“I’m not arguing. I’m saying that this entire phone call is an insult. The council has no right to question my behavior and no right to tell Robyn who she can’t…be with.”
“You’re right. That’s not our place. And I promise I wouldn’t be asking, regardless of what the council wants, if I didn’t think this was in her best interest,” Faythe said. “You’re her Alpha, at least for the time being. Do the right thing. Guard her while she’s with you, both physically and psychologically.”
“Robyn’s well-being is foremost in my mind,” I assured them through clenched teeth. “And you have my word that I have no plans to seduce her. But I won’t tolerate having my judgment questioned again. Is that understood?”
“Perfectly,” Faythe said, while Marc grunted over the line. “Thank you, Titus.”
I echoed Marc’s grunt. Then I hung up the phone.
“How is he?” Robyn said from halfway up the stairs, and for a second, I thought she’d heard Faythe ask me not to abuse my authority as an Alpha by sleeping with her. As if I would ever abuse my authority. During that second, I found myself in a rare moment of speechlessness, unsure how to cover my own humiliation.
Acknowledge the awkwardness and joke it off?
Ignore the whole thing?
But then Robyn jogged down the rest of the stairs with her gaze glued to Corey Morris, who still lay panting on the floor, and I saw no sign that she’d overheard. “Lunch. From Knox.” She dropped a brown paper bag on the table in front of me, and I could already smell the sandwich inside. “When did he shift?” she asked as she crossed the concrete toward the open cell at the end of the basement.
“Just now.”
“So can you tell who infected him?”
“Not yet. But soon, hopefully. His scent will begin to develop, now that he’s shifted.”
“Like an old Polaroid?” she asked, and I laughed.
“Kind of. It’ll happen once he’s recovered from the shift, and that’ll be faster if we can get him to eat something and drink more water.”
She glanced at the rabbit meat on a paper plate in his cell, then marched forward with clear purpose.
“Wait!” I reached for her arm as she passed, but she dodged my grasp. “He might not—”
“Corey?” Robyn dropped onto her heels in front of the new stray, and I followed her into the cell, prepared to get between them if Morris had a bad reaction to being approached for the first time in cat form. “You need to eat something. Trust me, you’ll feel one hundred percent better once you do.” She reached for him as if she’d stroke his head, but I darted forward and pulled her away.
“Don’t touch him yet. Let him get used to—”
Robyn pulled her arm from my grasp and scowled at me. “He won’t hurt me.”
“You don’t know that. He’s not himself yet. Don’t you remember how confused and terrified you were right after your first shift? His instinct will be to snap or swipe at anyone who comes close, and if he hurts you before he knows what he’s doing—”I will never forgive myself. “—the guilt could color his perception of his feline half forever.”
She frowned. “What do you mean?”
“Morris needs a positive outlook on his new form. He needs to understand from the very beginning that this new part of himself is powerful and sometimes dangerous, but not inherently bad in any way. If he hurts you before he’s had a chance to come to terms with what’s happening to him, his initial impression of this new form could be that it’s monstrous or somehow wrong. Or worse—uncontrollable.”
Her frown faded. “You’re not trying to protect me from him. You’re trying to protect him from himself.”
“I’m doing both,” I said as I watched Morris breathe heavily on the floor. “That’s my job.”
“You really care about him. About all of them.” She sounded surprised by the realization, and I tried not to be offended by that.
“Why would I be here, if I didn’t?”
“I don’t…” Her frown became a slow smile. “You’re not what I expected from an Alpha.”
I couldn’t resist the opportunity to throw her own words at her. “Maybe you should stop expecting me to be like all the other Alphas. We’re breaking new ground here, in case you haven’t noticed.”
“Ihavenoticed,” she said. “And I want to help.” Robyn turned and squatted to put herself closer to Morris’s height. But she preserved the distance I’d put between them. “Corey? I want you to nod if you understand me. Titus needs to know that even though you look like a cat, you’re thinking like a human. That’s something I didn’t even know was possible at your stage in the game. So can you give us a nod?”
Morris lifted his head and pushed himself onto his haunches. He blinked slowly. Sluggishly. Then he nodded.
