Taming the Beast

Aveline Everlee, commonly known as Ava, used to think her life was very stable. She was self employed, worked whenever she felt like, earned well enough to live a good life, despite preferring a more modest lifestyle, and lives alone with her lovely Cavalier King Charles Spaniel. She had found it by chance in an adoption center when she went looking for a dog to keep her company in her home. He was adorable, so she took him and named him King. In her house, he lived life true to its name, with new toys every so often, the best food, the best bed and more. She loved him a lot and would spend more on him then on herself most of the time. She planned her whole routine around him. She was so surprised when she discovered that her beloved was not only a guy, but that he was a jerk. She discovered it by chance, really. She accidentally left the camera, the one she used for work, on before she left to buy some quick groceries, only finding it much later because she had stopped to fetch King to take him to his usual stay at the daycare before finally staying at home and watching what she thought would be a cute video of her dog waiting for her to come home or playing around. Instead, she saw the shocking scene of her dog turning into a handsome man using very fancy clothes. At first she was very shocked, then she was horrified. The video showed it all, how he said ‘Finally’ when the sound of her car was no longer present, how he laid on her couch and how he pulled a strange device similar to her quantum watch from his clothes and, just like she would, started making calls. Then he started to show his true colors. He spoke with whoever was on the other side how Aveline was ‘suffocating’, how she ‘never left him alone’, how he ‘lived in a dump using all her money on him instead of buying a decent house’, and that he ‘rather prefer living with her sister in her mansion’. There were more things, mean things she couldn't believe he would say about her. That brought her back to when she discovered her older sister was spreading rumors behind her back at high school while pretending to be supportive, and when her parents did nothing to stop it. She watched the whole thing, from when he turned back into a dog when she came back to when she returned from the trip to the day care, then repeated it again. And again. And again. She only stopped when it was already time to fetch King at the daycare. Right, she had to bring him back… With a heavy heart, she went to her car and left the house and went to the daycare, where King was waiting for her with a wagging tail. She felt like screaming the whole ride home. Was that real? Or did someone enter her house to play a bad joke with her? She kept thinking about it for the next few days, the camera with the video hidden. Until she decided to test it. While King was away in another day in the daycare, she hid a camera in her house, then left the house on the following day, leaving King alone and paying attention to her quantum watch that showed the situation inside the house. Sure enough, it happened again. King, just like last time, turned into a human and started to make calls to badmouth her, complain about her and sing praises to her sister. After that she decided. If it was her sister that he wanted, it was her that he would have. Ever since Aveline got King, her sister has been pestering her to give him to her, with their parents perking, saying that she deserved more. Aveline’s sister, Aria, had been born frail and their parents, unwilling to go for strangers to heal their daughter, gave birth to Aveline, a donor baby. They grew up together for years, yet it never felt like it, as their parents spoiled Aria rotten while only caring enough for Aveline to make sure she would be healthy for future transplants. Aveline still had hopes that her family loved her past the need of a standby donor, but after the fiasco that was high school, she left home and refused to be involved in anything related to Aria’s health. They only saw each other because of her father's mother, Aveline's grandmother, who was the only person in that family Aveline could trust, but to whom she had grown distant. Her grandmother was the one who opposed her getting King especially, she said she didn't like him from the moment he saw him. She didn't know why she would say that, and King had been doing nothing but wonders to her life at the time, so she just stopped showing up as much because her grandmother would always make a comment about him. She still didn't know why she would say that, but now Aveline was sure she could tell something was wrong with him. She prepared to dump King with Aria without wasting time, but doing it slowly to not seem suspicious. Then came the day. It was in Aria's birthday, 27 and she still acted like a child. Aveline arrived with King in her arms and smile that didn't reach her eyes. She gave King to Aria, explaining that she was moving and since he was so sensitive to changes in environment (not a lie, he was extremely sensitive) and he was used to Aria, it would be better to leave him to her. She had to ignore how his eyes turned in an instant when she said that with a look a bit too human of surprise. It was the first time she ever saw a glimpse of his true nature, and she nearly frowned at the time, but held back as she went to look for her grandmother, who had told Aveline to come to her once she was done. They ended up in a quiet room, away from the party, laughs and barks. It was there that her grandmother finally explained everything. King was a Beastman, a creature from a different realm that came to their world to find a human with suitable compatibility to bring back to their world. There were many around the globe, but to prevent people from being taken away and things from going out of hand, the human government had established an organization that keeps an eye on the Beastmen, even giving them their own way of communication in this world to make them easier to locate and monitor. Her grandmother was a retired member of the organization, but she still kept an eye out, just in case, which brings King’s case. King, whose real name was Kyle, was a rather famous beastman in the beasternet (as how the Beastmen called their version of the internet) for being arrogant and entitled. Before her, he had four more humans taking care of them, all of whom refused to come with him to the beast-world in the end. He had been playing safe with her to get a human. And why did the Beastmen need humans? Humans have a natural energy to them that they can't use in themselves, but will heal a thing called mania, a state of pure violence and rage that can kill both the Beastman and everyone around them. Beastmen bring humans to their world to have a way to heal more easily without having to travel all the way to earth and they would take care of the human they brought, but consent was needed for that and, before they bring the human to their world, they have to notify the government, that would send an agent to explain everything to the human and then get the answer. With all that information, her grandmother also explained that she couldn't have explained this had she not discovered it herself. “How did you know?” She asked. “Your eyes dear” Her grandmother said “The eyes of these who has seen it are not the same, believe me, it'll only become easier to find them, and don't think I haven't noticed how you've been avoiding all the pets in the house” True, their family had a few pets, her grandmother herself had a beautiful black cat that always followed her around, but that, today, had stayed outside the room. That made she pause. “Is Pepper the Fith-” “One of them?” She finished “Yes, my good old friend of a long age, every black cat I had in the past year was her pretending to pass and coming back to not raise suspicious, that furball had decided she preferred staying here with me than back at the beast-world because here she didn't need to work and there were no expectations” Well… Aveline couldn't say she didn't see the appeal… After a bit more talking, a few tips from her grandmother and actually getting to properly meet Pepper the First and Only, as she presented herself, Aveline left the party all together, not that the rest of the family, or Kyle, noticed.