Page 7 of Monster's Mistake

“Tried? As in you said no?”

“I had to, she had no idea about any of this. I couldn’t sleep with her without her knowing everything she needed to.”

“Mmm.” Now I think about it, he has a point. And it’s even more true for me when I know I won’t be able to control certain features I have around my fated mate. Certainly not the first time.

“What’s brought this on?” Cethin asks.

I sigh. “I think I’ve known who my fated mate was for a while...”

“Yes, Nati.”

“What? Who said anything about Nati?”

“You’re really obvious about it,” Cethin responds. “Every other time I’ve seen you flirt with someone, you’re real smooth,but with Nati, you’re a complete mess and come out with all of these dumb lines. If you can manage to say anything at all.”

“She does things to me,” I mutter.

“If she’s your fated mate, she’s supposed to.”

I sigh. “I just can’t seem to get Nati to like me.”

“Then maybe you should stop trying so hard,” Anja says as she drops down into the seat next to Cethin, leaning over to give him a kiss on the cheek. At least they’ve toned it down from the displays of affection they were giving in front of us when they first started dating.

“I don’t know what you mean.” I try to play it cool and not as if I’m absolutely mortified that she’s caught me talking about her friend like that.

Anja gives me a no-nonsense look as if she knows better. “You just keep talking to Nati with all these weird chat-up lines and kind of pervy comments, and most of them centre around the fact she’s a gorgon. How would you like it if everything she said to you was based on you being a ghoul?”

I frown and let her words sink in. “So I should try making comments that aren’t to do with her being a gorgon?”

“Or you should just try talking to her and not needing comments at all,” Anja responds. “Will you pass the salt? They never put enough seasoning on the salad.”

Cethin leans over and gets it for her while I think about what she’s saying. It’s not that I don’t think she has a point, it’s more that being around Nati makes me so flustered that I want to try and impress her. The main problem being that it seems my attempts to impress her aren’t actually very good.

It’s not much of a surprise, even I get annoyed at myself when I can’t seem to keep it serious. And I’m afraid it’s only going to get worse now I know for sure she’s my fated mate.

“Oh look, you can practice now,” Anja says, nodding her head behind me.

I turn in time to see Nati approach, looking as cute as ever in her Blackthorn Academy uniform. Her snakes are neatly coiled around one another in a way that would make it difficult to know what they were without already having the knowledge.

“I am so done with Extreme Sports Ed,” she says as she takes a seat.

“What happened?” Anja asks.

“They never take into account shower time at the end, and now I’ve lost ten minutes of my lunch break because I had to shower off all the gross sweat.” She notices I’m sitting at the table. “Not a word, Meic,” she warns.

“I wasn’t going to say anything,” I promise.

“A likely story.” From her tone, it’s clear she doesn’t believe me, but I’m going to do everything I can to prove that I can be serious.

I drink some of my smoothie, mostly to stop myself from saying anything dumb. But it also helps with the cravings inside me and I feel immediately brighter. I don’t know exactly what the academy puts in their powder, but I need to find out before I graduate so I can keep making it afterwards.

“Have you gotFamiliar Traininglater?” Nati asks Anja.

She nods. “You know it. Though Thistle doesn’t exactly care that we have training, she seems to see it as extra time that she can fly around and not listen to me.”

“You’ll get there with her,” Cethin says. “It takes time to bond with a new familiar, and ravens are known for their independence.”

Anja sighs. “I know, I know. I don’t have Nati’s advantage of having Thistle attached to me all the time either.”

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