“You didn’t know it was a costume party either, huh, Henry?”

Even through the noise, I’d recognize that voice anywhere; I turned, wide-eyed, towards its source. “Tabitha?” My old gaming buddy grinned broadly at me, then launched herself into my arms. “When did you get back into town? Are you living here now?”

She pulled back and looked up at me, green eyes bright through those thick-ass glasses. “Sort of? I’m moving back. Crashing with friends while I find a place to live.”

“Bitch! Why didn’t you call? You could have stayed with me!”

She stood on tiptoe and poked my nose with hers. “Because then I couldn’t surprise you!”

Tabby stepped away, still holding my hands. She hadn’t changed much; still had the same curly dark red hair, still the big, goofy smile, and still dressed like a kindergarten teacher with a shrine to Robert Smith hidden in her closet. We’d met when she’d dated my sophomore roommate, Kathleen; the two of them lasted about five minutes, but it turned out that Tabitha and I got on like a house on fire. 

There was a time when calling her my gaming buddy would have seemed utterly insufficient. Over the course of about three years, Tab went from that to being easily the best friend I’d ever had. She had a key to my place, was a fixture on my couch, and shared pretty much every high and low of my life. Tabitha might as well have been my girlfriend.

Well, if not for, you know, the whole lesbian thing.

After we graduated and Tabitha moved away for work, she and I stayed in touch for a while. Tabby, though, had always eschewed social media, so our catch-ups consisted of irregular phone calls that got more irregular as we got on with our lives. They ceased completely once she took up with her jealous gold-star lesbian girlfriend.

I looked over her shoulder. “Is, ah, is Eliza here?”

“Eliza? Oh, God, no, she was like two girlfriends back. Why do you…” Her jaw dropped. “Is that why you stopped calling? I thought it was because of that bitch you were…” Tabby’s mouth snapped shut. “Uh, so, uh, is Melissa here?”

With a snort, I hugged her again. “That was like three girlfriends back for me. Come on. It sounds like we’ve got a lot of catching up to do.”

We grabbed a couple of drinks and headed out onto the balcony. Our mutual friends–or, really, friends-of-friends–rented a great apartment overlooking the huge forested park of the college town we lived in. Even “park” might have been going a little far. That would indicate the city did anything more than put in a few cement walking paths with minimal lighting and called it a day.

October wasn’t as cold as it had been when I was a kid, but I still felt a chill in the air. I scarcely noticed, though, so intent on finding out what had happened in the intervening four years. Most of her experience mirrored mine: a boring entry-level job followed by reasonable advancement; the creeping realization that the type of people we dated in college might not be the best ones for the long haul; shitty break-ups; missing each other intensely.

She rolled her eyes. “God, I thought I’d pissed you off or something!” 

“No! No, not at all. But why didn’t you call me?”

“I… did? I mean, I only got your voicemail, but I did call.”

“When?”

“I dunno, a few times, maybe two years back, after I broke up with Eliza?”

Oh, goddammit. Of course. “Fucking Alice.” Tab tilted her head quizzically. “I dated her after Melissa for a couple of months. She got it into her head that I was cheating on her and kept deleting voicemails and texts from any woman. Almost got me fired when my manager left me a message saying I needed to come in one weekend.”

“Are you fucking kidding me? I thought you hated me!”

“Shit no! I love you, Tab. You know that.”

“Funny way of showing that, you prick.” She glared up at me, face half fake anger and half real anger.

“I didn’t want to get between you and Eliza! You seemed really serious, and–”

Tabby poked me in the chest, hard. “You have that shit backwards. I didn’t want anyone getting between you and me!”

I shrugged, a bit miffed at that statement. “C’mon, Tab. I knew the way you worked: you’d get in deep with some girl, kind of drop off the face of the earth for a while, and then when you either got tired of her or it turned serious, we’d get back together, and hang out. But you’d moved away, hon. And when I didn’t hear back from you, I just assumed you’d, you know, that you’d moved on, too. From me.”

The anger turned to hurt. “Moved on? No. Henry, no.” She stepped in and hugged me again, almost crushing my ribs. “I missed you, man. I love you, too. It really hurt when I never heard back. I had so much I wanted to share with you, but I thought you ghosted me.”

“You know, if you’d just get on Twitter…”

Her voice was muffled by my chest. “Don’t push it. You’re just now getting back in my good graces.”

“Discord?”

Her head turned to the side, and she squeezed me tight. “Maybe. For you.”

“You have changed!”

Tab’s body stiffened against me for a minute, then she relaxed. “Yeah. Yeah, I have. Sort of.” She pulled away again, looking like she was about to say something serious. Instead, though, she glanced toward the sliding glass door and laughed to herself.

“What?”

“Being amused by the Wild Hunt.”

I peered at my nerdy friend, mildly confused at both the sudden shift of topics and the new topic itself. “Like from The Witcher?”

Tab rolled her eyes dramatically. “Philistine. No, like from European legends.” She leaned back against the railing, facing inwards this time, toward the party going on without us. I did the same.

“Oh, yeah? And when did you become an expert on European legends?”

Tabitha turned her head part towards me, then grinned conspiratorially. “I don’t know about ‘expert.’ But do you remember Absinthe, that goth chick I chased back before we graduated? Big into Wiccan shit. Figured it would behoove me–”

I raised an eyebrow. “‘Behoove’ you? Really?”

“Shut up. Anyways, know your prey, right? So I read up on a bunch of European folklore and shit. And I kind of got a taste for it after that, so I kept on reading even after finding out what a dead lay she was. No pun intended.”

“And you think drunk folks at a party trying to get laid are like spectral hounds of the dead?”

Tabitha peered at me. “I thought you thought they were from The Witcher.”

“I’m allowed to like weird shit, too, you know.” She shot me a Look. I sighed and rolled my eyes. “Okay, yes, I looked it up after I played The Witcher, but still.”

With a smug smile, she continued. “Well, Mr. ‘I’m allowed to like weird shit, too,’ if you had read more about it than what you needed to know to understand a videogame–”

“–As opposed to trying to bang a goth chick–”

“–Then you might know that there are different versions of it all over Europe, with different gods or mythological figures leading it. And the other thing you’d realize is that in most of the cultures that have it, they’ve got a female goddess of fertility, spring, and all that jazz, and they’ve got a male god of the harvest, death, winter, and so on.”

I stared at her with my ‘get to the point’ expression.

“I swear to God. Okay, think about it like this: it’s Samhain or Guldize or Kekri or whatever night your farmers get drunk and celebrate the harvest. Winter’s coming; everyone’s going to be locked up in their houses due to the cold for the next five months or so, other than when they’re trying to hunt up some additional food to not starve. How do they alleviate boredom? Fucking, of course. 

“That night, when the harvest is over, and everyone is drunk, and the men are done with the lion’s share of the work for the coming winter, they’re going to take their wives home and fuck the shit out of them, and they’re going to keep doing it whenever they can, whether the wife is really into it or not. The young ones, anyways. And the young single women? They need to stay indoors at night for pretty much the same reason, to avoid the young single men.”

“So the Wild Hunt, in your opinion…”

“Is the start of the seasonal fuckfest, yes.”

“When was the last time you got laid?” Tabitha slugged me on the shoulder. “I’m just asking!”

With a snort, she said, “I’m not saying that’s the only interpretation, but look at what a hodgepodge the Wild Hunt legends are. They represent everything from heralds of war and famine; to the dead hunting down the unjust; to a warning that people should stay inside at night. You’re telling me my explanation makes any less sense?”

I nodded my head at the door. “So, what about the party? There are clearly women hunting for men in there. Hell, men hunting for men and women hunting for women, too.” I chuckled. “I know I’ve seen you on the hunt for women often enough.”

“Modern times and all. Shit’s going to change.” Tabitha huffed, “You really are a spoilsport, you know that?” 

With a laugh, I grabbed her in a side hug. “No, I like it. It’s a fun addition to the myths. You should write it down.”

“Don’t patronize me.” Then she laughed and squeezed me, too. “Sounded good, though, didn’t it?”

“Yeah. God, Tab, I’ve missed you so much.” I looked down at her, and she smiled up at me. It felt like old times, but not quite. Something seemed different, but I couldn’t tell what. Then the moment passed. She let go and turned toward the railing again, and I joined her.

After a little while, she asked, “So, you’re here stag tonight?”

“Is this an attempt to get us back to European folklore?”

“For fuck’s sake, Henry.” She sounded a little heated, which surprised me. “I just wanted to know.”

Yeah, something was definitely off. “Uh, yeah. Yeah, I haven’t been seeing anyone for… mmm, maybe four months now? A friend invited me out to get me back in the saddle, but he neglected to mention that it was a costume party, so…” I reached out and patted her shoulder. “Really glad I stayed, though. What about you? You seeing anyone?”

She started to answer, then stopped. Then started and stopped again. Finally, abashed, she managed, “I, uh, I. No. Not since I broke up with my boyfriend back in March.” I blinked at her, startled beyond the ability to speak. Finally, she gave me a guilty look. “Yes, boyfriend.”

“But you’re gay!”

“Clearly not.” Tabitha shook her head. “I thought I was. I really did for a long time. I know there are a lot of LUGs running around campus, but I was a lesbian when I got here, and I was a lesbian after I graduated. Except… Well, except I wasn’t. I mean, I’m probably like 90/10 or 95/5, but I convinced myself I was true blue. I wasn’t lying to you or anything.”

I was still processing, but I needed more data to process with. “So, like, how?”

Tabitha snorted, her expression warning me to expect a massive dose of snark. But then she paused, and the apologetic look returned. “I dated a trans girl for a while. This might sound kinda insensitive, but I found out that I liked dick quite a lot; the problem was that I hated dicks, no matter what gender they were, and all the boys in high school and pretty much all the guys in college were dicks.”

“Gee, thanks.”

“Ugh, you know I don’t mean you. Don’t ‘not all men’ at me.” She still looked away, though. “I know you’re a good guy. Except I wasn’t willing to bend in that direction back then. A lot of it was, like, you saw how bitchy some of my friends got when a ‘lesbian’ started dating guys. Between the social pressure and the fact that I honestly could not give one-tenth of one fuck about seeing the vast majority of guys naked, I just assumed it was like… you know, like when so-called ‘straight’ girls talk about having a girl crush. Like the gay version of that.”

“Ah. I see. So after you’d, um, experimented with your trans girlfriend, you what, decided to give it a go?”

Tabitha scoffed, “Thank you so much for making my journey as a person sound so goddamned tawdry.” She bobbed her head from side to side before giving out an exasperated, acquiescent sigh. “But, okay, yes, that’s pretty much exactly what happened. The next guy I had a guy crush on, I went for it. It turned out pretty good for a while, but then it stopped being so good. We broke up, I played the field for a little bit, then I got an offer for a job back here.”

She nervously glanced over at me, and I understood what had changed, even before she opened her mouth. “And now I’ve run into you, and I found out you didn’t ghost me. And, I’m not trying to put any pressure on you, man. If you only want to be friends, I get it, but… but I realized why things never really worked out for me romantically. Because I’d left the best friend I’ve ever had behind without admitting to myself that I wanted to be more than just friends with him.” She closed her eyes tightly as fear of rejection filled her voice. “A lot more.”

I looked at her again, my gamer friend with the thick glasses and the drab wardrobe, the one I hadn’t seen as a possible romantic interest in a long time. I’ll admit that I still fantasized about her for a while after we became friends, but it eventually started to feel weird. Tabitha didn’t play for the same team as me, and that was fine. I accepted it and her. While I believe men and women can be platonic friends, I’m not going to lie and say her perceived sexual orientation didn’t make it easier on me.

Looking at her now, though, I saw the things that I’d let my brain kind of skip over for a while. Tabitha’s frumpy clothes hid a curvy, shapely body; we’d gone swimming together often enough in the summer for me to remember it well. I knew how passionate she could be. Hell, I’d heard it often enough in the brief time she was with Kathleen. And her face, with its pale skin, button nose, and high cheekbones, also held cupid bow lips that begged to be kissed.

So that’s what I did.

Looking back, I’m more surprised at what the kiss wasn’t than what it was. You might expect that a first kiss between two longtime friends to be awkward, especially since one had long believed herself to be a lesbian and the other had long accepted that belief. Our first kiss was anything but, though.

I leaned in with my own eyes closed. When our lips touched, she pressed forward urgently, and I reacted in kind. Within seconds, we went from leaning against the railing to facing each other to being locked in a passionate embrace. Our mouths opened, tongues colliding, then moving past each other with desperate need. 

I don’t know how long we made out on the balcony, but when we broke apart, we each searched the other’s face. I looked for a sign of regret or worry on hers, but the only worry I found seemed to be for me. The only regret I saw was for the time we had lost. It’s funny how sometimes a thing can be staring you in the face for years, and it’s only when you shift your perspective just the tiniest bit that you realize the thing you missed is the thing you’ve always been missing.

Tabby spoke first. “I, ah, I think I’m ready to leave.”

“Yeah. Yeah, definitely.” I held her hand as we wove through the party, firing off only the most perfunctory of goodbyes. We didn’t wait for the elevator, instead rushing headlong down the stairs and out the front doors before spilling out onto the street with giddy laughter. She looked up at me, and I leaned in to kiss her again, drawing a soft moan from her parted lips.

She pulled away, smiling playfully. “You still living in the same place?”

“No. New apartment, just across the park.” I nodded my head vaguely in the direction of the nearest walking path.

“Are we… If we go over there now, are we going to disturb your roommates?”

“Just me. Single bedroom.”

Tabitha quirked up an eyebrow. “And where would I have stayed if I had contacted you before I came back to town?”

“On my couch. You know, like every time you passed out at my old place?”

She pressed herself to me, snarking, “And is that where I’m staying tonight?”

“Depends.”

“Oh? On what?”

I kissed her again, arms encircling her warm, soft body and pulling it in close. My hardness pressed against her stomach; she gasped, then put her hands on my ass and pulled me harder against her, grinding against my erection. It was my turn to groan then, before breaking the kiss and growling, “On whether we make it past the living room before I have you out of your clothes.”

Tabitha’s breath caught for a moment, then she bit her lower lip, grabbed my arm, and broke into a run towards the park.

We’d made it almost halfway through when she suddenly skidded to a halt. “Shit!”

“What?”

Tabitha turned towards me, cringing. “Um, I forgot to ask. Do you have any condoms? I’m not on the pill, and, it’s, um, it’s not a great time of the month for me to not be on the pill.”

“Shit,” I agreed. “I don’t know. I don’t think so. But we can hit a corner store on the way and get some.”

She cocked her head thoughtfully. “True. Or you could just pull out. I don’t really want to wait. Or, fuck it, we can get some Plan B tomorrow.” A twinkle appeared in her eyes, and she bit her lip playfully. “Or, alternately, maybe you could even br–” 

A dog barked loudly, somewhere not too distant. Then we heard a howl further off, and another soon joined it. They could have been dogs or coyotes; the many green spaces in the city provided ample support for the latter.

Tabitha’s eyes widened in mock horror. “The Wild Hunt!”

“Oh no! I guess we’d better run straight home, then.”

The twinkle in her eyes transformed into a wicked gleam as she stepped back and off the concrete walking path. “Or maybe we should join the hunt instead?” I started to speak, but Tabitha’s hands moved to the hem of her turtleneck and began to slowly pull it upwards. “What do you say, O Horned King? Are you up for an evening run? Want to chase down your prey and…” She chuckled. “...impale it with your mighty spear?”

“Tab?” I couldn’t believe that she was actually suggesting what it sounded like she was suggesting. When her shirt came off over her head, though, leaving only a black bra covering her torso? Let’s just say I rapidly became a believer.

She winked at me and turned halfway towards the woods, then paused and tossed me her shirt. “So you’ve got my scent.” Then, with a laugh, she darted off into the sparse forest. I gawped for just a moment, then sprinted after.

This was dumb. Dangerous. I knew that. The full moon provided a good amount of light once off the path, but nothing like the lamps the city had installed. A root or a fallen tree branch concealed by shadow could mean we’d have to head to the ER rather than my bed. And that assumed we didn’t get lost; as I said, the forest only barely qualified as a park, and in the dark, we could easily have gotten turned around.

But still, I gave chase.

Tabitha had a head start of maybe twenty paces, but my long strides ate away at the gap between us. She had to run more carefully, avoiding any hazards that might lie in her path, but all I had to do was stick to the trail she forged. Beyond that, I used to run a lot. It had been my primary form of exercise for years, and while I’d slacked off in the last couple of years, I could still more than keep up with my quarry.

The trees had already started to shed their foliage, and the sounds of feet pounding bare earth came interspersed with loud crackling as we trampled the fallen leaves. I heard her breaths turning to gasps as well, but otherwise, silence reigned. 

The canopy overhead let only enough illumination through to render the world in monochrome, but as Tab burst into a large clearing, the full moon restored her to full living color. The brilliant red of her hair against the pale white of her skin brought to mind blood on freshly fallen snow. 

My quarry looked over her shoulder, laughing breathlessly as I got within arm's reach, but in doing so, she missed the rock on her path. Her boot caught on it, and the next few moments happened in slow motion. Tab tried to regain her footing but began to topple. I grabbed the first thing I could, which happened to be her skirt; it came free with a ripping noise. This little bit of extra stability kept her upright, though, and she staggered several steps before coming to rest against a boulder that sat at the far edge of the clearing. 

Tabitha’s gasping, relieved laughter rang out loud and clear as she leaned against the stone, looking at me. “If- hah- if you wanted me naked, you only had to ask.” I looked down. In one hand, I held her turtleneck; in the other, a length of cloth that had once been her skirt. 

My voice echoed my exertion but remained steady. “You okay?”

She nodded, then giggled. “A little chilly now, though.” That damned lip bite again, the one that I knew I’d never be able to get enough of. “Want to warm me up?”

I stalked towards Tabitha, throwing her garments to the ground as I did. Her expression changed to doe-eyed faux innocence as I drew nearer, then her lovely green eyes widened with something resembling alarm; that shift inflamed me. My soon-to-be lover had asked me to pursue her as prey, and now she stood cornered against a rock, nearly naked, breasts heaving as she took in lungfuls of air. Her ruby lips moved as if to form words just as my final stride brought me to her; anything she might have said was lost as I crushed my body against hers and kissed her possessively. I had earned this prize, and I would claim every part of it, starting there.

As I pinned Tab against the rock, her heart pounded rapidly against my chest, much faster than mine. She had a competitive streak a mile wide–it’s part of why we got along so well–but not an athletic bone in her body. One kiss became many kisses, mouths separating from and desperately seeking each other again as we struggled to find the right balance between our need for oxygen and for each other. A part of me would have gladly slipped into unconsciousness at that point just to stay locked in her embrace. A much more needful part, though, pressed against her belly insistently.

Her hands pawed at my shirt as she tried to work at the buttons, to open them, to feel my bare chest on hers. I broke away for a moment and yanked it open, sending bits of plastic flying onto the ground and into the trees. She grinned, wild-eyed, at this display, not for its admittedly paltry showing of my strength, but for how it underlined my desire for her. My snarky prey opened her mouth; I forced my tongue between her lips before she could speak.

I yanked at the clasp of her bra. It didn’t just come undone; it snapped. For half a second, I thought, ‘We’re going to walk out of this park buck-ass naked,’ but then her soft, warm tits filled my hand, and I couldn’t have cared less about public indecency. The legal repercussions of it, anyways; I found myself quite invested in public indecency as a practice.

I nibbled at Tab’s neck while kneading her perfect breasts in my hands, taking a moment now and again to gently pinch the nipples and chuckle at the breathy gasps of pleasure she rewarded me with. I knew that later, I’d spend hours sucking and biting at them, but I needed her now, and the more I distracted her, the longer it would take her to undo my belt. As it was, I almost batted aside her trembling hands to do it myself, but I wasn’t certain my fingers would be any steadier. Between the cold, adrenaline, and lust, my hands shook as well.

Finally, though, she persevered and had the buckle open, then almost immediately the button and zipper; once manual dexterity mattered less, she moved decisively. I felt her hand reach into the waistband of my briefs and heard a disbelieving, “Oh my God…” escape her lips. 

Yes, I’d seen her in her swimsuit, but I always wore board shorts or other loose-fitting pants. And, yes, I had pressed myself against her earlier, but what she thought she felt could have been her mind or her lust playing tricks on her. Now, as I pulled away from her neck to see her reaction, I couldn’t help but grin wickedly at the consternation on her face. That competitive streak I loved so much took over, though, and determination replaced consternation. Determination and need.

I had taken advantage of her surprise to move a hand from her breasts downward; now, it rested just at the top of her panties. Before I could slip a finger inside, however, she took my roving hand and placed it on the soaking wet cloth between her legs, then pulled the fabric to one side. Her other hand stroked my cock roughly, almost cruelly. And her eyes? They challenged me as they had on the walking path before she ran off, daring me to take what I wanted. To take her, as I now understood, the way she wanted. She challenged my primacy, but only to beg that I assert it.

I stooped slightly, grabbing both her legs behind the knees, then hauling her off her feet. She gasped and giggled, bracing herself with her hands on my shoulders and her back against the smooth rock. When I’d brought her high enough, though, one of her hands moved down below, grasping for my dick again, then pushing her panties aside to place the head at her entrance. 

I thought I saw a moment of hesitation then, a little fear of… I didn’t know. So many possibilities, in retrospect: a step in our relationship we could never undo, a decision made too quickly, a perfect moment that seemed too good to be true. I almost stopped. But then she smiled an embarrassed little smile and said, “Slowly, please, at first. Let me get used to you.”

Nothing can make a guy feel like a fucking god than a new lover telling him she’s worried he might be too big. My fears–the same ones I thought she might have–disappeared in that moment. Not because they weren’t reasonable, but because they weren’t reasonable with her. Not with my other half. This, none of it, could ever be wrong with her.

The tip of my cock sunk between her folds, and she gasped, “Oh God!” As the thick mushroom head spread her lips, she moaned my name. And as it stretched her wide open, she whimpered audibly. Not in pain, I didn’t think, but definitely some discomfort. And then, as she slipped lower on my shaft, with submission. 

Tabitha had no leverage, especially with one hand between us. Even once both hands came to rest on my shoulders, I controlled the rate of descent. She could delay, perhaps, trying to gain some purchase against the cold stone, pressing her hands down on my shoulders, or digging her heels into the back of my thighs. But every time she tried, I gave her only the slightest respite from her slow, inexorable downward journey, and she instead found herself wiggling more and more of my throbbing cock inside her tight hole.

Once she resigned herself to helplessness, my doe-eyed quarry returned. Her Horned King had hunted her and taken her, but now she struggled to free herself from a trap she had no hope of escaping. When at last gravity brought Tabitha as low as it could, when my thick hardness buried itself to the hilt inside of her, I let her have only a moment of rest before showing her our Wild Hunt was far from complete.

The first thrust–the first real one, that is, the one that didn’t merely teach her body to accommodate my size–forced the air from her lungs in a loud groan. I watched her as I took that first step, gauging her reaction so that I could make sure she enjoyed herself as much, if not more, than I planned to. I needn’t have worried; my prey showed me that she wasn’t so helpless after all.

Tabitha had no leverage to free herself, true, but when I raised her up again, she could and did slide herself down. Teeth found my neck, and nails raked across my back as she fucked herself on my cock. If she wanted to show me she could give as good as she got, then so be it. I threw caution to the wind, plunging into her over and over again to the sounds of lusty moaning, loud whines, and desperate, wordless begging.

When she came, I felt a tightness around my shaft like none I’d ever known. Her teeth broke skin for the first time, but I didn’t care. I roughly slammed my cock into her as she got closer and closer; she wailed like a banshee once the orgasm fully overtook her. I have no idea how long Tabitha howled, but I thought I heard other animals join her in chorus before she finished.

I wanted to last longer, but it had been so long since I’d been with a woman. More importantly, I’d never been with one like Tabitha. There couldn’t be another woman like her, and I had to make her mine for all time; that’s what the primal, primitive voice in my head cried out as I felt my balls tighten, urging me to claim her. 

But then she claimed me. The heels that had dug into my thighs as she tried to escape the trap I’d laid for her earlier now trapped me inside. Her arms wrapped around my neck. And her lips breathily whispered, “Cum, Henry. Please! I need to feel you inside- oh. Oh! Oh God! Yes, fucking breed me!” I made Tabitha my own with spurt after spurt of seed, filling her womb to overflowing as she clung tightly to me.

We stood there for a while, me pinning her against the rock and her wrapped around me, both panting from exertion. Eventually, though, I pulled away from her, smiling contentedly. Well, at least until I saw the state of her: glasses askew and fogged up, hair bedraggled, lipstick smeared across her cheek, and with the most dazed, well-fucked expression I’d ever seen. Then I started chortling. 

“Asshole!” She tried to slip loose of my clutches, but I pinned her harder against the rock and kissed her fiercely. When I broke the kiss, she snarked, “You’re still an asshole.” She moaned as I shifted, though, my half-hard dick nearly ready to rejoin the fray. “You’re not–” She bit her lip when I pushed up into her, nearly drawing blood as I took her again. “Oh god! Not going to ah- to win every argument– mmmm fuck, Henry!- ah ah like that!”

Her pained, pleased voice had me hard as steel and ready to go. When I let her hands-free, they returned to my back, claws digging in once more. It was like throwing gasoline on a fire, but I couldn’t resist taunting her. “It’s going to be fun to try, though.” Tabitha opened her mouth to yell at me. Instead, she called out as I pounded her against the stone surface, making submissive, nonsense sounds that only reinforced my desire for her.

Before I'd had my face buried in her neck, or she had bitten into my shoulder as we coupled. But now, I watched her as we fucked, then as we slowed down to make love for the first time. Her infectious, happy laugh, the one I’d heard plenty of times before in other contexts, took on new meaning now. Her gorgeous eyes flashed with joy at the sensations that swept through her body, then closed so that she could fully luxuriate in them as she came. I loved the sudden pause in her motion, the short silence followed by a loud, guttural howl and energetic shuddering throughout her compact frame.

I loved, too, the way she watched me after she came; her broad grin tempered with a new, generous expression as I drew closer to orgasm. And I adored the gentle taunting in her tone when she urged me, “Again, Henry. Oh, oh, again, you’re going to fill me so fucking full- of- of your cum. You’re the only one, love, the only one that’s ever gone raw in me.” She laughed as my eyes widened. “Mmm, like that? It’s the truth. It’s- oh, oh fuck, you do like that, don’t you?”

I growled a noise that could have been, “Yes,” and she laughed once more.

“Mmm, my beautiful Cernunnos, impaling me– oh, oh my God– mmm, does this make you my God?” Her playful expression turned toward one of pain, then mixed again with pleasure as I responded to her words, pushing harder up into her. “Oh, oh fuck, my God, you like that? Like being- ah!- my God? Wanna rearrange my insides with that fat cock? Want to, oh. Oh! Oh fuck fuck fuck, please cum!” She kissed me, then used her legs to pull me hard into her as I got closer, urging, “Yesss, cum- cum in me. Do it! Take what’s yours and give me what’s mine! Fucking knock me up, Henry!”

I didn’t know if she was playing or not, if this newly unveiled kink was simply that, or if she actually wanted me to give her a child. My primitive hindbrain didn’t give a fuck, though. It was hot as hell either way, and I wanted to take everything she offered and more. I thrust into her twice more, then filled her needy, used cunt to the hilt, first with my cock and then with my cum. All the while, she whispered words of lust and need and acceptance in my ear. My prey–my love–took my seed deep inside, and she thanked me for it in worshipful tones all the while.

Afterwards, when we could move again–and once we’d separated to try to reassemble our clothing–Tabitha couldn’t hide her embarrassment. “I, uh, holy shit, man. I–” She chuckled. “Fuck, Henry. Fuck.”

“How eloquent.”

“Asshole.”

I smirked. “Trying to start another ‘argument?’”

My best friend–no longer my prey, at least for the moment–guffawed, “Fuck no!” Then she bit her lip seductively. “Not until we get home, at least. Assuming I can make it there, that is. Christ, I always thought the ‘I’m gonna walk funny tomorrow’ thing was a joke.”

With a warm smile, I offered, “I'll carry you, if you want.”

My Tabby raised an eyebrow and chuckled, “Over the threshold?” Then she patted her belly and winked. “Or am I supposed to raise your bastard all by my lonesome?” At my surprised look, a frown flickered across her face before quickly disappearing behind the cool, carefree façade I’d seen plenty of times before. The one she used to hide her disappointment and sadness. “Ah, I’m just fucking with ya. Like I said, we can get some Plan B on the way to your place.”

“Tab…”

She rolled her eyes. “No, Henry, I meant what I said before. No pressure, right? I know this is weird, and I’m not–”

I took a step closer. “Tab.”

“--silly enough to think that we should make a massive change to our lives based on–”

I grabbed her arms and pulled her to me, kissing her even as she resisted. Not for long, though. She melted against me, then moaned into my mouth as I let go of her arms and took her into a full embrace, crushing her body to mine. 

Once the kiss ended, I looked into her eyes, only inches from mine. “I love you, Tabitha. In every way. Do you understand me? I love you, and I hadn’t realized how empty my life was until my best friend in the world showed up at that party tonight. I didn’t realize how empty it had always been until you closed your eyes and waited for me to kiss you. I won’t ever have it be that empty again. If you ever–ever!–suggest to me that I don’t want you and–if we’re so lucky, our child–in my life, I will put you over my knee, do you understand?”

Tabitha stared up at me, open-mouthed, before managing to snark, “Don’t threaten me with a good time, handsome.”

Snorting, I kissed her once more, then said, “Woman, get your clothes on.”

“What clothes? You wrecked my skirt, my panties are soaked with your cum, and my turtleneck got ripped up by the branches.” She ran her finger down my chest. “You seem to be missing a few buttons, too. And…” Her hand moved lower, rubbing my crotch before bringing her fingers up between our faces. “You seem to have somehow gotten a bunch of cum on your pants.” She made a happy little noise as she licked and sucked her dripping digits, maintaining eye contact all the while. “Mmmaybe I could clean that up, but the rest of it? Not so much.”

Once my brain engaged again–which admittedly took a moment–I realized I had the solution to multiple problems staring me right in the face. She saw my expression and suspiciously asked, “What?”

A little while later, two zombies wandered out of the woods and onto the walking trail, their clothes torn and stained. The man’s shirt lay open, its buttons missing. Lipstick marks dotted his chest, and traces of “fake” blood dried on the back of his shirt, where numerous claw marks crisscrossed the flesh underneath. The woman, walking with a staggering gait, wore a torn, muddied sweater and a skirt, which appeared to be tied in place with a ripped bra. Her makeup had smeared across her face and his, and they were sweaty, exhausted-looking, and covered in bite marks and hickeys.

Once we exited the park, passing revelers asked what we were going as. Tabitha smirked and said, “Sexy zombie walk of shame.” 

That got a lot of laughs, but more than one person commented on how well we’d done our makeup and practical FX. One particularly pervy guy noted the nice details, like the trickle of fake cum running down Tabitha’s legs, which made her blush and me laugh out loud. “Thanks,” I said. “I worked really hard on that.”

Once home, in bed–in our bed–after we’d showered and Tabitha had kissed at and tended to the wounds she’d left on my back, she rode me. I had been her Cernunnos out in the woods and on the path, overpowering her with my strength and speed. But here, in the candlelit coziness of our shared safe space, Brighid reigned. 

The goddess of home and hearth, of fertility and family, knelt astride me, smiling down with gentle, loving warmth. There would be time again for me to chase her through the woods; we’d unlocked a couple of shared kinks for both of us during our Wild Hunt. But for now, I had caught her, and we were neither predator nor prey. We were young and in love. Virile and fertile. And soon, mother and father, husband and wife.