(c) 2001 Acheron. Do not distribute. If you think someone would like to see it, send them here.

Darran woke, and was hungry.

It had been two days since his last hunt, and it was time, past time, for the next.

He rose and stretched, starting from his toes and working his way up all two meters of his slender body. Not one muscle was missed in the progression. It had to be thorough. The tiniest omission could ruin his hunt.

Finished at last, he donned a pair of black shorts, nearly invisible against his fur. Though he had no intention of being social today, nevertheless he uncovered the full-length mirror and stood before it. There stood a panther in his prime, the darkness of his coat broken only by the emeralds that were his eyes. There was no more fat on his body than it needed to survive, to weather any lean times that might come. His muscles weren't all that bulky, but they were well-toned and he could focus their combined strength into the effort of one instant. His fur was smooth as silk, still gleaming from last night's thorough wash, and clung to his contours quite nicely.

With his claws he idly traced a few of the pitch-dark rosettes on his body, then smoothed them flat. He selected a coarse comb and applied it to his long head-fur, tying it back with a black elastic. Then he stood before the mirror once more.

He was not planning on any sort of social meeting. But if one happened, he'd be ready for it. He'd be at his best.

Right now, though, he was still hungry, and getting hungrier.

With a knife at his belt and his claws well-honed, he left his den.

The sun was just rising, and under the cover of the trees, twilight still clung to everything. It did not matter. He could see as clearly at night as during the day, and the shadows would only aid him. He glided in silence along the forest floor, darkness among shadow, invisible, inevitable death to whatever prey first crossed his path.

It didn't take him long to find a trail. Whatever it was, it was hominid, not feral; it wore some sort of foot covering. No matter. By its footprints it was a tree-climber, prey, and heading upwind. The prints were still very fresh. Holding still, Darran could hear something moving where the prints were going. He could smell it on the wind. It was food, and it was still on the ground.

Darran's teeth flashed momentarily in a grin. He stalked forward.

There it was. A sloth, all right, a male, wearing a vest and pants in camouflage colours. Not good enough camouflage, not by a long shot.

The ferals of that sort stayed up in the trees and were almost impossible to hunt. The hominids were much faster, and much more challenging, even when they were on the ground. As he remembered, either one was delicious.

Darran slinked forward through the brush, making no sound, keeping out of sight and downwind. After a few minutes of stalking the sloth, he came to a thicket overlooking the path it was following.

There he waited. He didn't have to wait long before his nose told him it was coming. Every muscle coiled, ready to spring.

There it was.

He did not growl, or snarl, or roar. He simply pounced. The only sound he made was the rustle and snap as he burst from the thicket, leaves flying everywhere. The sloth didn't even look; its legs spurred it into a run. But Darran had counted on that. Its feet didn't even touch the ground on the first spring before he had it.

It struggled against him, shrieking, but could not break free. He pulled it close to him, grabbing the scruff of its neck with his teeth, and drew his knife. A few quick slices and its clothes fluttered to the ground. It was protected from him only by its rust-brown fur, and that had never been any protection at all.

Darran let go with his jaws and shifted his arms and legs to pin his prey firmly against his body. The knife was good for removing encumbrances like clothing, but to this day none of his blades had ever drawn blood. That task he left to his teeth, or failing that, his claws.

He bent his neck, running his tongue along his teeth in anticipation. Canines, feh! Those teeth were far more pronounced – and effective – in cats than in dogs. Dogs never made such a clean kill as he could and did every time.

His jaws gaped wide, and he took the squirming mammal's throat into his mouth, positioning his teeth just so. Carotid artery, windpipe, and spinal cord, all in one bite. It would be quick and clean.

He paused.

The sloth's impotent struggling felt strange. Strange… but good, as it only pushed itself closer to him, and in an oddly nice way. Hunter he was, but for years now Darran had had no company but his thoughts. The solitude had been welcome as he adjusted to the changes of puberty, but now… now he was lonely. He had spent far too many nights alone. Now here was an opportunity…

He returned his teeth to the scruff of the sloth's neck, bit down, shifted, and tried again, managing to get a good grip the second time, one that would hold without injuring, so long as the thing didn't tear himself away. The sloth whimpered and shivered, but there was no fight left in him; he had surrendered.

So when had Darran's prey became a he?

Perhaps at the same time the panther had felt his member straining against his shorts…

One of Darran's hands carefully loosened his grip. When there was no reaction, that hand let go completely and began to roam across the quivering body. He felt the sloth's muzzle, the rapid panting of its breath, hot against his skin. He felt the neck he had so recently spared, the vibration of a whimper.

Lower down, running along the collarbone, feeling the tension in the various muscles thereabouts. Lower, running over the breast, feeling the heaving of the sloth's lungs, the pounding of his heart. Darran's claws brushed the sensitive nipple, and he pinched it between his fingers, evoking a gasp and a sudden tension that wen through the climber's whole body.

Darran traced the lay of the sloth's muscle back to his sternum and ran downward, caressing the belly, lingering for a moment in the navel, and encountering hot, bare flesh.

Struck by wonder, Darran stroked the hard shaft of the sloth's maleness. He had never been this close to any adult's body but his own. His years-past time in school had told him it would be thus, but it still amazed him that his prey could have a body so similar to his own.

He stroked the furry sheath, then back up the shaft. The sound that emerged from the captive throat had nothing to do with pain, this time.

"Let's try something different," Darran tried to say. Muffled by his mouthful of fur, the words were largely unintelligible.

Their height difference severely limited how much contact they could have without Darran letting go, at least while standing upright. While Darran's roaming hand tugged at his belt, he leaned forward, pressing on the sloth's upper body.

He didn't get it, and still hadn't when Darran pushed down his shorts and let his erection spring into the chill morning air, nor when he finally kicked the shorts free of his feet. "Down," he growled through the sloth's neck, leaning a little harder and pulling in at the waist.

The herbivore whimpered and complied He let Darran arrange him on all fours. Both of them, as was their wont, stood on their toes, Darran trapping the sloth's legs with his own. At no time did the hunter loosen his grip with hand or teeth on shoulder and neck.

Automatically Darran reached to move the tail out of his way, but there wasn't one to grasp. He'd known that; but for some reason he'd acted as though he straddled another hunting cat.

No matter. Tail or no, this'll still be good practise in case I do sometime.

And who knew, he might even enjoy it.

Darran reached around and ran the very tips of his claws across his captive's scrotum. The sloth gasped, his body surging and pressing into Darran's own.

Yes... that was much better. The fit between their bodies was superb, almost every inch of them in contact. The pressure against Darran's maleness and the fur brushing around it fired his need to all new heights.

He shifted his hips back, his upper body stretching, until his penis slid off the sloth's rump. Panting a little himself, he brought it forward, felt the satin-soft fur on his captive's sac and sheath.

That felt absolutely marvellous, and the sloth seemed to enjoy it just as much. But it wasn't what Darran wanted. Pulling up a little, he started to draw back.

The stimulation to his glans sent a massive shiver along his body. His breath heaved in double-time. If he wasn't more careful he'd never get where he wanted.

After a few moments, he started pulling back again. The pleasure was electric, intense to the point of pain, but he managed to control his body this time, dragging his tip up between the russet legs.

When it slipped and lodged in an indentation of sorts, he stopped. He was fairly sure that was what he thought it was... Changing his angle, he pushed in.

The sloth howled in agony, his arms giving way.

Instantly Darran froze. The little bit he'd moved had felt great from his end, but from the other... that was just wrong, to hurt someone like that. Even on a hunt, he ended it as quickly and mercifully as possible.

So when did this become not a hunt?

Maybe it still is. Whatever. Torturing him is still wrong.

The sloth was whimpering softly now and shaking, his entire body held up by Darran's legs and teeth. Keeping his hindquarters as still as possible, Darran leaned forward until the poor thing could lean on the ground. With his free hand he stroked the shivering animal's cheek as he remembered his mother doing so long ago.

After two minutes or so, the shivering and whimpering had stopped. The tightness against Darran's glans hadn't eased any, though, so he didn't try to start moving. He just kept stroking, moving from the sloth's cheek to the whole front of his scruffy, surprisingly sleek body. As his breathing slowed and he relaxed, Darran, whose own body was strongly protesting the wait, ran his fingers along the softening shaft.

The sloth hummed in pleasure, and said a few words in a language Darran didn't know. But though the words were foreign, the tenderness behind them was not. Darran switched from just brushing the underside to a gentle grip all the way around, sliding from the very tip down to the base of the sheath. Thick clear fluid flowed from the tip, soaking into Darran's fur and coating the other's hot skin. The climber groaned and pushed up against him.

The sudden friction on Darran's tip sent tremors up and down his spine. He gasped, losing his grip on the sloth's neck.

Well then. If that was what he wanted... maybe if Darran was careful...

Why am I worried about him? He's just prey...

That's no reason to torture him. Besides, I might want to do this again sometime, with someone I want very much to stay around. Better learn to do it right, while I've got this chance.

Darran began to shift his weight forward, so slowly he could almost feel the individual muscle fibres tightening. For a few moments, the sloth's tension kept Darran's member still; but before too long he passed some threshold and started to slide forward.

It was incredible. He sank into the sloth's body a millimetre at a time, the warm tightness engulfing him and setting off every nerve. His indrawn breath shuddered out of his lungs. He had thought himself satisfied with the thrill of the hunt, and the euphoria that came with the final, lethal kiss. This was whole orders of magnitude better, and it went on and on.

The sensation jolted to a new level as the sloth tightened around him. Somehow he managed to keep his head and interpret that as a bad thing; somehow, he forced himself to stop. As he did, the climber said something to him, his tone one of worry and warning. Realising that Darran had already stopped, he added something else, relieved.

"I'll wait," Darran assured him, hoping he didn't sound as impatient as he was, squeezing and pumping the hot shaft in his hand. Sure, it wasn't his own, but his own was rather unavailable, being about halfway in the sloth's body. Besides, this might loosen the thing up a bit more... and doing it felt really, really good.

"You, ah... you understand me?" His voice had a strange lilting accent, but his words were clear.

At last, a common tongue! "I do now," he growled. "Otherwise I've been listening to your body." The muscles around his shaft seemed to be a bit looser. "Ready?"

"Oh, yes..."

Just as carefully as before, Darran started to move forward. There was less resistance, and he went in a shade faster. This time, when he stopped, it was because his hips were firmly against the sloth's rump.

Out was easier, faster, and just as intense. With almost no resistance Darran's hand slid up and down the sloth's penis, slippery with its natural lubricant. His own body was pumping out at least as much of the stuff, coating both his penis and the sloth's insides, and the sloth was loosening up a bit more, so this time, when he slid in, neither of them felt one jot of pain, but whole rivers of the opposite.

The sloth's anus was well-lubricated and tolerably loose, and Darran started a steady rhythm. His hunger was now irrelevant; the forest, which previously he had studied so closely, merely a backdrop for the body underneath him, his prey become his lover.

He could always hunt something else. For this, for what he was receiving now, he wouldn't just let the sloth go, he'd see him safely home. Yes. On that resolve came a fresh burst of excitement. Darran untangled his legs, putting them outside the sloth's for balance, keeping them close to maintain their contact, and put almost all of his weight on them. His left hand, soaked in slick fluid and delightfully aching, moved up to caress the sloth's breast and tease his nipple. Darran's right hand finally lifted from the shoulder to take over on the sloth's penis.

The sudden friction sent shivers up the sloth's body. He stretched out against Darran, turning his head to see the panther's face. "Take me," he panted, ecstasy colouring his accent. "Make me yours."

"I'm trying," Darran growled, bending to kiss the outstretched neck. The scent of fear was gone, and in its place was the spicy musk of lust. He wanted more, needed more.

Opening his jaws wide, he took as much of the sloth's neck into his mouth as he could, inhaling the scent of him with each breath he took as something began to build within his own body. His orgasm could not be far off, and it was going to be big. He was already flying higher than he ever had alone.

The sloth jerked and screamed in ecstasy. Hot semen spurted onto Darran's pumping hand. The smell of it, the muscles contracting around his own sliding shaft, and the simple awareness of the climber's orgasm, brought about as it was by him, triggered Darran's own. He came harder than ever before, his whole body surging from the waves of pleasure running along it as what felt like a litre of his seed flowed into the sloth's body.

Suddenly a torrent of hot blood was rushing into Darran's mouth.

No—!

With a choking gasp he pulled free, the last jets of semen spurting from his throbbing member, and spat out the blood. He turned the shuddering body over in his own shaking hands and stared, aghast. Lost in his orgasm he'd bit down, and his fangs had straddled the windpipe and punctured both carotid arteries. The sloth would bleed to death in a matter of seconds.

Even as his life's blood left him, the herbivore was only just coming down from the heights of his orgasm. With his semen matting his belly-fur and a smile on his face, he reached up with his last strength to touch Darran's cheek, and the tears that were gathering there. "Thank you," he whispered, and his hand fell to the black skin of Darran's maleness, mixing the panther's tears with the white semen. "Thank you... for giving me heaven."

On those words he relaxed, and sank into unconsciousness. Darran cradled the limp body until it stilled in his arms, then let it gently to the grass. With his rough tongue, well suited to the task, he groomed the sloth's matted fur, cleaning it of blood and cum, the stuff of life mingling in death. Blood and loose fur he spat out every so often; the semen, given at the last in love and trust, he savoured in his mouth and took into him as a gift.

When it was done, he arranged the body in a posture of repose and closed its eyes. And as the first rays of the sun danced across the rust-brown fur, Darran's grief surfaced in a howl of total, agonising despair.

Hearing him, the trees stood in respectful silence.