Chapter Two
Raiel
Moonscale London, Nic and Beal’s House
I hated running late to work but my baby cousin Antonio had decided to spit up all over my shirt.
Warm, regurgitated milk wasn’t exactly part of the dress code at the Raven’s Perch.
So, a shower and an outfit change later, I was running twenty-minutes late.
I let the guy I was replacing, Derk, know but I still hated it.
Being on time was an important part of blending in on Earthside.
I loved Baby Antonio to the moon and back.
He was a little sabretooth tiger like my cousin, Beal, but under all that thick fur with its stripes just starting to come in were little scales he inherited from his carrier’s dragon.
“Relax. Chill. Showing up to work wound up like a ball of twine isn’t a good look. Tips will suck,” my lion chimed into my thoughts as I slid behind the wheel.
His sabertoothed ass was right but I wasn’t working for the tips.
A fortune teller told me I’d meet my true-mate working at a bar.
So, while I didn’t mind the job or the money, I was there for my own reasons.
I hadn’t given up my cushy life of living off the land and not worrying about cars and cellphones just to pour liquor so people had an easier time of hooking up or dealing with their day-to-day life.
I was here because sooner or later my true-mate would walk through those doors and change my life forever.
Back home, Beal and I had lived with a community of other sabertoothed cats.
‘Primal cats’ as some in London were beginning to call Beal.
Most of us appeared elven to Earthside eyes when we shifted and didn’t smell much different than our Earthside counterparts.
Though, we were something else altogether.
Plenty of doctors were eager to get at our blood, but the only panels that had been run so far were to ensure Baby Antonio had little chance of inheriting an unheard of for them genetic disease.
Apparently, our blood held no evidence of any Earthside disease and in lab tests stood up well against the most common Earthside ailments.
We’d both received very lucrative offers from various labs since then, but Nic’s lawyer, Rozel Hemmings, had finally sent out cease and desist letters and the offers trickled down to nothing.
Though, I had a feeling that Beal was donating blood to Pierce.
He kept a feeding kit under the sink in the bathroom that he used most often, and Pierce dropped by the house a couple of times a week.
It wasn’t really my business, I just hoped he told Nic about it and that he could actually trust the vampire.
“Maybe his blood just tastes good,” my lion mused as we neared downtown London.
He was a sabertooth so he probably did. Though, with our strength and magic, I wondered what else Pierce gained from drinking Beal’s blood if that was the case.
I shook the thought and made myself concentrate on the road.
Baby Antonio had been extra loud all day with his little cries that sounded like roars.
So, I hadn’t slept as well as I liked to, but I wasn’t ready to leave Beal and Nic on their own to care for his sleeping mother and a newborn.
Not to mention little Neal. That kitten was almost as smart as we were and twice as full up with chaos.
I checked my reflection in the rear-view mirror when I killed the engine in the parking lot. It didn’t look as good as it did the first time I got ready tonight, but it would have to do. Derk was already going to kill me for being late. He hated working overtime.