“Looking for something?”
His gravelly voice comes from behind me, and I turn on my heel to find him already standing a foot away from me. He’s still wearing the same black button-up and slacks from earlier, but now it smells like he’s wearing cologne. I hate that the scent is intoxicating. An animal like him should smell of musk and nature.
“What am I doing here?” I demand, crossing my arms as an added measure to show I’m not interested in playing his games.
“You’re joining me for dinner.” He walks over to the chair stationed at the head of the table and pulls it out. “Sit.”
Seeing as how I don’t have much of a choice and my stomach feels like it’s about to eat itself, I do as he says. Once I’m seated, Thane pushes the chair into the table to the point I’m almost too close.
“Good girl.”
I jump slightly, feeling him against my ear, and he releases a dark laugh as his stubble grazes the side of my face before he steps away, walking to the opposite end. Thane takes his seat, and the two of us glare at one another across the ridiculously long table.
A man dressed in a tux sets a covered dish in front of me. When he pulls the lid off, I expect to see a steak or soup, but it’s neither.
“What is this?” I ask, even though I already know the answer.
“It’s your dinner,” Thane says, taking a bite out of whatever meat he just cut into.
“It’s dog food!” I snap, slamming my palm down on the table.
“It is,” he agrees in a condescending tone that makes my hand ball into a fist. “And you’re going to eat it.”
“I’d rather starve!” I swipe my arm across the table, and the bowl of dog food goes flying off, scattering across the maroon rug. I push away from the table to stand, but Thane is already looming over me with both hands fixed firmly on each arm of the chair. It took him less than a breath to get to me. Werewolves are fast, but not that fast. Especially when they’re in their human forms. “How did you—”
“What’s the matter, Grey? Never met a hybrid before?”
“A what?” He lowers his head, stopping in front of my face. Two fangs snap out, and my hands fly to my mouth in an attempt to muffle the scream. He leans back against the table, crossing his legs as he takes in my reaction with sick pleasure. “It’s impossible.”
“It should be,” he says, resting his palms on the table next to him. “Now how about we try this again?”
He snaps his fingers, and the man dressed in the tux walks out with another covered dish. When he approaches, Thane steps behind my chair and pushes it in with a bit more force than last time. Instead of heading back to his seat, he props his leg up so that he’s sitting halfway on the table. He removes the lid and slides the bowl of dog food closer to me.
I could eat it. Lord knows I’ve eaten worse. But doing so would be playing his game. It would mean accepting my fate as his pet, and I refuse to do that. I spent my whole life craving freedom, and when the Last War ended, and I survived, I earned that freedom. It’s going to take more than a little starvation for me to just give it up now.
I take the bowl in my hands, lifting it to my lips, and his eyes monitor every move, waiting to bask in the glory of breaking me. I pause, making sure to lock eyes with him right before tossing it over my head. The sound of the bowl shattering almost masks the snarl Thane releases as he stands up.
“You should know that pets aren’t always obedient,” I taunt, matching his anger with my own.
He grabs my arm hard enough to leave a mark and drags me out of the mansion so fast that my feet scrape the ground, struggling to keep up. Before I know it, he’s tossing me back into the cage next to the wolves.
“If you want to act like a wild animal, then you’ll live like one.”
Thane
She’s infuriating and defiant, and I can’t help but be intrigued. No one has challenged me in a long time, and seeing her toss the bowl of dog food over her head ignited the masochistic part of me that longs for a fight.
Now, she’ll have no choice but to learn the hard way what it means to defy me. Between the cold nights and hunger, she won’t last long. I’d give her five days tops, and that’s only because she seems impossibly stubborn. Eventually, she’ll have no choice but to give up. And when she does, I’ll make sure she drowns in the hopelessness of knowing her life is no longer her own.
Chapter 4
The past three days have gone by excruciatingly slowly. Partly due to boredom, but mostly due to hunger. Every day, the vampire guard, whose name is Kieran, drops off a bowl full of dog food to my cage, and every day I dump it on the ground in retaliation. That is, until today.
I want to keep refusing, but it’s getting harder. Each day I don’t eat, my body grows weaker, making an escape that much more unlikely.
“Just do it,” the man next to me, who goes by Night, insists. “You’re not doing yourself any favors by starving out here.”
I hate that he’s right. The more I think about it, the more pointless this whole standoff seems. At the very least, Thane isn’t here to witness me concede. I start with one morsel, plugging my nose and swallowing it before I have a chance to taste it.
