16. Blaine
BLAINE
Out of all the things tilting me off balance, my mate was not one of them. “I approve of any and all forms of physical contact with my mate.”
Just releasing his hand and opening my arms had him pressing himself against me and wrapping his arms around my back. “You see…I’ve known him for quite a while now and we’ve spent a lot of time in his bed already.”
Giggling, he pressed his face into my shoulder. “That doesn’t count.”
“I beg to differ.” It definitely counted. “I’ve cuddled you and kissed you and slept next to you for days now. It’s positively scandalous.”
At least it would’ve been before the world had gone insane.
“I’m afraid to tease you about that because I don’t know how it will come across.” Still sounding like he wanted to laugh again, his hands stroked my back as he tried to cuddle closer. “That whole now you have to marry me joke hits a bit different with that mate word running around.”
“You don’t want to give me ideas, my mate.” I knew he wasn’t ready for them, he made that very clear, but he was still putting fantasies in my head he wasn’t ready for. “I’ve spent days getting to know you, so I’m about a week ahead of you in relationship time.”
Scoffing to cover the laugh he tried to hide, he shook his head against me. “Nope. I’ve fed you and we’ve watched movies and shows together. I even know how cute you are about comics and stuff like that. We’re even.”
“I don’t know about that.” Kissing his head with human lips for the first time, I was glad it was still familiar. His scent was softer in this form and holding him felt different than lying on him, but he was still my Henley. “You’ve been trying to hide things from me.”
His squeak said he was at least guessing what I was talking about. “You’re…that’s…ugh.”
Chuckling at his drama in this form had him poking my side. “I knew you were laughing at me.”
“Because you’re my mate and very cute sometimes.” I was going to spend the rest of this life and the next being grateful for our bond. I don’t know what I would’ve done if I’d hurt him while under the influence of the spell. “Even when I could hardly think there was a bond between us.”
“I wasn’t imagining it?” He sighed as I shook my head. “I felt a bit nuts if I’m being honest.”
“Because you were talking to a monster.” There was no other word for what the magic had done to me even if people seemed to use the word casually these days. “You trusted your instincts and knew there was something important going on.”
“You didn’t eat me.” He shrugged. “That was a good clue.”
He was insane.
“I’m glad you understood that.” Because while some things just went wrong around my mate, he could be dangerous when he focused on what he was doing. “I’m also glad you aren’t panicking now that I have a human form again.”
Thank the gods for that.
“It’ll probably get weird eventually but your personality doesn’t feel much different and I wasn’t going to have some big freakout when everyone was watching.
” He huffed when I had to fight back a laugh.
“I learned very early in life to panic in private…but I guess I can panic with you now. You know…because we’re mates. ”
With his background he should’ve been trying to stab me at the very least, so I thought he was doing fairly well overall.
Oh, he’d tried to explain things carefully, but I wasn’t stupid and hadn’t been as na?ve as he seemed to think I was before I’d been changed.
His family were monster hunters.
“That’s right.” Kissing his head again, I tightened my hold on him as I focused on the way he felt in my arms. “You’re my mate. That means we don’t lie and we panic together.”
Henley hugged me back just as tight. “You ready to have a freakout or do you want to wait until we’re home later?”
Home.
“Later, please.” I wasn’t sure how I felt about anything at the moment but I knew I wasn’t going to break down right then. “But.”
He was my mate.
He was my mate.
He was my mate.
“Mates don’t lie. Mates panic together.” I could hear the smile in his voice when I sighed. “I thought you might need a reminder.”
“Thank you.” My dry retort got another giggle from him, making him sound even more innocent than he usually looked. “You’re right, though.”
“So?” He was making it very clear that he wasn’t going to let it go.
“So I’m going to make sure you understand that I don’t want you to leave me alone right now.” I might not be up with the times about much, but from the TV we’d watched and the things he called podcasts that we’d listened to, men were expected to communicate clearly about their emotions.
I was calling bullshit on that being a behavior everyone partook in, but Henley had sent me several pointed glares as the people had talked and debated current cultural norms.
My mate was helpful but not subtle.
“I can do that.” Lifting his head, he kissed my cheek. “It’s a very reasonable request.”
I wasn’t so sure about that, but I let him claim otherwise.
“You just need time to get to know me more.” Shrugging, he straightened and pretended to be confident, being an adorable distraction. “I’m kind of complicated.”
I would have to agree on that even if he was teasing.
“You’re confusing. I think you’re getting those words mixed up.” Kissing his forehead one more time, I pushed back the war of emotion in me and nodded toward the bed. “I think those are mine.”
The stack of clothes looked simple with the jeans and what seemed to be a T-shirt giving a familiar feel.
That was probably their goal, and they succeeded except for the strange shoes on the floor by the bed.
I’d never seen anything like the bright blue shoes that looked like some kind of sportswear based on the commercials we’d seen.
“You’re going to look sexy.” Eyes sparkling, he gave me a bright smile that had his innocence level going up again. “Okay, how about I sit with you and ask questions while you get cleaned up?”
“Perfect.” I wasn’t ready to be alone with my thoughts yet either. “And because you like to know the limits we’re working within, I am going to make it clear I’d like to be ogled by my mate.”
I’d been waiting for him for a very long time.
“Whew.” Stepping back, he took my hand as he played cute again. “I wasn’t sure I had the strength to look away but I was going to offer.”
He’d have done a good job, but with his impulsiveness, trying might’ve given him a heart attack.
“I appreciate that.” But as confused as I was about a lot of things, Henley wasn’t one of them. “It’s not necessary, though.”
My worrying about what he wanted also wasn’t necessary because he chattered so much it wasn’t hard to understand what he was thinking.
“But you’re going to tell me when it does become necessary.” Picking up my clothes, he took my hand again and led me to the bathroom. “I know living in tight conditions can get annoying because someone else is always around.”
Because from what he’d chattered about over the past couple of days, his family lived a very nomadic lifestyle as well. That seemed to mean he was used to it but he was also cognizant of what could be frustrating to outsiders.
“I’m not sure when I will get to that point but I will let you know when we do.” If just thinking about letting him out of my sight was making my stomach churn, I didn’t think it would be anytime soon. “I want you to let me know when you need space too.”
So far we hadn’t run into that issue, though.
It was easy to read how he was feeling and he didn’t seem to mind our constant closeness. If he got frustrated, it was because food hadn’t turned out right or from not understanding what I’d been trying to say. That might change with me being able to talk but I couldn’t predict how.
This definitely hadn’t been how I thought I’d find my mate, so I was starting from scratch on some things.
Frowning, Henley set my clothes on the long counter that hadn’t been there when I was a child and turned on the water for the shower…another new addition.
Had it been remodeled when Ida had been alive?
What had she thought?
Was this all new or had it been done years ago?
Everything looked familiar but different and it was giving me the strangest feeling of being in some kind of alternate dimension. Taking a breath I hoped was subtle, I focused on Henley. Lean. Handsome. Innocent-looking even when he frowned.
“I’m honestly not sure when I’ll need space.
Being away from…well…being alone for the past couple of months has actually been really nice, but I think that was more about escaping than being alone.
” Sighing, his face scrunched up as he leaned against the counter. “It was actually peaceful for a while.”
Because one of his thousand relatives hadn’t been trying to kill him or threaten him
“Having you around has been nice, though.” Shrugging, he smiled, pushing away the negative thoughts. “That might be because you’re my magical mate.”
Did he actually understand that?
He seemed to accept it but he was oddly cavalier about the whole situation.
“No matter why, I’m glad I haven’t been driving you crazy and I’m very grateful for everything you did when you didn’t have to.” And probably shouldn’t have. “You and I are going to have a talk about self-preservation, though.”
Rolling his eyes, he huffed while I did my best to hide how cute his drama was. “I couldn’t leave you. Firstly, because you wouldn’t have let me. Secondly, I didn’t know what you were, so I had to take you home just in case. Thirdly, the ranger.”
He was not impressed with the overprotective man.
“I’ll accept the first one as valid but everything else is ridiculous, and you can’t include the ranger on that list because you wouldn’t have had a problem with him if you hadn’t taken me home.
” Ignoring his grumbles, I reached into the shower and tested the water.
“Time to close your eyes if you’re shy.”
I gave him a few seconds to decide what he was going to do before dropping the thin blanket Serena had given me.
He watched.
“I… You’re my mate.” He was getting more and more used to that word, but I had a feeling he needed time for the reality of it to sink in. “And you said you didn’t have an issue with me seeing you.”
That was not what I’d said.
“No.” Slowly stepping into the tub to stand under the spray, I made sure to leave the curtain open enough that he could still get peeks of me. “I said I’d like to be ogled by my mate. I’ve been waiting a while for you.”
Since I was a teenager, really.
I wasn’t sure how to count the time I’d spent as a prisoner in my own body, so I was going to ignore it for the time being.
“You always knew you would have a man for a mate?” Henley shifted over to sit on the closed toilet lid and made no effort to pretend to hide his intent gaze. “I’ve met a few magically inclined people who talked about mates and I just can’t imagine knowing you’ve got someone waiting for you.”
Closing my eyes, I stepped under the spray and tried to let it wash the last seventy years down the drain. “It felt normal to me, but I can imagine how confusing it must be to someone who’s never seen it.”
“I’ve heard about it from enough different people to understand it’s normal in your society.” He paused before he got to the but that I knew wanted to escape. “What did you want your mate to be like?”
“A man.” His sigh made me smile as I stepped out of the spray and opened my eyes. “My first thoughts about my future mate were very…let’s call them typical for being a teenager.”
His snicker said he understood my point. “And when you got older and started thinking with the big head…well…bigger head?”
It was my turn to roll my eyes as I reached for the clearly new bar of soap that had been left out for me. “Obviously I wanted him to be sassy, reckless, and impulsive.”
“Hey. I thought through trying to capture you very carefully.” He tried to huff but I could see his pout out of the corner of my eye. “It just didn’t go as planned.”
Before I could tease him, he held up his hand. “Not talking about that part.”
Not yet…but we would.
“I agreed to that limit.” But I had research to do now that I had hands and could use the small computer he called a tablet without help. “I was just going to tease you about how you ended up in the net.”
Not the part about how aroused he’d been.
His huff was adorable but the way he was studying every inch of me alternated between sexy and odd. He didn’t seem to realize that, though. “That was a comedy of errors and I’m not sure how it happened.”
Probably because he was easily distracted.
My mate was smart in fascinating ways but his mind jumped from topic to topic like a rabbit.
“I was impressed with how well you put the trap together once I realized what had happened.” Between the fog and the simplistic way my brain had been working, I hadn’t thought of that right away, but it’d come to me eventually. “I was thinking about that when I had you show me everything.”
“You make that sound so easy. Everything. You can’t just lump literally every item in my trailer under the heading of everything.” His tone said grumbling but his eyes were saying something else entirely. “You’re very headstrong. You know that?”
Yes.
And at that moment all of it was focused on my mate and his very curious gaze.