What thehell…?
“Corey?” Robyn spoke softly, like one might speak to a spooked horse, but she didn’t try to enter the room. “Are you okay? What’s going on?”
Morris’s focus locked on me, as if he hadn’t even heard her. “Why would you bring me here? Why pretend to help me?”
“I’m not pretending.” As I watched, a drop of water fell from his hair onto his arm, then rolled onto the floor. “I truly want to help you. We all do.”
“You’relying!” Morris shouted, and Robyn flinched. I stepped in front of her, instinctively shielding her.
Traumatized or not, Corey Morris needed a reality check. “I don’t know why you would say that, and I don’t know why you’re in my room right now.” Or why he’d obviously showered in my bathroom. I took one firm step over the threshold. “We need to get you back to bed, so Spencer can examine you. It sounds like your fever’s back.” I could think of no other explanation for his certainty that though we’d treated his illness and I’d talked him through his first shift, I was only pretending to care about him.
“You’re everywhere.” Morris didn’t seem to notice that I’d entered the room. He lifted my shirt to his face and inhaled, then threw it across the floor. “No matter where I go, I smell you. You’reall overme, and I can’t wash you off!”
On the edge of my vision, Robyn turned to me, and though I couldn’t see her expression, I was sure it reflected my own horror. I’d never touched Corey Morris, yet he seemed to believe he was somehow covered in my scent. As if he’d been wearing my clothes or rolling around in my bed.
His strange delusion made my skin crawl.
“It could be transference,” Robyn whispered as she stepped up to my side. “Like, a misapplication of emotion or aggression. There was some discussion after my trial theorizing that I had ‘transferred’ my hostility toward the cat who accidentally infected me onto the human men I killed. That was total bullshit. My hostility toward those murdering bastards was aimed right where it belonged. But it could be a legitimate problem here.”
“Why?” I studied Morris, trying to understand. “How?”
“Maybe you did your job too well? I know you were trying to bond with him, but if he smelled too much of your scent too early and began to associate it with the pain of shifting—or with his fever—he could be subconsciously blaming you for what happened to him.”
I shook my head slowly. “Nothing like that has ever happened before. And this doesn’t look very subconscious.” In fact, it looked bizarrely, inappropriately conscious.
“Corey?” Robyn turned to the stray. “What happened to you wasn’t Titus’s fault. He’s trying to help you. He’s your Alpha now, and that’s what they do.”
I glanced at her in surprise. Her previous statements about Alphas hadn’t been anywhere near as flattering.
Robyn sank onto her knees and sat on her heels, putting herself at the same height as Morris. “We all want to help you. We’ve all been where you are. Do you remember me telling you about how I was infected?”
Morris nodded, and more water fell from his hair. “You killed the men responsible.”
“Yes, and Titus and his men are going to find the shifter who did this to you. He will be dealt with.”
“What the hell are you talking about?” Morris’s frown looked almost coherent. As if Robyn were the one not making sense. “Is this some kind of sick game? Why would you people bring me here? Tohim?” His tortured focus found me again, and it felt accusatory.
Robyn turned to me, her brows drawn low. “He seems to be blaming you for all of this. We need to get him back to bed, and maybe give him a sedative.”
I nodded. I wasn’t sure a sedative would cure Morris’s delusion, but at least it would give us time to figure out what had gone wrong with his adjustment.
“Let’s get you something to wear.” Robyn started to stand, then turned to me instead. “He probably shouldn’t wear something that smells like you. Ideas?”
“There’s a clean robe hanging on my bathroom door,” I told her. “I haven’t worn it yet.”
Morris’s gaze followed Robyn nervously as she walked past him into the bathroom. A second later, she brought out the robe, and even from my position in the doorway, I could smell the fabric softener used on it. “Okay, Corey.” She sank onto her knees and draped the robe over his shoulders. “We’re going to take you to the basement and Titus is going to call Spencer to come take a look at you. Okay?”
“As long ashestays back.” Morris’s anger was like a knife to my gut. I’d helped at least a dozen strays acclimate to their new lives in the past year, and none of the others had blamed me for what happened to them. I’d had varying levels of success in the bonding department, but my efforts had never backfired before.
How could I be an effective Alpha to a man who hated the very sight—and scent—of me?
“Fine.” I stepped away from my own bedroom door. “You can deal with Robyn and Spencer for now.”
Robyn gave me a relieved smile as she helped Morris slide his arms into the robe sleeves, and I realized how lucky the new stray and I both were to have her around at that moment. She genuinely wanted to help him, and he seemed willing to let her. She was just as good at this as I was.
Maybe better.
“Let me help you up.” Robyn looped one of her arms around his and started to stand. Then she froze, her face inches from the stray’s bare neck. “He smells different.” Her wide-eyed gaze caught mine. “I’ve never met a stray before his scent changed before. This is fascinating! He smells like—” The light in her eyes died beneath a confused frown. She backed slowly away from the stray and rose to her feet with a cat’s effortless grace. “Titus, he smells likeyou.”
