Another letter had come sure as the rain.

He’s not sure where the delusion had come from in believing it may not ever have. Perhaps from the fever dream that was his last encounter with Lord Volkor. He had not expected his audacity last they met.

He could not deny the depths the lord-alpha’s loathing seemed to run for his house. Or perhaps himself only. Nevertheless, he had earned a measure of resenting abeyance from Calix as he awaited his calls. Not obedience. Not respect. He reminds himself.

And he would have his vengeance. One day. As all things had a way of circling circumstance as prey, eventually.

Today- Well, not today. He approaches from the trail, stepping off into the misty moor to the specified landmark.

And would see him perched as always. This time Calix was a little shifted in his demeanour. He didn’t circle him so readily- a certain languor highlighting his movements and their non-threat.

His expression, still hard as always, softens slightly in a look of defeat as he offers his usual greeting. Only this time, rather than the terse display rife with chorded rage, Lord Volkor would receive something altogether a touch softer. The roll of the neck elegant, though reserved still.

He averts his eyes by looking out into the moors, masking his deference with a casual pride the Fellners were so talented at showing.

Truthfully, Volkor did not expect his letter to be reciprocated. In some insecurity that his rage had flown too close to the moon- in recollection of a heel down on his bare flesh and the gasp savouring release.

His loathing gripped him down into his bony little fingertips on that morning. The same rage ebbing from his body some days later when he summons him again. This time his frustrations feelings altogether less real and more frustrating.

He stalked over the same moor and the same plateau to the landmark before the sun had risen and he would carve wear into the stones there. Anger. Some arousal. Arousal. Excitement at the thought that he may come again. A pleasure it would be if so.

The mist was denser this morning than all others.

When the same line of quills appears through the mist upon the same burdened, corded shoulders, Volkor's ribs rise in apprehension at the sight.

The same envy and the same frustration. Something else aroused within like omnipresent smog. It twisted his stomach and carved him like fresh meet as he observed von Fellner's approach.

Volkor stands with a heel poised against a small rock while the other held his balance, both tensed. Prepared to turn with him and stalk him counter until they collided again in fang and claw.

When Calix does not circle him, it sets his mind alight immediately and his lips part imperceptibly in- suddenly- great intrigue.

He fancied Calix for his strange way. For his particolour eyes and odd looks; and the bitter, pleasurable looks of anathema whensoever Volkor punished him for his trust.

This time, a roll of the neck cuts the dead air in two and brings Volkor's attention upon him instantly. Hard. Staring for a few moments. Stress bound in the hands instead of the neck allowed him to surprise the lord of Volkor and it leaves him stunned in sensation for moments overlong.

He. Is bound by unknown forces and perhaps the pleasure of a behaved hound when he lifts an arm to his chest and displays to him in mutualism one and the same.

Not in deference.

The chin tucked against his collar in thought extends now and his brow raises with him.

"You've come to me again." He says. As he always says. As he lifts the whip in his hand and shows him on purpose as the stock waves languid from a closed palm.

It collects itself stiffly as Volkor gestures with it towards the ground. Towards his boot, where the toe of it presses through the grasses.

Their last arrangement, charming, pressed into the fresh blades beneath this very spot. The same as always.

Laced in loathing but somehow less.

"It pleases me more to punish you when you behave for me. When you know your rightful place." He admits willingly with a tap towards the grass. And should Calix come to him, he would take a gracile step to the lord's side in dance and pull him down again.

Towards the same grass again.

Deference and mutualism and trained abeyance did not halt the anger. His inner world spun in the turmoil of enraged envy as he brings him down.

Volkor has the proud beast down to the ground before he pins him with his boot again. He scarcely liked to bend after him.

"I loathe to see that pelt upon your shoulders." He grimaces as his heel presses this time into a forearm and keeps him there. The sigh from his lips was almost thoughtful in thinly-veiled anger given to him from time again of these arrangements. The resentment long learned.

He presses his weight to him more intently for moments and then lets go with a rasp.

"Undress yourself."

Calix notes the return of the bar and cant. The first time the Lord Volkor has returned it. He narrows his eyes only in recognition, accepting that this was to be the way of things. For at least some time.

Calix, slowing to pause as he watches the whip be presented, maintains a look both insulted and reluctantly obedient to its motion. He understands what Volkor asked and simply sighs through his nose as he approaches.

It pleases me more to punish-

Calix’s lip curls to show his teeth as he immediately looks down between them with an expression disgusted. His body tensing instantly under the grip that guides him to his knee again.

Oh, but— It didn’t seem to be enough for one knee. He looks up when the pressure didn’t cease and fights his hold for tense moments.

“You— Nnh…” He twists his shoulders away as if burned by the touch, lowering to both knees and… Still further? The boot urges him lower still where Volkor did not follow with his hands. Maintaining a simple dominant distance.

It turned Calix’s gut as he flumps to his side, uncertainty writ plain on his brow. Arm tremoring in effort not to show discomfort under the strain of the lord’s heel.

The pressure increases for a moment and Calix’s expression became momentarily intent, enraged.

He opens his mouth to protest but before he’s able-

Undress yourself.

The impact of the command was plain to see in the way he lurches momentarily forward, as if he’d just lost his footing for a second over a precipice. The way his lips hung parted as thoughts ashed in a moment’s blaze of fury before the fire could leap from his teeth.
It was clear, Calix had no response. Not hardly. He had heard him correctly, he knows this. And couldn’t look up as his brows begin to harden under a look intensified. Toward the grass between the lord’s boots and beyond him.

To undress was cruelest vulnerability. A baring of one’s flesh and bone in a world most keen for meat. Precisely, he knew, why Volkor wished for him this ‘punishment’.

Calix raises carefully to his knees and, with a daring glance upward, reaches for the pin and clasp of his gravepelt. With careful fingers, he tugs the heavy pin loose, catching the ornate fang-mark in his other palm as the cloak falls heavily from his shoulders. The weight evident in the way it landed and the blackened spines clattered against each other in a thick protest to be discarded so.

Calix, without entirely showing his teeth, flares his nostrils and tightens his upper lip in disdain as he sets the clasp upon it.

“Does this please you, lord-alpha.” He holds any look given, voice low and dripping with contempt.

Volkor welcomed his repulsion with his own, teeth bared and face tight in the self-same disgust. The same furious repulsion and something more.

The play and madness was a part of performative release allowed to him on these morrows where he grew the most bitter. He need only push Lord von Fellner to insanity that he might satisfy himself for a day longer, and force the other beneath his legs in turn.

This he desired. All else he could not crave. Not whilst wearing the pelts of their own houses. Damn him for all he represented to himself.

Contempt was as easily shared as it was easily given.

Volkor's lip curls in a show of blunt fangs, theatrical impatience, as he pushes him down deeper into the grass.

Roughening if he resists overlong. Forcing the descent for him with hand and boot if he could not.

"These mornings will ever grow longer, Lord. The longer you resist me, the longer I will have you here."

It was the taming of him that satisfied himself. The thought of breaking him without need of bleeding him or corrupting him like some wayward resented lover.

Looks of dismay charming, though, and not often paired with words. Often his Lord lacked for them. It was infuriating when he did not.

Volkor's grip remains along with him in corded resentment as he fights him down past the first knee. To both now. Lower, fallen king.

You- nnh...

Volkor demands from him with a look what he needn't remind in words. Further. He presses him.

The heel finds him and twists roughly against the seams and gilding holding together his frock and cuff, an arm pinned to the ground as he lowers finally. As he liked.

Submission still not enough.

He orders him barer for it.

And sees his surprise and his shock instantly. It staked his belly black and pleased him. Oh, it did. Wondering not if he would oblige after all but how far he might go to oblige him.

As before, he awaits the beating. Perhaps the tearing of skin this time if he did not obey-- something to return home with on display for his siblings. Punishment of his distrust too.

Ae you going to bare your handsome flesh to the stock, von Fellner?

Volkor cuts through the static with a leg in reminder. That he will kick im- and spur him. An eviscerate him if he should displease him.

In fantasy. All within the mind. How frustrating.

It was the flesh and bone that he did desire so warmly. That he would see himself presiding over while Calix did oblige him. Oh?

Volkor's eyes roll over fingers at work and when the fang-mark drops and the cloak falls away, the sound of quills catching could have sent his heart asunder.

Hated release of the sound was eye-rolling in its reciprocation.
He reaches for the other's spine in fascination and, with gloved fingertips, flexes his hand over the bare back.

"Not enough." He rasps, after some time. Perhaps he had stared at his back and his gilded nape for minutes before he meets the look of split eyes and stiff nostrils.

What an uncomfortable, helpless beast. The lord-alpha selfish. Uncaring of the torture while it did not satisfy his envy.

He needed more. More than pelt alone. The heraldry sent to the grass.

Volkor turns the stock in his hand in contemplation. It was the feeling of flesh against bone indeed that he desired upon seeing his form. Not at all the clinical correction of a whip.

He leans down just enough to tuck the thing back into his boot by the stock first.

Then his hands return, both free, out from his cloak and into Calix as he shoves him again, intending to send him across the grass. Tumbling down against it to recapture him.

A swift motion saw one hand grab for Calix's hair and twist to bring him down while the other pinned him beneath.

He fights him to get over him- wanting to stand and observe as he did. Reveal himself and all his marks and skin to Volkor's gaze.

"Be a more obedient bitch now." Volkor hisses. Speaking quickly in his dissatisfaction with him.

He chased Calix with a long stride and made to secure him with his boot as he has him on his back. Kicking the heel into the curvature of his ribs beneath the uniform in reminder as he lingers there.

The ankle of his boot a driving resentment as the spur threatened at all times. Down between his legs to his crotch where he stood over him.

He would not help him. Panting in imagination overhead. Bruising beneath fabric and blood pooling against the black and green loam of the linen.

The standing lord was sweating just enough beneath his own to be entirely aroused by the image of him across the floor. Split hair mussed from abuse.

Rabid the same repressed frustration. The cloak some feet from them. Away from that. Not your heraldry to bear. Not in play. Not while you crawl beneath me.

He reaches to grab his hair again when he allows him to sit and holds out his dark glove to grip a pure white lock.

"You will show me all your flesh, von Fellner." He growls, desperate and excitable, tugging his neck open in furious poise if he could but catch him.

He expected to hear that. Not enough.

Calix swallows hard enough, his bile burning hot enough, that he felt his own esophagus catch his spine in his neck.

Defiantly, he does not proceed, knowing Lord Volkor wanted only for more. He wrestles with himself within his own mind as his belly cords, eyes sharply intent upon the motion of his lordship tucking his crop away into his boot. Calix’s eyes seem to glaze over as he watches his hands and ankle.

Then, all at once, his attention returns and he tightens to meet the hands. His own arms raise in some instinct to defend himself though ultimately serve only to hover at Volkor's forearms unsurely.

He, winded as he is sent against the earth, curls around the other with a loud hiss in warning- choked into a sound clearly involuntary for a proud lord as his hair was taken into Volkor's capture once again.

He relents easily to the twist against his hair, baring his teeth now in some pain. His breath finally quickening as he settles into a posture of discomfited surrender.

Be a more obedient bitch now.

Calix offers a deep, broken whine upward at the further insult. It was not entirely a submissive tone, though communicated clearly his eroding willpower.

He couldn’t deny the blood that pooled in his rage. His heart drowns suddenly beneath it as the lord’s legs caged him in place. A pressure on his groin made him squirm carefully.

His thighs squeeze the ankle briefly and he freezes, staying further movement in his growing sense of dread that there would be no escape from this… Demand. This imposition upon his pride. Dignity, even.

Casting a look upward, he tries to stifle a- a tremble. Barely contained fury. Barely caged shame.

“As you… say.” He relents to express his intent. Maybe avoid another pull of his hair as he slowly, deliberately lifts himself to sit. His hands hover in front of him as if frozen in their intent, unwilling to proceed. For just too long for Volkor, it seemed.

A black glove claims his snowy tresses again and he surrenders a whimper, nearly all breath, opening his neck with a pinched silver eye straining to see clearly.

You will show me all your flesh, von Fellner.

Calix exhales his tension in reserve, riding the brief release to begin fumbling at the exquisite, white lapel of his double-breast. The clasps beneath holding it to a sculpted chest release one-by-one.

He works by touch alone, head held in captivity by the lord’s cruel grip. Where at first his mismatched look was upon Volkor’s own with an anger immense, as he undid the final clasp and the tightness over his waist vanished- his eyes just as quickly fell away and to the mist behind him.

It would take no more than a simple brush to reveal the fine sweater underneath. And little more than a tug upward to expose his flesh. But he could hardly bear to do it.

A quick glance confirmed to him that he would be expected to do this himself.

“Let go.” He breathes quietly.

Pain and shame staking his belly as he shut his eyes for a long moment. Clearly grappling with himself before he reaches up to grasp the impossibly fine fabric and nudge it back over his shoulders.

When his frock was off, he briefly curls it in front of himself to leave upon his lap. Fingers turning inwards to hook at the black high-neck sweater and pull it up. Despite all, his motion was an elegant one. His back extending as his waist, marked with signs of old hunts, tightened in his slight effort to maneuver the thing over his head and off.

Now that his upper was bare, he pauses, shoulders drawing back as he stifles a tremor. He was not a slight creature but even still, compared to Calix’s charismatic splendor under the gravepelt, its spines and Fellner regalia… It was clear why their people were ever so fond of dressing up.

His shoulders rose slightly as he heaves a dry, nervous hiss that seemed to come from deep in his chest as his thumb slid under his gloves, removing them as a final acquiescence to pause upon.

“You would… Have more.” He observes in resentful knowing. He remains cautiously stationary. In some hope that Lord Volkor’s madness might stay its march at this line. His instinct warns him otherwise and the very thought sends a pang of arous— No… Not that. Oh, there was shame, however. So much of that.

Volkor sees the arms raise in his peripherals and he barks at him, a flash of elegant, dark movement a surprise. His feral warning tore from his throat as he anticipated a fight before any words could form to dismiss him with civility.

Civility. In a place as this. With bruises and accoutrements rearranged like this.

Civilly, as he sends the Lord across the stone and ground then and into the grass with a sigh of white-hot effort. Himself, giving chase to primal whines. His hand does not let go of the struggling weight.

He does. Struggle not to tighten his grip sufferingly around his hair as he fondles the pretty tresses. Realising in clarity the affront of it to his very soul: welcome, burning rage.

The lord's humiliation did please him and his desire for him and his sounds was, he realises in clarity, an affront to his very soul. The noises of him an effortless clasp of Volkor's attention. Should he be afraid of that?

Perhaps. Be it that his contempt could manifest itself as anything altogether more heretical- anything more misguided. He should be afraid of those thighs as they close around his boot and tighten and it sends his mind wild instantly in lusts thought only reserved for mad lovers.

Volkor's eyes widen and he looks at him feral for it.

He hated that.

Daring him to say something. Daring himself to say something, perhaps. He knew that he did so love to hurt him now. He did now know about sounds that he never knew he wished so deeply to hear. He wonders the limits of them. Possibly far beyond that which he was capable of by his own hand.

He wished to stamp his heel over belly or cock in punishment for all the rebellion before, and in reward for his noises now. Heedless of the pain.

His fingers wrap tight around the split tresses in furious contemplation, petting in curiosity. The lord squirms and Volkor's face drops into something feral.

When the other squirms around him, however brief...

His lips draw back into a snarl, fascination abject.

To watch any Margardian undress was as to watch the very flesh be peeled off a soul or an animal, he had always thought. Naming no others ever seen truly naked. Not lovers. Not bodies or foes. Margardians were afraid of the primal. Afraid of the vulnerability of it.

It pleased him to guess at what lay beneath then, deciding that he was (so, so angry) enraptured. He knew of the helplessness. The anger. Misplaced beneath his own boots like a good hound.

"Go on..." he strokes his hair cruelly. Knowing he would. Undress now. Go on. He thinks with eyes feral in intent- impatient. Leaning obviously over the captive lord to watch him take apart every button as he bared the fabric beneath.

The sight of the sweater warms the skin beneath his own fabrics. Buttons flicked open were an enslaving sight. Sincerely. Shamefully.

Volkor blinks hard and growls when told to let go in his own waking rebellion.

What he had seen was not enough. Barely enough to satisfy him- frustrated all over again. Enraged. This was what awaited him beneath the lord's exterior?

It was pristine elegance and makes him angry as he stares for several long seconds, aching, nose creasing predatory.

Volkor relents with a terse sigh when he finally does release him.

Von Fellner would see his master intent upon weakness greedily and darkly over his face and features in open pleasure, gaze landing across the bare chest. The body hair noticed first, in stark contrast to his own...

It split part-way across the torso over corded muscles and patterned pleasantly around his pectorals.
The sight was as shocking for him to look upon. For moments he might not believe it truly real. Truly furious.

Truly thrilling. It did not take much for man's flesh to be cut through by fang, claw, and blade. For men even of von Fellner's stature to fall prey so easily to other beasts.

It. Made him squirm beneath his own pelt in furious, furious, roaring pleasure. Oh, madness. Had he a pair of talons they would have strung through Calix and turned him to ribbons in moments.

How this. This. This power.

"Oh, yes..." He breathes, praising.

The gloved hand returns to its place in Calix's hair and he pulls on him thoughtfully, posing him to his liking that he would stare at him proper.

His shoulders were pretty, and wide. Waist a lovely thing. A fine hound. It set Volkor positively aflame to see him with skin so pristine and so weathered.

Volkor, burning in darkest envy, lets himself become aroused in the mind as he watches the way muscle and sinew twitched in apprehension of Volkor's gestures.

"You will not mind if my marks join these in time." He snarls, furious, distant, with a roll of Calix's head performative, at the behest of his hand. In play of a king simply playing with his most loyal hound.

Volkor does not answer him for some time then. Hand in his hair. Tight. Stroking cruelly.

This satisfaction was a godhood. The body before him was, also, a repulsive god's creation. Primal. He feels himself cord up as he admires him.

It was minutes before he would answer the non-question. He would see Volkor admiring openly and strange in the face for some time. He was very much so. Very much disturbed. Aroused. A king at the sight.

He breathes heavily. Tightening over minutes. Then recoiling from him as rage flies again finally.

He shoves the lord by his head first and then lets go entirely, sending them apart from one another as he escapes his thighs with long legs. Letting him scarper for his clothes again as he escapes touching him at all for any longer. Oh...

In greed he would have more. But.

Better to torture the both of their wretched souls.

He leans away with a cursory turn on his heels, adjusting his own gloves out of sight. Glimpsing and then clasping the stray white hairs caught on his leather palm from the tearing and petting.

Savouring a glance at him and not being sure of his own inner world for moments as he turns towards his own den-hold then.

"I am satisfied with you this morning. I would have no more." Volkor relents then, face contorting into a frown out of sight as he clutches onto his own gloves.

"Not until my next letter. Dress yourself and leave my sight."

Calix was released of his hair but it came as little mercy. Now forced as he was to merely pose for his temporary master.

As he sets his gloves over his thigh, he struggles to decide what to offer his gaze. The chill of the early morning humidity was cloying upon him and very quickly manifested as a sheen over his skin as he trembled for only a moment. Arching his back just barely, for no one’s intentional benefit.

When he does glance up, he sees the lord’s hunger under the dark brow. He felt… Sick. Guessing at what parts of his flesh were of interest to Lord Volkor was an exercise in mental fortitude. Particularly when the remark arose. When the glove returned possessively to his hair and he huffs.

-if my marks join these in time.

Calix’s waist tightens visibly as his neck was rolled around. His hands curl briefly into clawed fists before he has the sense to release them. He wanted to answer him, but the audacity shocked him to abeyant silence.

His tension only grew. This wasn’t over, surely. Volkor’s appetite for his humiliation only grew. He’d order him to continue. Or convince him to yet again.

The gaze he briefly sends up was a touch nervous when the answer did not immediately come. Was he in danger?

Then suddenly, he’s let go. Shoved away head-first with muscles tensing instantly to keep himself upright with an earnest regard toward Volkor’s retreat. The glance they exchange made his throat tighten in cornered fury.

I am satisfied with you this morning.

Calix exhales in disbelief, his shoulders dropping. A trick?

Not until my next letter.

Not a trick. Calix wasted no time redressing, remaining put on his knees for the sweater. Tucking his gloves into his pocket, he seemed in a hurry to stand. His pretty Fellner livery arcing in his motion to re-cover himself under it and secure the clasps closed once again.

He would cast wary glances toward Volkor throughout, finally retrieving his grave-pelt and setting it upon his shoulders with a growl of relief almost involuntary as he set the pin and fang-mark in place.

Then, the gloves. He applied those as he turns to leave, in a more noticeable hurry than usual. His hands fly to his hair as the mist began to swallow him, smoothing the mussing it received.