in the least, and yet, she turned the drab fabric into something glorious because it touched her skin.
“We might be here a while,” he said as he rose and then sprawled on the cot, stretching out. He’d slept on stone that was more comfortable. Even with his eyelids half-lowered, he didn’t miss her stepping into her pants and pulling them up.
No panties.
At all.
He approved.
“So you’re just going to nap?”
He patted the cot next to him. “Plenty of room, you can sleep on me if you like.”
“Generous,” she deadpanned.
“I can be.”
Arms folded, she glanced from him to the door. “Some rescue plan.”
“Not done yet, Kitten. Now sheathe your claws and come give us a cuddle.”
She flipped him off and moved to the far corner where she sat down with her back to the wall and her eyes half-closed.
Eh, it was worth a try.
Maddox? Fin reached out.
Hmm?
Is it true? Hope and anticipation curled in Fin’s mental voice.
Was she a hybrid like them?
Yes. He confirmed. She’s ours.
Fin didn’t respond in words, but the enormous satisfaction swelling through the connection made Maddox smile again.
“Keep smiling over there, hot stuff. You’re still in a cell.”
“I know,” he answered. “You’re still with me.”
“Yay.” The single dry syllable enticed him to laugh all over again.
She didn’t like him.
But she also didn’t know him.
Not yet.
Chapter 4
“The first step towards getting somewhere is to decide that you are not going to stay where you are.” - Unknown
Twelve or so hours after the male interrupted my mental building, I finally managed to get the house’s construction perfect. The bluff it would sit upon was somewhere along the California coast. It would make for spectacular sunsets in the evening over the water. The deck above would allow me to greet the sun in the mornings.
I really missed the sun. Weird to think about the things you lose. No, not because of that idiot vampire, but because I’d landed up here, consigned to the Nightmare Penitentiary for the crime of fucking up someone’s idea of what was natural.
Hybrids couldn’t possibly exist. On that note, I agreed with them. I wasn’t a vampire. I’d died—theoretically—then come woken up to whatever these physiological changes were I’d undergone. The transformation left me exhausted, starving, and really, really irritated.
How had Elias described me once?
Oh, right, Psychotic Monster Syndrome.
The humming leftover buzz—what little of it remained from Dorran’s visit—had waned. The lightheadedness began with the blood pouring out of my wounded wrists. Before my latest captor decided to get all finger, wrist, and hand licking good with cleaning me up. The fact the wounds closed explained the shivers of awareness rippling through my system, and it had nothing at all to do with the intensity in his eyes as he worked to repair what his nasty little toys had done.
Nothing at all.
The torches had gone out in the corners. If this level were like my own, then night had fallen. The time for Dorran’s potential visit approached. Only there would be no visit because I wasn’t on my level—probably not even then. It hadn’t been a full twenty-four hours since his last call. He rarely came two nights in a row. In the beginning? Yes. Not anymore.
I’d been well fed.
Emphasis on the past tense.
The blood loss also explained the electric need to roll around in the lust roiling off the snarl-monkey currently sprawled on the bed like some over-sized lazy ass cat, expanding to take up all the room.
I eyed him, then the door. He’d done something to it, but I hadn’t tested it—yet. Not as long as sentinels shuffled in the hall. It had been a few hours, though. Maybe they’d moved on.
Could be they hadn’t noticed my absence. The only person I’d seen since my arrival was Dorran. Even the blood bags arrived through a slot in the door.
I sighed.
“Something wrong, Kitten?”
I didn’t bother to answer.
My name wasn’t fucking Kitten.
Back to the house…
“You know,” he said, almost idly. “I’m here to help you.”
…I wanted something hedonistic in the bathroom. A huge tub, something I could practically swim in, as well as just languish and soak. When was the last time I had a real shower much less a bath? One upside to the vamp blood, I supposed, was the lack of body hair growth. This long without a real chance to groom, and I should look like Bigfoot.
I could stand the hair on the legs, not the hair in my pits. Nope. Just made me itch thinking about it.
But the lack of even the appearance