Page 40 of Blade

No sudden movements.

“I’m Serena.” The woman who was waiting for us took several steps back toward a tall gate. “I know you have no reason to trust us but we’ve been waiting to help for a very long time.”

“I’m glad.” Keeping my name to myself just in case, I turned to Blade and nodded.

He gracefully climbed into the front seat before jumping down. It took Serena a bit longer before she could see him but she sucked in a breath as soon as I shut the door.

I was ready to let her know how rude that was, but she let out a soft sympathetic sound. “I’m so sorry this was done to you, Sir.”

Well, maybe she did have at least a few more manners than the ranger.

Turning her focus back to me, she smiled. “I’m very glad he found you.”

Me?

Blinking, I reached down to stroke Blade’s head. “Why?”

I wasn’t worried about looking stupid because there was no way I could’ve been prepared for any of this. They were the stupid ones for having fucked this whole thing up so badly.

“We think finding you is the reason he can think so clearly now.” Shrugging, her hands came out in a helpless kind of gesture as she glanced between us both. “We’re just doing our best to reason through this, but we think the magic involved in finding his mate is fighting back against the original spell.”

That made sense in a strange kind of way.

“Will it affect how you fix the situation?” Would my being in his life help or hurt Blade? “I’ve never researched anything like this.”

Frowning, she looked between us. “To our knowledge no one has. But we’ve done our best to work out what Betty did and I think if it does anything it will make reversing it easier.”

I hoped so.

“Good.” Still keeping my hand on Blade, I looked down at him. “Ready?”

If he’d changed his mind, we’d leave.

He nodded.

“Alright.” As I turned to Serena, she slowly turned toward the gate and opened it carefully. “Stay with me.”

She pretended not to hear us and smiled as she stood back from the gate. “I’m going to head in first. You’re going to see other members of the coven waiting for us but no one will harm you. We were prepared to have to render Mr. Singletary unconscious but that clearly won’t be necessary.”

“Hey, like that state park.” That was cool. “Oh. What’s his first name? The ranger wasn’t much help and I couldn’t find any missing person reports that matched the right time frame.”

I’d also been a bit worried that asking for Blade’s name would have the ranger asking for mine, and I had no plans on giving it to anyone until I absolutely had to. Even with all our technology, it was harder to track someone when you didn’t have a name to start with.

And since the plates on my truck were spelled to look different every time someone saw them, I wasn’t worried about that helping them.

Serena smiled. “Blaine. We did our best to protect his family’s privacy and spread the rumor that he’d taken a job in California. Rumors have a way of just taking on a life of their own, so everyone quickly decided there had been a falling out with his family over…personal issues. It seemed like the best way to handle the situation because we were hoping it wouldn’t take long to find him.”

Well, that hadn’t worked like they’d expected.

Issues?

Oh, the gay thing?

Well, I guess that made sense back then.

“Our goal was to be able to have it seem like they reconciled after a while and then he’d come home.” Her face tightened asshe sighed. “It just took them longer than they thought to figure out how to undo the spell and then they couldn’t find him.”

I could see how all of it had been one big clusterfuck, but the important part was that Blade was still calm and had a name again.