Page 39 of Remington’s Mate

He stopped, pulling a handful of dead grass from the ground. “She made me fucking feel, okay? I couldn’t feel anything for a while, after you and Callie got together.”

Colt leaned back against the log and gave a deep sigh. “Hell, man. Why didn’t you tell me?”

“And ruin your sappy nausea-inducing happily-ever-after?” Remy threw the grass at his brother. “No. Plus, I got so damn tired of feeling like the damaged one.”

Colt snorted. “We’re all fucking damaged. The whole crew. Don’t kid yourself.”

Remy moved closer to his brother, so they were sitting shoulder to shoulder. Touch had always soothed Colt’s leopard, and now he found it soothed his as well.

“Yeah, well, I’m not sure feeling stuff was a good idea. It made the leopard come out more, and now he’s trying to take over and I feel too much shit and everything sucks.”

Colt said, “I should have been there for you. I’m sorry.”

Remy shook his head. “You can’t take care of me and a mate both. Besides, you’re the basket case. I’m the one who takes care of you.”

“Who are you calling a basket case?” Colt grabbed him around the neck and wrestled him to the ground.

“Fucking emo cat shifter,” Remy panted, trying to get Colt in a scissor grip with his legs. “Feathers rule.”

“You’re an emo cat shifter now, too,” Colt said, as Remy successfully wrestled free. “Sucks for you.”

“No kidding. Does your leopard ever fucking shut up? Because mine doesn’t.”

Colt just laughed. “At least my leopard gives a shit about the people I care about. Owls are fucking sociopaths.”

He says that like it’s a bad thing, Remy’s owl said. Remy laughed.

“What the hell are you laughing at?”

“Something my inner sociopath said.”

They lay on the ground next to each other, panting.

Colt said, “So do you want me to come to the spirit world with you? See if we can find this thing?”

Remy thought about that. “I don’t know.”

“Good. Let’s go with ‘no,’ then.”

“The thing is,” Remy said, “she was always an animal, and when I was with her, I couldn’t take human shape, somehow. But… the last time I saw her I did manage to turn human, right at the end, and then she did too.”

He thought back. “She seemed surprised, like she’d never been human before. She had a veil over her face, though, until the last second, just as I was fading away back to this world.”

“So, what did she look like? Some kind of monster?”

Remy shook his head. “She looked like Jaeda. She’d tried to kiss me, and that’s when Dragon Boy told me to go away and not come back.”

Colt whistled. “Well, that’s creepy as fuck. Think she’s some kind of vampire? Or succubus?”

Remy smacked him with the back of his hand. “You’re not helping. What if it really was Jaeda?”

“Then maybe you should stay away from her too?”

“Really not helping.”

Colt sighed. “Okay. Was this before or after you actually met Jaeda?”

“After.”