Page 99 of Blade

Ugh.

I was never going to hear the end of that.

“He was just being polite.”

Henley snorted and rolled his eyes. “Bullshit. He was hoping to get lucky withThe Beastand he was sorry he missed his chance. You’re mated and mine.”

My mate was adorable and ridiculous.

“He was just excited meeting a local celebrity.” I was either famous or infamous; it was hard to tell sometimes. “And he was just doing his job to help keep us safe.”

“Bullshit…” His sing-song tone had me sighing. “There are monster fuckers in every group. Some are just more open-minded than others.”

“Don’t put that image in my head.” I was hoping to sound stern as we headed back to the truck but I mostly came out sounding a bit petulant, like a sulking child. “Brat.”

He giggled all the way into the truck, still snickering as he kissed my cheek before turning it on. “But I’m your brat and one Miss Ida approves of.”

Because she had good taste.

As we started to drive back toward the campground, Henley took my hand again. “Okay, what is she? I don’t think you ever said.”

Huh?

Oh.

“Human.” She was just as bossy as any alpha shifter I’d ever met. “Her grandmother saved my great-great-grandfather as a child and figured out what we were. They’ve worked for ourfamily ever since. Her mother always said it was because shifters needed someone with common sense to manage things.”

She hadn’t been wrong but from what I remembered she’d been a tyrant.

“Human?” Henley blinked. “Really?”

Out of everything he’d seen, my nanny being human was the one that shocked him stupid?

My mate was a constant surprise.

CHAPTER 31

HENLEY

“You don’t haveto work to look so neutral.” Blaine smiled as I huffed and shot him a glare that he seemed thrilled to get. “Now there’s my brat.”

“You’re upset and sad about leaving and this is a big deal for you.” That meant I had to be serious, no matter how excited I was. “I’m treating it with the respect it deserves.”

“You were so excited to get on the road, you were nearly peeing in your pants.” He laughed when I did a little wiggle. “Told you so.”

“That coffee is finally hitting me.” The goal was to drive until I was too tired to do it safely and to put some distance between us while it was dark. Blaine had admitted he wanted some practice driving with the trailer in the daytime first, so I was still handling the driving for the time being.

We were making great progress but I’d needed to pee for about forty-five minutes. “I should’ve stopped earlier but there just isn’t much open in the middle of nowhere in this state.”

It also just hadn’t felt safe. It wasn’t logical considering we’d put some miles between us in the last three hours, but something was making me uneasy and stopping felt wrong.

“What feels right to you?” Blaine wasn’t upset that we’d left logic somewhere near I-95, but I felt bad at how nice he was being. “Are you hungry?”

I shouldn’t be…it was the middle of the night.

He chuckled. “That’s a yes.”

“We had dinner on the drive back to the trailer.” That’d just been a few hours ago. But between packing up, waiting until it got late enough to leave without anyone noticing, and the actual drive it’d been nearly six hours since dinner. “How about we stop at the rest area up ahead?”