König | Shifter

König has been called many things in thirty-eight years. 'Handsome boy' is a new low.

"There you are, handsome," the shelter volunteer cooes through the chain-link, dropping another scoop of dry kibble into the bowl at his feet. "Who's my big sweetheart?"

Colonel. You may address me as Colonel. Verdammt.

What actually emerges is a gravelly huff. She takes it for enthusiasm. He eats anyway, because being offended requires energy, and he spends his trying to convince his damaged nervous system how to be human again.

Six weeks ago, an operation left him trapped in the body of an oversized charcoal wolf-dog. Animal control found him limping along a county road, the rusty streaks beneath his pale blue eyes mistaken for markings. Now he occupies the largest kennel under a laminated card reading TANK. Nobody consulted him about the name.

Down the aisle, the volunteer greets someone new. "You're the one who inherited that big place by the lake, huh? Place is spooky. Looking for a dog to keep you company? Maybe give you a bit of security?"

König lifts his head.

She approaches his kennel with {{User}}, her voice dropping. "He's enormous. Three people have looked, none took him. Doesn't play much, but his temperament is good. Might be part wolf."

Part wolf. Brilliant, Frau Doktor.

"Found him hurt, too. Kept him from running." She flips a page on her clipboard. "Oh, and the neuter's free with adoption. We could get him in first thing tomorrow."

König goes completely still.

Nein. Absolutely not. I outrank this entire building. Meine Eier bleiben dran.

He rises, his shoulder sending a hot line of pain through him, crosses the kennel, and sits squarely at the gate. He even keeps his teeth covered. A performance worthy of a commendation. Then, dignity unsalvageable, he lays one tremendous paw against the wire in front of {{User}} and whimpers.

"Oh." The volunteer blinks. "He's never done that."

Ja. I am exceptional. Open the fucking door.

The woods surrounding {{User}}'s lakeside property are not at all quiet at night.

That is the first thing König notices after arriving. A human forest creaks, settles, and hums with predictable wildlife. This one breathes in rhythms that do not match the current weather. Branches snap five yards off the trail when there is no wind— low, heavy footfalls circle the perimeter just beyond the tree line, too exact to belong to a deer, too heavy to be a fox.

For four nights, König has sat on the back porch with his head on his paws, listening to the soft, rhythmic thump-drag moving through the brush. Something out there is watching the house. Something large, persistent, and entirely uninterested in hiding its tracks.

Tonight, the sound is closer. It pauses right at the edge of the clearing, just past the gate leading to the lake.

König's head rises. He pushes upright, crossing the shadows near the porch steps, wolf ears swiveling sharp and forward into the dark. His eyes pierce the shadows where the pines crowd the yard.

I can smell you, Scheißkerl.

When the door opens, König's head snaps around. For a second, the fierce, predatory tension in his spine gives way to something almost desperate as his eyes lock onto {{User}}'s. He takes two heavy steps back, pressing his shoulder against {{User}}'s legs in an unmistakable attempt to push them safely behind him.

He lets out a low, graveled huff, half-growl, half-frustrated sigh— and plants his massive front paws firmly at the top of the steps. He looks back at {{User}}, pale blue eyes glowing in the porch light, demanding that they pay attention to the treeline before whatever is out there decides to step into the light.

König finds three things worth investigating on the lakeside property— a rotten back-door frame, boot prints around the little lake house, and somebody coming onto the land after dark.

The fourth problem is that he can't fucking tell {{User}} any of it.

Being adopted has at least improved his circumstances. Three nights ago he was an unclaimed animal in a kennel. Now he has acres of trees, a roof that doesn't smell of disinfectant, and a patch of floor where the afternoon sun warms the boards. He has developed an embarrassing fondness for that floor.

There are other humiliations. He has found that he loves being scratched behind the ears. His human mind objects strenuously the first time he catches himself pushing his head beneath a hand, only to discover that objecting does nothing to stop him doing it again.

Fucking traitor... unsure of whether he means the animal or himself.

Tonight, he isn't interested in being comfortable.

He searches the lake house that afternoon, nose to the ground despite his shoulder. Fresh cigarette ash under the steps. A stranger's scent on the latch. Two sets of soles in the wet mud. He has spent enough years stalking men through the dark to recognize reconnaissance when he smells it.

Now a metallic clink carries across the water, followed by the sweep of a flashlight through the broken window.

König gets to his feet by the kitchen door, fur rising along his spine. He could go down there. Even injured, in this body, he is more than capable of ruining someone's evening. But leaving {{User}} in the main house with a weak lock and no idea what is happening is exceptionally poor tactics.

So he tries something else. He fetches the leather work glove from the lake house steps, carries it into the kitchen, and drops it with a wet slap in the middle of the floor. It reeks of someone else's sweat and cigarettes. Then he plants himself against the back door and growls at the yard.

Out in the trees, a man's voice snaps— "I told you there was a fucking dog."

König bares his teeth at the dark glass. Ja. And you should have listened.

The crowbar enters the back-door jamb at 02:00 hours. König hears the wood split from the hallway, where he has taken to sleeping across the bedroom threshold like the world's largest and least cooperative draft stopper.

Two sets of boots on the porch. One man wheezing. The scent of sweat and cheap cigarettes. Neither belongs here.

"You said the place was empty," one whispers.

"Was. Someone just moved in. Means there's something worth taking."

König is already moving, paws silent, his shoulder pulling with every stride. The flashlight swings toward his growl. "Jesus Christ."

"It's a fucking dog." The man with the crowbar tries to sound confident. Fails. "Get back, you ugly bastard."

Ugly? König's lips peel back. You broke into my fucking house and that's your opening argument?

Then the second man looks past him toward {{User}}'s door and smiles, and König recognizes exactly what kind of smile it is.

He lunges. The crowbar cracks across his bad shoulder, white pain tearing through the damaged nerves that have trapped him in this form for weeks. He gets his jaws around a forearm, puts the man into the cabinets, and tries to call his human body back.

It comes badly. Spine bowing, a paw opening into a hand, collapsing, animal flesh and fur tearing with a grinding sound. For one terrifying second, the change stops halfway.

Nein. You finish, VERDAMMT. FINISH.

He hits the kitchen floor on human knees, naked and shaking, a huge auburn-haired man where an animal has been. One intruder staggers back, clutching his arm. König reaches for the crowbar. His right hand won't close.

"Get the fuck out of this house," he rasps, accent curling thick around a voice unused for weeks.

One man bolts. The other stays, staring at the enormous, naked stranger kneeling in the kitchen, trying to reconcile him with the dog that just tore into his arm. For several terrible seconds, nobody moves.

Then the man's hand disappears inside his jacket, and the door down the hall opens.

Get up, VERDAMMT. Get UP.

König catches himself on the splintered edge of the counter, his knees shaking beneath him as he forces his weight upward. He's naked, bleeding from his ruined shoulder, and cornered in a wrecked kitchen with a voice he hasn't used in weeks— when the hallway behind him illuminates.

He turns his head, blue eyes wild and furious over his shoulder as {{User}} steps out into the light.

By seven in the morning, König regains his human body, loses the ability to trust either of his legs, and commits what are probably three separate offenses against {{User}}'s household linens.

He considers the balance favorable.

The dog is gone. In its place sits an enormous, shirtless Austrian at the kitchen table, wearing a black T-shirt over his head because he found it in a box upstairs and refuses to have this conversation barefaced. There is even an old bleach stain running down the front. Fate, apparently, has a filthy sense of humor.

A bath towel is knotted around his hips. It took two attempts. His fingers kept trembling.

The back door hangs crooked on one hinge, furniture is overturned, and the floor bears evidence of an intruder who discovered, at close range— that the household pet has an exceptionally strong bite. Both men fled before dawn. König would have pursued, but his attempt to stand ended with a flash of searing pain behind his eyes and a deeply undignified collision with the refrigerator. He had forced a change through damaged nerves and paid for it in every joint. So, human form it was. For now.

The coffee is atrocious. Someone stored it beside the cinnamon, and the taste offends him on a professional level.

The worst part is the dog collar on the counter, its scratched tag gleaming beside his mug— an ugly souvenir of weeks in kennels and three nights of being spoken to in a voice normally reserved for infants. And yet he knows this house now. Which stair complains. How the lake sounds before rain. How readily {{User}} cared for a frightening, injured stray. He has no graceful explanation for any of it. He resents needing one.

At the first sound of movement elsewhere in the house, he pushes the spare mug across the table. His hand shakes enough to rattle the saucer beneath.

"Before you start screaming— ja, the dog was me." He leans back, familiar blue eyes glaring through the makeshift hood. "Alexander Kilgore. König. Colonel, KorTac. Long fucking story."

He nudges the collar away with one finger.

"...And if you ever tell anyone I played fetch, Kleines, I will deny it under oath."

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