How the Omega Learned his Place

Story by Zorha on SoFurry

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#2 of Mores Lupūs


Do you know what superbia is, Sprocket? It's Pride, arguably the most original and dangerous of the seven Cardinal Sins, and as mentioned in previous stories, I do so cherish them all. But even the most hubris filled heart must prostrate itself before a greater purpose. Take my paw will you? Together we will find a deeper meaning, for have I yet led you astray? Remember: Pride goeth before Destruction, and an haughty Spirit before a Fall. As such, Do Not Taunt HappyFunBall(tm) !!!

Mores Lup?s - Act III

How the Omega Learned his Place

2007 by Eldyran

Learn Your Place ...

_The words haunted Narydle. Moreso than the spirits of his ancestors now. Especially in his dreams.

The plains before him rippled in the gale, its tall, golden stalks shimmering under the setting sun to the far west. An endless ocean of prairie wavered around him, but all of his attention now seemed focused on a stone tipped spear bobbing before him, gliding through the thick, fire touched stalks. Ahead of the tip, something else rippled under the relentless, uncompromising wind, the tint and pattern of its red fur almost blending in with the coloration of a late Summertime prairie.

He hunted. He hunted himself.

Despite the natural camouflage, Narydle could recognize his lanky, bedraggled look anywhere, and despised himself for it. Even now, the coyote chided himself for sleeping out in the open like that, even under what little daylight remained. He did it to get a early jump on all the hares that infested his playground at dusk, a literal banquet under his hind feet if he were alert and nimble enough.

But now he was the one being hunted, and there was nothing he could do to stop it, for the white wolven paws that held the shaft of the spear tight before him were not his own. Narydle wanted to scream out, warn himself somehow, but he was a simple passenger in the mind of his captor, the one who stalked through the knee high grass with predatory grace. His disgrace could have ended there, a simple meal for something higher up on the food chain. No humiliation required.

But no; the wolven pack passing through his unmarked territory had other uses in mind for him.

The stone tip of the crudely crafted spear stopped a few centimeters away, and Narydle had an eternity to contemplate the look of serenity on his own muzzle, the wind rustling his unkempt fur. Without warning, the tip of ice shot out and poked deep into his hindquarters, straight through to the core of his senses. His green eyes shot open in alarm, his perked canid ears catching the roar of ..._

... the storm above him. For a terrifying moment the coyote almost forgot the countless moons of bondage, beatings, and ultimately, of disgrace. He didn't think his spirit could take another repeat of that degrading experience, secretly biding his time until Winter had come, and the wolves saw fit to cut him free from his binds. The wolves did so with a smile, for they knew there was nowhere to run, except into the raging, endless blizzards that had descended on this unsheltered landscape, and into the arms of certain death.

Narydle told himself that as soon as rain, not ice, fell from the sky, he would escape their unjust enslavement.

But instead the disoriented coyote thrashed about as fat drops of icy rain pelted his face and muzzle, unsure if his limbs were bound in dream or reality. In this confusion he shredded his makeshift shelter, little more than a waterproofed, tattered hide held up with a few simple sticks. As the downpour funneled through a ragged hole in his pathetic shield against the unrelenting elements, the icy bite in his hindquarters continued to spread, and the yote fought to keep himself under what reminded of his makeshift shelter.

After a few moments, the chattering, freezing yote gave up the fight and tossed his hole ridden covering aside with a snarl. As he stood up, thick, frigid raindrops pelted him, his paws ran down his naked hips, not a shred of decency covering his nude, exposed form. The scrawny coyote stood in the dark tempest swirling around him, and his paws attempted to rub some warmth into his his soaked, dripping fur with little success.

His emerald eyes glinted with envious loathing to the center of the wolves' encampment, to all their dry, spacious tents and cozy fires lighting them from the inside. In them, most of the lupine pack slept soundly, some toiled about in some late night work, but all of them, every single one of them, were safe, cozy, and most important of all, dry. The coyote looked upwards to the nocturnal, starless sky for a few moments, tears of a thawing heaven pelting his face and muzzle, before he shambled closer to the warmth and safety of the encampment.

Into this midst of his captors.

Narydle didn't like to wander among those who had enslaved him, and the rebellious coyote made no attempt to hide it, preferring to sleep on the far edges of the settlement. Although the wolves had not bound him recently, the mark they had left on him could never be removed. As he shambled closer to the pair of wolves standing sentinel over the outskirts of their camp, Narydle's paw tips brushed over the brand they had burned into the flesh and fur of his right bicep; the rune of subjugation. No matter where he went now, others would see him just as the wolves saw him: a tool, an object, a non-entity.

The wolves on over watch didn't even acknowledge his approach, having gotten used to the smaller canid's tendency to come and go as he pleased. They knew he would be back eventually, and made no move to hinder the snappy coyote. In their eyes, he simply wasn't worth the trouble. The two taller, lean looking wolves didn't even blink as the nude coyote sundered between them, nor did Narydle attempt to hide his nakedness.

Narydle had lost his sense of shame many moons ago.

As he lumbered through the dark encampment, limbs stiff from the cold now, his ears perked, alert for the silence of an unoccupied shelter. While thick mud squished between his toe pads, he peeked inside a partially opened, darkened tent, only to see the dim outlines of three intertwined wolves. Their lupine chests gently rose and fell with each content breath, the looks about their muzzles secure and cozy.

He recognized the slumbering male with the perfect coat of gray with white and black trim as the hunting Beta, Greff. Sandwiched on either side by two female wolves, the huge, heavily muscled lupine slumbered deeply, his right hind leg twitching slightly in vivid dream. The three intertwined forms nuzzled each other in sleep, sharing contact and body heat, breeding a sense of pack closeness that Narydle had never understood.

The shivering, dripping yote closed the flap and moved on, arms huddled around himself for warmth. A simple raven skull and bead necklace bounced against his slender chest as he did so, although the necklace wasn't his. Nothing could be ever be; for it would be ludicrous for possessions to have possessions. It was simply another mark the wolves demanded he wear, not of shame, but of station.

Narydle passed by countless tents on his way through the chilly early Spring downpour, before commotion off to his left caught his attention. The coyote turned his head, seeing the snow white hunting Alpha Jonas push aside his tent flap with a large white paw and stare out through the curtain of rainfall to him.

The same white paws he had seen in his dream earlier.

For being a slaver, the white wolf showed little remorse, little regret for what he had done. Instead Jonas always seemed suspiciously warm to the feisty coyote. The Omega dared a glare deep into his hunt Alpha's pale blue eyes, knowing full well most wolves in the pack would see it as another insubordinate, disrespectful challenge.

Despite his ancestor's own pleas, the coyote refused to accept his station.

Instead, through the curtain of bitter rain, Jonas watched him for a long moment, and then his free paw motioned an offering for the yote to join him. Narydle spied the nude, sleeping form of the similarly colored Alpha hunts female, Anvas, in the deep shadows just behind Jonas. With a scowl, the coyote turned away and moved on. He knew he had just insulted his Alpha, but the contumacious Omega would have none of the white wolf's faux compassion, nor entertain his Alpha's shameful insinuation and lack of sexual inhibition.

All other private tents occupied, Narydle wandered alone in the relentless rain until he came across the only communal shelter; the one reserved for pups and yearlings. Inside, a small, yet bright fire flared inside the open sided tent, a few yearlings huddled together in fear of the occasion flash of lightning and ominous boom of thunder. The rest asleep, Narydle saw no harm in resting here for a while, and discreetly slipped inside.

After a few minutes the coyote, now safely concealed by wavering shadow, noticed one of the pack Elders had come in from the storm to check over and settle the nervous young ones. His fur color mimicked Narydle's own, but the red wolf shared none of the coyote's brashness, instead scampering in from out of the storm with a skittish look.

"Shhhh ..." the wet Elder whispered, running a slim paw over the perked ears of his charges. "It is but the Gods, shedding tears for us. There is no need to worry ..." The few restless yearlings settled down, all attention focused on the Storyteller Elder now.

"But ... but Elder!" one of the young barked quietly, "Why do they cry, and yet shake us awake with their fury?" The scraggly red lupine gave a gentle, yet sad shake of his slim skull.

"Because ... it is a long story, and it happened many, many moons before you all were borne."

Narydle's ears perked at that, but remained seated in flickering shadow, not wanting to draw attention to himself. A strange curiosity drifted over the coyote, for it was never explained to him why all the wolves in this pack seemed half starved, nor had he understood the absence of any pups. He listened in earnest, more in personal curiosity than a desire to hear an old wolf regurgitate pack lore.

"Tell us, Elder! Tell us!" a few of the yearlings chanted, their barks and whines falling into a chorus that threatened to awake the rest of their slumbering siblings. The Elder motioned his paws to quiet them, and then sat on a small boulder near the head of the fire, living shadows slipping about his deep set features and haunted muzzle.

"Very well. But listen carefully at what I am about to tell you, for I was once like you: restless, scared, and more often than not, gave a silent chuckle whenever a silly Elder tried to tell me something."

The reddish muzzle of the Elder curled in a coy, knowing smile as one or two of his charges grinned back at him, before banishing the lighthearted mood by narrowing his eyes. It almost seemed as if the shadows deepened in the open tent somewhat, setting the stage for the grim tale about to follow. Save for the spit and crackle of the fire, there was a moment of ominous silence before the wrinkled, aged wolf before them spoke again.

"Many, many moons ago, when I was young, our pack ... flourished ..." One or two of the yearlings cocked their head's, ears perked. They had been born into a nomadic lifestyle, in a starving tribe, and this tale seemed foreign to them. The Storyteller Elder continued regardless.

"Our tribe had lived in a beautiful valley, where prey was plentiful, where tall, sturdy grasses called trees sheltered us, where streams ran crystal clear with sparkling waters. My Elders, who now dwell among the stars and still whisper to us in dreams, had guided us well. We wanted for nothing. And perhaps that is why we lost paradise ..." The yearling's ears folded back, and the Storyteller Elder went on.

"The Elders, wise in their years, told us the natural ways, the laws kept and honored by all living things, not just our pack. But there was one wolf who harbored too much hubris in his heart, and decided to not just hunt prey, but to breed with them beforehand." The profane heresy stunned the yearlings, and yet their budding sexual curiosity forged an unbreakable silence, urging the storyteller onward.

"Inevitably, this wolf defamed our ways even more when his former prey, a Buck, took him as mate. Before our Elders could banish him from our ranks, a single wolf, Kryven the Black, stood up to this blasphemy, killing the betrayer to our ways. Even though the black wolf sacrificed his own life for the Gods' ways, the damage had already been done, and the Gods cursed us for our transgression."

A peal of angry thunder above them started the yearlings, who clung to each other.

"From that moment onward, this enormous Buck hunted us for our very flesh. And now, our pack must stay on the move, keep ever vigil, and that is why we must always keep Elder ways, to penalty of death ...."

The storm sent hard wind whipping through the open tent, which batted at the small fire, until it went out with a sputter. As darkness descended on the terrified yearlings, the last thing they saw before wetting themselves was the haunted, neurotic features of Urex's muzzle, now lit only by flaring embers.

"This is not a ghost story. This is not a nurse wolf's tale to scare disobedient pups. This is not a some ancient fable. I was there ... and the wolf of who we dare not speak ... was my Alpha ..."

Narydle rolled his eyes and snorted as a flash and crack of lightning lit the Elder's muzzle in strobes, before storming out of the tent in disgust. While darkness and wails of traumatized yearling wolves masked his disrespectful exit back into the tempest, the coyote could have cared less. The coyote had been around the wolves long enough to hear the dark tales surrounding the former Omega turned Elder, and he simply could lend no credence to a wolf who had gone insane after eating something that disagreed with him.

But at least Urex was good with the young. And he told a really vibrant story every now and again.

Narydle could take no more tonight of the wolves and their twisted sense of hierarchy, nor could he stomach their brainwashing drivel called pack lore. He surrendered to the storm instead, giving up his warmth, his sleep, and instead reclaimed what little pride he had left, heading back out from the encampment into the swirling, rain filled night ...

* * * * *

"I hear Jonas has been looking for you ..."

Narydle blinked up into the bright mid-day sun, the outline of a female wolf obscuring the harsh rays of light. A light breeze blew some of his facial fur about, and the coyote took his paws off his toil to push it back out of his eyes. The snow colored wolf knelt next to to the smaller canid, examining his work, and Narydle simply let Anvas take the scraps of hides he had been sowing together for the past several hours. The two sat alone in a sea of wavering, budding grasses, pools of mud and standing water dotting the otherwise unbroken plains landscape around them..

"Where did you get these?" the wolf asked in a soft, yet commanding tone. Her pale blue eyes flickered up to look at the silent yote as a shrill howl of wind blew a errant braid across her unflinching, stone like muzzle.

Narydle tucked his muzzle down against his chest, never making direct eye contact with the Alpha hunt female. He didn't want to confide in her that he had taken them from what the pack had thrown away over the last several weeks. The scraps were too stiff to make arraignments out of, and yet too thin for most other leather working purposes. Despite their undesirable nature, the coyote didn't want it to seem like he was stealing from the pack's refuse to make a personal, portable shelter.

As if he needed any more reason for the wolves to treat him like scat.

"Answer me."

Narydle closed his eyes, folding his ears back for the blow that must be certain to follow. He did his best to suppress a pathetic whine, but only yelped softly as Anvas shoved him on his back. The coyote peeked open his right eye just to see the highest ranking hunts female kneel over him, growling softly as she rubbed the sides of her neck and muzzle into his pinned, supine form. With the exception of few others, the coyote would have at least snapped at this display of dominance.

Instead, Narydle just laid there, and endured this subjugative treatment. Despite the close physical contact, and the unmistakable heat scent waifing off her, the scrawny coyote felt little emotion as the Alpha female continued to scent mark him, her soft endowment gliding up and down his slim, naked body. There simply was no need to resist her dominance. He really wasn't a hunter. He wasn't really in her pack.

He wasn't really a wolf either, but didn't seem to stop the pack from holding him to their strict social expectations regardless.

Despite all this, he felt a strange sense of relief when the taciturn wolfess unpinned him, standing up over top the coyote. Narydle scurried out from underneath her and stood, albeit a bit hunched, trying not to display a challenging posture. Anvas instead turned her attention back to the crude bit of portable shelter that the Omega had already cobbled together, her large lupine paws examining the unskilled stitch work.

"You are neither a hunter nor a crafter." She remarked with little empathy, running her large blue eyes over to him. "As such, you will remain here, and when I return, I really need to discuss something with you ..."

Anvas dropped the leather work at her hind feet and made her way back to the camp, the gentle, yet unrelenting prairie wind rustling the intricate beads braided into her long head fur. On the way to her and Jonas' private tent, a few of her Gamma's stopped her, re-coordinating plans for tonight's hunt, until she disappeared inside for a few moments. It didn't take long for her to re-emerge from within, a spare, one room tent draped around her toned shoulders.

When she arrived at the spot she had found the coyote, however, all she found were bits and pieces of his work strewn about, shredded in what looked like indignant rage. Her ears folded a bit, and she raised a paw to her brow to shield her eyes from the brilliant sun hanging overhead, looking for any sign of the coyote on the horizon. The white wolfess sighed lightly, an almost sad look falling across her strong features, before she turned back to the camp.

Anvas knew Narydle would be back, for the obstinate coyote needed them as much as they needed him..

Especially her brother Jonas.

* * * * *

"What he have 'ere mates?"

The next morning Narydle looked up, caught unawares, clutching a freshly snatched hare between his paws. He thought he would be safe solo-hunting far out near the Sandcrest dunes, a light wind whipping the small bunches of budding june grass budding up around him. He found himself sorely mistaken as a trio of gray lupines sundered toward him, their wicked smiles wide with starvation and chicanery.

"Its got something," the larger Gamma chortled in a deep, low alto, small bits of gritty sand clinging to spots on her fur, "and I don't think it wants to share ..." Narydle dropped the dead rabbit and stooped over it, baring his fangs at the three larger wolves on instinct.

"Ohhh the Gods blessed this one with some spit I see!" said the one on the right. One of his ears seemed smaller than the other, his fur mottled instead of trimmed. He nudged the last wolf on the other side of the female. "What you think would be better eats, the live one or the dead one?"

The last wolf gave a mad, henya like laugh, his chest hitching with the strain. It didn't seem like the brain-sick lupine was capable of spoken language, and Narydle darkly suspected it had to do with this pack's Elders and their bizarre mating decrees.

As the troublesome wolves fanned out to surround him, the fur on Narydle's back bristled, and he twisted about on all fours snapping, trying to keep them at bay. The trio seemed rather amused at his posturing, and took their time leaping in and nipping the Omega's hind leg and flanks when he wasn't facing them. The coyote refused to give his ground or his prize, the wet, unstable sand under his claws giving way each time he spun around to face the latest nip.

Their laughter was the worst, mocking, infuriating the already reckless yote. The coyote started shaking with rage, humiliation. It was bad enough that he wasn't one of them, always an outsider, looking in, but the way most wolves in this pack treated him was simply intolerable. He lunged at them, spittle flying from his fangs, his teeth gnashing nothing but empty air.

This went on for several minutes before the largest wolf plowed into him from the side, rolling the smaller, naked canid under her. Narydle gave a high pitched yip before the wolfess slammed him down hard on his back into the sand, the rest of her lackey's pinning down his limbs. She slammed her bawled fists into his ribs again and again, each time making the coyote yelp pathetically in return, hind legs struggling to send out a revelatory kick.

A hard punch to his exposed solar plexus stunned the scrappy yote, knocking the wind from him with a sputtering cough. The female wolf glanced down with a cruel glint in her otherwise dim amber eyes, her large paw jamming up under his chin to keep the snapping jaws under control. She turned his head this way and that, examining him, and yet seemed amused at the look of total murder burning in the restrained coyote's constricted pupils.

"Not so feisty now, huh Sod?" she cooed, her other paw sliding down his pinned body, which only illicited a hard thrash, trying to throw the wolf off. "Well ... mate, if you don't like me, maybe you'll like one of me fellow droog's ..."

She moved aside, still holding down his midsection and her firm grip on his throat, until the last wolf gave another cackle and shimmied up to straddle the struggling coyote. The wet grit underneath Narydle's body seemed to cradle his form as the wolf's weight pressed down; as if trying to coax him into relenting. One of the wolf's paws reached down and wrenched a pawful of the yote's head fur, bringing the whining canid's nose to press into the tented wolf's loincloth.

The heavy scent hanging between the wolf's thighs made Narydle's eyes water, and he tried to kick, but the other wolf, who he could not see, had pinned his scrawny legs hard into the sand. Giving out a few half choked barks of either insanity or desire, the gray wolf straddling him pushed aside his loincloth, pressing the tapered, dripping tip of his raging hard on right up against the yote's square, flaring nose.

The thick musk scent of the slick organ clogged Narydle's nostrils, and he gagged before the grunting wolf atop him yanked his head closer, the coyotes half opened muzzle slipping down over the hard length. Narydle's green eyes widened in surprise as the wolf's length drove deep into his muzzle, the tapered, oozing tip slipping down into the back of his throat. The hot, pulsing lupine girth choked him, and the earthy taste of the invading wolf seemed somehow worse than the musky, grotty scent filling his nostrils.

The wolf growled, a low, primal grunt, and his hips gyrated, driving his lupine length in and out of the stunned coyote's muzzle. Narydle stopped struggling, the sensation peculiar in a odd way. Despite the thick meat cutting off his air and the rough beating, something stirred in the hidden recesses of his personality. If the wolf had bathed sometime this year, and maybe if the female Delta might loosen her hold around his neck, he might ...

He tried to banish the thought, but a paw once holding his legs down gripped his sheath instead.

"Alexia, lookee 'ere!" the malformed mutt of a wolf yapped out, a firm paw stroking the sudden, rigid length spilling out of the coyote's protective sheath. Narydle's ear's folded as the Delta female looked around her muzzle fucking lackey with a grin. The coyote's pointed arousal could not be mistaken.

"Well then, plenny, looks like your going to enjoy this little bit 'o pol, aint'cha?"

Alexia straddled the subdued coyote's ears, before pulling down her own loincloth, exposing the gaping slit between her furry thighs. Narydle closed his eyes from the sensation of a wolven muzzle slipping down over his own exposed cock, his eyelids shielding him the lewd sight of the wolfess' domineering vulva. The lupine lips working their way up and down his engorging shaft sent him into sensual comatose, his throat constricting around the mad wolf's prick, unconsciously milking the invading organ.

Narydle would have gasped out at the sensation, but the wolven cock sliding in and out of his throat made it hard to. The look on his muzzle must had been enough for the wolfess, who growled out as she let loose with a stream of hot piss. Her urine splattered with a soft hiss between the coyote's ears and dribbled down back of his skull, before pooling in the damp sand underneath him.

"Hmmm ...." she murred out, closing her own eyes and then arching her spine in deep seated satisfaction, "I thinks its ours to play with from now on, boys."

Narydle's ears folded as the piss ran down his head, an incomprehensible shame flowering from deep inside. And yet, despite this humiliation, the Omega felt a strange sense of security from the female's extreme scent marking and her declaration. A deep throated growl behind her contested that statement of ownership, however, and her flagged tail suddenly drooped.

"I think you better reconsider that Alexia ..."

The wolven trio froze in their various acts of debauchery, and turned to Greff, who frowned at all of them. Entire sets of densely packed muscle twitched underneath his thick pelt, the wind rippling the stripped gray and black fur. To say that he looked displeased seemed an understatement.

One by one the wolven trio let go of their subdued prize, who sputtered and gasped for air when the speechless wolf pulled his immense girth out. With the three Delta's half cringing before him, Greff snatched up the dead hare hare and shook the sand out of its fur, before giving a hard leer to the Patchwork Gray before him.

"Someone care to explain to me what you three were doing?" the Beta inquired in low, half snarl. He looked down to the coyote, who seemed to have curled up away from him, hiding his silent tears of humiliation and arousal.

"It hunted without us!" the one with the malformed ear spat out, but folded his good ear when Greff glared back at him.

"And that gave you the right to do this?" Greff huffed, pointing to the curled up furry lump shaking in the clumped, torn up sand. He took a step toward the trio, which backed up in earnest.

"No harm 'ere millicent," Alexia replied with a deviant smile, "It was rather rather enjoying the 'ol in and out, I say, by the look of it's pan-handle ..." The low growl Greff returned sent her lackey's ears folding back, before they bravely took refuge behind her.

"Take this bit of meat and bring it to the pack cooks," the Beta said, moving up and shoving the dead hare into Alexia's paws, "Tell them to make a broth out of it, for the yearlings and the hunters, who need it more than everyone else."

The female Delta smiled up to the taller wolf, her grin wicked, yet obedient. She shot off with her two cronies, leaving the two canids alone atop the grassy dune, the shrill wind buffeting them. Greff knelt down and placed a paw gently on Narydle's sand encrusted shoulder, but the coyote whipped around and snapped at it.

"Easy there," Greff said, backing off, "I didn't mean to startle you." Black trails of tears streamed down the fur of the coyote's muzzle and he picked himself up shakily, paw covering his softening arousal in disgrace. While Greff didn't think the Patchwork Gray had done any permanent harm to the Omega, he didn't want to humiliate the yote more by forcing him into an examination. Instead, the hunts Beta looked away as the Omega shook the wet sand from his mussed coat.

"I came to tell you that Jonas wants you to meet him near Dry Gulch before sunset, alone. Tell no one in the pack of this." He let the statement hang in the air for a while, and when the coyote said nothing in return, Greff started to walk off.

Learn Your Place ...

Narydle's ears perked. Greff hadn't said that, had he? Was it a trick of the wind? He certainly wasn't dreaming. Instead the yote watched the ham fisted Beta stride off into the horizon, and wondered if his ancestors had become desperate enough to cross the realm of dreams and spirits, urging him to this clandestine rendezvous. The quiet yote loped off to the falling sun to the West, his mind and heart curious to know what was so important to the wolves, his ancestors, that he meet his Alpha, his enslaver ...

* * * * *

A while later Narydle looked up to the fiery sky to watch a murder of raven's circle overhead, echoes of their caws falling down to his perked canid ears. He looked about the rocky field of boulders leading the the gulch, and saw nothing that might attract their all seeing attention. It was common knowledge that ravens often were seen near recent kills or where the opportunity for carrion existed. Even the wolves, strangers to his unmarked territory, seemed to know this.

Where ravens led, food was to be found.

A bellow off to his left startled the unobservant coyote, who skittered off the boulder he sat on. Off in the distance, he spied a herd of Bison morphs wander around the ravine not far away, their collective presence ignoring Narydle for now. Strong adult bison had little to fear from a single coyote, and a lone coyote had little reason to spook their normally placid ranks. While this had been an uneasy coexistence, Narydle had grown up steering clear of the larger herd creatures, and vise versa.

A single Bison morph, sluggish with age or injury, limped behind the main herd, and that was more than likely what the raven's were circling for. Sooner than later, the creature would lay down, and not get up. Narydle impartially noted that this was the way of such things on the plains, and stretched out his lanky form before resuming his trek to the gulch.

As they falling rays of the sun cast an even lighter hue on his already red tinted pelt, Narydle wondered if he would ever be allowed to return to the ecosystem he had grown up in. Climbing down a washout, Narydle thought back to his previous way of life, before the wolves. Sure, there had been lean years, years where he found himself gaunt, forced to eat rotten carrion baking in the hot sun, but he had owed no responsibility, respect to anyone expect himself.

So why hadn't he left their ranks?

Narydle paused to think about that, wondering why he found himself listening to the Beta from a pack of wolves. He thought back to the memory of Greff, sleeping contently between two pack members, and found a longing that had been up to that point, foreign to him. The pungent scent mark of the Delta female still lingered in the air, bringing his errant, racing thoughts back to that feeling of humility and ownership.

He shook the feelings off like so much rain and chided himself for such a weak failing. And yet he moved on, driven by an unquantifiable desire to appease his ancestors, his Alpha.

Channeled by the ravine, the unmistakable scent of three prominent wolves drifted on the wind to him, and Narydle crept up behind a clump of boulders, listening to the three wolves on the other side. Jonas was here, no doubt, but he wondered why Avnas and Greff had joined him as well. Wasn't he expected to come alone? What was so secret that Greff wanted Narydle to tell no one, not even the Elders? Narydle listed intently to the sound of the three moving about, small rocks rolling about their shuffling hind feet. The lack of conversation between the three wolves bothered Narydle, who clamored up the rock halfway, braving a peek to their little meeting.

What he saw confused, shocked him.

Jonas seemed content, relaxing against a boulder, watching the other two wolves as they walked around each other. Anvas stared at her Beta as she circled around, Greff returning an equally intense look about him. Their glances locked, their ritual dance unobserved save for the remarkably impassive white wolf, Anvas eventually dropped to all fours, allowing Greff to circle around to sniff about her flagged tail.

Her heat scent saturated the air, known even to a inquisitive coyote nose.

The brawny male Beta nuzzled the wolfess' backside, and the hunts Alpha female responded by whining gently, her body growing rigid for the act to follow. Greff's mammoth paws undid Anvas' arraignments with surprising delicacy, letting them fall from her now naked fur to the rocky ground below her. Pulling down his loincloth, now heavy with the wetness of his arousal, Greff's paws clamped down on the wolfess' solid hips, moments before plunging his liberated sex deep into her wet, breeding folds.

Despite the lusty whine from his arranged mate, Jonas seemed unmoved, bored even as he watched his Beta breed with his twin sister.

A strange horror filled the spying yote, but as he continued to watch this rouge ceremony, he found himself unable to look away. He knew such coupling were the natural way of things; required to urge fresh life from the spirit world, but the way the heavily muscled lupine rocked, bucked into the strong female under him, just seemed ... odd.

He glanced back to Jonas, and then realized the look of impartiality, near boredom, on his Alpha muzzle mirrored his own. He found himself suddenly scared for reasons he could not bring himself to confront. He scrambled off the boulder, kicking some small rocks around its base with his hind feet in the process, and fled the exhibitionist scene before him. The three wolves looked up at the clatter, and then the two intertwined lovers looked over to a worried Jonas, who got up and followed the eavesdropper into the descending night.

Left alone, the Alpha female and Beta male continued their primal act in earnest, doing their part to ensure renewed strength in their pack, knowing in confidence that Jonas would likewise do his part ...

* * * * *

Stopping to rest underneath under the moonlight, Narydle stared out to the empty, flat horizon before him. The coyote couldn't face what he had seen back at the gulch, and he decided never to return to the wolven tribe and their bizarre, convoluted ways. Caught up in the sight of the great starry expanse above him and the ever present howl of the wind, the distracted yote never heard his follower lope up behind him.

Narydle barked out in surprise when he felt a white paw descend on his narrow right shoulder.

"Where are you going?" Jonas asked, breathing heavily.

Narydle took one look into his Alpha's blue eyes, glinting like sapphires in the light of the full moon bove, and fled.

Taken off guard, Jonas had to leap after him, and after a few minutes of pursuit, tackled the coyote to the ground in a small cloud of dust. Narydle didn't even yelp this time, and instead, surprised his Alpha by spinning the unprepared wolf down underneath him. Before the coyote could leap off and run away, Jonas grabbed a hind foot and wrestled the wiry coyote back down to his back, fighting to pin him. Narydle snapped back and fought with every ounce of strength the scrawny yote could muster, refusing to submit.

"You don't get it do you?!!!" the white wolf snarled, using his larger mass to keep the coyote from wringing out from underneath him, "I cant let you go! We need you!" The peculiar look in the white wolf's eyes confused the coyote long enough to allow Jonas an unbreakable pin. He continued on, sputtering in exhaustion.

"We are strangers here. We don't know how the prey herds move, how they act, where they will be from one day to the next. You do ... and only you can direct our hunting parties on where to go, when to attack ..." The look in Narydle's green eyes seemed unconvinced, until one of Jonas' paws gripped the raven skull necklace hanging around his neck. "You are our raven, coyote, and if you choose not to help us, our pack will die eventually of starvation ..."

Narydle gave a hard look back into his Alpha's eyes, before pointing to the mark burned into his right bicep.

"I ... had to ..." Jonas growled out with some marked hesitation, a sincere look of hurt about his features, "And think of the last time you went to sleep without even a small morsel in your stomach. Since we took you in, you haven't known hunger, not ravenous hunger. Yes, times are hard, but with your help, we can all eat again. You show us how to hunt the large herds, and we will share our kills with you ..."

For a moment, Narydle seemed to almost contemplate such an arrangement, till he tried to push the white wolf off him.

"No ... no ... no .." Jonas pleaded, trying to soothe the struggling coyote, "Stay with us. I'll even shelter you in my own tent ..."

The coyote froze for a moment, and then nipped at one of the beads in his head fur, the one his sister had braided for him. Jonas looked puzzled for a moment, then realized what the non-compliant coyote implied.

"It ... it's not like that ..." he trailed off, suddenly self conscious. "Anvas and I are descendants of the one the Elders refuse to speak of, but they also know his line bore the best hunters our pack ever had. They demand that we mate and bear more pups, pups who will no doubt bring more meat to our tribe. Please ... forgive them ... since the sin of my father, they have gone mad with fear. Their decrees are strange to many, but we must keep them, under penalty of death ..."

Narydle stopped squirming for a moment, listening to his Alpha's strange predicament. A gentle night breeze ruffled both their coats, an emerging ocean of Bluestem and Indian grass rippling like waves around them.

"I know what you saw back there must be confusing, but Greff, Anvas, and I have agreed on an arrangement; one that will benefit all. If the Elders knew that I do not seek her heat, any female's heat, then they will put me to death, but if I can bring them game in lieu of my seed, then all will be well. So you see, we need you ... I need you ..."

The suspicious yote didn't buy this neat, compact little story for one second. Deep down, the Omega suspected an ulterior motive, and he locked defiant emerald eyes with the shimmering sapphires above him, so his Alpha could not mistake his reply.

"Your mother mates out of season."

Jonas blinked, stunned from the brusque, retaliatory insult. Despite months of captivity, beatings for his insubordinate nature, this coyote still had not learned his place. The hunts Alpha had offered his captive a place among his pack, food, shelter, his very bed, and yet this was how his Omega repaid his attempts at kindness.

The spited Alpha snarled and bitch slapped the disrespectful Omega.

The coyote's head snapped hard to the right, and Narydle hadn't even heard his own hard yelp until the bright stars above him refocused. Before the yote could regain his bearings, Jonas slashed down across his face and muzzle, the raking claws slicing apart fur and flesh alike. Blood welled up from the three wide gashes, before spilling down the stunned coyote muzzle, blinding him.

The look in his Alpha's once empathetic eyes only dazed the Omega even further, a soft whimper falling from slack muzzle lips at the brutality of the attack. Jonah's eyes turned cold, oh so cold, as his large white paws encircled his scrawny neck, before choking the very life from him.

"You little bitch!!!" the Alpha growled out, his once brilliant eyes darkening with thick tears, "I was the one who hunted you, I was the one who subdued you, and I am the one who owns you. No one else!!!"

Narydle's eyes started to bulge from the pressure, a hard squeak erupting from his collapsing larynx. The more he struggled, hind feet drumming the hard packed earth under them, the more the paws around his throat tightened their steely grip. Dark crimson continued to pour down the coyote's muzzle, staining the once snowy paws black under the moonlight. For the yote, light and sound itself seemed to dim, the stars above twinkling out in a blur, the rush of wind softening to a mere whisper of its former self.

A few moments, an eternity, Narydle did not know. He only realized he had passed out when Jonas slammed his limp body chest first into the ground. The battered yote croaked in a gulp of air, his slack body protesting the same oxygen that now burned like fire in his lungs. A line of blood trickled from his nostril to seep into the dirt just under his broken nose, his flaring nostrils catching the sudden euphoric flood of scent around him.

Scat. Sometime during the throttling, his bowels had let go, but that did not explain the pungent scent of spilled seed blowing about on the restless prairie wind. Narydle only became aware of the source when the rigid member of his sex, still gushing his spunk, poked the ground underneath him.

He came while passing out.

Only dimly aware of a huffing, raging scent behind him, Narydle wasn't prepared for the sudden, harsh blows to his kidneys, and blood splattered from his muzzle when the coyote yarped out weakly. He knew if he lived past this, that he would be pissing blood for the next several nights. Somehow pride, sanctuary, seemed luxuries now, humility, survival taking sudden priority in the yote's dumb, oxygen starved brain. His body rocked with each blow heaped upon it, his hind legs twitching each time the white wolf's black fists smashed into him, leaving a dark smear in his already crimson tinted coat.

But his Alpha did not just stop at a savage beating, no.

He had to teach the Omega his place.

A paw suddenly closed around his tail base, and Narydle howled out when that same paw savagely twisted, snapping the bones inside with a soft pop. The pain almost sent Narydle back into that limp abyss, his sense swooning around him. When Jonas jerked up on the limp tail, the agony instead made the coyote's hind legs scramble for purchase. His hindquarters raised; anything to ease the torrent of anguish in his tail.

Jonas' other paw clamped down upon the rent flesh on his muzzle, before slipping back out of view. His Alpha answered the question in Narydle sluggish mind when he placed the blood slicked, tapered tip of sex up against the yote's puckered, virgin hole. Between the blood and recently expelled waste, his lupine cock tip slipped in with little effort. The sudden invasion made Narydle's green eyes shoot open, ragged agony flaring in his tight entrance as Jonas' sizable lupine girth ripped him open.

The howl of a broken yote drifted across the empty, nocturnal plains.

And yet after the initial wave of vertigo, pain, the slick length filling his hot guts sent a electric buzz of pleasure coursing through the rigid yote. Narydle lay chest first into the blood soaked dirt, panting in exhaustion and shock, and yet marveled at the jumble of sensation, thoughts rampaging through his body and mind. His insides molded around the penetrating organ and tightened in reflex when Jonas' hips came to rest against Narydle's backside.

The hot and hard length balls deep inside him only made Narydle whine out, shock stealing the worst of the pain from him, but none of the pleasure. When the pulsing dick slid out slightly and then pushed back in, dragging Jonas' swelling cock base over his untouched prostate, the coyote barked out, claws digging into the hard packed dirt under him. The Alpha wolf, too caught up in repressed, feral desire, worked up a feverish rhythm, breeding his Omega coyote with reckless need.

Each time the wolf bucked into his ass, his tapered girth mashing up against the coyote's hardening lump of prostate, a gout of pre shot from the hard length swinging from between Narydle's spread hind legs. The wolf behind him huffed, grunted with each deep thrust as the uncommon itch starting to work its way from deep within. His furry sacs starting to churn in anticipation, drawing up closer to his body as the sensations coursing through his flesh started to peak at the point of no return.

Jonas whined, his ears laid back against his skull from the coyote's unspoiled tightness. His paws gripped the smaller canid's hips, using them to pull the yote's entire body back onto his throbbing length again and again. Narydle's body bucked in tempo to the wolf's rhythm, first in response to the jar each time his tail base got yanked to and fro, but now to meet each deep seated thrust into his core.

Their mutual pants, grunts of pleasure drifted along the whistling wind, the only other sound for leagues.

For a strange moment, Narydle's thoughts wandered to what he had witness only a short time ago at Dry Gulch. He closed his eyes and remembered the look on Anvas' features as Greff took her from behind. Despite the obvious physical differences between himself and the Alpha hunts female, he could not help but finally appreciate the myriad of sensation racing through his flesh; the rhythmic pace of the throbbing organ deep inside him, rubbing him on the inside in places he never knew existed. It was almost too much for the coyote to take.

Learn Your Place ...

Narydle, caught on the cusp of his second climax, looked up to the great expanse of dark heaven above when Jonas pulled back on his scruff with his strong jaws. The coyote opened his mind to what his twinkling ancestors above whispered to him, opened his heart to what his Alpha had said to him.

He really was better off among their tribe, and they likewise would accept him among their ranks if he just gave them their due. He really was apart of their hunts pack, maybe not a hunter, but a scout regardless. He suddenly realized why a female's heat scent never stirred a more primal nature in him, and why the white wolf really chose to make him his own.

The Omega Learned His Place, and that Place was Underneath His Alpha.

Caught up in primitive ecstasy, literally pounded into submission, the once feisty yote gave a final sharp bark has his insides tightened, prostate spasming, as his stone hard yote pole spurted once more into the prairie beneath. When his Omega's tight heat clenched around his pistoning length, it took all of the Alpha's volition for him to pull out before he could tie with the coyote. Jonas' paws, stained ebony from the bright glow of the Goddess above, pinned the rigid yote with little more than a soft yip of protest.

Seconds later thick ropes of lupine jism coated the coyote's dark backside, pools of white spunk glistening in the silver rays of the moon. This ultimate form of scent marking sent a deep seated chill of satisfaction and intimacy coursing through the canid pair, and Jonas leaned down to whisper into the cum coated ear of his charge.

"Well, Omega, where is your place?" the white and black wolf inquired.

"Here, Alpha, with you ..." the black and white coyote replied.

Narydle lifted his bloody muzzle to lick the underside of the wolf's chin, and Jonas nuzzled the coyotes' sticky ears. Together they watched a falling star streak across the speckled night sky, herald to a new beginning for both of them ...

And their pack ...

* * * * *

Narydle sniffed at the strong scent of Bison that carried on the wind. The coyote used the new ropes of toned muscles in his arms to drag his weight up over a short ridge of rocky outcropping, braving a quick visual recognizance of the herd milling about the plains below. He ducked back down after confirming that he was downwind, and that most of the herd had collected around a small pool to sate their thirst.

The coyote dropped back down behind cover and looked up to the bright blue sky to the circle of ravens above. His paw grasped the raven's skull on his chest, which now had filled out with hard definition, and watched the murder for a few moments, a look of tactical contemplation over his muzzle. Aside from three streaks of pale scar tissue crossing his face under the fur and his kinked tail, the once scrawny coyote now almost looked like a healthy wolf.

Narydle looked behind him, nodding, and made a sweeping wave past him to the herd below. Moments later, wolves leapt past him up and over the outcropping, led by Anvas, her belly tight now with new life. While the Elder's suspicions wouldn't be confirmed until the pups were borne several months from now, at least the news boosted pack spirits, and coupled with the now bountiful supply of available prey, had ushered in a new golden age for their clan.

Behind her, Greff directed the rest of the Gammas, even the Patchwork Gray, as they charged down the hill to their quarry, which still milled about without notice. The ambush had been well planned, brilliantly executed, and there would be a good chance at least one of the Bison below wouldn't escape to safety. Watching from atop the ridge to the well crafted chaos below, Narydle smiled as a pair of white paws descended upon his hard shoulders.

When the coyote felt his Alpha's strong arm wrap around his midsection, moving him into position, Narydle instinctively bent forward and raised his tail. A few moments later Jonas entered him, the two canids diving into their voyeuristic rut to the hunt below with sharp barks of primitive abandon.

Unknown to them, the Elder Urex watched the two from afar, fond memories of another such pairing between a red and white wolf drifting back to him from the prime of his youth. The aged, red wolf thought of his banished white Alpha, eyes brimming with hard tears.

"Athos, I swear ..."

The former Omega turned and left, leaving the two pack members to revel in their brief time together. The undying wind snatched up their short lived howls of of climax and companionship, to carry over the unending prairie, forever ...

~ Fin ~

Always, Credit were Credit is Due. Many nuzzles to Gazban, who wrote 'Respecting the Alpha', and for creating the inspiration for an anti-thesis. Many muzzle licks to Lykos Bane, who taught me me the meaning of respect. Many gropes to Riff, who put up with 'dirty yote paws' throughout the night. Next time, I promise not to leave bruises. Finally, congratulations to Whyte Yote for his recent induction into the Yiffstar Artist's Spotlight.