoulders.

It would be so, so easy to tear these arms off...

_ _

"W-wait..." the aardwolf panted, trying to lift himself up by pushing his little footpaws against the larger male's thighs. His muzzle twitched and tightened just like his tailhole as that thick cock continued to sink further into him, spreading his legs around it. "Do you... ahh... fuck, I... God..."

The beast tossed his head back and let his rumble of pleasure leak out of his parted lips alongside the drool, the sound taking on a nearly human touch to it as his tapered tip finally slid past the aardwolf's rim. The way he squeezed and squirmed around his shaft was so good, the same sensations that he had had around his tongue now pressing against his cock as well: the soft, wet slickness, the humid heat, the delicious pressure sliding slowly down onto him.

I do not want to hurt him. I do not. The wolf gritted his sharp teeth, tightening his grip around the aardwolf's shoulders so that he felt the joints shift. Not too badly. The extra pressure and pulling forced the boy a bit further down onto his length, the bulge of his unswollen knot stretching the supple skin of his sheath. The rumble continued into a growl, easily burying the aardwolf's yelp of discomfort, and still Solomon pushed deeper, deeper. The wriggling and straining continued, as did the tight squeezing along the contours of his length; there would be no way he could fit all of himself inside the aardwolf, but still he would push every inch he could. And, of course, of those there were many.

Breathlessly the aardwolf swallowed, mouth hanging open and chest heaving with the effort. "God,"_he squeaked, paws now reaching up to grab at the werewolf's fingers, "it's - _fuck, I'm..."

Solomon didn't care. He leaned in, drew deeply of his prey's scent from his neck, then let that breath out in a hot huff - to be followed by a long drag of his tongue, sticky with the mix of saliva and musk. About half of his length buried inside the aardwolf's tight rump felt like a good enough start; the beast gave a couple of throbs, relishing the way the tailhole clenched back in response, and then again shifted his position, this time reaching one arm back to keep himself propped up.

The other still clutched the smaller male by his shoulder, and with his grip he began to pull him back up. His prey's saliva-slickened tailhole dragged along his cock, resisting the movement around the girth keeping him spread... and the effect of that echoed through the aardwolf as a slow release of shuddering breath, soon followed by another sharper intake when the direction reversed.

He sounded just like so many of the werewolf's other captures, with the little whining chirps and the gasps and the noises of strain and struggle. Still, though, there was no denying that the aardwolf did enjoy this: each time Solomon pressed back into him - or, rather, each time he tugged the smaller male's rump back down onto him, pushing a little further each time - his own hard cock twitched against the smooth blue-steel fur of his lower belly.

That was another thing in the shift that both halves of the wolf enjoyed: sometimes it seemed this form had an effect on his prey, a deep, intoxicating twist of the natural senses and responses that made them go willingly towards the beast. Sometimes it took a little bit of persuasion and convincing, like with this one, but sometimes... sometimes he needed only to sit back on his haunches with his legs spread, and his chosen capture would bury themselves between his thighs, muzzle and paws rubbing and squeezing and stroking to relieve first one hunger, and then reaching up his chest to relieve the other. There was just something so satisfying about being able to taste himself on, and sometimes in, his prey.

While on his knees with one arm back like this, Solomon could thrust upward with his hips and tug the aardwolf down onto him with his other paw, at an angle that made him squirm and squeeze in just the right way... the werewolf let his tongue hang out of his mouth as he picked up his pace, knowing that he couldn't hilt inside him yet not quite caring. He could find someone, or something, else to satisfy that need: just not this particular one. With his free arm the aardwolf reached forward to balance himself against Solomon's shoulder, little fingers knotting in his matted black fur; his breath puffed out into the cold night air with every thrust, each little cloud carrying another panted moan or languid sigh.

At least it felt he had started to adjust to the beast's size a bit more: Solomon still pushed himself a little deeper with each thrust against weight and gravity, feeling the slick, tight kiss of the aardwolf's rim around his cock closer and closer to his still-unswollen knot. Something else to satisfy that need, the need to breed and bury and tie, to have his knot tugged and his balls drained... but not _this_one.

Maybe his partner, then. The wolf lifted his nose to the air again, never slowing in his pace, ears perked to the wet, rhythmic churning of his length against the aardwolf's tailhole: above the rich, delicious stink of male musk and sweat and saliva and sex he could pick out the unmistakable sting of striped hyena, loitering out behind a bush further down the path. That hyena certainly knew how to take a cock - Solomon had come across the two down by the river their second day here, and watched how he had pressed his aardwolf into the riverbank and fiercely rode him, the same kind of bestial hunger glittering in his eyes and dripping from the side of his mouth.

Well, maybe not the same_kind. _Perhaps I will change that.

Solomon gritted his teeth again, attention pulled back down to the aardwolf not quite in his lap. All the squeezing, the squishing, the tension, the warm delicious wetness - the so, so familiar hot pressure started building in his abdomen, and with the last reserves of his care bubbling away beneath it, he lifted up off the ground to bury his length as deep inside his prey's rump as he could fit, each thrust bringing with it a hot, thick spurt of his load.

~ ~ ~

Ano gasped and moaned out with each throb of that fat cock beneath his tail, visible to Shekh even at this distance and darkness by the way the light of the bathrooms glimmered off the wet flesh. He had awoken some time ago, vaguely aware of his partner's absence, and after some time spent staring at the roof of the tent decided to get up and go looking for him. His original idea turned out to be mostly right, in that Ano had been on his way to the bathrooms, but... this certainly hadn't been in that idea.

At first the hyena was suitably terrified, hearing his boyfriend's strained gasps and noises and the horrible rumbling growls of the beast, like distant thunder. Once he had made it closer, though, and had drawn out the outlines of his boyfriend and the creature against the shadowed backdrop, his pounding heart had redirected its focus from fear to - something else. Part of him held back out of fear for himself; then another part struggled beneath the guilt of that, _knowing_that his boyfriend could be in trouble; and then yet another part wanted to hold back to watch, feeling that Ano wasn't in much danger at all.

It didn't look that way, at least, with how his maw hung open in raspy moans, how his hard cock bounced and throbbed against his belly, how he breathed the same moans that Shekh himself had squeezed out of him the previous night. Hell, even from here the hyena could see_the bulge in his boyfriend's lower belly from the thing's huge cock; the slight pulsing and ballooning from its seed pouring out into the aardwolf he had to imagine, however, but this task wasn't too challenging. Not with the way those heavy balls - _God, it looked as though Shekh could cup his paws together and still be unable to hold them - pulsed with each spurt, and how the thick, sticky liquid squirted out in small bursts around the rest of the beast's length, only half-buried.

It was done, then. That meant... what, exactly? Shekh rose slowly, carefully to his feet, lightly clutching the bush behind which he'd hidden, and started coming forward towards the pair. Immediately the creature's eyes fixed on him, and in that moment the hyena felt his step waver: the same pure yellow eyes he had met every day so far, the same ragged ears, the same green gemstone pendant hanging from its neck.

This was _Solomon,_the park ranger. Towering at least eight feet tall, even hunched over like this; with powerful muscles knotting along his arms, his shoulders, his chest, his abs, his loins, his legs; with a too-feral glint in his gaze and an animalistic turn to his grin. He held Ano almost carelessly in one giant paw, balancing the tiny aardwolf halfway along his still- throbbing length while he fixed his hungry gaze on the approaching hyena.

Shekh reached into his pocket to adjust the fit of his pants. The beast - a werewolf? - _reeked_of musk and desire, and if the fear that still pumped through the back of his brain let up a bit, Shekh knew that he would want to close the distance between himself and the wolf, slide beneath Ano's shivering body, and press his nose right up against that thick cock, drawing a deep, hot lungful of the thing's scent right from the lip of its sheath.

Part of him _still_wanted to do that, of course.

He raised his other paw in a defensive gesture. "Ano? Are you... are you okay?"

After a moment the aardwolf rolled his head towards his boyfriend's voice, tall ears weakly perked. "Shekh? Oh, good, you're..." He tiredly licked his lips and swallowed, chest still moving with heavy breaths. "You're here. Look who... who I met, he's... friendly..."

Still the hyena continued to move forward, and still he hadn't quite grasped how big this creature was. It stared down at him through too-bright eyes, everything about its stance and posture screaming feral, wild predator. It let him approach, though, until he came close enough that he could reach up and place his paw on Ano's quivering thigh.

Again the aardwolf's eyes fluttered open, and dizzily, he found the owner of that paw. Ano licked his lips and swallowed again. "This is how I want you to treat me," he said, the words dribbling lazily from his mouth. Maybe he was still a bit drunk. "But you always say, no, I don't want to hurt you... I'm resilient." He shifted his hips around the cock wedged halfway into him - and grimaced a bit. "I - bounce back."

"I was worried at first, but..." This close the scent was nearly_irresistible,_ especially with Ano's more familiar musk thrown into the mix. A line of clear, slick pre had rolled down the underside of his cock and started soaking into the fur of his sheath; Shekh wanted to stand on his tiptoes to lean forward and lap it off. "You seem like you're, um... doing fine."

Ano swallowed yet again. "You fuckin' bet I am. Did you see my, uh..." He waved a paw up towards the wolf, who still panted and huffed with his relief. Those gemstone eyes, half-lidded, remained on Shekh's muzzle; his nose and whiskers continuously twitched and flicked. "My friend?"

"That's Solomon..."

"What?" Ano looked up, squinted, shook his head. "No he's not. Solomon's - smaller. And fuckin' _nicer._But, God, I'm gonna be fuckin' sore for, like... ever..."

"Well, just - see if you can-"

Shekh would have said more, but the other of the werewolf's paws came from the side and easily hoisted him off the ground, nearly crushing him in the process. Just like before, part of him panicked and then another reveled in the turn in events: he_would_ have told Ano to carefully extricate himself so they could leave, but of course the rest of his mind - or his body, rather, and specifically the twitching firmness in the front of his jeans - wanted to get himself a piece of the action.

Now, it seemed like that would happen. Ano murmured something behind him, but by now Solomon held him up in front of his muzzle, hot breath washing over the hyena's body as the wolf inspected him. Shekh searched for at least some sort of recognition or realization in those bestial eyes; Solomon looked for that familiarity elsewhere, though, first pushing his nose against Shekh's chest and then dragging it up towards his neck and muzzle, inhaling his scent.

"Oh, God..." the hyena muttered, a bit shaken. He turned his head away from the exploring muzzle, then squeezed his eyes shut as those lips parted and the stinking breath washed over him again. Then, though, the werewolf's huge tongue came out and tasted his face, his sweat, his mixed fear and arousal... and then continued down, Solomon lapping at his chin, his neck, his collar. The licks turned to deliberately gentle nipping down his front until the beast reached his belly, at which his lips curled back to show those huge teeth.

Shekh closed his eyes again, but instead of pain felt the tearing of first his shirt and then his pants, shredding at the fly and then noisily down one leg, bringing his own erection into the cold night air.

"Aah, Jesus... oh, man..."

"Don't worry..." Ano drawled behind him. It sounded like he was still struggling with that girth buried inside of him. "He hasn't hurt me. Not too badly, at least..."

"Well, you didn't have - his..."

That broad tongue flopped out and drew along the underside of his length, causing the words in his mouth to fizzle out into a shivering sigh. The hyena squirmed with the sensation: slick, sticky saliva drawing up his underside and flicking across his tip, with those hot breaths puffing out into his pubic fur and warming the entire lower half of his body... the beast sniffed at him as he gave a few more licks, each time pulling his second prey's hips forward in response. It just felt _so_good, the way the tongue curved and cupped around his length, and how its drool stuck to and slid along his skin, and-

A sudden shift from the werewolf caused both of the hyenas to cry out, with a soft yelp from his boyfriend and a thump then catching Shekh's ears. He struggled to crane his head around, heart suddenly pounding with the idea that something else had happened to Ano, but then Solomon turned him around for him. Maybe for a different purpose, though, judging by the way one giant paw supported his chest and the other hiked his rump up into the air towards the wolf's muzzle.

"Ano? Are you-" Yet again the words died in his throat. His jeans hung uselessly from halfway down one leg, his other pulled a little uncomfortably to the side by the werewolf's paw - to open him up, so to say, for that tongue to then dive in beneath his tail. It curled forward around his sack and dragged up, up across the surface of his tailhole, lifting his rear a little higher at the end of his motion and sending yet another shiver through him.

It took a moment, but then he found the aardwolf, lying back on the ground with his legs spread. "Yeah," Ano said after a moment, giving him a shaky thumbs-up. "I'm... I'm alright. I just... need to catch my breath, you... have fun..."

Again and again that tongue dug at him, quickly pushing its way past the resistance of his puckering rim and slipping into him. Instinctively the hyena clenched and squeezed against the intrusion, even as his body pushed back against the wet heat and invited it further in; he spread his legs and used what little leverage he had to work himself further back onto it, the huge muscle pushing its way inside of him squirming and swirling, pressing at those spots that made him gasp and grit his teeth and shiver, even with the slight discomfort from the thickness stretching him.

"God..." Shekh rumbled, finding the space to catch his breath when the tongue briefly retreated. He could feel that his rump still remained partially gaped, the hot saliva quickly cooling in the night air - until, of course, Solomon closed the distance again and pressed his lips against the hyena's tailhole, wriggling his tongue right back in against him. "Did he - rrh... did he do this to you, too?"

Ano swallowed, then nodded. He stroked himself slowly down where he lay, tired eyes watching the exchange above him. "You fuckin' bet he did. Reminded me of you, the way he... went at it..."

"Well, I mean-" Another inch and a half of it sank past his rim, the still-squeezing muscles tense and shaking with the effort of his squeezing. Already he could tell that this would put him in that state where he couldn't really clench too well for a while. That was a good feeling. "I usually... _God..._ask first..."

"No you don't!"

"Not always." The tongue flicked out of him again, curling up near the base of his tail. He could feel the drips of thick drool rolling down the back of his sack, and yet again the sharp exhalation of breath washing across his body. "You don't seem to - to mind... though... oh, wait, wait-"

Ano chuckled from beneath as the werewolf turned Shekh back around and started to lower him down, holding him much the same way as he had the aardwolf. "Yeah, that's what I said. You'll be fine, though, mister power bottom."

"Yeah! I prefer to be in control! I-" And then that thick cock started to push up into him, tapered tip still slick with cum easily pushing past his slightly-stretched rim. The striped hyena gasped and squirmed, the feeling of being filled already making his own hard cock throb and twitch between his legs; Solomon lightened his grip around him, letting the hyena sink slowly down from his own weight until he mostly stopped. From there he wrapped his fingers around his chest again and started to pull him back up, then pressed him back down again.

Like a toy. Each slow thrust into him pushed the breath from his lungs, echoing out much the same way as he had heard them come from Ano; between half-lidded eyes the hyena could still see his boyfriend down beneath the two of them, still enjoying the show. Thick globs of drool left inside the hyena's rump oozed out around the thick cock pushing ever deeper into him, towards the smooth contour around the halfway point of his red-fleshed length and then past, the thickness filling him with that characteristic feeling. He wanted to shift, to adjust just a bit, to slow his pace, but Solomon of course wouldn't let him.

"God, I'm - I'm gonna..."

A soft breath whooshed out of Ano's mouth as the werewolf shifted again, this time bringing a large footpaw dangerously close to crushing the aardwolf. Instead, though, it stopped with its heel between his thighs and the meat of his pads pressing up against the smaller male's body, shifting and sliding a little bit with his gentle thrusts. From here Shekh could just barely see the tip of the aardwolf's cock, visible between black-furred toes.

The hyena worried, between intense fuzzing of his senses with each press into him, if the aardwolf would still end up squished... but Ano really didn't seem to mind. He brought his paws up to clutch that footpaw and grinded against it, hips doing little to lift the weight but still managing to slide himself between the pads of those toes.

"What?" the aardwolf breathed, after a warm moan. "Cum? Already? I think I will soon..."

Shekh cleared his throat, swallowed, tilted his head back. Sharp werewolf teeth in a feral grin started back at him; a thick drip of saliva plopped against his cheek. "No, I'm - gonna piss..."

That certainly was what it felt like, at least. He had played around with plenty of larger toys before, every now and then having his boyfriend press them into him when he couldn't get the angle himself, but this was something else entirely. The hyena pushed back against the werewolf's cock each time it sank into him and clenched around it as it pulled out, and at the end of each thrust felt the building pressure in his lower abdomen, the slickness of his own pre gathering at the end of his cock and against his belly where it tapped, the electric shivering in his thighs and arms. He let his mouth hang open, letting the breathy moans come and go in rhythm with the slapping against his rump: by now Solomon had worked most of his length into him, leaving just the slight bulge of his knot to kiss against his saliva-slickened rim.

Slight bulge, and it still felt as wide around as both of his fists held side by side. One was doable, sure, but two? The creature had hunched over a little bit with his shift in posture, now using his hips to thrust more quickly and fiercely into the small hyena, pushing against his belly from the inside. Not an unfamiliar feeling, but it brought with it its own discomfort - as did the tongue suddenly forcing its way into his open maw from above, that same thick saliva quickly spilling out from the sides of his mouth.

He choked around it, almost, as the thick muscle pushed its way over his tongue and down into his own throat. Hot, wet, smooth and broad, soft with a twitching firmness at its core... the werewolf's lips closed on, around his own, blasting its humid breath over Shekh's muzzle and nearly dizzying him with its force. There was just barely enough room left for him to breathe, to inhale the scent of predator and desire. He tried to swallow, found that he couldn't quite do it around the thing squirming halfway down his throat - he could feel it pushing against him, could feel the skin of his neck stretching around the slight bulge just as his belly did for the shaft buried knot-deep - and instead felt the thick ropes of drool dripping down as well, rolling into his stomach just as they slid down his muzzle and neck.

Vaguely, somewhere beneath him he heard Ano's continued noises of pleasure and the rustling of him squirming against the leaves. The world started to fall away from Shekh's awareness, both from the combination of everything happened to him as well as the hot, hungry breath muddling his senses: he certainly noticed the extra pressure and stretching at his tailhole, certainly felt the way the werewolf tightened his grip around his body and started pulling him down around that fist-sized bulge, until he thought that he might tear in half from the size. He felt all of it but couldn't respond, pinned in place between a cock the size of his arm and a tongue that filled his throat.

A rumbling growl echoed from deep inside Solomon's throat, vibrating the hyena's muzzle trapped against his. Then came the slight panic, the feeling of teetering on the edge when the widest part of that knot slid against his tailhole... and then the bounce, the jump, the gasp when it popped in, and the lip of Solomon's sheath kissed against his widened rump. Against the sudden bulging pressure, the heat pulsing and throbbing inside of him, the steady growth of that knot already slick with one load, Shekh felt his own cock twitch against his belly in the open air, then bounce and throb, again and again, with the sharp, intense heat of his peak rolling through him - and his hips bucked and jerked and tugged on the knot, unable to wrench himself free from the solid tie, yet he knew that nothing spurted out of his own length. The pressure remained even as the intense pleasure bubbled out of him: just as Solomon filled his belly with his own feral seed, the hyena's remained caught inside of him, ballooned behind the fat knot filling his rump.

Slowly the tongue retreated from his maw and he fell forward, coughing and spluttering, an odd emptiness in the place of the warm pressure. The hyena swallowed again and again between his coughs, feeling the remnants of the werewolf's drool still rolling down his throat even as it continued to spill from his lips and splatter across the beast's footpaw, held partially forward across the aardwolf. Ano's eyes had drifted shut and he gave a few more pulls between those toes, his paws gripping tightly against the sides of the footpaw... and he, too, sucked in a breath and jerked, painting his belly with a couple spurts of his own load.

Shekh, panting, reached up and wiped his free arm across his maw. The drool there stuck to and matted his fur like heated glue; then he moved it down to touch his own still-hard shaft, slick with oozed pre, and nearly recoiled from the sensation. So _sensitive,_his orgasm forced to stop halfway through, with each shift of Solomon behind and inside of him _almost_finishing it yet never getting that far.

"Are you..." Even speaking was difficult. His throat felt raw, and reasonably so. Shekh coughed again. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah." Ano nodded, mouth still hanging open. "Better than okay. God... can we keep him?"

"Ano-"

Once again Shekh couldn't finish his statement, as this time Solomon suddenly lurched forward, knot still buried inside the hyena's rump, and dropped to all fours above the aardwolf beneath them. Shekh's body dropped down onto Ano's from above, though his rear remained somewhat elevated by the thick cock straining against his flesh and still tugging and twitching. He felt bloated, and also for good reason.

Ano grinned up at him, paws against the hyena's chest. "Yes? You were saying?"

"I was saying..."

"God. Your breath smells - like him."

"My tummy's full of his drool." Shekh lifted himself shakily up on one arm and with the other reached down to caress his belly. Above him Solomon let out another echoing rumble, sounding satisfied. Mostly.

"Goodness. Look at you." Ano reached down as well and poked at him. Both of their shafts, each still hard, pressed against one another. "You look pregnant."

"I might be. I saw how much he pumped into you..."

Ano churred softly and leaned in for a nuzzle. "You know," he said, breath tickling Shekh's ear, "I'm still kinda in the mood..."

The striped hyena gave a thrust from his hips, grinding against his boyfriend at the same time as he pulled on Solomon's knot. It wouldn't be coming free for quite a while.

"We're in luck, then," he replied, letting a paw drift down to wrap around both of them. "So am I. And I'm gonna be stuck here for a while, anyway, so..."

Against his body Ano squirmed and sighed, then licked his lips. "If you had a knot, I bet you could tie me right now."

"You sure about that?" His paw wandered further down, pushing the aardwolf's legs open. So slick,_so _wet; one, two, three fingers slid easily into the smaller male's used tailhole, with a fourth following after some slight effort. "You've never been able to take one of my stretching toys."

"Try me."

So he did. It took a bit of adjustment what with the mostly-inert werewolf buried in his rump, but Shekh managed to lift the aardwolf's body up a bit and angled himself down... and pushed smoothly, easily into his boyfriend, the sticky slickness of Solomon's first load providing all the lube they needed. Ano gripped onto his shoulder and shivered with the sensation, just as Shekh gritted his teeth and sighed.

"God..." he breathed, then swallowed. Already he had buried himself to the hilt - and already it felt as though he would tear open again, around Solomon's pulsing knot. It was a good kind of pain. "I could nearly - shove my muzzle inside of you..."

"That might be _too_much." Ano tried to squeeze around Shekh's shaft as he started to pull back. It didn't work.

"Too much? Try a tongue licking at your stomach lining-"

"Really?"

"No. Not..." His breath caught in his throat for a moment. So much pent-up energy vibrated inside of him, imminent release caught at the edge and the need to meet that release, and then the adrenaline still shocking through him... he reached down to lift Ano's thigh a bit, and immediately pushed right back in so that his hips slapped against the aardwolf's body. "Not really. Almost felt like it, though... God..."

Without the need to warm up or prepare - usually Shekh liked to hike Ano's rump into the air and bury his muzzle beneath his tail himself, and use that for lube - he instead found a better angle and got right to pounding into his boyfriend, loving the breathy moans he squeezed out of the aardwolf as well as the grunts and growls from the large beast still buried inside of himself. A paw slid down between the hyenas wrapped around Ano's length, spreading his cum back across his shaft; Shekh gritted his teeth and tried to balance his pace, pushing his hips as firmly against Ano's rear as he could while testing the limits of his tie with the werewolf.

As he came closer and closer to his second peak in a handful of minutes, he thought he could feel it almost, almost come free, but already the hyena hilted himself inside Ano at the end of each thrust, with the aardwolf panting and moaning against him and pushing into his paw. Breathlessly, wordlessly, the two met in another kiss, Ano ignoring the sticky wetness that still clung to the hyena's muzzle from the werewolf's claiming, with Solomon above them still shivering with the feeling of the abused tie.

Shekh opened his eyes once and saw, up between Ano's large ears, those bright yellow eyes watching them from above, half-lidded in languid pleasure and relief. Then that so-familiar feeling shuddered through him again, and he lifted Ano's thighs with his thrusts, and pushed forward as the energy pulsed through his abdomen again - and this time the werewolf's knot actually came free from his rump, causing him to suddenly clench as hard as his muscles would allow. Shekh gasped and moaned into the kiss, two orgasms' worth of spurts suddenly emptying out one after another beneath his boyfriend's tail.

Still Solomon remained half-buried inside the hyena, too, no doubt enjoying the weak squeezing of each throb around his thick length. Shekh pulled out of the kiss just enough to catch his breath, and then Ano's claws were digging into his back as the aardwolf strained and jerked against him with_his_ second finish as well, a bit less than the first he had spurted out beneath the beast's footpaw.

Both - or, rather, all three of them shaking and panting, Shekh rose up and gave his boyfriend an exhausted grin. "That's better," he managed, and licked his lips. He was still a little bit dizzy. "Now if I can... just..." Already he could feel stray spurts of the beast's cum dripping out of him and rolling down his sack, just like when it had been that tongue shoved inside of him instead of his cock. The striped hyena reached back to spread himself, leaned forward... and gasped as it finally came free, the heavy shaft resting across his lower back alongside his tail.

Finally free, Solomon rose back up to his haunches. He really was a terrifying sight, huge and bestial, with predator's eyes and sharp teeth, and... and a thick, knotted shaft pulsing and dripping amid the black field of his bellyfur, with that hefty sack hanging between his thighs. Even empty, or at least more so than before, they still looked formidable.

Those eyes appraised the two of them, still intertwined and both dripping from the tail. Shekh and Ano looked back at him, suddenly nervous again now that the moment had passed... and each could feel the other grip onto him as Solomon leaned in again, sharp teeth and hot breath coming close. Instead of what they feared, though, that broad tongue drew up along both of their backsides, catching both of their tailholes as well as the back of Shekh's shaft still hilted inside Ano. With the striped hyena so thoroughly stretched, it slid a good three inches inside of _him_and slurped out some of his own cum.

Then, hunger apparently satisfied, the werewolf rose back up onto his hindpaws, tilted his head at the two, and turned to bound back off into the darkness of the woods.

~ ~ ~

It had taken quite some time for both of the hyenas to find the strength to move, and then even more for them to hobble back to camp. They each visited the bathroom beforehand, of course, and then hurried back: after being surrounded in such delicious heat, the cold of the night bit in through their naked fur. Each of them had, luckily, brought along a change of clothes, but they just wrapped up in each other's arm and climbed right back into their sleeping bag instead to catch up on lost sleep.

After enjoying each other's presence and the fresh memory of the night another two times, of course.

The morning came before long, and with it, the lingering soreness. Both of them complained as well as laughed about it as they paced about their campsite, bouncing between working on breakfast and getting their things packed up; Shekh had reached back early in the morning to see just how sore he was, and ended up accidentally slipping four of his fingers inside himself. The feeling of that caused him to get worked up all over again, though, and the hyenas warmed up that morning by sharing in each other's body heat, Shekh bouncing in Ano's lap and clutching the aardwolf's shoulders, not caring how loud he got. Six times in twenty-four hours made a record for the striped hyena.

They both wanted to go find Solomon, of course, but found they couldn't - not until they had packed up the car and were just on their way out. The black-furred wolf plodded back towards the camp from his cabin, again clad in his usual sleeveless-vest outfit with his walking stick held against one arm. He looked... tired, still, but less so than the past couple of days.

Bright yellow eyes fixed on the car as it passed slowly by. Solomon raised a paw in a silent wave; Shekh considered stopping to greet him, but for some reason didn't and passed him by with a nod.

Ano turned around in his seat to watch him. "I wonder how big his dick actually is."

Shekh remained quiet for a moment. "I don't know." It was a good thought, sure, but another occupied his mind: the other campsite, the one belonging to the wild dog and his silver fox friend, remained just as it had been the previous morning. Still empty, still unattended, still with everything set up. As though they had left in a rush, or as though they had just... disappeared. "Maybe he'll show us next time."

But he didn't smile or laugh. A glance in the rearview showed the ranger still standing there, still watching them as they left. His ragged ears stuck out of his hat, his gemstone pendant hung down in the collar of his vest, his bushy tail swayed slowly behind him. And then, just before they turned the corner, the wolf's broad pink tongue flicked out and lapped across his chops, first one side and then the other.