Craig stumbled back a few steps and braced himself against the table. “That’s why you questioned if he loved you. You thought it was part of whatever made him instantly listen to you like this.”
“Partly, yes,” Neil agreed, nodding his head as he cradled his hand to his chest.
“I would have too, buddy,” Craig muttered as he glanced at me. “I’m sorry, Cecil, but I would have. He handled it like a twat, but I would have questioned it too after seeing you almost eat tuna out of the carpet because he ordered you to feed yourself.”
They had a point. I could see that confusing to humans who were unfamiliar with shifters and ocelots in particular.
Anatoliy brought me something else to eat that Neil commanded me to eat while Craig looked at his hand. After I was done and they were satisfied I’d had enough for a while, they all sat around the living room and waited for Samuel. I dozed off and they all must have too, because the next thing, I knew I was being shaken awake and the sun was coming up.
“Cecil? God,
Cecil
?” Craig whimpered as I blinked awake. I saw Neil doing the same across from me in one of the oversized chairs. “There you are. Okay, good.”
“What’s going on?” Neil croaked out, rubbing his eyes. Then he focused on me and was immediately on his feet racing to the kitchen.
I guess I’m worse and need more food.
I did feel much weaker again. It almost hurt to keep my head up on my own. I didn’t even get fish this time—but chicken soup that was in a cup which Neil handed off to Craig to feed me.
He hadn’t even tried to touch me in a while after the first several times I’d shrunk away from him and after help had shown up. I’d seen the way it had hurt him. I wasn’t blind, simply foggy and feeling almost like I was somewhere else.
There was a knock at the door just after I finished my soup and Anatoliy went to answer the door. He came back in the living room with a man I assumed was Samuel Patterson. He took one look at me and anger filled his eyes. “Who
owns
this slave?” he accused in a British accent as he looked between Neil and Craig.
“Technically I do, sir,” Neil mumbled as he stepped forward.
“You will tell me everything, and if I find out you lied to me in
any
way or abused him, I will take him back to the UK with me.”
“Okay,” my master whispered as tears fell from his eyes again. I gasped and he glanced at me. “If it saves Cecil and he’ll be happy there, take him back with you. Just help him, I’m begging you.”
Samuel’s expression had softened when we both looked to him again. “Tell me what is going on here and I will do my best.”
Neil filled him in as Craig kept feeding and hydrating me to Samuel’s specifications, mixing in herbs he’d brought with him. Whatever that shit was, it made me feel way better than the damn soup did.
“And that’s everything?” Samuel asked when Neil finally stopped talking.
“I think so. I’m not sure what else could be relevant, but to my knowledge that is all I know that you need to,” he swore.
“Good. I believe I know what is happening then,” Samuel muttered as he stood and took off his jacket, then his tie. When he started to unbutton his shirt, Neil wasn’t the only one to jump to his feet.
“You
cannot
be serious,” he growled as Craig moved in front of me like a good friend to Neil. “He is in no condition to have
sex
. You touch him, and envoy to
whomever
or not, I will fucking gut you.”
Samuel tilted his head and studied my master. “You do love him. That will be what will save him, young human.” He reached up to his eyes and took out the colored contacts he was wearing. “I am mated. I have no inclination towards your Cecil sexually. I am going to change forms and coax him to do the same.”
They couldn’t smell him as I could, and he was very,
very
good at passing for human.
“Oh, well, then ignore my outburst,” Neil mumbled and stepped aside as Anatoliy’s lips twitched as he tried not to laugh.
“Hey, I was thinking the same thing,” Craig defended. “He’s getting naked and not in a million years if I was a shifter would I ever step foot in this country.”
“I have diplomatic immunity.” Samuel shrugged.
“That only applies to
humans
,” Craig reminded him. “You’re not. You’re not even a
person
to our government. Your diplomatic immunity is useless even if it’s through the Russian consulate.”
Samuel and Anatoliy shared a look before the Russian spoke. “He’s a very competent and accomplished attorney. You should check your papers with him.” Samuel nodded and dug through his bag before handing an envelope to Craig.
“This is from the Queen herself. I believe it’s basically a declaration of war if I’m taken,” Samuel informed him. “We might not be people to your government but our weapons are still weapons.”
“I so knew I was going to like you,” Craig chuckled, eyes sparkling like a kid at Christmas as he pulled out the papers and sat off to the side with them.
Samuel finished undressing and turned to me before changing forms. Then he leapt over to me and rubbed his head against my arm. I felt the pull to shift. It was just a natural instinct inside all cats, when one was changed, the desire was there to do the same. But more than that, Samuel was old,
powerful
in a way I’d never felt before. I mean, massively, majorly, and indescribably powerful.
I started to shake as my cat clawed to get out and show our belly to the ocelot in front of us. I hissed as my eyes turned, and then seconds later, yowled as I shifted. The instant I did, the bigger cat pushed me off the couch and I showed him my tummy when I landed. He pinned me down and hissed in my face. Then he slapped me around with his paws.
“Trust he knows what he’s doing,” Anatoliy muttered. I glanced up to see him holding back Neil, both of them watching our interaction and fear all over Neil’s face.
I focused back on Samuel as he smacked me again… This time with claws. I hissed in pain but made no attempt to strike back or make any threatening moves.
That wasn’t a fight I’d win.
Next he let me up and herded me over to Neil. I glanced from Samuel to my master. Then Samuel shifted back, holding out his hand to stop me when he saw I was going to do the same.
“Your ocelot does not recognize this man as your
master
as this country does, Cecil. It’s very simple. He’s your mate in your cat’s eyes. He wounded you as a mate. Your ocelot has some very choice words for him to start the healing process and fix what has been broken. Let him have it.”
His words hit me like a ton of bricks. He was
absolutely
right. That was the only green light I needed. I leapt onto Neil and started hissing like one
pissed off
jungle cat. I didn’t claw him much, just a few shallow cuts and tiny bites to make my point. Neil took it, apologizing mostly and trying to act as if he understood anything I was
saying
so he could like agree with me.
It was pretty endearing actually.
When I was worn out beyond words, I jumped down and changed back, panting on the carpet and too tired to move.
“That was step one, child,” Samuel murmured as he redressed me in the robe.
“For what?” I croaked out, thrilled I could at least find my words again. “What is going on?”
“You tried to break your bond with your mate and you were succeeding.” My eyes practically bugged out of my head and my heart raced even faster.
“Look, I hate to be the one to say this,” Craig hedged from the other side of the living room where he’d been out of the line of fire. “But would that really be such a bad thing? Cecil would be his own person again and they could just start over as normal couple.”
“The only way to break the bond is for one of them to die,” Samuel explained as he sat me on the couch again.
Craig cleared his throat and rubbed the back of his neck. “So the answer is
yes
. Yes, Craig, it’s abso-fucking-lutely the worst thing possible here. Got it. We don’t want option A. Right. So what’s option B?”
“We reestablish the bond, which we just took the first step of, and we’ll heal what’s been broken here,” Samuel instructed. Then he gestured to me before glancing at them. “Look at him. He’s worlds better than when I arrived. He did it fast because he was distraught. It doesn’t normally happen that way, but well, life is full of surprises. It will take longer to fix but we can do it.”
“And then you take him back to the UK,” Neil whispered, twisting his hands together. “Take him to the UK where he’ll be happy and free. He deserves that.” He walked into the kitchen with all our mouths hanging open.
“You didn’t tell him what it means to be bonded or mated, did you?” Samuel asked, glancing at me.
“No, it’s in the information from the brothel he bought me—”
“No, it’s not,” Craig interrupted, staring at me. “Cecil, you might want to read what’s in that packet. You’re pissed at him for not having read it, but Bob went over lots with him and Neil did have other discussions with the man. I was there when Bob said they touched everything in the packet. Neil forgot to double check him. That was his mistake. The mating thing being the explanation for imprinting was in there, but it’s like a paragraph someone could even miss.
“I deal with people and signing contracts all the time. Do you know how few actually read the damn things all the way through no matter how important they are? The longer they are the less likely they read half. That part was on the last pages. I read it last night. You’re being too hard on him for this. I can admit when Neil’s a dick, and he can be an idiot, but this time, it was a small oversight on his part, not a huge infraction. All of this, all he’s done already to help you and bring you back has more than made up for it.”
He walked out of the living room, and I could tell from the tension in his shoulders, he wasn’t happy. I didn’t think necessarily unhappy with
me
but at the situation.
“Am I wrong in all of this?” I whispered, not looking at Samuel but out the window.
“No. There is no right or wrong when it comes to matters of the heart. You were hurt. We’re shifters, Cecil.” He sighed and pulled up one of the wooden chairs to the couch. “For as much as we’re alike to humans we are different. We feel things different, more deeply at times. You bonded. When you realized you loved him, there was not a force on this planet that would have stopped you from telling him and anyone who would have listened that you loved him.
“That being said, I get the feeling you didn’t really know him as well as you think. He didn’t even know he loved you. I sense a deep,
deep
pain in him when he even thinks of love. Why is that? Do you know what that is about?” I shook my head and stared down at my hands. “I thought not. Love means being what the other person needs, and I think your mate needs you not to declare your love in such a bold way before even sharing a bed regularly or taking more normal steps. You were not wrong, and he handled it poorly—”
“But it wasn’t his
fault
either how he reacted,” I finished for him.
“No. I think if you were human, he would have explained once you calmed down and things would have been fine. But you’re not human and you are enslaved here. That is a traumatic circumstance that needs to be taken into account. He is your
mate,
a concept most humans never understand no matter how many times I explain it to them. They were not raised as we were. They don’t
feel
it as we do, the pull, the emotions we sense as half animal. So we react differently.”
“How do we fix this?” I asked after I stewed on that a bit.
“Do you want to go to the UK with me?” he hedged, studying me closely again when I looked at him.
“No. For one, you know what that would do to me, leaving my mate behind here. Two, I love him. I want to fix this and learn more about why Neil doesn’t understand love, pick up the pieces, and move forward.”
“Tell him that. I think that will be a perfect next step—don’t you?”
I nodded and they cleared the living room before Neil came back in. He approached me hesitantly and went to sit on the other couch until I patted the seat next to me.
“Are you sure? You were recoiling from me,” he hedged.
“I’m not sure I will
ever
be able to explain what was going on with me but it wasn’t intentional.” I sighed as I thought about how and leaned back against the cushions. “I was underwater, only half aware. I didn’t understand what was happening and I didn’t mean to do this.
Please
believe that. I would never have basically tried to commit suicide because you stuck your foot in your mouth.”
“Is that how you see what I did? All that I did?”
I nodded. “Yes. I dropped a bomb on you and you chomped on your foot. I was hurt, really hurt, but I didn’t even have a chance to cool off or think about what to do next or even if we could work through it. I went underwater. I have no better analogy.” He sat down and I stared at him “I don’t want to go to the UK. I want to stay with you and not just because it would hurt me to be separated from my mate. I
am
happy here with you. You’re good to me but I think it’s time to explain to me what Craig kept saying about why you don’t know love.”