The Primal's Kitten

“Run..” he growled in my ear, standing behind me in the night, quiet now since we had interrupted the natural sounds with our presence. I felt my body shudder with excitement and fear as he ran a single fingertip down the length of my spine, my breath hitching in my chest as I let my primal side out to play. “Now, before I rethink the head start I’m giving you.” Came another guttural growl from the mountain of a man who loomed above me in the dark, the glorious blue of his eyes hidden by the black contacts he wore for this sort of endeavour. I turned then and took off into the dark of the cornfield, the long stalks whispering my location with every pass, nowhere to run but toward the middle, though I knew he would find me before long. His head starts were never enough, I was short, and while in decent shape, he could outrun me without trying.  I paused, just for a moment, hands on my knees to catch my breath and listen for the telltale sound of someone chasing me. I heard nothing, but he was good like that, every movement careful, measured, even when he was at an all-out sprint, it was likely I wouldn’t hear him until he was right on top of me, his teeth sinking into my shoulder as his arms wrapped around my middle, pulling me off my feet. “Not tonight,” I grumbled and set the pace again, taking off into the dark, trying to make myself quieter, more stealthy. I knew I was failing when I heard and stalk snap behind me, so I changed directions without thinking, getting low and creeping through the corn like the prey animal I had become, breathing through my nose as my head swivelled back and back and forth, always looking for the monster on my tail  Without meaning to, I made my way out of the maze of corn and into the surrounding field, I knew it was against the rules, but tonight I didn’t care. Even knowing I was out in the open now, I took off at a wild sprint, lungs burning and sides in stitches, trying to make it toward the tree line where I knew I could hide. “How the f**k am I this far ahead, he never lets me get this far away from him,” I wondered as I ran, huffing and puffing with the effort. I had started working out months ago in hopes of finding something like this, but the real thing was so much more visceral. In the back of my mind I knew this was something I wanted, craved, needed, and yet in the moment, here I was, running for my life through a field behind his home, trying to get away from the predator that lurked in the dark. I made it to the treeline moments later and ran along with it, just within the shadows of the trees, trying to see if he was coming across the field yet. A huge shadow, moving like a blur, caught my attention and my breath. He’d found me. I took my shoes off then, laying them at the base of a tree right on the edge of the woods, deciding I would be more nimble, and less easy to hear if I were barefoot. “Come out little bunny..” he purred to me, his voice closer than I would have imagined. He was good at this game, too good. I had never yet outsmarted or outrun him, but tonight I was going to try again anyway. He couldn’t always win.  As light on my feet as I could be, I moved through the trees, over ones that had fallen, my toes sinking into mud in some places and whispering over moss in others. The usual stirrings of animals had never come back, as if they knew there was a hunt down below and they didn’t wish to be the wolfs next meal. They need not worry, tonight it would be I who the wolf devoured if he managed to catch me before the first glimmering light of morning broke over the horizon and called our game to an end. I could hear the blood rushing in my veins, it sounded like waves in my ears, even my shallow breathing sounding harsh in the silence that we had made. I knew he couldn’t be far, though there was a good chance he was playing with me, knowing exactly where I was and was lingering somewhere close by for me to make another move.  I swallowed hard and crept my way along, staying in the shadows, listening for every snap of a branch or crackle of dried leaves from last years fall. I heard nothing, so I paused again, knelt near a huge Oak tree, willing my eyes to adjust enough that I could perhaps see a shadow that did not belong. I saw nothing. “f**k, f**k fuck...ok, he has to be close, you have to keep going,” I told myself, though every step now was filled with more fear than excitement, he bever let the game go so long without capturing me. Had he been hurt? Did he give up? There were too many thoughts swirling in my head, it had made me complacent, and before I could find the breath to scream there were arms around me, hauling me back against a familiar chest.  I let out a growl of my own because now things were heated again, I could feel the rapid way his heart was beating and the ragged way he breathed against my ear as he tightened his grip on my body. A low chuckle escaped him, dark and amused as I knew he would be, watching and feeling me struggle against his grip, futile against his strength. What he had forgotten is that I had gotten my nails done just the day before, filed into claws that I sank into the flesh of his arms that bound me. “Agh! You little s**t” he bellowed, causing birds to flee their nests as he let me go, a reflex from the pain I had caused. I knew I would get all that pain back then some when he caught me again, but I had gotten him to let go, so I took off running again, dodging trees and their branches and roots as they tried to grip and trip me in my flight.  I made it maybe 100 feet before he was on me again, grabbing me by the mass of curls I had let hang loose tonight. “Ow, you fucker!” I yelled at him, but that only made him laugh more, of course. The sadistic bastard that he was. “Payback’s a b***h ain’t it kitten?” he growled at me, sinking his teeth into my shoulder as I leaned back into his chest, unable to help myself, groaning from the pain that he so gleefully inflicted. After a moment he leaned back and turned me to face him. f**k those contacts were something, making me lose track of every thought of fighting back because now he stood there, gripping me by the back of the neck with the moonlight spilling down on us in the small clearing, looking like my very own nightmare.  Like a petulant child, I glared at him, because otherwise, I would have thrown myself at his boots, begging to be taken in every depraved way he could conjure in his twisted mind. He laughed at me, of course, a smirk curling over his perfect lips, his hand tightening in the mass of sunshine yellow curls he still held in his fist. I waited with bated breath to see if he would slap me perhaps, or throw me over his shoulder to find our way home, but the look on his face was something I had never seen before. He had given over entirely to the animal within, I could tell by the way he held himself, the way he looked at me like I was something to eat. I swallowed hard but nothing had prepared me for the way he threw me to the ground and stood looming above me like some ancient deity of s*x and blood.