Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

  There were many things the mountain folk had learned not to do.

  Don’t leave your cattle untethered after sundown—not unless you wanted to find them gutted and steaming, their eyes still wide with terror. Don’t build your barns with flimsy doors—the claw marks would be the last warning you’d ever get. Don’t whistle on the third wind—not unless you wanted something to answer.

  And above all—don’t look the Werehog in the eye.

  He came when the moon was smeared thick like blood, hanging low over the pines like an open wound in the sky. The cold crept in with him—sharp and sudden, as though the world itself held its breath. Trees bent in the silence, owls stopped calling, and the wind died.

  They said you could hear him before you saw him: claws dragging over stone, long and deliberate, like the ticking of some ancient clock. A blue-black shadow loping between the trees, low to the ground, too fast, too graceful. His breath curled into the dark like smoke from a dying fire. His eyes—when they flashed—were not animal, but something worse. Something that knew exactly what it was doing.

  He wasn’t mindless, that much they’d learned too late.

  The missing livestock weren’t just found dead—they were arranged.

  Ritualistic, even. A word the priest refused to say, but the old hunters whispered. Bones gnawed but carefully placed, not scattered like a predator would leave them, but lined up, deliberate. Heads set like grim tokens at the edge of the woods—facing the village. Once, someone found antlers threaded through the ribs of a stag, like it had been wearing its own skeleton inside out.

  No one saw him twice and lived sane. A few who had—their stories came out garbled, trembling things about a voice that growled without sound, about being watched through the trees for hours, never attacked, never spared.

 They said he used to have a name, but no one said it now.

  The beast didn’t bother hiding anymore.

  Why should he? Fear scattered them better than claws ever could—and running made it fun. He liked the chase. He liked the thunder of panicked hooves, the snap of branches, the ragged breathing that always came too late.

  But one evening, in the fog-washed clearing of a ridge pasture where frost laced the grass like veins, the Werehog slowed. There—through the shifting mist—something strange.

  A scent he didn’t know.

  It wasn’t human.

  There stood a goat. Well — a goat with attitude.

  The figure stood still as stone, framed in the silver light like a statue carved from myth. His upper half was lean, not tall, but fine-boned and deliberate, wrapped in a sleek layer of short, dark fur that gleamed where the moonlight touched it. Hedgehog spines curled behind his ears in an elegant sweep, like a crown forged from thorns.

 Two sets of horns twisted from his skull—the top pair rose long and proud, only slightly curled at the ends like smoke caught in midair. The lower pair swept down sharply near his temples, curling dangerously close to his crimson eyes, which stared without fear. They didn’t widen, didn’t blink. Gold rings clinked softly around his wrists—a delicate sound that somehow made the silence deeper. And below the waist, his legs were unmistakably goat: sinewy and black, hooves polished and sharp. He stamped once—not in warning, but judgment. As if to say: you’re not the only thing with teeth tonight.

  The Werehog had just torn the head off a sheep—a sloppy kill, more out of boredom than hunger. The body lay twitching in the frostbitten grass, steam rising from the torn neck as blood soaked into the soil.

 And the goat just… stared at him.

 Didn’t scream.

 Didn’t run.

 Didn’t even flinch.

  He stood still as the stones, arms crossed over his narrow chest, expression unreadable. The fog drifted lazily between them, curling around the carcass like a shroud, dampening the world into soft greys and silver. The stench of blood hung low, warm and coppery, clinging to the cold night air.

  Sonic tilted his head, slow and lupine. His claws, slick with gore, flexed where they still clutched the ruined heap of torn wool and shattered bone, strands of red trailing like threads from his knuckles. The sharp, coppery tang of blood hung thick in the air, carried on the damp breath of fog curling low through the trees. One ragged ear flicked with annoyance as a gnat buzzed past. His eyes, luminescent and sharp, pinned the stranger with casual violence.

“You’re not gonna shout?”

  The goat didn’t flinch. He raised a single brow with the glacial slowness of someone unimpressed by death—or perhaps too familiar with it. “It was an annoying sheep.”

  Sonic blinked, once, like something primal trying to process humor, then he laughed—a low, rasping thing that scraped its way up his throat and shattered the quiet like distant thunder. It rang off the tree trunks, rolled through the mist, and sent a startled flock of birds shrieking into the gray sky. His grin curled up far too wide, lips peeling back to show teeth like broken glass. “You’re weird.”

“You’re a slob,” the goat returned dryly, crossing his arms. His tone didn’t lift—it stayed low, calm, and unforgiving, like cold iron dragged along the spine. “You crushed its ribs. Ruined the hide. There’s a method to doing it cleanly.”

  Dark blue ears twitched again, sharper this time. Steam rose in lazy coils from beast’s mouth, heat bleeding off his hunched frame like smoke from a dying fire. He stared at the other, still crouched over the mangled corpse, nostrils flaring faintly. The wool was matted red beneath his claws, and bone jutted from the carcass like a jagged bloom.

“…Are you critiquing me?” he asked, voice edged with disbelief and the threat of a growl.

  The goat didn’t flinch. Didn’t back up. Just narrowed his crimson eyes, tilting his head ever so slightly. The long upper horns caught the moonlight like blades; the lower ones cast curling shadows across his face, sharpening the already uncanny silhouette. “Maybe,” he said.

  Silence stretched again—not awkward, but sharp-edged, coiled tight with something unspoken. Sonic’s breath steamed out in ragged pulses, eyes locked on the strange hybrid standing in the fog. This thing—this creature—should’ve been running, should’ve been screaming, should’ve looked at him like everyone else did: like a monster. But instead he stood there calmly, like he’d seen worse. Like he’d been worse.

  Sonic shifted slowly to his feet, blood dripping from his claws to the grass below, and the sheep's body slumped behind him, forgotten. “Who the hell are you?”

  The goat's lips quirked — not quite a smirk, but something close. “Someone who doesn't scare easy.”

  The Werehog sat down on a mossy rock, the weight of him making it creak faintly beneath his bulk. He dragged his tongue slowly across a smear of blood on his claws, not to clean them, just to taste, his green eyes never left the figure across the clearing. The goat hybrid stood with that same unnerving stillness, weight cocked slightly to one leg, arms loose at his sides. He chewed a blade of grass with idle boredom, like he had nowhere better to be, like the mutilated sheep lying between them was scenery, not a warning. His eyes—dark red and half-lidded—flicked lazily across the star-strewn sky, heavy-lashed and unimpressed.

  It was... unsettling.

  Most things either ran or begged. Even the brave ones braced.

 But this one?

 He grazed.

  The Werehog tilted his head, ears twitching at the whisper of distant wind combing through the high needles of black pine. The night breathed cold and sharp, heavy with the copper tang of blood and the sticky scent of resin. Everything felt too still—a clearing smothered in silence, thick and expectant, like the forest itself was holding its breath. Fog crept low once more, curling in thin fingers around Sonic’s ankles, brushing damply against the goat’s hooves like a half-formed thought. An owl cried out in the distance—a single, echoing note, haunting and hollow.

“You live up here?” Sonic asked, tone light, easy, almost playful. As if they were neighbors gossiping beside a dying fire, not two monsters caught in the hush between heartbeats, moonlight silvering the blood between them.

  The goat hybrid didn’t glance his way. “Depends.”

“On what?”

“Whether you count the mountains or the woods.” He plucked a blade of grass from his lips with two fingers, rolled it between them, and let it go, the wind caught it, sent it tumbling like a lazy idea. “Why? Planning to stay?”

  Sonic snorted, shifting his weight with careless ease, leaning back on one arm while the other tapped idle claws against the lichen-spotted face of a nearby rock. His muscles gleamed faintly in the moonlight, tension coiled beneath the surface like rope pulled taut. “Maybe. Depends.”

“On what?”

“Whether the locals keep screaming every time I so much as sniff a barn,” he said, flashing a toothy grin, all fang and no apology. Blood still painted his gums, and the smile sat crooked, a little too wide. “It gets old.”

  The goat met his gaze at last, slow and deliberate. His eyes held no fear, only the measured stillness of something ancient and unimpressed, tilted his head, and the moonlight caught on the curve of his horns, painting them in silver like a crown of blackened bone. “Then stop acting like a horror story.”

  Sonic laughed again, quieter this time, low and rough, the sound of gravel underfoot. “Says the myth with hooves.”

  A pause. Then the goat gave a faint grunt of acknowledgement, dry and humorless. “Touché.”

  Another silence stretched between them, but this one was softer. Less like a knife, more like a shared breath, the fog had thinned, unraveling like gauze to reveal the skeletal silhouettes of trees lining the distant ridge. Crickets murmured again, shy at first, then steady, and below them, somewhere in the dark belly of the forest, a lone wolf howled, raw and mournful , and was answered a moment later.

  Sonic shifted forward on the rock, shoulders bunching as his balance adjusted with animal ease. “You’ve got a name?”

  The goat blinked, slow and unimpressed. “Why?”

“Because I’m bored,” Sonic said, stretching out the word like warm taffy, then flashed a lazy grin. His teeth gleamed, stained and careless. “And if we’re gonna keep circling each other like this, I’d rather not keep calling you ‘goat guy’ in my head.”

  The hybrid hesitated. His jaw shifted slightly, as if chewing over the weight of his answer. Then he glanced up at the sky, pale light reflected in dark, unreadable eyes. “Shadow.”

  Sonic let the name drop between them like a feather falling through still air. “Huh,” he murmured, almost to himself. “Figures.”

  He leaned back again, folding his arms behind his head with an ease that only deepened the contrast between his posture and the blood on his claws. “I’m Sonic.”

“I know.”

  Of course he did.

  They didn’t say anything for a long while.

  The sheep’s remains lay cooling between them, half-forgotten, a mess of torn flesh and snapped bone, steaming faintly as the night grew colder. Flies had begun to gather, their droning a low, aimless buzz that neither seemed to notice or mind, the fog had mostly lifted, but a hush still clung to the clearing, dense and watchful, like the trees were listening.

  Eventually, Shadow spoke—quiet, not soft. “You’re not staying.”

  It wasn’t a question.

  The Werehog cracked one eye open from where he lounged on the rock, and offered a half-smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes. “Nah.”

  This was how it always went. He didn’t linger. He hunted in loops, wild and unpredictable. For the villages, it meant a pattern they feared but couldn’t control: if the Werehog struck here tonight, the next one knew to bar the doors by tomorrow. He never fed in one place for long. Never gave anyone the chance to get too used to him.

  The other didn’t nod. Didn’t argue. Just looked away again, arms folding tight across his chest as his hooves shifted against the dew-slick ground. His eyes swept the treeline — not searching for danger, but measuring distance. As if already tracing the outline of the silence Sonic would leave behind.

  Sonic stretched, back arching, joints cracking like small branches snapping. “Few nights, maybe. Depends what else needs terrorizing.”

  A dry sound slipped from Shadow—something between a laugh and a sigh, brittle around the edges. “I should warn the deer.”

“You’re sweet.” the grin came crooked, lopsided and full of teeth. “Want me to leave you something? A skull, maybe. Little reminder.”

  The goat rolled his eyes with the kind of weariness that didn’t quite hide the faintest twitch of his lip. “Charming.”

  They sat like that for a while, two strange creatures under a blood-colored moon, neither truly part of the world they stood in, but not enemies either. The silence wasn’t tense now. It simply was. Full of the cold pulse of the forest, of old pine and old breath and the shared understanding of things that hunted after dark.

  Then Sonic stood.

  Not abruptly, not with any flourish, just rose with fluid ease, fur rippling as he shook himself out like a dog waking from a nap. Frost scattered from his quills, and his claws caught the moonlight, red and wet, as he flexed them once with a low grunt. “You’re alright, goat-boy,” he said, a voice low, almost warm, touched with something fond that made it hard to tell if he was joking or not. “Weird, but alright.”

  Shadow didn’t answer, only watched as Werehog stepped past the cooling remains, bare feet silent over frostbitten grass and the slick crunch of fallen needles, left no footprints. “Don’t get eaten,” he called back, already half-swallowed by the rising fog, his outline ghosting between the trees.

“I won’t,” Shadow replied evenly. Then, after a beat: “But next time — try not to crush the ribs. It’s wasteful.”

  Laughter cracked through the woods—hoarse, sharp, echoing through trunks and branches like a bark of thunder. It faded quickly, swallowed by distance and mist.

  And then the clearing was empty again.

  Just the buzz of flies.

  And a lone black goat-hybrid, standing still beneath a cold sky speckled with stars, not looking where the beast had gone, but not taking its eyes off it either.

***

  Sonic was used to screams.

  To pitchforks raised in trembling hands, lanterns swaying like frightened stars in the dark. To the thunder of too-late gunshots echoing across fields, to doors slammed with shaking fury and the sharp, metallic clatter of church bells rung in warning. He was used to the coppery sting of blood on his tongue, to the heat of it streaked down his chin, and the feral thrill that came with knowing he was the reason the night held its breath.

  What he wasn’t used to was this.

“Out again?”

  The voice was low, unimpressed. Shadow didn’t even look up. He reclined with lazy confidence on the porch of a crooked little barn nestled near the ridge, its roof sagging like a tired hat, the windows fogged with dust and pine pollen. The whole place smelled like smoke, old wood, and goat fur.

  (That goat, Sonic noted distantly, the one that hadn’t run from him—he must live around here. That was why he wasn’t alarmed. Why he hadn’t moved. Why the porch didn’t reek of fear.)

  Shadow’s arms were crossed, thin forearms covered in short, black fur interrupted only by the sharp red of his markings. A long stalk of hay dangled from between his teeth, shifting with every casual word. “You’ve got wool stuck in your teeth,” he added, dry as dirt.

  Sonic blinked. His jaw hung slightly open. Tongue curled back instinctively to prod at the fibrous taste clinging to the edge of a molar. He did have wool in his teeth.

  The other didn’t so much as twitch. Didn’t even tilt his chin. Just chewed once—slow, deliberate—eyes half-lidded under the shadow of his horns. “You smell like rot,” he said, voice low with disapproval. “Don’t sit on the threshold.”

  The Werehog stood there for a moment, letting the quiet surround him. The hush of wind threading through pines. The creak of old porch boards shifting beneath other’s weight. Somewhere nearby, a raven gave a throaty caw and flapped off into the evening mist.

  Then, still holding red gaze, he lowered himself onto the threshold. Slowly. Deliberately. With a wolfish smile curling at the edges of his mouth.

“You’re ignoring the part where I killed three sheep and dragged one of them into a tree,” he said. His voice was hoarse from the run, from the chase, from growling too much. His claws tapped lightly against the wood beside his thigh.

  A pause stretched. A pinecone fell from somewhere above and hit the ground with a soft thunk.

“I’m ignoring a lot of things,” the other said flatly, plucking the hay from his mouth and twirling it between two fingers. His voice had that gravelly edge again—dry as the pine needles crunching underfoot, steady as smoke rising from a dying fire. “Trust me, it’s a skill.”

  Sonic huffed. A low, heated exhale left his snout, curling visibly in the chilled mountain air like dragon’s breath. His claws tapped an erratic rhythm against the porch boards, the wood beneath him darkened slightly where his fur still dripped from the run.

“…You should be scared,” he said at last, quiet but loaded, like he was daring the silence to break.

  That finally earned him a glance.

  Shadow looked up, slow and deliberate, and locked eyes with him. No flinch. No tension. Just that same infuriatingly calm gaze, dark and level. It was the kind of look that didn’t just measure you—it weighed you. “Are you going to eat me?” he asked.

  The Werehog leaned forward, tilting his head with a grin too full of teeth to be friendly. His eyes glowed faintly in the dusk—wild, green, and electric. “I could,” he purred.

  The other’s brow rose, arching with unimpressed elegance. “Then wipe your mouth first,” he drawled. “You look ridiculous.”

  The Werehog blinked, thrown just enough for the grin to falter. A fleck of dried blood sat at the corner of his lip. He licked it away absently.

“I don’t get you,” he muttered. His voice was low now, threaded with a kind of reluctant wonder.

“I don’t need to be gotten.” Shadow stood as he spoke, stretching in one slow motion, joints popping lightly. “You’re like a raccoon with biceps. And murder issues.”

“I’m not a raccoon,” Sonic said, his ears twitching back slightly.

“You sure sniff like one,” the goat replied, brushing past him with zero urgency. The scent of cedar and damp fur trailed behind him. His cloven hooves clicked softly on the warped porch boards. “And don’t pee on the fence again.”

“I—what?!” Sonic twisted, ears flaring in outrage. “I was marking territory!”

“It’s a communal pasture, genius. Not yours.”

“I killed for that sheep!” Sonic snarled, his ears flicking back, shoulders still hunched from the run.

“And left the guts in my water trough,” Shadow replied coolly, hands now planted firmly on his hips. He stood with that infuriating, goatish posture—all balance and quiet authority, the kind that came from never needing to raise his voice.

“That was an accident,” Sonic muttered, voice smaller now, ears dipping as he looked anywhere but at the gore-stained bucket by the porch.

  The goat turned, silhouette framed against the deep blue folds of dusk. The wind tugged at his fur and the tattered edge of the curtain hanging inside the open doorway. His presence glowed—not with magic, but with that maddening, bone-deep self-sufficiency that made Sonic’s claws twitch with envy and something else he didn’t like naming.

“You’re not the terror of the mountains,” Shadow said, not unkindly—just blunt. “You’re a messy stray.”

“I’m not a stray!” Sonic snapped, a growl cutting at the back of his throat, raw and defensive.

  Shadow leaned in, just slightly, enough for the porch boards to creak. Close enough that Sonic could see the faint shimmer of sweat along his brow and the slight flare of his nostrils. He smiled—just barely. A flicker of teeth. Sharp and smug.

“Then why do you keep coming back?”

  Sonic opened his mouth. A smart reply waited. Something vicious, clever. But it stalled on his tongue. His gaze dropped to the porch.

“…I dunno,” he said finally, almost too soft to hear.

  He did come back. More often now. Not just for sheep. Not even mostly. He lingered in the trees longer, watching the smoke drift from chimneys. Listening for the flat, dry rhythm of the other’s voice or the snort that came when Sonic said something particularly stupid.

  He liked the quiet here—the way the wind curled around him, cool and sharp and clean, like it wasn’t trying to chase him off. Like it didn’t mind that he stank of meat and rain.

  Shadow was handsome in a strange, deliberate way. All sharp elbows and angled shoulders, lips always curled slightly in judgment, nose crinkled like everything reeked. Like Sonic was a walking garbage fire he couldn’t quite be bothered to put out.

  And Sonic—messy, bloodied, shameless Sonic—couldn’t stop watching him. Couldn’t stop coming back.

  The other huffed, sharp and unimpressed. “Figures.”

  Sonic surged to his feet, the motion sudden enough to make the porch groan under him. Blood still clung to his forearms in streaks, dark and half-dried, catching the faint moonlight like rusted paint. The wind combed through his quills, wild and restless, tugging at him like it wanted him to bolt—like it always did.

“You keep treating me like some dumb mutt,” he snapped, claws flexing, jaw tight.

“Stop acting like one,” Shadow shot back without missing a beat.

“I could snap you in half!” Sonic barked, the words leaving him rough and louder than he meant, breath misting white between them.

  Shadow just crossed his arms, gaze flat. “But you won’t.”

  The Werehog growled low, more sound than threat, the kind of sound that usually made other creatures back off—drop eye contact, turn tail. But other didn’t so much as blink.

  Instead, he turned on his hooves and walked toward the open door, his tail flicking once behind him—a puff of soft white fluff that bobbed with every step, infuriatingly cute and completely oblivious to anyone else’s restraint.

  Sonic stared.

  If he wasn’t so pissed, he would’ve pounced. Pinned him, maybe bit him, just enough to wipe that smug tone off his face.

  But instead, the other’s voice floated back: “Go rinse off. You’re dripping on my steps.”

  And just like that, Sonic was alone in the dark again.

  Still.

  The blood dried slowly on his fur, tacky under the chill breeze. His muscles coiled with leftover heat, instincts crawling like ants beneath his fur. He should’ve run. Should’ve vanished into the woods, climbed a tree, chased something, bit something.

  But he didn’t move.

  For once, his pulse wasn’t dragging him forward.

  For once, he didn’t want to run.

Chapter Text

  The storm hit hard.

  That in itself wasn’t surprising—these mountains were famous for weather that turned without warning. Storms came fast and brutal, like the land itself had mood swings. But this? This wasn’t just weather. This was the sky throwing a tantrum.

  Rain hammered the hills in sheets, thick as spilled soup, churning the earth into slop. Wind shrieked through the trees like something was being murdered in the canopy. Sonic had spent his life under open skies and over broken roads, had outrun flash floods and danced between lightning strikes, but even he paused at the ridge, claws digging into the wet soil, muscles twitching with indecision.

  This storm clawed at the trees like it wanted to skin the mountain. Branches thrashed like arms, and the world blurred in silver streaks.

   And Sonic, soaked to the bone and scowling, growled low in his throat. He hated rain. Always had. The chill soaked into his fur too fast, turned his muscles sluggish. Even now, in his hulking, stronger Werehog form, the cold made him irritable like his bones remembered being thinner, faster, more sun-fed.

  Still, his paws moved almost without thinking.

  Down into the valley.

  Toward that barn.

  The one tucked half-hidden near a craggy outcrop, always smelling like sun-warmed hay and animal musk. Like salt and old wood and something distinctly exotic.

  Thunder cracked the sky in half just as he reached it.

  He slammed the doors open with one heavy shove, soaked head to toe, fur flattened, matted in thick clumps, claws dark with mud. The wind caught the edge of the barn like it meant to tear it loose, and for a moment the doors screamed on their hinges before swinging inward. Inside, a warm, dim light flickered from an oil lantern hung on a nail. The air was thick with the smell of straw, damp wood, animal sweat, and old grain. The kind of smell that stuck to your fur and made your nose twitch. A few goats huddled in the far corner, bleating nervously, hooves clicking against the wooden floor. One raised its head at his entrance, eyes wide and glassy. A cow grumbled low in her stall, the sound deep and suspicious.

  To the left, a single stall stood empty. The boards chewed down to splinters along the top, the bucket cracked at the rim, stained a rusty red that didn’t come from rust.

  A pig had lived there.

  Not a big one—maybe a few years old, wiry and mean, the kind that bit ankles and knocked over feed bins for fun. It used to snort and shove its weight around like it owned the place. Until a stormy night two full moons ago, when Sonic had stumbled in half-starved and half-feral, lips twitching with hunger, eyes already glowing.

  The pig had screamed once.

  Shadow never asked what happened.

  Just cleaned the stall out the next day and didn’t look Sonic in the eye for a week.

  And in the far corner pen—the one reinforced with extra slats and chained shut from his side only—he lay.

  The pen wasn’t small, but Shadow made it feel small. Like the air in it had to answer to him. The wood was scuffed and clawed where hooves had braced in past scuffles, the corners smoothed down by years of pacing and glowering. One horn had worn a faint notch into the wall where he’d rubbed it repeatedly, a silent, slow protest to ever sharing space. He’d kicked his last pen-mate clean over the divider for snoring. No one had tried since. Tonight, he was curled on his hay pile, hunched low with one hoof propped lazily against the lower slat, chewing a piece of dry straw like it personally offended him. His expression was as sour as rain-spoiled feed. A battered old paperback lay half-folded in his lap, held in place by an elbow more out of stubbornness than interest.

  A single lantern hung above him, casting a warm flicker across his dark fur and the dull glint of the metal tag pierced through one ear. Just below it, the skin was marred with a faded, curling S—the ghost of a brand, scorched there long ago and never quite healed right. The skin around it was faintly discolored, a soft pink against the black. Like someone had tried to mark him and given up halfway.

  He didn’t even lift his eyes when the barn doors shrieked open.

“I could hear your drooling from the ridge,” he drawled.

  Sonic snarled, shaking like a wet mutt, water splattering across the floor. “It’s raining.”

“Congratulations,” Shadow said flatly. “You’ve noticed the sky.”

  Another clap of thunder split the barn. Sonic flinched. Just slightly. Barely more than a twitch, but it showed—his shoulders hunched tighter, his claws clicked against the wood as though bracing.

“…Let me in,” he said, not quite meeting red eyes.

  The goat finally looked up.

  His gaze flicked over Sonic with a professional kind of disdain. The Werehog stood there dripping—fur clinging in stringy patches, shoulders heaving faintly from the cold, muzzle twitching like he was trying very hard not to look pitiful. He was all teeth and claws and attitude, but even wolves could shiver.

  Shadow exhaled slowly, like this was a burden he’d carried in a past life.

“Fine. Stay on the straw. Don’t touch anything. And if you eat Buttercup again, I’m biting you back.”

  The other grumbled as he stepped inside the pen, tracking wet pawprints in with every squelching step. “She walked into my mouth.”

“She was trying to nurse you, idiot.”

  Sonic shook himself like a wet dog, spraying water in every direction.

  Shadow hissed, ducking instinctively. “Augh—!” He stomped over, grabbed a rough, half-frayed towel from a peg on the post, and threw it straight into dry face.

“Ugh! What is this?! A sack?!” Sonic yelped, muffled beneath the coarse fabric.

“It’s clean enough,” Shadow snapped. “Dry off or sleep outside.”

“You’re such a goat,” Sonic growled, still tangled in the towel, fur sticking out at wild angles.

“Thank you,” the other replied primly, already turning away. He flopped back into the hay with exaggerated disinterest, as if soaking wet werewolves just barging in during storms was a perfectly mundane inconvenience.

  Sonic stood there in the half-light, dripping, towel sagging from one shoulder. He grumbled, wiped his arms with minimal effort, and stubbornly didn’t leave.

   The barn smelled like hay and warm dust, old wood and faint animal musk. But there was something else under it, something that always clung around this pen, a quiet, anchoring scent. Dry herbs from the feed rack, salt licks rubbed to dull edges, the ghost of singed metal from old brand. Whatever it was, it settled in Sonic’s chest like a weight. Not heavy. Just… present.

  Without asking, he padded forward and flopped down just outside the pen—close enough for warmth, close enough to annoy. His claws curled into the straw, tail flicking lazily.

  Shadow didn’t look over. Didn’t tell him off. Didn’t even twitch when his tail thwacked a scatter of hay into his side. “Don’t snore,” he said, closing his eyes.

  Sonic grumbled something inaudible, but he didn’t move.

  The night stretched long and quiet around them. Rain tapped steadily against the barn roof now, no longer the violent downpour it had been, but a softer, more rhythmic drumming like the world outside was settling, trying to catch its breath after the storm. The air was thick with the scent of wet hay, damp earth, and fur still drying in the heat of nearby animals. Somewhere close, a goat shifted and let out a sleepy bleat. The rustle of straw filled the silence that lingered after last words.

  Sonic didn’t answer, not out loud, but his shoulders relaxed, just a little. The taut, restless coil in his limbs eased, and his claws—still twitchy—slowly uncurled. His body language didn’t shout anymore. It sat heavy in the space like a truth he didn’t want to name.

  He was tired of running, maybe.

  Tired of the act.

  Tired of pretending this barn was just a pit stop between hunts, instead of the one place he kept coming back to.

  He lingered near the pen, a lump of bristling blue and damp fur, still breathing like someone who wasn’t sure he was allowed to stay. But the silence didn’t press against him this time. It sat with him. Wrapped around him like the heavy barn air, thick with sleep and distant thunder.

  A soft thump broke the quiet. The towel, dropped by the door.

  Sonic glanced at it, then at Shadow who had already settled back against the far wall, arms crossed, eyes closed, the very picture of nonchalance. He didn’t say a word. Didn’t offer an explanation.

  He didn’t need to.

  Sonic dragged himself to the towel without fanfare, grabbed it with one clawed hand, and gave his soaked arm a half-hearted rub. Then, after a pause, tossed it over his head like a blanket instead. It didn’t cover much. But it felt like something.

  A peace offering, maybe.

  Or a claim.

  He slumped down again by the corner of the pen, closer this time, not touching other, but near enough that he could smell him through the lingering scent of wet earth and barn animals. That stubborn musk that never went away. Solid. Grounded. Unmoving.

  The Werehog exhaled.

  The barn grew still, creaking gently as the storm eased its tantrum into a distant grumble. Rain softened to a hush against the roof, the lantern guttered low, casting long, warped shadows across the straw. He lay there, motionless but awake, could hear other’s breathing—slow, deep, steady. The faint rustle of hay as he shifted once, turning deeper into his pile. No sarcastic comments now. No narrowed eyes.

  Just warmth. Quiet. Something dangerously close to safe.

  And that’s what made he leave.

  He rose in slow, practiced movements, every limb guided by instinct honed over too many nights slinking past windows, dodging traps, avoiding the sharp eye of dawn. Despite his size—all muscle and soaked fur—he moved like mist. He knew how to walk where the floor didn’t creak, how to place a clawed foot just beside the loose board, how to breathe shallow while sliding the barn door open just wide enough to pass.

  Outside, the mountain was drenched and silent. Fog curled like breath around his legs.

  He didn’t look back.

  Didn’t want to see that pen again. The chain. The hay nest. The warmth. Didn’t want to hear that snore, low and steady like the rhythm of a place that didn’t want him dead.

  He was halfway to the ridge before he realized: his tail still smelled like salt licks and straw.

  And he didn’t wipe it off.

***

  The next evening, he came back.

 No storm this time. No excuse. He just… showed up.

  And this time, he came prepared.

  Shadow was sharpening one of his horns against a splintered beam, the rhythmic scrape echoing through the barn like a quiet threat. He was mid-glare at a goose that had dared enter his territory—already weighing whether it was worth kicking—when the barn doors slammed open with a force that rattled the hinges.

  His fur was wild and bristling, a wind-tangled mess of black and deep navy, coarse along the shoulders where something had tried to bite him back and failed. His claws gleamed wet in the lantern light. His chest rose and fell with shallow, fast breaths, like he’d sprinted the whole way down from the ridge just to make this entrance. His snout was streaked with blood—fresh, bright, slashed across his jaw like war paint. Not enough to suggest a struggle. Just enough to worry anyone with common sense.

  Wind howled in behind him, stirring straw into little whirlwinds and the lanterns swayed on their hooks. His eyes burned hot, not just glowing but seething, the way embers do when a log breaks in half. His teeth flashed with the grin of something that didn’t know whether it was here to be pet or to hunt you.

“RAHHHH!” he howled, arms flung high, claws gleaming under the dim barn light, fangs bared to the rafters. The echo bounced off the wooden walls, startling a couple of nesting doves into flight. “TREMBLE BEFORE ME!”

  The silence that followed was almost offended.

  The goat, who had been mid-sneer at an intruding goose with more attitude than sense, paused. The low scrape of one horn dragging lazily against a support beam stopped cold.

  He turned his head slowly.

  Sonic stood in the doorway like a nightmare dragged in from the hills: chest heaving, fur bristling with static, backlit by a bruised twilight sky. A torn sack of hay had exploded around him—whether from clumsy entry or deliberate dramatics, it was unclear—dust motes drifting in the amber light like slow-falling sparks. His eyes, green and wide, shimmered with an unnatural gleam.

  The goose honked once. Then, unimpressed, it waddled off.

  A long beat passed.

“…Did you just growl at the hay bales?” Shadow asked, brow lifting.

“I could destroy them,” the other snarled, voice rough with adrenaline, vibrating at the edges. He stalked forward across the floorboards, tail snapping behind him like a striking whip, claws clicking with each deliberate step. His massive shoulders rolled, tension coiled there like a storm not sure where to break—part menace, part tantrum, all spectacle.

“Great,” Shadow replied, deadpan. “You’ll save me hours of sweeping.”

“I’m a terrifying beast!” Sonic growled, jabbing a bloodied finger toward his chest, streaking fur and muscle with red. His snarl echoed off the walls, making a sleepy hen flutter nervously in her roost. “You’re supposed to fear me!”

“You’ve got straw on your ear,” Shadow observed calmly, “and pine needles tangled in your tail.”

“I kill things!” Sonic roared, spinning with theatrical violence. “Big things! Scream-worthy things! I am the nightmare in the woods!”

  The goat tilted his head, one ear flicking lazily. “Is this your version of flirting?”

  Sonic froze.

  Mid-step, mid-dramatic paw raise—he just froze, the moment stuck like a broken frame of film. His breath hitched. He blinked. Once.

  Then he looked down at his outstretched claw. Up at other.

“…No,” he muttered, the fire guttering as his ears slowly drooped back like wilted flags.

“Shame,” Shadow said. “I prefer it to the severed leg you left by the fence last week.”

“That was a gift!” Sonic barked, voice climbing an octave as he flailed slightly, straw puffing off him like shaken confetti.

  The goat walked past him without a pause, shoulder brushing his—warm, solid muscle under thick fur, and far too casual for someone with cloven hooves. His tail gave a confident flick as he passed, “You should’ve included a card,” he said, voice smooth as cold steel in morning fog.

  Sonic just stared at the straw like it had betrayed him on a personal level.

  Then, with a rustle of hay and the creak of old floorboards, he sat down. He didn’t so much fold as slump—an awkward, heavy thump like a beast who hadn’t quite learned what to do with all his limbs. The barn breathed out again into its stillness: wooden beams groaning softly in the wind, dust settling in slow spirals through the slanted light.

  He glared at the hay bales like they’d insulted his ancestors. His ears twitched once. His claws flexed—slow, deliberate—then curled back in with restraint that seemed almost painful. His posture slouched further, massive shoulders hunched and tail giving occasional agitated thumps against the dusty floor, like a metronome of thwarted rage.

  Shadow didn’t say anything at first. Just watched.

  Always watching, Sonic thought bitterly with that infuriating, unreadable stare. Not judgmental. Not impressed. Just… maddeningly neutral, like someone observing a mildly interesting cloud formation. His voice was calm, even—too calm for someone facing a hulking, bloodstained monster. He stood there, square in front of other’s broad chest, the barn light glinting off the faint scar that curved beneath his eye like a brand of old defiance.

"So," Shadow finally said, voice dry as sun-bleached bone, "you done terrorizing the livestock, or do you need to gnaw on something first?"

“I don’t gnaw,” Sonic muttered, trying to yank a pine needle from his arm with his teeth. It clung stubbornly to his tongue. He spat it out with a sound of utter offense.

“Right. My mistake. Rip and shred, was it?”

  With a sigh like a dying opera star, Sonic let himself flop onto his side. One arm dangled limply in the straw, paw half-curled, as if mourning his own dramatic potential. “You're ruining the mood.”

“What mood? The one where you play apex predator and trip over a goose?”

“It was an ambush,” the Werehog grumbled into the floorboards, voice muffled but indignant. “You weren’t there. I got outflanked.”

  The other raised an eyebrow and leaned against a beam, arms crossed. “You got flanked by poultry.”

“Highly aggressive poultry,” Sonic insisted, still not lifting his head. “Had murder in its eyes.”

  Shadow didn’t answer right away.

  Outside, the wind rustled through the trees, brushing over the barn’s old siding with the soft hush of leaves. Somewhere distant, a horse let out a half-hearted snort, and a piece of loose tin creaked on the roof like a sigh.

  Inside, Sonic didn’t move. His tail gave one final twitch, then lay still, the end curled slightly like a question mark. His ears were low now, flattened not out of aggression, but something else, embarrassment, maybe. Or something rawer that didn’t have a name.

“…You didn’t have to watch,” he said after a long beat, voice quiet. “Could’ve just… walked off.”

  The goat tilted his head. “And miss this performance?”

  Sonic scoffed, but the breath came out shaky. “I wasn’t performing.”

“You screamed at hay bales and challenged a goose to a dominance battle.”

“That goose knew what it did,” Sonic mumbled, mostly to the floor. “Besides, it’s not like I can just—turn this off.” He gestured vaguely to himself: claws, blood, muscle, too much fur, too much everything. “It builds. The moon rises, and I get… full of teeth.”

  Red gaze softened. Just slightly. A flicker.

“And you come here?” he asked. “To scream at straw and scare sheep?”

  The Werehog finally turned his head, eyes catching a glint of moonlight through the open slats. “Better than tearing through the forest. Or someone’s porch.”

 Shadow didn’t reply.

  Instead, he crossed the space between them—slow, steady hoof-falls on the worn floor. He walked right up to him—fearless, unimpressed—and looked up at the beast who loomed twice his size. He stopped beside the collapsed Werehog and crouched, one knee lowering with grace that felt unfair for a man that wide across the chest.

  He didn’t reach out.

  Just sat beside him in silence.

  The barn didn’t creak this time. It held its breath.

“…You know I could still tear this place apart,” Sonic muttered after a while, trying to inject some bravado back into his tone. “I could eat you,” he insisted, quieter now.

  The other looked at him. “You won’t.”

“How do you know?”

“Because you sat down,” Shadow said. “Because you’re tired. And because you’re talking instead of snarling.”

  Sonic frowned. Then made a grumbly noise low in his throat. Then—sighing again—rolled halfway onto his back, looking up at the high beams with frustration on his face and something else swimming deeper in his eyes.

“…It’s easier when someone sees it,” he said, barely above a whisper. “The monster part. Not the mask.”

  Shadow looked at him, long and unreadable.

“I don’t see a monster,” he said eventually.

  Blue ears twitched.

“…You saw me bite a mailbox last week.”

“That was a poor choice of mailbox placement. I stand by it.”

  Sonic huffed a laugh despite himself. It shivered out of him, quick and reluctant. A soft, breathy sound that curled through the barn like warmth.

  He didn’t speak again.

  But after a few seconds, he let his hand brush lightly against Shadow’s leg—not grabbing, not holding, just there. And other didn’t move away.

“You could’ve gone anywhere,” he added, almost a whisper now. “But you came here.”

  Sonic’s claws curled inward with a faint creak, slow, restrained, like he was squeezing the urge to lash out into his own palms. He didn’t growl this time. Didn’t puff up or bare his teeth. He just stood there, soaked in a mess of rain-matted fur, half-dried blood, and a hundred twitchy instincts he couldn’t quite name, silhouette shook faintly in the barn’s warm light, breath heavy, shoulders rising and falling like the storm hadn’t finished with him yet.

“…Shut up,” he muttered.

  Shadow didn’t flinch. He just blinked slowly, unbothered, then leaned in—not far, just enough for Sonic to feel the nearness of him, all steady heat and dry stubbornness and a scent like woodsmoke and worn leather. The scent of someone who belonged here. Someone who wasn’t afraid of things with teeth.

 His red eyes dropped to the floor, to the smeared trail of muddy prints by the barn door. “And this time,” he said quietly, “you didn’t leave before sunrise.”

“…You noticed that?”

“Of course I did.” A flick of his tail. His tone was dry, faintly amused. “You drool in your sleep.”

  Sonic looked away fast, ears flattening slightly. “I’m working on it.”

“Don’t.” the other stood up, stepped around him, slow, deliberate, unbothered by the tension still clinging to Sonic's frame like wet fur. “It’s the only honest thing about you.”

  And he said it not as an insult, but with the kind of softness that hit harder than any snarl.

  Because Sonic—in all his snarling, claw-gnashing, self-mocking noise—wore confidence like armor. Like a costume. He postured, growled, performed a version of himself loud enough to distract from the quiet ache of wanting something real.

  This goat saw that. He always had.

  So when he walked away, not flinching, not mocking, just seeing—it left him standing in the silence, cracked open by nothing more than the truth.

 It stung. Just a little.

  But it also made him smirk.

“…I’m not good at this,” he muttered finally, voice muffled by the towel he’d dragged from a peg near the stall. He wasn’t even wet. He just needed something to hide behind—something to fidget with, to keep his claws from curling into fists again. The fabric was scratchy, sun-warmed, and carried a faint, lingering scent he remembered from last time.

  Lavender. Or something like it. Not that he knew much about flowers, not their names, not what they meant, but he liked the ones he stumbled across. He didn’t trample them. Not when he could help it.

  There was something about the quiet persistence of small, gentle things. Things that didn’t snarl or snap or run. Things that just… grew.

  The goat, already lowering himself onto a hay bale with the casual grace of a man unbothered by the emotional wreckage he’d left in his wake, didn’t even open his eyes. “At what?”

“This,” Sonic said, still hidden under the towel like a sulking mutt. “Not breaking things.”

  Shadow’s response came without hesitation, calm and firm as bedrock. “Then it’s a good thing I’ve got a lot of patience.”

  Sonic peeked out from beneath the towel. His ears were still low, more uncertain now than defensive. His eyes, for once, weren’t glowing, just soft, almost tired, and honest. “Yeah?” he asked, tentative. “Even with the goose thing?”

  The other didn’t even flinch. “Especially with the goose thing.”

  And finally—finally—Sonic let out a real laugh, small, raw, like it surprised him on its way out. He stretched, loose and heavy with the exhaustion that followed too much tension, and lay back on the barn floor. His arms folded behind his head, claws tracing lazy shapes into the old boards. His breath steadied. For once, he was still.

  The beast inside hummed low and quiet—not gone, but soothed. Not tamed, but content.

  Shadow, head tilted back against the wall, eyes still closed, let his voice drift like a thought just barely spoken aloud:

“Next time, just knock.”

Chapter Text

  It started with barking.

  Not idiot’s kind—Shadow knew that instantly, Sonic barked only when he meant something: a threat, a warning, a laugh sharp as broken glass. His sounds came from the chest, low and hoarse, like something alive and thinking. This wasn’t that.

  This was chaos.

  Shrill, high-pitched howls shattered the quiet afternoon like falling panes of glass. One bark overlapped another, and then another—a frenzy of yelping, baying, shrieking. The noise bounced between the hills in tangled echoes, so loud and frantic it was impossible to count them. Too many.

  Something thudded against a tree. Leaves shook loose. Then claws—you could hear them skittering over roots and mud and cracked old bark. A storm with teeth.

 The dogs had gotten loose again. Not farm dogs, not the dusty, soft-bellied mutts that snored under fence posts or wandered after sheep like they’d forgotten what they were chasing. These were the other kind.

 Hunting dogs.

 Broad-shouldered and lean-hipped. Wired tight, all bone and sinew under patchy coats. Their eyes always gleamed, hungry and sharp, these were animals raised not for loyalty but pursuit—trained to bite and clamp and hold until something stopped moving.

  And they didn’t bark for show.

 They barked for blood.

 Shadow stiffened. He was in the pen when it started, one hoof cocked, teeth working lazily over a wad of dry, sweet hay, ears pricked forward.

  It was like someone had pulled a thread.

 The entire barnyard froze.

 The pigs halted mid-root. The hens went still, heads tilted like they were listening for something only birds could hear. Even the old cow—nearly deaf, half-blind, too arthritic to bother with storms—lifted her heavy head from the straw and blinked toward the door.

 The silence was sudden, and Shadow chewed once more, swallowed, listened. He knew those dogs couldn’t touch him. He was the goat—not in the show-ribbon sense, not even in the barnyard sense, but in the old way. The capital-letter kind. Horns curved like blades, hooves that had shattered fence posts, broken bones, split skulls once or twice when something tried.

 No dog was dumb enough to try him.

 Still.

 He didn’t like them.

 Didn’t like the scent they brought with them—thick and greasy and wet, like iron and rot and old sweat trapped in fur. Didn’t like the way they moved, all legs and mouths and panting need. Didn’t like the madness in their noise—how it built without reason, without rhythm, without meaning.

 Shadow liked meaning. He liked order. The quiet of the fields before sunrise. The steady thump of hooves, even that idiot’s dramatics had shape.

 The dogs had no shape. Just hunger. And noise.

 Then the barn door slammed open. Not creaked, not eased. Slammed. The old hinges shrieked as wood banged against the wall hard enough to rattle dust from the rafters and the Werehog burst in like a thunderclap.

 No swagger. No theatrics. No tail-flicking dramatics or cocky half-turns meant to be admired. He didn’t enter—he lunged, hunched and bristling, half-wild with motion.

  The Werehog skidded to a stop, claws tearing shallow furrows into the packed dirt. He didn’t look like a monster now. He looked like something pursued: Eyes wide and feral, rimmed with red. His fur was soaked, not with rain, but sweat, river water, something else. Blood still clung in dark streaks to one arm, dried in places, wet in others. Flakes broke off as he moved, his nose twitched, frantic, like it couldn’t keep up with the scent storm hammering it. His chest heaved, ribs flaring under the muscle, panting like he'd outrun death.

  Shadow tilted his head just slightly, eyes narrowing, “Trouble?” he asked. The same voice he’d used to coax a lamb out of a blackberry thicket last spring, careful and slow, like if you didn’t spook it, it might just come willingly.

  The other didn’t answer right away. His whole body had gone taut, a ripple of instinct rolling through his shoulders as his head snapped toward the door. Ears high. Still. Straining. His jaw clenched so hard a muscle jumped in his cheek. There—just under the hush of pine needles and distant wind—the barking had changed, no longer a vague commotion. Still tangled, still wild, but no longer distant. It was coming, close now.

  Shadow shifted his weight forward, the wooden porch groaning under the press of one heavy hoof, didn’t look away from other. “Did you lead them here?”

  The Werehog flinched, a full-body twitch, sharp and sudden, like someone had yanked a wire at the base of his spine. He turned sharply, eyes wide, teeth bared, but not in threat. In panic. “I tried to lose them,” he snapped, but it hit the air too fast, clipped and breathless. There was no fire in it, no heat, only desperation. “Didn’t know they were this damn organized.”

 Red eyes narrowed slightly. “Hunters?”

“Smelled ‘em,” Sonic growled, his voice slipping rougher. Throat-scraped. “Didn’t see ‘em—not clearly. But these isn’t wandering.”

 A beat passed.

 Shadow’s brow creased. Barely. But it was there. Not fear. Not yet. But concern. Quiet and sharp. Not for himself.

  For him.

“How many?”

  Sonic sucked in air through his teeth. “Five. Maybe six.”

 Shadow didn’t panic. Didn’t even look alarmed, but he didn’t mock him either. “They’re tracking your scent,” he said, voice flat. “You’re bleeding.”

  Sonic exhaled hard through his nose and glanced down like he was only now remembering. A gash split across his left side, raw and crooked, tearing through fur and skin like a claw through silk. The wound was ugly, pink and red and already puffy at the edges, blood matting the blue into slick, bristled curls. Every breath pulled at it. The skin twitched. “One of them got lucky,” he muttered, more to himself than anyone else. “Didn’t feel it until I stopped moving.”

 Then the howls came.

 Close. Too close.

 A chorus burst out from the trees—high, feral, and cracked, the kind of sound that didn't come from human throats. It wasn’t just one voice, but many, each distorted and off-beat, rising in a shattering crescendo that cut through the night like a bone snapping under pressure. The woods went still between each ragged breath.

 The barn animals lost it; chickens shrieked, a flurry of feathers and blind panic, wings battering wooden slats with dry, frantic thuds. Pigs screamed sharp and humanlike, scrambling and shoving into corners of their pen, trying to climb the walls or wedge under troughs. Hooves clattered and thudded against boards as goats kicked and stumbled in fear, their wide, glassy eyes rolling in every direction.

  Even the cow—so calm before, barely moving like she’d been carved from oak—let out a long, deep bellow, tail lashing, breath steaming hard in the cool air. She turned sharply in her stall, muscles trembling, and slammed her side into the gate with enough force to rattle the hinges.

  Shadow moved fast—quicker than you'd expect from something his size. His hoof thudded across the straw-littered floor of the barn, in three strides he was at the double doors, and with a hard shove, he slammed them shut. The old wood groaned, hinges shrieking. He drove the sliding bolt into place with a solid thunk that echoed up into the rafters, but it was just timber and rusted iron.

Not meant for siege. Not for what was coming.

  Then the barking hit—sharp and guttural, violent—and the whole door shuddered in its frame. It was more than sound. It was force, intent, hunger wrapped in a throat-ripping growl.

“Leave,” Sonic snarled.

Shadow turned his head sharply, almost breaking his neck. The expression on his face was more surprise than confusion like he was trying to determine whether idiot had lost his mind or just grown another head. “Excuse me?”

“You’re prey to them,” Sonic spat, shoulders rising and falling fast. His chest heaved with the effort of breath, blood still trickling down his side. His eyes—bright, wild—weren’t afraid for himself, locked on Shadow, pupils sharp with something like panic. “They’ll rip you apart.”

  Shadow’s eyes narrowed. “You’re not exactly a saint in that regard.”

“That’s different!” Sonic barked, the sound laced with a growl, his claws curled against the floor, gouging splinters from the planks. “I was—I was hungry. It wasn’t personal.”

  He jerked his chin toward the shaking doors, where claws were beginning to scrape, metal on wood. “They’re worse. They don’t stop. They don’t think. It’s not hunger, it’s just—just want.”

 His voice cracked on the last word. He was trembling now, not from weakness but from adrenaline, from the sheer effort of holding himself together. His fur stood on end, ears pinned, breath sharp and shallow in the close air.

“They won’t give you a chance to fight back.”

 Something slammed against the barn wall outside, a heavy thud, followed by a shriek and the crack of splintering wood. Dust rained from the ceiling, the horses in their stalls screamed and reared, kicking wildly against the dividers, and the scent of blood was thick now. Maybe something worse.

  Shadow turned to speak again, mouth parting for a sharp retort, but the barn doors blew inward as the first hounds hit them—hulking shapes with slick black coats and too many teeth. Wood exploded inwards with a crunch of splinters and hinges, the storm wind howling in behind them. But Sonic was already there, landed like a lightning strike.

  One claw ripped through the first dog’s throat before it had even cleared the threshold. Blood sprayed in a dark arc across the doorway. He pivoted, low, catching another by the neck and ripping it sideways into the dirt with a sound like tearing canvas. A third lunged from the left—snarling, yellow-fanged—and Sonic caught it midair, jaws snapping inches from his face. He slammed it into the wall hard enough to leave a smear.

  Two more tried to circle him, smart enough to flank, but not smart enough to last. Sonic blurred forward, fast and low, dragging one down by the hind leg with a crunch that shattered bone. It screamed once before going silent under a second slash. The last tried to bolt, but the Werehog was on it in seconds, driving it to the ground beneath his weight and ending it with a sickening crack of teeth on skull.

  When it was over, Sonic stood panting in the dark. Soaked. Mud streaked up his legs, blood drying on his claws, his sides heaving with the aftershock of motion. Fur clung to the barn walls. Bone fragments glinted near muddy footprints, the wind blew through what was left of the doorway, carrying the sharp, metallic stench of death, and six bodies surrounded him, mangled and still. Not one had made it more than ten feet inside.

  He didn’t look proud. Didn’t even look satisfied.

  He looked... confused.

  His expression was raw and unfocused, as if some part of him had come back late. Like he wasn’t sure whose hands he was staring at. Something inside him had gone quiet, but not calm. Wrong.

 He turned back to the barn, and the goat stood in the open doorway, framed by flickering lantern light. His silhouette was sharp against the gloom, still as carved obsidian.

  Sonic swallowed, throat raw. “You alright?” he rasped.

 Shadow tilted his head, his voice was unreadable. “Why’d you do that?”

“I…” a dry mouth moved before the words did, his tongue felt heavy, his breath thin. “I don’t know.”

  Shadow stepped forward. No theatrics. No caution. Just quiet movement across the blood-slicked mud. His hooves squelched softly with each step, like they were pressing into the remnants of a battlefield.

  He didn’t stop at a safe distance. He didn’t hesitate.

  He stopped right in front of beast, close enough to see the torn edge of his ear, the smear of blood across his muzzle, the way the fur on his arms had darkened and stiffened with drying blood. Then—gently, deliberately—he reached up. Fingers brushed through the matted fur beside blue ear, sweeping it back out of his face. A simple gesture, tender in its quiet boldness.

 The Werehog didn’t flinch, didn’t pull away, His breathing slowed, but his eyes stayed locked on other’s, searching—desperate not to see fear there.

 There wasn’t any.

  Just silence. And the copper stink of blood on the earth.

  Shadow didn’t move his hand right away. His fingers lingered just a second longer against cobalt fur, more contact than necessary. Less than comfort. Something in between. Then he lowered it, slow and precise, like pulling away from a still-hot flame.

  Sonic looked down. At the ground. At the bodies. Anywhere but Shadow. “I wasn’t thinking,” he said quietly. “I just... reacted.”

“You killed them before they even saw you,” Shadow replied, voice steady. Not judgmental—just stating fact.

  Sonic winced. “Maybe I am like them.”

“No,” Shadow said, too quickly. Then caught himself. Adjusted his tone. “You could’ve let them come inside. Let them rip us both to shreds.”

“I could’ve run.”

“But you didn’t.”

  Silence settled between them again, thick with the weight of unspoken things. The barn behind them creaked softly—timbers still tense from the force of the dogs slamming through. From somewhere inside, a goat bleated nervously, its voice thin and uncertain in the quiet.

  Sonic looked back up at him. His green eyes were stormy, uncertain. “You’re not scared of me?”

  The other’s answer was quiet. But firm. “No.”

 Sonic’s shoulders twitched, just barely—a brief, involuntary reaction like he didn’t quite believe it, but wanted to. The goat didn’t elaborate. Just turned slightly, his gaze drifting toward the dark tree line where the blood trail began. “We should drag the bodies farther out,” he said. “The scent’ll bring worse things if they’re left too close.”

  And for a moment—just a flicker—Sonic hesitated. Not because of the gore, or the weight, or the mess.

 Because Shadow was so... calm.

 Detached, even. Not angry. Not horrified. Not even particularly impressed.

 And maybe that was the strangest thing of all.

 Sonic had seen him scowl when a chicken got out, had heard him curse when the fence broke, had watched him go stiff and quiet the first time he saw Sonic rip into a sheep. He knew Shadow had seen him eat his neighbors before. Knew he was still trying to forgive that, or forget it, or pretend he didn’t care.

 But now, Sonic had torn apart the very things meant to protect this place—six trained beasts, dead and bloodied—and Shadow was already talking about cleanup. Like it was a chore. Like it was just another night.

 Sonic nodded, already stepping toward the nearest corpse. “Right.”

 But his voice was a little too flat. His movements a little too automatic.

  And when he reached down, his hand hovered—just a second too long—above the mangled fur, claws twitching, before he actually touched it.

  Just long enough to betray that, yes, it still shook him.

 No matter how many times he did this.

  He crouched beside the body—what was left of it—and grabbed it by the hind legs. The fur was slick, heavy with blood, the neck a shredded ruin, and Sonic didn’t look at the face. He didn’t need to. Behind him, the goat moved with that same steady quiet, hooves thudding softly in the dirt. He hauled another corpse by the scruff, dragging it without flinching as blood smeared a dark trail behind him.

 For a while, they worked in silence.

  The trees swallowed the bodies one by one. Sonic cast them deep enough that even the crows might think twice. A few times he glanced at Shadow, expecting—something.

  A question. A look. A crack in that cold composure.

 But Shadow never broke stride. Never asked why. Never looked at Sonic like a monster, even as his boots sloshed through blood the color of old rust.

“You’re really not going to say anything about it?” Sonic finally asked. His voice came out low, tired. He stood half-turned toward Shadow, ears down, still holding one of the corpses by the shoulder.

  Shadow paused. Just enough to make the moment feel longer.

 Then: “You warned me.”

 Sonic blinked. “What?”

“You told me what they were. What they’d do. You said they wouldn’t give me a chance.” He grabbed the dog’s hind legs and started dragging the body backward through the dirt, its head thumping softly over roots and stones. “You weren’t wrong.”

 Sonic stared at his back.

  He wanted to say but I lost control. Wanted to say I liked it too much. Wanted to admit that somewhere between the first and the sixth body, something inside him had gone still. Cold. Quiet.

 Instead, he said nothing.

 Just kept walking.

 Dragging the last corpse behind him, slow and heavy through the dirt.

***

  It was a quiet morning.

  No screaming chickens, no gutted sheep, no stinking idiots, and Shadow should’ve been pleased.

“You tore the damn door off again.”

  His ear twitched slightly at the sounds—sharp metallic clinks, wood creaking in protest, a quiet grunt as a hinge gave way under pressure. The low hum of insects rose from the trees, thickening the air with the scent of sap and warm pine.

  Mr. Stone was crouched beside the barn door, sleeves rolled past his elbows, a rusted toolbox cracked open at his feet. A nail was pinched between his teeth and a hammer rested in one calloused hand, tapping with the kind of precision that came from repetition, not passion. His motions were methodical, almost detached, like someone replacing a lightbulb for the hundredth time rather than repairing damage from something that had nearly clawed its way inside.

  He was of medium height, with short-cropped black hair and calm brown eyes that seemed to take in bloodied scenes with the same interest as they would take in peeling paint. His skin was a warm light brown, his jaw lined by a thin, neat beard. As always, he wore black: the kind of outfit that would’ve looked at home behind a desk or at a funeral, not on a man kneeling in the dirt beside a splintered barn door.

  The door itself hung by a single hinge, twisted sideways like a broken jaw. Muddy claw marks raked deep into the wood, still wet and sharp-edged. Strands of blue fur clung to the splinters, and blood—drying now, but still tacky—smudged the threshold.

“It wasn’t me,” Shadow said flatly.

  Stone gave him a look. A slow, skeptical raise of his eyebrows as he removed the nail from his mouth and lined it up with the next break in the frame. “Right. And I suppose the chickens organized a coup.”

 Shadow’s lips twitched. Not quite a smile, but close.

 The man didn’t glance at the blood. Didn’t acknowledge the tufts of fur or the red smear leading off toward the treeline. He just kept hammering. Quiet, steady taps that somehow made the scene feel more intimate than gruesome.

“Did you at least kill whatever did this?” Stone asked casually, voice mild, as though they were discussing weeds in the garden.

“Yes.”

Tap. Tap. Crack.

  Stone nodded once. “Shame,” he muttered. “Would’ve liked to bill it for the damage.” He finally glanced up, his gaze flicking between the mangled barn door and the smear of blood trailing off into the woods. Then, pointedly, toward Shadow.

“Because Robotnik’s already pissed about the fence. If he comes out here and finds the barn looking like a werewolf threw a tantrum—” he paused, gesturing vaguely in Shadow’s direction, “—he’ll deduct from my pay, not yours.”

 Shadow grunted, arms crossed, posture unreadable. “Not my problem.”

“That’s what you said about the porch. And the smokehouse. And the windmill blades, remember that?” Stone dropped a nail with a sharp clink. “Seriously, who breaks windmill blades? Were you aiming for them?”

“I was training,” Shadow said flatly.

“With what, a cannon?”

  There was no tension between them. No fear. Just the stale comfort of long-fostered irritation—the kind of banter that had dulled from sharp arguments into habitual exchanges. Like coworkers too weathered and stubborn to quit, but too used to each other to pretend they gave a damn anymore.

 Stone picked up the nail again, brushing the dirt off with two fingers. “Just—try not to level anything else before the end of the week, yeah? We’re down to one good fence post and half a chicken coop.”

 Shadow didn’t answer. But the silence was, somehow, agreement.

 It hadn’t always been like this.

 Back then, the barn hadn’t even been repaired yet. The fields were choked with weeds. Something in the air smelled like mildew and singed feathers. But the fence was standing, the gate was unlocked, and the porch light was on. Shadow remembered the pain first—dull and wet in his hind leg, muscles spasming every few steps.

 And that’s when he appeared.

 A man in black—black coat, black tie, black boots sunk into the dirt—crouched beside a broken gatepost, hammer in hand, sleeves pushed up like he hadn’t expected company. He’d looked up when Shadow stumbled into view, ears flat, quills raised, blood drying on the fur of his lower half—goat legs trembling and hooves scuffed raw from the run.

  The man hadn’t panicked. Didn’t shout. He just stared for a second, then stood, walked over, and quietly said, “You’re bleeding on my potatoes.” Calm, steady, unimpressed even when a strange, bristling creature limped out of the woods with blood on its fur nosing at his door.

  Shadow had snarled, low and warning. He was still more animal than anything then—exhausted, feral, unwilling to trust. His voice barely worked. He bolted the first time Stone came back with a first aid kit and a bucket of water.

  And yet the man kept returning. Every morning, like it was just another chore on the list. He started leaving the water out. Oats. A faded blanket near the woodpile. He talked, not like someone making conversation, but like someone filling silence that he never expected to be answered.

  Shadow, goat-brained and half-wild, responded by headbutting a porch beam and stealing his coffee beans. At first it was random—just a sharp-toothed curiosity. But when he realized the man roasted them in small batches behind the smokehouse, in a tin roaster that creaked and rattled like it had arthritis, Shadow returned again and again.

  He would wait until the man was distracted, then swipe a handful—sometimes raw, sometimes roasted—like some weird ritual. Stone always acted surprised, mildly inconvenienced, but never angry. He simply adjusted. Moved the coffee inside. Roasted extra. Left the porch door cracked open.

 He never asked where Shadow came from. Never reached for his horns. Never flinched when he growled. And still, every morning, Stone showed up like a man too stubborn to let a goat-demon sulk in peace.

  Even when Shadow tried to push him away—shoulders squared, tail flicking, voice low and rasping from disuse—Stone would just roll up his sleeves and ask if the chicken coop looked crooked to him, or if he thought raccoons had broken into the compost again, about the state of the porch (“deathtrap”), about how foxes kept trying to dig under the fencing and he was not losing another coop this year.

  Shadow didn’t respond. Or when he did, it was with narrowed eyes, short grunts, and the kind of aggressive body language only livestock should find readable. He was silent, bristly, combative.

 And still, Stone came back. Every day.

  Maybe it was pity. Maybe stubbornness. Maybe something else, quieter and more persistent. But when winter finally broke and he stopped limping, Shadow was still there. And maybe that was the strangest part: he wasn’t used to being tolerated.

 He was used to being chased, cursed, prayed at.

  But Stone had simply accepted that some days a snarling, bloodied hybrid would be standing on his porch eating beans out of the roaster.

 And over time, Shadow stopped flinching when he spoke.

 Stopped baring his teeth.

 Started answering.

 The man finished hammering, wiped his hands on a rag stained with oil and old rust, and stood with the slow exhale of someone already regretting asking.

“Do I even want to know what happened this time?” he asked, finally turning to look the other full in the face.

 The black goat’s ears gave a slight, dismissive twitch. “Dogs.”

  Stone arched a brow. “The usual kind, or the why is it eating drywall kind?”

“...Both.”

 There was a beat of silence as Stone looked skyward, as though searching for the strength to not set something on fire. Then he sighed, sharp and resigned. “Cool. Awesome. Guess I’ll need to order more lime.”

 He didn’t wait for a reply—just turned on his heel and headed toward the house, muttering, “And I just cleaned the trench out, too. You’re gonna track half the woods through the kitchen, I know it.”

 Shadow didn’t deny it. Didn’t move either, watching Stone go with that unreadable stillness that had long since replaced guilt or apology.

 Somewhere in the distance, a rooster shrieked in abject terror.

 He didn’t even flinch.

  Instead, he stared at the patch of flattened hay where Sonic had napped last time—right there, back against the barn wall like some overgrown, battle-scarred guard dog. The straw was still dented with the shape of him, a vague outline in the dust and golden stems. It smelled faintly of wild fur and dried blood, and beneath that, something sharper, like the air right before a summer storm broke.

 Shadow kicked at the spot, scattering the memory. “Stupid mutt.”

 The words came out low, half-growled, but the venom in them was wearing thin.

 It was getting harder to pretend.

 Hard to pretend that the first time Sonic had ripped into a deer just ten feet away, he hadn’t frozen in place out of fear—but fascination. That the tightness in his throat hadn’t been revulsion—it had been something hotter, darker. Something curious.

 Hard to pretend he hadn’t gotten used to waking up to heavy breathing on the other side of the stable gate, to the sight of a hulking shadow wagging its tail like a wolf expecting praise. To the way Sonic would drop gory offerings at his feet—half a leg, a chewed rib, once even a whole antler—like some backwards version of courtship.

 Like it meant something.

 Shadow exhaled through his nose, jaw set, and leaned forward onto the wooden rail of the porch. The orchard ahead was quiet, glowing faintly gold under the slant of the dying sun. Somewhere, bees murmured lazily between branches.

“He’s ugly,” he muttered, scowling. “Always covered in blood. Always shedding. Smells like a goddamn meat locker.”

 A pause. The wind rustled.

“Big arms though.”

 Another pause. Longer this time. His ears twitched.

“...Very big arms.”

 He clenched his teeth.

  And absolutely none of that meant anything.

  He shifted uncomfortably, flicking his tail.

  Idiot looked at him—like he was the only thing in the world that made the Werehog’s mind still. Like he wasn’t a barn animal, but a person. Like Shadow was the only solid thing in a world full of noise and hunger and blur. Like he was something seen.

 Not feared. Not avoided. Not even hunted. Seen.

  Like a puzzle worth solving. Like a prize worth stalking.

 Shadow hated it. Hated how his chest tightened, like his ribs were shrinking around something too hot to hold.

  And he really hated the way it made his groin stir—warm, embarrassing, alive.

  Sonic wasn’t subtle, not in the slightest. The time he’d come trotting back from the woods, tail wagging like a dog that didn’t know it was made of nightmare, proudly dragging a deer leg in his jaws—Shadow had nearly lost it.

  Worse still was when idiot had dropped the bloodied thing at his feet, eyes bright and eager, and tried to “feed” it to him. Nudged it toward his mouth like some demented, overgrown fledgling, and Shadow had hurled it across the yard in disgust.

  The Werehog had only laughed, tongue lolling, tail thumping the dirt. “Playing hard to get, huh?” he’d teased, like they were just flirting across a bar and not surrounded by bone shards and half-eaten ribs.

  Hard to get.

 Like prey.

 And yet…

  He remembered how idiot had torn through six dogs for him. How his fur had fluffed up when Shadow got too close to the fence, like he couldn’t decide whether to nuzzle him or mark him. Like he didn’t know the difference between wanting to protect something and wanting to own it.

 And maybe that was the worst part: that for all the blood, for all the violence, Sonic didn’t look at him like he wanted to hurt him.

 He looked like he wanted to keep him.

Chapter Text

  It started with the hay.

  Not the usual scratch of dry stalks against his back, or the familiar clump of it tangled beneath his side—but how it lay. Too bunched near his flanks, uneven, like someone had carelessly shoved handfuls where they didn’t belong. Too sparse beneath his hips, leaving cold gaps where warmth should have pressed through. The wrong weight in all the wrong places.

 And worse, it held scent.

  His scent.

 Not the dry musk of exertion, the faint metallic copper of blood dried into his fur, but something new. Something sharp, almost electric. Sweet, too—like the tang of wild berries crushed underfoot or the crisp bite of unripe fruit.

 It clung to the straw where he’d lain, soaked in thick and slow like oil soaking into fabric—especially where his thighs had pressed close together. When he stood, he could still feel it. Heavy and humid between his legs, as if the air itself had thickened there. A lingering wetness that wasn’t sweat, not exactly—something older, rawer.

  The kind of scent that didn’t fade with distance.

  His ears burned. His tail flicked sharply with every gust of wind or shift in weight, an uncontrollable twitch that betrayed the tension simmering beneath his skin. His whole body prickled—inside and out—like a live wire just beneath the surface, electric and raw.

 There was a dull ache low in his gut, a restless fullness that pulsed steadily, vague and demanding all at once. It made him shift his hips with every step, a subtle squeeze of his knees when he stood still, as if trying to hold himself together.

 He’d bathed in saltwater. Twice. Rubbed his fur raw with ash and crushed bark, desperate to scrub the feeling away.

 Nothing helped.

 This wasn’t the kind of itch that could be washed clean or scrubbed out.

 He shoved his face deep into the straw and groaned—muffled, furious. “Fantastic,” he muttered, voice dry as tinder. The scent only grew stronger—his own, ripe and clinging to the earth beneath him, tangled with the sharp tang of frustration and something darker, more hungry.

 The sheep noticed first. They shuffled uneasily in their pen, low bleats trembling like warnings, casting wide, wary eyes toward him. The chickens were worse. Nervous, twitching little bodies, feathers fluffed and ruffled with every twitch of his muscles. Their clucks were sharp, sharp enough to cut through the morning stillness, uncertain and high-pitched—like they didn’t recognize the shape looming near their coop anymore.

 He ignored them all.

  His instincts roared louder with every passing minutes—greedy, relentless, dragging a fevered heat deep inside him. It burned through his veins, making his fur prick with restless energy. He felt swollen, tight and aching in ways that made his thighs press together without thought, slickness pulsing low and wet between his legs, a cruel mockery of control.

  It kept coming, whether he wanted it or not.

  This wasn’t new. He knew how it worked. If he didn’t take care of it, everything would spiral fast. His skin would itch like it was on fire. His thoughts would blur and fray. Worse than rut, worse than a goat's heat—it was messier, more volatile. Half hedgehog meant half nothing made sense.

 And the worst part?

  He didn’t want some herd goat—the calm, musky male with patient eyes and rounded horns who’d nuzzle him gently and wait for permission, soft bleats and quiet courtship trailing behind.

 No.

 He wanted the feral bastard who left clawed-up tree trunks in his wake. The one who tore hounds apart like wet paper and still had the audacity to wag his tail afterward, like it was all some game. The one who brought him headless rabbits and dropped them like gifts, tongue lolling, blue fur slicked with blood and rain.

 Gods help him, he wanted Sonic.

  Every movement rubbed the ache in deeper. Every accidental brush of thigh against thigh smeared heat through him like oil spreading slow and sticky. The slick wasn’t stopping; it soaked his inner fur, clung thick and stubborn between his legs, slick and unwilling to fade. He felt open—raw and exposed all the time—as if the wind could pick up on him, as if the forest itself knew and whispered his secret in rustling leaves and shifting shadows.

  He didn’t want to go inside. The walls closed in too tight, thickening the air until every pulse and throb in his body screamed in his ears. So he stayed behind the barn, fingers curled tight around the rough grain of a fence post, head bowed low, tail flicking wildly behind him like a live wire. His claws bit into the wood, digging tiny grooves. His jaw ached from the tension, clenched so tight his teeth ground against each other.

“Don’t snap the beam,” a voice said nearby—mild, flat, unhurried.

 Shadow didn’t bother to lift his head. “Go away.”

 Stone didn’t go away.

  He came closer with measured steps, soft and steady, careful not to startle—like someone who knew how to move around wild animals without pushing too hard or too fast. Which, by all accounts, he had. Stopping a few feet off, he set something down with a quiet thunk. A battered clay jar, its lid sealed tight with cracked wax. From the opening, a faint scent curled up—cool and sharp, layered with crushed herbs and a crisp bite of mint, undercut by something bitter, almost medicinal.

“For the itching,” he said, hands folded neatly behind his back, eyes staring off beyond the horizon as if it held answers. “Should take the edge off. A little.”

 Shadow finally looked up—fur matted and rough, eyes burning bright with exhaustion, breathing uneven and shallow. “You think salve is going to fix this?” His voice was low, edged with bitter disbelief.

“No,” Stone said plainly, his tone calm and steady. “But it’s better than you chewing your own tail off.”

 Silence stretched between them like a thin thread pulled tight. Somewhere high in the branches, a bird trilled—a brief, fragile note that hung in the still air. The wind shifted, stirring the pine needles and carrying a faint hint of something wild and familiar. Shadow shifted with it, biting the inside of his cheek to keep from groaning. The rush of scent and sensation hit him again, sharp and overwhelming—thick with frustration and a quiet hunger that wouldn’t be denied.

 Stone’s voice came again, softer this time, almost careful. “I’m not judging you. But if you don’t want him to know…” He glanced sidelong, his gaze flicking to the dark edges of the forest.

  Shadow didn’t know Stone knew about Sonic. It was hard not to notice—the blood stained with blue strands, the unmistakable odor that idiot left behind like a calling card. Especially since the Werehog kept coming around here, dragging trouble in his wake. And Stone hadn’t shown any sign of hostility—considering how many cattle Sonic tore through, that was surprising.

“Stay downwind,” Stone finished quietly, as if that small piece of advice could keep the chaos at bay.

  Shadow’s gaze dropped to the jar of salve resting on the dirt. He couldn’t even look at it without feeling more humiliated. The scent of it was too clean, too logical. It was something you gave to a rash, not to a creature that couldn’t walk without feeling slick drip down his thighs. Then he looked past it, into the dense forest shadows. Then back at the jar.

  Finally, his shoulders sagged and he sank to a crouch with a shudder, muttering, “Fuck.”

“Exactly what you shouldn’t be doing right now,” Stone said lightly, already turning away, his footsteps soft on the earth.

  Shadow stayed crouched for a long moment, fingers digging into the dirt, trying to steady the restless storm inside him. The sharp bite of the salve’s scent hung in the air, mingling with the earth and pine and something faintly metallic—like the sharp edge of tension he couldn’t shake. He could feel Stone’s eyes on him even as the man moved away, quiet and steady, leaving him alone with the weight of everything that wouldn’t settle.

  The forest around him seemed to pulse, alive with unseen things—the rustle of leaves, the snap of a twig somewhere distant, the soft brush of wind stirring the shadows. It pressed in, heavy and suffocating. His breath came in short bursts, chest tight like a cage. Every step hurt, every movement reminded him of the ache pooling low inside—throbbing, demanding. The air felt thick, sticky against his fur.

  He couldn’t stay out here. Not like this. Not with the world watching, the scent trailing like a beacon.

  He forced himself up, shaking, legs trembling beneath him as he moved toward the barn. The door groaned softly as he pushed it open, the cool dimness inside like a balm against the heat and light. He ducked into the loft above the barn—dusty, shadowed, almost forgotten. The ladder creaked beneath his weight, and he nearly missed the last rung from how much his body trembled.

  Heat flared behind his eyes, and not from shame.

  He dragged himself into the corner, wedging his aching body between old sacks and a pile of brittle hay. The air here was cooler, the shadows deeper—quieter, almost reverent. And worst of all, it smelled like him.

  All his estrus—four times, to be exact. Four full cycles on this damned farm. And every single time, it ended the same way: feverish and aching, caught in the slow burn of want and frustration. Too proud to ask for help, too miserable to move.

  The goats had never even looked at him the right way. Whether it was instinct, or scent, or the fact that he wasn’t fully one of them, they’d turn their broad, empty-eyed heads away like he didn’t exist at all. Like he was nothing more than a shadow cast by the afternoon sun.

  Once, desperate enough to try anything, he’d cornered one—the biggest, smuggest rutting buck with a thick neck and dull eyes. He crouched low, tail trembling with nerves he couldn’t hide, baring his teeth in a snarl that wasn’t quite his own. Offered himself up, raw and trembling. The white goat sniffed him once. Blinked stupidly. And then walked away.

 The second time, he didn’t even try.

 He’d stayed hidden, swallowing the ache and the humiliation. Let the fever burn through him like wildfire, alone in the dark.

  The third time, he’d tried everything.

  Changed his scent, rolling thickly in ash and dry dirt until his fur was caked and rough. Scrubbed himself raw with crushed bark and salt, hoping the sting would dull the desperate need clawing beneath his skin. He’d begged Stone for something stronger—anything to take the edge off—but the man only offered the battered jar of herbal salve and a quiet warning.

  He remembered that night in this very loft, curling up tight on the hay, burying his face deep inside a torn feed sack to muffle the sounds he couldn’t stop making—whispers and groans that felt like betrayals in the cold silence.

  By the fourth time, he was used to it. Not immune—never immune—but used to the endless ache, the way it pulsed and burned like an open wound.

  He’d learned to lie perfectly still, becoming a statue of quiet restraint. Learned how to breathe shallow and slow, careful not to let the slick gather and soak deeper than necessary. Learned to bite the inside of his cheek so hard it bled, just to have something else to feel besides the raw, relentless heat.

 But this time?

  This time was worse. Because he wasn’t just failing to get relief—he wanted someone.

  The damn menace who didn’t even know what he was doing, who rolled around in the dirt and looked at him like he was a treasure, not a mistake.

  Shadow curled tighter into himself, fists clenched deep in the scratchy hay, breath hitching and shallow as if even inhaling too deeply might set something loose. He told himself he was just resting—just cooling down, just waiting it out. The loft’s shadows softened the sharp edges of the afternoon light, and the faint scent of old straw dulled the sharpness of the heat simmering beneath his skin. The hay cradled his aching muscles, though its roughness prickled his sensitive fur like a thousand tiny needles.

  He lay flat on his side, hooves splayed out like he’d been struck down, tail limp across his thigh. But his thighs tensed without thought, clenching like a vise. The heat between them rose steadily, swelling like an unstoppable tide, building a pressure that refused release. The slick didn’t ease; if anything, it thickened—heavy and sticky—spreading with every shallow, careful shift of his hips. It matted the soft fur along his inner legs, made his head spin with the dull rush of overstimulation.

 He clenched his jaw hard, teeth grinding, trying not to pant or whimper.

 It didn’t help.

  His body was demanding. The ache in his gut had sharpened into something primal, a maddening pulse that throbbed in time with his heartbeat. His lower stomach felt swollen, pulled tight as if invisible strings tugged him from within. His hole clenched desperately, searching for something—anything—to fill the emptiness.

  It was in his mind, too. A restless itch scratching behind his eyes, a rising noise that buzzed and crackled like static, like a howl buried so deep it could only twist and writhe inside without ever breaking free. His thoughts splintered, fracturing faster than he could gather them—each shard sharper than the last. Fantasy took hold relentlessly, throwing up hot, jagged images he couldn’t push away: someone’s wide, calloused palm—calloused but gentle—dreaming across his chest, tracing lazy, possessive patterns over wet fur. Fingers ghosting over heated skin, claws barely grazing, sharp and teasing like whispered promises. The rough weight of muscle pressing close, the scent of wild earth and distant rain curling around him like a slow, smoldering fire. A low growl humming just beneath the surface, a breath hot against his neck, rough and tender all at once.

 But always just out of reach.

  He curled tighter onto his side, folding himself small like he could fold the ache away. His hands clenched so hard the dry hay beneath cracked and snapped in tiny, sharp bursts. His knees drew up close, a fragile shield against the relentless thrum inside him, desperate to cage the storm that threatened to spill free. His tail twitched once—a quick, sharp flick—then fell heavy and still.

  A sound slipped past his lips. Small. Stifled. Pitiful.

 No one heard it. But he did.

 And that alone was enough to fracture the last brittle shard of his restraint.

  He pressed his face into the crook of his elbow, muffling the silent, breathless sobs that shook his chest. Each quiet gasp trembled through him like a whispered confession, leaving salt bitter on his tongue and tears burning behind closed lids.

 Because it wasn't fair.

 Because he didn’t want just anyone.

  Because he wanted, and wanting was worse than anything else.

 He dug his claws deep into the hay, trembling so badly his teeth chattered against each other like brittle stones.

 He didn’t want to be touched.

 But he also didn’t want to be alone.

***

  The tears didn’t help.

  Shadow had hoped they might — some kind of release, an emotional purge to burn the ache away, leave him hollow and numb. But all they did was make his nose stuffy, his face damp and raw. The pressure in his gut only grew, pulsing hotter, thicker. His body betrayed him like a traitor; it responded not with pain or punishment but with desperate need. His hole clenched again, fluttering on instinct, and a fresh rush of slick soaked the hay beneath him—humiliating in its brutal honesty.

  He curled tighter, thighs pressed firmly together, one hand clenched into a fist, gripping the coarse fur just above his mound. Not quite able to reach where he wanted, and this cramped, curled position kept his pussy frustratingly out of reach—but holding that patch of fur gave him something solid to cling to. A single point of contact that wasn’t searing heat or restless hunger.

  The loft was still and quiet except for the ragged rhythm of his panting breaths and the soft, distant rattle of a bird hopping nervously across the weathered roof above. His scent hung heavy in the stagnant air—overripe and thick, impossible to ignore. It clung like a dense fog, swirling with every breath, clouding his head and making his thoughts tumble and blur.

  Then, muffled and distant, like footsteps through cotton wool, he heard someone coming. Shadow didn’t lift his head. Didn’t speak. He just focused on breathing—slow, shallow breaths—trying to ride out the sick twist curling low in his stomach as the steps slowed and stopped near the ladder.

“I’m not coming up,” the voice said quietly, and for a moment, he barely recognized it—Stone’s calm, steady tone. “You don’t need an audience.”

  Shadow swallowed hard, his throat tight and raw. His claws had dug sharp grooves into the wood beneath him, white at the tips from the pressure.

 After a long pause, the voice came again, softer this time: “I brought water.”

 Another pause, the faint scrape of something shifting in the silence.

“And a salt cloth.”

  Shadow said nothing. Couldn’t. His voice was buried somewhere deep beneath a tangled mess of shame, aching need, and the thick, helpless scent that clung to him like a second skin—heavy, inescapable.

 Stone’s next words came softer, gentler, threading through the quiet like a lifeline. “You’re not weak, you know.”

  The words pierced deeper than they should have, sinking past his defenses and stirring something raw beneath the surface. He pressed his burning face into the crook of his arm again, jaw clenched so tight it ached. The rough hay beneath him was damp now—sticky, warm against his fur—and he could feel the slight give as it absorbed his heat and the remnants of tears. His whole body trembled—not from cold, but from tension, from want, from despair wrapped tight around his ribs like a vise.

“I’ll check back later,” Stone murmured, voice low, steady. Then, after a careful breath, even more gently: “If it gets worse, you should call him.”

  Shadow squeezed his eyes shut, his chest aching with the weight of the suggestion. His thighs clenched involuntarily as unwanted images flickered unbidden through his mind—dark blue fur, strong hands gripping him, pushing him deeper into the hay, holding him firmly beneath their weight and—

 He didn’t want to hear that—not from him.

  The footsteps retreated then, slow and quiet. The ladder creaked once beneath Stone’s careful weight, and then silence returned, thick and heavy. Shadow lay still, the only sound his shallow breathing, the distant rustle of wind threading through the barn’s cracked boards, and the relentless pounding of his own heart, knowing that if he didn’t do something, he’d fall apart by nightfall.

 And the worst part was: a voice in him wanted to call.

***

  He didn’t remember falling asleep—only the tight curl of his body against the rough hay, the raw hitch of his breath fogging the cold air, and the pulse of heat deep inside him, like his spine had melted and pooled beneath his skin. His muscles trembled themselves into silence, a slow surrender after days of tension. His eyelids burned behind their lids, heavy and unwilling.

  Warmth pressed down on him, thick and suffocating like a blanket soaked in his own scent—earthy, musky, and stubborn. It clung to his fur and filled the air, humid and heavy with the smell of sweat and old wood. A dull ache throbbed deep in his hips and belly, distant and dull, as if the barn itself had absorbed the pain and held it inside its cracked beams.

 And then—movement.

  Subtle at first. A shift in the stillness, almost too slight to notice—like the difference between silence and a held breath. Shadow’s ears twitched before his mind fully caught up, his body reacting on instinct. His nostrils flared, tongue pressing to the roof of his mouth, tasting dryness and tension as a new scent sliced through the musty air.

 Pine needles, crisp and sharp, crushed underfoot.

Blood.

  Faint, but unmistakably fresh. It wrapped around him like cold fingers tightening on his throat—sharp and wild, pulling at something deep inside. Him.

  Shadow didn’t need to lift his head. He knew exactly who it was.

 Footsteps followed—soft, padded, deliberate. The faint, familiar creak of hay flattening beneath heavy paws whispered through the still air. Then came the voice, low and rough, threaded with curiosity and half-teasing mischief: “…You smell different.”

  Shadow exhaled quietly, slow and controlled. That voice—charming, yet raw and ragged—twisted something tight inside him, a sharp pull at nerves he tried hard to ignore. “Say that again,” he muttered without looking up, voice low and dangerous, “and I’ll ram your kneecaps.”

 A pause. Then a low, rumbling snort—half laugh, half breath expelled in amusement. “You would,” the voice said, thick with pride and something almost tender. “Even like this.”

  Shadow huffed, a sharp breath that rattled softly in his chest, but he didn’t—or couldn’t—raise his head. His horns were tangled in coarse strands of hay, knotted tightly enough to hold him stubbornly pinned. The rough fibers scratched against his dark fur, biting at his skin with every small movement. His body was tangled, half-trapped beneath a collapsing pile of hay bales that had shifted when he’d fallen, pressing heavy and unmoving against his back. Even the smallest attempt to shift a hoof sent a jolt of ache through his joints, and his muscles trembled with the effort.

  Yet somehow, despite the weight, the discomfort, and the maddening heat that soaked into his skin, he still clutched the blue idiot beside him—the reckless, grinning dog who smelled like pine and blood and something dangerously close to home. He wanted to push Sonic away, yes. He wanted to spread his hips and take what he needed without the tangled mess holding him back. But no matter how much the urge gnawed at him, the stubborn grip of that wool and straw refused to loosen.

“I’m not ‘like’ anything,” he growled, voice low and thick with irritation.

“Sure,” the stepped closer, unbothered by the mess, the heat, or s taut silence. “You’re totally normal. Just up here bathing yourself like a feral cat in a hay sauna.”

 Pale lips pressed into a thin line. “Go away.”

“Can’t. You smell driving me nuts.”

  He finally forced himself to raise his head, the motion slow and reluctant. As he lifted, a handful of brittle straw and tangled hay loosened from the thick knots around his horns, drifting down like dry golden rain, settling softly onto the dusty floor beneath him. Some strands caught on the edges of his fur, scratching lightly as they fell away, the faint rustle breaking the stillness.

  Blinking against the dim light filtering through cracks in the loft’s weathered boards, Shadow’s eyes landed on Werehog crouching a few paces away. The larger figure was motionless, muscles coiled and ready, but there was no hint of threat in his stance. His ears were pricked forward, alert—not to danger, but with an intensity that held something deeper. His glowing eyes, faint and molten in the dusky shadows, bore into Shadow with quiet certainty. The kind of look that said I could break everything here but I won’t. Not unless someone touches you.

 Shadow narrowed his own. “Then stop sniffing.”

 Stupid smile stretched wide—too wide—teeth flashing like a silent dare. “You make that sound like an option.”

  Shadow bristled, the taut tension coiling up his shoulders like a drawn bowstring. “Don’t get ideas.”

“I’m not getting ideas,” the other said, voice light and teasing, but then paused—the grin flickering, faltering just a fraction. “…Okay, maybe a few.” His tail thumped once against the hay-strewn floor, the soft thump echoing in the quiet barn loft like a heartbeat. His dark blue fur was still tousled and wild, every quill seemingly alive with restless energy. But his white paws caught red eye—unusually clean, almost untouched by dirt or blood. Maybe he hadn’t been out hunting yet.

 The thought, simple and unexpected, squeezed tight around Shadow’s ribs, twisting painfully. The idiot had come to him first—before food, before the chase, before everything else.

 And that realization made his insides clench.

  Sonic’s grin didn’t waver, eyes glinting with mischief as he leaned closer, the warmth of his breath brushing against pale cheek like a teasing flame. The faint heat of that near, forbidden touch sent a shiver racing down black spine—part desire, part warning—making his whole body tighten with a mix of want and restraint.

“You missed me?”

  The words hung in the thick, dusty air, soft and loaded—half question, half challenge.

  Shadow’s reply came too fast, clipped and sharp. “No.”

  But even as he said it, his throat tightened. His heart didn’t quite agree.

  Sonic’s gaze flicked over him, sharp and unrelenting. “You look flushed.”

  Shadow rolled his eyes, a dry, bitter sound escaping. “I’m literally a goat. We run warm.”

  Sonic’s tail flicked impatiently against the wooden floor, each soft thump a silent drumbeat that pulsed through Shadow’s veins. The stale barn air felt heavier, charged, as if every breath they drew was laced with the scent of tension and unspoken promises. He shifted slightly, muscles coiling beneath fur that prickled with heat and anticipation. The stray strands of hay clung stubbornly to his coat, a tactile reminder of his tangled, restrained state.

  Green eyes darkened, the playful spark giving way to something deeper—hungry, daring, utterly certain.

“Good,” he whispered. “Because I’m not going anywhere.”

Chapter Text

“Because I’m not going anywhere.”

 Shadow’s jaw tightened, the muscle beneath his fur jumping once, but he didn’t snap back this time, didn’t tell Sonic to get out, or growl, or threaten to bite. His silence—heavy, stubborn, and a touch uncertain—was answer enough, and the other seemed to read it instantly, like he had been waiting for that exact kind of hesitation.

  The Werehog shifted his weight, closing the distance by slow degrees. Every movement was careful, as if he were testing the air for cracks, but still undeniably deliberate—predatory in that quiet, confident way that made his pulse strike harder. The old wooden boards beneath Sonic’s paws let out a soft groan under the weight, the sound swallowed almost immediately by the warm, hay-scented air of the barn.

  Shadow forced himself not to lean away, even as instinct whispered that closeness was a risk, his horns still had bits of straw tangled at the base—an irritating itch he could ignore, but not the reason his fur prickled. What made him restless was everything else: the proximity, the heat rolling off Sonic like a furnace, the feeling of being watched too closely, too knowingly, by someone who didn’t flinch.

  Sonic crouched lower, claws scraping faintly against the wood in a slow, dragging sound that made black ears flick involuntarily. His head tilted, his gaze pinned Shadow as though the world had narrowed to nothing but the two of them, and when he spoke, his voice had dropped into something softer, intimate in a way that felt almost unfair.

“You’re burning up,” he said, amusement curling around the words like smoke. “Don’t tell me that’s normal too.”

  Shadow’s breath caught before he managed to force it out through his nose in a sharp, controlled exhale. Still, his pulse beat hard at his throat—heavy, undeniable, traitorous. “You’re imagining things,” he said, but the tightness in his voice betrayed him, softer at the edges than it should’ve been.

“Mm.” Sonic leaned in, slow enough that Shadow could have stopped him, but didn’t, and the tip of his muzzle brushed lightly against Shadow’s cheek, barely a touch, but warm and startlingly gentle. His words rumbled low against black fur, deep enough to be felt more than heard. “Or maybe you’re just really bad at hiding.”

  The barn seemed to shrink around them, the air thickening with dust motes that drifted lazily in the fractured light spilling down from the rafters. Every sound outside—the distant flutter of wings, the soft cluck of a settling hen, the wind nudging the loose boards—faded into nothing, all that remained was the steady thump of Sonic’s tail against the floor and the ragged, uneven rhythm of Shadow’s heartbeat.

  Sonic shifted again, closer still, until the massive weight of his presence crowded out what little stale air the barn held, his fur radiated heat, carrying the scent of pine sap, dark soil, dried blood, and something distinctly his—a little overwhelming, impossible to ignore, and Shadow’s ears pinned back sharply, his chest rising with a quick inhale he couldn’t disguise. The heat inside him was building, rolling through him in waves he didn’t know how to steady, his hips giving a small, restless shift he didn’t mean to make, every thought in his head slipping sideways.

  Sonic’s grin crooked, warm at one edge, sharp at the other. “Twist all you want,” he murmured, voice brushing the shell of Shadow’s ear like a touch. “You’re still mine right now.”

  Shadow bristled at the claim, the familiar spark of indignation lighting in his chest, but when Sonic’s paw slid low, not touching, just hovering close enough that the heat of it ghosted across his fur, the protest snagged in his throat, his breath hitched, shoulders tensing, not from resistance. Not really.

  Sonic leaned in, his hulking shadow swallowing Shadow whole, breath hot against his back and rolling down his spine in thick, suffocating waves. One clawed hand settled on his hip—possessive, confident, so sure of him that Shadow’s knees nearly buckled under the weight of that touch alone. And then Sonic chuckled, a rough, feral sound edged with something unexpectedly warm, almost affectionate, curling around black spine like a slow, deliberate stroke.

 The Werehog dipped closer, muzzle brushing the base of Shadow’s horn in a nuzzle that hovered between mockery and tenderness, a claiming touch that left Shadow’s breath breaking in shallow, desperate shivers.

“That’s it,” Sonic rumbled, voice low and thick with satisfaction, claws tightening on Shadow’s hip as he angled him—subtly, reverently, like he was aligning something meant to fit. “Don’t fight it.”

He wasn’t ready.

 He would never be ready for something like this.

 The heat throbbed through him—deep, molten, unrelenting. His hole flexed helplessly, fluttering with need, leaking steadily into the hay that crinkled beneath him in damp, sticky patches. The beast rumbled—low, deep, pleased in a way that vibrated through Shadow’s bones and made his breath break on a helpless gasp.

 Shadow’s thoughts fractured, splintering under the raw truth blooming in his chest: the werehog was going to ruin him. Break him open. Stretch him until his own limits gave way, until there was nothing left but slick and sound and the long, unending stretch of him being filled. Until Shadow’s body forgot where he ended and the beast began.

 He wanted to fight.

 He wanted to run.

 He wanted to stay.

  His fingers dug into the hay, into boards, into anything grounding, but the world kept spinning around that unbearable throb of need in his belly, and Sonic’s voice dipped lower, breath ghosting across pale cheek, words vibrating in the narrow space between them with unbearable promise.

“Let me get you ready.”

  He pressed the flat of his paw just under Shadow’s belly, claws grazing lightly, not enough to hurt, only to remind him of who held the control here. And yet, in the warmth of that rough touch, there was something steady. Cruel, yes. Inappropriate. Animalistic. But there was no malice—only intention, only hunger, only an awful, devastating patience.

  Sonic shifted his weight, leaning over him with slow, inevitable gravity, paw sliding lower until the pads of his fingers brushed against the soaked fur between Shadow’s thighs. The Werehog moved slowly, deliberately careful, claws lifted so they wouldn’t nick, circled instead of pressing in, dragging the rough warmth of his paw against dripping folds, mapping him, tasting him with touch, learning the exact shape of his need.

  The touch made Shadow’s whole body jolt, a sharp, electric pulse that ripped through him and left his breath hanging in the air in a broken gasp, but it wasn’t enough, not even close. The slick sound of Sonic’s paw moving against him was humiliatingly loud in the hay-strewn loft, each wet stroke a reminder of how prepared he already was, how shamelessly his body had opened for this, how thoroughly it had betrayed him long before the other ever touched him.

  Sonic’s grin widened, cruel in its tenderness, fangs gleaming faintly in the dim light. “Messy,” he murmured, voice low and pleased, almost fond in its mockery. “You’ve been leaking all over the hay.” His muzzle brushed the back of Shadow’s shoulder, breath hot enough to make black fur prickle. ”Anyone could smell you.”

 Shadow’s lips peeled back in a snarl, his chest heaving with a blend of humiliation, want, and furious heat. “Shut up.”

  The other only chuckled, slow and deep, the sound rolling through his ribcage and into Shadow’s back. He pressed his broad paw more firmly against him—but still refused to push deeper. Instead his thumb dragged along the swollen edge, teasing, circling, dipping just enough to make Shadow’s thighs twitch violently before withdrawing again. Always too careful. Always maddeningly restrained. Always holding back the one thing his body was begging for, and Shadow bit down on a groan, his hips rocking forward despite himself, a helpless plea in the motion he couldn’t choke down.

  Sonic rumbled approvingly behind him, muzzle brushing his neck again, breath dark and warm and unbearably close. “Want more?” he asked, voice thick with satisfaction—already knowing the answer.

  Shadow’s hips jerked forward on instinct, seeking friction, seeking anything to ease the blistering ache inside him, but Sonic only shifted his weight back with a slow, infuriating precision, denying him the contact he so desperately chased, and Shadow gritted his teeth, breath breaking into ragged, uneven gasps as the heat in his belly coiled tighter and tighter, a knot of molten need that refused to dissipate. Slickness poured from him, humiliating in its abundance, soaking the fur between his thighs, warm and thick and betraying.

“Stop—” Shadow growled, the word ripping out of him as if dragged by claws. His voice cracked under the weight of both rage and want. “If you’re going to— then do it! Just—” But the last of the sentence dissolved into a sharp gasp as Sonic’s thumb brushed him again.

  The dark blue ears flicked at the sound of his voice breaking, the movement small but unmistakably attentive, and for a second, the werehog simply watched him, green eyes glowing faintly in the low light, that sharp grin still curling at his muzzle but softened, curved with something that almost resembled fondness. Then he leaned down, slow, deliberate, muzzle grazing the edge of Shadow’s ear, breath hot and heavy enough to make his whole spine arch.

“Oh, I will,” he promised, voice thick with amusement, thick with satisfaction, his paw finally pressed just enough to make Shadow’s hips grind helplessly against it, a movement so natural it burned with shame. “But not until you admit you want it.”

 Every careful graze of other’s paw, every maddening drag of rough pads skimming his folds, only made everything worse. His claws were kept lifted away with lethal, infuriating restraint like a mercy, but not a mercy at all. Shadow wasn’t being taken, wasn’t being ravaged or overpowered. He was being toyed with, teased like a trembling, precious, fragile thing, touched with a patience that felt like punishment. When all he wanted—needed—was to be split open, filled, ruined completely, torn apart by something that could finally match the intensity tearing him up inside.

“Admit it,” Sonic murmured again, thumb circling slow, dragging the slickness that dripped freely now, spreading it with a maddening tenderness. His voice held that rough velvet edge, equal parts teasing, cruel, and somehow almost gentle in its inevitability. “Say you want me.”

 The black goat snarled, whole body straining against the hay that pinned his horns, against the heat burning through his belly, dragging him lower and lower into a need too deep to claw his way out of. His hips bucked against other’s paw, but still scum only gave him the edge, never the plunge.

“I’ll tear your throat out,” Shadow hissed through his teeth, but the threat cracked at the edges, thin and raw and trembling with need.

  Sonic only laughed, low and wolfish, the sound vibrating through his chest as he leaned down further. His breath fanned over Shadow’s pulse, and then the Werehog dragged his tongue hot and slow along the curve of Shadow’s throat, savoring every trembling inch.

“Not before I tear you apart first,” he growled, voice dark and thick with promise, his paw finally sliding lower, pushing the little goat towards him.

  Sonic’s cock was already stirring—barely sheathed, massive, obscene. Thick enough to split him, heavy with need, it pressed insistently against the fur of his thigh as he crouched behind him. The beast’s breath rolled over his back in slow, molten waves, each exhale making that monstrous length swell further, the flushed knot at its base pulsing with heat. Precum spilled in fat, viscous drops, drooling from the tip in thick strands that pattered onto the dusty loft floor and sizzled like acid biting into wood, every hiss made black spine jolt. It hung there like a threat carved from raw hunger, a promise of ruin and heat and nothing gentle.

  The Werehog made no attempt to hide it—if anything, he shifted deliberately, slowly, intentionally, until Shadow could feel the heat without even touching him, a furnace hovering just shy of contact. He wanted Shadow to notice. Wanted him to watch the way it pushed forward, straining, greedy.

 And Shadow did.

 His pupils blown wide, chest tight, breath unsteady, lips pulled into a thin line of denial, but his hips betrayed him with the faintest roll, a tiny, instinctive arch of want he couldn’t suppress. His pussy clenched, slick and aching, messy, weeping for more, desperate to be stretched, consumed, undone, welcoming what his voice begged against.

 He was a goat in heat, tangled in hay, and he was a whore for that monstrous thing.

  His breath hitched as Sonic pressed closer, heat radiating off him in unbearable waves. The raw, feral musk of the Werehog hit his senses—iron-tinged, sharp, consuming, and every nerve in his body screamed for what was coming, even as another part recoiled at the impossibility of it.

  Shadow was built small, compact. His pussy, even in heat, was tight and guarded, a narrow slit softened only by the waves of mucus his body forced out to ready him. It glistened, folds swollen and flushed, slick pooling beneath him, the biology of prey screaming for seed while his mind snarled for control.

  Above him, that cock loomed—massive, swollen, a beast in its own right, thick veins ran along the shaft, broad enough to make his folds twitch in dread and hunger alike. The blunt head leaked steadily, strands of viscous fluid hanging like molten rope before snapping off, spattering his thigh. And the knot at its base was the worst: swollen hard, obscene, already threatening a stretch Shadow wasn’t sure his body could endure.

 Sonic brushed the dripping head against him, smearing slickness over folds already soaked, and Shadow’s slit flexed at the touch, spasming like it wanted to swallow him whole while every cell in his body screamed that it couldn’t. That it wasn’t built for this. Goat hips weren’t built for this—narrow, delicate, made for small, quick breeding. Not this… wolf-sized monster tearing into him with every thrust. The little goat’s fingers dug into the hay, panting, trembling, caught between jerking upward for more and scrambling away from the overwhelming heat pressed against him.

 It didn’t matter, his body betrayed him anyway— folds softened, parted, slick pouring free in messy strings as instinct tried to prepare him for a mate so far beyond what his species should endure.

“Stop… please…” But the words were a lie, he wanted, more than anything, for idiot to push past the restraint, past the torment, past the teasing into something unbearable.

  Sonic’s low chuckle vibrated against his spine. “Please… what?” he rasped, dragging the fat, dripping head through Shadow’s slick seam again, coating every trembling ridge with more of that molten, wolfish fluid. “Say it. Tell me you need it.”

  Shadow moaned, low and raw, horns scraping the floorboards above him as his head arched back. His pussy clenched at nothing, dripping more with every second of torture, ears flattened, and treacherous lips peeling back in a mix of rage, need, and helpless craving. “I— I want you,” he gasped, voice cracking, tiny compared to the massive creature above him. “I want you— just— fuck—”

  The sound made Sonic grin wider. “That’s better,” he rumbled, voice deep, rolling through Shadow like a shiver of heat. “Good. So good. I’ll make sure you earn it.”

 His claws tightened around Shadow’s hips, easily spanning the small curves, holding him in place—prey braced for a predator.

 The first push was ruin.

  Sonic’s cockhead—thick, swollen, biologically designed to lock a mate in place—pressed against Shadow’s entrance, and the difference in size was obscene. A wolf’s breeding organ forcing itself into a creature half his mass, and his slit seized hard, every instinct screaming too big, too big, too big, but Sonic pushed anyway.

  The pressure built, brutal and unrelenting, smearing slick across trembling flesh. Shadow felt the ring of muscle strain—thin, delicate, never meant for this diameter. His pussy tried to resist, tried to hold, but the slick overflowed; his heat betrayed him completely, and the swollen rim finally gave way with a wet, tearing pop.

 The goat cried out, half-snarl, half-moan, his body arched, long hooves trembling violently as the blunt head forced its way inside. His slit stretched impossibly wide, folds pulled back around the thick intrusion. Inside, his tight goat walls clung desperately, pulsing in frantic spasms that tried to milk and repel at the same time—an animal response to something too big to fight. This monster radiated warmth like a living furnace, throbbing with heavy pulses that made his inner flesh ripple and seize uncontrollably.

“S–Sonic— it’s— f-fuck— too much—” he sobbed.

“Good,” Sonic growled, leaning over him, breath hot and wild. His hips pushed another fraction deeper, forcing tight ridged walls to stretch around the next impossible width. “Your body’s trying to survive me. Let it.”

 Shadow’s walls fluttered wildly around the intrusion, clenching and pulling, betraying him with every desperate, needy spasm, trying to accommodate something far beyond what nature intended. His breath shattered in his throat, escaping as a broken, trembling whine he couldn’t swallow. He felt split around the swollen head alone, stretched to his limit, and the other hadn’t even begun to push.

  Sonic exhaled a low, hungry growl that vibrated straight through Shadow’s spine. “Look at you,” he murmured, voice thick with dark, feral satisfaction, his claws tightened around Shadow’s hips, thumbs prying him open, forcing the trembling entrance to bare itself around the obscene swell wedged at the threshold of his tiny slit. “You take the tip and you’re already shaking.”

“S–shut up,” Shadow hissed, but it came out weak, breathless, soaked in heat and humiliation.

  The big beast only pushed a fraction deeper, and Shadow screamed, body jerked forward in pure instinctive recoil, but Sonic barely had to flex his grip to keep him pinned—mounted—opened. His pussy spasmed violently around the intrusion, clamping and milking despite the pain, dragging on the massive head as if trying to pull it in even while his claws tore trenches into the hay.

“There it is,” Sonic rumbled, leaning over him, breath blazing against his neck. “That pretty little scream.”

  He rolled his hips the slightest amount, slow, grinding pressure that forced Shadow’s inner ridges to stretch around the thickest part of the head, and Shadow choked on a sob, body shaking so hard his hooves scrabbled uselessly against the floor.

“You want more of that, don’t you?”

 Shadow shook his head, but his body betrayed him instantly, greedy walls sucking at the invading thickness, heat-pulse tightening, slick gushing out in a helpless spill when his thighs trembled so violently the hay beneath him rustled like dry grass in a storm.

 Sonic laughed softly, darkly. “Liar.”

 His grip tightened, and then he pushed again, slow, unyielding, splitting him open on every agonizing millimeter of thick, pulsing cock, and Shadow felt every millimeter force him wider, tearing through tightness that wasn’t meant for a creature of Sonic’s size. His small body trembled on the verge of giving out, his slit stretched obscene around a girth that dwarfed his species’ limits. The pain was bright, white-hot, swallowing the world.

 His hooves kicked, thin and useless, as the stretch carved him open deeper than he’d ever been—deeper than he believed possible. His vision blurred, horns scraping hard against the floor as his head whipped back and he cried out again, a raw, cracked sound pulled straight from something primal. “S–Sonic… it’s— it’s too much—”

“Good,” the Werehog growled into his ear, hips pressing closer, thick cock throbbing inside the desperate clutch of him. “Then take it.”

 He barely had time to breathe before Sonic followed his own command, the wolf’s hips surged forward, not with a full thrust but with a deeper grind, forcing another thick inch past the tight ring of muscle. Shadow’s pussy convulsed violently, walls rippling and seizing as his body tried—and failed—to decide whether to reject the intrusion or pull it deeper. Slick poured out around the swollen head, a desperate, messy attempt from his heat-softened biology to protect him from a mate too large, too heavy, too wrong for his tiny frame.

 “It— it won’t— it can’t—!”

“Oh, it will,” Sonic growled, claws dragging slowly up his ribs, pinning him harder. “Your body wants it. Look at you—dripping like you’re starving.”

 Shadow whimpered, humiliated by the truth, because his body did want it.

 It wanted the wolf’s weight, his heat, his size, wanted to be held down, forced open, bred by something far too powerful. Instinct didn’t care if it hurt, only cared about the spill of wolf seed deep enough to drown him.

 His entrance burned, stretched to a savage limit, the rim pulled so wide he could feel the trembling ache radiate all the way through his hips. The thickest part wasn’t even inside him yet and already his slit throbbed obscenely around the invading heat, trying to cling, to adjust, to survive.

“Sonic—fuck—please—” he gasped, voice thin, broken, nearly delirious from the pressure.

 Sonic’s claws slid up, cupping Shadow’s throat, not squeezing, just holding. “Shh,” he murmured, voice dark and deep. “Let it happen. Let me in.”

 And he pushed again.

 Shadow’s body wailed—a full-body tremor, inner walls spasming and rippling as another inch of thick werehog cock sank into his too-small pussy. His folds stretched thin around it, pulled tight to the point of burning, his heat-slicked insides clinging desperately, seized, then squeezed so hard it made the other groan—a deep, guttural sound that vibrated against Shadow’s back.

“That’s it,” Sonic snarled. “Clamp on it. Show me how tight you can get.”

 Shadow sobbed, trembling from horns to hooves. “I— I can’t— it’s splitting me—”

“That’s the point,” Sonic growled, hips rolling forward with a brutal, controlled drag that wrung another cry from him. “You’re supposed to feel me. Every inch.”

 Shadow’s mind dissolved in heat-ache, overwhelmed by pain and need tangled so tightly he couldn’t separate one from the other. His horns scraped against the boards above, every muscle tight as he shook, knowing that with the next thrust, that monstrous cock would claim every inch of him—shaft and knot and all—until his womb itself was forced to yield, letting him stretch, letting him burn with the knowledge of how much more was coming.

  Sonic’s cock surged forward, no longer patient, no longer teasing, the thick shaft split him open in a single, obscene stroke, forcing every clenched fold wide until they clung helplessly to his girth, and Shadow’s scream broke high and raw, muffled against his own arm as his body locked up around him.
His pussy, already swollen and dripping, convulsed hard, rippling waves of resistance that only made the werehog’s thrust grind deeper.

 Goat hips weren’t meant to flare like this; the ligaments along the rim strained, thin elastic bands pulled past where they should go, the joint plates shifting under pressure that bordered on tearing. His sacrum bowed inward, forced to accommodate a girth that simply didn’t fit, bones flexing just shy of injury as the werehog’s weight pinned him open.

 And still Sonic pushed.

  The crown slammed into the end of him, blunt and merciless. His cervix, a tight, muscular ring sitting low and usually sheltered deep inside, quivered hard, a reflexive clamp against intrusion. It wasn’t designed to give to something this big. It wasn’t designed to be touched at all. But the pressure didn’t stop, a massive cock battered the entrance, grinding, seeking, demanding space until the tiny, trembling puckered mouth of Shadow’s womb finally yielded. With a wet, shuddering give, the ring stretched around the throbbing head, forced open in a way no goat body was meant to allow as Sonic pressed inside.

  Shadow choked, his pelvis spasmed around the invasion, ligaments fluttering between collapse and surrender. He felt it—felt it—his womb distended, dragged upward as the thick head seated inside him. A brutal fullness that left no room for air, no space for thought. He was stuffed, reduced to little more than a sleeve for the beast over him. His womb cramped, a helpless, fluttering squeeze around the intruder now sitting inside its chamber, stretched tight and aching in a way that bordered on injury but didn’t quite reach it—just the agonizing threshold where the body breaks or adapts.

 Above him, Sonic groaned, a guttural, hungry sound, his hips rolled forward, grinding the base of his cock deeper until his swollen knot bulged obscenely against Shadow’s slit, pulsing and drooling slick heat that spilled everywhere. His claws flexed against Shadow’s thigh, not quite tearing, but dragging grooves through the fur, anchoring him, reminding him there was nowhere to go and no part of him the werehog wasn’t claiming.

“Fuck… you feel that?” he rasped, breath hot against Shadow’s cheek, voice roughened into a growl of pure satisfaction, his muzzle brushed Shadow’s face, lips curled in a feral grin. “Taking me all the way. All the way.”

  Shadow’s reply broke on a sobbing moan, half-shamed, half-desperate. His pussy fluttered frantically, mucus gushing in hot ropes as if begging to be bred, even while every nerve screamed at the stretch. His inner walls spasmed in uneven, frantic pulses, helplessly contracting, as if his body thought this was natural.

 As if it had already accepted the cock that owned it.

 Sonic pulled back with a wet, obscene suctioning drag, and Shadow’s whole body seized. The tight walls of his goat pussy clung in a panicked, gripping spiral around the monstrous girth, desperate to hold—desperate not to tear. His womb fluttered hard, trembling in raw protest as the broad head threatened to pop free—

—then Sonic rammed forward again, punching deep into that fragile chamber with brutal force.

 Shadow’s cry tore ragged through the rafters, high and animal, his pelvis jerked violently under the impact, ligaments along his narrow goat hips straining as each thrust shoved them past their natural range. Every time Sonic bottomed out, the tip hammered the top of his womb, driving it upward, tugging against the thin suspensory ligaments that held it in place.

 His belly lurched with every drive, flesh distending visibly under the pressure inside him. When he dared look down, he saw it—felt it—his lower stomach rising each time the Werehog slammed home, a swollen, rounded push that throbbed in time with other’s pounding. The sight made his breath fracture and his throat close; it was obscene, impossible, humiliating—

 And it made his pussy clench tighter around the beast inside him.

“Fuck—look at you,” Sonic groaned against his ear, voice wrecked, almost reverent. His claws dug deeper into Shadow’s thighs, widening him until his hip joints creaked. His smaller pelvis opened helplessly under the pressure, forced into a posture meant for birthing, but taken past even that limit, pinned open only for the cock using him. “Already swollen. Like you’re carrying me.”

 Shadow moaned, heat and shame tangled beyond separation. He wanted to spit a denial. He wanted to shove him off, bite him, curse him. But his body—traitorous, overrun, overwhelmed—kept answering with slick, thick, hot streams poured down his thighs, every contraction milking in desperate, involuntary squeezes around the cock battering the entrance to his womb.

 The knot slammed against his entrance with each violent drive, harder each time—battering, swelling, demanding to lock. The pressure spread his rim, stretched sensitive skin thin enough to burn. The swollen bulb bulged bigger, pulse by pulse, a heavy promise of what was coming, and Shadow felt that pulse through his entire frame, each beat a warning, a threat, a guarantee.

 When Sonic finally spilled, it would be catastrophic, it would be enough to stuff him so full he looked bred.

 Enough that his small womb had no choice but to cradle it.

 Enough that his belly would swell with it.

 Enough to make him be bred.

 Sonic’s next thrust didn’t even aim for mercy, it hit with the full weight of his hips—an animal strike, a brutal snap that made Shadow’s breath explode out of him in a wordless, choking wail. His body folded under the impact, his belly jolting hard against the floor as his hooves skidding uselessly in the hay. The force rippled up through his spine, every vertebra shuddering like prey bracing for a predator’s bite.

  His hole clenched, spasming, mucus dripping in long strings as though his body was begging for exactly that, a tight, fluttering ring of muscle trying desperately to resist the impossible width, but resistance only made Sonic groan deeper, darker, his claws flexing on Shadow’s thighs.

“Gods, you’re tight,” he growled, voice low and feral. “Your body can’t decide if it wants me out— or wants me deeper.”

 Shadow sobbed, head buried in the hay, horns knocking uselessly against the boards. “I— I can’t— it’s—”

  His words shattered when Sonic slammed in again, harder. A wet smack echoed off the walls, followed by the obscene creak of Shadow’s strained pelvis giving another millimeter under the force. Every drive shoved his pelvis wider, pushed his sacroiliac joints apart, forced the cartilage of his pubic symphysis to stretch past its natural limits, the burn of it lit up his whole lower body, a raw, splitting ache that blended with unbearable pleasure until he couldn’t tell which was which.

  Sonic’s cock carved through the clenching path of him, each withdrawal dragging his tender, swollen walls inside-out before ramming back into the slick heat of his womb. The fragile chamber bounced with every impact, forced to absorb the blow, forced to stretch further around the thick head battering its entrance and shoving deeper inside. And still his pussy dripped—thick, glossy, humiliating strings that clung to Sonic’s thighs and smeared across Shadow’s own inner legs.

“Look at you,” Sonic panted, leaning closer, chest pressed to other’s trembling back. His voice rumbled like distant thunder. “You keep milking me. You’re trying to pull me in.”

  Shadow shook his head frantically, but his body betrayed him again. A tight, uncontrollable series of contractions rippled through him, squeezing the massive intruder buried inside. His womb clenched around the throbbing tip, pulling, sucking, like it already expected to be filled.

 Sonic snarled softly at the sensation. “There it is. That sweet little grab. You feel that? Your body begging for it.”

“No— no— I’m not—” Shadow tried, but his voice was too thin, too broken, too drenched in need.

  Sonic’s response was a slow, grinding shift of his hips—deep, deliberate, pushing his knot harder against Shadow’s stretched opening. The swollen bulb caught on the rim, prying him open, threatening to force its way in. The pressure was unbearable—filling him, pressing into nerves that weren’t meant to be touched, stretching skin already thin and burning. His pelvis strained again, ligaments screaming, his slit forced wide around the swollen shape.

“You feel that?” Sonic growled into his ear, hot breath against shaking fur. “Your body’s opening for it. You’re opening for me.”

 Sonic’s hips pressed in harder, and the knot throbbed—huge, demanding, inevitable.

“You’re gonna hold it,” he snarled, voice cracking with raw hunger. “Gonna take my knot… and then I’m gonna fill this little womb until it can’t hold anything else.”

  He screamed—raw, ragged, louder than he ever imagined possible. His voice tore through the loft, bouncing off the wooden beams, echoing in every corner. Every fiber of him pulsed, every nerve firing in chaotic, unbearable waves. And for the first time that night, he came—hard—from his pussy, despite doing nothing more than quivering and aching in place.

  The Werehog let out a deep, guttural grunt, thrusting impossibly deep into him, filling every trembling channel before shuddering to a halt. His knot bulged against Shadow’s entrance, locking him in place, immovable, a living wedge holding him open, stretched, and claimed.

 At first, Shadow couldn’t think. His nerves were burned raw, every touch and press sending searing shocks through him. He could do nothing but shiver, panting with relief that the werehog had stopped moving.

  Then reality—the horror of it—washed over him. He was full.

  Full in a way that made his lower belly stretch and ache with heat, ligaments along his narrow goat pelvis straining under the impossible weight. His vaginal walls were stretched beyond natural limits, slick and swollen, clinging desperately to a girth they weren’t designed to contain. Even the thick, flexible muscles of his womb were pushed past their comfort zone, distended in ways his body could barely tolerate. Every tiny ligament, every sacroiliac joint protested in sharp, agonizing bursts as they accommodated the intruder too large for him.

  Sonic’s come pumped relentlessly, hot and thick, filling him inch by inch. His womb ballooned around it, unable to process the volume, muscles quivering as they held every drop. There was nowhere for it to go—nowhere for relief, nowhere to escape—the knot kept him locked in place, a cruel, immovable blockade that stretched him taut from the inside out.

 Shadow gasped, shaking violently, body writhing as if trying to reject the impossible fullness. His eyes fluttered open, heart hammering against ribs already strained from the pressure. His stomach puffed grotesquely outward, bloated with the sheer volume of what had been poured in, and even though he wasn’t actually pregnant, but his body didn’t know that.

 His womb spasmed in rhythmic, involuntary waves, clutching greedily around the thick head lodged inside it, milking for more. Every pulse of release forced the chamber to balloon tighter, hotter, until his lower belly throbbed like an overfilled sac struggling to contain the flood. The soft, delicate tissues inside him—never meant for this brutality—quivered under the pressure, stretched to their trembling limit.

 And still Sonic filled him.

  Each hot surge hit him like a punch from the inside, forcing a strangled, broken whine out of Shadow’s throat. His claws raked lines into the floorboards, hooves kicking weakly, hips trying to squirm away—but the knot held him in place, huge and swollen, wedged deep in his slit like a sealed plug.

  Sonic groaned above him, panting heavily, his breath hot against the nape of Shadow’s neck. “Fuck… look at you… taking all of it…” His hands slid to Shadow’s belly, palms pressing the swollen mound, feeling the heat and tension beneath. “You’re stretched so full… like you’re meant to carry it.”

 The little goat whimpered, body jolting under the touch as the pressure inside him sloshed thickly. The weight of the seed pressed deeper into every fold of his womb, forcing his aching muscles to obey their biology—to cradle, to clutch, to trap.

“I’m not—” Shadow’s voice cracked. His words dissolved into a sob as another pulse of come surged into him, making his belly rise visibly under Sonic’s paws. “I can’t—I’m not supposed to—”

“You’re holding it just fine,” Sonic murmured, voice low and indulgent, almost soothing if not for the cruel satisfaction underneath. His claws traced the roundness of the goat’s overstretched abdomen, pressing lightly just to feel Shadow shudder. “Your little body’s doing exactly what it should.”

  Shadow sobbed again, shaking from head to hooves. His pelvis throbbed—overworked ligaments burning from the forced stretch, the cartilage of his pubic joint still strained painfully apart. The organ inside him remained distended, packed to capacity with thick, heavy liquid he couldn’t expel, as his pussy fluttered around the knot helplessly, tiny involuntary squeezes that only sealed him tighter.

 The worst part, his body liked it.

 Even through the pain, the burn, the humiliating fullness, his cunt drooled around the knot, slick oozing down the forced stretch of his entrance. His inner walls rippled, clenching not in rejection but in instinctive acceptance—muscles built to hold seed desperately trying to keep every drop inside.

 Sonic watched the shiver run through him and growled a deep, approving rumble. “Good boy.”

 Shadow’s breath hitched, his whole frame tensing under the words. His stomach gurgled softly from the sheer volume inside, each movement of Sonic’s paws making the pressure shift in slow, heavy rolls.

“Maybe you weren’t meant to take someone my size,” Sonic murmured against his neck, teeth grazing the fur. “But look at you. You’re doing it anyway. Taking all of me. Holding all of me.”

 Shadow shut his eyes tight, humiliation burning hot across his flushed face. “S-Sonic… please… it’s too much…”

  Sonic’s hips pressed forward just enough to grind the knot deeper—not moving, not thrusting, just reminding him it wasn’t going anywhere.

“Too much,” he echoed, voice a low purr of dominance, “and still you’re squeezing me. Still trying to keep every drop.” His claws slid lower, thumb brushing the stretched rim of Shadow’s slit, wet and swollen around the knot. “Your body wants this. You’re holding it like you were made to.”

  Shadow shook violently, another broken sob tearing free, but his body fluttered again, inner walls tightening deep inside, clutching the still-throbbing cock buried in his womb. And Sonic felt it, growled, voice cracking with fresh need.

“Mm—keep that up… and I’ll give you another load.”

  He lowered his muzzle, nuzzling into Shadow’s shoulder, soft, wet kisses pressing along sweat-soaked fur, his warm breath rolled over the black goat’s trembling body as his tongue traced lazy, teasing lines along his neck. Despite the feral violence that had just passed, there was a tenderness in Sonic’s touch—a careful, possessive softness, like a predator grooming its favorite prey.

“So good for me… taking every last drop of my come… hmmm…” he murmured against him, voice low and rough, vibrating through Shadow’s spine. Each lick, each nuzzle, pressed heat and wet warmth deep into his fur, a contrast to the brutal fullness locked inside him.

  Shadow whimpered, a tremulous mix of helplessness, humiliation, and something darker. A surge of heat coiled low in his belly, sharp and consuming, as he absentmindedly rubbed at it—tracing the taut skin over the knot and the bloated, pulsing fullness of his womb. Every fingertip brushed along the impossible swell, a silent claim, even though his entire body still belonged to the werehog above him, reminding of the stark difference in power.

“You’re disgusting,” he hissed, voice broken between half-snarl and half-pleasure, eyes half-lidded as he tried to look indignant.

 Sonic’s lips twitched against him, soft but possessive, teeth grazing gently at the base of his neck. “Mm, I do. And so do you, princess,” he murmured, voice warm and amused. “Look at you… stuffed full, rubbing that belly like it’s yours already.”

  Shadow’s tail flicked irritably, pride pricked, but there was a tremor of need beneath it. “I’m not a princess,” he growled, trying to sound feral, dominant, even though his hips still throbbed with overstimulation, and the weight of other’s seed still stretched him from the inside.

“Oh, you are,” Sonic countered, nudging a little closer, claws dragging along his sides in slow, teasing strokes. “Royalty of my breeding.”

  Shadow growled low, huffing, still rubbing the swollen stretch of his stomach. He felt every inch of the knot pressing him open, every pulse of the still-thick seed lodged inside. He was ridiculous. Helpless. Humiliated. And yet, beneath it all, a wicked spark of pleasure curled through him, insidious and consuming, fanning the coals of need left smoldering from being stuffed to his absolute limit.

“Yes, I’m disgusting,” he muttered, sulking in the most exaggerated, spoiled way he could muster, “and… and your fault.”

  Sonic chuckled, low and rumbling, pressing a soft, possessive kiss to the crown of Shadow’s head. “And I like that, princess. Every little spoiled, messy, greedy part of you.”

  Black ears pinned back and twitching at every rasp of the other’s breath, as his own tail curled in tight, betraying him. He pressed a shaky paw over his swollen belly, smearing some of the slick still clinging to his fur. The touch made him shudder, made his overstretched insides flutter around the knot seated deep inside him. His glare was sharp, venomous—yet beneath it, heat and humiliation churned in delicious, chaotic waves.

  Sonic hovered over him like a predator claiming a carcass, shadow falling across his trembling frame. The werehog’s heat rolled off him in suffocating waves, every shift of muscle, every slow pulse of that monstrous knot inside him reminding Shadow exactly how outmatched he was. The scent pouring from Sonic was overwhelming—raw, musky, thick with ownership and triumph. Shadow’s nose twitched despite himself, nostrils flaring like a startled goat, and every inhalation sent a sharp, aching pulse through his stretched belly.

  Even his cloven hooves betrayed him—fidgeting, scraping little arcs into the hay, bracing, balancing, performing those tiny, automatic prey movements that made him look both helpless and impossibly spoiled. Like a goat pinned beneath a wolf that had already decided he wasn’t going anywhere.

“Shut up,” Shadow hissed, though his voice cracked right through the middle. He tried—tried—to steel his spine, to pull dignity back around him like a cloak. “And stop calling me yours.”

  But saying it only made Sonic’s slow grin widen. His breath puffed hot across Shadow’s neck, inched closer, muzzle nudging against black fluffy ear, voice dropping to a dark, soft growl that made the goat’s whole body tense:

“But you are.”

  He shifted slightly, laying his weight gently over Shadow’s back, nudging his head against the small nape with a soft, affectionate growl. He was massive, impossibly big, yet every touch, every press, was careful, almost tender, as if trying to soothe the fragile, overstretched body beneath him, utterly claimed in a way that was brutal and loving all at once.

  The loft was silent except for their ragged breathing, the slick squelch of his overstretched pussy, and the gentle thrum of Sonic’s heartbeat against Shadow’s back—a predator keeping watch over the prey he had just conquered, but refused to let go. Every small movement of Sonic’s chest pressing against him was a reminder of the difference in size, the impossible fullness still lodged inside him, yet the careful, deliberate weight made him feel protected, owned, and almost… safe.

  Shadow pressed his forehead against other’s chest, saliva-coated fur brushing against the Werehog’s thick pelt. “I hate you,” he whispered, half-growl, half-moaning plea, nipping reflexively at the fur where he could reach—soft, needy bites born of nerves, overwhelming stretch, and desperate heat.

  Sonic chuckled low, dragging his tongue over the top of Shadow’s head, tracing the line of his jaw with warm, wet care. “Mm,” he murmured, voice rough, amused, yet possessive. “But you love it, princess. You love being filled.”

  Shadow’s body betrayed him immediately—every instinctive twitch, every clench around the knot pulsing inside him. His hips gave a tiny, helpless push back before he could stop himself, a pathetic attempt at control that only tightened the stretch and made his breath hitch. He couldn’t move much, not with other’s weight holding him down, but he pressed closer, nudging, writhing, desperate to claim even a fraction of the dominance for himself.

  His paws traced Sonic’s sides, splayed fingers barely brushing over thick fur and hard muscle. His tail flicked sharply, betraying agitation and arousal both, ears pinned flat as heat flushed over his face, and every little movement was instinct, not intention—soft, frantic nudges, tiny nips against Sonic’s chest, small shifts born of overstimulation rather than rebellion.

  He wasn’t in control, he knew that with humiliating clarity, but his overstretched, overflowing body still made these tiny, automatic responses… the last scraps of defiance he had left.

  Sonic’s muzzle pressed closer, soft fur brushing along Shadow’s neck and shoulder, lips parting in gentle nips as low, protective growls rumbled through his chest. “You did so well,” he murmured, voice rough but impossibly tender, each word vibrating through Shadow’s overstretched body.

  Shadow’s ears twitched reflexively, and a shuddering breath slipped from him—half-whimper, half-purr, the sound trembling with exhaustion and reluctant contentment. His body sagged into the warmth engulfing him, finally yielding to the weight draped over his back and the impossible ache still pulsing in his belly. He nudged weakly into the Werehog’s side, the gesture small, instinctual, the equivalent of a trembling animal leaning into a larger beast for warmth.

  Little by little, the tension bled from his muscles. Every throb of overstimulated nerves, every lingering pulse of seed deep in his womb, mingled with the heat of Sonic’s steady breaths tickling his fur. What had been unbearable moments ago now softened into something almost soothing—raw and intimate, chaotic and strangely safe.

  The loft reeked of sweat, slick, and heavy musk, thick, humid air clung to their fur, but in the suffocating closeness there was a comfort neither of them tried to name. Sonic’s body molded over him like a living shield, massive and warm, and though Shadow’s smaller frame still trembled under the weight, he no longer fought it.

 He couldn’t.

 And he didn’t want to.

 For a long, suspended moment, they stayed like that—prey and predator, beast and goat, bound by knots of flesh and heat, claimed and held in the aftermath of something brutal. And in that quiet, shivering closeness, he understood with a clarity that felt ancient and instinctive:
some battles weren’t won by escaping or resisting… but by surrendering.

 Some connections—no matter how overwhelming, how terrifying, how consuming—felt like home.

***

  Morning seeped slowly into the loft, light filtered through the warped wooden slats in long, dusty beams, turning the lingering haze of the night before into something almost golden. The hay was scattered everywhere—flattened, kicked apart, dragged into deep grooves where bodies had pressed and writhed. Damp patches still clung to the straw, darkened with sweat and slick, giving the whole attic a musky, heavy scent that clung to the air.

 The boards creaked when the breeze shifted outside, but nothing disturbed the stillness inside except the two of them breathing, a faint breeze slipped in through the cracks, stirring motes of dust that drifted like lazy sparks. Every so often, a single piece of straw would fall from the rafters, evidence of how violently the night had shaken the old structure, yet softened now by morning stillness.

 Outside, the world was waking: distant birds calling, the far-off rustle of leaves, but inside, the loft felt untouched by all of it, suspended in a pocket of warmth and quiet after chaos. The air was thick, humid in the places where bodies had been pressed together too long, even the sunlight seemed hesitant to intrude fully, as if respecting the den-like intimacy still hanging over the room.

 Shadow was out cold, collapsed in the hay like a creature burrowing back into the earth, limbs tucked in, breath slow and even. His ears twitched at faint dream-noises only he could hear, little instinctive flicks that made him look far smaller than he ever allowed himself to seem awake, and Sonic hovered over him, not inside him anymore, but still wrapped around him in a half-circle, massive body curled protectively along black spine.

  The Werehog had draped himself over the goat hybrid the way a wolf guards something precious in its den: chest pressed to Shadow’s back, muzzle resting just above his shoulder, one heavy arm slung over his waist.

 He didn’t sleep.

 He never slept after… events like this.

  His instincts were still bristled and sharp, ears flicking at the slightest sound, green eyes stayed half-lidded, but alert, watchful. The night was still clinging to him in the way his body hovered, coiled, ready to protect the trembling creature beneath him from threats that no longer existed. A low, unconscious noise slipped from Shadow’s throat—soft, helpless, almost a bleat—and Sonic’s ears perked instantly, nosed at the black fur on Shadow’s neck, sniffing, checking, reassuring himself. His tail thumped once against the hay, slow and lazy, a possessive, animal rhythm.

 And only once he’d confirmed other’s breathing was steady did, he relax again, lowering his muzzle to the nape of Shadow’s neck and exhaling warm air over his skin in something that was equal parts scent-marking and comfort. The little goat shifted slightly in his sleep, pressing back into the heat behind him without meaning to, and Sonic chuffed softly, a pleased, canine sound, and nudged closer, wrapping himself more securely around the smaller body, protective and gentle in a way he never let anyone else see.

  That’s when he heard it—the faint, careful creak of a step on the ladder, and Sonic’s muscles bunched instantly, a low warning rumble vibrating through his chest.

“Don’t even think about pouncing,” a familiar voice muttered, just before a tired human head appeared over the edge of the loft. “I’m too tired to deal with that today.”

 Sonic lifted his head from where it had been pillowed against Shadow’s shoulder, ears pricking sharply. The tension in his body loosened, not much, but enough to keep the snarl caught on the back of his tongue. His claws flexed against the hay, scraping softly.

 He knew this man.

  He’d watched him countless times while prowling the edges of the farm at dusk, slipping between trees like a blue shadow. The man always smelled the same: iron from tools, earth from fields, a bitter thread of coffee woven through everything. Not interesting. Sonic had watched him out of habit, out of instinctual curiosity for anything moving on his territory, but never long enough to care. Prey did not walk with a limp and curse at fence posts. Prey didn’t shovel feed while humming off-key. Prey didn’t yell “not again” at the sky when a storm knocked out the power.

 Stone was many things, but prey was not one of them.

  Sonic had eyed him the way a wolf eyes a scarecrow—warily, dismissively, with a predator’s distant curiosity but no real interest. Humans weren’t worth the chase, meat too stringy, bones too small. And this one fed the shed; the scent trails he left were inward, not outward, and Sonic respected that.

“…Why’re you here?” he rasped, voice still thick with sleep and the gravelly scrape of his half-feral throat as if language was only just returning to him.

 Stone ignored the tone, the same tone that would have sent most people scrambling back down the ladder without a second thought. He didn’t step back, didn’t tremble, didn’t even blink too fast. Instead, he hauled himself the rest of the way into the loft, brushing hay off his sleeves with brisk, practical motions. His boots thudded against the boards, the old wood groaning under him as dust swirled around his ankles.

 His gaze swept the loft with the efficiency of someone accustomed to evaluating damage. His eyes landed on Shadow—pale, unconscious, breathing shallowly—and Stone exhaled a long, relieved breath.

“So he’s alive. Good.”

 Sonic’s hackles raised in a rolling wave, fur bristling along his spine. A low, irritated growl simmered beneath his ribs.

“Wasn’t gonna kill him,” he snapped.

“Didn’t say you were,” Stone replied, voice calm as ever. He crouched beside a support beam, fingers tapping once against the wood as if checking its stability. “But usually when I find something in the barn this early, it’s bleeding, missing, or eating my livestock.”

 Sonic snorted, a sharp, contemptuous huff. “He’s mine.”

“Yes,” Stone said dryly, arching a brow. “I figured that out.”

  He said it with the flat tone of a man who had discovered more than one bizarre situation before his morning coffee. No awe. No fear. Just mild irritation and resigned acceptance, like he was already calculating how many boards he’d have to replace or whether this mess would attract termites.

  Sonic’s ears flicked, tail curling protectively behind him. He shifted his weight, body still curved around Shadow in a possessive crescent of warmth and muscle, eyes bright and sharp as they tracked man’s every move.

“You’re awful calm for a human,” he muttered.

 Stone shrugged. “Coffee hasn’t kicked in yet. And frankly…” His gaze swept over the loft again: the torn hay, the shredded boards, the heavy musk of predator and blood and heat thickening the air. “I think panicking would only make this weirder.”

 A grin—slow, toothy, unmistakably feral—spread across Sonic’s muzzle.

“You’re not wrong.”

 Stone’s eyes flicked from Sonic’s bristling silhouette to the still form tucked against his chest, pinched the bridge of his nose with the weariness of someone who had dealt with far too many supernatural catastrophes before breakfast.

“So,” he said, straightening slowly, “you gonna let him rest, or are you gonna wake him up by growling over me like I’m trespassing on your snow-globe of domestic violence?”

 Sonic’s ears flattened so hard they nearly vanished into his fur. His tail gave one sharp, indignant flick.

“…not waking him,” he muttered.

“Good,” Stone said, completely unbothered, brushing hay off his knees. “Because he actually needs sleep. Unlike you weird, nocturnal, hormone-poisoned creatures.”

 Sonic’s head snapped up. “I’m fine.”

“Oh, absolutely,” Stone said, voice bone-dry. “You look like a raccoon that discovered espresso.”

  Sonic bristled so violently the hay around him rustled like wind-blown grass, but Stone only sighed, some of the sarcasm bleeding out of him, replaced with something heavier, quieter. A touch of genuine concern.

“Just… don’t hurt him,” he said, voice gentler than before. “He’s already skittish. And somehow even more stubborn than you.”

  The growl in Sonic’s throat softened, tapering into a low rumble that wasn’t aggression anymore, more like a sound meant to settle the air around Shadow, to reassure rather than warn.

“I won’t,” he said quietly, claws easing their grip on the hay.

“I know,” Stone replied, and for once the sarcasm dropped fully away. He pushed himself up with a grunt, joints popping faintly. “That’s why I’m leaving you two alone.”

 He descended one rung of the ladder—boots thudding, old wood creaking—then paused. Looked back up. His face was half-shadowed by the roof’s low slope, one brow raised, as if he already regretted the words he was about to speak.

“And Sonic?”

 Sonic’s eyes narrowed. “What.”

  Stone pointed at the hay around them like he was pointing at a crime scene.

“Clean the loft when he wakes up. I don’t want to know what happened in here, but I can smell it.”

 Sonic’s face contorted—somewhere between mortified, offended, and ready to combust.

“It’s not—!” he snapped, voice cracking upward as his tail puffed out, betrayal incarnate.

 Stone didn’t wait for the explanation—didn’t even glance back. He just climbed down the rest of the ladder with the exhausted determination of a man who had already endured too much supernatural nonsense for one morning.

“Nope! Not listening! Handle it yourselves!”

  The ladder creaked closed behind him, leaving only warm air, drifting sunlight, and Sonic quietly sulking into black fur while the goat hybrid slept on, blissfully unaware. He exhaled sharply through his nose, ears pinned flat in pure, simmering humiliation. He muttered something that sounded suspiciously like “I don’t smell that bad,” then immediately buried his face deeper into Shadow’s thick, soft neck as if hiding in it could undo Stone’s entire existence.

  Shadow didn’t stir, if anything, he sank further into the warmth, breath slow and heavy, cheek pressed into Sonic’s collarbone, one of his hooved feet twitched gently against Sonic’s tail.

  And that was all it took for his irritation to melt away.