More importantly, she was asleep.
How the hell had this beautiful woman fallen asleep in what was the equivalent of a dragon-sized picnic basket?
He pulled his pants on and he slipped into the shirt, and then he sat there beside her, and he waited. What had this human been through? Who was she? And what was she going to do when she woke up?
Chapter 2
Zoa had been having the weirdest dream. She had been living at the creature's house. That's how she had come to think of Mr. Brotella: a creature. He wasn't exactly human, was he? No, she knew the truth about him. He was a snake. Not just figuratively, either: he was actually a total and complete snake.
Zoa had never seen a shifter in real life until she'd met him, and it had horrified her. For years, she'd believed that shifters were things of fairy tales. They were parts of nightmares. They were stories told to scare little kids into behaving. Be good, or the big, bad shifter will take you away.
Well, that's exactly what had happened.
Only, Zoa had been good.
She'd done everything she had supposed to, and still, she'd been stolen away by someone who was a total monster.
A freak.
And she hated him.
But the new guy...the guy working for the creature...he was different, and in her dream, he'd saved her. The dreams were always the same. She tried to escape, and then she was caught. She tried to escape, and Kellen Brotella hurt her.
This time was different, though. She'd been trying to escape for the millionth time, and he'd simply picked her up, carried her outside, and put her in a basket. Then he'd brought her away. She wasn't exactly sure how. Maybe he'd put her in a car or maybe he'd carried the basket to a nearby worksite.
All she knew was that Kellen Brotella was never going to hurt her again, and that was a damn good dream. Zoa didn’t want to wake up for real. She didn’t want her hazy dream state to leave her. Not this time. She’d been so close to freedom, even if it had been a dream, and she wanted more. She wanted the dream to last, to continue. She wanted a little more of that freedom.
She heard a noise like the ocean. Maybe she was falling back asleep. That must be it. Zoa curled into a tiny ball, wishing that the darkness would claim her again. When she was asleep, she could pretend that the world was fine. When she was sleeping, or when her eyes were closed, she could imagine she was anywhere else. Then she heard it again: that ocean-sort of sound. Zoa thought it sounded like waves crashing onto the beach.
Zoa opened her eyes.
The sun was shining on her face. It was mid-afternoon. Okay, that was all right, but how did she get outside? The creature was going to be pissed if she didn't hurry up and get back in the house. He had strict rules for Zoa. She wasn't allowed outdoors. Ever. Not by herself, and not with other people.
She was the ultimate house mouse, and she hated it, but she’d learned that resistance was futile when it came to her captor. He kept her locked up, out of sight and out of mind, and he did this for a reason. She couldn’t understand what the reason might be except that Zoa was his dark, dirty little secret. He didn’t want anyone to know she was there. He didn’t want anybody knowing she existed.
Before she'd been taken, Zoa had loved exploring the outdoors. In her town, she was always the first one to sign up for new races, and she had always run with her whole heart. Just a few months ago she’d run a 5K and she’d come in third place. She'd loved hiking and camping and playing. She’d liked swimming. She’d liked a lot of things.
Mr. Brotella had stolen all of that from her, and she despised him for it. He was the kind of monster her parents had always warned her about, and he’d taken her. Just like that. Just because he wanted to. There had been no rhyme or reason. She hadn’t done anything to him personally. He’d just chosen to take her, and then he had.
The sun warmed her face, and Zoa closed her eyes for just a moment, feeling its warmth. She couldn’t stay for long. She had to get back inside before he noticed she was out of her cage. If he found her before she got back to it, he was going to beat her. When that happened, she wasn't going to be so lucky to escape without stitches.
The last time Zoa had tried to escape, Kellen had beaten the hell out of her. She’d been sore for days, and it had hurt to move. She was fairly certain he’d broken one of her ribs. After he’d hurt her, he’d shifted into his snake form and wrapped his coiled body around her, tightening himself against her until she couldn’t breathe. It had scared her so badly that she hadn’t tried to escape for a few days.
Had she been with Brotella for days?
Weeks?
She didn’t even know anymore.
“Time to get inside,” she whispered to herself. Sometimes if she said things out loud, she found them easier to believe. It was a habit she’d picked up from her mother long ago. Mom always said that if you couldn’t find the self-motivation to get up and do something, sometimes telling yourself out loud could help.
Only, when Zoa sat up, she realized that she wasn't lying in the grass or sitting in the yard. She wasn’t at Kellen Brotella’s house at all. She was in a basket. It looked exactly like the one from her dream. Why did it look like the thing she’d been dreaming about? Then it hit her.
"It wasn't a dream," she whispered out loud, and she peered out of the basket to see him.
The man.
The man from Brotella's place.