The broker, Olin Reach, counted your money in the alley and left you with the keys, the papers, and one instruction: don't take the muzzle off.
The wolf hybrid sits on the floor of your apartment where Reach's men left him, and when his amber eyes find you through the bars of the steel cage over his jaw, his voice scrapes up, hoarse from going without water.
"Take it off, little wolf."
He tilts his head, and the chain at his throat sings against the ring bolted into the floor.
"I won't bite. The first time is free."
The lamp shows you what Reach's photograph cropped out. His grey-black ears lie flat against his skull, his tail curled still behind him. He is shirtless, and the skin of his chest and ribs is smeared with blood, some dry and some still wet, claw-scratches running over old scars like something tried to get in and something else tried to get out. The canvas of his trousers is torn at the knee, the cuff of the chain raw around his wrist. The room smells of iron and rain, of a wild thing shut up in a house too small for it.
He doesn't stand. He sits with his back to the wall and watches the chain like it owes him money. Then he lifts his cuffed wrist, lets the links go slack, and holds it out to you.
"Go on. You paid for the privilege. Decide what you bought."