Page 17 of Run, Little Doe

I trip over a root and catch myself against a tree, gasping. My thoughts have my head spinning, and I can’t concentrate on running anymore. The bark bites into my palms, grounding me just long enough to hear it — that low growl, half human, half hunger.

My pulse stutters. He’s here.

The shadows shift and there he is — the mask gleaming bone-white, eyes dark and unrelenting. He doesn’t move, doesn’t speak. Just stands there, letting me look at him, letting me feel what he’s doing to me without ever touching me.

Something inside me breaks. The last thread of restraint snaps. I take a step towards him. He doesn’t retreat. I take another.

The air between us tightens until I can’t breathe. My body hums with want, raw and reckless. Every part of me knows this isn’t safe — and yet, I’ve never wanted anything more.

I can’t take my eyes off him. The Wolf mask made of bone has me mesmerized. I want to see what’s underneath, and I know, this is the moment I surrender and give in to him. I can’t deny how badly I want this, how badly my body craves to be touched and claimed by this masked man. I can feel his hunger, and mine is beginning to match.

His head tilts slightly, the mask catching a sliver of moonlight. “What are you doing, Little Doe?” I can’t see his face, but I feel the smile beneath it — the kind that promises ruin.

“Run,” he says, voice low, rough, made of smoke and want.

The word cuts through me like a spark. My breath catches. My heart answers before my mind can stop it. If this is what hewants, I will give it to him. I turn — and I run, as fast as my legs will carry me.

The forest explodes into sound again, the chase reignited. Branches whip against my arms, the air sharp in my lungs. Behind me, I can hear him — steady, relentless. Closer, every time my foot hits the earth.

And all I can think is:Catch me. God, I want you to catch me.

The Wolf

She runs. Though I can feel that she doesn’t want to. She's low on energy, and I smile to myself. I need my Little Doe too exhausted to run but not exhausted enough for all the things I have planned to do to her.

Every muscle in her body calls to me—each stride, each gasp through parted lips, each frantic brush of her hands against the trees. The forest answers her with rustling leaves and snapping twigs, a rhythm that feels like my own heartbeat thrown back at me.

The scent of her—smoke, fear, heat, need—cuts through the cold like a blade. It catches in my lungs, burns there. I breathe her in, and I can feel my control split apart.

I prowl after her, quiet at first, letting the distance stretch just enough to keep the ache alive. Every sound she makes sharpens me; every stumble tightens the leash around my instincts until it’s ready to snap.

The time is coming. The moment I’ve been waiting for all night, the moment I finally show her how much I’m craving her, how everything I’m doing is for her. Every thought. Every action. Everything, all for my Little Doe.

Branches whip my arms, scratch across my throat. I don’t care. The sting is nothing compared to the feral need pounding through me. My vision narrows to her shape—a flash of her maskin the moonlight, the auburn of her hair, the way her body moves with desperate purpose.

She’s faster than most would dare, but I know the terrain. I’ve hunted here since I was a boy, spent countless days and nights prowling through these very trees. The ground bends to me; the trees shift at my passing. I am the dark she runs through, the breath at her neck she can’t shake.

Her scent deepens—sweat, adrenaline, that sweet edge of surrender. She’s tiring quickly. I can hear the hitch in her breath. The soft cry when she catches her skirt on a branch and tears her stockings. There won’t be anything left of them when I’m through with her.

I imagine pinning her wrists above her head with one hand, while my other hand traces the stiff peaks of her nipples. My tongue tasting the sweat on her throat. The breathless sounds she will make when I push her over the edge, when my tongue finds her center, and finally gets to taste her. My dick pulses at the thought.

I growl under my breath, low and rough. The sound startles her. She freezes for half a heartbeat, then bolts left off the trail she was on. Smart, but not smart enough. I follow her, faster now, the ground blurring beneath me. My breath comes in hot bursts, my teeth clench. Every heartbeat screamsmine. She trips once, catches herself, and keeps going. I almost admire her for it. Almost.

The moon spills through the trees in fractured light, silvering her skin where the mask’s ribbon slides against her throat. Her pulse flashes there—wild, beautiful, untamed.

I lunge forward, close enough to hear her whimper when she senses me. My shadow merges with hers. My fingers twitch at my sides, craving the contact I’ve denied myself all night.

“Run,” I whisper, again. This time it’s not an invitation. It’s a promise.

She stumbles into a small clearing, breath ragged, chest heaving. The firelight from the festival is only a distant memory now, a dying ember swallowed by the night. Here, it’s just us—the darkness and the need that’s been building for years.

I can feel my restraint crumbling. If I don’t feel her body beneath mine soon, I won’t be able to contain myself. There will be no stopping the things I will do to her when I get my hands around that tight body, my fingers in what I know will be the sweetest pussy I’ve ever seen. Each image—her pressed against a tree, her ass against my hips, my fingers slick with her arousal, the taste of her pussy on my tongue.

I stalk closer. Her back is to me, but I know she feels me there—the way her body tenses, the way her breath stops.

“Keep going,” I murmur. “Don’t stop now.”

The words are rougher than I mean them to be. They scrape out of me like a growl. She obeys, barely, moving deeper into the trees.