Dog Days

Part 2

The older male human was probably my least favorite person in the world. Granted, my human circle consisted of the family and their pack so it was a small group to pick from. Of all the humans, he smelled the worst. And he hit, often.

He grabbed me by my collar and pushed me down the basement steps, locking my lead to a hook that was sunk into the concrete wall of the small basement.

"Keep that trap shut. I'll know if you so much as make a peep," he growled in my face.

The stench of his breath made me sneeze. I sunk down on my haunches and cowered, worried he would use those steel toed boots on my ribs again. A swift kick from the older male was pretty common. Instead, he sneered and barged back up the stairs. The thick wooden door closed with an ominous thud.

I cringed as each little metallic click signaled another lock sliding home.

If I could have, I would have whined, but that would just bring him and his boots back. I had all but accepted my fate. I simply hunkered down on the floor, my head on my paws, and waited for the sunrise.

*****

It always happened while I slept—the transformation—and I woke up with a jolt as the metal tongs of my pinch collar bit into the thinner skin of my human neck. I shivered uncontrollably from sleeping on the concrete floor, whereas my canine body usually protected me from the worst of the cold.

The headache came next. Like ice picks digging into my brain. The worst part? That was when the memories came back. Slowly at first, like a trickle of water from a faucet. Simple things like my mother's face, or the feel of her arms around me. But then everything else came rushing in. Years of being forced to stay in my canine form, the muddy feeling of my thoughts as I was cursed to be simply a dog. And then the Dolcettas. The stench of their black magic was all over the house, and had been all over my skin since they had trapped me.

I suppressed a cry as my jerky movement made the collar tighten even further around my throat. The chain hooked to the wall hung heavily, and reached far enough that I could just get to the small toilet in one corner, and the moldy cot in the other. But I couldn't reach even halfway up the stairs. The door was locked anyhow.

I slumped down on the little cot, which was only mildly better than laying on the concrete floor. The cot reeked of old sweat and hopelessness. Sadly, I couldn't say it was the worst place I had slept. The Dolcetta family had kept me prisoner for more years than I could count. Some generations would let me out on Halloween, just to see if I would come back. An entirely different form of torture to being chained in a dank basement every year.

But I came back. I always came back.

Their magic ensured it. If I couldn't find and claim my fated mate on All Hallows Eve, I was destined to return to my pitbull form forever. And the curse forced me to return to the Dolcetta's servitude.

I had long since lost hope of ever finding her. If she had ever existed, she was long dead. And I would be stuck at the age of twenty two for eternity, cursed to be the pet of a lineage of evil and murderous witches.

The scent of magic filtered down into my prison as I lay on my cot, hands clasped behind my head. The parents were gone, the only ones who could be casting was the twins but they rarely cast.

I rolled to my feet and stretched my leash as far as I could up the stairs but all I could hear was the murmur of voices above. For the first time in a very long life, I was actually sad that I didn't have my dog ears. And then the voices stopped.

Floorboards creaked, the twins footsteps bringing them right up to the basement door. The click of keys in the lock nearly pulled a whine from my throat. My humans were going to be fried for this. I was not to be let out!

"Fuck." James grunted as he put his shoulder to the door. "Dad used stronger magic this year."

"Clearly he suspects something," Emma grumbled.

"Yeah, well he wouldn't suspect anything if you would shut up about the god damned Peace Corps." James rammed his shoulder into the door again, the frame shook, but the door didn't budge. "We're supposed to be joining the Death Eaters next year, not feeding hungry kids in Africa."

"I'm sure if I was inclined to join Voldemort and his harem of evil bitches, I could find a way to do both." I could hear the twins started chanting again. My latin was pretty rusty, but I knew a spell when I heard one. Magic built behind the door, the pressure weighing me down as it gained strength.

The door clicked open.

"Hurry." Emma all but fell down the stairs as she tripped past me going for the hook that held me fast into place. "Fuck, people are going to be here in like ten minutes and Hunter is still fucking buck ass naked."

"Cover your dick man." James rolled his eyes and threw a pair of jeans at me. "Emma doesn't need to see that. She'll think her newest boyfriend is inadequate."

"Ben has a perfectly nice cock," she mumbled as she held her hands over the hook that held me fast to the wall. "I'm going to need you for this one, too."

Emma pulled me into a brief hug and planted a kiss on my cheek. "It's nice to see you without a tail, Hunt."

I cleared my throat. It had been years since I had used my human vocal cords.

"What the hell are you doing?" My voice broke and cracked, and I looked over to the water dish the Dolcetta's had left me. I shuddered. Yeah, I wasn't drinking out of that bowl. Bitch had probably laced it with something nasty just to taunt me in her absence. "Do you have any idea how much trouble you'll be in if they find out you set me free?"

"Not nearly as much as when the 'rents get home and realize that not only is their precious pitbull forever human again but their prodigy kids have set a trap for them. Three times three, mother fuckers." James crowed. The press of magic rolled through the basement and then the hook fell out of the wall. "The moment they cross back onto the property, all the magic they have pushed on you for the past forty years? It's gonna come back to them. And you and I both know that Karma's the biggest bitch of all. We made some friends since being away at school, Hunt."

He winked and pressed his finger to the side of his nose. Fuck.

"My mate's long dead," I mumbled, letting Emma unhook the pinch collar from my neck before rubbing at the scars it had left.

"Magic, my main man." James slapped me on the back and handed me a shirt. "Come on, people are going to be here any minute."