Page 8 of To Run with the Wild Hunt

I staggered backwards, shock making my chest tight.

Keilain let me go, still wearing that affectionate expression. He hadn't shifted fully, fur sprouting halfway down his arms and in a satyr-like spread on his hips and half-canine legs. His appearance reminded me of the mythical adlet, a dog-legged man with a wild nature, and when he smiled I could see the long, blunt canines he'd worn as a hound.

"What are you?" I whispered, backing away from him.

He followed me, shifting back into his canine form as he did, walking with the rolling saunter of a sighthound with his mouth open in a canine smile. "You already know," he said, his voice rougher and deeper as a hound, yet still recognizable as his. I hit the wall with a jolt, and Keilain pressed his head against my belly with a happy sigh. "I'm yours."

My hands went to his head automatically, no matter that I knew he was a man. In a daze, I started scratching him behind the ears, watching his tail wave through the air.

He made a low, rumbling sound of contentment, the sound so much deeper than that of the dogs I was used to. He was so tall, his shoulders coming up to my navel and his neck and muzzle long enough that he could probably set his chin on my shoulder if he wanted to.

"I don't understand," I said, freaked out, but in a dazed way instead of a panicking way. I wasn't being eaten, and it didn't seem like I was being imprisoned. I'd obviously been healed and cleaned, though by the tackiness of my skin I thought the latter was probably the dog giving me a bath with his tongue instead of someone sponging me off.

That made me think of him licking my crotch again, and I flushed, embarrassed and a little bit aroused from the mental image of a gorgeous, albeit half-canine man licking my underwear.

"Will you come back to the bed?" he asked, looking up at me with his ears forward and tail wagging. "I can be a man if you like. And I'll try to explain."

It was weird to see a dog talking, but whatever connection I had to it… to him… To Keilain… It meant that I wasn't upset by any of the weirdness. Watching his mouth move as he spoke wasn't any stranger than watching anyone else's mouth as they talked. If you think too hard about what tongues and lips are doing, it's always uncomfortable to see.

"Um. Okay, I guess." I made a face, pursing my lips. "Are there any… clothes?"

His jaw opened in a canine smile. "Yes! The Master left them for you. He thought you would like to dress yourself." Keilain's attitude changed slightly, his tail lowering and face going serious. "He might have done it anyway, but I didn't allow it."

"Isn't he your… master?" I asked, edging towards the bed.

The dog snorted, shaking his head in a very human gesture. "Not anymore."

He trotted out of the room with a springing gait, leaving me to get onto the bed again. I did, not really sure what else to do, scooting back against the headboard with my knees tucked up to my chest.

Keilain came back before I had a chance to start getting nervous, carrying a bundle of cloth in his jaws. He hopped back up onto the bed, making the whole thing shake, and dropped the cloth in my lap before flopping down next to me in the same half-man, half-dog form, smiling up at me with a dog's unabashed affection.

I shook out the cloth, discovering a heavily-embroidered robe sized for a man, along with a long strip of undyed cloth that I guessed was what passed for underwear wherever we were.

"No girl's clothes, huh?" I asked, getting onto my knees and shrugging on the robe.

"The Master is the only one who usually wears clothing," Keilain said, sounding apologetic, his ears going back and tail giving a single wag in the way of a dog trying not to get scolded. "The servitors are only constructs, and the rest of us are the hounds. Or his horse."

He didn't stop looking at me, sprawled down next to me with the ease of comfort, but I didn't really want to keep on my bloody underwear, and I wasn't really sure how far I could push things. A bit awkwardly, I scooted around until I had my back to him and a robe between us, and started trying to puzzle out the cloth strip.

"Oh. Modesty. Yes," he said in a dazed sort of voice, sounding as if he was talking to himself. "You're… human. Humans often like that. I remember. But not… but not in bed?"

Key sounded so unhappy that I reached back and patted him on the side. "It's alright, pup," I said, as if he really was a dog and not a staggeringly attractive man who was part-dog. "The fact that you've had your tongue on my panties notwithstanding, it's habit not to flash my pussy at strange men."

"I'm not a stranger," he said, sounding hopeful. I heard his tail thud against the bed. "I'm your soulmate." Before I could react to that, Keilain made a disgruntled sound, then added with a sigh, "One of your soulmates."

Exploration

Alexis Sharpe

Ididn't know how to deal with the concept of soulmates, let alone multiple soulmates. I didn't want to deal with the concept of soulmates. What I wanted was to wake up again, this time in my hotel room with the Pollack safely tucked into its tube under the bed.

Since that wasn't an option, I finished wrapping the loincloth around my hips like an Indian langot, tucked the tail away, and tied the robe closed. It gave me enough time to corral my thoughts, even though it also left a lot of dead air. Keilain didn't fill it, for which I was grateful. Maybe he understood what a bombshell that was.

Taking a deep breath, I scooted back to face the hellhound and dropped down onto my side next to him, my head on the pillow and my arms tucked up in front of me.

Keilain settled a little closer, tail wagging and a smile brightening his face. I didn't know about soulmates, but I would have had to be an idiot not to recognize that something arcane bound us together. I knew his name, and he knew mine, and no matter how hard I tried to find something unfamiliar, everything about him was as normal to me as my own body. That sharp nose, those high cheekbones, the coarse black fur, even the thud of his tail against the bed… all of it felt like things I'd known since before I'd been born.

"Soulmate," I said, trying not to let the tightness of fear in my chest rule me.

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