As with most nights, she lay awake in bed, sleepless. The full moon's glow painted the trees outside her window onto her wall, an ever-swaying portrait of shadow. Turning from one side to the other, then onto her back, she pondered how her memory foam was able to forget how she slept so readily. She had purchased the mattress with the promise of better sleep, but it would seem that a mattress that didn't claim to know such things, one more unyielding and stern, would have been a better match for her. She chuckled to herself amusedly, noting how different her bed preferences were to her social ones. Smile fading, she flipped back onto her side, cursing the cramped discomfort in her lower abdomen. As if the full moon wasn't enough to keep me awake, she thought, with pursed lips. At least it's almost over. Seeking and finding a distraction, she began to lose herself in the weaving leaves on her wall, imaging herself projected through the shadows into the forest itself. As she finally began fading away, her mind echoed shadowy forest figures, running, leaping, crawling, and beckoning for her to join them.
~
The pine needles snapped and crackled underfoot, sending ripples of their sharp, verdant scent across his nose. Though there was very little breeze this deep in the forest, the speed with which he bounded through the brush left his fur flowing backwards against his body, and a tapestry of ever changing scent through his breaths. He'd leap to a halt, on occasion, when a particularly immersive scent presented itself. Amid the mineral tang of the river to his left, the various herbal notes of each plant, and the earthy must of the forest floor, there were spots that still sang of the deer that passed through earlier, or the rabbit warren deep beneath his feet. Rarer still, were the elusive specklings of mountain lion that warned of confrontation. He respectfully skirted away from these, for a noisy conflict would send any prey still in the area far far away, leaving both parties hungry and huntless. Such was the way of the forest, written into his bones by ancestral instinct.
Suddenly, he slammed to a complete stop, waves of primal desire washing over him. Every moon he ran these woods, but never once had such a complex, powerful compulsion found him like this. It was an absolute paradox of a scent, whispering gentle beauty into a blanket of musky excitement and raw vitality. Unlike the fickle creatures before, this scent persisted, a siren song of temptation. Unable to quell the electric pulsations pounding through his veins, he stood tall against the dark night and howled with abandon into the moonlit sky.
~
As she settled into the recesses of her own mind, her senses began to tell their own story. She found herself in a moonlit grove, looking up at the cool light above. Glancing around, she couldn't make out much past the treeline, finding a mottled grayscale where the rest of the forest continued outward. There was no definitive noise, but a blanket of muttering sound covered her ears. She stayed here, silently observing for some time, before a gentle breeze rustled the trees around her. The breeze began building, and as the trees found their voices, clouds began darkening the sky above, the moon fading to darkness. The rising wind began to reach ground level, her hair playing across her face, an unkempt, wavy crown of auburn curls. They whipped around with more and more fervor as the wind steadily grew, and before long she was struggling to stand against the chaotic gale. She closed her eyes, and faded back into reality, the howling treetops the last sensation to recede.
Now in a half-awake fog, the howling of the pines played over and over in her head, then fell silent as she jolted upright, wide awake. It was hard to be sure in such a state, but she felt almost certain that the howl was, in fact, a noise from somewhere outside her house. She wrestled with her sense of reality, and in trying to ground back into her body she found her skin taut, covered in goosebumps and tingling with the same chaotic energy that the storm had brought her before. Though it was a warm summer night, she could feel her breasts pressing against her shirt, two peaks betraying the nervous excitement that lit up her being. Against all logic, she found herself rising out of bed. Barefoot, in her nightshirt and her comfy shorts, she glided to her sliding door. She opened it to feel the outdoor air welcoming, the darkness calling to a part of her that rarely, if ever, spoke to her. Leaving the door open, she walked steadily towards the trees.
~
Falling to all fours, he began scenting the air around him, then the ground, searching for any sign or direction that would bring him closer to that unexplainable smell. To his side, the scent came strongest, and so he turned and leapt forward, eager to discover it's source. It grew steadily stronger, smooth floral murmurs dancing with earthy emanations, a sensory paradox. There was something familiar hiding within, like an old friend, reaching out for an embrace. He couldn't shake the feeling of the hunt, though he knew not why. Whatever was at the epicenter of this beacon, it wasn't a meal.
He paused to stand tall, sniffing the air again. He was close, now, and as he continued forward, he began to place his footfalls with more intention, moving slower to muffle the sound of his approach. The scent was so near, now, and it had its tendrils deep inside him. They flowed down his chest, through his core and lingered, pooling in his loins. His blood followed the energetic waves, and his member began to stiffen with anticipation.
He could now start to create a picture in his head of what he was to find at the end of his pursuit. It seemed that there was some concentration of a flower, splashed around a living creature. The creature was a human being, and definitively female by the musky scent. Now nearly on top of her location, he finally could make out the missing, familiar note, the one that sang just like a successful hunt; the smell of blood.
~
