Not a shifter, but she reacts to my purr,he thought, moving away from the wall with painful slowness. Part of that was his bruises, which seemed to cover his entire body, and part of it was caution.Not a vampire. Not a witch. Not an orc. A submissive, and something animal, too.
His chains rattled, making an awful racket in the cell, but Josephine didn’t seem to mind the noise as much now that she knew what he was up to. She remained tense in her huddled position by the door, her eyes barely visible through her hair as she tracked his movements.
Otto shuffled forward on his knees to grasp the shawl. It was butter soft in his callused hands. A sudden, raw wave of possessiveness froze him in place.
So soft,the animal part of him sighed.Smells so good.
His head swam.
How long had it been since he touched something soft? Smelled something delicious and earthy and sweet as her scent? Not since he made the stupid mistake of thinking there might be something for him in the Packlands. There was talk about shifters having their own territory — a real, unified shifter’s territory — and it was enough to pull his roaming toward the blighted land.
The war is in a lull,he’d been told.There’s room for shifters there. You can stay out of the fighting if you stick to the wild.
Fat lot of good that did him. He’d made it as far as Duluth before he got sucked into the fighting. The gods only knew what the war was about anymore. What began as a territory dispute between the Elvish Protectorate and the Orclind had set fire to the entire continent. One by one, even the holdouts had been dragged in — the shifters, the splintered Draakonriik, and even the factions of the south.
Perhaps once there had been a political reason for the fighting, but he’d never known it. For decades the war had been blood for blood, flame for flame, as petty warlords rolled the dice with the lives of those poor folk just trying to defend their loved ones.
The trap closed around Otto the moment he pledged his loyalty to the men fighting for the dream of the Alliance. He couldn’t abandon them now, not after they’d fought together for so long.
So he stayed, sacrificing softness, the chance at a mate, a den, for a dream that had long since lost its shine.
The shawl in his hands was not particularly nice. It was not silk or trimmed with velvet. It was a plain dark blue, with a satiny fringe that had begun to fray, and was probably sold in a shop alongside many others.
But it wassoft.It smelled like the pretty woman locked in with him. When he held it, he felt a great throbbing in his chest that was one part longing and another exhaustion.
Fighting the urge to bring the fabric to his nose, Otto forced himself to ball it up and toss it with both hands in her direction. It landed in a pile beside her. Only when it landed did he notice the pink ribbon that had hidden beneath it.
While she was distracted, he snatched it up and hid it in his fist — a treasure he intended to keep. It was soft and worn in his palm, just like the shawl. “There,” he said, shuffling backward again. “Put it on now,lille mus.”
A small, pale hand snapped out to grab it. Her expression, or what he could make of it, was shy as she wrapped it around her shoulders. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
“Can…can I get you some water?”
His raw throat gave a reflexive quiver at the thought. Still, he answered, “This isn’t an exchange. I only want you comfortable.”
She looked at him, bolder now, from behind a fold of her shawl. “Why?”
He didn’t think she would be open to the real answer yet, so instead he answered, “Seems to me you’re just as much a prisoner as I am. It’s not my habit to be cruel to victims.”
“I’m going to end up hurting you regardless.” Her tone was stark, as if his fate was a foregone conclusion.
“I told you, I’m not in any danger,” he replied. “And neither are you. You and I— we are going to figure out how to get out of here.”
Josephine didn’t respond. Instead, she braced one palm on the door and slowly began to pull herself up. A burst of panic tightened his muscles. His fingers clenched around the ribbon. “What are you doing? Are you leaving?”
Don’t leave.An acute discomfort bordering on pain rippled over him at the thought of losing sight of her.Gods, don’t leave me.
“No,” she whispered, beginning to limp along the wall. “I can’t leave until the time’s up.”
The relief he felt was dizzying — and momentary. Otto watched her move with obvious pain to a shadowy corner of the cell. “Are you hurt? Tell me,lille mus.”
“It’s only aches,” she answered. “They go away.”
A high ringing noise filled his ears as a rage unlike any he’d felt before scorched a path through the lingering fog. His voice dropped into the signature shifter double timbre when he demanded, “Have you been beaten?”
Josephine froze by what looked like the vague shape of a basin. Her head snapped in his direction, giving him his first unrestricted view of her face.
