Full Moon: Part 6

Part 6 of my werewolf story. I’m not sure where I’m going with it generally, but I had this scene in my head. Not a spanking scene, but some definite scoldy vibes…

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If you missed the beginning of this, check out Full Moon: Part 1

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“This is stupid,” Elinor said. “And a waste of money. We’re not humans who must shut ourselves up indoors, and hide under blankets to sleep.”

She sat cross-legged on the straw mattress of their room at the inn, arms folded and sulking.

Taria, who had been kneeling on the floor and sorting her pack, stood to face the young woman.

“I can afford the room,” she said, patient but firm. “And it is almost the new moon. You are as much a human now as any of the people in this town, as am I.”

“Don’t remind me,” Elinor mumbled grumpily.

For the past two weeks, she had travelled with Taria. The pack had become more and more distant, until she could no longer sense them at all, especially with the moon waning.

She almost hadn’t minded, though. Being close to Taria was almost like having a new pack, and she wouldn’t miss the pack leader’s mate and her snide comments. She missed the pups, though.

They had slept outdoors, making camp in the woods, and travelling through parts of the night as well as the day.

She learned that Taria was something of a beast-slayer. She travelled where she heard stories of demons, or monsters, often receiving payment for ridding towns or regions of whatever terrorized them.

It was the tales of a Night Beast that had led her to Elinor, though she had realised what she was before coming upon her, from her scent.

Elinor felt distantly embarrassed to have not sensed Taria in the area too, before meeting her, but Taria had only laughed when Elinor mentioned it.

“I was not as careless as you,” she’d said.

Then, they had come to this town, and this inn.

Not in the best of spirits on arrival, Elinor’s mood had not been helped by one of the patron’s dogs, which had growled and snarled, and then snapped at her as its owner yanked it away.

It was hit and miss with dogs, generally.

She could almost understand and talk with them, some breeds more than others, and especially at the full moon.

And they either loved her or hated her. There never seemed to be an in-between.

“Now then,” Taria said. “Why don’t you drop this sulking act, and we’ll get ourselves a bath.”

“A bath?!” Elinor said, with some disgust.

“Yes, a bath,” Taria said, sounding faintly amused by Elinor’s reaction. “There’s a bath house a few doors down. And you can sort out your attitude, or I’ll sort it out for you. Come on.”

Elinor could not keep herself from blushing at that. More quickly than she’d like to think about, she found herself getting up off the bed, and following Taria out the door.

She was under no illusion as to what would be involved if Taria ‘sorted out’ her attitude. That time in the cave had been the first, but not the only time Taria had put Elinor over her knee since they’d met and even now, Elinor’s bottom was feeling the lingering effects of the last such time.

At the entrance to the bathhouse, a girl of no more than 12 years stood smoking a pipe as though she were an old man, collecting the entrance fee.

“Half a copper piece if yer want communal, 2 pieces for private,” she said, her voice rougher and deeper than her young appearance suggested it might be.

“We’ll have private, but we’ll share the same bath,” Taria said.

The girl looked them up and down, then said, “3 pieces for the both of yous then.”

“Fair enough,” Taria said, handing over the coins.

The girl pocketed them, took a puff on her pipe, then turned and yelled into the bathhouse, “Oi, Margi! Get yerself over ‘ere! These two need showin’ a private tub!”

The entire bathhouse felt warm, heated by furnaces that warmed it from beneath the floors.

Outside, it was the start of winter. In here, it felt like summer, and Elinor couldn’t help enjoying the feeling of the warm air against her skin.

She was far tougher to the cold than a human could be, but that didn’t mean she didn’t feel it at all. Bathing in streams at this time of year was not the most comfortable, especially this close to the new moon, when she had hardly any wolf in her to warm her blood.

Still, she grumbled aloud to Taria, as they were left alone at their bath, separated from the communal bathing area by wooden partitions, “I don’t see why we need to pay for a bath, when a stream works just as well, if we have to wash, which I don’t see why we do.”

Taria, who had begun to take her belt off, paused. She turned, and smiled at Elinor, showing her teeth. She stepped close, and then said quietly, in Elinor’s ear, “You will cease your complaining, young pup, and get in the bath and wash. Unless you would prefer I dunk you in the tub, hold you under, and scrub you myself.”

Elinor flushed. She suspected Taria may not carry out the threat quite as described, but she knew she was getting awfully close to a distinctly unpleasant time nonetheless.

“Sorry,” she offered, after a moment, giving her meekest tone. Then, she sighed. “I just hate this time of the month.”

“Me too,” Taria sympathized, and quickly kissed her on the cheek, before stepping away and continuing to undress.

Despite her earlier protests, Elinor found herself enjoying the bath, once she was submerged. The water was warm, and relaxing, and had some sort of mild pleasant scent to it.

And despite her protests about the room at the inn too, she found the straw mattress and woolen blankets that night a welcome change from the cold hard ground of the forest, and the frosts that had begun to form overnight.

On her side, she curled herself up, and pushed body up against Taria’s.

With her wolf senses dulled by the new moon that night, she felt almost deaf to the world. She could smell only those scents that were most close to her – the straw of the mattress, the wood of the floor, and Taria’s own scent.

She buried her face against her companion, so the whole world would only be her, as she drifted to sleep.