Taming Beasts | MxM | Petshop

Part 5

I had come to think of him as a heartless monster, but he proved me wrong. Or at least, he proved that he wasn't as much of a monster as I thought him to be.

I was lying on the pile of blanket shreds that I had amassed, trying to stay warm and comfortable on the hard, white tiles of my cage. Deprived of food and even water for almost two days straight, I was asleep most of the time and feeling horrible the rest of it.

Ross only took care of me by emptying my waste bucket, which he hardly had to do given my current nutritional condition.

My eyelids fluttered open, pulling the curtain to reveal a night-filled bedroom with all lights turned off and Ross sleeping soundly. I was perfectly capable of seeing every inch of his face though, given the residual light of the moon and stars. He scrunched his nose before he snored, then rolled onto his side.

I champed noisily, but my mouth remained dry, only making me aware of the terrible thirst and mind-wrecking hunger I was exposed to. It didn't make sense, yet I doubled over, retching. There wasn't even enough bile left in my stomach for me to throw up. Sadly, that didn't help with the nausea.

Ross stirred in his sleep, slowly turning around to face me. I glared at him, unable to even spit out the awful taste clinging to my tongue because I lacked the necessary saliva. My arms were trembling, struggling to hold up my weight.

I needed something to eat or at least, some fucking water.

"Are you alright?"

Too dumbfounded by that stupid question to even roll my eyes, I stared back at him with a blank expression. He rubbed his face, getting rid of the sleep clouding his gaze. When he dropped his hand, he was wearing a concerned frown.

"What's wrong?"

The question was more appropriate this time around, yet still made me question his capability to reason. After all, during his time at home, it was his favourite past-time to deny me pivotal aspect of life – or rather, of being alive.

Ross finally turned on his bedside lamp, illuminating my trembling frame. "Shit! You look like hell."

He keeps on proving to me why it is entirely unnecessary to talk to him.

"Wait, I'll get some water. And food." He scrambled to his feet and scurried out of the room, followed by my disbelieving gaze. I dropped onto my rear, leaning back against the rough-textured wall. Ross stayed true to his word and returned holding a bottle of water and a package of shrink-wrapped meat in his hands.

He approached the door to my cage, eyeing me warily. "I'm going to come inside. Just so we're clear, this apartment has a security system that's not going to let you leave, nor through doors nor windows, so behave."

I growled annoyed, but the sound was quiet and rather unsettling. He waited for me to shut up though before he entered my cage, leaving the door open. I eyed the creak, thoughts of escape flitting through my mind.

Ross threw the bottle into my lap, and I stared at the water splashing around inside the plastic in wonder. Slowly, it dawned on me that I could actually drink it. Within seconds, I had downed half the bottle and two seconds later, it came right back out. I coughed, then grimaced at the sharp pain in my throat.

Shaking his head, Ross picked the bottle up from where I'd dropped it, then used his feet to push the shreds of fabric into a pile, which he then used to mop my vomit away from where I was sitting. Once he was done, he sat down next to me and handed the meat over.

"Can you open that with your fangs? And then, one slow bite at a time. I'm not going to take it away, it's all yours, but remember you don't want that to end up as a pile of vomit, alright?" His intonation clarified that he was doubting my ability to think rationally, which funny enough was what I was thinking about him, especially because he was speaking so slowly and with such a clear intonation that it made him sound stupid.

I took the meat from his hands, then placed the package onto the ground. He frowned, but I pointedly raised a claw in front of his face before using it to slice open the wrapping.

"Handy."

I only refrained from rolling my eyes at him because he was being nice to me for a change. Then again, the fact that I considered him giving me water and food as being nice was saying enough about my perception already.

When my fangs sunk into the soft flesh, I purred loudly and whipped my head aside, tearing out a chunk. I munched, filled with content and finally relaxing as I leaned back against the wall. The pleasure ceased quickly when fingers brushed my cheeks.

My gaze snapped towards Ross' bright blue eyes that were regarding me intently. He might not have been aroused, but I still didn't want him looking at me like that – or touching me, that is. His fingers stilled, resting against the soft fur of my cheeks. A threatening growl reverberated throughout my chest.

"Moondrop, I'm petting you."

Since he wasn't exactly groping me, I decided to cut him some slack and slowly lifted my hand to grab his wrist, removing his fingers from my face. The moment he stopped touching me, I stopped growling, just to make a point.

He pulled back with a sigh. "Why don't you just tell me if you don't want to be touched?"

Right then, I decided it was time to gift him with a beautiful eye roll. After all, he was saying incurably stupid things. I hadn't given him permission to touch me in the first place and besides that, I considered snarling to pretty much get the message across despite his claimed incapability of understanding what he likes to call 'cat'.

Ross put his hands down in his lap and kept watching me in silence. I switched between eating and drinking in regular intervals, careful to take things slow lest I upset my stomach any further. Once I finished the meal, I felt immeasurably better – and very tired, though I'd slept a lot these past days.

I drifted off to sleep involuntarily. Right before it carried me to unconsciousness, I felt fingers brush through the longer hair atop my head and find their way to the back of my ears. He was seriously dense.