Page 124 of Seer

He opened his eyes and grinned at me. “Well, I wasn’t, but only because I hadn’t thought of it. So now I am.”

I tickled him just below his ribcage, and he shouted, scrabbling at my arm to get me to stop.

“Hey! Some of us are trying to sleep here!” The guy next door pounded on the wall, and we froze.

Greg’s eyes narrowed, and he took in a breath to yell back,but I grabbed both of his wrists and pinned him to the mattress.

“Don’t waste your energy.”

I went in for a kiss but he pretended to try to bite my nose.

“No you don’t,” I said. “Tell me why you were so smug a minute ago.”

He huffed and practically pouted. “No. The moment is gone.” He glared up at the wall.

I got a kiss in that time. “Tell me.”

He let out an aggrieved sigh. “Fine. I was thinking I was proud to be the only person compatible with you, which meant I got the best mate of anyone. No one else’s mate will even come close.” He raised an eyebrow. “Are you happy now?”

I laughed and kissed him again. “I really am.”

BARK & PURR PET RESORT SOCIAL MEDIA POST

MONDAY, APRIL 10

Meet the Team!

Please welcome, Lloyd, the new face at our front desk!

Lloyd recently moved to Bent Oak from Boerne. He has an amazing background working with exotic animals at a wildlife rescue. We are very lucky to have someone with such valuable experience at Bark & Purr!

Be sure to say hi the next time you’re in the lobby!

EPILOGUE

GREG

I climbedthe stairs toward the game room, humming Carole King’s “You’ve Got a Friend”. Nobody warned me that bonding meant you experienced the same visceral reactions your partner did to things like music. I now had an unanticipated and slightly disturbing appreciation for 70s and 80s soft rock.

The new paint smell still permeated the house. The renovations had taken several weeks longer than I’d hoped, but the updated interior and exterior were worth it. Plus, by the time the house was ready, Cal’s lease had been up. And being newly bonded meant it wasn’t like we’d been able to spend any nights apart from each other even if we’d wanted to.

At least we’d now gotten to the point where we could be miles away from each other for several hours at a time. But today, since we’d already spent time apart this morning, I’d had to work from home in the afternoon so I could also go out this evening.

It was my turn to represent Bark & Purr at the monthly Chamber of Commerce happy hour. And I was definitely limiting it to an hour. I didn’t want to spend more time thannecessary being polite to other Bent Oak business owners while counting the minutes until I could get back home to my boyfriend.

Sometimes I had trouble believing this was my life now. Cal was wonderful, considerate and loving. So sexy. I didn’t like remembering how I’d tried to avoid connecting with him when we first met. Having him in my life, living together, made me incredibly happy. I tried every day to make sure he knew what he meant to me.

And it wasn’t just me who benefitted from Cal’s presence. He’d become indispensable to the campaign, spending hours creating a voluntary census of Wonders. He’d also started several new Discord servers to facilitate communication across regions and continents, which had been helpful during everything that’d happened with the vampires.

Shouts and laughter came from above. Cal and Steve were showing Felix the prototype of the game they were developing. I was glad to hear it was going well.

I walked into the game room and smiled. The three amigos were lined up on the recliner sectional, each with a controller in their hands. Worf, the senior yellow Labrador we’d adopted, was laying with his butt against Steve’s leg and his head on Cal’s lap.

“Frank-N-Furter’s farts!” Steve shouted as he tried furiously to fight off several bad guys with dripping fangs. He threw a quick grin at Cal. “Dude, this shapeshifting weapon thing is hilarious! Did you see me take that guy out with a bowling ball?”

One of the avatars fell to the ground. Felix groaned and dropped his controller before throwing his hands in the air. “Dang it, the one with the mace got me.”

“I’ll make sure she regrets it,” Steve said dramatically. On the screen his character fought with even greater energy.