AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I woke up warm.So. Fucking. Warm.
Blinking blearily, my eyes drifted over a muted fire a few feet away, and then to the wooden slats that it illuminated. I was on the giant sled-boat.
I stiffened, holding my breath and listening intently to the sounds around me.
It took a moment for any alarm to truly penetrate my hazy mind, but then the rumbling voices and heavy thumps became clearer. I began to tremble.
The noises were coming from behind me, but when I tried to roll over and investigate, I realized my movement was hindered.
I was wrapped in thick furs of some kind, so tightly I resembled a furry burrito.
Tears of gratefulness pricked at the corners of my eyes as I remembered just how cold I’d been before passing out. I would never forget that kind of cold.
It was so icy it burned hotter than flame. I had to choke back sniffling sounds as I wiggled enough to roll over, and then I swallowed the sounds whole as I got a look at my present company.
There were catmeneverywhere.
At least a dozen of them stomping around the deck of the cavernous sled. Though not one of them seemed focused on me, I bit back a sound of distress to not draw attention to myself.
I could see something cooking above the fire and smelled pungent peppers in the air.
Eyes drifting to the boards beneath the raised stone firepit, a ball of nausea rose in my stomach when I noticed one of the creatures from the trees lying there, dead…and split open from belly to neck.
Absolutely horrified when my stomach growled despite just how disturbing the sight of it was to me, I forced myself to look away.
And met the eyes of a catman lazily slouched against the stern of the sled.
Fear weighing me down, I remained still as we silently observed one another.
He was not like any of the males I had encountered thus far. It wasn’t his appearance; he had the same spattering of greys and whites in his fur as the others and was built similarly…largeandmuscular—but there wassomething.
Something in his eyes.
He seemed toseeme in a way the others hadn’t.
I wasn’t sure if that was a good or bad thing yet, but I couldn’t seem to tear my eyes away from his.
As alien as his features were to me, his expression was stoic. Firm dark lips pressed tight, hard jawline, and he was sostill.
So when he moved for the first time, I was jarred out of my perusal of him. My eyes shot down to where he curled his hands into loose fists in his lap, and I couldn’t smother my gasp of surprise. He was chained.
Thick iron manacles were wrapped around both of his wrists and bolted to the deck of the sled by short chains, pinning him to a seated position.
Though he seemed utterly relaxed, it was clear that he couldn’t move much the way he was sitting. The longer I stared, though, the stiffer he became until he uncurled his folded legs and bent them at the knees. This allowed him to pull up on his chains. I jerked back when I realized he was trying to reach for me.
A low, rumbling sound came from him, and I began to squirm away, bumping into a solid wood post at my back.
Panic quickly overwhelmed me when I couldn’t seem to wriggle out of my burrito of pelts, and my breathing picked up, rapidly sawing out of me in ragged gasps.
His rumbling grew louder, but then so did my gasping, and it wasn’t long before I caught the attention of all the other catmen spread out across the deck.
I could see them turning their heads my way, heard their voices pick up as they began to speak over me in that strange language, andstill,the chained male’s rumbling continued to grow.
No, it was a purr. He waspurring.
I refocused on his face and caught the determined glint in his eyes just moments before hands wrapped around my waist and wrenched me from the floor of the deck.
His purring abruptly cut off as my scream pierced the air.
