Page 18 of Truthfinder’s Promise

His eyes focused. The barren concrete walls and steel door were gone, replaced by white walls and shining white tile. Instead of dank concrete floor, something soft and comforting lay beneath his paws.

And in front of him, clearly having just fallen on her ass, was Meredith. It came back to him then. He’d been rescued by his former fling.

Which would be fine—wonderful even—if she was susceptible to the glamour that made the world see a dog instead of a wolf. Were that the case he could bide his time, regain his strength until he was healthy enough to shift again, and then simply leave. But Meredith suspected he wasn’t what he appeared.

Even now she watched him warily, her eyes narrowed, studying him. He couldn’t stop the growl that rose to his throat at that look. He was so tired of being studied. Of people trying to figure him out. She knew he wasn’t a dog. So why had she brought him here? And where was here?

She tensed at his growl, then visibly forced herself to relax. “I don’t trust you,” she said. “Because you’re lying about what you are. And you’re doing it well enough that no one else even questioned why Elijah Winters would waste time having a dog locked in a basement.”

Elijah Winters. The devil had a name, then.

“So I don’t trust you. And because I don’t know what you really are, I don’t even know if you can understand me. Can you?”

The viscerally human part of him that had been isolated and alone wanted to give her some indication that he could. This was the first time anyone had spoken to him as opposed to about him since he’d been taken. Well, aside from the little boy who’d been bringing him food.

But the voice of reason urged him to be cautious. Maybe he had liked her a lot. Maybe she had liked him a lot when they’d both thought the other was just an ordinary person. But he didn’t really know her. He didn’t know why she’d taken him in. So while she might not believe he was a dog right now, if he looked like one and acted enough like one…

He settled onto his stomach, laid his head between his paws, and whined.

Her expression softened. Then she looked irritated with herself for her lapse in wariness. “Goddess.” She ran her hands over her face and he noticed, for the first time, how exhausted she looked. Like she’d been running on fumes for years. “Either you’re a hell of an actor or I’m fucking insane.”

He whined again and she shook her head. “Can you eat dog food?”

A Shifter metabolism meant he could eat pretty much anything without getting sick, and it had been so long since he’d had anything besides the scraps the kid had slid through his prison door that he didn’t even care what it would taste like.

She sighed in frustration when he didn’t give her any response. “You’re getting dog food because that’s what Random bought. Because everyone thinks you’re a dog.”

Who was Random? Her boyfriend? He had to quash a wave of jealousy. Women like Meredith—pretty, smart, funny—didn’t stay single for long unless they wanted to. When he’d up and disappeared, she’d probably gone straight on to someone else.

And was he really jealous of the woman’s theoretical boyfriend in the current situation?

While he’d been busy with irrational emotions, she’d been clanking bowls around somewhere behind him. She returned with a dish of water and another full of something that looked more like a Sunday dinner pot roast than it did dog food. Not that he was complaining.

“Siren said you probably need to take it slow, so this is all you’re getting for now.”

Siren? Must be the redhead who’d been radiating enough power to make his bones shiver. Meredith placed the bowls on the floor. Jensen’s humanity was buried so far down he didn’t have any self-respect left. He lunged at the food, the primal, starved part of him terrified that if he didn’t eat it right this second, it would disappear.

Meredith sighed. “Try not to hork. If you don’t hork you can have more in an hour.”

Meredith thought maybe she was losing her mind after all. The day had almost entirely passed them by now, and so far the not-dog—okay, Monster, because she had to call him something—had been the epitome of an abused, starved dog. He hadn’t done anything except eat, sleep, and whine at the door to go outside and do dog-like business.

Then she forced herself to focus past the belief magic wrapped around him and remembered that this morning he’d been a medium sized dog she could feel every rib on, and now he was a slightly larger, slightly less ribby dog. This morning, he’d been so weak he could barely manage the trek outdoors and back in, and he now managed a little bounce in his step.

None of which was normal. Starved creatures on the brink of death didn’t just bounce back in the space of a day, even if he had eaten his way through all the dog food. But save the initial snapping incident when she’d woken him up—an obvious trauma response—he hadn’t tried to hurt her. In fact, if she had to put a label on his behavior, it would be “polite.”

She was having a more and more difficult time imagining he grew tentacles. When he woke up from his eight billionth nap of the day, she decided he’d had enough rest and hydration to take care of another matter that sorely needed tending to.

She gathered a brush, a cup, and the dog shampoo Random had bought and took them to the first floor guest bathroom. She started the tub water, mixing and matching the hot and cold until she got an even warm temperature, and filled the tub halfway. Then she went back to the kitchen.

“Here’s the thing,” she told him. “You smell atrocious. Which I get isn’t your fault, but you really, really need a bath. Are you going to follow me to the bathroom or do I need to carry you?”

He gave her a look of pure, doggy innocence. Wonderful.

She walked halfway to the bathroom. Monster stayed where he was. She walked back. Carrying it is.

“I’m going to pick you up. Please don’t bite me. I have an extremely knee-jerk reaction to pain and I can’t promise I won’t drop you or throw you at a wall. We good?”

Monster whined.