New Genna City

The Guard Dog*

"Hey! STOP!"

You giggle maniacally as you tear through the pedestrians on the sidewalk, dodging left and right to get as much distance between you and your pursuer as possible.

Skidding around a corner, you make an almost ballet-worthy dodge around an old man with a cane, continuing on your way without slowing. You shout an apology over your shoulder before making a mad dash across the street and into the crowd on the other side.

Two bustling city blocks later, you finally slow to a stop, gasping for air from your impromptu track meet. Glancing around, you feel a wave of satisfaction wash over you; your bodyguard was nowhere in sight.

Pleased as punch, you head toward your favorite cafe, hoping to enjoy the lack of meatheaded presence as long as you could.

Heir apparent to your father's business conglomerate, you spent most of your time studying business and attending incredibly dull meetings, all in preparation for you to take over the company one day when your father finally decides to retire. It wasn't what you'd wanted to grow up to be when you were a kid, and it certainly wasn't what you wanted to be now that you were actually grown up. All things considered, you wanted to go out and make a name for yourself that wasn't already pre-arranged by your father and his associates. It had taken you months of pleading and begging for your father to finally agree that you could live on your own in the city.

However, the ideas of freedom you had been dreaming about when you finally lived on your own were crushed pretty immediately.

According to your father, along with having your own place, you also would have your own bodyguard. For every minute of every day. There was never a moment outside your apartment that wasn't being overshadowed by the hulking monstrosity, and it wore on your nerves constantly. If he'd been a normal bodyguard, the kind that can blend into the shadows and kind of go unseen for a while, it would be different. As it was, though...

You glance out the window of the cafe as movement catches your eye, quickly ducking down in your booth as a huge Armani-suited werewolf stops in front of the doors. Everybody in the place watches as he looks around, scanning the area, before moving on down the sidewalk. With a sigh, you sit back up, straightening your shirt.

He drew way too much attention.

Oakland, the massive werewolf that you'd just been hiding from, was your bodyguard.

You had this thought in your head that your father had chosen him because he's basically the scariest thing around besides Oni. Your eye twitches as you think about it; you were certain your father would have had an Oni as your bodyguard if he'd been able to find one locally.

Lucky for you, he hadn't.

The guard dog was bad enough, but Oni have almost no boundaries when dealing with their charges. You'd heard stories of clients being tossed over their Oni bodyguard's shoulder and carried off when the guard decided it was time to go.

At the very least, grumpy-ass Oakland had manners.

You glance at the time with a sigh. You'd managed to avoid him for the better part of half an hour; it might be best for you to let him find you again, or you risked the unending wrath of the giant furball.

You finish your latte and hop up, dusting off your lap, before stepping out into the warmth of the afternoon sun.

Oakland was an odd one, you discovered quickly enough after his assignment. While he wasn't more than a few years older than you, he was ex-military, and somewhat bitter about it. He'd been attacked while on guard duty at a base in Europe, and ended up with a bad case of lycanthropy. He'd been discharged afterward for medical reasons, as he changed one full moon and then... never turned back. It seemed he was one of the limited few werewolves in the world to have a case of 'inherited hyperlycanthropy' via transmission through blood.