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Isaac let out a sigh. He was tired.

He pushed the front doors open and stepped outside, letting the metal and glass crash behind him as he meandered away from the school's lobby. He faced a pleasantly quiet world, the bustling of cheery life ready to escape long since gone. A ghost town, save a few stray vehicles left alone, waiting patiently for owners still serving their sentence.

He absent-mindedly checked his watch. 4:30 PM.

The 18-year old coyote turned around and leaned up against the concrete wall under the awning. The breeze ruffled the tuft of chest fur spilling from the collar of a simple, short-sleeved black V-necked tee and long, baggy jeans, barely holding to his form. Slim and lanky, his clothes almost made him look effeminate. He actually enjoyed the feeling, he knew he couldn't pull off conventional masculine machismo. Might as well try something, he always thought. He found far more eyes following him around the halls now than before, from every make and model...and even either gender. It wasn't a performance any were invited to, but it seemed that the lack thereof was more intriguing of a show in this theater they called a school. Whatever, any hooks cast his way were brushed off anyway. He was taken, after all.

His eyes wandered over the empty parking lot in front of him, peering through his locks of dark brown hair that spilled into his face. He had some time to kill, so he closed his eyes, let the coolness of the wall soak into his back, and reflected on the hell that was speeding toward him. He was screwed, and he knew it. He had mouthed off to the wrong teacher, and he knew it. Detention after school would not pretty up his record, and he knew it. His parents were zooming to the school as fast as they could, carrying with them a thousand bad things soon to be visited upon his sorry ass, and he knew it. And every conceivable second of it was entirely his own doing, and he knew it.

All of this he knew. And he didn't remotely care.

He probably should've been scared, or at least worried. Only two months until graduation and his disciplinary file was getting its first real meal. His teachers were baffled. The Honor Student Coyote had never raised his voice in anger in all his years in their classes. And then, almost overnight, he started being brought in for anything from tardiness to arguing with teachers. Three weeks earlier, he barely avoided suspension after a dispute with a bully turned into a fistfight. The other students certainly noticed. He went from Most to Least Likely to Succeed almost overnight. Many friends with whom long hours in the library were shared now avoided him, while many more tired in vain to hold tighter to him, stand behind him and join this little gang they were sure he had. He still couldn't care less.

The sounds of people stirred him from his reverie. He looked up across the parking lot to see a group of blue and white-clad females, lithe and perfect, heading towards the gym. Cheerleaders. Not by definition intolerable or excruciating, and no ill will harbored...save one blot of red at the center.

His..."ex". Lily Randall. Vixen, had to be. He had found out later that "the two of them" had been Lily's pretty public show for family while she partied behind closed doors with her real boyfriend. Isaac had been hurt at first, only briefly. When the cold set in, he truly didn't care, not when he had far more interesting distractions in his life. He had made sure to give her a nice public breakup worthy of a Hollywood starlet in front of all her friends in the lunch room. Curiously enough, she was absent from the lunch room for several days after. Isaac certainly couldn't explain why.

She started laughing at some comment, and as she turned to reply her gaze met Isaac's, focused directly on her. She froze, and he leered at her with the most horrible, sadistic smile he could conjure, feeling a warm surge of pleasure when he saw her gasp and hurry along, rushing past her startled friends to her car. Several of her friends threw dirty glares his way, somebody shouting something.

"Judge me," he muttered. "Go ahead. You have no idea why I am what I am."

Everyone wondered, what happened to him?

Of course, none of them knew the truth. No one knew that everything changed over the course of a night, back in January, after a night with her. A night of firsts with his best friend, where he was broken and made whole again. Same clay, new sculpture. Thanks to all Katie.

He heard the creak and crash of the doors again. He knew who it was before she stepped into his view, before her strong arm reached around him and trapped him against the wall and her large, warm body pressed against his. His face moved automatically up as Katie looked down at him, her predator's eyes staring deep into his. Face and body of a flying fox, fur and fangs of a Vampire bat. Eyes a shade of blue few would ever get close enough to see. Once simply his best friend.

She started to lean down toward him and Isaac tilted his head up higher, reaching for her lips in anticipation. Katie growled softly, a quiet command, and Isaac stopped, falling back to the wall and closing his eyes as Katie leaned down to him, slipping their muzzles into a deep kiss. Isaac didn't move a whisker, instead standing still, letting Katie explore his lips and mouth as she desired. Katie attacked him with a hunger, and there was an edge to it that Isaac was surprised to see her maintain so well. What was she brought in for this time? She really needed this.

If that was his cross to bear, to take Katie's pain and allow her to unload her emotions onto him, it was a burden he was glad to bear. She, of course, hurt him. Seriously. He probably needed medical care. He definitely needed psychiatric. Each new step sent him closer to an end some part of him knew he shouldn't. But here, with cold seeping in to every part of him, it was her warmth that brought feeling back. He wondered whether it was surreal or not, to feel such a burn for the one who nearly destroyed his life. But for now, he didn't care, and opened his mouth wider for her.

So engrossed in each other, the two didn't hear car doors slamming off in the distance, or the voices that started making their way toward him. The two irate coyotes stomping toward them.

"Adam, please calm down? You look like you're about to tear down the walls!"

"That isn't off the menu yet!" Isaac's father snapped back. "Third time this month. THIRD time! And I have to take another early day. You know Bykovski? In PR? He came up to me today and asked whether he'd see my son on the Dean's list or the evening news first! I can't go anywhere without the rumors going around. That boy need to learn his actions have consequences, I mean, look at what he's doing to...Laura..."

He'd frozen, and when his wife followed the path of his gaze, she covered her mouth instantly in a puritan attempt to hide her gasp.

"It's her. That girl, the one he's always seeing. What's her name...Katy...Katja...Katie?"

"Well, this is perfect. I've got a few words for that bloodsucking whore of his, anyway," Adam replied, voice matter of fact, striding forward with jaw set. "You know, he was perfectly fine until he took her under her wings. Nothing like a damn fetid rodent to-"

"Adam!" gasped his hapless wife.

"What? What?! Come on, Laura! You know it's true! Don't you deny it! Look at her! You know as well as I do what she's been doing to him. God...what she could be doing to him...it doesn't matter. This ends now."

Katie's supersensitive ears had picked up their incessant bickering before they had even stepped out of their vehicle. Pulling away ever-so-slightly, she looked down at the small, fragile little canine in her arms. His eyes were closed, and he just stood there, motionless and leaned against the wall, drinking in their intimacy. She didn't know whether he was so far gone that he just didn't hear his parents, or whether he was fighting and dying inside to tune them out. She sighed. He was so beautiful. So sad. So painfully in love with her. So in love that he'd let himself live his life, wrapped in her arms, if it would make her happy. He was her best friend, her lover, and her pet. Abandoned to her will, he was hers.

And Katie decided that it was time that his parents knew it, beyond a shadow of a doubt. As the coyote's arguing started to reach a peak, Katie worked hard to stifle the angry hiss that was welling up deep within her. They'd put their boy through so much, and after all the work she'd put in to bring him out of his shell they'd want nothing more than to sew him back inside it. No. Not Isaac. Not hers.

"...and I can't even believe she's allowed around the other students! You'd think with all the fights she gets into, she's be in jail by-" Adam Root's words caught in his throat, and he froze. Laura was about to speak herself until she too saw what had stopped her husband.

Katia Marshall stood, strong and upright, both of her arms caging their son in in a way that looked inarguably threatening. Yet in her arms, their Isaac seemed content. Even...happy. Their baby swaddled in another's arms. But what truly scared them was Katie herself. She was looking directly at them, eye to eye. She hadn't chosen Isaac at random. She hadn't sought him out, they'd fallen into each other's hearts. And the love he felt for her couldn't have held a flame to what she held for him. In ways no one in the world could understand, she needed him. She failed to show him the right way, the way he deserved, but the message was received and tattooed inside their hearts where no words could wipe it away. Whatever wounds she had inflicted, she would lick them, mend him. It needed to happen. She'd made her claim, tied the two together in ways the two feeble-minded idiots in front of her could never realize. Ever hope to achieve. So her face was unafraid, not ready to accept whatever they would say, but denying it any power they'd hoped to have. More than all of that, her face was hungry. Some ancient, feral instinct flashed through the Roots. This wasn't an invitation to fight, not a threat implied or invited.

This was claiming her territory.

Although her lips barely moved, and no sound came forth, Adam and Laura Root heard her words as clearly as if she had roared them to the skies.

"This is mine."