FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

A short(er) fantasy type thing I've been working on for a while. This story does contain some violence and blood, but none of that relates to the eventual smut. I hope you enjoy.

The hellhound was summoned to a room in the basement of a clocktower at precisely midnight. She could hear the chimes of a great brass bell echoing dully through the stone overhead.

For a moment the room was dark, then a match struck and amidst the sour smell of sulphur and a white flare of magnesium, the hellhound saw the jubilant face of her summoner. It was a redheaded girl, freckly and small. She wore the robes of a witch in training, the fabric adorned all over with protective runes and slips of paper on which had been written invocations. Pale lines of static crackled all across her.

She lit a glass sheathed lantern and slowly the room filled with a diffused amber glow. The girl had horns. They curved up and back, like those of a Judas goat, and were traced with delicate lines of gold, the same color as the girl's eyes. She had to be some kind of minor demon.

“Are you the one who summoned me?" The hellhound asked, her voice gravely from disuse. It had been a while since she'd last been brought to the material plane. The time in between was colorless and vague, like a fever-dream. She stood straight, enjoying the feeling of it, glad that the summoning circle contained enough space for her to stretch her arms and shiver her tail. She cut a dreadful figure in the dimness of the room; two meters tall and covered all over with shaggy whorls of black fur, so dark that it seemed to absorb the light. Her red eyes glowed like a pair of freshly stoked embers.

“Are you the one who summoned me?" She asked again, for the witch had been staring at her. It was a needless question but some arcane protocol demanded she air it. This time the redhead nodded and beamed, showing off a great many sharp white teeth. The look in her eyes had gone manic.

“I am," she confirmed, voice shivery with delight. “You are now in my service for the duration of a single sworn task." The lantern had backlit her somewhat and only her eyes stood clear from the shadows over her face. They glowed like a pair of golden coins.

Her language was precise, taken straight from some guidebook or another. It was definitely not allowed for students, mere novitiates, to summon dread creatures from the underworld. Regardless, the hellhound made no comment of this. It was not her place to weigh in on whatever mortals wished to do with their time.

“What is your task?" She asked instead.

The witch took a slow breath through her teeth, as though savoring some sublime and indescribable satisfaction. Her eyes never left the hellhound.

“You are to visit an enemy of mine," she said at last. “Kill him. Make him suffer."

“Kill," the hellhound echoed, as she knew she was meant to. Around her, the summoning circle lost its glow and became dull and flat, just a circle of chalk and blackened blood upon the flagstones. “…Where will I find him?"

“He's a student, like me. His exam score was higher, one point higher…" The witch caught herself and glanced sharply up, blinking a hint of self consciousness from her eyes. She named a place, a room in a tower. Somehow the hellhound knew where it was, a portion of the school's campus rising to her mind like mist traced over the contours of a landscape.

“And if there are witnesses?" The hellhound asked. She was trying hard not to sniff the air or become too focused on all of the tiny sensations that came with being materially existent once more.

“He's alone." Said the witch. She'd begun to grin again, though her expression flickered abruptly towards fear when the hellhound stepped past the bounds of the summoning circle.

The hellhound pretended not to notice the witch's unease, though a cold satisfaction curled anonymously in the pit of her stomach. There was nothing that she could compare the feeling of being bound by a contract to, but something about it felt sour, like the feeling of a blade pressed flat upon her tongue. Anything to diffuse that…

She said nothing to her summoner, only turned and stepped through the shadows. The lantern's flame died within its cradle of amber glass and the witch shuddered at the new rush of darkness that came. By the time she lit a new match, she was alone in the room.

The hellhound stood in the cool of a late summer night, listening to the distant clamor of bells as they struck their last notes. She was shadowed by a wall, rough brick to her back and the bulk of the bell-tower rising above, still shivering minutely with the last resonance of its own chorus. The sky was perfectly black, wispy clouds scudding soundlessly across shoals of flickery white stars.

Slowly, the hellhound let out a breath and watched it steam away into the air. Notes and flickers of lit crimson sparkled momentarily across the sky before burning themselves out. All of the sensation of the world was gathering; the cool of a night breeze ruffling her fur, the grit of brick and a lovely hint of lavender lining the air, begging for her to follow.

A huge courtyard stood before her, bordered by a smooth sweep of school buildings, a garden dominating its center. The hellhound saw the glass siding of greenhouses twinkling silver in the moonlight and heard a gathering chirp of frogs beginning to rise into the space where the bells had once clamored.

Wild hedges of lavender and morning-glory had been tamed into pleasing shapes; stags rearing and carriages pulled by teams of hares. The hellhound had no name for most of the flowers and could only appreciate their shapes and the scents which drifted from them.

She cut through the garden, as her target's room was on the other side. It was all she could do not to shiver with delight as her fur was traced by silken petals. For an instant she felt an incandescent want, a desire to stretch out upon the grass and leave her task to someone else, but accompanying that urge was again the creeping bitterness of being bound.

The hellhound looked to the black iron claws at the tips of her fingers and clicked her terrible teeth and and tried her best to let the garden become merely an abstraction. What could a beast like her possibly do with flowers?

She came to her target's tower feeling strangely empty. There were lights in some of the windows and the muffled noises of mortal humans going about their errands. A fog of magic hummed behind the air. A certain uneasiness prickled at the back of the hellhound's mind. She'd never liked dealing with magic, it diffused the edges of the world and dulled her senses.

But there were still the shadows at least and so she slipped into them. There were measures to keep people from entering the tower who did not belong, but she slipped past them like wind through gossamer and then was upon a slanted roof high above everything, cold breaths of midnight breeze poking fingers through her fur.

She'd come to a halt beside a skylight made of glass, a yellow glow emanating from within. Her target lived in an attic room at the very top of the tower, somewhat removed from his peers. It was a small space, the walls crowded with bookshelves and charts and pictures, a bed taking up most of one corner, a desk most of the other. The floor that remained was littered with stacks of books.

Her target sat at the desk, bent over a book, the sleeves of his robe rolled up to the elbows. He was small and trim, his movements delicate and his skin fair as porcelain. She could not see his face, only a tousled mop of auburn hair atop his head. As the hellhound watched, her target spread his hands and produced a small hoop of blue light between them. It held for a moment, then popped like a soap bubble. She heard him laugh with delight.

The hellhound looked up at the stars, which seemed no nearer, and ran again through her summoner's instructions.

Kill him. Make him suffer. Spoken with breathy, halfway nervous delight.

For a long, sickly moment she again felt the want to do something—anything—else. Then she stood straight and leapt through the skylight.

The glass broke with a crash and a kaleidoscopic burst of rainbow light, splinters bouncing from the bookshelves and showering the little mage as he jolted from his desk. The hellhound did not react, even as shards were caught in her fur. She was built too tough to be bothered by most sharp things.

Then her foot caught the edge of a teetering pile of books and was abruptly tugged out from under her. She didn't fall, not quite, but her momentum had been diverted and the swipe of claws that she'd intended to catch her target across the shoulder went wide and instead knocked the corner from his desk.

The mage took up a book, the leather binding frothing with a sudden burst of golden sparks. For an instant the hellhound found herself surprised that he was not trying to run, but then she saw her target's eyes—framed by a growing halo of gilt illumination—and realized that, though they were wide with shock, he did not look especially afraid of her.

“You're a hellhound." He said, voice light with surprise.

She tensed to lunge at him, then the mage threw his arms over his eyes and let the book fall. It was crumbling even in midair, consumed by a sudden burst of heatless flame.

Her vision went and, all across herself, the hellhound felt prickles of intolerable warmth, like hot needles being stabbed through her flesh. All she could see was gold, a rippling sea of it banded with colorless static, like she'd just stared directly into the sun. For an instant she went still and felt very surprised. For all the things that people had done to hurt her over the years, she had never felt exactly this sensation before. It was nearly like being lit on fire…but not quite.

Her hearing had been left intact. There was still a map of the room in her mind, with the mage scrabbling across it, still not going for the door (why?).

She reached and felt her claws catch upon fabric. It was easy to tug her target off of his feet, she felt his hands grip at her wrist and then suddenly the gold was gone from her eyes and she could see the room once more, the mage going through the pockets of his robes. He was trying to say something, a recitation, but the hellhound didn't let him. She turned and pitched him into the nearest bookcase with a crash of splintering wood. The mage wheezed and landed amidst a tumble of fallen books, rolling nearly beneath his own bed. There was blood dripping into his eyes, the front of his robe hanging in tatters.

He sat upright, panting. His left hand had closed into a tight little fist, a tuft of black fur trapped between his fingers. He had to have yanked it free while she was throwing him.

She started forward and was met immediately by another burst of light, a colorless spangle which seemed to undo the world for an instant. Liquid warmth trickled down the back of her throat. Her nose had begun to bleed.

“You can't hurt me," the hellhound said. “Not enough to make me stop."

“I'm not trying to." Her target answered, then swiped his hand through the blood that had collected upon his brow and began to draw a circle upon his bare chest. He was leaving traces of her fur within the pattern, arrows shooting outward across his skin, denoting his heart, his lungs…

The hellhound lunged, a growl rumbling in the back of her throat. She expected the mage to dodge back or try once more to blind her, hurt her, something…but he only threw up one hand when she went for his throat. His fingers hooked into the side of her mouth and she tasted at once the salty bitterness of his blood and then a wet tangle of her own fur. Then her teeth were upon his neck.

But she didn't bite down, for she'd seen the symbol upon his chest more clearly and she could feel that he was pressing a pair of fingers into her chest, directly over her heart. A pall of magic whined behind the air.

He was trembling, the hellhound could feel the pulse of his heart, the tremor of his body beneath hers, warm and fragile as a freshly lit paper lantern. She didn't know very much about magic, but what he'd done was clear enough. If she bit down and killed him then she'd die as well, or…as near to dying as something like her could get.

Anger rose within her. She released the mage's throat but did not let him off the ground. Beads of her blood, black as ink, pattered onto him.

“What's the point?" She demanded, sparks leaking from between her blood flecked teeth. “Even if you kill me on this plane I'll just go back to where I was before. You'll be dead forever."

The mage stared up at her, tiny pinpricks of crimson welling across his throat, where her teeth had pricked his skin. She couldn't read his expression, it was overflowing with a hundred different emotions, but he seemed…sad.

“I don't think you want to get sent back. And you don't need to be." He said.

The hellhound nearly killed him right then, out of spite or some other reactive feeling, but her claws did not tear his flesh. She was used to being looked at as a tool, an enemy, something to be used and fought and hurt. It felt bizarre to have any sort of consideration given to her. She said nothing, only stared at the mage with her terrible red eyes and wondered if he might understand the awfulness of his own situation and try some other method to kill her. Something that wouldn't forfeit his own life.

He didn't. Instead, his fingers came away from her chest and then he was lying beneath her like a sacrifice, the feeling of his magic beginning to stutter and fade.

“You were summoned by another student, weren't you?" The mage asked. His voice was still trembling but the clarity in his eyes hadn't gone away. The hellhound wanted to tell him that she could not name her summoner but there would be no point. She was performing calculations in the back of her mind. The conclusions told her that it would be better to kill him now rather than continue to feel so off balance…but again she couldn't make herself move.

“Redheaded, with horns." The mage continued, sounding slightly more self assured. Why wasn't he looking at her teeth? Her claws? Why wasn't he screaming?

“I was told to make you suffer." The hellhound said, but even this only made the mage smile. His eyes were shockingly blue. She wanted to ask him how he was not so bothered by his own fragile position above the abyss.

The mage spoke to her about contract law and the regulations of summoning creatures from other planes. None of it was familiar to the hellhound but the words carried with them a learned cadence. She listened in silence, her teeth still kept at bay.

“You don't need to go back to wherever you came from," the mage concluded. “And you don't need to kill me either."

“If my summoner closes my contract then I am removed." The hellhound answered. The sour feeling was back, worse than ever.

“Not if you enter a new contract that keeps you here. A legitimate one with overriding principles," the mage said quickly. For a moment he hesitated, still staring up at her, seeming halfway surprised by whatever conclusion he'd arrived at. When he next spoke his tone was more measured, buoyed by a seriousness that the hellhound could not doubt. “If you became my familiar then you could stay here as long as you wanted. I promise."

The hellhound had to work in order to hide her surprise, and the proliferation of an off-kilter feeling in the pit of her stomach. None of this was familiar. Again came the dark urges to bathe herself in what she knew, to let her teeth glint and her claws flash. To fill the world with blood. But this time she felt ill contemplating those dread actions. After the glow of every bloodletting was always the inevitability of return and then the colorless void of where she was sent (where she was stored) whenever there was no present use for her.

“What does that mean? Who would you need me to kill?" The hellhound asked.

A flicker of alarm went across the mage's face. He shook his head and took her paw between his hands, the intimacy of the gesture alarming. The hellhound flinched, then felt strange for having had such a reaction. It wasn't like he could physically hurt her with a mere touch.

“You wouldn't need to kill anyone," he said. “You'd help me with my work and…I suppose I'd research you. I've never met a hellhound before."

Met. An interesting term.

“Do you have a name?" The mage asked, more gently.

The hellhound thought to her contract with the vengeful witch and then the heatless bloom of golden light that had been sent against her.

“Hex." She said and again felt nearly as she had while she'd been in the courtyard garden. There were wants beginning to rise, disparate and chaotic, and no longer a strict system of rules to keep them all tamped down.

“Will you let me up, Hex?" The mage gently asked.

The hellhound contemplated for a moment then slowly drew back, glass gritting beneath her feet. She stayed between her target (though it no longer felt quite right to be calling him that) and the door. There were books and bags of magical supplies within easy reach but the mage made no attempt to go for them. He moved slowly as he rose, with winces and tiny gasps of pain each time he disturbed some part of him that had been injured. One of his feet was bleeding and he favored it as he sat delicately upon the foot of his bed, surrounded by the debris of their brief fight.

“In the top drawer of my desk there's a canister filled with gray powder. Could you get it for me?" The mage asked.

Hex did so. It would be some kind of measure specifically meant to counter hellhounds, she supposed. The canister was not marked, but there was a dry, spicy scent attached to it, like chiles hung to dry.

The mage smiled wanly and thanked her when she handed it over, then he stood (balanced precariously upon one foot) and shrugged his torn robes off so that he was nude from the waist up. Now Hex could see scrapes and purply bruises beginning to rise across his shoulders and back, beads of blood dark upon fair skin. He looked even smaller and more delicate now, like a wounded deer.

“Ash from a phoenix," the mage explained, indicating the container. “It's good for small repairs. I'll need you to get some of the marks on my back. And if you're hurt…"

“I'm not hurt." Hex said, more stiffly than she'd intended. There was blood crusted beneath her nose but that was too minor to care much about. A strange, fluttery feeling roiled in the center of her. It wasn't a performance, the little mage expressing concern about her injuries. She couldn't decide how to feel.

Hex watched in silence as the mage daubed ash upon his wounds, then did the same with the ones he couldn't reach, tracing gentle patterns upon her target's back, taking care not to cut him with her claws. When she was finished, the mage stood and then carefully daubed the same mixture around his room as well, indicating the corners of the broken skylight, his splintered desk and then the sagging ruin of the bookshelf he'd been flung into.

“May I have another tuft of your fur?" He asked. “It seems to be a good reagent for spells like this."

Hex silently raked some loose fur from her tail, then stood back and watched in silence as the mage drew a small sigil upon the floor, in a place clear of glass and scattered books. A small part of her still hummed with suspicion, but the mage wasn't even looking at her now. He raised his hands, the background hum of magic rose to a new prominence, and then suddenly the room was filled with motion. Shards of glass bounced and skittered across the floor, splinters of wood and loose screws doing the same. In a moment the skylight was back together and the bookshelf stood upright once more, though its books were badly jumbled and loose pages still littered the floor.

The mage himself stood straight and stretched, then delicately tested both feet before letting out a relieved sigh.

“You really did a number on me." He remarked, but there was no reproach in his voice. The faint outline of the circle he'd drawn on his chest still remained, as did a few blackened clots of phoenix ash, already disintegrating into nothingness.

Hex looked to the skylight. Some of the shards had not joined perfectly and there were still fractures here and there, but the mage didn't seem very bothered by this. He examined his handiwork with a smile, the top of his robe still puddled around his waist.

“What are a familiar's responsibilities?" Hex asked. “Specifically."

The mage was silent for a moment, contemplating.

“It depends. I haven't heard of anyone having a hellhound familiar before, so you would be something new," the mage offered a tiny shrug, then quickly grew more serious. “For my purposes, you would help with my studies and then have your own freedom beyond that. I have no interest in making you do anything."

Hex stood and tried hard not to look confused.

“What would I do?" She asked.

“That depends based upon the course I'm taking, but—"

“With my freedom." Hex clarified. She was relieved when the mage managed to scrub all of the pity from his expression.

“Anything you want," he said, but seemed to realize that this wasn't a helpful answer. “Well, I'd want you nearby in case I needed something, but aside from that you can…" He swept a hand out, encompassing the whole of the school. Hex thought to the courtyard garden, the coolness of the midnight air. The notion that she could walk amongst the flowers at her pleasure filled her with an indescribable lightness. Her tail swished and then began to wag.

“You would give me all of that?" She asked. The fact that she had been trying to kill her benefactor only a few minutes prior hardly needed to be mentioned.

“I'm not giving you anything," said the mage. “Freedom goes a long way beyond what one individual allows another…well…" He trailed off, seeming to realize that he was describing ideas for which she had no frame of reference, then fetched a sheet of paper from his desk and began to write upon it with an owl feather quill. Hex stood, watching words form. A physical contract was being drafted, naming her as a familiar. But in the space where rules ought to have gone, the mage simply scratched a diagonal line and then was done. He pricked his thumb and smeared a blotch of blood upon the document, which fluttered and rustled as though caught in a light breeze.

She looked at him.

“What would keep me from leaving?" She asked.

No answer beyond a small shrug.

“What would keep me from disobeying you?" She pressed, feeling oddly distressed. A peculiar instinct rose, to protect the poor mage, for clearly he was too soft for his own good.

“Nothing," he said, more cheerfully than seemed appropriate. “Just…the limits of your loyalty, I suppose."

Hex stared for a moment, ears pinned out to the sides and her tail flicking distractedly from side to side, then she pricked the tip of her finger with one claw and added a dot of inky blood to the contract, beneath her name.

The document shivered and lifted a few inches into the air, buoyed by cold, sourceless winds. The wording glowed and the blood smoked, then it settled.

And, somewhere in the pit of her stomach, Hex felt the sour feeling she'd been suffering all evening abruptly fade away. She let out a small breath, watching as the mage gathered up the contract, folded it in half and then turned the document over in his hands.

“I'll need to rent a security box at the guild office…" He mused, then turned to look at her more fully. “How do you feel?"

“Lighter." Hex said, but the mage offered her a genuinely happy smile before she could even consider being embarrassed by her own sentiments. She felt strangely dizzy, overcome by the gravity of the moment.

The change hadn't sunk in fully, but it was clear that something big had changed. She was no longer bound to the redhead in the clocktower basement, nor any master like her ever again. There would be no more murderous errands, no more interminable stays within the abyssal void.

Hex let out a slow breath and then went to sit upon the foot of her master's bed. The frame groaned beneath her weight. She was trembling, but not with worry or even joy. None of the emotions she was experiencing had names, but suddenly that didn't seem like a bad thing at all.

“If you want to go and get some air…" The mage began to suggest, but Hex shook her head, savoring the notion of voicing her own preferences.

“Thank you," she said, then was gripped by a feeling of grand obligation. “You can give me any order at all and I will follow it."

The mage began to demur but then caught the seriousness in her gaze and was silent. The contract might not have had any rules, but it still contained a meaning nonetheless.

“I suppose I'd like to know more about your kind," he said, then went slightly pink and smiled sheepishly to himself. “I've read books about hellhounds and seen pictures, but that's not the same as having one in front of me."

Hex nodded her assent and watched as the mage flew into action, gathering calipers and measuring tape and a small collection of notebooks. He set up a small stand and an easel with watercolors. Hex looked around herself and took notice, for the first time, of the many small portraits that hung upon the walls of her master's little room. Most were references, animals and people and materials related to the study of magic, but Hex could also see sunsets and flowers and even a depiction of the courtyard below, lit by the silver tones of a winter afternoon.

A strange feeling set to squirming within her, but not in an unpleasant way. She still could not name most of the new feelings that the night had brought, but she knew that there was no reason to stamp them down anymore.

The mage had her pose, stepping forward to guide her into the correct position so that he could sketch each part of her in turn. Hex allowed this, still feeling a certain surprise each time he came close and yet betrayed no hint of worry. He measured her claws and had her bare her fangs, a shivery admiration animating his features for just a moment before he gathered himself into a more scholarly repose.

Each reference was set to dry upon the desk, Hex sneaking glances when she could. There was her arm and then her paw, her legs and tail and body, her teeth and muzzle and eyes soberly labeled with the mage's neat print.

“You're more human-like than I expected," the mage said, flexing a cramp from one hand. There were spots of paint upon his robe. “…At least in how your body is shaped."

Hex glanced down at herself, then to the mage. He smiled.

“You walk on two legs, you have opposable thumbs, rotating wrists, um…other pieces of human anatomy as well," his eyes flickered briefly to her chest and then away. “But then everything else about you is lupine; your face and tail and fur…" He trailed off and in his eyes Hex saw a gentle sort of entrancement.

“What are you painting now?" She asked. There hadn't been a new pose asked for in quite a while, yet the mage was still working busily away at something unseen. Her master blinked and glanced quickly down to his newest work.

“You," he said. “All of you, I mean. A portrait. I haven't added all of the colors yet, but—"

“Can I see it?"

The mage turned his notebook around and held it out. Black ink held the outlines of her form, watercolors still drying where they had been freshly applied. The paper was slightly rumpled. The mage had painted a corner of his own room, his bed and her sitting upon it, fur black as the space between stars and eyes glowing like embers. Her teeth were shards of white porcelain and her claws gleamed like obsidian blades, yet there was no terror to the menace inherent within the portrait, no fear souring his perception of her dread features.

Hex wanted to say something but her mouth had gone dry and there was a shivery feeling squeezing the rhythm out of her heartbeat. She clicked her teeth gently together and then gathered her paws in her lap, fingers tightly interlaced. Behind her she could hear the restless swish of her tail, moving nearly on its own.

“I was going to give it to you…if you want it." Said the mage.

Words still refused to rise, but Hex managed a small nod, certain that she was displaying colors of her own, a peculiar heat burning straight through her fur. She felt oddly as though something had pierced straight through her in a way that even the deadliest weapon could not. Yet this penetration was painless and laid her bare not in a way that invited agony, but…

“E…Even if it's not finished," she managed at last, speaking stiffly. “Thank you."

Her paws were trembling and her ears had pinned back. A sudden desperate desire rose within her, to repay the mage's kindness, to show him that she was useful in turn, as more than just something to be beheld and admired (what a strange thing this was, somebody looking at her with anything more than a desire for death and bloodshed).

“Let me kill the redheaded witch." She blurted.

The mage didn't look quite so shocked this time, but there was still a flare of horror in his eyes that curdled Hex's stomach. Frustration and a tinge of regret curdled together in the pit of her stomach.

“We're not killing anybody," the mage said, with all the firmness he could muster. “You're not killing anybody."

“I want to protect you." Hex said stubbornly, sparks curling into the air. Her teeth were showing, yet the mage hardly seemed to notice them, all demonstrations of beastly ferocity bleeding uselessly into some middle space where nobody could see.

“You are protecting me," he said patiently, with such perfect optimism that Hex felt her frustration completely undercut. “Do you really think that she'll try again once she realizes that I have you as my familiar?"

Hex wanted to disagree but knew even before she spoke that the mage's mind was made up…in its own soft and sort of admirable way. It was a mystery to her how he could possibly feel so forgiving after nearly being ripped apart. Silently, she decided that whichever threat came next, she would bite it in half rather than see a single drop of her master's blood needlessly spilt.

“Will you make the next monster a familiar as well?" She asked. The question came more harshly than she'd intended, but the mage showed no anger at her imprudence.

“I wouldn't make it anything," he said. “We both got where we are by following our own free will. You liberated yourself just as much as I did."

Hex contemplated this and then sighed. A bouquet of crimson sparks settled upon the bedspread around her. She smothered them with her tail before they could burn holes in the fabric.

“You had no way of knowing that I wouldn't kill you." The words were blunt and the subject ugly, but there was no other way to approach it. Hex kept looking at the portrait she'd been given, a taut feeling squeezing her heart. How she felt and how the mage looked at her hardly seemed to line up.

“I made an educated guess. You could have snapped my neck once you got ahold of me, but you didn't."

“Everything you did, even…" Hex couldn't find a way to properly describe the mage's last magical action, so instead she reached out, took the mage's hand and pressed it to the center of her chest. He blinked, caught by surprise, face gone pink. Hex spoke. “Was that just to make me pause?"

The mage took a slow breath, eyes fixed upon the point where his hand was buried to the wrist in soft black fur, brushing against the firm swell of her breasts. Hex could feel the delicate press of his fingers upon her, no hum of magic gathering to cloud the moment. It occurred to her that he was feeling her heartbeat. She let go of his wrist, but the mage made no effort to move away.

“To make you listen." He said.

“I still don't understand how you're not afraid of me."

At this the mage's eyes came up. Sitting, she was almost exactly the same height as him, their eyes perfectly level. She could feel the warmth of his hand soaking through her fur, smell a hint of blood still clinging to his skin. He looked slightly nervous, but not in any way that related to mortal fear.

His hand came up from her heart and instead framed one side of her face, then the mage leaned in close and pressed his lips to hers. Hex stayed still, a shock of confusion making her fur stand straight and her tail jolt unevenly across the bedspread. She had seen this done before, humans sometimes kissed each other as a matter of course, but those had been distant observances to which she'd never assigned much importance.

Now that it was happening to her, she suddenly could not dismiss this as a mere abstraction. Not when her master was so close. His tongue pressed against hers, grazing her teeth. Hex let her mouth open and simply accepted what came. Her heart was racing, a heated tingle swirling in her center.

“You're beautiful," the mage breathed as he broke the kiss. His heart was hammering and Hex could feel his hands trembling where he touched her, but the conviction in his eyes remained solid beyond all reproach. “Your fur, your eyes…all of you."

“Beautiful…" Hex echoed. Her tail was swishing, getting dangerously close to a pleased wag. She felt embarrassed for a moment, then decided that there was no point in hiding anything that she felt.

“Let me show you." Her master said, then guided her back so that she was lying upon the softness of his bed, crackles of static running through her fur. He removed his robe and let it drop. Hex had seen humans naked before but had never examined them in much detail. This was different, she could hardly take her eyes away. A phantom sensation still tingled upon her lips, demanding replication.

Again she found herself thinking of deer, the mage had the same sort of slender agility, his frame thin and spare. He might have been vulnerable…were it not for the energy pouring from his every movement, his desire to take her and guide her through this new aspect of life. Sleek muscles rippled beneath his skin and between his legs was a curly patch of auburn hair and then the girth of his member, so hard that it had begun to twitch. It was larger than Hex might have guessed, thicker, her master's balls heavy and swaying.

When he came near she gathered him close and this time initiated the kiss, though her effort was clumsy and she was worried that she might cut him with her teeth. The mage smiled and told her not to worry, his words gentle, the warmth of his breath fluttering her ear.

He was so light, but Hex could no longer think of her master as totally fragile, not when he could lay her back with only a touch. Every press of his body felt new, Hex savoring the smooth warmth of his skin and the quickness of his breathing. His hands found her breasts and then the rigid peaks of her nipples. A low, pleased growl shivered in the back of Hex's throat.

“You're so soft," the mage said, his words coming nearly as a purr. “Spread your legs."

She obeyed, thighs falling open, and felt one of her master's hands trace across the toned flatness of her stomach before falling knowledgeably to the secret place where her slit was hidden by a velvety puff of midnight hued fur. Hex gasped at his touch, hips bucking as he teased her. She was wet, her ebony slit tingling with new sensations that still had no proper name. A part of her felt frightened, but Hex let that fear fizz apart, for in her master's eyes she could see nothing but the purest desire.

He pushed a pair of fingers into her, spreading the lips of her pussy and kissing her as he did. Hex moaned and shivered, her tail whacking hard into the mage's thigh.

Then he was kneeling between her legs, hands sliding down the insides of her thighs, pushing her legs up and out so that she was presenting herself totally to him. Hex panted and couldn't keep her tongue from lolling out. There was an immense heat igniting in her center, coiling insatiably between her legs. She wanted to demand that he keep touching her, to drag his fingers back to where they'd been, but she kept her patience—just barely—and instead managed to take a deep breath and wait for what was next.

He kissed the inside of her thigh and complimented her again on the softness of her fur, the warmth of her body. His hands slid down, soft and wonderfully dextrous, and met between her legs, one thumb playing gently with the firm black nub of her clit as he again pressed his fingers into her pussy, overcoming the momentary clenching resistance of many tiny muscles all clamping down in unison. What he was doing felt practiced, not a motion out of place.

Hex shivered and pressed her paws over her mouth so that she wouldn't cry out, though high little moans and yips leaked through her teeth. The heat between her legs was constricting, somehow, growing tighter and more intensely focused the more the mage touched her.

“Are you okay if I keep going?" He asked. Hex quickly nodded, staring past her own trembling legs. She was panting sparks, hot bursts of crimson light bleeding between her fingers, though the mage hardly seemed worried. He reached over, his hands suddenly gone from between her legs once more, and gently took her wrists.

Hex let him uncover her mouth, a part of her wondering if the mage was about to be burned, but for some reason—some quirk of the contract, perhaps—he was not touched in the slightest, even as a halo of sparks swirled around his head.

He pressed his fingers between her lips, wet and oddly sweet. This had to be what she tasted like, Hex supposed. She rolled her tongue over the mage's fingers, still panting for breath, tiny threads of saliva leaking from the corners of her mouth.

“Good girl…" The mage breathed. He shifted between her legs, drawing closer, trapping the excited sweep of her tail. The dull, warm press of something thick and blunt passed across her slit for a moment, then glanced away. Hex groaned with needy disappointment and rolled her hips into the mage's next attempt, taking hold of his slim hips with both of her paws.

She tried to relax, to let the mage slide into her, but the tempo of her own excitement was too much to fully control. He had to enter her slowly, his cock enveloped by the vice-tight heat of her lupine sex. Hex felt a trembly, desperate tension roll through him as he claimed her, a nearly feral desire to lose all control and simply pound into her until he was satisfied. A part of her wanted to hold him close and tease him into doing exactly that, but then the mage was hilted into her, his face an inch from hers, eyes bright with pleasure.

She felt full, her pussy stretched around the length of the mage's throbbing shaft. She could feel his balls pressed against the base of her tail and, beyond the point where he'd physically entered her, the smoothness of his skin and the pulse of his heart seemed to have bled into her in some indescribable way that went beyond the material framework of the world.

Hex kissed her master, no longer bothering to worry about her teeth or the sparks which haloed their carnal embrace. His hips bucked and pressed, cementing the fullness of his first complete thrust into her.

“I'm yours," she murmured. “Take me."

A delighted shiver ran through the mage and he redoubled his pace, pumping into her with quick, full thrusts that rocked her in place and made the bed groan beneath them.

Hex wanted to say more, to describe just how warm he felt, how snugly he fit when he was hilted all the way inside of her, but all she could manage were moans and little ecstatic cries that fizzed into ever more sparks and plumes of vivid light that spread harmlessly throughout the room like an aurora. It felt like she was boiling over, every bit of her gone white-hot and trembly, the corners of her mind hazing out entirely.

“Cum for me." The mage said, breath tickling her ear. His words sounded nearly like an order, but Hex was caught by a remembrance that none of this was bound by any sort of duty or obligation. She was experiencing this new and wonderful thing not by the diktat of some summoner's contract but because she wanted to be. Her choice, her freedom.

Hex wrapped her arms tight around the mage and hugged him close, her legs hooked tight around his hips. He ground eagerly into her, spilling a hot squirt of liquid pre, and Hex allowed herself to fall over the edge and into the embrace of her first climax.

Every bit of her seemed to shiver at once, as though she'd been struck by a bolt of heavenly lightning or divine flame, like the mage's golden light only pointed into the center of herself and turned ecstatic. Hex clenched hard upon the mage's cock and felt him spasm and then reach his own limit, warm spurts of thick human seed drenching her womb, overflowing the very deepest parts of her.

The mage gasped atop her, still making tiny, delighted thrusts and teasing every sensitive bit of her with strokes and pats and whispered compliments of how warm and tight and wonderful she felt, every few words interspaced by a kiss.

Hex let herself lay fully back once more and tried to catch her breath. She was trembling, but not with exertion. On the contrary, she felt almost like springing up and leaping about, every bit of her still traced with warm, hungry tingles.

When the mage pulled out of her with a soft exhalation and a warm trickle of seed, Hex gathered him into her arms and pushed her muzzle between his legs, enjoying each gasp and shivery little twitch that came as she cleaned his still-sensitive cock.

He was gasping and pink faced when she finished, but his cock was again stiffly upright, its tip beaded with salty pre. They'd just about swapped positions, the mage on his back and Hex lying on her front before him, tail wagging and eager sparks swirling from her mouth with each exhalation.

It did take a little bit of extra instruction on how she could avoid grazing him with her teeth, but Hex was both a quick learner and skilled with her tongue. Using her mouth didn't produce the same sensations as what had come previously, but she enjoyed the feeling of taking her master's full length and listening to the little noises he made and the compliments he offered, all of it growing increasingly fractured as she brought him towards a second climax.

She had more control like this, in the same way her master had when he'd been between her legs, rubbing her clit and working his fingers ever deeper into her pussy. The mere thought made her feel tingly all over again.

“Keep going, I'm almost there." The mage panted, stroking behind her ears. He was holding her head, guiding her, but his grip was light enough that Hex knew she could still do what she wished. She looked up the mage and offered what she hoped was a teasing glance, then hilted him into her maw and lingered for an indulgent moment, accepting the salty heat of his pre as he fired ever more onto her tongue.

Humans tasted…good. They weren't intolerably salty or unpleasantly bitter, but rather an interesting fusion which she had never experienced before.

“Hex…" Her master began to say, but the rest of his words were lost to a small spasm of gasps and panting moans. His hips jerked and Hex leaned forward, her nose pressed against the toned flatness of the mage's stomach. Seed splashed across her tongue, spurts of liquid heat firing into the back of her throat. Hex swallowed once, noisily, then swirled her tongue over the head of her master's cock, delighting in the little noises he made as she cleaned him up.

It went on like that for a long time, the two of them lying close together whenever they had to stop and rest. The mage spoke to her about his studies and the layout of the school. There was a grand library and an arboretum with plants from all over the world. The town adjacent to school grounds was banded with canals that led to the sea. The beaches were wide and at low tide there were often interesting things to be found washed up on the mudflats.

Hex listened to all of this with her eyes halfway shut and her chin rested comfortably upon the mage's shoulder. She'd rested one paw over his chest so that she could feel his heart beating.

“Do all masters and familiars do this?" Hex asked.

The mage shifted so he could look at her more directly, his expression thoughtful.

“I don't know," he said. “…I don't think it matters what other people do, just so long as you're happy."

Hex tried smiling again and this time managed something slightly more friendly. The mage kissed her, Hex turned the kiss into something heated and deep, then there was a needy hardness poking against her stomach.

“One more?" The mage asked.

Hex pulled him in and a moment later all discussion had been smothered by fur, desire and the heated grip of her velvety cunt.

When at last things wound down—for real this time—the mage lay back in his bed and stroked Hex behind the ear, his eyes already sliding shut. The mattress was sagging badly in the middle where some component of the bed had been broken, but the mage hardly seemed to care. He murmured something, then his hand fell away and he was out like a light, well and truly exhausted.

Hex snugged the blankets up around her master's chest and wondered for a moment if she ought to join him. Hellhounds didn't sleep, but it would be nice enough simply to cuddle and stay close.

But there was something tugging at the back of her mind, a worrisome obligation threatening to spoil all of the unexpected good that had come from the night. She sighed and turned to the deep shadows. It was hard to keep from looking back at the mage as she left.

It was nearly dawn. The stars had gone from the sky and there was a ragged line of crimson brightening upon the far horizon, like a newly opened throat. Hex had to pick her path carefully, there were people moving about, clad in robes and stinking of magic.

She returned to the bellower basement and found that the summoning circle had been scrubbed away, all evidence of any dark deed meticulously undone. The redheaded witch was gone, of course, but her scent lingered in the air like the ozone that came before a lightning strike.

It was easy enough to follow where she had gone. Hex supposed she could thank her master for that, he had done an admirable job of letting her know where everything else was on school grounds.

There were fewer shadows now, but Hex could still travel well enough, padding along the lonely parts of hallways and through doorways that should not have been left open. Students passed her, groggy and grumbling about early classes. Some were accompanied by grinning foxes or the smoky blur of shapeshifters not yet proficient at holding a form. Familiars. Just like her.

Finally she came to a room at one end of a hallway. Hex listened but could only detect one singular noise inside. A hush of breathing, the scrape of a pen on paper and, louder, the tap-tap-tap of someone fidgeting. The smell of her summoning still hung in the air like a miasma.

The redhead's room had no skylight, but there were other avenues through which shadows traveled and Hex allowed herself to be ferried forth and let into a space crowded with books and wire framed shelves packed with ingredients. The witch's room was packed with magical items, so many that even her bed had been swallowed.

The witch herself was sitting at her desk, a page before her filled with jagged lines of print, all of which had been written, ruminated upon and then promptly scribbled out. Spots of ink dappled the surface of her desk.

Hex had already begun to bare her teeth, tensing for a lethal strike, when she recalled what her master had said. No killing.

There was nothing stopping her from disobeying, no rule in his contract, no flaw in her own ability, yet…it would upset him. He wouldn't do anything to hurt her if she disobeyed him, Hex knew that, but he would be disappointed. The one person who had shown her kindness, who had exposed her to new and wonderful things…

She let out a small, frustrated breath. The redhead tensed and began to straighten, but before she could turn around or reach for one of the books on her desk, Hex grabbed her by one of her horns and dragged her back and around. For an instant she saw the redhead's face, chalky white and agape with shock, then Hex slammed her into the ground with a heavy thump and a pained wheeze of breath.

“Y…You can't…" The dazed witch tried to say, but all of the air was gone from her lungs and she could only manage a hoarse whisper. Hex knelt hard on her chest, enough to keep the witch from getting her breath back. There were people in the hallway outside, she couldn't afford for this to become noisy. The redhead squirmed like an eel in a net but couldn't get free. She'd bitten her tongue, pointed teeth shining pink with blood.

“I'm no longer yours," Hex growled, letting sparks drip from her jaws. “You try anything like this again and I'll kill you. Slow."

The witch said nothing, but her eyes flicked to a black tome that had been knocked to the floor, leather-bound and with a golden star on its cover. Hex snarled low in her throat and gripped the top of her quarry's head, forcing her gaze straight so that she was looking nowhere but to the dreadful crimson gaze above her. A thin rivulet of blood started from the redhead's scalp.

“Do you understand?" Hex snarled.

“…Yes." The redhead managed to wheeze through gritted teeth.

Hex let her go, stood and then was gone from the room. She made it back to the courtyard just as the first rays of proper golden sunlight lifted over the horizon. She hesitated, then lingered within the shadow of a lavender hedge. The same old wants were reverberating again, but this time she had no bindings or orders to force her to ignore them.

Hex sat down, embracing the cool of the grass and the spongy softness of the loam beneath. A few drowsy early morning bees hummed past her ears as she sat and watched the light of a new day come into the world.

She'd go and join her master in a bit, but for the moment all of the world was hers and hers alone.