Chapter 9

Maka’s heartbeats picked up when a gentle gust of night air carried the smell of her mate into her nostrils. She thought she had prepared for this moment. After all, she left her offspring alone right after the sun started to set, the fiery clouds now a distant reminder of the day she spent absent worries. Maka felt like the patches of the sky that protruded through the thick canopy of the forest. Fragmented, conflicted, her answers as distant as the stars themselves. 
Fear urged her to turn back. Run into the forest. Buy more time to come up with a convincing answer. Yet where could she go without having her scent traced back to her exact position? Realizing she had but one choice, Maka slowly advanced towards the imposing form of the cougar that waited in front of their home. She could tell by the twitch in his tail that her late arrival annoyed him.
“It’s late. Where have you been?” the male inquired with a stern voice.
Maka stopped a dozen feet away from him. “Hunting.”
A simple answer that needed no thought to gauge the disposition of her mate. 
“Hunting?” his crimson eyes gave no hint of suspicion just yet. Only irritation. “I passed a herd of deer on my way home. Why am I your provider if I cannot even fulfill this basic duty of feeding my family?”
Maka didn’t expect the stern head of the family to drop back on the ground like the deer he mentioned. Han wasn’t angry at her. He barely had the strength to argue if his long sigh was any indication of the male’s disposition.
“Our guest eludes me. I can sense his presence all over my territory, yet I cannot see him. I know it, Maka. He’s still out there. Prowling in the shadows. Marking my trees with his filth.” Han’s gaze drooped. “Those deer looked scared. I can tell it now when my mind is clear. They moved upstream, as if someone else rattled them.” He then looked at Maka. “Was it you?”
“No,” she took the chance to approach him. “The hunting I mentioned…that was only something to pass the time until your return.”
“You…missed me?” Han perked his head, looking at her like a hopeful little cub.
That question took her by surprise considering that Han hadn’t been very supportive in the ways of affection for the past months. “I…” Maka found her legs taking her closer towards the lonely cougar. “Of course I did.” She said as she quickly covered the distance and brushed her head along his neck. A warm purr resurfaced from the depths of his throat, her heart fluttering when she found Han return the gesture with twice the affection.
“Mrrr, my mate…It’s so good to smell your scent. To see you’re safe. Please, sit.” He invited Maka down on the grass with a forepaw. “I know I have been a little…distant lately, but I have never stopped caring for you or my family. You three are always at the forefront of my mind, which only reminds me of what I have to lose if this threat isn’t dealt with before it has the chance to inflict injury upon our family.”
Maka waited for him to finish. Though she didn’t fully understand what he meant, she still offered support. Her warm pads settled over the short fur of one of his forepaws, a mere gesture to show him that for all his concerns, he was not alone. “Tell me more about this blight, and together, let us see the nature of this threat unveiled.”
“He’s cunning. That much I can say.”
“He? I never asked about his gender. Are you convinced he is male?”
Han’s lips contorted with irritation. “Who else would dare to invade my territory if not this wretched thief? I have spent years brushing the filth from my territory. Two faced friends that itched for the chance to sink their claws into my back, nomads with no land of their own, youngsters too small to even know the taste of their own seed. I have banished them all for you. For Nita. To keep you all safe. “
Han’s muscles tensed, claws raking through the dirt. “That mongrel must have sensed my daughter’s scent. That’s why he chose to strike now. Thinks me weak and distracted with other matters, but I’ll show him there is no place for thieves in my territory.”
“Han, calm down. Let us think this through. Have you found any traces of his presence that might lead you to him?”
Han shook his head. “Not yet. But I know he’s here in our home somewhere, probably smearing himself with my scent to remain undetected.  I know it wasn’t the sound of my steps or my scent that scared those deer. This is my territory. I know every living being that inhabits it. Every mouse, squirrel, fawn, bird, and stag. And they have been around me too long to know when I mean harm. My quarrel is with this thief!”
Han’s hackles rose to expose his sharp, deadly fangs. “He’s now fixing his filthy eyes on my little Nita, thinking endlessly on how to reach her. Oh, his cock oozes at the thought of spurting his foul, sterile seed into my delicate flower. I know what his kin is capable of. Years, Maka…I’ve spent years pruning these weeds. How can there be any left? I plucked them all. I know I did…”
Even amidst that anger, Han’s tiredness was more than obvious. Maka nuzzled her way under his jaw to prop his head back up. “You will find him, Han. Same way you did with the others.”
“But will I catch him before he stains my daughter with his vile seed? This intruder…he is not like the others, lazy and complacent. What if… Nita. Where is Nita?”
“She’s with Skan.” Maka licked his cheek to brush some of his concern away, “They are coming home as we speak.”
“Good. Good. I…don’t know what I’d do if that monster-“
“Purge him from your mind. It is time to rest now, Han. Look at me. Focus your thoughts only on what you can see, what you can smell, what you can touch…”
Maka shoved her mate onto his side and clambered on top of him, licking steadily along his trembling jaw. Han, the pillar of the family, was laying on his back, trembling in fear before the dark silhouettes crawling forth from the dark, terrible corners of his fearful mind. In that moment where her mate was at his weakest, Maka forgot everything about the promise she made to her children. She hugged her mate tight against her body, easing his concerns with calm words and warm, gentle licks over his muzzle. 
“We’ll catch him, my beloved mate. I will accompany you tomorrow if that’s what it takes to put your mind at ease.”
“No,” the male pressed a paw into her chest, pushing her back. “He is my responsibility. You watch over our children, Maka. Keep them close to our home. Make sure there is nothing bigger than a fawn around them.”
“Mrrrr…that proves to be a difficult request for someone with my hunger.” 
“I will provide for you,” Han grabbed onto her throat, his huge fangs nibbling with utmost care and gentleness. “Tell me what you need…and see your desires satisfied.”
Maka moaned gently under the warm ministrations of her mate. She missed this side of Han greatly, yet as much as she wanted to give herself to the urges that stirred beneath her tail, Maka was afraid. Afraid that, in the throes of her pleasure, she might divulge a secret that could plunge her mate further into the darkness.
“You smell so good,” Han huffed. He pushed his muzzle hard into her neck, grasping at the thick strands of fur that protected her vulnerable throat. “Do you remember this, Maka? You squirming beneath me, begging for relief?”
No…not that. Anything but her first time.
“I…it’s been so long.”
“Then open your mind,” Han dashed his barbed tongue over her muzzle. “And together…let us travel back to simpler times when the taste of my seed was all you craved for.”
Maka couldn’t hold her need back. Not when his delightful tongue slithered into her muzzle, wet and eager, just like his cock. 
“Mrroooowwrrrrr.” She opened the gates of her tense pussy with a long growl of desire. Two strands of liquid heat splattered upon the base of his tail, hot, silky, and fueled with the primal need for a male deep inside her.
Han pulled back for a moment to inhale her scent. His lips immediately pulled up, eyes glazing over from the potency of the female pheromones that coated their bodies in the smell of sex and desire.
“It’s been so long…” Han muttered. “So long since I tasted your lips upon my tongue, or felt their hunger upon the dusty pads of my paws.”
“H-Han…” Maka scrunched her eyes shut. His paw was getting much too close to her exposed folds. “Not there. Please…it’s not-not the right time to-“
Her sentiment was not shared by the male towering above her. He wanted her. And so he pressed his pads down upon her pussy, and as luck would have it, one of his toes fit perfectly inside the weakest place of a female’s body. Moistened to perfection within a heartbeat, the padded toe slid into Maka’s pussy just like a cock would, triggering a burst of ecstasy that made her entire body convulse just like her two clenching gates.
“Aaarrrhhhhh!” Maka snarled in pleasure as her ass and pussy winked ecstatically at the massaging paw. She wrapped her forepaws around him, dragging him closer against her body. She ran her unsheathed claws along the male’s back, and no wince came out of Han, who kneaded back and forth with his foot to flare the squelching mess that gathered under his grey, flexing pads. 
“Too much…” Maka whispered in his ear. “Please…you’re making me…Han pleaaaaase!”
His soggy foot pulled back, a thick, wet sound accompanying the snapping of the translucent strands that bridged his moist toes to her twitching cunt for one sporadic moment. “You were mine. I had you at the pads of my paw, Maka. I could have made you cum.”
He was right beyond reason. A few throbs would have splattered the heat right out of her. But that didn’t happen. He stopped, because she asked him to. Maka saw the clues in his eyes. A flicker of a distant memory she glimpsed in this strange, fleeting present.
He still cared about her.  
“Han…” she reached towards his muzzle to kiss him sweetly. Her mate slowly pulled back, finding an interest in the moist pads of her forepaw. He sniffed at the liquid excitement impregnated upon her darker pads, coaxing a soft growl out of her throat when he ran his barbed tongue over her entire paw.
“Still sensitive.” He licked again, working his tongue between her fingers that spread and kneaded against his rough, scraping barbs. 
“Don’t…Han…you’re tired after…you chased the thief.”
“Shhhh,” Han silenced her weak protests with a forepaw placed upon her lips. “He’s not here. You are.”
Maka tried to stop him, but she was powerless before his soothing voice. Helpless against the moist breaths that rushed between her fingers, all she could do was moan. Han licked her once more, then parted his jaws to take her paw into the steamy insides of his maw just like he did all those years back when they met for the first time, and Maka shifted and trembled on the ground, crumpling under the quick throbs that took control of her pussy. Twitching as if a male cock graced their insides, her folds oozed a constant river of lubrication that made the puckered entrance of her anus as glossy and wet as her pussy. She couldn’t stop. Not before Han stopped suckling onto her sensitive paw. The way his tongue dipped between each of her fanning fingers reminded her too much of his voracious appetite for her heat-filled pussy. She could never forget the first foreign tongue on her folds, or the first stream of cum that tickled her womb.
Maka cried out his name, and just like before, Han spat her paw out moments before the raging climax had the chance to empty her womb. Gooey strands of saliva dribbled down his chin. They painted a very vivid image of the same wetness that covered Maka’s pussy.
A wetness that still attracted her mate.
“No. Han…you’ve done too much already. Rest…please rest, before…” Maka almost managed to touch his head before he slipped out of the reach of her paws, sliding down her belly like a river of calm, humid heat that teased Maka with the promise of what was to come, for there was a single place any male worth his salt would assault.
A female’s bare, furless pussy. 
Han’s shuddering breath kissed her lips like pattering rain, jagged and quick, very unlike the confident demeanor he displayed up until this night. Maka warned him to pull away. She tried to push him herself, yet her paws had an impossible time parting a male in his prime from a moist, inviting entrance of a wet female. 
 “Mmrraaaarrrrhmmmm.” A sharp wave of humid breath cascaded upon her twitching folds. Han’s jaws clicked together, the grimace on his face telling Maka everything she wanted to know.
He was struck by her smell harder than he anticipated, falling prey to his base, animalistic instincts. Maka spread her legs, all but certain he was going to pierce her folds and flood her with his seed.
“Time has not dulled your edge one bit. Neither did the birth of our cubs.” Han stuck his tongue out to lick at the air a couple of times, as if to taste the pheromones that filled the air with the miasma of intense arousal. “You are the same female I chose to spend the rest of my life with. The essence I poured within these walls transformed into two cubs that are almost grown up…
Han closed his eyes and exhaled, his long, warm sigh kissing Maka’s rapidly throbbing pussy. “I am so very sorry for losing track of what is important. Please, Maka. Allow me to remember how it feels to have your love slither inside my fur once again.”
“Have me, Han…I’m yours, now and forever.” 
Maka snarled fiercely when his tongue made contact with her oversensitive pussy. Her entire body tensed like a spring, so hard that even air had troubles entering her nostrils. He licked the sweetness of her lips, then kept on pushing onwards, the smooth tip of his tongue slowly giving way to the sharper, barbed parts that pricked her shuddering passage with tingles of pure pleasure. Her thick female cream gushed out from the depths of her body voluntarily, splattering upon the invading tongue like the sea smashing upon cliffs. 
Han couldn’t last more than a fickle moment. Not when female musk coated the front of his muzzle. He snarled fiercely, widening the translucent strands that clung onto his muzzle. 
“I long to feel the tingling spark of completion race along my spine as I lose myself into your grasp.” 
Maka clawed at the air as he returned to taste her with utter desire. He not only collected the honey upon his tongue, but twisted his tongue and head alike to bring her closer and closer to the point of no return.
“Oh, how I yearn to feel our bodies merge together as I pour myself body and soul deep, deep inside you…”
Maka shuddered and kicked her legs when the contact was finally interrupted. Han too struggled to keep his composure. His claws came out to anchor his own unsteady legs onto the ground as the urge to mate manifested in sudden jerks of his hips. Maka’s focus was not on her mate’s half-closed eyes, nor on his drenched muzzle. Rather, she was glued to the captivating sight of his cock that tensed and spat out its lubrication in the same frenzied way as her pussy. She didn’t even wait for her mate to settle down, grabbing him with her forepaws to drag him against her chest if only to stop staring at his perfectly sized cock. 
He fell upon her, and then the two cougars growled, mrowled, and embraced each other tight, tongues dancing over each other’s faces as they battled for dominance: Han trying to find her pussy, Maka struggling to hold both herself and her mate back. 
“S-stop. Han, you can’t…please, stop!” she moaned in Han’s ears as her claws dug their sharp tips hard into his back.
The male hissed sharply. She knew it hurt. The metallic smell of his blood made her nauseous, but pain was the only way to get her message through. 
“Please listen to me. I want this more than anything, but love makes a male weak before battle,” she licked his ear, going over to his muzzle to lick her own liquid heat off his fur. “Save your strength. Keep it…I would have you return after you deal with the wretch that haunts our territory.”
Han stared at her with what Maka interpreted as understanding. She lowered her defenses to give him a long, loving lick…
Then gasped as her tight, eager pussy widened before the barbed stiffness that invaded her. With one sharp thrust, Han managed to secure his entire rod within her, the soft outline of his balls pressing tight against her dripping entrance.
“What is duty compared to your mate’s love?” Han’s voice sizzled with pleasure. “What would I be without you to rest my weary body against? Nothing. I’d be…just another outcast in search of purpose.”
Maka’s eyes teared up with intense pleasure. She forced herself to remain lucid, to focus on the whiskers tickling along her lips, on the moist breath of her mate’s heavy breath. 
“Han…” she whispered weakly, her forepaws holding tight around his neck. “I love you too much…please, don’t do something stupid.”
“Stupid would be to deny your affection.” The male’s licks further anchored her back into the blissful reality. “You gave me that purpose, and even though it is my seed that birthed life inside you, you, Maka, imbued me with the strength to endure, to provide, to live and see my cubs grow into beautiful felines.”
Maka shuddered warmly when his tongue washed the tears from her eyes.
“I promise that from this night onwards, I will never mistreat you, neglect your needs, or put myself above you. Family is everything to me, Maka. You are my love…and I want us both to remember this moment like our first. To remember that this night, we have found each other again.”
Right after he finished his line, Han pulled himself back, then pressed his muzzle against hers. His tongue rushed into her maw at the same time as his cock sunk into her pussy all over again. The warm embrace made both of them moan with joy and lust alike. Maka’s claws dragged their naked tips through his skin as she wrestled his tongue through the slavering insides of her mouth, while on the other end, his rock-hard member traveled in and out of her pussy with mind-bending jolts of elation. He barely managed to withhold his seed for more than a couple of thrusts, exploding into her so hard and fast that his usual yowl came out choked and strange. 
That was only a small detail compared to the river of pleasure that coursed through her body in the form of rhythmic bursts of ecstasy. She felt her mate’s heartbeat through his cock, rapid and steady. Behind, his balls drew up with every jerk of the cougar’s tail, the muscles around the base busy pumping the warm semen into his cock. She had seen this when her son mated her daughter, only this time, she was no longer a spectator. She was here, in the bosom of her home, with the tongue of her loving mate washing over her scrunched muzzle and his cock furiously fulfilling its role. The shuddering walls that massaged his barbs played a big part in maintaining the erection. Han loved her wetness so much that he kept pushing against her body to make sure no part of him remained out of that moist heaven he found himself snuggled into. 
Maka experienced three long, fulfilling orgasms before his strength died down. She still kept him there, tightly pressed against her body, breathing the same air, feeling his purr reverberate through his satisfied body. Han gave her the greatest gift she could ever ask for besides her offspring, and for the first time in years, Maka felt wanted again. Hopeful for a future in which she would raise many more cubs together with her beloved mate.
That night, she dreamed of her first meeting with Han. She was a young, lonely female caught in the throes of her first heat in a small territory inhabited by several other cougars. Two of their yowls became more bothersome with each passing second. Maka covered her head with her paws and chuffed her annoyance between tightly barred fangs. She managed to close her eyes and catch a sliver of sleep until the crackling yowls sent a shiver down her spine. The cougars of the Oyupota pack had been her natural enemies for years, and more often than not, a female’s personal nightmare. They stole kills with impunity, trespassed territories like they owned them, and now mated just within Maka’s earshot. 
She pulled her fluffy tail around her sleek body and waited until the noise died down, then closed her eyes in hopes of catching more sleep. The midday sun was still burning unnaturally strong outside, and she didn’t feel like going out in that scorching heat of midsummer. Her rocky den patched with brambles, leaves and twigs kept most of the sun away and cooled the ground to manageable temperatures. 
Slowly, Maka drifted off to sleep. She thought of the endless plains of the tundra and all the pleasures they had to offer for a solitary female like her. More often than not, her thoughts led towards other members of her kin. She imagined herself surrounded by a coalition of three powerful males. They mewled and jumped around her excitedly, panting with playful eagerness to prove themselves worthy to her. Maka couldn’t refuse such kind creatures. She immediately dropped to her belly onto the cool ground, then rolled with her face towards the sky, fully exposing herself to their bathing tongues. She mewled weakly and shivered as moisture claimed her body in three different places. Warmth danced all over her, in the form of broad, barbed tongues. One male treated her ears with soft, careful nibbles, while the two others caressed the areas that stretched below her neck. 
Maka spread her paws, allowing one of the tongues to slide between her warm, padded fingers. Barbs scratched gently along her pink pads, leaving them moist and shiny. Maka made her pleasure known through a soft purring rumble. She pushed her foreleg further into the male’s gaping maw to seek the deeper, wetter parts of his mouth. Warmth surrounded her like a tide of tickling bliss, and a soft yelp escaped her throat. Her paw was not the only thing getting suckled. The last male traced his tongue between her shivering legs, sliding dangerously close to her wet, exposed sex. 
Maka tensed with lust. Her dense fur ruffled along her back, and her paws spread their toes as a rush of molten pleasure traveled along her spine. Her vagina squelched rudely upon the contact, and within less than a heartbeat, Maka found herself assaulted by the hard, intense licking. The horny male pushed his muzzle harder against her crevice and lapped hungrily at the fertile fluids hiding inside her shuddering pussy. His tongue sneaked between her wet folds like a snake, rubbing her over sensitive walls with annoying accuracy. 
With a harsh yowl, Maka surrendered her body to the overwhelming pleasure. She clenched her pussy as hard as she could, waited for the fluid to build up within her loins, then squirted her lust out, flooding the male’s tongue with a silky riptide of femcum. 
The cougar shuddered at the fertile, pheromone-laden taste of her fertility. He slurped everything with unmatched alacrity, and when her spasming fit ended the cougar jumped on top of her. Maka panted and mewled, barely recovered from her orgasm. She felt weak and exposed, but the male’s dripping cock already found her moist shelter, filling her with the raw need of copulation. To damnation with waiting. She was going to quench her heat right now! Maka wrapped her forepaws around his neck, then dragged him down, forcing his throbbing cock deeper into her flooded vagina.
Pleasure washed over her like a lightning strike, more intense than anything she felt. Maka gripped the invading cock hard with her pussy, then squeezed her eyes shut. Fire welled into her clenching walls, erupting in trickles of heated lust. The male thrust hard, rubbing his barbed cock against her silky tunnel until he penetrated her all the way to her womb. Maka mewled and kicked her paws hard at the unmatched feeling of bliss, melting in the intense pleasure that erupted throughout her body. Her lips pulled up and her jaws parted, eager to nibble on the fur of her mate. Maka bit softly, clamping on nothingness. No fur graced her teeth, and no scents entered her flaring nostrils aside from her own.