The past seems to prefer walking with the night.
After a full day of sanding down wood, varnishing it, fixing the bathroom door’s lock and finishing the installation of the tank outside the bathroom the two wolves left Joy’s cottage. In prompt timing as well, as night had quickly arrived.
Cory lay under the scratchy blanket, a simple white thing but frayed from age. He listened to the noises of the forest at night. It was familiar; he’d done the same years ago – just listened. Yet, he had become a stranger to it at the same time. Four years of living in a concrete metropolis had a way of smudging the sounds and smells of a forest like the very smog in its populated air.
He listened to the loud din of the cicadas outside in the woods – the males seeking out their mates; their female mates. The purpose of their mating was purely to produce offspring – as is the purpose of any type of mating. Without the production of offspring a lineage – a bloodline – dies with its last member; the death of an ancestry.
How was he going to get that through Grayson’s thick skull? He would ignore Lucian for now.
Cory couldn’t bare him children; he was anatomically unable to do so. This illusion that Grayson held about Cory still being his mate would be the end of the Lightpaw bloodline. With its end the pack would be reshapen, renamed and the Lightpaw legacy would be forgotten – lost to time because of a mistake made by the Moon; the paring of a male Alpha with another male. Cory was initiated into a pack named Lightpaw and he wouldn’t be the end of that name.
A halfling ending the, surely, centuries old regal legacy.
What would Aiden and Sky think of this?
Cory turned over in the dark to look at the door as his thoughts sprung around.
“How would they feel about their son if he was the reason their legacy died?” Cory whispered to the dark cottage.
Looking back at his four-year absence, Cory reminisced about various things: large streets with crowds of people indifferently passing one another, loud voices hailing taxis desperately, alleyways where unfortunate souls resided or sold their flesh to the liquid devil… and he reminisced about Mark.
Mark who had saved him in that alley, the sorcerer who helped his own kind – probably out of boredom.
They were cuddling on the couch; Mark was reading either a book or a magazine while Cory stared at the blank T.V screen. The semi-sorcerer didn’t like watching T.V – it gave him headaches but he liked looking at the black screen. It helped him think.
The brunette was bouncing his leg relentlessly as Cory’s head rested on Mark’s lap. The pale man looked up to see Mark’s face was on edge – frustrated about something. It wasn’t unusual – Mark got very invested in the characters of the novels he read. When an unfortunate event happened he would sympathise with the character – perhaps too much.
“If it’s agitating you then put it down for a bit,” Cory spoke as he stared back at the black screen. Was the screen looking back at him; looking back at the pair wandering what they were doing just as Cory wondered what happened beyond the blackness of the screen?
“What?”
“The book; if it’s bothering you then set it down for a bit – it’s not gonna run away,” the scarlet-haired man sat up, gathering his red locks into a loose ponytail.
Mark threw the book across the lounge, it made a dull thud as it hit the wall. Cory looked to Mark who pushed him back onto the couch, “It’s not the fucking book that’s bothering me,” he spoke on edge.
Corry looked up with wide eyes at the man’s dark purple ones, “Then what’s wrong? What’s making you so angry?”
Mark pressed his lips tenderly against Cory’s. The mixed-blood smiled into the gentle kiss, wrapping his arms around Mark’s neck – who had his body looming over the smaller man’s. They had kissed before – sweet pecks and gentle caresses ever since Mark wanted to be exclusive with Cory.
Their lips danced against each other, Mark’s lips were clearly much more experienced than Cory’s; they shifted to different angles and rocked the kiss back and forth in lively momentum. With his one hand Mark took Cory’s leg and draped it across the experienced man’s hip; with his other he freed Cory’s hair from its ponytail. Cory let his one hand run through Mark’s thick brown hair.
Mark then swiped his tongue across Cory’s bottom lip. The younger man froze uncertainly in nerves but slightly opened his mouth – assuming that was what he was supposed to do. Mark’s tongue entered Cory’s mouth finding the halfling’s. The brunette twirled the tip of his tongue with Cory’s – sensually and heatedly. Cory whined slightly, unable to keep up with Mark’s proficiency. The younger man was getting aroused and he knew Mark could feel it. The kiss continued and Cory felt jittery as the atmosphere in the room grew foggy with heat; he wondered if the lounge was a sauna or perhaps a fire broke out in the apartment below them.
Mark’s one hand slithered up Cory’s shirt and the kiss broke as Cory gasped in pleasure at the feel of the brunette’s slightly rough hands on his bare skin. Mark claimed Cory’s mouth again as his hand slowly crept higher and higher. Cory whined into the kiss again which was greedily swallowed by Mark’s kiss.
Mark’s other, unoccupied hand, forced itself under Cory’s jeans, making contact with the mixed-blood’s bare ass; at that moment Cory turned his head to the side – breaking the kiss. Mark was persistent, “You’ll like it Cory – I promise, you’ll really enjoy it,” he whispered as he gently nibbled Cory’s earlobe.
“Mark, I’m not ready yet – this is going too fast,” Cory spoke softly.
Mark’s body went slightly rigid then he gently pinched Cory’s nipple and despite the slight pleasure he felt from that Cory removed Mark’s hand from beneath his shirt and sat up.
“I’m not ready yet…” Cory whispered gently and insecurely; folding his hands on his lap.
Mark kept quiet and returned to a sitting position, “That’s what’s frustrating me… I need this Cory!”
Cory lifted his chin in distaste, “Feel free to go back to your other partners then. I didn’t ask you to be exclusive with me. I am not ready yet but it seems to only matter that you need it.”
Cory pursed his lips in the dark at the memory, he didn’t know much about sex – he wondered if he even knew anything beyond kissing. He had essentially smothered his libido the day Grayson rejected him. Naturally he could get sexually aroused, but he didn’t act on it – it was a strange sensation with a vague result. What would happen? Would one see stars and float? Would they be so incredibly happy that their heartache would heal? Would all their problems ignite to ash?
What was the purpose?
Mark was very sexually active: he was polyamorous after all. A new partner for a few days only for the familiar one to be shuffled with a vague face – Cory lost familiarity with the faces and stopped the shallow introductions. They all just seemed to be blurry from the frequency and then inconsistency of their visits to Mark’s apartment. Overtime, Cory would just wait for them to leave after he had accidentally stumbled across a bare man, woman and Mark talking casually in the kitchen.
He shuddered at the image in his mind.
Sex is to procreate; to produce progenies – that’s its purpose in its entirety.
To Cory, sex had become meaningless – simply a word with a definition.
The cicadas stopped dinning and soon there was a knock on the, now restored, cottage door. A knock in the dark of night, with no indication of time, on the pack land he had fled. A knock in the dead of night seeking, a now powerless, Cory’s attention.
“H-hello?” Cory whispered in courage – he heard his voice falter in slight fear. Yet, he superficially refused to submit to it.
“Can I come in?” A slightly strained voice asked. Cory knew who it was and felt less anxious about being lynched by his ex-pack members.
“Yeah.”
The door opened without its former stuttering squeak and shut gently as Grayson’s scent drifted through the air.
“Hold on, I’ll light a candle so you don’t trip or whatever,” Cory rummaged blindly across his nightstand.
“Don’t worry about it, I’m already in the kitchen,” Grayson spoke.
“Oh…” Cory stopped rummaging and lay back down waiting to hear why Grayson came to the cottage at this time. It was quiet, all Cory could hear was the Alpha’s deep inhalations and exhalations.
“Is something wrong?” The mixed-blood eventually asked through the silence.
“I couldn’t sleep,” he said.
“So you came here?” He didn’t hide his colourful confusion; Grayson did strange things lately in his attempt at convincing Cory to stay with the pack.
“Your scent relaxes me…” he whispered.
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