know instinctively that they’re not angry at me.
I feel the metal latch on my cage pop open, and then a hand is presented in front of my cave, palm up.
Instead of the fingers coming in to snatch me up, the hand sits there patiently, like he’s waiting for me to make a move. “You want to come out?” a rumbling voice asks.
My eyes dart around in anxiousness as I try to decide what to do. He’s obviously trying to present a calm, friendly, and non-pushy impression. He wants me to trust him, but I don’t know him, and he still smells kind of angry. I don’t like angry. Angry always seems to singe my nose, and I’m over being burned. Hmm, what to do…
Well, when in doubt…
Decision made, I run out, bite him on the finger as hard as I can, and then dart my hairy ass back inside my cave.
There. I feel solid about that choice.
Instead of getting pissed off that I just bit the shit out of his finger, I hear a low, masculine laugh. Curious at this response, I peek my head out from the cave again and look up. And there’s no mistaking what he is.
Alpha.
That knowledge screams in my mind like an alarm going off. Everything about his scent screams power. And that’s exactly what terrifies me. And also—holy cheese shits, I just bit the friggen alpha!
The whole reason I’m stuck in my rat form is because of an alpha. Sid. Sid isn’t as strong as this male, but he’s strong enough that he’s kept me in shifted submission.
My ears pin back against my head in fear, because stranger or not, alphas friggen scare me. I’m shaking with it, and I know they can smell it on me. The hand immediately disappears from my cage and more voices murmur around me. I only catch snippets of what’s being said.
“Alpha…shock…unknown...”
The talking goes on for a few more minutes, but I’m shaking in my cave because I’m so freaked out. What if this new alpha is even worse than Sid? Maybe that’s why I’m here. Maybe Sid told Rick to give me to someone else to change up my punishment. That thought fills me with a heavy weight of dread.
My cage is suddenly picked up, and I have to dig my claws in so I don’t get tossed around as I’m carried out of the room into the cool night air. After just a few minutes of walking, I’m brought into another building, up a set of stairs, and then I’m set down on the floor.
The female with the nice eyes from the pet shop smiles calmly at me as she opens my cage door. I poke my head out to look at her, glad to find that there’s no one else in the room. I can see two beds on opposite walls and a television, so I know we must be in her bedroom. I smell another female’s scent in here, but she’s nowhere to be seen.
The female starts talking, and I force myself to focus on her and listen to her words. “I know you must’ve had a long day. You can come out whenever you like,” she tells me softly. “You’re not a prisoner, and you have nothing to fear here.”
She says some more things, but I don’t catch the rest, because those words needle through my mind.
I’m not a prisoner?
Nothing to fear?
Those concepts are completely foreign to me. And I know without a doubt that it’s not true. Rick Dick will return any minute now. I’ll be snatched back into my normal life of captivity where I live under their thumbs.
I don’t know what kind of game Rick is playing, but I know he’s tricking me. He’s trying to give me false hope and then take it away from me again. But I’m not going to fall for it. He would never let me go. Sid wouldn’t allow it.
So even though she really does leave my cage door open, and even though she leaves the room with the bedroom door cracked, I don’t fall for it. I don’t try to climb up the walls of my cage or escape.
If I do, I’ll just be punished more severely, and self-preservation is something I’ve gotten very good at. Just survive. I always tell myself. Just get through another day. So that’s what I do. Day in and day out, I survive. I curl up inside of my animal, keeping myself as safe as I can.
My