“I dunno about this.” She wrinkled her nose.
“For fuck’s sake kid, your burger was not born that way! You eat meat? Then you should look at its face once in a while.” He held the rabbit out to her, and Rogue took it hesitantly.
Ok, the setting traps was fine, it was actually extremely interesting to listen to Wolverine as he taught her how to track small game prints and find the paths they frequented in the forest, how to set a simple snare that entangled around a leg or throat. He knew a lot about how to live in the wild off the natural resources. He was a regular Davy Crockett, but a lot meaner looking.
Fishing had been downright fun since it hadn’t involved any fishing poles. And not just that hoo-doo mystic shit in movies where you stand real still until you can grab a fish with your bare hands. Well, Wolverine could and he was damn good at it. She was pretty hopeless, always getting impatient and scaring fish away as she lunged and splashed. But she was getting better at spear fishing and as a result of their mutual labor they had a good fish fry one night in the front yard, setting up stakes around a fire pit he’d dug. The weather was too fine to stay indoors, so they would outside on top of a couple of quilts, passing bourbon back and forth and trash talking everyone at the school, especially Scott.
Rogue slept better, less nightmares, if he was nearby, so Wolverine had given up his uncozy spot on the living room floor and had been sacking out on the floor next to her bed on nights when the chill drove them indoors. One night he’d curled up next to her when her dreams had apparently been more disturbing and made her retch into the trash can by the bed. When he snugged a quilt around her he’d wrapped himself around her from behind and tucked her head under his chin, she’d quieted eventually and slept soundly and without interruption until morning. Wolverine hadn’t had as easy a time of it as she filled his senses, her hair tickling his neck, the move of her breath under the hand around her waist. It had been a few hours of sheer hell, ones he’d gladly suffer through every night if he could hold onto her.
“Ugh, it’s still warm!”
He snapped out of his reverie to see her holding the dead rabbit away from her with one hand like it was radioactive. “Quit being such a god damned girl and field dress it. NOW.” Serious tone, a little gruff, all business. No trace of the dry mouth he was feeling at the memory of holding her in bed.
She sighed, knowing no matter how much she squirmed he was going to keep her there until she skinned and cleaned the rabbit. The fish hadn’t bothered her, but a mammal? She wrinkled her nose again.
“Look kid, either you do this or I bring back something a helluva lot bigger and you get to dress that. Like a grizzly bear.”
She laughed. “No thanks. Gimme the damn knife.” At first Rogue though she would be squicked out and barf when she gutted the rabbit, but Wolverine’s memories of doing this exact same thing took over instinctually, and she made neat and efficient work of the entrails and organs, then cut the skin in the just right spot to let her strip it off the flesh in one piece. She turned around to Wolverine, beaming, holding one ready for dinner Bugs in one hand and the inside out bloody pelt in the other.
“Nice,” he grunted. Actually that was really good, especially for a first timer. But he wasn’t going to let her get a fat head about it.
“Thanks.” She looked down at her hands, blinked as Wolverine’s memories retreated from her mind, then shrieked “Oh eww!” and threw the rabbit and the hide to the ground and ran to rip off her bloodied gloves and scrub her hands raw. He laughed his ass off.
After throwing some chopped up Peter Cottontail into the stew pot over the fire pit to simmer with the potatoes and vegetables Rogue had prepared, Wolverine grabbed her covered arm. “You ready for some more hunting?”
“What? We just made dinner.”
“We got a few hours, and there’s plenty of daylight. Besides, it’s time you learned to chase prey. Snaring and fishing isn’t enough.”
“Why not?” But she was starting to feel a little excited, the idea of going after a larger animal gnawing at her mind with sharp nips.
“Don’t worry kid, we’re not going to kill anything else today.” Did she just shiver?
“You need to hone those tracking skills and learn how use the animal a guide, learn how it stalks in a hunt.” That damn shiver again. It’s hot as seven hells out here, or maybe it was just him, he thought. “There’s a herd of whitetail deer about 2 clicks east. We’re just going to see how you run against something not on two legs,” he smirked.
“Rock on,” and she headed towards the tree line.
“Nun-uh, not like that. You can’t just go head on at a naturally skittish animal like that, deer are used to being food and know how to bolt damn fast. You have to learn how to come up on them in quiet, so they don’t know you’re there until it’s too late.” Wolverine felt a shiver of his own as a flash of his fantasy from mediation 2 days before flickered in his mind. She nodded. “Follow my lead.”
They spent the next hour gliding through the forest and, by watching Wolverine closely, Rogue saw how, even in his boots and uniform, he could move stealthily through the scrub, leaving barely a trace of himself, everything virtually undisturbed. He even kept his leather from creaking, although that could just be b/c it had softened under repeated workouts with her each day. Mirroring his movement, she watched where she placed her feet, careful at first not to step on any twigs or brush past any limbs then more naturally as his memories and her own new bestial grace slid over her human trepidation.
Wolverine crouched down, balancing forward on the tips of his fingers and sniffed, testing the air. Rogue mimicked him from her perch on a boulder above him, turning her eyes this way and that, trying to lock onto the direction of that slightly sour odor that drifted their way. He noted with satisfaction how quickly she was picking all this up, looking like a pure natural. A growl in the back of his head definitely approved of the way her legs strained against her leather pants as she hunkered there, nostrils dilating, drawing in the scent of prey.
Damn nice he agreed inwardly, then pushed the voice away and looked at her, cocking an eyebrow.
She lifted a hand, pointed, and mouthed, “200 yards.” He nodded approvingly, and took another sniff. They were downwind but should move south of the herd. They stalked quietly through the close underbrush, at times moving to their bellies and working slowly on their elbows and knees until they saw the trees thin and knew they’d found the clearing where the deer often fed. Wolverine gestured for her to work her way to the other side of the clearing, and sniffed to indicate she should pay attention to wind direction and not let her smell alert the deer. She nodded sharply and slithered into the underbrush, only a slight hiss of leaves noting her passage. The sight of her ass shimmying through the bushes evoked a growly chuckle in the back of his mind.
They would close on the heard in a pincer play and attempt to close off avenues of escape by approaching from opposing directions. Then they would select one of the deer and attempt herd it toward the rock escarpment bordering one edge of the clearing. Just trap it there, not kill it, as this was a practice hunt to assess her growing skills and ability to use the animal lurking in her head in a controlled manner.
He might let her really hunt with him in a few days, if he felt she was ready for it. He somehow knew she would. And he’d been hankering for a venison steak.
The image of the two of the bringing down prey together sent a shiver through his spine, right down to the adamantium. Nice. Inner growl.
He knew she would spring at the right moment, his first hand knowledge of the hunter inside her assuring him she would not strike until the time was right. He would let her take the lead; give her an opportunity to assert herself and new abilities. Wolverine moved slowly into position, testing the air and pleased her scent was still blowing away from the herd and right to him. He could tell when her adrenalin ramped up and sensed the slow sizzle of her muscles tightening in advance of the first spring, and then she was darting from cover, loping gracefully in a low pounce.
The herd reared at the intruder and whirled en masse right in his direction. He leapt out and growled loudly, racing to cut off the deer from the one direction he and Rogue had left open, south and away from the rocks. They worked in tandem, snarling and striking back and forth across the glade, thinning the pack and allowing the smaller ones to escape. He saw the one she fixated on, the one large buck that drew her attention even as she capered and danced with fluidity, helping him draw the noose tighter.
They finally separated the buck from the last female and a couple older juvenile males that had instinctually stayed close to him, their own fear winning out as they dashed from the clearing and into the safety of the thick woods. The buck rode on two legs, pawing aggressively at the air, then lowered its head to brandish its heavy rack as the man approached on all fours. Wolverine growled and jumped forward to back the animal closer to the rocks then pulled away to keep the sharp hooves from knocking him down. Rogue was laughing in guttural delight as she dove from the side in a feint to force the buck further towards the rocks before skipping away, canines flashing in a predator’s smile.
The buck was well and truly trapped between the escarpment and the hunters fifteen feet away, and its eyes rolled madly, whites showing as it reared and bleated, desperate to escape and knowing it could not.
Wolverine was devilishly pleased at Rogue’s success; she was not just good at this, she was perfection. It was so much easier to hunt with a partner, a mate, and even more enjoyable. His blood sang with triumph as he watched her growl impressively at the panicked deer.
Suddenly she lunged forward, far too close to the rampaging animal and the buck lowered its head in one last desperate attempt to stave her off. “NO!” Wolverine shouted, terrified Rogue would be trampled or gored on the antlers. To his amazement she flipped over the buck’s head, unsheathing bone claws in mid-air, and sliced through through tendons and deeply bunched flesh. She tore into the buck’s shoulder and down as she flew past it then ripped through the side of its abdomen and spilled its entrails. The thing had barely hit the ground before she rolled into a somersault easily and sprang up, loping over to the still twitching animal. She planted one boot and both hands on it and hissed as she watched the buck give one last spasmodic heave before it died.
Then she threw he head back and roared: a scary and ferocious sound that almost knocked Wolverine back with its force.
Then Rogue lowered her head and her tongue snaked out to taste the freshly spilt blood.
Wolverine snarled and launched himself at her and caught her around the torso, tearing her away from an action he knew she would not be able to live with when she snapped out of the hunting lust. He had done it before, drank blood from fresh kill years ago when he was nothing more than a savage, and it still revolted him when he thought on it. He would not let the animal possess her in that way and strip away her humanity and leave nothing more than the slavering, drooling creature he himself had been years ago. Before he’d remembered he’d been a man once.
Rogue writhed under him, trying to slash with her claws, but Wolverine used his much heavier weight and sheer muscle to force her to the ground, trapping both her wrists in one massive hand above her head. He used the other to clamp onto her jaw, forcing her face away from his neck, demanding she look into his eyes.
What he saw froze his soul. No brown, no fleck of gold dancing mischievously. Her eyes were dark as tar, all pupils, and full of nothing that resembled his little girl.
The animal had staked a very large claim in her during the hunt, and Wolverine had been too busy with the game he thought he was teaching to notice. And now it didn’t want to give her up. It reveled in being fully unleashed to all the new thoughts and feelings of this body, the awareness of young flesh; it drove the animal wild. Wolverine would not let this happen, even if it meant he had to beat the damn thing out of her by force.
Rogue snarled in his face, teeth gnashing, hissed and spit, profane noises spilling from her lips, mocking him, driving Wolverine into a fury. He locked his hand at her throat and pushed down forcefully, even as he crushed her body under his, trapping her thrashing legs under his own adamantium reinforced thighs, and restrained her movement with brute strength.
“LET HER GO!” he shouted.
The animal in Rogue laughed at him, a cruel black sound that pushed him nearly to insanity. He popped the claws on the hand over her throat, grazing her cheek, blooding her and snipping short a lock of white hair. He opened his mouth and screamed in her face, a grating, primal, rasping howl that echoed off the rocks above them and startled distant birds to flight.
Rogue stilled under him and the beast behind her gaze slunk back a bit, cowing in the face of the dominant creature above her.
Wolverine was breathing harshly into her face, his hand still tight around her throat, ready for her next attempt to struggle. He did not expect to see those eyelids slide slowly over her onyx gaze, nor for her to arch her neck invitingly, turning her head to expose the white curve of flesh where he could clearly see her pulse pounding in the delicate white skin below her ear. He released her neck.
Rogue sighed, then purred, and brought her head up to offer her neck, trying to force it against his parted lips. A low growl rumbled from his chest and she moved under him, making that noise in her throat again. Wolverine felt her heartbeat spike and his too. The smell of fresh kill and the adrenalin of the hunt hummed in his head and definitely somewhere south. She strained under him, despite the heavy weight he was thrusting on her and her breasts pushed again chest, the feel of leather sliding making him crazy.
Goose bumps rose as he panted on her skin less than an inch away. Rogue hissed softly and thrust one leather clad thigh between his legs, and grinding into it his groin. She started to gasp, the pale column of her throat above the collar of her uniform thrusting upwards, begging for his touch. There was a dash of the buck’s blood just over the spot where her heart leapt in her throat and Wolverine growled; the predator in him longed to lick it off, to taste fresh kill on her skin.
The smell of her arousal hit him with force of a fist, and his mind cleared in an instant.
She wanted Wolverine to mark her. As his own. His mate.
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Author's Chapter Notes:
This was one of my favoite chapters to write.
Chapter End Notes:
You knew I had to work some growly animal lust in at some point.