Page 36 of Blade

He was getting more and more comfortable saying that word.

“Your mate might’ve been planning on eating you.” The ranger seemed convinced he was right, which wasn’t endearing him to Henley.

“If you can’t be trusted to understand that he was defending me from your slightly problematic behavior, why should I trust you on anything else?” My mate’s wonderful question had the ranger making more dramatic sounds. “What if you overreact again?”

“This is the most insane conversation I’ve ever had.” Coming across as being too dramatic to be in charge of anything, the ranger sighed. “I’m not going to defend my actions because I still think I’m right. But moving away from that, have you decided to ask for help in getting your feral mate fixed?”

“No.” My mate was back to offended again and glared at the ranger. “I’m asking for help to make it easier for me and my mate to communicate, and to get him back to his original form.”

“Communicate?” The reactive man seemed to get stumped on that one. “You want to help make it easier to communicate?”

“I don’t know a good way to ask this, but are you the right person I should be having a conversation with?” Sitting back, my mate frowned. “Do you understand what’s going on?”

My mate wanted to know if he was stupid.

I could understand why the ranger started muttering curses but I still didn’t approve.

“For fuck’s sake.” When he finally stopped grumbling, the ranger took another breath. “I’m not an idiot this is just insane.I’ve spent the last three days wondering if he’d eaten you. I’ve been looking for your body.”

“He’s my mate.” Henley’s tone said he was back to thinking the ranger was stupid. “Even I know what that means.”

His tone was adorable but my favorite part was the way Henley rolled his eyes like a frustrated teenager. “God. How do I keep meeting such stupid people?”

It was either luck or magical shenanigans.

“I had no idea that meant he couldn’t eat you. My bad.” The ranger’s wording was odd but I understood the sarcastic tone…and didn’t appreciate it.

But I’d promised not to come out of hiding unless my mate was in danger.

Frustrating tones were not dangerous…unfortunately.

“Thank you…because you didn’t use your brain at all.” My mate’s words had me wondering if he’d understood that the ranger was not apologizing. “If we’re going to move forward, I’m going to need your promise that you’ll stop shooting my mate with anything and that you won’t be a danger to him.”

“I was trying to make sure he wasn’t a danger toyou.” The ranger still wasn’t going to back down with that. “He’s been feral for seventy years.”

He wasn’t going to let that drop.

“And whose fault is that?” Pausing, my mate looked a bit like a teacher I had in high school. “No comment?”

He was really good at that…it was sexy.

“He didnotdo this to himself.” My mate clearly thought the locals were stupid. “This happened to him because he turned down the advances of a woman who everyone else should’ve known wasn’t sane.”

I was on the fence with that one but my memory of that time was still foggy. I had my memories from childhood and up through being an adult back, but from what we’d pieced togetherthe few months around the spell were the most confusing or just gone.

I wanted to think I’d have noticed someone was having what he called a mental health crisis but I could only vaguely remember thinking she simply had a strong temper and wide mood swings. That probably hadn’t added up to dangerous to me, but Henley didn’t see it that way.

The ranger didn’t argue with him but he did let out another long breath. “It was a different time. We didn’t understand that we could be affected by mental health stuff. It’s only been recently that we realized the more human relatives in a family tree, the more susceptible we are to human issues.”

My mate huffed. “Not my mate’s fault.”

“You’re not going to move past my trying to keep you safe, are you?” The ranger really couldn’t understand that but he clearly saw the answer on my mate’s face. “Fine. We’ll just agree to disagree on that. I promise not to shoot your mate or do anything to deliberately harm him unless he attacks other people. You’re on your own.”

“Thank you.” Henley perked up, taking the ranger at his word, but in this case, I didn’t think he was misreading the situation.

Everything I could sense from the ranger said he was being honest.

“Now, what is the plan for fixing my mate?” Considering how uncomfortable that word made Henley, he seemed to be using it a lot with the ranger. “If you can’t help, I’ve got other options, but if your people here already have a method to undo the spell, that would be easiest.”