33. Henley
HENLEY
“They’re all just filled with recipes and gossip. This should’ve been listed more clearly.” I was going to have to message someone in charge eventually. I couldn’t be the only fake person on the paranormal sites who hadn’t known about the council.
Hell, there had to be people new to the paranormal world in general who didn’t know about them.
Okay, not the Legends guys…they’d all been around for ages and liked to pretend they knew everything.
The council member crossed his arms over his chest. “Do you really want to discuss being on either of those servers as a pure human?”
Probably not.
“I’m always polite and use it to make sure I’m not saving people from other people.” That sounded good, right? “Just because it’s not human doesn’t always make it right or nice.”
I gestured toward the idiots who’d followed my brother.
“That spell isn’t stopping the bleeding.” That was good to know for future reference. “Can you do something about that?”
I couldn’t.
Well, I could but I wasn’t wasting magical healing stuff on someone who’d been sent to kidnap me.
Council Guy sighed and focused on the bleeding guy…who was suddenly no longer bleeding. Cool. “Yes, he hasn’t done enough evil yet to be sentenced to death.”
Hmm.
How had he done that?
“I have questions.” Lots of them. “Where should we start?”
How to get the app was probably a good option, but there were other reasonable ones.
Council Guy grinned…not good. “I will be removing your would-be kidnappers.”
Guessed right.
“Your brother will also be held accountable for his deeds.” Council Guy wasn’t specific about what those might be. “If we are called while your family is endangering one of our people, then we can interfere. Otherwise they must be left to human justice.”
Not good.
“We’ll remember that.” Blaine glanced around at the chaos. “I’m…behind on modern technology and how our magic interacts with it but do we need to worry about showing up on cameras?”
Good question.
“No.” Justice Guy was confident about that. “That will be handled as well as their injuries.”
Did more of them get shot than I saw?
“Do you require medical assistance, Leap Mate?” He made it clear that was me but I had questions.
Well, more questions.
“No.” I’d gotten zapped as a kid and after a couple of times it wasn’t that bad. “It was mild as far as electric shocks go.”
Oh.
“But what is he?” Because that was weird.
Blaine and I both waited while Suit Guy chuckled. “A type of electric eel.”
Was I allowed to think that was cool even if he was evil?
“I don’t think they’re on the Monster server or even the general shifter one.” The Monster one also needed better advertising because I hadn’t seen a single water thing in general chatter about going to the Solstice Festival.
Oh. If that was held in the desert, could he have even gone?
He was probably just a regular shifter, so it wouldn’t matter.
Wait. Did being in that kids’ movie about the mermaid make them Legends?
“Why did you call my mate the Leap Mate?” Blaine’s change in topic was probably logical but I had more questions about aquatic shifters. Titles could wait. Fascinating new people could not because Council Guy was looking toward the portal.
The way Suit Guy inclined his head as he turned back to Blaine said it might be important, though. “Your family line has changed since you were…trapped.”
His sigh said he was trying not to blast the coven, which made me like him even better. “You were third in line to run your Pride but now you are in charge, although your people are spread far and wide.”
Well, that was frustrating.
Blaine seemed too shocked to process how hard it was going to be to manage people spread out all over the place. He nodded but I could see his brain slogging through the idea. “Thank you for letting me know.”
He was going to have questions later but I didn’t know what to pester the Council Guy on while we had him.
“Can I get your email address? Are you on either of the main servers? You don’t scream monster or Legend to me but I don’t want to assume.” It all seemed reasonable but he blinked at me. “We’re going to need some information about that. I’m human and he’s basically lost in time.”
I really needed to figure out what trope we were living because people resonated with those better than with vague explanations.
Council Guy had to press his lips together but he managed not to smile. “I will have someone appropriate contact you.”
Hmm.
“Thank you.” Blaine accepted that conversational detour entirely too politely. “Is there…is there anything you can share about why they came after my mate?”
“Oh, how did you know what was going on when you came through?” I knew it was a good question but Blaine went still. “Um, thank you?”
Maybe I should’ve said please?
Council Guy’s lips tightened, but after a second, he nodded. “It is part of our magic as long as they fall under our domain. It allows us to know immediately who is most dangerous as we come through so innocents are not…harmed.”
Don’t kill the angry good guys who might be slinging around magic.
Smart.
“Do you know why he was trying to kidnap me?” A heads-up would’ve been nice but I wasn’t sure Euston knew what was going on.
Nope.
Head shake.
“All he knows is that your parents wanted you home.” Frowning, Council Guy studied Euston. “He thinks this was about marrying you off?”
“God, we’re going back to that whole legitimate heir nonsense? They don’t own anything to pass down besides trailers and bad ideas.” My family was insane. “My brothers keep knocking up women who are too smart to let them in the kids’ lives.”
Not smart enough not to sleep with the assholes to begin with, but at least they figured it out sooner rather than later.
“I can’t imagine anyone wanting your family in their children’s lives.” Blaine paused. “I’m sorry if that was offensive?”
“It’s the truth.” And I was gay. “We’re not going to quibble over that.”
Back to trying not to laugh, Council Guy shook his head. “You are free to go.”
That was definitely a polite way to tell us to shoo, so I decided it was time to get out of Dodge before he had questions about my past. Okay, I dawdled for a moment as the stunned men floated off the ground and through the portal, but one tug was all it took for Blaine to get me moving.
We were both smart even if I was a bit too curious for my own good.
****
“He was very vague about where he was taking them.” I only liked vague when I was the one refusing to answer questions. “I didn’t think about it at the time, but what am I supposed to tell my mother when she emails me?”
“Nothing.” Blaine shrugged before reaching over and taking my hand. “Tell her you didn’t see him.”
Not a bad plan, actually.
“Play dumb. Yes.” She wouldn’t like anything I could tell her anyway. “In our debrief, I want to start writing down questions for whoever contacts me later.”
Blaine barked out a laugh. “We both have questions, so yeah, we’re going to need a list.”
“That Pride thing, huh?” Did he need space for that? “We’ll figure it out.”
Still smiling, he leaned back in the seat and stroked his fingers against mine. “My distant cousins should’ve gotten the leadership position, but we were all spread out and don’t have the same kind of structure that wolves have.”
Ah.
“I’ve met a few of those.” There wasn’t always a lot of logic between the different groups and how they organized themselves, but in this case, the loner thing made sense. “Right now we won’t worry about it until we start tracking down more of your relatives.”
The coven mentioned a few random ones but there wasn’t anyone who still lived locally.
“Yes.” Blaine closed his eyes and let out a long breath. “For the time being we’re going to relax and travel.”
And it looked like that was a lot safer now, so my plan didn’t seem as stupid any longer.
“I’ve got just the thing for that.” I managed not to laugh when he hummed and peeked one eye open. “We’ll get there about sunrise, so just relax and it won’t be long before we’re done for a couple of days.”
Longer if we wanted.
I knew a guy who knew a guy, and because I’d saved his mate, he was going to let us camp out as long as we wanted.
“Hey, you cheated. I thought we were going to be driving through tomorrow.” Pretending to glare at me, Blaine barely held back a yawn.
“I don’t remember specifically saying we were going to be driving that long.” I’d just made it sound like we would be. “I told you that I had a surprise for you and that we’d do lunch out.”
There were supposed to be some interesting little towns in the area we were going to be staying.
His huff had me fighting to keep a straight face. “Cheater. Are we researching anything?”
I loved that his brain went there first.
“Nope.” Okay, technically there was stuff we could look into because the paranormal site was filled with some weird comments about the locals in that area, but there was nothing I felt the need to look into. “If we get bored, yeah, but this is just for us.”
That had Blaine letting out a long breath as his eyes closed. “I know my being trapped at the beginning of our relationship made things difficult, but I liked it when it was just us.”
Reality had been really far away at that point.
“Me too.” Stroking my fingers against his, I softened my voice a little more. “How about we take a long nap this afternoon and we can cuddle?”
His chuckle made me smile but he was fading fast. “That’s a very polite way to label what I plan on doing to you.”
Yay.
Playing dumb, I hummed and kept a neutral expression in case he was actually peeking. “You’re a snuggler in either form.”
Flashing a grin, he squeezed my hand. “Yep, that’s what we’re going to call it…snuggling.”
We’d start there at least.
“One long hug and you’re going to be out…snuggling sounds like a good description.” My slightly sassy tone got a smirk from him. “Besides, we’ve got shows to catch up on and you promised to show me how to use the grill.”
We’d spent a bit too much time hiding in the trailer to use it much.
“Sounds like you’ve got our day planned out…but something else might be missing from your list.” His soft thinking hum almost sounded innocent. “What do you think that might be?”
Ha.
“Oh, I haven’t told you…it’s going to be a safe space for you to run while shifted.” Biting my tongue not to laugh as he went still, I sighed. “I can’t believe I forgot to mention it to you. Mountains as far as the eye can see…very few people…state and national park land for miles.”
His groan almost made me lose the fight with my sense of humor. “You’re fucking with me.”
Yep.
He was so tempted he hated it.
“We’re going to have time for you to run to your heart’s content and spend lots of private time together.” It’d taken us a while to get to this point but we were finally free of everything…for a while at least.
I was hoping Blaine’s thoughts weren’t heading in that practical of a direction but it was too much to ask. “What did you think about me being the leader of the Pride?”
Was “nothing” a bad answer?
It took me too long to figure that out, getting a tired laugh from him. “Stop trying to figure out the right answer.”
“I wasn’t.” I was trying to decide what the normal answer would be. “Um, I don’t have any opinion on it but that felt rude to say.”
Blaine must not have thought so because his fingers started petting mine again, just slower as he drifted closer to sleep. “I’m at that point too, but I think I’m just not ready to think about it.”
That didn’t surprise me.
“Then we’ll handle it when you’re ready.” I was okay with taking that part slow. “At some point we track down people online and maybe add them to the map.”
If they were as spread out as the council guy had said, our road trip adventure might be the best way to meet all of them.
“He’d have told us if there was something you needed to handle right now.” He hadn’t seemed like the fuck with everyone type. “Did you see his face when he tossed that teddy bear back through the portal?”
Laughing again, Blaine let me change the subject. “I guess that spell was originally only taught to children. I wonder what they thought was going on when they got whatever Bat Signal came through.”
Oh, that would’ve been funny.
“I can’t help wondering if he got the short straw to deal with a kid or if he was the best person to deal with one.” I had questions but it looked like it was going to take a while to answer them. “He didn’t seem mad at me.”
He didn’t seem like he was going to out me as human either.
“Well, there’s only so much he can do now that you’re my mate.” Blaine shrugged. “You’re not really considered just human any longer. So if you’d prefer you can get a new profile on the general paranormal server as my mate.”
Oh wow.
He laughed again but opened his eyes and leaned across the cab to kiss my head. “Hadn’t thought about that yet?”
“No.” I probably should have, but in my defense we’d been busy. I’d mostly been focused on trying to decide if he would still be considered a Legend or not. “That’s…”
“You get to introduce yourself as the Leap Mate of the Coastal Plain Pride.” He was thoroughly enjoying having stunned me stupid. “You get to tell people how you knew you had to find The Beast of Bladenboro and how you saved me. We’ll just edit out a few details.”
Like my family.
Because I was going to get to make a new one.
And once I could swallow past the lump in my throat I was going to talk through it all very logically.