Chapter 17
The ground felt cold under her paws, yet not quite as cold as the chilling dread rising from the depths of her tight, aching chest. Although she had been running long enough to feel the pain of exertion, Maka still kept on going. Physical discomfort was no match for the inner turmoil brewing beneath her fur. Her past days had been nothing but a roller coaster of emotions. First, she suffered at the paws of her once-caring mate after his own doubts and anger overtook every goodness that dwelled within him. That’s how Han became The Monster, a creature built on nothing but vengeance against anything and anyone that dared to stand in his path. She thought she’d meet her end under his cruel, gruesome claws…
But instead, fate had given her a second chance. Deep beneath the Monster’s bloodied hide, her mate still survived. He clawed his way back out of the sins of his past like the brave cougar she first met, earning back her trust through great effort. 
Now, Maka felt the ground slipping from under her paws all over again. Han’s attack on his own son took away the thin veil of the happy life she began to imagine, reminding her that at any moment the Monster could overtake her mate just as he, in turn, had overtaken the Monster. Maka tried to think of the happier scenario where she would lead the idyllic life she always wanted. The pressure put on her shoulders was all too great otherwise. It felt like boulders weighted by years upon years of heavy snow. All it took was a single push for the unity of her family to crumble down the slopes of fate and sent her and everyone she loved into the cold, dark depths of the abyss.
Maka could not allow such thing to pass. Gritting her teeth, she stubbornly pressed through exertion and worries alike. For the second time the fate of her family lay upon her frail shoulders; a pair of unsteady pillars that threatened to crumble under the weight of such responsibility. Who was in the right during that last confrontation? Who exactly needed to be punished? Her young, naïve son for not considering the implications of mounting and inseminating his own sister? Or her mate, for showing no leniency towards his own flesh and blood? 
To keep herself sane through the darkened forest, Maka subdued all her concerns save for the most pressing of the lot: finding her mate before the darkness had the chance to transform him back into The Monster of her nightmares. With her fine nose following the trail of scent he left behind, Maka easily navigated her way through the underbrush of the boreal forest. She climbed down the slant that led her closer and closer to the whispering song of one of the five arms of the Zuzeca river until she reached a familiar hollow. The scents of the cougars that once called this place home was long gone, replaced by the earthy tint of the moss that had overtaken the burrow. With a deep breath, Maka found the courage to enter the faintly illuminated tunnel. Small patches of brightmoss clung to the strong roots of the trees that kept the earth above from crumbling down on her. Back in the days, the inhabitants of this burrow would keep the moss wet and healthy, allowing it to form a network that illuminated even the deepest reaches of their home. 
Now, in near complete darkness, Maka had to rely more on her nose than her eyes. Bumping from root to root, she had to squeeze her way through obstructions that should not have been allowed to infest such a spacious home. Cobwebs stuck to her fur one too many times, and the deeper she went, the more slippery the ground beneath her paws became, catching onto her belly like the Monster’s cold, unwanted semen. 
“Han?” Maka made her presence known once to him once her ears picked the pained huffs of her mate. The last thing she wanted was to put him on edge with an untimely arrival. 
“I failed him.” the male’s voice came from the depths of the burrow. Weak. Unsure. The voice of a father that brought unnecessary pain upon his beloved son. “I failed him as a father, I failed you as a mate. How, Maka? How can I face my son after I defiled him? Go back to him. He deserves more…more than what I can offer at this point.”
Maka spoke no words. She just advanced slowly towards the bitter source of urine that dwelled underneath his tail. Han’s disregard for his own biological needs ignited the spark of hope that burned within her breast, for honest regret was a much better prospect than pure, selfish rage. 
“Don’t come closer. I don’t want you to see me like this.” Han insisted.
Maka paused her advance. “Be that as it may, you are still his father, and if our time together taught us anything, it’s that even the deepest wounds can heal, given time.”
“Can they?” Han’s voice oozed regret. “What about the scars left behind? I forced myself upon my own son, took him in my maw like no father should, tasted the salty tint of his seed as it sprayed right against my tongue.” A soft, defeated growl came from the depths of his throat. “Oh, he will remember this for the rest of his life, as will I. There’s nothing that can erase this sort of shame. Nothing.”
“What if there is?” Maka resumed her approach, advancing closer and closer towards the smelly shelter in which her mate made his bed in. She couldn’t stand idle. Not when her mate was all by himself, crawled up in the darkest corner of the burrow. The oppressive darkness shielded him from her gaze like the night shadowed the forest, but still, she pressed on, lulled by the honest regret of a mate she still cared for. “We can not take back what we’ve done, Han, but together, we can find our way towards the path of forgiveness.”
“Forgiveness?” He growled again, this time with contempt rather than sadness or regret. “You speak with the gullible tongue of a female. Forgiveness is merely a construct summoned by those too weak to face the truth. Me? I know what I’ve done, and you know it too, Maka. You know exactly what I am capable of. I’ve already hurt you and Skan more than any father should have. Who is to say the madness won’t continue if I were to return back into the bosom of my family? All it takes is one spark. One moment of weakness for my rage to overcome me. Is that what you want? To see our daughter’s belly weighted by the sum of my endless failures?”
“No.” Maka said flatly. 
“Then leave. Be with our family and let their disgraced father waste away in peace.”
Maka tensed up. She could grant him his desire. After all, if her mate withered, so did the Monster, and she would never, ever have to live in fear again. The future she wanted was so close she could almost taste it. 
But it came at such a selfish, terrible price. “I said no because I would rather have him pressed against me, with his caring paws pressed upon the heads of his children and his tail wrapped around his family.” Maka perked her head up with confidence. No. There was no future where she’d look over her children all alone.
“A beautiful dream, were it not for the stench of the present.” Han scoffed. “Can’t you see it by now? The cougar you need is no longer here. All that remains is the failure.”
“Any failure is better than a life of solitude. Come back with me, Han. Put the past behind and look towards the future.”
“Like I did when I chased this family out of their home? Do you remember how loud their yowls rang when the wolves got them? They barely made it out of the valley with a third of their runts, and that’s on me, Maka. I did this to them. I ruined any semblance of a happy future they could have had because, in my eyes, they were the enemy.” 
Maka froze. Memories long since buried resurfaced from the depths of her mind in flashes that stung her like daggers. She knew those cougars. Ate with them. Played with them. She even got the chance to see their cubs days after they came into the world as nothing but small, whimpering nuggets. Back then, in her idyllic home, she called such cougars part of her family, yet Han had always kept a tight leash on who earned the mantle of friend, and one misty morning, Maka awoke into a world of pain; pain she blamed on nomadic wolves up until this moment, when her beloved mate revealed the extent of the heinous crimes he led against his kin. Han was the reason her friends lost their cubs. He was the reason why her paradise became desolate of any cougars apart from him and his family. In Han’s eyes, there was no room for any cougar but him, and the dark, vengeful part of Maka had hated him in silence ever since. 
“We’ve lost much, Han. That much is true.” Sadness, pain, and anger alike filtered out of her in the form of a long, growly sigh. “But we should not close off our hearts to a brighter future. One day, this valley may bloom with new life. Skanita’s cubs, Skan’s family…maybe we’ll even have room for the next generation of Nitas and Skans.”
“You…you would…mate with me? Bear my offspring? After…after all I’ve done?”
“I’d mate you as many times as it takes for my mate’s seed to take root in a womb he claimed during a bright, sunny day.” 
Han completely unraveled at that. His quiet sobs gave way to a strong, loving growl that washed over the tunnels in the same way he crawled into her embrace, warm and soft. Maka closed her eyes to the wet caress of his tongue. She allowed her mate to spoil her just as he did back when he was nothing but a fool maddened by the scent of her first heat. 
“I want that. I need you, my mate. Need you with every fiber of my being. You’ve been wise when I was foolish. You’ve been strong when my rage battered your body. Be the light that guides me into this beautiful future, and I promise to you, here and now, that I’ll never stray from your side ever again.”
Maka all but welcomed his plea for clemency. She had craved for the chance to better her mate for years. And now, she finally got it. Han was hers. With tongue and paws, the two expressed what their words could not. 
And only when their paws grew stiff with activity and their tongues dry from licking, they crawled back into the serene coldness of the night to watch the twinkling stars together. In that calm, near perfect atmosphere, Maka realized that something still gnawed at her mate’s happiness. She could see it in the way he stared in the direction of their home. Feel it in the uneasy twitch of a paw. Heard it rumbling gently in his throat. 
A pesky concern disguised as genuine affection. 
“He’ll be alright. The morning will wash away the troubles of this night.” She rubbed lovingly along his neck to find him stiff and worried.
“Skan? No, he’s not the child that worries me right now, Maka, fertile as he may be. If Nita gave in and mated with him…I can only pray to the gods for comfort, for nothing, not even your gentle touch, will be able to wash away the horrors brought by this perversion of a pregnancy.”
“She’s smart, Han. Have faith in her. Have faith in…me.”
Her sweet kiss erased some of his worries. “I…I try, but no matter how much I roar, my mind refuses to believe it. I know she mated. I can feel it in my bones like this thorn that digs deeper and deeper every time I think about our future.”
“Skan only became a male in his prime two days ago.”
“How can you speak with such certainty?”
“I tasted him. His colorless seed thickened only recently.” Maka dashed her tongue over his muzzle several more times. “Wash away whatever doubt remains in your mind. Our daughter will not bear her brother’s offspring.”
“But even if he were to withdraw early…”
She didn’t let him go down that path. Swiftly, Maka wrapped her paws around his neck and fell on her back, nipping the worries away straight with gentle bites. “The chances of successful insemination are low even for a proper mating. Would you base our future on the infinitesimally small chance that her womb accepted his seed?”
“I’d do all in my power to prevent this outcome, but…you’re right. I have not picked the mother of my children just for her good looks.”
“Mrrrr…now that’s more like it.” Maka rolled back on her belly and pushed her head into his chest to absorb the reverberating relief burning within her mate’s throat. Han purred for what seemed like hours, almost lulling her to sleep when something got him to spring on all fours. 
“What’s wrong?”
“What’s right? That’s what you need to ask yourself, my mate.” She received a sloppy lick over her confused muzzle. “Tonight has been a night of blessings. You made me see clearer than I had in years, Maka. Will you follow me back to our home? I must apologize to my son before the sun rises or I might never find the strength again.”
“You’ve conquered worse odds than that,” Maka tried to drag him back to the ground. “Come on, Han. He’s most likely sleeping off your minor grievances.”
Han’s eyes grew suddenly stern. “Forcing the seed out of him is not a minor feat for me. I might not speak of him often, but my father had been much stricter with the education of his litter. He inscribed the values of a provider upon my mind when I still sucked milk from my mother’s teat, and it is never the father’s duty to taste the seed of his heirs, or even clean them down there in the stages of their infancy. That duty falls solely upon the mother.”
“Han…Skan is-“
“My son too, Maka. Please. Let me right my wrongs. I promise you this is the last time I’ll have to.”
Maka chose to put her trust in him. It seemed the right thing to do in such a situation. Yet comfort had an annoying way of eluding her. After she fell asleep into the warm embrace of her mate, Maka woke up alone to the strident cry of an owl. The avian passed through the dark canopy like a blur, much like the racing thoughts soaring through her frenzied mind.
“Han?” She frantically looked around the sleeping forest for any sign of her mate. The ground was cold. His scent, fainter with every breath she took.
“Oh no…” Maka sprung uphill, her graceful strides making her look much like a dark blur herself. Fueled by painful scenarios of the Monster’s return, the female ripped the earth asunder with her unsheathed claws. She was not going to be late this time. There was no way she would see her son trapped below the Monster’s claws a second time. 
He was not going to let him finish what he started.
Growls reverberated through the trees, bringing the taste of fresh pain upon her soft, twitching ears. Maka instinctively crouched low to make herself invisible in the gloom of the night. The closer he approached the source of the conflict, the more the trees thinned, leaving her as exposed as her son that now stood before the menacing claws of The Monster.
“Admit it! Admit what you have done, you worthless leech, or I will feed the ground with your  tainted blood.” 
“The same blood that courses through my veins flows through yours.” His much younger opponent snarled back. 
“We’re nothing alike, you scum. How dare you even raise your claws against your provider?”
Maka froze. Han’s thunderous voice washed over her like the chilling winds that preceded the storm. He stood face to face with his son, both of them separated by a distance of only a few paw lengths. They snarled at each other so fiercely their hackles trembled with exertion. Froth gathered at the edges of their lips, and blood poured from various punctures in their grimy hides. If Maka was there, she had no doubt she could feel the Monster’s rank breath upon her face. But she had to focus on the present. She had to remain hidden. Bide her time like the huntress she never was. If she intervened too early, the Monster would overpower her, and then…
Maka clawed the ground asunder to force the nightmares out of her head and fixed her austere eyes on her son. Although wounded in more places than Han, her valiant son still stood his ground against a much more experienced cougar. How, Maka had no idea…
And then, she saw it. The same look of rage that burned within the Monster’s eyes lit up Skan’s emerald ones as well. He was his son, after all. Han made sure to remind her of that right before he abandoned her in the night.
“You know the truth too well, father. Stating it will not change anything, nor remove the taste of my seed from the perverted tongue that licked it.”
“I’ve done what I had to protect my daughter from YOUR perversions, you miserable scrap of filth. If you even lay a claw on her, I will-“
“Do what? Claim her yourself? I’ve seen the way you look at her. I wonder if she told you the same stories she shared with me. Why, there’s one about a provider who doesn’t hold back at all from making sure his daughter’s needs are met.”
“Those are lies, boy. You will clamp that filthy maw this instant or I’m going to make sure it never opens up again.”  
Run, Maka pleaded inside her head. Please run. He’ll kill you, Skan. He’s not going to hold back this time.
But it was not the Monster’s way to retreat from any sort of challenge. Nor his son’s. Skan attacked his father head-on, and in but a moment, the forest rang with the pain of their shattered bonds. It hurt Maka greatly to see the most important males in her life bleed over each other’s fur. There was no tactic or finesse in their assault. Claws sheared through flesh without remorse, fangs bit to hurt rather than restrain. It was all a gory spectacle of rage until the desperate need for air split the two angry males apart. 
“You’re growing old, father…” Skan huffed as he pawed away the blood from a wounded eye. “A cougar in his prime would’ve had me by now.”
“Quick ends are for prey. My treacherous son deserves so much more. After I’m done marring your flesh, I will pluck out your eyes, chew out your ears, then delight in your growls of agony as I rip the root of your lies straight from the stump where your tail would have been.”
“Bold words. I’m positively terrified.” Skan strutted around as if he already won the battle. “What’s the matter, father? Why aren’t you following up with your plan? Where is this deadly hunter you speak of? You huff like a disgraced wolf, threatening me with fangs chipped by age and fur marred by parasites. Barking louder than you can ever bite. No wonder Skanita chose me.”
“She’ll never love a runt whose runny seed has yet to harden.” Han spat. “I know everything about you, my son.” He snarled that word as if it was poison. “There’s nothing you can hide from me. Not your weakness, not your deceit, no nothing.”
“I have, for more time than you can possibly imagine. Open your blind, cataract ridden eyes to the truth you’ve known ever since you sucked the seed out of me.”
“Don’t test me, boy. I swear by all that I hold dear that-“
“I have mated her more times than I can possibly count, and she enjoyed every. Single. Throb of my cock. Every surge of seed I pumped into her perfect lips. Every thrust I made against her ready rump. Every lick I draped across the back of her neck. Everything I’ve done, she begged for.”
“No…my daughter. How could you? You’ve deflowered her, stole her innocence. Stained her with your filth!”
“I loved her more than you ever did in your life, my dear, deluded father, because you chose vengeance above all else. How can you blame her for choosing me? I was her only choice after her father, our honorable provider, stole her chance at a normal life.”
“She could’ve come to me.” Han’s voice trembled with emotion. “I could’ve taken care of her. Given everything she ever wanted!”
“And choose the weaker male? Why would she ever do that?”
Han lost it at that. He launched himself at his son, but he was too emotional, too taken with pain to even score a hit on the younger male. 
“You lost her, father. Leave with whatever scrap of dignity you have left. I promise I will take good care of her.”
“Oh, I so wish I never squirted you into your mother’s womb. Nita is the only one I loved. The only one I wanted. I’ve prayed and prayed to the forces above to bless me with daughters, but instead, they cursed me with you. A pretender who’d raise his claws against his provider as soon as his cock starts dribbling seed. I’ve cleansed my territory of the male plague long before it had the chance to sicken my family, and you, my son, are a mistake long overdue.”
Maka saw the murderous glint in his eyes. She knew in her cold, chilled bones what was about to happen.
But as much as she willed herself to stop the inevitable conclusion of this conflict, her legs would not move. The Monster’s boiling anger. His ruthless rage. She remembered it all too well when she was the victim of his atrocities. And within less than a second, all that tense concentration, all that bristling power she mustered began to leak out of her like seed after a copulation. Rooted to the ground like a silent statue, eyes wide with panic, she could only watch how the Monster gained a solid hold on her son, pushing her snarling, helpless son closer and closer towards the abyss spanning beyond the cliff’s edge. A violent shove was all it took…
And with a roar of utter disbelief, Skan disappeared from her field of view, plummeting down into an abyss nobody could follow. 
“Noooo!” A primal roar erupted from Maka’s throat. The weakness, the fear, the memories, they all gave way to an even stronger force: the love a mother bore for her children. Maka’s paws came to a stop on the very precipice of the ledge, her keen blue eyes scanning the river below for any sign of her son.
“He’s gone. I’ve dealt with him.” Han said from behind.
The Monster’s callous voice gave her no pause. She continued her search even with his warnings buzzing in her ears, one long minute passing into the other until the inevitability of the situation came crashing down on her. If she saw no specks of movement down below, if her keen ears picked not even the faintest cry for help… then her Skan, her cub, the light of her life, had truly been snuffed out by the terrible vengeance of the male who started licking his wounds clean not even minutes after he sent his very son to his death. 
“Come now, Maka. You truly are smarter than this. That little wretch was going to get it sooner or later. I just sped up what the natural selection would’ve done as soon as he got banished from my home.”
Hurt in a thousand different ways, Maka whirled around to advance upon the Monster with a sliver of her own rage burning within her austere blue eyes. “How could you?! He’s our son, Han! Your son! You’ve killed your own son!”
“Not any longer…unless you want to scrape off whatever remains of him from the shores of the river.”
Blistering rage pushed her to confront the very monster she cowered from mere moments ago. Her strong legs sent her soaring towards the wounded male, and Han, in his exhausted state, did little to avoid her wrath. He took in those first few rounds of physical punishment, then, as soon as Maka’s strength started to fade, he turned the tables on her by pinning her smaller body under him. 
“Enough of this nonsense, female. I’m your provider, and you will OBEY me when I tell you to.”
“And if I refuse?” Maka snarled back at his spiteful face. “Will you just kill me in the same way you killed our son?”
“Our son? OUR SON?” A mocking laughter burst from the Monster’s jaws. “Our beloved son is barely worth the energy spent from pushing him out of the womb!”
“He’s everything you weren’t, you beast.”
“Which is what? A mewling weakling unable to even bend over his own cock and fellate his needs away. I find your lack of objectiveness disturbing. Our son, my dear mate, has allowed himself to fall prey to the most basic of urges. He disregarded the strength I invested him with from his birth, discarded everything good we taught him, peed on common sense, ruined our daughter’s purity…he pushed all that away to satisfy his own selfish needs. That’s who our son is. A failure that grew too large, too stupid. I should’ve ended him weeks ago, long before his seed thickened. That way our daughter might’ve still retained her innocence.”
“As if you’ve never tried to court your own sisters.” Maka snarled at him in spite of all the arguments he brought to the table. “You want the truth, Han? Look around you. How many other suitors line up to quench our daughter’s heat? How many prospective females lay beyond our borders?”
“Silence.”
“Were you in his place, you would have done the same.”
“Never! You think you can live out that sinful fantasy of yours through our children. Mato was right to leave, you would have drowned him in that wretched hole you call a pussy. You think of nothing past your next release.” Han placed a paw down upon Maka’s throat. “You think it was love that kept Skan close to our Nita? Love that kept him on filling her with his bastards? Was he the one who’d bear the full extent of his failures, or her? Tell me!” 
“He’s young…” Maka tried to keep her constricting throat from heaving. The pressure increased with every passing second, his rage stifling her will to fight. “Too young to even think about cubs…”
Fortunately, Han pulled his paw back, seemingly still in control of his emotions. “Yet he mated on and on and on with no regard for the future. Or has his little brag fly past your deaf ears? He’s a wretch of the foulest order who only saw our Nita as a moist shelter to sink his filthy cock into. I did us all a favor tonight. The whole world is better off without him.”
Maka froze in terror as she felt something warm prod at the cold surface of her nethers. “No…please…not after…”
“It’d be so easy to take you right now,” the Monster’s rank breath fell over one of her ears while his weak, trembling thrusts rubbed the hot entrance of his sheath against the tight walls of her frozen pussy “I’ll show you exactly the sort of male I am if more of those distasteful doubts pass through your teeth. It is not your place to question me. I believe we made that crystal clear when I welcomed you into my home.”
Maka could’ve chosen to remain silent. She could have clammed up against any indignities he threw at her address. Even if her body was taken, her mind soared free. 
But something in her just snapped after all the promises he made her. “You want to mate?” She hissed right in his face. “Do it then. Take me. Rape me the way you’ve always raped.”
“A provider needs not ask.” Han snarled. “You forget your place, female.”
“Spill your filthy cum in me and be done with it.” Maka grabbed onto him with her forepaws and pushed him down, eager to just feel him burst all over her lips. “Go on. Thrust, you merciless bastard. Show me the monster that takes what he wants.”
“Monster?” Han shrugged off her pathetic grip. He leaped off her with drunken grace, wobbling on his fours as he circled her. “You’ve got me wrong, Maka. Years of living together taught you nothing but complacency and lassitude. This is who I’ve always been. That idyllic future you kept rambling about was never going to become a reality, for you see the world with the naïve eyes of a female, while mine can pierce past the veil many surround themselves with. Happiness? That’s just an open, bleeding wound waiting for the festering touch of disease.”
“And who is this disease, Han?” Maka tried to pick herself up. “Our friends?” She leaned on her unsteady forepaws, slowly rising up on her fours. “Your own family?” Placing one paw ahead of the other, she crawled towards Han until she could feel his rank breath upon her face once again. “How much farther will you go to achieve your vision of the future?”
“My future is bleak.” He spoke with a voice as cold as the dead stare he shot her. “Darkness has always been the only thing I can understand, but you…you’ve never been truly mine, have you? We might’ve united our bodies, joined our minds in tranquil talk every night before sleep, but I could never count on your support. We’ve been like night and day from the moment we met. Maybe the same fate that brought us together is also the one that wills our departure.” 
“What...what do you mean?” Maka’s voice trembled for a moment. 
“Leave. Make whatever you wish of your life. When the sun rises over the forest, I’ll be your provider no longer. That’s what you want, isn’t it?”
Free? Just like that? “Skanita?” she whispered between her tired jaws.
“She remains with me, as can you, if you remain loyal to your provider.”
The offer took her by surprise. Weary from the exertion of a most tiresome day, still in shock from the death of her son, Maka looked over the marred body of her mate. She sought a reason. Any reason to remain with the cougar she once swore her life to. 
Yet the more she looked upon his messy fur patched with the blood of her deceased son, the more she realized the obvious. Her mate was gone. Whoever stood in front of her now was something different than The Monster. A stranger with cold eyes and an attitude as frigid as the snow-crested mountains. She realized in that moment that she’d rather die than spend even a second in the presence of his stone-hearted killer. 
With no further words and a heavy heart, Maka slowly made her way towards the fertile valley she always dreamed of not with her mate and their children in tow, but as a lone, slouched specter who lost everything she held dear.