Page 10 of Remington’s Mate

Remy sighed. He picked up Horney and balanced him on his palm, holding him up to eye level. “Look, depressed turtle dude,” he said. “I’m the worst person you could go to for relationship advice. But if I were you, I’d just fucking apologize and get it over with.”

Horney’s nose came out of his shell a bit, then went back in. “Don’t tell me none of it was your fault,” Remy said. “You need to take responsibility for your part in this.”

The turtle remained obstinate. “Fine. You’re the one who’s not getting laid.” Well, he wasn’t either, but that was beside the point. He put Horney back, and then stroked Tiger Slut’s shell. “I tried, Tiger, but you know how men are.”

He put his hand down, palm up, and she walked her front feet onto it and nibbled gently on the pad of his thumb. “I know, I know, you love me. I’m irresistible to women. Why don’t you go tell Horney you love him? He can’t help being an idiot—it’s the Y chromosome. Not everyone has the McCall genes to offset that shit.”

She backed off his hand and looked up at him. “And by the way, Callie misses you.” He left the turtles to return the head of lettuce to the fridge, then came back to close up the turtlearium.

Tiger Slut was over in Horney’s corner, nosing at him. While Remy watched, she turned and Horney climbed on her back, going at it turtle-style.

“There you go,” he said. “I’ve heard makeup sex is the best.” He picked up the tablet on the end table, tapped on the wireless music controller and put on the 70s Fuck-Me playlist. “Knock yourselves out.”

He walked out of the room to the strains of Marvin Gaye’s “Let’s Get It On.”

Chapter 5

Remy went back to his own suite. It was the exact same size and layout as Colt’s, furnished and decorated within an inch of its life by Kitty and Callie’s pity shopping. Kitty was still at it even with Callie gone—just the other day she’d showed up with a damn duvet cover for the bed, with matching fucking curtains.

He hadn’t asked for all this space—it seemed like everybody took it for granted that he and Colt should have everything the same.

Or maybe Brandon thought making his suite smaller would be like saying Remy was never going to find a mate. Which was a distinct possibility.

Yeah, you could say what Colt said—that if they were identical twins, exactly alike, then they should both have destined mates.

The thing was, identical twins were originally one egg that got so overexcited when it was spermed, it split into two. Woo hoo. Some people believed identicals were only ever supposed to have been one person—that there was only one soul between them.

Which meant only one soul mate. And Colt had gotten her.

Remy flung himself down on the couch and put his feet up on the coffee table. Something hard in his jeans pocket gouged him in the hip, and he shifted his weight to one side so he could dig it out.

It was a gold coin, about the size of a fifty-cent piece, with a crown on one side and a dragon on the other. A talisman, dragon-made, magic as hell and illegal as fuck.

Whoever was touching it had the power to enter the spirit world. Not with their body—that took even more powerful magic—but with their mind. Their body stayed behind, unconscious, while their spirit roamed free.

The danger, of course, was not coming back. Time worked differently in the spirit world, and if you stayed there long enough, your body could die. Or you could go crazy.

Or you could get addicted. The place was malleable; it formed itself around you. If your will was strong enough, you could create anything, live in your own fantasies until you stopped caring about the real world at all.

Of course, Remy wasn’t addicted. He could quit whenever he wanted. Hell, he already had.

Six times.

When Remy first went to the spirit world, Squatch had guided him. Among his other weird and fucked-up qualities, Squatch could see into the spirit world, send other people’s spirits there, and bring them back again.

In the spirit world, Remy could see and talk to his animals, if they felt like it. Reason with them.

If they felt like it.

Beg them to stop fighting and get along. Which they did not feel like. Ever.

Remy had gotten tired of it pretty quick—until he saw her.

The spirit leopard, his leopard said. I want to see her.

His owl said, She is no fur-creature—she is fooling you. Her true form is owl. As it should be.

She was both, actually. Like so many things in the spirit world, she was whatever they wanted her to be.