Familiar Pact

1. Trapped

The cage shook and rattled above him as Beater roused all the creatures trapped within. David always hoped that the rough treatment would crack the cages but they were sturdily built. The metal baseball bat Beater wielded screeched on the bars above him, the sound assaulting his sensitive ears in his panther form. This time he managed to stop himself from whining, or making any sound at all. Better to not give Beater a chance to take out his anger on him. Maybe the cages would be the only sufferers of his temper today. They at least didn't feel pain.

David sighed and rested his head on his paws. He was at the back of the lorry so it would take a while for the attendants to feed him. Scammer had offered to make him an attendant once. He'd spat in her face at the time. It had only been a week after his capture but it had been long enough to know that being an attendant would be selling his body for better living conditions. He might be a slave, but he wasn't going to shift into his human side just so they could rape him. He could live with the shitty food, the closed in cage that meant he couldn't stretch and the living as an animal all the time. Back then he'd also still held onto the idea that he might escape. It had almost been a year since and that idea had become a distant dream he no longer dared plan for. He chewed over the last bit of hope in his mind like an old bone, not quite willing to put it in the trash.

The attendant today was a zebra shifter who he knew as Oreo. He'd was a relatively new addition, captured six months back, but had only caved a week ago to becoming an attendant. His condition now reaffirmed David's decision to stay as a panther; even if it meant never being able to talk again, and having to stand around in his own piss until they hosed him down. Oreo was naked apart from his collar, his dick limp in the cool morning, his back striped in red welts that hadn't been there last week.

Beater slapped his ass, hard, as Oreo passed him with kibble for David and the other large cats. He watched as Oreo fell, almost in slow motion, spilling the food. The cages seemed to fall silent, with only the gentle pattering of the bags contents as they spread across the floor. Oreo whimpered. Beater grinned.

Damn.

That meant there probably wasn't going to be food this morning.

Beater followed up with a kick to Oreo's back, sending him sprawling on the floor.

"Master, I'm sorry, so sorry... please don't hurt me, please Master"

Oreo hadn't learned not to beg yet. Beaters smirk only grew bigger.

"Oh trust me, you're going to be even sorrier when I'm done with you. I saw you trying to flirt with me as you did your chores. That coy little pout and the way you were shaking your ass at me at you bent over. You want this you little whore! But you need to learn your place, and you need to earn your keep without making more of a mess for the rest of us to clean up"

The only truth in that was that Oreo was going to be sorrier. But the truth, the law, even basic human rights didn't matter here. Heck, even decent animal rights would be an improvement.

"No, no, noooo... please Master" Oreo was still whimpering on the floor.

A year ago, David would have been howling and beating at the cage with his paws, shaking the metal with his outrage. He would have earned a beating and no food for three days. The scars still showed. Eight months ago he would have hissed from the back of his cage. He would have screamed when the shock collar went off. Today he just blinked, a silent witness to the cruelty. He hated himself for it, but the shame was squashed under fear and conditioning. Hope dimmed again in his heart. Perhaps the only escape was death.

Dull thumps beat rhythmically as the metal bat hit flesh. Oreo's whimpers rose to screams, his back arching in pain. Limbs scrabbling in the dust and kibble as a staccato undertone. The first act ended. Hopefully the second, the rape, would be out of his sight.