Page 25 of Scales and Seduction

The front door slams behind us as the storm’s fury finally ebbs into a tiny drizzle. My heart is still pounding in my chest as I grip the blanket tightly around my body. Noodles pads ahead, leaping onto the arm of the sofa as if he’s impossibly calm.

Staring at him, I try to process all I’d just seen. “Noodles…” My voice falters, and I swallow so hard, the bob of my throat is audible. “You can talk…”

With a flick of his tail, his intelligent green eyes meet mine. “Of course I can,” he says matter-of-factly. His voice is a warm baritone that doesn’t seem to match the goofy dumb voice I’d always imagined.

I stagger backwards, but Gideon’s arms hold me against his body. “What the hell? Since when?”

“Since always,” he replies with twitching ears. “I had my reasons for pretending. Humans are tricky, and we aren’t meant to belong there.”

Gideon slowly guides me toward the sofa, sitting me down, pressing a tiny kiss to my forehead before heading into the kitchen. “He’s from this realm, Ruby. His bloodline very likely has been trapped in your world for ages.”

Noodles lets out an almost exasperated sigh. “My family was exiled generations ago,” he explains, his tail curling around his body as if it’s meant to comfort him. “We’ve been hiding in plain sight. Talking animals tend to raise questions, and let’s face it, humans aren’t quite equipped to manage things they don’t understand.”

He isn’t wrong, but the admission makes my head spin more. “So, what are you, then?”

“I’m a werecat,” he says simply. “I can shift between this form and the other you saw and, of course, I can speak.”

Gideon’s busy in the kitchen, but I hear him clanking glasses. “When the app transported her here, did you know it would?” he asks angrily through his teeth.

Eventually, he comes back with two glasses filled with what I suspect is the honey wine I’d tried earlier. He extends the glass to me, and when I take it, he crosses his arms, and his golden eyes narrow at Noodles.

My cat’s gaze turns serious, and his fur bristles. “The app isn’t random. I don’t know what it’s made of, but there’s ancient magic tangled up in it. I felt it and made sure to be with Ruby when she crossed over.”

“And you knew!” I hiss, pointing my fingers at the tiny cat, feeling heat rise up my neck as anger twists in my guts. “This is insane.”

“Well, I didn’t know what it would do, but I knew I had to protect you. Once you got here, I felt free to let you both handle it,” Noodles says, licking at his paw. “You’re smart—enough.”

Gideon sighs, shaking his head in disappointment. “I assumed he could speak the night you got here, but I kept quiet, wanting more evidence. I wanted to be sure before I outed him.”

My anger rises to boiling, but the look on Gideon’s face tells me he feels sorry he kept it from me. Still, it doesn’t help me in the slightest to know he feels even an ounce of guilt.

“I’m ignoring that for this minute, or I’ll snap,” I grit out. “So, there’s magic on Earth? Like what, witches?”

Noodles gives a toothy grin. “Well, yes, human witches do exist, but there’s more. Vampires, for instance, have adapted quite well to modern life. And merfolk stick to the deep, but they are out there in the oceans. Plenty of creatures were forced out during the great split or chose to stay with humans. Most of them hide, pretending to be normal humans or animals if they can. Just like I did.”

Gideon slowly sits beside me, but as I turn my body away from him, the ache of anger churns in my guts. I hate he kept this from me, and there were so many times I thought I heard Noodles talk to me, but Gideon pretended not to know. “You both could have told me you spoke when I got here. I could have handled it.”

“I feel terribly sorry for hiding it from you. If you went home, I wanted to still be allowed to go with you,” Noodles says softly. “I didn’t want to stay here, Ruby. Generations before me belonged here, but I miss my life and the luxuries the human realm afforded me. I miss not hunting for my food, and I miss your laundry.”

“And why didn’t you tell me?” My eyes flick to Gideon as my lips curl in a snarl.

Gideon’s eyes shift downward momentarily, but he meets my gaze with an apologetic nod. “Honey, I assumed he might belong here, but I had no hard evidence. It isn’t as if he spoke freely with me. There were moments I swore I heard him, but I wasn’t sure. Telling you without evidence didn’t seem wise.”

“So, what do we do now?” I ask, my voice trembling as the crippling weight of knowledge presses down on me.

Gideon’s hand finds the top of my knee and squeezes it in a reassuring gesture that somehow quiets the screaming in my head. “We will find out who made the app and how it’s tied tothe curse and Kithrall. Loran has some ideas, but it’s all very strange.”

“Her glamor from your unicorn friend faded the moment you mated with her, Prince. Now that someone knows she’s here, you’ll need to do a better job at protecting her,” Noodles says, stretching against the couch arm, allowing his claws to pick at the fabric. “Or we need to find a way to send her back quickly.”

Swallowing hard, I grip Gideon’s hand on my knee. We knew the magic would fade, but how did having sex with him change that? Whatever this is, I know it’s far from over, and it’s larger than either of us anticipated.

Lying in Gideons arms is something I’ll never get used to, not because I don’t want to, but because it feels too good to be real. His body radiates warmth, his arm draped over my waist possessively, while his tail coils loosely around my leg. It taps against me nervously, letting me know he’s still awake, like I am.

“Are you awake?” I murmur against his chest, taking a deep inhale of his scent.

Gideon grabs me tighter, pulling me flush against him. “Yes, you’re thinking too loud,” he says groggily against my head.

I sigh heavily, feeling the weight of my questions roll over and over inside my head. Shifting, I crane my neck to look at him. “Can you blame me? Noodles cantalk, Gideon. Like, full-on sentences. He has opinions on eating cat food and staying in my world, not yours. My house cat.”

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