Donovan's Desire

Not-Children

There was no particular scent to it, no name or calling card. Whatever it was had a form, some form, even though he had only seen it in his periphery, a flitting shadow. But it wasn't even that much, just a shift of the wind or a plant. Damn if he didn't feel it though.

He knew it was there like he knew his skin was still attached, even if it was crawling. Couldn't get his damn fur to lie flat when he was near it.

Lap after lap after lap around the property. He'd get close to it and it would disappear, fade almost, like a cloud passing in front of the sun. His presence seemed to keep it away from the house and he wanted it that way, needed it that way. But any time he went home to check on things, to eat, to sleep even briefly, the thing would have drifted closer again, even if she wasn't home.

Addy was a radiant image in his mind, a perfect treasure that he was jealously guarding. He tolerated that petulant human visiting her, but only just so that there was a second pair of eyes on her at all times. As soon as this thing was gone, Donovan would waste no time in disposing of the idiot male that was clearly confused about what was his.

Donovan would make it known that Addy was taken.

There.

Too hushed, too quiet. Not even mice stirred beneath frosted grass. A heaviness seemed to hang in the air just at the tree line, a buoyant weight, eyes watching. There went his fur again, prickling up with knowing.

What was it doing? Watching him, evaluating, calculating?

Donovan stood completely still, looking at it, but to the side as if he could see it better that way in the dark. Clouds rolled slowly in front of the moon and though it was weak, the shafts of light gave it an outline, just barely.

Taller than him by a head at least, but thin and wicked-looking. He could make out a smooth head and shoulders that were hunched. Was it producing heat or just shimmering and immaterial?

Pivoting toward the thing, Donovan lifted his lip and lowered his head, letting it know that he knew it was there and he would not tolerate it. He released a long, warning growl, intent clear. Fuck off.

It hung there in the air, unmoving. Donovan advanced slowly, one careful paw at a time, hoping this time it wouldn't flee and he could tear it to pieces. If he could tear it to pieces.

He neared the being, his nose prickling with a static sensation, and curled his hind end beneath himself. Without warning, he launched forward, maw outstretched to take whatever part of it in his teeth. His paws hit first, melting through the hazy material that was its skin, friable, but there like a spider web. Jaws clamped shut of their own accord, hoping to take a piece of that faint stuff, and he hit the ground with a mouth full of something.

The presence was immediately gone, vanished, but the thick, dark ooze he spat out was as real as could be. It coated the ground in a mist as he shook the coppery water from his mouth, not blood unless it was old, old, old. Stagnant well water?

A howl broke the frosted silence of the night, toward his pack house, an alarm. He glanced across the acres of Addy's land at the warm light coming from the windows of her house. She wouldn't be home from her date with Charles for some time yet.

Another howl followed, this one more urgent. He had to go.

Loping down the narrow path through the woods, one that his paws had only so recently created, he stretched his mind to his pack.

What's happening?

Cairo responded first. We don't really know. There are things in the woods just outside our territory lines, out the way you have been going.