Page 31 of Bosse
They might not turn on him the way his own mother had.
Over the endless days, Bosse had learned to tune out whatever trash talk went on among the guards. But after returning to his cage tonight, the guard with the big nose had boasted how he intended to get his hands on the female servant with two different colored eyes and ride her hard.
If there were any real hope of escaping, that would be the guard’s last mortal mistake before Bosse ripped his head off if he touched the angel sewing his back.
She wasn’t his to protect, but she had shown him the only kindness since he came here.
And cookies. How would he ever eat a cookie again and not think of her selfless action?
He should have been nicer to her earlier. After nonstop months of constantly fighting to survive and living naked in a cage, he’d lost the ability to be kind.
Then she showed up and confused him.
Titan told him,Be careful.
Of what?His wolf was usually more specific.
Titan said,She has no scent.
Bosse kept still to help her finish sewing more quickly. He argued back to Titan,She does have a scent. It is like no other woman—cinnamon and cardamom.
Titan countered,She masks her natural scent with those spices, but not now.
Bosse searched his mind for the few times he’d caught whiffs of her.
Titan was correct.
Now that he thought about it, he could not recall a human scent. Another odd thing to go with her mismatched eyes, none of which he saw as a negative.
Not yet.
Closing his eyes, he shut out the smells of the guards and other prisoners.
He’d like never to inhale the odor of that beast rhino again. An unholy smell he’d never forget.
Yet now that he was concentrating... she had no human scent or spicy smell tonight.
She pulled hard to tie off a thread.
He clamped his teeth at the sharp pain, unwilling to flinch and make her feel bad. A muscle in his jaw twitched.
She paused. She had been calm for the last few minutes, but now she smelled of fear again, and it sickened him.
Keeping his voice as nonthreatening as he could, which was an effort, he said, “You did nothing wrong. The tighter the stitch, the sooner I’ll heal. They’ll rip out when I shift.”
“Okay.” She placed one hand lightly on his side, pinching the edges of his wound together. There came that buzz of energy again. She took a couple of deep breaths and got back to work.
He forgot about the needles and the pain in his side, only the sweet touch of her fingers stroking a buzz across his skin. He struggled not to shudder under a touch so foreign he couldn’t recall what having a woman’s hands on him had felt like. She’d misunderstand his sharp reaction as pain from being sewn and not the hard-on he struggled to keep hidden.
For now, he closed his eyes to keep track of every second her fingers brushed over his skin. He wanted to soak up her gentleness.
Oh, he’d had women before being captured, but they had only wanted what he carried between his legs. None had been memorable.
Not gentle and sweet like this one.
His cookie fairy made him think of a life he’d once dreamed of long ago. After all the time here, he accepted he’d never have that life or any other normal existence. He had been gutted emotionally and changed after two years as a monster.
He was not worthy of a mate.
