In that second, Daryl lunges with a snarl, Shifting in his journey through the air and landing on all fours before her. No longer a man, but a drooling beast.

Beth shrieks in part terror and part arousal, the adrenaline pumping through her bloodstream and her cunt. Daryl howls and sprints forward, teeth snapping.

She dodges with another shattered scream, falling down onto her bare belly and breasts. The wind breaks out of her mouth desperately before she scrabbles against the dirt with her nails and propels herself forward.

"Daryl, stop!" She shouts as she runs, the air sucking the words into a void. "There's somethin' in here, remember! There's somethin' comin'!"

Daryl's jaws snap at her ankles and she's not even disappointed because she didn't believe she would get through anyway. He's lost to the Wolf now.

Gasping; legs pumping, sweat pours down Beth's temples as she picks up speed, nearly falling over herself again.

In her next step she stumbles, catching herself against the bark of the tree and grunting as she knocks the breath right out of her own lungs for the second time.

Sweat stings her eyes and her hair sticks to her skin, Daryl's panting breaths not far behind. Her knees are so weak she falls when she tries to run but it saves her from Daryl's lunge at her back.

Right now he could fuck or kill her. The Heat is all about the thrill of the hunt, both malicious and delicious. Jesus, if he's like this now… what will he be like when the Heat hits?

Falling to her hands and knees, she attempts to crawl until she can get her feet under her again but she's so weak she's trembling.

When a large shadow looms over her and then a paw presses to her back, she gives in, her trembling muscles breaking under his weight.

He whines over her, breath so hot on her shoulders and hair she shivers. She's as still as she can be pressed against the cold mud with all his heat at her back, shivering at the contrast.

Her face is pressed into the mud too, her pulsing, injured cheek slimy with it and breath heavy. "Daryl," she whispers softly as his nose presses into her hair. "You don't wanna. You know you don't."

A growl rumbles through his throat and her ear as he leans back. If he fucks her they'll just have to deal with it and if he kills her… well they'll be nothing left to worry about.

There's something oddly peaceful with the thought. Some kind of decision now made, she goes slack.

This pleases him and he moans gravelly against her spine as he nuzzles his wet nose down it, breath so hot she shivers anew.

His head keeps dropping and with his descent a new thought arises. Mate, she thinks with a shiver. The scent of the mate lies between her legs…

The place Daryl is heading.

Where she only just went slack she goes rigid again in awe of what could be happening and Daryl responds instantly, his breath a growl and his paw pressing harder in her shoulder blades.

Beth hisses as his claws begin to puncture the first layer of her skin, raising wells of blood. They run like tiny rivers down her back and she squeezes her eyes closed, willing her body to calm but it's so hard.

So hard because what if. What if he is her mate? What if they were meant to find each other? What if this is who she's destined to be with, to-

Her thoughts snap back sharply. Destined to breed with. Only she can't. She couldn't breed with her husband. Couldn't even knot.

Daryl seems to hesitate at the dip of her spine, pulling her from her thoughts. Maybe this is where he slices his claws down her back and pulls her spine out.

Maybe this is where he rears up and thrusts his swollen cock into her begging cunt, of which she can smell so keenly it must be hell for him, singing from her blood.

He doesn't. Doesn't kill her, doesn't fuck her. His tongue lolls out and the very tip glides between her ass cheeks. Her eyes are still closed but she can picture it so well and paired with his heavy paw it's not hard at all to do so.

This is it. It's true. It's real. He's mating her. The Bonding has begun with the first warm glide of his tongue.

She takes in a shaky breath as the thick muscle of his tongue worms deeper between the crack of her ass and lathes at her puckered asshole.

Beth whimpers and Daryl whimpers too, making room for her raised hips as she pushes up on her knees, offering her cunt.

His tongue slides further down, rimming at her begging walls and she sobs because of both the action and his claws, digging deeper in her skin.

The arousal lies solidly on the edge of the knife: the cruel balance of pleasure and pain, almost overwhelming. The Bonding always leaves scars. These will be hers.

The insistent digging of his claws into the layers of her flesh, pulling them up and pushing into the muscle beneath. He growls thickly, his mouth sounding stuffed full as her wetness pools into it.

She pants brokenly and when he digs his tongue in deeper she actually laughs, thick and clogged and all kinds of wrong but she does. "You wanted to fuck your mate huh, Daryl? Well you… God, you found her. You found me. I'm your mate. Jesus, I'm your mate. I'm yours. I'm yours, I'm yours," she chants as he gets faster with her words, desperate, tongue heavy and huge and fucking into her.

Beth puts all her weight into her knees and rocks back onto it, tears heading into her eyes as the claws in her back pull in and out too, tearing her open further.

The thin rivulets of blood turn into heavy flowing rivers much like her pussy juices and it's perfect, it's so perfect. The pleasure is tightening in her belly, clutching at her temples and it's building in a way it's never done so before.

It's building in a way that says maybe she can knot, that maybe she just needed her mate first to do it, to work it out.

The husband she took was taken in desperation. Maggie denounced the throne and she'd had two years worth of bleeds and Heats but she hadn't found a mate.

Of course now she knows why. He was too far, lost here in the Waste Lands. Her husband could never do this to her, never did this to her.

The irrational need consuming her veins, the juices pouring out of her cunt, the mad rocking of her knees. She's never been this wild.

Twenty four hours with a savage and she's become one. But then, he is her mate. He is. He didn't kill her and he didn't fuck her.

He claimed her, took her wetness in his mouth and swallowed down the very essence of her, even now slurping obscenely in the still darkness of the trees.

Getting more excited, faster, deeper. It almost hurts, almost feels like too much but she's riding it and she's so close to something she can't articulate there's tears building in her eyes.

Is it the knotting? Surely that's something she can only do on his cock, her pussy shrinking so harshly as his cock swells so wide they tangle.

Maybe she has to be the Wolf for that. She's never been allowed to discuss hybrid fucking, she doesn't know how it works but it seems Daryl is keen to get there, keen to claim her in the most final way and he retracts his body.

The claws in her back pull free from her torn flesh with a insidious squelch, blood splattering her raised ass and thighs, maybe even her pussy.

His tongue pulls free from her cunt even as her walls chase him, her mouth releasing whimpers and her eyes streaming.

When he takes her by the hips and flips her on her back it kills. Mud and leaves and dirt clinging to her bleeding wounds, mixing in with her blood.

It's so savage. She's only ever fucked in a bed, on clean sheets with clean skin. She couldn't be so far away from those experiences as she is right now with Daryl looming over her.

He's so tall as his Wolf and broad too, swallowing up all her visual space. The fur on him is a chocolate brown threaded with the same grey as his human beard.

He's stunning and she reaches her shaking hand out to him, her fingers sinking into the fur and spreading.

He rumbles deep in his chest, the rumble turning to a purr of content as his paws raise, claws running so dangerously sharp over her collar bones.

Beth sucks in a breath and holds it, arching as he drags those claws down her breasts and vulnerable stomach, scratching deep into her flesh so more blue blood wells and glides into her belly button. She will scar here too.

It makes her throat catch to think that in another life those scars would have stretched and thinned with her rounded belly.

They would have moulded and made room for the bright red stretch marks that bloomed beneath them. Stretch marks of honour that she could bare a child for her lover, a boy to rule after he's long buried in the dirt.

Daryl pauses here, distracting her so he can dig lightly with his wicked sharp claw. Beth hisses as her skin parts like melted butter, tips sinking in deeper.

Soon after, they move to her hips. Her eyes stare into his for a while before they fall to his chest, to the thinnest patch of fur around his belly and then finally the thick, jutting cock between his legs.

It's huge. Thick as her wrist and so wet, God he's so wet for her, dripping pre-cum and staining his fur.

She licks her lips and arches her hips higher, pressing into his claws; pressing into the pain. "Mate me, Daryl. Please. I want it. I want it so bad."

Daryl snarls back at her, ears standing high on his head as he stares down at her thin belly twitching under his painful grip, smeared blue from her blood and red raw from his scratches.

He releases her hips to crawl over her, the soaked head of him brushing past her coarse curls and then against her clit.

She whines desperately, her fingers twisting in his fur as he nuzzles his way deeper between her legs, spreading them with his thick thighs.

It's wide enough to ache and she moans lowly at all the dizzying sensations attacking her, heightened by the Heat looming so close.

"You want me," Beth chokes softly. "You want my cunt."

He growls savagely, teeth snapping at her throat and her eyes squeeze closed as she screams. He moans hollowly back at her through the clench of his teeth, his hips rocking forward and pressing into her pussy.

The stretch is accompanied by an intense burning and fat tears roll down her cheeks, her scream spiralling into hysteria.

Excitement pours thick and heavy into Daryl's next thrust and she grunts under all his weight, her face hot in the nest of fur on his chest.

On the next thrust the teeth in her neck change shape and become blunter, the fur beneath her hands slowly receding to skin and the cock in her cunt shrinking.

When he releases the bite and pulls back with her blood on his mouth she can't stop staring at him.

One hand tangles in her hair and the other slides under her waist, pulling her into a sitting position and the further yanking her up onto his lap.

She gasps as she rocks down onto his jutting cock nestled in his lap, eye to eye with him as sweat slicks their chests and sticks them together.

Their gasps mingle in the air between them as he keeps plunging, keeps gliding because she's so wet.

The slap of their flesh is so loud and so intoxicating, her breasts swelling as if milk is filling in preparation for the pup she's about to breed.

Her nipples tighten and she digs her fingernails in Daryl's pecs and shoulders, her back burning in excruciating pain and her cunt singing with nothing but pleasure.

"You're mine," he snarls against her mouth.

Beth clamps down on his bottom lip with her teeth and pushes against his chest. He falls down onto his back, his arms catching him so he can lean on his forearms.

She falls with him, her hands catching with a ringing slap against his chest, balancing there as she smirks at him and he stares back at her, eyes hot and dark.

The way he looks at her makes her feel brazen beyond belief. So brazen that she rolls her hips and belly sinfully, shaking her hair back like she was made for this moment.

She whispers softly, "a woman mounts you after all, mate."

"S'cause you're my mate that you ain't still on your hands an' knees, bitch. Don't make me put you back there, unh. I'm enjoyin' myself." He pants with wild, desperate eyes.

She gasps back, her hips rising higher and faster, slamming down on his cock until it pierces her deep, so deep. God, please, she might.

There's some kind of mountain she's riding and she's sure she can make it, she's sure she can pummel over the edge.

Daryl growls, fucking his hips up into her as his hand reaches for the dangling ends of her hair, pulling so hard her head snaps back on her neck. "You got the tightest pussy I ever felt. An' s'it gettin' tighter. Y'sure you ain't gonna knot, Princess? Y'sure you ain't gonna do that for me?"

No.

She's not sure of anything anymore.

"Please," Beth sobs brokenly as he slams so hard in her she can't breathe, her head so far back she's staring into the moon. "Please Shift. Please, I need it."

He obeys her. Everything gets big. Thick. Hairy. The Wolf emerges once more and when his cock grows and keeps slamming into her swollen, begging, squelching cunt Beth's sure she's gonna meet the Gods.

"Don't stop, don't stop, don't stop! Yes, yes, Jesus. I think- I think I'm gonna… I'm gonna. Holy fuck!"

Every muscle locks. Every blood vessel swells. Every pulse point explodes. Between her legs is pure fire. An eruption of something hot and sweet and so wet.

Daryl roars and his hand tears out of her hair, claws yanking out strands. They're not gone for long and as Beth begins to return to her body they tear down her back, slicing through the welling cuts there and ripping them open so they pour blood down her back and ass cheeks.

There's swelling, so much swelling and jerking and growing between her legs. Beth can barely breathe, her scream sucked into the void as she experiences a knot for the first time in her life.

A river of hot seed explodes in her pussy, filling her so full it spills out into their lap, Daryl's howl wounded as his cock swells and her pussy closes, trapping him.

Her brain seems to explode as her cunt gives one final, desperate clutch and all the wind blows out of her, leaving her empty and loose. She collapses, falling heavily against Daryl's chest and knocking him in a sprawl to the floor as she slowly slides out of consciousness.

I heard if you pass out, it's a boy.