Too Late for My Shifters' Regret novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: The Collar

Briony breaks the starving serpent's collar and feeds him, shuts the door on Lorne, and gets her father's summons home.

"What does that mean?" I asked. "The wrong snake?"

He straightened up.

"It means I'll tell you once you can stand up."

Then my knees went, and he caught me under the arms before I hit the tiles.

The hall erupted in whispers.

I heard Delphine say, "Well, they deserve each other," and a ripple of laughter follow her out the door.

The wolves went with her.

Lorne didn't look back.

Jory did.

The tall man carried me out of Bonding Hall like I weighed nothing, which, after today, was nearly true.

"Which way?" he said.

"East dormitory. Third floor. I can walk."

"You can't."

"I can crawl, then."

"That would be slower."

I was too tired to argue, so I pointed.

My room was the small one at the end of the hall, with the window that stuck and the bed that sagged in the middle.

My roommate's half was ribbons and drying flowers and a basket where her fox shifter liked to nap.

She wasn't back yet.

He set me on my bed and stepped back to the wall.

He stood there, hands at his sides, eyes on nothing.

I looked at him properly for the first time.

The collar had worn a raw red line into the skin of his throat.

His cheekbones stood out.

There was a long white scar down his left forearm, from the elbow nearly to the wrist.

"When did she last feed you?" I asked.

He didn't answer.

"A month? Two?"

"She didn't."

"Not once? In a year?"

"She said she didn't want to waste it."

I stared at him.

A shifter who goes unfed doesn't die.

He just gets weaker and colder and quieter until there's nothing left but the beast.

"What's your name?" I asked.

"She called me Snake."

"I didn't ask what she called you."

He looked at me then.

Really looked, like he was checking whether I meant it.

"Cassius," he said.

"Cassius. I'm going to take that collar off."

"You can't. It has a keeper's lock."

"I'm your keeper now."

"You're empty," he said. "I felt it when the bell rang. You gave those dogs the bottom of the well. If you open that lock, you'll black out."

"Then I'll black out on my own bed. Come here."

He didn't move.

"Please," I said.

That did it.

He crossed the room in two steps and knelt on the floorboards in front of me, so his throat was level with my hands.

Up close the iron was cold enough to sting.

The lock was a little black box with a keyhole that wasn't really a keyhole.

It wanted warmth.

Delphine could have opened it any day she liked.

I put my palms on either side of the box and reached down into myself.

There was almost nothing there.

A scrape at the bottom of a pot.

I took it anyway and pushed.

The lock ticked.

Ticked again.

My vision went white at the edges, and I heard myself make a small, stupid sound.

"Stop," he said.

"Almost."

"Briony. Stop."

The lock snapped open.

The collar fell into his hands, and he held it there.

Then he dropped it on the floor and made a noise I'll never forget.

It wasn't loud.

It was the sound a person makes when they put down something they've carried for so long they forgot it was heavy.

I tipped forward.

He caught me again.

My forehead landed on his shoulder, and it was cold, so cold, and I did the only thing I knew how to do.

I put my hand flat on the back of his neck and let whatever was left in me run into him.

"No," he said into my hair. "You don't have it."

"I have a little."

"You'll make yourself sick."

"I cook in the infirmary every morning," I said. "I've been sick before. It passes."

Under my palm, his skin went from ice to cool.

From cool to almost warm.

His breathing changed.

Slow and deep, the way a cat breathes when it lies down in the sun.

"Better?" I mumbled.

He didn't say anything for a long moment.

"Nobody's done that," he said.

"Fed you?"

"Asked."

Somebody knocked on the door.

Not a friendly knock.

Three hard raps, the way Lorne always knocked, because he thought it sounded important.

Cassius was on his feet between me and the door before I even lifted my head.

"Bri," Lorne called through the wood. "Open up. We need to talk."

I got up.

I had to hold the bedpost, but I got up.

Cassius looked at me.

I opened the door a crack.

Lorne was in the hall with his brothers behind him.

He was pale.

So was the red-haired one.

They'd been SSS for one hour, and they were already pale.

"Her warmth doesn't hold," Lorne said. He said it like it was my fault. "It's all sparkle. It's gone in a minute. We still have a thread to you, I can feel it. You just need to top us up. A little, every few days, quietly. She doesn't have to know."

I looked at him for a long time.

"You want me to feed you in secret so you can stand next to my sister and look shiny."

"It's not like that."

"It's exactly like that."

"Come on, Bri. You love us."

Behind him, Jory looked at the floor.

"I did," I said.

I shut the door.

Lorne pounded on it twice more and then I heard them go.

I slid down the door and sat on the floor.

Cassius picked up an envelope that had been pushed under it.

Heavy cream paper.

My father's seal in red wax.

I broke it.

The letter was one line long, in my father's tight black hand.

"Come home Sunday. Bring the snake."

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