Fur Bound

The first thing I learned in this world was that my name didn't matter. The second was that my body did.

I woke up on a floor of polished obsidian, naked except for a leather collar buckled snug around my throat. My head throbbed. The last thing I remembered was the screech of tires, the wet crack of metal against metal, and then nothing. Now I was here, wherever here was, staring up at a ceiling so high it dissolved into shadow.

"You're awake. Good."

The voice came from somewhere above me. I pushed myself onto my elbows. A woman sat on a curved sofa upholstered in deep crimson, one leg crossed over the other, watching me the way a farmer watches a new calf stumble to its feet. She was tall even sitting down, with broad shoulders and arms roped with muscle under sleek gray fur. A wolf, I realized. Not a costume. Not a dream. Her ears twitched once, tracking the sound of my breathing.

"Where am I?" My voice came out rough, like I hadn't used it in days.

"You're in my home." She uncrossed her legs and leaned forward, elbows on her knees. "And you belong to me now. That collar means you're registered property. Try to take it off and it'll shock you unconscious. Try to run and the same thing happens. So let's skip the part where you panic and I have to sedate you. I've had a long week."

I sat up fully. The room was enormous, all dark wood and soft amber light. Through a tall window I could see a city sprawled under a violet sky, its towers curved and organic, like something grown instead of built. Creatures moved along elevated walkways. Fur, feathers, scales. All of them female, from what I could tell. All of them bigger than me.

"I don't understand," I said.

"You will." She stood and crossed the room in three long strides. Up close she was enormous, easily six and a half feet, and when she crouched in front of me her breath was warm and smelled faintly of cinnamon. "You're a male. Human, by the look of you. That makes you rare. It also makes you valuable. And in this city, valuable things get owned." She tilted my chin up with one clawed finger. "I'm Kira. You'll call me Mistress. Nod if you understand."

I nodded. My heart hammered against my ribs.

"Good boy."

The words landed somewhere low in my stomach, and I hated how they made me feel. Not fear. Something warmer and more humiliating.

---

The next few days blurred together. Kira kept me in a small room off her bedroom, with a mattress on the floor and a window that didn't open. She fed me twice a day, plain food on a ceramic plate, and she watched me eat. Always watched. Like she was checking for something. Obedience, maybe. Or just the simple pleasure of seeing a thing she owned function properly.

On the fourth day, she brought a guest.

"Lira," Kira said, gesturing at the fox woman who followed her in. "My sister. She's curious about you."

Lira was shorter than Kira but still taller than me, with rust-colored fur and a tail that swished lazily behind her. She circled me where I knelt on the floor, which was where Kira had told me to stay. Her nostrils flared.

"He smells afraid," Lira said. "And something else."

"They all do at first."

Lira stopped in front of me and crouched. Her eyes were green and slit-pupiled, and they didn't blink. "Does he talk?"

"When I allow it."

"Allow it now."

Kira shrugged and looked at me. "Answer her."

"What do you want to know?" I asked.

Lira's ears perked. "There it is. That voice. So soft." She reached out and ran a finger down my chest, between my collarbones, slow. "You're right, sister. He's pretty. Small, but pretty."

"Small is the point," Kira said. "Small and soft and easy to handle. Do you want a turn?"

My stomach dropped.

"Not yet." Lira stood and stretched, her tail curling. "I'll come back when I have more time. Don't break him before then."

"I never break them. I just teach them."

They talked about me like I wasn't in the room. And I wasn't, not really. I was furniture. A decoration. Something to be passed around and discussed and used.

That night Kira came to my room. She didn't knock. She never knocked. She stood in the doorway with the light behind her, and I could see the outline of her body through the thin fabric of her robe.

"On the bed," she said.

I obeyed. The mattress was thin and the floor was hard underneath it, but I lay on my back and stared at the ceiling and tried to breathe.

She straddled me. Her weight pressed me into the mattress, and her hands found my wrists and pinned them above my head. One hand held both of mine easily. The other traveled down my chest, my stomach, lower.

"You're hard," she observed. "Interesting. I thought you'd need more time."

I didn't answer. I couldn't.

"Don't be ashamed." Her voice dropped, softer now, almost kind. "This is what you're for. This is what you're good at. There's no shame in being useful." Her hand closed around me and I gasped. "There. See? You're already learning."

She worked me slowly, methodically, like she was checking boxes on a list. And I hated her for it. I hated her and I wanted her and I couldn't tell the difference anymore.

When I finished, she wiped her hand on the sheet and stood up.

"Good boy," she said again. "Tomorrow you start earning your keep."

She left. I lay there in the dark, sticky and shaking, and I thought about my mother. About my sister. About the life I'd had before the crash, the one where I was a person with a name and a future and a reason to get up in the morning.

I didn't cry. I wanted to, but I didn't. Because somewhere under the shame and the fear and the horrible warmth still pooling in my gut, something else was stirring. Something that wanted to know what came next.

And that scared me more than Kira did.