Page 69 of Wedding the Werepanther

“You do?” She squints up at me. “Not everyone understands. They think family is family no matter what.”

“Family, pack, they’re more than blood.” I cup her face. “They’re love. They’re respect. They’re the people you can count on. You do have a family—they were all here yesterday celebrating with you.”

“And Dewdrop.” She shoves tears from her cheeks with the blade of her hand. “Can’t forget him.”

“And Dewdrop.” I nod and make my voice soft. “And me.”

Because listening to her finally open up to me has made one thing painfully clear. I’ve been drawn to her since the moment we met. I stalked her for over a year. All of it driven by an instinctive attraction, a desire to mate.

I told myself I played the courting game, determined to win, and I didn’t think of what would happen beyond that point.

Yet getting to know her these past few weeks, to see the true depths of her strength and courage, to witness her amazing creativity. I want more than some temporary victory. I want a future with her.

I love Kayla with all my heart.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

Kayla

When our next date night comes around, Shadow sends me upstairs with orders to put on jeans, a long-sleeved tee, and my sturdiest sneakers. By the time I come back downstairs, he’s in the kitchen chopping up a selection of fruit for Dewdrop. He finishes dicing a mango and drops it into a bowl already full of blackberries and guava. We’ve been working our way through the fruit selection at the grocery store and haven’t found a single one Dewdrop doesn’t like.

“Here you go.” Shadow slides the bowl over. “You’re certain you’ll be okay here on your own?”

“Finn’s coming over to play later,” the dragonet chirps. “He goes all over Ferndale Falls by himself.”

Finn’s also a wild animal raised here on Earth with a ton of survival skills my familiar doesn’t have. So I say, “But you’ll stay in the yard, right?”

“Of course.” My familiar reaches the end of his restraint and dives headfirst into the fruit bowl.

“I’ll watch over him,”Victoria writes.

“So we’re going out for our date?” I ask Shadow.

He smiles at me. “You could say that.”

“Well, I don’t like it. Dates should be here, in me, where I can see what you’re doing.”

“Now, Victoria, as someone determined to make us abide by the fine print when it suits you, I must insist you extend the same courtesy to us.” His smile turns into a smirk. “You didn’t stipulate that the dates must take place here, so we’re going out.”

A door bangs upstairs, but she can’t say he’s wrong.

He extends a hand toward me. “Shall we?”

The moment his fingers wrap around mine, he steps sideways, pulling me onto the shadow roads. We run for less than a minute, and when we come out right in front of Crystal Rock, excitement shoots through me.

“We’re going to Faerie! Where?”

His grin stretches wide. “It’s a surprise.”

We step through the door, and my stomach drops like I’m on a rollercoaster. I’m expecting the sensation this time, so I also notice something else: the sudden lack of a feeling of presence. I rub my chest. It’s a small awareness that’s been growing stronger, and I think it’s my connection to Victoria. Is this what she meant when she said she couldn’t feel me during our last trip to Faerie?

Then Shadow’s hand grips mine, and we run the shadow roads again instead of going through one of the other doors of Faerie.

“So we’re staying in this realm?” I ask. “This is where you’re from, right? The same place as the orcs?”

“Yes, this is Alarria.” He interlaces our fingers more tightly and pulls me along. “It’s not the original realm of the cat sith, but it’s where my pack has lived for three hundred years.”

When I get a bit winded, he slows us to a stop just long enough to scoop me up into a bridal carry. Then he takes off again, running at least twice as fast as my top speed.