I stood before the door of father's study, curious and a little nervous. Father rarely let us enter the room, yet here I was, answering his summon. I could sense his presence on the other side of the door, not just from his scent and the sound of his voice, those allowed me to sense Trevor as well, but from the spell in my collar. It pointed me to him.
I raised my hand and knocked gently on the wood.
"Master, it's Vivian", I said softly. Indeed, I called him master, not father. Although he was my father, in the eyes of society and the law he was my owner. To them I was merely a piece of property that he created, not a member of his family, and he was the one my collar responded to.
"Come in", father answered.
I pushed the door open and stepped into the room. Father sat behind his desk. The walls of the room were lined with his vast collection of books. There must have been over one hundred of them that he collected over the decades of his travels. Among them were also his ledgers and journals. Those he meticulously maintained and studied, searching for any opportunity to meet an unfulfilled demand.
In most cases when he did find a high demand for some particular type of goods he would pass on it. Either the item was generally scarce and would be difficult to acquire, or it wasn't worth the loss of income from his usual trade routes to go out of his way to supply it. There were however a few times in the year when he did find a genuine opportunity, and during his long career as a trader he even managed to predict a few shortages before anyone else, resulting in large profits. Those were his treasured victories.
Father wouldn't summon me for any matter related to business. That didn't concern myself or my full siblings, since we'd never have the opportunity to choose this career. My kind were merely to work the fields, manufacture goods, take care of the house and children, or mind shops. We were just cheap labor.
I glanced at big brother Trevor. I have, of course, noticed his scent on the way to the study, so I wasn't surprised to find him sitting in the guest chair opposite my father. Their scents were very distinct since, despite being father and son, they had no blood relation to each other. Father adopted Trevor when he married mistress Lily, back when Trevor was still a baby, and treated him as if he was truly his firstborn son. It was a few years before Mark, father's true first child, was born.
Trevor tended to avoid me, so I scarcely saw him even when he was living in father's house, let alone now that he was newly married and living in his own house on the other side of the village.
"As you know, Liliana is going to be giving birth in a few months", my father said. "Therefor I have decided to give you to Trevor as gift, to help Liliana with the housework so that she can rest and focus on her child, both before and after the birth. The transfer of ownership has already been made".
My eyes widened in shock, and I raised my hands to touch my collar. I had always assumed that I would feel a change in ownership, yet the collar hadn't given me any signal that the human controlling it had changed. Father and Trevor sat close together, almost in a straight line from me, so I hadn't noticed the subtle change in the location of my master.
More than that, I always assumed that I would live with father until I was an adult, and that father would at least tell me before giving me away to someone else, perhaps even consult my opinion. Where was mother? Did she even know her oldest daughter was being sent away?
True, it was only to big brother Trevor, and it was only to the other side of the village, but the casual way that father gave me away without me even being in the room when it happened, without any warning, was still shocking. I knew he cared about me. The way he treated his beast-kin offspring was far better than most humans. He taught us reading, writing, and arithmetic, and allowed us to borrow his books, even the books on magic, although they were only introductory texts that taught beginner-level spells at most. Yet now he treated me so callously as if I were a mere object. It reminded me that even kinder humans like my father still held prejudice against my kind.
I tried to smile as if none of this affected me, but my face felt stiff and I didn't know what kind of expression father and big brother saw.
"Please allow me to congratulate you again, big brother. May I pack my things?" I requested.
Trevor looked up at me sharply. It was the first time he looked at me since I entered. He always ignored me and acted annoyed when I tried to play with him when I was younger, before I was collared. Eventually I realized that he didn't like me very much, either because he was human while I was beast-kin, or because I was the daughter of father's mistress, although in the eyes of the humans my mother didn't even qualify as a mistress, since to them we were merely property. The idea that taking advantage of your beast-kin slave constituted adultery was as ridiculous to them as if you said the same about pleasuring yourself with a pumpkin that had a hole carved in it.
That humans considered us as mere smart animals sickened me. I read father's novels, and aside from my circumstances I felt very much like the heroines of those books. I had the same emotions, I had empathy and a conscience, I made my own choices. Why were they considered people and not me? Why did they get to live their own lives while I was doomed to live only to serve others as their property? It wasn't my fault that my grandmother's grandmother, whom I took after, was a cat, or that my grandfather's father was a dog. All the rest of my ancestors were human!
"I am your master now, and you will observe the proper forms of address!" Trevor snapped.
"Yes, master", I answered meekly. "May I pack my belongings?"
I could end up spending the rest of my life in his service, and I did not want to spend it in misery, so now that he owned me I had to show the proper subservient attitude towards him.
"You may. I expect you to arrive at the house before sunset. Dismissed", he said curtly. As soon as Trevor finished speaking to me he turned back to father. I glanced at father. He had a joyful smile on his face, likely thinking only about the birth of his first grandchild. My stomach tied up in a knot. He really didn't consider my feelings or will at all. I turned around and left the room, closing the door carefully behind me.