"Speech"

The night was cool against her skin. Her elegant paws carefully picked their way through the undergrowth of the woods. She could almost taste her freedom. The slavers had camped at the northern edge of these woods, close to the water. They had been lazy and didn't recheck her binds after they offloaded her from the transport. This strange new land was so far away from home... She didn't mind, she wasn't intending to go back.

Could she really do it? Could she be her own woman? What would she do first? Will she introduce herself as one of the characters in those stories? Could she be a runaway princess? Ready to fall in love with her rescuing prince?

A branch snap had her freeze in the darkness and slowly hunker down. Her green eyes trying to peel through the layers of foliage and shadows. Another snap and she flattened herself into the ground, catching her hushed breath behind her teeth. A rustling of foliage announced the visitor behind her. It took everything in her not to bolt. Was it one of the slavers who came to recapture her? A predator? A stranger? She felt like she was going to die if she stayed where she was any longer. Slowly she crawled over the mulch and soil. Her limbs trembling with excitement and fear. So close...

Flare was keeping his distance from the camping slavers. He still remembered that moment on the streets back home when he had been nabbed. He was his own person now. Strong, independent, with the strength to back it up. But something about them, the scent he had caught around their camp reminded him a little too much of the wolves he had eventually murdered for his freedom.

Instead, he made his way through the woods, skirting the long way around on his way back home. He almost missed the presence of another wolf, crawling through the mulch with the desperate need to stay hidden. It was his fox that sensed her first, and Flare followed the other creature's nose until they found the figure. Crawling, emancipated, desperate. He reached her, and pressed a paw into the small of her back. Shoving her back down into the soil. “Well, well, well. What do we have here? Running away from the loving embrace of your masters?” He teased her lightly.


"Speech"

"Speech"

The sudden pressure into the ground made a small breathy panicked noise escape her throat. She swallowed and closed her eyes, trembling now under his huge paw. The proximity to the camp and her direction was more telling than what she chose to say.

"Nn-n-n-no!" She weakly whined, "I w-w-was just avoiding them! I saw their camp..." She tried, praying the stranger was just teasing... Hoping he wouldn't just pick her up and take her back to them for some kind of reward. Her tail pressed tightly to her belly as she shook. The lack of fat on her bones had her trembling from more than just fear on the cool summer night. She licked her nose, placating, peering through her arms to see a curious fox eyeing her.

He pushed harder against her back, listening for the sound of her breathing. The wheezing, struggling whine told her he had hit the sweet spot. She could breathe, if only just. “The truth, if you wish to keep breathing.” He warned her, adding a hint of steel into his voice. He already believed he knew the facts, but he wanted her to say it.


He continued to hold her down, giving her just enough room for a few struggled breaths. Her words, if they came, would take effort. But he didn't mind straining his ears a little for the sound. “You are a slave. You were their slave. Now you are mine. Say it. Whose slave are you?” He pushed harder, cutting off her breath entirely, and putting her ribs at the risk of breaking. He knew he was leaving bruises. But he held her there, where she couldn't breath for a few very long seconds, before lessening the pressure once more. He didn't give her the room to catch her breath, either. If she wished to speak, it would take real effort.

"Speech"

She gasped, as quietly as she could, then her breath squeaked against her throat as he warned her.

"Y-Yes!" She replied with a grating struggling whisper in the darkness, "I-I escaped!" She gasped again as the pain bloomed under his paw against her back. She struggled against the debris around her and then stilled as he decided to proclaim the shift of her ownership, asked her the question then refused to let her breathe. She pulled in her air in fits and starts, her ribs screaming under him, threatening to buckle, to expire.

She began to see stars as she tried to buck and shift trying to get the pain to stop! Just like when her one of her bigger brothers had sat on her! Fuck!
"---y--" She tried, her voice straining and trying to eke out a word, any word, any air. Her thrashing continued as she tried to exchange oxygen with the earth.

Suddenly he shifted just enough for her to exchange the barest breath before he was pushing down again. The pain in her back intensified as her spine threatened to snap!

Her legs flailed as she fought with every ounce of her strength until she could gather enough air in her lungs to exhale a single word,
"YOURS!!!" She cried! It came out like a frantic high pitched desperate scream splitting the air and setting the birds in the branches to the sky with a flutter of feathers and caws.

There, that hadn't been so difficult, had it? He smiled as she fell into the easy role of obedience. Her desperate bid to fill his requests satisfied him. First came the truth, second came acceptance. He released his hold on her back entirely, satisfied “obedience will be rewarded.” He told her, taking a very small step back. His fox was on the other side of her, cornering her between the two of them. Of course, emaciated and now bruised, he didn't not expect her to escape. But nor was he willing to risk losing his prey.


“You may address me as Sir, or Master, or My Lord.” He said, laying out the ground rules for her from the beginning “disobedience will be punishment, embarrassing me in any way will see you mutilated in some manner. You will satisfy me when I desire it. Sometimes, with utter obedience. Or when I desire it, you will struggle.” He leaned forward, his words soft, amused. “You will rise before me every morning with food prepared. You will keep my den, you will obey my Sulten. This will be the boundaries Of your life from now on. Say ‘I understand” he ordered her.

"Speech"

As soon as his paw left her back she rolled to her side and curled into herself. Holding her stomach and sniffing as her ribs shuddered against her lungs. Fighting to hold back her sobs enough to hear him, to keep quiet. She secreted to open her eyes and look for an escape, her green eyes darting around for any sliver of hope. But no, she had been thrown from the pan into the fire. She had been so close. But this was probably why her masters had come here, many clients for their particular flavor of goods. Her breath continued to shudder within her. She almost hoped her scream had woken her masters and they would come running.

Her ears flattened and her eyes closed again as he laid out the ground rules. As he spoke she slowly got up, her head low, her body trembling, trying her best to stifle a cough in the back of her throat.

He mentioned that if she embarrassed him at all, she might be mutilated. Her ears snapped forward and flattened again as her eyes dashed to his molten silver pools in shock then cast away in deference. Her head sank lower with every rule that would outline her new life.

She shuddered as he leaned closer with soft words that detailed her daily duties. They weren't so different than the duties she had when serving her uncle's family. The satisfying him though... She brought her paws closer to herself, her tail curling against her, her previous masters hadn't let her go untried either, especially when she had gone into her last heat. It was why her uncle sold her.

He ordered her to speak. She lifted her gaze for one last look at the world as her freedom slipped away as easily as if it had been a noose. A wild hair slithers into her brain for one desperate moment. She could leap over the fox....

Her breath changes as her eyes lock on the sliver of sunrise between two trees up ahead. So close she could taste the morning dew.

She leaps, and her heart sails as her paws leave the ground. She imagines the fox and the wolf staring dumbfounded after her as she tries to escape!

Perhaps she did not realise it, but her lack of an answer gave him warning. The moment she leaped, his bird who had been still in the treetops above moved. Sailing down with a sudden cry as it scored its talons across her forehead. Blood welled from the cut, dripping into her eyes as Flare and the fox gave chase behind her.


For an emulated creature, she could certainly run. But she could not escape him while his bird gave away her position, and it didn't take long for the powerful brute to catch up to her. He tackled her to the ground, knocking her paws out from under her. He landed on her hard, his body splayed over hers.


His eyes were wild from the chase, and he grinned as he looked down at her. “Fleeing? How… embarrassing.” It was a warning, a reminder. A lesson was to be learned here. He brushed at the bloody fur above her eyes. At first the motion was gentle, but then he was pushing his claw into the wound. Starting at the cut, and dragging the claw down. Tearing into her flash as he dragged it to the top of her eye. “I could take it, right here and now.” He paused, his claw still in her flesh, and then he smiled. He pulled his claw free and touched it lightly to the white beside the green of her iris. Leaving a small red mark on her eyeball. “But the threat of taking it is far more fun today. You ever try that again, and I'll dine on the delicacy of a wolf's eye. It's been a while since I had one.” He removed his claws from her eye, but held it above her. A warning. “Say ‘I understand, Master.”



(Permission to pp given by Elin)

"Speech"

She soared! Her paws touched the ground over the fox and she leaped to sprint for the opening again until suddenly, in a flash of feathers and a cry of pain she was momentarily blinded! She stumbled and got up as the bird raked its claws over her brow. She bolted blindly forward, her heart hammering against her chest and yet just before she could feel the growing sunlight on her fur all the air was knocked out of her as she landed heavily back into the soil. The fire-marked male landed heavily on top of her. She couldn't even scream as the wind rushed out of her lungs.

His voice was suddenly in her ear as she struggled to grab her breath back. Oh, she'd done it now! She felt his gentle nigh caress over the bloody wound on her brow and she drew in another shaky breath. Then suddenly she was screaming and scrambling and writhing beneath him as he dug into her flesh and tore into close to her eye.

He stopped and she sobbed, moaning her pain into the rotten woodland floor. Her eye held open as she whimpered when he pulled his claw out and touched the white of her eyeball.

He held that terrible claw over her and commanded her again to say it. She nodded desperately, shakily, "Yes-I understand Master, I understand." She agreed, sealing her fate to him, her sobs broken around the words and she trembled beneath him.

He could feel her trembling beneath him, and it was waking a heat inside of him. It would be so easy. He would just needd to move her a little, and take what he wanted. He let out a soft, frustrated groan. No, slaves were not allowed to bear children and he would not risk his promotion over a little desire. He needed to get her to the packs healer who would chemically castrate her.


The sound of her sobbing eventually became a nuisance, and he smacked an open paw against her cheek. “Enough snivilling. Control yourself, woman.” He ordered her, getting off from her as he said it. “Come. We have things to do.” He said, turning from her. His fox stayed behind her, waiting and watching to ensure she obeyed.

"Speech"

She flinched as he hit her over the cheek, ordering her sniveling to be staunched. She sniffed and stifled any more from erupting through her nose. This was her life now. To be the plaything and punching bag of this monster. All she had known were monsters, her mother had abandoned her to his world of monsters. But he might be the worst.

He got off her and she slowly got herself shakily to her feet as he commanded her to follow. She hung her head and padded after him. She was too weak and hungry to run, she had been stupid to even try before. She slunk as quickly as she could muster after him, her eye lingering on the fox behind her, and trying to find the winged companion of his that had struck her face. She couldn't get much of a look around though, her eye was swelling shut from the trauma of the wound above it and her vision in that eye was difficult through the blood.