Shepherd Read Online Free PDF Page B

3
     
    “I’m not letting you out.”
    Esme gritted her teeth at Clay’s response and glared at her captor. He’d brought her blankets, escorted her to use the bathroom, and kept bringing her food as if she hadn’t eaten in weeks. Each food ration had been smelly, green, and fortunately bland. However, choking down the processed assortment of wafers and paste assured his presence by her side and staved off long, solitary hours. At least they felt long. She figured she’d been here for only two days, though it seemed like weeks.
    And while Clay—for she’d finally wheedled his name from him—talked tough, he made no move to harm her. In fact, he offered her more personal attention than any man she had ever encountered. If there was a cold-blooded killer inside his crusty shell, then he buried it deep when he was around her without much difficulty.
    The emotional façade of men driven to abuse remained branded in her memory. Their soullessness radiated from flat, cold eyes that never wavered no matter how much pain they inflicted. Until her stay in the Pit, she had considered her father and Ivan cold and heartless. The month of her captivity in the Regent’s maximum-security prison provided a new measure for comparison. Clayton Ebris fell nowhere in the spectrum of cold-blooded evil, no matter how much he wanted her to believe otherwise.
    “Just change the resolution on the window.” At Clay’s stare, Esme nodded to the crystal screen fronting as a wall. It had taken her only an hour, after she’d calmed down, to determine that the opaque surface with the cold texture was a programmed function of interactive electronics and matter. Unlike the steel walls that comprised the rest of the room. “You must have a way for it to distort transmissions and still show some image. All I would see is you and the outlines of whatever you have on the other side, nothing else. I’d at least know someone was here.”
    Arms crossed over his chest, Clay bowed his head, scowling. “You are one tiny mess of trouble. If you’re smart enough to figure out the screen, then you can probably work your way around gathering more dangerous details.”
    Frustrated with her failure as he turned to leave, she sank to her blankets on the floor. “I wouldn’t. I promise.”
    “Sugar, your word means nothing here.”
    Yeah, she got that. The door closed with a soft click. She flopped on her back and glared at the offensive wall. If she hadn’t been looking, she probably wouldn’t have noticed the screen’s shades of gray dim and images from the other side brighten as discrete outlines took shape. She scrambled to her feet and rushed to the wall, moving before the tall, dark image at the corner. Clay remained on the perimeter. He had adjusted the visual so she could see something, upgrading her from an isolated specimen to an animal in a box. Granted, her visibility out made the room a cage, but it was progress. She gave in to the instinct to place her hand on the screen before his shadow.
    He didn’t respond, though for long time, he didn’t move either.
    She swallowed back hope as he finally turned and walked to the far side of the room. If she remained standing, she could see him, but her legs finally wearied enough that she dragged her blanket before the wall and curled against the rigid liquid crystal wall. The solitary view of tables and equipment was sufficient to hold back the overwhelming sense of desolation—now she knew someone was on the other side. Hand resting against the wall, she closed her eyes.
    “Sugar.”
    A dream. The rich, deep timbre of Clay’s voice brought a sigh to her lips and tickled along her skin.
    “You can’t spend all your time in front of this screen.”
    She jerked awake, finally aware of Clay shaking her shoulder. “I’m not doing anything wrong. I can’t hurt anyone here. I’m not a spy.” And she desperately didn’t want to be alone. She had never been alone until her incarceration by the