“Here you go.” I held the dish out, and she snatched it from me with both thin hands, exposing the stark lines of her collarbones, a nearly flat chest, and more ribs than I cared to count when the blanket slid from her shoulders.
The tabby drained the bowl in a blink, then held it out to me, her eyes flashing bright in satisfaction. “Thank you,” she said as I took the bowl from her.
“You have a lovely voice,” I said, and I meant it. Her voice was clear and young, as was her complexion, in spite of having spent at least the past few weeks without access to soap and showering facilities. Her voice, skin and manners gave the only hint that her life had once been something else. Something pure and good, and completely unrelated to the wilderness nightmare that had become her reality at some point.
The tabby didn’t return my smile. She blinked, and that gleam in her eyes was gone. She wrapped the blanket around her torso, tucking it beneath her arms like a towel, likely a habit left over from her life before…whatever had brought her here.
From downstairs came the sound of water running. Someone was taking a morning shower. I had to get her talking posthaste.
Struggling to maintain a smile that now felt painted on my face, I set the bowl on the floor and faced the tabby. “Feel any better now?”
She shook her head. “Not much.”
“I’m sure you’re exhausted. But if you can answer a couple of questions for me, I’ll go away and let you sleep for a while.” Just as soon as the doc has examined you…
That time she didn’t deny her exhaustion—a definite step in the right direction. “What kind of questions?”
I smiled encouragingly. At least, I hoped it was encouraging. “Your name, for starters.”
“Kaci Dillon,” she said, and my heart tried to burst straight through my sternum.
Success! I’d now gotten the tabby to eat, Shift, talk and tell me her name, when she wouldn’t even tolerate the doctor’s presence. No matter what happened next, the Alphas couldn’t deny that I’d gotten the job done. That I had value as something other than an incubator.
But the tabby wasn’t done. “Kaci-with-a-K-and-an-I.” She said it as if the whole phrase was one word, and her speech had the distinctive cadence of long-term habit, as if she’d said that same thing nearly every day of her life. I could sympathize. No one ever spelled my name right the first time either.
“Nice to meet you, Kaci. I’m Faythe-with-a-Y-and-an-E.” My smile widened, and I was delighted to see a tiny echo of it on her face. She was happy to have made me happy. Or else she was laughing at me silently.