The door swung shut. A mere moment before it latched, she heard her father say, “Start the clock, Harrod.”
And then there was only silence.
Josephine’s eyes took a moment to adjust to the gloom. Her vision was so much better during the full moon, but with every hour that passed, she lost more of the power her father so coveted. In the dark, frozen in a crouch on the floor, she was nothing more than an arrant — a being with no magic, no claws, nothing with which to defend herself.
The beast dwelled within her, but its only use was in telling her what she already knew: that she shouldn’t move, nor even breathe, lest the predator before her deem her worthy of its notice.
For the span of many frantic heartbeats, there was no sound in the cell besides her own overloud panting. She could almost pretend she was alone, except for the scent of him, thefeelingof his gaze on her.
A low rumble, too low to be truly audible, made the hair on the back of her neck stand up.
Muscles unlocking with a burst of frenetic energy, Josephine gasped and threw herself backward. Scrambling on her hands, she crawled until her shoulders hit the cold metal door. Bile raced up her throat.
The shifter washuge.
He was not merely tall. She’d seen a great many tall people in her life. Her father was one such person, and she had long ago come to the conclusion that she was actually rather small in comparison to most people.
Even so, the shifter was a mountain made flesh. It appeared that every bone was wrapped in coils of thick muscle — even the tiny ones of his fingers. His face was a harsh assemblage of crooked angles, and his hair was a shoulder-length snarl of what she could only assume was blond waves.
He was bruised, his shirtless torso crisscrossed with slashes and old wounds hastily stitched. He was exactly as terrifying to look at as she suspected he would be.
Josephine made to clutch at her shawl, desperate for something to hide behind, but her fingers grasped only the linen of her blouse. Her eyes darted to the middle of the room, where it lay in a heap nearer to him than to her.
It might as well have fallen into Tempest’s great abyss, for all she was able to reach it.
Its small comfort gone, she wrapped her arms around herself and curled into the door. Her ribbon had fallen out, too. That was at least a boon. It allowed her to shake out her hair and hide behind its dark length as she buried her face in her knees.
Instinct compelled her to make herself as small and nonthreatening as possible. Perhaps if she did, he would not look at her. He would forget she existed. It wouldn’t save him from the plans her father and his overseers made for him, but it was what the beast wanted.
Be small. Be meek. Yield. Surrender keeps you safe. Submission keeps you alive.
Never, in all the years that she had endured time in the barn had she ever been as afraid of a subject as she was of this man. Whatever he was, the beast knew he could end her life with ease. Just alookwas enough to make her submit and bare her throat. Gods knew what would happen if he was free.
That strange, rhythmic rumbling slowly rose in volume. It competed with the rushing of blood in her ears before it eclipsed it entirely. It was a nice sound — baritone, almost thudding in its rhythm — though she had not the faintest idea why she liked it.
The beast recognized that it was not a sound of aggression, though it was bewildered as to what exactly it meant, or why it was almost… comforting.
Josephine dared to sneak a glance through the curtain of her hair.
The shifter was sitting rigidly against the stone wall, his shackled hands fisted in his lap. Gone was the animal who raged against his bonds. One knee was drawn up to his chest; his head tilted back. It was a deceptively casual pose. The stiffness of his spine ruined the illusion, as did the chain that ran between his ankles and the one hooked to his metal collar.
Of course, then there were also his eyes.
Pure gold, they glowed like sinister coins in the shadows. They hadn’t strayed from her. She got the unsettling impression that he hadn’t even blinked since she looked last.
He continued to make the strange sound. The more she listened, the more calming she found it. Intellectually, she knew there was no reason to do so, but she was as capable of stopping it as she was able to fight any other automatic reflex.
Josephine felt the fluttering beat of her heart begin to slow. The tension in her fingers and the fine muscles of her neck began to release.
Good sound,the beast sighed, half in wonder and half in relief.Safe sound.
Without meaning to, Josephine found an answering noise bubbling up the back of her throat. It was a sound she had never made before in all her life: an almost inaudible purr.
The shifter’s rumbling stuttered, as if with surprise, before it stopped completely. Much to her relief, her purr cut off the instant his did.
Into the sudden silence, he rasped, “Well, I’ll be damned.”
ChapterFive
