crest of another, even higher, mountain. He ran instinctively, cutting through the underbrush and darting between the trees with nothing to guide him but his nose. She was panting, but the harder they ran the more she felt the pure mountain air running through her veins.
They ran for miles, cutting off other animals, sending flocks of birds flying out of trees in a solid mass, terrified for their lives. But Rannulf wasn’t there to hunt tonight. Tonight he already had his trophy, and he was taking her home. They ran through streams, over creeks and up and down the craggy face of the mountainous terrain.
He wanted to be sure about this one, to make certain that she was fit to be his companion. He had mated before, with humans and werewolves alike, but they all disappointed him in the end. They all grew tired and sore when he was only just rare and still ready to go. They all lacked the energy and enthusiasm he had for the climb, for the mountains, for the pleasures of the flesh. This one, he could tell, was different. Since he sensed her presence in his territory the night before, he could feel something in her that was closer to anything wild he had ever seen in a female creature. And she was passing all his tests with flying colors.
When they got to the edge of a river valley, she saw a wide-mouthed cave just beyond them. It was guarded by two other werewolves, they seemed slightly smaller than Rannulf. She hesitated near the entrance, waiting to be questioned by these warriors, but they simply looked her up and down and nodded at Rannulf, motioning with a nod of their snouts for her to follow him deeper into the cave.
Inside, it was nearly pitch black. She held onto Rannulf’s thick coat as they walked into the cavernous wolf den. There was no light at the end of this tunnel, but Rachel wasn’t scared. Though she was walking into unfamiliar territory, she was the opposite of scared; she felt like she was home.
She heard sounds, familiar and unfamiliar, reverberating echoes bounced off the walls. There were sounds like water flowing, the clapping of hands, the clopping of paws. Her eyes began to adjust to the darkness slowly and she began to sense motion ahead of her, but she couldn’t quite distinguish any individual shapes. Then, she heard a familiar sound. It was a human voice. And not just any human voice.
It was the same sound she had heard the night before, what seemed like years ago, back in the cabin. She heard the sound of Emily’s voice, the soft crying puppy sound she had made in her bed, but this one was louder, fuller. More at home. The closer they walked to the noise, the more she could distinguish all the sounds. She heard Katie’s muffled intensity and finally Michele’s song, metered with the grunts and growls of three other werewolves.
Of course there were more of them! And of course her friends had been close behind her this whole time. She had underestimated their prowess just as Rannulf had doubted her. Now, they were all there together, finally, where they belonged. The echoing sounds of the others having sex reverberated into Rachel’s body as Rannulf nudged her towards his corner of the cave. They were all in for a long, hard night.
This time there were no ropes, nothing holding either of them in place, nothing between them but their own flesh and hair, nothing below them but the cold grey rock, with the smooth welcoming texture Rachel felt with every pore of her bare skin. She got down on all fours, putting her hands and knees sturdily into the ground, and turning her head to look at Rannulf, his grey coat still glowing in the darkness. She beckoned him over, and waited for him to mount her from behind. This time, she would make the moon come to them.
A few months later, there was a new generation of young wolf children running around the cave. Emily and Katie and Michele and Rachel had all given birth in the same week. One after another the werewolf pups came into the world. They were a family now, or something even better than a family, a pack. They would live here in the true wilderness as they had always been intended to, as they had trained for and wished for. They would raise their wolves together, with the males close by, and teach them all the ways of the forest and the things they had learned not to do in their other worlds. They wore the skin of lesser animals, covering their milk-filled breasts with pelts that made them more familiar to their young. Even as they were sitting there, talking and watching their offspring play in the forest clearing beyond their cave, they were all once again bearing fruit.
Every now and then, the women thought of their old lives. They thought of their cars and the men they dated and the computers and the jobs they had. Rachel thought about her old apartment and her other friends back in the city. But just as she began to feel some form of homesickness, she remembered that first time with Rannulf in the forest. The moon he created almost out of thin air, how the moonlight bowed as if to worship him. The way the trees bent to the will of her mate, and how many times he had made her truly howl, and brought out the beast inside her. There was nothing like that where she came from. Nothing like that anywhere else, with anyone else on earth.
“Do you want to hear a story,” Rachel said to her friends, her sisters. “A story I’ve never told anyone. Not even my old therapist. Not even Rannulf.”
The other women nodded. “Yes!” They said. “Yes we do!”
So she began.
“Once, when I was a very young child, my family and I rented a summer house up in these mountains. My parents were always busy, having sex with each other and making elaborate meals for the adults, but more than that, they wanted us to experience the wonders of the natural world for ourselves. They sent my siblings and I out into the forest every day with only a canteen of water and a book with a list of edible berries.
“I was young, and curious, only just learning about my body, learning about my own sex and my own truths just as I was learning about the truths of nature. Which plants would harm me, which animals would let me chase them. I was fearless and I wanted to be born right in nature, so every day as soon as I was outside I shed my clothes and went exploring in my own natural fur.
For days, I saw nothing. I sat on logs and touched myself, the smell of moss and moist wood making me feel like the only thing I could do was go right inside myself for adventure. One day, I came across the most gorgeous creature. It was a young wolf. His fur was as mute and soft as the softest gray winter evening. His bright blue eyes pierced something in me that had never been reached before, and never were again until a few months ago when we first climbed this mountain. I sat down slowly, so as not to scare the wolf.
I wanted to keep looking at him, for him to look at me, as long as we could. Instinctively, I began to touch myself. The wolf kept his eyes on me, and then, for the first time, I brought myself to orgasm. I kept my eyes fixed on the wolf, and where I should have been scared, terrified, running for my life, I went to town on my own flesh until I exploded with a rush of ejaculating fluid that ran right back into the creek below. When I finally opened my eyes, the wolf was nowhere to be found.
“I’d been looking for that feeling ever since,” she said. She looked up at her friends, their faces soft, attentive but transfixed in the space just behind her. Just as Rachel was about to turn around, she felt Rannulf’s massive paw rest gently on her shoulder.
