The Crimson Tithe

"No! Wait! Something is not right here. The wind has shifted and something is off!"

That gave Kara pause and she slowed her pace but kept at a jog just in case Geir was messing with her just to catch up. Her eyes scanned the woods in all directions but she couldn't see too far in any direction. The woods, she realized, had suddenly become eerily quiet. When she turned around a large tree she ran into something hard and fell down onto her butt in the cold snow. She looked up at what she ran into, which thankfully wasn't too hard. Her bright blue eyes looked up... and up... and up...

And then she screamed for Geir.

*

Geir stopped dead in his tracks when he saw what Kara had ran into... literally. The thing was taller than he was and Geir was an impressive six and a half feet tall. This easily topped out at eight feet tall. It was most decidedly a man with thick brown hair adorning his body from his hooved feet of a bull, to his upper legs and torso of a human, all the way up to his horned bull-shaped head. "A Minotaur?" he gasped in surprise.

What in the name of Fenrir was a Minotaur doing in these lands?

Going into full battle mode, Geir spayed his arms wide, flashed his claws out, and let out the most threatening, bellowing challenge roar he could muster. The Minotaur's attention went from Kara over to Geir. Then the Minotaur pointed down at Kara. "Miiiiiiiine," his deep voice rumbled.

"I have already claimed her as per my right!" Geir shouted, running up and making a flying leap for the Minotaur. He hit the thing square in the chest, knocking it back a few steps. Geir landed between it and Kara, protecting her with his body. "Go back from where you came from, beast! These lands are not yours!"

The Minotaur backhanded him to send him flying to the side. Then he reached down for Kara who was already scrambling backwards across the snow on her bottom. Cocking his head, the Minotaur couldn't seem to comprehend why Kara was suddenly not staying in place. He walked after her, his long strides closing the distance between them rapidly.

Geir attacked, using his powerful legs to get back to his feet and jump back into the fray. He cleared the twenty or so feet between him and his newfound enemy easily. Swiping downward, Geir raked the back of the Minotaur's calves to make the beast roar in pain. That got the attention that Geir was wanting from him as the Minotaur squared off to fight.

Kara managed to get to her feet. She shook the wicker basket handle from the crook of her arm to let if fall to the ground. Then she took a running start at the Minotaur to plant her foot onto his left thigh. She used that to vault upwards to kick at the horned head. The Minotaur grabbed her in midair and threw her down to the ground, knocking the wind out of her.

Geir roared in fury and charged. This time he went straight in for the kill with his claws up. The Minotaur turned in time to catch both claws right in the midsection of his body, doubling him up a bit. The Minotaur brought both fists up and then down in a haymaker blow. Geir grunted when the full strength of the blow hit his shoulders, driving him down to his knee. Then he felt himself being picked up into the air where he was brought face to face with the obviously angry Minotaur. "Pathetic..." the Minotaur rumbled right before he sent the werewolf flying through the air. Geir hit the ground some hundred feet away, dazed from the rough landing.

With Geir out of the way, the Minotaur turned his attention down to Kara who was regaining her senses. Her blonde head whipped around as she searched for Geir only to find him lying motionless some distance away. "Geir! Get up, damn you!" she shouted his way.

The Minotaur knelt down onto one knee and clamped a massive hand over her mouth. "Silence..." he said. Then he shuffled his other knee down to plant right between her legs. "Miiiiiiiine," he repeated.

Kara's eyes went wide when he started to mount her. After he had his thighs keeping her legs forced wide open he grabbed at his loincloth and ripped it away to reveal his manhood that was easily the size of Geir's arm and as big around as the werewolf's bicep. The Minotaur took his cock into his hand and jerked himself to life, not that it took much with a struggling, bound, naked blonde woman right before him.

While Kara was wet before from arousal in preparation for Geir, she felt her pussy gush with the prospect of being impaled with that massive log that the Minotaur called a cock. She could see the tip of the thing already glistening with his seed as it was dragged across her boot when he brought it up to point at her womanhood. It left a trail of his cum on her in its wake. She was morbidly curious as to what sex with a Minotaur would feel like and came to the quick conclusion that it was more than likely going to be extremely painful, against her will, and it was going to happen until she either got used to it or she was killed by the thing.

In her mind; that was never going to happen.

Bringing her knees up to her chest Kara managed to roll backwards and bounce up onto her feet. The Minotaur looked at her with a mixture of surprise, confusion, and curiosity on its face as if it couldn't comprehend why she was resisting him still. Before the beast could get up off of it's knees, she took advantage of his inaction and savagely kicked him right between the legs. The Minotaur instantly grabbed his suddenly bruised testicles, that Kara noted were the size of small watermelons, and howled in extreme pain.

With the Minotaur out of it for the time being, Kara ran over to Geir who was just now getting to his feet. "Let me loose!" Kara said to him, getting her cloak over one shoulder to show him the ropes that still bound her arms and upper body. "I can help and we can beat this thing together!"

"How are you going to do that while naked?" Geir snapped "He wants you for his own mate!" Then he looked over to where the Minotaur was grabbing himself while screaming in pain. Well, then again... Maybe she can help me fight it.

"Well it's better than me running around with my hands tied behind my back, Geir!" Kara snapped back at him, catching him by surprise. No woman had dared to talk to him in such a way before outside of his own family unit. He found it appealing that she had a voice of her own and knew how to stand up to him.

"Your word." He said at once.

"What?"

"Your word that you will not run away from me after you are free from the ropes."

"Seriously? I've already accepted the fact that I'm your mate." When she saw that he wasn't wavering on this matter she rolled her eyes and let out a huff of air. "Ugh... men. Fine. You have my word of honor that no matter what I am still your mate and I will return to your home with you. Does that work for you?"

"Perfectly," Geir said, lashing out with one claw to shred the ropes on the left side of her body. She turned for him to get the other side and he was about to cut them when he was suddenly tackled from the side.

"Leave her alone, beast!" the human who was now on top of him yelled.

"What is this?" Geir asked.

"Oh my Gods, John?" Kara asked in disbelief. "What the fuck are YOU doing here?"

*

John found it oddly easy to track Kara. He followed the dual footprints of her boots and the beast's hind paw prints as they went down the path. Then he could see the shifting of feet and then Kara's bootprints heading off into the woods with the paw prints following from what he could tell. Then he heard her scream and the beast's awful roar followed by several more. "Hang in there Kara!" he shouted as he followed the tracks. "I'm coming for you!"

When he caught up to them he watched in horror as the huge wolf-like man that had taken her raked his claws down the side of her body. Seeing red, he continued to charge straight forward, launching himself through the air to tackle the walking wolf. "Leave her alone, beast!" he screamed at the thing now beneath him.

"What is this?" the wolf asked in a surprisingly calm, cool, and collected human voice.

"Oh my Gods, John?" Kara asked. John turned to smile at her and instead of seeing the expected look of pleasure on her face he was met with that of shock and disbelief. "What the fuck are you doing here?"

John was confused. "Uhm, saving you," he said as if that fact should be obvious.

*

"Do I look like I need saving?" Kara asked as she worked her left arm free in a hurry. There was no telling when bull-boy was getting back up from that nut shot she gave him. "Get off of him already!" she kicked him in the side to roll him off of Geir.

"He was attacking you! Talk about gratitude!" John complained as he scrambled to his feet.

"He was cutting the ropes off of me, idiot!" Kara shouted at John.

Now Geir was back up, snarling savagely at John. "I should gut you for interfering and I would be within my rights to do so!"

Kara placed her hand on Geir's shoulder, pulling him back. "Focus on the bigger guy here." When Geir looked at her she jerked her head towards the Minotaur, who was now slowly getting to his own feet. Geir slashed at the remaining ropes binding Kara up and she nodded her thanks to him.

"What? I'm not big enough of a challenge for you?" John said mockingly. He even sounded a bit insulted.

Rolling her eyes, Kara put a restraining hand on Geir's chest to keep him in place even though she briefly trailed her fingers through the black fur. She took two steps towards John and slapped him hard. Then she grabbed his head and wrenched it around for him to see what they were up against. He gasped when he saw what they had been fighting. "What unholy beast is that?"

"Geir calls it a Minotaur, fool."

***
CHAPTER 5:

Kara saw the Minotaur get back up to his feet to turn and face them. He took a step forward and lurched at bit, still in pain. Letting go of John, Kara scooped up the nearest weapon that she could find; a small fallen tree that she broke the small end off in order to make into an ad hoc staff.

Beside her, Geir smiled. Yes, I have chosen a worthy mate, he thought. Brave, resourceful, tenacious... she'll serve the pack well. He dropped down to his haunches as Kara dropped down into an upright fighting stance, both of them now ignoring John who was still sputtering in fright at the Minotaur.

When the Minotaur got close, Kara feinted a jab with her tree towards its face. The Minotaur easily blocked it and then blocked her follow-up attack a bit lower down. Geir got that she was just distracting the thing and dashed in, slashing at the Minotaur's legs again. The Minotaur let out another bellow of pain and even turned to face Geir as the werewolf ran by him.

That proved to be a mistake as Kara then rushed in and kicked the Minotaur up between the legs, this time from behind. As the beast went back down to its knees in pain, Geir was coming back and this time raked the Minotaur across the chest and face with his claws.

The Minotaur decided that he'd had enough and that this was not worth the trouble. With a bellow of anger, disgust, and pain, he flailed his arms about to keep both Kara and Geir at bay before rising up to his feet. Instead of attacking though, the Minotaur lowered a shoulder and took off running into the woods from the direction he had come from.

Geir and Kara looked at each other and smiled. Laughing, Kara leapt into his arms and hugged him while Geir couldn't resist twirling her around once in the air for a victory spin. On impulse, Kara kissed him square on the muzzle, noticed it and then pulled back, blushing furiously.

"I cannot believe that you just kissed that thing," John's voice said, killing the mood.

Frowning, Kara glared at him. "What's it to you? Why are you even here?"

"Like I said; I'm here to take you home."

"I AM going home; to my new home with Geir." Kara retorted. "I thought that I was clear on that subject this morning."

Summoning up his courage, John met her glare and tried a different tactic. "Then maybe I wasn't clear on this, woman," he said, his voice dropping to a dangerous tone. "You're coming back to the village with me and giving up this silly ritual. It is barbaric and against God's most holy laws."

There was a growl behind Kara where Geir's hackles had rose up in anger. Kara smiled and jerked her thumb over her shoulder. "I have a werewolf that I gave my word to remain with who thinks otherwise. Besides, there is no force in this world that could make me go back with you and jeopardize my family and friends like that."

"I've claimed her, as is my right, as a master of these woods, human." Geir said gruffly as he stood beside Kara. "Now shuffle off back to your hovel before I take another right; the right to end your life for attempting to interfere with the treaty!"

"Okay, you want to play old rules and traditions then go with this little tidbit; I had her first," John said. He then opened his arms and taunted Geir. "Yeah... that's right... I've slept with her first. So she was technically mine long before this whole stupid tradition. I took her purity which makes her mine if we're going by your animalistic rules here."

"Actually..." Kara said with a sad smile on her face, "I'd lost my virginity three guys ago since we're all encouraged to sleep around and discover ourselves and who we want in a future spouse. I didn't even sleep with you until you'd been in the village for a couple of months and only did so since I was curious about your life from outside. You were technically my fourth lover and Geir here will be number five." She shrugged a shoulder at his sudden shocked and crestfallen look. "Sorry."

"You never said that you had a boyfriend before!"

"You never asked and none of them ever were ever my 'boyfriends' in your sense of the term. They were just occasional bedtime lovers just like you were."

Geir was smiling. "And I will be the last lover she will ever have as I am the one who is her mate though both the village's tithe and her own choice."

"What?" John couldn't believe what he was hearing.

"You heard him," Kara said indifferently. "I've given him my word three times now: once at the Sacrifice Stones, once during the fight with the Minotaur, and once now as we talk. I am his."

"You're actually going to go with him... willingly?" When Kara just half-shrugged in that indifferent way again he got mad. "You're going to go off to be some whore to a werewolf?"

"Watch it, human." Geir growled in warning.

Kara now glared at him coldly with crossed arms across her naked breasts. "Even if he had been killed tonight I still would have found my way to his den as I'd rather be the pack's whore than your wife." She turned her back on him and hooked her arm underneath of Geir's. "Goodbye, John Woodson. I hope that we never meet again."

Geir looked back over his shoulder and couldn't help but give John the biggest, happiest, feral werewolf smile he could manage full of teeth.

*

John walked back to the village in a daze. How could she do this to him? How could she choose... that... over him? What was the matter with her? He could not come up with any answers as he wracked his brain to figure out how he could make her see reason. What a fucking bitch to turn away from me like that! Just who does she think she is, anyway?

When he got back within sight of the village it was about an hour or two before dawn by his reckoning. As he broke out of the woods, he saw that the girls had been removed from the Sacrifice Stones and were nowhere to be seen. Then he saw the mob of people at the gates all with torches in their hands and somber expressions on their faces. John smiled inwardly. They must be here to thank me for making the attempt. Maybe they will join me in throwing this yoke off of their villages. Yes, with this many men we could take the fight to those werewolves and be rid of this silly, goddamned ritual once and for all. It's an abomination against the Lord anyway.

Smiling broadly at them as he walked up to the gates, John opened his hands ready to receive their praises. "Gentlemen, I regret to tell you that I was unable to save Kara and that the beast still took her with him further into the woods. However, if we act quickly we can still get her back."

"So she did go with them after all?" The Mayor of Crimson Village asked in visible relief.

"Yes, but as I was saying-"

John got cut off by the Mayor of Golden Village. "At least there's one person from your village that has a lick of sense."

"I have many citizens that have sense," Mayor Crimson retorted, glancing back at the woman who'd brought the matter to his attention. He then pointed at John. "It's just that this one here doesn't seem to want to play by the rules."

"What?" John was taken aback as the reality he'd constructed in his head shattered. Instead of praises he was being ridiculed? How dare they! He then saw Diana standing right behind the Mayor with a cross look on her face direct at John. He was about to say something to get her to his side when she suddenly shook her head, turned her back, and walked back into the gates. Oh my God! Even she is turning her back on me! Why? I gave her a good fucking tonight. Ungrateful wench!

Mayor Crimson advanced on John, snapping him out of his thoughts. "You have jeopardized a fragile peace that has kept us safe for centuries. Don't look at me like that, youngin'! You come in here with your fancy ways and fancy ideals from the big, modernized world. Oh yes; we know what it is like out there with our ways constantly criticized, where the life-giving earth is being systematically destroyed for more 'modern' cities that mar the landscape, where if you are not one of those so-called 'Christ-yans' then you are wrong. You call us barbarians and ungodly but it is not our ways that are destroying the earth and normal human behavior. It is you!"

Wide eyed, John couldn't help but stare incredulously at the Mayor. But the Mayor wasn't finished. "We took you in! We gave you a home and a trade to help you when you were at your lowest and this is how you repay us; by upsetting the delicate balance that we walk here? We are happy here in our ways and will continue to do so." The Mayor took a step back. "John Woodson, you are exiled from the Five Villages of Mormor for attempting to violate the treaty."

Smoldering, John bit off a hasty "Fine," towards him. "Just let me get my stuff."

The Mayor shook his head. "We're not letting you back in. Your exile is effective immediately. You might be able to get back to your modern civilization but it is fifty miles in either direction and where the perimeter walls end, the mountains begin. May whatever God you believe in have mercy on you because the creatures that live in these woods will not."

"What the hell are you going to do about the werewolves then?" John demanded.

"We're going to tell them that the guilty party has been punished and exiled from our land. We hope that will be enough to satisfy them since they still got their yearly tribute." The Mayor shrugged. "We might not be exempt from next year's tithe but if that is the price we have to pay to keep everyone safe, then so be it." The Mayor pointed off into the woods. "Now be gone!"

***

CHAPTER 6:

Kara felt the scrutiny of the werewolf pack as her and Geir walked into the main den hall that had been carved and shaped from the natural cave that was here. Torches and Braziers lined the hall and a large stone fireplace was at the far end where she saw a pair of older looking werewolves standing, waiting expectantly; one male and one female. "Those are the Pack Alphas," Geir said. "Jarl and Astrid. They are the supreme authority in the pack here and have ruled for nearly a hundred years now."