Page 38 of Blade

His huff and low questioning whine made me realize something I’d forgotten. “I think I forgot to tell you about that part of my plan.”

Oh well.

“Don’t give me that look. I’m managing a lot here.” Taking a deep breath, I did my best to project calm and confidence. “I put some of the marbles in my pocket so we’re good for a distraction if we need to leave. I’ve also got a bracelet thing in my pocket that looks a bit feminine but once I put it on all magic in about a twenty-foot radius is suppressed for a few minutes.”

Weird people were amazingly grateful when you weren’t a dick to them…and didn’t argue about possible serial killers.

Blade’s pleased purr said he was glad to hear about my goodies. “It seems completely inert until I actually put it on. I didn’t think about it the other day because it’s been ages since I had to use it and then I wasn’t sure what it would do to you.”

His almost sneezing kind of sound had me shrugging. “Yeah, it didn’t seem right to just randomly start messing around to see what would happen.”

I wasn’t sure how we could end up in a worse situation but I hadn’t been willing to take the chance. At the moment he could respond to me and had figured out how to use the toilet in the trailer, so I wasn’t going to start fucking around with magic.

“Okay, we’re coming back into town. I recognize this turn. It looks terrible from this angle but town gets cute really fast.” Blade was looking around and taking in everything, but I couldn’t tell if he thought that intersection was as bad as I did. “See? Boom. All the sudden it’s cute.”

They needed to work on their first impressions.

“There seems to be a variety of stores but it’s tiny as far as Southern towns go.” Most I’d seen were at least twice this size,but it was cute. “This is the main four-way stop and after about a block in every direction it’s just houses and then it goes out to farms and more industrial stuff.”

I’d clearly missed the magical bits and still couldn’t see anything out of the ordinary as we slowly made our way through the intersection and toward where I knew the nicer houses in town were. At some point I hoped Blade would tell me stories about growing up around there, but I wasn’t sure he was in the right headspace for that.

He was still staring out the windows but it felt like sadness or something like dread was creeping over the truck. “Hey, we’re in this together. Mate, remember? Ugh. I might have to actually talk about that sooner than I expected.”

That got a laughing sound from him that made me smile. “I’m going to be throwing that word around left and right with these coven idiots. It seems to hold a lot of weight and might help them remember you’re real in there.”

The ranger seemed to forget that every time he opened his mouth. “For a people who run into shifters and Bigfoot and just weird shit on a regular basis, they’re certainly judging based on your cover.”

Blade’s grumbling sound made it clear he didn’t appreciate being ugly. “Looks aren’t everything.”

I really hoped for his sake he was as cute as he seemed to think he was. Most people had a slightly skewed sense of what they actually looked like and I just wasn’t sure how Blade had always seen himself when he had a human-looking body.

Please let him be happy with himself.

“Stop licking me while I’m driving, dork.” As the ranger started to slow, we both sucked in a breath. “I…I think we’re here.”

Duh.

He’d stopped his truck so it was obvious, but I couldn’t help myself.

“What is he doing?” Parking on the side of the road next to a huge white house with columns and an impressive front yard, he climbed out and waved me around the corner. “He needs to give better fucking directions.”

Easing up beside him, I rolled down the passenger side window. “Where should I park?”

Thankfully he seemed to understand it was a reasonable question and didn’t even give Blade his usual wide-eyed jolt. “Drive around the block and you’ll see the rear entrance. If you pull up beside the small garage you should have enough privacy that the neighbors won’t notice you.”

Blade.

The neighbors wouldn’t notice Blade.

“Fine.” I probably should’ve rolled up the window and left it at that, but he’d already proven he couldn’t make good decisions.

Fuck it.

“I just want to very politely remind you that if anything happens to my mate, I will bring holy hell down on this entire county. I might be human but I’ve met the most interesting people who aren’t.” I also knew some just generally terrible humans who were really good with guns. “Don’t test me on this because my views of right and wrong are slightly skewed.”

I knew that.

Blade knew that.