15. Henley
HENLEY
The words were meaningless to me because they clearly weren’t English or any of the random foreign languages I’d tried to learn over the years, but I could feel it doing something as the pressure built behind my ears.
As the bubble of what I assumed to be magic pressed down on us, Blaine whined softly. I couldn’t tell if it was nerves or pain, but I stroked his head and started whispering as softly as I could. “Not much longer, murder kitty.”
His quiet chuffing laugh made me smile. “Yeah, murder kitties survive anything. You’re badass and are probably going to be a pain in the butt once you can talk.”
He was going to have so many questions.
“But we’ll be able to go out to eat like you promised me and to have a real date that doesn’t start and end at my kitchen table.
” Or the bed but that sounded inappropriate based on his current form…
and I didn’t want to give the coven the wrong impression.
“You’ll be able to tell me about your favorite parts of the Superman show. ”
And ask questions about how that franchise had been tortured.
“We’ll make a road trip to go find comic book stores.” And possibly hide from the people here if it all got fucked up somehow.
The pressure continued to build and it was almost like a pillow being pressed down on us. The words came faster, and if we’d been living in a movie, lights would’ve been whirling around us.
I’d have preferred a movie so I could see what they were doing better but just feeling the magic was probably more than I should’ve expected. That didn’t mean I wasn’t greedy, though. I was also nosy and didn’t like the helpless feeling that raced through me as Blaine started to twitch and whine.
I could feel the pulse of something flowing through him, but all I could do was hold him and wait as the pressure got to the point where I wanted to fight against it too.
Just as it was almost too much and I had to fight the urge to drag him out of the circle, a flash of light filled the yard that whited out the world.
When my vision started to clear, I realized the chanting voices around us were silent.
It took me too long to realize that the fur under my hands was softer than it had been.
Blinking a few times, I sucked in a breath as the curious parts that’d been put together haphazardly to form my mate had turned into a beautiful large cat with fur so black it was almost blue.
“Okay, I’ll give you the point on being prettier in this form.”
Oh.
“Um, welcome back?”
I really wasn’t good at the whole mate thing.
Thankfully my still not-human-looking mate chuffed and rolled over on me so he could lick me again. “Not appropriate for the moment.”
Good grief.
A few snickers around us reminded me that we had an audience but before I could figure out what I was supposed to say that wasn’t ridiculous, Serena came over with a blanket in her hands. “I’d like to see if he can shift.”
Oh.
Yeah.
“The human-looking form. Yeah.” That was important too. “Um. Thank you.”
Taking the blanket from her, I realized the whole naked shifting thing and twirled a finger around. “I don’t think you guys can help this part, so…”
It only took a few more giggles to have the coven turning their backs on us while I draped the blanket over where I thought Blaine’s lower half would be. I probably shouldn’t see him naked either…at least not until after our first date, so I focused on his face as he closed his eyes.
Magic was so weird.
This time was a lot less dramatic, though. I could feel the pressure building again and I closed my eyes just in case that flash of light came back, but it was different this time. One moment he was pretty murder kitty and the next the weight was different, so I opened my eyes.
He was a man.
On my lap.
“You really are hot. I’m glad I don’t have to lie to you about that.”
I just needed to stop talking completely.
But the man on my lap grinned as he slowly sat up, thankfully remembering the purpose of the blanket and not flashing anyone. Me included. I wasn’t sure how he saw being naked and I was going to be careful of him until we’d gone over some basic shifter limits.
“Um, hi.”
Was he in there?
It’d suck to lose his brains in this body.
If murder kitty was the only one who could think, which one would I want to live with most of the time? Could I live with a hot Ken doll with a dick? Hopefully he had one under the blanket. He’d have already panicked if it’d gotten lost, right?
“I’m not going to ask what you’re thinking, my mate.” Based on his low chuckle, my eyes had probably gone cartoon-sized. But murder kitty was a human now and could talk…deep voice and soft Southern drawl just like we were in a movie. “It would probably be inappropriate.”
“Um, yeah.” No point in lying since he wouldn’t believe me anyway. “You’re a real person. That’s so weird.”
Before I could decide if I should apologize or not, he looked around. “This feels…oddly anticlimactic.”
“This is just the start of the crazy.” We still had a lot to figure out. “Don’t jinx us.”
Did I need to explain that?
“What—”
“May we turn around?” Serena’s question stopped my stupid rambling.
“Um.” I waited until Blaine sat up and wrapped the blanket tighter around his body. “Yes. Do you have any clothes for him? I’m not sure I really thought this would work because I didn’t think to bring any for him.”
Not that mine would fit.
He was broad…and thankfully not as hairless as a Ken doll because he had a light dusting over his chest that trailed down to where it was covered by the blanket.
As the coven turned around, they all let out a breath and several of them looked unsteady, like they were just as shocked as Blaine was. I probably couldn’t blame them. It had to be weird waiting for something for so long and then having it be over so quickly.
“It worked.” Serena shook her head like she couldn’t believe it as one young guy ran toward the house. Hopefully for clothes for Blaine. “I…I’ve been planning this moment for as long as I can remember but it’s…”
Oh yeah.
Taking another breath, she tried again. “My family is more sorry than you will ever know that we let this happen to you.”
Blaine swallowed, hiding how much emotion he had to be feeling behind a pleasant but mostly blank expression. “Even I didn’t realize how her mental health was struggling.”
Yay, nothing offensive.
“Looking back, to me we barely knew each other and ran in completely different circles.” Rising slowly, he secured the blanket before reaching to take my hand to help me up.
“My mate has explained that being gay no longer holds the same stigma in most places, but I’ve always known my mate would be a man. ”
I wasn’t sure if that would’ve been good to know back then or scary.
No…I knew…scary.
“I never led her on.” Blaine’s careful tone was filled with conviction I didn’t think any of them would question. “It never occurred to me that any woman in our world would focus on me like that.”
Oh, a lot of them would’ve focused on him no matter what he said his mate would be.
Just him holding my hand was making my heart skip a few beats, so my sexy dork would’ve had women falling all over him whether he realized it or not.
Hot dork.
Yep, he never would’ve realized it at all.
“This was in no way your fault.” Serena looked around, smiling at the group who’d actually managed to get Blaine back in the right body. “We’re just very glad that it worked and that you’ve found your mate.”
Me.
Yep.
Me.
That was something I was going to have questions on later, but I was going to wait until I either organized my thoughts better so I wouldn’t sound like an idiot in front of the witches…
or until we had privacy so it wouldn’t matter if I sounded like a moron.
If Blaine was actually my mate, I probably didn’t need to worry about looking stupid in front of him.
The number of licks I’d gotten over the past couple of days said he liked me even when I sounded like I didn’t have any brains at all.
Giving her head a shake, she frowned. “I’m sorry. My manners. Please come inside. We’ve got clothes ready for you and you can take a shower if you’d like.”
Magical shenanigans seemed to have kept this form fairly clean, but I could see how tempted he was before he started to shake his head.
“Yes, that would be great.” Taking over, I smiled and pulled his hand so he’d have to start walking or make a scene. He wasn’t going home in just a blanket. With my luck we’d end up getting arrested. “It’s been a while since he had modern luxuries.”
And eventually he’d be pissed at himself for walking away before he saw the inside of the house.
He huffed, giving me a side-eye that was adorable. “Are you saying I stink?”
That got more giggles from the coven who were still watching him a bit like he was a rock star that’d just dropped in the backyard.
“Picture the shower in my place and then the one here.” I really was doing him a favor in a variety of ways. “Besides. You said you’d take me on a date. That means shower first.”
And since he hadn’t done it in seventy years, he probably wanted one at the very least.
“Alright.” Shaking his head, he pretended to be exasperated with me as we made our way through the beautiful yard and up to the screened porch.
The whole thing looked like we were walking through a movie where the South was almost like another character.
“But I’m going to ignore how high-maintenance you’re sounding. ”
My scoff got more giggles from our audience.
“I never promised not to be high-maintenance.” I came from a whole family of lunatics. There wasn’t a quiet one in the bunch. “I like attention and you’ve got a bit of talking to make up for.”
We did a good job of playing calm and cute for the coven, but I could feel Blaine’s hand tense as we walked into the beautiful house.
“You can start by figuring out which stories you’re going to tell me first. Then we can work from my list if we need to.
” I grinned as I glanced over my shoulder at the strange group of people still following us down the hallway with the stark white walls and into the main part of the house. “I’ve been making notes on my phone.”
Making sure to keep us still looking adorable and not dangerous in the slightest, I swung our hands as we followed Serena until she pointed to what seemed to be a small guestroom.
The white bedspread and antique-looking wood furniture made it seem like it was for show, not everyday living.
“We’ve got clothes laid out on the bed and everything you should need in the bathroom. ”
“Thank you.” As I tried to figure out the best way to make sure Blaine could have as much privacy as he needed, his hand tightened around mine to the point of almost painful. Got it. “We’ll be out in just a few minutes.”
I was slow sometimes but not completely stupid, so we both walked into the small bedroom and I closed the door behind us. The house was clearly old but the knob was new and had a lock, so I clicked it into place and let Blaine take a deep breath.
With our audience gone for the moment, I shifted so I was standing in front of him. “Take a deep breath for me and let it out slowly.”
His hand was starting to shake, but he seemed to be doing his best to look relaxed. As he opened his mouth, I knew he was going to give me some bullshit line about being fine, so I cut him off quietly. “Don’t lie to me. You don’t have to talk if you’re not ready but mates don’t lie.”
At least that Bigfoot lady had said they didn’t.
Weird guy hadn’t talked much about mates…maybe they didn’t have them on Mars?
Blaine paused before closing his mouth and simply nodding.
“Thank you.” I wasn’t sure about his limits but he’d spent a lot of time over the past few days licking my face. That made me think a hug should be fine at the very least. “If murder kitty can lick my face, can I hug my mate?”
Something on my face or in my tone made him chuckle, so I shrugged. “That’s going to sound weird for a while. I just started getting used to the idea of my mate being murder kitty and well…you look human and you’re hotter than I expected.”
Rolling his eyes seemed to help him forget how anxious he was. “I told you I was attractive.”
“At least half of men who say that don’t understand how they actually look.” Men were weirder in very different ways than women. “I met this guy one time who thought he was the sexiest man ever put on this earth because he said he had sexy feet. Feet.”
It’d been a weird first and only date.
I didn’t mind the feet thing but I couldn’t handle his overall level of delusion. Those feet of his had been a knobby mess.
Blaine’s lips tightened to keep himself from laughing. “Mates don’t lie, remember?”
“Is it really lying if you’ve convinced yourself it’s true?” I needed to add that to my list of questions. “We’ll come back to that.”
I had others that we needed to address first.
“So…about that hug thing…what are your limits on physically interacting with your mate in this situation? You know, meeting in this form for the first time.” His very broad, muscular form. “I’m trying not to make assumptions about that.”
But it was getting harder and harder to keep my hands to myself, and I couldn’t decide if that was an impulse control issue or the mate bond.
Yep, I had questions and they just kept coming.