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Suddenly, the lights in the kitchen turned on. I looked up, right into the face of…Mateo? His warm golden eyes looked back at me, filled with concern and compassion. He cupped my cheek gently.
“Are you okay?”
I traced my eyes down his familiar face, but that was where the familiarity ended. The sand-colored fur started right under his jawline, short at first, but getting longer as it extended down his chest. I was right; he was covered in fur.
“I heard some noises downstairs, so I came to investigate. Then you screamed and ran straight at me. What’s wrong? Was something after you?” Still holding me by the shoulders, he glanced around the kitchen, looking for whatever had scared me.
That was when I noticed the dragon-like wings protruding from his back. A little farther back, the nearly black scorpion tail, the same color as his wings, still swished back and forth. Mateo. He was the monster.
Embarrassed that I had made such a mountain out of a molehill, I cleared my throat. “Nothing. Nothing is wrong. I got scared, that’s all. I was trying to sneak a midnight snack, but it was dark, and I couldn’t see your face, and—”
His tail arched up high overhead, distracting me and cutting off my words. Despite knowing now that it belonged to him, I still couldn’t stop the sudden, visceral jab of fear, so strong that I felt it physically, like a jolt of electricity.
His face crumbled with mortified realization. “I scared you. I forgot to turn on the illusion spell. Shit. I’m so sorry.”
“What? No, don’t be. It was my fault for not realizing it was you. I mean, it’s your house, of course it was you. It’s just…um, the tail. It scares me, a bit,” I confessed.
I figured honesty was the best policy, especially considering how we’d met. If I lied about it, I was sure he’d know the instant I saw the tail again, and my body reacted before checking in with my brain.
“It scares a lot of people,” he said flatly.
“I’m sorry. I can’t control it. I wish I could. I know it doesn’t make any sense for me to be scared. I mean, it’s you, and you won’t hurt me.”
Still, I avoided looking behind him and focused instead on his very furry, almost feline chest. I recalled the fur on his couch. No wonder there was so much cat hair everywhere. He was almost completely covered in it. I stroked his chest, enjoying the soft fur between my fingers.
“You like the lion part of me, though,” Mateo murmured. He closed his eyes, and a gentle purring sound vibrated my fingers.
Lion? I thought lions didn’t purr. Well, this one did. What an odd thing for me to be thinking about right now. I glanced down at his body. I was in the arms of a very naked man-lion. Or was that a lion-man? Well, neither, really, since he also had wings and a tail.
“If you don’t mind me asking, what kind of monster are you exactly?”
There weren’t any hard and fast etiquette rules surrounding asking a paranormal being what they were, but most people tried to avoid the question. Still, I was looking directly at him right now, and I had no idea. I’d never seen anything like him before, and I’d lived here in Darlington, aware of monsters and magic, my whole life.
“I’m a manticore.”
That sounded familiar. I tried to remember what I’d learned in high school. “Is that from Greek mythology?”
“Greece. Persia. Most of Europe, too, actually. Head of a man, body of a lion, wings of a wyvern…and tail of a scorpion.” He reached his hand up to touch my face gently, then trailed a line to my lips with his fingers before pulling them away. “I’m guessing by your reaction to my tail that our dinner dates are now canceled?”
Oh boy. Did he think I wasn’t interested anymore just because one part of his body wasn’t to my liking?
“What? No way. I’m not canceling anything. I don’t mind what you are, as long as you understand that if I react to your tail, it’s something beyond my control.”
“I understand that.”
I slid my hand up from his chest to touch his face. “Then you still owe me all eight of those dinners. I’m holding you to it.”
Chapter 14
Mateo
Her words made me want to jump for joy. She still wanted me. “I will keep the illusion spell active from now on.”
“No, please don’t. You don’t need to. That can’t be comfortable. And if I’m going to get to know you, I should get to know the real you, scorpion tail and all. But like I say, please don’t be offended by any reaction to it I might have. If I could stop it, I would.”
I couldn’t keep my tail from wagging in excitement, even though I knew it would draw attention to it. Her eyes darted fearfully over my shoulder for a second before quickly focusing very deliberately back on my face.
“Are you wagging your tail because you’re happy? Or is that like a hunting thing?”
