The Raider 2

The night-time city constricted and relaxed around Emil. Squamous tan bricks flowed like scales on a fish past his peripheral vision. He held onto his guide's hand by instinct, forehead burning with feverish sweat underneath his cloak. Where was he going? What was he doing out in the streets? Was this all a dream? The smell of burning lamp oil cut shallowly through the haze in his mind.

He called to the girl walking in front of him, dragging him by the hand. The voice that came out of him was weak and confused.

"Nalah?"

The cat-girl glanced back and grinned, her eyes reflecting red-gold in the low light. They stopped momentarily after they crossed a quiet street, tucking into the darkness of an alleyway. The wall of the tavern Emil leaned on was still warm to the touch. It was the dry season in Sceyp Apesh, jewel of the floodplains.

Nalah patted Emil's head. "Is there finally someone in there?" He felt so hot he almost collapsed from the light taps. She was taller than normal. "Don't be scared. I'm taking you to a couple of friends of mine. You're… in trouble."

She was doing what? Emil had only known the beast-girl for a month. She seemed friendly, but was her companionship merely a ruse to drug him and kidnap him in his sleep? Nalah grabbed him by the hand and pulled him along, down the alleyway. It smelled of effluvium and roasted impala. Buckets of urine were arranged neatly along the wall, waiting for the tanner's apprentices to pick them up in the morning.

A growl halted the pair in their tracks. Stalking out from the darkness, a stray dog with a patchy brown coat stood in their way. Nalah put an arm out against Emil.

"Get lost, you mangy pile of skin and bones!"

Nalah hissed, but the dog continued to approach with its body low, face tight in a snarl. Emil's legs felt weak. The fire between his temples caught a draft and exploded, sucking the oxygen out of his lungs. If he turned and ran now, it would catch him. It would wrap its jaws around his leg and shake until it dislocated the joint. Then all its hungry friends would arrive, and… good gods…

The mind fog returned and the alleyway bubbled around him like it was a piece at the glassblower's workshop.

"I said, get lost!"

Nalah kicked out with the sole of her sandal, smacking the stray on its snout. More bark than bite, it whimpered in pain and turned tail out of the alleyway. The cat-girl turned to check on her ward.

The wolf-girl was frozen in place, eyes glassy.

"I needed to make sure he didn't get friendly with you. Knowing your state, you'd be amenable to just about any male that crossed your path."

Emilia didn't respond. Her eyes were unfocused, mouth slightly agape as she took in short breaths. Nalah grabbed her by her hunched shoulders and hurried her along in front, into the next main street.

They impacted headfirst with a guardsman as he passed by the alley. The swarthy man dropped his spear's butt to the dirt and gestured.

"Watch where you're going!"

Nalah yanked Emilia back and imposed herself between the girl and the bearded watchman. The lacquered lamellae on his jacket shined from the rows of lamps lining the thoroughfare. He seemed ready to dismiss the pair before seeing they were both beastkin. It was best not to trust beastkin at night. They were either working girls, or up to no good.

The lioness tilted her ears to the rear and tried her best to appear unworthy of such scrutiny. "Forgive us, gentle-sir. My friend and I were headed toward the quay. She's sick and in need of medicine mixed for our people."

For her part, Emilia held her cloak tighter around herself and shivered. Unlike Nalah, she wasn't acting. It was stifling inside her mantle. Her nostrils were stuffed with rough scents, skin scorched. She needed to air it all out or she would faint. Right as the patrolman began to turn, Emilia tore at the linen swathing her and whipped the cloak open with both arms held wide.

Nalah cried out. "No!"

Lunging in front of her friend and spreading her own arms was not sufficient to prevent the man from seeing what Emilia was offering. The wolf-girl's completely bare skin glowed faintly orange from dim street lamps. Trails of sweat dripped down her cinnamon belly.

"I should've known you were a couple of beastkin whores," he said, reaching for Emilia. "You think you can play around with me, you shameless little vixen?"

She should've dressed her before taking her outside! Nalah yanked her friend's damp wrist and took off, glad Emilia's faculties were present enough to make her run when prompted to. The patrolman followed after them, but a human's eyesight, even adjusted, was never as quick to see in the dark as a cat's.

They passed through three pitch-black alleyways, dodging more piss buckets, ducking under jutting window sills and jumping over two poor excuses for guard dogs, who only rose once they caught Emilia's over-welcoming scent. Upon exiting the fourth alley, instead of another avenue lined with further orthogonal escape paths, they were met by a limestone wall. Thick green shrubbery lined its base like a fur trim. It was the corbelled perimeter of a noble's inner-city villa. They could try running in either direction, but the guardsman would catch sight of them before they could round the corner of the massive complex.

Nalah shoved Emilia face-first into the shrubbery. She crawled in after her, shushing a cat whom they'd awoken. The piebald feline slowly lowered its arched spine and ceased its hissing as it realized Emilia was next to harmless-- easily one tier lower than harmless. The blood moon barely filtering through the thick bush's leaves cast flecks of muddy red on the three beasts sheltering underneath.

Nalah covered her friend's mouth as the guardsman stomped by, lamellar shuffling with each footfall. When the thump of his heavy heels disappeared from her ears, she whispered.

"I can't leave you alone for a second, can I? Get a hold of yourself. You give a man like that a taste and they expect the entire meal, trust me."

The wolf-girl sank in her cloak, knees against her chest. Like dye dripped into a barrel, her pupils wobbled. She spoke near silently.

"Nalah… what are we doing here?"

"It's simple. Bringing you to the right pair of boys so you can get laid."

"...But I'm a man."

Emilia's lips were chapped. A bead of sweat dripped down her nape. The cat-girl gave her a pitying frown.

"I'm a man…"

She stared at her legs and lifted her cloak slightly before dropping it in defeat. Emilia's pupils finally focused into despairing, sorry dots on her golden irises. The beginnings of a moan rumbled in her throat and she dropped her head back. Nalah covered her mouth again.

"Shut up! I don't know how long this has been a thing for you… I'm assuming you weren't born like this. But I know for sure where we're going, you'll be glad you're a beastkin, at least for tonight..."

She poked out of the top of the bushes and scouted the avenue. The coast was clear.

"...because cat-boys can't mate, but they can definitely fuck."

-----

The pair strode with a purpose on the boulevard, past the open windows of adobe eateries steaming with their last batch of fried or baked goods before shuttering for the night. It was enough to overpower the dead-fish smell of the quay, and enough to break through the heat on Emilia's brow as her stomach growled and reality set in. She squeezed Nalah's hand and spoke pointedly, but not so loud to be heard by the night-time workers as they passed by. In this brief respite of lucidity, Emilia denied her lewdity.

"We need to return to the inn and figure out why I changed into a beast-person again. I'm not going to have sex with a man just because my body wants me to. You should lock me in my room… or take me out to the countryside."

"So you can spread your legs for a wild dog?"

Emilia winced and looked away. Nalah understood rather belatedly what her companion suffered, confined in the beast goddess's temple.

"I'm sorry. A normal beastkin would be able to handle themselves when they're in heat, but this hot spell of yours is far from normal. All I'm asking is for you to meet them. If you feel comfortable, then maybe they can take care of you. I'm vouching for them."

But she was a man! Emilia knew she wasn't attracted in the slightest to other guys. Even if they were okay to share a tankard of ale with, it wouldn't magically make her feel okay to have sex with them, even if it was supposed to 'help' her. What if she got in-heat again? Would she simply have to keep fucking men to make it go away!? Degenerate!

"They're yasiyo," Nalah continued, misconstruing her trepidation. "Non-breeding males. They can't get girls pregnant, because they don't have their own Pride. It's like a hormonal response or something."

She stopped at the open doorway to a white washed, multi-floor building. The bass of working men's voices and thumps of cups on wood spilled out into the street. Nodding at Emilia, they entered the tavern-like room and took an immediate right, heading to the second floor of the insula. The two beastkin girls made it up the stairway, unharassed but not unoogled by the masses of men huddled together at their tables playing petty games of chance and sharing post-shift drinks. At this hour, the two appeared to be a pair of nightwalkers making a room-call. It was best not to interrupt girls when they were working, lest one of Momma Fadiwan's thugs came by wondering why you were disturbing such industrious young ladies.

They crested the top of the stairs and Nalah addressed her ward. "If you've ever heard rumors about barbed cat penis, then don't worry, because…"

Her voice trailed off. Emilia was bundled tightly in her gray mantle again, mind lost in the morass of male-scent they momentarily passed through.

"Hang in there. I gotta' remember which door is theirs."

She kept her fingers firmly around her wolf-friend's wrists lest she try to escape and bed a sailor downstairs. Bed?--wrong word. More likely she'd flick her bushy tail up and bend over his table. Good Graces, she'd never seen a beastkin react so poorly to her estrus cycle. Although, Nalah supposed if she was poofed into the opposite sex one day with no warning, she'd be handling it equally as poorly.

They turned the corner twice and came to an abrupt halt at the fourth door to the right, Emilia bumping into Nalah's shoulders. The cat-girl rapped lightly on the oak door, whisper-yelling at the drafty crack on its right side.

"Yacush! Gerut! It's Nalah."

Confused utterances and the shuffling of bedsheets could be heard past the door.

"Yacush! Gerut!"

A pair of feet hit the floor and padded around the room lightly, dresser drawers shifting open and closed.

"Yacu--"

"We heard," a younger man's voice hissed from behind the door.

"You'd better not have another girl in there."

The door swung slightly inward and the cat-boy's face hovered past the crack. "If you think we'd want to deal with more than one of you…"

His eyes reflected amber in the dark, growing wider when he saw Emilia breathing heavily, tucked behind his aggravator. The door creaked shut momentarily and then opened all the way, the beastkin male leaning an elbow on the doorframe.

He was taller than Emilia had expected for a cat-'boy'. His disheveled hair was orangish and the white marks under his eyes contrasted with his tan skin. He'd dressed in haste to answer the door and was shirtless; unclothed save for loose off-white pants which were beginning to droop on his hips, his abs and pelvic muscles pointing directly towards--

--you said you didn't like men, Emilia! Get a hold of yourself!

"Who's your friend?" he asked, narrowing his eyes and tilting his chin up. It was the sort of thing Emil did when he was trying to act cool in front of a woman, except, maybe the act worked and it was kind of cool.

"She needs your guys' help, Yacush," Nalah replied, ignoring the question and pushing Emilia past the lion-man into the room. He chuckled and closed the creaky door behind them.

The narrow room wasn't much to write home about: A dresser lined the left wall, knick-knacks and clothing cluttering its top. In the left corner, a small table stood with a single knobby chair in front. The carafe placed at its center dripped condensation and stained the wood black. In the middle of the far wall, the open window let in brown-red moonlight and the occasional circulatory breeze. To the right, a double bed was hugging the wall. The other cat-boy, Gerut, sat up against the wood backboard, linen sheets falling to his bare waist.

"You two weren't sleeping naked together, were you?" Nalah asked, pushing Emilia down onto the end of the bed next to the footboard. The wolf-girl grabbed at the rough-cut, bulbous wood knob protruding upwards from its corner for support.

Gerut answered, baited hook-line-and-sinker. "It's a hot night… and so what if we were? We are like brothers." Yacush put a hand to his forehead and kept the other one at his hip.

The standing man repeated, "Who's your friend, Nalah? We don't exist for you to drop your problems on our laps."

"Emil," the wolf-girl whispered, more cough than a word. Her stomach was fluttering hard. This whole room was like drugs to her confused system, its boy-scent bringing about a recrudescence of the animal emotions from her time in the beast goddess Innanasha's temple.

The cat-mens' rounded ears perked up, and both leaned in. "What was that?"

She needed to keep communicating. Speech was human. Speech was what separated her from the dogs.

"My name is Emilia," she eked out, pulling her cloak tighter as the attention burned her skin.

"She's in heat," Nalah explained, dropping her own cloak over the back of the chair. She was wearing a baggy hemp nightshirt underneath. "I've never seen anyone so bad."

"I figured." Yacush yawned, stretching. The tuft on his tail shivered as the appendage held itself erect. "I could smell it through the doorway."

How embarrassing! Even if she could hide it from humans, lowly beastfolk would be able to tell she was a hollow fraud of a woman in control. Emilia wanted to curl up into a hole and die. This reaction was transmuted in the witches' pot of her hormones and bubbled up as a new feeling: she wanted to break down and be comforted. Cognitively, her realization as a man of how pathetic such a wish was made her even more distraught.

She slammed a fist into the knob on the footboard. "I'm not here to have sex," she barked. "I swear it, I don't like men." The wolf-girl's eyes drilled a hole into the floor at their feet, unable to say it to their faces.

Nalah crossed her arms. "Really? I dragged you all the way across the city and you're still acting picky?"

"Now, Nalah…" hushed Yacush, placing a hand on the cat-girl's shoulder before kneeling in front of his new visitor. "Look, girl, I see you're probably pretty scared of how you're feeling right now, but if Nalah thought it was necessary to bring you here and introduce us to you--"

"--and she is very protective of her boys," Gerut butted in.

"Then, she did it for a good reason," Yacush continued. "Do you want a cup of water?"

Emilia nodded, if only to get the male further away from her. He walked to the corner table and poured a drink for her and one other person. There were only two small, clay cups next to the matching jug. They were evidence of the fact that, minus visits from Nalah, a woman's touch hardly graced the inside of the insula room.

"I promise I don't bite…" joked Gerut, flashing a fang.

The cat-girl snorted and chucked a discarded pair of pants off the dresser at him. She was a witness to his lies. Yacush placed a cup of water in Emilia's hands and offered the other to Nalah.

"Well, you're here…" he noted, leaning against the dresser as the lioness did. "I won't put a claw on you if you don't want it, but Nalah probably isn't going to let you leave."

Gerut rested both hands behind his head. His tail snaked out of the sheets and whipped on the headboard. "You don't have to have sex-sex with us. We've got fingers we can use. We can make your body think it was fucked."

He was missing the point. If a finger was enough, she could take care of it herself. It probably didn't feel much different than someone else doing the deed for you…

"And if you're freaking out about barbed dick," Nalah finished, "yasiyo don't got 'em. The spines only develop if they take over a Pride."

"When they take over a Pride," responded Gerut. "So you don't have to worry about scratches"--he paused and opened his mouth, showing off his tongue--"unless you expect us to groom you."

Emilia ceased fidgeting with her tail at the mention of grooming. Her feral days in the temple's wolf pack flashed into her mind. It was no less than a month ago, but it felt so distant. Going mindless like that again? The thought made her cringe.

"No? The offer stands, if you want to try it out."

"I won't," assured Emilia, hugging the bedpost.

Nalah huffed and tugged at the drawstring on her nightgown's collar. "If you're not going to use them, I will." She pulled the garment over her head and dropped it next to her cup on the dresser.

"Use?" complained Yacush. "Is that all we are to you?"

The lioness stuck her barbed tongue out and stood on her toes, pressing her nose to his when he hunched to meet her. Their tongues met and mingled shortly after. The room hushed, save for a pair of purrs beginning to rumble from their bare chests, one deeper and slower, another faster paced and higher pitched. Yacush slid a hand around her waist to her lower back. Her tail twirled up his arm.

The wolf-girl wouldn't last like this. Her own heart beat fast in her chest, sweat sticking the cloak to her skin. She couldn't look away as one of Nalah's hands on the cat-boy's chest fell lower… and lower… and lower, across his belly and brushing at his waistband. The kiss ended, and the girl rubbed her cheek on his neck before biting on it gently. Her fingers slipped into his pants and gripped the bulge Emilia had been watching grow along his right pant leg.

Yacush let out the breath he'd been holding. A clear liquid leaked out and stained the fabric at his tip darker.

Why was she watching this?!

Emilia looked to the right and made awkward eye contact with Gerut, who blushed and bit his anxious lip with an elongated canine. He stared at the wall, fooling no one with what side of the room he thought was more interesting.

Nalah took both hands to Yacush's waist and dropped his pants. The lion-man's rod flicked upwards, pulsing. One hand caressed the base and another wrapped around the tip, rubbing it on her stomach as their tongue tips touched in the air between them.

Pants escaped from the wolf-girl's lips. Her chest tightened as she watched the cat-girl tease the boy's turgid equipment all over her smooth tummy. Yeah, she didn't want to fuck men… but she could watch this, right? And get off to it? Underneath her cloak, her right hand slid between her thighs, fingers probing carefully at her underexplored tomb. Its entrance was flooded.

Emilia yipped when her finger pressed the jewel crowning the gate.

"Oh no," the lioness purred playfully, glancing side-eyed at the girl on the bed. "Nalah might take all these men for herself tonight. When the little puppy feels she's ready, she'll have to sit and beg for her treat…"

It wasn't like that at all! Emilia slipped her finger into her slit gingerly, pulling it out along with a line of grool when the sensation became too strong. She didn't need a mate to feel good! In fact, having a mate wasn't fun at all. She'd laid with the alpha wolf unwillingly, and any reaction her body made to it was purely physical and said nothing about the contents of her character or her sexuality. She knew deep inside her soul she was a man.

But her crotch was so hot it itched on the inside, and her finger couldn't reach up far enough.

Yacush lifted Nalah's leg and placed her foot on the chair. She smiled pityingly at Emilia.

"Why don't we show the doggie what she's missing out on?"

The doggie in question tried adding a second finger to her sex as Yacush pierced Nalah. She watched the way his fingers dug shallowly into the cat-girl's muscles as he held her thigh. Emilia couldn't breathe. She needed someone to hold her as he held her.

To feel her skin squish under his touch.

To know he had her on a leash, but would take care of her because of that.

The beastkin groins met and they started to thrust their hips in tandem, Nalah chirping in delight. Emilia collapsed against the bedpost and stared at the low ceiling, sucking in raggedly as the orgasm she was edging toward crept away from the tips of her two fingers and into the depths. Damn the goddess! She couldn't take this. She would die.

Emilia looked at Gerut. He stopped watching the show and stared at her attentively.

"Only your fingers," she ordered, letting go of the bed's end and fighting with her cloak's fibula.

He slipped his hands out from behind his head and held them up. "Only my fingers."

They would do. They were longer than hers, and thicker, and perhaps he'd learned some things from Nalah which Emilia didn't know herself. When she was a man, the tomb raider had laid with women after big jobs, but she'd never bothered to touch them in that spot. After having spent some time getting intimately knotted by a creature who couldn't care less whether she enjoyed it or not, she was rather incensed at the flippancy of her past self.

Her cloak dropped onto the sheets around her. Both of Gerut's eyebrows raised at the unveiling of her bare body.

"Only your fingers," she repeated.

***

Emilia crawled on all fours toward her prey, tail sweeping from one thigh to the other. Gerut smiled at her and laid his arms over his head. He smelled like the violet soap sold at the bathhouses, mixed with the freshness you barely noticed right after you finished drying off. There was the slightest hint of something earthy and warm.

The wolf-girl closed her eyes and sniffed, nose wrinkling. What was that smell? It made her toes clench. She tucked some gray-brown locks behind her ears and scented harder, dipping her head. The tip of her nose poked his penis and she exhaled, feeling stupid.

It was his musk. She drew in a big breath, nostrils flaring, the tingle spreading from her toes to the rest of her body.

"I thought you'd just said, 'only fingers'?"

That was before she smelled this. Emilia rubbed her snout left and right on his hardening unit. Did all boys smell like this? She needed more of it. Her lips wrapped around the tip through the sheets and sucked, tongue lashing across it lethargically.

Gerut jolted forward and ran a hand through her hair, pushing her off. "Not through the sheets… Nnh… you're a handful."

The further she got from the scent, the further she realized how captive she was to it. Emilia sat up straight, horrified at how she'd so easily lost herself. There was a patch of slobber on the linen, his pole shifting underneath as it filled further with blood.

"Y-yeah. Only fingers. I said only fingers." What a dangerous smell.

"Then, come closer."

She knelt in front of him and held onto the top of the headboard, her knees touching his hips. He brought his fingers to a hover around her waist, brushing down along the outside of her thighs before twirling over the front and converging toward their junction. Every inch, a finger withdrew until only his indexes glided smoothly toward the keystone at her treasure tunnel's arch.

They pressed together on her clit.

"O-oh!"

She moaned, astonished, but the index digits veered away on their mirrored path and the other fingers rejoined, tips tickling the inside of her legs. One of her hands holding the headboard jumped in to catch the sensation he'd provided, then rudely stolen from her. Gerut reached up to intercept it, his fingers wrapping messily with her own.

"Tsk-tsk. Put that hand of yours back."

She wanted so bad for him to give her that feeling once more. He leaned forward and kissed her belly, rubbing his nose and sticking his tongue out to titillate it. Emilia closed her eyes and breathed fitfully as he vellicated her. Her wayward hand reached out to the dark brown hair between his ears. Returning to their wandering, those long fingers of his climbed up the outside of her legs, past her hips and sides.

Gerut planted kisses on her stomach as his hands reached up and cupped her breasts. His middle and pointer fingers closed around her nipples, pinching and giving a tug before letting go.

This was tortuous! She'd be better off if she'd never let him take over. The wolf-girl's body was more worked up now than it had been before.

"I-I thought we agreed on fingers only," she whined. "So why are you using your mouth?" He replied with a love bite to the meat of her stomach as his digits descended, rolling across the low peaks and shallow valleys of her ribs.

"I needed to get revenge for your teasing."

That wasn't teasing! It was an honest abdication of her composure due to his musk. Surely, such a reaction was normal behavior for a beastkin? Gerut looped aimlessly around her thighs, tracing with anticipation towards her crotch. This was it-- he was finally going to start! The fingers grazed her lips!…

…as they traveled backwards to massage her glutes, lifting toward the small of her back. If he chickened out one more time, she was going to eviscerate him.

He gripped the base of Emilia's bushy tail. As he glided outward to the tip, his palms smoothed the coarse fur and his chest pushed on her shaky legs. Once he'd made it to the end, he dug his fingers in and raked inward, fluffing her up and scratching at the center.

Emilia moaned, exhaling haltingly as his hands reached the base.

"Please," she begged. Gerut let go and snickered.

Leave it to a beastkin to know what itches to scratch. What state would he leave her if he got free reign over her body? But… no, she couldn't capitulate.

A single middle finger rubbed itself between her lower lips. She desperately lowered her hips toward it, helping it in as its neighbors took up position on the outside. Gerut buried himself to the knuckle in her, curling the finger forward as he scraped it out. It pressed against something near the entrance and she gasped.

"Oh, gods!"

"They have nothing to do with this."

One of them did. The cat-boy worked his finger back in, bringing his other hand up to her clit, its thumb nudging lightly. Emilia sputtered. It was so much more intense than when she was touching it herself. A second finger slid in next to his middle and plumbed her depths for gold. She clenched around him.

"Relax," he urged, kissing her belly again. "If your legs feel weak, rest on my hands. I'll take care of you."

Emilia tried her best to loosen up. His fingers tapped at her essence and she fought the need to jump away from them, holding steady as his thumb circled her crowning pearl. He was unlocking some latent femininity in her. She wanted to moan for him and encourage him and squeeze him and be squeezed in return. There was a pressure squeezing her down there presently.

"I-I think I'm going to pee!"

"Let it go. Don't think about it, just let it happen."

She whimpered, biting her lip and enduring his fingers plunging in her, thumb flicking her bean to and fro with a rhythm which turned her legs to mush. Emilia flushed her mind of all thoughts, she became a great vacuous space to be filled by the emotions. Her brain softened to the same consistency as her legs. Her entire being was purely her pussy getting stirred up by another man's thick, dextrous digits. The rest of the body attached was vestigial. She let it happen.

It happened fast.

"O~oh! Nnnnnnn~!"

A fire sparked in her core and exploded throughout her crotch. The wolf-girl quivered, speared by scant inches of a boy who nonetheless controlled her body, controlled her orgasm. Gerut shushed her, carefully reeling her in to his lap.

When the flame died, he removed his hands and she ragdolled onto him, her bones reduced to gelatin.

He chuckled. "You know, for the last few seconds, I wasn't moving my fingers at all. That was all you, bucking your hips at me like an animal."

The wolf-girl exhaled and ignored his provocations. She'd gotten what she came here for. Gerut rubbed her back and purred.

"Lemme know when you want to start round two." His breaths were warm on her ears. Did she need more? Yes, she did. Only fingers like his could get far in there and touch where she needed. There was still an itch deep inside. Nalah was smart to come to these two.

Lost in their own, intimate world, they'd forgotten about the two breeding felines in the room. Gerut pulled his legs in hastily as the Nalah bounced width-wise onto the middle of the bed, a full blush across her face. She hissed and dropped her front half to the sheets, wiggling her ass in the air for her mate, tail extending straight up. Yacush gladly accepted her offer, surrounding her with his body as he dropped his elbows onto the sheets. The woman swung her hips to greet his, a high-pitched growl vibrating from her throat as she bit a mouthful of sheets and made love to her partner. His fingers wrapped over hers and he bit at her ears.

This was beastkin sex. This was what Emilia could be having if she weren't so adamant in her sexuality. The lioness who'd been the voice of reason so recently was vocalizing like the kitty queen on the top of a villa wall getting a train of tomcats ran on her. Gerut turned Emilia onto her back, legs spread between his own. The sheets were tugged by Nalah enough to have freed him down to his knees, and his manhood slapped on the wolf-girl's pussy. Her predator instincts had trouble deciding whether to focus on the pair in front of her or the new threat closer by.

The cockhead flared out with rigid little nubs along its crest where keratinous spikes would be on a breeding male. The shaft displayed the same downward-facing protrusions all the way to the base. How would those feel inside her? Could they scratch the unsatisfiable itch?

Gerut brushed his right hand past her waist to her womanhood. The other lifted her left thigh and slid into her quim from the side, two fingers squelching up to the same speed they'd been stirring her insides at previously.

"Do you want that?" he whispered in her tilted ear. She didn't know what he was referring to: the bestial sex playing out in front of them or the rod throbbing on her thigh. The girl wanted both of them, secretly, but she couldn't change her tune now. She flailed her arm rearward to hold onto the headboard. "Hey, puppy, look at me and tell me."

Emilia turned to him. He leaned towards her for a kiss and she stuck her tongue out in preparation. What would his spit taste like? Would his tongue tickle her own? They were about to meet when she turned away and huffed.

"Huh!--I said fingers only!"

She was mostly enraged with herself. Her face burned. She couldn't get so caught up in the moment; she was here to heal a sickness, and nothing more. She didn't like men and she would never kiss one willingly! Gerut snickered again.

"Your loss."

He continued to lean in, licking her armpit instead. She yelped and dropped her left arm from the headboard, but it was too late. He wormed his way in there, sniffing at it with his muzzle then tickling her pit with his papillae. Her whole body heated up. She felt more like a mate's bitch now than she ever did submitting to the alpha wolf. It was worse that he could choose to be civilized but nonetheless treated her like a beast. The tickle translated from her pit to her pelvis.

Nalah's growl peaked and her lover growled with her, their hips fusing together into one writhing mass of sticky flesh. She stopped biting the sheets and peeked to the side, enough for Yacush to slip his tongue in and give his companion a deep kiss as he unleashed his load in her. Their bodies trembled and ground delicately as shared orgasmic hormones seeped out into the stuffy nighttime air, Nalah's tail twirling crescent around Yacush's waist.

Give her those chemicals. She wanted their high as well. Emilia tried to relax as he'd told her to, but his plundering kept her reacting, pressing harder against his skin, rubbing on him for release. If she needed to be his animal for a night, to give in to another man's embrace and receive that wondrous high, then maybe she was safe in these cat-boy's arms. The foundation of her temple cracked… Then it crumbled.

Whatever was incoming was different this time. Emilia threw her head back as his tongue scraped her armpit, trying not to laugh, trying not to let out the build up she could feel rumbling. His fingers were so close to it, to the itch which drove her mad. But the passageway to her tomb was collapsing.

She held in a moan ineffectually, stiffening up, legs snapping around Gerut's hands and stretching outwards. Emilia pulled taught like a rope with her toes scrunching into the sheets and her hips hovering, shaking, above his groin. The tension wound as she fell into the black at the edge of her vision. Ever tighter. Ever tighter…

It snapped.

Emilia croaked out grunts as the warmth in her stomach spread in tingles throughout her limbs and up into her ears. Eventually, she lost all strength and crumpled into Gerut's lap, heaving. The fingers within waited patiently as she clenched on them over and over and over and over. It was exhausting, but it made her feel radiant.

"Wow," teased Nalah, "aren't you happy you stopped being so stubborn?"

It wasn't stopping. Emilia's head thumped with blood and she felt faint. Gerut peeled his fingers out. Her body resisted, sucking on them like they were still owed their due.

Nalah hopped off the bed, more limber now than she'd been upon entering it. She gulped down the contents of the cup on the dresser and lifted the carafe for more.

"Oh. It's dry." Yacush rose from the bed, but she put a hand out. "You stay here and wait on our princess. I can go on a refilling run. Does the barman charge for water?"

"The ale's cheaper," answered Gerut. "So, yes."

"Then you can consider it a treat on me," Nalah said, slipping into her nightgown and cloak. She filched one of the boy's coin purses off the dresser on her way out of the door.

Yacush wiped the sweat off his brow with a cloth and turned to the pair at the head of the bed.

"You feeling a little better, wolfie?"

Emilia nodded and cleared her throat. Perhaps it was all this talk of water, but she felt parched. As she sat up, Gerut's member pulsed against her rear. She felt so shameful, using them for this, withholding what they wanted. She knew if she were in their shoes, she'd be frustrated that a girl like her refused to give them the logical conclusion of this foreplay. It wasn't like they deserved it because they wanted it; they deserved it because they'd earned it. She needed to do unto others as she wished to be treated, but she was too cowardly to take the step.

"Can you crawl?" Yacush asked. "Come here." He knelt in the middle of the bed facing her, beckoning with a single curled finger. Gerut let her slide out of his lap, her wolf tail flitting back and forth. When she almost made it to Yacush, she glanced at her companion. She meant nothing to either of these men, and she still felt as if she'd betrayed him by doing this. He was watching her inadvertent presentation and pumping himself lightly. When the cat-boy noticed she was looking, he let go and gazed conspicuously away, laying his hands behind his head as he'd been doing before they embraced. He was so hard, his unit lifted off his belly when it throbbed.

Yacush raised her up and turned her around, wrapping his arms around her chest. His erection was slick with another woman's juices and poking the base of her tail.

He whispered, "It was a bad idea to come to me. Gerut might've promised not to bite, but I didn't."

He nipped at her ear. She sucked in a breath and shivered. They told her to relax. Nalah trusted them.

"I can be very protective of my girls," he murmured, lowering to bite her neck. His bites were harsher than Gerut's. Emilia squirmed. "Nalah refuses to commit, but what about you? Do you want someone who will protect you?"

Was he teasing her? Was this a dominance thing? Nalah had been aggressive with him, so maybe if she wasn't he would walk all over her?

"No. I don't want a protector. Let go of me."

He chuffed, squeezing her tighter.

"Let go, or I'll bite."

"Then it'll be mutual."

Resistance only riled him further. Emilia grabbed at his arms with her claws, but there was the dysmorphic comprehension that this body of hers was so much smaller than she thought it was.

Gerut rose quickly from his spot in front of them. "Yacush, what are you doing?"

He appeared genuinely concerned. The taller catboy covered Emilia's eyes with a hand and nibbled one of her down-turned ears. It stung.

"I want to hear it from you clearly, wolf-girl. Which one of us do you want?"

"Him!"

She pointed at Gerut. Unequivocally, she wanted him. No more biting!

"It doesn't seem so if you're gonna crawl into my arms so easily when I call."

This piece of trash! She was trying to be polite. If there was some sort of group-sex etiquette, she wouldn't know it.

Yacush rested his chin on her head. "Why don't you reach out and grab the one you prefer? Saying him isn't very clear when there's two of us in bed with you."

Emilia's arms shot out to grab Gerut. He would side with her. Extended, they felt blindly in the air for him.

"You're close," Yacush guided. She waved nervously downward. "Keep going. You'll get him eventually."

Was he avoiding her touch? Did she offend him earlier by leaving his lap? It wasn't her intention.

She found purchase around flesh, gripping his dick.

"You found it, but it could slip away if you aren't careful."

She knew what he wanted her to do, but it was so embarrassing. Emilia wrapped her fingers around the top and ran the other hand to his base, stroking. Gerut's hips rose in response. The hand on her face still hadn't lifted.

"You gonna return the favor?" her tormentor teased. She would. If it was okay for him to help her with his hands, Emilia needed to accept it was okay for her to show gratitude with hers. Emilia lowered the hand near the base to his sack and massaged it slowly, testing the tip between her other hand's index and thumb. Gerut breathed out and scooted forward so she didn't have to reach out so far.

She was going to jerk him as she would have wanted a girl to. Step one: lubrication. Only a miracle would have made her drool land on his staff while she was blind. She brought a palm to her mouth and licked it, transferring her spittle to his shaft as lubrication. Yacush expressed a bemused hmm? at her boldness.

Step two: coat it. She twisted her palm on the top of his cock lightly, smearing her taste all over him. One round wasn't adequate, and she went back for more. It was kind of gross, but it worked. Spit was surprisingly slick as long as it didn't dry. She might have used it as emergency lubrication in the past-- for temple raiding, of course.

Gerut held her waist in both hands. He thrusted up into her palm as she brought her strokes down. The dull nubs lining the shaft and cock ridge caught between her fingers as she lifted them. He was slick and sticky with her spit. She felt so…sexy doing this, having two men holding onto her. What if his thing went inside her? What if she let it slip and slide in her like his fingers? Could she take it? It was thicker than his two digits. It could reach the itch.

Step three: she hadn't thought this far ahead. Yacush's arm around her chest raised and groped at her right breast. Gerut was close enough to rub his pillar on her belly at the end of every thrust. His hands reached around and seized her cheeks, kneading them. Sandwiched in between rippling muscles and pheromones, the wolf-girl was losing herself again. Emilia panted, feeling Gerut's humid breaths on her face as she jerked him off.

He started to kiss her. It began with his tongue wagging on hers in the air, but such a gentle touch wasn't fulfilling. His lips locked around hers and he swirled his appendage around, catching on her own and tugging with its tiny barbs. He tasted sweet, like mint and melons. Her tail batted left and right on Yacush's chest.

"You're toasty," the rearward beastkin hushed. "Roasted. Baked."

He was searing on her rear. Gerut yanked her hands away from his spear and intertwined his fingers with her own, kissing her for several moments longer before speaking.

"Either I make love to you right now, or I finish on your stomach. I can't hold back any longer."

He lingered with his breaths on her neck. Emilia felt divine. She temporized so she could bask in the heat of his package grinding on her. Every touch felt maximized when she couldn't see.

"Yes."

"Yes, what? Use your words."

Emilia's heart was jumping out of her chest. It was okay to feel this way. She felt wanted, coveted.

"Yes, I want you."

Yacush lifted the hand over her eyes and gave her fully to Gerut, seating himself on the edge of the bed, yawning. Her cat-boy leaned forward, lowering her into the sheets. She felt surrounded, much like when the alpha was on top of her, but this time she was staring up at her mate. His chest seemed so broad, his smell encompassing. He let go of her hands and wrapped an arm around her, holding her shoulder. The other hand ruffled her ears.

"I kind of wanted you too, when you first walked in."

Emilia wasn't sure what love was, but his comment made her feel fluffy all over. His cock entered her without fanfare but without hurry as well, digging out the entrance of the collapsed passage with its broad head. The tickle like she needed to pee came again.

"Hoh! I--oh!"

She couldn't verbalize. Sweat beaded on her skin as he breached her ever further. Her arms trembled as she pushed against his chest. How did it work like this? He was obviously slimmer than the alpha wolf, but the press of his organ on hers was smothering. He was perfectly shaped for her.

His hips rose. The hard nubs did their job, catching on every surface of her canal in the same way they'd caught on her fingers. Emilia experienced the sensation of falling. When he reached the end of his retreat the ridges scraped the sensitive area near her portal and her legs knocked on his waist.

"Hang in there, Emi."

What a diminutive name. Emi. But she was diminutive under him, and it fit her well. He burrowed to the hilt in her, savoring the touch of his groin on hers when he could press no further. Emilia wrapped her legs around his waist and hung onto his broad shoulders.

He scooped out again. She felt faint, her clit tingling. If he went any harder the peeing feeling would burst for sure.

Harder is exactly what he did. Gerut swung his hips gracefully as Emilia's limbs squeezed around him, trying to contain his intensity to no effect. He was holding her all the right ways. She knew it was the hormones, but she wished right then and there he would lay her down and love her and ravage her and groom her and make her his bitch like the good girl Emilia was every single night for the rest of her life. He kissed her deeply, then growled into her ear.

"I'm gonna take you with me. I'm gonna make you my first-wife. I'm gonna become a tsavo and mate with you and fill you with a litter."

This wasn't already mating? Whelmed in him-- the touch he provided, the emotions he provided-- Emilia could have been fooled. She turned her head and rubbed her cheek against his, groaning.

"Make me the mommy to your little kittens," she answered, letting the horniness take the lead and scream thoughts she would surely regret later. Gerut growled and fucked her even harder, Emilia's sopping pussy producing a chap chap chap as he sheathed and unsheathed in her.

She was going to explode. Her clitoris buzzed from the excitement, nails digging into the skin on his back. They were both slick with sweat and she needed some way to hang onto him or she was going to fall again. Each peeling back brought her closer to the edge of that dark hole and she was going to tumble into it endlessly.

She couldn't hang on any longer. Emilia yelped, raking her claws in him as the tingle released and a quivering spread out from her center. Gerut fell into the abyss with her, hugging her and moaning as his own twin completion blasted virile cat's-milk into the crevasses of her womanhood.

He shook on top of her as the chemicals she wanted were massaged into her skin, both beastkin huffing and panting on the soiled linen. Gerut waited until he regained some strength to make out with his partner and scratch behind her furry ears.

"I'm back!" Nalah chittered, creeping into the room with the carafe. "I couldn't believe the bartender. He tried to charge me extra because he could hear us."

"It is nighttime," Yacush answered quietly, rising from the bed. He poured himself a cup and finished it immediately. "You didn't miss much. I played the bad-guy like you asked, but at least it gave her the push."

"I can see."

Gerut lifted onto his knees, Emilia still attached at the groin and clinging to him like a macaque baby to their mother. The cat-girl breathed through her teeth when she saw the claw marks on him. "He's going to be feeling those in the morning."

"I haven't seen scratches like that since the one time I--"

"Don't say it out loud," Nalah warned. Yacush opened his mouth and she prodded at his chest. "Don't say it out loud."

"Can I whisper it quietly in your ear, then?" He bent down to kiss her forehead.

"Perhaps," she said, leading him to the bed. "If you want it to happen again."

-----

By the time Emilia woke the next morning, the two boys were already gone for work. This was all for the better, since she wasn't sure she could look either of them in the eyes after what she'd moaned last night. What silly sorts of things one does and says when they're about to cum.

Nalah dressed Emilia in one of Gerut's tunics to cover her modesty. It didn't cover the aching bite marks on her thighs or the blemishes on her neck, which made her bundle up in her mantle much like she had the night prior. When they left, the cat-girl locked their door with a key they'd been left with.

They were in the thick of the morning crowds when Emilia caught a whiff of Nalah's scheming.

"I'm not going to return this shirt or the key to them later, Nalah. You can do it yourself."

The woman ignored her, guilty.

She solidified her rejection in the absence of a response. "I'm not. There's nothing good to come from leading men on. What if I turned back into my normal self?"

The pair stepped to the side of the road as camellizard carts passed on either side, laden with goods leaving from a quay-side warehouse. The wheels were guided by ruts in the road, spaced for two standard-sized carts to pass by. Unfortunately, there wasn't room left in the road during a two-cart passing for the rest of the foot-travelers to squeeze between. Women with baskets of fresh linen and booze-breathed laborers straddled the gutter alongside the two beastkin.

Nalah narrowed her eyes. "What about your current form isn't normal?"

"You know what I meant. I'm not a woman. This form is unnatural."

"You smell like a woman. You smelled like one when we first met, too. And what you did last night was perfectly natural."

"You're taking this personally! I only meant--"

"You'd best not raise your voice in a crowd like this. People might start to notice you aren't wearing pants."

She shut her mouth, following Nalah dutifully when the carts cleared and the lioness stomped away. When they returned to the inn the group was staying at, not only did Emilia not have to explain where they'd been, but Dammion was guilt-ridden over her sudden re-transformation. He vowed to not only finish paying her in full (she hadn't seen a single ducat yet), but also to cure the curse afflicting her. A handful of their own, far more ineffectual, curses were heaped on Inannasha for her seeming betrayal, which Emilia shushed, worried the goddess might've been listening.

Pipp thought he could help. He was acquainted with a scholar of ancient Acesh who might have been able to lift the curse in exchange for exact copies of the eulogies inside the Sepulcher of King Remeobek. The only question was, how exact did he want them? You could find copies of the logograms in temple libraries throughout the city.

Emilia and Nalah were turned away at the gate to the goddess of wisdom's temple. Beastkin were considered cursed (even before you included Emilia's circumstances), so they waited outside of the complex with Feargus as Dammion escorted Pipp in. The young scholar would determine if the temple's copies were of a high enough quality for his contact.

"Why are beastkin considered cursed?" Feargus scratched at his stubble as they waited in the shade of the temple walls. Emilia was too busy fuming to respond.

"Those buckets of night soil! I thought priests were supposed to welcome the downtrodden, not turn them away."

"I don't know," Nalah answered, ignoring the other girl's outburst like she was a noblewoman's yipping lap dog. "We don't have any gods ourselves. Every beastkin I've met, their family or tribe doesn't care for worship. I guess it's a cultural thing."

"It's just… it's how it is!" said Emilia. "I don't think they're dirty or cursed. But most folks around Sceyp Apesh want to stay separate from them. It's what their fathers did, and their father's fathers. I didn't know the temples shunned them too, though."

"Because you never cared to notice?" Nalah needled.

"Because I never went to the temples. None of the guys in the circles I've run in cared for that kind of stuff." Emilia crossed her arms, denying Feargus a view of her breasts down her tunic's loose collar. She'd need to get new clothes for her size soon, and figure out from Nalah how to keep her nipples from chafing.

Religiosity was important where the three eastern adventurers hailed from. Feargus was vindicated. "I told Dammion when we hired you that you were gutter trash."

"Yeah? Well, now I'm gutter trash who sacrificed herself to help your friend."

"If I remember, it wasn't you who made the decision."

"I'm surprised you could remember, blowing wolf seed out your--"

Nalah's ears perked right up for this fresh information. They'd only told her about how Emil was bound by a spirit to the temple ruins as payment for a blessing. Nothing was mentioned about what else happened the day the pact was made. Unfortunately, the argument was cut short by the two other men returning.

Pipp called out for Emil as they exited the temple courtyard. Emilia cringed and slunk into Feargus's shadow, glancing up and down the street for familiar faces.

"Don't use my name out in the streets. I don't want the wrong kind of people hearing about this."

"Another strike," Feargus interjected righteously. It was a good thing she could care less how he felt about her.

"Call me Emilia from now on."

Dammion and the scholar nodded. "Easy enough."

"Anyway, we took a look at their copy of the logograms. It was a transliteration into Sceypi, which isn't what my friend was after. He wants exactly what was on the walls."

"Then, what's our next step?" Emilia asked.

Pipp placed a hand on her shoulder. He was roughly her height after the transformation. "Something a man of your skills might be familiar with: frottage!"

She blushed. A single boy after her was too much already. But two?

Nalah piped up. "Like, making charcoal rubbings?"

"Exactly!--"

Oh.

"--and we'll take them straight from the source."

"Keep your voice down," shushed Emilia. "Even saying you're going to enter a tomb is heresy."

"I don't see what the big issue is," Pipp replied. "The current people of Sceyp Apesh migrated here after the fall of the Aceshi Kingdom. None of the royalty entombed or temples abandoned are their own. The only inhabitants in the area when they arrived were beastkin tribes, and they were nomadic."

"Any unauthorized and untaxed looting of artifacts is lost revenue for the merchant guilds," Dammion said. "And there is some revived worship of several of the old Aceshi gods, as scant as their followers are. They must have some sort of sway in local law-making."

So, more tomb raiding. Emilia belatedly considered the ramifications of her job choice now that they were catching up to her. She'd do it under the protection of this lot, but maybe a career shift was in her future, if she wanted to avoid any more unfortunate events like the one at Inannasha's temple.

"The Sepulcher of King Remeobek was already picked clean before I was born. There'll be traps left, but I can't imagine anything like what happened in the last ruin..."

The three men's shoulders loosened. Even the always-optimistic Pipp appeared relieved.

"...so it's good you have gutter-trash like me to get you in safely."

Robbed of the opportunity to celebrate a completed job and heading right back out to the countryside on a journey to a useless tomb. Emilia could only hope this one wasn't still home to vengeful spirits.