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“Surprise.”
Sylus lifts his hands away from your eyes. You blink once, twice, ten times more, waiting for the shape at the foot of the couch to turn into something that makes sense.
“Sy, what is…” You gesture helplessly at the six-foot-two man with wolf’s ears lying fast asleep on a folded blanket you don’t remember owning. “...this?”
“Manners, sweetie,” Sylus chides, hands settling on your shoulders. “This has a name, you know.”
You do know. Sylus knows you know, because you’ve been staring at this very wolf on your phone for weeks—double-tapping on all of the tribute art, signing every petition, commenting on threads speculating about what it would have been like to be loved by him.
And now he’s here. In your living room. Dressed in a pair of Sylus’s old, gray sweatpants and nothing else, pointed ears twitching every now and then in sleep, dusty-red tail curled tightly around himself.
“Valko,” you whisper.
“I acquired him this morning. The auction house listed him as ‘decommissioned intellectual property’ and ‘temperamentally unsuitable for human companionship,’” Sylus explains casually, adjusting his watch like he’s telling you about a new toaster and not a living, breathing being. “Magnificent, isn’t he?”
“You bought a person, Sylus.”
“Bought? How crude. I prefer rescued,” he amends, the corner of his mouth lifting wickedly. “Besides, he was on sale. It would have been fiscally irresponsible to pass up such an…attractive opportunity.”
You elbow him hard in the ribs. He catches your wrist before you can do it again, laughing quietly against your hair.
And on the floor, Valko stirs.
His ears perk up first, a groggy rumble stirring in his chest. You watch him slowly wake to the unfamiliar space: brow furrowing, amber eyes blinking open, disoriented, adjusting to the light. He sees Sylus first, body tensing on instinct—predator assessing predator—before the alertness calms into wary recognition.
Then he sees you.
His nostrils flare with a deep inhale, pupils blowing wide, tail thumping restlessly against the hardwood floor. He scrambles upright on unsteady arms, sitting back on his heels straight and proud, chin up, like he’s trying to arrange himself into something presentable.
The effort is so precious your heart might burst. You take a step towards him, extending a hand to—
Sylus steps in your way. “Not so fast.”
He walks past you, crouching in front of Valko.
“Our wolf here has never experienced the pleasure of a woman’s company. No socialization beyond handlers and trainers, all men. He needs to learn boundaries. How to exist around you without losing his mind.” Sylus eyes you over his shoulder. “I can relate.”
You fold your arms over your chest. “You’re enjoying this.”
“Immensely.”
Valko lets out a whine, high and trembling, a sound so honest and aching it makes your throat go tight.
“Sylus, please, can I touch him?”
“Wait a moment.” He holds a hand up to stop you, eyes locked on the wolf. “Look at me. Right here.”
Valko’s eyes drag from you to Sylus with visible difficulty.
“You live under my roof now. Under my rules,” Sylus explains. He grips the back of Valko’s neck and holds. “You will not touch her, approach her, or come within arm’s reach of her without her permission. When she says stop, you stop. When she says no, it means no, and it’s not a suggestion. Do you understand me?”
Valko’s jaw works, eyes flicking to you, then back to Sylus. He nods once, sharply.
Sylus releases his grip and rises, turning to you. “Go ahead, sweetie.”
You step closer with your hand palm-up. Valko looks at it. Looks at Sylus. Back to your hand.
And lunges.
He closes the distance in a frantic rush, bypassing your palm entirely, strong arms latching tight around your waist in a hug that knocks the air clean out of you. He buries his face into your stomach, fingers clutching the back of your shirt so hard the fabric tears where his claws dig into it.
“Easy,” Sylus warns.
The wolf makes a strangled sound, but his hold loosens slightly, giving you just enough space to breath. You tell him your name. He goes still at the sound of it before pressing his cheek harder into your shirt, responding with a noise that isn’t quite a word, more like the shape of syllables he doesn’t know how to let out.
“Does he talk?” You ask Sylus.
“His language is…out of practice.” Sylus watches the two of you with an expression you can’t read. “But he responds beautifully to tone. Think of it as—”
“If you say dog training, I’m going to strangle you.”
“—I was going to say behavioral reinforcement, but if the shoe fits…”
You ignore Sylus's commentary, threading a hand into Valko's hair, finding the soft edge of his furred ear. When you stroke it gently, his entire body melts against you with a low, vibrating sound that you feel more than hear.
“Purrs like a kitten, hm?” Sylus huffs, shaking his head. “I think he likes you.”
“Thank you, Sylus.” Your eyes start to water, and you don’t try to stop it. “Really. Thank you.”
“Don’t thank me yet.” He reaches into his back pocket, pulls out a black leather collar, and steps close enough to clip it around Valko’s throat. “We haven’t gotten to the hard part.”
The clasp clicks shut while Valko still clings to you, blissfully unaware of anything other than the warmth of your hand as he nuzzles into your palm.
“You’ll be good for me,” Sylus says to the wolf. “Won’t you?”
Valko’s tail wags harder, arms pulling you impossibly closer.
You hold him just as tight. “Welcome home.”
Valko has been good. He’s been so good it hurts.
He sits when the man tells him to sit. Stays where the man tells him to stay. Eats at the table with utensils that feel wrong in his hands.
The man says patience. The man says earn it. And when the man says good, the word fills Valko with a warm, all-consuming feeling he didn’t know existed until a week ago.
He wants to be good. For the man, who took a chance on him when no one else would. For the girl, who looks at him like he’s something worth keeping.
He’s been so good.
Until you fall asleep on the couch.
He notices the way your heartbeat goes slow and even from his spot across the room—his spot, a safe distance that keeps him sane during long afternoons when the man works alone in his study and your scent floods the penthouse like a warm, intoxicating haze.
Curled on the couch, lips parted, dressed in an oversized t-shirt with a throw blanket covering your legs, you look soft and unguarded in a way that pulls at something deep and protective in him. You shift in your sleep, and the blanket falls to the floor, exposing your bare legs—and nothing but a pair of tiny, pink underwear to cover your lower half.
Your scent hits him like a fist to the lungs—the salt of your skin, sweet and warm with something else, something heady that has him digging his claws into his own thighs until the pain snaps him back to his body.
Valko moves.
Crawls up onto the couch, careful not to startle you, kneeling at your feet. He just wants to be closer, that’s all. Just close enough to smell. He won’t touch. Won’t wake you. He will breathe you in and go back to his spot and the man will never know, and he’ll still be good.
He leans in, and it’s already too much.
He rests his hands on either side of your hips, pressing his nose to the inside of your knee. The scent radiates off you here, so thick he feels it hit the back of his throat. He breathes in so hard his ribs ache, and the sound that rips from deep in his chest is pure animal.
Go back. Let go. The man said—
He noses higher. Can’t stop himself—face dragging up your thigh in long, ragged pulls, and by the time he reaches the apex of your legs any hope of rational thought self-destructs, replaced by an all-consuming signal that screams louder than any rule he’s ever been told to follow:
Here. It’s here.
He presses his face against the thin cotton and breathes in like he’s trying to pull your scent into his lungs and keep it there forever, but it isn’t enough. His mouth is on your underwear before he decides to put it there, tongue dragging hot and heavy across the fabric.
You make a small, satisfied sound in sleep, and anything left of his restraint disintegrates with it.
He mouths at your cunt like its the only thing keeping him alive. Spreads your thighs wider with his palms and sucks at the fabric like he can get every drop of you out of it. A low whine builds in his chest—he knows he shouldn’t—a low rumble running alongside it—he couldn’t stop himself if he tried.
The fabric is soaked through within two minutes, clinging to your every curve, and it still isn’t enough. His nose nudges at the seam, chasing what’s underneath, a broken sound tearing out of him when he can’t quite reach it.
Just a little more. Just a little closer…
You wake to damp pressure against your underwear.
A mouth, you realize, blinking awake to find a mess of dark red hair between your thighs, a matching tail lashing desperately behind it. Valko’s tongue is pressed long and flat against the near-translucent cotton, hands gripping your hips, grinding your pussy against his open mouth in slow, rocking drags.
“Val—!”
Your hands fly to his hair—to pull him off, to stop him. That’s the plan, anyway. Until his tongue flexes beneath you and you both moan at once, your hips rolling of their own accord.
“Stop, Valko, you can’t—ah—we can’t—”
If the wolf responds to tone, yours certainly isn’t scolding. It’s needy, wanton, the same sort of sound that’s vibrating from Valko’s chest straight to your core. You feel the couch shifting beneath his weight, the rhythm of him rutting against the cushion as he chases friction no one gave him permission to take.
You tighten your grip in his hair and pull him closer, using the hold as leverage to grind harder against his mouth, and his entire body seizes.
Valko comes with a shudder you feel roll through him. He groans against your cunt, hands spasming where they hold your hips. But he doesn’t stop. If anything, his mouth works you harder, claws pressing into you deeper, and when his teeth graze your swollen clit you nearly—
The study door opens.
You freeze. Valko’s ears swivel toward the sound, but he doesn’t stop.
Sylus doesn’t tell him to stop. He doesn’t say get down, or easy, or enough. Instead, he drops a question that lands like something far more lethal:
“Does she taste good for you, kitten?”
Valko’s eyes crack open, finding the man leaning against the doorframe—arms crossed, taking in the scene: the wolf between your legs, your hand in his hair, the dark stain spreading across the front of his borrowed sweatpants.
“I imagine she does.” Sylus approaches the couch, unhurried. “Given that you just ruined my couch without anyone touching you. Given that you’re still going, even now, with your master standing right here.” He stops beside the couch, looking down at the wolf with eyes that are equally fascinated and murderous. “Even though you know exactly how much trouble you’re in.”
Valko’s hands tighten on your hips, a growl building in his chest as he shakes his head no.
“Wrong answer,” Sylus murmurs, reaching for the back of Valko’s neck.
Valko bites.
His teeth sink into your thigh the instant Sylus’s palm makes contact, jaw locking with a snarl, and you cry out. Valko’s eyes cut sideways to Sylus, golden and wild, holding the stare over your leg.
Sylus doesn’t flinch.
“Are you finished?” he asks, almost bored.
Valko’s jaw trembles, but doesn’t release. Not because of hunger anymore, or not entirely. But something more like spite.
Sylus clicks his tongue in disappointment. “My, my. You’ve been a very bad boy.”
Everything drains out of Valko at the instant bad leaves Sylus’s mouth.
His snarl quiets, ears dropping flat, tail freezing against the cushion. His teeth withdraw slowly, leaving a circular mark with two neat puncture wounds where his canines sank deeper than the rest.
“Go,” Sylus orders. “Back to your spot. Now.”
Valko lifts his head, mouth slick and swollen, and doesn’t look you in the eyes. He presses his forehead to the bite mark once before rising from the couch, as if he could somehow take it back. He returns to his blanket, lying down with his back facing both of you, tail curled tight around himself.
Sylus watches him settle, then turns back to you—to the ruined underwear, the mess Valko made of you, the way your whole body is wound so tight a single touch could snap it.
His hand rests on your knee. “You didn’t stop him.”
“I couldn’t—”
“Couldn’t?” Sylus’s fingers trail up your thigh, teasing the top of your panties, tracing the slick heat the wolf left behind. “Or didn’t?”
You’re so close to the edge it’s unbearable, hips jerking upward, chasing his hand. “Sylus, please...”
His thumb finds your clit through the fabric and presses down until you whimper. “You couldn’t stop him,” he repeats, his hand unmoving. “Or you didn’t want to?”
“…Didn’t.” You hiss through your teeth. “Didn’t, okay? I didn’t want him to stop.”
“Mm. That’s what I thought.” Sylus pulls his hand away, watching the way you writhe at the loss with open pleasure. He straightens, wiping his hand on his slacks. “While your candor is truly endearing, you still don’t get to finish tonight. Consider it...a learning opportunity.”
He’s halfway to the hallway before glancing over his shoulder.
“I’d clean up soon, sweetie. You reek of it. And he has a better nose than I do.” Sylus tilts his head towards the corner where Valko lies with his ears flat, pretending not to listen. “It’s practically animal cruelty.”
Sylus leaves. You lie aching in the aftermath.
And Valko’s tail doesn’t move for the rest of the night.
The following night, Sylus picks out your lingerie himself.
A silk slip in deep navy, with a sheer trim that skirts the tops of your thighs. He plucks it from the closet, hands it to you with a kiss to your forehead, and tells you to get comfortable while he gets ready himself.
You get comfortable on the sheets. Beyond comfortable—teasing yourself lightly with two fingers over the silk, then grinding your hips into the heel of your palm when you start to get restless. It’s the anticipation that affects you more than the stimulation; the knowledge that Valko is waiting somewhere down the hall, as wild and hungry for you as you are for him.
When Sylus returns, he’s dressed like he has a Michelin-star dinner date—dark slacks, white button down open at the collar, complete with black oxfords that shine. He finds you where he left you, a little more flushed, a lot more impatient, and grins like he already knew he would.
“Look at you.”
Sylus crosses the room in three strides, dragging you by the ankles to the edge of the mattress. He brings his mouth to the inside of your knee. You expect him to taste you, tease you, work his way up the way he always does. Instead, you feel his breath hot against the bite mark Valko left behind.
“Mm.” Sylus circles the mark lazily with his tongue, and your hips arch off the bed. “Our wolf is quite smitten with you, isn’t he?”
Sylus presses his lips to the mark, gentle and light, but only for a moment. His mouth opens slightly, and he sucks at the skin—longer, harder, deeper, until a dark bruise forms beside the one that’s slightly faded.
“Sy!” You gasp, swatting him away. “What was that for?”
“No reason.” He lingers, relishing the shape of it before pulling back, extending a hand.
You take it, and he pulls you onto your feet. He smooths the silk around your hips, arranging you at the foot of the bed just so.
“Perfect.” He kisses the top of your head before giving you a final once-over. “Try not to break him too quickly, sweetie. I had my shirt pressed for the occasion, and it’d be a shame for it to go to waste.”
You’re pulse climbs from the sound of the leash jingling down the hallway alone, so loud in your own ears that you’re certain to Valko, it's deafening.
The wolf stops in the doorway so abruptly Sylus nearly trips over him.
His gold eyes fixate on you—trailing up the length of your legs, your waist, to the swell of your breasts above the slip's sheer trim. When they finally land on your face he lets out a ragged breath, trying and failing to control the way his tail thumps helplessly against his thigh.
“Hi, Val,” you say softly.
He makes a sound that isn’t a word, but the closest thing to one you’ve heard from him—a plea, or your name, or both tangled together.
“Quiet,” Sylus orders, walking Valko to the center of the room, a few feet away from where you stand with your legs crossed at the ankles. “You know the rules. No touching.”
Valko is naked save for the collar, standing tall, and it’s the first time you’re seeing him bare from the waist down. You can’t help the way your eyes drag down his abdomen, past the trail of dark hair, to where his cock hangs heavy and half-hard between his thighs. He’s huge—larger than Sylus, a feat you didn’t think possible, and impossibly thick at the base in a way that makes your mouth water.
You don’t know how long you stare, only that it’s long enough for Sylus to clear his throat without subtlety.
“Any day now, sweetie.”
It feels like torture and mercy at once, watching Valko watch you. You press your thighs together one last time before uncrossing your legs, fingers toying with the hem, letting the moment drag on longer than it needs to.
You lift the slip slow, inch by inch, silk bunching at the waist, until there's nothing left between Valko and all of you.
The wolf’s eyes slam shut.
You watch him take the scent of you in. Watch the flare of his nostrils, his throat working around a swallow, the helpless way his hips jerk forward against nothing. His muscles tense, tail thumping once, hard, behind him before he reins it back in.
Then something in him shifts all at once.
His brows furrow not in pleasure, but confusion, nostrils flaring with a different kind of urgency. There’s something in your scent that doesn’t belong to you. Something foreign. Something wrong.
His eyes snap open.
They drop to your thigh immediately—to the fresh bruise blooming between the marks his teeth left behind, unmistakably new and unmistakably not his.
The growl that rips out of Valko has nothing human left in it. He surges forward, leash snapping tight, twisting and fighting to get to Sylus any way he can. His claws rake the hardwood as he thrashes, teeth bared and snapping at the air between him and the man, and for one breathless moment you think the leash might not hold.
Sylus plants a foot between Valko’s shoulder blades, driving him down to his knees, hauling the leash taut with both hands.
“Easy, boy,” Sylus snaps, the amusement drained from his voice, replaced with something cold and unforgiving. “Down.”
Valko doesn’t go easy. He snarls and strains against the shoe at his back, the collar biting into his throat, fighting every point of contact.
Sylus crouches beside Valko, leaning in close enough to whisper in his ear:
“You want to die on this hill, kitten? Be my guest. But remember this—” He catches the tip of Valko’s ear between his teeth, savoring the way the wolf shudders before tracing his tongue along the soft inner curve. “—there’s no pussy in the afterlife.”
Valko’s eyes find you. Your face, your worry, your hand covering the bruise on your thigh like hiding it might ease his pain. It reaches a part of him Sylus wasn't able to touch. The fight doesn’t leave him all at once, but bleeds out of him grudgingly—shoulders dropping inch by inch, ragged breaths easing into something more stable, like every bit of surrender needs to be ripped out of him by force. He bares his teeth one final time before sagging forward, chest heaving, head bowed.
Sylus straightens, dusting off his knee like he was simply tying his shoe.
“Now. Let’s see if our wolf can behave with a little more…incentive.” Sylus looks at you. “Give him a taste, sweetie. Just your fingers. And if he moves before you say so—” He wraps the leash once around his wrist—not tight, but undeniably present. “Well. I think we’ve covered the consequences.”
You slide your hand between your thighs, teasing two fingers between your soaked, swollen folds. It’s obscene how turned on you are; the small, wet sounds filling the quiet room as you gather the slick heat on your fingertips.
Valko's ears snap forward. His eyes stay on the floor.
You draw your hand back, fingers glistening, moving close enough to touch.
“Hey,” you say softly. “Look at me.”
His chin lifts. Amber eyes find yours, wrecked and needy, before dropping to your hand. His lips part with a shattered sound, breath coming fast against your fingers.
You trace his top lip slowly, then the bottom one, painting his mouth with the taste of you while his jaw flexes and his hands clench in fists at his sides and a low, agonized sound builds in his chest.
He doesn’t open his mouth. Fights against every aching instinct to chase the taste with his tongue, to do what his entire body is built to do. He just kneels before you, eyes wet at the edges, refusing to break.
“Good,” Sylus murmurs behind you, and you don’t know which one of you he’s praising. His fingers find the thin strap of your slip, dragging it down your shoulder. “This can go.”
You slip off the other strap, letting the silk pool at your feet. Valko makes a choked sound, eyes raking feverishly across your body—the curve of your hips, your bare waist, your breasts—like he doesn’t know where to start. Still, his mouth stays closed, every muscle straining against the need to move, hands twitching at his sides.
One second passes. Five. Ten.
You look to Sylus, who’s watching the wolf with a look of quiet respect. His eyes meet yours, and he nods.
Sylus unclips the leash.
Valko doesn’t dare to move.
He stays exactly where he is, on his knees, eyes downcast, your taste still shining on his mouth. He waits not for Sylus's permission, you realize, but for yours.
You take a step back, sit on the edge of the bed, and hold out your hand.
“Come here.”
Valko closes the distance in a flash, tackling you onto the bed with an enthusiasm not unlike the one he showed you that very first day. But this time you’re laid bare beneath him, his forearms caging your head on either side, hips already grinding down against yours with no coordination, only instinct.
“Valko,” you breathe, and his hips stutter, faster, harder, chasing the sound of it. You reach between your bodies, trying to angle his cock at your entrance, where you need him most—
His hand catches your wrist. Pins it to the mattress beside your head with a warning growl, stopping the movement of his hips for nothing.
You half-laugh, tugging against his grip, but he doesn’t budge. “I’m trying to—ah—you could actually go—”
He’s so lost in the feeling of his cock dragging between your slick folds that the concept of more doesn’t exist for him. This is everything, this is the whole entire world, and nothing—not a god damned thing—is getting between him and the only good thing he's ever held.
His sweat-slicked forehead drops to yours, your free hand finding his cheek. This close, breathing his air, you want to close the distance between your mouths so badly your chest aches. You cup his jaw, stroke his cheekbone with your thumb, and tilt your mouth up to his before you can talk yourself out of it.
He goes completely still—breath catching, eyes wide, hips slowing mid-thrust. You feel his brow furrow against yours, his grip on your pinned wrist going slack.
You pull back.
He blinks at you with a tilt of his head, staring at your lips like you just spoke a new language.
Then he chases your mouth like his life depends on it.
His lips finds yours, clumsy and desperate, unsure of why or what this is, just that your mouth is small and soft and warm and nothing in his life has prepared him for it. He releases your wrist to hold your face, angling your jaw to where he wants it, tongue stroking yours with a hunger that knows no end.
Valko's thrusts pick up once more, harder now. His hand hooks behind your knee, hitching your leg higher against his hip, the new angle grinding his heavy knot against your swollen clit with each frenzied thrust. He kisses you over and over and over, like he’s afraid you’ll never do it again if he stops. You hold his face and kiss him back every time and think I will, as many times as you want, for as long as you'll let me.
You come without warning, gasping into his mouth, arching off the bed, fingers twisting in his hair. He watches your face with a confused, ecstatic whine, lost on what you're doing but certain he wants more of it—more of your body, more of your sounds, more of your pleasure. He kisses you through it, and the clench of your body around his takes him over the edge with you—his own orgasm releasing in long, hot pulses against your stomach. Even after, he doesn’t stop kissing you—can’t, it seems, lips chasing yours through the aftershocks, tongue claiming yours in hungry, frantic strokes.
Long fingers close around the back of Valko's neck—Sylus’s hand, reaching from the edge of the bed, coaxing him back when you've gone too breathless to do it yourself.
Valko’s head snaps to Sylus, wide-eyed and stricken.
“Bad?”
It’s the first word he’s ever given either of you, raw and rough, and he doesn’t spend it asking for more—but bracing for less.
Sylus’s expression softens into the kind of tenderness that, until now, you thought had only belonged to you.
“No. Good. So good,” he says firmly, pulling the wolf into his arms. He cradles the back of his head with one hand, the other soothing down his back. Valko stills in surprise before melting into the contact, pressing his face into Sylus’s shoulder, breath unsteady. “You’re such a good boy. You hear me? I’m so proud of you.”
You reach out and rest your hand against the wolf's back. Beneath your palm, a breath releases from him that feels like it's been held for years.
Valko’s tail sweeps against the sheets once, tentatively. Then twice, a little more sure of itself.
And between the two of you, he’s finally, completely home.