FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

It was late at night, but even with it being the darkest hours before morning the city continued to churn with people on its streets. The nightlife was ever present and the noises that it made were like the sounds of waves to the ocean for those that spend their entire life with in it, people like Alex who walked down the dark alley towards the drop point for their meeting. The coat that he wore to keep out the rain that dripped from the buildings above flapped loosely against his thin body, also revealing the container that he kept attached to his belt. It was a small but strong lockbox compartment, one that could only be opened with his biometrics in order to prevent anyone he dealt with from trying to break their end of the bargain with the of a barrel of a gun.

Not that Alex was particularly worried in this instance; it was a typical back-alley deal of information on the local drug spots where junkies could score, and the client was a regular of his with deals that often went down amicably and sometimes light-hearted. As he came up to the corner that was the junction of several buildings he could already see the other guy waiting, but as he approached there was a worried look on the man’s face that was uncharacteristic of him. “Hey man, you alright?” Alex asked, causing the other man to jump slightly as it took a moment for them to register it was him before their hand stopped going for their gun at their waistband. “Whoa, when did you start packing?”

“When two of my mules got killed in the last week,” the man replied as he adjusted his coat. “I don’t know man, it feels like someone is stalking me every time I go outside lately, and not just at night either. But perhaps I’m just getting too old for the job, anyway you don’t want to hear my ramblings, do you have the information for me?”

Alex nodded and took out the box, handing it to the other man while he took the empty biometric box from him. “It’s the same deal as before,” Alex said. “As long as I’m alive half an hour after our meeting the box will open and you can get the data, otherwise if I die-“

“Yes yes, the contents will be destroyed,” the man replied as he grabbed the box, both men putting their fingerprints on the scanner in order to memorialize the exchange. “Sorry, I don’t mean to be rude but I want to make this short and sweet so I can get back to the safety of my place. I wasn’t even going to take this meeting but it had been on the schedule for a week and I know how busy you black market couriers-“

Just as the lights turned green to signify the scan had been completed something jumped down into the shadows of a nearby dumpster and lashed out at them, and though Alex didn’t see what it was he felt an intense stinging sensation as something ripped through the coat he wore and dug into his flesh. The metal box clambered to the ground along with the courier and as he struggled to pick himself up he heard a scream followed by a gunshot. The sound caused him to jump and as he spun himself around to try and see if his client was alright he let out a gasp when he saw them slumped over as a pool of blood began to spread from them. He quickly scanned the area but the one that had attacked them appeared to have left, and when he looked down he saw the biometric box with the timer on it and the gun still lying there.

Alex left the gun but took the box, letting out a wince of pain as he held onto his wounded arm while making his way out of the alley system as soon as possible and getting back onto the main street. Nothing else came out of the shadows to bother him though and when he had found the first shop that was open this late at night, which turned out to be a laundromat, he went inside to give himself some semblance of safety, regroup his thoughts, and see what happened to him. The first thing he did was check the wound as he pulled off his coat and when he did he used some nearby tissues to clean up the bloody mess that was around it. He let out a hiss of displeasure when he saw the deep puncture marks on his upper arm, though it looked like they had stopped bleeding they were definitely going to need stitches in order to heal properly.

“Dog getcha?” a voice said that caused Alex to jump slightly, looking over at the old man that had come over to use the nearby laundry soap dispenser.

“I’m sorry, what?” Alex asked.

“That bite on yer arm,” the old man answered as he pointed a shaky finger at his wound. “Asked if a dog getcha there. One time I ran afoul of dis old junkyard dog, got the same bite but not as widely spaced, musta been a big one dat got you.”

“Oh, yeah… it was a big one,” Alex said, trying to end the conversation as quickly as possible as he feigned a smile as best he could. In reality he had no idea what it had been that got him, or that had killed his client, but it definitely wasn’t some dog. Fortunately that seemed to be the end of the old man’s interest in him and as he walked off Alex took out the first aid kit that he carried around with him and put a patch on his skinny arm before putting the coat back on. All he could think about was getting back to his apartment and was also dreading the call he was going to have to make to his broker to tell him that a regular client was murdered and likely about to be investigated by the police.

Fortunately as the days went by it appeared that the cops had done what they usually do, ruled the body as someone getting robbed or something like that and then carted him off to autopsy without a second look. The city was like the jungle, survival of the fittest, and though the broker appreciated that he had gotten the box back so the police didn’t pick it up the fact that his meeting had seemed to have been specifically targeted meant that he was on the sidelines. Alex had always kept up a rainy day fund and knew that it wouldn’t last him very long, but the worst part about it was that after two days he found himself being driven up the walls. Everything started to feel like it was getting to be overwhelming for him, like someone had taken the sounds he was used to and dialed them all up to eleven as he sat wiggling on his bed with a pillow against his ears to try and block them out.

Suddenly a soft knock came at Alex’s door that caused him to bolt upright, a possible welcome distraction as he made his way over from his bed and opened it up to see his friend Sarah on the other side. “Hey, sorry I couldn’t get to you before now,” Sarah said as she walked inside, looking over at the table that was littered with food containers. “Did you have a party?”

“Nah, just haven’t felt like cooking I guess,” Alex replied as he cleared off a space for them to sit down, then exposed the blood-soaked patch that he had taped onto his upper arm. “Thanks for coming here to do this, I know stitching up a sidelined courier isn’t exactly on the top of your priority list.”

“You’ll be back in action soon enough,” Sarah replied as she put her proper medical kit on the table and then put on a pair of gloves. “Does the broker know why you or the other guy was targeted yet?”

“Sounds like the client was the one that they were going after,” Alex said, feeling the tape he had clumsily put on being pulled off. “He had mentioned at the exchange that two of his mules were dead and it turned out that he had also had a few dealers get killed too. Someone didn’t like this guy and was trying to tear down his life, guess they just got impatient and decided to finish him off.”

Sarah just nodded as she got a needle and thread ready, but as she pulled the last of the bandage off Alex saw a look of shock on her face. “When did you say that you got this wound?” Sarah asked, Alex telling her it was about two days ago. “I think you might have overestimated how bad it was?”

Alex looked at her in confusion as she gestured over to where he had been wounded, his face turning to shock when he saw that other than the pink marks where the punctures had been it didn’t even look like anything had happened to him. In fact if it wasn’t for the dried blood he might have thought that he dreamed the entire thing, but as Sarah came in closer in order to examine it something else caught his attention. It caused him to sniff the air and as his face drew closer to the nurse the aroma and the urge to breathe it in grew stronger until he nuzzled right against her check, though as soon as their skin made contact both of them pulled away as Sarah dropped the needle to the floor.

“Sarah… I…” Alex started to say, only to watch her immediately dive down to pick the needle up from his floor.

“Sorry, must have just gotten too close!” Sarah replied with a laugh, though from the blush in her cheeks she knew it hadn’t been an accident. Alex wasn’t sure what to say as even he didn’t know what he was doing and watched her pack up the entirety of the kit and before latching it shut. “Unfortunately I have a few more clients that I need to see, it was nice to talk to you again Alex!”

Before Alex could explain himself the woman was already out the door, though as he sat there alone he wasn’t quite sure what he would have even said if she stayed. In all honesty he felt like he was starting to lose his mind as he ran his hands through his blonde hair. It was as is suddenly the apartment felt like it was starting to suffocate him, the walls that he had become familiar with over the years beginning to close in on him like they were trying to end him. As he held onto his head he once more became aware of the sounds outside, hearing them continuously going and buzzing in his ears as the need to just escape threatened to overwhelm him.

A few moments later Alex was out of his apartment and on the streets after having pulled on a set of training sweats before bolting outside. He thought that going outside would help him, but as he began to make his way down all he was even more overwhelmed than before. It was like he could see everything, hear everything, even smell everything as the scents of garbage, motor exhaust, and people… so many people… even with it being night time it was all getting to be too much to him and he began to feel like he was having a panic attack. His walking turned to a run, and that became a sprint as he dodged people as best he could while running somewhere, anywhere in order to get away from the all-encompassing city that felt like it was crushing him.

As he turned from a main street down into an alley to try and get away from the road he suddenly felt his shoulder throb, causing him to grab it as he leaned against the brick wall of the nearby building. When he breathed heavily his ears perked as he heard something above him, looking up to see some pigeons that were just sitting there. He suddenly found himself licking his chops and was about to jump up onto the fire escape that he wouldn’t be able to reach if he tried when a large truck came careening by with full sirens and nearly knocked him off his feet. What was happening to him, the question burned in Alex’s mind as it suddenly began to feel hot and itchy under the hoodie he wore.

He managed to stumble another block before he had to grab onto the wall, dragging his fingers along it as he did so. The feel of it under the tips felt good and soon he felt them bite into the masonry, which caused him to pause. When he glanced back he saw that he had created four furrows into the stone that looked like they were created by claws. As he looked down at his hand his already pounding heart practically bounced against his rib cage as he saw that they had been created by claws, by his claws as black fur began to grow on his fingertips and spread outward. He reached over with his other hand to poke it and see if it was real, only to find that it had started to morph and warp as well.

“Nooooo!” Alex shouted at his hands, but as he felt his skin itching from the growth he lifted his shirt to see that not only was his chest and stomach covered in fur but his thin form had started to grow bigger, feeling the muscles inside him shift before he put the fabric down. “It’s not real, it’s not real! Someone helrphrr mrrrrghh!”

He let out a cough as he brought his clawed hands to his face, feeling the skin stretch and swell as his lips and nose contorted. As his ears began to stretch and his teeth sharpened he suddenly felt the presence of someone behind him. When he brought down his hands to see who it was all he saw was a fur-covered fist that went straight into his face, followed immediately by the sensation of falling and darkness…

What felt like a few moments later Alex’s senses began to return and he almost immediately felt a throbbing sensation in his face as he heard voices that were muffled but grew increasingly clear. “…really have to hit him that hard?” one of the voices, a feminine one but with slightly deeper tone, said. “We’ll be lucky if he wakes up this week.”

“Not by fault he was starting to freak out,” the other voice, this one much deeper and masculine, replied. “As soon as I caught wind of him I tried to see what was going on, and by the time I got there he was practically screaming his head off and already starting to change. If I hadn’t done something then he’d probably be on the news and we’d have a much bigger problem on our hands.”

Alex let out a groan that caught the attention of the two and as he opened his swollen eyes he was able to see that he had been correct in his assertation; the one on his right was a young woman with long blonde hair while on the other side of him was a man that was slightly older than him from his guess. Both were very well-toned and muscular with the guy being much bigger and the one that Alex figured knocked him out from the evidence. What happened…” Alex said groggily, trying to get up only to find himself strapped down.

“Try not to move too much,” the woman said as he brought a hand to his head, which felt strange to him as it felt like she was pressing against his hair except that it was his forehead. “You were overwhelmed topside and were starting to go into something we like to call the primal panic, fortunately my lovely husband Archon was there to find you otherwise you may have wound up in a lot of trouble. My name is Celeste, you’ve been in my care since Archon brought you down here.”

Down here… as Alex tried to look around he saw from the brick and architecture that he was in some sort of underground system, an old subway system or cistern, and he realized that it was blessedly quiet as well. “I don’t know what happened to me,” Alex said, his voice feeling a bit hoarse as he continued to talk. “Last thing I remember was that I had to get out of my apartment, then being overwhelmed and running down an alley, and I started to hallucinate… I thought I was turning into something…”

The two looked at each other, then back down at Alex as he tried to move his arms and legs only to find them bound as well. “Now you’ve just gone through a rather traumatic experience,” Celeste said as Archon undid the straps that were keeping Alex’s head secure. “What we’re about to show you next is going to be very bizarre and you’re not going to understand it, but right now the conditions are best to show you what’s happened now in a controlled environment. Now reacting is perfectly natural and I want to remind you that everything is going to be okay.”

Alex felt his anxiety spike as the man lifted up his head, and when he was finally able to look down at himself his entire body jerked in response. What was strapped to the inclined piece of wood was not the body of a human; everything from head to toe was covered in black fur with toned, sculpted muscle underneath it. It wasn’t his body, it couldn’t have been, but as he tried to shift himself to see his actual form he could see the strong arm and leg muscles flexing in response which he felt. He still couldn’t believe it though as he dug his clawed fingers and toes into the wood; he was human, not this monster!

For a few seconds Archon held his head steady as he tried to thrash around to get out of the bindings, but even as moved around he could feel the strong hands bump against a feline muzzle and ears on his head that were also covered in fur. Eventually the last of his fight drained out of him and Alex let his head drop back, panting heavily and feeling his new muscular chest heave up and down. “As I said, everything is going to be alright,” Celeste said as they gave him a few minutes to calm down. “You are among friends.”

When Alex turned his head to ask what that meant he looked up and his eyes widened when he saw two werewolves standing there, one a svelte woman with grey and white fur while the other was a burly muscular man with deep brown fur covering his body. “Now I remember…” Alex said after his body got done tensing. “That was your fist that hit my face.”

“Yeah, again, you were freaking out,” Archon said, his voice even deeper than before. “Plus we heal quick, I bet you can’t even feel it anymore.” Alex was about to retort when he realized that the pain had gone away, feeling his tongue lick his nose as the two told him that they were going to give him a few more hours to let the primal panic completely pass before releasing him. All he found himself able to do was nod, his brain still mentally taxed to the limit as they gave him a pat on the head before walking away.

Alex wasn’t sure how long he remained strapped down, his body twitching as he felt something new like his tail brushing up against his body or his whiskers twitching, but eventually he heard someone else walking his way. At first he thought that it was one of the two werewolves, but as he felt someone slink up around him he eventually saw a feline face covered in yellow fur and black spots look down at him. “Ohhhh, a werepanther!” the woman said excitedly, Alex letting out a grunt as she swung her lithe, agile body up so that she was sitting on his chest. “Thank goodness, it’s been so long since we’ve had fresh feline blood down here!”

“Werepanther? Down here?” Alex asked, his acclimation to his body not including having an admittedly pretty werecheetah sitting on top of him. “Who are you? Where is down here?”

“Oh, I’m sorry, my name is Mariah,” the werecheetah replied as her body slid down a bit. “You’re in the underground catacombs of the city, the lost architecture of the old world, though we like to call it Shapeshifter’s Paradise. So what got you, I was bit by an overly amorous guy on the first day that couldn’t control himself very well yet.”

“Um… doing my job in a back alley,” Alex replied, his body shivering as he began to feel her body start to press up against his groin and more specifically his cock. He had already been starting to get aroused when the woman had sat on him, especially as he found himself staring more and more at her fur-covered breasts, but as he began to feel the folds of her pussy press against his shaft he felt his entire body tense up. “Unh… Mariah… if you keep going back… I’m going to slip inside you.”

To his surprise she giggled slightly and leaned her body forward, pressing the tip of his cock up inside of her. “That’s the whole point,” she said in a sultrier tone than before as she pressed her chest against his. “I do enjoy when you’re all bound up like this, eager males like yourself sometimes let those instincts get a hold of you and while I like a ride sometimes it’s fun to just go slow and watch you squirm.”

The werecheetah girl leaned back once more and tapped Alex on the nose, then began to lower her hips down onto him and envelop his rod. The second that he felt himself pop inside of her the entire table trembled, his new muscles flexing and straining against the bindings as he felt himself bare his teeth slightly. Mariah just continued to smile and say that this restraint system had been tested on far bigger and stronger werecreatures than him, and though Alex could believe it he found himself growing increasingly distracted by the furry beauty that had started to bob up and down on top of him. This one knew what she was doing, Alex thought at he began to pant, wanting nothing more than to reach up and drive down the hips of that playful feline and get as deep inside of her as possible.

But Mariah didn’t give him that satisfaction, instead she continued to slowly silde up and down on the shaft of the werepanther while teasing up and down his new chest and stomach. While he definitely had a better physique then before there was still the fact that it was covered in fur, though his residual shock and anxiety at having gone from human to some sort of walking beast was being actively tempered by the other shapeshifter that was using his body as a plaything. His grunts started to come out as growls and even a snarl or two, and when he did get out any sort of words it was to hurry up or to rut harder as his claws once more dug into the wood. Every so often she would take the entirety of his length into her pussy, but only slide her hips up and down a few times before moving forward and pressing her boobs against his face as he yowled in need.

Eventually the werecheetah gave into her own lusts as well and began to pound her body against his, the restraint board creaking as the two went at it with Alex still completely bound. Mariah knew what she was doing though and eventually drew out the werepather into the best orgasm of his life, and as she shook and shuddered on top of his body he could only guess that she was having a similar reaction. As he felt his cock shoot inside of her the two remained locked together, her lithe body against his athletic one as their furry forms rubbed slightly against one another while they waited for the shocks of their climax to pass. Mariah recovered first and gave him a kiss on the muzzle before pulling out, causing him once more to shudder in his bindings as she told him to see her again before wandering off.

Alex wasn’t sure how long he had spent basking in his own sexual euphoria but eventually Celeste and Archon returned, both of them still in their werewolf forms. “Alright, I think that you’ve had… enough time…” Celeste suddenly sniffed the air, then leaned in and went up and down Alex’s body before letting out a sigh. “I thought that someone locked Mariah up? She always does this with newbies and it’s hard to get that instinct tamped down when she does.”

“I’m not responsible for the horny werecheetah or any such creature for that matter,” Archon said as both of them began to undo the straps on his body. “At least she probably tired him out completely, will make it easier for him to contain himself as he gets the lay of the land.”

Celeste just nodded in response and eventually they freed Alex from his bindings, the werepanther springing to his feet as he rubbed his limbs that hadn’t been able to move in what felt like hours. With his primal panic under control the two said that he was allowed to go and wander around, but warned him not to go topside just yet until he turned back to his human form. When Alex asked how long that would be she said that it varied from werecreature to werecreature but didn’t last more than a few hours. She also gave him back his cell phone but said that he would be lucky if he got a signal anywhere and it was just to gather any numbers for help and support if he needed it.

Though Alex could feel that his head was spinning he just wanted to get out of the area, thanking the two werewolves before making his way down one of the paths that led out of the cistern and into the adjoining areas. As he began to make his way around he quickly found that Mariah hadn’t been kidding about the layout of the area; it was likely to be the deep underground that the city eventually just built on top of rather than try to renovate what they had down there. He could also see why they called it shapeshifter’s paradise as all the problems that had been plaguing him when he was above ground for the last few days had all but disappeared, and as he got more used to his new senses he realized that he was surprised to find he had an acute idea of where many of the werecreatures were that hung around the area.

As he continued his exploration he actually met a few, some of them coming his way to see who the new guy was while others he had stumbled across while trying to get a sense of his surroundings. Most of them were the traditional werewolves like Celeste and Archon while others looked more like weredogs. Then there were the werecats, which were panthers like him, cheetahs like Mariah, and then a variety of others like tigers and leopards. Once in a while he could come across a particularly unusual one, such as when he was trying to find food and found a werefox and weresnake talking to one another.

“Well if it isn’t the new panther on the block,” the werefox said as he and the other man motioned for him to come and sit. “My name is Felix, which I know is a strange name for a werefox and not a werefeline like yourself, and the big bag of muscly scales next to me is Itachi. How are you handling yourself down here in shapeshifter’s paradise?”

“Still getting used to things I guess,” Alex replied, his gaze unable to help looking at the very muscular cobra flexing his chest and abs while his hands were behind his head. “Did you two also experience this primal panic after you were bitten?”

“Well I wasn’t a city-born werecreature like yourself,’ Felix explained before motioning over towards the other man. “But Itachi was, became a weresnake a few months ago. How did you feel when you first realized that things were changing around you?”

“Didn’t notice at first,” Itachi replied, causing Alex to look at him in surprise as the weresnake shrugged. “To be fair I’m a bad example, I was in a pretty low place and didn’t even notice that I had changed in my apartment before I looked down and saw that I had scales all over my body. When I did finally leave I will admit I was overwhelmed, but it’s something that everyone down here can help you train to filter over time.”

“Filter over time huh, guess there’s no going back once you’ve become a werecreature?” Alex asked, the two shaking their heads. “Thought not…”

“What did you do before this, if I might ask?” Felix asked.

“I was a courier for the black market,” Alex explained. “That’s how I got bit, wrong place at the wrong time.”

“Oh hey, it fits then!” Felix said with a laugh as Alex looked at him in confusion. “You’re a regular alley cat, aren’t you?” Alex looked over at Itachi who just shook his head and the werefox just waved a bright red and white furred hand at him.

“Can I ask you guys something actually?” Alex said, the two nodding their heads and saying that’s what they were there for. “Do you know, well, can you tell me why some werecreature decided to bite me?”

“That’s a hard question to answer,” Itachi stated, his forked tongue flicking out. “Do you know what sort of werecreature attacked you?”

“No… they sort of took me by surprise and it was dark,” Alex admitted as he sat down next to them. “What’s strange is they killed my client and just left me alone, do you know why that would happen?”

“Ah, you got bit by a creature experiencing what Celeste calls the Beast’s Rage,” Felix explained. “That’s going to make it even harder since usually werecreatures that are seeing red, usually from someone that has hurt them or others, often lash out in a murderous rage at the person or persons that had so offended them just upon seeing them and usually don’t even remember doing it. It’s a hard thing to control and even those that have been doing this for years can sometimes succumb to the Beast’s Rage just like they might the Primal Panic.”

Alex found himself shaking his head, pressing his hands against his rounded ears as all these new terms swirled around his head. “Beast’s Rage, Primal Panic, all of this sounds more like I’ve just gotten cursed,” Alex said with a loud sigh. “Is there anything good about being a werecreature?”

“Well, you have enhanced reflexes and better senses,” Felix stated. “I know they seem like a bane now but once you tune them accordingly you can hear footsteps from three floors down or smell a hotdog from a mile away in downtown. Also being in prime physical shape doesn’t hurt and is the reason that a lot of us hang out down here, aside from the need to shed the human guise every once in a while, and once you control your wereform you can call on it to get yourself out of sticky situations.”

Though Felix continued to talk about the benefits of being a werecreature Alex just sighed and looked down at his hand, wondering if he was ever going to get used to it as they said. He didn’t want to have to train just so that he could walk down the street or keep his emotions in check, he just wanted to do his job and then go home to his apartment. As he flexed his fingers he began to see the fur on them shifting, then receding back to their normal state as the claws turned back into fingernails. When the other two saw him turning back to human they congratulated him on completing his first change, then looked away when Alex suddenly found himself naked and was bothered by that fact as the two told him where he could go to get a change of clothes and to go back topside if he wanted.

Alex could feel himself blushing as he ran his way through the tunnels towards the spot that they had talked about, sensing the werewolf woman that they told him to go to was currently at the shop. When he got there she gave him one look up and down before pulling a pair of sweats and a hoodie off the shelf and giving it to him, and though at first he thought that they were actually his it didn’t take long for him to notice that they were completely different and they didn’t smell like him. As he put the clothing on he found that his human frame had also put on a bit of muscle and even though he was still a bit wiry he wasn’t quite thin anymore. Once he was dressed he put his phone in his pocket and was about to leave when the werewolf called him back and explained that the clothing down here was his to keep but if he could wear it when he came back down then it can be exchanged.

Once more Alex found himself nodding his head, but as he went up the stairs and through the somewhat narrow set of utility tunnels what the wolfess had said had caused him to ponder. When he came back down… she said it as though it was a matter of fact, and as he ducked under a set of pipes he guessed that she would be right. There was no way that he was going to survive topside as they called it without some sort of help from those below, and even before he had completely emerged from the sanctuary he had found he could start to hear the sounds of the city above. Part of him contemplated going back down but as his phone caught a signal and he could hear it reverberating in his pocket he knew he had to take care of things in his life first.

******************************************************

Days turned to weeks and eventually the warmth of summer turned into the chill of autumn, and as Alex walked around his apartment in his underwear he adjusted the noise cancelling earplugs in his ears. They had been a gift from Felix as a means for him to get some relief without having to go all the way down to the catacombs, and they had been a godsend even with the progression of training that he had gotten from those that were there. Itachi had also been instrumental in helping him understand the nature of how being a werecreature worked, often spending hours with him holding him if he had accidently overdid it and went into Primal Panic or just patiently helping with his focusing skills so that he could shift without needing to be in an extreme emotional state. At one point the werecobra had even stayed over at his place for a month in order to help him with life topside, showing him tricks and tips to make sure that he could live as a human even though he wasn’t and it was getting to the point where he felt like he really could.

Though it had been hard going for a while in a matter of months he had gone from only being able to last for half a day before having to retreat back to shapeshifter’s paradise to having spent nearly a week at this point as he sat down in front of the sushi plate that he had come to enjoy. Just as he was about to dig in though he heard his phone ring and though the raw seafood was calling out to him and his stomach he answered it anyway. “Broker has a job for you,” Alex heard the voice say after he put the call through to his earbuds, balancing his chop sticks on the tips of his fingers. “This one is going to be a little bigger than your usual run, your earnings will be reflected in it though. Pick up the package from depot seven in one hour and take to the third floor of the Bastion Parking Garage.”

The message repeated one more before Alex acknowledged, then hung up before tossing one of the sushi rolls up in the air and catching it in his mouth. Depot seven was code for a dead drop in a specific area, but what really interested him was the drop off location. A parking garage was usually meant for couriers with cars or for highly sensitive exchanges, and since they hadn’t told him what he was transporting and he didn’t have a car he guessed it was the latter of the two options. He quickly scarfed down the rest of the sushi and then put his earbuds away, flinching slightly as the sounds of the city returned to his sensitive hearing before he went through the door to see what it was he was transporting.

Two hours later Alex stood on the third floor of the Bastion Parking Garage holding a metal box the size of a microwave in front of him. It was quite heavy and he surmised that if he wasn’t a werecreature he would probably have it set down in front of him, but instead he just continued to keep it with him as he waited for the car to arrive. Though it was hard to check the time he managed to look at his watch and saw that it was already a few minutes passed the scheduled exchange, but just as he was about to call in on the delay he saw a pair of headlights come up towards him. He continued to wait near the stairwell until he saw the car flash his headlights twice, pause, and then flash them once more in order to indicate the package was for them.

As soon as Alex walked over several men got out of the vehicle as well, one of them dressed in a nice suit and wearing a pair of sunglasses despite it being night out while the others were clearly bodyguards from the way they dressed to the way they acted. “You must be the courier,” the man in the suit said as he flashed him a smile. “Go ahead and put it in the trunk, we can do the exchange there.”

“You got it,” Alex said confidently, moving over with the others to the trunk as it popped open. As he was about to put it in the bodyguard stopped him and said that he had to secure it, which caused Alex to shrug and hand it to him. He had to resist smirking as he saw the bigger man get pulled down by the weight of the package, then looked at him before examining it and putting it into the trunk. “Alright, I’m sure the deal was explained to you and that the case will open an hour after we part ways.”

“Actually we won’t be parting ways at all,” the man said as he adjusted his suit. “Since we need to bring you and the case to the one this was actually intended to go to in order to open it.”

As the bodyguard that had gotten behind him to hit him in the back of the head with a sap Alex had been ready, twisting his body and grabbing the wrist with his hand while bringing his foot smashing into their knee with a sickening crack. When he had walked over he had smelled blood on the man in the suit and one of his bodyguards as he passed by, and when he had turned away to hand the box to the other guard he had sensed someone come into his awareness of his blind spot. Plus there had been something about the guy in the suit that had rubbed him the wrong way, something about his cocky and arrogant attitude that didn’t fit the usual purchaser of black market information. All that added up to the potential of betrayal, which had him hone in and hear the sound of the sap being pulled out of the bodyguard’s pocket and the feel of air displacement behind his back that told him of the incoming strike.

After disarming the bodyguard and sending him to the ground he took the sap he had just taken and threw it at the one furthest from him, smashing him in the face while the other two were still too stunned to react. The bodyguard snapped out of it and approached him first but Alex already had a hand on the metal box and whipped it around to hit him square in the chest, hearing ribs fracture before he turned to face the guy in the suit. It was clear this one wasn’t a fighter from his posture alone, and as he narrowed his eyes at him there was also the presence of the very strong odor of urine that came from him. He just smirked at the guy and pushed him to the ground, sneering at him as he fished around in the man’s pockets before he found a cell phone that he took with him.

With the case under his arm Alex was about to go down the parking garage when he stopped, his ears twitching when he heard the sound of several sets of footsteps coming up that were likely reinforcements activated in some manner. As he looked upwards he knew that going to the roof wouldn’t help him, instead he needed to get down as soon as possible. All he had to do for the moment was get down one floor where they wouldn’t expect him to be, and that gave him an idea as he reached out and grabbed the imposter’s tie and ran with him towards the edge of the parking garage. Though the man’s screaming rang in his ears and caused him to flinch he continued towards the edge before jumping off, feeling the man instinctively grab onto the railing which anchored him and caused Alex to swing back a few feet below so that he could roll back through the opening on the second level of the parking garage with case in hand.

Alex could still hear the man coughing from being briefly choked but the werepanther didn’t have time for that, especially as he heard the other men burst in through the door a floor above them. He wasn’t sure that they had men on the ground floor but that didn’t matter to him as he ran over to the other side of the garage towards a large tree whose branches he could see from where he had landed. His teeth grew into fangs and more importantly his hands and feet grew claws, feeling them burst out of the fronts of his shoes as he ran forward before leaping into the air. Anyone who would have been looking below would have seen a man getting catapulted through the air before he landed in the branches, then used his claws to dig into the wood so he could quickly lower himself down to the ground.

“Sorry guys,” Alex said with a grin as he ran off towards one of the nearby alleys as soon as his feet had hit the ground. “This is one cat that won’t be found stuck in a tree.”

A few hours later Alex raced excitedly down the stairs, his furry body streaking across as he took the clothing he had worn and tossed it at the wolfess as he passed by. He knew exactly where Felix was and he couldn’t wait to tell him the news. The Broker had been so pleased not only with him keeping the information out of the wrong hands but also providing the means to find the captured client that he was getting a promotion, which in the black market world meant riskier assignments but much better payouts. When the werepanther got to the area where the werefox was however he skidded to a stop as he saw him laying on one of the tables reading a book, his legs hanging over the side of the table as Alex thought of a new way to celebrate.

He was going to fuck that fox.

Almost immediately the werepanther entered into stealth mode, slowly making his way towards the table without alerting the other man to his presence. He could feel his tail twitching behind him as he tried not to make a sound, hoping that the book distracted the werefox enough that he wouldn’t sense the presence of another coming up on him. By the time he had gotten only a few inches away he felt his maleness jutting straight out, reading to plunge it into the tailhole of the red-furred and well-toned creature in front of him. Just as he was about to pounce however he suddenly felt himself get lifted off of his feet, letting out a yelp as a pair of muscular scaly arms pressed against him.

“Got you,” the werecobra hissed in his ear as he nuzzled his serpentine snout against him.

“Oh come on Itachi!” Alex yowled as he squirmed, trying to get out of the other man’s grasp as Felix tossed his book aside to see what was going on. “I could have been three inches deep before he even knew that I had gotten him.”

“Sorry to spoil your fun,” Itachi replied. “If you want you can probably still have him if you ask nicely, he does read his books that way for a reason. But since I captured you I think that it’s only fair that I get yours while you get his.”

“So you’re telling me that I need a hot, hunky cobra to ravage me from behind so that I can do the same to a equally hot twink fox?” Alex stated, the two chuckling and nodding as the werepanther brought up a furred hand to stroke the cobra’s face. “Well when you put it that way, I don’t see how I can refuse.”

Itachi nodded and let Alex back down on his feet and allowed the feline to get between the fox’s legs as he stroked up and down Felix’s fur. “Look at this one,” the werefox said as he Alex began to move forward, pressing his own cock against the one jutting up from the vulpine’s groin and causing them both to moan slightly. “A few months ago this one thought that this body of his was a curse and would nearly be in Primal Panic each time he came back down, now he’s practically racing here in order to be a werepanther with us.”

“That’s not the only reason that I came down here like that,” Alex replied as he finished frotting and lowered his shaft down, poking the tip against the werefox’s pucker while also rubbing his hands up and down the white fur covered chest of the other male. “But you’re right, I have definitely had a change of heart about what’s happened to me. While I wish I had some say in the matter I’m glad that I got to be a werepanther, especially since it saved my life today and got me a promotion.”

This piqued the interest of the other two, even Felix as his back arched slightly from getting spread open by the man standing between his legs, and Alex told them the story of how he used his new abilities to prevent himself from being ambushed and escaping successfully. While he recounted the details he continued to bury his cock inside of the squirming fox, stopping every once in a while when he felt the vulpine clamp down on his member and nearly caused him to lose it right at that moment. Eventually he managed to get to a rhythm of smooth, even strokes of his hips to pump into Felix, but just as he did he felt the werecobra come up behind him with a throbbing member pressed up against his back. Though he tried not to break his stride it didn’t help when the thick, girthy cock of the muscular man pressed up against his backside and Itachi held it there so his thrusts were causing him to impale himself on the shaft of the cobra behind him.

Alex did manage to get all the way through his story and the two offered their congratulations before their conversation devolved into increasingly rough rutting, the table shifting underneath the werefox as the werepanther plowed into him while the werecobra started to do the same. Soon Itachi had pushed so far in that Alex couldn’t help but hilt the other man every time that he thrusted, unable to go much further back before his own furry rear pressed up against the scaled thighs of the other man. Once more the feline felt those strong hands massage up against his pectorals and chest while his own had one hand doing the same to Felix while the other stroked the exposed cock with the other. But the feeling of being between two guys quickly drove Alex to the point of no return and he orgasmed, falling forward and letting out a loud roar as he felt Felix’s body tense up underneath him before he shot his own load.

Itachi wasn’t far behind and soon Alex found himself pinned, the heavy body of the werecobra against him and feeling those thick pectorals and washboard abs brushed up against his furry back even after he had been filled. Despite orgasming the two continued to occasionally hump and thrust into one another until finally they had calmed down enough to pull themselves apart, though the feeling of their mutual climax lingered as they walked over towards the baths that used to be part of an old set of reservoirs before they were remodeled to serve the purposes of the werecreatures that used them. With no forethought to towels or anything they had to make their way with the evidence of their encounter on them and more than once they passed a werewolf that suddenly turned towards them with an eager tail wag or twitch of their cocks before they passed. When the three got to the baths they found that there were enough available that were side by side they could use to clean themselves up.

“Ahh… what a life,” Felix commented as he sank down into the hot water while the others quickly followed suit. “And to think, if I hadn’t went out to investigate the strange noise in my barn I might have missed all this.” Alex just nodded as he sank down to his head, letting his fur shift in the lazy eddies of the bath while letting his muscles relax before he saw that the werefox was looking over at him. “I know that yours wasn’t as fun an encounter, but I suppose we should thank the werecreature that was going after your client.”

“That is true,” Alex replied, splashing his hands in the water. “I guess if I hadn’t been attacked back then I wouldn’t be alive here today, much less hanging out with you guys. So sure, why not give him a thanks.”

Alex heard Felix let out a slight cheer and as a silence settled in between the three he slowly allowed himself float to the surface before he heard Itachi speak. “So if you would thank the werecreature that did this to you,” Itachi said, both Alex and Felix sitting back up to see the werecobra sitting there looking down in the water. “That would mean that you’d probably forgive them, right? Forgive them for attacking you and making you this way, for letting their anger get the better of them?”

“Itachi… what are you saying…” Alex said as he went to the side of the bath, seeing the werecobra start to sink slightly in the bath as his and Felix’s eyes went wide with shock. “It was you? You were the one that bit me all those months ago? You turned me into this?”

“It was not on purpose, I assure you of that,” Itachi quickly replied. “The client that you were seeing on that night was someone that had killed my family because I had interfered in his business. You may have thought that he was just a drug smuggler and seller but the way he got those drugs in was through human trafficking, he used to call it a two for one deal. He was an extremely odious man and I wanted to make his life miserable, so I moved to the city where he was headquartered and tried to find out how to hurt him… but then as I was trying to scout an empty building of his I had gotten bit by a werecreature who was in the Primal Panic.”

“So you were the person that was stalking him,” Alex said. “Did you know that I was the one that you bit?”

“No,” Itachi replied as the werecobra shook his scaly head. “I wanted that man to suffer, but as I was tailing him that night to see if I could intercept the data he was trying to get I had looked over a rooftop and saw him there, talking and chatting to you like nothing had even happened. After that I don’t remember what happened and likely went into the Beast’s Rage, it wasn’t until I had reverted back to my human form the next day and saw that he was dead on the news did I realize what I had done.”

“But Itachi…” Felix chimed in. “When Alex came a few days later after his primal panic and told us his story, you had to have known what you did.” The werecobra once more lowered his head and the werepanther guessed that if he could have he would have went straight to the bottom of the bath in the hopes of avoiding the question.

Finally after a little more prodding from the werefox Itachi began to speak once more. “Of course I knew that I had accidently turned Alex,” the werecobra admitted. “But when he told me that he thought he had been cursed I couldn’t bring myself to say that I had been the one who stole his life from him. That’s also why I vowed to try and ease his transition into this new life as best I could, and maybe one day I would hear him say that he didn’t mind being a werecreature so I could finally get this guilt off of my chest.”

As Itachi continued to sit there in the bath, the surface of the water disturbed only by a few droplets of water that came from the serpentine snout above, the werecobra was suddenly surprise to see waves being produced by the werepanther that slid down into the tub with him. “I can understand why you didn’t tell me,” Alex said as he reached over and grabbed the cobra’s hands. “And thanks to Archon and Celeste I also know that the Beast’s Rage is a very real thing when they induced it in me, which meant more time in that bondage rack of theirs, but the point is that you didn’t know what you were doing and in all honesty you could have killed me instead of just biting me to push me out of the way of your target.”

“It still doesn’t make what I did right,” Itachi said as he felt a pair of hands on his shoulders and looked up to see that Felix had gotten behind him. “Look at this, you two are here comforting me when it’s Alex that we should be doting on right now.”

“Hey, I gave up my animosity for whoever bit me a long time ago,” Alex replied with a grin. “And with what just happened recently I know exactly what I want to say to the person that made me into a werecreature.” Alex pulled the muscular creature close until their muzzles were only a few inches away from one another. “Thank you.”

Itachi responded by pressing their lips together, Alex splashing as he was pushed underneath the water by the force of the kiss before the werecobra finally pulled back. “Well, I think that we have more than one thing to celebrate,” Felix said as Alex gasped and scrambled to the side, water dripping down his fur as he panted while the werecobra grinned sheepishly. “Why don’t we go topside and get something to eat? My treat.”

That was more than enough to turn the mood around as once more Alex was nearly pushed under as the werecobra pulled himself out of the bath, the werepanther doing the same once the water had gotten settled once more. After a few minutes of toweling off the three returned back to their human forms, which despite having seen them before as they had shifted in front of one another numerous times Alex still couldn’t quite get used to. It was the same for anyone that he saw topside; at this point he could almost see them in their wereforms even when they walked around as a human and it made him wonder if they could do the same for them. He supposed he would have all the time in the world to figure it out as they got back to the clothing check and put on a street outfit for each of them before heading up from shapeshifter’s paradise to the city above.

When the three got on the street the crowds had started to thin, which was just fine for the three werecreatures. “So where are we eating?” Itachi asked as he adjusted his baseball cap while the smaller man next to him adjusted his shirt. “I am starving.”

“You’re always starving,” Felix said with a chuckle. “Come on, let’s go to the restaurant that I work at, I’m sure I can sneak us in a table.”

“Whoa,” Alex said. “You work at a restaurant?”

“Yeah, didn’t I ever tell you that?” Felix said as they began to walk down the street. “I’ve been working there for a while as a pastry chef, not to brag but I like to think that I put the place on the map.”

“Huh, a fox in a kitchen,” Itachi stated. “Isn’t that a movie?”

“That’s a mouse,” Felix scoffed.

As the three continued to walk Alex found himself falling back as they passed by an alley, the same one where that fateful night a few months ago where he had technically met Itachi for the first time. Before that point he thought that the city never changed, that he was going to be where he was for the rest of his life and there was nothing that he could do to change it. But as he thought about that night and mentally saw the werecobra biting down on him, pushing him on a different path without realizing it, he found out that there’s actually a lot of changes that go on within its streets. Most of them were underground, but for tonight he knew of a couple party animals that were ready to tear things up topside as he ran to catch up with the two.