The Shadow and the Beast

"Where the f**k is everyone? It's a friday night and there's no one in this dump. How come this shithole is in the middle of the town?!?" I sigh, my eyes unwillingly blinking open for a few seconds anticipating an annoyance as street dogs entered my store. I shut my eyes and continued rocking on the back two legs of my chair behind the bar, my only lifeline that tethers me to the earth the foot that's hooked under the bar.  The man with the screechy voice suitable for a skinny t**t like him pipes up again to impress his fellow dogs who drunkenly waddle in behind him. "Is this place diseased or something? There's only a few weak shits here." He pauses for a sec and a smirk gathers on his greasy face. "...And a few black bloods by the looks of it." Noises of disgust and laughter follow. My eyes snap open but I stay leaning on the back of my chair. I grabbed a strawberry and cream lollypop to watch the 2381st clean up that made my pub so famous.  Laughing, they all walk in further with confident steps. I took in their armour - they seemed to be soldiers of a foreign country who came to celebrate the princess' engagement. They're definitely no one important since they were here and not in the castle. But the main reason I came to this conclusion is because they hadn't been warned about this pub by their superiors. Most important people who came into the country of Nystrom were warned about this place. Damn, this lollypop is good. Chairs screech back as the 4 lackeys sat down at a table near the back. They continued jabbering on about "what a shithole" my pub was. I stayed still rocking back on the two legs of my chair. Not because I wasn't offended. Of course I was. This beauty had bewitched me the moment I had entered the town. It had called out to me. This place was the only reason I was still in this shitty town. Couldn't bear to leave her in the hands of one of it's degenerate citizens. There weren't many objects imbued was dark magic, let alone buildings. So this pub, The Bloody Lion was a phenomenon and very few people would take notice of its peculiarity. Just dark magic users. As a result of its dark magic traits, the pub looked dark and creepy to new comers. So although their insult was justifiable, they weren't forgiven. The dog walked up to the bar and glared at me. He waited for a few moments getting increasingly annoyed when I didn't get up to serve him. "Hey b***h, I want a drink." he decided to greet me with. What a polite gentlemen. I sighed and closed my eyes again. What trash. Anger steamed off of him to the degree I could almost feel his brows tensing. It would have made me laugh if I was interested. "Hey b***h. b***h. BIT-" "What do you want pussycat?" The pussycat spoke up behind me. His eyes snapped behind me to see the fat black beast of a cat, adorned with a black collar with a bell. He looked momentarily shocked.  "A summoner huh." He looked at me briefly his anger only lessening slightly. "Then you can tell this b***h to get me a drink. And don't call me a p***y you fat s**t. I'm a f*****g knight." Well well. That is a surprise. Must be a noble then. Social status can get you through the doors with no effort in some countries. The majority of them if I'm honest. "My apologies. I suppose you are a pussydog." He paused for a bit, pondering before he continued. "The master doesn't talk to her inferiors unless they show subservience and she finds them worthy. In that case, I am obliged to serve customers. Now what may I get you pussydog?" I laughed in my head while sucking on my lollypop earnestly. No matter what kind of familiar it was, they always took on some personality traits of their master. The polite kitty being sarcastic was always a joyous sight, no matter how many times I saw it.  Anger radiated from him. "How dare you?!? I am the heir to the House of Opal, a proud family of Were-hounds from the country of Belva! A mere familiar dares to speak to me like that! Especially one who lives in this shitty place where the only customers are some black bloods, a couple of hooded miscreants and some weak human trash?!?" I opened my eyes, flashing him my golden stare causing him to flinch and step back by instinct. Then I flashed some fang and released fraction of my aura towards him causing him to fall backwards and hit the stone floor with a meaty thud. An instinctual occurrence when one meets a superior race. After I retract it, he pauses for a sec and then immediately stands with a disgusted face, echoed by some remarks of his subordinates at the back. "A f*****g black blood?" He whispers. "A f*****g BLACK BLOOD THINKS ITS BETTER THAN ME?!?" He roars grabbing a stool from next to him in his anger, forgetting my small display of strength quickly. He picks it up and throws it at me with all his strength, his muscles tightening doing so when two black shadows quickly pop up and disappear, taking the dog with them. I catch the stool before his poor throw his the alcohol behind me, but not before knocking the lollypop out of my mouth. A menacing smile graces my lips as I turn my head towards Cyrus.  "What good kitty's they are. Cyrus, go tell them they have full reign as a reward, as long as they don't kill him. That dirty dog deserves to be taught a lesson for dirtying my lollypop. It's unfortunate that it will become troublesome if we kill him." "Yes master" the cat responds and disappears in a puff. I look the stool that was thrown at me. "That b***h damaged by stool." I remark noticing the fingerprinting indented on the leg of the stool. My eyes narrowed on his puppy dogs that followed him in that all look shocked, looking left and right in panic. Sighing, I stood and poured myself a whiskey on the rocks and sat back down and watched the dogs bark at me and each other until they storm up to me as if they can do something about it. Annoyed they had all disturbed me, I call cyrus back. "Cyrus, do a switcheroo. Ah, but leave one to carry that prick out of here."  In a puff of black smoke, 3 of the dogs are replaced with the pack leader. The dog lies there scratched bloody with deep claw marks and chunks taken out of him. Most notably a missing eye and where the object he used to piss used to live. I imagine it rarely got used for s*x. If ever.  I frowned. "I'm going to have to talk to Maddox and Wisteria about their eating habits. They could get a disease." I mumbled as I took a sip of whiskey.  Annoyed the lone trembling figure wasn't doing anything, I downed my drink and threw the glass at him, clipping his jaw, causing it to shatter and cut up his face, nearly taking out is eye. He screeched out in pain before quickly grabbing his boss and dragging him outside as he saw me readying another glass. The door shut with a swish swish and a bang, leaving me with my regulars who had barely blinked an eye at the scuffle and two hooded figures. One which I knew, and one which I didn't. Sighing, and knowing Cyrus and the twin panthers were busy I turned my attention to the hooded men at the bar.  "So you're still here after that?" I ask. Neither responds but the mystery guy looks up as if to say 'are you talking to me?' and looks at the other hooded man and back to me. I smirk. "Yes, you, Mr Shadow." His eyes show shock and astonishment as he pulls back his hood after a pause. Admittedly, he was a beautiful man. Like me, he has a head full of long black hair which seems to be up in a ponytail. Black eyes and full red lips with a tall lean stature. The typical appearance of a dark magic user just like me. Elementals tend to have certain physical traits of whatever attribute they can use. However, the reason he was so shocked was because I had guessed his power without having to see his appearance or him having used his magic. I gave a deep hearty laugh. "How--?" He asked, after taking the full hooded cloak off.  I smirk at him, falling back onto all fours on my chair. "I'm sure you noticed this pub is a little different. I'm sure that's why you came in here. This pub is quite the beauty, but it also has a few quirks." I told him without giving out details. He nodded in recognition, summarising the pub being responsible which is half correct. As a dark magic object, I gave it power and it did mysterious things as a result such as pushing minimal magic towards customers so a small bit of their magic would react unknowingly to them so I could sense how much power they had and what species they were. However, this was only predominantly useful towards elementals since I could already sense all power signatures of shifters lower than me or on equal ground. Which was most of them since I was one of the most powerful shifters in the country, rivalling royalty. Not bragging, just a fact. "I'll admit, I was curious." He says sipping his beer. "Any dark magic user would be. But to think a dark magic panther hybrid was its owner. How interesting. You don't get many normal dark magic users, let alone hybrids. And by the looks of it you're a summoner which means it's almost impossible to hide one side of you like most hybrids do."  He was staring at me. Not like the men from earlier or most of the citizens with fear or disgust, but genuine curiosity. And maybe a smidge of heat. What he had meant by that was it was almost impossible to hide your shifter side as a woman since we went into heat every month. Additionally, it's also hard to hide being a summoner since you and your familiars felt pain at being apart so it was difficult to keep away from them. Despite that, even the hybrids that fell into similar categories as me still tried to hide it since they would face hard discrimination. Officially, there was nothing wrong with being a hybrid, but it was seen as taboo in most countries including this one and it was almost impossible to get a job. So to be so obvious about it like me was rare. Those who didn't choose to hide it normally migrated to more accepting countries. Hearing him, a regular called Steve piped up. "It's almost the end of the month Tori. You made any decisions on your mate this month?" He asked with a humorous flirtatious voice, wiggling his bushy eyebrows.