His Wolf

One

I OWN ALL RIGHTS, PLEASE DO NOT COPY OR STEAL, A/N AT END OF CHAPTER 10.

The sound of the cage being opened had my ears perking up. My ribs, that were jutting from my side, were pressed tightly against the bars, my spine was rubbing uncomfortably against the top of the cage, my legs folded in odd angles underneath me.

I didn't dare to raise my head and meet the eyes of my handler. I flattened my ears and waited as he roughly grabbed my metal collar and pulled me part ways out of my cage, my matted fur getting snagged in loose wires around it, before attaching a chain-link leash to the ring on the back.

Once clipped, he gave a quick jerk of the chain and patted the side of his leg.

"Let's go, mutt." He began walking and I followed two paces behind like I was trained to do, my head still lowered and eyes on the ground. There is a lot of noise going on. Metal clanking and things welding. It all got louder as I was up from the basement where I was kept. I wasn't too sure what the people were saying, for I didn't understand them. I have learned a few words and what they mean, but conversations cause my mind to become lost. I was pulled roughly into the shoot that was as narrow, if not more, as my cage, the chicken wire keeping in place as my handler took off the leash and slammed the metal gate closed behind me. I was getting restless as the crowd began to get ready for what was about to come. My flattened ears twitched as my top lip pulled back in a snarl, my hackles rising as the announcer introduced me. Undefeated and completely feral, the mutt from down under, whose bones are laced with the blood of the dead. Yeah, that was me. And I ached to taste the blood of the poor soul who had to fight me.

The metal wall in front of me jerked open, but unlike my competitor, I did not charge headfirst into the opening having learned that it does you no good long ago. Instead, I casually stalked out of the cramped space, my canines now on full display as my growling became louder, echoing the chanting of the crowd. The dumb dog I was fighting sprung at me once his eyes landed on my form, not realizing that he had already lost the second his owner agreed to the fight. Lunging for my neck, I took a step back causing him to crash into the cement flooring. He quickly scurried up to his feet, slipping on the spilled blood from the last fight, taking my opportunity as his back paw slipped out from uber him, I lunged forward and clamped my jaws around his back leg, his yelp filling my ears, drowning out the shouts of the people watching.

I took the moment to crunch down on the bone, snapping it. I let go as his teeth came an inch away from my flank. Jumping back I sidestepped to the other side and lunged before he could turn back around, my teeth finding a new home under the dog's scruff and held fast as he tried to shake me free, his blood pooling into my mouth, only driving me to sink them further into his skin. I heard something pop and suddenly he was shaking with forced breathing, collapsing and hanging lip in my jaws as I gave him one hard jerk, ripping out his throat.

The crowd went beserk, but I was only focused on the blood dripping from my muzzle and the taste of it on my tongue. A sharp while came from the side of the door I had been forced into before the fight. My attention immediately when to it, the corps of the dog forgotten and I hung my head low and made my way back to my handler. I reentered the chute as I had been trained to do and listened as the door to the arena closed behind me. My handler re-clipped the leash onto my collar and lead me back to my cage without a word and he didn't need to say a thing, I had done this so many times for so long I know when the lights are about to flicker or how long it takes for the drop off the water that always falls from the ceiling when it rains to hit the ground. Winning means I eat. So that's what happened.

Half a cup of dog food isn't close to enough to fill me, but it was all I was permitted, my water stagnant and old, but at least I had it, even if the bowl did take up precious room in my cage.

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Something was different today. My handler was meaner than usual. He usually didn't care if I zoned out while we were walking to the arena but today he got angry and yanked me down a different path and into a room I was all too familiar with. I started to whine in fear, all of my training has happened here. I got a kick in the ribs for that and many others until he was satisfied that I had learned my lesson.

When we started to make our way back to the arena, the crowd was not happy that we're late, but we still made it in time before the doors opened. My ribs hurt from earlier, but that did not stop me from killing the foolish dog that tried to beat me, by bit my tail. While I was busy finishing him off, his throat in my jaws I looked up in the crowd, something that I never did, and caught the grey eyes of a man with a deep frown on his face as he watched me with seemed to be sadness in his eyes, but I paid no mind, thinking that maybe the blood that was currently coating my fur was from his dog that I had just killed. My handler whistled and I went obediently without a second thought, like always, but I did not get feed since he was still mad at me for this morning. I laid my head on my paws, thinking that my day was over, only to be proven wrong when my handler came back, another man behind him as he put my leash on and started to walk me back to that room. That was when I realized the other man was a trainer. I don't know how I didn't recognize it before, but the moment I caught his sent I knew it the same one that had trained me in this very room, long ago, from while I was still a pup and onward.

I hunkered down in fear as we passed through the door, the trainer kicking me hard in my hindquarters as he walked in behind me. I quickly tried to scurry out of his reach by going to a corner, but my trainer pulled me back with a sharp pull of the leash.

"See what I mean? She is forgetting her place." my handler said. I whined as the trainer picked up a whip from the wall and turned to look at me as I made to mistake of making eye-contact.

"Chain her to the wall and leave us. I will make sure she remembers who she belongs to," my handler did as he was told and in the next minute it was just me, chained to the wall and him with an evil smirk on his face, whip raised, "get ready for a beating of a lifetime mutt, I have been waiting for this for a long time." I shrunk down to the ground and started shaking with fear as he rolled up his sleeves, his right arm decorated in ragged scares, caused by your truly. Then the first strike came.