Choose the Bear

With a firm grip on her hand, the knight led the sorceress through the black woods. His heart thundered in his chest, blood singing in his veins after the frenzy of battle. The woman stumbled as he tugged her along. She tripped on a root and stumbled into his back.

"Are you alright, my lady?"

"I told you, I am not a lady." Her teeth chattered together.

The knight looked down into her small, flushed face and brushed a tangled golden curl back from her cheeks. Her dark brown eyes danced behind a sheen of tears. Her fingers still twitched with the spell that had saved them both from certain death.

"I know what you are. I saw what you did," the knight said. "You saved both our lives back there. That's two good reasons why I should not kill you where you stand, witch."

"I am not a witch," she said. "And I am not a lady. Let go of me now, or I will ruin you."

The knight glared into her face. For decades, their countries had warred against one another. Magic and steel clashed again and again across their borders. She didn't wear the scarlet sash of the evil mages, but only a powerful conjurer could summon a bear's spirit into empty flesh.

"Do your worst," he said.

He held the sorceress by her shaking shoulders and glared into the smoldering eyes. The knight braced himself for a spell -- a bolt of lighting or at least a cold gust of wind blown from a gesture of her quivering fingers.

He was not prepared at all when her arms wound around her neck and her mouth crushed against his.

The knight froze. He'd never once laid a hand on a woman, let alone his lips. All his childhood spent in prayer and fasting to make himself a warrior did not prepare him for the sweetness of it. Her mouth opened, and he felt himself melt into the heat of it, his hands flattening across her back.

"Run now, handsome knight," she whispered. "Don't blame me if you don't. I've been alone in these woods for so long... If you stay with me now, I will put you on your knees."

Her fingers wormed through the laces at his throat. His sweaty armor slid down his shoulders as she worked it loose. The knight tugged at the bearskin around her shoulders that had shredded a man to bits only moments ago. He caught her scent beneath the burnt-sugar smell clinging to the fur -- jasmine and musk.

"Lady," he gasped. His cock hardened, and his blood grew warmer still.

"I told you not to call me that." She sucked his lip in between her small, sharp teeth. Her hands went underneath his shirt now to caress his skin. Her palm brushed over the hair on his belly and traveled upward, flattening against a hardening nipple.

The knight felt himself burning with her touch, returning it. His hands smoothed down her narrow back and cupped her shapely buttocks. A surprising strength in her legs made them flex in his grip, and he dug his fingers into the fleshy curves. He delighted the little moan of pleasure it drew from her.

"Is this enchantment?" the knight murmured.

"It's true love," the sorceress answered. "Shut the fuck up and take off all your clothes."

He stripped warily, his eyes watching those dangerous fingers dance across her buttons and laces. His boots came off, and she slipped out of the bearskin. He hauled his shirt over his shoulders while she peeled back the collar of her chemise. Soon, they both stood before one another, naked.

The knight couldn't tear his eyes from her breasts. Small and pert with dark nipples that rippled under his thumbs when he pinched them. He bent to see them better, closing the distance in their height by going down on one knee and drawing her round bottom to sit on him.

The sorceress's face flushed, and her lustrous eyes widened as he bent to take a nipple into his mouth. He felt her fingers in his hair, unwinding his warrior's braids. She gripped him with a fist when he bit her and moaned again when he flicked his tongue across the hardened flesh.

"Am I in danger?" he asked. He lifted his head to gaze up into her face. "Will you kill me for touching you like this?"

The knight dragged his tongue over the top of her soft breasts. The sorceress shook her head. Her body still trembled, but now she used it as a way to push herself against him, straddling his knee.

"What about touching you here?" he asked. He slid his hand up her silky thigh slowly until his fingers brushed the hair between her legs.

"It isn't death you need to fear, Sir." She rocked her hips. He felt the spread of her moistening lips on his thigh. Her hands cupped his face and turned it upward so that she could kiss him again. Her tongue plunged into his mouth. "Love is far more dangerous."

She fucked his mouth with her tongue while his fingers wormed between her fleshy buttocks. The sorceress brought herself off with his thigh alone, undulating over the hard muscle. His dark black hair clung to him with her juices as she shuddered against him. He pressed a fingertip against her asshole to feel it clench when she came.

His cock jutted between them like a spear, stoked to rock-hard thickness. The knight lowered the sorceress to the forest floor and spread himself on top of her, powerful thighs straddling her hips. His man brushed against her naked belly. He traced the brilliant white mark of a scar across her hip.

"Don't stare," she said.

When the knight looked up into her face, he saw embarrassment.

"Were you wounded in battle?" he asked, brushing his fingers against the puckered skin.

"Yes -- when your king stormed my temple and butchered the holy knights set to guard me."

"Virgin." His hand flatted on her hip. He searched her eyes for any hint of pain, the ghost of the girl she'd been. "Did they force themselves on you?"

"Would it arouse you if I said yes?" She sat up and put her small hands around his throat. Her fingers came nowhere near meeting, but she had enough strength there to choke him if he allowed it. "Are you the kind who likes to hold down women?"

His hands traveled the curve of her back. He smoothed the taut muscles there, stroking her like a frightened animal. Her breath hitched, and her legs trembled as his gentle hands soothed her hidden hurt.

"I am a knight sworn to honor, not a thief of flesh."

He leaned his head toward hers, watching the sorceress's eyes. They flicked toward his mouth, and she wetted her lips with the tip of her tongue. He took it as permission. This kiss was slower, deeper, with the frenzy of the skirmish sliding to the back of their minds.

They took their time now with lingering touches. The caressed the round of the sorceress's belly and the flare of her ribcage beneath the delicate breasts. She slid her hand down between his legs and drew her fingers through the hair around his balls. Their mouths never left one another for more than a moment, building a bridge between their pleasure.

His cock ached with the need to be inside her. When she pressed him back down onto the ground, she slid her wet folds onto him with a devilish shimmy of her hips. The tip pressed between the sopping softness, and the knight released a shuddering breath as she lowered herself down. He held the sorceress in place while he thrust up into her.

"This will ruin you," she gasped.

"I want--to be ruined..." He thrust again and again into her, watching waves of color rise in her face. Dimly, he felt the shed bearskin beneath him clinging to his back with sweat.

The sorceress rocked helplessly above him, her fingers stealing down to rub the tight bud of flesh peeking out from the dark golden hair between her legs. The little cries she made each time he pounded her deepened as she found her rhythm. She fell forward onto his chest, quivering like a plucked bowstring while he grasped her ass and pounded her.

He was so lost in pleasure that he did not notice when the sorceress whispered in his ear. He felt his legs grow heavy and his chest burn. The silky weight of her dissolved to featherlight touches. He moaned, grabbing her to feel more of her body against him. She whispered louder, her mouth near his ear, sharp teeth nipping him.

"That's it... That's it, my knight. Sink your soul into the flesh. Give life where it was taken... Oh, give it to me--yes!--give it to me...!"

His cock twitched and burst at her urging, pumping her vanishing softness full of hot seed. He leaned his head back and roared his pleasure, his voice wrenching from somewhere deep inside his hairy chest.

At that moment, the knight ceased to be a man. The bearskin beneath his back wove through his flesh, binding itself to his limbs. He felt the strength of the animal in him, heard the crack of his bones expanding. His mouth filled with a long tongue, and his teeth stretched.

The sorceress slid from his loins and stood back. She gazed at him with her dark, unknowable eyes as he shuddered and writhed. He found himself on all fours now, facing her. He lifted his shaggy head to gaze lovingly up at his mistress. She stretched out her hand to rest it on the wide, empty place between his eyes.

"My knight -- I warned you: I would put you on your knees." She stroked her bear and kissed it on the nose. "You serve me, now. And together, we will hunt these woods. No woman should ever find herself alone with a man if she hopes for safety. While you are in this skin, my knight, she will always choose the bear."