8. Blade
BLADE
“Come on, Blade.” More strange words and thoughts fought with the fog that filled my mind and heaviness that filled the rest of me. “I have something special for you.”
Special?
Why did I know that word?
“You need to move, Blade. The internet is giving me conflicting advice but eating and moving seems to be the key to getting this crap out of your system.” The stubborn voice kept talking but more and more of it was making sense.
Why did I need to move off the couch?
Why was I on a couch?
Forcing my eyes open, the fog that was usually in my head was now in the rest of my body. That was better than not being able to think, but everything was confusing and heavy.
“I have a snack for you.” The words came from a man looking down at me.
From the front seat.
I knew that was a seat.
Wait.
My mate was in the seat.
Mate?
There was something confusing with that too, but between the fog in my head and every muscle aching, it was hard to think.
Wait.
When had I found my mate?
“You look a bit like the world just tilted on its side.” My mate frowned as he shifted on the seat. “My first reaction was to want to pet your head but now I can’t tell if you know who I am any longer.”
My mate.
He was my mate.
“If that ranger fucked with your head even worse, I’m going to be pissed.” Huffing, my mate looked like he wanted to pitch a fit like a frustrated toddler.
I knew what a toddler was.
Fucking hell.
Why was I shifted?
Was that part of the problem with being able to think?
Where was I?
Why was I shifted in the back of someone’s truck?
What kind of truck was this?
“Are you okay?” My mate seemed to realize the answer was no based on how he groaned. “Great. If you wait until now to eat me, I’m going to haunt that asshole.”
My mate would make a very persistent ghost that never stopped talking.
Lifting my head, I licked my mate’s hand getting a startled squeak from him as he fell back toward the steering wheel. “You didn’t do that before.”
I should have.
Why hadn’t I?
The past was getting foggier but that was better than the present being so confusing.
“This just keeps getting weirder and weirder.” My mate grumbled but smelled pleased as he sat up and reached over the back of the strange seats. “Good murder kitty. No eating your new friend.”
He was very dramatic…but his hands felt nice and his scent on me felt right.
“Alright, I have a snack for you but we need to get you inside my trailer first so no one sees us.” Shaking his head, he ran his hand down my back as he started to explain…
again, possibly. Every touch seemed to make it easier to think, but I still had no idea where I was or what we were doing.
“Then snack time and another nap if you’re still tired from whatever was in that dart. ”
Dart?
That word was confusing but a flash hit me and I remembered walking with him and then being angry and sleepy.
Had someone hit me with a spell?
Had I been drugged somehow?
Where were we walking that it was so dangerous I couldn’t protect my mate?
“I don’t know what the drug was but you didn’t seem to get the full dose, so you just need to stay relaxed and not panic.” Frowning, he glared at me. “You’re smarter than that stupid ranger realized.”
Ah.
He was angry at the witch.
Wait.
There’d been a witch.
Sitting up got another squeak from my mate, but he couldn’t move far away in the strange truck. It was fancier than anything else I’d ever seen, but looking toward the back proved I was right and it was a truck.
What kind of farm did he have where he needed a truck that could’ve belonged to Batman?
“Well, you didn’t eat me, murder kitty.” My mate slowly reached out and ran his hand down the side of my head. “You seem calmer as well, so let’s try something before we move out of the truck.”
Putting his hands in his lap made my mate look like one of the church ladies my mother had visited when I was a child, but I was patient since something seemed to be important.
“If you understand what I’m saying, I want you to lick my cheek.
I’m not going to use the normal words because you might’ve been taught those before. ”
Taught what word?
Kiss?
Where had my mate been raised?
Mars?
My mate was odd, there was no ignoring that, but he wasn’t asking anything difficult, so I leaned closer and licked his cheek as he asked.
“Wow.”
Why was he surprised he’d gotten his request?
Were mates supposed to be this confusing?
“Okay.” Blinking like he was shocked, my mate took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “I’m going to assume you’re starting to understand what I’m saying.”
He couldn’t hear me.
I should’ve realized that sooner, but in my defense, it felt like the world was put together wrong. If he couldn’t understand me or even sense my emotions like cousin Richard’s wife, I needed to be more obvious.
Nodding made the most sense but for some reason he looked like he was going to faint.
No.
I needed to be able to talk to him.
I needed to look human for him.
I was smarter than this.
Oh.
Maybe this wasn’t my fault?
Closing my eyes, I ignored my questions and the confusion running around in my head and focused on my magic like I was a kid trying to shift for the first time.
I hadn’t needed to think about shifting in years, but as I looked inside myself, I found my magic and it looked a bit worse for wear, as my grandmother used to say.
It looked like it was tied up in knots of magic I couldn’t identify, like a big ball of string.
Part of me wanted to pull at the strings but I couldn’t decide if that was magic logic, impulse control issues, or my inner cat not being terribly well-behaved at the moment.
Either way, I didn’t think shifting was an option even if I could’ve made it work.
Great.
By the time that I opened my eyes, my mate looked less startled and more thoughtful. “Did you just try to do something? To shift, maybe? I felt that same bubble of pressure I thought I’d felt earlier. It clearly didn’t seem to work, though.”
No, it hadn’t.
Licking his face again did, and it made him squeak which was fun.
“You did that on purpose.” His glare was fun too because I could sense he wasn’t angry. “Ugh. Okay. Out of the truck and we’re going to work on communicating more clearly.”
That seemed like a good plan but the more I moved the more I realized how strange everything looked even though it smelled amazing. From my mate’s clothes to the Batman truck, everything was wrong and it looked like I’d fallen into an alternate universe.
But thankfully one that still seemed to have food because I was starving and couldn’t remember when I’d last eaten.
“I’m going to open the camper so you can just go directly inside.” Stepping out of the truck, my mate checked our surroundings as I climbed into the front of the strange vehicle. “I have no idea if anyone in the RV park knows about shifters or not, but we’re not going to take any chances.”
Ah.
I should’ve thought about that before I started to move.
Showing him that I understood, I crouched low in the driver’s seat and did my best to ignore how soft it was and how the dashboard looked like we were on a spaceship. How weird reality looked could wait but making my mate happy could not.
Standing back from the open door, my mate nodded. “You’re good to go.”
Clearing the distance in one jump got another squeak from my mate, but since he did that a lot, I wasn’t worried. “Fucking hell. No. I should’ve expected that. Large cat. I’ll catch up in just a minute. Somehow.”
I was glad one of us was so confident because I was fairly certain it was going to take me a lot longer considering everything had just gotten stranger. I’d been inside trailers before but this one looked just as out of place as the truck.
Everything from the decoration to the appliances was wrong and he had a few odd things in the tiny kitchen I couldn’t even begin to guess what they were.
The black box mounted to the wall was the strangest, so I stretched up and stared at it as my mate came into the trailer and shut the door.
“I think we’re fine. I don’t see anyone around us and you were fast.”
I was always fast.
“Um, well, you look curious, so, that’s called a microwave oven.
It heats food quickly but cooking in the regular oven still makes food turn out better.
” My mate’s casual shrug and sigh made me feel like I was missing something important.
“You’d think we’d have figured that out by now, but faster always means worse these days. ”
By now?
These days?
Asking what he meant would have to wait, but what wasn’t confusing was how comfortable my mate was in the trailer.
His body relaxed and even his heart rate slowed as he sat down at a small table.
“I just realized I don’t think I told that ranger my name and I didn’t have to pay anything to get in, so he has no way of knowing who I am. ”
I remembered enough of the strange interaction to know that was a good thing. Large parts were confusing or foggy, but he’d been dangerous and had misled my mate. Whatever he’d shot me with could’ve made me attack my mate.
Mates were to be protected.
No matter what kind of magic he possessed, he should’ve known that.
“That’s one thing off the list of things to worry about. It’s time to take care of you even though you seem less confused and murdery.” Something made him smile wider as I shifted closer to the table. “This isn’t nearly as scary as I thought it’d be.”
Good?
What would be scary?
I might’ve been stuck for some reason but I was his mate and he knew that because he’d talked about that with the ranger, hadn’t he?
“Okay, our snack.” My mate reached into a bag and pulled out what I realized were burgers. They were odd looking too, but as he started unwrapping them, my stomach decided odd was fine. “I’ll work on a bigger meal before too long but I didn’t think you should wait.”
Waiting sounded terrible, but he was right, the small burgers were just a tease to my empty stomach. But my mate was human and I knew he needed to eat as well, so when he tried to give me the last hamburger, I pushed it back toward him and huffed.
He giggled and reached over to stroke my head again. “You’re so sweet. I already ate in the car as we drove back. You just slept through it.”
Ah.
Knowing my mate was fine, I ate the last in one bite and stretched until I was braced on the table and the back of my mate’s chair. He pretended to push me away but he was laughing and shaking his head again. “You’re going to squish me.”
The trailer was small and he was cuddly.
He also liked running his hands over me and clearly needed more attention than I’d been giving him.
“We’re going to have to talk about you constantly sitting on me.” He seemed to think that was reasonable but squeaked again as I sat back and bit onto his shirt to pull him toward me. “Teeth. Watch out for the teeth.”
I told him what I thought of that and he laughed at my huff. “You’re so dramatic. Fine. I’m moving.”
Slowly.
“How are you this bossy when you can’t even talk?”
Magic.
“What are you doing? Stop herding me. You’re not a dog.”
That was rude.
So was his laughter.
“Fine. I’ll get in bed.” My mate was dramatic as he pulled his shoes off and flopped back on the surprisingly large bed at the back of the trailer. “Happy now?”
Yes.
Stretching out over him to make sure he stayed safe, I pushed my head under his hand and wanted to smile when he huffed that time. “Murder kitty wants pets. Yes. I’m slow but not stupid.”
My mate was very smart…but he was confusing.
He was also tired and needed to give me attention, so I let him run his hands over me as he started talking about lunch and something called a drive-thru and many other random things that made no sense until he finally dozed off.
From what I could remember, I was confident that keeping my mate safe was going to be a full-time job, but making sure he got enough attention seemed like it was going to be just as important.
A mate’s job was never done, but I was up for the task.
After my nap.
And after my questions were answered.
And after he told me what alternate dimension I’d ended up in.
Yes.
That was a good…we had a good…he was…