Page 10 of Lost and Bound
“Not yet,” my cellmate said, equally unconcerned, not specifying which of the questions he was answering.
“Huh,” Baldy grunted, and the door shut with a thud.
I sat up as soon as his footsteps had faded.
“They didn’t know I’d been up and around since the last time they were in here,” I said breathlessly.
He pushed himself up and went for the sandwich, dropping back down beside me and ripping it in half without comment, handing me the smaller side. More peanut butter. Joy. And with the dust of the filthy floor all over it.
I tore into it, and he did the same with his half. It took about thirty seconds for it to be gone.
“What’s your point?”
I turned my head, daring a look at him, and found him doing the same. Our eyes met, and I was transfixed again, the way I had been when we’d first looked at each other. Up close, I could see the color of his eyes more clearly. They really were gray, nearly the same as the alpha glow—which never seemed to fade. Most alphas only displayed that when they were shifting, or in the grip of some strong emotion.
Not this one. “Why isn’t your alpha glow golden?” It came out low, intimate, in the space between our faces.
“Who says I’m an alpha at all? Maybe this is just another side effect.”
I scoffed at that. “You’re an alpha. Whatever they did to you, that didn’t change.” I knew that as well as I knew my own name. Alpha shifters had a scent, a feeling, that no other shifter could miss.
“Whatever they did to me,” he growled, his eyes narrowing.
He sounded angry. Angry? What the—before I could get it together, his hand shot out and caught me around the throat, shoving me down onto the pallet.
He landed on top of me, crushing me with his weight, his fingers tightening, his face hovering an inch above mine, his eyes filling my vision and freezing me in place like that rabbit he’d called me before.
“What’s the test?” he snarled. “The fucking game. What is it this time? You want my ‘subjective impressions of the results’? Or to see what the ‘treatments’ did to my libido this time?”
The quotation marks in what he’d said were clearly audible. I gaped up at him in horror and dawning comprehension. “No,” I gasped. His hand tightened, and I flailed up with my own, tugging uselessly on his arm. “I’m not,” I wheezed. “Please, I’m not…”
The pressure let up suddenly as he yanked his hand away, and I sucked in deep, choking breaths, coughing and sputtering.
“You’re not what?” he demanded, his eyes glowing more brightly.
“I’m not working for them, or, or collaborating with them. I’m not testing you. Or if they’re testing you using me, I’m not part of it. I swear to you I’m not. I’m not trying to trick you into saying something they want to know.” He stayed silent, staring down at me, his expression terrifyingly neutral. Measuring. “Obviously they’ve asked you to tell them how their fuckingtreatments,” I spat the word, “made you feel. And you’ve refused. And now you think this is the way they’re trying to get to you.”
He nodded slowly.
“I’m just here to die,” I said. “That’s it. So obviously they’re not expecting me to report back. And—if you haven’t noticed, that’s what I was trying to get at before. They’re not paying attention anyway, so it’s not like they’ll hear anything you tell me.”
His hand moved again, from the mattress to my shoulder. Claws pricked into my collarbone, a clear warning. “The fuck does that mean,” he said flatly.
Jesus, I’d still be floundering around trying to explain myself clearly when he lost his patience and gutted me. I drew a deep breath, closing my eyes for a precious second to gather my wits.
I opened them again. He was still staring down at me. Was it my imagination, or had his cock thickened against my thigh? Fuck.
“Look, you think I’m here to spy on you.” And wasn’t that ironic—the one time I truly wasn’t spying on or betraying anyone. He nodded again. “Okay. I’d either have to survive long enough to tell someone what you said, or they’d need to be listening. Surveillance of some kind. Right?”
He frowned down at me, and his grip on my shoulder loosened, the claws retracting, leaving little points of pain. His eyes flicked down, and he inhaled deeply.
Little points of pain, and little welling droplets of blood. I could smell it too.
I had to keep him on track. “Listen to me!” I said desperately, and his gaze pulled away from the blood on my chest, reluctantly returning to my face. “They obviously don’t care if I’m alive or dead in here. So they can’t be expecting me to report on you. And he didn’t know I’d been up! Remember? He didn’t know! So no one was watching. I think they used to have surveillance in the cells. Magical, not electronic. But it’s not there now. For whatever reason. They’re not watching us anymore.”
Slowly, he sat up, still straddling my legs but not crushing me anymore. And keeping his hands to himself.
“So you’re not a spy, and they’re not watching us,” he said at last. “So fucking what?”
