The Hunters and the Hunted

Author's note: The story continues, part 3 of 6. There is quite a bit of background, especially about my version of Lycanthropy and the Clan, before the rather intense B&D-type sex. Just fair warning. As before, comments and voting are greatly appreciated, especially voting. It helps me know how well I am being entertaining. Thanks...

The Hunters and the Hunted – Chapter 3

Okay, who are you... and what have you done with my balling buddy?

* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *

Angelo and Skye slowly woke to the feeling of soft sateen and plush pillows, the sound of birds chirping nearby and the smell of lilac.

It had been one hell of a dream, even though they both had no recollection of where they were, or how they got there, or even why they were there together.

"Hey, Skye..." Angelo reached out and gently ran a hand through her hair. "How're you doing?"

"God awful sore for a dream," she moaned. "What are you doing in my bed? You come home with me and fuck my brains out last night?" Then she suddenly sat up.

"This is

not

my bed!" she exclaimed, looking around. "Where the fuck are we? Did you redecorate?"

"No..." Angelo drawled, realization creeping into his consciousness. "Skye... what kind of dream did you have?"

Skye looked at him suspiciously for a moment, then started to blush. "You, me... a couple of really sexy werewolves..."

"That's what I thought," Angelo murmured. "I think we're in their bed. Or one of their beds. I don't think it was a dream."

The look on Skye's face changed to one of alarm.

"Are you fucking

kidding

me?" she hissed, looking around wildly. "They're

real???

"

"I am not kidding," he assured her, "and I think if we look around, we'll find we're in an old manor house out in the middle of nowhere, and if we follow our noses, we'll end up at breakfast. Do you smell that?"

Skye was trying to get her pulse and respiration under control. If her dream had really happened, she was neck deep in some frightening shit. But she did hear him and she did try to focus, and she did in fact smell something a lot like bacon and fresh bread, or pastries.

"Yeah, I do," she admitted. She suddenly realized she was naked. So was Angelo. "So where are our clothes?" she asked, pulling the sheets closer around her.

"I am going to take a huge chance," Angelo told her, "and presume what I remember from my dream was actually real." He reached for a bell pull next to the huge half-canopy bed.

"Don't do that!" Skye cried out to him, but it was too late. Angelo had pulled on the long cord.

Almost immediately, a small door that hadn't been there before opened in the mahogany paneling at the far end of the room and a young woman –

late teens, early twenties? Cute, anyway...

Skye thought – stepped into the room.

"Yes, m'Lord," she curtsied. Skye noted she was dressed in a simple grey shift and a white bonnet, looking very much like an old-fashioned servant girl.

Angelo was a lot faster on the uptake than Skye.

"Hello... do you happen to know where our clothes are?" he asked pleasantly.

"Your attire from last night is still being laundered, sir," she answered him. "If m'lord and m'lady desire suitable dress before then, my Master instructed me to show you this..." She walked to another section of wall and the paneling opened, showing twin closets, one full of "His" clothes and one full of "Hers."

"There is a wide variety of styles and sizes here," the girl went on, "and in the cupboards are underwear as you may desire. I am available to assist you as you may need."

"Okay, thanks, um... what is your name, if you don't mind?" Angelo asked.

"I am called Coeruleus, sir. I have been assigned to you. And to the Lady."

"Okay, how about I make it Sera?" Angelo smiled, "Easier on my brain. I don't think we need you any more at the moment, thank you. Except to ask which way to the bathroom?"

"Through that door there, sir, to the sitting parlor, then to the right. If you continue straight ahead through the parlor instead, you will exit into the Gallery, sir. You need only ring the bell if you need assistance."

"Thank you, Sera, you may go." As Coeruleus disappeared back into the woodwork and the servants' door closed, Angelo turned to Skye.

"Shower, dress and breakfast?" he asked.

"Do we have a choice?" Skye asked.

"Not unless we wish to be absolute boors and run for the hills in our birthday suits," Angelo pointed out. "Besides... I'm hungry."

"Okay," Skye agreed, wincing her way out of bed and rummaging in the closet for a robe.

There were several plush robes from which she and Angelo each picked one. They then made their way as directed to the bathroom. And stood for several seconds in awe.

The entire bathroom was tiled in Parian marble, shot with veins of gold. At the far end was a massive tub in a raised dais while there was a long shower on the left behind glass, with two heads, and a dark wood vanity with basins and mirrors and so forth running along the right. Beyond the tub, filling most of the back wall, was an intricate stained glass window worthy of a medieval cathedral. And everywhere there were the amenities – plush towels, toiletries, even a portable hair dryer.

"God, it's like a 5-star hotel!" Skye breathed as she soaked it all in. "Are we even allowed to use it?"

"I'm guessing yes, based on what Sera said," Angelo smiled. "I think a shower sounds in order. Come on..." He moved on into the bathroom, snagging towels, bar soap and shampoo. Skye was right with him as he hung up his robe on the hooks outside the shower and stepped in. He let out a huge sigh as the jets of hot water pounded his sore muscles. Fifteen minutes of hot water, soap, shampoo and a gentle massage of each other's stiff, sore muscles and Angelo and Skye felt a lot more human.

Rejuvenated, anyway. Another half hour of drying off, picking out clothes and getting dressed and they were ready to hunt down the rest of breakfast. The rest, because sometime while they were in the shower, a carafe of hot coffee, two mugs, cream and sugar appeared on the dresser in the bedroom.

"Okay, remember," Angelo had commented, sipping his coffee, "no matter how weird things get, our hosts are civilized."

Skye just smiled and appraised herself in the full-length mirror. A simple light blue shift of some kind of cotton-polyester blend, caught at the waist by a woven belt, and a pair of strappy, low-heal sandals not only looked good on her but were comfortable as well.

And Angelo didn't look bad either, in simple Irish linen shirt and slacks, and a pair of more masculine leather sandals. They'd both chosen to forgo the underwear after noting that most of it was fancy silk.

They cautiously eased their way out of the bedroom's sitting parlor and into the long Gallery. And "long" it certainly was. It seemed to run the length of the house through arched stone buttresses, terminated at either end by large stained glass windows similar to the one in the bedroom. It was replete with suits of armor, tapestries, paintings, torch sconces and the like, although illumination beyond the sunlight pouring in came from periodic electric chandeliers hanging from the ceiling.

Skye started to get a creepy feeling when she realized that most of the paintings were of a human and a wolf, both gazing steadily out at the viewer, the painter's portraiture obviously very well developed. She definitely got a start when she realized that the portraits closest to the stairs they were about to descend were of the couple in her dream... Viktor, she remembered, and Trudy, and the wolves in their pictures looked very much like they had looked last night.

The plaque below his said "Viktor, Clan Mac Tíre-fuil, dhá Céad Fiche ar an chéad Tiarna." The one below hers said only, "Gertrude, Clan Mac Tíre-fuil, iníon Stefan ar."

"And that would be Stefan," Angelo pointed out, after looking at several portraits. He was pointing to the portrait of a man who looked very much like Viktor. His plaque read, "Stefan, Clan Mac Tíre-fuil, a Dó Céad Fichiú Tiarna."

"Striking resemblance, don't you think?"

"Let's just go find breakfast," Skye suggested, unable to shake the feeling she was in a sinister presence.

They headed into the stairwell and discovered it was a spiral staircase in some kind of tower with occasional narrow windows looking out on a walled-in garden, complete with trees, shrubs, pathways and a fountain in the middle.

"You know, this is a rather nice place," Angelo pointed out as they reached the bottom and stepped out. "And through

there

is where I remember the parlor we got laid in... I mean, if that's what happened in

your

dream. It certainly was in mine. Which means through

there

should be the way through the Great Hall and beyond that, the foyer where we came in. And it smells like breakfast is in that direction."

He walked off and Skye had no choice but to follow him. And now she knew for certain it

wasn't

a dream. Everything she remembered had actually happened. Which beyond being scary was confusing, partly because if she did everything she remembered, she should be immobilized with pain, and partly because she remembered enjoying it so much.

At Angelo's speed, it didn't take long to reach the foyer and make the turn towards the back of the house. Heading right of the stairs leading up, they discovered another smaller hallway leading back, past the Buttery, the Pantry and into the Kitchen. They were surprised to find another servant, this one male, standing in the kitchen putting plates of food on a tray.

"Oh! Excuse me!" Angelo exclaimed as he sighted the man. "I'm sorry, we're new here and seem to have gotten turned around. Do you know where we can find Viktor and Trudy?"

"The Lord and Lady are just beyond, taking breakfast, sir," the servant answered. "If you wish to follow me, I am going there now."

"That'd be great," Angelo smiled and he and Skye followed the man out of the kitchen, the opposite way they came in and into a large, oaken paneled room with tables and seating around what seemed like antiquated workstations for preparing food or washing up. And at the massive central table sat Viktor and Trudy. Viktor rose as he saw them come in.

"Angelo and Skye!" he greeted them. "You found us! Wonderful, wonderful... come, have a seat. We are just sitting down to breakfast. For

some reason

..." – he gave Angelo and Skye an exaggerated wink – "Trudy and I slept in this morning, being somewhat exhausted from last night's revels."

Angelo and Skye smiled nervously at his enthusiasm, but decided starving trumped scared. So they walked in and sat at the table across from their hosts. The servant finished placing several platters on the table, then withdrew.

"Help yourselves," Trudy smiled. "No reason to stand on ceremony. In fact, in the old days, this was the servants' room. Well, scullery, too, but generally where all the important work got done. Here and in the kitchen. These days, we only use the dining room for formal occasions. You must still be tired from your workout. After breakfast, you can suckle more, if you'd like."

What?

The identical thought hit Angelo and Skye's brains simultaneously.

That wasn't imagined?

"Um, wow... thanks... um, I'm famished," Angelo took the lead and Skye was happy he did. She looked in front of her and saw normal, human food – as far as she could tell. Pancakes, bacon, eggs, sausage, juice, coffee, pastries, fruit – all piled up for the taking.

"There is nothing unusual about our fare," Viktor smiled as if reading her mind. "Quite safe and quite human. Please, feel free... we want nothing more than to be good hosts to you and to imbibe your libidos. When you've had a bite, though, there is some business we need to discuss."

He and Trudy began serving themselves and offering the platters to Angelo and Skye, who despite their initial reluctance chose to believe their hosts and chow down.

"So," Angelo ventured when all four had polished off a rather healthy portion of breakfast, "are we crazy or are you guys werewolves?"

"We are actually werewolves," Trudy smiled slightly. "Our clan dates back several thousand years. We live among humans and yet they know nothing about us. We are not a threat, but you would have no way of knowing that. Under normal circumstances, after last night, we would have used our abilities to heal you – mostly – and return you to Angelo's car, where we would have left you sleeping, your memory of the evening erased, except for certain vague impressions which we cannot completely eliminate."

"But," Viktor interjected, "these are not the usual circumstances. We have not feasted on such a fucking great rut like last night in a very long time. Although it violates the tenants of our clan, we are loathe to 'kill the goose that lays the golden egg,' as it were. My sister and I have had a very long heart-to-heart about it, and we would like to explore some options with you."

"You're not going to, like... bite us, and make us werewolves, are you?" Skye asked hesitantly.

Viktor smiled and shook his head.

"That is where humans have got it a bit muddled," he started to explain. "There are three different kinds of lycanthropy, regardless of the animal form involved: the curse, the disease and the genetic. We are of the last kind. Most of human knowledge about Weres stems from the first kind. And all three are complicated."

"Look at it this way," Trudy jumped in. "The Curse of the Werewolf is exactly that... a divine curse, particularly effective through the bloodlines of the Romanians, Hungarians, Bulgarians and others whose lineage dates back to the Greeks and the Gypsies – the ancient Egyptian animal-worship cults who were scattered throughout Asia Minor and Europe. That's the one with the forced transformation at the full moon, the vulnerability to silver weapons and exorcism, and so forth. There aren't very many of them and they are usually eliminated by the rightfully fearful humans."

"The second," Viktor rejoined, "the Disease of Lycanthropy, is medicinal in nature, brought on by certain combinations of viruses and/or herbs or plants. It can usually be cured, using such things as aconite or other toxins, and the victims are usually little to no threat because they exist in a weakened state."

"The third one, the Genetic," Trudy reasserted, "is us. It is passed down generation to generation, by a Were male mating with a human female, producing Were offspring, male and female. We are strongly influenced by the lunar cycle but are not controlled by it. We crave flesh but are quite happy hunting non-human game. We can shapeshift at will, or sometimes unintentionally under extremely emotional conditions, and we are comfortable in any of our three forms."

"Those three," Viktor explained, "are our human form that you see us in now, our humanoid form which is still bipedal and very anthropomorphic but with the base characteristics of our animal – in our case, the wolf – and our full animal form, indistinguishable from other wolves unless you know what you're looking for."

"By the end of last night," he continued, "we were well on our way to our humanoid form, but not completely. Which is why Trudy manifested her six teats, we both grew extra fur, and I knotted in Skye's ass."

"Oh, my God, so

that's

why I'm so sore!" Skye exclaimed. "It

wasn't

a dream! You fucked the hell out of me with that huge dog cock!"

"Wolf cock," Viktor corrected her. "Unless you mean Dog as in the male, versus Bitch as in the female. And you would have been significantly more sore if you hadn't suckled Trudy. Her milk has amazing recuperative powers."

Skye sat in quiet amazement. It was true. All of it was true.

"Um, can I clear something up for a second?" Angelo ventured.

"Sure," Viktor told him.

"What was that about wiping our memories? Like, after you dropped us back at my car?"

"One of the powers our Clan shares, and one generally used when we hunt humans to sate our libidos, is the ability to cause short term memory loss in our victims. We can erase, or severely modify, up to about 3 days' worth, although less than 24 hours is a lot easier and a lot more practical. We chose not to do that with you because we have a proposition for you and to be useful, you need to remember what happened last night."

"Trudy's milk may have muddled things up for you – a bit, anyway. It has a sort of sedative effect as well as healing. That is why we wanted you to sleep in, comfortably, and join us when you were clear headed. I hope my choice of Coeruleus as an attendant was satisfactory."

"Oh, absolutely!" Angelo smiled. "She was perfect. Quite the charmer. So, going back to the wipe the mind thing. If you decided you didn't like whatever is happening with me and Skye, you could just magically wipe our memories of any contact with you. I get it. That keeps you hidden. So what is so special that you didn't do your usual, and instead, we're having breakfast together?"

Viktor and Trudy looked at each other for a moment in silent communication. Then Viktor spoke.

"We are very impressed with you, as sexual partners. So far, we're happy with your personalities. So for the first time in a very long time, we'd like to propose that you become our lovers. Others in our Clan will see you more like pets, but don't let that bother you. Trudy and I are essentially offering you our friendship and affection in return for yours, and for a sharing of our rather healthy libidos. You could live here, or commute, as you wish, whenever you wanted – but at least one day every two weeks."

"And we would want you together," Trudy spoke up. "A package deal, as it were."

Angelo and Skye looked at each other in stunned silence, while Viktor and Trudy sat back and let them process. The looks crossing the humans' faces before they ever spoke a word ran the gamut of

oh, God, what are we doing?

to

this could be so cool

and everything in between. Finally it was Skye who broke the silence.

"You are scaring the shit out of me..." she told Viktor and Trudy. "And... I think I'm in."

The sigh of relief from Angelo was palpable.

"I am so glad you said it first," he told Skye, then turned to Viktor. "I'm with her. You scare the hell out of me. But the experience is so insanely wonderful, I think I'm in. You should know, though, that sometimes I have to travel for work, so I might not be available."

"Then we might have to abscond with Skye and come meet you some week, wherever they've sent you," Trudy smiled and somehow, Angelo knew she was serious.

"That is wonderful!" Viktor grinned, and it was definitely wolfish. "In that case, a few more points of business. In the absence of your own personal transportation, if you need to run any errands I can either make a driver and vehicle available to you, or you can choose from our livery. All of our vehicles have built in GPS with the coordinates of this manor in them. Otherwise, you would find it difficult to get back. We are rather well secluded."

"Also, if you have any special dietary requirements, feel free to let us know and we will arrange whatever you want. Same for any toiletries, or feel free to bring whatever you like. You are our guests, not our prisoners. We want you to be very, very happy with us until such time as we agree to move on."

"Oh, and you should know. It will get significantly more intense today and tonight. We are one day away from the full moon and one or both of us may need to be restrained. Just in case you have a problem with me or Trudy being tied up. I assure you, we are experts at this and no harm will come of it."