Page 13 of Monster's Melody

“Doesn’t mean I was right.”

“Okay, let me get this straight,” Jahrdran said.“You thought you were mates, but didn’t bother to introduce yourself and now you’re mad he didn’t recognize you?”

Well, when he put it like that.“I’m notmad.I just realized he probably didn’t recognize me because we’re not mates.”

“How do you know you’re not mates?”Elliot asked.“I mean, my experience has been that it’s kind of hard to make a mistake like that.Once you know, you know.”He winked at Mikaela, who practically swooned in response.

Gag.

“Look, it took me all summer to accept this reality.I don’t need you guys screwing with my head and making me doubt myself.”

“Yeah, but you didn’t stick around to see his reaction to your disappearance,” Jahrdran said.“He seemed pretty adamant that he needed to find you.”

“Well, that’s just too bad for him because I’m determined to avoid the man.”

“Are you sure you’re not afraid of his snakes?”Jahrdran asked suspiciously.

I groaned.“I’m not afraid of his snakes.In fact, I find them to be absolutely adorable.”

“Why, thank you.”

I froze as Vorzak settled onto the empty chair beside me.

“They think you’re adorable too.”

I glared at Kasi, who was directly across from me.She couldn’t have warned me?

She just grinned back at me.

Clearly, none of my friends were taking my epiphany about Vorzak not being my mate seriously.

In fact, Kasi probably thought she’d been doing me a favor.

Great.

I edged a little closer to Mikaela and tried to ignore the steaming hot monster to my right.

That was easier said than done, though, since his serpents were busy petting my hair.

“See?”Vorzak rumbled.“They really like you.”

I sighed.“I like them too.”Without looking at Vorzak, I gave in to temptation and reached up to pet one of his serpent’s heads and scratch another under his chin.

“Hey, Vorzak.”A couple other students settled on the other side of Vorzak and across from him, distracting him.

The moment he turned away to answer another student’s question—something about their class schedule—Shadow, who’d continued her back-and-forth saunter even after Vorzak joined us, whirled and swatted at one of Vorzak’s snakes.

The snake leapt out of the way, and a shadow paw, tipped in a shadow claw, nicked Vorzak’s cheek.

“Ow, you wee beastie!”

I gasped and glared at him.“She’s not a beast, she’s just playing with your snakes!”

Actually, I was pretty sure she’d been attacking them, but he didn’t need to know that.

Meanwhile, his snakes were weaving and dancing.

At this point, though, I couldn’t tell if they were dancing for me or if they were taunting Shadow.