It was primarily curiosity driving Guy steadily southward. He had already encountered some of the pack borders, skirting well away from them in his furtive investigations, but none of them had appealed. The dark-hued wolf did not know what it was he was looking for, exactly, but perhaps he would when he found it. He only knew mountain-dwelling was not for him, and could read plainly on the skull-lined borders his kind was unwelcome. And so it was ever southward he traveled, past the dead city -- which he avoided dutifully, casting wary glances toward its spires and towers now and again.

Perhaps he would never find a home perfectly suited to himself. There had been a string of them, one after the other, and Guy had never remained more than a year with any of them. The longest had been Matagami, but here, too, Guy found himself low on the totem pole. All he wanted was comfort and a suitably high enough rank where he needn't grovel and simper in the presence of every half-worthy wolf in the pack, and nowhere could he find it. Neither could he seem to attract a woman and found his own pack. None seemed to desire him, or he just wasn't doing it right. Guy had never given it much thought.

He had, however, been thinking quite a lot lately about a scent he'd found in this area. It was one with a vague familiarity, and dimly, Guy hoped to meet one of his long-lost family. His sister, perhaps? Or even his mother -- it had been so long, Guy did not even think he'd recognize her. But the tawny-hued timberwolf was not certain what this scent was -- only that it was interesting, familiar, and he was following it.

And, quite suddenly, there was a new freshness to the scent -- perhaps some wind draft, or some trapped bit of it, or even a back-tracked trail. This was lucky for Guy, as the rains would have done for the days-old trail. The wolf paused where this new scent came into his nose, dropping down to all fours again. He inhaled deeply, and some memory emerged from the murk of his brain. Matagami -- and impossibly pale fur. Guy was not the sort to freeze with shock and contemplate his new discovery: he charged head-long after the scent with this new memory, spurred forward with purpose. He remembered.

The rain was of no consequence to him, for he had traveled across the earth without shelter for long months of his life. It concealed his noise and blurred his scent from the world, but all it did for him, it did for his prey, as well. For -- that was what she was. He hadn't had his turn, and that memory in particular bit at him. Deemed too low and ignorant even for a defiled deity -- that was Guy's lot in life. Well, he could change that lot, couldn't he? He had already done so by seeking out his own place, free of simpering to his betters and begging for his most basic of rights.

The wolf paused some distance from the edge of her camp, for a moment mistaking the blurred gold hindquarters of a horse for his quarry. Then, he blinked the water from his eyes and recognized the animal for what it was. A brief sweep over the camp told Guy she was not present. He could remember her name, maybe, if he really tried -- but that wasn't very important, after all. The fur was what he remembered above all. The scarred wolf, having bypassed the camp entirely now, kept exclusively to his four legs, moving more in the manner of his natural form than this two-legged one. He did the same when he hunted in this body And this is hunting, he thought, wholly content with the thought.

There was a blur of movement ahead of him, and Guy hesitated a moment, keeping low to the ground. He used the landscape for his cover -- with dark brown fur, he was well-blended and knew it. His lighter underbelly was even obscured; only his darker shoulders and back were visible. And -- her back was to him. He determined this by creeping closer, moving quickly when the thunderclap made it prudent to do so. Guy was not what one would call a perceptive canine, but his body and mind were geared to these tasks: the hunt, the kill, the feast. This last was his right, owed to him for a long life of loyalty and servitude, but he had never tasted it before. He would begin now: never again would Guy be denied.

He pounced, springing from the ground with powerful rear legs.

The rest of the world seemed to fade and dull. A spaceship, blinking neon LEDs, massive spotlight and all might have landed ten yards in front of Guy, and he would not have taken any notice whatsoever. There was a strange elation all within him, an unprecedented feeling that coursed through him and provoked a happy, greedy grin across his muzzle, even as his hand slipped from her damp, cloaked shoulder and sank into the mud beside her head. Her jaws snapped and pain blazed along his forearm. She was struggling, along with biting -- shoving her weight against him.

Implacable, Guy snarled his frustration in a low growl and lifted his other hand to the back of her head, aiming to sink his fingers into her hair at the scalp and yank her jaws away. His fingers slid into the silk smoothness of her hair and he hissed a breath. The meat! The prey! His mind bleated the chant like an alarm, shrill and demanding his obedience. The unexpected jolt of pleasure sang through his blood and permeated the entirety of his mind. Guy had no memory in that moment -- his name and all he'd known were gone. In his oblivion and thereafter, he might have become her ready worshipper and true believer of her deification.

He let his full weight drop over her, pressing her smaller body into the mud. The stark whiteness of her coat was marred with wide swaths of it, but then, that was appropriate, wasn't it? He pulled and twisted his hand into her hair, tugging her head back until it was almost level with his own. He did not realize he was speaking -- whispering at first the same phrase again and again, perhaps some snatch of a half-remembered prayer or something the pale woman-god had spoken herself. Other words followed in a murmur, all the old filth and insults -- and then, the promises, what he would and should do, what was his right to do, what he must do. His voice, half-growl and monotone, deepened in volume with the thickening presence of his manhood.

Whore, he said. Dirty whore. His fury at having witnessed her defiling, unable to have his piece despite his devotions was far from conscious memory, but it burned in him almost as strong as the desire. Filthy fucking slut. He was almost shouting now, but the rain and the dull roar of thunder drowned half his words, garbled in French, only the occasional word of English here and there.

His body seemed to pulse in time with his pounding heart, and even the rain seemed to fall in time with it. The thunder goaded him, roaring commands down from the heavens as to what Guy should do with their wandering and lost child. He had been innoculated with his parents' strong mythology and a hefty dose of his grandfather's superstition. His brutality was bred of these things. With tales of vengeful gods whispered before sleep each night, what else was Guy to know? Perhaps that was why Cassandra's mythos appealed to him so, and why he was so personally betrayed by her infidelity. He might have even claimed such, given a slightly sharper mind, but in truth, Guy's motive and instinct were far more simple. He had desired her and been denied, even when others might have her freely.

There was a squirming, and even as the tawny-shaded wolf moved his freed hand toward her side and hip, he held his grip on her hair with the other. The hunter did not release prey felled and captured so easily. Yet still, a sudden jerk came from the pale canine and there was fire in both of his legs -- more acute in the one, and perhaps luckily, as the larger blade had only skimmed a shallow cut. The smaller one, however, had managed to stab directly into the meat of his thigh. Howling his wordless fury and pain, the wolf half-leapt, half-yanked himself back, sliding so he might kneel between or around her legs. He sought to pull her hair and head, and thus the rest of her body, upward onto all fours with himself. His free hand sought for her forearm or wrist, or even the knife itself, swatting and slashing where he could not sink a proper grip.

His shouting had ceased with the fire of pain, but the words were still tumbling endlessly from his mouth, murmured curses and worshipful phrases both. Guy might never have recalled half of the things he spoke in conscious memory, but they bubbled up from the surface anyway, competing with the rain for precedence.

Her struggles had no godly might to them. There was pain, but it was dim and distant in the face of so much screaming want and base fury. Her body, small and feminine and all that had been lorded over him and denied him all his life, was there within his hands. Though she flailed and struggled, and there were more brief flashes of fiery pain, Guy rolled over her all the same. He was forced to relinquish his hold on her hair, though a few pale silver strands still clung between his fingers. Even as she spun and slashed and half his world went dark with blood from the slash above his eye, he was shoving her down again. He drew his freed hand back and threw a blow toward her face, an open-handed slap meant to knock her brains around. He put all the swing of his arm behind the slap, but his claws did not come into play. He wanted her face intact, and he always ran the risk of doing as she'd done to him in blood-blinding. He would have none of that -- she would see his vengeance in all its great glory.

Guy lifted his lower body from her and shoved with his other hand, claws scrabbling at her flesh until they sank a hold into her side. Digging into abdomen and surprisingly muscled flesh, he sought to finish her flipping and pin her on her back now -- he would look on her face, mud-streaked as it was. His voice was again half-shouting, though he'd lulled into a frightful repetition for a brief time: you're mine, I'll have you, you're mine. Perhaps it was the words that kept his teeth out of the fight until then -- without warning, he stopped speaking, if it could be called such, and sank his muzzle toward her shoulder, seeking to tear and slice rather than hold her flesh. The brown of the mud needed red to accentuate it, he thought, though he was unaware of the steady stream of blood from his own wounds, the most serious of which was his stabbed leg.

The noises she made provoked his desire, and the burning heat of this was quick to overwhelm the fury. As much as he wanted to tear her apart, he wanted to fuck her more -- or first, or at the same time. Guy did not know which, and he hardly had the brainpower to consider even when not blood and lust maddened. All he was aware of was a sudden lack of struggle, a stillness that perhaps signaled his victory. Scrabbling and struggling with all the fumbling expertise of a teenager, Guy dropped the lower half of his body atop her, arching his head and shoulders back so he might look on her face.

He pressed himself against her, nudging and squirming always. His knee drove between her legs and sought to bring them apart. Her words brought him to attention, but their sharpness and futility brought his desire to an exquisitely maddening, needling point at the base of his spine. He felt as though he was on fire, and though perhaps it was his own blood-loss, he saw quite clearly the dancing angels lingering in her eyes. Halos and wings both afire, they whirled and danced and seemed to be singing and screaming their agony, though perhaps that was simply the pound of his own heart in his ears. Now that heartbeat's tune matched the twitch of his seeking hips as he probed forward. Guy was lifting and positioning with the hand on her side, the claws sank a deeper hold in her flesh.

The words he gave her now were whispers of praise than raving insult, though now his words were mumured and half-slurred with the haze of hurt. More insistent than the pain, however, was his desire -- perhaps the only thing still driving his life forth. He had conquered, and now by right of her stillness, he would have his demanded prize. Her burst forward was unexpected, to say the least, but he jerked out of the way reflexively. It was not enough -- perhaps if Guy hadn't been so otherwise completely occupied, he might have avoided the strike entirely, but as it was, her teeth sank deep into his shoulder. With a grunt the wolf dropped, seeking to smash her occupied head into the mud. His shoulder and arm exploded into another red heat with the sinking of her teeth into his flesh, the tearing and grinding against bone even as they sank to his collarbone.

Though he had other women before, Guy had never tasted a goddess before. He could taste her, too -- a sliver of flesh between his teeth, the warm red blood against his tongue. Her flesh had the same taste as meat he'd eaten before, but as he half-fell, half-pushed forward, he was aware of a different warm sensation, and he knew what separated mortal from deity. Fire licked in rippling waves out from the center of his being and coursed up and down legs and arms both. His belly was a volcanic spring, the clamping bite at the back of his spine almost too painful to bear.

Death for the hunter, came a hazy, half-formed thought as the collarbone snapped with the force of her bite. But his death did not matter -- he'd been baptized and he'd seen the fiery light of angels, and so was saved.

There was but a bare moment of bliss where all his agony drained away and he could feel nothing but heaven wrapped around himself. The initially grievous wound on his leg was a feather brushing him, the fire at his shoulder where her teeth were buried was a spider crawling across him, and the milder burning from a dozen smaller cuts and slashes all but went silent. His fury was not absent from his face, but it was tempered, overshadowed by the blessed relief and overwhleming sense of right Guy felt. His right, his. Even his voice had ceased, choked into grunts and half-moans instead of words. Even those were denied him, and now Guy truly knew deafening silence and absence from the world. The rain was beating on his back, staining the dark parts of his fur darker and the tawny parts a pinkish red. It fell streaming down onto the woman and the mud came away from her fur, leaving dirty brown and faint pink streaks behind. There were open red places, too, and the wolf reached out through his anguish and moved to touch her where he'd ripped the fur and skin to expose raw red meat.

His heart seemed to explode, and pain burst through his relieved pleasure. Was he dying, now? Frantically he pumped and twitched in attempt to stay his position, but cried out with a wrenching half-scream as her legs connected squarely with his stomach. He tried to roll, and all the flame in his shoulder and neck came roaring back to him. His scream was of frustration, and Guy arched his back and bucked even as he knew the coldness of their separation. Strangely enough, his chest no longer hurt, not after that initial explosion. If he had looked down, he would have seen the knife, buried hilt-deep in his abdomen, but he attributed it to the strain of knowing a goddess as he had: of course it would almost kill him.

Fully maddened and unaware of his condition, the mud and blood streaked wolf tried to rise, struggling and throwing his body in attempt to stir dying limbs to motion. His manhood remained absurdly stone-hard and absurdly pale pink, sticking up from the grime-streaked fur between his legs. It bounced and cavorted with the motions of his body, meek a struggle as it was, and seemed the most living part of him -- even his eyes, fire-gold and sun-yellow, seemed clouded and dull with death. And still, one hand, the opposite of his broken collarbone, reached up and snatched for her, seeking whatever flesh it might find.

It seemed to Guy he grabbed ahold of her and pulled her down on top of him, willing and wanting, in the hallucinating, delusional final moments of his life. The wolf's body spasmed and jerked even without stimulation, and in his mind she gave herself to him wholly and completely, her life streaming out red between his teeth as his own ended. The knife slid from his chest and his noise was a deep, instinctual moaning grunt, for his mind told him this was his orgasm, and his body obeyed.

His life bubbled from him in red and white, and in his final moments before death he was aware of only the blinding, searing pleasure/pain in his groin, which had been for the past several minutes (or hours, it might have been) the center of his entire universe. The slipping of slimy purple-red organs from the cavity of his chest into shockingly cold air and colder rain was only a secondary whispering to that greater burning between his legs. His gasp of breath drew nothing, for his lungs were exposed to the cold air as they never ought to have been. Although Guy did not fully smile, there was something akin to utter peace on his face, half-lidded eyes and a murky ghost of a grin planted on his blood-spattered lips.