“You’re cold,” he said, a deep note of disapproval in his voice. “Come get your shawl and put it on again.”
There was a brief pause, then, in a pained whisper, “I can’t.”
His temper was beginning to fray as the animal paced back and forth in his mind, huffing and growling with displeasure. Thoughts were scattered, slipping from his grasp almost as soon as he found them, but he knew she should not be uncomfortable. It grated against him. “Why not? You’re shivering,lille mus.”
“It’s too close to you.”
He tried not to be offended by that. Submissives tended to be extremely cautious, and in this contextanyonewould be wary of coming too close to a chained shifter. He understood that.
Except the animal was nonetheless wounded by her hesitation. It didn’t want to hurt her. It wanted to run its dark, square nose over the soft skin of her throat, to curl around her to keep her warm, to—
Oh.
Otto blinked. His breath shortened as a wave of prickly heat washed over his bruised body. His heart accelerated until he could no longer feel the individual beats.
Drugged or not, beaten or not — Otto knew exactly what his animal was telling him. He’d have to bedeadto misunderstand that single, all-important message.
Mine.
ChapterEight
His voice was considerably rougherwhen he said, “I promise I won’t hurt you, Josephine.”
Never,he vowed, looking at her with open wonder.I’ll never hurt you, min lille mus.
“They say that, too,” she replied, soft and sad.
“Who?”
“The others my father has experimented on.” Her shivers intensified. “Other shifters — a cat, a wolf, even a deer. Arrants, too. A witch. They tried an elf once, but he… it didn’t take with him, no matter how hard they tried. And he did not like being restrained.”
Josephine slowly turned her head to address him, but her gaze remained down, as if she couldn’t bear to look at him. Long lashes obscured her eyes when she said, “Sometimes they think that if they threaten or hurt me, Papa will be forced to let them go.” Her eyes darted up to meet his for the span of a single heartbeat when she added, “It never works.”
Otto recalled the way she begged as she was thrown into the cell, how wild she became when she saw him chained there, and a rolling wave of bile threatened to scale the walls of his throat.
His little mouse was not just mistreated by her father, but had been hurt. Badly. Perhaps more than once.
“I understand,lille mus.”He tried to swallow the bitter taste scalding the back of his tongue. He had to tread so, so carefully with her. Any wrong move and he could terrify her.
“Here is how we will do things, you and me, yes? I won’t move without telling you what I plan to do, and I promise that whenyoumove, I will hold perfectly still. No surprises. Would this work for you?”
That seemed to surprise her. Josephine was quiet for a moment before she asked, “Where would you move to? You’re chained to the wall.”
It wasn’t funny, but Otto’s instinctive reaction to most things was humor, so he smiled at her when he answered, “Only a little.”
That was a massive understatement, of course. When he woke up in the cell, the first thing he did was try to shift — only to feel the sharp edge of the collar around his throat. Instinct took over and halted the transformation before he could accidentally behead himself.
The same principle applied to his hands and feet, which were also shackled. While he had plenty of room to get up, lay down, and even use the ridiculous, fancy toilet tucked into the corner of the room and obscured by a partial wall, he was restrained enough to make shifting impossible. Obviously, the good doctor had done this before.
“I only want to bring your shawl closer to you,” he explained, softening his voice. “You stay there and I will move it for you so you don’t have to come near me.”
Josephine shot him another pained look. “You’re going to regret being so nice to me.”
So nice? As if caring that she is shivering in this awful damp is the act of a saint!Otto worked hard to keep the outrage off of his face.When we escape, I’ll show her what it means to be truly cared for.
“I will not regret it,” he answered. “Now,lille mus,I am going to move slowly toward your shawl. I will pick it up and then toss it as close to you as I can. If I scare you, tell me to stop and I will.”
When she gave him a small nod, Otto beamed at her. A deep rumble emerged from his chest — a rhythmic, thrumming purr that was distinct to his kind. He watched her tense, then noticeably relax again after a few seconds.
