The ground fell away. Heat pressed against my cheek as I fell into his embrace. His firm chest cradled me, his heartbeat skipping strangely like mine.
Dizziness tried to drag me under again, but I fought to stay lucid. I willed my brain to wake up. To open my eyes—
Fabric whispered as the soft mattress that’d been mine for over a week took my weight.
Everything blended into one as I teetered on the edge of awake and unconsciousness.
How long had I passed out?
Why did this feel different to a usual episode? Lingering and sticky and ever so hard to get free from?
“Do you think she’s allergic to something?” Lucien’s fingers pressed to my throat again, lingering on my pulse. The cool pressure travelled to my wrist, my temple, the spot behind my ear where pain bloomed like smoky fireworks.
Sitting beside me on the bed, his presence soaked into me. He cleared his throat, directing his words at me instead of his pet. “They don’t allow me to keep any medicine.” Disgust tainted his voice—I didn’t know if it was toward the people keeping him captive or to me. “I’d sooner just put you out of your misery andbe done with it. But you seem to have done something to my cat.”
Leaning over me, he whispered, “If I find out you’re using him to get to me—if you dare hurt him—I’ll rip out your heart and feed it to him.”
A quiet hiss as if Whisper could speak English and had overheard Lucien threatening me.
“Fuck, you’re a pain,” Lucien cursed. “What the hell has gotten into you? She’s just a girl. Just another liar. Another murderous little pretender.”
Whisper didn’t respond and Lucien exhaled heavily.
Time paused or my mind skipped, but finally, his annoyance cut through my gluey fog. “Like I said, if she dies today, it’s not my fault. Don’t sulk just because you went and got attached to one of their little rats.”
Rat?
Who the hell is he calling a rat?
His hand lashed around my wrist, his thumb finding my pulse again. “I’m not a doctor and I don’t have anything to help.” His voice seemed directed at me again, returning to that callous ice. “And those bastards who shoved you in here don’t care if you live or die.”
The heavy bulk of Whisper’s warm velveteen body pressed against my side as if he’d lain down in protest. Two hundred pounds of panther hugged me like a living sandbag.
“You really are a traitor,” Lucien mumbled.
The cat huffed.
“Fuck it.” Lucien shifted. He sucked in a sharp breath as the bed shuddered. The panther went rigid beside me. “I’ll do what Whisper wants. At least if this doesn’t work, you’ll just be one more dead girl I don’t have to bother with.”
Something pushed against my lips.
Not a cup. Not glass or porcelain.
Skin.
Hot,maleskin.
His hand grabbed my cheeks, squeezing the hinge of my jaw and making my mouth open.
Metallic, warm liquid soaked onto my tongue, bitter and sharp.
It tasted wrong.
My body reacted, trying to reject whatever it was.
Survival instinct jerked me out the quagmire I’d fallen into. Motor control came back, and I fought him off weakly. I tried to stop him administering whatever it was he force-fed me.
“Don’t be stubborn.” Cupping the back of my head, he kept me trapped. “Swallow.”
