Chapter 16
It was almost morning when Han went for another licking session. This time, Maka spread her legs in invitation for his tender licks. In that relaxing moment between dream and wakefulness, his tongue felt like a smooth member pushing between her folds, eager to impregnate her. She had a very easy time imagining such a mating, with her brave, loving mate clenching his jaws in a vain struggle to hold himself back for just a few more thrusts before he flooded her halls with his seed. 
Maka’s muscles clenched faster around Han’s intruding tongue, then, when he barely managed to fit a bit of his tip inside, she exploded with a resounding mewl, plastering his entire muzzle with the clear result of her passions. 
“It’s good. Don’t worry about me.” The male settled beside her and swiped his wet muzzle clean of the hot, wet juices. “A swifter release means your nerves are regaining their sensitivity.”
“No, Han…it’s the thought of you finishing inside me that pushed me over the edge.” Maka dragged his head down to her level so she could have a few licks of her own ejaculate. The sweet taste was different from a male’s tart seed. Smoother. Like the juices of a ripe fruit mixed with just a tiny bit of river water. The slightest amount of sourness was owed to her injuries. In moments like these, they created their own protective ooze that acted as a cocoon for the wounded flesh to heal.
“We won’t be doing that for a while. You need time, Maka. Time and plenty of patience. Now sleep. I want you to worry about nothing but your recovery.”
“What about you?” she pawed at him once he got up on his fours. 
“I will scour the forest for a healthy doe that just survived her first year so that my mate will feast on the softest flesh.”
“No, Han. Let them breed in peace. A buck will do fine…” She looked him over with a warm glint in her eyes. “Though I prefer you stay here with me instead of leaving me alone, in the company of this cold stone and mute darkness.”
“Fine,” Han dropped back on the ground. He crawled back into her embrace where he nuzzled along the paws that squeezed him closer to the amorous female. “But only for a few more minutes. We all need to eat come morning.”
“Mrrrr…I can think of something nutritious awaiting just beneath the reach of my paw…”
Han gave her a meek smile as he followed her paw slide towards the base of his tail. “Oh, so eager, just like the first time I met you. We can do this in a few days. Please, have patience. Even allowing you a few whiffs is dangerous. My interest is to see you healed, Maka. Do your best to think past such base needs for the time being.”
Easy for him to say when a single release kept him satisfied for hours. “Suck yourself then, and rid us both of the vile scent of temptation.”
She was pleased to see him take the matters into his own mouth. Han licked his package clean first, then draped his tongue sensually over his protrusion. The way he looked at her between each lick aroused Maka more than she let out, for watching a male salivate for the taste of his own seed was a secret she kept hidden for years. Han pushed his muzzle down once his throbs got out of control and suckled the seed as soon as his balls pumped it out. So arousing, to see that perky sack draw up towards his mouth with every contraction, his ass winking in concert with his bloated, pulsating cock. The few snakes that escaped the perils of his jaw tempted her to sneak in and give her mate a loving kiss, but she promised to look, and…look she did. Until her mate stopped pumping.
Until he licked his muzzle clean of his own creamy semen and welcomed her on top of his belly. 
“I love you…my mate.” She whispered as she closed her eyes.
“I love you too…with everything I have left in my heart.”
That night, Maka never slept better. She was at peace with her mate. At peace with the world itself. It seemed impossible to think everything could be well again after the abuse she had endured, but as she found out when her Han returned to her, fate had its own way of straightening itself out. 
It must have been early in the morning when she caught the scent of something appetizing. 
“Han?” Maka picked her head up. Her nose flared eagerly to the smell of fresh prey. Han dragged the young buck all the way to her curled form and greeted her with soft licks over an ear that did not stop flicking. 
“Wake up, sleepy head. We have an exciting day ahead of us.”
“Whatever excitement you prepared can wait for a few more minutes,” Maka mumbled. She loved to laze around when her mate took care of everything. “I just had the most interesting dream about our extended family.”
“Extended?” He tilted his head to the side in a very cute way. “Was it something I did, or…”
“Let’s just say both of us had a hand to play.” Maka licked his chin. He purred happily as she rubbed her head along his neck. 
“Tell me more in the forest after we eat. Right now, we all have a whole stag to enjoy.”
Her children crawled from their room to greet both of their parents, then stretched their lazy limbs and stiff spines. Once the morning ritual was done with, Han opened up the carcass by himself. He already had portions in mind for everybody, though he softened about his methods when Maka suggested to take it easier on those rigors. She was pleased to see her mate bow his head to her suggestion, and the meal was much happier as a result. For the first time in many months, they all ate like a real family. No animosity on who got the biggest piece or who deserved the tastiest of organs. The grooming too has been total bliss for Maka who got an extended amount of attention from her entire family. 
Once clean, the four of them went out for a long stroll in the forest. Han delayed his patrol duties until the sun reached its zenith, then left into the wilderness after a touching farewell. 
“Still thinking he might’ve had something to do with mother’s condition?” Skanita asked her brother as they watched the silhouette of their father become one with the forest. The young female flicked the tip of her tail over her brother’s muzzle, who was too silent for her liking.
“Shut up.” Skan snapped at the tip. He failed to catch it the first two times, and, after his sister threw a nasty jab at his inability to hunt things, he started chasing Skanita through the forest until he had her pinned under him.
“Feel powerful now? Hrrrrr?”
Instead of snarling at him or fighting for her freedom, Skanita pushed her hind paw into his balls. “With you at my side, I feel like I can conquer the whole world. Mate me, brother. Show me just how much you want me.” 
That curt challenge ended with a moaning show Maka could not soon forget. From the moment Skan buried himself within the damp flesh of his sister, Maka started lusting for the touch of her mate. Even though she wasn’t completely healed, to see her son pump his essence so readily, so eagerly inside his mate made her yearn for the same pleasure. 
Her lips itched for hours. Of course, her children mated many more times, each of their couplings supervised by their mother’s hungry eyes. Maka resisted the temptation to touch herself for the first three matings, but after that her instincts became too hard to control, and so, every time her daughter climaxed, she too cried out her own muffled pleasure between her tightly sealed jaws. 
“A few days,” Maka mumbled as she lay spent on her back, with her paw massaging the quivering flesh around her folds. “Just a few more days and I’ll once again take you inside me.”
Unfortunately, Han returned late that night. Dreams were all she could get from the tired male who curled around her and fell asleep within minutes. 
The following day started off slick. A hefty puddle of translucent slime made her entire backside sticky with the lusts of the previous day. Han, eager to please his mate, eagerly groomed her fur back to shining perfection, yet he left immediately after that in search of threats. Wolves, another cougar…Maka did not know what kept him away from her side anymore.
Once again, she found herself alone with no male to satisfy her increasingly voracious appetite for an intimate coupling. The love she bore for her mate after his recent awakening kept her close to her children. With their father gone, the hormone-driven youngsters shied not from displaying their affection to each other even if that involved licks in intimate places. Maka trailed after them like a shadow before she started to feel embarrassed with how slick she got from merely watching their open displays of affection. 
She found an excuse to seclude herself again inside the intimate verdant depths of her favorite grove to tongue at her weeping lips and suck the lust out of her body. Only…her tongue barely made her feel a fraction of the pleasure she suffered under the muzzle of her mate. She craved for a male’s scent in her nostrils. To see their swollen sack dangle beneath their tails, shifting gently with the weight of their movement. 
Maka stalked her way back to her cubs, eagerly waiting for their next coupling. 
She crouched through the grass, eyes fixed on her son’s ripe sack. Skan had such a perfect pair of stones, round, firm, and filled with the promise of life. His member dripped with it. Maka licked her muzzle hungrily. Her son’s moist protrusion sought entrance within her daughter’s pussy, reminding her of her mate’s purple tinted cock, so tense with lust, so pent-up, so slick that a single lick had the chance to set him off.
She shuddered at the yowling cry her son unleashed when he entered her daughter. Skan grasped at the nape of his excited mate, then licked with long, flowing strokes when she pushed her head back to demand more love, altering between the two as he rammed his rigid cock in and out of her soaked pussy like an enraged bull determined to spread his legacy.
Maka had no eyes for anything but their union; that perfect blend of slickness that could only be achieved when both of their sexes met each other in the rough, squelching display of pure instinctual lust. Like last time, and the times before that, she finished along with them, the rapid pumps of her son’s seed making her feel as if she was actually there, taking his virile load deep into the hungry halls of her rejuvenated lips. 
It was a real challenge to hold herself back until nightfall. As soon as her mate returned from his patrol, Maka shoved her wet need into his face and shuddered from every inch of her body when his eager tongue hit her exactly where she itched. 
“More!” Maka pushed her rear into his tired muzzle. “Harder, Han. You’ve no idea how many times I thought of our first matings. How eager you were to fill me with your cubs. Lick me. Oh yesssss, take…take everything you want. Unleash yourself inside me!”
“You’re healing well,” Han smacked his wet lips together. “Though I think we should wait another-“
Maka stuffed his maw full of her pussy if only to stop that horrible word from escaping his lips. A whole day of watching her son mate, and this was what her mate could offer her? A few scared little licks?
“Mate with me,” she whirled around to lick her own arousal off his muzzle. “I know you want to be careful, but I am healed enough to take you inside me. Please, Han. Just the tip. I need to feel my mate again…as he bursts inside me.”
Han nodded his head and kept on preparing her for the big event. 
“Let me see it first.”
They remained outside, behind the moonlit western side of their cave.
“Are you sure you won’t pounce me?”
“Show it to me,” Maka hissed. 
The male smiled and spread his legs apart to reveal his member. The sight of it made Maka’s tongue restless within the confines of her maw. Hard as he was, only the outline of his barbs was visible. The way his flesh tensed, eagerly throbbing with expectation…it made her wet just by looking at it. How would it feel, to hold such treasure within herself? To feel the ripples of his orgasm course through his tensing body as the seed poured through the stiffening form of his cock? The heat of his ejaculate so intense it would crumble her iron resolve into puddles of pleasure? 
“Put it inside me.” Maka demanded.
The notion struck him like a lightning bolt. “M-maka. It’s still a bit too early to-“
“I need it, Han. You said it yourself that seed quickens the healing process of any injury.”
“Yes, but I’m tired, and my barbs…” he sighed. “Even if I will myself to finish quickly, I can do nothing to keep my barbs from hurting you.”
“Don’t be silly. There’s no way you can hurt me if you just stay inside me. No thrusts. Just my gentle walls squeezing around your member.”
“Maka…what did I say about waiting? We only have to endure a day more. Maybe two. Days, not months, or years, or-“
He was getting downright infuriating with that line of thought, so Maka allowed him no more time to overthink such a simple matter. By flexing her paw around the back of his head, Maka pushed his muzzle against hers to kiss him in the same eager way he did when he unburdened himself inside her paw. 
“I need it, Han.” She continued to lick his stunned muzzle with long, flowing strokes. “Please. Just this time, and if it indeed hurts we are going to wait those few days you speak of.”
He closed his eyes, allowing a dozen more licks to wet his muzzle before he got up, and, without a single word, moved behind to lick at her pussy. 
“Mraawwrrr! That…that feels incredible,” Maka rolled onto her back. With half-lidded eyes she looked upon the feasting face of her mate. Han’s lips twitched with every stroke of tongue he applied onto her sensitive backside. It was clear he fought hard against the usual Flehmen response. Such bounty of scents prompted him to analyze each of them in detail, yet the male remained firmly buried between her legs until he threw his head up to unleash a growl of deep longing. 
There was no need for Maka to tell him what to do. She just rolled around excitedly, tail brushing against the ground as her pussy contracted hard with pleasurable surges of ecstasy. With such an eager female presenting before him, Han immediately moved on top of Maka, jabbing his cock furiously at her lips until he finally found his mark.
Both felines shuddered once the contact had been made. For Maka, the feeling of being penetrated by the slick member she dreamed of for so many long days prompted her to grab onto the male and hold him down with her hooked claws. 
For Han, the heat of her lips evaporated every resistance he had in his body, outright collapsing on top of his mate with a violent hiss of pure ecstasy. To have his member subdued to the slick embrace of flesh so quickly must have felt incredible. Maka felt his barbs flare out with every surge of blood that coursed along his cock. Every time he hardened, she squeezed around him in a dance that went on for several seconds.
“Delightful,” he flung his tongue between his barred canines to lick at Maka’s own snarly lips. “It feels so much better than your paw.”
“Told you,” the female pumped her hips against him. His cock slipped in just a bit deeper. The touch of his barbs, though feeble, prompted her muscles to squeeze around the invader in a contraction that had Maka utter a broken, trembling growl. 
Han bathed her with affection. This felt just as good as she imagined. She could feel the entirety of his cock lodged between her lips, the pulsations that added drops of salty moisture to her already flooded passage. He was not going to hold on to his seed for long. 
His member throbbed harder. His breath became uneven, throbs slowing down to a standstill. Knowing what was about to happen, Maka pushed her pussy against his balls. The shock got him to clench his jaws, and Maka pumped her hips again, and again, each jerk forcing her muscles to squeeze around his cock. Han was rock hard. The seconds before the ejaculation were the most intense, as his barbs flared out, burning with sensitivity. Her flesh not only smothered them with slick heat, but rubbed against the sensitive needles on and on and on.
Han took a deep, shaky breath. He was preparing to give up, but Maka did not let him roar out just yet, pulling him into a deep passionate kiss just as his cock bloated with the weight of finality. 
Han exploded like a volcano within the tight confines of her pussy. His trembling fangs clattered against her own, maw rupturing under the immense bliss of ejaculation. While his cock spurted the essence of life inside her, Maka ran her unsheathed claws along the sides of his neck. Her own pussy convulsed with rhythmic bursts now that the hot seed of a male coursed through her. This synchronization between their orgasms was an ancient, effective method to ensure impregnation, as each splattering burst of her juices not only stimulated the male’s sensitive cock, but also made room for the male’s life giving semen. She suckled every stream, every drop that Han poured inside her while they grabbed and kissed each other the most loving of ways. 
The end left her depleted, but satisfied. With her tongue lolling down the side, Maka unlatched her paws to allow her mate his freedom. Han did not leave though. He remained inside her even after his member softened, continuing to pour forth warm licks and soft whispers of adoration, his love lulling her into the deepest, most satisfying slumber in a long, long time.
Two more days passed, tranquil and pleasant like a summer breeze. Maka was overjoyed when her mate finally agreed to rekindle the happiness of the old times with a good, old fashioned mating. Sure, waiting for the entire day to pass proved as troublesome as ever, yet now she had something tangible to cling to. Han proved for the past days that he was a changed cougar. Who was to say he would not keep his word this time? 
Maka waited for him in the whistling crag, where the western branch of Zuzeca river fell down into the emerald valley in the form of a resplendent waterfall. The pleasant sound of the crashing waters anchored her focus into her surroundings for the few hours it took for Han to return from his patrol duty. He came at sunset, when the sky blazed a fiery orange, with his head high and the wind brushing through his fur.  
“I missed you,” Maka kissed him lovingly once she tackled him down on the grassy ground. “How was the hunt?”
“The same. I firmly believe our guest is with the wolves now.”
The Shardtooth pack was not known for harboring other predators apart from their own kin, and the Moonhowlers lost almost their entire pack to the bitter sting of disease last year. A fighter would probably leech prey from their territory, yet Maka cared little for the stranger’s fate to extend the subject.   
“Wherever he is, dead or alive, he will trouble us no further.”
“Indeed.” Han said. “I am almost tempted to investigate his demise, only that I find my attention captured by more pressing concerns.” 
Maka eagerly lifted her haunch to allow her mate to inspect the health of her pussy. Han sniffed with great interest around her petite lips, his tongue tasting the matted fur around her crevice twice before he fell prey to the strength of her scent. 
Maka licked his muzzle to quicken his recovery. “Well, I take this is a good sign?”
He dipped his head, still unable to fully close his jaws. “Intense,” he mumbled, dipping his head under her tail to take another deep breath from the pleasant scent of a pussy that had been dripping wet for the past hours. Maka felt both proud and aroused to see him so enthralled in that part of her. With a forepaw placed on top of his head, he pushed his nose back against her soft lips, then spread her legs as wide as she could. 
“Take a look if you wish. Lick as much as you want, my mate. Remove any doubt that still lingers about the full extent of my recovery.” 
Han licked her again, and again. He spent so much time between her legs that when he came back up he had a hard time stifling the aroused moan that burned within his throat. 
“I am glad to see…you haven’t lost a bit of your vigor. Storms,” he gave a vigorous shake of his head. “I might spill myself just from feeding on your sweetness.”
She peeked at his erect member to see just how excited he was. Droplets of pre-seed already sunk into the fur around his sheath. His sack streaked with the same shiny lines, balls undoubtedly filled with a fresh wave of semen.
“Well then, what are we waiting for? Empty those rocks before they break.” Maka chuckled. She settled into the basic mating position, on her belly, with her tail lifted, looking expectantly at a mate that refused to get on top of her. “Not another excuse, Han! I’ve been waiting your four days for this moment. Last night was just a prelude. I want a real one this time, like that time when you first sunk inside me.”
“I know, and I’m sorry.” The male clawed at the ground. “My head is filled with concerns, and…I love you, my mate. Please. Give me a few moments of your time. There is something I wish to tell you.”
A dry sigh escaped her throat. Rolling onto her back, Maka spread her legs again and began stroking her belly with a paw. 
“Need to keep myself busy otherwise I might just leap on that cock and do everything by myself. Tell me. What troubles you?”
“Our children.” Han said, surely and definitively.
Could he know? Maka focused on the soft caress of her pads as they rolled along the dense fur of her lower belly. “What about them?”
“They have matured into fine cougars, and they are at that age where their instincts push them to find their own path in life. I am curious about Skan. Have you seen him exhibit any unusual interest in his sister, apart from the ordinary scuffles?”
“No. Why would he?” Maka answered, turning her head towards the trees, away from the all-seeing gaze of her mate. “He still plays his old tricks on her, but he hadn’t done anything more than the usual mischief.”
“I’m surprised to hear that,” Han answered. “A male of his age, being so close to a female in heat, should express a particular set of desires.”
“Han...what are you saying? Skan would never be tempted to stick his tongue beneath his sister’s tail, certainly not in the way you just did with me.” 
“Oh, he would. It’s only a natural response with no other viable mates around.”
The unwanted memories of her children coupling surged through her mind. Nita’s pussy, dripping with liquid lust, inviting the fine nose of her own brother to inspect her up-close. The way he ate her, like an enraged beast…how he stuck his eager member into her folds, thrusting himself to completion as soon as he tasted her lips. Moments like that were hard to keep out especially now that her mate had been keeping her waiting for so long… 
“He is our son, Han. Our Skan. Would you place him in the same den as one of those addled wolves? We mate when we please, while they become slave to their instincts during the mating season.”
His warm tongue removed some of the tension that started to creep into her muscles. He licked her across her head, then settled his head down on her chest, his eyes warm and full of understanding. “I completely agree with you. We are the better species. Before I continue further, I want to let you know that I have nothing against experimentation, even when it comes to family. Especially when it comes to family.” He reiterated. “We cannot close our eyes to the truth, Maka. Our cubs have licked each other under the tail long before they became fully fledged adults. It’s the nature of a cub, to be curious about all things presented to them, their bodies most of all. However, when you have a sibling of the opposite gender, this curiosity tends to grow into something more…Well, more. I am sure you must have witnessed such moments when I was away.”
He was getting too close to the truth. So close that a simple lie would crumble before his resolution. Maka had to thread carefully, otherwise everything they built up from the ashes of their conflict would be lost. 
“They have groomed each other more often, that is true, but there is nothing sexual in this. Skan is trying to help our Nita cope with the strangeness of something she cannot fully understand. We have kept her in the dark, Han. There is no way she can know what heat is, or how it can be tamed.”
“Come on, Maka. Work with me here. Am I to believe that a carefree cougar like our son would not let himself tempted by the pleasures life offers? I have been a young cougar once to know how irresistible a female’s scent becomes. I have been tempted to lick the heat from the lips of my sisters, and have them explore me in return but a family tree must grow wide if it is to be healthy, only dark and wretched vines loop back upon themselves. What would worry me more is the opposite. If our children failed to show any sort of interest in each other, that would mean one of them is infertile, or in the worst case, both.”
He got up on his fours, his steps filled with anxiety as he moved over to a nearby tree to mark it with his scent. “This cannot be my legacy, to have the fate of my family’s name reside only at the tip of my cock. So I ask you again, not as my mate, but as the mother of our children. Have you noticed Skan expressing sexual interest in our daughter, or the other way around? Some females tend to become very insatiable at the dawn of their first heat.”
She froze. How could she fight against him now, when he openly admitted his own taboo fantasies? There was a time for honesty, and a time for deceit. What if lying made things worse? 
A shuddering sigh left her once he returned into her embrace. He started to nuzzle around her head, knowing how receptive she was to affection in her aroused state. 
“Han…oh, Han…” She loved how warm his breath was, how carefully his barbs brushed along her whiskers. 
“I remember the feisty female that sneaked her nose beneath my tail during a hunt, all without even asking for my name. Is she still the mother of my cubs? The same temptress that made me fall in love with her? The cougar who was so insatiable for my seed that she had her two holes filled with the essence of life?”  
“Maawwrrr…that’s not fair, to use our first time as a bargaining chip,” she nibbled weakly at the air.
“Life is not always fair, dear. Sometimes…” he wrapped a paw around the back of her neck. “We have to grab and hold onto the things we love.” He then fell on her muzzle with a flurry of licks that left her panting with lust for more.
“Han…I love you too, but Nita…Skan…they’re our children. We are not talking about a specimen put under close watch. If you remember the weeks when we talked about the same issue…we kept such knowledge away from them precisely to avoid any sort of sexual attraction.”
“And do you think that’s possible? Could you keep the sun tied beneath the other face of the earth? Can you move mountains or prevent the rivers from falling downstream?” Han gave a resigned sigh when Maka offered him no response. “I know it within my heart that my son, whom I love just as much as I love my mate and my daughter, has been tonguing our Nita, ravenous for the strange sweetness that started to inexplicably pour out of her lips. Pink, puffy, flushed like a flower blooming under the warm caress of spring’s light. Perhaps he held himself back for a couple of days, but ultimately-”
“Not just days, Han. Weeks. Months. The same strength that courses through your veins fills him with unrelenting fortitude. Please, let this matter go. I need your mind here, focused on the mating you promised me.”
The male dipped his head in understanding. “I’m sure he tried to resist the urges of his instincts for as long as he could, enduring sleepless nights, pawing and licking at a member that refused to know any sort of relief.”
“Of course you do. Just two nights ago you drank your own seed with an eagerness I have rarely seen.”
“Seed is precious. Mine has birthed two fine cubs into this world, something my son has not yet accomplished. Oh, poor Skan…how his jaws must have trembled when he first snuck his nose into his sister’s virgin pussy to sample the fine taste of a female’s heat for the very first time. I envy him. I really do. There’s something enchanting about a male’s first time, but then again…I am not talking with a male now, am I?”
No. He was talking to a mother that observed the mating of her children more times than she cared to count. A female so aroused that she pleasured herself to the orgasmic cries of her son combined with the whimpers of her daughter. She even tasted their union while it was fresh, a fluid so sweet, so arousing that she needed to masturbate in order to regain control over her rampaging instincts. 
“Think back on the past. Go back to the days of your early adulthood. Remember how desperate you were for answers when one night you woke up to an inexplicable pleasure that threatened to split your folds apart.”
Lulled by the pleasant caress of his words, Maka splayed on her back, her body slowly falling into a deep state of relaxation.
“Yes. Close your eyes and remove the veil imposed by what we consider proper. Go back to the very beginning. You were but a curious cub in a world that bristles with endless possibilities. Whole days passed with no suitable answers. Your thirst for them grew, just like your need to sample the scent of a male, to see what hides within their sack…perhaps even wondering how their pointy members would feel inside you. It starts with the females, but it is us that come looking for you. How many of your peers tried to court you, Maka? How many asked or even begged for you to lay down or lift your tail so they could taste the wet sheen of your folds for just one flicker of a moment?”
A long sigh escaped through her jaws. She had many friends to name. Many that could have been an excellent target for Han’s rouse. Lies could be waived with ease, yet truthfulness appealed to her more. It was only fair that she showed her mate some good will after everything he had done for her these past few days. 
“There have been a few who tried to sneak under my tail. Cubs, more eager than smart. Mato turned out to be neither.” 
Maka took a deep breath. She looked at the puffy clouds that sailed across the sky. It was a warm summer day not very dissimilar to this one when her older brother Mato returned muddy and bloodied from a territorial battle he fought not for himself, but for the stupefied female that greeted him at the edge of their territory. Maka quickly led the battered warrior to a secluded alcove. Mato specifically requested safe haven away from his family, as their parents were over worried about the smallest of things. In that peaceful clearing next to a dead tree, the two cougars banished the aftermath of the fight with warm strokes of their tongues and comforting words whispered from one flicking ear to another.
She had never spoken of her family in detail to Han, that life she had left long ago. The list of siblings she had was long, her parents were quite prolific, Maka doubted Han would even recall the name of her brother if she did ever tell him.
“This Mato…was it his strength that impressed you?”
“In a way, yes.” Maka answered truthfully. “Other males, just boys really, have given me rabbits or feathers to adorn my bed with, but none had thought past such trifles. We all lived in the bosom of our territory, under the watchful eyes of our parents. Mato was different. He planned his life in detail ever since he caught his first stag, and on that fateful day when he came battered after his first fight with another cougar, he gifted me a territory of my own. All I had to do was accept.”
“And did you?”
Maka looked into Han’s result eyes when she gave her answer. A short dip of her head with no other words to follow. That night, as they rested piled into each other, Mato confessed his love for her. With gentle licks, he explained this affection that ran much deeper than the bond formed between siblings, and Maka, unable to resist his advances, rolled onto her belly to give herself to him with everything that she had, everything she was, to her brave, fearless brother. She felt not trepidation when Mato’s white tipped muzzle inched towards her pussy to taste the liquid excitement that had been gathering upon her folds all night. She was not embarrassed to feel his eager tongue drink the heat excreted by her twitching tunnel. 
Most of all, it did not feel wrong in any way when Mato directed her into the usual mating position. A strong male like him had no need to even ask for the right to mate. Maka outright pushed herself into his swollen balls and raised her rump so high that her brother claimed her from his very first thrust. Oh, the way he yowled when he sank inside her…his body shuddered from every joint as the might of his first time inside a female crackled through his muscles, encouraging his virgin member to spurt eager strands of life-giving seed into her hungry folds…It had been a night of passions beyond what normal words could describe. 
“Maka…you let him inside you so easily? Knowing that his seed might’ve-”
“I tasted him first,” she licked her lips hungrily in remembrance of the briny taste of her brother’s ejaculate. “Before we mated, we played with each other for quite a while. You have to understand, Han. For a female like me, with no aspirations or desires for the future…a territory was more than a gift. It was proof that I mattered. Mato risked his life in that battle to impress his lowliest of admirers, a cub who could not even catch her own rabbits.”
“My mate, you are far more than-“
“Don’t say it. Please. It felt different then, when I was still a stupid cub addled by her first heat.” Maka hung her head. “I have tasted his cock, Han. When he had a dozen claw marks bleeding under his fur, I did not move to balm his wounds or clean his matted fur. I just stuck my nose beneath his tail to feed on the scent that has been driving me crazy ever since my heat started.”
“Did he try to stop you?”
“No. He…he was too weak. The battle sapped him of strength, and in my eagerness, I took advantage of his weakness to test his worthiness in a way no female should.” She let out a heavy sigh. “I have performed poorly. My tongue had no aim, I was terrified to hurt him with my teeth, yet still, he unleashed, his hot, splattering seed telling me what I already knew. That he was more than capable of building a family of his own.”
“He was fertile, then…” Han stated plainly.
Maka nodded. “I managed to scratch off an excuse about how a female’s first heat is just a phase of the maturing body, like a male’s first erection, but from that moment on, we both understood the inevitability of our situation.”
“That night had been one of the longest of my life. Mato never wished to part with my lips. He slept on top of me, spilling himself inside me as soon as his member started to harden after the previous ejaculation.”
“Intriguing tale you spin, my mate. How did it end?”
“When the sun came up, we both agreed to never do it again.”
“And did you?” Han pressed on.
“He kept his word, Han. That’s more than I can say about myself. Even though I rationalized every outcome as to why bearing his cubs is a nightmare, my heat kept pushing me towards him. I wanted to be with my first love more than I feared the peril of deformed cubs, and Mato…he could either choose to hurt me or abandon his family. He picked the latter, and from that day, I know not where he had gone, or if he’s even alive.”
Han smiled and leaned in to nuzzle his mate. “You say ‘his family’, but you mean ‘your family’, don’t you,” Han spoke as if whispering sweet nothings in her ear. “Just because you do not listen doesn’t mean I don’t. Mato, if I recall correctly, was your older brother, born the season before you.”
Maka froze, Han knew, she had just spilled her secret incestuous forte to him, laid bare the fact she had committed the very act he just said family must not. “You’re not mad I tempted the branch of my heritage back upon itself?”
“No, our kind does not form the large packs like others. Such temptations are how a boy knows it is time to leave, it is not abandoning his family, but preserving it. That he must become a man, and spread the canopy of the family tree to the neighboring forest. We cannot fault a daughter for staying at home to strengthen the trunk of the mighty tree. Most realize this lesson before they succumb to temptation, but you jumped on the alligator and happened to make it off unscathed. A painful, and risky, lesson, but one you learned.”
He seemed very pleased with the outcome of the story, judging by how eagerly he started to comb through her fur. Maka exposed her throat to his affections, allowing her muscles to relax now that her past transgressions were out into the open. 
“I’m sure he handled himself beautifully. His sister is the kindest, most beautiful cougar to ever grace my territory.” The male moved up her muzzle to stare into her eyes. “Have I ever told you how happy I am to have you, Maka? To bask in your scent, sniff my way through your fur, sink myself into the warmth of your delicate lips…”
“Han…are you envious of Mato?” Maka pawed at his silly head, only to have the male paw back in return. His soft pads fell down her muzzle, and she nosed into them, enjoying the scents of the dust and debris caught between his silky toes.
“What sane male wouldn’t be? It was his tongue that tasted you first, his seed that poured through your heat-laden halls, right into your virgin womb…but in the end, it was I that claimed the entirety of your heart, weighted your belly with cubs, and uplifted your spirit. If Mato thinks I am unworthy of your affections, he can leap from the trees and chastise me before I make sweet, sweet love to my mate.”
Such display of confidence emboldened Maka’s spirit. All this talk of Mato flared her passions into an all-consuming blaze that manifested in the form of wild licks and nuzzles that took her sensitive nose right under her mate’s tail. With a swift jerk, Han raised it high above his perky sack and rolled onto his back to force his half-aroused member to harden. The way his barbs rippled along with the rush of blood that coursed through his penis was a thing of beauty, yet still not as great as the filling scent that sunk into the female’s eager nostrils. Maka’s eyelids shuddered from the potency of his scent. She had been dripping throughout the entire story of her past, but she hardly expected her mate to join in her excitement. He was just as aroused, just as eager to mate as her. 
Maka rolled the smooth tip of her tongue over the bare, barbed surface of his deliciously aroused cock. The sweet tint of his precum latched onto her taste buds, then swiftly filled her maw once she pulled her tongue back to moan in the depths of her throat. 
“You can have me right here,” he flicked his tail over the member that never ceased on throbbing. “Sample my worthiness, just like you tested him.”
It had been so long since that night, yet to Maka, it felt like yesterday. She now had a male even better than her brother. A father who helped raise her young. A mate that learned from his mistakes. For a moment, Maka wondered how her life would have looked if her brother had never left that day. Would she have lived under his protection, surrounded by stunted cubs born out of sheer passion? It was hard to imagine how that future would have looked when she imparted the same harsh lesson upon her own cubs. Incest bred monsters. No female with a straight head should even think of coupling with their brothers. 
Maka’s stomach tightened when she realized the irony behind the tradition she started that night, when a thoughtless decision led her into mating her brother, exactly like Skanita did. 
“Mmmm, my fur bristles with eagerness, and curiosity. I’d do many things to gain access to the stream of thoughts that keeps your beautiful eyes locked on the ground beneath your paws.”
Maka shook her head off whatever worries kept her paralyzed for the past minute. “Sorry.’
“Don’t be,” Han rolled onto his fours, rubbing against her body in such a delightful way that her throat immediately blazed with a deep, filling purr. “Our cubs know better than to fall prey to their basest of urges. We saw to their education together.”
Again, with that unsettling bit about her children? “Let’s not think about such things right now. You’re here, with me…Let us savor this moment by putting our tongues to better, more fulfilling tasks.”
Han hardly seemed impressed with her licks, even when she left his spheres completely soaked with her intentions. 
“You want to play rough?”
“Do I? My cock stands yet untouched by your other pair of lips. It’s you who prolongs the inevitable.”
“Only because my crave for your seed extends deeper than what I’ve done with my brother. That’s the past, Han. Don’t try to think that just because I made a couple of irrational mistakes, Skanita will do them too.”
“Like mother, like daughter. Isn’t that how the saying goes? She is our blood, Maka. After all you’ve told me, are you so naïve to believe that our children can muster the willpower to reign in their instincts, when we gave them nothing to hold onto? Remember how desperate Skanita was for answers during the first days of her heat? Care to guess how many times she came to me since…”
Maka nuzzled his neck and sneaked her head under his chin to prop up his wavering morale. “That’s in the past too, my mate.”
“The past swallows everything…but we still have time to talk about the present. Act upon the moment before it slips from our grasp. I leave when the sun comes up and return long after it recedes back into the earth, so I rely on you to tell me exactly what’s going on.”
Han settled on his belly. “I need to know the truth, Maka. Have you seen them engage in erotic games? Have you heard Skanita’s trembling yowls as she empties the contents of her heat-leaden womb upon our son’s tongue? Have you smelled the ground, wet with his seed now that his instincts demand him to impregnate a fertile female no matter how closely related she is to him?  I need to know if our children are healthy, Maka. Please. Tell me they’re not an exception to rules you’ve experienced at the same frail age in the exact same circumstances.”
“I…” She could not hold back. Not without making him suffer under the weight of his fears, as irrational as they might have been. “I have done all of those, Han. From the concealment of vegetation, I have silently witnessed the changes that tightened the bond between our cubs more than we have expected. With paws or muzzles, tongue or teeth, there is nothing our Skan and Nita haven’t tried.”
“Apart from mating. Please tell me they haven’t-“
Maka gave him a long, slobbery kiss. “Does that answer your question?” She licked her lips clean of saliva and stared into his warm, lustful eyes. 
“Your words are like a cold riptide on a scorching summer day. I mean it. It matters little to me how our children play around as long as Skan’s seed remains far removed from Nita’s womb. She can swallow, spit. I don’t care how far they take up their experimentation as long as my daughter’s belly remains pristine.”
“It will, Han. Have no worry about this. As the only cougars in this vast territory, it is us who decide when the time comes for our cubs to leave their home.”
“Thank you for the calming words, Maka. You know… There are moments when I look at you and wonder what I have done to deserve the vision that stands before me. This is one of them.”
“Oh, stop with the flattery or I might just drag you inside me.” She slid around him like the rapids splitting around a rock. Her moist tongue fell upon his muzzle. It traveled gently down his jaw, where she nuzzled him as sweet as only a mated female could know. 
“Remember how we met, my mate? How I sneaked up on you, maddened by the desire to mate?” 
“I was such a fool to push you away…”
“If you did…your tongue would have had no chance to slither under my fur…” Maka slithered a few steps ahead, enough to give him a good view of the soaked state of her pussy. Han’s nostrils flared once. A single whiff of that sweet, lust-ridden fluid was enough to turn his steady purr into a hungry moan. 
“Oh, this smell…truly a nectar from the gods,” his wrinkling muzzle approached her nethers again to unleash a soft, methodical lick upon the delicate surface of her lips. 
The female’s nethers shudder with sparks of desire. With her tail arching up over her spine, she pushed back against the muzzle that squelched under the riptides of female arousal that poured out of her lips.
“Mrraaawwh!” She jerked away from his tongue just before his barbs pushed her over the edge. “Getting feisty, are you?” 
Behind her, the male panted with half-closed eyes. “Healed,” he smacked his dripping lips together. “The sweetness of your lips…it’s just like the first time I tasted that young eagerness which made me fall in love with you.”
Maka moved over to the dazed male to clean his muzzle before he painted the ground with his seed. “The gentle touch of the cougar I also fell in love with is all that I needed.” She dashed a warm lick over his cheek. “You’ve been so good to me these past few days. I remembered what it means to love…to crave for you with every part of my being.”
Maka dropped on her back. She sneaked her muzzle underneath one of his paws, then began to lick it clean of any dust it collected. 
“Wha-what are you doing?” the male picked his foot up, only for Maka to drag it back down with her forepaws. 
“Showing you how much you also matter to me, my mate.”
Once she licked that forepaw clean, she moved over to a hind one. Han’s toes flared out as soon as they felt the slickness of her tongue wash over the smooth, sensitive pads. Maka brushed the entire paw with the abrasive part of her tongue. Long, flowing licks to clean off the dirt. Then, she slithered between his toes, going as far as to nibble on his claw sheaths to coax his weapons out of hiding. 
Han snarled with bliss. For him, the head of a healthy family, owner of a more than generous territory and provider in all things, there was nothing better than to feel like he mattered. That every part of his body, from the ever precious seed without which no female could conceive, to the demeaning feet that threaded upon the dirt, was appreciated. 
Maka knew that well. She knew exactly how good she made him feel when, just above her head, his unsheathed member flexed faster than his heart managed to beat. She slowed down her licks to keep him from spending his seed too early. That was also a good opportunity to move her head between his hind legs, right in the line of fire, so that the clear droplets of pre-seed that poured every several throbs found purchase on her muzzle rather than wet the insignificant soil. She kept on suckling onto his paw until the same soft presence fell upon her lips to spread them apart like butter. 
Maka roared when Han sunk his finger inside her sensitive shelter. The pressure of a smooth padded finger was greater than his member could muster, and, thanks to the more resilient pads, Han could mate her as hard and fast as he could without worrying one bit about climaxing too early. Maka first snarled at him. Then growled. And when he refused to slow down, she nuzzled her way up his tail to lap the sweetness of his cock as it dribbled down onto her tongue. The fiercer he thrust, the harder he leaked, and with the fertile taste of his lusts, she had an impossible time reigning in her climax. Maka thrust her hips against her mate’s paw in preparation for release, but Han was quick. Much too quick. He planted the wet paw on the ground for purchase as he delved his muzzle straight into her leaking crack and licked, licked, slurped, then rubbed her with his prickling barbs just when she felt the weakest. 
Maka exploded with a jarring yowl that startled even Han with its intensity. Streams of hot, female ejaculate poured out of her, each filling her with a wicked bliss that kept her firmly pinned against the ground. In the throes of her bliss, Maka watched with envy how similar streams poured out of her mate as well, not translucent and weak, but cloudy and rich in semen. Oh, how much she yearned for such delightful taste. She could not move a single muscle apart from her gape that kept on feeding the male’s hungry tongue. It was only when the fire subdued that she mustered the necessary strength to nose her way into his rock-hard cock. She felt his orbs, tight and ready to release. Smelled his eager scent. 
But she had no time to taste him, as Han jumped away like a mongoose struck by a snake.
“No,” He slurped the excess slime from his muzzle. “I know how much you want this. I’ve tasted it. Yet it seems only fair that the only place I’ll cum is inside you.”
Maka agreed with him far more than the growly noises her throat produced in such a heightened state of arousal. She crawled over to him like a feline in heat, slithered between his legs until she found the proper mating position, then shot her tail against his sack to let him know just how much she wanted this. The days of abstinence have left her ravenous for something more than a tongue could produce. Something better than a paw. 
She needed his cock inside her, and from the moment she felt his tongue roll over her nape, Maka knew that she was going to get exactly what her instincts craved for. She shot her hindquarters up as soon as she felt him descend, madly searching for the tip of his member. 
“Easy,” he whispered in her ear. “You’ll hurt yourself if you keep being so aggressive.“
Maka snapped back at him. She had no need of words of caution. Not when her heart rammed wildly against the walls of her chest and her pussy clenched in anticipation for the member she lusted over for days. Raking the ground with her claws, she kept on backing into her mate’s swinging balls, using them as guidance until she finally felt hard, slickened heat. Knowing what that was, Maka shoved her wet pussy against the tapered cone, as hard as she could, enveloping the entire protrusion within her fleshy halls.
Han’s eyes widened in that blissful moment when the coldness of the air gave way to one of the most filling sensations a male could experience in his life. He didn’t expect it to happen so soon, so fast, as he was used to put in all the effort into a mating. Right now, he found himself on the defensive against the raging might of his instincts. Fully, and helplessly trapped inside the lovely tightness of a female who craved his seed with every part of her being. 
“Mraawwwhh…” Han’s shock gave way to pure pleasure as his member spasmed with the weight of finality. “Graaaarraaaaaawwwhhhh!”
Saliva spat out of his parting maw along with his tongue when the first wave of hot, pent-up cum erupted through the bloating confines of his sensitive cock. 
Maka clenched around him even tighter and thrust her head against his vibrating chest. With a shuddering yowl, the male pressed his quivering ballsack tight against her soaked entrance to ejaculate the rest of his seed into her deepest reaches. 
For Maka, the excitement of the mating coalesced into an unstoppable wave of bliss that threatened to engulf her entire being. It was not just the thrilling feeling of his engorged meat that set her off. Neither the barbs that scraped gently along her fully healed folds when he penetrated her. His orgasmic growl had a contribution as well, but together, the combination of all these stimuli paired with the waves of inseminating cum was what pushed her into the first ever copulation orgasm since those traumatic days. Her mate’s seed carried life, beautiful and thriving, every jet of it bearing the power of a mystical force that cleansed her body of all those dark memories and replacing them with a brightness that fed her very soul. 
Her pussy quivered like crazy around the spitting form of his cock, each spasm milking him further and further, encouraging the powerful male that claimed her body to give it all towards the creation of new life. Like a lion, Han had shoved himself inside his female, burst out from the very first thrust, and let the whole forest know of his bliss through his orgasmic scream. 
But Maka wanted more than a lion right now. She wanted a cougar with the endurance of a wolf tied to his bitch. 
“More!” She hissed between gritted teeth. Maka pushed herself slightly ahead to encourage her mate to thrust himself against her. Han however slipped out completely. Precious streams of cum splattered around her lips. Both cougars growled and snapped at each other for a few seconds, jabbing their soaked private parts together until the cock entered the embrace of the pussy once more. 
“Mrawhhh!” Maka snarled in pleasure. “Thrust!” She pressed her hindquarters back against his balls. “Mate me, Han. Mate me faster. Harrrrder!”
The male gave her a loving lick over the back of her head, then remained inside for two more spurts. Maka started to believe he enjoyed the comfort of her flesh too much to part ways prematurely. However, she was pleasantly surprised to feel his barbs scrape along her tingling flesh once more. Han pulled himself out completely, save for the tip, which still poured a lazy squirt of seed between the leaking folds. 
Then, he thrust back, flared barbs tickling their way towards Maka’s heated core. 
The female uttered a hiss. He thrust again, and again, turning her voice into a primal growl of pure desire. It felt so good. Oh, so incredibly fulfilling to experience the bliss of a proper mating once again. Above her, Han struggled to keep her pleased with his tongue as well. He licked between her ears, over them, and sometimes, when his cock was squeezed too hard, his gentle fangs would apply a loving kiss around the back of her head that spurred Maka even further. With each trip, Han made her forget where she was. The ground beneath her paws felt like a cushy blanket made of clouds, and the grass tickled her with hot lashes that converged across her spine to cascade out of her blazing, needy folds. The spasm never ceased once he entered her, her great, singular orgasm bringing further reserves of slime to feed the earth with fresh female arousal. A sizable amount latched onto Han’s balls, turning his fur spiky as he rammed himself in and out of her pussy like an enraged beast. 
“H-han,” Maka crawled ahead, only to find her head firmly grasped by his fangs. “Too much,” she whimpered. Tears of pleasure fell down her cheeks, salty, like the impressive amounts of cum that filled her right where it counted. The fire started to blaze hotter than she could handle, and suddenly, Maka found herself afraid to go further.
“It’s too intense. Pull back. Pl-please…”
His jaws let go, but his member did not. Why would he relent, when he found shelter in such a lovely being? Maka’s eyes bulged out when he found purchase on an unharmed part of her nape. His squeezing fangs were the missing piece her body needed.
“Awwrrhhh…” she dropped her head on the ground submissively. Han delivered her the finishing blow a second later. As soon as he shoved himself entirely back into her pussy, Maka clenched to keep him firmly inside and yowled savagely the throes of another, even more vicious orgasm. 
“Skaaaaan!” an errant name flew out of her lips, unnoticed, unwanted during this feast for the senses. Maka forgot what she just said instantly now that her voice was reduced to whimpers of agonizing pleasure. Above her, Han licked at her nape, altering between sharper bites, grazes, and licks to keep his mate both docile and happy. Though what they both truly focused on was the mess flowing beneath their twitching tails. The ground under Maka became soggy with the results of their union; a union no cougar wanted to part away with. 
Only when their bodies were fully spent of energy and fluids did the flames of their passion finally start to die down. 
“Skan.” Han started out calmly after they both had a chance to calm down. The two of them cuddled together in a pile of affection that followed the exhaustion act of copulation. “Why his name and not Mato’s or mine?”
“It was a slip of tongue,” Maka answered honestly. “Many strange things can happen in the heat of the moment. Remember that time when you shouted the name of one of our friends seconds after you quit inside me?”
“Quit.” The word put a snarl on the male’s face. “I told you before it’s love that makes me spill fast. What name was that? I have trouble recalling what kind of crone I summoned from the depths of my head.”
“It happened so long ago. Pay it no mind.” Maka said. She had no reason to feel overly concerned as proven by the loving licks she laid all over her mate’s cute muzzle. “What you should think about is how our next time is going to be. Mrrrr, I see you on your back, grabbing around my throat with your feeble teeth. Seed started pouring out of you before we connected, but now that you’re inside me, you can hardly keep control of your body. You’re grabbing at me with everything you can, claws sliding through my fur with the same gentleness with which you kiss me…”
Han drew his head back. “Wow. That almost got me out of my lassitude,” he lifted a haunch and pushed his mate towards his tail. “Is it hard?”
“Halfway,” she tilted her head this way and that. 
“That’s good enough, don’t you think?”
“Better suited for my maw than my pussy.” She licked her lips, thinking of the salty, masculine taste of his semen as it layered every corner of her mouth.
“I will feed your thirst in just a few moments. Right after we figure out this Skan dilemma.”
“Oh, leave it be, my mate. Why can’t we just be happy with what we have?” she pawed at his stubborn head. Han nuzzled into her pads and started to lick them with meticulous strokes that flared Maka’s silent purr. 
“I am just curious as to why this slip-up happened. Mato was your first, and if I am honest with myself, you’ve done the same things you did with him all those years back.”
“Because thrusting myself into you is something new, right?”
“No, Maka. I’m speaking of your restlessness. The eagerness to be mounted right after you shared Mato’s tale. Your mind should have flown to him, or even to me after I tried so hard to keep you going…unless a more immediate concern occupied your thoughts.”
“Such as?”
Han let out a sigh before he replied. “Our children doing the only thing they shouldn’t.”
Maka got up at that. She walked around her mate, the silence as thick as the pearlescent sheen that clung onto her freshly mated lips. 
“They’ve done it, haven’t they?” Han said in a much graver voice.
She could see the worry in his eyes. Blessed skies. How could she avoid shattering his heart? What could she say to keep the truth hidden?
“No.” Maka moved over to rub her head along his side. “They’ve engaged in the usual play, but at no point I have seen them mating like we just did moments ago.”
“Have you checked their privates?” Han perked his head. “They could have easily mated when you were sleeping or gone away on a-“
“I was with them all the time, Han.” She turned away from him. “All the time, while you were chasing a trail that led you nowhere. Our children are smart. They know of all the horrors that can arise from such forbidden coupling. Why can’t you trust them? Why can’t you trust…me?”
That put him in an impossible situation, and that gaze, once proud and full of confidence, sunk into the ground. “I’m sorry, Maka. It isn’t my intention to darken your spirit, yet I can’t stop worrying about their future. All of the things I’ve done, Maka, all the fights and the sacrifices…all parents want the best for their children, and you’re right. I should have remained home to watch over them, but it’s too late now for regrets, is it?”
Maka suddenly felt bad for snapping at him. In moments like these, when he shaved off the defensive layers of a proud provider, she saw her mate for who he really was. A cougar that had his own flaws, his own worries to conquer. 
Maka crouched next to him, settled comfortably against his side, then lifted his head up with her muzzle. “Everything’s fine, my love. You have nothing to worry about.”
“I truly hope so. You know what’s strange?”
“The taste of your seed?” 
He chuckled, but the look in his eyes remained the same, focused and serious. “Even if they did mate a couple of times, the probability of conceiving is almost void.”
“Han…why do you torture yourself right after we mated? This is not the time nor the place to focus on what could happen.”
“But that’s the thing! What if it did happen? You could’ve missed the signs, or maybe they outsmarted you. Outsmarted us both. They could be mating right now while we’re here, arguing about a matter that should take top priority.”
“Nothing. Happened.” Maka said more sternly this time. “If you spew your worries one more time, I am going to make sure my paws is all you get for at least a week.”
But he did. Concerns kept brewing in his mind, only he kept them inside, trapped under kind eyes and loving licks. “I need proof.”
“For what? From who?”
“From them.”
She couldn’t help but chuckle at the ridiculousness of that thought. “What will you do? Intrude in their private lives? Ask them to lift their tails so you can chase another obsession just when we have found each other again?” Maka clambered on top of him. It was easy to subdue him when his mind soared somewhere else. “Your seed is still warm inside me. The taste of your saliva still fresh inside my maw. If you truly love me, shed off this darkness before it consumes you.”
The male relented before her argument. With a tired growl and more than a few apologies, he invited her to sleep against his chest, and, wrapped between his chest and his grasping forepaws, she had an easy time falling asleep. 
She woke in utter darkness. There was no moon to cast down its silvery light upon the pitch black forest, the light of the stars too weak to make a difference for many sets of eyes, apart from a cougar’s. 
Maka jumped on her feet, frantically looking around. It wasn’t the blackness of night that disturbed her. No. It was the absence of her mate.
“Han?”
Only the crickets answered her.
She sniffed through the grass to find his scent still fresh, and the ground, still warm where he slept. “Han!” she called again to obtain the same serenade that only amplified her anxieties.
Maka bolted back to her cave, this time not fearing for her own life, but for the lives of her children. She ran until exhaustion. And then, she ran some more to find her mate in a glen near their cave, watching over the cuddled form of their children.
“Aren’t they beautiful?” he slinked closer to lick the froth that gathered on her lips. 
“Han…” Maka rasped, out of breath, her throat stinging from the mere mention of that name. “What…have you… done to them?” 
“Nothing.” He answered with an eerily calm voice. “I couldn’t sleep, so I came here to be with my family. I’m making up for all the lost time I spent away from two of the things that matter to me the most in life.”
“What about me, Han? You say your children matter and leave their mother alone in the middle of nowhere?” Maka hissed. “What got into you?”
“Nowhere.” Amused, Han tilted his head. “It has been a long run, and I am sorry to see how much you’ve exerted yourself, but I assure you, Maka, there is nothing ill brewing in my head right now.”
“Really?” she took a few steps back to cough away from her children, least she woke them. Han followed her. “Tell me exactly what you plan to do. No more lies, or half-truth, or whatever this is.”
He pampered her with over a dozen licks before he finally found his voice. “I am doing what a father must. Protect his children against threats, even if that threat is themselves. I want to trust you, Maka, but you must understand…I cannot simply leave this matter in fate’s hands. One way or the other, I must get my answers.”
“Even if this goes against your promise to make things better? What will your son think if his father pounces him with such outrageous questions in the middle of the night? You’re not going to alienate just him, Han. This madness will shatter the unity of our entire family, and I cannot, for the life of me, figure how this leads to the better future you keep speaking of.”
“Mistrust, anger, spite, even hatred…this is nothing, Maka. Nothing compared to the true horrors that a successful coupling might bring.” His lips trembled with the urge to snarl; to unload that festering poison once again upon another bearer. 
“Han, please…”
“Would you see our daughter deflowered before her time, by her own brother? Did you not learn that very lesson, Maka. To keep hoping for the best while doing nothing to prevent the worst. I, for one, do not wish to bear later regrets because we both sat idly in our cave, too scared to do something. If you do not wish to act, I will. I will go over to my son calmly and ask him the very question I threw your way. If I see no remorse or guilt or any trace of lie in his eyes, then he will have my trust. Same as you.”
He turned to leave, but Maka grabbed onto his tail and yanked back hard enough to hurt. Han pounced her, and suddenly, the speckling stars were all she could see before his snarling face obscured everything.
“No!” She hissed. “Don’t…do this. Please, Han, please think how our cubs will react if you-“
His weight vanished. Maka scrambled onto her fours, ready to fight for her own slice of a better future… Only to freeze like a scared cub moments later. Han, her loving mate, crouched behind his children and pushed Skan’s tail out of the way to expose his genitalia. He had no reservations to approach that area even if his son was not able to consent. Han’s nostrils drew in several hungry breaths of scent, straight from the source of the problem. She expected him to stop right there…
But Han always had his own means of getting what he wanted. 
“No…” a heaviness she could not easily describe washed over her body. Her mate, father of her children, started to lick his son’s privates, and Skan, the cub that developed into such a striking adult, spread his legs apart in invitation for the mesmerizing heat that suddenly washed over one of the most sensitive parts of his body. He liked this. In his dream-addled state, perhaps even wanted it, unlike Han, whose lips could not curl further from such a demeaning act. Any father would have pulled back, but Han, being Han, pushed this madness even further by smothering his son’s sensitive protrusion within the wet confines of his jaws. And it wasn’t long at all before the squelching of his puckered lips and Skan’s shuddering tail painting a story that Maka knew too well. 
It stung Maka’s chest, to see her son’s toes spread and his hindquarters jerk with orgasmic pleasure. He picked his head up, confused to have his peaceful sleep shattered by the crackling moan that involuntarily split his jaws apart. 
“Nrrrawwhhhh…Niiiitaaaaaa…” the young male blinked a pair of drowsy eyes.
Han said nothing. He didn’t even look at his son, his stare and tongue focused on the singular task of getting the answers he needed.
“Take it,” Skan mumbled sleepily. He threw his head back on the ground, his hips jerking with a scant amount of thrusts. “You can have it all, you hungry mink.”
The suckling came to an end, replaced by a sharper growl that woke up Skan for good. “Wh-“ his tongue froze once he came face to face not with his sister’s gentle face, but his father’s angry crimson eyes. Han had leaped upon the poor cougar, trapping him under his larger, stronger bulk. 
“You’ve come of age, son.” The larger cougar swiped his lips clean of the distasteful sludge that clung onto his whiskers. “I wish I could say I’m proud, but the concerns that stir in the back of my head are quite the opposite of that.”
“F-father? What…did you just…what happened? What do you mean?”
“Don’t father me, cub!” Han’s snarl petrified the young male. “I’m your provider, and you will address me with respect when I’m talking to you. Are we understood?”
Skan quickly dipped his head up and down three times. 
“Have you mated your sister?”
The cub’s eyes shrunk down the size of a pebble. “Wh-what?” he stuttered when the wet nose of his father pressed against his own.
 “Did you put that distasteful worm of yours inside my daughter and squirted your watery spunk inside her?”
“No, father, of course I haven’t…What are you even talking about? Me? Mating Nita? I’d never-”
“Don’t lie to me!” Han’s snarl seemed all more terrifying with the remnants of pearlescent sludge dripping down his lower jaw. “I haven’t taken your repulsive cock inside my mouth and swallowed your unworthy seed just to have a pair of mute, guilty eyes stare at me. Did you, or did you not fall prey to your instincts?”
“We played together, but that’s it!” The terrified cub pawed at his father in an attempt to make himself look more innocent. “It’s just games, father. We’re playing, just like we always did.”
Han growled and jumped off his son, only that he underestimated the young male’s fighting spirit. As soon as he had his back turned, Skan latched his claws onto his haunches, and a short, noisy scuffle ensued between the two angry males. 
“Father!” 
Skanita’s terrified voice put a temporary stop to the conflict. 
“What is this? What are you doing to my brother?”
The two males looked her way. Han, confident and in control of the situation, and Skan, trapped under the same paws that restrained him a second time. 
“Educating my offspring,” Han slammed a paw down on his son’s snarling face and forced him to look towards the trees, away from the concerned females that looked at him as if he lost his mind. “He might not be eager to admit, but we males have our urges. We’ve got needs that often clash with our better judgment. Has your brother lost the battle, little Nita? Tell me. You can tell your father if he took advantage of your heat by forcing himself upon you.”
“Forcing himself to what? You’re not making any sense!” 
“Oh, Nita. Still such a delicate flower you remained, even in the bosom of your adulthood. There are no other males around, are there? Apart from me, and him, and the coward that preferred to starve with the wolves rather than face my wrath. I have doubts, you see. When I was young, about the same age as you two, I courted my fair share of females. Difference is…they were not my cubs, born from my flesh and blood. I was not responsible for their future in the same way I am for yours. So I am going to ask again. Has your beloved brother tried to mate with you?”
Skanita coughed in disgust. “Father, that is sick. My stomach turns just by hearing this madness. Let go of my brother. Let him go or I am going to make you!”
“Make me.” The older male challenged.
If she had been frozen before this conflict escalated, now Maka was downright rooted to the ground. She had no idea whether she should have said something earlier when the spirits were calmer, or intervene now. So, like she previously did for her son, she watched her daughter try helplessly to dislodge her father from her brother, a cougar she had shared a womb with. The same cougar she, not so long ago, mated with.
“You’ll have to do much better than that.” Han chuckled at the feeble slaps that barely managed to dislodge his eyes from the helpless female that tried so hard to prove a point. “Where are your claws, Nita? Is this a fight or a slapping contest?”
“I don’t want to hurt you, stupid.” Her paw slapped him over the head, only to get another chuckle out of the confident male.
“I…don’t want to fight either,” Skan managed to blurt out, trapped like a puppy under a boulder beneath his father’s firm legs.
“Grawh, how long does this have to go on? These accusations are ridiculous, father. What has gotten into you, to think I’d do something so revolting? We have licked each other, sure, but just for fun. To pass the time. You never told us games are forbidden!”
“True. Yet is it not the forbidden fruit that tastes the sweetest?” Han’s eyes moved between the two of them. “You are both so young and naïve, untested by the hardships of life. Honestly, you can barely scratch me, and want me to think that nothing ever happened between you two?”
“Enough!” 
Skanita unsheathed her claws for real that time, and with a timely kick to his father’s balls, Skan too managed to whisk himself free.
Maka watched in horror as her once peaceful family devolved into a mindless brawl of egos. 
Then, it came.
She had no idea what manner of force took hold of her limbs. Only that something made her leap right in the middle of it, breaking up the scuffle with a roaring frenzy of slapping strikes at the cost of a few stinging rakes across her sides. 
“We’ve had enough for tonight, Han.” She snarled at the lonely male that paced a few steps back from the rest of the group. “Go. Leave. Find a place to collect your thoughts, for you are not welcome among us.”
“Is that how it is?” the male rasped. “My own family, turning on me because I wished to protect you all from the sting of a true mistake? Grrrah!” he spat out an angry growl. “You must all feel very proud of yourselves for ganking up on the crazy cougar tonight, but the control you have is merely an illusion. One day, you will realize the good I tried to achieve tonight.”
“Leave.” Maka hissed.
“You should listen to her,” Nita added, clawing at the ground in anger.
Skan had nothing to say. He just slunk between the two females to borrow their warmth against the shivers that rippled along his body.
Outnumbered, outgunned, and with three fearful faces looking at him, Han broke down into tears and left with his tail tucked between his legs. There were no parting words. No threats. Just his miserable sobs disappearing into the depths of the forest.
With her mate gone, Maka focused her attention on calming her young ones. 
“He attacked me,” Skan coiled around himself. “I can’t believe he just leaped on me right after…oh, skies, how I wish it was you who woke me up instead of him, Nita.”
“Like that would’ve changed anything. You seemed to have no problems giving him all you had, brother.”
“Oh, shut up before I jump you and ruin all our futures.”
Maka did not laugh at that joke. Even though her body was here, cuddled among her children, her mind followed Han into the darkened forest. 
What if it is your fault? He sought your support. Confided in you. And all he got in return is doubt.
“Mother. What are you doing?”
“Sleep, Nita.” Maka turned her head back to glance one last time at her beautiful children. “You’re safe with your brother. I need to go and check up on him.”
“After what he’s done? Leave him to simmer over it tonight.”
“Yeah,” Skan said. “I was sleeping so good before he stuck his nose where no respectable father ever should. You think he got his answer, after…you know…”
“Sleep. Both of you.” Maka told them one last time before she too disappeared amidst the onyx silhouettes of the trees.
I am going to make this right again.