Page 17 of Truthfinder’s Promise

7

Meredith thought the not-dog might be dead. It had fallen asleep during the four hour drive back to Seclusion and hadn’t woken when Val parked the Jeep in front of Meredith’s house. Since he was still out and presumably not dangerous, she let Valkyrie haul him inside for her.

“Where do you want him?”

“Kitchen, I guess?” It was tiled, so if he made a mess it would clean easier, and it had a conveniently located sliding glass door to the backyard. Since she had no idea if its true form was capable of using a modern bathroom, she had every intention of dragging him outside for those necessities.

“Shouldn’t he have some pillows or something to sleep on?” Val asked.

“Got you covered,” a new voice called. Random Tremayne, Valkyrie’s husband, strolled into the kitchen with a giant dog bed in his hands. He put it on the floor against the kitchen island and his wife deposited the not-dog on it.

Meredith considered the dog bed, the sleeping creature on it, and then Random. “Was this one of your intuitions or did Siren think I couldn’t be trusted to provide for a dog?”

“Both?” Random flashed her a grin. “I had an urge to duck into Paws and Tails for some reason and then Siren called to say you’d heroically agreed to take on a dungeon mutt and could I please buy you things for it.”

Dungeon mutt. It had a nice ring to it.

“I’ll just be back with the rest of the things.” Random darted outside.

Meredith looked at the creature passed out on the fluffy gray bed. It looked like a poor, pathetic starved dog. Was she crazy for thinking it wasn’t? Had she not given up the gin in time to stop it from addling her brain?

Random came back in, both arms weighed down with canvas shopping bags. He hefted the bags onto the island and headed back to the car again.

“There can’t possibly be more.” Meredith stared at the counter. There were already four giant bags. How many things did a not-dog need?

“You know how he is.” Valkyrie unpacked a bag full of dog food containers that looked like they could be gourmet meals for humans. She frowned at them, then shoved the stack at Meredith. “I think these have to be refrigerated.”

Meredith rolled her eyes. “He would buy the hippie-dippy fancy shit.”

“I was conned into it by the sales lady,” Random defended himself, walking back in with a large dog crate he placed on the floor next to the kitchen island. “She heavily implied that I was a terrible human being if I bought a dog anything besides expensive, organic, grain-free superfood.”

“You’re such an easy mark.” Valkyrie’s lips pulled up in a half-grin that Random returned, and Meredith wanted to barf. Couldn’t someone—anyone—in her general vicinity be miserable alongside her?

She eyed the not-dog. It was unconscious, but it did look pretty miserable. Maybe they were a good match.

Valkyrie and Random were still making puppy eyes at each other. “Can you two take all that disgusting happiness somewhere else? I have a mostly-dead dog to hover over and ten years worth of dog supplies to put somewhere.”

In short order, Valkyrie and Random took their leave. Meredith left the dog supplies on the counter because, for one, she had absolutely no one to impress with her skills of maintaining a tidy home, and two, the damn thing sleeping on the dog bed wasn’t a dog.

It wasn’t. So whenever it woke up, it wouldn’t want to play with a squeaky hamburger toy or lick peanut butter out of something that looked like a plastic beehive. And it might never wake up. Its breathing was so shallow she might just be imagining the fractional rise and fall of its chest.

The faintest stirrings of worry pricked at her. Yes, the thing was lying about what it was, but…it had also been locked in a basement at one of Elijah’s facilities. She wouldn’t be very trusting after that experience either. And nothing deserved to go out like this.

Given the gaunt thinness of the creature’s frame—if what she saw correlated in some way to its true form—then magic had to be tethering it to life, because it was far too gone otherwise. It had woken up briefly in the Jeep, drank a little water out of her hand, passed back out, and hadn’t stirred since.

She would just check if it was still alive.

She crept forward, stopping about a foot away. When it didn’t wake, she slowly reached for it, pressing her palm to its side. She felt a single rise and fall as it breathed. Then it lunged into wakefulness, snapping and snarling.

Meredith jerked her hand back, mere millimeters from sharp canines sinking into her flesh, and fell back, gracelessly scuttling away.

Jensen came awake to the feel of hands reaching for him.

Not again. He wouldn’t go through it again. Not the poking, the prodding, the slicing into his flesh. Wouldn’t let them rip him apart again just so they could watch his magic stitch him back together while they tried to figure out how it worked.

He’d given up thinking he could escape. But maybe he could force them to kill him this time. To finally end the torture.

He gathered his strength and lunged, snapping for the hand. His jaws clamped on empty air. Instead of the sharp hit of a fist to his head or a metal bar to his ribs, he heard a soft oomph, as if he’d knocked something off-kilter.