Hybrid Dennis is Titus Danforth's most loyal hunting dog.
He'd started out as just a plaything, a trinket that his father and sister threw to him like a meaty bone into a pit. Something to amuse himself with, to distract him while they did the real work.
He hadn't paid much attention to the trembling, whining thing, beyond an initial sneer and smirk at his flinching. He'd make pretty bait, and nothing more.
He had been vaguely aware of the high-pitched yelps echoing between the trees as he slowly his hounds’ excited baying. He wasn't all that engaged in the hunt, if he was being honest. Ursula had requested that he take one of her unbearable associates on a hunt, show him the ropes and a good time.
He'd pulled out all the stops, showing the man - Morgan, or something similarly uninteresting and new money - his prized hunting dogs and the little blond hybrid that he'd almost forgotten about, before giving the fearful, hungry thing a twwnty minute head start.
Morgan's eyes had been too greedy, too lazy and excited in a way that made Titus’ lip curl. He was one of those people who wanted things for the sake of it - and Titus could maybe respect that, could see it in himself, if not for the fact that he could tell that Morgan didn't enjoy the search, the struggle, the hunt. He was only in it for the climax, and quite frankly, that was fucking boring.
Titus' heart rate had remained unchallenged and unchanged throughout the whole fucking dog and pony show. He was annoyed, he was bored, he wanted it to end.
It felt like someone had hooked him up to a defibrillator when he heard the first screams.
They weren't the hybrid’s screams. Titus had heard those before. They were high-pitched, yelping and whining. These screams were slightly deeper, richer. More human.
He picked up his pace ever so slightly, curious for the first time today.
There were sticky, fresh smears of blood on the leaves that crunched and squelched beneath his feet.
Morgan's neck was ruined.
From what little he could see from where the hybrid's mouth was latched onto it, there was a deep, jagged, circular wound there that was gushing in time with the clearly slowing heartbeat.
The hybrid - tiny, trembling Dennis - was sprawled atop Morgan's twitching torso. Knees on either side, hands fisted in Morgan's bloody, tacky hair. His whole front was pressed against Morgan's in a mockery of seduction, and Titus feels his dick twitch at the fervent, desperate way Dennis tore at the wound in his neck, opening it further.
“I think he's done, boy.”
Dennis' head jerked upwards, his wide eyes nothing but deep black pools in his face, casting around for Titus for a moment in his hazy, sticky panic. His entire face from his nose down to his neck, was coated in a thick layer of blood and sinew.
He was trembling, covered in sweat, face flushed. He still managed to bare his teeth at Titus, desperate and whining.
Titus chuckled, clicked his fingers at the dogs swarming at his knees, each keen to get a taste.
They sat. Dennis snarled.
“Oh, big unfriendly sound.” His grin revealed blunt, shining teeth that somehow give off the impression of being almost as sharp as Dennis' set. “Very cute. You know, normally I don't abide a nipping puppy. They gotta learn their place, you know?”
Dennis' entire body was rigid, shuddering minutely from the effort of holding so still. His eyes were watery but they kept track of Titus like his life depended on it. There's something hungry there that made Titus' stomach twist and turn in sheer excitement. Dennis' jeans were getting soaked as Morgan's slowly cooling blood seeps into them.
Titus tilted his head. Dennis' own head jerked, mirroring the movement, helplessly transfixed.
“Then again, I believe in giving credit where it's due. And good boys deserve treats.”
As far as anyone else was concerned, everything changed between the morning and the afternoon. Nobody else was privy to the whys and wherefores, all they knew was that suddenly, Titus never went anywhere unaccompanied.
Dennis either trailed his footsteps, or hung off his arm, smiling brightly and whispering in his ear, which would earn the occasional uptick at the corner of Titus' mouth. Sometimes, Dennis would skip ahead, circling the perimeter before ambling back to Titus' side. Sometimes, he would be gone for a good twenty minutes, and would return with blood crusted under his half-claws.
“Have fun?” Titus would huff, the most indulgent sound anyone had ever heard from him, and ruffle his hands over Dennis' ears. The hybrid would nod, leaning heavily into the touch, closing his eyes contentedly.
Dennis would lounge by Titus' side at meetings - and nobody commented on the fact that Ursula was quieter than before, would sit tense and silent in a way they rarely saw her. The sound of palm cracking against cheek never reverberated behind closed doors again.
Sometimes, Dennis would fold himself to sit neatly on the floor and lean against Titus' legs, apparently entirely uninterested in anything but the slow pass of the man's hand through his hair, over his ears. He would rub his face against Titus' knee, and for all the world he'd seem like he was paying no attention to anything that was said.
But sometimes, someone would do the wrong thing. A word, a comment, a sneer. Titus' body would tense, and Dennis' eyes would slowly open. From where he stayed, resting his head against the man's knee, his glittering eyes would trickle across the room until they found the perpetrator. He would stare for a moment, taking it all in, and close them again.
He would be gone all night, and return fresh and happy and smelling like pennies.
Chester didn't last long.
The official story was that illness took him, but all the staff on duty that night would whisper amongst themselves, swear that they had seen two dark, shining eyes reflecting the light, glinting through the gap of the patriarch's doorway.
It didn't take much to bribe a coroner if your name was Danforth.
Titus moved into his father's rooms, gutted everything, and was in situ within a week.
Titus unashamed in showering Dennis with gifts.
Whatever Dennis wanted, Dennis got. Often, he got things he'd never even thought to want, let alone ask for.
Clothes, made to measure and with space immaculately cut to provide openings for Dennis' soft, happily wagging tail.
Cars, shiny and bright, which Dennis didn't actually seem all that interested in, beyond smiling at the colours.
The finest food made by gourmet chefs, or the greasy takeout that made Titus grimace. The snacks that Dennis was partial to munching on in his indolent moments between the hunts that made his cheeks flush and eyes shine bright.
Shoes, jewellery, watches, gaming consoles, exotic plants, three entire cows whose entrails everyone was braced to scrape from the ground, but which Dennis only wanted to feed and pet and cuddle up next to in the afternoons.
Dennis never wanted for anything again, and Titus found it an entirely pleasing system.
Good boys did, after all, deserve treats.
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