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HNTBL 39: Watch Your Step

By: TheDragonBoydeviantArtEka's PortalArchive of our Own

Summary

Jack’s rather stressful day is finally approaching its end; whether he’ll still be alive for tomorrow is far less certain.

Content

How Not To Become Lunch: 39 - Watch Your Step



I wonder if I’ll have time to talk to Fiona before class? As long as she doesn’t stick to Arthur until the last second. Geeze I hope she doesn’t show up late.

These thoughts and more passed through Jack’s head on the way to his final class of the day: history; the only one he actually shared with his best friend. The day had been increasingly stressful, and he was looking forward to her smiling furry face- a sight he realized he’d quickly grown used to, now that it was a bit more scarce. Yes, he was sure all those confusing thoughts in his head would clear up once they finally got a chance to-

“Ooof!” Jack, lost in thought, rounded a corner and plowed head-on into something hard.

Hard and furry, he realized a split second later.

He looked up quickly, following the slim, feminine form up, past the arm he’d run into, to his schoolmate’s head, where he found the muzzle of a werewolf pointing back at him. Within a moment, the canine had grown a pleasantly surprised grin on her face. But that was not the furry werewolf smile Jack had been hoping to see.

“Oh, hello there,” the girl said. Her eyes were locked on his in a familiarly unnerving way.

“Sorry!” Jack apologized, taking a slow step back. The werewolf took a long, deep breath in through her nose. Her eyes lit up and her tail fluttered. She took a small step forward.

“That’s alright. I know exactly how you can make it up to me.”

Any chance that doesn’t involve eating me?” They were so close to each other; Jack knew one quick move and she’d be on him before he could even touch his wand. And then he’d be in her. “Couldn’t we please work something out?”

The canine girl’s tongue peaked out and ran across her muzzle, her tail wagging faster as more of his marked scent filled her snout.

That’s a ‘no’.

It happened incredibly fast, so fast that Jack wasn’t actually sure which one of them had moved first, but in a flash the werewolf girl had her clawed digits clasped around his waist, covering his wand before he’d even gotten close to it. His heart began to pound as she lifted him up.

“Please! Come on!”

He looked around frantically to find only a few unfamiliar, indifferent faces lining the halls. The furry face in front of him opened wide, drawing his attention in along her red ridges and down her throat, the predatory abyss sucking in his gaze as it prepared to do the same to his entire body.

“No! No!” He threw his hands forward as she thrust him toward her maw, but the gesture did little to even delay the hungry werewolf’s feast. His hands slipped straight down into the gooey throat, the wet muscle gliding past and coating his bare skin in warm, pre-digestive slime. Her fur practically stood on end as his special flavor overwhelmed her palate. The first swallow came almost immediately.

*GULP*

Sucked forward, Jack’s head was buried between her jaws, his face pressed up against the wet canine tongue as his arms were dragged down her esophagus, held tightly together. He felt the flexible muscle squirm against him, the tip running along his chin and against his neck, savoring his exquisite taste. He kicked his legs wildly in the open air. Suppressing his urge to scream, he did his best to force a deep breath before-

*GULP*

A wave of pressure ran over his head as her throat opened wide to welcome him inside. All he could hear now was the symphony of squelches, and the combined heartbeats of predator and prey. Her teeth prodded harmlessly at his chest as it rested briefly in her muzzle, her tongue slipping out to explore his tasty form further, drool welling up within her maw and soaking into his shirt. The tight embrace of her hungry gullet, suffocatingly snug, flexed in precedence of another hungry-

*GULP*

Jack felt his hands slip deeper, far deeper, as the werewolf’s body bettered its grip on him. He felt his digits and palms slip through the widening seal below, the one that separated the rest of the world from the churning, gurgling, bone-melting pit that was the predator’s stomach. He continued his wriggling struggles in vain, unable to even keep his attacker from continuing to lap at his tasty flesh as she sent him down on the one-way trip through her ravenous inner workings.

*GULP*

The sounds of sliding muscle filled his ears once more, and with the swift lurch came a new sensation. His hands sank deep into the fleshy warmth at the floor of the werewolf’s stomach, folds of hot, living, slimy tissue sinking in between his digits, so tender and yielding that he felt he might just dissolve into them. Hot liquids pooled up around his wrists, warm and inviting like a nice bath, ready to strip all his cares away.

*GULP*

He tried to push back, but he had no chance. His palms slid against the slick, giving walls of the werewolf’s stomach, pressing forward and out, making the first little bulge in her belly as the yielding flesh grew just that much more taught. His chest was buried in her throat now, pressed tight on all sides, soaked clean through in the same hot slime that just as thoroughly covered his face, continuing to smooth his descent down the hungry passage. His legs continued to kick helplessly in the air, a silent, frantic plea for anyone to save him.

*GURGLE* came the sound of the all-too-near stomach, loud and terrifying, as a premature contraction brushed up against his arm, as if the ravenous muscles inside just couldn’t wait to size him up and break him down. Jack’s mind failing to panic, he choked down the half-formed thought of his friends, and how none of them were around to save him.

What had he really expected in the end? Trying to go to school?

*SCHLORP*

A loud, crackling slurp filled his ears as the muscles surrounding him clenched all at once, knocking what little wind he had from his pressured lungs. Stripped of all bearings and overwhelmed by the overbearing gullet, he vaguely registered a sudden rush of motion and then a hard, firm impact as his whole body crashed against something solid and cold.

Jack gasped, clean air around his lips, but unable to open his eyes for the slime. All the warmth and the pressure was now abruptly gone. Sore and dazed he heard an angry, snarling voice- the voice of his predator- as well as the laughter of a number of other boys.

“Ha! Maybe you should watch your back while you’re busy eating? Huh mut?” came one voice over the laughter.

“Why you little-!” the werewolf growled. “You think you gut stuffers can get away with that!?”

“Oh, come on. It was just a prank,” another boy replied, sounding a bit less foolhardy.

“I’ll show you my stomach’s idea of a prank you human-”

“Run!”
“Cast the spell! Cast the spell!”

Jack heard the thunder of shoes and paws against the floor. Managing to lift his head and crack an eye, he saw the werewolf receding in chase of a group of mages. His breathing slowed to a steady but rapid rhythm.

Pulling together what little mental capacity he had available, he told himself he couldn’t stay out and vulnerable like he was. Slowly, he tried to stand, hands slipping in the mucus he’d been ejected with- which ironically might have been the only thing keeping the nearest predators from snatching him up. He got to his feet and headed for the nearest bathroom, mostly on instinct at this point, leaving a thinning trail in his wake.

One of the first coherent thoughts ran through his mind:
That was way too close…