Page 40 of The Alpha

Her stomach growled, letting her know she hadn’t eaten in over twenty-four hours. She looked at the man in the other cell. His back was to her. Had he been placed there or had he crawled? They would have had to put him on his bed to replace the section of wall.

She sat on her own bed and unwrapped the sandwich left for her. At least their captors were feeding them. She spied a similar tray of food on the man’s bed along with a couple bottles of water.

She looked at her arms. They were bare of the tats she’d gotten over the last few years. Pari put her sandwich down and ran a hand over her arm. The skin was soft, supple, and she swore it appeared creamier. “What’s happening to me?”

The man on the floor stirred.

She froze.

As if sensing her eyes on him, he turned his head toward her, his body following, and looked at her. His eyes were a brilliant blue, and he slowly raised himself up enough to kneel before her.

Pari met his gaze and stared at him in silence. To her surprise, he gave her a tender look and put a hand against the wall.

She looked at it.

He watched her and drummed his fingers against the wall in invitation.

Something fluttered in her chest, and she scooted to the end of the bed and put her hand against his.

He closed his eyes and breathed a sigh of relief.

She studied him. Why would he do that? “I don’t understand you.”

He opened his eyes and cocked his head. The look on his face was so tender, so gentle, it almost did her in.

He blinked and his eyes fixated on something. What was he looking at?

Pari looked behind her, but there was nothing there. When she turned to him, he was smiling, his eyes still on… “Are you looking at my hair?” She ran a hand over her head and froze. “What the…”

Shehad hair!Okay, so it hadn’t grown into long, luscious locks while she slept, but it was inches longer than it had been. She ran both her hands through it. “What happened?! Where did this come from?!”

The man watched her and continued to smile.

She gaped at him. “Did you do this? Are you like, magic or something?”

She grabbed a strand and plucked it from her head. “What?!”

The strand was a pale pink.

“I havepinkhair?” She left the bed, picked up the steel tray and looked at it. Her reflection was blurry, but she could still see the pink color. “How in the…” her head snapped to the man.

He was sitting cross-legged on the floor now, watching her. “You did this somehow, didn’t you?”

He said nothing, his bright blue eyes locked on hers. He was looking more than a little pleased about something.

“You gave me a pink pixie cut?”

Still, he said nothing and tilted his head as he studied her.

They stared at each other for a time before he gingerly climbed to his feet. He stood at the wall and put a hand against it. His gaze on her intensified.

She knew what he wanted. Pari approached slowly and raised a hand. She placed it on the glass wall, the heel of her hand level with his. Pari looked up at his face in wonder. “You’re so tall.”

He cocked an eyebrow and looked down at her.

“I take it you don’t speak our language, right?” She kept looking up at him, but she was going to get a kink in her neck if she kept this up.

She moved away from the wall. His eyes got brighter, and he smacked the wall with one hand, then the other.

---