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What drew Dunk to the edge of the woods was not much different from what pulled him beyond the treeline. That morning, the rabble-rousers at the market had spread a tempting rumor: one of Lord Baratheon’s prize deer had gotten loose from the private run he kept at Storm’s End, and it’d gone running to the rainwood.
A black and silver stag with golden antlers, tall as an oak! cried the first few bearers of news. A doe in heat, hummed an insightful old hunter, gnarled hands curled around a bow. It’s neither, said a third party. It’s the lord’s heir, not no dumb deer.
That message had all but killed the rumor, until the official envoy from Storm’s End visited on the little town nestled in the shadow of the woods, just a few hours after.
There was a prize deer, in fact. Black-furred, but with streaks of silver. Golden antlers, too, though not the shiny kind. Extremely important to Lord Baratheon, to the tune of seven thousand gold dragons if the deer was caught and returned, alive and unharmed. To further motivate the hunt, all hunting in the woods—for smaller game or otherwise—had been summarily banned, and guards were to stand at the treeline to watch for any clever huntsmen who thought they could slip past unseen. They arrived but a halfday after the envoy, stoic and hard-jawed. No game would leave the forest before that damned deer did.
All the pure men in the village had been shoved out the door by their wives and families, but the beastfolk were hesitant to go. It’d be a great dishonor, a slight on the gods-given purity of men if one of the beastfolk caught the deer and not them. More than just that, there was an unspoken understanding among the few beastfolk in the village: it wasn’t right for beasts to hunt as men did, but men were allowed to hunt whatever they wanted. Those who went in might not come out.
Being part aurochs himself, Dunk knew that quite well. Yet he was still here, on the edge of the wood, waiting. One of the Baratheon guards had eyed his approach with suspicion, but hadn’t said a word to discourage his approach. Dunk had kept his head down at first, but when he realized how that must have looked with his horns and all, he’d simply slouched his shoulders to make himself seem smaller.
It’d been about fifteen minutes since he stepped to the edge of the wood, trying to convince himself to go in. It’s seven thousand gold dragons, Dunk. Nobody would treat you poorly if only you were rich. No, that reason wouldn’t motivate. There was a deeper one, an animal instinct he hadn’t allowed himself much familiarity with.
All beastfolk knew the truth. Men could hunt whatever they wanted, and if they killed something that really shouldn’t have been killed, men would lie.
They would not be kind to the poor creature they hunted in the woods. They would not return it unharmed to their lord. They would not treat it with dignity or respect.
They would be no better than wolves.
That was why he was here—someone had to save it from the wolves.
It was the very sound of wolves that pulled him into the dark woods. The sound had come from far off, a rousing howl deep in the forest. Of course, the sound gripped his nerves and shook him, but he was bull-headed—if not literally.
He paid no mind to the glowing campfires of the pure men camped in the distance, cackling and drinking in preparation for their hunt at dawn. He paid no mind, save some wariness for the glint of steel and thrumming bowstrings leaned on the logs around them. Well, Dunk didn’t have steel, and he didn’t need a bow. He had his strength, a handful of wits, and his horns.
His hooves made little sound as he strode through the leaf litter, and his steps were quieter still once he found a narrow deer run leading deeper into the sloping woods. The rainwood was a treacherous place, not only for its myths and legends but for the creatures that dwelled there. Some said the beastfolk were made here; from here they emerged. Dunk didn’t hold much with what ‘some’ said. All he knew was that he never felt particularly scared when he visited.
Objectively, however, it was dangerous. Uncharted places normally were, and the tree density could turn you around if you weren’t paying attention, and once you lost the light—well. Dunk had known plenty of men who went in one day, armed with a bow and little to lose, only to never return. It was also just past the colder months, and hungry predators long dormant had started slinking from their dens in the Red Mountains to come and graze upon the unhunted feast awaiting them. The howling was testament to that. This time of year, Dunk never went more than half a mile in, and only during the daylight hours.
Tonight was different. Tonight, he followed his instincts deeper and deeper into the woods, past every recognizable landmark and directly into the unknown. Tonight, he tilted right towards certain death. This wasn’t the instinct of a man, who always sought to preserve himself, and wasn’t the instinct of an aurochs, which always sought to stay docile and useful, for usefulness was an unslaughterable quality. This was a different instinct, born from dangerous ideals he’d likely picked up from Ser Arlan.
The old knight hadn’t had much to say on the nature of beasts or men. In fact, he’d really only ever spoken to Dunk about it once, and it was neither praise nor discouragement nor neutral wisdom. Arlan wasn’t man, wasn’t beast, but a third thing: a knight. And knights could rise above the petty dealings of man and beast, living in ideals, though the world around him was anything but. Of course, beastfolk were rarely granted knighthood, and Ser Arlan hadn’t surprised him there, but Dunk had learned those ideals and the definition of honor, bravery, justice, all that.
The old man’s death had stowed those ideals away. It didn’t matter how much Dunk believed in all that. Nobody else would take him seriously, with his hooves, tail, horns, and drooping, pendulous ears. His hands were shaped like a man’s, as were his face and body until around his waist. His heart beat in the same place a man’s would. But he was just too different, and none of his beastly strengths would make up for the deficit in being different than everybody else.
He let those strengths free now, moving swiftly through the midnight forest, faster than a man. He could see further in the dark, though the moon was just a thin smirk from above. Dunk regretted not bringing Ser Arlan’s old sword with him, so he could only hope there’d be no trouble ahead. (Nobody had to teach him foolishness. He was a natural master.)
Ultimately, a deer might not react well if he carried a man’s weapon. On the other hand, the pure men might not like it either.
It really was too bad he didn’t have the sword, however. He’d have felt a lot better with it in his hands.
He continued another quarter mile down the trail before he picked up the scent. His nose must have been following it without telling his brain, but now it was strong enough to register. It was mostly the scent of wolves, their territory-marking stink. He fought not to panic over the scent of a predator, clinging to composure as sure as his hand around the hilt of the sword. Beneath it all, however, was the scent of deer—and fear.
“Must be on the right path,” he said to himself. The words soothed that uneasy animal urge to flee, but he knew it wouldn’t work forever.
Dunk crept along the trail, past a small creek, and caught another scent over the overwhelming musk of the wolf piss. This one was thick and cloying, just as strong as the others but somehow more, somehow better, somehow desirable to Dunk’s senses. He almost tripped over his own hooves when he caught wind of it.
It was heady and intoxicating, like the good stout beer he rarely had occasion or coin to drink. But this lived in the air, clinging to the insides of his lungs like smoke. There was an undoubted hint of deer, and that was why he was here, wasn’t it? The men, the wolves, all were hunting for some lord’s deer. If it smelled this enticing, Dunk could understand why Lord Baratheon would offer such a reward for it. For a while, Dunk simply stood there and breathed it in, pinpointing that delicious scent and extracting it from the overwhelming stench of the wolves.
Fuck. The wolves.
Dunk took off at a run, uncaring about the noise he made as he crashed through the woods. The world bent for him in a way it never seemed to do back in the village, trees and hedges falling to pieces beneath him as he went.
Following the trails was easy enough, as whoever it was (with the scent, not a normal deer’s scent, but something close to it) must have sought the easiest path to escape from their pursuers. Dunk could tell the wolves weren’t beastfolk, but full animals, hungry and anxious for their next meal.
Even though the world was cast in shadow and spare silver light from a moon on its way to darkness, Dunk knew these woods, in his bones. Maybe there was some credence to that old rumor about where the beastfolk came from. He trusted that guess. He had his nose and his wits about him—what good they’d do remained to be seen.
At least it’s not shadowcats, he thought, trying to be optimistic. Just wolves. Hungry wolves.
The scent he followed grew stronger, thickened by a sharp sourness Dunk recognized as fear—a man’s fear, almost indistinguishable from an animal’s. That’s odd. The wolves must have pressed their advantage here, for signs of a scuffle and spilled blood led down the side of a gorge.
At the bottom of the gorge was a river, and on the bank was a dead wolf, an antler-handled knife stuck in its neck. The deer’s scent was all over it.
Not a regular deer, then—beastfolk.
Dunk picked up the knife as he went, not stopping to ponder. It was better than having nothing. He chased the trail up the opposite side, clearing great rocks with simple bounding leaps. No aurochs he’d met could jump like this, but perhaps it was because nobody had shown them how to be much more than cattle. Dunk had been raised a knight, active and agile before anything else.
With the water diluting the scents and the reek of fresh blood still in the air, Dunk whipped his head around, drawing deep breaths as he tried to find his quarry. His ears flicked a little on the sides of his head as he caught a man’s cry on the wind, followed by the deep baying barks of wolves. Dunk shot off like an arrow towards the noise.
In a flat bit of the forest stood a single large oak tree. At its base was a pack of wolves, no more than five by Dunk’s harried reckoning. They thrashed and jumped on one another, trying to climb. Further up, just out of reach of snapping, hungry jaws, was a deer.
He was certainly a beastfolk, proving Dunk’s mounting suspicions true. His hands clung to a thick bough, but his hooved feet scrabbled against the trunk, finding no good footholds. Golden antlers sprang from his head, delicate and twisting as lace. He faced away from Dunk, but he must have caught his scent (or heard the aurochs crashing through the underbrush), because he turned as much as his antlers would let him.
“Oh, thank the gods, if you—just, could you kill these fucking things for me—I’ve lost my knife—”
Dunk decided two very important things in one moment: that he liked this man’s voice, and that he’d do anything to keep hearing it.
That started with dispatching the wolves.
Dunk couldn’t tell you why he made the decisions he did, nor which side of him, beast or man, was responsible. Perhaps it was a bit of both, or a spirit that transcended mere flesh.
He charged at the wolves, head down and horns pointed right for the snarling wolf pack. They were flared out and up off his head like two thick tines of a pitchfork, and normally he tried his best to keep them from knocking into anything, or worse, hurt something.
He was trying to hurt something now.
Despite his clear purpose, Dunk was instantly nauseated when he felt his horns sink into a fleshy side, the shafts grinding against bone, the tips piercing and rending with ease even through a thick, unshed winter pelt. The wolf made a terrible noise, fighting to get itself off whatever was goring it. Dunk drew back, neck burning with the strain, and swallowed down the urge to vomit as the wolf’s insides spilled out across the clearing. Hot blood sprayed across his face and into his open, panting mouth. Every breath felt hot, and now tasted of blood. He imagined this was what the air in hell might be like.
Pain erupted in his arm as one of the wolves snapped its jaws around Dunk’s bicep. He shouted, spitting blood everywhere and giving in to the frenzied fury he’d always sought to suppress around the small insults he dealt with day in and day out.
The one time Ser Arlan had given him any sort of advice on his beastly nature, he’d told Dunk: Best let people believe you’re as docile as all them aurochs out there in the fields. They won’t forget it if you show them who you really are, even just once.
It was time for Dunk to show these wolves who he really was.
Dunk remembered the antler knife in his other hand, momentarily forgotten in his raging charge. He slashed wildly, the edge slicing across the wolf’s snout and eyes. It yelped and drew back, half-blinded by its own blood, but Dunk didn’t have time to recover and press the attack before another wolf found its own advantage and snapped madly at his ankles. Instinct alone had his leg snapping out, and his hoof connected right with the wolf’s mouth. Tooth on hoof, and somehow: hoof won. The wolf made an awful noise, similar to the one its packmate had made a moment ago. But this was worse, with its broken, slackened jaw hanging open and drooling blood onto the leaf litter below. It staggered back a few steps, then collapsed on its paws, unmoving in either shock or something more permanent.
A heavy weight suddenly slammed into his shoulders, forcing a grunt past his lips. Sharp teeth raked through his shaggy hair, snapping and snapping in search of a neck. He jerked sideways as he felt a ripping sensation over his left ear, but it was a stinging sort of pain, and besides—most aurochs submitted to some sort of tag there at least once in their lives.
He didn’t have to submit to this, though.
Dunk reached up and grabbed at the wolf’s paws with one hand, dropping the knife. With all his might, he shifted down his hips and hurled the wolf over his head like he’d hurl a sack of flour, a bag of apples, a bale of hay, so much effort for so little pay, and even less respect. The wolf yelped as it went sailing through the air, and whimpered once when it hit the nearest tree with a sickening crack.
Four down.
The aurochs whirled, breaths coming out hot. It felt as though his lungs had been forged in the seven hells themselves. He groaned at the wave of pain, a reminder that he’d not come out of this victory without some shred of defeat. He whirled his head around, eyes wild and unfocused. His vision in the dark was strange, but now it was stranger, tinged red at the edges as rage crept in and robbed him of perspective.
He drew a wheezing breath and caught that lovely sweet scent again, deer-warm-desire-slick-body-sex—
“Look out!” called the voice (that lovely voice).
Dunk went sprawling into the bloody dirt, the weight of a wriggling, furious wolf keeping him down. As an aurochs, his center of gravity was fairly high, making the more delicate structures of his legs a struggle to stay balanced on. It had only been a matter of time before these wolves took him down.
He got his hand up just in time for the wolf to bite it, and not his face. Dunk howled in pain, shouting and kicking his hooves into the dirt as he panicked his way through survival. Ser Arlan had never taken contracts that required much interface with beasts or beastfolk, only men. He had no training, no sage advice for how to get through this.
The wolf’s breath was hot and smelled of death, of hunger, of Dunk’s own blood. The scent alone threatened to strike at his heart, to paralyze him with fear. He’d seen other aurochs freeze in the field or at the slaughterhouse entrance. In Dunk’s experience, the butcher’s blade flashed as menacingly as a bandit’s. And now they flash the same as the wolf’s teeth.
But he had to be stronger. He had to survive, so he could save this fucking deer—
A rock hit him in the head, dazing him. The snap-back of his head helped, though, the wolf’s jaws snapping shut just short of the tip of his chin.
A voice: “Oh, cunt, I’m so sorry, oh gods—”
Dunk got his hands around the wolf’s neck, seizing on its distraction. “Quit—helping!” Dunk grunted, now blinking through the blood in his eyes and the untempered fury racing through his veins. He surged up like a great gust of wind, hands gripping tight enough to crush, to snap, to rend. At the same time, he tilted his head just so, angling his horns, but he couldn’t make the angle. He made a tight noise of panic, eyes catching on a flash of gold—
His uninjured hand shot out and grabbed the knife. He sought to jam the pommel against the side of the wolf’s head, a useful move, just to daze it and give him some space. He must have been way too forceful with it, though, because the antlers on the pommel sank deep into its skull with a sickening, crunching crack. The wolf flinched, paws scratching at Dunk’s chest as blood drenched both of them, hot and rank and sticky. In a moment, the weight atop him went from dying to dead. Dunk coughed on the blood spilling into his mouth, and used the last of his strength to shove the wolf off of him, where it lay limp some feet away. The bloody blade stuck from its head like a horn.
When he opened his eyes again, Dunk thought a mist had descended on the clearing, fell and eerie. But it wasn’t mist; it was steam coming off his body, fighting the chill of a spring night. He groaned a little, aches and pains rushing in as adrenaline rushed out.
“Is that all of them?” a voice called from above.
Dunk opened his eyes reluctantly. The deer was attempting to scrabble down from his bough, little hooves wheeling in the air. Deer weren’t like cats, able to use their tails to correct their balance, but the man’s fluffy white tail was straight up anyway, twitching slightly. The movement caught Dunk’s eye, and for a while, he just looked. Something was… off about the sight.
There was an incongruity, he realized. From the waist up, he presented as a man, broad-shouldered and even antlered, like the bucks that came through the woods to tempt hunters into poaching. But from the waist down… Dunk couldn’t see any stones, nor the telling shape of the deer’s sex between the man’s legs. In fact, that little wet patch beneath the tail looked like—
“What?” Dunk said, tongue feeling heavy in his mouth.
The deer dropped to the forest floor and approached cautiously. From up close, Dunk could better see the silver streaks in his black hair, black like the fur on his legs, except for that tail. Dunk realized he was holding his breath, and quit that behavior at once. A moment later, his scent hit like a wave, delectable and warm. It was difficult to ascertain exactly what it was amid all the blood in the clearing. But it smelled earthy and warm, welcoming, tempting, all those nice words that didn’t seem to fully encapsulate what the smell was.
He turned around to face Dunk, wiping his hands on the front of his torn tunic. It looked like it might have been finely made, before the wolves and the tree got to it.
Dunk drank in the rest of him as he’d done with his scent, and found himself just as awed. His human half was just as handsome as the beastly parts, even if he was a bit bedraggled from being chased and attacked by wolves. A high flush stained his cheeks, so warm Dunk swore he felt it with sight alone.
Amused, he repeated himself. “I said, was that the last of the wolves?”
“You tell me,” Dunk grunted, letting his head thud back into the dirt. Gods, even his horns hurt. He hadn’t been this tired and dirty since he was a squire, wading through waist-high mud and fishing his ser out of a bog before he drowned. Now Dunk was the one drowning, drowning in the deer’s scent as he drew nearer.
“That was a very brave thing you did,” the deer said, kneeling beside him. It brought that heady scent even closer, and Dunk almost missed his next question. “Are you hurt?”
“I’ll be fine; only—I think one of the wolves threw a rock at my head.” Dunk grinned at the deep, embarrassed flush that overtook the man’s face, and let his own amusement ebb away as the aches and pains settled in.
“You must be hurt, to be making jokes like that,” he said, shaking his head. “I’m Lyonel Baratheon.”
Distant recollections formed into an answered unspoken question. The other hunters, eager for some prize deer, a bounty offered up by Storm’s End itself. A matter of heated urgency, Dunk had heard one of the hunters laughing. Conflicting accounts: not a deer but a man, not a man but a noble, not just a noble but an heir, not an heir just a stag. Stags and Baratheons, scoffs in the town square.
Dunk’s eyes drifted to the apex of the man’s legs. Maybe not a stag…?
“You’re who they were huntin’ for,” Dunk said, because it needed saying. A moment later, remembering himself, he added, “milord.”
The deer—the man—Lyonel—made a face. “They’re overreacting. And so are you.”
“Didn’t know they had nobles with the affliction,” Dunk added, because apparently it was time to share his fucking thoughts. His eyes traced over those slender, graceful legs, the delicate hooves still streaked with blood. Lyonel stretched easily to retrieve the antler-handled knife, grunting as he pulled the pommel from the wolf’s skull with a wet, sucking noise. He wiped the bloody blade on a bit of unbloody pelt before sheathing it in the small scabbard on his side. Hm. Sheaths.
“Of course there are afflicted nobles. It’s not exactly something one can plan for. You only don’t see them because the babes are all mostly killed at first breath.” He gave Dunk a humorless little smile despite the horror of his words. “Not me, though. I’m lucky enough to bear the sigil of my House. Grants me certain privileges, to be a stag.”
He extended one leg gracefully, a gesture that drew Dunk’s eyes again to where they shouldn’t be, where it was still wet, somehow. Gods, that scent. It was getting clearer, sorting itself into Dunk’s favorite things, the scent of autumn and gathering storms. But it was more primal than that, something to do with rutting season, when all the harts would go insane in the woods trying to mount a hind or two. It was the scent of sex, coming off the brothels they’d pass in larger cities, and later, the scent that would cling to Ser Arlan. It was the scent of lightning, thick and alive and glowing, it was the scent of—
“And a doe,” Dunk said, once he realized. There were stranger things in the world, he knew, but a beastfolk with antlers and a cunt was sure to be on the wilder end of things.
“Oh, not you, too,” Lyonel sighed, crossing his arms and folding his legs to try and cover the scent.
“What do you mean, not you, too?” Dunk said, propping himself up on his elbows but still lacking the will to get to his feet.
“Suppose it’s worse for people like you,” Lyonel said, answering nothing.
Dunk frowned. People like me? Did he mean…? “You’re beastfolk, too. It’s people like us, by my account, milord.”
Lyonel raised an eyebrow at the impertinence. “There aren’t many of us at Storm’s End who would understand. The cycles, the—the urges. S’why I had to get away, you know. Couldn’t stand the walls.”
“And so you ran directly into a wolf-infested forest.”
“I’m sure that if the heat allowed me to think clearly, I’d have given the matter some consideration.”
“So you are in heat.”
“Yes, are you bloody slow?” Lyonel snapped, teeth glinting in the moonlight. As a rule, deer didn’t tend to have sharp canines, but Dunk was glad to see a few pointed teeth in his mouth. They didn’t frighten him like the wolves had, though. In fact, they seemed to spark some sort of odd affection in him, powerful enough that even the insult didn’t land.
“Were you looking for some stag out here to…?” Dunk said, tongue tripping over the rest of his words.
“Oh, to fuck me? No, I—why, are you in the business of regularly fucking lady cows?”
“I’m an aurochs, I’ll have you know,” Dunk said, pouting and pushing to his hands, though his legs still splayed out in front of him. The aching bites on his neck and shoulders, the deep scratches, the bruises, and yes, the throbbing mark on his forehead, all pulsed angrily. Even the base of his horns hurt, like he’d run full-tilt into a wall. Well, a wall of wolf.
“My point stands.”
“No, of course I don’t—!”
“Then there you go.”
“Then why’re you out here? Surely you lords have a godswood to run around in,” Dunk said. And why aren’t you running away from me, after seeing what I’m capable of?
Lyonel scowled at him, with actual emotion behind it. “Would you consent to being penned or caged so easily, aurochs?”
He flinched. “My name is Dunk.”
“That’s ridiculous.”
“It’s the only one I’ve got.”
Lyonel sighed. “Well, if that’s the case. Why are you out here, then, Dunk?”
Honesty prevailed, though it sounded a bit silly to tell Lyonel about it. “Heard there was a prize deer got loose. There was a bounty for its return.”
“And you sought to claim it for yourself?”
Dunk shook his head and shrugged. “Didn’t trust all the hunters not to try and harm it.”
Lyonel gave a sniff. “I’d have handled myself against men.”
“Men are just as hungry as wolves,” Dunk argued. “Least wolves don’t laugh while doing you harm.”
That made things go quiet and a little awkward between them, so Dunk looked over his wounds, hissing when he prodded one finger at the deep bite in his hand. That’ll take an age to heal. Can’t pull a plowshare with one hand, he thought, despairing.
“Thank you,” Lyonel said abruptly, his tone stilted, like the words smarted to say. “For saving me.”
“S’what I’m here for,” Dunk said, shaking his head. He looked up at Lyonel and found a rather complicated expression on his handsome face. But he recognized it, the conflict. “You don’t want to go back.”
“Why would I? The leash would only get shorter once I returned.”
“You can’t live in the rainwood. It’s dangerous.”
“I can take care of myself.”
Dunk gestured to the bodies of dead wolves, and then to Lyonel’s ankle, where he had a bite of his own. “Clearly.”
“They caught me on a bad day.”
“It’s your heat,” Dunk said, shaking his head. “You’ll have a hundred bad days ahead, all while you’re trying to figure out how to live in a place that’s not friendly to anybody but the trees.”
“You could come with me,” Lyonel said, one hand coming out to adjust Dunk’s torn shirt, a coy little gesture that burned where his fingertips touched Dunk’s chest. “Protect me how you did before.”
“I’m—” Dunk couldn’t formulate the words to say no or say yes. The scent blooming between Lyonel’s thighs grew stronger, hotter, as he rose to a crouch. “But your family—”
“You think they give a fuck if I live or die? So long as I’m contained, they don’t give a fuck. And neither do I.” Without warning, he swung a leg over Dunk’s middle, and snatched his bitten hand, which had been curled around nothing but pain. Dunk hissed, vision whiting out, when Lyonel swiped his hot tongue over the wound, licking it clean in a few swipes. His mouth shone ruby red when he drew back to speak. “You can’t possibly hold to that drivel that beasts need containing and keeping. Unless you’ve drank too much of man’s poison.”
“No, I—I don’t…” he stammered as Lyonel drew Dunk’s fingers into his mouth, uncaring for their dirtiness as he sucked on them. It felt like there was a direct line from his hand to his cock, and Dunk was mortified to feel himself swelling and hardening, the cool air touching the wet head peeking out of his sheath. “Lyonel—”
He cut off in a sharp, punched-out groan as Lyonel ground his hips down, the hot spill of his cunt dripping over the softly-furred sheath of him. “Fuck,” Lyonel groaned, head tossing back in a powerfully arousing display. His neck was a long, muscled column that caught his eyes and wouldn’t let go until Lyonel looked down again, eyes heated. “I don’t think I properly thanked you for saving my life, ser.”
“S—? I’m no—”
“But you are,” he purred, “you’re just as brave and heroic as any poor bastard committed to song.” He leaned down slowly, but to Dunk’s mind everything was happening so fast it made his head spin. Their lips met in a wet kiss, wet with spit and blood. Dunk whined in want, hands scrabbling to grab at Lyonel’s hips, his shoulders, anything—
“Please,” was the only word he knew. “Please,” muttered against Lyonel’s mouth. “Please—” choked as Lyonel moved his hips in a rhythm that had him hardening so fast it made him dizzy.
“I’ll give you what you want,” Lyonel said, his voice gone all husky and deep. “What we both want. My brave knight.”
His eyes seemed to glow a burnished gold as he reached back to notch Dunk’s cock at his cunt, but that glow was cut short when his eyes squeezed shut and he sank down onto him. The clutching, wet heat was enough to have Dunk’s legs kick out, hooves scoring deep grooves in the earth. He fell back against the ground, a blazing wave of pain intertwining with the pleasure of fucking up into Lyonel. He couldn’t stop his hips from driving upward, all animal instinct and blinding pleasure. He still tasted blood, but could only smell Lyonel.
Lyonel gasped, shouting wordlessly as he took hold of Dunk’s shredded tunic. No more teasing, seducing. This was possessive and greedy. All he knew was that his existence had boiled down to sensation alone. From that feeling, urges poured forth, undefined but known all the same.
In a heartbeat, Dunk flipped them over, leaves scattering and falling off his shoulders, unsticking from the dried blood and sweat. His long tail flicked wildly between his legs, but he never once left the heaven of Lyonel’s cunt. He drew back, only to grab at Lyonel’s kicking hooves to immobilize them as sure as he’d done the wolves. Red poured in at the corners of his vision as his hips found the rhythm that would drive him to satisfaction.
Lyonel seemed divine in the spare moonlight, the silver in his fur and in his hair glinting like coin, like the silver stags Dunk had never been lucky enough to hold. But now he understood the urge to spend when one held a shiny stag. He breathed out harshly through his nose, nostrils flaring as the scent of sex rose up from where they joined, meaty and animal and wild. He fucked Lyonel, splitting him open as he pulsed and tightened around him in intervals, braying to the stars above like they’d help him.
The part of Dunk that was still just a man felt wretched; was he any better than the hunters who had planned to run down this deer? Was he any better than the wolves, hungry for a bit of venison? Dunk was no predator, but his teeth ached to sink themselves into Lyonel’s perfect shoulder, his neck, his wrist, anywhere the scent of heat built strongest. The noises falling from his tongue were untamed, unlike any word in the tongue of man. But Lyonel seemed to know their meaning, leaning up and dragging his nails over his chest, worsening the scratches the wolves had left there. The flare of pain ratcheted up his need even more, the pace quickening as he crashed and careened toward the edge of his pleasure.
Lyonel’s antlers dragged through the dirt, spraying it up around his shoulders and over Dunk’s thighs. His eyes were still aglow, twin gold flames focused right on Dunk. He’d seen fawns go still and relaxed when pinned, submitting to a brutal fate when they were caught. Lyonel seemed ready to fight, if Dunk edged even an inch past what he wanted. It stoked the flames higher in him, an ache drawing up in his stones as he climaxed with a long, loud shout.
That seemed to trigger a similar sensation in Lyonel, whose cunt tightened even more, almost to the point of discomfort. He joined in Dunk’s shouting, fingertips digging into the edge of a bleeding cut and pulling. He curled his chin down, watching Dunk fuck him through his orgasm with a hungry look in his eye. Dunk’s jaw shut with a hard clack of teeth at the impact of his antlers, and a moment later felt a bright line of pain along his jaw where they’d slashed him open. A few drops of blood fell onto Lyonel’s ruined tunic, black in the moonlight.
“Fuck,” Dunk panted, his first word in who knew how long. The cold of the spring night rushed back in, banking their fires as Dunk slipped free. He watched in fascination as Lyonel’s cunt gaped for him, fucked wide open and soaked with come. Dunk had been coming for what felt like centuries a moment ago, and there was no possible way Lyonel could keep all of it inside him.
“Fuck,” Lyonel repeated, letting his head fall back. His skin glistened with sweat, the silver fur on his belly and thighs matted down, whether by slick or spend or sweat or blood. It was an arresting sort of image, and Dunk found he couldn’t look away, an increasingly common affliction since meeting Lyonel. He didn’t look away until Lyonel reached up to take him by the chin, turning his head this way and that. Aurochs weren’t bridled, not as horses or ponies were, but he saw the appeal. Perhaps that was the dirtiest thought he’d had all night.
“Did I do that?” Lyonel murmured, but his teeth flashed in a feral, satisfied grin. He rubbed his thumb over the cut, worsening the sting before popping his bloodied finger into his mouth.
“You’re—” Dunk didn’t quite know the words for what he was feeling, nor what he wanted to convey. This wasn’t the first time he’d felt that way, and likely wouldn’t be the last. Lyonel seemed to steal everything from him: his words, attention, his breath, his senses.
“I’m well-fucked, I’ll give you that,” Lyonel laughed. His laugh was low and throaty, and exceptionally appealing. It made Dunk’s heart flip in his chest. Just like his voice, he instantly loved his laugh. He loved the scent of sex on him, and how he looked when he was satisfied. He loved the way he touched him, teased him, and knew what he wanted. Dunk hardly knew what he wanted on a good day. He was glad Lyonel could decide that for the both of them.
Lyonel rolled to his feet with grace not normally found in common deer. Dunk would have done the same, if his legs weren’t still slightly jellied. But Lyonel looked ready to bound off down the path, tail twitching slightly even as his fur was painted with more and more of Dunk’s dripping come. The heat-scent on him lingered, but not as strongly.
Dunk knew does often shopped around for a mate, watching displays of strength in battle against other deer before choosing. Pure women weren’t much different, taking their time to select a worthy husband before laying with him, marrying him. For whatever reason, Dunk ached to think of such a comparison, and chided himself for thinking of Lyonel in the same way. He was neither doe nor woman.
“Where are you going?” he asked from his place on the ground. He tried not to sound sad, but evidently failed when Lyonel looked at him with a pitying expression.
“Wherever I want.” He paused. “Will you come with me?”
Protests rose, half-hearted. But they needed saying. “I’ve… at the village, I’m… they need me.”
“They need you more than you need them, Ser Dunk,” said Lyonel, stretching out his leg and frowning at the bite there. He was still limping a bit. The need to protect him, to tend his wounds, rose in Dunk above the urge to tend his own. Dunk rolled to a low crouch, ripping a length of cloth off the end of his ruined clothes to bind the wound, to protect it. After a minute of this, Lyonel continued, “I need you more than they need you.”
Those words, so simple and so plain, sent another rush of arousal through his body. Gods, but they both still smelled of what they’d done. Lyonel was right, and if Dunk protested again, he’d point out that there was no way to hide what they’d done here, that Dunk had fought off six wolves and fucked Lyonel within an inch of his life. Regardless of whether he cashed in the reward for Lyonel’s return, noble lords were rather precious about their progeny and whatever innocence they might lose before it’s beneficial. At best, he’d leave empty-handed; at worst, he’d hang.
Lyonel seemed to sense he’d gotten a foothold in Dunk’s psyche. “We could go anywhere. I’ve got a bit of coin I stole when I left. I’m sure between you and me, we could make it work. Maybe we could do that again somewhere more comfortable.”
The prospect was tempting, and at the end of Dunk’s argument with himself, he remembered something else Ser Arlan had told him. It wasn’t really something he’d taken to heart, considering beastfolk weren’t taken seriously as knights of the realm. We’re not built for choice, us hedge knights. If a noble lord has to ask you twice for your service, you best say yes quickly.
“I’ll need to get my things.”
Lyonel grinned, then frowned quickly, shaking his head. “They’ll catch you soon as—”
“I’m not leaving without my sword,” he said. “If I’m to be a knight, I’ll have a sword.”
Lyonel seemed impressed by his spine on the matter. “Very well, ser. So long as we can retrieve it before daybreak and get the fuck away from here, you can get a thousand swords.”
The hunters in the rainwood found seven dead wolves, called it an omen, and decided it wasn’t worth it to find whatever had done them in.