After the Change

Fic One

The woods looked different. Not because they were any different—but because I was. There was something fundamentally changed in me and I could sense the evolution from the second I opened my eyes to the feeling of hot breath panting against my cheek.

Rotho lapped at the salt on my skin and I laughed, pushing him gently away as I scrubbed the sleep from my eyes and tipped my head up towards the ceiling—

Wait.

The ceiling?

I glanced around in confusion. I’d gone to sleep in the woods—surrounded by wooden things and creatures that I felt more than saw. Their chittering had tickled inside my eardrums as I’d let the moon paint me silver and I fell asleep cocooned in Styx’s warm firm grip.

Now, however…

Styx was gone and I was left staring at a ceiling—and not the stars above. Confused, I sat up, glancing around the space with shock that was quickly turning to awe. This wasn’t my home—not the cottage I’d lived in for all my life—not anywhere I recognized, actually.

It was a small.

Cosy.

Warm.

Made of twigs and sticks, bound together with leaves and vines that climbed throughout the structure like they had been asked politely to do so. There was no reason it should exist at all—it shouldn’t have been structurally sound but…somehow it was.

It existed just as Styx did, and I now did.

Magic.

I glanced down at my hands, somehow unsurprised to find that the skin at the tips of my fingers had turned blacker than soil after a rainstorm and my nails had grown to mimic the talons I’d seen on my lover that first day in the woods. Maybe I should’ve been frightened, but the time for that had long passed.

What I was instead was curious.

How had this happened?

How had it all come to be?

What was Styx?

It was clear that he wasn’t as monstrous as I’d originally thought, or the town continued to think. There was something Other about him. Otherworldly in a way that seemed timeless as the sun itself.

Where had he gone?

I rose from bed, recognizing the pile of furs for what they were as I padded around the small home, noting the fact that there were newer additions. What looked like a bathroom, a kitchen with no stove, and a room with a horribly made but beautiful kitchen table. It was clear from the scratch marks that that particular project had been more than frustrating for my mate.

Had he made this for me?

How long had he been working on it?

I shook my head to clear it, more than a little touched as I made my way out what I assumed to be the front door. It was sunny out, beams of light peeping through tree trunks, though the air remained crisp. The leaves had turned shades of persimmon and crimson, their yellow tipped edges almost appearing bleached from where they stretched towards the sky.

I closed my eyes, basking in the warmth as I soaked up the air like a sponge, a feeling unlike anything I’d ever felt before settling inside me. It was like something that had been loose all my life had finally settled into place. I felt whole in a way I never had. In a way I never thought I could feel.

Now all I needed was Styx, and I would be happy.

I wandered for a while, unafraid of the creatures that inhabited the woods. I knew instinctively somehow I had become the top of the food chain so there was no need for trepidation. Rotho and I followed the creek we had dipped in all those months ago, splashing through the water and enjoying the call of robins in the trees as we looked for my wayward spirit.

He couldn’t have gone far.

He never left me for too long.

By the time we wandered back night had begun to fall once again. I hadn’t found Styx but I had found several berry bushes as well as what looked like a wild patch of strawberries past it’s season. I figured come spring I could wander back this way and see what nature had cooked up for us.

Weirdly enough the hunger I normally would’ve felt at this time of day was absent. Instead I felt ravenous for something far…baser. I’d never been a particularly horny man. I sated my needs when I needed to—with who I could find, but…there was something about knowing I had someone waiting for me back at our nest that made me all sorts of ready to spend some quality time with his cock.

I hadn’t paid attention to where I’d been going which quickly became a problem as I wandered back towards the way I’d come and discovered very quickly that I had no idea where our cottage was. I figured that was what it was meant to be after all, so I wouldn’t disrespect all the hard work Styx had put in by calling it anything else.

The moon had risen by the time I truly admitted defeat. I’d found the creek again at least, and Rotho yipped at me, clearly unimpressed. I wasn’t hungry—but that didn’t mean he wasn’t. I fed him some of the berries–the ones I knew were safe for him to eat–and devoured the rest, enjoying the burst of juice on my tongue. I settled on a rock to wait, pulling my knees to my chest, the scratch of the stone on my bare skin uncomfortable but familiar.

Rotho lay at my feet, judging me. Clearly he was unimpressed with my lack of forethought.

But I’d never been a monster before, so it really shouldn’t have come as a surprise to him that I sucked at it. The instincts I’m sure Styx had, I sorely lacked. Maybe we weren’t the same creature after all? I was an imitation of what he was. Clearly.

He found me not long after.

I sensed him before I saw him.

The flicker of wind that played with my bangs was answer enough as I turned around and watched his silhouette approach through the tree line. He was silent, like always, his gaze flickering to Rotho at my feet whose tail was thumping away happily.

“I got lost,” I told him, frowning at myself. “I thought I’d find the way back home and I didn’t.”

A hurt look crossed his face, something I’d never seen before. My heart began to race as my brow twitched with confusion. Why was he…hurt? I’d been trying to go home.

And then it hit me.

He’d misunderstood.

He’d thought I’d been trying to go back to my cottage. To my life before this. Before him.

“No—” I hurried to correct, “I meant our home. Our nest. The one you built for me.”

The twitch at the corner of his jaw relaxed and Styx nodded, seemingly satisfied. He offered me a hand and I took it, shivering as the warmth of his palm brushed up against mine. Somehow in this form he felt even hotter—even stronger. Like something deep inside me had opened up, ready to accept him as alpha of our small pack.

Come home, his eyes seemed to say and I nodded, eagerly squeezing his hand as he led me back through the trees.

Embarrassingly enough I’d only been five minutes away from home.

I figured I’d get used to the woods soon enough. But it was nice to have someone capable of taking care of me. It had been so long since I’d had that. Out here in the woods there was no need for money—or anything of the sort—so Styx’s skills became even more valuable.

“Styx?” I asked, squeezing his hand as we approached our hut. “I need to feed Rotho.”

He cocked his head, brow flickering with curiosity as I shrugged.

“He’s not like us…he…needs it every day.”

Without being told, I could sense the fact that our schedule wasn’t the same as humans. We didn’t run on the same time.

Styx nodded, looked down at Rotho where he stared dopily up at him, and then leaned down to press a gentle kiss against my cheek.

His kiss said, wait for me.

It said, I will find food.

It said, you can count on me.

So I waited. 

I watched him disappear into the woods as I slipped to the ground, settling on a pile of fallen leaves, enjoying the crinkle as I waited. I was more tired than I’d realized—and I began to droop, my head dropping forward, Rotho’s heat warming my lap.

When Styx returned, he came bearing gifts.

An entire rabbit sat inside his arms and he held it up triumphantly with a wicked grin that made my toes curl and my cock perk right up. Cocky creature, I thought affectionately. I smiled at him, charmed as I rose to my feet and Styx led me towards a campfire he’d clearly lit behind our home.

I didn’t know how to tell him how much I appreciated what he’d done.

Or how to tell him that I didn’t need all of this.

I was content to live my days wild in the woods with him.

But I supposed I shouldn’t be surprised that my loving creature would only want the best for me. That he would gift me with a home he thought I would be comfortable in. The human world seemed so far away now, like it existed behind the fog of my current life.

I had no desire to go back.

Maybe it was because I was changed now?

Or maybe…I’d never wanted to be there in the first place and for the first time in my life I’d found somewhere where I truly fit in. Where I could be Ellis. Just Ellis. Not the outsider, not the freak, not the man with no friends and no family. But a man made of possibility and maybe even a little magic?

At least in Styx’s eyes I knew that’s what I was.

When he looked at me I saw the same worship reflected towards me that I felt when I looked at him.

After the rabbit had been cooked and cooled, I fed it to Rotho piece by piece. To say he was thrilled would be the understatement of a century. He certainly liked this food much more than he’d liked the doggy pebbles I fed him back home.

When he looked at me it was with the well fed approval of a dog that was bound to get fat and spoiled.

“Thank you,” I murmured as I nestled up against Styx’s side, tucking my face into his neck so I could scent the forest on his skin. He grunted, nuzzling at my hair, a snuffly-growly noise that signaled his approval.

And then without further warning he was on me.

His warm body shoved me to the ground, his nose tickling the back of my neck as his hot hard cock rutted against the bare skin of my ass. I grunted in response, a quiet noise of pleasure as he gripped me by the back of the neck with his teeth and began to rub up against me in earnest.

There was no way he could slip inside me without prep.

No matter how enthusiastic he was.

And with our claws we had limited options.

“Styx—“ I murmured, shoving my hips back in a way I hoped he would understand meant I was enthusiastically consenting. “We need to—”

Before I could finish my sentence, he moved. His long slick tongue slipped down my spine, tracing the contours as he inched back further and further. The sensation made me tingle. My cock was leaking, my toes curling as I slipped down onto my elbows and arched my back for his pleasure.

It was clear tonight was not a night for foreplay.

It was hot, heavy, and desperate.

His tongue stretched me obscenely, thorough, slick—aggressive. Like he couldn’t think about anything but getting deeper and deeper inside me. I had no complaints. Every brush against my prostate made my head spin and my eyes roll back. Styx was learning to play me like a fiddle and there was nothing I could do but lay back and take it.

His tongue was hot and enthusiastic as he finally slipped it from my hole, sucking at the stretched entrance with eager flicks in apology. I could feel where the slick of his saliva glistened just as it had our first time. More slippery than lube, and twice as fun.

And then—he mounted me.

A gasp left my throat as the hot thick head of his cock pushed inside me. He waited a few seconds, though his hips seemed unable to stop the eager little thrusting motions as they twitched inside fraction by fraction.

“Please—” I gasped, more far gone now than I had realized as I shoved back against him and my eyes rolled back. “Please—”

Styx growled, a low bossy noise that had me canting my hips and my cock drooling on the forest floor. I hardly felt the bite of the sticks and fallen leaves as he slipped inside me inch by agonizing inch.

By the time he was fully inside my head was blank and I was drooling, a broken whine building up as I felt the nest of dark curls at the base of his cock brush up against the sensitive skin of my ass.

He was rough.

After the initial pause there was no stopping him as he growled and grunted, fucking me so forcefully I had no choice but to relax into it and let him have his wicked way with me. When his hand wrapped around me, long fingers twisting around the head of my weeping cock, I was done for. I came with a cry, arching back as his rutting grew hungrier and his teeth sunk into the back of my neck, marking me for all to see.

I could feel his come leaking out of me as he disappeared, only to return a few minutes later with a large fur blanket he’d clearly taken from the nest he had inside. He began meticulously building up a nest, flashing me cocky little grins whenever he caught me staring at his still slick cock. It glistened from his own pleasure and the leftover slick he’d decorated my hole with and I couldn’t help but ache for him again.

When the nest was made Styx picked me up, effortlessly confident as he slung me gently through the air and settled me down on the pile of furs. He arranged me, flipping me till I rested on my belly and he could shove my leg up.

“What are you doing?” I asked curiously, shivering as I felt a fresh drop of come slip down the back of my thigh. His answering grin was wicked as he pressed a kiss to my cheek before diving down to suck up the come that had leaked down my thighs. 

His tongue slipped inside me and I gasped, oversensitive and more than a little turned on. I coudn’t help the way I fucked forward into the fur, seeking friction as he sucked at my messy hole, his over-long tongue lapping at where I was sensitive and pink.

I’d never had a lover that was so attentive to my needs before.

Styx was…enthusiastic as he grabbed my cheeks, pulling them apart so he could dive in deeper, harder.

I was sore but I didn’t deny him as I gasped and shoved back, then forward, seeking attention, greedy for more pleasure.

When he slipped inside me a second time I felt my eyes roll back and my cock spurt.

“Fuck.” I was sweating, slick with pleasure, my legs trembling as Styx’s cock split me wide on it’s girth. “Fuck—”

He moved more slowly this time. Just as intent—but unhurried, like the desperation from earlier had ebbed and now he could really take his time. Long fingers toyed with my nipples, scratched along my sides, grabbed at my cheeks till I felt his width even more deliciously as he ground against my prostate.

This time when I came it was with a blissful sigh.

Styx followed after, settling down on top of me, his cock nestled inside warm and safe as he nuzzled the back of my neck and kissed along the bite marks that he’d left behind. He didn’t let me up, his cock softening inside me as he huffed his pleasure against my skin and I tipped my face so I could look back at him.

He was grinning again.

I’d never seen him smile so much.

“You look happy,” I murmured softly, too tired to move, but not too tired to smile back as he twisted just enough I could place a kiss against his lips.

Happy, his eyes said.

You make me happy.

“I love you,” I told him softly, surprised as the words left my lips. They came so freely when he was involved. Words I’d never thought I’d utter to another person again, especially not in this context.

As he lay on top of me, guarding me from the prying eyes of the stars above I settled into my place, not just in our nest, but in my new life. I didn’t know what the future had in store for me, as it was more than likely going to be far longer than anything I’d planned for.

I was at peace with it, however.

Because Styx was here and I knew even forever would never be enough time with him.