A Short Leash (3 page)

“…and in my home, pets are well fed. Now come. You must be hungry.”

Sierra did not know what to do. She had never been allowed inside her previous owner’s house. She always stayed in her yard. The interior of a home was both interesting and frightening to her.

“Come,” he said, pointing to his heel. “Follow me.”

Crouching down, Sierra backed away. He turned and came back toward her, extending his hand to take hold of hers and pull her up to her feet. “Pets walk here, too. No need to shuffle around on hands and knees. You’re not an animal.”

Sierra stood on legs that trembled not from disuse but from concern. She was unaccustomed to being able to use her feet in the presence of another. Her owner’s wife had taken special exception to it. Sierra suspected it was a result of jealousy, but she did not understand why a citizen would be jealous of a wild one who barely wore any clothing at all and lived in a tiny exposed prison.

“Can you walk?”

She nodded. She had spent most of the past year pacing her yard whenever the citizens were not watching, which was almost always. As time had gone on she’d become a forgotten fixture, rarely fed and almost never bathed. She was aware of how filthy she was, but Master Kade did not seem concerned about that as he invited her into his home.

“Come inside,” he said. “Do you like steak?”

“Steak?” Sierra did not know what the word meant.

“Meat,” he said. “From a wild cow.”

“Meat?” She perked up at that. It had been a long time since she’d eaten meat. Her owner had insisted on a cheap vegetable-based diet. She had tried to catch small animals on the rare occasions one of the anemic city mice scuttled through her enclosure, but the act always scandalized her owner, who seemed shocked whenever she showed any hunting instinct whatsoever.

“Come and sit up here,” he said, leading her through a bewildering array of furniture. Sierra knew it was called furniture because her old owner’s wife had spent an excessive amount of time shrieking about all things furniture related, especially the putting of feet thereon. Civilian houses were full of things that one was not meant to touch, or sit on, or go anywhere near. Sierra did not understand the point of it, but the wife had been very insistent on the matter.

“Here,” he said, patting a three-legged piece of furniture with a soft thick padding atop it.

Sierra sat down, finding it much more comfortable than she could have imagined. Furniture was good. She liked furniture.

Master Kade went to his food stores and took out a large slab of meat. Sierra could smell it instantly, her stomach growling as her mouth began to water. Instinct kicked in. She slid down from the stool and began slowly stalking toward the meat.

“Sit back down,” Master Kade said. “I’m going to cook this first. It will taste better and be better for you.”

A little growl rose in Sierra’s throat. It had been so long since she scented fresh meat that she really didn’t know how to contain herself. The meat had become the sole focus of her intentions. It called to her, a rich source of everything her body needed.

Master Kade set a fire in the middle of his home. The sudden spark of heat made her withdraw, confused at the flames emitting from the metal ring.

“You’ve not been house-trained very well, have you?” he observed. “Let me run you through this. You’re standing in my kitchen. This is a cooker. It’s hot and it will burn you if you touch it when it’s on. If you wait a few minutes, you’ll have a steak that tastes better than anything you ever ate in your life.”

No citizen had ever taken the time to speak to her the way Master Kade did, explaining his reasoning for things instead of just yelling orders at her. Sierra’s experience of citizens was that they always spoke at high volume and with a particular note of frustration. Of course, Master Kade was not a proper citizen, but he was civilized enough that she thought of him as one nonetheless.

“This is a pan,” he said, picking up a large metal object. “This separates the food from the flame so it cooks, but doesn’t burn.”

She knew what a pan was, but it was quite endearing the way he took the time to explain, and she liked the sound of his voice. It was deep, calm, and soothing. Retreating to her seat, Sierra leaned against the wood surface and watched as he began to cook the steak. The moment the meat hit the hot metal, it emitted a scent more heavenly than any other. She had smelled a faint version of it before, through a partly open window at her old owners’ home, but she had never been exposed to the full force of it. It curled around her like a physical thing, making every part of her body tingle with excitement. She could barely contain herself and a small whine of excitement began to escape her lips as she pressed against the counter.

“Easy, my girl,” Kade said. “It’s almost ready. Sit down.”

Sierra sat down, willing to do anything he said if it meant being able to taste flesh. A minute later, Kade served the meat on what he described very carefully as a plate, along with a knife and fork, metal tools that he insisted she wield.

“It is not that hard,” he said. “Push the fork into the meat and cut it with the knife. Cut away bite-sized pieces and eat it that way.”

He was giving her meat. She would have eaten it any way he asked as long as she was allowed to eat it. She jabbed the metal into the meat and shoved the resulting chunks into her mouth. Each piece tasted better than the last, rich flavor rushing over her tongue and flooding her body with primal pleasure.

“Good?” Kade stood watch as she devoured her meal. “I suppose I need not ask. You must have been famished. There will be much more of that in the coming days and weeks. You will not feel hunger again, my pet.”

There was a note of possession in his tone that did not precisely surprise her; citizens were inclined to be possessive. But his was deeper, more genuine. She could almost believe that he cared, though it was not possible that he did. They were strangers to one another, and more than that, he was civilized. Or was he? He certainly was part of the city, but his bearing and his breeding told her that he was just as wild as her.

“How old are you, girl?”

“I was twenty-one when I was captured. That’s when we’re considered old enough to leave the village and find a mate.”

“You speak well for a wild one.”

Sierra licked her plate before replying. “There is a teacher in my village. He taught us how to read books, how to speak like citizens do. He taught us about these cities, how there used to be just one kind of human a long time ago, but hundreds of years ago there was a very big war and they exploded a lot of radioactive bombs on one another. Most people died, but some of them managed to stay away from the radiation in shelters or wearing special suits and build cities that protected them from it. But there weren’t many of those people. Most people were left to die outside those special cities, and over time the wilds reclaimed all the old human cities and lands and things and the tree roots broke up the roads they used to have and all the buildings crumbled, and that’s why most of the world is wilderness today.” A look of sad pride came into Sierra’s eyes. “But not everybody left outside the special cities died. Some of them had a resistance to the radiation and they learned how to survive in forests and jungles and everywhere nature had taken over. Those people were the ancestors of us wild ones. That’s why we’re better than citizens, even though citizens think they should be able to own us like animals. We’re not animals.”

“No,” Kade agreed. “A wild one is just as much a person as a citizen. It’s a pity your teacher didn’t teach you to avoid citizens in the wilds.”

“I was trapped,” Sierra reminded him. “It wasn’t my choice. Will you let me go?”

“Will I let you back into the wilds?” Kade shook his head, dashing her hopes. “No. But I will take much better care of you than your previous owner did, and when you are ready, I will find you an owner worthy of you. I am a pet trainer. That is what I do.”

Sierra nodded and fell silent. If he would not let her free, then he was no different from the man who had kept her before. Her stomach was full and she was tired. Sliding off the stool, she curled up against the kitchen counter and closed her eyes. The floor was covered with a soft curling substance that felt as comfortable as a nest.

“If you’re tired, there’s somewhere more comfortable to sleep,” Master Kade said. “Come.”

She stayed where she was, comfortable enough and unwilling to move.

“Sierra,” he said, his tone deepening a little. “Come.”

She opened one eye, looked at him and shut it again.

He moved closer, standing over her so his tall frame rose high above her. “Sierra,” he said, purring her name. “I expect obedience.”

She did not much care what he expected. At the edge of total exhaustion and with her belly finally full, all Sierra cared about was sleep. She drifted off as he stood there, looking down at her with an expectation that was never going to be fulfilled.

Somewhere in the twilight state between wakefulness and dreaming, she heard him sigh. Then she felt his arms scooping under her slight frame as he picked her up and carried her off to another part of his domicile. Stretching out against his chest, Sierra looked up at him with no small measure of curiosity. Her previous owner had never carried her anywhere. If she hadn’t moved when he’d wanted her to, he’d jabbed her with the hard leather-encased point of his toe or zapped her with his electric stick.

“I get my way, pet,” Kade said, his voice rumbling through his chest. “You’ll learn that soon enough.”

She smiled and curled up against his chest, quite comfortable. “Are you going to put me outside?”

“Outside? No,” he said. “You’re part of my household. That means you live as I do, in a vaguely civilized manner.” He flashed a grin down at her.

Sierra could sense that the refined nature he projected was just a veneer. His touch belied the neat home he lived in and the neat clothing he wore. He might have looked and sounded like part of civilization, but when he laid his hands on her she felt as though she was back in the wilds. Back at home.

Strange that she should feel so comfortable so quickly with a man who was a stranger, but he had showed her more kindness in the past hour than anyone had shown her in a year. She did not trust him entirely and she was still quite determined that it would be better to escape back into the wilds than stay with him, but if she was to be captive, then being captive in the arms of a man like Master Kade was not so bad.

He carried her into a small room in which there was a bed and another door. “That door leads to a bathroom. You can reach my room on the other side of the bathroom. This room is yours; it will give you privacy when you need it, somewhere safe and secure to sleep.”

Sierra thought that she had already found somewhere safe and secure to sleep—his arms. She could not bring herself to say as much though.

“So I will live as a citizen?”

“Eat like one, sleep like one…”

“Leave the city and never return like one?” Sierra added hopefully.

“No,” Kade replied, his lips twisting. “Not leaving the city and never returning. You’re a person, my pet, and you will be treated as such, but you are the property of your owner.”

“I don’t think you can own anything with a mind of its own,” Sierra replied as he lowered her onto the softest surface she’d ever touched in all her life. She rolled about atop the softness, rubbing her face against the smooth cloth that covered the entire surface.

“This is where you sleep now,” Kade informed her. “Get some rest, pet.”

She was tired enough that she obeyed him almost instantly.

Chapter Two

Sierra woke in the middle of the night. It was quiet and still in a way the wilds never were. In the wilds there were always sounds. Birds, beasts, even the trees in the winds. There was no such sound in the city, save for the ever present hum of the energy source that powered the place. There were also no such sounds inside a citizen’s home, even one that was wilds-adjacent.

As she lay in bed, eyes wide, heart pounding, Sierra fought with a frightening sense of claustrophobia. In the city she had slept outdoors beneath the dome beneath the stars. Finding herself in a small dark box was too much to bear, so she got up and started to explore.

Padding out of the room she had gone to sleep in, Sierra wandered about Kade’s home. Much of his furniture was covered in tanned hides. She was certain that he had probably brought down the creatures himself. He was a hunter to the core. She had sensed that about him from the outset. He was dangerous and yet gentle, refined and wild at the same time. Sierra had never imagined that such a man could exist.

As she paced through the room, something moved. A woman. Staring at her with wide eyes. Sierra made a little shriek of surprise and jumped back, only to have the other woman jump back the same way. A second later she realized that she was looking into her reflection. Even though the room was only dimly lit, she had never seen herself so clearly before, only in streams and still pools and they did not provide nearly the clear image that the wall was giving her.

What she saw made her let out a little sob. Her hair was a mess, there were dark circles under her eyes, and her cheeks looked sunken, her skin sallow. She could hardly recognize herself. The last time she had seen herself in the waters of her village she had been clear-skinned and rosy-cheeked, with bright eyes and sleek locks. Now she looked broken and old beyond her years. She understood why Kade had recoiled from her. He was angry at having to look at something so ugly.

“You wake early,” Kade said, his deep baritone startling her again. She turned away from the mirror, tears in her eyes.

“And you wake upset,” he noted. “What’s wrong?”

“I’m hideous!”

He frowned slightly. “Hideous? You’re far from hideous, Sierra.”

“I saw myself in the wall,” she wept. “I am ugly.”

“You just need a bath and a haircut and a good diet and some real exercise. In a few weeks you’ll be more beautiful than ever.”