Grayell was gaining momentum and as much as he knew it was cheating to use his blood mastery; he fuelled his body to work overtime and poured it on.
Only to catch up of course, not to win. No, he'd never do that. Not ever.
Yeah, so, horses.
Grayell almost scattered to a scrambled halt as the pair of horses did tempt pulling away from their handlers, the sudden body rushing between them startling them and adding to the confusion on the street. He reeled, slid to a halt on the wet stones and then looked at the pair, eyes focussing immediately.
Hands reached out and found their reigns, tugging them gently down as he stepped in, whispering.
Hush now, you're amongst friends. Shh,
The pair settled surely enough and Grayell smiled, winking to the startled handlers.
Take it easy on them boys. Oh. And the mare needs a new shoe.
He laughed again then as he went around the commotion and bolted through an alleyway, spinning off a wall to round a corner and then vaulting, leaping and whipping himself up onto the rooftops.
Kiko took the time the spooked horses gave her to look back. She had known he would stop to calm them it was why she had taken that route. The smile on her face faded though when he rebounded off the wall like a monkey and scrambled over to the roof.
Damn. She couldn't run and keep track of him at the same time so she did not bother. But, she knew he could see her from his position and that rankled enough to halt her feet. He would make it to the gate first unless she found a way to even the odds again. Kiko's eyes gleamed and she used the building wall as a shield against the rest of Wistvale's population.
She switched from woman to wolf and streaked like a comet for the gate seconds later. Her ears were peeled back to her skull, her tail was stretched out behind her, and then there were shrieks of shock, surprise, and panic.
Glorious. It seemed to Kiko that this new crop of people were as easily spooked as their horses.
He has no need to worry for the people, he had no want to try and explain her away. Yes, surely he could; but they would get on with their days soon enough and within the week, would have forgotten entirely about the semi-strange incident.
Instead, he was scrambling, navigating the rooftops and vaulting, climbing, leaping and swinging his way towards the town gates in a beeline. The progress of the town had changed the landscape up here and made it more complex, but he relished that he could run for longer; use more to his advantage.
He shrieked not unlike Kiga as he sprung from the last ledge, arms wide and folding backwards in the air. He tumbled, grabbed and slipped to the ground a moment later, beyond the wall that surrounded the town. She was on the path home and he was on the hill. There was little chance he could catch her. But be damned if he wasn't going to try.
Quickly and with utmost urgency he pummelled his way up the grassy slopes, scrambled up the shale and climbed the last portion of the craggy, overgrown slopes that led to their home. It had come upon him like a blur, it had fallen away as a memory - and whilst he was scratched, grimy and sweating profusely... he knew damn well she'd beaten him with ease. Such was the speed of the wolf.
Kiko pounded through the trees that surrounded their home. Her front paws planted into the earth and plowed up the loose dust when she halted, stiff-legged and with her tongue hanging out of her mouth. She tossed her nose up into the air, too, and bayed out the victory.
She put every inch of her soul into the sound. It was one of the times when she was in complete agreement with the wolf. The howl gave her the same sense of belonging to something far greater than herself. And, it could say a thousand things.
Beside the desire to celebrate she wanted to hear him join her. She wanted that deeper howl that was his voice to come pouring out over the trees to tell her he was here.
Her pack.
Her mate.
Eternity
“Put some clothes on, you weird, yellow-eyed, table-dancing, werewolf-training, cryptic, stare-me-right-in-the-eyes-and-don't-even-blink wench.”
Grayell was buggered. He'd taken the harder route and not shifted to his wolf form, or he may well have won. He was utterly stuffed, worn out and dragging his ass the last hundred feet or so through the brambles and brick-a-brack of dense forest that crowded this slope.
And he most certainly heard her... a sound that struck his heart and stirred him, made the creature inside lurch and tug at it's chains, begged it to tear through his flesh and run. It wanted to be voiced but he hadn't the breath...
... and so, he wearily; but smiling all too happily and conceding defeat, dragged himself into the clearing she now occupied. He leaned on a tree, wiped his brow and shook his head, laughing.
Kiko twisted her head around. He had not switched forms, but, he was here and that was all she truly wanted. She rushed up against him with her head tossed up and nose shoved in along a thigh. Her breath blew out from her nose, her fur was rough farther back along his knee, and the tail swept wildly back and forth.
She told him everything she wanted to say without a single word. He was here. She was happy. They were together. Kiko and the wolf needed nothing else in that moment or any other.
She twisted around to the other side of him when he spoke. Kiko shoved her nose in the back of his spine and pushed him closer to the treehouse. Oh, she heard him. There might even been a snort or sneeze with his words. Her head shook back and forth, too, before she spoke one word.
Grayell ambled along erratically, poked and prodded and urged on home, laughing and twisting to look over his shoulder at her.
"And you, are persistent. Not everything is a race my Lotus..."
He was laughing still though, there was no lecturer's demeanour in his tone. He made his way to the lift easy enough though and turned, one hand on the loop to look at her with a grin.
Kiko had already changed. The minute his attention had shifted from her to the rope she returned to her human form. And considering she had not bothered with clothing earlier... well... she had none now, either.
"I don't know. I think you said something about getting old. You sure you can carry me and scale the rope at the same time?"
Her eyes were gleaming with laughter and something else besides.
Eternity
“Put some clothes on, you weird, yellow-eyed, table-dancing, werewolf-training, cryptic, stare-me-right-in-the-eyes-and-don't-even-blink wench.”
Grayell grinned as he threw an arm about her waist, then leaned in close, pressing his face to her neck. He nuzzled there, perfectly content... til he bit at her skin and held it, kicking off the tree beside them with enough force to swing them up and onto the balcony of their home. Twirling about lazily, he licked her where his teeth had almost bruised, setting her down as a gently as feather on a lake.
He released the rope and caught her up in his arms then, rubbing the tip of his nose against hers.
He nodded, turned his head enough to nip at her finger tips with only his lips, his eyes locked on hers. They would never want to look elsewhere, not when she was everything to him. No, the depths of her gaze held more mystery and adventure than the realms themselves and given the opportunity, he would explore them til the stars fell about them.
He sighed, slow and happy, then turned to look at their home.
"Hm. I'll need to get that fire up if we're to stay warm tonight."
Kiko lifted up an eyebrow. And as if on cue a tiny shiver ran across her body and put goose bumps on her shoulders.
"I was hoping you were going to offer to keep me warm in some other fashion. But, if you want to build a fire... I cannot stop you."
Truth tell she was sort of looking forward to watching him build it, too. He would be moving around. The firelight would make his skin gleam. She swallowed sharply. Kiko's heartbeat stuttered, fluttered madly about for endless minutes and then went racing off.
The heart does that you know. One minute it is unnoticeable. You forget that it keeps your blood pumping and your body working. You do not have to remember. But then something happens that turns it into a hammer upon your ears where you can hear and feel nothing else but the sound. Thought is impossible. The only thing you can do is act.
Kiko reached out with both hands and dragged the Wolf's head in close to kiss him.
Eternity
“Put some clothes on, you weird, yellow-eyed, table-dancing, werewolf-training, cryptic, stare-me-right-in-the-eyes-and-don't-even-blink wench.”
He was caught off guard by that, a moment without warning or word, an instant where she simply snatched him and dragged him to her lips - and whilst he tried to find a breath as that tiny sliver of shock stole his calm from him, he was met instead with her lips.
Warm. Unbelievably soft. Her sweet breath, the touch of her skin, the ever familiar yet never ceasing to be new kiss...
Grayell fell away, part of him ran for the hills and dove off a cliff through the clouds, his very spirit freed with that embrace. What good sense he had left stayed, had to be here to feel this sensation, to taste and smell her...
... and to damn well kiss her back.
Oh and he did. With all the passion and appropriate restraint he could muster in that moment, with an almost conscious need to let that love he felt well through him and into their kiss.
She lit his fire and he suddenly needed no other warmth than that which she gave him.
Kiko was dragged farther down into the abyss where nothing mattered so much as the next thud of his heart. She could feel it in the kiss and her mouth burned with the desire to hold it there always.
There is something else you should know if you haven't learned such already. Two heartbeats that merge into one? That is a sound you cannot deny. No human, no animal, no living creature would willfully ignore it and Kiko certainly did not.
She wrapped herself around Grayell's body and gave in to all the pent up needs that had started when she'd seen him carving the wolf pup. She was not gentle about it either. In fact, you could say she forced him toward their bed with bites, shoves and even her nails hit skin when she tore at his clothes.
Eternity
“Put some clothes on, you weird, yellow-eyed, table-dancing, werewolf-training, cryptic, stare-me-right-in-the-eyes-and-don't-even-blink wench.”
Kiko laughed, hissed and even growled as she set upon him in the most delightful, if forceful manner. His stumbling came to it's inevitable conclusion when the back of his knee hit the edge of the bed and he was quickly sent crashing upon it, depositing the wild woman atop him.
He laughed heartily, touching her face and simply staring at the beauty that was her in every way - then yelped as her teeth found more tender skin. He rolled to his side then, thick arms tumbling her to her back; and he looked to her, brushing his nose over her cheek and growling in that approximation of a purr that voiced his contentment.
"Hell with the fire. We have blankets aplenty and we have each other. Always."