The Confused Invalid

Story by Yntemid on SoFurry

,

#8 of Prey No More


Disclaimer: The following story contains sex between consenting anthropomophic adults. If you are too young to legally view such content, or if such content does not appeal to you, leave now.

The Confused Invalid

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Sophan sipped at his bowl of brothy vegetable soup, wishing there was at least one bite of meat in it. He knew Cill and the Seer had to have meat somewhere in their stores; they couldn't have been surviving all this time on a vegetarian diet.

Cill had left him alone after delivering his breakfast and asking him again what the difference between love and need was. He had just woken up, though, and had been too groggy to give her more than a shrug as answer, so she had just shaken her head with a smirk and gone off on some errand.

The cheetah was almost finished with the soup when someone cleared their throat in the infirmary room's open doorway. He looked up at one of the rescued captives, a shaved horse, then blinked and nearly dropped his bowl in surprise when he saw the other male's black and white stripes and bristly mane. He'd completely forgotten about the zebra he'd briefly seen in the chaos at the arena.

"They told me there was a cheetah being held somewhere in the tower, but I couldn't believe them until I came up to see for myself," the zebra said with a grim glare at Sophan.

"Were you a part of the fleet from Africa?" Sophan asked, ignoring the other male's angry expression.

The zebra nodded. "Our ship was blown off course to the north with three others in the storm that scattered everyone. We thought we were the only ones who had survived."

"So did my ship." Sophan sat up straighter, excited to be talking with someone from home, even if it wasn't anyone he recognized. "We landed far to the south of where we'd expected. I spent the better part of a year making my way north from our landing sight, but you're the first African I've met since the storm at sea."

"Must have been rough for you, being a predator," the zebra said, and Sophan thought he saw the corners of the equine's mouth twitch upward briefly. "All the prey species here take sex so seriously."

"With good reason, from what I've seen," the cheetah replied. "I imagine you had it a lot worse. Prey in these lands get eaten after being raped as often as not. Granted, they were certain to try as hard as they could not to let me catch them, so there weren't any false victories, but it's been hard not to be offended every time a squirrel or a mouse thought I was going to kill them just because I was raping them."

"Makes you miss Africa, doesn't it?" The zebra finally broke out into a grin as he folded his arms across his bare skinned chest. "At least there, sex made sense. I spent the last five months having wolves and bears hold a knife to my throat so they could feel safe taking me, when all they would have had to do is team up and pin me down, and I'd have enjoyed it as much as them. Predators here just aren't right in the head."

"Well, now that you've found a proper African hunter, maybe we can have a proper chase," Sophan said, his grin matching the zebra's.

The other male snorted a laugh. "Don't flatter yourself. It's taken full prides of lions to get me on my back. Even if you weren't in a sickbed, you'd be lucky to come out of the fight with a few bruises."

"That sounds like a challenge to me."

The zebra shook his head. "As it is, you should be worried about your own tail end. Here I have a cheetah cornered in a small room, and I heard our good Griss already managed to take a bite out of your furry butt. I'd consider turning predator myself, if such a small triumph wouldn't be too easy to be of any worth."

Sophan was about to parry with a sarcastic retort, but someone behind the zebra exclaimed incredulously, "Are you two actually joking about raping each other?"

The zebra blinked, then grimaced and stepped into the room to let the male behind him, a young, shaved stag, walk into view. "My loyal retainer," the zebra introduced, "Delver. The runt's been following me everywhere I go ever since the arena."

Delver's ears flicked back to either side of his small horns in embarrassment, but he didn't make any claim to contradict the zebra.

Sophan looked both males over, shamelessly taking in the tone of their legs and abdomens, a small tent pushing the thin sheet up over his crotch as he compared their sheathes and genitals, their only parts left with fur between their necks and ankles. Their mostly shaved bodies looked bizarre to him, and the circumstances that had taken their fur left him slightly nauseated, but he had to admit, the bare skin around their groins served to highlight the bits between their thighs in a most erotic manner. He wished they would turn around so he could take in their rumps, but they just watched him as his arousal grew, the zebra smirking in amusement, the deer looking horrified. The cheetah measured Delver's height and the breadth of his shoulders. The stag was close to Sophan's own size and weight; if he weren't injured, he would have delighted in taking the challenge the young stag offered.

But then, there was that promise he'd made to the Seer. He wondered what the zebra would make of him asking permission to chase him. He'd probably think Sophan had lost his mind.

The cheetah turned his attention back to the bowl of soup, sipping from it as he would from a big cup. The zebra moved to sit on the edge of the room's other bed, Delver following close behind him and standing awkwardly at his side, shifting his weight from hoof to hoof. Sophan wondered if the deer felt uncomfortable in the same room as a predator, or if the young male was just always that ancy.

"I hear you helped save our Ileni at the battle at the arena," the zebra said.

Sophan snorted a laugh, then broke into a coughing fit as a drop of soup went down the wrong tube. "If you can call falling on top of her and fainting helping," he said once he was able.

The zebra shrugged, frowning again, all traces of humor gone. "The way I heard it, you fought off a slew of other predators, even after that sorry excuse for a chipmunk gave you a second tail hole."

Sophan felt a twinge in his injured buttock at the zebra's mention of the stab and shifted uncomfortably where he sat, which, of course, only made the pain worse. "Who told you that?" he asked. He couldn't imagine any of the refugees were singing his praises.

"The ferret girl, Paps. She's been regaling everyone with tales of your gallant bravery, and of the Seer's courage and wisdom and the wolf-raccoon hybrid's kindness and ingenuity. The girl has a talent for weaving a story."

Sophan chuckled. "Somehow, that doesn't surprise me."

"So, is it true?" the young stag spoke up, frowning at the cheetah. "Did you save Ileni when she fell?"

He shrugged, for some reason embarrassed. "I guess I did. Why?"

"We wanted to thank you," the zebra said, though his expression was so grim, he nearly seemed to be glaring at Sophan. "Isn't that right, Delver?"

The stag nodded. "You've given us a chance to make amends," he said, though Sophan was only further confused by his explanation.

"Amends?"

When the deer only swallowed and looked away from the cheetah, for some reason unable to look him in the eye, the zebra crossed his arms in front of his chest again and glared at Sophan's face, his expression somehow growing even darker. "We were the ones who competed against Ileni in the arena, Delver, myself, and one other," he said with a slight snarl, and Sophan realized that the zebra was angry at himself, not the cheetah. "We raped her nearly to her death after she tried and failed to convince us to help Delver's father and uncle, and even after that, she saved us all."

Sophan blinked and set his soup bowl down beside him, suddenly unable to meet the zebra's angry gaze. "I didn't know she went through that," he said. "I had hoped to reach the arena before she got hurt." In truth, he had been more worried about the rabbit being eaten by the arena's predators than getting raped by her fellow captives, but he supposed she would see one punishment as terrible as the other. He couldn't bring himself to tell the other males that he had raped Ileni himself more than once.

At that moment, a feminine voice cleared her throat in the room's doorway, and all three of them jumped in surprise to see the very rabbit they'd been speaking of watching them with her wide eyes, scratching distractedly with her blunt claws at a patch of reddened skin between her breasts. For a long while, no one moved, the other two males apparently worrying about how much Ileni might have overheard, the rabbit unwilling or unable to be the first to break the awkward silence, and Sophan just drinking in the sight of her. Shaved or not, the rabbit was beautiful! Without her fur, he could see every contour of her lithe body highlighted by the room's soft light, her little navel nestled in the middle of her strong abdomen, her slender neck, still furred, tapering into graceful shoulders and round, delicate breasts that begged to be caressed and squeezed. And between her legs. . . . Sophan had never imagined a vaginal mound could be so appealing bereft of fur. Her muscular thighs framed the twin curves of her outer labia, her feminine slit climbing a short distance up the center of her groin, one of her buttocks' inner slopes just visible beneath it at the angle she was standing.

Ileni looked down at her feet, embarrassed by the males' rapt attention, but she didn't try to cover herself, and Sophan didn't turn his hungry gaze away from her. Beauty was meant to be appreciated, after all.

The zebra slowly stood up and turned to Sophan, but the cheetah barely noticed the other male's movement. "Thank you," the zebra said to him curtly before leading Delver out of the room with a nod that might as well have been a bow to Ileni as he passed her. She moved out of the two males' way, and Sophan was amazed to see her eyeing the swelling sheathes between their legs until they exited into the hallway behind her. The cheetah noticed the other males' firm, shaved bottoms as they left, but the muscular rumps were mere distractions next to the petite female that was turning her attention back to him.

"Little flower, I can't tell you how happy I am to see you," he said, though he imagined the large tent in his bed sheets told enough. "Cill doesn't want me speaking with you, you know."

"She doesn't know I'm here," Ileni said, scratching at her chest with one hand while rubbing her shoulder with the other. She shifted her weight from one big footpad to the other, then back again, as though she needed to relieve herself. Biting her lower lip and clearly growing ever more anxious, she glanced back down the hallway behind her and, seeing it empty now that the zebra and stag had turned down a side corridor, she closed the room's door behind her.

"You're looking well," Sophan began politely, but she crossed the floor to his bedside in a few hasty strides, nearly running up to him. He blinked in surprise. He'd never seen her move that quickly toward him; the only times the rabbit was ever in a hurry were when she was trying to flee him. Ileni came to an abrupt halt next to the head of his bed, staring at his face and breathing rapidly, her breasts rising and falling enticingly with her pants. Sophan had to tear his eyes up from the curves of her chest to her distraught face, and frowned at her in concern. "Are you all right, Ileni? Maybe you should rest. You were hurt at the arena. . . ." He looked back down at her right breast, then, remembering the gunshot wound that had pierced it through. All that was left of the injury were two fading white, circular scars on either side of her breast. For that matter, he didn't see any of the cuts and scratches that had marred her skin back at the arena, either. He blinked up at her in surprise. "Though it seems you're quite a fast healer," he said.

Ileni looked away from him, clenching her eyes shut and taking a deep breath, then without a word, took the edge of the sheet covering him in her hand and threw it roughly down past his feet, flinging his soup bowl against the far wall with enough force to shatter it, its contents splattering and drooling slowly down the wall.

Sophan tensed in shock. "Ileni, what are. . . ." he began, but she cut him off by gripping his nearly erect shaft in her warm palm, squeezing and pumping it until he was fully hard. The cheetah moaned in mingled bewilderment and ecstasy, but when the rabbit abruptly jumped onto the bed with him and straddled his waist, positioning herself above his throbbing shaft, he planted his paws on her hips. "Ileni, wait. You can't . . . I mean, there's nothing I would like more, but you have to give me your permission. . . ."

The rabbit looked up at his face with a baffled expression. "You need my permission?"

He let out a tense breath. "Yes. It's a promise I made to the Seer. Just tell me you want this, and I'll let you ride me until the sun sets and rises again."

Ileni shook her head while reaching down to rub the tip of his penis against her folds, shuddering at the contact. "Sophan, I swear to you, there is nothing in the world that I want less." Then she impaled herself on his phallus, her warmth swiftly surrounding him until her soft bottom slapped down against his thighs.

The cheetah tried to shout a protest, but it just came out as a blissful moan. Even after evidently being raped by three large males so recently, she was as tight as he remembered. She ground herself against him, her spread mound rubbing wonderfully against the fur of his groin, and he couldn't stop himself from reaching behind her and grasping her lush buttocks, luxuriating in the feel of her bare skin under his paw pads. He found and traced two pairs of curving strips of fur left on her rump, gliding his fingers from the root of her tail in an arc over her rounded muscles until they met in her rump's cleft, the four spikes of fur leading him to her delicate tail star and the rim of her vagina where it parted around his shaft.

Ileni whimpered as she rubbed herself against him, apparently trying to take as much of his shaft as she could. He could feel her cervix parting slightly around his tip, and tried to thrust up into her to gain access to her womb, but the effort of lifting her body with his hips sent a ripping pain through his injured buttock, so he decided to lie still and let Ileni do as she would. The rabbit pulled her lower lip between her teeth in a most alluring way as she humped up and town swiftly three or four times, smacking her full bottom against his thighs before grinding down against him again. Bewildered as he was, Sophan still had the presence of mind to lean forward and lick the rabbit's neck appreciatively, lowering his head, slowly nipping and licking down the curve of her breast until he was moaning around her pink nipple.

Ileni tensed when his sharp teeth lightly pinched her nipple, then took his shoulders in her hands and shoved him roughly back against the bed's headboard. She was nearly snarling at him when she began riding him again, but it only lasted another three bounces before she cursed loudly and vehemently and lifted herself off of his lap, leaving his erection pointing straight at the ceiling and glistening wetly. "You're not big enough," she muttered, almost to herself, and with that, stormed out of the room, slamming its door behind her hard enough to shake the walls.

Sophan blinked at the spot she had just vacated with wide, uncomprehending eyes. No one had ever accused his package of being too small before. It had been prodding her cervix! How much more did she want to take?

No sooner did the door slam shut, though, than it opened again, Cill stepping into the room and folding her arm under her breasts, giving his erection a suspicious glare.

"I tried to ask her permission, but she wouldn't give it," Sophan explained in a rush, surprising himself by becoming so defensive. "I know I promised to get the consent of anyone I mate with, I didn't forget, but that wasn't rape, Cill. You have to believe me."

"Oh, it was rape," the raccoon-wolf said grimly, her glare never relenting.

"No, it wasn't. I didn't even ask her to. . . ."

"You're the one who were raped, Sophan," she told him, and he almost laughed at the ridiculousness of such a claim.

"No I wasn't. I mean, I wasn't forcing her, either, but I was completely willing. More than willing." He glanced pointedly at his throbbing phallus, barely beginning to droop now that it was surrounded by cool air.

"You asked her not to mount you unless she met your conditions. She failed to meet those conditions when she didn't give you her permission, yet still mounted you anyway." The female strode slowly to his bedside to look him straight in the face. "You weren't playing games; you had no safe word beyond 'don't,' and Ileni ignored that safe word. She raped you, Sophan."

He blinked, wondering if Cill might have a point. "But I was still willing. . . ." he protested, but even he didn't think he sounded convinced.

"And Ileni likely knew as much, but that doesn't change the fact that you asked her to wait, and she didn't."

Sophan sighed, slumping back against his headboard and resting the back of his head against the wall behind it. "If that was rape, I don't see what the prey species are always complaining about. I do wish she could have finished the job, though." He gestured down at his penis, still large and mostly firm, but now leaning back against his abdomen.

"Well, as to that. . . ." Cill began, finishing her sentence by reaching down to Sophan's lap and curling her fingers around his semi-flaccid member, a spark of mischief making her eyes narrow slightly. She leaned close to Sophan's ear. "You have my permission, kitten, if you want it," she whispered.

He groaned at the contact of her fingers. "Oh, you have no idea how much I want it."

"I think I might," she teased, crawling onto the bed past his legs and kneeling on all fours with her face over his lap. Planting her hands to either side of his thighs, her upper arms framed her gray and brown breasts where they swayed gently beneath her, until her head blocked Sophan's view as it lowered toward his groin. He spread his legs slightly to make room for her narrow muzzle as it dipped beneath his sack and propped it up, his plump testicles draping slightly on either side of her snout. She lapped at the sensitive fur and skin between his tail hole and his scrotum, her nose bouncing his balls up and down with each lick. He moaned and chuckled at the same time, reaching down to lightly grasp her slightly pointed ears. By the time she pulled back enough to take one of his furry nuts between her teeth, suckling on it gently, his member was a solid pillar again. She gave his other testicle the same treatment before letting his sack settle between his thighs and crawling up over his body until her nose was inches from his own, and her legs were straddling his hips.

"Don't you want me to return the favor?" he asked as she began to lower herself toward his erection. He lifted his tail between his legs to brush against the underside of her own ringed tail playfully.

Cill reached between her thighs, then brought her hand up to Sophan's muzzle so that he could smell her moist musk on her fingers. "No need," she said, laughing seductively when he took her fingers into his mouth and began bathing them with his tongue, enjoying her unique flavor. "I'm ready."

His entrance into the raccoon-wolf's warm embrace went somewhat more gradually than Ileni's unexpected plunge. Cill bobbed her hips up and down at the same time as undulating them in slow circles, massaging one more inch of her insides with his shaft with each of her rotations. With her fingers still inside his mouth, she moaned and nuzzled his neck and shoulder, and he wrapped his arms tightly around her back, pulling himself away from the bed's headboard so that he could feel her front pressing warmly against his own.

"So many males," she murmured into his shoulder, "but you're the only one in the entire tower who won't think ill of me for wanting to mate with you."

He traced his hands up and down her sides as she settled against him, feeling the firm roundness of the sides of her rump before gliding his fingers back up through her pelt to her waist and ribs. "There's always the Seer," he noted distractedly when she pulled her fingers out of his muzzle to wrap her arm around his shoulders. "And I bet that zebra wouldn't have any hard feelings if you tried to pair with him."

Cill chuckled, and he could feel her breasts shake slightly against his chest. "That one would want me to chase and fight him for the right to breed him, and that wouldn't go unnoticed by the others. We're trying to shake the refugees' illusions that we're hunters and predators." She looked toward the ceiling and murred quietly, and Sophan echoed her pleasured groan as she squeezed her inner muscles around him.

"And what about the Seer?" he murmured into the hollow of her neck, licking at her fur between her collar bone and the base of her jaw.

The wolf-raccoon took a deep breath, plastering her soft breasts against Sophan's ribs. "Alan has his own reasons not to mate with me," she said, her hands lowering and fingers digging into the yellow fur of Sophan's sides as she swirled her hips over his lap.

The cheetah moaned happily, lifting his slender tail up between his thighs to twine around Cill's ringed one. "Why in the world would he choose not to pair with you, given the chance?" he asked once he had enough breath for words.

The female chuckled, a deep, lusty sound. "Mmm, he has his reasons," she repeated, too lost in her lust to say anything else.

"So that means you're only riding me now because none of the other males in the tower are available?"

"Are you complaining?" the raccoon-wolf teased, and Sophan could only shake his head against her shoulder when she gave her inner muscles another rippling squeeze around his erection. "Good." To end the conversation, she lowered her muzzle to his own, locking the cheetah in an intensely passionate kiss, her hands grasping the back of his head and holding his lips against her own while their tongues danced in each other's mouths.

Sophan lost track of how long the kiss lasted while Cill rode him, his fingers digging into the soft fur over her shoulder blades. After a while, when the room began spinning around him from lack of breath and the only solidity in his world was the touch of the female straddling his legs, they were interrupted by someone clearing their throat in the room's threshold.

Cill broke the kiss to look back over her shoulder, and the cheetah groaned when he saw the Seer standing several feet past the foot of his bed. "Why am I so popular today?" he muttered.

"Sorry to interrupt," the winged fox said while Cill settled herself on Sophan's lap. Sophan was a little surprised to see the other male's red member standing rising at half mast out of his plump, white sheath. He hadn't expected the Seer to be prone to lust. "Do either of you know if Ileni's all right?" he went on. "When I passed her in the hall, she seemed rather upset." Sophan could feel the fox's suspicion settle on him like a heavy blanket.

"I think she's still recovering from the arena," Cill said breathlessly, sliding a hand between their bodies and rubbing at Sophan's chest soothingly. "She's likely having trouble coming to terms with her hormones, now that no one is assaulting her before they have a chance to rise."

Sophan said nothing. He didn't think the Seer would ever believe that Ileni had mounted him of her own volition, and if Cill didn't see the need to mention it, neither did he.

"I should go check on her," the winged fox said, turning to leave them to their shared passion.

"Hold on." Pushing with her hand against the cheetah's chest, Cill twisted where she sat over his hips so that she could look at the Seer more easily. "You look like you're rather pent up. If Sophan doesn't mind, we could help you with that," she offered, despite her earlier claim that the Seer wouldn't mate with her.

Sophan grinned, tracing the female's pelt down to her lush rump. Grabbing her buttocks in a firm grip, he pulled them apart while she lifted her raised tail with a sultry laugh, putting her tail hole on bold display for the Seer's benefit. "Oh, I don't mind in the least," Sophan growled playfully. "There's more than enough room for one more."

At the sight of Cill so exposed, the fox's hand lowered to his phallus, which was quickly rising to a full erection, and he hesitated, seeming to fight an internal battle. Eventually, his arousal must have won, because he stepped to the bed's side with a flutter of his large wings and brushed his fingers over the back of Cill's neck. "Flip over," he said, trailing his fingertips over her shoulder.

The raccoon-wolf rolled her eyes at the Seer, but did as he requested, leaning back and pulling Sophan with her until the confused cheetah had to either fold his legs beneath him or pull out of her warmth as she bent him nearly double. The choice was easy. Pulling his legs out from under the female's bottom, he moved with her so that he was lying on top of her while she settled on her back with her head resting against the foot of the bed, wrapping her lithe legs around his waist.

Normally Sophan would love being on top, but after his injury at the arena, he wasn't sure if he would be able to perform at his best. He gave a few experimental thrusts, but winced at a twinge of pain in his left buttock underneath its bandage and slumped on top of the wolf-raccoon. "I think the other position worked better," he panted against her throat.

"Not for what I have in mind," the Seer said, climbing onto the bed behind them and straddling Sophan's legs. Before the cheetah realized what the other male was doing, the fox pulled his slender tail up away from his rump and took Sophan's unwounded butt cheek in his free hand, squeezing it away from its spotted twin.

Sophan yelped in indignant surprise when he felt a finger pad trace a circle around the bare, dimpled skin below his tail. His rump flexed instinctively, and he had to bite back a pained whimper at another twinge from his knife wound.

"Just relax," the winged fox whispered soothingly, his hand kneading Sophan's healthy buttock until it unclenched, then continued massaging it with his palm while his finger pressed gently against the center of the cheetah's tail star.

"Now wait just a second," Sophan protested. He'd taken plenty of other males up their back passages before, but never had he let another breed him as though he were their prey. He wasn't about to submissively let this fox claim him now.

"Don't worry," the Seer said, stroking Sophan's tail comfortingly. "It can really be quite pleasurable, and I'll be gentle."

Sophan gasped when that finger pressed against his bare skin firmly enough to part his sphincter, and his bottom clamped down around the invading digit before it could sink into him past its first knuckle, making him cry out in pain again as his left rump cheek flexed. "S . . . stop," he whimpered, but was unable to make himself relax until the fox pulled his finger out of his vice-like grip.

The Seer caressed Sophan's rear as the cheetah willed it to soften again. "It's better once you get used to it," the winged fox assured him, his finger swirling around his tail hole's rim again. The cheetah just shook his head, shuddering over Cill's warm body.

"Alan, this might not be the best idea," the female began, and Sophan growled his agreement.

"Stick something in me again, and I swear I'll poop on it." The threat sounded childish even to him, but he fully intended to make good on it.

The Seer's finger paused against the center of Sophan's tail star. "Well, that would just complete my day, wouldn't it?" the fox muttered to himself, barely loud enough for Sophan to hear.

"And if you make his wound open again, you'll get worse from me," Cill said, stroking Sophan's back comfortingly.

"Fine, fine, I've gotten by with my hands well enough until now," the Seer said. "There's no reason they can't still do their job."

He began walking toward the infirmary's door, but paused with his hand on the doorframe when the entire tower suddenly shuddered with a loud rumble around them. Sophan propped himself on his elbows, tensing nervously. He couldn't imagine a structure as tall as the tower surviving an earthquake.

"Ileni," the winged fox muttered worriedly, then dashed out the door.

"Should we go see what's the matter?" Sophan asked the female beneath him. In truth, though, he didn't feel much like leaving the bed before they finished what they'd started, and was relieved when Cill shook her head.

"Whatever's wrong, Alan can take care of it."

"Mmm, good." Sophan lowered himself on top of the raccoon-wolf again, nuzzling the crook of her neck and stroking her sides while his member basked unmoving in her inner warmth. "So that's why the Seer won't mate with you, huh?" he muttered idly, his thumbs tracing the outer curves of her flattened breasts. "Because he prefers males?"

Cill chuckled, her chest bouncing minutely under his own. "Not at all. He doesn't mate with me because I'm his sister."

Sophan pulled back and looked into her milky white eyes in surprise. "Really? You're not even the same species."

Cill shrugged. "And if you had two children with, say, a skunk, one could very well be a cheetah while its sibling takes after its mother. Or either cub might claim traits from both of its parents. It's something like that."

"Something like it?" Sophan asked curiously, and Cill nodded.

"Our father was a mutt of sorts, a cross between wolf, dragon, and any number of other species."

"Dragon?" Sophan exclaimed incredulously. Dragons were supposed to be myths, but then, up until a day or two ago, humans had been, too. "Jonathan Vanderhaus bred anthro dragons?"

"No," Cill said simply, an amused smirk pulling at one corner of her narrow muzzle.

"I don't understand."

"That's all right. You may eventually, if you live long enough."

Sophan sighed, but he knew Cill was just behaving in the way that came naturally to her. The female loved to appear mysterious. "So, what about your mother?" he asked, deciding to ignore her vague assurances. "Was she a cross between a raccoon and a fox?"

She shook her head. "No. My mother was a raccoon. Alan's was a mix of fox and wolf. I think our father had some raccoon and fox in him as well."

"Oh, so you and the Seer are only half siblings."

"No, he is my brother from both parents." Cill grinned up at him, enjoying his confounded expression.

"Now you've lost me," Sophan admitted.

"I know. Shall we return to a subject that makes more sense to both of us?" Holding the backs of his shoulders, she leaned up and whispered breathily in his rounded ear, "Let's roll over." Her nether tunnel squeezed around his shaft tightly to punctuate her sentence, and Sophan happily let her push him onto his right side, keeping his weight off of his injured leg.

The bed wasn't very wide, so when she rolled him the rest of the way onto his back, her right leg was dangling over the side of the bed past his left hip. After licking and nibbling playfully on the back of his rounded ear, Cill pushed herself up, bracing her hand in the middle of his chest as she hunched her hips forward and backward, making slight humping motions over his lap. Sophan groaned blissfully, reaching to either side of the raccoon-wolf's arms to give her swaying breasts a gentle squeeze. When she echoed his moan, though, he hesitated, pulling his hands a few inches to the sides of her breasts uncertainly.

"Something the matter?" she asked, tilting her head down at him.

Sophan didn't know how to word the question that had made him pull his hands away, but eventually he just blurted it out. "Do females enjoy having their breasts touched?" He could feel blood rushing to his face. As much sex as he'd had over the years, that seemed like a very ignorant question for him to be asking. "It's just that when I was kissing Ileni's she pushed me away."

Cill chuckled down at him. "I suppose it depends on the female. In Ileni's case, she hasn't ever had attention paid to her in any physical manner in circumstances she's enjoyed, so she probably saw your attention as a vie for dominance." She leaned forward on the hands planted against his chest, framing her breasts between her upper arms and pressing them together until they formed voluptuous ovals above his face. "As for me, I take it as a compliment."

Sophan grinned up at the gray and brown furred orbs. "Well then, I would hate to insult you by ignoring them." Leaning up, he nuzzled their inner curves while slowly planting his muzzle between them, luxuriating in their softness against the sides of his face. Cill giggled when he shook his head from side to side, making her breasts dance around him, and loosened the frame of her arms when his hands returned to wrap around them, thumbs and forefingers circling her nipples. Up until then, she had been moving against his lap just enough to keep them both stimulated, but when he began lightly pinching her hardening nipples, she began bouncing slightly on his lap, drawing a moan from them both.

"I wonder what it must feel like," Sophan murmured against her chest, "having breasts."

Cill slowed her movements again on top of him, spreading her hands to cover the cheetah's own nipples while regaining her breath before she spoke. "Back before civilization fell, the humans would have been able to give you breasts, if you'd wanted them." She groped his pectorals playfully, squeezing down with her fingertips. "You wouldn't look half bad with them, if you ask me."

Sophan pulled away from her bosom, unable to believe she was serious, but she just looked down at his bemused expression with a slight quirk of her eyebrow. He laughed, completely taken aback by the notion. "That's one technology I don't think I'll miss. Granted, it would be fun to have a pair around to play with day in and day out, but not on someone with a full set of male parts lower down."

Cill just shrugged. "I know some who would disagree with that sentiment, but you're entitled to your opinion." She squeezed her inner muscles tightly around Sophan's throbbing shaft, drawing a delighted shudder up his body. "In any case, the humans could have taken care of your male bits, too."

Sophan laughed again. "So could a certain knife wielding chipmunk, given the chance."

Cill laughed with him, and he laid his head back, closing his eyes. He so loved feeling the female laugh while his erection was buried deep inside her, her inner walls quaking around him with each of her body's mirthful shakes.

She began moving again while he kneaded her round breasts, lifting her haunches away from his thighs before pressing herself down, each movement more forceful than the last. Sophan did what he could to match her movements, but that wasn't much with his injured buttock complaining each time he flexed it. He released one of her breasts to let his paw caress down her front and side, past her hip to the thigh straddling the right side of his waist, enjoying the feel of her leg's muscles alternately flexing and relaxing beneath her fluffy pelt.

Moving him muzzle to the side and taking the nipple of her freely swaying breast carefully between his teeth, he suckled at her while letting his hand glide over her leg to the inside of her thigh, moving steadily up through her fur toward the junction of her legs. When his fingertips touched the lowest part of her belly at the crease of her thigh, she whimpered delicately, but began moving against him with even more vigor. He leg his fingers trail down over her spread mound, and she hissed an emphatic, "Yes," when he pressed against her swollen outer labia. Parting two of his fingers and cupping her mound, he framed both sides of her vagina where it split around his shaft, following her urgent up and down movements and smiling around her bobbing breast at the pleasured noises he was pulling from her. Normally he wouldn't have bothered with enhancing his partner's pleasure at this point. He was so close to his own peak that, had he been in control, he would have been pounding Cill without a thought for anything but reaching his own climax. Left idle as he was by his wounded leg, though, he found he still had enough presence of mind to let his hands and mouth work on her body, and was very pleased at the reactions he was able to draw from her.

The raccoon-wolf leaned forward, trying to lie down on top of him as she gyrated her hips, but his hand and mouth on her breasts held her up, the soft flesh squishing between her ribs and his palm and muzzle. It was an odd pressure against his nose, and he worried that his teeth might be cutting into her nipple's smooth skin, but she was leaning so heavily against him that he thought she might topple to the side if he removed the support of his face. Her fur tickled his nostrils as he inhaled her scent and flicked at her nipple with his tongue. She moaned blissfully above him, and when he looked up, he saw her face stretching forward away from him as she quietly cried out her pleasure.

Down lower, his hand cupping her groin was getting soaked in their mingled juices. He found that his thumb had just enough room to maneuver to the front of her slit while his parted fingers continued to dig into the sides of her mound. Already drenched by their crotches' sopping fur, his thumb pad found and pressed against the little nub in front of his member's upper side, rubbing that dot of flesh back and forth while his palm followed her lower belly's movements.

That was all it took for Cill. Letting out a noise that was half howl, half pleasure whimper, she arched her back and thrust her hips down against him, trapping his hand between their lower bodies while her inner muscles fluttered around him like a butterfly's wings. She was pressing her chest against his palm and face hard enough that he knew his teeth had to be piercing her skin, but it didn't seem to bother her. He gave her breast a forceful squeeze when her tensed body began to relax, worming his thumb against her clitoris just as vigorously, and she tensed up all over again.

Just as he'd hoped, the wolf-raccoon's orgasm brought him to his own. Every muscle in his body flexed at once when his scrotum pulled up beneath his spread sheath, but he barely noticed the pain in his buttock as he pumped his seed against her cervix. His fingers dug into her breast's softness, claws unsheathing slightly to scratch against her skin, and her own hands raked at his chest in their turn.

When it was over, he let the female collapse over him, and they both lay panting in content. Sophan stroked down over Cill's lush rump, his fingers gliding over the base of her tail, and she caressed the side of his muzzle with her thumbs while holding his face in her hands, gazing down at him from inches away with lust hazed eyes. "So," she murmured quietly, "have you figured it out yet?"

"Figured what out yet?" he muttered, squeezing her bottom distractedly. Lost in his afterglow, he was having trouble concentrating on her words.

"The difference between love and need."

"Oh, that." Sophan grimaced up at her. She really wasn't going to let that drop. But when he saw her staring down at him with those intent, white eyes, he thought he might be beginning to understand the answer she was looking for. He thought about the way they both had reached their peaks and grew more confident that he had beaten her riddle. "When you love someone, you attend to their needs before your own," he said breathlessly, hoping he sounded like he knew what he was talking about. "If you only need them, their own needs aren't even a concern for you.

Cill smiled and exhaled her held breath over his face, but shook her head slowly before lowering it to rest against his chest. "A better answer than your first," she said, "but you're still trying to tell me what you think I want to hear rather than what you really believe."

"You mean I'm not right?" Sophan asked unhappily. He had been so sure that was the right answer.

The wolf-raccoon chuckled against him. "You have a lot left to learn, kitten." Taking a deep breath, she began to lever herself off of him, but he wrapped an arm around her back to hold her against him. "We have to get up. We're going to have a little meeting with the refugees."

Sophan caressed the back of her thickly furred neck with his free hand. "They won't start without us, will they?"

Another quiet chuckle, and Cill relaxed against him again. "I suppose not."

He kept stroking her fondly while he held her, even though a part of him wanted to throttle her for toying with him with her riddles. If it was so important to her that he know the difference between love and need, why didn't she just tell him? And how had the answer he'd given her been wrong?

Despite his aggravation, a smile pulled at Sophan's mouth. If nothing else, Cill had given him a challenge, and that was something he could never turn away from, no matter how annoying it might be. He'd come up with the right answer eventually, and when he did, he was going to make the masked female swallow it whole.