Hunted's Desires

The red fox, Nick Wilde, accepted the packet from the courier. The cheetah wished him well and dashed off to make her next delivery. Nick tucked the item under one arm, took off his sunglasses, and entered his building. Once in his apartment, he held the packet up in front of him to examine it; a 9 x 12-inch manila envelope that he believed held a couple of sheets of paper plus three or four photos in it. Slitting open one end, he pulled out the contents; four photos and two sheets of paper. The first sheet asked if he would be available for four days and nights for assignment for a client within the specified time period (the next 15 days). And, if so, when would he be free to take up the assignment. There was a phone number at the bottom of the page. The second sheet had words in hand written script on it.

"Rough! Hold nothing back!" with a flowing three name signature beneath.

As Nick looked at that signature, he shook his head at the trust this mammal had in him to put it there. True, the note was ambiguous but…. Taking that paper to his military grade shredder, he fed it into the slot and watched it be turned into fine grained dust in a few seconds. That done, the fox snagged a soda from his fridge then went to the couch and seated himself. Taking the occasional drink, he studied each photo with slow deliberate care. The mammal in them was dressed "to kill", as the saying goes, and struck a different dynamic pose in each picture. If true to form, they had been taken a few days before and were just for his eyes.

"Almost nine years and she just gets better and better all the time," Nick murmured to himself.

He had more than enough leave time racked up and could give a week's notice so Bogo could shuffle assignments accordingly. He'd tell Judy he was going to be out of town on personal business, a time to de-stress and recharge after all the work, overtime included, done at ZPD. Gently setting down the pictures, Nick picked up the hard wire phone on the end table and dialed in the number. Someone picked up and said "Yes?" and Wilde stated he accepted the assignment and gave the stretch of days he would be available. After the call, he went to a closet to pull out a rucksack and check through it.

"Hmmm, need to replenish my rations," he thought.

Ten years ago:

Nick turned his head and ears flicked and twitched as he heard the sound of sirens. Two, no, three of them, and they were coming his way from the sound. And…there was something else. Not having done anything worthy of a trio of cop cars he considered himself clear, but his instincts put his body on high alert. A few heartbeats later, an SUV big enough to carry a lion family blasted into sight. It was obvious from the increasingly wide weaving swings of the vehicle that the driver was fast losing control. About to backpedal to stay clear, the tod spotted a deer doe who was very much in the path…

"OFFFF!" fox and deer huff mightily as Nick slams into her.

Moments later:

"We quick checked the traffic cams, ma am," said the rhino officer.

"And?" prompted the doe.

"Another tenth of a second, maybe less, and…"

He didn't need to say any more, she owed her life to the fox. What impressed her was the vulpine's quickness in thinking and the power he hit her with. The body slam had moved her easily ten feet in spite of her being almost a third again his height and mass. The aching Nick found himself caught between two surprises; one, that he acted the way he did and, two, that the cervine doe didn't raise one bit of fuss about being hit by a pred.

"You had to know that doing what you did was going to hurt quite a bit," Miss Donna (as she introduced herself) said as they waited for the medic types to arrive.

"Didn't have time to think about that," Nick replied. "Just knew it had to be done!"

His words amazed him, his action even more so. After several years of dealing with bias and suspicions from others, he thought himself a jaded mammal who looked out for himself, his mother, and the very few friends he had and that was it. Yet, he spotted the danger that she was in it and, unthinkingly, reacted, at serious risk of his own life, to save her.

"Ma am, if it is alright with you, I'd prefer not to make a big to-do about this," he requested.

"Oh? Why not?" she asked.

"I don't like news types…"

"And?"

"Please, don't take this wrong, but I'll never hear the end of it from some mammals, one in particular, that I know."

He watched as the doe turned her head a bit, then cocked it a couple of inches to one side. The expression on her face was contemplative, and something else that he couldn't identify.

"The tough minded fox who thinks he cares little for the welfare of others." she said. "Then finds out…"

Opening her purse, Donna extracted a pen and small notebook, opened the pad of paper, and then scribbled something on it. Tearing out the page, she handed it to Nick, then turned away and fiddled with her purse.

"I didn't see you leave and I don't know who you are or where you went," Nick heard her say.

A quick look around showed that the few cops there were occupied with holding back bystanders rubbernecking the wrecked vehicle. Seeing no one looking his way, the fox faded into the gathering shadows that sunset produced. When well away, Nick looked at the paper. It had a phone number and an address on it plus the words "Meet me here 15 days from now at 7:00 PM. If I'm not there, call the number."

Present:

Set at low volume, Nick's desired classical music played softly in his ears. Sitting in the 'shotgun' seat of the electric powered four wheeled ATV, the blindfolded vulpine was driven through the countryside. His nose picked up the scents of numerous plants plus the earthy aroma of a slightly damp ground.

"We're getting close to your start point," the driver called to him.

Ten years ago:

The meeting place was a pub/restaurant named the Hunting Preserve located in the Tundra district. A staff of medium to large predator types ran it and the owner was a mountain lion. Understandably, the place had a nearly all predator clientele. The one prey mammal there was a white-tailed deer doe. She was with a male wolf and Nick noted the black leather collar with a shiny steel ring set in it at the front of her throat. The thing more notable than her presence and the collar was that she showed no sign of discomfort at being surrounded by meat eater types. That she attracted only an occasional look (most of curiosity, a couple of...envy[?]) told him that she was pretty well known here.
Out of the corner of one eye, the tod saw a deer doe come in through the front door. A tigress met the doe and took her cold weather coat from her. Nick found that interesting, all of those whom he'd seen come in before had not been afforded that treatment. Donna came straight to the booth Nick sat in and seated herself opposite of him. She noted that he had only a mug of coffee on the table.

"You haven't ordered anything to eat?" she asked.

"When meeting with someone, I think it's considered something of a gaff if one orders their meal before the other arrives," he replied.

He spotted the lifting of the back corners of her mouth as a bit of a smile.

"For a jaded mammal you have a good grip on etiquette," she said.

The tigress came over to present them with menus. Nick was a little surprised when he saw a vegetarian section in the one he had.

"I'm paying so order whatever you wish," Donna said.

He was tempted to go for an expensive entrée and meal but chose something in the upper midrange instead. His hostess put in her own order and the tigress left.

Donna looked the tod over. Tall for his species, a good four, maybe five, inches above the average height for a male red fox. He looked quite fit, in better physical shape than a lot of other mammals. She saw that while he affected a look of casual relaxation his eyes scanned about the room from time to time and that he looked to the door to inspect each new patron that came in.

"Physically fit, quick thinking and acting, and has good situational awareness," she mentally ticked off. "A lot to recommend him for…"

"Tell me, have you ever heard of the Hunt Club?" she asked.

He thought over her question, then:

"Are you talking about the one where some mammals hide things and then put out clues for others to try to find them, or…the 'other' one? The one that one hears only quiet whispers about?" he asked.

"I refer to the latter," the doe said.

Nick had heard those whispers but, like so much of the rumors and scuttlebutt going around on the streets, it was virtually impossible to get anything solid on the subject. The only reason he gave any credence to the Club existing was that, knowing mammals as he did (or, at least, certain segments of them), such an organization had to exist to cater to the 'unusual' desires of said mammals; the desire to be hunted. For some, the hunt was a way to test themselves against a hunter, for others, the hunt provided an emotional 'high' in knowing that a predator was after them in much the same way as things were with their unevolved ancestors. Most of the whispers he heard said that things could, or did, get rough for the prey if they were caught. A few, very few, said things got deadly once in a while.

"Yes, but what I've heard is pretty vague," he answered.

Donna looked at him for the space of a few more seconds.

"I'm here to offer you a hunter's position in the Club," she said.

Present day:

"Here's the spot," said the driver, bringing the vehicle to a stop. "You know the drill."

Nick took off his headset and held it towards the driver, who took it from him. Next, he reached down to the floor in front of him, snagged the rucksack there, then stepped out of the vehicle and walked a few paces from it. His ears heard the electric whine of the wheel motors move off and fade away. When he could no longer hear it, Nick reached up and pulled off his blindfold. A few eye blinks later, he surveyed the surroundings; forested hills. The weather was pleasant and warm so he doffed his shirt and stuffed it into his pack. Next, he slung the pack's straps over his shoulders and then fastened up three straps across his chest and pulled them up snug. Nick moved several more paces, then went down on all fours. Putting his nose to the ground, the tod swept his head about as he breathed in the aromas of untainted earth. Then, still on all fours, Nick brought his head up and sniffed the air for the scents it carried; in his memory 'file' there was one in particular he searched for. It wasn't there, he didn't expect it to be, not this early in the hunt. His actions would have appeared odd to many others but it was his way of getting himself into the mental mindset for what was to come.

Accepting Donna's offer, Nick found himself taking a ten-month hiatus from the streets for a training regimen that caused him to wonder if he was going into the elite military forces (about the only thing missing was the firearms training). The exercise routine left him aching mightily, at first. During this stage, he received familiarization with the Club's rules and regulations. Truthfully, there weren't that many; mostly what one could take with them on a hunt, mainly water (one or more survival filtering straws were recommended), food, and some things that were specific to the prey client's request for anything 'special' to be involved with them. The one BIG one was not to kill any client, even if they wanted that. Also, he was filled in on the variety of hunt requests that were made. The list he read through amused him in many ways and, at the same time, confirmed his outlook of mammalkind as not having changed all that much in spite of their evolved intelligence (his visits to the city's kink and fetish clubs to see what things were like had been an interesting 'education' in its own right). That a good bit of those requests included rough to downright brutal…'measures' if the prey were caught….

"Scratch the civilized facade of almost any mammal and you'll find the savage being there, ready to surface and show itself just as it was thousands of years before," his briefing instructor said.

"So, the clients we have feel that they need… want to give in to their basic instincts, to feel what it is to be hunted? To try themselves against one or more hunters?"

"That's as good a set of reasons as anyone can come up with," the instructor replied.

Nick spent his later months learning woodcraft and tracking in all kinds of outdoors environments and settings. Keen as his nose was, by the end of his training Nick found himself picking up things that he had not noticed before.

"These days, mammals, especially city types, lose their sharpness in sight, hearing, and scent," the tracking teacher, a wolf, said. "It's my job to put that 'edge' back on you, then hone it as much as possible."

Some three months into his training and conditioning, Donna showed up to see how he was doing. She treated him to a meal at the camp cafeteria.

"I'm told you are doing very well," she said.

"Wouldn't know that from all the yelling," he replied with a rueful expression. "Still, it's not bad as everyone else here gets as much of a verbal 'beating' as I do."

His eyes on his sponsor, he took a bite from his turkey sandwich.

"I'm a little surprised you…the club want me for this. Out of 14 trainees I'm the smallest of the bunch," Nick said.

"On the off chance you haven't noticed, there are a number of medium large to upper end small prey and predator species in this world. Depending on how you do, you could be qualified for clients from a little bigger than myself down to bunny, ferret, and weasel sized ones. That's a fairly wide spread of quarry types you can encounter in the choice process. So, hunters your size are in pretty high demand."

She looked around the cafeteria at the other recruits then back to Nick.

"We would really like to have more foxes, your size, and coyotes," she said.

Nick gave the doe a look of curiosity.

"As that both are fairly common in numbers, what is the reason or reasons that you don't have more?" he asked.

There was a momentary quiet as she considered the question.

"Nicholas, you're a smart mammal of the streets, you tell me why," she said.

He already had that worked out.

"The big thing is that too many mammals have a real problem keeping their muzzles shut. With all the social media and Net chat connections people yack, yack, yack more than at any other time in history. The club has been in operation for a goodly amount of time…"

"Several centuries," Donna put in.

"…and due to the political incorrectness, among other things, of its activities their 'customers' prefer, demand, discreteness. I'm willing to bet that more than a few of the clients are pretty well known in public. And due to that, you have to have those who can keep their lips zipped, no matter what."

Nick glanced around the cafeteria, then returned his attention to his table mate.

"Which goes a long way in explaining why all but one of my fellow recruits are former military mammals with at least six years in service," he said.

Donna was pleased at his astuteness.

"And you have to be able to trust them, and me, not to become blackmailers and/or stalkers," he added. "With what we find out over time that can be its own problem, on top of everything else."

Now, she was really pleased, both by his pointing out the other problem and by including himself in it as a possible 'difficulty'.

"Dead on on both counts," she said. "In the time between our first 'meeting' and the date at the "Hunting Preserve" a background check was done on you. That we made you the offer should tell you what the results were."

The fox was down on all fours, his head down and nose sweeping back and forth barely millimeters above the ground. She'd been here, her scent was unmistakable.

"Yes, she's headed that way," he thought as he started tracing the spoor trail, threading his way through the dense grouping of trees.

An alarm bell sounded in his head. It wasn't right, this was easy, a little too easy.

"She knows better," he thought.

"Unless she's thinking you'll think that way," his inner Devil's Advocate chimed in.

Yes, she'd done that once before; it was one of the two times she had beaten him. Still, knowing that he knew that, would she try it again? He came to a wide shallow stream.

"Old trick," he thought as he looked up and down it.

That notwithstanding, it was still an effective one if done right. It would cost him precious time trying to find where she had come out.

"If that's what she's done," Nick thought to himself.

He backtracked to the point he had picked her scent up. Again, on all fours, the vulpine sniffed around the ground.

"Hmmmm, her scent is just a little too strong here," he thought. "She might have backtracked."

Standing again, the fox looked up over his head…and saw the sturdy tree branch above. Hunkering down first, he sprang upwards to grab on to it. Chinning himself, he sniffed along the branch, and caught patches of his quarry's spoor on it. Hiking himself up onto the branch, he studied the surrounding trees. One branch strong enough to hold her weight intersected with this one. He followed it to the next tree. From there there was no branch to go to. Dropping to the ground, Nick did another sniff check; nothing. Back up the tree and a closer look around. While there were branches immediately close enough to move to there was one in the direction of travel indicated. Down on the ground and then over to and up that tree. Scrutinizing the suspect branch, he picked out a place where the bark had some kind of mark on it. A closer look revealed that the bark appeared to have been rubbed by something. A sniff…

"Yes, that's her!" he thought.

He picked a few fibers from the area and examined them.

"You tore up a blanket, braided it into a makeshift rope, weighted one end, and wrapped it around the branch to swing over. Oh, clever girl!" he thought in admiration.

Back on the ground, he checked around the trees in the direction of travel, downwind, she seemed to be going. A few minutes later, he found where she had come down.

Nick sat at his usual booth at the Hunting Preserve. He was regarded as a 'regular' these days and, as such, received some preferred treatment. Though he had a menu on the table, the fox had yet to order anything beyond a cup of hot herbal tea plus the obligatory glass of water. Movement at the front door caught his attention and he saw Donna enter. She headed straight for his booth.

"This seat taken, oh mighty hunter?" she asked.

"Since its not occupied, it's all yours," he said.

She slid into the seat opposite his and settled herself.

"Order what you want, my treat," Nick said.

"You're on! They serve up a 'killer' golden barley, clover, and alfalfa smothered in lilac and rose cheese sauce here."

"Sounds good. Just remember that you'll likely 'pay' for it in your hips and behind later on," Nick snarked.

"Nice try, Devil's Fur, but you're not talking your way out of paying for it," Donna said. "Also, they've got a new wine I want to try."

"Hmmm, if you're interested in it, order another glass, I'd like to try it."

Nick lowered his menu to see the deer doe.

"Devil's Fur?" he inquired, with a raised eyebrow.

"Nick name your most recent client's tagged you with. The one who's tip is, I'm sure, paying for this meal," she answered.

"I thought that was supposed to be privileged information," he said.

"It is. But, being the finder and sponsor of a rising star in the Hunt Club does have a few perks," she said. "Though the numbers I get are never specific. That, only our accounting people know."

They made their orders and the tiger waitress took their menus and left.

"Got something for you," Donna said.

She fished a manila packet out of her oversized purse and handed it over to the vulpine.

"Normally the courier would bring that, but as I was meeting up with you I figured I'd give it to you."

It was an assignment packet. Nick checked around to be sure no one else was about then opened it and did a quick look over of the contents; two sheets of paper and six photos. He read both papers quickly, then pushed those back in the envelope then tucked it inside of his shirt.

"Already decided?" the cervine fem asked.

"Yes, I'll be accepting it," Nick said.

She gazed at Nick for a few seconds.

"Out of curiosity…" Donna started.

"Repeat client. Kind of…special to me," he said in reply.

The waitress reappeared with their orders and the bottle of wine plus the glasses for it. Over the next several minutes, they ate, tried the wine (both pronouncing it excellent), and exchanged some small talk. Donna had known this vulpine for close to three years, now, and she had a sense that…

"Donna?"

"Yes?"

"I've got a…'Club' question for you."

"Ask it. Worst I can say is 'No comment'," she said.

"Mammals are not machines…robots. They have emotions, instincts, that even our evolution has trouble keeping a paw grip on a lot of the time."

A nod.

"'Hunters', are no exception."

Another nod.

"So, how does the Club deal with Hunters who become involved…entangled, not via blackmail or other questionable means, with one, or more, clients?"

Pause.

"As in, both sides go into a relationship willingly," the deer doe said.

Nick's turn to nod. After, maybe, a moment of thought, he saw her cheeks pop out some and heard the puff of air she hard exhaled, her eyes looking at a point somewhere behind him.

"You have just touched on what is a knotty, most complex, ongoing subject. Really, the most intricate one the Club ever deals with. One that we've…'struggled' with since the inception of the Club."

Silence as she considered the subject more, and what to tell him about it.

"When that occurs, and it does a lot, there are a couple ways things go. One, the most common, is that the hunter quits and they go their own way. Almost all of the time they either end up as formal or informal mates. Other times, as one or both are mated to someone else, they become lovers. Really, we prefer that solution as it is a clean break."

"The other?" the fox prompted.

"Said hunter keeps working. Almost all do their best to keep their job at the Club separate from their other life. Sometimes it works. Other times…"

"I noticed that, during my training, they emphasized staying professional, to keep one's emotions under tight control," Nick said.

Donna's gaze shifted to him and he saw the questioning prompt in her eyes.

"But, there is, from what I've been able to see, no out and out rule…regulation forbidding one from developing an 'extracurricular' relationship with one, or more, clients," he finished.

"Sigh. That's because they tried that a few times in the past," Donna said.

"I take it that it didn't work out any better than the 'vows of celibacy' any number of religious and other groups insisted upon."

The doe shook her head.

"No. And we choose to learn from our past errors, not repeat them," she said.

Reaching across the table, she placed one hand over one of his.

"Thinking about…?"

"Stray thoughts, at this time," he replied.

Nothing more was said on the subject.

Nick scanned the area below him. There was an open clearing to his left, its edge about 20 feet away. If she stuck to the pattern she'd established.

"There!" he thought with satisfaction.

Nostrils flared as wide as possible, the hunted fem did quick scans to her left and right. All of a sudden, her sense of danger jumped to an uncomfortable level and increased from there. She knew why; he was near, too damned near!

"Great Maker! Where is he?!" she thought, trying to keep her instinct to run in panic under control.

"Tik!"

Head jerking in the direction of the sharp little sound, then her eyes scanned the area. Nothing.

"Tik!"

Sound off to her left, a visual sweep, while slow stepping away, spotting nothing.

"Thump!"

Looking down at the ground in front of her feet. Her eyes widen at the sight of the toy fox plush lying there, seemingly looking up at her.

"No!"

A weight crashes down on her, staggering the fem to the ground as arms go around her, pinning her arms to her sides. Instantly, she works at rolling about in an attempt to dislodge the pred. A growl comes from he who rides her and then…

"Eeeeyah!" she bleats when jaws clamp onto the sides of her neck. Several sharp points of pain at both sides of her neck announce that fangs and teeth have broken through, drawing blood.

Maker and Divine, her blood tasted just a sweet as that first time he'd drawn it almost nine years before! She was tiring, he could feel it. He quick switched one arm to get it across her lower neck. Hold established, he used his other paw to grab the object tucked and taped into his belt and yank it free.

He had her, she knows it, but she goes on in her resistance. Then, she feels something go around her neck, just below where those jaws are clamped onto it. Her ears pick up the faint "tik" sound as it locks into place. All of the fight in her drains away.

"Collared. Owned," she thinks, just lying there.

Her hunting Master claimed her once again. With a last hard bite down on her neck, he released his prey and then roll jumps to his feet.

"On all fours, like the ANIMAL you ARE!" he snarl commanded.

When she was on her hands and knees, Nick took the towel and bottle of disinfectant he already had out and cleansed the bite wounds he had inflicted. That done, he stroked a paw down along the length of her back. She trembled at the feel of it through the thin fabric of her cotton shirt for she knew what was coming. Fox claws extended….

"Rip! Tear! Shred!" went the back of that shirt.

In quick order, the remnants fell and gathered around her wrists and lower parts of her lower arms with the rest lying in tatters on the ground beneath her. Paw hands dragged the cargo shorts, and her panties with them, off of her hips and along her slender legs to be discarded off to one side. Except for her collar and the sleeve remnants on her arms, she was naked. The fox withdrew a coiled leather thong about a third of an inch thick from his ruck and let it unwind to its full five feet of length.

"Prey animal!" he stated in a normal tone of voice.

She gave a sharp bleat at the first hard stroke of that lash across her shoulder blades.

"A beast to be used as this predator wishes!"

The second strike landed a few inches above the small of her back.

"Used, abused, humiliated, degraded as this one chooses!"

The third hit really hurt as it lashed across the backs of her thighs. Time and again that cruel thong laid itself over her body. And not once did she object, beg for mercy, or shy away from any of it.

The antiopini fem "mmmmmed" ever so faintly in sated satisfaction. Her body ached and burned from the lashing it had received but she expected and accepted that. In fact, she insisted that it be done to her. Now, here she was, snugged up with he who was her undisputed Master with his vulpine cock deep within her feminine channel and his knot well and goodly tying the two of them together. He had used her just as hard and harsh sexually as he had lashed her; clawing and biting her as well as hard humping her. There was no love or gentleness in it, just rut. He demanded, she acquiesced. For her, it was the best, gloriously so. His last taking of her had been front to front and no less rough…energetic. Now, that knot did its job in that it plugged her entrance thus keeping his seed inside of her. In her mind's eye, she envisioned those millions of sperm cells seeking about within her, searching for any egg or eggs that might be there for them to try to fertilize. She was in her fertile cycle, so at least one, maybe two, were there. In spite of their differences, she found herself hoping that those fox seeds would be successful in their single minded purpose. That new life, his, might take root within her womb.

"He deserves to have his bloodline continued," she thought as she gave the top of his head a loving nuzzle. "And complications be damned!"

"What are you thinking!"

Though the volume of that voice was quiet it left her in no doubt that it was a command.

"About how much I needed this, my Master," she said, mentally sidestepping from her real train of thought. "My creativeness has really sucked over the last couple of months and my performances began suffering as well."

She felt him shake against her, his body trembling with suppressed mirth.

"Yes, my Master?" she questioned.

"Was just thinking. I wonder what so many mammals would think, how many would be terribly shocked, if they knew that the great and beauteous song writer, singer, and performer, Gazelle, must, literally, suffer so mightily for her to remain so good at her craft."