Page 11 of Blade

Scents were too strong.

They were always wrong but now they were new.

New wasn’t wrong.

New was sweet.

New was mine.

Yes.

My mate.

Mine.

CHAPTER 5

HENLEY

Were we making progress?

Getting off me and no longer sniffing at all the soft parts I had was definitely something.

“Good kitty.” Who was still a very big, slightly unhappy-looking kitty, so I kept petting his head as he sat down beside me. “I’m so proud of you.”

Happy voice.

Relaxed tone.

No sudden movements.

What had my mother done to keep that damned cat from eating her?

“Pretty kitty.” If he hadn’t eaten me yet, there had to be a reason. “We’re going to be special friends and you’re going to love me.”

Had his ears twitched?

God.

I couldn’t make friends with regular humans because my family was too weird.

I couldn’t make friends with monsters because my family was dangerous.

I couldn’t even date right because I was too awkward.

It seemed like the only thing I could do was be friends with a badass murder kitty.

Great.

Well, friends didn’t eat friends, right?

“You’re my special friend and you’re going to be my good helper.” It was amazing what not being eaten could do for my ability to think…and not being tied up any longer. “We’ll just have to figure out what that looks like for us.”

Yes.

All relationships were different and I didn’t need to put labels on it if I didn’t want to…at least that was what my new online friends from the Monster Network said. But they thought I was a Bigfoot and some kind of distant cousin of the admin guy so I didn’t know if that changed the advice or not.

For people who didn’t seem to look like people at all most of the time, the Bigfoot community were the most human-like monsters I’d met, so they’d been the easiest to imitate online. All I’d needed to do was to talk about overbearing parents and how frustrating being homeschooled could be.