Page 20 of Blade

Panicked.

A dart suddenly appeared in Blade’s side when he turned to grumble about my idea, and as his eyes went wide, I panicked.

My own instincts had me reaching in the front pocket of my backpack for the small little balls the weird magic guy had given me, and I threw a handful of the tiny marbles before I’d even thought about it.

Oops.

Yep, basically flashbangs.

Being nice to people paid off, and at some point, I was going to remind the deputy of that fact.

After he regained consciousness.

So not quite a magical flashbang?

The flash of light and magical something that was designed to knock out anything smaller than a dinosaur had been supposed to stay focused on whatever I considered a threat, and I was glad to see I hadn’t accidentally killed myself.

Blade.

One of us must’ve somehow knocked the dart out, but even though he didn’t seem to have gotten a full dose, he wobbled unsteadily as he rose. “Good boy. We’re going to stay relaxed and get the hell out of here.”

Smartest murder kitty ever, no matter what else he was.

He hadn’t eaten me or blamed me for the new chaos even though he was growling and grumbling and clearly not feeling like himself.

“Let’s go.” And keep our fingers crossed that we didn’t run into anyone else who decided to be helpful. “He’ll be fine. I’m not worried about being arrested because he’ll never be able to explain this to real cops.”

As I stood up, I rested my hand on his head and slipped my bag on backward so I could reach anything else I needed to keep Blade safe. “Let’s go this way.”

It was time to get off the trail.

The sand-grass problem was now mixed with bushes that seemed designed to try to hold people hostage, but it was technically very pretty and part of me wished I could’ve shown Blade the small lake we were near. He’d have liked that. Well. He’d have liked it if he was processing everything at full speed instead of being slightly drugged.

He was doing great, though, and needed an even bigger reward later than I’d already been planning.

“We’re doing wonderful.” Weaving our way through the unmaintained part of the park with Blade barely hanging on made everything take twice as long, but luckily for us, we weren’t far from my truck and managed to get in before anyone else noticed us.

Or before the deputy woke up.

Or before Blade passed out.

He climbed in before we got to that point, and thankfully moved to stretch out on the small bench seat in the back without arguing with me. I wasn’t sure how much he understood but he was almost out as I started the truck.

“We’re safe, kitty. You did such a good job keeping me safe.” Rambling about being safe in a quiet voice, I kept it up until we made it to the front of the park and my murder kitty had passed out or had fallen asleep. “Yes. We’re safe and I’m going to figure out what we’re doing next.”

It wasn’t the most stressful situation I’d found myself in lately, but it was the most confusing and I didn’t have anyone else to ask their opinion on. My immediate family was out of the question. The local nonhuman population seemed to have been the ones to do this to Blade, and they were impulsive at the very least.

“Research. Yes. I’m going to get us back to the trailer and then I’ll do more research.” At the very least I had a new starting point for where Blade had come from. “Newspaper archives and that server. I’ll start there and we’ll just stay in the trailer until I figure out what we’re doing next.”

Being at the back of the RV park should help because I was tucked in the trees and couldn’t be seen from the main road. I had food for two weeks, at the very least. I’d paid for the next week up front. We weren’t far from the bathroom. Yes. We weregoing to be fine until I could figure out what to do with my unconscious murder kitty who might be a shifter and who could possibly be my mate and who was probably going to be even more pissed at magic users after this.

I was never going to be able to say the word coven without him losing his mind.

CHAPTER 8

BLADE

“Come on, Blade.”More strange words and thoughts fought with the fog that filled my mind and heaviness that filled the rest of me. “I have something special for you.”