Quarterly Yearnings Report

Many years had passed since Shadow had carried the full weight of another person whilst running at a dead sprint. He was rather out of practice for such activity, but, luckily, his body was flooded with adrenaline, and Amy did not, in fact, weigh near as much as Eclipse. However, his brother had been unconscious at the time and Amy was actively trying to engage Shadow sexually, fisting his chest and nibbling at any flesh she could reach while fluids leaked at an increasing rate from both ends of her.

With monumental effort, Shadow resisted the urge to take her into an alley and fuck the pain away.

All in all, nothing less than divine intervention could explain how Shadow had exited the mob without incident, though he was heavily aided by that blue fils de pute-

No.

Shadow wasn’t being fair.

Yes, Maur… – ahem – Sonic had spouted some truly awful gibberish, it had been blatantly clear the younger man was trying to rile Shadow intentionally. Maybe he saw Shadow as a threat to Amy (very likely) or was using Shadow as a dumping ground for his unregulated emotions(also very likely). Either way, Shadow was more than happy to take what slings and arrows would otherwise be directed at Amy.

But that last comment…

Shadow was not the least bit insecure regarding his sexuality. It did not bother him (much) when Rouge would taunt or goad him about potentially being interested in men, nor did he have any strong feelings about the genders of sexually active couples. He liked women Amy and, as long as no one tried to take her from him, he didn’t give a fuck what the rest of the world did with itself.

No, Sonic’s ill-conceived and boorish comment, in a vacuum, wouldn’t have elicited anything more from Shadow beyond a disgusted grimace and sharp defense of Amy’s honor (airing such private information in public like that? for fucking shame!). However, already on edge from the drastic elevations and depression of his mood that evening, Shadow’s system had been overwhelmed with a potent cocktail of hormones and neurotransmitters. So, the neurons connecting Sonic’s words to meaning in Shadow’s mind returned a particularly unpleasant string of memories.

Eighteen years ago, Irena had refused to allow him to continue ice skating lessons. “Only girls and pansies prance around on the ice.” Shadow had nodded solemnly but spent the whole afternoon crying into Maria’s shoulder. He hadn’t skated again until university.

Two years ago, at Raven’s first birthday party, Irena had pulled at one of Shadow’s quills and said, “You spend far too much time on your appearance. The ladies are going to think you’re queer.” He’d swatted her hand away, leading to a long argument that ruined the rest of the gathering. Luckily, Shadow’s niece had reveled in the ignorance of childhood, enjoying her cake and presents without reservation.

Last Winter Solstice, Irena, five cosmos deep, had slurred, “You know that it’s okay if you’re a fag, dear. I’ve heard that male Omegas can get pregnant through anal intercourse.” Shadow had left the room before she had a chance to say any more, leaving Eclipse to handle their mother’s revolting conduct.

Over the years, Shadow had felt the urge to strike his mother on a number of occasions and had (thus far) resisted with an 100% success rate. Some misplaced maternal force stayed his hand.

But Sonic wasn’t Irena, so Shadow felt no inherent reason not to lay that dumb motherfucker out for his stupid fucking mouth. After the initial hit, Shadow’s weak grip on sanity had slipped and he’d simply lost control. Full stop shameful. If Amy hadn’t screamed and ripped him to his senses, Shadow might have beaten Sonic to within an inch of his life. Maybe even further… The older man found himself needing to apologize again.

Shadow shouldered through the revolving door into the lobby of his building. KLS only occupied a dozen or so floors, but the entire high-rise was owned and operated by one of the real-estate concerns under Eclipse’s purview. The overnight security guard shot up from his seat behind the receptionist’s desk. “Sir?” The portly owl asked, surprise and concern lacing his deep voice.

“Could you get the turnstile for me, please, Max?” Shadow asked between deep gasps, slowing to an urgent trot.

Amy winced in his arms, her teary eyes pinching shut at the sudden surge in brightness, and she whined, “H-hurts…” Shadow hugged her tighter. Soon. He just had to get her to a safe location first.

The guard tapped his badge against a pad behind the desk and the glass barriers parted before Shadow, allowing him to continue without breaking stride. “Thank you.” Shadow said, but his employee was looking at Amy. Shadow dismissed the dull, illogical stab of jealousy and urge to snap back off, she’s mine! “Could you please call the lift as well. My hands are otherwise occupied.”

“Y-yes, sir.” Max scrambled to comply. “Going to your office, Mr. Kintobor?”

“Yes.” Shadow confirmed, coming to a halt in the elevator lobby. He shifted his hold on Amy and she curled up to bury her nose in the crook of his neck. He titled his head down to press into her limp quills. Her ears laid limply in distress.

As Max operated the touch screen that summoned the lift, he stole curious glances at them. Shadow pointed refused to notice, saving all involved from embarrassment and some from unemployment.

Shadow took a deep breath (bad idea, Amy reeked with wanton need and Shadow’s pants were already painfully tight). “I should like my presence here tonight to be kept confidential. And,” Putain, this was going to sound suspicious, “please make sure any member of law enforcement trying to gain access to private floors tonight presents a formal warrant for search.”

Max’s brow furrowed and he again glanced at Amy. “S-sir?” What scenarios were coming together inside the owl’s imagination? Coud Shadow rely on his loyalty or would he call the police the moment the elevator doors closed?

The doors of the elevator opened, saving Shadow from having to explain himself – though failing to do so was probably the more risky outcome. He stepped forward before freezing. The elevator carriage was already occupied from its trip up from the parking subbasements. Inside, Shadow saw KLS’s Director of Public Relations, several of Blaze’s direct reports from the Legal team, and Dr. Horatio Quack. Tired eyes, not at all enjoying having to go into the office on a Saturday night, grew large the moment they beheld their CEO clutching a distraught and disheveled young woman.

Shadow’s face drained of color.

Right. All hands were being summoned on deck to address the Prower Report debacle. Putain de genial.

Baise-moi avec une fourchette, he had to say something. This was his building. This was his company. This was a medical emergency. This was also none of anyone else’s god damn business. “I’m afraid I must insist on commandeering this lift.”

The PR Director, a dumpy grey squirrel, wilted, her ears going flat, no doubt imagining what sort of press release she’d have to draft to address whatever the fuck this was. The legal team averted their gaze for plausible deniability. Dr. Quack had no similar preservation instincts and looked at Amy with growing shadow of concern darkening his brow. “Of course, Shadow.” He said as he indicated for the other passengers to disembark.

Shadow and his employees changed places. As the doors began to close, Dr. Quack made eye contact with him. “Please let me know if I can be of any assistance.” The dark hedgehog nodded, Some small lucid part of him noting the idea for later processing. Too much of his faculties were already occupied with a generalized contemplation of PANIC, arousal, and overstimulation.

Alone again, Amy redouble her efforts, mewling and pawing at his chest. Her dull teeth nipped at his neck and he shivered. They were alone now so he should just fuck her here. Shadow’s arms were beginning to cramp and the exertion of the run from the river was starting to make itself known. “Soon.” He murmured soothingly to her. “Just a little while longer, I promise.”

The executive floor was not deserted, but Shadow was able to navigate them unseen around lit offices or cubicles to his own corner suite. Fortunately, the door to his office was unlocked and he pushed the glass with his foot. Inside, he carefully laid Amy down on the couch with difficulty as she clung to him with surprising strength. “No!” She whined piteously and Shadow’s chest clenched painfully, but he pulled away.

Every step away from Amy was agony, but he had one last duty to perform before relinquishing his hold on sanity and fucking her brains out back into health. With shaking hands, Shadow thumbed a panel near his desk and the crystal-clear wall of glass that separated his office from the rest of the floor turned a frosted opaque. They were alone, off the street, and out of the reach of anyone looking to bother them. Or arrest Amy.

Fuck, breathe. He could handle this. He’d lived through far worse. Breathe and then act. There is nothing else to it.

Breathe.

And again. And again.

A great deal of tension drained from Shadow, but what space became free immediately became occupied by a permeating numbness. He stared at his shaking hands and desperately tried to pin down any one of his racing thoughts. He was in shock. Don’t be a pussy. He wasn’t fucking shell shocked. Man the fuck up, you stupid piece of shit.

What had just happened?

How in the flying fuck did he find himself in this situation? Had Shadow seriously failed to execute something so simple as a date?

Stop it, none of that mattered. Only Amy matter…What was happening to Amy?

“Alpha...” Shadow shivered involuntarily. He pivoted on his heels, acutely aware of how hard he was at the moment. “Please, Alpha. I need you.”

Amy had shirked her coat and hitched Maria’s – fuck! – her dress up to bunch up around her slender waist. She balanced on all fours and, tail firmly pressed aside, presented the most enticing sight in this and all other universes to him.

He didn’t register moving – maybe he teleported, who knows – but he was behind Amy now, his knees sinking into the plush cushions. “I’m here. I’m here.” He whispered, running his hands along her sides and lowering his head to nuzzle her back. Amy moaned disgustingly and Shadow felt himself spring free.

Hands, clumsy with lust, tore at his belt and ripped off his trousers, taking his shoes with them. “Ma pêche, tell me what you need.” He didn’t touch himself because his hands were needed elsewhere, stroking Amy’s overheated skin and rubbing comforting circles into her taunt muscles. Her body radiated discomfort and it was anathema to Shadow.

“You! I need you, Alpha!” Amy huffed, pressing herself backwards to grind against his eager length. Shadow bit his lip to stifle his own throaty moan. Fuck! If he wasn’t so worried about Amy’s sudden decent into sexual madness, this would be about the most turned on he’d ever been in his life. He’d spent an inappropriate amount of time in the past month imagining fucking Amy exactly here and like this. Except she’d be saying his name a lot more.

Slick oozed from her deep heat, through her strawberry print panties, and down her ruined stockings. Well, those had to go. Shadow ran his fingers up Amy’s torso, trying to find the lip of the elastic garments.

“Alpha, please!” Amy wailed impatiently. “It b-burns! I can’t-!” Her voice tightened into a sob.

Wait, something was strange here. He was not fucking waiting for anything. Why was Amy speaking like this? Because she needed Shadow’s hot seed more than life itself. Listen to her and fucking get on with it!

Shadow pinched a bit of stocking material with both hands and tore a wide gap in the thin fabric. Amy mewled and continued to push back, her knees slipping on the slick sodden cushions. “Tellement impatient.” She was getting slick enough that Shadow was struggling to keep a firm but soft hold on her.

Having failed to remove her stockings properly, Shadow was forced to tear apart her underwear as well, and the thicker weave required a good grip and more strength. Amy seemed to have no measures in place to counteract the flood of fluids. She had been caught completely by surprised by this turn of events.

After failing a second attempt to create a suitable hole for his throbbing member, Shadow growled, his Voice forming on his tongue to make her hold still, goddamnit! At the last moment, a flash of memory silenced him. He’d commanded her before and it forever shamed him. Amy had been just like this then, too. Leaking, whining, confused, terrified, desperately needing to be filled by him.

“Please, Alpha. Need you!”

Shadow murmured assurances and tried again to tear her panties asunder, but with slower, steadier hands. He succeeded and smirked. Reveling in his victory over the cotton grid separating him from Amy’s salvation, he grasped her thighs firmly and leaned down to drag his tongue along her soaked entrance.

Between the intoxicating taste of her and the filthy moan she released, Shadow was quickly losing his weak grip on sanity. Even sober, he’d have little luck describing her flavor. It was simply ambrosia. The single best substance Shadow would ever have in his mouth. A perfect profile of sweetness, tang, and savory. Dear merciful god in heaven, let him drown to death in Amy.

“N-no! Not enough!” She cried. “Please, please fuck me. Fill me, Alpha, please!”

Something stirred in the quickly fading bits of Shadow’s cognition. A wrongness permeated this encounter. Alarm bells were tolling. To fail to solve this puzzle would spell danger.

This wasn’t Amy, Shadow realized with chilling clarity. Not really.

Even at her lowest, crying and leaking in his guest room, Amy hadn’t begged. He had admired her fierce spirit and determination in the face of such misery.

Amy didn’t call Shadow Alpha. Amy didn’t beg.

This

Wasn’t

Amy

Her body was being run by her instincts. She simply wasn’t present in any conscious sense.

Shadow stilled.

Mewling and crying out for him, Amy’s body writhed, pushing back and rubbing her alluring canyon against his length, but reality had rushed back in for Shadow, slamming into him like a city bus.

All he could think was how compromised she was.

Amy was sick.

Amy wasn’t in her right mind.

Something was very, very, hideously, terrifyingly wrong with Amy and the horror of the realization sapped the desire from Shadow. He softened.

Amy somehow noticed the change in density before Shadow and she screamed in agony and disappointment, snapping him out of his shock. Mournful babbling about her inadequacy tumbled from her quivering lips.

He desperately wrapped his arms around her waist and pulled her close against his chest. Shadow gently shushed and whispered sweet nothings into her ear. Amy calmed to an extent, but she continued to sob piteously.

“You don’t want me!” She choked and Shadow felt like dying. He was failing. He was fucking up. He was a garbage Alpha, an utterly disgusting creature who couldn’t perform the simplest of services for his Omega. A stupid, piece of shit.

“Shhh, I want you more than anything.” He assured her, ignoring his own internal consternation. “I want you more than breath. I want you more than life, Amy.”

“Liar!” She whined, her body arching drastically. “No one wants me!” Amy went completely limp, startling Shadow as he tried to keep them both upright.

“Amy?” Panic spiked inside him. Shadow rotated her to face him. Amy’s eyes remained open, but she was staring into the middle distance blankly and tears flow down tracks along her muzzle. “Amy!” He shook her with increasing roughness.

FUCK! He couldn’t even begin to sort through the mess he’d found himself in. Amy needed him. That was without question. He could get her whatever medical attention she needed, but right now she needed him and his seed. And he was quickly deflating like a slashed tire at the moment.

Shadow buried his nose into the crook of Amy’s neck and breathed deeply, flooding his system with strawberries and vanilla. His member stirred and he ground himself against her. Amy remained limp as a puppet with cut strings and Shadow found himself softening again. Merde!

He couldn’t do it. This felt wrong. Everything about this felt wrong. Maybe he was too tired or his nerves were too frayed from the riot. Too stressed. Too overwhelmed. Too scared out of his god damned mind that Amy was sick like Meridian had been, that she was dying of a cancerous growth.

Amy was dying Amy was dying Amy was dying!

The idea circled into a tight loop, over and over again. Amy was dying! Amy was dying!

He felt like he was going to vomit.

Shadow clutched her tightly as he tried to catch his breath against his rapidly tightening throat. She was suffering in his arms and he was powerless to save her. Stupid fucking useless piece of shit. Amy was dying in his arms and there was nothing he could do!

Nothing?

Was he sure about that?

Father taught him to be stronger than that.

Father taught him how to make the world bend the knee.

Father taught him to be the Ultimate Alpha, the supreme lifeform over all others.

Shadow wasn’t being fully honest with himself. The answer had been dogging his thoughts the entire night, no matter how hard he tried to force the impulses away. Despite the stress, despite his greatest efforts, his instincts remained. The longing to lock Amy away for his private use. The desire to unleash his darkest urges upon her. The intense longing to Claim her in all aspects and in all ways. The compulsion to ignore her thoughts on the matter. He needed no one’s permission to take possession of that which was his.

He failed again, his instincts taunted, speaking in his own voice. How much will Amy suffer before he relinquished his pitiful reservations and became the man he was meant to be?

The feeling returned, the dark, all-consuming hatred of his own helplessness that nearly swept him away by the river. Amy had been assaulted and Shadow hadn’t been able to protect her. It made no matter than her trauma was a decade old nor how it would have been impossible for him to intervene. Logic played no role in his guilt.

Amy made so much more sense to him now. The touch aversion, the hiding, the lying, the fear. She’d nearly been caught in a trap once and to protect herself she pretended traps were around every corner and under every bush for so long that they might as well be.

And yet here she was, wholly out of control and begging for that which she desperately did not want.

Despite all her caution, the greatest trap was Shadow’s arms.

Shadow didn’t trust himself. Once he relinquished his own control, he knew he wouldn’t stop without Amy’s explicit command, and she was in no frame of mind to give it. She had saved them from him earlier in the week, but there would be no such luck this time around. His mouth salivated, even as he panted, his fangs aching to sink into her neck. What could he do? He had to do something.

He was wasting time. Just look at how much pain she was in. Put her out of her misery by putting his fangs in her shoulder.

Shadow ripped one of his gloves off and balled up the leather fabric, before shoving it unceremoniously into his mouth. He forced the article deep until he gagged and his jaws screamed in protest at the large incursion. He could not dislodge the glove with only his tongue, and he could not fully close his mouth, let along provide enough biting force to breech Amy’s Claim gland.

It was painful, but the sensation was welcome. Shadow’s makeshift solution would serve.

Assured as he could be that he’d resist Claiming Amy, if not by his own volition, then by his simple inability to do so, Shadow relaxed.

He let go.

A floaty sensation gripped him, much like the soup one passed through between the barrier of the realms of wakefulness and sleep. A twilight where conscious thought mixed with dreams and bodily sensation faded.

Why did it always feel so good to give into his basest impulses? He knew why.

Self-actualization.

Shadow found himself irresistibly drawn over the event horizon to the point of no return, where even light could not escape. A mercy, to be frank, for the depths of depravity to which he wished to descend required absolute darkness, lest god send another flood to cleanse this desecrated earth.

He faded away and all was right with the universe.

Shadow swelled so quickly pain shot up his gut, but he was immune to such trivialities now. With a low growl, he conveyed to Amy that her lack of participation would no longer be tolerated. She squeaked as he lifted her hips and positioned himself. With a sharp, precise thrust, he entered so far his rapidly inflating knot slapped against her and his eyes crossed from the tsunami of pleasure that engulfed his cock and, by extension, his soul.

Amy shrieked in ecstasy and Shadow’s pride ballooned dangerously. Bonne fille, he wanted, but couldn’t say around some sort of obstruction in his mouth, taking me oh so well. Amy was made for him. Cast in divine flesh by god himself to fit perfectly around Shadow’s girthy phallus. His and his alone to do with as he pleased.

Her form was warm in his hands and her fur, damp with sweat and other fluids, luxuriously soft. He loved this woman. Every single aspect of Amy was addictive. Now that he wasn’t fighting with himself, her scent was heavenly. Thick red ropes of strawberries and vanilla wrapped tightly around his mind suffocating everything that wasn’t FUCK, BITE, or MINE!

Thought ceased for Shadow. His body moved, or, more like, was moved. He was present. His senses functioned. However, control of his motor functions had been given over to a will lodged deep in the base of his skull.

Empowered by a legacy leading directly from Shadow to the beginning of life on this planet itself, uncountable minds roiled in the vast warren of time. The buzzing hive bent on enforcing a singular directive: to spread the infection of life into the future via amphimixis. As her purpose was to bare, his was to give. Two becoming one. Two becoming three.

Mindlessly he fucked into her, their hips slapping together rapidly, creating a lewd percussive beat while Shadow’s gagged growls and snarls harmonized with Amy’s thoughtless, throaty moans. A minute or an hour passed and she was ready to receive, her darkness famished for his knot.

Shadow irrevocably entered Amy’s sucking heat with a muted pop and his vision whited out as he came. If he’d have been even a little aware of anything expect lust, the sensation would have been the second worst orgasm Shadow had ever experienced. Luckily, his pleasure wasn’t the least bit necessary for the operation being performed.

He was vaguely aware of a building rage as his mouth pressed against Amy’s shoulder, but he somehow failed to CLAIM what was his. Something was wrong with his maw in this most pivotal of moments. Yes, his Omega was bred, but that was for now. Eventually his scent would fade from her pelt and his seed would absorb into her innards and inferior lifeforms might get the fatally foolish notion that she wasn’t completely owned, body and soul, by HIM.

Fucking worthless failure. Insisting on weakness. Disgusting…

Amy trembled below him, cries of ecstasy fading into a long, satisfied sigh. “Shadow…” She gasped.

At the sound of his name, Shadow blinked as if waking from a dream and pulled away from Amy’s shoulder. His head throbbed in time with the pleasant pulse of his length sealed inside Amy. He tried to say her name and offer verbal comfort, but found himself unable.

That might be a problem for another time because, his role fulfilled, an immense wave of exhaustion crested over Shadow and suddenly he couldn’t keep his eyes open to save his life. Awkwardly, he rotated them on the ruined leather couch, Amy lay on her side between him and the sleek, cushioned pads. “Shadow?” She asked.

Shadow passed out.

Slowly, he became aware of a very important and distressing sound. With a start, Shadow awakened to the sound of Amy crying into the white hairs on his chest. “Why is this happening to me?” She sobbed quietly. Though she had gained a large amount of coherency, her face was still very flush and her eyes glassy with tears. He was still very much locked inside her.

Shadow tried to speak, but found his mouth occupied. Groaning, he wriggled a hand free and pulled his saliva-inundated glove from his mouth. His jaw muscles, numbed from the trauma enacted upon them, suddenly sprung back to life and Shadow groaned at the sudden wall of pain slamming against his brain.

“Shadow?” Amy shifted her gaze up, her green eyes clouded by fear and exhaustion.

“It’s nothing.” He lied, messaging the joint where his jaw connected to his skull. “I kept my fangs occupied so as to not bother your neck. I have simply pled guilty to the charges my jaw has filed.”

Amy’s hand went to her neck and felt the bare, unmarred flesh there. “Thank you.” She said. “I-I wasn’t…” Her face crumpled. “I don’t know what I was thinking. I don’t know why I said those things. I-I’m sorry, I-”

Shadow wrapped his arms around her once more and drew her against him tight enough that he could feel her fluttering heartbeat. She was trembling. “You weren’t well, Amy. I don’t know what happened, but I promise you that I will do everything in my power make you well.”

He nuzzled his muzzle against hers and gave the drying tear tracks several soft laves with his tongue. Amy leaned into his ministrations even as her face tensed to fight back another sob. A time passed as Shadow groomed Amy as much as his throbbing jaw would allow. When he would take breaks, she rubbed her damp face against his chest, anointing herself with his scent.

Eventually his knot began to deflate and soon they would need to get up and address the mess their evening had become.

But first Shadow need to secure a concession. “I have a request that I strongly hope you will acquiesce to.”

Amy frowned slightly, apprehensive.

“Please stop taking Starline Pharma’s heat suppressants. I have reason to believe they may have contributed to your condition tonight. When you sent me to find your contraceptives, I saw them in your bathroom vanity mirror. I know I must seem bias or perhaps controlling, but, please, Amy, please allow me to provide a substitute. Any substitute at all. You don’t have to take my company’s products, but just take something other than the Starline suppressants.” He braced himself for resistance. He would remain firm. On this he could give no ground.

“Okay.” She said simply. “I heard the Star-phar stuff was bad anyway and I’m really starting to believe it.”

It was Shadow’s turn to frown. “Where did you hear that?”

“Omega forums online. Word of mouth stuff. I’ve been…reading about the off-cycle heat crisis and it seemed to have started not long after Starline became the provider for Public Insurance.”

Shadow frowned as the realization of what Amy was alleging dawned on him. “Mon dieu…” There was no way. That couldn’t possibly be true. “I hadn’t made the connection before, but you’re right.”

“It feels too horrible to be true.” Amy murmured. “Like it’s a movie plot or something.” She shook her head. “I’m sure my imagination is just running away with me. I’m just getting old.”

Shadow’s frown deepened. “Why would you say that?”

She buried her face in his chest. “That’s what my doctor said.”

“I’m getting you a new doctor.” Shadow found himself growling, but then added, “If…you’re amenable.”

“After tonight, yeah, I think I am.” Amy pressed her face into his chest again, luxuriating in the warmth there. “Why didn’t you ask me to change them on Monday?” She asked.

“I’m sorry. I should have. I had gotten afraid to upset you after the incident regarding offering to have your home cleaned.”

Amy looked away. “I shouldn’t have gotten so worked up about that. I’m sorry. You just wanted to help.”

“Are we arguing about who is the most sorry?” Shadow snorted.

She looked up at him with a sparkle in her green eyes. “We’re arguing?”

Shadow smiled and huffed. “Will you allow me to take you to a medical facility to be examined?”

Amy thought for a long moment. “I don’t know what they’ll do. The last doctor I saw about my weird heat didn’t believe me. He told me I just needed to get fucked, literally.”

A plume of anger rose in Shadow’s chest, but it guttered quickly. He was running on fumes. “I know a high qualified doctor who will pay full attention and take everything you have to say seriously.”

“Okay.” She said quietly. “But can it wait until tomorrow? I’m so tired.”

“As you wish.” Shadow said softly. “On the morrow then.”