Page 15 of Truthfinder’s Promise

6

Jensen King was hallucinating. It was the only thing that explained how Meredith Townsend was carrying him out of the torture basement. He’d never pictured himself as the type to have a rescue fantasy but here he was, obviously having one.

When he’d heard the kid outside his door, the one that brought him food, he’d ignored the apple that rolled into the cell. Shifter magic and its ability to speed or slow his metabolism had kept him alive far longer than a regular human would have managed in these conditions, but he’d known death would come in a matter of time. The apple would only prolong his suffering.

Then he’d heard more voices. Part of him wanted to ignore the apple anyway, and get the process of dying over with, because logic told him whoever was on the other side was Aspect Society, and Aspecters meant more pain. Then Natalie’s face had flashed into his mind and he’d shoved down the selfish part of him that wanted to die. His sister needed him to live, so he could find her.

He’d eaten the apple. Maybe it had been laced with something, and that’s why he was having Meredith fantasies? Drugged or not, the apple had given him the boost he needed to fuel the glamour that made him look like an ordinary mutt. He almost hadn’t bothered, assuming the Aspecters would already know what the cell contained. Would know that even if they saw a dog, that wasn’t what he was.

But while they were definitely Aspect Society, they didn’t question finding a dog in the cell. None of them except Meredith, who seemed to recognize he wasn’t what he appeared, but also couldn’t see past the glamour to his true form.

It couldn’t be her. This woman walked like her, talked like her, but it couldn’t be her. Because if it was, that would mean that the woman who had kept him from sliding off the cliff into absolute despair when he’d been unable to find Natalie, was an Aspecter.

The meager energy he’d gained from the apple was already failing, and he let his exhausted head drop onto her shoulder.

“Your fur smells worse than your breath,” she muttered. That was her voice, her cadence. She gripped him firmly but gently, and the touch felt so good he stopped thinking about what it meant that she was Aspect.

If he lived, if this wasn’t a hallucination, he would care about it then. For now he buried his nose in the thick fall of her hair and inhaled the light, fruity scent of her shampoo. He remembered that scent, and after months of smelling nothing but dank concrete, steel, and his own filth, she smelled like heaven.

“Oh goddess, it is fur I’m touching, right?” Her voice was soft and low but mildly panicked. “You don’t have tentacles, right? Please, goddess, don’t let me be holding a slimy, tentacled creature.”

He grunted. Tentacles? What did she think he was, Cthulhu?

By the time they reached the top of the stairs, Meredith had started breathing hard. “I have been working out,” she muttered to herself, “and goddess knows quitting the booze helped, but you weigh like forty pounds.”

Forty pounds? That was alarming. He’d known he didn’t weigh anything close to what he should, but forty? A Shifter’s second form was typically larger than that of its ordinary animal counterpart. In cases of starvation their magic could shrink their form, so his frame probably wasn’t much larger than a dog’s right now, but forty pounds meant he was even closer to death than he’d thought. And that he would require a lot of food before he could manage to shift back to human.

They emerged into a foyer he’d never seen before—his cage had been covered when they’d brought him to wherever this was—and it was packed mostly with children.

Meredith shifted sideways, giving him an unobstructed view of the room. A redhead saw them and locked onto him, concern filling her eyes. “Oh my god, is he okay?”

She rushed toward them and the power spinning around her reached for him. He bared his teeth and gave a low warning growl. She stopped in her tracks, looking hurt.

“Hey, stop that,” Meredith scolded. He had a feeling she would have popped him on the nose if she’d had a free hand, and just for that he licked her ear. She shuddered, no doubt fearing she’d just been scraped by a tentacle.

“It’s okay, buddy,” the redhead tried in a soothing voice. “I’m here to help.”

He growled again and snapped at her. He didn’t care what she was trying to do, he wasn’t risking it. Wasn’t risking that if she touched him with her power, she might figure out what he was.

“Maybe if Valkyrie holds him for me?” the redhead said.

Meredith’s hand came protectively over his face and she stepped back. “I think I should just take him home.”

“He’s in bad shape, Meredith.”

“I know. But he’s also upset and needs time to adjust. He’s made it this long, he’ll make it a few hours back to Seclusion.”

Jensen had no idea why Meredith was invested in keeping her suspicions about his nature to herself, but he chose to be grateful their goals aligned. Even if she had just said she was taking him into Seclusion, the heart of Aspect territory.

“I only need a few minutes to fix him.”

“Do you?” Meredith challenged. “I saw you after the alligators. You looked like you were going to pass out.”

Alligators?

“I’m fine.”

“I don’t even need to Truthfinder you to know you’re lying.”