Queen Tenebra and the Forest King

Tenebra, Dark Lady of the Gloaming Wood, looked out across her throne room and saw that all was well. The old decorations were gone; the banners and tapestries which once hung from the walls torn down, the long feasting tables thrown out into the courtyard, the thick carpets dragged away into the catacombs beneath her fortress. The only traces of artifice which remained were her graven throne atop its plinth at the end of the room, a huge drum which sat next to it, and the wooden doors opposite which led deeper into the castle. And even those had been concealed behind thick drapes of greenery.

All in all, Tenebra thought, Francis had done a rather astounding job. A great fire-pit blazed in the center of the room, filling the hall with sweltering heat and dim light, while the smoke was drawn out of the carefully-shrouded windows. Six inches of rich soil had turned the stone floor into a distant memory and provided a fertile bed for the magically-enriched constrictor ivy which smothered the walls and groped blindly across the ceiling.

Originally she had demanded trees, but as a self-styled mistress of evil, Tenebra's powers ran more towards the occult than naturalistic, and there was little she or her minions could do to propagate an oak tree in a few inches of dirt. In the end, though, it hadn't mattered. The illusion - no, the transformation, Tenebra corrected herself - was quite satisfactory. A few minor elementals completed the scene, blowing softly through the false trees or shining down from above like stars peering through a dense canopy.

Tenebra had adopted a great many guises in her time; she had been everything from a demon-worshiping cult queen to a star-gazing oracle of the apocalypse, but this was something new. No more would her followers sit in neatly ordered rows, polishing their armour and drinking from polished crystal and glass. Order and civilisation had been swept away. Now the hobgoblins and kobolds that made up her armies slouched around the edges of the room in barbarous huddles, content to warm themselves by the fire and bask in her glorious presence as they awaited her word.

Not even Tenebra herself had gone unchanged. Her fine dresses and beautiful gowns, each a masterwork of smoky silks and fragile lace, had been locked away in her chambers. In their place she wore little more than a thick cloak of tawny fur pulled tight around her slender body. Her hair, short, sleek and black, had been woven through with feathers and beads carved from bright stones. What little skin was visible through the heavy robe - a graceful arm, artfully crossed legs, and a delicately pointed face with lively eyes - was so smooth and pale it might be mistaken for purest alabaster, and had been painted with a complex pattern of angular runes.

Only one piece remained, and it was the most important of all. A Forest King. One of the last Forest Kings. Tenebra felt her heart beat a little harder at the idea.

"How soon?" she asked. One of the figures surrounding her throne - her elite, her chosen, the inner circle of advisors and bodyguards who had been with her from the beginning - stepped forwards. He was an orc, though far shorter than most of his kind, wiry where they were hulking. Were it not for his drab olive skin and small tusks, he might even have passed for human.

"Not long, dark one," Francis murmured. "Greyscale sent a carrier bird this morning. Assuming nothing bars his way, he expects to return to the cast- ah, the clearing sometime just before midnight. Perhaps an hour from now."

"Mmm." Tenebra took a horn of wine from a passing servant and sunk deeper onto her throne, sipping it thoughtfully. She glanced curiously at her majordomo. He had put only a minimum of effort into his outfit; the heavy pelt draped across his shoulders didn't quite distract from his elegantly tailored trousers and neat leather shoes. Tenebra idly ran a hand down the orc's forearm, her narrow lips quirking up into a lopsided smile as he stiffened under her touch.

"And will you be staying for the festivities?"

Francis pursed his lips, looking carefully off into the middle distance. "I rather thought, if it pleases my great and terrible mistress, to co-ordinate matters from the kitchens. So the revelers can...revel...without interruption."

"Does it please me? Hmm." She stroked her chin thoughtfully. "This is a savage and untamed place, Francis, a glade suitable for the fulfillment of one's darkest instincts. I stated very clearly it was to be so when you created it for me. Your squeamishness really is terribly inappropriate."

The orc offered his mistress a shallow bow of apology, but held his ground. "Thus my hesitation to remain. I know how much you dislike having the mood ruined, and things really will progress much more smoothly if I can oversee the servants directly."

Ixallion chattered with laughter. "Timid, this one. Why so? Great Queen has always been generous with her favours. Yet he works so hard to escape them."

The skinless imp stood in the shadows behind Tenebra's throne, ichorious fluids dripping from his lanky, red-raw body. He had procured a tatty set of labourer's overalls and a scythe from one of the farms that kept the castle supplied with food. Combined with his caprine skull and an inventively-hung laurel of ivy dangling from his horns, it gave him the appearance of a corrupted harvest-spirit, intent on mocking and terrorising those who dared to try taming the wilds.

It really was quite inventive. Tenebra caught the imp's eye and gave him a tiny nod of approval, making a mental note to visit him later and demonstrate her approval. Most of her inner circle doubled as regular lovers which she flitted between as the mood took her. Few were even remotely human. They each had something to recommend them - size, technique, enthusiasm, even the sheer strangeness of their anatomy pressed against her own held its appeal. Tenebra shifted on her throne, absent-mindedly rubbing her thighs together at the thought. If all went as planned, the Forest King would soon join them.

"I merely wish to serve," Francis replied, a note of weariness in his voice. "And though I stand ready in whatever capacity our great and terrible queen demands there are some tasks to which I am eminently more suited than others."

"And so you shall," Tenebra said. "You will remain here until the Forest King has bent to my will. Then, and only then, you may excuse yourself."

Francis inclined his head gratefully and retreated a pace. The orc had been with her almost since the start, and though it amused her to tease him for his prudishness, Tenebra relied upon his capabilities as an administrator more than she cared to admit. Ixallion was right; she was generous with her favours, and sometimes the greatest favour she could bestow was the freedom to do as one wished.

The echo of boots ringing against stone jolted Tenebra from her musings. "Really now," she tutted. "Footsteps? This loud? In the center of the forest? I think not." When the noise only grew, now clearly approaching the hall, she threw up her hands in exasperation.  "We're going to need to expand the soil out into the next rooms, this is absurd."

And then the doors swung open, and the anger vanished from Tenebra's thoughts like shadows fleeing the sun.

A troupe of infantry marched in, led by a tall, powerful kobold with scales the colour and texture of slate, his one good eye flashing triumphantly. Their swords, spears and battered armour stood in stark contrast to the flint weapons and dense furs issued to their peers who had remained at court, and at their center they dragged a huge wrought-iron cage containing the largest wolf Tenebra had ever seen. It was almost as large and stocky as a bear, rippling with bestial muscle and covered in old scars. Quills bristled along its spine, rising from amidst a thick pelt as black as sin, while claws that could have gutted a horse gouged furiously at the earth.

The kobold strode up, walking confidently past the fire and kneeling at the foot of Tenebra's throne.

"Greyscale," Tenebra replied, leaning back and smiling indulgently. "You remain, as always, my most reliable agent. This creature is the Forest King?"

"Aye," Greyscale said. His voice was as stony as his hide, low and rasping. "The very same. Locals named him Drakk, after some local wood-demon. Don't think he'd care to use it himself, mind." The kobold snorted and nodded his head towards the beast. "He led us a merry dance through the woods for three days before we harried him into the cage, but we got there in the end."

The great wolf snarled and threw itself against the bars. The closest soldiers cringed backwards, fingering their weapons anxiously. The great wolf snarled and threw itself against the bars. The closest soldiers cringed backwards and anxiously fingered their weapons. Some of the others slouched around the chamber chuckled.

"Well, it certainly seems vigorous enough. You've done well, as I knew you would, and may take your leave." Tenebra spared the soldiers a sideways glance. "Dispense with your tools of man and return quickly. The savage rite will begin shortly."

Greyscale nodded and gestured to his men. As they filed past the throne and left through one of the rear doors, the kobold caught Tenebra's gaze and gave her a wink. She smiled briefly, little more than a tiny uptick at the corner of her mouth, and motioned for him to hurry on his way. Across from her, the Forest King paced restlessly in his cage. Its eyes never left her, and Tenebra wondered exactly what the creature was expecting.

The Forest Kings were fae beings, as much spirit as flesh. They represented the darker side of nature - selfish consumption and domination, the joy of spit blood and rent flesh, savage and forceful matings. And while they were certainly intelligent and self-aware, they cared little for anything beyond fulfilling their own savage instincts. Such creatures were rare in the barren hinterlands Tenebra claimed for her own, but they had been ruthlessly culled and driven from their territories by the civilised nations to the south. Now they were on the verge of extinction, and that was a situation Tenebra simply could not allow.

And so she had concocted her latest guise, that of a dark and terrible woodland queen who ruled over a court of brutes and monsters from the blackest forest imaginable. Something a Forest King would find appealing, at least until it had been convinced to remain until her passions drifted and she reinvented herself once more. If the Forest King chose to leave, so be it, but Tenebra was supremely confident she could give the beast reason to stay at her side.

The soldiers returned swiftly, Greyscale still at their head, their battered arms and armour replaced with much more aesthetically-fitting furs and hides. Once they were seated, Tenebra called for silence and rose from her throne.

This was the moment, she thought. Her heart surged with anticipation. Every face in the room was turned towards her. Some were bright with admiration, others hungry with desire, but all were for her and her alone.

"Tonight, we welcome a newcomer to our circle. For many moons we have waited, seeking a sign from the ancient ones of their favour, and lo!" Tenebra threw out a hand, gesturing imperiously towards the caged Forest King. "They have sent a king to walk among us! A lord of the darkest and most blood-soaked forests, a being of pure instinct and savagery, to rule the night beside me!"

A cheer went up from the crowd. Orchestrated, of course; a handful of kobolds had been given instructions to cheer upon the delivery of certain lines, and the rest simply followed their lead. But Evil, Tenebra knew, was as much showmanship as anything else. Some things couldn't be left to chance.

"But this is my territory!" She pounded a hand against her chest, bellowing each word with as much gusto as she could manage. This was so different, she thought, so exciting! She strode back and forth before her throne, snarling and grimacing like an actress upon the stage. "I am queen here! I, Tenebra, Dark Lady of the Gloaming Wood, Pack-mistress of the Umbral Hunt, Queen of the Shadowed Boughs! And I will accept no weakness from my alpha!"

Tenebra hurled her cloak away with a flourish. She stood before the crowd, naked of anything but her warpaint and a handful of charms tied around her extremities, a ferocious grin on her face. Many of her followers had seen her undressed, of course, or wearing so little as to make no difference, and a significant minority had done a great deal more than see. But it was rare for her to go completely undressed before so many, and the thrill of it sent a delicious shiver down her spine.

She held the pose for three long seconds, indulging in the awestuck expressions which surrounded her. Then the dark queen stepped down from the throne, a deep boom following every footstep as a pair of minotaurs began beating out a slow rhythm from the drum. The Forest King shifted in his cage, his quills bristling in anticipation. It understood the challenge in Tenebra's speech. Bestial muscle rippled beneath his thick coat, preparing to spring.

"Release him," Tenebra said.

The Forest King leaped the moment the bolt was drawn back. To him, Tenebra must have seemed like a madwoman; tall, trim and slender, her skin smooth and unscarred, bereft of claws or muscle or anything which would allow her to triumph. She even seemed to freeze as he left the cage and hurtled towards her, teeth drawn and claws ready for the kill.

Then she moved. At the last moment Tenebra stepped aside and whipped one of her legs around, elegantly smashing the Forest King out of the air before he could reach her.

Tenebra almost laughed. The magic thrumming through her was something new - or, rather, something extremely, old, but a technique she had never experimented with. She was so used to casting spells outwards, charming and deceiving with illusions or filling the air with howling blasts of fire and lightning, the idea of channeling inwards had never really occurred. She danced to the left as the Forest King rolled to his feet and charged, almost playfully smacking the great wolf in the back of the head as he passed.

"Come!" She cried, laughing wildly as the beast snarled at her in fury. "Do you want me? To tear my flesh and feast on my bones? Then come and get them!"

The Forest King charged again. This time he changed direction at the last moment, anticipating the dark queen's leap and bowling Tenebra to to the ground. Hot breath washed over her as she rolled between the beast's legs, moving far quicker than any mortal being could and slipping away from his claws by inches.

Tenebra's breath came in short gasps. Her head spun. Adrenaline thundered through her veins. Was this what it was like to actually fight people? Up close? With a sword? Should try that one day, she thought distantly. Some sort of amazon Warrior Queen, like the old Boudaccaeans, ruling over a harem of dethroned kings...

She jinked aside again and again, each time evading the Forest King's savagery by a hair. The crowd gasped and cheered each time, watching enraptured as their queen danced around the arena with the great wolf in tow. Every now and then she would land a blow of her own - a kick to the beast's ankle, a swift slap across its nose, a small fist thumped between its eyes.

Twice the Forest King managed to draw blood. The first came when she sidestepped a hair too late and took a swipe across the thigh. The second caught her across the belly when she misjudged the beast's reach. The powerful enchantments she had woven upon herself reduced  the blows to shallow cuts, the fresh sting of pain coming to her as bright and clear as crystal. It didn't slow her. Many of her more infernal lovers had left their own, similar marks in the past.

Before long Tenebra noticed a change in the Forest King's demeanor. The wild savagery which had dominated his earlier blows had vanished. Now the great wolf paced around her carefully, observing for long seconds before making a cautious attack and retreating. And even though they would have broken bones without her enchantments, the creature's blows now seemed more playful than truly aggressive. As if he was goading her.

Tenebra grinned, her pale face glowing in the firelight. She had him. There was a heat building in her stomach, something which had nothing to do with the blaze roaring in the center of the room. Her heart beat fast and hard, matching the boom of the drum, and the first beads of arousal prickled on her lips. She jinked away from the Forest King's paw and caught sight of something emerging between the spirit's legs.

A tremour of anticipation rolled through her. Tenebra had dallied with men and monsters of all kinds, from the beautifully hideous to the simply beautiful, but this would be something truly memorable. To lay with a beast! Oh, true, a great and cunning beast possessed of his own dark intelligence, but a beast in form nonetheless. In all her years of explorations, through all the personas she had adopted, she had never tried such a thing. Now it seemed almost absurd that she had not.

Let the civilised nations of the south whine and clutch their pearls, Tenebra thought; let them talk of sin and taboo and lines that should never be crossed. She would take all life had to offer and more, she would indulge in every new experience the world could place before her, and she would never, ever apologise. That, not the pointless cruelty her rivals employed, was the true essence of Evil. It was everything she had come to encapsulate.

Tenebra dropped to her knees, then onto all fours. Her gaze never wavered as she wound her way sinuously towards the Forest King, fearlessly holding the great beast's scrutiny. He took a step backwards, flicking his tail, then sniffed the air. Tenebra could almost see the battle going on in the beast's eyes. Caution learned from years of evading human hunters warred against the deeper, primal urge to breed. His shaft twitched, shockingly red and bulbous against his midnight fur.

He growled as Tenebra drew close enough to run a hand along his flank, but made no move to pull away. This was the most dangerous point - if the Forest King turned and locked his teeth around her neck, Tenebra knew she would be done for, enchantments or not. But she had conquered stranger and more powerful beings in her time, and the idea of giving up now, in front of her assembled courtiers and servants, seemed strangely worse than the idea of death.

The Forest King's fur was thick and coarse, the corded muscles beneath almost vibrating with tension. She teased her fingers through his coat, whispering soothing words under her breath until she felt the great wolf begin to relax. It was only up close that Tenebra really began to appreciate how large the Forest King was. She was a tall woman, imposingly so when she wished it, but kneeling next to the beast barely brought her up to his shoulders. Soon that body would be atop her own, pinning her willowy form in place as the beast mated her.

Tenebra groaned, softly, under her breath at the thought. She could feel herself getting wetter and wetter. Each breath came faster than the last, almost rasping in her lungs. Slowly her hand traveled beneath the Forest King's great body, stroking over his softer belly-fur, until it touched something quite different. The Forest King jumped, his ears twitching as Tenebra shuffled to the side and pulled his cock towards her.

It was magnificent. Huge, thick, almost impossibly hot between her delicate fingers, the shaft was far smoother than a man's and patterned with delicate red and purple veins. There was no real head, just a blunt ending which terminated in a pointed tip. Tenebra gave it a curious stroke, then smiled in amusement as the Forest King let out a short yip of pleasure and bled a drop of slippery precome into her palm. Men, it seemed, were all largely the same no matter their form.

But she could do far better than stroke. Tenebra looked up from her prize, noting with some amusement that Francis had already excused himself. Her minions continued to lounge, watching the unfolding display with rapt attention. Servants were working their way through the crowd, distributing horns of wine and chews of narcotic leaves.

"Now, all of you, see! With his act, we seal the most ancient of pacts with our new king! For ever and always will he walk amongst us, a paragon of savage virtue, a totem of our devotion to the old gods! What we do tonight, let no man of the south put aside!"

And with that, Tenebra bowed her head and wrapped her lips around the Forest King's shaft.

It was so hot. So hard. The taste was raw and inhuman, the thin, salty precome mixing with the great beast's animal musk into something powerfully intoxicating. The Forest King let out a deep rumble as Tenebra slid down his length. She took her time, swallowing him inch by inch, exploring his strange prick with her tongue as it gradually slipped deeper into her mouth. New experiences, after all, were never to be rushed, and Tenebra fully intended to savour everything she could.

It was not, in many ways, all that different from sucking any other man's cock. The shape was different, of course, but she found swirling her tongue around the narrow point whenever she withdrew to be eminently satisfying. Soon Tenebra was bobbing her head with enthusiasm, humming and moaning with pleasure as she worked her way up and down the Forest King's shaft. One hand cradled his heavy testicles, rolling them back and forth through their sheath of wiry fur; the other stroked the great beast's thighs and underbelly, encouraging him to stay still and calm as she indulged.

The Forest King, for his part, stood as still as a statue, struck dumb by the dark queen's ministrations. Every so often the great beast would let out a deep rumble of pleasure that coursed though his heavy body, setting off a sympathetic twinge of satisfaction deep in Tenebra's core. This was as new to him as it was to her; his previous mates would have been other spirits, animals and beasts of the deep forest. They would have been frenzied and violent encounters, Tenebra thought; he would have never experienced the pleasure of a pair of willing lips around his cock, or a mate as wild and lustful as himself. She was a little smug about that.

Soon the Forest King began to paw at the ground, digging his hind legs into the earth and occasionally thrusting impatiently into Tenebra's mouth. Precome flowed freely; it was thinner and hotter than a man's but there seemed to be no end to it, swirling around her tongue and coating her cheeks within moments. It wasn't long before the dark queen was forced to gulp down great swallows of the stuff between breaths. The first took her by surprise; she let out a muffled noise of surprise and almost gagged as the pungent liquid slithered down her throat, but by the third she had settled into a comfortable rhythm and drank her canine lover's nectar like a drunkard at the tap.

The taste, the scent, the beautifully perverse knowledge that she was fellating a great beast in full view of her underlings, it was all having quite the delirious effect on the kneeling woman. Sweat trickled down Tenebra's willowy body, tingling as it worked down her flawless skin and dragged her warpaint into long streaks. Her hair had fallen quite out of order - in the back of her mind, she thought about trying to find some kind of enchantment to keep it fixed in place next time - and bright flecks of precome sparkled across her bust where they had escaped her hungry lips.

But greatest of all was the heat building in her stomach, bright and hot and as dense as molten lead, and the eager tension spreading out through her muscles. Her sex ached; she longed to feel the Forest King's thick, bulbous cock buried inside her, to rut with him like an animal, to be spread wide and tied by the swollen knot that was inflating even now at the base of his organ. The idea it could somehow fit inside her seemed absurd; it was almost twice as wide as the thickest part of the beast's shaft and felt even harder than the rest.

Tenebra let the Forest King's cock slip from her mouth. She cradled it in her hands and lathered it with kisses, from the pointed tip to the brutal knot itself, even as the pulsing organ continued to twitch and spurt precome across her chest. She had teased him enough. It was time to put her offer before him.

"Did you enjoy that, my king?" she whispered, nuzzling against the beast's underbelly. Her mounting need had become almost impossible to resist; it had seared into her core, drowning rational thought and making it difficult to concentrate on anything else. "Do you see what I can offer? Lay your head at my throne. Make the lands outside this castle your territory. Become my hunter, my tracker, my sacred wild beast. My mate."

The Forest King growled, the sound low and volcanic. Tenebra smiled as he strained against her fingers, as eager and desperate as she was.

"I ask nothing of you but loyalty. Prey not upon me or my servants, and carry word of any intruders into your territory back to me before attacking. Beyond this you may come and go as you please, hunt what you like, and take whatever mates will yield to your advances. Any who strike at you will earn the wrath of my forces, and you shall feast well on their corpses."

Another rumble. The Forest King's flanks heaved. Tenebra had no idea if that was an agreement or not. And in truth, at that moment, she didn't particularly care. If the Forest King departed once the night was over, so be it, so long as the desperate yearning in her core was sated beforehand.

Tenebra wiped her mouth with the back of her hand and rose, casually looking out over her assembled minions. The drugs and wine she had distributed were having the desired effect; though perhaps a third of her warriors remained wholly focused on her, the others were yielding to their own desires. Clothes were discarded. Bodies were beginning to intertwine. Some were even turning to the constrictor ivy, inducing it to wrap around their bodies as their peers advanced with lustful intent.

Good. Tenebra knew what she was doing with the Forest King might prove...controversial, especially with some of her newer recruits. Any potential spies her rivals had seeded amongst them would delight in carrying lurid stories back to their masters. But once the night was done, most of the crowd would recall little more than hazy memories of a drug-fueled orgy, and the dark powers alone knew how many of THOSE went on nightly throughout the hinterlands.

But those were thoughts for another day. Tenebra turned back to the Forest King and beckoned him to follow her. Her heart began to race as she led the spirit to the base of her throne and once more dropped onto all fours, spreading her legs and bracing herself to be taken by the great, feral beast.

Long seconds passed. Tenebra swallowed, flicking her eyes from left to to right but not daring to turn around. Had the Forest King rejected her? She had counted upon overriding the creature's natural caution by playing to its mating instincts, but for all appearances it was still an intelligent being. It could have chosen to leave. Tenebra held her breath, straining to hear anything over the growing clamour of her audience. A footstep, perhaps. The swish of a tail. Anything.

Then something massive and hairy landed on her back. Tenebra gasped, struggling to keep herself upright even with the added strength of her enchantments. The sensation was overwhelming, dominating, a heavy presense that weighed upon her mind as much as her body. Clawed forelegs scrabbled for purchase on the stone steps of the dais. The Forest King's bestial musk filled the air. Some instinct, buried deep in the dark queen's hindbrain, screamed for her to go prone, that the only way to survive would be to fall limp and let the spirit do as it wished.

She ignored it. Tenebra pushed back, her arms shaking as she bore the monstrous wolf-spirit's weight, determined to show the Forest King her worth. Tremours of anticipation rolled up and down along her body. Tenebra could feel the Forest King's cock against her thighs as he struggled into position. Her breaths came hard and fast, a wide, lurid grin splitting her face from ear to ear. The ache in her core was almost physically painful.

"Not long," she whispered to herself. "Soon, soon."

The Forest King's body was like a prison. His legs caged her like bars of black iron. Tenebra hissed as the spirit bucked and squirmed, his shaft rubbing incessantly against her pale skin as he sought a workable angle. The spirit's head appeared over her shoulder for a moment, his long, yellowed fangs bared in frustration, before disappearing out of sight once more. She moaned, the sound throaty with longing, shifting back and forth in the hope of finding some way to accommodate him.

And then it happened. The tip of the Forest King's swollen, red cock caught between her lips and snagged tight. Tenebra had just enough time to draw breath before the rest of it followed.

She half-moaned, half-screamed as the Forest King claimed her with a single rough thrust. A wave of pleasure radiated through her, the dark queen crying out in ecstasy as she finally received the relief she craved. His cock felt even larger inside her than it had in her hands; had she been any less aroused, had the thought of being pinned down and mated by the great wolf not left her as wet and eager as a trained courtesan, there would have been considerable pain.

"Ah, ah!" Tenebra gasped. Her fingers sank into the dirt floor, knuckles brushing the cold stone beneath as they curled into fists. "Yes!"

There was no respite; no chance to catch her breath. The Forest King was already thrusting, driving his hips up and down at a relentless pace. His knot pounded at Tenebra's entrance like a battering ram, rubbing against her clit whenever he hilted himself inside her, stoking the flames of her passion higher and higher. His thighs squeezed tight around her hindquarters. As if she was going anywhere, Tenebra thought. As if she would want to. She pushed back against the Forest King's movements, fighting not to be knocked flat each time the spirit slammed home. He growled at that; she growled right back, and the spirit made a short chuffing noise that might have been laughter.

It was wholly unlike anything she had experienced before. He was everywhere at once. It would have been impossible to ignore him for so much as a second. Tenebra could feel the Forest King atop her, behind her, within her - even his scent surrounded her, permeating the air, making her head spin as the beast panted with exertion. Fur tickled over sensitive skin, teasing her as if she were being caressed by a dozen long feathers. His prick throbbed obscenely, pulsing in time with his great, feral heart, each thrust scratching the desperate itch that seethed deep in her core. Precome splashed against her silken walls, mixing with her arousal and dripping from the site of their union in long strings.

And the heat of it! It was as if the fire in her belly had taken physical shape, moulding itself into a burning, achingly hard shaft of raw, animal lust. It felt wonderful. How had she not done this sooner? Tenebra could feel the beast's need, his desperate, animal desire to bury the swollen bulb of meat between her folds and finally empty himself inside her. It echoed though her with every stroke of his crimson shaft, raw and selfish and pure, free from the ulterior motives her other suitors often held. The Forest King cared nothing for prestige or position or favours. It was lust alone which united them.

Tenebra laughed suddenly, the sound wild and breathless as a particularly violent spasm of pleasure rolled through her. Her first climax came moments later, sneaking up between the rhythmic beats of the Forest King's knot against her buzzing clit before lashing through her like the blow from a whip. She clenched down around the bestial cock, hugging him tight as she moaned and shuddered and came, rocking in time with the monstrous wolf and losing herself in the strangeness and newness and beautiful perversity of it all.

Around her, the room had devolved into chaos, just as Tenebra had known it would. The servants had returned, disrobed, and offered themselves to the crowds, melting into the seething mass of bodies. Greyscale lounged upon a transplanted tree stump, his wiry thighs spread so a blonde woman could service him with her mouth; Tenebra caught his eye and gave him a brief wink. The kobold mouthed something back - it was lost to the clamour in the hall, but he raised his horn to her in salute, and that was enough.

Others were watching her too. Occasionally one would try to approach, only to be driven back by a possessive snap of the Forest King's jaws when they drew too close. The wisest simply stared greedily and touched themselves as their queen was mated before their eyes, writhing and moaning around the swollen, inhuman prick buried in her sex. If anything, the sensation of their eyes creeping over her pallid body, streaked with sweat and paint and flecked with her lover's clinging black hairs only stoked Tenebra's arousal higher. Before long the dying embers of her climax were flaring into life once more, the relentless yearning in her core not yet sated.

And the whole time, the thought echoed through Tenebra's head; a wolf, a wolf, a wolf. It seemed almost unbelievable she had not experimented in this way before, and now that she had, the idea had caught in her brain like a hook. There were other wolves loose in the Hinterlands; wolves and stranger things besides. Perhaps the Forest King would rally them as a pack? High Beastmistress had a nice ring to it, she thought vaguely. Images of herself surrounded by a tide of slinking animal bodies, the Forest King ever at her side, floated through the dark queen's mind. Perhaps something in strappy leather would carry the appropriate aesthetic?

Tenebra was shaken from her pleasure-drunk musings by a sudden pressure against her folds. The Forest King had ceased his violent thrusts. His great head lay across her shoulder, lips drawn back from dagger-like fangs in a silent snarl. The great wolf's ears were pinned back and his eyes were narrow with effort. Quills bristled along his back. His thighs clenched around her hindquarters, holding her tight as he sought the leverage he needed. Tenebra let out a short breath. Her heart skipped with excitement. A violent throb pulsed deep in her sex, her walls instinctively hugging tight around the beast's member.

"Do it," she hissed, turning to look the Forest King straight in the eye. "Give me everything."

The pressure increased. Tenebra could feel every muscle in the Forest King's body vibrating with effort. She was a slender woman, her passage narrow and tight, and though she took a breath and tried to make herself relax, their final joining was neither quick nor easy.

The sensation was immense. Crushing. Drowning. Tenebra moaned softly as she was slowly pried open, her entrance stretching wider and wider to admit the Forest King's knot. There was a little pain, a thin, high note of discordance which rang incessantly in the back of Tenebra's head, but it never, never rose higher than the blanket of ecstasy which spread out from the site of their union. The Forest King growled along with her. Their voices mixed, human and animal, in a shared song of desperate frustration.

For a few long, beautiful moments, the world fell away. There was nothing but the growling animal atop her, her eager pants and the relentless force being exerted against her delicate sex. Waves of pleasure coursed through Tenebra's pallid body, her lips twitching and aching in protest as they were forced to give ground before the bestial invader. There was a hollowness in her core, a desperation to feel everything the spirit could give her, like a bitter edge to the orgasm that danced on the edge of perception.

Then it happened. A jolt of queasy pleasure rocked the dark queen as her lips finally gave way and the Forest King slammed home. The force of it, and the violent convulsions which rocked her aching, sweat-streaked body, almost knocked her face-first into the earth. But as her battered folds closed around the dense bulb of flesh and the Forest King's last few inches surged into her core, as her climax peaked and washed over her in a burning tide of heat and joy, Tenebra braced her arms and pushed back, giving voice to a savage cry of triumph as she bore the great beast's final assault.

The world returned. For the first time since taking her, the Forest King stood still. Tenebra could feel him inside of her - from the knot stretching out her entrance and pressing against her most sensitive places, turning every breath and shudder into a cascade of ecstasy, to the blunt tip lodged in her core and the throbbing shaft that united them. The yearning in her core was dying, a warm, heavy feeling of satiation spreading out in its place. Tenebra slowly lowered herself to the ground, making a pillow with her arms and resting her head atop it. The Forest King's eyes were glazed with pleasure. She knew what was going to happen next and intended to enjoy every moment of it.

His organ throbbed, from the tip to the knot, and he began to come. Tenebra sighed happily, clenching and unclenching her toes as the Forest King poured himself into her. There was no single, dramatic moment of release; instead he came and came, bathing the dark queen's trembling walls with his seed and flooding every tiny space not already filled with his cock.

The spirit stooped down and lapped at her face. Tenebra smiled indulgently, raising her head and kissing him gently on the nose. The Forest King's tail flicked happily, tickling her thighs.

"We are in agreement, then?" She murmured, gasping softly as the endless, liquid heat flowed into her. "Stay with me here and this is the least of the pleasures I can show you, I promise you that."

The beast made a short huffing noise and bowed his head, then slouched forwards to rest his chin on the dais. Tenebra sighed happily, sinking into the gentle post-coital haze like a warm bath. The Forest King was still going, still coming. There was a sharp tingle as the first spirt of seed forced its way past his knot and slithered across her sensitive folds. A second and then a third soon followed, and before long a pool of the slippery, pearly liquid had formed beneath them.

His taste lingered in Tenebra's mouth. The musky tang of his precome still coated her cheeks and danced on her tongue, making her wonder what it would have been like had he finished between her lips. There was so much of it. She could have drank her fill of his seed and allowed the rest to spill across her body, and worn the smell of him for days afterwards. Tenebra shuddered in pleasure at the thought. Something for next time, perhaps.

For now, she had tamed a Forest King. Or...if not tamed, then at least allied with one. And in the most delightful way possible. That was one for the history books. Tenebra stretched, stirred and briefly attempted to untangle herself, intent on spectating the chaos from her throne.  She was rewarded with a twinge of discomfort as the Forest King's engorged knot shifted inside her and a muffled growl of irritation from the creature himself.

"Ah," she muttered. There was another twitch deep in her core, and another wave of bestial come pulsed through her. "We're going to be here for a while, then."

---

The neat click of Francis' boots echoed down the stony corridor. Servants ran back and forth in a frenzy, sweeping away leftover patches of soil and cutting back the last, aggressive growths of constrictor ivy. He stepped aside as a kobold work-gang scurried past, offering the gaggle of rangy lizards a small bow as they manhandled a bundle of paintings twice their size back into their proper place.

"Everything coming along quick-good, lord adjutant!" one of them chirped, waving at him as they vanished around a corner. "Soon have things back to normal!"

"As normal as things get around here," the half-orc murmured to himself. Tenebra had given him a home and a job he excelled at in a world where most would have killed him or turned him away, for which she had earned his eternal gratitude, and he admired her for managing to transform a swathe of the lawless hinterlands into something approaching civilised. But on some days, his Mistress' eccentricities were easier to put up with than others.

He hadn't seen the Forest King since the night of the ritual. Few of the attendees had any memory of what had happened. Tenebra's plan to befuddle the minds of her audience had worked like a charm, and her latest conquest was now little more than one of the many lurid stories passed around by the staff. According to Greyscale the creature itself had slunk away before dawn, a state of affairs Francis found entirely agreeable. Every book on etiquette in the castle library taught that one never let animals into the house, and common sense alone told him that one shouldn't...canoodle with them, no matter how intelligent they were.

But the Forest King had vanished. Tenebra had moped and sulked for a few days, sitting stubbornly on her throne and compelling her minions to carry on the act of pretending to be dirt-dwelling savages, before inevitably getting bored and ordering another redecoration.

Francis paused by one of the grand windows, watching a flight of hookbills circle in the distance. With the soldiery out collecting taxes from the lands under her control and the servants busy bringing the castle back into some semblance of order, a rare peace had settled upon the place. He smiled to himself and tapped a stylus against the edge of his clipboard. If his tax forecasts panned out, Tenebra would even escape her latest escapade without having slipped back into debt.

He decided to give her the good news in person and made his way swiftly to the great hall. The doors had been locked to keep the lingering odor of smoke from spreading, but the half-orc was one of the few retainers Tenebra trusted with a set of master keys. Humming a contented little tune, he unlocked the door and stepped inside.

He was greeted with the sight of Tenebra perched daintily on the edge of her throne, her smoky gown hiked up over her small breasts and her drider-silk panties hanging from one ankle. The Forest King lay atop her, the dark queen's pale legs spread and kicking at the air, her arms wrapped lovingly around the beast's neck. A small voice in the back of Francis' head noticed the wet slick creeping down the front of the throne and whispered that he would have to get someone to clean it up.

"Oh, h-hello F-Francis," Tenebra trilled, turning and beaming happily at him. "Look wh- who's back!"