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Sighing in disappointment, he used a broken trunk of a tree to lean on and catch his breath. Now that he had been outside for a while, the cold was beginning to seep into his bones and take its hold on him. But still, he was unwilling to give up his search.
A sudden snapping noise from behind him drew his attention.
Startled, he spun to face the noise, his eyes round with hope. “Jareth?!” he called out breathlessly.
But when he looked into the mouth of the forest, all he saw were the outlines of trees, jutting up from the ground like pale, sharp teeth, and the blackness beyond.
Salas frowned, stepping forward. “Jareth?!” he called again.
This time his call was answered with a growl, deep and low. A figure stepped out of the darkness, having been camouflaged by the snow-covered ground where it had lurked in waiting. It was not the figure that Salas had been expecting.
It was a white wolf.
Ears shot sideways, its face was twisted in a snarl as it approached Salas with slow, deliberate steps.
Swallowing, Salas backed away slowly. Yet for every step Salas took, the wolf seemed to make two, not unwise to the maneuver Salas was moving through, and unwilling, it seemed, to have its prey slip away.
Salas’ brain was scrambled as he rationalized his options for the situation. If he turned and ran, the wolf would be on him in the span of a heartbeat. He had no resources to attack it with.
He tried waving his arms and shouting at it, yet this only seemed to excite the slow-approaching wolf, egging him on, causing him to suddenly snap at empty air.
Finally, it attacked, biting onto the hem of Salas’ skirt and pulling him down.
Salas shrieked, attempting to roll to regain his standing position, but the wolf was there in his face, ready, perhaps, to tear it off.
Salas’ hands flew to his head, in a last attempt to protect himself. But the attack never came.
Salas opened his eyes to see a flurry of dark movement, shifting with the energy of a thundercloud, come down upon the white wolf with an ear-splitting roar that echoed through the forest like the blow of a horn.
King Jareth, having shifted even further into his beast form, was a monstrous shape of muscle and dark fur as he grabbed the white wolf by the nape and threw it sideways, unceremoniously against a tree.
But the King, in his aggressive, pent-up fury, wasn’t done. Though the wolf might have run away at this point, back to the depths of its snowy habitat, the King did not let it.
Salas looked away as the beastly king moved over the wolf once more. He heard a yelp from the white wolf, followed by the snap and unmistakable crunch of bones as the King tore the forest predator apart. Salas wasn’t sure if he used his claws or his teeth, nor did he want to know.
He waited, still curled up in the snow, knowing that whatever instincts had taken hold of Jareth, the animalistic instinct to “diminish the threat” was not something that was to be interrupted. He was simply glad that it had not been a person.
Though perhaps the wolf deserved to live more than the Malthenian emissary.
Finally, when the sound of tearing stopped, Salas lifted his head.
The King, all glowing eyes set in that ferocious, shadowed face, was staring at him, teeth still on display, his gaze set on a new target.
Salas felt himself clench up in fear, muscles strained, stomach dropping, and yet he made no outward motion other than to sit very still, hoping in vain that his next few breaths would not be his last.
The once-been man paced forward, all ragged breath released in moaning grunts, the air of which spilled over Salas’ face the closer the beast approached.
Salas held himself very still. Yet a mistake was, eventually, made.
The tension was unbearable, and one wrong slip on Salas’ part broke it all. He had inched back, a quarter-pace, if that, yet the beast reacted as though Salas had engaged in a full-on attack, as though moving away from him was the ultimate defiance against it.
Roaring in disdain, the half-beast pounced, one set of claws ensnaring Salas’ wrists, their sharpness on the brink of breaking flesh yet not quite piercing through the soft skin of Salas’ arms. The King’s other hand moved totear. At first, Salas believed that the beast’s intentions were to rip him apart, and he shrieked in despair, heart stopping.
But the King’s grip caught on Salas’ clothes instead, the force not bothering to find seams as it ripped apart the woolen fabric at its face. Soon, the top piece of his outfit was cut down the middle, and the waistband of his bottoms, shredding with a snap, fell away, revealing himself and the flesh that was kept away, hidden, underneath.
Salas gasped, looking down towards his bareness, checking for wounds, the ludicrous worry that his cock may have been displaced during the destruction flashing through his mind. Yet everything was intact.
It was because he was looking in that direction that he saw it. As King was hovering over him, his undeniable state: he was fully erect. The King’s clothes were half-torn-away, half-clinging to the final giving stretch of the fabric, yet a few impatient tugs on the King’s part, and the last of the fabric was pulled away.
