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Time Together, Time Apart

Part five of seven

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Written by Arian Mabe (Amethyst Mare)

Commissioned by Adagiodajiang

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The fox would never understand how two moments could be so far apart. One moment, he was fucking Alyssa, albeit with a tentacle cock and a length of shaft that was more sensitive than even his natural skin. And the next...she was collapsed against him in pain, hands on his chest, shoving him weakly, his teeth sunk into her body.

He acted quickly, shuddering, grasping as his magic, which flowed readily to his touch. He didn't need his staff, Kastalia, for lower forms of magic, even as his heart pounded vehemently, calling on a tree to grow from the floorboards of the room. The roots dug deep and curled between the floorboards, but he didn't care for the damage caused, heart pounding, breath catching. And yet the fox didn't even really need to breathe at all as the devouring took over, drool slopping from his jaws even as he used his magic to grow the tree.

He rasped, clamping his mouth shut as the tree bloomed with pink flowers, a bough stretching out as his magic flowed into Alyssa too. It took the place of his body, blood still trickling over her collarbone, the metallic rasp of it clawing at the air, but the doe-taur leaned into it, recognising the sturdy familiarness of it.

Sandor didn't want to do it, but he didn't feel that he had any choice, not as he sent his magic into Alyssa through the tree, affecting her deeply, drawing her eyelids down, her breath softer and slower, sleep tugging her softly.

No pain, no trauma, no concerns... No, no, no... He would take care of everything, absolutely everything for her.

That was all Sandor could do for her, while the need to devour, the rancid, ravenous hunger, snarled and battled to be let free.

"Sleep... Sleep..."

His voice rasped, the fox gulping down his need. He couldn't give in to it, he could not.

The smell of the flowers eased her pain, her strain, his tentacles retreating, though the dark flicker of them still billowed out around his body. It was as if they were trying to break free of his mortal form, even though he felt his toes curling, the muscles in his legs tensing, quadriceps contracting. Even his abdominal muscles tensed as he stiffened, chest tightening, his shoulders pushing back as true fear slipped into him for the very first time.

He'd never felt like that before. And the fox never wanted to ever feel like that ever again.

Though he was still riding it out.

"Alyssa..."

He heaved and grunted, shaking his head, fingers trembling. The devouring... How had it gotten so strong? But, no, he couldn't think like that, couldn't allow it to dominate his mind, even as he moved around the tree, trying to find a way to get his mind back on the straight and narrow, the only track that he wanted to be on.

The pills... The devouring...

No, no, no...

_ _

It had all gone wrong! He should have gotten the pills when he'd had the chance, when he'd realised that things were shifting and changing, that more was happening that he would never again be able to change back or reverse. The fox's desperate eyes cast over his doe-taur, her eyelids fluttering, that red sheen of blood still glistening on her skin, her perfect skin, her scent so sweet in his nose...

And he wanted more of her than that bite!

What Sandor had not realised, even as he mated with his sweet doe-taur, was that the hunger within him was growing and growing, rising within him in such a way that could not be controlled. He kissed her softly, letting her rest down on the bed, though his deer-taur did not seem all that tired, blinking up at him with soft, hazy eyes.

"I thought you were asleep," he said softly, though Alyssa seemed to be in a place between the waking and the sleeping worlds. "Alyssa... Relax, everything is okay..."

He wasn't sure if she remembered the bite. His heart pounded, saliva flooding his mouth. He had to find the pills...

"Mm, Sandor?"

Yet he could not leave her.

"Yes, my love?"

She reached for him, sleepily twining her fingers with his. The fox gulped hard, ears splayed, but she did not seem upset with him for biting her. Surreptitiously, even though it should have been the first thing that he had thought of, he used his magic, the natural, healing magic that he had been working on back when he had thought that he could cure himself alone, to heal the bite at the crux of her neck and shoulder.

The bite healed, flesh melding softly back together, smoothing out, even the blood evaporating. His heart ached, stomach churning and turning over.

He'd bitten her.

"Sandor, there's something that I need...to tell you..."

Was she even going to remember the conversation when she woke properly? He didn't know, shaking his head, though he held her hand still. He wanted to make things right with her, yet Alyssa still needed to sleep. He had to get his pills...

"What is it, Alyssa?"

Maybe if he asked her quickly, things would be easier? Maybe she would say the thing that she wanted to say and he could help her sleep, moving on to his pills? The devouring licked more and more urgently in his mind, snarling and snapping, a wild beast that heaved for dominance.

"It's... There was someone here."

He blinked.

"What?"

"Yes..." Alyssa said, still lying against the bough, her fingers closing around a narrow twig with her free hand. "There... There was another doe-taur... Not like me, she was more beautiful, so sleek..."

Sandor stiffened, heart pounding. He squeezed her hand tighter, the magic to send her back to sleep flitting back and forth in his mind.

"What...do you mean?"

"Mmm, she was hear, Sandor, I'm sorry... I didn't... I didn't say..."

He wanted to know more, though something sick stirred in the pit of his stomach. Why did it feel like he was so sick suddenly? The hunger was there, yes, but so was nausea, as if everything in his life and his world had suddenly been tipped off-kilter, the balance of everything suddenly askew.

"It's okay, Alyssa, but...can you tell me what happened?"

Alyssa murmured, her eyes closed, though she spoke.

"She made me feel bad, Sandor... She was... She said I was bad, that you could do better than me. She must have followed me back from the market, it was so strange. But she talked like she knew you better than me, as if she knew all about the things that had...gone on between us too. She told me that I was nothing more than a servant, no good at my job anyway, not in assisting you..."

Sandor growled, eyes flashing.

"What - no! No, that's not true, you know that, Alyssa! She's talking waste - nothing more than that, just waste, just words that don't mean anything at all."

"But she said more than that, Sandor," Alyssa said, a faint whine in her voice in her state of need, sleep pulling at her even as she fought it. "She told me that I was worthless, ran through all these things about me...my body and my personality. Everything was bad, everything was better with her. Wouldn't you have wanted to be with a doe-taur like that?"

Sandor gulped, deciding on a partial truth. Yet the most important part of the true, of course, was something that he had never hesitated in telling Alyssa anyway.

"No! Of course, not," he said, putting as much force and feeling into his voice as he felt he could manage. "No, Alyssa... My sweet, you are everything to me. Whatever she has said to you, it is a lie... Tell me, did the deer-taur have a flower on her head?"

"Yes!" Alyssa said, blinking in wonder up at him. "How did you know? It was a pretty hair clip, so much prettier than anything I could ever have afforded..."

"Alyssa," he breathed, shaking his head, too many things clouding his head all at once. "I... No, Alyssa, everything that is mine is yours too, please never think that you cannot afford something, you need to use our money too... But, I..."

Oh, it was so hard for the fox to get the words out.

"I saw her," he confessed, his partial truth. "The deer-taur... She... She wanted to talk to me, I wanted to ask her about something magical, something I had heard about at the academy. I'm sorry I did not tell you that, Alyssa, there's so much... It's all confusing..."

She parted her lips, something darkening her gaze, yet Alyssa slipped back down into that light state of wakefulness, as if she was on the edge of sleep, her features soft.

"Oh..."

"But she's jealous of you, Alyssa," Sandor insisted, for it was the only thing that he could think of to say to her, for, of course, nothing at all that the ancient being could have possibly said about Alyssa could ever have been true. "There's nothing more to it than that! It's...something about white foxes..."

Perhaps he was thinking just a little bit too much of himself, saying that the deer-taur wanted him because he was a white fox... Yet there was something too soft and too sweet about how the ancient being had caressed his cheek too.

He bit his lip. Maybe there was something wrong with her? Maybe there was something he had missed? And yet he had been told that she was an ancient healer, a kind being. Even though there had been something more, something that had been clouded and confused, from the naga, in his keenness to find a cure. Could he be blamed for that?

"Rest now, Alyssa," Sandor said instead, the urgent heave of the devouring lurching within his mind. "It's okay, everything's okay. There's nothing here that you need to worry about, everything is well, for you, for me. I'm so sorry that that stranger came here, that she disturbed you, all when you were looking for me, worried about me... But I'll make sure that it never happens again.

Alyssa smiled, her eyes softening at the corners. Her lips parted, a breathy sigh escaping them.

"Okay... Yes, Sandor... Thank you..."

Then and only then did the white fox feel comfortable enough to use his magic on her again, even though he knew that it was bad too for him to think like that. He should never have done anything at all to her without her express permission and consent, but he needed her to sleep. Even if their conversation after sex had revealed even more than he had anticipated...

Why had the ancient being been there in the first place? And saying all those things to Alyssa? Sandor scrambled, cursing under his breath, raking air into his lungs in shorter and shorter rasps of it, grabbing at oxygen.

"Huff... Unnff..."

The fox should only ever have been making sounds like that in the heat of passion, with his shaft, most likely, buried inside his sweet doe-taur. But he was hungry, so very hungry, drooling and slavering, long, thick ropes of drool splattering from his jaws as he let them hang open. Sandor knew it was gross to do so, but he couldn't help himself, checking only briefly that Alyssa was nicely supported against the bough. Her head dropped in slumber and he could rest assured that she, at the very least, was safe, while the hunger snarled deeply through the pit of his stomach.

"Ugh... No, no, no - come on!"

He dug anxiously through their belongings, ripping open the bags, hunting down his pills. If he could get to them in time, everything would be fine, just like he had told Alyssa. Yet the fox was ever-aware of the life force of his darling doe-taur, pulsing and throbbing, so very close to him. Even with his back to her, he heaved and panted, swallowing all the drool down that he could, yet...there was more, there was always more.

He had to hold on, had to find a way to bear through, one way or the other. That was all the fox could think of, tearing the stitches of a pocket on one of the bags as he ripped it free. Yet his pills were not in there either as every last one of his muscles bunched up, shoulders rounding forward, forgetting himself.

"Unff... Unff..."

He sounded like a wild beast too, even though Sandor knew that he could not give in to it. It was his fault, yes, really - if he hadn't used that detection magic, to find Alyssa before, he probably wouldn't have felt as bad as he did at that time. And he had almost given in to the hunger, eating his own fawn!

There was no time, however, for Sandor to feel guilty about what had almost happened, no, not when he had to find his pills.

He tried his clothes, wondering if he had left them in a pocket somewhere, somewhere less obvious. He had, of course, had to hide them from Alyssa, because it would have been perfectly fair for his doe-taur to ask questions of him, what they were for - but had he gone so far as to hide them too well?

They weren't anywhere, not as the devouring heaved, roiling within him, magic twisting and curdling like sour milk.

He grunted, lunging for the wardrobe and ripping the doors open, not caring for the rattle. With his magical influence lying heavily over her, Alyssa would not wake, for which he was grateful, even if it was a fleeting kind of gratitude. He had more pressing things on his mind, rattling the hangers, digging through everything, yet the pills still were nowhere to be found!

His hunger expanded, swelling through him as if it was determined to encompass every last tiny scrap of his being. It heaved through him with every breath, laced itself into his blood flow and his veins, every beat of his heart, clenching of his hands and the curling of his toes.

"No... I... I can't..."

Yet he knew that it would be too much for him, licking his lips, unable to contain himself. The fox's ears pinned flat back to his skull as he groaned and shook his head, turning from Alyssa.

He grabbed for his clothes, dragging them onto his body, though he didn't manage to get a shirt on that slipped over his head, choosing a button-up one that was left hanging open. His trousers were loose and the cinch at the waist not done up properly, but that didn't matter in a moment like that. If he gave in to the devouring, there was no way at all that he would care about his clothes. And if he managed to overcome it...

Yes. That was what Sandor had to think, heaving, panting, grunting, licking his lips, his black nose twitching constantly as that wicked part of him dragged in his doe-taur's scent, over and over again. Her aroma infatuated and infiltrated every last little corner of the room, even if they had not been in there for all that long. It had clearly been more than long enough for the softly sweet scent to wind its way through the linens of the room too, the fox's shoulders rounding and hunching as if he was morphing into a wild beast.

The taste of her blood, however light, still lingered in his mouth and tainted his lips. Unconsciously, Sandor lapped at the side of his muzzle, sweeping it down the full length of it.

"Mmmm... Nnngggghhh..."

He grunted. Still, he licked his muzzle, again and again. He didn't want to do it, though it no longer seemed to matter what the fox wanted, his tail flicking back and forth, stiff and rigid.

He wasn't himself. He wasn't Sandor anymore. And there was a delicious, life-giving body right there, just behind him. All he had to do was turn around and take it...

No... No! He couldn't let it happen! He had to get out - out! Just as Alyssa had earlier, even if the fox was unaware of what had gone down there, he fled the room, letting the door bang closed behind him. Sandor had surely disturbed other residents of the inn, trying to slumber at such a late hour, though the notion of it did not even cross his mind. There were far, far worse things that could happen to those that he annoyed at the inn, yes, if he allowed the devouring to take hold of him.

And what was he going to do without the pills? The pills, the pills - where were the pills? If he hadn't stayed so long to listen to Alyssa talking about the deer-taur who had visited her there, maybe things would have been different. But he couldn't have just forced Alyssa to sleep when there was something that her subconscious mind was so desperate to bring to the surface!

No, it was all wrong, not as he heaved himself out into the hallway, staggering for the stairs. The inn was full of food, full of sustenance, so many life-giving bodies... He drooled. Out, out, he had to get out, snapping his jaws, even though it was not something that he was actively thinking about. He wasn't conscious of what he was doing, almost tripping over his hind paws as he stumbled down to the main floor of the inn.

All Sandor knew was that he had to get away from everyone, snarling, lips peeling wickedly back from his teeth. Yet there were still crowds outside, celebrating the new year, seeing their heartbeats and so much more. Their heat signatures pulled around him, dragging his attention first one way and then the other, from an ox to a bear and to a wolf, though his mind, somehow, was still more interested in the prey anthro species.

Sandor could not bear to look at the taurs, no... No, they were too close to Alyssa, even though she had been the one to first raise the devouring within him. But he didn't want to be raking his gaze over rabbit anthros or even the mice, creatures that the devouring told him would not put up much of a fight to him.

Yet the devouring craved so much more than that, the fox grunting in the back of his throat. No... It did not feel at all like a fully grown horse or even a tiger would be any trouble at all to him, regardless of their form. Maybe even a centaur would be absorbed by him too, if he let things go, if he let the devouring take over...

He growled, sending a cluster of anthros skittering back from him, though the fox did not even see them as separate entities and creatures anymore, not at all. They were just food, sustenance, making him drool, eyes wide, pupils dilated as if he was letting a more feral side of his psyche still come through to the forefront.

No...

No.

He had to hold on, had to force back the devouring. No one there deserved it, not as hunger swelled through his entire being, his throat widening, as if his body was already preparing to take in more, even more.

There were too many around him! And what was he to do? There were no pills, the pills were gone. He drooled, hurling his body into action, eyes wide and wild, heaving and panting.

"That fox is on something!"

They probably thought he had taken drugs, enjoyed the festivities too much. He was a predator, but the fox had never acted like a predator before, oh no. That was not something that had ever crossed Sandor's mind, not as the fervent beat of his heart drummed against his ribcage, as if he was indeed a beast who had been caged. Yet while his heart would not burst through the cage of his ribs, other things may rip free from his body, his psyche.

His feet pounded the ground. He did not even remember taking off his boots, but they had been lost somewhere, whether before when he had been searching for Alyssa or in the bedroom. He just didn't know, didn't have to know.

Every pulse of blood through his body seemed to be something that he was acutely aware of, the constricting pressure of his blood vessels struggling to handle too much. He moaned open-mouthed, running full-pelt, his muscles strong and trembling with energy, contracting and releasing as they hurled his body into flight. His ears twitched, forced back by the passage of air around his body, as if they could not even stand up straight with how desperate he was to find escape, to not give in to the devouring.

His fingers hung loose, arms strung out a little behind him, as his torso was tipped forward. It was not a normal way to run, not at all, though Sandor could not have honestly said that he had spent all that much time in his life running. No, he was training and practising magic, no more than that, but he did not feel, at that time, that magic was going to do anything to help him. Not as every breath that he painstakingly, feeling the pressure and the effort it took to do so, dragged into his lungs raked over his tongue and his teeth, reminding him of just what the devouring longed for.

Yet he could not give in, not even as his bare hind paws slapped the streets, a light rain pattering down. It would not be enough, however, to snuff out the festivities, the fox groaning, long and low, his body aching through. There were just too many around, the sensation of heat pulling at him, making him heave, ancient magic flickering and writhing inside him like a nest of tentacles just yearning to be let out to devour and to take.

The streets beckoned him, faces peering out, though he saw it all as if in a tunnel, bright flashes of colour and light dragging at his attention, hurling him back and forth.

"He's lost it."

"Is there something wrong with him?"

"Where's he going?"

Their faces and their species blurred together, leaving everyone that he passed a nameless, shapeless object - just something that he could take. And that was exactly what the devouring wanted of him, stripping away what made them who they were, anthros, people, rendering them nothing more than a food source to him.

And, if he absorbed them, another power, deep within the fox, would grow even more...

The beach...

Out...

He had to get away from everyone.

It was the only chance he had, to be away, desperately clawing at the magic in the back of his mind. Dimly, Sandor considered trying to fly, but even the easiest of magic was beyond his grasp, panic clawing at him, cold fear tangled up in the red heat of the devouring, how it snapped and snarled, knowing that it was, finally, so very close to breaking free.

I won't let you win!

_ _

Yet thoughts like that were grounding, even if not enough to overcome the devouring.

Finally, Sandor pounded down to the beach, the open space where he hoped that no one else would be, especially if he raced his way all the way down to the far end where the cliffs were. There were no fires and no lights, which strengthened his resolve, taking on those tiny glimmers of hope and bundling them up into a candle that he could thrust forth before. As if he could keep that dancing light of hope alive inside him, if only he pulled on enough notes and nuances of being able to get through it.

If he was away from others, he could not devour them.

It was simple beautifully so, though Sandor had to make sure that they stayed away, all of them, far away. Still, he tried not to think of the fact that, yet again, he had left Alyssa behind. Even if she was sleeping soundly and would not wake until the morning, he had already broken his promise to her. She did not know that there had been no choice for him, not with the hunger creeping up through his gut, but Sandor did not know if that was one more thing that the sweet doe-taur was at all going to be able to forgive him for.

There was no one at all on the beach, not as he slowed to a jog and then a walk, his body aching, muscles protesting at the sudden use. It was as if his adrenaline, even though it had been the devouring, was dying down, dropping to a heated curl in the pit of his stomach, simmering and smouldering, as if it was promising, even then, that it could rise once more at a moment's notice.

His toes curled into the damp sand, feeling how it clumped under his feet, some of the damper clods of it clinging and sticking to his fur. His claws poked holes in it, leaving tracks behind, but he was at least out of the inn and out of the Resort City... That had to count for something.

Sandor heaved a breath, filling his lungs with fresh, salty air. It was a different kind of air than what he was used to, expanding his lungs more, a strange, salty lick tickling over his lips as if it was caressing them and his tongue. The fox groaned and shook his head, a hand subconsciously resting on his stomach as if he could push the hunger back down inside him, could keep it under control if he just left everything behind.

But Alyssa...

Sandor shook his head again. His neck ached, which was strange, a line of pain running up either side of the spinal column. He didn't remember getting hurt, but there were a lot of strange aches and pains running through his body. The fox curled his fingers into a fist, feeling the bite of the short claws digging into his palms. Yet Sandor stopped in time for them to only leave marks, indents, that would fade, not for blood to flow.

Even then, he had control over himself.

He could do it, he said, taking another deep breath and then another, filling his lungs with another kind of life-giving energy. Even though he was not with his staff, did not have the means to cast magic at that time, he could hold it together. He would contact Alyssa, tell her what she needed to know... Maybe she would know where the pills had gone and would be able to help him.

If he had told her earlier, maybe things could have been different, yet Sandor could not truly feel repentant for his actions, no. Not when everything had been done to preserve her, to save her, to not have her worry about him and even blame herself for what had happened.

Sandor sighed, running his fingers back through the fur between his ears, the white fluff sticking up in odd directions as he ruffled it. It was as if there had never been a right decision to make in the first place. But the fox didn't want to lie to himself, didn't want to just go along saying empty words in his head to make himself feel better.

"Hey, you!"

His heart sank, the devouring rising, expectantly, inside him. It was as if that wicked part of him had already known that something was going on, that there was someone else there, letting him breathe more easily. And, still, it had served to lure him into a false sense of security, showing him something untrue, the emptiness of the beach, while he had been watched the whole time.

And it was him too - the black panther who had spoken so ill of Alyssa back at the inn. Not that he deserved anything, not as the hunger rose within him, roaring and snarling, heaving through him as if in a bellow that ground its way up from the guts of his being.

They said something, the panther, the dog and the rat. But the words didn't make sense to him anymore, not as he lunged for them. They may as well have been speaking in a language that Sandor had never the once been familiar with as he went for the black panther first, vines ripping from his body, tearing his clothes.

Usually, he was able to control his tentacles with his magic so that his clothes didn't rip. That time was different. That time, it was the poison lancing through him, forcing him to let the devouring throb up thick and fast, quicker than his arousal even when Alyssa lifted her tail for him. And yet it was greater than that, bigger than that, something darker than that as his jaws parted, more widely than ever before.

He was in control of his body... And yet Sandor was not, both things co-existing at the same time. He was not a passenger to what was happening, seeing things through the window of his eyes, but an active player in it, all as his jaws sank into the crux of the join between the panther's neck and shoulder.

He ripped before the scream could cut through the air, snarling, heaving, bloodlust fuelling him. He had smelled blood before, of course, for it was a key part of some magical potions and he had both been injured and injured others in self-defence before too. But never had he attacked without due need or provocation, never had he lunged with his brutal might, physical force the only weapon, in that moment, that Sandor wielded.

The others stumbled back, crying out, yet their shouts of fear came to his ears as if he was hearing them from another room. The rampant din of his heartbeat raged in his head, a throbbing pulse to which he was forced to obey the sickening whims of.

Three people.

He knew what that meant. The third time...

But he couldn't do anything about it, not as the hunger took over, snarling, ripping, tearing out the throat of the panther without any care for him or his life. The black panther would have bled out anyway from the deep cut, the bone that had been exposed. All Sandor did there was end his life more quickly.

Still, he was left to bleed out into the sand as Sandor raged, his white fur already painted as if by an artist's brush with red. Burning crimson, the colour of sex and the shade of death.

The rat fell next as he locked his tentacles around it, though there was no joy in his taking of the other anthro. Sandor barely even felt the rat's panicked struggles, heaving and wrenching back and forth, fighting and trying to dig both his teeth and his claws into Sandor's vines. It was the kind of fight that one put up when they knew that they were going to die, that there was nothing truly that they could do about it but they still fought back anyway. Because that was what instinct said to do, kicking into gear in that last-ditch attempt to hold onto life.

The creatures that knew that they were going to die, where their instincts accepted that fact, of course, often froze, minds retreating to a deeper, darker place where the last moments of their psyches would be, at the very least, mildly protected from the horror of their death. Sandor, even in hindsight, could not have said whether that was better or worse, for all three of them fought back or, in the dog's case, at least tried to run.

He squeezed his tentacles harder and harder around the rat until its mouth hung agape in a silent scream, eyes bulging, too strange to be comfortable or even natural. The whippy tail lashed about, weaker and weaker, breath lost from the rat's lungs, his grey fur melding into Sandor's vines in the dimness of the night. Only the moonlight cast any illuminating glow over the scene, the fox's jaws hanging open as he dragged in heady breaths, nostrils twitching as the rich, dark aroma of freshly spilt blood sank into his system.

"Prey..."

The word rolled from his lips as if it had only been waiting on a moment to be released, the fox's jaws twitching, yet there was no grin to be found on his lips. He squeezed, crushing the rat from his neck down, his head falling slack as his spine snapped, limbs twitching and jerking weakly. Yet the rat was dead and gone and the only remaining reactions were merely the body doing what happened when the nervous system was overloaded, the dying twitches of a being far gone past any point of return.

Not that Sandor, int hat state, would have brought the rat back if he could have done so. That was not the case for the devouring.

He was hungry, so hungry, the devouring clawing at his stomach. It was as if he had not eaten, truly, in weeks, even though he knew well enough for himself that he had, of course, had food not all that long ago, with Alyssa. But the devouring wanted to sink into the beings, to absorb their energy, to take that for his soul while his stomach yearned for the meaty offerings of their lifeless bodies.

Tossing the rat aside, where he landed and bounced in the sand, nothing more than a dead, lifeless weight, turning his attention to the dog. For he had to neutralise his prey first, the devouring told him, for only then could he truly feast.

The dog howled as the fox pursued him, feet pounding the sand, leaving prints that, soon, would be washed away by the tide. Sandor, however, wasn't thinking about leaving any evidence behind, not as his stomach heaved and snarled, drooling, driven by the hunger alone. He was still in there, reeling in horror, begging himself to stop, though he could not stop, not as he lashed out with his tentacles, spearing one straight through the dog's body in a gushing spill of dark blood.

The canine whimpered, gargling, blood bubbling from his jaws, though Sandor looked at him as if he was just a nuisance. He dragged the dog, a canine with longer, floppier ears and a brown and white pattern over the rest of his short-haired body, to him, ignoring his cries. They may as well have been nothing more than the squalls of seagulls, for all the difference they made to Sandor.

"No... Pleath... Pleath... Nnnnnngggghhhh..."

The canine groaned but Sandor did not care, tossing him down in the sand where his body made a light indent in it. His vines pinned the dog to the ground by the shoulders and the legs, ripping into him with his jaws, claws slicing and digging into him. The dog's cries were nothing to him, truly falling on deaf ears, the fox's ears pinned back as he snarled and finally did what the devouring had been telling him to do all along.

He feasted.

The dog's body gave life, gave sustenance, his ancient magic, what had been absorbed into him when he had bested the tree, flowing deeply. The poison ran deep and it took the energy from the canine, what a mortal body, usually, could not utilise in that way, absorbing every last fibre of his energy and being while Sandor ripped him to shreds.

Nearby, the panther finally stilled, having fulling bled out from his wounds, eyes open and glassy, as if he was looking for someone. It would be a while longer before his heart stopped beating, however, even if he had passed out completely, his brain no longer receiving enough oxygen to keep him awake and functioning. There was no saving him anyway.

Sandor tried to stop, but it was as ineffective as if he was pushing the waves back from the shore, trying to stop the inevitable pull and retreat of the tide and the ocean itself. He could only go along with it, heaving and panting, dragging in what air he could into his lungs while desire coursed through him.

Oh, but it felt so good, even if he was sick to his stomach at the same time in horror. It wasn't what he wanted, no, not to kill, not to murder, not to eat them all up... Yet it was what the devouring snarled at him that must be done, ripping and rending, tearing flesh from bone. There was not a part of his prey that was to be left behind as he devoured organs and guts, muscle slipping down his throat without even chewing.

Bones crunched between his teeth and, dimly, the fox was aware that he had moved on to the panther. He had not even realised that the dog had been completely eaten, not a bone left, but his stomach still yawned, hungry, ravenous. Why did it feel as if he had not had anything at all?

Would he continue feasting and feasting, chasing citizens through the city itself?

Fear gripped his heart and he dove on, a shower of blood spraying up around his muzzle, though he didn't think of that. He just thought of how much worse it could all be if he did not feast, if he did not devour, if he did not feed. If he did not give in to the instinct, the poison, and do what the devouring told him to, he did not know if he would again be strong enough to stop himself from harming Alyssa.

And that was something that he had to stop himself from doing at all costs, even if it was a selfish way of holding back.

He grunted, feeding, tail stiff with emotion. For he had to take in the lives that he had taken too, the poison absorbing their essence. He felt it inside, flashes of their lives, for they were vibrant, colourful people who had lived full, good lives, no one that had deserved to die. Guilt roiled in his stomach, but it was harder and harder to pay attention to it when he fed, breaking the body down as if it was a spell, putting all the components together, working through.

It was methodical and it was carnage, both simultaneously, but his mind was not really there. It was a different presence in his head, something that snarled and revelled in it all, even as nausea twisted and snatched in his rapidly filling stomach. He heaved but he couldn't throw up what had already sunk into his guts, absorbed by his being, feeling the weight of them in his belly, the people that he had eaten.

Blood soaked the sand yet there was no other that bore witness to Sandor falling prey to the devouring, feasting as if he cared not for them and their lives. A tear built in the corner of his right eye but Sandor did not allow it to fall, for there was no right in his heart or soul to cry for them, to cry for those that, even then, he had willingly taken and devoured.

And, so, that was how the fox feasted, ripping them apart, fat chunks of flesh disappearing down his throat as a sense of fatness and heaviness pulled into him, deeper and deeper and deeper. It was as if he was being weighed down, comfortably sated, yet it was not any kind of comfort that the fox would have ever chosen for himself.

The devouring had won that time. It raged through him, forcing him to take every last little bit of their bodies, devouring them entirely, bone and fur and sinew too.

Sandor heaved.

He still didn't know where his pills had gone.

Not a bone was left behind.

Continued in part six of seven...