Special Acknowledgement: First and foremost I would like to thank my editor Soildier for his help in preparing this chapter.

Author's Note: Greetings everybody! I wanted to thank everybody who reviewed this chapter as the story progresses. It's only been the first few weeks of grad school and already it's kicking my ass. It's nothing I can't handle, but it is an awful lot all at once. As I mentioned before, chapters may be coming a little later. This one is done but was only barely finished before the first. The next time I may not be so lucky. However, I am still planning to continue the story and will absolutely be doing so in my spare time. Wish me luck, and I hope you all enjoy this chapter.

As always, please review as I find it immensely helpful!

That's all for now, and as always, happy reading!

General Statement: As I stated before, I welcome any and all criticism pertaining to the story. If I miss a bit of grammar here or there let me know so I can fix it. If there's something that strikes you a mistake or an error let me know so that I can fix that, too; and yes, I do fix mistakes that are pointed out to me. Speaking from personal experience, nothing can take me out of a story more than a misspelt word or a grammatical mistake—especially if they're too common. Any other comments, questions, or concerns? Feel free to PM me.

Disclaimer: This is a work of fanfiction and has no claim whatsoever on the characters of Nick Wilde and Judy Hopps who are the sole property of The Walt Disney Company. In no way have I sought money, monetary value, nor profit of any kind for the writing of this story.

Warning: There are two sex scenes in this chapter—one in the middle-ish of the chapter and one at the end. If you don't like them you can skip over them, of course, but at the end of the last sex scene, the scene leaves off with an event that will lead into the next chapter that is not a sex thing.

The dark-haired queen walked down a long corridor toward the ornate, gilded doors before her. The intricate carvings stood in relief, creating a warm contrast with the deep browns in which the swirling gold patterns were set.

Ahead of her, two guards stood on either side of the entryway whose stances became even more rigid as she drew near.

Her white toga swished around her feet, her hair lightly covered in a dark veil that almost hid a bronze diadem.

She came to a stop before the doors and looked to her left and raised an eyebrow at the guard questioningly.

"Your councilors await you within, Majesty," he murmured.

She nodded, and the guard to her right wordlessly moved to open the door before her.

Outside the walls of the castle, the wailing and screams of terrified citizens could be heard bemoaning the fall of their city.

On the outskirts of the civil landscape, chunks of burnt and crumbling city wall lay strewn about.

The air was putrid with the stench of burning flesh and refuse while the wind carried the scent of sun rotten blood.

The conquering queen took a breath as she moved into the centre of the room, taking command of the space. Along the far wall in the court room sat a line of four thrones set above the room on a slightly raised dais. She took in the room, beholding a row of twelve men clad in black and one single woman whose arms were free though her hands had clearly been recently unbound.

The young lady, who appeared to be no more that sixteen, crossed her arms somewhat defensively. A deep purple gown swept down the length of her figure, hugging her curves. Her green eyes appeared dull with weariness, and a profound sense of worry harrowed her innocent features.

A bearded gentleman with a long white beard and a balding head strode forward.

"Vice Chanselor," the queen nodded politely.

"Majesty," he said, bowing slightly.

"Arise and behold the product of your successes," she said, smiling as she made a sweeping gesture with her hand toward the open windows behind her.

The smoke and black ash that wafted through the air was like a vision of justice and righteousness to her fancied mind: the product of a job well done.

"Bask in your success, for none of this would've been possible without you!" she exclaimed happily.

"Not at all. You were my commander. To you shall go the glory, Anassa. Yours was the cunning, after all, that won for us so great a victory."

The young woman behind them squirmed uncomfortably.

"Why, look you now," said the queen as she turned to regard the redheaded girl, "who is this young thing?" she asked.

"She's the heir apparent of this kingdom. Or she would be had we not taken this land by force."

The dark-haired woman turned back to regard the young lady appraisingly.

"Heir apparent? I thought King Dydimos ruled here."

"So he did, My Queen," replied the chancellor, "but then his siblings would take the throne. Who stands before you now not more than fifteen winters is his sister."

"Ah, I see. And here I thought I had slain his kin."

He grinned. "You might have done. They breed like rabbits and hide their bastards."

"A problem with which I have grown uncomfortably familiar," replied the queen.

"Nyx!" hissed the redhead as she started forward slightly, her purple dress shuffling along the floor as she tried to make her way forward.

The guards on either side quickly seized her under the arms and held her fast.

"Ah, it speaks!" replied Nyx ignoring the girl's protest.

The chancellor smiled. "She is the former king's youngest sister. She speaks only their barbaric tongue. All the guards have been able to understand are her tears."

Nyx turned to the chancellor again. "Are there any other siblings?"

"No, Your Grace. We slew them all. Except for her. Some of the other guards took a liking to her."

"Oh?" said Nyx as she looked at the young lady who was now trembling slightly.

"Her virtue's intact," started the chancellor. "I warned them that they ought to do nothing with her as you had already declared peace by the time they'd found her. They were awaiting your orders."

The guards on either side of the young lady stood stock still, aiming to look impressive.

Nyx smiled slightly and walked toward the young lady. "My, but she is a beauty, isn't she? Such a shame her veins run red with a traitor's blood. She might have been allowed to have a high position here. Would have made an excellent wife for some duke or prince. Such beauty ought not to be allowed to spoil, don't you agree Chancellor?"

He nodded solemnly. "Most assuredly, Anassa."

Nyx looked up at the guard to her right.

"Guard, if we made her a whore and kept her here at the palace, would she stay pretty?"

The guard swallowed slightly and looked down at the redhead heatedly before looking back up. "Undoubtedly, Anassa."

"Well!" said Nyx as she turned to the other councillors around her, "We'd be doing her a service, then!"

"Oh, no doubt!" said the chancellor greedily as he eyed the now petrified young woman.

"How's that?" she asked as she looked at the young woman who now tremble fearfully. "Oh, would you look at that?" said Nyx. "It understands every word!" she sneered.

She came toward the girl and examined her from head to toe, pausing before addressing the young lady.

"Kain vaori mjoelkeri gwingelda?" said Nyx in a foreign tongue. The young lady appeared stunned. "Poina mo kherii ne? Sumene at i hor jolkaor," continued Nyx as she lightly brushed the young woman's hair back. "Ja viorii en aet mens: Ihoravik jetz sumenioi cwa eastranor e ni hjaoret, ihovarik ricmides."

"What did she say?" whispered one of the councillors.

The chancellor cleared his throat laughingly. "Her Majesty says, 'Which do you think you would prefer? Torture or whoring? Not that you have a choice. I just want you to think: You'll still have handmaidens putting the gold in your hair, you'll have rich foods.'"

Nyx's smile broadened as she looked on the redhead's fearful expression before turning her gaze to the guard to her right. "You're awfully eager, aren't you?"

The guard looked straight ahead. "My wife is my homeland and the nights are long."

Nyx smiled lightly and looked again to the young woman.

"It's a fair assessment of your feelings, Servant, but they may have to wait," she said. "I can't afford having you or anyone else accidentally raising children to her royal line."

"What is The Queen's command?" asked the guard.

"Take her. Fetch a surgeon and tear out her womb."

The young woman squirmed desperately.

"Now, now," said Nyx to the young lady, "I've offered to support your continued existence here, but you're mad if I'm going to allow you to have any children." She turned to the guard. "Once she gets better—the surgery I hear is a difficult one to undergo—she may be of some use to you all, yet."

"Don't!" shouted the woman in a thick accent.

"It's already done," said Nyx, a bored expression in her tone. "Guards," she said as she looked to each of the men, "you are dismissed for the day. She's yours to do with as you please."

"Your Highness is most generous," bowed the guard.

"Yes, yes," replied Nyx, waving them away as she turned back to the chancellor. "As you wish."

The vice chancellor came forward as the woman struggled behind them.

"The matter of children was broached by you," he said.

Nyx nodded slightly.

"That is, you wanted no pretenders to your power," he continued.

She nodded again.

"Follow me, Your Grace—I have something pertinent to show you," he murmured as he turned away, leading her through the great doors.

Through winding corridors, she found that they were gradually heading down into the lower parts of the castle.

Eventually they came to a stop before a door, the gothic arch into which it was set pointing slightly at the keystone.

"Such beautiful craftsmanship is wasted here in the prisons," she commented mostly to herself.

"Perhaps so," replied the chancellor, "but the decadence of your now slain enemy knew no bounds."

"Indeed not," she said as she arched a brow.

Striding forward, the chancellor took hold of the knob and opened the door, stepping through.

Nyx quickly followed and was stunned at what met her eyes. The room was filled with children, their wails echoing off the walls.

Guards, some fifty in number, stood around the room, keeping the exists blocked.

"What is the meaning of this?" she asked after she'd had an opportunity to take in what she was seeing and reassure herself that she was indeed not dreaming.

"These are the children of your enemies."

She looked at him.

"The former royal family was quite prodigious," he added.

"I thought I had destroyed them—the dead king's siblings," she returned.

"All fifteen are now dead except the young lady with whom you spoke," he murmured.

"Many of them before today. Many of them before they had married. They can't have had so many children!"

"That doesn't preclude bastards or children fathered before you slew their sires."

She nodded, looking around at the sobbing children ranging at her guess between four and ten.

Brothers and sisters were holding each other in tight embraces. Young girls where holding their toddler siblings.

"You're certain these were all of them?" she asked.

The chancellor nodded. "They were caught in a secret tunnel attempting to escape. We were awaiting your word. As it so happens, when there was word that your forces were marching, all the children were sought out and brought here—bastards and all."

"My word on what?" she asked, going back to his previous statement.

"On what to do with them," he clarified as he gestured to the room. "We could make them slaves, we could make them servants, we cou-"

"Slay them," she said.

The chancellor turned and looked at her somewhat askance. "Your pardon?"

"You heard me just fine. I'm not rearing my enemy's bloodline. Not even to enslave them. Their lives are over from this point on, and heaven knows my own servants are better than any they would ever make. They would only grow to hate and resent me. Many might even chose to try to slay me when they're older and strong. No, it won't do. Slay them. Slay them all."

After looking at her for a moment, the chancellor nodded. "It is as you say, Highness," he bowed.

Clapping his hands, the room went silent.

All fifty of the guards along the walls and walking among the children looked up at the old man and their queen on the balcony above them.

Nyx watched as bearded man held out his hand palm down before giving a thumbs up.

She smiled and turned away at the sudden sharp and fearful screams and gurgling voices filled the air.

The chancellor followed her as she stepped out of the room and closed the door behind them.

The shrill screams became louder and louder, echoing and re-echoing down the stone halls.

"Leave Us," she said to the vice chancellor when she realised he seemed to be waiting for her next command.

Bowing slightly, he turned and left.

The sound of his footsteps mingled with the cries of pain and terror.

She leant against the cool stone of the wall behind her as the trembling cries filled her ears.

Closing her eyes, relishing in the cold surrounding her, she smiled at a job well done.

-.-.-.-

Nyx opened her eyes as the vision cleared from her mind. It was the vision that always came to mind before she committed to large undertakings. The time was coming fast, and the sun was setting quickly, now. Her dark eyes glinted as the shadows seemed to swirl about her face before clearing, washing away like watery drops of ink.

Her pale skin seemed to glow, shining from out the mirror as she started at the Human before her.

"How long until you plan to send the Knight?" he asked.

"That depends on how ready he is," she said tiredly, now fully coming out of her reverie.

"Will it be today?"

"Tonight, I'm sure. Strike when most are asleep," she said. "Prey animals take to the night more easily. If nothing else, we'll certainly maximise the damage done to them."

The Human nodded. "As per your command, the knight is training vigorously."

"With him in play, and Nemesis out of the way—or soon to be so—the damage he can do will be formidable. I want as many as possible wiped out: have them aim for the sick wards before going for the residential areas. Our contact on the Bunnyburrow city council said that there are many mammals who've taken up residence that the house? Have your mammals show no mercy—It's a symbolic hit if nothing else and certain to send a message to the rest of the Burrow. If the Knight dies or the other die, count it as no great loss. Just as long as we get the message through. Is that understood?" she asked.

The Human nodded and smirked slightly.

"What the troops leave undone let the Knight tear through," she continued. "Have you got the teams ready for infiltration?"

"They have been briefed. Top tier mammals, recommended by Swinton."

"It sounds as though this plan is well in hand, then. What is the time of the day?"

"Just past three," he replied.

She nodded. "Not too much longer, then. The nights are growing and lengthening. The darkness deepens. On them shall fall a grave destiny. If they want to ruin my plans, there will be a punishment—and a punishment is nothing if it doesn't leave behind it a trail of tears, flesh, and blood," she said, smiling widely. "I'll be back in four hours. Hasten the preparations and make certain that the way is clear to their home. I want to see them all burn."

-.-.-.-

4:17 PM

Jack stepped out of the shower and reached for a towel off the rack. He dried his fur before wrapping the towel over his waist and stepped out of the bathroom. He ached badly after the training session that had ended not half an hour ago and the hot shower had done wonders for his nerves and muscles.

Walking into his room, he went over to a wooden dresser opposite the door with simple brass handles.

As he reached it, a familiar scent reached his nose bringing back memories of sleepless nights and passionate movements. He took another deep breath and let it savour in his brain. He maintained his composure up until a familiar voice reached his ears.

"So, I have a question for you," came the feminine overture.

Jack felt a smile cross his lips and felt a familiar tightening in his chest.

He turned around and inhaled sharply at the sight that met him.

A soft and very naked arctic fox regarded him from his bed. She was on her side, her head propped up on one arm, and he was provided and ample view of her lush form as her deep, blue eyes regarded him sultrily from her relaxed pose.

The buck closed his eyes as he felt himself immediately harden before opening them again, not caring that his natural reaction was so visible and noted the somewhat hungry look in her eyes when she saw the tent in the cloth around him.

His own eyes travelled down from her face, along the crest of her bosom, and settled at the joining of her thighs before returning to her piercing eyes. She arched an eyebrow When he spoke next, his voice was somewhat heavy, tinged with overwhelming need.

"You know," he started slowly, "that's not really a question."

He came toward her and let the towel dropped, wanting to catch her reaction when she caught full sight of him.

The vixen licked her lips and let her eyes wander to his lower body.

Scars crossed all over his lower body, some fresh but the majority of them were old. There were many nights she'd spent with him in post coital bliss, tracing them with her finger, memorising them.

She looked back up to his face to read the heated look in his eyes.

"Looks like I've got my answer, anyway," she sniggered.

"Yeah, well," he said as he reached the bed, "you kinda' have that effect on a guy . . . ."

She scooched over, allowing him room on the bed. She lay back, spreading herself.

"Jesus fucking Christ," he murmured as he caught full sight of her gorgeous form, "you really like to show off, don't you?" She giggled but made no other comment as she gazed up at him, presenting him with an inviting smile. "You have no idea how long I've wanted this again," he whispered, a hard edge to his tone.

He hopped up onto the bed and moved over her, allowing his eyes to roam over her, feasting himself on the vision of her fur. He couldn't get enough of the sight of her.

He reached a paw forward and allowed them to run through the softness of the fur on her sides and belly. His eyes darkened as he touched her warm flesh beneath. He took a deep breath, and her fragrant scent filled his nose, and he cursed to himself as he grit his teeth: he wasn't just hard; he throbbed.

She laughed softly as he moved over her and began kissing her chest. She let out a contented moan. "It's been a while for me, too."

Now it was his turn to chuckle. "Can't get enough of me, can you?"

He moved up to look into her eyes.

"Never," she smirked. "Not since I saw your fuzzy bunny butt," she laughed softly.

"Trust me," returned Jack, "since the first time I saw you naked I wondered what it'd be like to be with you."

She trapped him in a smoky gaze, and Jack's heart melted as she spoke.

"Maybe I was," she murmured. "I know the look of a male when he wants me."

"You have no idea," he intoned softly, "how much I wanted you after that; and you kept on showing off, too."

She smirked. "And?"

"And . . ." he continued heatedly, "I couldn't help wanting you. I was so unprofessional . . . ."

"Oh, ho!" she replied laughingly, "I gotta say that getting you to throw out the playbook when it came to fraternisation between personnel was one of my greatest achievements," she said as he kissed her neck. "I know how to use my feminine wiles," she murmured softly as he continued around her jaw.

She felt him shift between her thighs and let out a sharp gasp when she felt him push inside her, slowly. She watched him to see the concentration on his face. He was looking down between them, slowly moving just in and out of her sensitive flesh, focusing on slowly working himself within her. He looked back at her ardently when he'd hilted himself and flashed her a cocky grin before leaning over her again and kissing her jaw line.

"We may be talking," he said as he kissed her lo[s, "just a bit too much," he finished as he began to slowly thrust into her moist folds. The heat of her body warmed him as her flesh surrounded him, and he let out a groan of satisfaction as a sensation of coming home swoll in his chest.

"Ah!" she gasped as she felt him pick up the pace. "God, I've needed you for so long, Jack! You have no idea how much I've missed you!" she said as she held him tightly. His paws roamed her form, massaging her as his quick thrusts filled her, sending tremors of pleasure throughout her body.

He chuckled as his pleasure mounted. "You know, I still maintain," he grunted as he thrust faster, "that you never did ask me a question."

She gasped again. "At this point in our totally professional relationship, I think we've moved beyond words." She let out another gasp as she felt another wave of pleasure envelop her.

He let out a grunt of exertion. "You will be when I'm through with you!"

"Just the way I . . . I like it . . . !" she moaned. "God, yes!" she shouted as his movements massaged her clit.

She bit her lower lip as Jack backed away from his short thrusts and tried his best to set a slower pace, wanting to enjoy and savour the pleasure. He lifted his head at times in rapture at the sensitive ecstasy gripping his erection.

"Oh, God . . . !" he ground out as the pleasure pain clouded his senses.

"Better than working yourself out on a lonely night, huh?" she managed as she gazed up at him from the haze of euphoria.

He couldn't answer her from the depths of his feeling but merely fixed her with lustful stare as he gasped out a slight laugh.

She felt herself all the more aroused at the evident pleasure he was deriving from within her. He was beyond words, and she saw his breathing hasten, felt his heartbeat quicken, as he filled her again and again.

She urged him on with cries of pleasure as she called his name.

He whispered hers in return in passionate murmurs heated with a fire from the depths of his desire.

She let out slow gasps as she felt her passage grip him as she seized in pleasure, her orgasm washing over her in a powerful burst as she thrust herself up against him as she cried out. She clasped her hands behind his back, gently running her fingers through his fur, sending delightful tingles up and down his spine as she did so.

She felt her soft undulations grip him faster and faster, each sending a sharp pleasure through her until at last she let out a cry of pleasure as a wave of pure exultation sundered through her, emanating from the apex of her body as a second orgasm took hold of her.

Jack let out strangled gasps as he thrust into her, his hips sending sparks of passion throughout her body as his desperate movements worked themselves into her, and as she looked at him she felt a swelling in her heart as the source of her pleasure worked himself over her with abandon, trying to give her more. She closed her eyes to simply feel him as he worked toward his own finish.

She heard him grunt in sharp pleasure above her, and she opened her eyes to find his own gazing down at her, watching her reaction to him.

He felt both pride and pleasure swell in his chest as she writhed in delight beneath him, smiling brightly as snatches of laughter escaped her lips.

He felt the tell-tale swelling of his loins. He was about to shoot in a matter of seconds and had barely enough clarity to ask permission.

"C-can I . . . ?" he gasped, "Wh-where do you want it?" he asked quickly.

From the grips of her orgasm, she saw how close he was, how unable to hold back. "I-it's fine if you just wanna . . . inside me!" she said between breaths.

He nodded, and a look of relief passed over his face as a feeling of relief swept through him.

He let loose and pounded quickly, the movement prolonging her own pleasure, and she watched him close his eyes in concentration before his thrusting suddenly stopped, slamming home with a final thrust as he held himself fast and flush against her, burying his length in her as deeply as he could, lifting his head, gritting his teeth, and clenching his eyes shut.

Pleasure gripped his length as a thunderbolt of pleasure fired through him.

He pressed harder against her as he growled, wanting to plant himself deep, giving her everything as the stress and horror of his most recent experiences were confounded as he participated in this most life affirming act.

He growled as he gave her everything, pouring his heart and soul into her as pulsed.

She watched him open his mouth and let out a grunt.

"Oh God!" he bit out as he felt his seed pump into her. "Fuck!" he grit out again.

A few moments after the initial pleasure swept over him, he felt himself instinctively move his hips in slow thrusts as he spilled inside her, letting out tiny moans as he finished off.

He let out a final grunt as the pulsing left off and was left panting over her, his body feeling like jelly.

His heart was pounding in his ears, and it took him a few moments to collect himself.

What seemed to him like an eternity later, he opened his eyes to find her looking up at him just as breathlessly.

He leaned over her and kissed her deeply. He ran his hands softly over her naked form before he felt his softening member slip out of her.

Taking that as a signal, he moved off of her and rolled to his side. She rolled to face him and fixed him with one of the brightest smiles he'd ever seen.

"Now . . . that was well worth the wait," she said lazily.

"I'll drink to that," he replied with a hint of a chuckle, his voice still breathy from exertion.

She laughed in her throat as she regarded him easily.

"I should probably get going," she sighed as she pushed herself up on one arm.

"So soon?" he asked, slightly put off.

"Well," she remarked as she looked back at him as she sat up, "there's no room here so I had to book a hotel in town."

Jack eyed her for a moment as she arose and started for her clothing which she'd laid on a chair in the corner. The sight of her naked form walking across the room stirred him, and a strange vulnerability touched his soul as he formed his next words.

"Well, I mean, you could always share this room with me . . ." he trailed off. His voice was confident but hid beneath it a fear of rejection he couldn't quite understand.

She looked back over her shoulder.

"Are you sure I wouldn't be putting you out?" she asked shyly as she eyed him cautiously.

He nodded slowly. "It'd be fine with me," he returned.

"Yeah," she said at length, seemingly in thought, "but with a hotel, we each get our own space. I can buy my own meals rather than having to rely on what's here at the house. There's a lot going for a hotel in the main part of town."

Jack nodded, an odd constriction forming in his chest.

"Yeah, but," he countered, "if you stayed here, it'd be easier to meet up for sex."

As if that were all that interested him. He liked her and he wanted her to stay around, but he wasn't sure how to voice those thoughts without sounding like a sap. She was grounded and down to Earth. He could easily see her shutting him down.

Or would she? Maybe she felt the same, he wondered.

She looked at him askance but noticed the flash of emotion behind his eyes. It made her heart seize with affection but chose instead to let a slight look of amusement touched the corners of her eyes.

"Well," she started slowly, coyly, as she turned back toward him, giving him another full view of her stunning beauty, "that does sound enticing."

She quirked a smile and walked back toward the bed, shifting her hips from side to side as she neared him. She felt her heartbeat quicken and felt the moistness of what he'd given her wet her inner thighs, clinging to her fur.

He grit his teeth and felt himself harden again in spite of their most recent exertion as he stared at her lower body, watching as his seed marked his territory, his eyes roaming along her beautifully sculpted legs. He'd had lovers in the past before, of course; but never had he ached for someone as much as he did for the vixen before him and never had he felt a claim staked on a female as strongly as he felt one on her.

They kissed each other again and again as she bent down to reach his lips, giving short quick pecks as she crawled into the bed with him.

"So . . ." he trailed off, breathlessly in between rounds of kissing, "you wanna go ahead and cancel those hotel reservations?" he asked as her hips quickened over his.

"I gotta be honest with you," she said as the easy sensations emanating from their recent joining thrummed through her, "I never made the reservations."

"I'm gonna have to shower again," he said breathlessly as he noted the matted fur around his waist.

"Don't blame me," she snickered, "that's mostly you," she accused.

The wrinkled sheets seemed to billow around her lithe form, their whiteness seeming dun in comparison to her fur.

Jack reached over and took a paw full of it, appreciating its softness as he let it slip through his fingers. He blinked slowly as he ran his gaze up her body, from her nether region along her lightly defined torso, allowing them to pause at her chest before letting them roam over her face. She was staring at him just as intently, her head propped up on her elbow.

She cocked an eyebrow and smirked. "Still like what you see?'

It was the understatement of the century, Jack thought; he didn't think he would ever get enough of feasting his eyes on her.

He shrugged tactfully, and she broke into hearty laughter at his ridiculous act. She knew he thought she was beautiful, and his show of disinterest was a façade he wore to gain an upper hand in the game of love. He was still trying to protect himself: they were both technically on the job, and they could both still end up dead; and if either of them died, it might be a bit easier for one or the other of them to leave the world without mourning the life they might have lived. She saw the sense of it, but on the other paw, she didn't want to live her life regretting that she hadn't taken a chance on love.

She'd written a note that said, "I love you," in her finest hand. In the end, she didn't know where she stood and hadn't sent it.

Her laughter ebbed, and she looked at him adoringly, and Jack felt a familiar pang in the vicinity of his chest—a loneliness he couldn't name—as he felt the emotion in her gaze.

"I know I like what I see every time I look at you," she murmured softly. Her soft voice was music to him no matter what she said, and especially now, it seemed to him, it rang like chiming silver.

He could tell from the way she'd said it that he was supposed to take her comment as a half joke, but there was an underlying seriousness to it—a kernel of truth. The way she looked at him now made him suspect that she was growing "too comfortable" with him in a way that would only end in tragedy for animals like them.

As she regarded him, she found her thoughts running in a similar direction.

He had almost died. She had almost had to burry yet another friend and confident. Another love.

She didn't know the whole story, but she knew Jack and she knew he was no traitor. Even without investigating, she knew.

And this supposedly all powerful mammal—who was no mammal at all, she had learned—had nearly needlessly taken Jack's life. That require retribution of some kind or another, and she thought she had just the way to do it.

Bur first, she needed to hear from Jack.

"Jack . . . what happened? Was it . . . was it . . . bad?" she said, not quite sure how to ask what she wanted to know.

The smile slowly faded from his lips and he looked down between the, for a moment before answering. "It . . . wasn't an experience I'd ever care to repeat."

"Almost dying never is," she said somewhat ruefully. "What did he do to you?"

Jack let out a sigh and continued to avoid eye contact with her. "You know what he did."

"No, I know what your injuries were. I mean, what did he do?"

He let out another sigh. "He . . . terrified me. When he started coming after me like the terminator, I thought I was a gonner. Like that time we were pinned down in Tunuga. This . . . this was different, though," he breathed.

"How?" she asked, raising an eyebrow slightly.

"Because in Tunuga . . . the enemy didn't know who I was. They didn't know who we were. They were just . . . trying to kill us—some faceless mercenaries. But when Silver came after me . . . he came after me because I was me. He was after me personally. Some stranger, with whom I'd had no contact and whom I'd never even seen before wanted me dead. Like a hitman. A hit man that comes after you with the power of the universe at his fingertips. Like a hurricane with the impetus to destroy you and only you. Murder me in cold blood. And the worst part about it is as I was scrambling to get away I realised that I was powerless to stop him. It was almost . . . like a game to him. He could have torn me limb from limb before I'd even know what hit me, but instead he drew it out so that I'd know what was coming. So that I'd know that I was going to die. Like a fatal cancer diagnosis—there's no compromising with it, it just takes you."

She suddenly hugged him, pulling him tightly against her. "It's fine, it's fine. I'm here, now."

He nodded into her fur, closing his eyes as he breathed in her soothing scent. He had tried his best to hide these thoughts, to put them out of his mind as unimportant since Silver had rectified his nearly fatal error, but it had still impacted him in a way that, up to that point, nothing ever had.

"That bastard's gonna get what's coming to him, I swear, Babe," she murmured as she held him.

Suddenly, he shoved her away.

She looked at him confused for a moment before he took her face in his paws, looking deeply into her eyes.

"Don't!" he said sternly.

"Don't wha-"

"Don't do what I know you want to do. Do not go up against him. You can't win and it's ultimately pointless. He's trying to help us now."

She looked at him blankly for a moment before shaking out of his hold. "What the hell are you saying?! He needs someone to give him some straight talk!"

"He saved my life!"

"After nearly killing you! Did you forget the day you spent hospitalised? When you thought you were never going to be able to walk or even feed yourself?! Jesus Christ! He doesn't get a pass for that! He wasn't supposed to fucking try to kill you in the first place!"

"He had a very good reason to think I was the enemy! Please, just don't do anything. The situation here is tenuous as it is what with everyone being at each other's throats!"

"I'll raise a stink if I feel like it!"

"Just listen to me! Please! For all he knew I might have been a spy intent on killing people here at the burrow! It's not like he made his decision in a vacuum!"

"I don't play that game thinking about what might have been true!" she returned furiously. "'It could be true, it might be true, it would be true' is all a bunch of bullshit: Something either is true or it isn't! And one of the things you don't do is make decisions like killing somebody on what might or might not be true!"

"We've made decisions like that before in the team!" he said, jumping up from the bed and pacing a bit.

"Based on evidence!" she replied.

"He had evidence!"

"But he was wrong! That's the fact of the matter! I don't understand this! How can you possibly defend him! Sure he healed you but he only did that after he tried to kill you and left you with a broken back in the hospital! You died three fucking times!" she shouted, her eyes tearing up. "Do you know how fucking hard it was for me to get that call three fucking times?!" she cried as she sat up on the edge of the bed, her legs hanging off the side. "If all I do is give him a piece of my fucking mind it would be the least of hi-"

"Jesus fucking Christ, don't you get how fucking dangerous he is?!" he roared, his anger flaring, his desperation to make her see at its peak. "Don't you fucking get that if he wanted to he could blink his eye and tear you to shreds?! This morning I saw him drop Elhsand from about one-hundred feet in the air or so—It could have fucking killed him if Silver hadn't merely been using a live fucking mammal for a demonstration!" He heaved a breath, striding forward, and quickly caught her stunned face between his paws. "Do you have any fucking clue what it would do to me if anything fucking happened to you?!" he said quietly though no less intently.

She looked at him, tears flowing down her face. "So that's why . . . you don't want me going after him? You're scared?" she said as she covered his paws with her own.

"Of what he could do to you. Of what he could do to us. Any one of us."

She only looked at him as his paws left her face.

"His ethical boundaries don't lie where ours do," he said softly now. "He has a sense of right and wrong, but it doesn't sit where our sense of right and wrong does. Not always, anyway. He made it clear to Honey the night he got here that he was only working with her because our causes happened to align. He needs to get rid of the Human and he needs our help to do that. In turn, since the Human has powers and abilities that exceed ours, he said that he'd be willing to help us out with our goals."

She swallowed heavily and took him by the chin. He looked deeply into her eyes, an aura seeming to glow around him in his earnestness.

"Yesterday," said Jack as he swallowed, "Honey had to have a whole meeting about how we all just need to get along—at least for now—in order to survive. We can't spend our time fighting with each other because it's not productive. Even more, I know that fighting him is useless. There's no getting anywhere with him, as far as physical strength goes."

"Then he shouldn't mind being my punching bag," she smirked, laughing slightly as she wiped away her tears.

"Please," he said softly though insistently, "don't do anything stupid. You've read the same intel that we sent to COR Central."

"It just feels . . . so impotent. So helpless. I don't like feeling like there's this entity that can do anything to us and we can't do anything to it to make sure it doesn't fuck up again . . ." she trailed.

"We already have that," said Jack. "It's called nature."

She let out a laugh. "Silver is not natural. Nature is something you're supposed to be able to understand somehow—this . . . this whatever-the-fuck Silver is . . . he's not good—he's just on our side right now."

"But as long as he's on our side why not use that to our advantage?"

"Because he could have taken your life."

"I'm just one life!" he insisted. "Forget about that—we're facing something much bigger here!"

She sighed and looked away, wiping away another tear. "You're too nice to him, you know. You make a damn good lawyer. If he ever needed an advocate, he'd be glad to know that he had you in his corner."

"Does that mean you'll listen to me?" he asked, eyeing her pointedly.

"It means . . . that I'll be on guard around him."

He scowled. "I'm not sure I like your wordplay."

"I'm not sure I like him. I don't like the way everyone feels like they have to walk on eggshells around him. I don't like that we all have to give him a wide berth and how he can just do whatever the fuck he wants and we just have to take it."

"Because we don't know him. We know he's dangerous—we know he kills. We don't know what his boundaries are or what sets him off or any of those things and he sure as hell isn't volunteering any of those things."

"Because the mystery gives him an advantage!"

He looked at her questioningly.

"What I mean," she started, "is that as long as we know nothing about him, he has an advantage. Lots of leaders will cultivate an air of mystery to make them seem more formidable. Without that mystery, the emperor is naked."

"He is formidable, though," returned Jack.

"Sure, I'll buy that. But then why all this mystery. You know, I have a knack for getting on people's nerves."

"Please don't."

"And I think someone needs to take him down a peg. Even symbolically."

"There's no way he'd let that happen. You wanna fight him and I'm telling you that it's an exercise in futility."

"Not futility. Striking against him would make me feel better. If I could get one good swipe in, even against his blade, it'd be worth it. And along the way, if I happen to hit on something that makes him react, we'll know a bit more about him than we did."

"Oh, please don't joke about this!" he said sharply.

"Who's joking!" she said suddenly. "He's not going to kill us—we know this already! We all need to stop treating him like he shits gold! We need to stop deferring to him as if he's done something to earn our respect. Right now, from what I can tell from you and from anybody else, he has your respect through force and fear. Nobody likes him and he certainly didn't do anything to earn our respect. Honey's been a bitch—she was a bitch for a long ass time, but she had our respect because she was competent: because she got shit done! She managed a whole fucking wing of COR without a lieutenant or anything and got recognition a bunch of times because of it. As for Silver: What the fuck has he done to earn our respect? He saved . . . who are they? Red and Carrots?"

Jack nodded.

"Right, yeah, so he saved them, and that was good, but then he nearly killed you! He left you to die in a fucking hospital bed to live out the rest of your fucking life as an invalid! Does that sound like something that demands respect?"

"He helped me learn something about myself along the way too! I had to go on this weird, fucked up psychological journey!"

She looked at him askance. "What?" she asked

"He found the Human's mark on my soul. It was tied in with a repressed memory of seeing my parents die. The Human killed them!"

"So . . ." she started slowly, "you went on that journey together and became friends or . . ." she trailed.

"That's part of it. Look, I know we talk a lot of shit about him, but he's trying to do something good."

"What he thinks is good," she corrected.

He nodded.

"Okay . . ." she trailed, "so he's done one good thing. And don't think I'm not gonna ask you more about that later, but how did that come about?"

"I . . ." Jack trailed. "I wanted him to see my memories. I . . . he kept insisting that I was the Human's toy. That I was leading him right to us. That I was working for him. So I wanted him to see my memories, and he did. Turns out I had the Human's mark, but it wasn't my fault."

She looked at him quizzically. "So . . . you mean he had the ability to view your memories the whole time and didn't? He just decided to kill you right off?"

Jacked opened his mouth to answer, but no words came out. There was nothing he could say. There was no denying that that that was a gigantic fuck up on Silver's part.

That fuck up was a deal breaker as far as she was concerned.

"He's a fucking moron," she bit out.

"To be fair," said Jack, somewhat deflated, "there was no way he could have predicted the exact set of circumstances that led to me being in the situation that I was in."

She shook her head. "There's no excuse for killing the innocent."

He leant his head against her somewhat defeatedly. "Oh God, I can see you won't be changed in this, will you?" he asked.

"Don't you worry," she murmured. "I can take care of myself," she said.

Fury, anger, hate, and rage flowed through her veins at the injustice of the whole situation. Jack's valiant attempts to keep the peace were honourable, but in the end, see didn't want peace. Not with the monster who seemed to think it was okay to walk over everyone—even if he didn't know that that's what he was doing. If nothing else, it would snap the faux fox out of any illusions that the mammals here were in any way okay with his manners or the situation.

Even if he were aware, it didn't hurt to have someone remind him, she thought.

-.-.-.-

5:07 PM

"Mmm," hummed Wilde as he rubbed his eyes as he blearily stared at the computer screen in front of him.

"Anything interesting?" asked Hopps somewhat tensely. She felt very strange having to tread carefully around him. Having to be so cautious was something she definitely wasn't used to in terms of mammals' feelings, but she was trying to be considerate of his since he was making what was for him a huge effort to be on amicable terms. As much as she might not have worried so much before about whether she were being rough or aggressive with someone, she appreciated that this was a situation where she needed to be more considerate. She didn't wanna say anything that might set him off.

Wilde stretched and hummed to himself. "Just reading an intel report on some of the shit that went down at Searton. You know you weren't the only mammal to make contact with the Human?"

She gently nodded from her position as she speedread through a series of papers.

"Yeah," she said carefully, her attention divided, her voice more conversational since his tone was easy.

He looked up. "Who?"

She shook her head. "I don't know their names. I was the only senior officer that I knew of. If there were a guard a Searton, my guess is that he was a low-level peon who got moved in to guard duty. It's lucky for him in a lot of ways since so many guards just look alike. No one really pays attention to them. Outside of species, that is. Aside from that, no one knows who you are."

"Well, there was definitely someone else there."

"Sure, I'm not debating that, but Honey kept us all from knowing who we were," she said, stretching. "That way, if any one of us got caught, there'd be no way for any of us to turn on anyone else."

Wilde looked up from his screen, perplexed. "One of Jack's guards—the one you saw me arguing with in the hall last night—he told me that they knew who you were and what your roll was."

Hopps nodded. "I'm not surprised. They were the ones who were handling the escape routes for the mammals I managed to free. It shouldn't have taken long for them to piece things together. I mean, the fact that I was really only one point of contact that could have facilitated that kind of operation from within the ZPD is what would have tipped anybody off. And if you and or anyone else in the guard had been aware of what was really happening—that murdered prisoners were being freed—you would've figured out it was me, too."

"But then why didn't we know?!" asked Wilde quietly, his harsh insistence evident in the way he held himself.

Her head popped up quickly and she turned to see the angry look in his eyes.

She swallowed for a moment. "I thought I'd made it clear," she said, measuring her response as she tried to keep things calm, "that-"

"I know what you told us," he said, his voice thick with emotion, "but it just doesn't seem right. That's a huge thing to keep from us! How many of our friends and neighbours did you let us think were dead?"

"Many," said Hopps, somewhat defeatedly. "It had to be kept secret. There was no way to let any of you operating within the city know what was going on without letting people in on the secret. You guys would've figured out that I was the point of contact about as quickly if not faster than Jack's team were able to figure it out. Jack's team is one thing: they weren't in the Human's domain and they weren't at risk of being captured but you guys—everyone in Happy Town—could have been captured. And it's an open secret that you had your share of spies within the organisation. Any one of them could have figured things out along with the rest of you. That would've been an end to me and an end to what Honey and the rest of us were trying to do. Then you guys would've had information about COR and the Happy Town Guard leaking one with without any chance of an early warning, and Honey and the rest of them would have closed ranks."

There was a brief pause as Wilde and Hopps looked at each other.

"It's just . . . it might have made things easier for you—for me: well, for everybody—if we'd all been included as a part off the plan."

"Nick," she sighed sadly, "I don't know what you want from me. I'm sorry for the way things turned out. For letting you think that your friends had died or been disappeared. I'm sorry for the part that I played in propagandising the anti-pred causes that the government was advancing. But I can't undo it, and I probably wouldn't if I could. I did what I had to do in order to survive and to advance the survival of you and the animals in the city. It sucks. I know it does. The only thing that I can say is that I wish that it didn't have to be this way. I wish that there had been a way for me to have helped out without Pricilla and Bellwether making me a part of their media machinery, but it just wasn't in the cards for me or for you."

He looked away and chuffed a sigh though his nose. "So you're sorry but you wouldn't take it back."

She gulped but said nothing for a moment.

"Yeah," said Wilde as he looked at her, "doesn't sound too good when I say it, does it?"

She didn't know what to say but looked away somewhat embarrassed. But then why should she be embarrassed? She did everything she could—everything she thought was right. She had saved lives and had done a lot to try and make the world a better place. Better than it was.

As she thought these things, she thought she had her answer. "All I can say," she started slowly and with a heavy sense of regret and resignation, "is that I did the best that I could in the midst of a bad situation. Whatever I may have done and whatever mistakes I might have made, just know that I didn't do any of them because I set out to do evil things. I didn't wake up every morning thinking, 'How can I make the world more awful today? What can I do to make life miserable?' Just know—whatever else you may feel about me—that I want to do good things. I really do. "

"So how do you deal with the fact that you failed hard?" he said, almost snidely.

But she seemed to take the question seriously, much to his surprise, and he watched her as she took a deep breath and seemed to be thinking about it.

At last, she seemed to have made up her mind. "I . . . well . . . ." Or at least, she'd seemed as though she'd made up her mind. "I . . . I think it's like what C.S. Lewis said," she began. "He said, 'History isn't just the story of bad people doing bad things. It's quite as much a story of people trying to do good things. But somehow, something goes wrong.' So . . . sometimes that's just the way things go. I just have to live with my successes just as much as I have to live with my failures. We're all broken in some way, Nick. No one leaves the world untouched by it. All we can do is try to do a little bit better each passing day, and all I can hope is that, as time goes by, I'll have made enough headway so that, when my time comes, which may be very soon considering the way things are going, I don't show up in front of God emptypawed for all the time I've been here."

Wilde was about to respond when he saw Hopps prick her ears and turn back toward the door.

He felt his own ears twitch as a faint commotion seemed to be filtering down the hallway.

The bunny turned back to look at him.

"What is it?" he asked.

"I think there's some kind of fight going on," she said as she turned away from him again and stood.

He got up and took a few steps toward her.

"Who-?"

"It sounds like Skye and . . . I dunno, there's a few other voices around. I can't really make anything out."

She started forward and he followed her.

They both stepped into the hall only to find many other poking their heads out to see what was going on.

Hopps scanned ahead but saw nothing and started down the hall.

"I think it's coming from the gym," she said as she started to pick up the pace.

She heard Wilde start to follow after her along with other padding feet as she reached the mouth of the corridor.

Just as she reached one off the smaller common rooms, she found herself face to face with Fay who was out of breath and huffing.

"Judy! Oh, my God, Judy, please come quick! Skye and Silver are gonna get into a fight!"

Judy's head snapped back in shock. "What?!"

"I don't know!" said Fay. "Skye was looking all over for Silver a while ago and she found him training in the gym. She started talking about how shitty it was that he nearly killed Jack and about justice and how she had a score to settle with him and a bunch of other stuff!"

Judy's mouth dropped open before she composed herself a moment later.

"Please tell me that's where the story ends."

"Actually no," said Fay, becoming frantic, "because he accepted her challenge! They were just about to square off whe-"

"Dad! Dad!" shouted a voice behind her. Mike came running up in a huff. "Dad," he said, "you gotta see this! There's a huge fight that's abou-"

"I know!" said Wilde as both he and Judy pushed past, running quickly along with the other preds as fast as they could toward the gym.

The gymnasium had been set up just the other day with the help of Silver and some of the other preds in one of the many empty rooms in the house. They had chosen a location in the downstairs area that was very specious with a staircase leading upstairs and outside onto one of the now fallow fields.

High windows let in the setting sun, the twilight nearly enveloping the day in deep purples, reds, pinks, and blues.

Hopps, Wilde, and the others came rushing in through the double doors to find the two foxes squaring off. Practice mats had been taken off the floor so that all that lay between Skye and serious injury was a light carpet.

Immediately, Hopps made for Skye but was stopped when someone got into her way.

"Judy," said Honey slowly, lightly shaking her head, "no".

The bunny looked up at the badger who'd gotten in her way. "She could get killed!" shouted Hopps amid the rumbling roar of voices as more mammals poured in, having gotten word of the impending duel.

Honey shook her head. "He won't kill her. She just needs to get this out of her system."

"Are you out of your mind?!"

Honey light shook her head as Wilde came up to stand beside them. "I asked him not to," started Honey, "but he . . . I dunno, he just seemed kind of resigned to the whole thing. He was pissed about it, but . . . I dunno. He told me to just let it happen."

"What's the point?" asked Wilde. "We all saw what he could do out on the field earlier today. This is gonna be a short fight. I don't even know why there are so many mammals here."

"People were in here practicing, trying to get in some extra training with Silver or by themselves, and that's when Skye came barging in, demanding a fight," said Honey.

"Well, yeah, but why the hell is this so public? How did the word get spread so quickly? I mean who . . ." he trailed as he saw his son and Fay coming in from another entrance along with a host of younger mammals their age. "Ah," finished Wilde flatly.

"We've seriously gotta get control of those kids," said Hopps. "I have a feeling they're going to be a bad influence on each other."

Wilde nodded easily as he turned to look at the centre of the room now as Skye unsheathed her sword.

An elegant, double-edged sword with a tassel at the end and a modestly decorated hilt shimmered in the dimming light, ringing in the air as she did so.

The room fell silent as she took a stance.

"What kind of a stance is that?" asked Wilde.

"With that kind of sword? Maybe kendo style."

Honey shook her head and the pair turned to look at her.

"Kung-fu," she said simply. "It's the stance."

"Can somebody please tell me what the point of this is?" asked Wilde again.

"She needs to work out some aggression," said Honey simply.

"By attacking a demi-god?"

"By attacking the one who nearly killed someone she loved," affirmed Honey.

"I wanted to do the same thing when I found out about Jack," said Hopps as she looked on.

"So did I," said Honey. "The difference is, I had to at least try to maintain a sense of civility with him. There was no way that I could beat him, though, and that was frustrating to me. All I could do was change the location of our headquarters. I didn't want to be near him, or have anyone else be near him, unless we had to be. Eventually it was going to come up that we would need to coordinate attacks, but I'll tell you that I hated him in that moment. And he didn't care, and that pissed me off even more, but there was nothing I could do about it."

Wilde shook his head as he watched the pair start to circle each other. Silver hadn't even drawn his blade.

"Then why-" started Wilde.

"Because Skye doesn't have to worry about the things that I have to worry about. She just wants to hit something. She just wants to do something to not feel so powerless. Like we all do," said Honey. "I know Skye really well," said Honey. "She's basically a younger, more naïve version of me."

All three of them turned when they heard the sound of clanging steel.

Skye had made the first move, charging forward quickly.

In a flash, Silver had produced his blade and quickly parried her jabs.

The arctic fox quickly withdrew and held back for a moment as she looked on.

When Silver made no move but only continued to circle her, she charged again.

Again, he easily parried the blows before dealing a blow with the flat of his blade to her side that had her stumbling back.

She caught herself and stood straight, taking her stance again, and panting lightly at the exertion.

She charged again, swinging her blade hard, and meeting his own blade, blow for blow.

"So, do you wanna tell me," she started as she parried some of his blows, "why you think it's okay to take the law into your own hands? Why you think it's okay to take the lives of innocent creatures?"

She jumped back after the round of clashes, sizing him up again, attempting to take his measure.

"It's not up to you to decide why I do what I do," he said simply. "If you aren't in position, you're in no position to judge me."

"I do, and I will," she said as she started forward again, dashing forward as quickly as she could.

He deflected her blows easily.

"You think you can just do whatever you want?" she huffed as she continued to strike.

"I think I can do what I need to in order to ensure that you all stay safe," he replied.

"By killing the innocent?"

"I didn't know he was innocent."

"Seems like that's something you should have checked into before attempting to take someone's life," she said, jumping back.

"I did what I had to."

"Then you're terrible at your job," she said, panting and out of breath. "You would have taken the life of an innocent rabbit and you wouldn't've spent a second more thinking about it."

He said nothing, but waited for her next attack, his gaze deepening when it never came.

She held her sword before her face before swiping it away, signalling an end to her challenge.

"This fight is nothing," she said at length as she heaved a breath. "Absolutely nothing. To you or to me," she said as her breathing steadied.

He simply turned and started to walk away.

"You didn't even do me the curtesy of fighting to your fullest. You think I'm some shrinking violet who isn't worth the time to show a real fight?" she said as he continued walking.

The spectators all around them followed him with their eyes as the crowd at the far end, nearest the exit, began to part for him.

"And don't think I didn't notice the situation with Nick's double. This . . . Red, I guess we're calling him," she said, almost questioningly.

She smirked when she saw him stop, becoming completely still.

"Hit a nerve? Pissed off that you're so weak you have to rely on Red for help?"

Everyone felt the air change, an energy seemed to fill the space around them.

Silver slowly turned, his eyes gleaming, his body shimmering as grey armour flashed, covering him from head to foot.

He drew his sword.

In response, she cocked an eyebrow. "Oh, so now you're ready for a fight?" she asked as she took up her stance.

"I'm ready to show you why I command the respect that I do."

The whole room seemed to be holding its breath.

Honey and Hopps took a deep breath with the little bunny biting her lower lip.

"Is . . . he's not gonna kill her, is he?" whispered Wilde timidly as leant over to Honey.

Honey worried her lip in an uncharacteristically worried gestured as she took a deep breath. "He . . . might . . . ."

Silver's ears twitched and he smirked to himself, having heard them.

Both Silver and Skye seemed to be waiting for the other to make a move.

In a flash, Skye was on him.

He glanced her first blow and parried her second.

She gave a cry of surprise when her blade was pulled downward.

In a shimmering flash of steel and iron, Silver came down with a heavy blow to the her blade.

Before she could register what had just happened, Silver delivered a spinning kick to her side.

The force of the kick sent her flying several feet and landing heavily on the thinly carpeted floor.

"Oof!" she shouted as the wind was knocked out of her. She groaned as she slid several feet besides, letting out a moan as she rolled onto her back.

Not one to take things lying down, she quickly recovered herself, pushing past the pain and making to get up.

She'd only managed to push herself up onto her elbows when she felt tingling cold of sharp steel against her throat.

"Your willingness to continue the battle past the point in which you've lost your weapon is admirable, but I'm not your enemy, though you clearly see me as one. Yield."

She eyed him angrily but said nothing.

"You know the rules," he said, his voice flat and uncompromising. "Yield."

"You realise," she said slowly as she struggled to breathe, "that the only reason you've gotten away with what you have is because there's no one here who can stop you."

"Yield," he replied.

"The only reason anyone here gives you even a modicum of deference and respect is out of fear, right? No one here is working with you out of respect for you as an individual. They respect your power."

He pressed the blade into her throat. "If you're done—if you've got that all off your chest now—yield."

She sighed in annoyance.

"I yield," she said flatly.

She was looking him right in the eyes, and in spite of her words, the challenge was still evident in her gaze.

She didn't budge.

At last, he withdrew his blade, and she quickly leapt to her feet. He watched her, somewhat impressed that to all but the well-trained eye, it would appeared that she'd sustained no injury from him.

"You need to work on your form," he said.

He kicked the shorn hilt of what had once been her sword in her direction.

"Be thankful that I'm not your enemy," he continued. "Were I the murderous being you believed me to be, you wouldn't be walking away."

She shrugged her shoulders and looked away nonchalantly.

"There's worse than that awaiting you if you keep up your reckless attitude. Don't do it again, and learn to mind your place. I'm better than you. Name a skill: I'm better than you. You can either submit to my training and call me your teacher or you can neglect the duty you owe yourself and those for whom you fight to be the best soldier you can be. Because I can assure you: The dangers you face outside of this gym and outside of this house will not be as forbearing as I've been up to this point. When the human or his minions come after you, I can guarantee you that you will not be walking away from the fight at all. Have I made myself perfectly clear?"

Rubbing her smarting cheek, she nodded.

The stunned crowd parted as he turned away, leaving the gym.

"Don't let your pride get in the way of what's best for you," he called behind him.

"I'll admit," she called behind his retreating form, "your skill has earned a measure of my respect."

"When the training I put you through saves your ass, I expect to have earned it all."

And with that he was gone.

For a brief moment, no one said anything.

Suddenly, Honey clapped her paws together.

"All right!" she shouted loudly, "Show's over now! Time to get back to training!"

There was a disturbance in the atmosphere as a dull murmur of voices echoed off the vaulted walls of the room

As mammals milled about, either leaving, getting back to work, or teaming up with their training partners again.

Wilde let out a breath he didn't know he'd been holding and looked over and Hopps and Honey who were still stunned by the display.

Skye caught their eyes and started over toward them after going over and picking up what remained of her blade.

She was looking down at her blade as she came over toward them. "He cut through it like butter," she said as she reached them. "Look at that!" she said to Honey as she tilted the shorn end of the blade toward the badger.

Hopps sucked in a breath as she looked at it, somewhat unnerved by Skye's almost breezy attitude through the whole thing.

"Aren't you . . . I mean, it just seems like you're taking this kind of lightly," said Hopps.

Skye shrugged. "He seems like the type who likes to talk big. Likes to throw his weight around. If I can get him royally pissed off and he still leaves me with an injury I can walk away from, there's no way he has any intention of hurting anybody here. He's just like the hardass trainers we had back when we were cadets, right Honey."

"Training wasn't that hard," replied Honey with a smirk.

"Yeah, 'cause you fucked him," Skye laughed before frowning at Honey's saddened expression.

"I'm sorry," said Skye quickly. "I . . . I didn't mean to bring him up."

"No it's fine," said Honey as she nodded thoughtfully. "He was a good male and a good husband. It's just . . . those days are so long ago," laughed Honey with a slight tremor in her voice.

Skye coughed and looked back to the place near the door where Silver'd been moments before he'd vanished.

"Anyway," continued Skye in a bid to redirect the conversation, "it just seems like Silver also likes to throw his weight around. I don't get why you guys are so freaked out by him."

"He could kill us all in a second if he wanted to," Wilde said.

"All of our trainers in those days could have killed us—they all had access to heavy weapons," she replied, looking at the fox as though she'd only just registered his presence. "And you are?" she asked as she fully turned her gaze to him.

"You know who Nick is," said Honey as she narrowed her gaze.

Honey nodded. "I know who Nick is, but the last time I heard, there were two of them. I didn't know if this was Silver's toy boy or your contact in Happy Town turned shithead," she replied as she looked in Wilde's direction. "I see now you're the shithead."

Wilde bit his lower lip and growled in his throat slightly.

"Growl all you like," said Skye as she wiped off her forehead. "You betray my friends or try to get any one of my buddies killed, you're a shithead in my book."

"He is at least trying to work with me," supplied Hopps lamely.

"Talk to me in a week, Bon-Bon, and if he's still giving you any crap I'll gladly kick the good doctor's ass, blade or no blade," she said, hefting the broken hilt.

"Uh . . . he's actually behaving himself quite well," supplied Hopps. "And . . . I mean . . . it's not like I can't understand . . . his concerns-"

"That's very good for you, but I can't. You're letting him and everyone else get to you," replied the arctic fox. "Don't let anybody take away your badass persona," she finished with a smirk.

"I could tell that she was a softie from the moment I saw her," said Wilde. "She just pretends to be hardboiled," he smiled.

"No," said Skye flatly.

"No, 'what'?" he asked, his eyebrows knit in confusion.

"I mean don't do that," she replied sternly.

"Don't do what?" he asked.

"Don't you dare act like you know her. If you knew the first thing about her, you'd know that she isn't your enemy. If you knew the first thing about any one of us, you'd've never made the accusations against Honey and Hopps that you did."

Wilde raised his eyebrows in response.

"Oh yeah," said Skye as she eyed Wilde coldly, "Honey filled me in on all the shit that went down in the past five or six days, the way you crapped all over her and Judy and the whole operation we've been trying to get off the ground here after the very major setback of having the entire city taken from us as well as having two sub-districts—Happy Town and Little Rodentia—ripped out of our paws."

"Oh, like you're one to talk?" returned Wilde, gesturing with his paws. "We all heard what you said about Jack during your fight with Silver. That's what all of this was about! You needed to teach him a lesson and let him know just where things stood between the two of you. You know that Silver's trying to train the troops here with Honey's permission and you went ahead and fought him anyway. Where's your high-and-mighty call for unity when it comes to him?!"

"It's not even almost the same thing."

"Yeah, yeah," he muttered, "trust me, I know the spiel already. I could recite it in my sleep! 'Judy's not bad, you're misjudging her, you don't know what she's been through, bla-bla-bla!'" he snorted. "When the hell is anybody going to acknowledge the fact that preds from all over the Zootopia have a legitimate fucking complaint about the way she handled her situation! You all talk about her feelings, well what about fucking mine! What about my son's!"

"Alright," said Skye as Hopps seemed to stand back a little, "we've acknowledged your feelings! We know that you're hurt! We get the situation sucked! But you don't just get to throw that out there without having been in our position. So tell me, Doctor, how would you have handled her assignment?"

"I wouldn't have taken it in the first place!" he growled.

"Alright, but if not you then who?!" replied Honey. "Someone had to do the job we asked her to do. If it wasn't her, it was going to have to be somebody. We needed somebody to infiltrate the ZPD and free preds who'd been captured and sentenced to death. We needed somebody who could network with us while actually in the ZPD. That individual was going to have to be someone willing to become buddy-buddy Swinton. We needed someone to do it. And if wasn't Judy it was going to have to be somebody else. Maybe Cevilla. I don't know who, but it was going to have to be someone. And if you don't like, it, I'm sorry, but that's the name of the game of espionage."

Wilde stepped back from all three of them, looking at them as though they were lunatics.

"Why in the hell did someone have to do what she was doing? Don't you get the damage she did?! Doesn't that count for anything at all?"

Skye eyed him stoically. "No. Not at all. It counts for absolutely nothing when compared to everything we gained because of what she was doing for us."

Wilde closed his mouth, stunned into silence for a moment before, "You're monsters. You don't care about any of us, you just care about your bottom line. How could you do this?" he said, looking between Skye and Honey, "How could you betray your own kind like that?"

"Just what the hell do you think our bottom line is?" questioned Honey, a harsh growl in her voice.

But he seemed not to have heard them.

"Hey!" said Honey, more forcefully now. Wilde looked up at her. "What do you think our bottom line is?"

He thought for a moment but couldn't seem to answer, either because he was being obtuse or he didn't want to admit he might have made an error.

"Nick," said Hopps coming forward slightly, "I know we were just talking about this, but you know that it was never my intention to actually hurt anybody."

Wilde let out a sigh. "I know that. It's just . . ." he trailed as he looked at her. "It hurts. You hurt us. You hurt my son, even if you didn't mean to."

Skye stepped forward. "You never answered Honey's question," she said, the armour gone from her voice. "What do you think the bottom line is? For any of us? Why do you think we're all here?" she said as she gestured around her.

Wilde sighed. "You want to protect the city. You want to make Zootopia a better place," he nearly spat, his tone resigned.

"That's part of it," said Skye. "My bottom line is creating a place where everyone can live in peace and harmony. Or relative peace. Last time I checked, Shangri-La is still hidden away in the mountains somewhere, Heaven is in the clouds, and Avalon is on a lost island. We don't get peace here on Earth," she said, shaking her head. "What we get is a better way forward, with everyone moving forward together."

"No matter who you have to step on along the way?" asked Wilde. "It definitely feels like the world was definitely made a worse place while Hopps was 'doing her job.'"

"That's only because you never got to see the world as it might have been without Hopps." replied Honey. "The world is definitely better off for all the mammals she saved. All the children. The world—Zootopia, anyway—is definitely better off for what she did."

Skye nodded and shrugged, crossing her arms. "If she hadn't been doing what she was doing, your place would've gone down a long ass time ago. Mr. Big, Koslov, Weaselton, your son," she said pointedly, "would all have been tortured and killed." She paused in thought for a moment. "Happy Town would have been annexed and razed on a much faster time table," she continued, musing now. "And if Swinton and the rest of her gang are able to weaponise greater quantities of the night howler serum, we're all in deep shit. And then it won't matter who fights whom. Just have planes drop bombs full of the stuff over any area you want and watch the population destroy itself."

Wilde looked down and let out a breath.

"And if you still don't believe Skye or me," said Honey, breaking in through the tension, "feel free to take a look at Hopps' record. Take a look at all the information that she gathered for us and then tell me that what she did wasn't necessary. Imagine what would have happened in the scenario where we didn't get the information she fed us."

He shook his head. "If she didn't gather the intel, someone else would have," Wilde countered.

"Not without her position or clearance," returned Honey, her voice taking on an icy undertone. "Someone was going to end up in the same boat as Hopps: Advocating for Swinton's pet causes, probably coming out on the news as anti-pred, etcetera. It's what comes with the turf of becoming someone's lackey," she paused. She showed her palms in a bid for understanding. "Someone was going to have to get close enough to the system to be able to see bits and pieces of how the apparatus works and report back to us. Someone who was still in a position to be shaped and ordered around by them while still being a part of the inner circle. And that just happened to be Hopps."

There was a silence that hung in the air around them and nothing was said for a few moments.

"This may be a bit awkward to bring up now," started Hopps, somewhat leery of the tension around them, "but I have to get back to work, so if you all don't mind . . ." she trailed.

Honey nodded carefully as she turned to Hopps. "Yeah, sorry, emotions are running high."

Wilde was looking down in thought, his eyebrows furrowed together in concentration, as though he were debating with himself.

"For what it's worth," said Hopps stepping forward, "I want to let you know that I really am sorry for hurting you, Nick. And everyone. It's . . . hard, I know, to hear 'I'm sorry' from me, because if I had things to do over again and take them back, I wouldn't—I know I told you that already," she sighed. "I still think that I made the right choice. What I'm sorry for is that they hurt you."

"I'm sure it tears you up inside," he said flatly.

"Nick . . ." Honey reprimanded before Hopps stopped her, holding out a paw.

"Nick," Hopps continued, "it does tear me up inside. None of this was planned. We're in the middle of a bad situation. It's nobody's fault—well, Swinton's and the Human's, yeah—but . . . I mean, this is what we have on our paws. And I had to make a choice between doing nothing and letting someone else take up that responsibility: be the bad guy, gather the info, stand by and do nothing and pretend not to care when preds all around me were being tortured or worse. It's soul sucking, Nick. If you feel like you need to blame me, fine—because I did hurt you and lots of other mammals. But try to understand my position."

"Try to-" he cut himself off, not quite able to believe what he was hearing. "Try to put myself in your position? How about you put yourself in mine?"

"I have!" she exclaimed, reaching the end of her rope, "Which is why I'm not telling you to not be angry! I understand your feelings, Nick! Why can't you understand mine? We have to work together, Nick, and understanding doesn't go one way. Honey and everybody else is asking you to put yourself in my position and you're not doing it! You're telling me that if you were in a position to get to the heart of what was wrong with the city that you would've just left?"

"If Honey came to me and asked me the question that she asked you," he started fiercely, "I would have said, 'No!' I would have turned and run the other way. I would have packed my things if we knew what we were up against and never returned."

Hopps looked taken aback for a moment before understanding dawned in her eyes. "That's right," she said. "You're not like me."

Wilde raised his eyebrow and folded his arms expectantly. "No, I'm not."

"When we first got here," she said, seemingly somewhere else, "I remember you saying that you wanted to run away. You wanted to leave here right away, and we all had to convince you to stay," she said, looking at him as she came back to the present. "You're a coward."

At that, his face became a mask of fury. "Look at me!" he shouted. His voice echoed off the walls of the gym. Everyone in the room turned to look at them. "Look at me!" he shouted again. "What am I?!"

Hopps, who had taken several steps back, looked up at Wilde, confusion written in her face. "I-I . . . what?"

"What am I? What am I?" he insisted, demanding an answer.

"A-a fox," she stammered.

"What else am I?"

"A-a male."

"And what else?" he asked.

"A . . . I don't know! A doctor?"

"Give the girl a prize!" he shouted angrily. "Yes, I'm a doctor," he said, his voice becoming a tense whisper, hoarse from shouting. "And one of the things that I pledged to do as a doctor was what?"

Hopps shook her head, at a loss.

He glared at her angrily. "'I will use treatment," he quoted, "to help the sick according to my ability and judgment, but never with a view to injury and wrong-doing. Neither will I administer a poison to anybody when asked to do so, nor will I suggest such a course," he said. "It a part of the Hippocratic oath I took. So you're asking me—a doctor—whether I have the same temperament as you? Whether I could have caused any harm with the aim of reaching my goals? The first rule in medicine is to do no harm. So you're asking me whether I might ever have embarked on a course of action that would have caused harm in the process of curing this situation! You guys fighting Zootopia—and everything else that's wrong in the city—is like administering chemo to an already-terminal patient! It's just going to make the end quicker and the suffering more acute!"

"Zootopia isn't terminal!" shouted Hopps. "It's salvageable! It's all salvageable! And I did the best that I could to try to make things better!"

Wilde sighed, the anger leaving his voice. "Yeah, I know you were doing your best, Judy, but at what cost—that's what I'm asking. You asked me why I can't really put myself in your position and now you know why. I can't see myself injuring the lives of other's in order to make some statement or achieve some goal. I'm not a strategist, my focus is on individuals, on mammals and the wellbeing of those around me. I can't afford to let myself lose sight of the fact that there are animals around me who were hurt and injured by policies that you advocated for." He let out a sigh and looked away from the trio as he thought, the silence deafening as he realised everyone in the gym was looking at them, now.

"Can I just asked you what you thought you were getting yourself into when you started working for me and for COR?" asked Honey. "Did you think that you and the guard and everyone else were going to tickle Swinton and everybody else to death? Did you think that we would just make them leave? I mean, you talk about doing no harm, but you were part of a system that was going to harm somebody."

"That was . . . different," he started. "What she did," he said, referring to Hopps, "was perpetuate institutional policies that were aimed at eradicating preds like me and you."

"Nick, this was always heading to war," said Honey. "This was never going to be a battle that ended in a stalemate. Someone was going to have to lose! And before you say that Judy created this atmosphere, she didn't. The guard existed in some form well before Judy was ever in any prominent position and they were needed."

"Yeah," he started, "but we never perpetuated an evil system in order to achieve our goals."

"You were doing the same thing," returned Honey. "If evil is doing harm to someone, then you were doing evil—someone was going to end up being hurt by your tacit participation in the counter movement we were running in Happy Town."

He was momentarily stumped and he shook his head slightly as he looked down. "I can't argue with you," he said as he mulled. "I just . . . I can't put my finger on it, but there's something not quite right about your thinking." He looked up at them, eyeing them each in turn, saving the last for Judy. "I can't put myself in your place. I understand what you did on an intellectual level, but I can't identify myself with it. What you did feels . . . different to me, and I don't like what you did. I don't like the considerations you had to make."

He stopped again in thought.

"I get that you want a truce," started Wilde, working through his thoughts, "and I'm willing to play ball. Maybe . . . it'll be easier now that we all know where we stand. Maybe I need to do some more thinking, maybe you guys do too."

"You know I'm not a fan of unresolved tension," said Honey.

"Well, it's just the way things are," he replied. "It's not right that you should have to do evil things in order to defeat evil," he said.

Honey nodded. "Because for you, good and evil are two lines that never cross. But I'll tell you something: the colour grey exists for a reason. And if England is known for its one-thousand shades of green, Zootopia is known for its one-thousand shades of grey. Do me a favour—take a look at the information that Hopps gathered for us in your off time. Take your time and look at the lives she saved. Dwell on them and ponder what might have happened if someone—it doesn't need to be her—hadn't been there to gather that information and maybe you'll see why someone had to do the job she was doing."

He looked at Hopps, his expression passive. "I . . . I'll try," he said. "I mean," he continued as he wiped his paw over his face, "I'll take a look at them and . . . see what it is you're talking about. Not that I don't trust you guys, it's just . . . a lot to take in at the moment."

There was another long pause as the four of them stood in relative silence for a few moments, as though collectively digesting everything that had been said.

Looking around, Hopps noticed that everyone was looking at them, including one of her sisters who seemed to be there for some reason, sitting on one of the chairs along one of the far walls.

"We should get back to work," said Wilde as he eyed Hopps carefully, his tone resigned, signalling he was tired of arguing.

The bunny turned back to smiled nervously and nodded, her smile fading as she took up behind him.

Skye and Honey stood watching them as they headed toward the door they'd come through.

Honey frowned and glanced at Skye out of the corner of her eye. "Do you think . . ." she trailed.

"Oh yeah," said Skye nodding back at her friend, "they're definitely gonna fuck at some point."

-.-.-.-

Groe was determined as he walked down the halls of the Hopps residence.

He had seen the vixen before some five years ago, met her when she became what he supposed was one of the latest members of the Happy Town guard.

After sharing what was undoubtedly for him a memorable night, he couldn't help but feel disappointed when what he thought was going to be a longer-lasting relationship ended with him being ghosted, completely and totally, with no one at the Guard knowing where she was, who she was, or what had become of her.

He had seen her fight, her white silken fur fluttering lightly, her eyes—the deep colour of sapphire glinting in the light—reminded him of that night.

"It had ended all too quickly," he thought with a growl.

His steps became more determined as he followed her unique scent—like rose water—as he headed in the direction he'd seen her go with Jack.

He was coming up on the end of a tunnel, and as his vision cleared, his eyes switching their focus from dark to light, he saw her sitting with Jack.

They were both reclined chatting about apparently nothing as they easily shared each other's space.

His head rested in her lap as he lay on his back as she absently ran her fingers through the fur on his head.

'Well, shit! They're together,' he thought as he came to a stop at the edge of the tunnel.

Still, a part of him couldn't help but hope that he could have, perhaps, just one more night with her . . . .

"Bijou?" he asked as he looked at her.

Skye turned and eyed him out of the corner of her eye before she suddenly recognised who he was and gave him her full attention.

"Groe!" she exclaimed, a slight smile on her face, "it's been a long time."

Jack frowned up at her before turning his head to the side in order to regard the wolf.

"Bijou?" said Jack questioningly.

Groe nodded slightly. "Yeah, I'm talking to her."

"Her name's Skye," replied Jack as he looked up again. "Who is he?"

Skye cocked an eyebrow and looked down at her lover. "A wolf I fucked five years ago when I was on assignment," she replied easily, though not cruelly. "Honestly," she said as she looked at Groe, "a handjob would've done it," she finished honestly, giving him a crooked smile. "Looks like I've been found out . . ." she trailed.

"You were on assignment?" asked Jack.

She nodded. "Yeah, back when Honey was a regular crew member. The higher ups were trying to figure out if she'd make a good leader for this wing of COR." She looked at Groe. "Sorry . . ." she finished sheepishly.

Groe looked at her for a second before his brain was finally able to absorb what she was telling him: That he'd been a lay—a patsy she could pump for information. On Honey of all creatures?

He let out a few flabbergasted huffs as he tried to mend his pride. "So when we were tied and you said all those things, it was a lie?"

"You lied when you told me you could go all night, so I think we're about even," she replied jovially.

He was missing the joke.

"You're a fucking vixen. Have you fucking seen yourself? A tod couldn't go all night!"

"Groe . . ." she sighed, "meet Jack. On his first try, he went all night," she smirked. "I mean, I know I wasn't the first fuck you ever had, but be honest: I was the first female you ever knotted."

She raised an eyebrow to make her point.

The wolf's hackles rose at that. "Oh yeah?!" he growled. "I know that wasn't your first knot from how long it took to catch!"

"Or it just took you a bit longer to get there," she replied easily.

"Wait," said Jack as he turned to Skye, "don't canine males need to knot in order to come?" he asked questioningly.

Skye nodded slightly. "Yup. It's weird with us canines. Guys joke that they get two virginities: the first time they fuck and the first time they knot. Usually guys lose both at once, but sometimes they're nervous their first time—or even the first few times—and it's just not happening and they just don't come. It happens to a lot of guys. And it has nothing to do with good or bad sex, because trust me, no woman is complaining if the guy takes a bit longer," she said as she eyed the wolf who was now quite red. "It's just that . . . you know, a lady has a sense about these kinds of things. I knew it," she said as she turned to the wolf. "I knew it from the look of surprise on your face—I was your first tie, wasn't I?"

When she saw the look on his face, she relented. "Look, I don't want you to think it was all bad," she said. "For what it's worth, you were the biggest I've ever had. And . . . you were the fastest to make me cum. In fact," she said rising to her feet, "If it's alright with Jack, I wouldn't mind a repeat," she smirked.

Slowly, she brushed by him, letting her tail brush sensually along his legs as she passed.

Groe turned to look at her. "I've learned a lot since then. I could put Jack to shame," he challenged, showing his teeth in a smirk.

She laughed and turned away.

"So you're going to taunt that you could show me up in a rematch and then walk away?" the wolf laughed.

She stopped, looking at him before looking back at Jack and then looking back to Groe, stepping up to him and running her paws up his chest, cocking an eyebrow and winking. "The challenge is the same as what you promised me last time: All night."'

Groe appeared genuinely shocked for a moment. "And uh . . ." he said as he looked back at Jack who was texting on his phone, "are you sure you're okay with this? I mean . . . aren't the two of you kind of together?"

Jack shrugged slightly, looking down at his phone. "It's the life of a spy. We've both been with other people and we have a secure open relationship. We're not exclusively committed to each other, if that's what you're asking." The bunny looked back to his phone. "I know where she stands with me, so if you guys wanna have a game, go right on ahead," he said as he stood up, giving Skye a quick peck on the cheek. "She's coming back to my room in the morning," he finished with a note of certainty.

She smiled at him and caressed his cheek before he turned and walked out of the common room.

"Right this way," she said, taking his paw.

She led him upstairs, and he felt himself harden at the prospect that lay before him.

The situation was so surreal. A vixen like her in an open relationship with Jack Savage?

"But that's what this was," he mused.

As she led him into her room and he watched her as she began to strip, he felt his paws immediately heading to his shirt which he quickly pulled off.

His eyes were glued to watching her strip out of her gym clothes—a white tank-top and a work-out brassier beneath it which she quickly removed.

He quickly fumbled with his own belt and pants, shaking out of his boxers as he tried to keep a close eye on the vixen before him.

"No waiting," she murmured as she reached out a paw.

"Uh . . ." he murmured, on the one hand utterly dazzled by her perfect form and at once befuddled by the oddness of the situation he was facing. If he were in Jack's place, he didn't think he'd ever be able to keep his paws off her.

"You coming?" she asked as she backed up toward the bed.

He could only stare at her.

'C'mon, man! What the hell are you waiting for? You asked for this fucking challenge! Don't punk out now!' his mind shouted.

Stepping forward, he carefully nudged her clothes to the side before joining her on the bed.

She put her paws on his shoulders as he moved over her before settling in-between her thighs.

"You ready for round two?" he asked as he ran his length along her moist folds.

"Oh please," she said rolling her eyes, "cut out the bravado. I wanna have fun, and you wanna have fun. I can tell you right now, you'll be done in fifteen minutes tops."

"I told you, I've had practice since then," he said as he teased her opening.

"You're not the only one."

With that, she surprised him by wrapping her legs around his waist and drawing him forward.

He growled for a moment before he felt the tip of his member find the warmth of her core. She lifted her hips, drawing him further in, before gently gyrating, letting him feel her walls surrounding him entirely.

Not one to be outdone, he quickly thrust in, hoping to shock her with the swift intrusion.

To his slight surprise, the only sound that left her lips was an accepting moan instead of the challenge.

Immediately, the rueful smirk on his face was wiped away.

He looked down at her, holding her in his arms gently.

She . . . she was into it, he thought.

"Oh! God, yes!" she murmured, her breath shuddering. "Again," she murmured as she looked into his eyes, "harder, deeper!"

"You want more, huh?" he grinned as he began a slow pace.

She nodded as she wrapped her arms around him, letting her paws run down his back.

"Keep moving," she shuddered. "Ah! Oh, yeah!' she whispered breathlessly as he continued his movements.

Gradually, he worked them up to a faster pace, unable to hold himself off for that long in spite of his bold words earlier.

"God, yeah! Fuck, it's been too long!" he growled as he continued his movements.

She nodded, egging him on with her words, moaning, and sighing as she called his name.

Pleasure poured into her as he tried as best he could to keep himself abreast of her.

It had been some time since his last mating, however, and he felt his body's natural instincts driving him to pick up the pace.

He let out a growl and withdrew.

Panting tiredly he raked her body with a lusty gaze.

She looked at him, puzzled. "Wh-wha-"

"Turn around," he whispered.

"Ah, wanning to go 'natural style,' eh?" she smirked lightly as rolled over, aiming her rear upward and brushing aside her tail.

His heart melted and he positively throbbed as a primal force broke loose deep in his soul.

Bet or no bet, he wasn't sure he was gonna win this one.

He grabbed her waist and thrust in, hard. He growled, savouring the feel of the new position before digging his claws into her waist slightly before beginning a pounding pace.

The change in her body, the feeling of aiming down into her waiting folds had him growling like a tiger as he pushed himself into her again and again, thrusting deeper and deeper into her body, feeling her passage make way for his length, parting for him—around him—as his hips quickened their pace out of instinct.

Skye pushed back hard as he moved faster and faster.

"Harder!" she cried. "God, yes! Harder!" she shouted as the new angle struck the point of pleasure deep within her.

She braced herself as he leant over her, gripping her torso as he continued to rock.

"Goddamn, you feel so good!"

She let out another cry. "God, so do you! Ah, God!"

She crushed her eyes shut and let out a moan as she felt the pleasure building within her. The waves of pleasure mounted, cycling through her in a continual mill of pleasure that fed itself in a never-ending circuit.

She pushed back against his thrusts, hard. "H-ha! Hey, I . . . I'm close!" she shouted as his movements spiked her pleasure.

She gripped the sheets and let out a high-pitched moan as he rode her along the edge for a matter a few moments.

At last, she cried out beneath him as a bomb of pleasure burst as he thrust deep within her. Her soft petals clenched him as an orgasm swoll through her like the waves of the oceans, carrying her on warm waters of pleasure that seemed to flow from a fountain of pure pleasure at the point where his body joined hears.

She let her voice ring out beneath him with abandon as she clutched the bedsheets, biting and clenching her teeth as she rode out her pleasure.

He couldn't take it anymore!

He stiffened his legs, bracing his feet for traction on the bed as he growled and set a shallow pace even as he felt her body clenching around him.

Faster and faster he moved as he held himself above her.

He felt his knot forming quickly, and he pushed it against her, driven by instinct.

Forgetting the bet as the pleasure swept around him, he let out a howl and pushed himself into her.

His knot teased her inner folds again and again as he worked himself into her. Lifting his head to heaven, he thanked God when he felt his knot slip past her entrance, swelling almost instantly as he connected with her, tied with her, in the most intimate way his body would allow.

"Skye!" he shouted, his eyes clenched shut, nearly faltering at the intensity of the ecstasy that roared through his body.

He felt his knot catch immediately. He instantly hunched over her and gripped her, roaring into her neck as his length began to pulse with his essence.

She clenched around his length more tightly as he gave himself over to her and the pleasure. His mind blank as he could only focus on giving his seed to the female under him.

This was enough, as far as he was concerned.

At last, as he felt the last ebbs of his pleasure subsided, settling into his orgasm, he murmured her name—her real name—and collapsed.

She let her body fall, the both of them heaped together in a molten mountain of satisfied hunger and weary flesh.

Both of them were panting heavily as he turned them to the side.

Gently she ran her paw behind her along the side of his body.

She nudged him, indicating that he should roll onto his back.

He did so, and as she straddled him, she expertly twisted herself around on him.

He let out a hiss of pleasure as he felt her rotating on his knot.

"Oh my fucking God!" he breathed at the sensation and the sight of her, "You could tempt a fucking saint!" he cried as he felt himself continue to spill into her body.

When she was face to face with him, she laid down on his chest and allowed him, once again, to roll them to the side.

She reached out a paw and stroked his cheek before carefully stroking his chest and torso as their breathing returned to normal. Relaxing as she felt his member locked within as it continued releasing his warmth inside of her.

At last, when both of them had calmed, she smiled.

"You promised me all night," she smirked.

He smiled back lazily. "This was just round one."

"Hmmm . . ." she murmured, "I don't think that quite counts.'

"You never proscribed it," he laughed as he propped himself up on one elbow.

"True," she said shrugging. "Still, that was only fifteen minutes. Maybe we shou-"

Jack burst into the room with a heavy thud, out of breath and wearing a deeply concerned look.

Immediately, Groe tried to cover them, growling possessively.

"Guys!" shouted Jack quickly as he took in the scene, "We've got a huge problem! It's all hands on deck! Hurry!"

Groe rolled his eyes. "What's the pro-" and then the lights went out.

"Fuck! Oh shit, fuck!" said Jack as he turned back to the door. "You two need to get un-tied and dressed quickly. This is gonna be really fucking bad!"

"What is it?" asked Skye worriedly as she began to twist, earning a yelp from Groe.

Both of them stopped and looked at Jack as he pulled his weapon and turned back to the two of them.

"It's here," he said.