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The night air outside of the tavern was bitterly cold. A northern wind piled snow against the walls and buried the gardens out front, but smoke rolled from the chimneys and lantern light glowed through iced-over windows. On nights like these, it was an especially popular place. With mead, hot supper, rooms and whores for rent, it was a beacon in the lonesome hamlet.

A figure walked the snowed streets, hunched slightly under a thick, fur-lined cloak. Their heavy boots left vanishing steps, the snow eager to fill in the gaps the traveler left behind. They were by no means a tall creature, and indeed, the high drifts of snow made them appear like a child, but a sheathed sword on the traveler's hip marked them for what they were: a knight.

The doors to the tavern flew open. In rushed a gust of frigid air and a swirl of powdery snow, and in its wake came the traveler. The doors were closed hastily at the knight's back. All eyes were on the surprisingly short, frosted figure with the cloak and the sword. From beneath the hood jutted a short snout, the whiskers brittle and glinting. Green eyes shone in the lantern light.

Knight Kaz lowered her hood to unveil cropped red hair and feminine features. In a voice somewhat hoarse from the icy air, she spoke, "Never seen a royal blade before?"

A barmaid moseyed close to the otter and immediately began to fuss over her well-being. Tall and black-furred in an outfit which greatly - and purposefully - accentuated plump breeder's breasts, the mother bear was a fine sight to Kaz's weary eyes. She allowed herself to be ushered to a seat near one of the fireplaces, and she welcomed a mug of foamy mead when the bear offered it.

As Kaz sipped her drink and gradually revived, the bear made her rounds. The otter watched closely. The acuity of her eyesight would have made a hawk jealous. Kaz studied the plump bear as she moved around countless patrons and obstacles in the large, but crowded tavern.

When her mead was drained to the bottom, Kaz held up the mug and said, "Bear! Serve your knight!"

The bear came back briskly and reached for the mug. Kaz held it away, grinned, tutted. "Tell me your name, wench," said the knight.

"My name is Farrah, good knight," answered the bear politely. "Please. Let me serve you. You're so slight, you must be hungry. You need some stew to warm your bones."

Kaz's eyes perused Farrah's bosom and buttocks. The bear was plump, very good; clearly a mother, always nice to see a lady doing her part for her village. It was the bear's maw Kaz's eyes affixed to. Dark jowls, plump and sticky. A wide mouth, the squarish snout of a bear always so inviting to the knight whose second sword she kept between her thighs.

The otter was still cold and somewhat tired. Hungry from her journey. She nodded solemnly and held out the mug. "More drink," she said. "And some of your food. Biggest bowl you've got and bring bread!"

Farrah was only too happy to service a knight, as she effused when she returned with the otter's meal: a tremendous bowl of piping-hot stew served with a stein of mead and a thick and crusty loaf of bread. As Kaz began to eat, Farrah said, "Oh, my sweet husband was a knight just like you. Sadly met his end in the service of his king."

Kaz grunted. For a moment her thoughts for the bear lost their sexual edge. A widow was one thing, but the widow of a knight was sobering. She dipped her head and said respectfully, "My condolences. It pains me to hear of a fellow knight's demise."

A tear glinted in one of Farrah's bright, blue eyes. She wiped it away with haste. "Thank you, good knight," she said softly. "If there's anything else you need-"

"Nothing. Nothing right now," Kaz tightly said, and resumed eating. The food was good. Farrah was an excellent cook, assuming the meal was her doing.

When the meal was through and Kaz thought she might sleep, she turned her thoughts instead to her other hunger. It didn't matter if she was freezing to death or had been run through with a blade, for Kaz could always find time for sex, and her hunger fell solely on the mother bear, the convenient widow with her innate respect for knighthood.

As Farrah gathered up her dishes and tidied the table Kaz had eaten at, the otter openly touched the bear's hip. She said softly, "I want a room. And I want you in it."

The bear's cheeks warmed. She eyed Kaz's muscular paw on her hip a moment. "Me?" she asked, her incredulity badly feigned. Quietly, "But we have other, younger-"

"You," Kaz said firmly, her stern face brokering no discussion. A squeeze on the bear's ass, then she sat back and said, "Tell me what I owe for all of this, woman."

"Oh, for a knight, nothing," Farrah said at once.

The otter shook her head. "The war's taken its toll even here. I insist." She reached into the satchel on her hip and pulled out a pinch of jingling coins. She dropped them into a pile on the scarred table, knowing full well they far exceeded the cost of what she had taken - and what she was about to take. "Now get me a room. Your other, younger whores can finish tidying up here."

Farrah gathered up the coins and scurried off, only to return mere moments later. With her apron gone, the dress beneath caught Kaz's eye. Sturdy, muted and well-worn yet exceedingly low-cut, it was a dress which invited many second looks - and generous tips.

"This way, good knight," said Farrah. She led the otter to the stairs at the edge of the tavern floor, then up. Larger than it seemed from the outside, the tavern had many rooms for rent lining a cozy hall. The bear walked past door after door, Knight Kaz close behind, whose wet boots thudded on the floorboards. The otter's eyes lingered on the bear's bottom; not her goal, but hardly a poor sight either.

"This one," Farrah said, more to herself. Kaz detected a hint of nervousness in her voice. She wondered if the bear knew her secret.

Farrah opened the door to the room and gestured for Kaz to enter. "Please, make yourself comfortable," said the bear as she followed Kaz in. Farrah locked the door at her back, turned to face Kaz, then began to remove her dress. It simply pulled up, lifting over her head like a sheet. Beneath were the thick, unflattering undergarments of a woman used to the biting cold. She slipped down the woolly underpants, peeled off the matching brassiere. Kaz looked on appreciatively as the mother bear made herself nude.

"I've not been with a lady," said Farrah, a lie from an experienced whore if there ever was one. "But I'm willing-"

"Don't try to deceive me," Kaz said flatly. "Whore lies don't interest me." The knight sat down in the wooden chair and kicked off her damp boots. It felt good to have her feet unencumbered for once. She did the same to the rest of her weathered, snowy garments, undressing from head to toe until her dirty secret became an open display.

"Oh good lord," breathed Farrah, staring at the otter's flaccid cock.

Kaz wrapped her arms around the mother bear. She squeezed the cheeks of her ass and hummed thoughtfully. "You're soft. Got the perfect figure for a breeding woman. I'm sure you've done your part, haven't you?"

"Yes, of-, of course. Two healthy children, a girl and a boy. Why?"

The otter nudged Farrah, pushed her shoulders, kept pushing until the bear huffed and knelt. "It's just good to know," she remarked. "It would be a horrible shame if you had these wondrous childbearing hips and hadn't put them to use in service of king and country."

Much the same way as she brandished her blade, Kaz gripped her penis by its very root. Plump even flaccid and very pink, its raw size visibly intimidated Farrah but the bear began to lick over its many inches. However her tongue itself was broad and flat, almost a match for Kaz's penis. Many of her licks began to encircle the shaft, hugging it, vanishing great swaths of it; and in her tongue's wake, ribbons of saliva glinted on the flesh.

Little time passed before Kaz's cock stood without her grip. It was the small, but virile otter's nature to stiffen quickly and fuck often. Her travel between provinces had left her unbearably pent-up and Farrah, for better or worse, was the otter's outlet. She said as the bear palmed the shaft and balls in her big warm mitts, "Have you never seen one so large, wench?"

"Never before," said Farrah - a lie, but one horny travelers like Kaz paid to hear. Indeed, the otter did not chide Farrah for the lie, though she detected it easily.

"Wonderful to hear," replied Kaz dryly. Then she caught Farrah's snout in her webbed paws, thumbs digging into the bear's maw, pulling at jowly cheeks. At this handling Farrah merely gazed up at her, blushing but more puzzled then anything else. Kaz tugged at the bear's cheeks, stretching them - testing them. Evidently satisfied, she let them go, then gripped the root of her penis once more. "I need a place to sheathe my sword, and I think I've found it." A grin upturned the edges of her mouth. The small but stout otter touched the blunt, pink head of her penis to the wench's lips, and for a moment Farrah mouthed it, began to suckle it. Then Kaz stabbed it forth, pushing it into Farrah's maw and against the opening to her throat in one bump of her hips.

Farrah's eyes shut, and she began to suck and mouth at the otter's plunging cock up until the moment it hit the entrance to her throat. Then the bear sputtered, and despite all of the deference she showed to the knight, her paws came up and pushed against the otter's pelvis.

It was to no avail for the shapely bear; Kaz's strength was considerable, and her leverage over the bear both physical and mental was not trivial. Grin turning to a smirk and with rudder tail swaying, Kaz pressed forward against the struggling bear's throat and opened its passage. Though Farrah gagged and pushed back, Kaz grappled both her head and her lush brown hair. She pressed forward, wedging inch after inch of fat, knightly cock into the bear's hitching throat. Farrah sputtered slobber across the inches not yet buried, making a mess also of the otter's scrotum; tears welled in her eyes and her opinion of the otter quickly became a distasteful one. But the gold had spoken, and the otter was a knight besides.

"There's never any hole more snug than the throat of a good woman," growled Kaz, head tilted back, eyes shut. A look of relief settled across her snout. Sexual release was a ways off but the tightness of the bear's throat and the wet burble of her stuffed maw gave immense pleasure. Damp heat was her companion as she plunged slowly inside; it made her forget the frozen trudge across the country.

A grimace pulled at the edges of Farrah's jowls, changing her elegantly lovely features with pain and awkwardness. Reflexively, in mistaken attempts to clear her jammed throat, Farrah swallowed again and again. Each time she gagged, and each time Kaz grunted, as it felt as if her cock was in the grip of a slick hot fist.

The otter's groin hit Farrah's snout. Pubic musk smothered the bear's thick nosepad. Saliva displaced by the otter's cock pushed its way out of Farrah's overtaxed maw and oozed across the bear's chin and cheeks in a thickening flow, like an ocean tide flowing but never ebbing. Kaz began to fuck Farrah, putting to use the thick hips and stout legs with which she had been graced. Her penis laid siege to the bear's throat, gouging open her struggling esophageal passage with the brutality of a battering ram. Her plunging cock left Farrah gagging and murmuring half-drowned words, paws pushing on the otter's hips, offering no more than mild resistance to the formidable knight.

Kaz hissed and grinned, now daring to look down and peruse her handiwork. Farrah's eyes were closed tightly but her lids could not hold in the tears. Impossible amounts of saliva seemed to ooze from the bear's maw and her breathing came in clumsy hitches and gags. With each of Farrah's tenuous breaths, Kaz was massaged by violently heaving muscles. Air rushed over her penis, drawn across balls and pubic fur; but Farrah was spared Kaz's heady musk because her nostrils foamed with displaced saliva.

"You'll survive," said Kaz, reading the hurt and the worry on the bear's face. "I've not yet drowned a wench pleasuring myself in this fashion. A few have even had the gall to enjoy it!" She laughed at the audacity of what she had said; and there was a bit of wickedness to her laughter, her pleasure at the bear's pain unbecoming of a noble knight.

The otter's hips plunged harder, faster. Now she hunched over the bear, bending Farrah's head back, adding immensely to the discomfort of it all. From the motherly bear's throat came all matter of grisly burbles and gags, and at a striking new pace. Her swallows came in staccato rips, not the sound of calm ingestion but deep, ugly noises one step removed from gagging. Tilted so far, she found herself suffering from the feeling she might fall onto her back, though Kaz's savage grip certainly precluded such a spill. Nevertheless the bear found herself reaching back, trying to touch a steadying paw to the bare floorboards though her fingers did not reach.

Like a spanking hand, Kaz's scrotum swatted Farrah's throat which went through a pattern of expansion and retraction with each thrust. Slobber flowed in thick ribbons, making a bib in the fur covering her heavy, heaving breasts. Like lava oozing from a volcano, it rolled over every facet of her snout, rolling over her eyes, her ears, into her hair where it matted the strands down.

Farrah's breathing hitched and caught, each breath more miserable and harder-earned than the last. She aspirated small doses of saliva and fluids given by the otter, who pumped her throat the way other patrons pumped her two other, more willing orifices. Miserable, crying as much in pain as fear, Farrah added coughing to the involuntary actions she performed for Kaz. And the otter took pleasure from her gargling, strangled coughs; each one caused the bear's throat to wrench down like never before.

Delighted by so many pleasures of the flesh, Kaz groaned, "Thank goodness for my endurance - another might have finished by now!" She squeezed the back of the bear's head, noting the drool running through her hair and mingling with the sweat rising from her scalp. Only now beginning to pant from the effort of raping the bear's throat, Kaz said with no shortage of smugness, "Satisfy me in this fashion, wench, and perhaps I'll reward you, eh? I'm certain you want this under your tail..."

The bear made a burbling noise and drool foamed at the edges of her maw as though she'd spontaneously become rabid. Her great, warm paws pushed on the otter's small hips, but the knight was so much more wiry and determined that the wench couldn't so much as inconvenience her. She forced open her eyes and saw, through the haze of shimmering tears, the knight's sneering face; and she wished that she hadn't, for in that way, Kaz resembled a demon.

Unconcerned with modesty, uncaring of the other guests trying to sleep in the adjacent rooms, Knight Kaz howled with pleasure. The noise of the sex was sharp and sucking, obvious in its vulgarity; the perverse otter snarled to the bear, "Swallow my seed, you fat-titted whore! Choke on my cock!"

Farrah cringed at the hateful lust. She wept in pain, in fear, in self-pity. And yet her loins were growing wet, however subtle it was. As any whore was apt to harbor, the widowed bear had some measure of self-loathing, and the otter's brutish, raping sex and blunt words excited her in the darkest way. The sordid taste of the otter's fat and plunging cock was another pleasure the bear enjoyed, yet simultaneously hated.

Even more, Kaz bent the whore over backwards. She herself was bent over, drilling her hips almost straight down into the bear's throat. Her balls, fat and juicy as ripe oranges, beat against the tender paunch of the bear's neck; her cock drilled into the whore's throat, scraping and sullying the delicate flesh, dragging out great runnels of slobber to further coat what was already a soaked face.

Kaz's features were a rictus of pleasure. She forgot all about the freezing cold she had stomped her way through; now she was dripping with sweat, not only because this room was just above the hearth below but because of sheer exertion. It darkened her hair, made her stink of musk and masculinity ill-fitting her otherwise feminine body. Her fists gripped the bear's hair, ripping out strands every time she crashed her loins into the whore's maw. She hissed through clenched teeth, "Were my cock bigger, I'd snap your jaws, whore!"

The bear had no doubt Knight Kaz would do just that. The solemnity with which she'd shown over supper and the mention of Farrah's dead husband were long gone, leaving only the otter's true colors, the rapist behind the sword and cloak. Farrah's fingers slid over Kaz's hips, over muscular ass cheeks dripping with sweat, down wiry legs pulsing with powerful muscles. Never once did the thought occur to her to bite down, or to rake her claws across the otter's legs or squeeze her balls hard enough to injure them; the bear was so accustomed to her role as a whore that she suffered the pain and the humiliation.

Kaz, braying with pleasure, pounded her cock into Farrah's neck as if putting a post into frozen earth. This time, however, she kept it buried. Her loins crushed the bear's nose and balls rested on her chin, tight though they were with oncoming release. Around Kaz's cock, Farrah panicked, sputtered, tried to breathe. Already she could feel her life beginning to drain from her and she clawed and shoved at the otter. But Kaz laughed brutishly, ignored the bear's struggles, and let loose a deep and shuddering groan as she started to ejaculate.

With each throb, Kaz's cock gushed its musky, salty seed down the whore's gullet. Farrah, in this heightened state of oxygen deprivation, keenly felt the strands of cum as they poured down her throat. The sheer volume with which the otter came was astonishing to her; she'd been with stallions and bulls not half as potent. Only dragons, rare creatures that they were, could boast more seed than the small and fiery otter. Farrah gagged and coughed, managed to squeeze just a sip of air into her lungs. Even then she was badly trembling and the tears flowed freely.

Kaz grumbled, "Almost done. Almost empty. I'll not suffocate you, wench..."

The words were no comfort to the bear who only wanted to breathe again. She coughed and tried to breathe, but had little luck. The panic was rising and her vision was dimming; she grabbed the otter's hips and, with adrenaline coursing through her veins, shoved with all of her might. And to her shock and immediate relief, the otter budged. Kaz plucked her cock out of the bear's throat, and it came free with a final spurt of semen and a great string of drool. Farrah fell back, gagging and sputtering, coughing up saliva and small amounts of semen.

The otter stood over the whore, cock falling slowly flaccid, dripping the dregs of an orgasm. Drool marbled its flesh. The knight grinned and asked, "Was that really so bad, wench? You've a penchant for theatrics." She glanced at the bear's loins where wetness shone in the lamplight. "And you've grown wet. I should have known it was an act."

"You-, you don't under-," Farrah sputtered. Her voice was incredibly hoarse. She sounded as if she'd just escaped a burning building.

"Nor do I care," the otter said flatly. She walked over the bed and sat, and for a moment Farrah was hopeful. All the bear wanted to be away from the hateful, horrible knight.

After collecting herself, but still in great pain, Farrah stood and reached for her things. The otter dashed her hopes with three words: "You're not done."

The bear, clutching her clothing, stared plaintively at the knight. "Please," she whispered.

Kaz smiled wanly. She gripped her thick, pink penis and began to rub it, to tug and squeeze its flaccid flesh. Her toes curled as she touched herself, as the flesh was still sensitive. As sleet tapped the window and the murmur of the tavern dully thundered beneath the floor, Kaz said calmly, "I'm finished with your throat, wench. Have no fear."

For a moment Farrah seemed uncertain. She considered her clothing, then the hardening penis of the knight again. Resigning herself to her fate, she dropped her clothes again and stepped beside the bed. It was large enough for one of a generous size; two could have shared it with close spooning. It was against the outer wall of the inn, leaving only one side to get on from; Kaz stood up, penis wagging side to side, and gestured at the bed.

The bear made herself as comfortable as she could. Kaz put one knee on the bed and, for a time, simply touched her. The otter's strong hands, with pads somewhat calloused, stroked the wench's fat, prone form. Over the bear's pudgy belly, rubbing formidable hips, slipping between chubby thighs to brush the wet split of her sex. Farrah allowed herself a moan, tentative though it was, and she closed her eyes.

Now Kaz, leaning over the motherly bear, cupped both breasts. She rubbed them, squeezed them, twiddled the nipples in her thumbs. Leaned down and touched her lips to one, nibbled its nipple, and then gave it a brief suckle. Again Farrah moaned, a bit more freely. The otter smiled and asked, "Are you dry, wench?"

"I-I'm afraid so," croaked Farrah. "I apologize... my second cub was years ago."

The otter seemed unruffled. "No matter," she said as she climbed onto the bed. Farrah expected to be mounted and she subtly parted her thick legs. But the otter swung over her the other way, muscular ass hanging over the wench's face, spittle-glazed balls brushing her snout. The scent of anal musk struck the bear, who wrinkled her nose.

"Good knight, please," bleated Farrah, but Kaz lowered herself. The whore's broad snout slipped between the knight's taut ass cheeks, nostrils kissing pink anal flesh. At the same time she laid her hefty cock in the bear's cleavage. Farrah understood her role here; she was almost happy to give these pleasures, anything was preferable to the agony still throbbing in her throat. She clutched her great tits and she squeezed them tightly together about the otter's shaft.

Kaz wriggled her ass against the bear's pretty face. The sweaty, musky odor of her anus filled the bear's head; but soon Farrah began slurping across the pink rim, a pleasure she was familiar in giving. The otter moaned, and she began to grind, both smearing her ass into the bear's face and sliding her cock through tight and fluffy cleavage. She gripped the bear's paws and pushed them even tighter together around her turgid cock. She said with a huff, "I can feel your heartbeat in your tits, wench. Lick harder."

Farrah obeyed, slopping her tongue against the knight's anus. Her drool began to fill the otter's crack, the humid warmth a pleasure to the hedonistic knight. Kaz said between breaths, "Good. Good wench. I can feel your nostrils flaring. You enjoy my scent, as you should." She unhanded the bear's breasts; and as she expected, Farrah held them tightly together on her own. With her hands free she doubled over, braced herself on the bed, and made use of the leverage to grind harder, faster into the wench's tits. As she fucked the furry, hot canyon, her precum began to build up in the fur, making dry sex slick and smooth in time. She grumbled, as her rudder lashed, "I'll cover you in my seed, whore. Paint your black fur white as the snow outside."

Farrah had no doubt the good knight would do just that. The warm lump in her belly was testament to the otter's productivity; and the large and sweaty scrotum bumping her face with every grind seemed to be heavier than ever, full of yet more seed. Despite herself, the bear was enjoying the sex quite openly now. Her loins were wetter than ever, the smell of her sex no doubt noticeable to the otter, and though the knight moved too quickly for a deep and thorough tongue-fucking, Farrah nevertheless slathered the otter's anus as well as she could. Under her tongue it tensed and quivered, and the otter huffed, moaned, spoke lurid little nothings.

"I can smell you, wench," hissed Kaz, speaking through grinning teeth. Being a mustelid endowed her with awesome flexibility, and with it she arched her spine so sharply that she was able to touch her nose to the cuntlips of the bear. Quickly, as if an afterthought, she dragged her tongue between the bear's folds and over the pink flesh within; the bear moaned into her smothering ass. "Delectable," the knight grumbled. "But your throat is still the better hole."

Kaz straightened. Fucking the bear's breasts reminded her of being in the saddle. She reached back and palmed the bear's head, rubbing her scalp softly, soothing points of pain where she had previously jerked the wench's long brown locks. She said to the bear in a low but lascivious tone, "After I've painted your belly and breasts, whore, I expect another meal, and another drink. Sex gives me an appetite."

"Mm-, mmhmm," Farrah agreed from her snout's musky, damp prison. Yet still she didn't bother trying to truly articulate; her tongue was only for the knight's pleasure, lashing across the otter's tight and wrinkled anus again and again.

With her eyes closed, her head thrown back, the small mounds of her own breasts bouncing softly, Kaz made free and full use of the bear's spacious cleavage. She savored this, the deep furry crevasse between the whore's tits; she thought of the bear's slippery cunt, of her fat ass, and perhaps there was time yet for those pleasures. Another meal, and then who knew what the night held? It wasn't unheard of for the good knight to go as many as five times in a night. And still her balls were heavy on the bear's hapless face.

"Squeeze them harder," growled Kaz. Through the pain, Farrah crushed her big, soft breasts together, hemming in the otter's fat cock. Farrah's pulse throbbed in the fatty flesh, and in turn she could feel the throb of the otter's cock acutely in her tender breasts, but the pain was quite bearable compared to the throat fucking.

The knight grunted, groaned. Her anus clenched and seemed to kiss the bear's slobbering tongue, which slurped through her ass crack as if cleaning out a honeycomb. Her balls, the big and fat things they were, tightened in their fuzzy sack. She cringed with pleasure, and in the moment of climax became exceptionally aware of the mother bear's rich vaginal scent and her own masculine musk. Good smells, especially mingled together; she said to the bear, "You smell like a proper whore, Farrah!"

Then she ejaculated, and her second shot was no less full than the first currently digesting in the bear's gut. Rope after rope of sticky white cum shot through the bear's cleavage. It painted her fur, clung in the follicles, made sticky webs. And still there was more coming, making a gooey white slop in the whore's vast cleavage. The bear dutifully kept her tits together, and now, with the otter so still, she focused with exceptional ferocity on the good knight's asshole. She kissed it, suckled it, wriggled her tongue's tip against its stubbornly clenching rim. At these anal pleasures, Kaz groaned and writhed. She said to the wench, "Excellent, whore, devour my ass!"

Farrah did. By then she had all but forgiven the face fucking and the pain it brought her; she was attracted to the knight and her brutish ways. And so she dug her tongue inside of Kaz, raked it into her tight ass, made the knight groan and shudder as she drooled what remained of her second orgasm.

"Good job, whore," Kaz shuddered. "Very, very good... perhaps there's even some more gold in this for you."

After a few moments, when her orgasm settled and afterglow left her tender, Kaz instructed the bear to stop. Farrah unhanded her breasts which sagged away from the otter's cock; strands of semen webbed them together but broke off as the distance between the mounds grew. She stroked the otter's muscular legs, showing reverence, even worship to the knight still seated on her snout. She breathed in the anal scent of the knight greedily.

Eventually, Kaz clambered off of the bear. Farrah soon sat up, and without comment began to clean her breasts with one of the threadbare rags left on the table. As Farrah cleaned herself, Kaz fell back into bed and sighed heavily.

Some time passed in which Kaz found the ticking of the sleet a comfort. Eventually the otter said: "Bring me another meal and two pints of your mead, wench." She pointed at the bear. "I want you to bring it. Not one of your other whores."

The bear nodded somberly. She said in a voice only slightly husky now, "I understand, good knight." She dressed, then left.

As Kaz waited for her meal, she considered the path she had taken, the brushes with death by exposure and the narrow avoidance of frostbite. She peered out the window but could see nothing of the blackness outside. It was just as well, she decided. All she wanted from the world was downstairs: hot food, liquor, and the bear.

When Farrah returned with a wooden tray, the otter followed her movements. The bear walked to the table, set down the tray. She went back to the door, locked it, and disrobed once again.

Kaz smiled. "After my meal," she said, sitting nude at the table, "I believe I'll reward your good service, wench."

Farrah smiled back. "How generous of you, good knight."

"Indeed," the otter said, dipping her crusty bread into her stew. "How generous."