The first lesson I ever learned as a pup is that I can't trust anyone. Never. Under no circumstances at all. The second lesson is that I need to try to always have trash ready for the moment all the eyes are setting on me, in order to throw it somewhere else and get my ass saved from any compromising situation. The best way to do that? Keeping my ears alert at all moments and never get drunk. Wolves in the tribe use it very frequently to forget about their problems and enhance their pleasures, but it can also put you in your fellows' sights without even realizing it, and that's a huge no-no for me. Water is my best friend at the banquets, but Caelan will have to act a little bit smarter if he wants me to share any of it with him. Maybe a little bit more than he's willing to show, much to the chagrin of his protector.
The Chief's heir, Ranok. That wolf has been a naughty, I-do-what-I-want guy for most of his life, and that has caused him no little trouble. The human he has under his wing is the greatest proof of it, and if I were him, I'd be sure he's only keeping my own agony going for longer than necessary. It's surprising to see both Caelan has made it alive this far and the wreckless wolf hasn't been banished yet. Not only his moon brother, but that inexperienced shaman are mixed in as well, and that's by no doubt due to their close relationship. It doesn't take a genius to figure it out. If you're at least of around my age, you'll have certainly seen the two males meeting fairly often at some point, not to mention everyone knows they were born the same night, albeit Vulgor's body was a little bit... early, to put it kindly. Regarding the white female, he simply used to tease her a lot.
While any possible chemistry with Verissa has most likely died completely, it's clear any signs of rivalry between Alphas he should have with Vulgor are just as disposable, if not more, than the lust most males would feel when mating a female in heat. Their relationship has always been something else entirely, even from the earliest days I have memories of. That black wolf was cursed with a new moon stone, thus he was rejected by most of his fellow pups and lots of adults, but his moon brother stayed beside him most of the time so that he wouldn't feel alone. Anyone who wanted to play with Ranok was forced to be close to his brother. Also, despite the unfairly bad luck that serious canine had with his moon stone, his brighter companion is incredibly religious, no matter how pissed the bad omen looks when the prayer time comes. You could say he is actually two men in one when devoting himself to our ancestors.
But it went even further than that. By the time I witnessed the first piece of evidence of them not being close solely because of their fated birth, I was starting to actually move around in the world of rumors and gossips, which I quickly realized were vital for me to get away with my plans, at the same time I began my training as a future Alpha. We were often shuffled around the teams of pups they made for all those different games we played, particularly the candidates to leaders. As such, the day I coincided in the same group with both Ranok and Vulgor eventually came, right in the middle of the rutting season. I still didn't fully understand what it actually meant for my body; by hearing adults talking, I managed to get a fairly good idea of it, anyway. In short, males would get females under their beds and hump them to their hearts' content. An idea those two didn't really get correctly as I could soon see.
Older pups were strangely more competitive around that time in the year, but it was obviously the effect of the female scents in their minds, thus making things even rougher than usual. Other than that, everything was normal, except that day I still clearly remember. Out of the blue, those two pups began coming up with an unnecessarily complicated plan to catch other teams by surprise and get the upper in the game we were playing. I don't know why, but I was the only one who noticed that, as a result of our positions, we wouldn't easily have any of our teammates in our sight without butchering the strategy. That's the reason I couldn't help questioning why on earth we couldn't go an easier route. The replies Ranok gave were just as convoluted and sometimes even contradictory, but I eventually came to the conclusion something funny was up between the moon brothers, and their crazy plan had a very different motivation they weren't willing to say out loud: getting away from the scene without being caught.
Out of my curiosity and in order not to look too disobedient, I gave in to the plan and helped them convince everyone it was worth a shot. They probably didn't get my intentions because they were both inexplicably nervous after the mental fight I had given them, and fortunately, that was enough to track their moves and follow them without any of the two noticing at any moment. It was quite a chore to move around them while not making too much noise, much more if I had to do so reasonably fast in order not to lose track of them. I could really thank my body for being tiny at the time, even smaller than those around my age, otherwise, Ranok would have turned his head towards the direction I was at more than once. Thankfully, as I was nearly exhausted from that stealthy pursuit, they eventually stopped at a little spot between some trees. I was close enough to see what was going on and hear them, but not enough for them to spot me as long as I was careful.
"Are you nervous about being near your mate?" I heard from the black wolf once I was comfortable enough and hidden between the bushes. "No one's getting eaten when you're alone with her!".
"Well... I discovered what you must actually do when mating" his moon brother replied. "And?".
What followed was a much more accurate description of how sex worked than I could ever imagine come out of his teasy muzzle at the time, even adding details I wasn't aware of. If anyone had seen my opened maw, they would have been scoffing at me for entire moons over how stupid I looked right there. That didn't last long, as my eyes widened as much as my mouth did before upon seeing Ranok starting to behave in an incredibly strange way, something I hadn't heard of before: humping lustily like a male, but moaning and begging needfully like a female. The worst part of it all was, it was making a dent in me, too.
"Mmmmmmm... I-I need your help, brother" he moaned again right before pulling his pants down and letting his shaft free, despite Vulgor's attempts to convince him otherwise.
It took a while, but the bad omen was eventually convinced by his brother to show him his boner, too. That's when I felt an incredibly tight ache in my pants and forced by a sudden impulse, I did the exact same: what I found is that I had the same kind of thing hanging from my crotch as those two, and it didn't seem to be precisely unenthusiastic about what I was seeing and hearing. And smelling, to some degree.
"Don't worry, brother. I think this is normal... at the time of the year we are, of course...".
Despite the black wolf's reluctant face, his moon brother was actually right. Only it had been triggered when it normally shouldn't, just like it happened to defective wolves.
They were going back and forth about the idea of rubbing their members together for a while. If there was one thing that broke Vulgor's will not to do it with his brother, it could only be his begging, lusty moans combined with the strong scent even I could catch no problem at all, causing my own red thing to twitch even more eagerly.
"Please..." Ranok moaned out. "Aaaaah...".
"Let's do it quickly, okay?" the black wolf eventually said as he got mostly naked as well.
I wasn't able to hold myself anymore from acting as we were told not to do in that regard, grabbing my shaft and starting to stroke it very roughly. My hand actions quickly switched to thrusts with my hips as soon as they embraced together and began humping each other. Their moans, especially those from the grey wolf, while barely noticeable by my ears, were riling me up to a point I didn't know I could reach at the time.
Their dirty act surely got a lot more intimate than I thought was possible, further pleasing each other carnally and giving in to the pleasure they were feeling. My body felt so hot by that point, so much I could wind up howling from the sensation that was making my legs so weak. Later came the climax.
"B-brother...!".
I couldn't resist watching them cum on each other's body for long before clenching my teeth and shooting my load on a tree beside me, panting as lowly as I possibly could. Damn, it felt good, yet those two wolves I was spying on seemingly enjoyed at least three times my own pleasure as they recovered from that exhausting experience. The way they looked at each other was also totally foreign to me, though I immediately felt the wish of taking their place as they smiled. I could only be glad of my body not being covered in semen by the time I was done squeezing my shaft off, unlike those two.
"How do we get this... thing off?".
Seeing they were trying their best to clean each other off, I decided to go ahead and get dressed as I was before and leave as soon as possible. While neither of the moon brothers thought about it, I was particularly worried about getting my fur as tidy as it previously was in order not to raise suspicions. A considerable amount of time passed between me and them going back into position, and even though I'm not sure when I heard their steps towards our position and when it was other stuff, I got to imagine they spent even more time doing lewd stuff together until they came back with us to the training. Lucky them, we were all present at the moment we trapped another team and, while it wasn't a complete disaster as I had initially feared, it could have certainly gone a lot better. Particularly because Ranok, among others, ended up getting scratched enough they needed to pay a visit to the healer.
I never told anybody about what I saw that day, and that's what makes me the proudest of my intelligence. You shouldn't publish everything you see if you know what's good for you, and I'd give Ranok and Vulgor having sex in the middle of the forest as the number one example of that. Not only there's a very low chance of that sinking in if none of them managed to deny it convincingly enough, but it also was inevitable I would be asked how I discovered it by everyone and their mother, and there's no way I could escape that trap. It was very difficult, if not impossible, not to be regarded as defective as the two future Alphas I would be uncovering. I tend to prepare before exposing any piece of information I have, and that would definitely play against me. I simply couldn't risk being put to shame like that, not when my only prize was bringing another two wolves into the same storm I would be in.
Witnessing that also had disadvantages on its own. For example, the fact that I had actually enjoyed watching two men being a lot more intimate than we're actually allowed to. It took me some nights and a few women to make sure, plus quite some later trouble, and while those satisfy me, I know very well males get me a lot more excited than females. Breasts are nice to watch to get my imagination going, but the flirts other guys made on females themselves normally rile me up more easily. It's horribly tough to handle, especially when the smell of rutting females sorta throws me off and the horniness males show almost makes me want to moan like a bitch for one of the buffest ones and let them do as they wish to me. I can't reasonably expect any males to let me fuck them, at least not without pushing them to a corner like I usually do with young soldiers when they're misbehaving a bit too much. Not for the same purposes as men on women, obviously.
There's something even worse than that, though. Sometime after I saw them frotting, as I've heard from wolves coming from outside our sacred land, I started to actually notice how strong Ranok and Vulgor's bond actually was. Both of them refusing to call each other by their pup names, which was at first just bizarre to me, became evidence of the fondness they had, and no matter how hard I tried to get them to pronounce those temporary names, they'd always wind up dodging the hits quite skillfully. The most humiliating of my foiled attempts happened when I tried to convince the grey wolf his moon brother had asked me to tell several of the pups with me to go to his group instead. I made sure to call everyone by their pup names as we usually said, focusing especially on the green-eyed teen. But it turned out he could play lazy and refuse to move to the other group. And the way he did it felt like he was pissing on my face shamelessly.
"Are you sure he textually said those names?" he'd ask with his typical teasy and confident attitude.
"Yes, he did. Do you think I can't listen?" I replied, trying not to sound angry right away.
"I do, you have to be wrong. You must have misunderstood my name while he was referring to someone else".
"He didn't!".
"My moon brother probably doesn't want me in this game. And for good reason".
As I huffed angrily at the moon brother bit, I suddenly had the black wolf showing up behind me. Even if I was obviously lying, I tried to explain that living headache was disobeying his command, and he quickly shut my attempt down by saying:
"Well, you're actually wrong. My brother isn't coming with me. He's too much of a hassle to handle in this game. Better leave him to you".
Upon turning his back to the other pups, and despite the dismissive comment on him, Ranok was mocking me like a kid, which further angered me. His brother made visual contact with me one last time before walking away as he chuckled.
If what I heard about female emotions was accurate enough, what I felt upon having that genuine friendship rubbed all over my face was called jealousy. I was jealous as hell, and not because I liked either of those. I might have something with Vulgor should he try hard enough, but that's it. No, it was because of how much they could trust each other. The way they respected each other to a higher level than with every other pup, no matter how angry they could be, which wasn't exactly rare. The fact that they thought of each other when they were away. Even though they expressed it in very different ways. In the case of Ranok, whenever we were on a mission together without the red-eyed canine, he'd pray himself to sleep.
"I plead you, to the spirits and our ancestors, to protect my brother, to ignore his rejection towards your grace, to bring the joy I have to him. I shall devote my life to you should he ever be as happy as all the other pups, should he ever be highly esteemed as anything other than a soldier...".
Perhaps I could hear some of the youngest pups praying for their parents at some point, by never in my life I could imagine anyone asking the spirits to make a single wolf happier than he is. That made me even more jealous, because, even if Vulgor didn't know it, or maybe he just dismissed anything related to our tribe's beliefs completely for obvious reasons, I still wish someone would devote themselves to praying for me, regardless of whether I really deserve it or not. His moon brother, while never ever praying, would be clearly thinking of Ranok at some point at night. Ironically, there was usually a full moon up in the sky whenever he was in the same group as me while his brother wasn't. But it didn't matter all that much to him, as he looked at the bright disc in the dark night and got his sight lost in it, almost as if he could feel that headache's best essence there.
"Please try to behave, brother" I'd sometimes hear him say.
But the biggest piece of evidence of their strong bond and genuine concern for each other could be seen back when Vulgor was showing off his skills for no apparent reason. It was mostly during his late puberty; every few weeks or months, he'd come up with a deed to demonstrate how prepared he was out of the blue, keeping all the eyes set on him for the rest of the day, sometimes getting hurt in the process. While the adults often disciplined him for acting reckless, Ranok was flat out furious at him and showed openly the scare he had just felt without realizing. His moon brother would always give different replies to what the point of every incident that happened was, and it almost never made sense. It always looked like he had a bigger reason why he did all of that, but he never dared to say what it was. It went under everyone's nose but mine.
Any doubts of the why in my mind fully disappeared on his biggest mishap: he was clearly trying to get Ranok's attention. That time around, both I and his moon brother were conveniently around as the black wolf was setting the scene. Unlike other times, where he seemed to be triggered by comments of other people, it was he who was actively looking for a fight. With the two best-trained Alphas we had at the time. He seemed to be moving his head everywhere more often than not as he taunted those bigger wolves into beating him, most likely trying to make sure Ranok was watching. And even if he did battle really well considering the disadvantage he was at, it was inevitable for him to be defeated. In fact, I know the grey wolf wanted to stop all of that as soon as possible, but I personally took care of preventing him from taking action sooner. Honestly, I wanted to see that not-so-good soldier being put in his place.
However, just as the red-eyed canine fell on the ground, Ranok forced me to let him go by trying to land an elbow on my face, which was enough to be able to escape my grab and go defend his injured moon brother. Vulgor had done it: he had successfully proven how fond his brother was of him. Not to mention get the four involved in trouble. The two Alphas were heavily disciplined by the Chief and put off their leadership into ecclesiastic assistants for quite a long amount of time. The black wolf would be forced to detention, isolated from the rest of the pups, and forced to train from day to night, for almost the same amount of time. I have heard that's essentially imprisonment for pups, incredibly rough, enough for some of them to die out of exhaustion in the middle of it. Trying to get his brother to look at him by asking to be punished in such a way? A little too much, honestly.
That didn't stop Ranok from wanting to be beside his moon brother as much as possible. Quite the opposite, in fact, and I had to see it with my own eyes. First, when I had to go look for him after staying all day long with the black wolf. The first gesture he did to him was irritating, but the next one came when we got to the lobby. He stopped walking, turned around, and began praying right in the middle of the room, for quite a long time, to make matters worse. I kept waiting for any sign of him deciding to stop his begging to the ancestors like rain in the desert, and by the time he was actually done, I was livid at him.
"What's the matter? You traded your patience for your intelligence?" he'd respond to my face rudely.
I could also notice in the grey wolf's eyes during the few seconds we made visual contact he had been crying, which only confirmed how much of a fright he had been through.
But the most infuriating proof of their bond came in the next morning. Once again, Ranok and I were meant to be on the same team, but he hadn't shown up. For some bizarre reason, I was sent to find him again, and the upset huff I'd let out was an accurate prediction of how hard it would be to figure out his location, much more when he wasn't near the place he used to sleep at. Upon hearing where the guard had brought Vulgor to begin his detention, it hit me right on the snout and ran to that very location. There were the two moon brothers along with the adult wolf. The only thing the cursed boy did was stare sadly at the grey pup, hugged to his leg, arguing with the instructor as the little drops of patience he had left were leaking out.
"Get outta here and go with the other pups, you fucking brat!".
"No" was his only response.
"Do you wanna try having your face destroyed?!".
"I don't care, I'm not abandoning him again, you hear me?" Ranok barked back.
"Come on, idiot" I intervened, trying to grab him. "We can't keep...".
He barked at me in the same furious way he'd do to the adult, and when I did my best attempt of pulling him out of his embrace, he began protesting with all his energies, much in the same way a little pup would do. The guard tried his best to help me get him away from the scene, but that only caused his will to grow even stronger, resulting in him trying to hit both of us hard while yelling like a baby. Not even Vulgor himself would change his mind.
"You don't need to be punished for what I've done, brother!" he exclaimed, visibly concerned for him.
"But I still wanna be with...!".
"STOP!".
That scream from the black wolf only served as a warning before his brother would be hit by a wooden bar on his head. By the pitch of his whine, it probably hurt a lot, but the only one who should have been punished felt like a little prey being stabbed upon witnessing that.
"Don't hurt my brother, please" he begged, visibly broken by that point, even though he still tried to defend his moon brother.
That was responded to with another hit to Vulgor's side.
"He asked for it, you bad omen. Don't try to play puppy now" the guard replied furiously before he faced me and wiggled the weapon towards my direction. "GET OUT OF HERE".
As I walked away out of panic, my eyes were set on those two. That cursed wolf's emotions cropped up in a non-verbal way in order to ask Ranok to go with me and not suffer pointlessly.
"I'm fine, brother, as long as I'm beside you...".
"TWO THOUSAND PUSH-UPS! NOW!".
Even if he was given the chance a million times by his father and most other adults to get out of detention, the Chief's heir's answer was invariable:
"Only if you lift it for my brother, too".
The guy in charge of both of them was rough, to the point I could consider it even cruel if it wasn't because I saw it as the final test for their bond. Not only did Ranok work out till exhaustion along with his moon brother, but he also took all those hits and didn't dare protest at the physical violence that was mostly applied to him. As I could witness weeks later, when their time was almost up, Vulgor was starting to get mad at the unfair actions the grey wolf suffered. At some point, when his brother began coughing up blood due to all those hits, he'd wind up protesting and eventually engaging in a fight with the guard by using the little energy he had left.
"STOP BEATING MY BROTHER, YOU BASTARD!" he'd yell at him on the verge of crying out of rage while roughing him up easily despite his smaller size.
Through my own teenage years, I got so mad at those shows of love for each other, for lack of a better word, I'd usually make a fuss on my bed, burying my head on a pillow and screaming to my heart's content, sometimes shedding uncountable tears without realizing as the same amount of questions floated in my mind uncontrollably. Why did they care for each other so much? What kept them bonded so hard? Why the hell would they crawl through the desert for that single wolf or suffer together like that? Why would they think of each other non-stop when they weren't together? Why did I want to know that badly how it would feel to be loved to such a point? I had to forcefully learn to deal with my own frustration if I didn't want to be eventually caught being defective, but that didn't make me less jealous whenever they showed any signs of affection or concern towards each other right under my nose, no matter how minor they were and are to this day.
Even though that fight was the last time Vulgor misbehaved in such a way, even seeing little things such as him taking care of the Chief's heir and staying with him all night whenever he was sick, or Ranok attempting to get his brother's attention, despite how annoying he could actually be, bugged me as if I was forced to deal with him every single time while I confined myself to watching. That green-eyed wolf would sometimes drink and drink and drink until alcohol sank way too deep in his mind for him to make his way back home. Without exception, it was always Vulgor who guided him a lot more carefully than he should, and despite his upset look on his face, anyone else trying to take his place would be growled at harshly. His moon brother would look as happy as a puppy as they sloppily walked, sometimes mumbling "mommy..." or something like that. There's no way he couldn't be staging that just to meet the bad omen even if it was just once.
And that reckless wolf apparently didn't have enough with that violent butcher. Now he also has the human, in his own house, even! The worst part of it is they already seem to be fairly attached as I could notice at the banquet. Setting aside the fact that little boy is almost certainly capable of understanding us a lot better than he's willing to admit, what really bugged me back there was the fact that they didn't want to lose track of each other. My imprisonment suggestion and the fact that I took him to dance irritated his protector a lot, which only got to satisfy me a little bit as I sneakily told him he can't have all the affection in the world. It would take a lot longer to actually damage any sort of relationship they have, but it's not I'm not gonna try to put him in his place and make him feel if anything, a little less special than he thinks. Not like I'm talking about him being the future Chief, there's no changing that for now.
Still, it's not fair at all. I also want to feel that sort of foreign warmth that ran through my chest while I was dancing with the human. It wasn't just plain entertainment or socializing with your allies for him, he did like it, he actually enjoyed my attention before Ranok stepped in from the jealousy, the same kind of feeling I've had over him and his moon brother for years. Not only I wanna make him feel that, but I want more of Caelan if that's how he should be called. I'm aware my attempts to hamper the night for the grey wolf went too far when the little boy refused to play along anymore, not to mention how hard it will be to gain his trust now that he's aware of how I approach the scenery. I'm probably getting in trouble with my future boss for the time being, but that won't stop me from trying to have some of his attention focused on me. I. Want. Affection. That's it. Is that wrong for me to chase? Well, it should be for that idiot, too!
