There was nothing but hatred in the brute’s heart. Hatred for this forest and all those who called it home. Since his arrival, he had been snubbed at every turn. Mocked by whelps half his size, barely old enough to have left their milk dens. He hated this forest for what it had become. He hated the magic that flowed through it. It made his dense chocolate coat stand on end in unpleasant ways, had twisted the other wolves in ways unnatural and foreign to him. Made them cocky. Made them forget their place. He was Riuk, the giant from Spring Grounds. The goddamn lost king, returned at last. But he had been met with no respect and worse, now had nothing which to call his own. Deep within his broad chest the heart that had once beat so pure and strong was turning. A darkness was creeping in upon it from every side, with every stride, with every beat. The very blood that flowed through it was as black ichor.

He strove forward with great, leaping bounds, heedless of where he was headed. He scarcely noticed when the lush forest floor gave way to barren rock beneath his heavy feet. The scented border of the pack registered more clearly in his clouded mind, but he dove across it without a moment’s hesitation. Let someone rise to stop him. Let one of these self-righteous wolves, grown fat and soft on the bounty of this forest get into his way. He felt within himself something foreign and dangerous; a bloodlust. For the first time in his many years, the brute felt a desire to tear and rend another. To sink his claws into the hide, to force his fangs through the throat where the sweet essence of life herself flowed so treacherously close to the surface. That coppery taste. That sickly heat. The noble king was falling, falling, deep into the grips of something visceral and carnal. His body was not his own as it carried him with reckless abandon over the now boulder-strewn landscape. There was no slowing the titan. He leapt from purchase to purchase, muscles tensing and uncoiling unbidden by any conscious thought. He relished only the burning of the exertion, the ragged edge to his breath, and took great pleasure in the feeling of his body turned machine.

Arriving atop a rocky outcropping, a commotion below snatched his attention away from his own turmoil. With blazing amber eyes he took in the scene: a female, her pups, and some…beast. Leathery and streaked with red he appeared a monster. Even at this distance, Riuk could feel the monster’s powerful fury. The heat of his wrath carried itself to him and further stoked his own ire. There was a day that such a creature would have sent him recoiling. There was a day when the noble king would have leapt from his perch to place himself between the lady and the beast, but that day seemed a distant memory. Today not a single muscle moved, not even as one of the pups was flung against a boulder by the creature’s steel trap jaws.

Blood trickling from his ragged maw, the shadow-creature was advancing upon the she-wolf. And finally, Riuk did stir, leaping from his perch to land not in front of the femme, but behind her, pinning her between his large frame and the slavering atrocity with the blood-drenched fangs. He wondered idly how it must feel for her to know that the blood had been freshly drained from one of her darling puppies. He wondered idly if it hurt her. He wondered intensely what it tasted like. He wanted to know what it would feel like to hurt her.

For the time being he neither moved nor spoke. For a moment he locked eyes with the beast over the shoulder of the trapped femme. An icy gaze, sharp and focused. In that instant he knew the wolf behind it to be fully cognizant of his actions. This was no sickly beast, not a wolf driven to madness by malady or pain. He was here with a purpose. The king’s old heart gave a final, fluttering protest within his chest. This was not him, this was not the kind of thing that he did. He was Riuk, righteous leader, protector of the weak, enemy to such monstrosities as the one who stood across from him now.

FUCK THAT

The flutter of protest was smothered, and the brute stood fast, great bushy tail swinging lazily back and forth behind him. He made no other move besides a slight nod to the attacker, whose gaze he still held.

“I’m with you, pal,”

He thought, feeling the last of his sense slip away.

“Let the bitch die. Bleed her dry and crush her little ones between your jaws.”

TEACH ME

Packless | Loveless | Lost | Khett