So no, she could never fully be human, not for as long as she lived and no matter how much she wished it to be so.
Her captor tossed her a wicked grin that should’ve looked threatening but somehow also manage to send a bolt of awareness roaring through her.
“If you’re not human,” he countered, “then why does all your fur melt away when you’re unconscious?”
She blushed, humiliated about every inch of skin he’d no doubt seen when she was vulnerable and passed out. Curling her arms and legs more tightly around her and making sure all her privates were covered, she glowered. “Just because I’m a half-breed doesn’t mean—”
“Yes, it does!” he snapped, his eyes flashing with hate. “You’re an abomination to our kind.”
“I can’t help what I am,” she shot back, her own temper flaring.
He was at the cage before she’d even realized he’d moved. Arms snaking between the bars, he grabbed her throat, clutching with his unbelievably strong fingers, and yanked her close until their faces were a scant inch apart. Though she feared him, his heat was soothing.
Another tremble seized her.
“Little human should know better than to talk back to me,” he warned, his breath—smelling of fresh apples and making her stomach cramp with hunger—wafted across her cheeks.
“Just…let me go.” Her teeth began to chatter. “You don’t want me here. I can see the hate in your eyes, smell it seeping from your skin. Let me go.”
His yellow eyes took on a mocking smirk. “And what would I get in return for doing you such a service, half-breed?”
“I…” She frowned, uncertain of what he meant. “I don’t know. I…I’d give you anything. Money?”
He snorted. “I have no need for your human money. I don’t associate with those pathetic homo sapiens. Or their traditions and forms of bartering.”
“But…but…there must be something I have to barter,” she tried. There had to be. Otherwise he would’ve already killed her by now.
“Yess,” he hissed out the word in a reptilian sneer. His gaze roamed her from head to toe, touching her body in the most intimate kind of caress. “I believe you do have something to barter.”
Coming up next in the Half-Breed Shifter Series: Body to Barter, featuring Brynn Griffin.
The End
About the Author
Miranda lives with her wonderful, Brad-Pitt-lookalike husband (hey, they're both blond-haired and blue-eyed) and adorable still-needs-to-learn-the-meaning-of-NO toddler daughter on their spacious corn-field-and-cow-pasture-front property in Kansas.
Librarian by day and author by night, she is also published in YA and contemporary mainstream romance under a different pen name.
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(www.whispershome.com)
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Mates Since Birth (Half-breed Shifter Series) Page 10