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The tin candles scattered throughout Natalie’s hut burn low, casting long shadows against the wooden walls. She sits on her makeshift bed of furs, her fingers absentmindedly tracing the uneven grooves in the wood as she waits. Sleep tugs at her eyelids, her body worn and exhausted from a long day of putting up with the endless bullshit of leading a society of whiny teenage girls. But she resists, they will be here soon. She knows they’ll come. They always do.
Finally, the veil of sheets that drape over the hut’s entrance parts, and two familiar dark-headed figures enter. Their eyes are always the same when they come to visit her— Lottie’s wide and wild, and Travis’s weary, subdued, but intrigued. Natalie can see their pupils are blown, almost entirely black, as they kneel next to her.
Natalie swallows hard, her pulse already thrumming in anticipation. “Where the fuck were you guys all day?”
Travis looks to Lottie, who remains quiet, staring at her with a gentle, hypnotic reverence. The two of them are always slipping away together in the middle of the chaos, disappearing for hours at a time to do god knows what, returning high and dazed and vaguely traumatized. Lottie never answers her questions about it, Nat isn’t sure why she keeps asking.
She remembers when she would have cared about something like that— when she would watch Lottie and Travis sharing a form of comfort she would never be able to provide, jealousy and fear curling in her stomach. But that part of her feels so distant now. That was before Javi, before the weight of the crown she didn’t ask for robbed her of any energy she had left.
Lottie pulls a small cloth bundle from her fur coat, unwrapping it carefully to reveal a small pile of dried mushrooms inside.
“We have to give back,” Lottie murmurs, holding Natalie’s gaze as she places the shrooms in her hand. “We take from the wilderness every day. This keeps us in balance.”
Natalie rolls her eyes but doesn’t argue. She’d stopped arguing weeks ago. The first few times, she had hesitated—resisted the pull of whatever this is, whatever Lottie had made it into. But resistance never lasts long out here. Not when Lottie speaks in that voice, the one that sounds like a prayer wrapped in velvet. She looks to Travis for a moment, studying him, wondering if he feels the same way, if he truly believes in what Lottie is saying, or if this is just another distraction for him, too. Another way of forgetting.
Natalie exhales shakily and takes her share, chewing slowly, ignoring the bitter taste. Travis does the same, his fingers brushing against hers for the briefest moment as he swallows. Lottie doesn’t move to take any herself—not yet. She always waits, watching, making sure they’re where they need to be first.
Natalie leans back, closing her eyes as warmth seeps into her skin. It doesn’t take long for the edges of the room to shift, for the air to feel heavier, like the walls themselves are breathing. She watches, dizzy, as Travis sheds his clothes, admiring his sharp angles and toned skin from months of hauling wood and building huts. Her gaze shifts expectantly to Lottie, Nat’s heart rate picking up as the dark-haired girl reaches for the clasp of her furs, her fingers steady, and with a soft rustle, Lottie lets the heavy fabric slip from her shoulders. It pools on the ground around her, leaving her in the thin, worn nightgown beneath—pale linen clinging to her body, translucent where the firelight touches it.
Lottie always carries herself with an air of quiet knowing, as if she’s untouched by the same fears and doubts that plague the rest of them. But now, kneeling there in the soft glow, her hair loose around her shoulders, her collarbones catching the fire’s light, she looks almost otherworldly.
Lottie’s hands move to the hem of her dress, lifting it inch by inch, exposing the smooth line of her stomach, the gentle curve of her hips and breasts. Natalie feels her mouth go dry. Travis swallows hard from where he kneels next to Lottie, making it clear he’s just as affected.
Natalie isn’t sure if it’s the shrooms making everything sharper, more alive, or if it’s just Lottie.
Either way, she can’t look away.
Lottie meets her gaze, a small, knowing smile tugging at the corners of her lips. “You feel it, don’t you?” She whispers. “It wants this for us.”
Natalie nods slowly, barely breathing as Lottie and Travis move toward her, their hands pulling at the ties of her fur robe. She lays back as her shirt and pants are slowly peeled from her, her chest heaving, leaving her bare and shivering in front of them.
Natalie feels their eyes on her, taking her in, not just looking but seeing her, drinking her in like something sacred. Like something claimed.
“You’re beautiful.” Lottie says, her voice thick with desire. Travis makes a noise low in his throat—agreement, want.
Travis crawls over her, planting a soft kiss against her lips before slotting himself between her legs. His arms tremble a little from where they’re planted on either side of her head, and for a moment his face flashes with something earnest and innocent— something that reminds Natalie of a time that feels like decades ago now, when her hair was still bleached to the root and their biggest problem was that Travis was too insecure to get it up.
Nat’s thighs tighten around his hips, and she leverages her weight to roll them over so that she’s straddling him. He looks up at her with a deep hunger, and when she turns to Lottie beside her, she sees the same hunger reflecting in the black of her eyes. Travis moves his hands to her hips. His touch is rough, calloused from hunting, from survival. His hands rake over her skin, scraping across her ribs with a frenzied desperation that makes her shiver.
Lottie’s touch is different. Softer, slower. She isn’t in a rush. She traces her fingertips over Natalie’s shoulder blades, down the curve of her spine, her touch feather-light but deliberate. There’s something reverent about it, like she’s memorizing her, mapping her out. Lottie never touches Travis. She isn’t here for that. Instead, her touch is always for Natalie. Even as she reaches down between them, helping to guide Travis into place at Natalie’s entrance.
Lottie grabs Nat’s chin, turning her face toward to her and pulling her in for a bruising, dizzying kiss, all teeth and tongues clashing. Nat feels Lottie’s hands fan out across the tops of her shoulders once more, and suddenly Lottie is applying pressure, pushing Nat down onto Travis in one swift movement. Nat lets out a sharp gasp against Lottie’s lips at the stretch of him. She hears Travis groan underneath her as she sinks all the way down, her ass flush with his hips.
Nat keeps her eyes locked on Lottie, never breaking her intense gaze as she lifts herself up slowly, the entire length of him, and drops herself back down. Lottie’s expression becomes impossibly darker, almost animalistic as she watches her. Nat turns back to Travis, beginning to rock against him, testing the angle, watching the way his head falls back, his jaw tightening.
“Good girl,” Lottie whispers to her, her voice low and her breath hot at the shell of her ear. “Taking it so well.”
Nat can’t help the whimper that escapes her. Her hips speed up, chasing the thrill stirring in her stomach. Soon the hut is filled with the sound of Nat’s hitched moans, Travis’s ragged breathing, and Lottie’s whispered encouragements. Travis’s fingers dig into her hips hard enough to leave angry red marks she knows will become bruises tomorrow morning. His hips buck beneath hers, fucking up into her with a desperate, unsteady rhythm. It’s good, but it’s not enough.
“Nat—” He gasps. She doesn’t let him finish. She rides him harder, pushing him deeper, sighing as she feels Lottie’s hand snake into her hair, taking root at the back of her head. Lottie’s grip tightens, yanking her head back to expose her neck. She lets out a strangled gasp as Lottie bites down at the junction between her neck and shoulder, hard enough that Nat is sure she has drawn blood. She knows she should be pushing Lottie away, she should be stopping this, but instead she arches her back, leaning into it and letting the pain of it stoke the heat between her legs.
Nat can feel the tell-tale signs of Travis unraveling beneath her. His hips stutter, losing any semblance of rhythm. She pulls him out of her just in time, helping Travis tip over the edge with her hand until he calls out her name like a plea and goes limp, panting and sweaty. Nat is left half-wrecked, her body still thrumming with need. Nat cleans off her hand on the fur blankets, quivering as she turns to Lottie with a pleading look.
Lottie guides her off of Travis and onto her back next to him. Natalie barely has time to catch her breath before Lottie’s tongue is lapping at the wound on her neck, laving up the blood blooming there. And then her fingers find her, spreading her open, teasing the sensitivity left behind from Travis. Nat feels delirious, her hips wildly chasing Lottie’s movements, her breathing ragged.
“Relax,” Lottie murmurs, pulling back to sit on her haunches. Her lips brush the inside of her knee before trailing lower, making a gentle, patient path down her inner thigh.
Natalie tries—but then Lottie’s mouth is on her, warm and soft and unbearably skilled. She whimpers, thighs trembling as Lottie’s tongue works her in slow, steady strokes, her fingers pressing inside with a practiced ease that makes her whole body tighten all over again. She savors the small moans Lottie is letting out against her cunt, as if she’s getting just as much pleasure from this as Nat is, as if Nat is fulfilling a deep starvation within her.
Travis is still beside her, watching through heavy-lidded eyes, his hand stroking her thigh like he needs to feel her, even if he isn’t the one unraveling her now.
“F-fuck Lot, please.” Natalie whines, so high-pitched and needy she’s surprised it came from her own mouth. She grabs desperate fistfuls of sleek dark hair, rolling her hips up to meet Lottie’s mouth, her fingers. She lets out a litany of pleas and expletives and cries. She knows she’s being too reckless, too loud. The others can probably hear it, but she can’t bring herself to care.
She feels Lottie smirk against her when she curls her fingers inside of her just right, causing Nat to jolt and her legs form a vice grip around Lottie’s head. The heat of Lottie’s mouth and the pressure of her fingers pumping her become all too much, the pleasure mounting, sharp and overwhelming. The walls of the hut breathe around her, the flames of the candles soaring, the air humming with something Nat doesn’t understand. Lottie’s free hand reaches up to her chest roll against a nipple, Travis softly stroking her hair, and that’s all it takes. She shatters, pleasure rolling through her in waves, leaving her spent and shaking against the blankets.
Lottie presses a line of kisses up her body as she trembles through the aftershocks until she reaches her lips. She pulls her in for a kiss that’s more like gasping into each other’s mouths. Nat can taste herself on her lips. Just as the kiss starts to get deeper, more passionate, Lottie pulls away. Nat chases after her lips, propping herself onto her elbows. Beside them, Travis watches, intrigued. She places a hand at the center of Lottie’s chest, feeling her hitched breaths for a moment, before tracing it down her stomach, across that smooth expanse of golden brown skin—
Lottie grabs Nat’s wrist, halting her trek downwards. Nat has to bite back the frustrated whine simmering in her throat. She wrenches her wrist free, pulling Lottie’s face close to hers so that they’re breathing the same air again.
“I want to touch you,” Nat breathes, desperation creeping into her voice. “Please let me touch you this time.”
Nat thinks she can see a flicker of want on Lottie’s face, just for a millisecond, before it’s replaced by that same infuriatingly calm expression she always wears. Lottie always stops it here. She never lets Nat give back.
“We gave the Wilderness what It wanted,” Lottie says. “It is satisfied.”
Nat sighs dejectedly, falling back into the pile of furs beneath her and closing her eyes, focusing on catching her breath again. She hears the rustling sounds of Lottie and Travis pulling their clothes back on, and feels the cold air settle in around her as the warmth of Travis’s body leaves her side. When she opens her eyes again she sees Lottie and Travis standing at the doorway, hair and clothes disheveled and the hunger in their eyes temporarily abated.
Lottie slips out of the hut without a word. Travis lingers for a moment, his face soft and longing. He opens his mouth to say something, but stops himself, following obediently after Lottie the same way he always does.
Nat clutches the blankets tightly around herself, the hut feeling much colder now without them. She’s left alone with her thoughts again, waiting until the next time Lottie and Travis decide they need something from her.
Outside, the wind howls through the trees. The Wilderness is pleased with them.