Page 36 of Monster's Reward

Shadow, who was stretched out in the shadows beneath the lunch table, immediately perked up and inched closer to him.

Traitor.

She turned and rubbed up against my legs, winding around them before heading back to him.

Still a traitor.

Miss him.She set her head on his lap and he scratched between her ears.

I know, baby. Me too, but he’s a jerk and doesn’t deserve to know we miss him.

Yes.She tipped back her head and nipped his fingers.

He hissed and pulled them back, giving her a wide-eyed look.

She responded with a purr and rubbed her head against his thighs again.

I snickered.

He glared at me. “You turned your cat against me.”

“Please, you did that yourself by rejecting your mate.Twice.”

He let out a soft growl of frustration.

I clenched my jaw against the urge to grin and side-eyed him. “So why are you here?”

“I’ve spent the past two days researching online and it’s a bigger cluster than I thought.”

I rolled my eyes. “Of course, it is. That’s what happens when people are sheep.”

This time his growl was neither low nor soft.

“I found out something too,” I announced. It was true. I did.

Having Jahrdran walk out a second time had been a blow I wasn’t prepared for, so I’d taken a break from the huge tomes of history and philosophy and culture and had turned to the shadow-kitten care book.

I learned so much, I wished I’d started with that book.

“Did you know that a shadow-kitten is born when a shadow-beast is?”

“Makes sense, seeing as the history books only mention one shadow-kitten per monster.”

“So what happens is a shadow-beast is born and within hours of his or her birth, the parents take the infant into the shadow realm to find their shadow-kitten. The two are inseparable from that moment on.

“Except my parents didn’t exactly stick around after my birth. Within a few hours, I was abandoned at a human hospital and thus began my life as a human.

“Fast-forward twenty-plus years and I discover I’m a supernatural with the ability to shadow-walk and what do you know? I also have a shadow-kitten who’s been waiting in the shadow realm her entire life for me to show up and set her free.

“Only I didn’t know to do that, now did I? Because when I arrived here, none of the professors were willing to tell me much of anything at all and so I continued blindly in the dark, trying to figure things out, and by a sheer stroke of luck, managed to slip into the shadow realm and leave a trail for Shadow to follow.

“That’s what my life’s been like, Jahrdran. A series of events that have kept me in the dark or by sheer luck, revealed a truth.

“Now I’m deliberately searching for that truth and no one’s going to stand in my way, not even my fated mate. So don’t go burying your head in the sand about your people and their role in the fiasco that is my life.”

I turned in my seat and glared at him.

We were so close, I could lean forward and kiss him so easily. Tempting, but not the task at hand. “So, let’s hear it. What truths have you uncovered?”

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