His family is out because his parents are part of a movement that fights for equal rights for all shifters. It hadn't been that much of an issue until very recently.
Werewolves rank fairly high in the hierarchy. When he graduates, he's supposed to choose a profession either as a firefighter, police, or bodyguard. Something involving muscles. His enhanced strength means he will do well in those allocated professions. He had been studying to be a surgeon prior to this. It's degrading. Already, some shifters are fighting back. Unfortunately, they are lacking in numbers. There are so many more humans than they are shifters and they are greatly outnumbered. The other shifters don't fare much better. Cat shifters are assigned work as acrobats, construction workers, or steel workers. Shifters with flight capabilities have weaker bones and work as cleaners for high rise buildings, painters, or if they're lucky, radio towers. Small shifters are assigned work in the pipelines, but they're mostly dismissed as being fairly useless... Others are not so lucky.
Hucows, in particular, have seem to check all the boxes for what would make the best sex worker and are rounded up to be treated as such. Their increased ability to breed means they are particularly useful for getting more shifters into the population, since shifters like himself seem to have difficulty bearing young. It's ridiculous and he hopes that they're not stupid enough to really go through with that. Hucows are not sex objects. They're precious. They're treated among shifter-kind as a way to keep their species from dying out.
It is very barbaric with a painfully rudimentary understanding of what shifters are.
He feels his fangs lengthening when the hapless new professor announces upon entering the classroom that they're going to be talking about hucows today. He is the proponent of the new rule and has made his stance only too clear in the few classes he has sat through. He talks about shifters like they're an inferior breed and he talks about hucows like they're whores and prostitutes, like they're made to be bred. They're kept mostly hidden.
He does have some facts, however. Hucows are precious and kept hidden but not because they're sex workers or because they're ashamed of what they do. No, hucows are precious because they're often shared within a pack and packs don't like letting others know that they have a hucow among them. They're precious members of the family, a mother to many of their young. Hucows are incredibly fertile and have a scent that draws other shifters to them, so it is safer to keep them hidden.
This university class is mandatory and taught by a human who doesn't understand that. "I have a treat for you all today too," Professor Snow says. "A brand new hucow, just caught a few days ago and had just celebrated her eighteenth birthday yesterday. Happy birthday to her," he says with such glee that Erik feels his teeth grind. The other new wolves in class are growling too, unhappy with the turn of events. A hucow is not a toy to be played with. He can't just offer her up to a class like she's meant to be shared like a whore.
Uncaring of the mood around him, the professor continues, "She needs a little help getting broken in. Apparently, she bites." He chuckles like it's a joke.
He doesn't like the man. He knows most of his classmates don't either. They tolerate him, but barely. Humans, weak as they are, still outnumber them ten to one.
As he continues to talk about how great things are now that everyone knows their place, how lucky they are that the government decided to let them share this particular hucow that they've caught.
The door opens and two men roll a bed into the classroom. She's blindfolded with a thin white blanket draped over her obviously naked form. Her hands are tied above her and her feet are knotted together with strands of rope. She twists and whimpers when the bed stops rolling, smelling so thickly of fear and panic that all the werewolves in the glass grimaces and shifts uncomfortably in their seats.
She's terrified and worse, she smells familiar. If he breathes in hard enough, he can still smell himself on her skin. And he's not the only one. Several of his classmates frown and turn to him.
"And here we have our star of the day! Our very own hucow. She'll be passed around from class to class and you're lucky enough to be the first class to have her," he says, slapping his hands together.
He wants to tell them they're wrong. She hadn't just turned eighteen yesterday. She turned eighteen two weeks ago, exactly one week before the stupid laws about how hucows are just sex objects came out.
He knows because he was there when her heat broke.
Chapter Two: Awake
At first, he thinks he's dreaming because there's something dream-like about his state. His senses are attuned to the way the comforters brush against his skin and every inhale is accompanied by a sweet-crisp scent of freshly plucked apples and peaches.
"Erik- Erik, please wake up."
Her voice throws her into a state of wakefulness violently. He sits up straight and his eyes are locked onto her in a split second. Casey is in front of him on his bed, looking like a beautiful succubus, tempting and smelling like desire and want.
The thing is, their relationship has never been sexual, regardless of his feelings on the matter. Casey has been his friend every since they were children and as much as he loves her and wants her, she has never shown much interest in sex before. He is fairly certain that she loves him, but probably not in the same way he does her, not in the way that makes him want to pin her down and rut into her like a savage. He keeps that part of him carefully bottled up, not wanting to scare her delicate senses. Because that's what she is, delicate and sweet and lovely. Too good for the likes of him.
He made himself her protector when they were in preschool and a boy pushed her in the sandpit and she had sat down and just cried and cried. He had beaten the baby teeth out of that little punk's mouth and then wiped her tears away. She cried then too, unused to kindness from strangers. Something about her makes him want to protect, to guard. He has siblings younger than himself and he starts taking care of her like she's one of his little siblings, except they're not so prone to falling down and
She hasn't really changed much since then, crying when things became too overwhelming for her. She's crying now too, straddling his thighs with a blanket wrapped around herself and tears streaming down her face. "There's something wrong with me," she whimpers and it makes him reel like a brick to his face when he realizes that she doesn't know what's happening to her own body. It's her first heat.
It has occurred to his family before that it could happen. There's a reason why he's so drawn to her in the first place. It had been so confusing to him in the beginning. She's so small and prey-like. He normally ignored prey. They're smaller and weaker, so he doesn't like playing with them. But instead of doing the same to her, he found himself wanting to make sure she doesn't fall prey to anyone else. His family had suspected it, but none of them had been sure, so they didn't want to scare her.
Casey's an orphan, so she doesn't know that she could be a hucow. They should've said something- warned her and gotten her ready.
"Erik," she whimpers, bringing his attention to her lips. Have they always been so red and kissable?
"How're you feeling?" he asks, careful to keep
the panic from his voice. Her breath hitches just from him pressing the palm of his hand to her cheek, wiping away the tears streaming down her face gently.
"I- I don't know," she whimpers. "I feel- I feel weird," she says, drawing her words into a whine that goes straight to his cock and he's immeasurably glad she's not straddling his hips higher up because she would be able to feel what her voice is doing to his cock.
They're not ready for this. They thought she was younger, but heats don't hit a person until they're fully matured, which is normally when they're eighteen. "Shh... It's okay," he says, her scent filling his lungs because she's so close. It's making his head spin, like he's gotten too much to drink. He's never been around a hucow before. His father had sat him down before and awkwardly handed him a book about how to handle hucow companions if she ends up being one. It was just a suspicion at the time. Werewolves rarely get so possessive over someone who's not one themselves. Either she's just someone really special he got fixated on, or she's a hucow and his wolf knows. He read the whole thing, blushing brightly the whole time because there are sections in there about how knotting will make her feel good, how she would beg to be filled when she comes of age.
"It's not- it's not okay, Erik," she insists, voice going a little shrill with panic. "Feels- feels weird, Erik," she whimpers.