Cattin Around

BLOODMOON RISING PART 1.

I'm sorry this issue is so late in coming. It has been very difficult to get to congeal in my head and turned out to be longer than I intended. However, I've decided to cut it in half and submit this much so far and then add more as Part 2. Also in part two I'm going to step away from Trey's POV and do a chapter in Emory's.

Cobalt Blue

I spent the rest of that summer working with Emory, helping her learn the runes, and both of us mastering our new shapeshifting powers. We became close, closer than just lovers. Her being there helped me come to grips with Ridvin's death, it helped me deal with the survivor's guilt.. I hadn't realized it, but Rid was right. If it hadn't been for Emory, I'd have tried to follow him. For a while, she literally was my anchor to this world. Again, Rid managed to teach me something even beyond the grave.

As the summer wore on she improved her skills with the runes and I even learned a little of her magic. I'll never be the master of on-the-fly casting that she is, but I can get by when I need too. I think too much in the old form, and tend to build my spells around the runes to ever be anything other than a dabbler in what most people think of as witchcraft.

I also learned to use the gift that Freyr gave me. However, it was a gift that I never told anyone that I had, not even Emory. I learned to create duplicates of myself. These copies could act and think for themselves just as I would. There was a limited form of telepathy between me and the copies, but nothing more than just vague feelings and that was only if there was a strong emotion or pain attached. However, when we rejoined, I discovered that I had all the memories that they had acquired while we were separated. It was kind of weird.

At the end of the summer, Emory had to return to England, back to boarding school, and I once again turned back to the routine of living in Northwest Alabama. A lot of things changed for me that summer. I think I did more growing during that summer than in other time in my life. I really did become a man.

It seemed that everyone who knew who and what I was treated me differently. My opinion actually came to mean something to the adults in my life. Even in the village where Rid was a priest, the way I was treated changed. Gilfrey never again tried to correct my manners. Grandfather said that it was because I proved myself a man that night; that I took the responsibility for protecting the village and its people, and I avenged not only someone that I loved, but that was loved by the community as well. Also, the fact that I avenged a priest of Freyr showed that I honored all the Gods, not just The Keeper Of Cats.

Even the pack treated me differently after that. But I know where that came from. I could actually sense that some of them were more than just a little afraid of me. I don't think they ever thought of me as someone who would kill- kick someone's ass into next Tuesday sideways maybe, but not kill. Even JD gave me a wide berth for a while.

Of course it didn't help that JD's dad was pissed as hell at me at first. I took the pack off and into danger. Not only that, I didn't ask his permission. It took a long while for him to come to realize that JD and the rest chose to go with me. In the end, when he found out about the songs that were being sung among the Alfs about his son, he backed off a little bit. I think that finally he came to see his son's actions as something be proud of.

Anyway, we settled back into the school year and before we knew it our sophomore year came and passed; then our junior year. The world was passing by our sleepy little southern town. In Birmingham, Night Angel continued his battles with Twilight and the rest of the Richelieu Factor. Things got really nasty between them after Twilight murdered Ms. Freedom. Night Angel really did become some kind of dark avenger of the night.

Down in Miami, Sun Dancer and the first Dreamweaver started kicking butt and taking names as part of a team they called Miami Nice. It seemed that a whole crop of teenaged parahumans was sprouting up all over the country. Out West Dr. Elizabeth Green opened the Pacifica School, the first of her three Stryker/Norris Schools for Advanced Academic Studies. Basically they were schools where parahumans teenagers trained to use their powers and to get along with the base-line human populations of the school. Eventually, she would open two other branches- the one in Atlanta based off the World War Two teenage super team Home Guard and the Eaton Team out of England based off Strike Force Liberty, also from World War Two.

It seemed that Dr. Griffin's fatal flight that spread the Atlantean Gifted Virus across the United States back during World War Two was finally bearing fruit. There weren't a lot of adult parahumans at that time, but there was a boatload of us kids. I think that most of those few adults were actually holdovers from the Second World War.

My own powers continued to grow as well. Because I inherited my Atlantean Gifted Gene from Dad, and was starting to show levels of strength that surpassed even him, my parents considered sending me to Pacifica, but decided against it. They felt that my own responsibilities that came with Freyja's Commission might create problems for the school. Instead, they simply continued to teach and train me at home. Of course, they didn't limit their teachings to just how to fight, or how to use the runes. No, I also got history, science, and languages as well.

Since I was old enough to form my first words, Mom and Dad have insisted that I learn as many languages as possible. English and Old Norse were of course cradle languages, spoken in my home equally since I was a baby. When I got a little older, they added French, German, Russian, Chinese, Japanese, Farsi, and Arabic. All this of course reinforced my suspicion later in life that Dad and maybe even Mom were spies.

Like I said though, my powers, specifically my strength kept growing- to a point where my parents genuinely became concerned that they might have to send me somewhere to learn to control it. You have to understand something. Most werewolves can pick up a small car. Most werecats, tigers especially tend to be about twice as strong as that. My Dad can easily lift our old International tractor and toss it across the barn. We realized I was in a whole new category the day I carried a Caterpillar D-9 out of the sinkhole that it had fallen into on our farm.

To be honest I'm glad they didn't send me out west, though. I enjoyed growing up in our sleepy little town, and don't think I would have fit in well with a bunch of West Coast kids. I know that by Yule of my senior year, there were a quite a few people in the know that were just as glad I hadn't gone anywhere else.

It all started back at the beginning of the school year. Now, several of my friends and I had an ongoing Dungeons and Dragons campaign that had been meeting for a couple of years. We'd alternate between Friday and Saturday nights each week and play `til the wee hours of the morning. Okay, I'll be honest; there were several times we'd still be playing when the sun was coming up the next day. We had standing rule: If you had a date or a chance to get laid that night and you showed up for the game, we'd kick your ass. Gaming was one thing, but getting your lance waxed was something different.

Our group was pretty eclectic. There was me, JD, and Bart, Kevin, and we actually had two girls who played. One was Kevin's girlfriend Amy, you remember her from the first story I told you. Well, after that first grope session of theirs, they decided that they actually had quite a bit in common. She'd put on a little weight since then, but wasn't what you'd actually call fat, just pleasant. Her brown hair had darkened to almost black and those boobs of hers that were large at 12 had turned into monsters.

The other girl's name was Tanya. She was tall, with red hair and was actually somewhat attractive. She just had a reputation of being a little strange. For one thing, she had a weekly subscription to the Midnight Sun and the National Enquirer. Secondly, she had an encyclopedic knowledge of science fiction and fantasy. She knew more about Star Trek and The Six Million Dollar Man than the rest of us put together.

Anyway, this was about the time that the Evangelicals got the bug up their collective asses about the evils of D&D. They were convinced that it was seducing fine young Christians into witchcraft. Hell, I was into witchcraft and magic long before I discovered D&D.

Well, our game wasn't a secret. We invited several people to play, but for the most part it was just us six. We would alternate between my house and Tanya's. Of course on nights of the full moon, all bets were off, and the game got put on hold. Anyway, like I said, the local Evangelicals decided that our game was evil and instead of sitting around a kitchen table and rolling dice, we were out sacrificing virgins, worshipping Satan, and casting spells. The worst part about it, was they wouldn't know a spell if it hit them upside the head.

Add to all that, my reputation as the county's bad-boy and the fact that my family didn't attend church anywhere in town, and we had recipe for a witch-hunt- a real, down-to-earth, go-out-and-save-the-youth-of-the-county witch hunt. It all got kicked off, just after some youth minister came through and gave a talk about Satanism, the occult, and witchcraft. D&D was pretty high on his lists of things that were evil.

I guess I should have seen it coming, but to be honest, I was more worried about some of the stuff that I was reading in the paper about the UN. Bet you thought I'd forgotten about that didn't you. Well, I figured if it was important enough for Rid to come back from the dead to tell me about, then I'd sure as heck had better listen. He was right too. There was already a movement in the General Assembly to ban parahumans from serving in the various militaries around the world. They wanted them all for themselves.

So, I guess I can be forgiven for missing the first signs of trouble brewing on the home front with the local CoC. Ironically, it was the same damn church whose minister's daughter I banged at Kevin's. I should have known that that was going to come back and bite me in the ass. I pretty much ignored most of what that particular crowd was saying anyway.

But one early September morning I got it full in the face. I was coming in the front door of the school building and turned right down toward the high school wing when I overheard Amy arguing with someone. It sounded like she was pretty worked up too.

"Nothing like that is going on, Crystal," she was saying. "We just get together and roll dice and try to imagine the story as it unfolds around us. There's a lot of problem solving and general role playing going on."

"You just don't want to see it, Amy," Crystal Marie Guthrie was saying. "You're playing with fire. If there are spells and magic and stuff like that involved, then it's opening a doorway for Satan to come into your lives. It's dangerous and you need to cut it out."

I rounded the corner in time to see them standing next to Amy's locker arguing. "Hiya' Amy. How's it going?" I asked acting like I hadn't heard anything. That's when I noticed Tanya standing next to her looking fit to be tied.

She turned and smiled at me and said, "Hello Trey. We were just talking about our D&D game with Crystal."

"Oh? I asked suspiciously. I knew that Crystal was active in her church, and was the leader of our school's Sonlight Club- a Christian group that met on Tuesday mornings. "You telling her about our party taking on Keraptis in White Plume Mountain?" Bart was currently running us through the now famous S2 Module.

"Not quite," Tanya interjected. "We'd be glad to tell her about how JD solved the Sphinx's riddle, and how you figured out the problem with the flesh golems, but she won't let us get a word in edgewise. She's convinced that we're all over at your or my house worshipping Satan or something." It was obvious that Tanya had had just about enough.

I raised an eyebrow and asked. "That what you think, Crystal?"

"Well, brother Randy at church said...,"

"Is that what YOU think though?" I cut her off.

"I know that there are wizards and magic, and demons, so it sure sounds like it to me. But to be honest with you, I don't do that kind of thing, so I don't know," she said.

I nodded and said, "That much is obvious. Why don't you try and find out first hand before you go and start accusing people of stuff."

"I'm not accusing anybody of anything," she protested.

"That's not what it sounded like to me," I told her. I looked over at Tanya and Amy.

"Well, it's definitely not a Christian thing to be doing," she said.

"I don't know," I told her. "We're recovering stolen property and making the plains of Central Flanaess safe for the regular folk to settle there. Sounds like a good thing to be doing to me," I told her about the plot of the module.

She gave me a blank look. "It's a role playing game, we tell a story. Nobody believes we're actually casting spells or worshipping anything," Tanya told her.

"Messing around spells and wizards and such is evil. It's Satanic, even if you're doing it in a story."

I couldn't help but think about what I did every day when I worked with the runes, or what Emory did with her own magic. Of course to people like Crystal, anything that wasn't spelled out in black in white in the King James Version of the Bible was considered Satanic. I just sighed and said, "Nobody is casting spells while we're playing, it's just that, a game."

"Still, it's not Christian," she said.

I looked over at my friends. They all knew that I wasn't a Christian, and to be honest, I'd just about had it. Finally I looked at her and said, "That's your opinion, and in my case, it doesn't really matter because I got news for ya. I'm not a Christian so I don't care."

She looked at me in shock. "So you admit to being a Satanist?"

I stepped closer and I guess I must have growled because I saw her face blanch as I told her, "I said I wasn't a Christian. Only Christian arrogance automatically assumes that I would therefore worship your God of Evil. My family and I are of another faith, one that was in Europe long before your Christian hordes came into the continent and started killing people to make them convert." I'll admit it, I probably said too much, and I had definitely gone too far. My only defense is I was pissed, and was tired of putting up with this kind of bullshit. Normally, I keep my faith pretty much to myself and thank others for doing the same.

I live a life true to the Vanir and the Aesir, and of course as an agent of Freyja, I honor the Gods and Goddesses. As far as most mortals are concerned, I've had more training in the Northern Way than the vast majority of the gothis on Midgarth. But I didn't consider myself a gothi. I am a good person, even a devout person, just not one of the same faiths as people around me, and I get tired of being told that because I'm not a follower of their religion, that I'm following their God of Evil.

Crystal backed away and stuttered. I advanced on her and said, "Now why don't you take your sick little preaching somewhere else because I'm not interested in hearing it."

She turned and almost ran down the hall. I turned back to Amy and Tanya and saw the look of surprise on their faces. "Sorry guys. I guess I'm a little irritable."

"Who pissed in your oatmeal?" Amy asked.

"You do realize that you've now sicced the crispies on all of us," Tanya said. "I don't think you and JD, and Bart will mind, and I personally don't give a care, but Amy and Kevin are going to catch grief now."

I nodded in chagrin, "I'm sorry. I guess she got under my skin."

Amy chuckled and put a hand on my shoulder saying, "It's okay. Just so that you realize what you've set yourself up for."

"Trust me I know. After that whole incident with Sharon, I know just how much grief they can cause me," I told her as I turned to my locker. I just didn't know how fast the proverbial shit would hit the fan.

It started the very next day before school even got started. JD and I were in the senior parking lot getting out of my Jeep and discussing the fishing in that little stream next to the furball field. The day before I'd gotten several weird looks from the "God Squad"- the kids who were heavy into the Sonlight Club and other Christian organizations around the school- but didn't really pay them any mind.

As we were heading into the main building we were pulled aside by Mr. Pate, the principal. "Greenbough, I want to talk to you in my office."

JD and I looked at each other and I shrugged. "Yes sir," I told him. Then I turned to JD and said, "I'll see you later."

We went into his office and Mr. Pate shut the door behind him saying, "I've had a couple of comments from several of the students about you yelling at Crystal Guthrie."

I nodded, "Yes sir. I guess I sort of lost my temper," I admitted.

He smiled at me, "Be that as it may, I'm also concerned about the rumors I've been hearing that you're into some kind of devil worship."

I shook my head and sighed, "Is that what you think sir?"

"I'm asking you, Trey. You're family isn't members of any of the local churches, and several students have said that you came out and claimed not to be Christians."

I nodded to him, "No sir, we're not. We're Asatru."

"I don't know what that is," he told me.

"It's the pre-Christian native religion of Northern Europe," I told him, not wanting to go into too much detail.

He sat and looked me over carefully. I hadn't really been in that much trouble over the last few years, but my getting caught banging that preacher's daughter had given me a reputation that hadn't really gone away. "Well, I want you to go ahead today and attend the Sonlight meeting in Mrs. Stovall's room this morning. Getting exposed to a few Christian ideals might do you some good."

"Sir?" I asked.

He gave me a stern look, "I want you to go to the Sonlight meeting today, and until the end of the term. If you stay out of trouble, then I won't make you go after the first report cards come out."

"Am I to assume then that I'm in trouble?" I asked carefully.

"Not yet. Let's just call it a preventative measure," he told me. "Who knows, it might even do you some good."

Now, I knew what he was telling me to do was beyond his scope as a principal, but my parents had raised me better than to argue with him- and like he said, it really wouldn't hurt me any. I asked, "Are you sure about this sir?"

He nodded and said, "Yes."

"Yes sir," I told him and stood keeping my anger under a tight control. "Am I dismissed?" I asked tersely.

He looked at me strangely as if wondering what I was up to and said, "Dismissed."

To say I was fuming, would be an understatement. I was furious, but I wasn't about to let him or anyone else know it. Besides, like I said, my parents raised me better than to back-talk an adult. I simply marched out of the office and down to Mrs. Stovall's room. I know JD and Kevin saw me heading that way, and I'm pretty sure they could tell I was upset by the look on my face.

When I entered the room, the meeting was just coming to order and a tall thin man I recognized as "Brother" Randy, the youth pastor at one of the local churches was getting ready open with a prayer. He looked over and nodded to me before starting.

While everyone else prayed, I stood there quietly looking ahead, not interrupting but making it clear that I was not participating. I knew that several eyes were peeking out from under hooded lids to watch and see what I would do.

When it was over, Crystal leaned over and quietly, "Don't you think you should have at least bowed your head?"

I smiled at her and said, "I don't pray to Gods that I don't belong to."

"Then why are you here?"

"Because I was ordered to be here, it is entirely against my own will."

"Well, it won't hurt you," she said.

"And it wouldn't hurt you to come to a ritual with my family, but I'd never consider forcing you to come."

"Brother" Randy began with general business and announcements for the club and continued to drone on as I listened to Crystal's reply. "I don't think so. I really don't know what your religion is about, but if it's not Christian then it has to be Satanic."

I bit back the obvious reply and said, "Typical of Christians. You push your own religion on everyone else by the point of a sword and then call great civilizations Satanic because they don't buy into your beliefs."

Before she could reply, I heard "Brother Randy" call my name, "And we'd like to welcome an unexpected visitor, I believe your name is Trey."

I looked over at him and said, "Trey Greenbough."

"Welcome Trey, we're glad you chose to join us."

My upbringing may have taught me to be polite to my elders, and to those in charge, but this man was not an official of the school, and I'd just about had my stomach full. "I didn't choose to come here. I was ordered here against my will. It seems that some of your sycophants can't seem to stand having your sick preaching questioned and complained to Mr. Pate. I'm here by his order."

"God doesn't want people under duress," Randy replied.

"Really?" I asked. "History seems to point out otherwise."

Randy looked a little taken aback but didn't rise to the bait, "Why do you have so much anger in your heart toward us, Trey? God doesn't want us to be angry"

"I'm not angry, I'm disgusted," I told almost growled at him.

He shook his head and asked, "About what?"

"Your preaching against something you obviously don't understand for starters. Your turning people against each other for another, and finally for being sent here against my will." By now, we had everyone's attention.

"Preaching against what?" Randy asked.

"D and D for one," I told him. "Another, is your teaching that anyone who isn't a follower of your religion must be following your religion's God of Evil."

"We don't have a God of Evil," Mark Sherman protested. "There's only the One True God."

I shook my head and laughed. I wanted to ask him if he's ever met his One True God. I wanted to tell him that I have met one of my Gods, and even been spoken to by him. But, I held my tongue. That would give too much away. Instead I said, "That's your belief. I happen to believe differently."

"That's what we're here for, Trey," Randy said. "To help you see the error of your belief, to bring you into the loving arms of the Almighty Father."

I looked up at him, smiled and said, "My faith has an All Father as well. And to tell you the truth, I don't think he would be too happy if I were to abandon my oaths to him and the other Elderkin to become one of your Desert Slave God's followers."

"But Jesus hung on the cross and died as a sacrifice to save you from Hell," Randy said.

"And Odin hung on the World Tree for nine days as a sacrifice of himself to himself. Hel holds no terror for me, She's simply the guardian of the barrow to where we all must go to be with our ancestors when we pass from this realm. But then again, I'm not talking about your lake-of-fire type hell, am I?"

"Odin and Hel are pagan gods, they aren't real!" Randy protested.

"They are as real to me as your God is to you. And Jehovah is a foreign God who stole the followers of other Gods from their rightful creators." I sighed. "We can be at this all day long. You can quote your scripture and I can quote the Eddas. In the end, you and Mr. Pate are using your authority to preach to me about your religion against my will and against the will of my parents. I owe you nothing, including the politeness of a guest to his host." I locked gazes with him and said, "I know deep in my heart that I belong to my Gods. I hear them speak to me every day, and in ways you can't imagine. I have a personal relationship with my Gods, the Goddess Freyja in particular, just as I am sure you say the same about you and your relationship with Jehovah. I won't pray to your God, and unfortunately for you, you no longer have the option of torturing me to make me convert as your predecessors did to so many of my ancestors."

"Nobody is going to torture you to make you convert, Trey," Mark said. "We're just worried about the condition of your soul. We want to save you from burning in Hell for following false gods."

Before I could say anything Randy held up his hand and said, "I think we've about reached the end of this conversation. If you don't want to be here, Trey, then there's the door. We'll pray for you."

I stopped at the door, turned and looked back and said, "And I'll pray for you too." I made little quotation marks in the air with my fingers at the word pray. "We'll see who has a closer relationship with the Gods who chose them."

For the rest of the day, the only people who would get near me were the pack and Tanya. Everyone else gave me a wide berth, and even the teachers seemed to not want to upset me. I heard on more than one occasion members of the faculty discussing my "rude behavior" to Randy. Most thought it was scandalous, and I should be suspended. Coach Anderson's comment was "the little prick got what he deserved."

I'm not one to hide what I've done, and I went home that evening and told my parents about the whole conversation with Crystal, with Mr. Pate, and with Randy. Dad was silent, but smiling. Mom on the other hand, was about to blow a fuse. Of course Dad hadn't lived through the conversion of Denmark like Mom had, he didn't have quite the history with those kinds of things as she did.

Mom waited an entire week before going to see Mr. Pate. She made an appointment for the following Tuesday so that she could have a few words with "Brother" Randy as well, and of course she wanted me to sit in on it.

I warned JD and the rest that they may want to stay as far away from the front office as they could on Tuesday morning. That just meant that they were trying to figure out a way to loiter there. I knew it was going to be an unpleasant meeting. I'm not normally the kind of person to let my Mom defend me. But in this case she really was the best person to handle it. As for my own preparations, with the permission of my folks, I simply set up a few rune wards on myself. Prayer is after all, a form a magic, and I could almost guarantee that my magic was stronger than Randy's. The Keeper of Cats is very protective of her property.

The meeting itself started off calmly. Mom was dressed in business wear- or what I liked to call her spy gear. Her long blonde hair was pulled back in a bun, and in her navy skirt, and jacket, she looked more like an FBI agent than a housewife. Pinned to her lapel was a Thor's Hammer broach to make her point. I don't think she was what Mr. Pate was expecting as he seemed somewhat surprised by her appearance, and escorted us into his office.

"What can I do for Mrs. Greenbough?" he asked.

"I'd like progress report on Trey, and to discuss a few other things with you," Mom said in an inquiring tone.

Mr. Pate picked up a file, and looked through it before replying. "Trey's on the track for an Advanced Academic Diploma. His grades are As for the most part with a few Bs tossed in. Not really a discipline problem. That is until lately. Trey seems to have reputation for more trouble than he really gives."

"Oh, and why pray tell has my son been labeled a discipline problem of late?" Mom asked in that calm voice that usually means that she's laying a verbal trap.

"He had an altercation with a young lady in the hall, and made an open declaration that his family wasn't Christian. That upset the young lady. Later he was very rude to one of our guests at a Sonlight meeting." Mr. Pate told her. "I'm sure he was exaggerating about his family's religion."

"No, we're not Christians," Mom told him. "We're Asatru."

Mr. Pate looked over to me and then back to Mom. "Really? And what exactly is that?"

"We follow the religion of pre-Christian Northern Europe- the native religion of Europe. After all Christianity isn't a native religion to Europe but to Africa- North Africa to be exact. But what does this have to do with his schooling and discipline?" Mom asked.

Mr. Pate seemed surprised. I guess he wasn't expecting me to be telling the truth. "It's just that he showed a great deal of disrespect to the young lady and to Pastor Johnson."

"In what way was he disrespectful to this young lady?"

"He became verbally abusive to her, calling her arrogant and referring to her attempts at explain her point of view about the game Trey and his friends play as sick preaching."

"And her point of view of my son and his friend's out of school activities were what? Not that they are really any of her business." Mom asked.

"She was just concerned that Trey and his friends were getting into occult activities. That has been a problem in our community lately," Mr. Pate said.

"That's not her place to decide," Mom said.

"Still, it was no excuse for his being rude to her," Mr. Pate said.

"And she has no excuse for being rude to he and his friends," Mom said.

"And of course there was his being openly defiant and rude to Pastor Johnson at the Sonlight meeting."

"And what was my son doing in that meeting? He's not a part of that group and he has no business there."

"I sent him there to teach him a lesson in humility and manners."

Mom locked gazes with Mr. Pate. I could feel the temperature in the room drop. Mom is very much my Grandfather's daughter and her views on humility are similar to his own. "Humility is for slaves and Christians. It's not for Asatru. And we have manners. You sent him there as an attempt of conversion against his will. He owed the man no respect. Not to mention that religious conversion has no place in public school. Trey showed a lot more restraint in the manner than I would have at his age."

"Mrs. G reenbough, this is not New York, or LA. We're a small God-fearing Christian community. Religion has always been a part of our school."

Mom leaned forward and said, "My husband's family has been a part of this community since the Civil War, and they have never been Christian. We accept that being a minority faith in this community means putting up with a great deal of misunderstandings, but neither my husband nor I will tolerate the schools attempting to convert our son."

"That was not my intention Mrs. Greenbough," Mr. Pate said.

"Then what was your intention Mr. Pate? To have my son ridiculed, humiliated, made-fun-of, to have him singled out for harassment during the school year? We are thanes, my father is a jarl in the old country, and my son has been raised to be one as well. To be honest, you're lucky that being rude was the only thing he did to the man.

Perhaps Mr. Pate, you'd better call, what is his name- Brother Randy- into the office?" Her words and inflection were that of a request, but it was unmistakably an order. "I'd like to get this cleared up with him as well." Mom was on a tear; her voice was cold and low.

I glanced out the window and saw JD sitting in the outer office. I knew with his shifter sense he was hearing everything. Mr. Pate said, "I don't think we need to involve other people in what is obviously a school issue."

"Oh, but Mr. Pate, you've already involved Brother Randy and the Sonlight Club. Now I suggest you get him in here. I want a word with the man who thinks he can tell my son that he's going to Hell."

I watched the sweat bead up on Mr. Pate's forehead as he considered what my Mom had said. Finally reaching a decision he went to the door and said, "JD, go to Mrs. Stovall's room and ask Reverend Johnson to come here immediately. Tell him it's very important."

As we waited for Randy to arrive, Mom smiled and said, "Oh, while we're here, has the Navy contacted you?"

"The Navy?" Mr. Pate asked. "Why would they contact me?"

"About Trey's appointment to Annapolis, they'll want a copy of his grades and things like that."

"Trey has an appointment to Annapolis? Usually requests for military appointments go through the counselor's and principal's office."

"Oh yes. Since his father resigned at command rank, he has an appointment there automatically. We're very proud our son. Military service is always seen as a badge of honor in our family."

Mr. Pate looked over at me and said, "Congratulations. I didn't know. I guess you'll be leaving our sleepy little community soon."

I smiled at him. "Yes sir, but only for my term of service."

We sat and talked about my plans for the Navy, and how I wanted to become an officer and a SEAL. He seemed genuinely surprised that I already had plans for life set out. I guess because I wasn't one of the "in kids" he thought I'd just go to work in a factory somewhere.

After about five minutes there was a knock at the door, and Randy came in. "You wanted to see me Mr. Pate?" He asked.

Mr. Pate stood and said. "Hello Reverend Johnson." He indicated my Mother, "This is Mrs. Greenbough, Trey's mother. She wanted a word with you about what happened last week with the Sonlight club."

Randy turned to Mom and said, "Think nothing of it Mrs. Greenbough. He's just a little confused and we're working on straightening him out. I'm sure he didn't mean to be rude."

"Excuse me?" Mom asked. "Straightening him out?" Mom was letting the man bury himself from the start.

"Yes ma'am. Trey claims to be a follower of the Old Norse Gods." Randy said. "Like I said, we'll get him straightened out and back on the right path."

Mom had that inscrutable look on her face. "It's Brother Randy correct?"

Randy didn't seem to catch the tone or the look. He said, "Yes, ma'am."

Mom said, "How to put this with as much tact as possible. My son does not lie. He and we do follow the Old Norse Gods. My family and his father's family have followed them for centuries. There are many heroes in his line who were tortured to death because they would not convert to Christianity. Somehow I get the feeling that your feeble efforts of arguing him into following your Desert Slave God are going to be even less effective than the torture your Church inflicted upon his ancestors."

"Desert Slave God?" Randy asked.

"Christianity is a religion of slavery and for slaves. It is not a fit religion for a freeman or a leader. And I would appreciate it if you would leave him the hell alone about it. Because if you don't, if you come at my son or his friends again over their out-of-school activities or his religion- which are none of the school's or your business, then you and I will have more than words gentlemen."

"Are you threatening us, Mrs. Greenbough?"

Mom smiled, "That's Doctor Greenbough, I do hold a doctorate in Anthropology. And that's only a threat in that I'll have my lawyers on you so fast, it'll make your heads spin. Do I make myself clear?"

"There's no need for threats of legal action, Mrs., uh Doctor Greenbough." Mr. Pate suddenly looked worried.

"Then there will no longer be any need for my son to attend your Sonlight Club meetings?"

"Uh, no ma'am." Mr. Pate said.

"Good, because my lawyer is a very capable attorney. By the time he's finished here, neither of you would have pot to piss in." She stood, turned on her heel and said, "Good day gentlemen." Then she was gone, leaving nothing but shocked looks in her wake.

As she left the outer office she smiled over at JD and said, "Oh don't forget JD, I believe that this weekend is Trey's weekend to host the game. Tell the group, I'm making crab salad."

Mr. Pate looked at me and asked, "Trey, just how serious is your mother?'

"Oh, she's serious Mr. Pate. My mother holds multiple degrees from the Universities of Copenhagen, Oxford, and Yale, and has very good connection in Washington."

Mr. Pate nodded, and asked, "Oh, and Trey? What is a thane, and a jarl?"

I smiled at him, "A thane is a freeman, a land holder and a warrior. A jarl is a chieftain or a king."

"And your grandfather is a jarl?"

"Yes sir. He holds one of the largest steadings ever in the old country. He's a very rich and powerful man."

"I see." Mr. Pate looked over at Randy and then back at me. "You're dismissed."

~*~

Around October things started getting a little strange. I guess the first thing I noticed was that I started struggling for grades more. In English, and History suddenly, I was losing points left and right, and it was always over little piddling things. I was too long winded on one paper and then not enough detail on another. Little mistakes that in the past would simply be corrected and overlooked suddenly seemed to be worth 5 and 10 points off.

By the time I took my report card home, I'd dropped from a solid A in those classes to a low B. I thought Mom was going to hit the roof, but all she did was smile, and give me more of my home studies to make up for it. Dad just chuckled and said, "It'll all work out in the end Trey. I think you're about to learn a valuable lesson."

"Sir?" I asked standing there as he looked over the report card.

He simply signed the card, handed it back to me and said, "I'm not worried about these grades. Just keep up your studies, and the work your mom and I give you and you'll be fine."

I was sure I was going to be grounded, but they just seemed to pass it off as a phase. Studies in my house had always been stressed- a strong mind to go with a strong body- and all that kind of thing.

I took the card and went upstairs and started on my physics homework. At least I still had a strong A in that class. Physics was cut and dried. Either the answer was right, or it was wrong, and Mr. Cashatte didn't count off for spelling.

I guess I'd been working for about half an hour, when Dad came up and knocked on my door. "Trey, I forgot to give you this." He handed me an envelope with a British stamp on in. It was from Emory.

I took it and said, "Thanks Dad."

He just smiled and looked at the open physics book. "How's the science coming?"

I shrugged, "Okay I guess. At least it's pretty objective. The answer is either right or wrong."

He laughed, and said, "You do realize that what you and I do on a daily basis, when we work with the runes, and when we shift, we're violating half the laws in that book, don't you?"

I hadn't really thought about it. I guess he was right, but at the same time I could see another side to the issue. "Maybe, maybe not. What we do with the runes and even our shapeshifting still follow some basic rules. The rules may be different, but they're still there. And I've been reading some of the stuff Emory has been sending me from England. There's this guy over there, Hawking, who's got some interesting theories on quantum mechanics that sort of say that there's times when the rules of the universe change.

"You're reading quantum mechanics?" Dad asked a bit surprised.

I nodded and picked up the book Emory had sent me. "I can't say that I understand half of it. Most of the math is way beyond me, but I do get a little of what he's saying. I guess that sort of applies to what we do with magic. We're not working so much on this level of reality as we are on another. And when you think about it, the very existence of the Nine Worlds suggest that he's right about parallel universes."

Dad just chuckled and smiled. "I think that you're going to go a long way in this world son. Keep reading." He indicated the letter and said, "And don't forget to read that too. Keeping up ties of friendship is important too."

I nodded as he left the room and turned to the envelope. I ran my fingers along the small delicate lettering that made out my name and address. Even over the last several days of travel across the Atlantic, I could smell the remnants of her perfume on the envelope. I "popped" a claw on my forefinger and gently cut open the top of the envelope and threw myself back on the bed and began to read.

Dearest Trey,

I hope this letter finds you well. I have yet to hear from you on whether or not you were able to make heads or tails of Professor Hawking's book. From what I can tell, his theories on quantum mechanics may actually have some parallels in both magical works as well as rune risting. Write back and let me know what you think.

Autumn is winding down here in Kent and there is already a chill in the air. Of course after spending a summer and autumn in your hometown, I realize that which I refer to as a chill would be downright freezing to you. But then again, as the old adage states, "Diversity is the spice of life."

I have some good news to share with you. I am hoping you will be as pleased to hear it as I. Because of Sevenoak's international connections, I have managed a rather fortuitous appointment that will allow me to visit you again in a few weeks.

It seems that your rather sleepy little town has actually attracted some international attention. Whilst doing some research on wolves for a biology paper I discovered that the United Nations has become interested in the fact that there has been reported in your area a rather large pack of red wolves- a species believed to be on the verge of extinction. I believe that James Daniel would find that little piece of information rather ironic. Don't you think?

There was an opening for a field biologist's research internship available on the team that will be arriving in your area this upcoming Winter. I have made my application and have been accepted. The Scientist in charge, Dr. Ahmed, thinks my sojourn there two summers ago actually makes me a valuable asset to the team. I do trust that you and James Daniel will be able to break this news to Wanda and Tammy. I should be arriving in late November to help set up the initial studies of the wolf populations. Dr. Ahmed tells me that there should be plenty of time for visiting old friends in the area.

Please inform your parents that with their permission, I should be stopping by for rather frequent visits. I look forward to renewing all of my acquaintances in the area.

Sincerely,

Emory Northmore

I quietly folded the letter and smiled to myself. It would be good to see Emory again. Of course, I'd been meaning to speak to my parents about a possible vacation in England to visit her, but it kept slipping my mind. Now with her visiting a second time, I could almost guarantee being able to guilt them into taking me- I knew they'd never allow me to travel that far away without some kind of adult supervision. Going to Vanaheim was one thing, but going to England was a whole new ball game.

I lay there for long moments remembering her last visit. There were some painful memories there- very painful ones. I still felt the hole in my life that Rid's murder left in my heart. However, there were some good memories there too- the time spent teaching Emory the runes, the furball game, and of course our lovemaking. Bet you thought I wasn't going to mention that, didn't you. I guess that's the whole point of life: to appreciate the good things, you have to go through the bad. There is no growth without pain.

Finally, I got up and showed the letter to Mom and Dad. They were happy to hear that Emory was coming to visit. I almost missed that little look that passed between them, but for some reason the information didn't seem to surprise them. At the time I didn't think much about it, but as the years passed, I've sort come to realize that my parents knew what was going to come to pass. Mom is not really that much of a practitioner of Seidr, but she does know the basics- she taught them to Emory.

~*~

The next day, JD met me in the parking lot. I could tell that he was itching to tell me something. As I crawled out of the Jeep, I grinned at him and asked, "What?"

"What'd'ya' mean what?" he asked.

"You got the same look on your face as you did right after you got into Wanda's panties," I told him. "Like you know something you can't wait to tell."

"No shit," he said.

"Well, what is it?" I asked.

"You know Mrs. Sailors?"

"The senior history teacher," I commented. It was in her history class that I was suddenly having trouble.

"Well, I overheard Coach Anderson talking outside the field house this morning to Mr. Jamison. He said that she probably won't be at school for the next couple of weeks. Evidently her husband caught her playing hide the salami with Mark Sherman."

"The football player?" I asked.

"Yep, evidently Sherman sacked more than just Atlanta," he grinned at me. When old man Sailors caught them, he beat the living shit out of Sherman too."

"Serves him right. He's one of the ones who have been giving me grief over what happened with the Sonlight club," I told him.

JD shook his head and said, "You dug your own hole with those guys." I gave him a sharp look and he quickly added, "I'm not saying that you're not right. I'm just saying that maybe you should have been a little less vocal in your criticisms."

"This is coming from the guy who's alpha of his pack."

JD shrugged, "Being alpha doesn't mean you have to always rub people's nose in it. Just like being different doesn't mean you always have to rub people's nose in it." He sighed and looked around, "I think you should handle your religion the same way you handle other things in your life."

"Such as?" I asked.

He shrugged, "Like the relationship you had with Ridvin, or with Tommy and Tanya. You don't advertise it, and you don't push people's nose in it." I could tell he was uncomfortable talking about that. I knew he didn't approve of my "wandering ways" as he called them. Every time I managed to get in some girl's- or even guy's for that matter- pants, he would give me this disapproving look. Not that I'd had all that much action over the last couple of years. I'd settled down somewhat, and outside of a couple of "friends-with-benefits"- something JD disapproved of greatly- there really wasn't all that much happening on that front of my life. I had an "arrangement" with Tanya and her boyfriend Tommy. We all knew that Tommy and she were a couple, but we all three played around, either as pairs or a threesome and we were cool with it, but we all understood it was as my Mom would say, "just sex".

"Ah," I said with an air of understanding. "Then you think I should just keep it to myself, and hide."

"No, but you don't have to attack people with it," he said.

"I didn't attack anyone. I got tired of being preached at and I explained why I'm not worried about it." I have him a long look, "You know what I am. You've seen what I have done and what I have to do. You've even seen manifestations of the High Holy Powers. Why are you giving me grief about this?"

He leaned back against the Jeep and said, "I'm not giving you grief, at least I don't mean to. It's just that I also don't want to see you bully people."

"Who am I bullying?" I asked.

"You're not, really," JD told me. "It's just you said your parents let you put up wards, and now two people who were giving you grief, have had something bad happen to them."

I stopped and thought about what he was saying. In a way he was right. If those people had been working against me, then the wards could have kicked in. But at the same time, their fates were the results of their own actions. I shook my head and told him, "I don't think so. They are simply getting their just desserts for messing around."

"Sort of like you mess around with Tanya and Tommy," he accused.

I shook my head again, "No. The difference there is that the other knows about it, and is even occasionally involved. This was Mrs. Sailors breaking her wedding vows, and Mark Sherman messing with something that wasn't his."

JD seemed to consider what I said for a few minutes. "Okay, as long as you don't start turning on people, I guess it's okay." JD seemed to be going through a real moral crisis.

"So kind of you to give me your approval," I told him sarcastically

"I didn't mean it that way, Trey. I just worried about you becoming vindictive. You've got an awful of power, more than I've ever heard of in any shifter. I mean, think about it, you're more on the level of those kids in that school out in California than just a werecat. If you started throwing your weight around, you could kill someone and not mean to."

I gave him a long look, and thought about what he said, "I know that, JD. The Gods only know that I know that. Why do you think I'm so careful? You've seen what I can do, and what I'm capable of doing. I am always very careful with everything I do. My folks have drilled it into me since I was a kid to be careful. What makes you think this would be any different?"

He looked around again and then leaned in close, "Because these are people we know. These are people we see every day, Trey. I'd hate to think that something happened to them because of something you did."

I looked dead at him and said, "I had nothing to do with anything you just described. I didn't send Mrs. Sailors husband home early, and I sure as Hel wasn't fucking her. Yes, I cast warding runes around myself, they were designed to turn back any baneful actions directed at me. If- and it's a big if- their getting caught was in anyway connected to my wardings then it was in response to them willfully doing something to cause me harm."

JD nodded and said, "That's what worries me about the difference between you and Emory. With her magic, you can see the lightning bolt that's about to fry you. With you, it's subtle and sneaky; you can never tell if it's bad luck or something you've done."

"And what worries you about that?" I asked.

"I'm always second guessing things that happen around here. I don't know if it's something natural or something that you've done."

"JD, you've known me all my life. We've gotten into and out of trouble together. Do you honestly think I would be that vindictive about things?"

He leaned in close to me and said, "If you thought you were in the right: Hell yes. I saw you split open a giant's ribs and lay his lungs out like a set of bloody wings."

I could see the intensity in his eyes. "You know what that was about, JD, and don't try to tell me you don't. Don't try to tell me you wouldn't do the same thing to anyone who'd hurt Wanda. That giant killed several villagers in my grandfather's realm and killed someone I cared a great deal about. And, I was within the law when I did what I did." I was just a little hurt by his bringing this up. It seemed like he was blaming me for what happened to Mrs. Sailors.

"I know, Trey. I guess I'm just starting to realize how much power you- we all- possess, and it's starting to scare me a little. It's like the other day, I got mad when Bobby Ingles was flirting with Wanda. I mean normally, I just laugh him off, you know how he gets, being the big football star and everything, but for some reason, I was ready to shift right there and tear him in half. It scared me."

Now I understood. JD was used to dealing mainly with pack politics, and hanging around with other people like himself. Now he was starting to see some of the things my Dad and Mom had been teaching me since I was little. Normals are fragile, and we have to be careful with how we treat them. In most cases, they can't go toe-to-toe with us, and we can't always deal with them in the same direct manner our inner beast wants. My use of wards to him seemed like I was fighting back in a way they couldn't. And in a way he was right, but at the same time, they were fighting me in a way I couldn't fight back either. "I know where you're coming from JD," I told him. "But think of it this way, Mrs. Sailors was riding me in the classroom in a way where I couldn't fight back. If my wards had anything to do with what happened, then it was just leveling the playing field between us."

He seemed to take a moment, to think about what I said as we finally started moving out of senior parking and toward the main building. After a while he said, "You know, you could be right. I hadn't really thought of it that way. You didn't go after her with your sword, and you didn't fire ball her into ash. You let her own actions do your work for you." He gave me a sly look, "You are one sneaky little shit. You know that?"

I just grinned, "That's what Emory tells me."

"When was the last time you heard from your little English flower?"

"Yesterday," I told him casually.

"Still planning on trying to talk your parents into a trip to England this winter?"

I shook my head, "Nope."

He stopped and gave me a disappointed look. "What, she found someone new?" he asked.

I shook my head and said, "No, not really. It's just that she's coming here in a couple of weeks for an internship she's doing with her school."

"Cool!" he said. "I always knew you two belonged together."

~*~

The next couple of weeks kept me pretty busy. Toward the end of October, Mom and Dad were called out of town. I'm sure it had something to do with their "business", but I didn't pry. I had spent the previous night with J.D. His mom always wanted me to spend the first night with them any time my parents were out of town. She said she wanted to make sure I got at least one good home-cooked meal.

We were in the middle of homecoming week and the whole school was pretty much in a state of frenzy. There were all kinds of jockeying and raising money for homecoming court. Girls were fighting for the best dress to wear to the dance, and appointments to the hair dressers. And of course there was the big game itself. We were playing our school rivals: the Cordova Blue Devils. It was probably the biggest week in our little sleepy town.

It was Wednesday afternoon, and there was no practice that day due to local church schedules, so as the last bell rang, most of the student population was pouring out of the front doors of the ancient building that housed the school. Wanda had J.D. and I cornered and she was grilling both of us, "When are you going to get Trey date?"

"I can get my own dates, Wanda," I told her.

"Well you don't seem be doing so hot right now," she said.

"Something about him banging the preacher's daughter at a pool party makes Daddies not happy about their daughters going out with him," JD teased me.

Suddenly Wanda's voice took on a rather smug tone, "Somehow I think he already has a date..."

"What do you mean?" J.D. asked.

"Look," she said pointing toward the parking lot."

I turned to where she was indicating and my jaw hit the ground. Emory stood leaning against a black Porsche, dressed in a ruby blouse and a grey skirt looking like something out of a fashion magazine. Her white blonde hair was pulled back in a pony tail and she had a pair of expensive sun glasses pushed up into it. "Emory!" I yelled and waved.

She smiled up at me and waved. I handed J.D. my books and said, "Take care of these for me." To be honest I'm not really sure if he took them or not. I raced down the stairs and across the parking lot. Without even thinking of who might be looking I hit the top of the cab of a pickup parked between us with my hands and did a handspring over it.

Landing in front of her I didn't even stop. I picked her up, spun her around and kissed her right there in the parking lot before setting her down. She tasted of peppermint and smelled of roses. I could literally feel our bodies melt against each other. "Happy to see me?" she asked playfully.

"Always," I told her, running a hand through her hair.

"Greenbough!" I heard Coach Anderson call out. "That's PDA! It'll get you a day of detention!"

I turned and waved at him and said, "It'd be worth every minute of it, sir!"

He smiled at me and tipped his ball cap. "Just get out of here!"

I turned back to Emory who was still smiling at me. She reached out and dropped the keys in my hand, and said, "Wanna drive?"

I looked down at the black car behind her. It was one of the new 911 SC Cabriolets, one hot car for one hot chick. "You sure?" I asked.

She just smiled and kissed me lightly on the lips. "Go ahead."

I opened the door for her, and let her slide in. Closing the door behind her, I ran around to the other side of the car and hopped in to the catcalls and hooting and hollering from the pack behind me. Over the din of the noise, I could hear in the distance someone asking J.D. a question. "Who's the babe with Greenbough?"

"That's his girlfriend from England, Emory."

"How does Greenbough rate a chick like that? He doesn't even play football."

I could hear J.D. snort. "Trust me, he does."

"I could take him now you know."

"Bobby, don't go there. Last time you two tangled, he fucked your girlfriend and then kicked your ass. Trust me, he can still kick your ass." I finally recognized the voice of Bobby Ingles but didn't hear his reply over the sound of the Porsche's engine purring to life. I gunned it a couple of times then put the thing into gear and pulled out. I knew there was a cop at the end of the road, so I had more sense than to gun it too fast. However, once I got it out onto 69 Highway, and headed toward town, I opened her up.

"Where to?" I asked.

"How about you show me around town, then a nice dinner and then we go from there?" she said.

"Sure." I shrugged and added, "Although there's not really much to show."

She put her arm through mine and leaned against me. "That's okay. I've seen most of it anyway. I just want to spend some time with you before things get hectic when Dr. Ahmed gets here and I have to actually go to work."

"You know that the only red wolves in this area are J.D. and his pack don't you." I reminded her.

"Yes. But I thought that I could at least keep the pack appraised of the UN's activities while they are investigating the phenomenon." She turned and looked up at me and said, "You are not the only person warned about the UN's plans that night at your grandfather's steading." She snuggled closer, "Besides, it gave me a reason to come visit."

"I'm not complaining," I told her. "I was actually planning on asking Mom and Dad about us visiting you in England this Yule."

"Well, now you don't have to. "I'll be here."

We drove on. I showed her what little there was in the nearest town, Jasper. We walked around the mall and did a little shopping. Later, we had dinner at a little mom and pop restaurant. I knew better than to try to impress her with anything like a steak house. Walker County was a dry county and most of the big names wouldn't even consider a franchise there until they could sell drinks. Not to mention that this was the US and her 18th birthday was still 9 days off and mine wasn't until November 11th. But the food at the Southern Star was good, and we spent a great deal of our time simply catching up.

We drove back to my house I fixed us some coffee and we took it out to the gazebo that was on the island in the middle of the bass pond out back. The moon hadn't yet risen, and even if it had it was in its waning phase and we were far out in the country so there was almost no light pollution so when we looked up the whole Milky Way was spread out above us. Since we were approaching the new moon, I should have been in pretty mellow mood, but I think Emory's proximity was waking the beast sleeping in my soul.

We snuggled under a blanket and looked up at the sky, just enjoying the view. As we leaned back against the railing on the bench seats, Emory began to stroke my hair and whispered, "You can relax, Trey."

"I am relaxed," I told her.

"Really?" she asked. "Then why are you still in your human form?

I hadn't realized it, but she was right. I guess I was so excited about seeing her, that I hadn't let go of that part of my mind that kept my form to something that was generally acceptable to the locals. I sighed, and shifted my weight as I let go. I could feel my ears slowly melt up the side of my head, my eyes shifted so that my night vision became clearer. I felt my tail unfurl into a bunch at the base of my spine and then snake down the right leg of my jeans. To this day, I still haven't found a pair of pants that are comfortable in my natural form without cutting a hole between the back pockets.

"That's better," she said as she began to rub her hand along my chest. She released one of the buttons on my shirt and slid her hand beneath. "Hmm..., you've put on some muscle."

I continued to stroke her hair and said, "I guess so." I really hadn't thought much about it, but again she was right. By this time I was a good six-two and was pushing two- ten.

"I like it," she said as she began to circle my right nipple with her hand and lean in close and kiss the base of my throat gently. She was literally purring.

I looked down at her and sighed. I wasn't the only one who'd filled out. The last two years had finished adding curves in all the right places to her as well. Two years ago, she'd still had something of the adolescent angularness that many girls have. By now that was gone to be replaced with soft curves that just begged to be explored and hugged. I ran a hand down her arm and then along the outside of her thigh.

I could feel where her stockings ended and the snaps to her garter began. I smiled remembering her telling me two years ago: "Ladies don't wear pantyhose. They wear stockings and garters." I smiled to myself remembering how good she looked in those stockings and garters.

"Now that's an image, I'm surprised to see you remember," she whispered in my ear. "I'm flattered." She then began to nibble on the tip, and I felt the blood begin to fill out my dick, not quite hard yet, but ready to become so at any moment.

"Huh?" I asked.

"Telepath, remember?" she said. "That image was pretty strong."

I shrugged and said, "We could always reinforce the memory," and then kissed her seriously. I felt her body melt into mine as she opened her mouth to let in my tongue. As we held each other tight, our hands roamed along each other's bodies. I could feel the heat begin to rise from her skin as my hands slid down her back to cup her perfectly shaped ass.

She pulled away from the kiss and began to unbutton her blouse. I found myself entranced by her movements as she slow revealed the alabaster skin beneath the ruby red material. She moved with such grace that all I could do was simply watch as she dropped the garment to the wood deck beneath us. She smiled up at me as she reached to her side and unzipped the woolen skirt she was wearing and let it and her slip drop to join the blouse. Stepping out of the bundle at her feet, she stood there wearing only a pair of black panties and matching bra. She was wearing lace garters that held up each of her silk stockings and accentuated her long legs. Finally, she looked over at me and said, "How's this?"

I think I growled.

She stepped closer to me and said, "You know, I like the look of you too."

"Huh?" I asked.

"You're still dressed," she giggled to me as she ran her fingers along the front of my thigh, then across the growing hardness in my jeans.

I just nodded and began to pull at the buttons of my shirt. She smiled at me and reached over to cover my hands with hers and said, "Slowly. Make it interesting."

I slowed down, releasing each button lingeringly and gently pulling the sides of the shirt apart to reveal the soft downy fur that covered my body. She sat back on the blanket watching as she began to gently massage her nipples through the black silk of her bra. "That's better," she said.

I could smell her excitement long before I saw its evidence at the crotch of her panties. I finally finished the last button and pulled the shirt open and dropped it on the bench behind me. Then with the same meticulousness, I began to unbutton the fly of my jeans and slip them past the tent in the front of my briefs. I could hear her almost purr from the seat as she continued to rub her nipple with one hand as her other slipped past the waist of her panties into the wetness below.

Finally, kicking my boots and socks off, and then removing my jeans the rest of the way, I stood there in my briefs, my tail whipping excitedly behind me. She smiled up and gestured to me. I came over and she began to lick the outline of my hardness through the soft cotton of my briefs. I could feel myself harden further, as she sucked on the head of my dick through the white material, making it almost transparent with the wetness of her mouth and my own pre-cum.

She pushed the waistband down and I felt the cool October air brush across the head of my foreskin just before it disappeared into the hot wetness of her mouth. She reached around, grabbed a double handful of my ass and pulled me to her, swallowing my whole eight and half inches in a single gulp. I almost shot right there.

She seemed to sense that, and stopped for a few moments and let me cool down, as she simply held my cock in her mouth and stroked the sides of my hips and played with the base of my tail. Finally, as I got myself back under control, she began to rock back and forth, pressing her tongue from the base of my dick and pulling it all the way up to the head, where she would run it around the opening of my foreskin before plunging back down on it. I could feel her massaging my ass cheeks as continued to suck me.

After several moments of this, I could feel myself building again as my balls pulled up into my furry sack. Suddenly, she pulled off my dick and pushed the foreskin down and began to suck only on the head. This was enough to drive me over the edge, and I began to fill her mouth with hot ropey streams of cum, which she immediately began to swallow.

As my body slowly began to recover, she looked up at me, smiled and said, "Now that, the first time is taken care of, we can go more slowly. She pulled me down to her and kissed me deeply. I could taste my own cum in her mouth on top the underlying taste that was all her. It was exciting. I deepened the kiss and ran my hands from her face down to the soft material of her bra. Reaching behind her, I fumbled with the clasps that held it together- to this day; I don't think there's a man alive who can unfasten a bra from the front with any skill, the Fonz not withstanding.

After a few seconds of fumbling, I managed to free those beautiful orbs from their black silky prison. Her nipples became stiff and taught as the night air hit them, and I dropped my head and began to nibble gently on them, sucking on first one and then licking my way over to the other. She shuddered beneath me and said, "Your tongue is rough. That feels good."

I nodded and continued to lick and nibble at her breasts as I lay her back on the bench. I worked my hands southward along her body, feeling the soft smooth skin there. Reaching the waist of her black panties, I pushed my left hand under them and felt the hot wetness between the folds of her sex. I felt her moan against me as my finger hit the little nub at the top of her slit. She pulled my head harder against her breast and raised her hips off the bench against my hand.

Slowly, I ran my finger down the slit, keeping it in contact with her clit and then dipped the end into the hot folds of the hole I found beneath it. It was wet, it was hot, and it was tight. Again she pushed herself against my hand and I slipped in up to the second knuckle. I pulled out again and drug my finger along the groove her sex, and then slowly pushed back, feeling her body tense against mine.

She moaned again and again as I worked two fingers first in and then out of her pussy, and nibbled alternating on each of her nipples. She squirmed under me and literally climbed into my lap and began to rock back and forth onto my hand. It was my turn to slow things down, so I lay her back onto the bench and began to kiss my way down her flat stomach to the source of the powerful and exciting odors that was escaping from the cleft between her legs.

Reaching the top of her panties, I moved my hands to either side and "popped" a claw on each before and neatly cutting the sides of the material. As I peeled the fabric away, I sat back to admire the view revealed before me. Her white blonde pubes glistened in the starlight from the wetness of her sex. They were in the form of a neat triangle above the soft folds of her slit- it would be years later that would I find out that she didn't trim it, but that her unique combination of fae, alfar, and human genes resulted in that natural shape.

I breathed in deeply and could smell the sweet pungent odor of both her sex and her desire waft through my enhanced senses. I purred lightly and dipped my head and ran my tongue from the base of her pussy upwards, putting just a little bit more pressure toward the top, to flick the stiff nub of her clit as I finished. Her taste, her scent, her desire went right to my core. I felt a buzzing at spread out from the base of my spine and I was instantly hard again. Underneath me, she arched her hips toward me and moaned, "More."

I smiled to myself and licked my lips before going back to work with long strokes of my tongue up the hot wet folds of her pussy and ending by sucking her clit into my mouth and flicking it with my tongue. "Gods, I've missed this!" she said huskily. "Eat me!"

I just grinned to myself and continued what I was doing. She began to squirm under me more and more as her juices filled my mouth. Finally, after about ten or fifteen minutes, I felt her legs clamp tightly against the side of my head as she thrust herself into my face and shudder after shudder ran through her body. I just kept up what I was doing and drank more and more of the thick lubricant that was now pouring out of her body.

She reached and pulled me to where I was laying lengthwise atop her. She kissed me and said, "That was a nice start, but we're not finished." Reaching down between us, she began to stroke my hard dick. "I want this inside me. I want to feel you in me, on top of me, as part of me."

I nodded and kissed her on the nose and then on the lips. She shifted her weight under me as I pulled back. Never letting go of her prize, she put the head of my dick at her entrance and then smiled up saying, "Now."

I plunged forward and felt hot rings of muscle inside her clamp down on my dick. She lifted her legs and locked them behind the small of my back as I began to stroke forward and back in a rhythm. She gasped slightly as I entered her and then pulled my face down to hers and began to kiss me hard. I could feel her nails dance down my back and ass, and then up my sides as we rocked back and forth in a duet as old when the Gods first created men and women.

We settled into a pattern of pleasure as we reacquainted ourselves with each others' bodies and needs. I would arch my hips forward and up at the end of an inward stroke and could feel the head of my dick hit that spot at the "roof" of her insides that would send shivers down her spine. At the same time, she would tighten the muscles of her pussy just as I was beginning a forward stroke that would catch my foreskin and drag it along behind the head of my dick and heighten the heat and wetness against my skin. It was these little tricks that we'd learned from each other two years ago, that came back unbidden.

We made love until one of us was on the verge of coming and then slow down to where I was simply buried inside of her- not moving. Then when who ever was close had backed down enough we would begin again, each time becoming more and more intense and building toward a powerful release of epic proportions. Finally, we reached a point where neither of us could take it anymore. With a building crescendo of movement, we both crashed over the edge and I buried myself as deeply in her as I could. I felt my dick jerk and dance inside her, spraying her innermost parts with my cum, as her pussy tightened and relaxed around me spasmodically. With that final thrust we collapsed into each other arms and rode the wave of pleasure that washed over us, finally simply lying there holding each other, and slowly drifting off into a sense of contented belonging.