Blood of Gato

The Wendigo leaned low, until its rancid cold breath scalded William's neck like a blizzard flung directly into his skin. Its claws pinned him to the ground with grinding force, ribs shuddering beneath the pressure, threatening to splinter. From behind the curtain of its matted, wet hair, a voice slid out—crackling, torn, vibrating as though shredded vocal cords were dragging themselves just to speak.

"God, you smell delicious… I savored your fear from leagues away. You called me, little lamb—screamed for me so loud I simply couldn't ignore you."

William shivered violently. The voice shouldn't have had that timbre: guttural, bestial, yet dusted with something unmistakably feminine—a woman's cadence, soft and cutting, as if despair itself had found a mocking lullaby.

"Well," he rasped through clenched teeth, chest rattling under her weight, "glad you like my cologne. I've got a t-shirt too—you can stuff it under your pillow for bedtime cuddles, bitch."

The creature let out a noise. A sound so foul—the bubbling, wet gurgle of rot stirred in stagnant water—and then, with the sudden speed of a guillotine, its fangs sank into his head. Shards of pain detonated—bone snapping, flesh ripping. His ear vanished in its maw, shredded in one brutal jerk.

His scream burst ragged and broken, blood gushing, veins standing out across his neck as his body arched in convulsion.

"Fuck!.. Get off me!" he howled, but his voice was drowned, crushed against the hissing chuckle that poured from her throat.

Her claws sank deeper into his back—glacial spikes plunging clean down until he felt them clicking against his vertebrae. Then came the twist. Slow. Sadistic. Like she was stirring the marrow of his spine with one finger. The world exploded white-hot with agony.

"Exquisite…" she sighed, tasting his cries. "How well you sing, little boy. Each scream is a hymn. Don't stop… you even taste as sweet as you sound."

She licked the blood from one claw—long, languid, savoring.

From inside his skull, the beast laughed ferociously, the sound mangling into William's every nerve.

"She's a connoisseur, William. A gourmand. Do you hear her? She likes you. Hah! Maybe just give yourself to her—serve her up your meat, your soul. What's the point in resisting, when you're nothing but a howling cripple?"

"Shut—up!" he hissed, barely forcing the words through his shredded throat. Pain ripped the syllables apart before they reached air.

"You're crying," the beast taunted, silky, venomous. "Begging her to stop. Pathetic meat wrapped in skin, not a warrior. Admit it. Maybe I've been right all along—you were born only to scream, only to die beautifully broken."

William coughed out a thick sob of rage and agony, just as the Wendigo seized his arm with vice-like grip. Its talons crushed down—snapping muscle and sinew like thread. With a single jerk, the bone split, skin peeling open, ivory bursting into the open air. Blood spurted hot and violent down his chest.

He tried to scream, but his voice curdled, collapsed into a strangled rasp.

"Disappointing…" the Wendigo spoke—not in one voice, but many. A chorus of withered elders, shrill children, countless mouths voicing the same word at once. "You were supposed to resist. To thrill me. To fight hard enough to make me happy."

With a whip-crack motion, she wrenched his mangled arm back until his body tore with it. Bones shrieked, ligaments ripping under the strain, until it seemed he'd be torn clean in two. She lifted him by the jaw with the other hand, claws carving into his cheeks. His skin blanched ghost-white under the pressure as teeth ground in his skull.

William, delirious, summoned what tatters of will remained and slashed blindly at her face with his claws. His swipe landed—and broke. Her flesh didn't tear. It was like gouging stone wrapped in taut mud, leaving no trace of harm. No blood. No mark. Her calm never faltered.

At last the curtain of greasy hair peeled back, revealing her fully. The face of a woman—emaciated, feral. Her cheekbones seemed to pierce from under the skin, lips split across predatory teeth. And her eyes—two pits of hunger, frozen blue and bottomless.

"That's better," she whispered softly, tilting her head like a lover bent close. The gentleness in her tone was more terrible than her cruelty. "Please me… more."

Her hand slid to his jaw. Fingers dug deep inside his mouth, freezing nails pressing against teeth. There was a taut pause—then a sound.

Snap.

The bone went with sickening clarity—like dry wood splitting. Lightning slammed his skull. Pain swallowed thought, leaving nothing but black urgency. He screamed, animal, raw, until no voice was left.

And then she closed the distance. Her blood-slicked lips pressed against his. Not a kiss—an invasion. Cold, fetid breath poured into him, drowning him in her hunger.

The kiss was a nightmare—wet, reeking of blood and rot, pierced through with the acrid tang of iron. Then, in one merciless wrench, his tongue was torn from his mouth, wrenched free in a surge of agony. He felt it twisting into her throat as she swallowed it whole, licking her lips with languid delight.

"Mmm…" the Wendigo moaned, running a bloodstained claw beneath his chin, smearing red across his throat. "Such flavor… You are a feast. But the sweetest morsel…" Her grin split wide, teeth flashing. "…is yet to come."

Inside his skull, the beast howled with hysterical glee:

"Hah-hah-hah! What's wrong, hero? Why so quiet?! Ahhh, no tongue now, no clever words. Don't worry—I'll scream for you! Shall I? Just give me the reins, and I'll feast on this whore until she's nothing but shreds in the dirt! Or… maybe you'd rather die here, silent in her arms. Perhaps that's what you've wanted all along."

Pain flooded his jaw and throat, so white-hot it burned away air and thought. No scream left him, only guttural choking noises, his own blood bubbling from his mouth. Consciousness stuttered on the brink of collapse—and then the beast inside snapped. It tore upward like lightning splitting his brain in two.

"You've lost your voice, boy… but I will speak. I will roar for you!" the beast bellowed, and William felt his flesh begin to unravel.

His claws lengthened—not human, not animal, but crooked and obsidian-black, jagged like shards gouged from the earth itself. His chest convulsed, muscles knotted, and strips of his skin peeled away from his ribs, tearing loose like paper. His vision swam in veins of fire—red fog rising, smothering the forest—and through it bled only hunger.

For a heartbeat, William wasn't himself. His body lunged, feral, tearing from the Wendigo's clutch with a bone-snapping twist. She was forced back—not startled but amused, her retreat graceful like a predator indulging prey.

"Yes!" the beast shrieked in triumph. "Hear it? Her flesh rips beneath your claws! That is music—that is truth!"

And indeed, William felt it: his talons shredding her pallid hide, finally drawing blood. It hissed, bubbling and foul, black ichor spilling thick as tar, smelling of mushrooms rotted damp in the soil and old metal rusting in the rain.

The Wendigo's moan rose high and sultry—not pain, but pleasure. The sound slithered into his ears like nails scraped along bone. She smiled, lips stretched back to her jagged yellow fangs.

"Oh… that," she whispered, voice low, lilting with twisted affection. "That is better. Now you are strong. Now you are brave. You burn for me."

She licked fresh blood from her lips, blue fire swirling in her bottomless eyes, staring at him not as prey but as a fledgling predator. A lover's gaze twisted by hunger.

William's vision reeled, his own consciousness slipping like sand between trembling fingers. The beast inside raked its claws deeper through his mind, savoring each shred of control it stole.

"Let it go, boy. Let me carve her apart. Watch her scatter in pieces and know I am your victory."

"No…" William fought the thought like he was clawing at his own skin, gripping his sanity with bloodied nails. His body writhed in conflict: one arm slashing toward her, another shoving her back in defiance, as though two selves warred in the same frame. "Not you. This is mine. If she dies… she dies by me, not by you."

The Wendigo threw her head back and laughed—a piercing shriek that froze marrow, twisting the air itself into shards of glass. Her tongue traced lazily along the length of one claw still stained with his blood.

"Fight…" she whispered, leaning close, voice dripping like venom in his ear. "…scream… and let me eat you alive."

Her hand snapped forward, claws shearing straight through his side. Bone crunched, flesh burst, blood sprayed hot across the frozen dirt. William choked on a shriek that ripped from the pit of his belly, his voice bubbling through blood.

The beast slammed against the cage inside him, unleashing heat down his veins like molten iron. His jaw dislocated, stretching hideously, teeth sharpening to dagger points. A guttural roar thundered from his chest, deep and abyssal, shaking the ground itself.

The Wendigo froze, if only for an instant—and then her lips curled into a slow smile. Her eyes softened, bright with hunger, her laughter like a moan.

"Ohhh yes…" she whispered, lips trembling as though touched by bliss. "Half-dead… half-beast. Mmm, that… that is beautiful."

William struggled for breath—barely a gasp—before the thing inside him surged up, wrenching his will aside and striking in his stead. His claws carved through the air with a savage hiss, raking deep gouges across the Wendigo's throat and chest. Black pitch burst forth, spattering his face, burning into his eyes, choking his tongue with its acrid taste.

But the creature only threw back her head and laughed—hoarse, guttural, a chorus of overlapping voices. Men, women, children, all speaking at once, all twisted into her laughter.

"Tear me apart, boy!" screamed the multitude. "Kill me, if you think you can!"

And then—low and gloating—the Beast whispered directly into William's skull:

"Ahhh… do you feel it? That power thrumming in your bones? Do you hear her gasp at the touch of your claws? Isn't it delicious—being the predator? The apex? The abyss she cannot touch without trembling?"

Shadows writhed in William's mind while the Wendigo crept closer, savoring every ragged breath, every bead of blood dripping from his torn ribs. Her claws traced a languid line across his throat—pressing just enough to sting, yet not enough to grant him release.

"Look how you quiver," she whispered, her voice like a caress of ice as her tongue lapped up the drying blood on his cheek. "Not fear… no. This trembling is excitement. You hunger for this. You feel how beautiful it is to die, how exquisite the agony of resistance becomes when you already know you've lost?"

Her teeth sank into his arm, cruelly precise, grinding toward the bone. Fire rippled under his flesh. William's vision went white. The Beast roared, molten hatred.

"LET ME KILL HER!" it thundered inside his head, tearing at his thoughts. "She toys with you! Do you feel it, weakling? She treats you like a mouse—broken but not dead. Give in! Let me loose! I'll gut her where she stands, I'll drink her screams! You are nothing but wasted breath in her claws—while I am the storm!"

William staggered, broken, flesh flayed to ribbons. His chest shuddered, lungs scalded by each rasping breath. His claws spasmed—fingers twitching from human to monstrous, reshaping, blackening, then retreating. His soul was a battlefield.

The Wendigo advanced in a mockery of grace—hips swaying, shoulders slouched, her head tilted, hair hanging in wet ropes over bared collarbones slicked with tar-like blood. Every movement was a dance of hunger. Her torn chest still oozed pitch where he had struck her, and she bathed in the wound's pain like it was ecstasy itself.

She crouched before him, the predator crouching eye-to-eye with her ruined prey. A razor-thin claw traced his sternum, splitting skin just enough for the blood to bead and trickle in narrow rivulets. She inhaled sharply, as though the scent itself unravelled her restraint.

"Oh… stubborn little morsel," her voice trembled, equal parts mockery and desire. "You cling. You resist. Even as your bones snap, even when your tongue spills from torn jaws, you fight. Sweetness hidden in rot. Do you know what that makes you, boy? Not food… you're indulgence. You're…" she licked the air close to him, "...my temptation."

Her hand, cold and slick, smeared his own blood across his lips like paint. With sudden force she hooked a claw beneath his jaw, jerking his face upward until the ragged tremor of her breath mingled with his.

"Look into me, hero." Her irises shimmered like fractured ice. "I want to see the moment you stop being yours."

William gagged, bloody foam rising in his throat. No words. Only gurgles, a wet choke. Inside, the Beast shrieked with manic laughter:

"Do you hear her? I am the one she craves—the flesh she cannot resist, the monster she longs to meet fang to fang. You are nothing but fuel. Surrender, and I will make her scream her last. Fight me, and she will peel you like fruit, strip you until even your marrow weeps for me."

William squeezed his eyes shut, desperate not to drown in the pale furnace of her stare. He would not—could not—yield.

But the Wendigo felt his hesitation. Leaning closer, her tongue—cold as grave-ice—dragged across his bloody cheek, then lower, over his cracked lips. And then she kissed him. Slow. Lingering. A cruel parody of tenderness, filling him with the frost of death's breath and the gnawing ache of hunger.

"Mmm… yes. This taste. This shivering pulse. You're mine." She pressed harder against him, lover and predator at once, while in the same instant she drove a claw deep into his thigh. The flesh tore, hot blood spilling.

"That's it, little kitten… I can feel you. You are no man. You are… a beautiful beast."

Her finger dragged across William's forehead, sketching sigils in his blood as though signing her name upon him. "I want all of you."

William trembled violently, his teeth grinding with strain. He could feel control slipping, his body rebelling. One hand lunged upward—claws aching to shred the Wendigo's throat—while the other shoved her away, desperate to resist, as though two different creatures warred inside the same shell.

"Yesss… yesss…" the Beast inside him laughed, drowning his mind in delirium. Its voice came in writhing echoes, broken between growls and hysterical mirth. "You like it! You reach for her, even as you deny it. I am your true marrow, your rot and your weapon. Give yourself—fall completely—and I will tear her open for you. I will give you victory. I will give you power over this carrion whore!"

William gnashed his teeth until they cracked; he clasped his own hands so tightly blood spurted from his palms, as though trying to lock the monster inside by sheer force of will.

"N-no…" he rasped—his voice just a wet choke through the blood clogging his throat. "This… is my… body…"

But the Wendigo only pressed herself against him harder, her weight inexorable, lips grazing his shredded cheek in a mockery of tenderness. Her whisper seeped into him like frost into marrow:

"Do you really think you're struggling for life? No… you fight for me. For my gaze. For the way I touch you, taste you. You want to be wanted—not saved. You want me to hunger for you, boy. And I do."

Her hands closed hungrily around his back, nails slowly sinking, tracing downward until they pierced flesh, clawing through sinew to the meat beneath as though she was embracing not prey but a lover she intended to flay alive.

William howled, his body arching under the agony, his ribs screaming with each rake of her claws. The Beast shrieked, drunk on the torment:

"Yes! Deeper! Let her carve you like wax, melt you into me—let me drink your weakness! She strips you to nothing, but I will fill that carcass with hunger unending. Give me the reins, and your pain will become hers. Do you hear me? Every drop of you feeds me—while every drop of HER will crown us CHAOS!"

William snarled through tears of blood, trying to keep the nightmare sealed inside. Muscles convulsed, claws spasmed between human and monstrous, black talons unfurling, retreating, twitching in fevered half-form.

And he understood—if his grip faltered even for another couple of heartbeats, if he let the Beast drag him all the way down, his face, his heart, his very soul would never belong to William again.