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It’s a shirt, I realize, and I put it on gratefully.
I lay back and watch him lay on the bed next to me.
‘Thank you,’ I say quietly.
He grunts a response, and I close my eyes, inordinately tired from simply pissing in a pot.
‘What did you do last time?’ he whispers a moment later.
‘When?’ I ask.
‘You said before that you were Breach Blet when you were traveling to Alcana. You were alone, weren’t you? A human woman by herself, vulnerable. How did you even get to Alcana in one piece?’
‘I had the bracelet from the beginning,’ I answer after a moment. ‘No one knew I was a human. I found a healer before it got too bad. I had to show him what I was. I told him I’d buried my coins, but if he helped me and kept my secret, I’d show him where it was once I was well.’ I shrug. ‘He healed me, and I gave him the money.’ I let out a breath. ‘I didn’t find out until after I’d gone that he’d stolen everything in my pack that he thought he could sell.’
‘What a cunt,’ he mutters a little vehemently.
I close my eyes without comment, letting sleep take me again and hoping that I’ll feel better soon. I hate having to rely on them to take care of me. It’s making me feel like what I’m meant to be pretending to be. A pet.
Kallum’s arm snakes around me again, and when I don’t move it, he edges closer. I feel his hand brush the underside of my breast, but I ignore it, assuming it was accidental. But then he does it again, and I close my eyes, wondering why I’m not telling him to get away from me, wondering why his arm is making me feel secure instead of stifled.
* * *
I avert my eyes from her as much as I can as I lower her carefully into the bath. She’s wearing a chemise that Kallum found for her somewhere, but it does nothing to hide what’s underneath.
The beast in me stirs as he has been more and more since we came here. I can’t help but take in her scent and grit my teeth, so I don’t let out the growl or the beast that’s getting harder and harder to contain in these close quarters.
‘Thank you,’ she murmurs as she leans back with a sigh, showing me everything … if I were to look down. Which I don’t.
Instead, I make sure the soap is within easy reach and tell her to call one of us if she requires anything.
The beast will ensure it’s me who gets to her first if she needs help, though. He’s basking in taking care of her. He delights at her small smiles, expressions that are slowly becoming more frequent the longer we’re here. It’s been a week, and the healer is meant to be coming back tomorrow.
I throw myself into a chair. No doubt he’ll want to do a thorough examination of her, assure himself of her healing, and that she is, in fact, breedable. I bite back my snarl.
‘We need to discuss what we’re going to do,’ I grind out at Dane, who’s reading that infernal book, and Kal, who’s sitting on the bed doing fuck all as usual.
‘About what?’ Kallum mutters, glancing at the screen for the umpteenth time.
‘The show we’ll need to give Reyn and the fucking council so we can leave this hellscape.’
Both Dane and Kal look at me in alarm.
‘What?’ I snarl.
‘Your voice,’ Kallum says carefully.
‘What about it?’
‘It changed.’
‘No, it didn’t.’ I shake my head and laugh.
‘It did,’ Dane says. ‘We both heard it. Are we in danger of you shifting here?’
Kallum looks from one of us to the other. ‘Shifting? When did you shift?’
‘The night we spent in the forest,’ I mutter. ‘I woke as … something just before the Gate opened.’
