Premium Guest Star Story: Burnt Bridges (Patreon)

“San Diego make some noise!!” the tigress shouted into her microphone as she trotted around the stage after finishing the last song in her encore set. She held the microphone out towards the large audience she was performing for and let their cheers, shouts, and screams fuel her on as she hopped from one side of the stage to the other. She smiled, winked, and even reached her hand out to grab the hands of a few fans before she turned her back to the crowd and headed back to center stage. “You guys have been amazing, thank you, thank you… My name is Alex Marx the Spot, I love you, we love you” Once she reached the middle of the stage, she turned back to face her screaming fans, brought the mic up to her mouth again, and shouted, “Good night!” and the floor beneath her and the dancers started to lower down, taking them out of sight. As the platform lowered the pop star and the dancers underneath the stage, the cheers and screams from the fans continued as the band played off the end instrumental of the song, and when the last strung of the electric guitar was played and the last hit of the drums echoed throughout the arena, the stage lights were shut off and the show officially came to an end for the night. The cheers of the audience went on until the lights in the arena turned on and the staff began opening the doors and gesturing people towards the exits. 

‘Gzzzzzzk.’ The platform stopped once it reached the bottom of the area underneath the stage. ‘Qssshhhk.’ Went the hydraulics, and Alex stepped off the platform and headed out from under the stage into the backstage area to the applause of the team behind the curtains. 

“Awesome show, Alex,”

“Good job boss!”

“Up top!”

The compliments continued as Alex made her way through the backstage area towards the green room so she could take a moment to catch her breath, but before she could reach said green room, her manager popped out of nowhere and stopped her in her tracks. Alex blinked rapidly and raised her brow at the speedy femboy. “Hey! Alex!!! Awesome show!!! Just wanted to let you know we got that K-POP band you wanted to open for you starting tomorrow.” He smiled at her and heaved out heavy sighs as he caught his breath. He must have been running after the tigress for a while, probably from somewhere far away, the skybox where all the label execs were, most likely. 

“That’s awesome!!! Will I get to meet them tomorrow before the show, too?” Alex chirped happily as she looked at her manager up and down, noticing his rather messy clothes. She was flattered that he ran all the way over to her to give her the news. “You look exhausted! You could have just called me.” The tigress chuckled. 

That feminine male manager of hers continued to catch his breath for a few seconds while he stood in front of her. Once he caught his breath enough to breathe normally again, he continued. 

“You don’t have your phone on stage, and I didn’t want to wait until you got to the green room,” there was a strange look on her manager’s face when he said this, which caught Alex’s attention and had her raising her brow. 

“What’s wrong, what’s in the green room that you don’t want me to see? Did someone eat my fish and chips?” Alex looked genuinely upset when she considered the possibility that someone had eaten her post-show fish and chips she had requested. The last time that happened, the tigress swore that one day she would find who the culprit was; however, she never did. The thought of the fish and chips bandit still being out there has haunted her ever since. 

Her manager leaned against the wall to his right and smiled sheepishly at his boss, but he shook his head and brought his hand up in a ‘stop’ gesture in anticipation for her to start running towards the green room when he heard her talk about her prized end-of-night fish and chips. But when she didn’t dash, he spoke to her instead. “No, no, your fish and chips are in the green room, but your bodyguard is also in there. He was insisting that he stand with you on the stage while you performed, but I told him he couldn’t do that. I told him you didn’t want to be disturbed after your show.” 

Alex rolled her eyes, “I thought I gave him the night off?” 

The small femboy smiled sheepishly at his boss once more and rubbed the back of his head. “Well, yeah, but he’s big and tall, and does whatever he wants. You know how he is.” 

The tigress rolled her eyes again and shook her head. “Ah, well, I can’t fault him for doing his job, then, right? I’ll just go in there, eat my fish and chips, we can ride back to the hotel, and he can have the night off.” The popstar nodded to herself and smiled wide as she thought about those fish and chips waiting for her again. 

“Yeah… About that… He kept saying that he has to be with you like… all the time. 24/7… To keep you as safe as possible.” the tigress’s manager continued. 

“Don’t worry about it. I got this.” Alex shrugged her shoulders and walked around her manager and headed towards the green room. The sense of urgency was probably due to the fish and chips, but this new bodyguard of hers was a priority, too. 24/7 protection is a bit much, she needed me time by herself, too! She was going to have a talk with him, that was for sure, she was the boss after all. 

“So uh, see you at the hotel?” her manager turned around to watch the tigress walk away. Alex gave him a thumbs up before she opened the door to the green room and disappeared inside. She closed the door behind her and saw a little box of takeout sat on the coffee table in front of the large L-shaped couch that sat off to one side of the room. The TV was also already turned on with the Netflix homepage, ready for her to eat and binge her favorite shows until it was time to go back to the hotel. There was also a more traditional dining table to the opposite side of the room, but Alex’s staff knew that she enjoyed her fish & chips with some TV. The tigress’s mouth morphed into a happy smile when she saw her food and she quickly skipped her way over to the couch and threw herself down onto it. With her tush to the cush, she rubbed her hands together menacingly and let out a happy sigh as she opened up the box and let the aroma of battered and deep-fried fish fill her senses. She was pleasantly surprised to see a tall cup of boba right beside it too. It didn’t take long for the tiger to poke her straw into the cup and grab her plastic utensils and start chowing down quite hungrily on her meal. As she munched and crunched, she felt someone watching her from the dining table on the other side of the room, and after chewing the first bite of her fish and swallowing it down, she spoke, “I thought I told you to take the night off?” Alex said without even looking over her shoulder and continued to cut another piece of her fish with her plastic knife, stabbed it with her fork, and then brought it to her mouth. She picked a show to watch and pressed play. 

‘Crunch, crunch, crunch’ the tigress chewed on her delicious crispy fish as the figure sitting alone at the dining table moved to get out of the chair and walked towards the tigress enjoying her dinner. A large male wolf that stood quite a few feet taller than the singer. His large paws thumped against the floor as he approached her from the side and stood there with his arms folded around his chest. He just watched her eat quietly, standing by the couch like a big protective bodyguard, fitting the job description quite perfectly. After Alex swallowed another bite of her fish and chips, she turned to look at the tall wolf. “Are you just going to stare at me, you can sit down, you know…” she mumbled. 

The tall wolf walked his way over to the couch and dropped himself down beside the tigress gently, but due to his height and size, he still made a rather loud ‘plumf’ sound as he came rear to pillow. He leaned back against the couch and looked at the TV and whatever show was playing on it. 

 “I thought I told you to take the day off, Shenro?” Alex said, peeling her eyes away from the TV for a moment. 

“What if something were to happen to you during the show, Miss Marx? I wouldn’t be here to stop that, would I? I get my days off, ma’am, I don’t need to take this night off.” The wolf spoke up, calmly, his dark-colored eyes stayed on the TV for a few seconds before they moved to meet with the tigress’s. “And please, just Shen is fine.” He smiled at her, his thick tail waving at his side slightly. 

Alex shivered when she heard her bodyguard call her by her last name, “Just Alex is fine, you sound like my high school teacher calling me that…” she chuckled. “And I’m your boss, Shen, I get to give you time off if I want to,” she shook her head and rolled her eyes. She then turned her attention back to the TV and her food and continued to eat her food. Her own striped tail flickered by her side. The wolf let out a soft snort and Alex could hear him rolling his eyes at her, but she didn’t say anything about it. She could hear him let out an unhappy snort through his nose too, but being a canine, his tail thumping a bit here and there let her know that he wasn’t REALLY upset with her. 

Shenro “Shen” Stryker, was Alex’s fresh-faced, 7 foot 6, new bodyguard hire. Her previous bodyguard had been swept up by some private militia and Alex could not match the salary they were able to offer, but when her team interviewed Shen for the job, they were impressed by his resumé. He was overqualified and would be massively underpaid compared to if he just went the way of private security as her previous bodyguard did. But the wolf didn’t really care for any of that, he seemed eager to be the popstar’s personal protection for one reason or another! Although he would never tell her, he did have a major crush on her and was a big fan of her music, too. So when the opportunity came by and he saw the job opening, he couldn’t stop himself. Who wouldn’t want to be close to and protect the cute little princess of pop music herself? 

Shen relaxed a bit on the couch and stretched his arms out as he watched the show Alex had on. He hadn’t seen any of the show before, just a few episodes whenever Alex had it on in the green room, but he didn’t mind watching it. After a few minutes, the tigress glanced at a text message she received on her phone and scrunched her nose before she stood up and turned around to look at the tall wolf who looked just slightly out of place on that couch. “Want something to drink? Might be a while before the driver gets here, he says he’s stuck in traffic.” Alex brought her phone up to her face to look at it again to make sure she didn’t misread the text; she didn’t. She tossed her phone gently down onto the couch and looked at the big wolf again with raised brows, waiting for an answer. 

Shen looked up at the tigress and thought for a moment. He then nodded, “Yeah, sure, I can go for a drink.” 

“Awesome! We haven’t really sat down and had drinks yet, it’s sort of an initiation for new staff members, so this is great! Maybe I can get to know you and your reasoning for being so ‘stubborn’. My manager’s words, not mine.” Alex shrugged her shoulders and made her way over to the table with the hard liquor and the minifridge with what she hoped were her favorite beers. She opened up the fridge and smiled wide when it was full of Duvel bottles, just how she liked it. She grabbed herself a bottle, popped it open, and took a quick swig. She then turned around to look at Shen again, “Beer? Or uh… This whiskey stuff they always have in here.” 

“I’ll take a whiskey, please,” the wolf said after he peeked at the unmarked glass bottles that were on that table. The tigress grabbed the entire bottle, two glasses in her one free hand, and walked back to the couch. She set the drinks down on the small coffee table in front of her, poured some whiskey into one of the glasses, and handed it to her bodyguard. The glass was only half full; can’t just go around pouring full glasses of whiskey out for people now, could she? She needed to know how much alcohol the big wolf could handle before she could do anything like that. Although considering the sheer size of him, she probably could have safely poured him a little bit more. 

The wolf took the glass into his hand as it was handed to him and gestured it towards Alex’s beer bottle. “Cheers.” 

“Cheers!” Alex replied excitedly and pushed her bottle into the wolf’s whiskey glass. 

‘Clink.’ And they both took swigs of their drinks. 

----

“What?” Alex furrowed her brows at the wolf and shook her head rapidly. “Wait, wait, wait, so you’re telling me, you’re over a thousand years old?” The tigress continued to make faces that showed her disbelief and confusion. It couldn’t be true, could it? He didn’t look anywhere near that. The alcohol in the tigress’s bloodstream clouded her mind just enough for her to instead question Shen’s claims based off how old he looked and not based on how impossible it was for someone to be that old unless they were a vampire, and last she checked, vampires aren’t real. “You have to be bullshitting, shut up…” she laughed, snorted, and hiccupped before she took another sip of her beer. The coffee table in front of them was now cluttered with empty Duvel bottles, candy wrappers, open chip bags, and two whiskey bottles; one that was empty, the other just one drink away from being the same. Alex downed the majority of those beers and downed a few glasses of whiskey too, which explained her state. Shen had downed nearly a full bottle of whiskey but was just as calm and sober as he was before. It puzzled Alex at first, but now that she had a buzz going, she didn’t really pay attention to his lack of intoxication anymore. 

“I’m not joking, love,” Shen smiled at her and brought his whiskey glass to his lips to down the rest of his drink. “I am a very, very old man.” He chuckled. 

“NO way!!!” Alex pulled her feet off the floor and knelt on the couch. One hand held her beer and the other came smacking down on Shen’s thigh. She gently hit his thigh repeatedly and repeated her words. “You’re like…. 25… MAX... Hic.” 

Shenro turned to face Alex and started laughing as she tapped his thigh in protest of the fact about himself that he just shared with her. “I’m telling the truth. Why would I make that up?” He smiled, showing off his pearly white sharp canine teeth. He played with the empty whiskey glass in his hands for a little bit as he watched the drunk tigress. Her hair, her fangs, the way she smiled and giggled endlessly while they got to know each other, and those stripes that he could see on her shoulders. He was mesmerized. As big of a gentleman that he was, he couldn’t help but wonder just a little, what the striped feline would look like with less clothes on, a wardrobe malfunction as they call it in showbiz. He leaned forward to set his empty whiskey glass back down on the coffee table, and then leaned back into the couch. “Now it’s your turn to tell me something I don’t know about you, boss.” 

“But you still haven’t explained to me HOW you are a thousand years old,” Alex continued. She stopped hitting the wolf’s thigh but left her hand there. “You’d be bones by now if you were really that old.” She chuckled. “But since you say you haven’t listened to much of my music, I think you might be telling the truth….” She pondered for a moment. 

He was telling the truth, he was a very old wolf, immortal in fact, but there wasn’t an easy way of explaining it to the tigress, especially not while she’s drunk. “It’s a long story, Alex, and I’d rather tell it to you when you can remember it the next day,” the wolf teased. 

“What are you talking ‘bout, I’m as sober as a fish…” Alex said, in the least sober voice possible. But of course, to her own ears, she sounded completely sober. 

Shen let out a loud laugh when what Alex said reached his ears. “That makes no sense, Alex, you are drunk.” He shook his head and let out a soft sigh. “I think maybe it’s time for you to check on your driver, see where he is? We should get you back to the hotel.” 

“Nooooooo… Don’t be such a party pooper…. I’m having so much fun here with my new bodyguard friend…” She cooed, bringing that hand that she had on Shen’s thigh up to his lips to press her index finger against them. “Shhhh…. You’re not even… Tipsy! And you drank a whole bottle of that brown juice!! We’re not going back to the hotel until you get at least half as drunk as me.” The tigress nodded to herself. 

The wolf bodyguard raised his brow at the tigress and grinned. “So you admit that you are drunk…” 

“Nuuuuh. No. I didn’t say that!!!” Alex shook her head and gave the wolf’s thigh a few more gentle slaps with her hand. 

Shenro continued to chuckle, “That’s exactly what you said, pop-princess… I think you’ve had enough of that bottle there…” He swooped his hand over to grab the beer bottle the tigress still had. To his surprise, the bottle was already empty and he set it down on the coffee table with the rest of the empty bottles. Alex started to giggle when Shen took her empty bottle away from her but resumed her sort of whininess again not so long after. 

“C’monnnnn…. Why aren’t you drunk….” The tigress grumbled, gave the wolf’s thigh a squeeze, and looked into his odd-colored eyes. 

Shen took in a deep breath through his nose, at first glance, it seemed to be out of annoyance, but then he returned Alex’s gaze with his own. His breathing picked up just slightly as he turned to look the tigress in the eye. Those green eyes of hers sure were something, the tall canine found himself lost in them. He was so lost; he couldn’t even hear what was coming out of her mouth for a few seconds, even though he could see her mouth moving. It was only after the tigress squeezed his thigh again did he snap out of it and was able to hear what she was saying again. However, by the time he tuned back in, she wasn’t saying anything anymore, she was just sat there staring up at his face. She continued to not say anything for a while and kept her hand firmly on his thigh. “Being over a thousand years old comes with perks… You learn to tolerate intoxicants a fair bit,” he winked at her and smiled. It did come with perks, but also a fair bit of disadvantages. Being touch-starved was one of them. 

Shen was tense, and Alex’s hand on his thigh made it worse. He did his best to not let it show, but even a whiskey and beer dipped dunked tigress could tell when someone hadn’t been touched affectionately in a while. “Am I making you uncomfortable?” Alex tilted her head to the side slightly, causing a few locks of her hair to fall off their resting spot on her shoulder and dangle free.

“No,” Shen was quick to shake his head dismissively. “Being this old also has a bit of cons… I haven’t been… Y’know… In a while…” The wolf could feel himself tingling in certain places. It felt good, but for some reason, he felt a bit weird. The tigress gave his thigh another squeeze and he almost let out a squirm, but instead, he just brought his hand to place it over hers. His chest rose and fell slowly and glanced down to check the watch on his wrist. 

“C’mon, Alex, you’re wasted out of your mind, we got to know each other a bit, I think it’s time we head back to the hotel… You have a show tomorrow, right? I’d rather you be well-rested for that.” He shifted his gaze to meet with Alex’s again and his lips pursed into a soft smile with no teeth or fangs visible, the friendliest of smiles.

 She held eye contact with her bodyguard in complete silence.

Alex just stared at him with an almost blank expression, save for the slight smile that had been plastered on her face for most of the night. Then, out of nowhere, the tigress leaned forward and pressed her lips right into the wolf’s own, tilting her head up slightly to do so.

Shen was caught by surprise, but his eyes didn’t go wide and he didn’t try to move out of the way of the oncoming kiss. Instead, he let his guard down and gave in. He closed his eyes, parted his lips, and let the tigress get a little bit of a taste as he kissed her back. Lips smacked and some tongues may have touched. Shen brought a hand up to hold Alex’s cheek gently, only for the kiss to end just mere seconds after, his hand falling back down to his side, and Alex pulling away to her previous position. 

Instinctively, both the tigress and the wolf found themselves licking their lips. Alex’s cheeks flushed a soft red, while Shen looked unphased by it all, but still had a smile spread across his lips. “I still think you should be getting some rest, Alex. It’s almost 1 AM.” 

“But I’m not tired…” Alex said after she licked her lips again and wiped them on her forearm, smearing the red lipstick that she had on slightly onto her left cheek. She then slid the hand she had on Shen’s thigh up by a few inches and ventured towards his inner thigh. As her fingers glided over his camo pants, she bit her lower lip and kept her eyes focused solely on Shen’s face to watch his expression. 

Shen’s eyes fell down to watch Alex’s small hand as it made its way up his leg and toward his inner thigh, he tensed slightly here and there, but once her hand made its way into his inner thigh and ventured even further, he relaxed a little. He was pretty sure he knew where this was going. He wasn’t going to lie, having her hand there slowly moving up his leg felt really nice. 

“Can I…. Touch your….” Alex trailed off as her hand made its way closer and closer to the crotch area of the wolf’s pants. “You’re so tall….. Hic…. I wanna feel if you’re big….” Alex cooed and giggled in between her little hiccups. “Can I touch your penis…” she clarified, just in case her message was a bit unclear. 

“If I let you, you’ll let me take you back to the hotel to get you some rest, yes?” he raised his brow at her after taking his eyes away from her hand. Alex nodded eagerly and her tail flickered behind her excitedly, “Yes! Yes. Then we can go back to the hotel and I can sleep… But first I’m going to touch you on the… Hic! On the dick…” She giggled. 

Shen didn’t show it on his face, but he was amused by his new employer, but his tail that was tucked to his side was hard to tame, and it thumped lightly against the armrest of the couch that he was up against. 

It didn’t take long for Alex’s hand to reach the part of Shen’s pants where there was a zipper and a button, the part of the pants that had a bulge in it when the wearer was sitting down, even when they didn’t actually have a boner. Her fingers danced over his zipper and kind of just hovered over it without really touching him first. The tigress’s eyes watched her fingers to make sure she kept them from actually touching him, her digits moving up and down in sequence, making a sort of wave. Then, her eyes darted up to her employee’s face and her fingers dropped down, curled around to cup his bulge, and she gave a quick squeeze. After which she went wide-eyed and looked down at her hand, then squeezed again. Feeling his sheath through his pants was like squeezing an unusually large orange. After the second squeeze, she looked back up at Shen and gave him a very surprised exhale. 

The firm squeeze on the wolf’s bulge made him shift in his seat and part his legs a tad. He watched his boss feel him up and bit his lower lip ever so slightly as she gave his sheath attention through his pants. When she looked back up at him in surprise, he raised his brows at her. “What? Not what you were expecting?” 

“You are so big under there!! Are you hard?” the tigress kept her hand cupped snugly against his bulge but didn’t give him any further squeezes. 

Shen chuckled more and shook his head. “No, I’m not hard… That’s just my sheath…” he shrugged his shoulders. “Now, Miss Marx, I think it’s time we headed back. Your poor driver is probably waiting his ass off by now,” the wolf looked at his watch again before he leaned forward to start getting up from the couch. 

“Nooooo…. We’re not going anywhere…” the tigress grinned wide and squeezed the bulge she had in her fingers. This time around, she squeezed a lot less gently and rubbed her fingers along the shape of his bulge, too. This caused Shen to stop in his tracks and look at the tigress with raised eyebrows.

 “I want to see it now… Can I see it?” Alex began to purr as she tilted her head to the side, a thing she did regularly when she asked for permission to do something; a dangerous habit she picked up when she was younger and she got her way almost every time. Shen didn’t answer her, but he smiled at her before looking down at the hand that held his junk hostage. Not the worst hostage situation he had been involved in by a long shot. After a few seconds of looking down at Alex’s hand, he shifted back to looking at her face, but he still didn’t say anything. Instead, he gave her a small nod. 

With his nod of approval, Alex squeezed his bulge one more time before she let go. She then gave Shen a similar nod and bit her lower lip again. Shen brought his hands down to his pants and got to unbuckling his belt, undoing the on button on his pants, and pulling his zipper down. 

‘Ziiiiiippp…’ 

Once his fly was down, he tugged his pants down his legs until they were halfway down his thighs and just gave Alex a look. 

Alex watched closely as his camo pants fell and he was left in his very, very bulgy black briefs. They looked as if they were maybe a size or two too small, but they fit around his waist and legs just fine, it was just that monster of a bulge in the middle that was pushing the fabric’s elasticity to its limits. She stared at the bulge in awe and licked her lips without realizing it. Her pink muscle lapped over her lips and massive chompers, and to Shenro it all happened in slow-motion. He couldn’t take his eyes off her mouth, and if he wasn’t trying his darndest to stay professional throughout all of this, he would have popped the world’s biggest hard-on right then and there. Despite being a wolf, he felt like vulnerable prey when he watched her lick her lips and teeth like that. It was a new feeling; one he wasn’t sure how to feel about. 

The tigress wasn’t going to let that bulge go by untouched and she quickly groped it with a hand and resumed the squeezing she had been doing to it previously. Squeeze, squeeze, squeeze. Her fingers pressed into the softness of his sheath, causing Shen to bite his lower lip again. His cock was starting to harden and slither its way out of hiding. His pink tapered tip pushed the elasticity of his underwear even further. He let out a soft pant as his tail thumped just a little louder beside him. The wolf offered no resistance to the tigress’s touchy-feely nature and watched silently with a slight smile spread across his lips that grew more and more the closer the tigress got to seeing his cock.

Alex pulled her hand away again, but this time she moved it up to grab the waistband of his briefs and tugged them down on her own. Slowly, the fabric slipped away and revealed the black sheath, followed by an even larger fat pair of balls that came free from his briefs with an accompanying scent that filled the room. Alex’s nose wiggled and danced as she picked up the wolf’s natural musk and she was extremely tempted to just shove her face in them and bask in the nutmusk, but she was able to keep it professional and stop herself, for now. 

With her bodyguard’s junk now fully on display, Alex was able to notice the pink tip that was peeking at her like a fresh stick of lipstick that was just begging to be used. She raised a brow and looked up at the canine with a smirk. 

“Was it all you hoped it would be?” the wolf teased her with a wink. He noticed how her nose wiggled and danced and knew exactly what that meant. It meant that they weren’t going to go back to the hotel just yet, or if they were, the car ride there would be an interesting one. One last time, he moved to try and get up from the couch, “C’mon, you’ve touched it, you’ve seen it, let’s get you to bed or you’ll be having a very very sleepy show tomorrow.” 

“Not so fast,” Alex said quite sternly as she brought a hand up to place square center against the wolf’s chest, stopping him from leaning forward and getting off the couch. Shen could have very easily pushed past her, but didn’t, and just stopped and stared. 

“I said we’re not going anywhere, Mister…” she cooed and brought her free hand over to cup the wolf’s massive balls rather possessively. She rolled his sack in between her fingers and massaged his balls gently as she spoke to him. “I’m going to ask you a very important question, you have to answer either yes, or no…” She bit her lower lip again, stopped rolling his balls in her fingers, and gave them a firm but gentle tug. The wolf went wide-eyed when she tugged his balls, a natural reaction, but despite this, the tip of his cock that had been peeking earlier slid out from its sheath even more. 

“What is it, Alex?” 

“Haha, I’m going to ask you, if I can suck your dick…”  

----

Blackout curtains were a blessing, the way they could just block out all the light, no matter what time of day it was outside was a miracle. A blessing for those who woke up with hangovers after a night of drinking. It was probably invented by someone with a hangover, too. That, or it was invented by vampires. 

If you asked Alex when she was younger what superpower she’d want to have, she’d probably say flight or teleportation, but if you asked her now, being immune to hangovers would dethrone all of that. The tigress let out a soft groan as she came to and slowly opened her eyes to a ray of light that managed to slip through the smallest gap between the blackout curtains. 

“Ugh, fuck…” she squinted her eyes shut and brought a hand up to rub at her temple to ease the throbbing headache that made itself known once she was out of her slumber. She rolled around under the blankets and fluffy duvets she was covered in for a few seconds in an effort to fall back asleep so she wouldn’t have to endure her headache, but it was no use, she was going to have to sit through the hangover and pray it was better by the time she had to hop on stage again. She threw the blankets off her and looked down at herself. She was still in her show clothes from last night; fishnet shirt over a pink bra, a few colorful bracelets, black shorts, and black see-through stockings, all her own AMTS line of course. She couldn’t NOT represent her own merch! Her hair was having just as much of a bad day as she was, messy and unkempt. Slowly, the tigress rolled out of her bed and made her way to the bathroom to take a look at herself in the mirror. 

“Fucking hell, Alex, way to outdrink yourself before a show day…” she grumbled at her reflection in the mirror and rolled her eyes. She then pointed at herself and snarled. “Why are you like this… You have a SHOW, how are you going to sing if you’re fucking hungover.” She then brought a hand up to her jaw and massaged it after she felt a slight ache lingering there. “Ugh,” she grumbled. 

Shenro was standing outside of Alex’s hotel room door with his arms crossed over his chest. He had made sure Alex got to her room safe and sound after her driver brought them back to the hotel. He managed to freshen up in his own hotel room while the tigress got her much-needed rest, but almost immediately after he cleaned up, he was back standing in front of Alex’s room door again and he stood there all night. 

He whistled idly as he guarded the door and brought a hand up to scratch his chin. He checked his watch periodically to make sure that Alex was still on schedule. If she didn’t wake up by 10 AM, he’d go into the room and wake her up. He didn’t have to though, since his ears picked up the groans of the tigress at around 9:59, right on time. He looked down at his watch again and smirked. “Bingo. She really is punctual, even hungover.” He laughed. Then the door he was stood by swung inward, and the messy-headed tigress poked her head out with squinted eyes. 

“There you are… What time is it? I can’t find my phone…” 

“It’s 10 AM, right when you’re supposed to wake up and get ready to go.” Shen turned around to stand facing Alex and smiled. 

“Right…” Alex rubbed her eyes to try and get her absolute shitshow of a hangover under control. “Come on in, you don’t have to wait outside.” She turned on her heels and walked back into her room, leaving the door open for the wolf to walk in after her. Shen walked in after her and closed the door behind him. 

“Do you happen to know what I have to do today other than my show… Why I have to be up at 10 AM….” Alex rubbed her temples some more. 

“You did drink a lot last night,” Shen teased and slipped his hand into his pocket to pull out his phone. 

When the tigress saw the wolf pull out his phone, she looked annoyed. “Did you take pictures of me?” She furrowed her brows angrily. Shen blinked and furrowed his brows too, but in a less angry way. “No, I didn’t take any, I’m just reading the text from your manager, he sent me your schedule.” The wolf smiled, unlocked his phone, and looked at the text. “It says you have a small appearance on a talk show before the soundcheck, and you need to be dressed ‘hot’ and be ready in the hotel lobby at noon.” Shen raised his brows a few times and chuckled as he read the text.

Still plagued by her headache, Shen’s talking was just a little too loud for her, but she managed through it. She ran a hand through her messy and tangled hair and nodded. “Okay, the Edward Show taping, soundcheck, then a few hours before actual showtime…” she gritted her teeth and pressed two fingers against her temple to massage that area again. “My head is fucking killing me….” 

Shen let out another chuckle. “I did say you were drinking a bit too much last night... You kept going on about how I wasn’t getting drunk. Did you want to impress me? Because you don’t have to, I’m not the international pop star.” The wolf continued on and on, sprinkling chuckles and snorts here and there. But after a few sentences, Alex couldn’t really hear anything other than noise, and loud noises were not very friendly to someone with a murderous headache from a hangover. She brought her hands to her ears to try and cover them as they pressed down against her head.  

“Shut up! Please! Oh my god…” the tigress snapped at her bodyguard. “First you don’t listen to me when I say you can have the night off, then you try and tell me how much I can drink, then you let me feel you up, and then when I ask you to suck your dick, you say no? Can you just… Shut up!!” The headache and the rest of the hangover were catching up to her, that was for sure. She let out a heavy exhale and turned around to walk away to the bathroom. 

The wolf was confused, to say the least, he blinked a few times before he walked after her. It was a lot of stuff to process, what she said. “What are you talking about Alex? Are you okay? Do you uhh... Want me to get you an aspirin?” 

Alex stopped halfway to the bathroom in an almost cartoonish fashion, the claws on her paws dug into the carpeted floor and left marks. Had there been a ‘screech’ sound, it would have been straight out of Looney Toons. 

“Can you PLEASE, stop being Mister Goody Two-Shoes?” balled her hands into fists and gritted her teeth again, this time, snarling to show off her fangs. “Just leave me alone, get out.” 

Shen froze, unsure of what to do, or what he did. To him, the tigress’s outburst came out of nowhere. “I’m your bodyguard, Alex, I’m supposed to look out for you.” 

Shen’s words reached her ears and only rang louder in her head than they actually were. She squinted her eyes shut, “I said get out!” Alex shouted again and turned around to swing her little hands at him, tears pooling in her eyes. 

Shen pulled his hands up and backed away quickly. “Okay, okay! I’m leaving... I’m leaving.” He quickly moved over to the door that he just came in through and let himself out. He closed the door behind him gently and stood there in front until he heard something crash into the door. 

‘Thud.’ 

He left quickly. 

After throwing a pillow at the door, Alex continued her walk to the bathroom, stomping her way there as tears ran down her cheeks. “Stupid, stupid, stupid!” She grabbed the tiny bars of soap and shampoo bottles on the sink and threw them to the floor in her continued fit of rage before she looked in the mirror at herself in silence. After a few quiet and deep breaths, she broke down and began to cry properly. 

‘Beep, click.’ The sound of someone unlocking her hotel room echoed throughout the room and stood out from the soft wailing sounds coming from the tigress. She stopped her crying for a short moment and turned towards the bathroom door. “I told you to leave me alone, Shenro.” 

There was no response from outside the bathroom, but Alex could hear footsteps, so she knew that the wolf was there. She sniffled and wiped her wet face with a hand towel before she walked out of the bathroom. 

“Why are you so fucking stubborn? I told you to leave me alone!” She shouted as she burst into the bedroom from the bathroom. But Shen wasn’t there. Instead, it was someone else, someone Alex recognized. 

She fell silent and her mouth agape. It was someone she knew, but not in a good way. 

“Long time no see, Alex… Did you miss me?” 

“What are you doing here?” Alex asked, backing up from where she was standing and towards the balcony doors that were behind her. 

“Oh, I just heard you were in town, wanted to pay a visit…” the person she was talking to smiled. It was one of those smiles that were either extremely friendly and genuine or a façade, no in-between. 

Alex expected to back up into the sliding glass door, but instead, she bumped into something much softer, someone else. She jumped out of her skin but two firm pairs of hands grabbed her shoulders, while another plucked a syringe into her arm and injected an unknown clear substance into her. Immediately, the tigress began to sway, before she dropped to the floor unconscious. 

“Because I missed you, old friend…” maniacal laughter followed. 

----

 Shenro was very confused. He didn’t like being yelled at by the tigress, but who did? Although he could understand that she was under a lot of stress and hungover, too, he couldn’t help but feel annoyed that she called him “Goody Two-Shoes”. Since when was being good a bad trait to have? And he was hired to protect her, by her, so all of it just made zero sense to him. He sat in his hotel room with his head in his hands. What the hell was he going to do? He let out a heavy sigh before he pushed himself off his bed and headed out of his hotel room and to Alex’s. Maybe an apology was what he needed to give her, maybe that would work. It was at least worth a shot, right? He rode the elevator up to the floor her room was on and as he exited the elevator, he could see that the door to her suite was slightly open. Right away, he knew something wasn’t quite right. 

“Alex?” He said as he pushed the door open further. Once he was inside, he found the room completely trashed, with broken furniture, glass, an overturned coffee table, couch, and mattress. Quickly, he ran and searched the room for the tigress. The living room, small kitchen, bathroom, and the bedroom he went. “Alex? Alex! Alex!!!” he shouted for her, but to no avail. Then it hit him, a scent he didn’t recognize, a few actually, and one that he did. He sniffed the air as he walked towards the open balcony and snarled. He balled his hands into tight fists and looked out over the city through the open balcony doors. Right next to the white curtains that blew in the breeze was a copy of one of Alex’s albums with a post-it note attached to it. The note had a smiley face drawn on it with the text “Read Me” written underneath. Shenro bent over to pick it up, peeled the note off the album, and flipped it over to give it a read. 

‘Hello, Alex’s new bodyguard… Not a very good first week on the job, is it? Let’s see what those wings can really do. :-)’

He stood completely still but was tense all over. The bones on his back began to move under his tight black shirt and a set of large black wings, with blue-tipped feathers, grew out from his back. They spread out slowly as he took steps toward the balcony. He slipped through the curtains and without any hesitation whatsoever, leaped off the balcony and spread his wings as wide as they could go. His wings flapped, his freefall from the hotel building was cut short, and he sliced through the sky, gripping that note he found tightly in his hand.

He was going to find her. 

---

Alex was in and out of it. She could see blurry blobs of light here and there, but every time she was about to make out a sort of vague shape of the person who was carrying her around, it all went dark again. She woke up again with all her senses restored when she was doused in water and found herself tied to a chair on what looked like an abandoned bridge. 

“Gyaahahhhuuuhhh!” She gasped for air when the water splashed on her and she looked around at her surroundings frantically. She then looked down at her wrists and ankles, which were tied down to the chair she was seated in. She wiggled and struggled to try and get herself free for a few seconds before she heard a familiar voice. 

“I don’t think you can wiggle your way out of that there, Alex.” It was the same feminine voice from before, the person that Alex saw in her hotel room. But this time, Alex couldn’t see her anywhere. All she could see in front of her were broken and abandoned cars, and the derelict bridge that she was in the middle of. Those words weren’t enough to stop her, and she continued to try her best to get out of her restraints. Then she felt hands on her shoulders again, but smaller ones than last time, and a whisper in her ear. 

 “How have you been, old friend…” 

“What the hell are you doing, Yuri…” Alex snarled at her. 

“You remember my name! Oh my, my, the famed pop star Alex Marx the Spot remembers MY name!!” the dalmatian began to laugh before she gave the tiger’s cheek a soft little peck and walked around her chair to stand in front of her. Her steps slow, and loud, her button-up blouse and dark blue pleated skirt waved and wrinkled as she walked. A red ribbon in her hair, tying it up into a neat ponytail, just like she always did. Dark brown eyes and inky black hair, with white fur and black spots, dotted all over her. She looked exactly the way she did back in high school, just, a little bit taller. 

“What the hell is this?” Alex grumbled and groaned once she realized that the ropes binding her wrists and ankles to the chair weren’t coming off. She stopped her wiggling and shook her head to move her wet hair out from in front of her eyes so that she could look at Yuri properly. 

“Oh, nothing, I don’t really have anything against you, I’m a big fan actually… I just needed you as a bit of…. Bait…” The dalmatian grinned before she pulled out her own chair and sat on it backward, resting her arms on top of the backrest. 

“Bait? For what?”

“Your new bodyguard… He’s an old friend.” Yuri brought her hand up to her face and inspected her painted claws with a smile. She then shrugged her shoulders and rolled her eyes. “But he’s a bit... Slow in finding you…” She stood up from her chair and walked over to Alex, “So I think we might need to take a more…” she grabbed Alex’s chin and squeezed her cheeks together as she tilted her face up to look at her. “Drastic measures. Maybe that’ll make him fly faster.” 

Alex furrowed her brows, confused. 

“Oh, he didn’t tell you anything, did he?” Yuri grinned wide. “Well, if you wake up in time, maybe you’ll get to see…” She let go of the tigress’s face, turned her back, and walked away. 

“Do whatever you want with her,” the dalmatian said and her henchmen began appearing one by one and slowly approached the tied-up tigress. She resumed trying to wiggle and kick her way out of the chair. 

“Wait, no! Yuri! What the fuck are you doing!” 

But it didn’t work. 

Yuri stood at the edge of the bridge and stared off into the fast-flowing water underneath them, then up to the starry sky. She started to laugh maniacally again. 

---

Shen searched far and wide for Alex, he went to the woods, the city, the suburbs, basically everywhere. But he couldn’t find her. The sun had long gone over the horizon, Alex’s appearance on the talk show and her concert that night were rescheduled, but Shen still couldn’t find her. That was until he heard her screaming out someone’s name in the distance as he flew over a nearby ghost town. 

“Yuri! What the fuck are you doing!”

His ears flickered and he dove down towards the ground. The dirt around him crumbled and a small shockwave of dust blasted out as he landed. His large paws dug into the dirt as he ran towards the sound of Alex’s voice and a few moments later, he arrived at a crumbling bridge. “Alex!!!” he shouted and ran up to the bridge. He went by empty and abandoned cars, evaded large potholes, and stopped when he saw an empty chair with ropes around it and a pool of blood on the ground, seeping into the cracked concrete. He approached the chair and crouched down to inspect the blood. In the pool of blood was another copy of the tigress’s album. Shenro stood back up and turned around blood boiling, and his wings twitching. He snarled and balled his hands into fists in preparation to destroy whoever it was that was responsible. But when he turned around, he was met with a dalmatian schoolgirl, standing just a few feet from him with her hand twirling with her hair and a smile spread across her face. 

“My, my, my… If it isn’t the one, the only, Shenro…” Yuri clapped her hands together slowly. “Took you long enough… I thought just kidnapping her would have been enough to get you out here… But you just had to take your time…” 

The wolf snarled at the smaller canine girl and looked into her cold dead eyes with his own. “What did you do to her!” 

Yuri shrugged her shoulders. “I didn’t do anything. They did…” the dalmatian pointed to the group of men at the other end of the bridge that were in a circle. 

“Don’t worry, she’s still alive. I won’t let them kill her, I’m a big fan…” she chuckled. 

“What do you want, Yuri…” Shen was holding back. His arms and fists were tense, his wings twitching more. 

“I just wanted to ask if… She knows what you are… Are you going to let another poor girl fall for you again?” the dalmatian took a few steps forward and closed the gap in between her and the towering black wolf. Her head tilted upward more and more as she got closer and she continued to twirl and play with her hair. “That’s all really… Just a friendly reminder that you’ll live forever, and one day, she’ll die…” she smiled. 

Shen’s angry expression on his face faded away for a few seconds but it returned when Yuri appeared to be sitting on his shoulders and whispered into his ear. 

“Speaking of… I think you might want to make sure she doesn’t just die right now… Just saying…..” Shenro grabbed the dalmatian’s legs and slammed her down to the ground hard, the concrete beneath cracking as the dalmatian came crashing down. 

“Hahahaha…. You’re funny, Shen… But like I said, better go do your job as bodyguard… Before she’s just a body…” she winked before she stood up and began laughing like a maniac again.

It took every muscle in his body to not lunge at the dalmatian and beat her into the ground further, but Yuri’s words hit him hard, and he turned around to charge toward the circle of henchmen that were around his boss. They noticed him coming and one by one, dispersed from the circle and came running right back at the wolf. 

“Hhhhaaaaaaayhhhhh!” Shen let out a loud groan as he swung his fist into the face of the first henchman that approached him. Then he kicked, dodged, and punched again. The henchman was able to block a few of the wolf’s punches, but when he thought he had the jump on Shen, he grabbed the henchman’s fist, and twisted, breaking his arm like it was a twig. 

“Get him!” 

He threw his punches almost blindly, but not once did he miss, and not once did he get hit.

“He can’t take us all at once!”

They all charged at Shen and tried to immobilize him. But he shunned them with his wings and fought them off. 

“Yuri was right about you, you’re a tough one!”

Blood, sweat, spit, and tears flew everywhere as one by one the henchmen fell until the last one fell to his knees and raised his hands up to surrender. The tall wolf walked up to him, and in one swift blow to his head, knocked him down to the ground. What Shen failed to notice, was that the last henchman had a lit match in his hand and wasn’t surrendering at all. Shen’s shoulders rose and fell as he caught his breath and as he inhaled, it hit him. 

Gasoline. 

The entire bridge was laced with gasoline. Right away, he looked around for Alex, and when he saw her lying on the ground, he ran over to her as fast as he could. 

‘Thud…’ the henchman fell to the floor, the match in his hand falling to the ground and igniting the flame that quickly consumed more and more of the bridge. 

He flapped his wings as he jumped over the abandoned cars, making his jumps higher. He landed on his feet right in front of the tigress who lie lifeless on the wet gasoline concrete. He scooped her up and spread his wings out as wide as he could, and jumped up, his wings then pushed them both up into the air and he flew them both off the bridge as it erupted with the help of the fuel inside those abandoned cars. 

‘Boom’ the flames shot up into the sky in a large explosion, missing the two by just a fraction of an inch. Shen brought his wings to shield them both from the blast halting their flight and sending them towards the ground. Shen braced for impact and took the blunt of the landing with his feet. His claws dug into the ground and they came to a stop. Shen stood up, carrying a limp Alex in his arms. He looked down at her with a worried expression and tried to feel for her pulse and see if she was breathing. When he could feel her faint pulse and could see her chest rising and falling slowly, he was relieved, but the worried expression on his face remained. “I’ve got you, Alex, I’ve got you.” He ran his hand over Alex’s head and checked her for major injuries. From what he could see, she was only scratched up, some rips in her clothes here and there, and a bunch of bruises. But her lack of consciousness was concerning. 

Shen looked behind him to see the bodies of the henchmen burning, but no Yuri. He walked with Alex in his arms, away from the flaming bridge behind him. 

“You’re going to be okay… Hold on.” 

---

Blackout curtains were a blessing, the way they could just block out all the light, no matter what time of day it was outside was a miracle. A blessing for those who wanted to sleep through the day after having a rough night. It was probably invented by someone who had a bad night, too. That, or it was invented by people allergic to sunlight. 

Alex squinted her eyes as a ray of light managed to slip through the gaps between the curtains and sent a ray of light straight over her eyes. She opened her eyes and stared up at the ceiling. She noticed this ceiling was different, it wasn’t the one at home, nor was it the one in her hotel room. She blinked a few times before she rubbed her eyes with her hands. She then sat up on the bed she was in and looked around. She wasn’t in a room she recognized at all. This wasn’t her house… Was this a new hotel? She kicked the blankets and duvet off her and rolled her way out of bed. As she stood up she felt her legs ache, she looked down to see her torn clothing, some bandages here and there with bruising underneath. 

“O-Ow… What the fuck…” She waddled her way to the door and opened it up. Once she opened the door, she found herself in the hallway of a house, not a hotel… She looked puzzled. “What the… Where the hell am I?” she asked herself. 

Then, she heard the sound of a guitar playing in the distance. She turned in the direction where the sound was coming from and limp walked her way towards it. She couldn’t quite make out what song it was from where she was, but as she walked through the hallway and down a set of stairs, the song that was being played on the strings was a little clearer; it was one of hers. 

Once she was downstairs, she turned around aimlessly until she saw the back door that led to the back garden was open, and the guitar music was coming from there. She made her way to the doorframe, stood there leaned up against it, and looked out into the back garden. 

In the large garden, sitting on a foldable chair, in front of a patio table, was Shen with a guitar in his lap, playing one of Alex’s songs and humming it to himself. He looked like the regular Shen that Alex remembered, except he had wings, fucking wings. The tigress blinked a few times and shook her head. Maybe it was her hangover. But after she did that, she could still see his wings. She crossed her arms over her chest and listened to him play her song masterfully.

When the song he played came to an end, he looked up from the guitar and smiled when he saw Alex in the doorway of his house. 

“Oh, you’re up… How are you feeling?” 

Alex shrugged her shoulders. “To be honest, I’m very beat up… Because I see you with wings.”

Shen looked over his shoulder and chuckled. “Oh, these things? Didn’t I tell you about these?” 

Alex shook her head, “You have a lot of explaining to do, Mister Stryker…” she chuckled and slowly stepped down from the doorway and into the garden to join him. 

“I told you, just Shen is fine.” The wolf set his guitar to the side and watched as the tigress made her way over to join him at the table. 

“I don’t think I know you that well, yet, Stryker. Why don’t you start telling me about yourself?” Alex sat down next to him and took his guitar into her lap. 

Shen snorted and nodded. “Okay, fine, let’s get to know each other.” 

Part Two 

-----

Art by Smileeeeeee 

Guest Starring Shenro