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“Sure, honey.” Aunt Rose made them both toast and then put butter and a little bit of honey on both pieces—which Abbey didn’t find out until she took a bite after they had sat down together in the breakfast nook.
“Oh, Aunt Rose—you know I’m trying to watch my weight!” she exclaimed, putting down the toast. Some of her jeans had been getting tight lately, despite her best efforts. She had always been a curvy girl, but she didn’t want to get too curvy.
“Live a little,” her aunt advised her. “You’re a beautiful girl—you don’t need to lose weight to catch a husband.”
Abbey stifled a sigh. She wasn’t trying to watch her weight to “catch a husband”—she didn’t ever intend to trust any man again. Not after what had happened in high school—and then again just a year ago.
People said “not all men” but how could you be sure which ones were good and which ones were horrible? Even sighted girls couldn’t tell and Abbey, with her partial blindness, was at even more of a disadvantage. Her disability made her look like easy prey to a certain type of man—which she had found out the hard way, unfortunately.
“I’m not looking for a husband, Aunt Rose,” she said shortly. “You know that.”
“You should be though, honey,” her Aunt said earnestly. “I won’t be around forever, you know. I hate to think of you being left all alone when I go. You can’t let what happened with Henry ruin?—”
“Please!” Abbey put up a hand to stop her. “You know I don’t like to talk about that.”
“But honey, it’s been over a year! Maybe you should try again,” her aunt protested. “Maybe try one of those dating programs they have now and find a nice guy to spend some time with.”
“Henry seemed like a nice guy,” Abbey reminded her. “For months. And then…” But she trailed off, shaking her head. The memory was still so fresh—so vivid in her mind. Though of course, since she couldn’t see very well, it was more tactile than visual.
She remembered Henry’s voice getting angry, his hands getting rougher and more insistent, refusing to stop even when she tried to push them away. She remembered the smell of his sweat as he pinned her down, his ugly laughter in her ears. If her guide dog, Major, hadn’t still been with her at that time, if he hadn’t heard Abbey screaming for help and begging Henry to stop…
No—stop thinking about it! Stop it!
Abbey pushed the traumatic memory away with an effort and took another bite of her scrambled eggs, which were beginning to go cold. She barely noticed as she chewed them. She wasn’t interested in men anymore, she told herself. There were too many unknown factors.
In her mind, she likened the dating scene to a scenario where someone had offered her a plate of delicious crispy chicken nuggets…and then told her that three of them were poisoned. Were the rest of the nuggets good enough to risk dying if she got one of the bad ones?
Abbey didn’t think so. She would rather be single than try trusting again. It was safer that way and really, she was almost perfectly happy being on her own. She had Aunt Rose for company and a great online community of friends. She didn’t need a husband to be happy.
And I especially don’t need a huge Monstrum warrior, she thought before she could stop herself.
Then she pushed the thought away and finished her breakfast.
3
SOLON
Solon was sure he was getting close. In the last dream he had shared with his future mate, he had gotten many more clues as to her whereabouts.
The strange and frustrating thing was that he couldn’t actually see where she was. In fact, he couldn’t see anything but colored blurs when he Dream-Shared with her.
But he could hear voices and noises and he could smell scents. Her scent especially intrigued him—it was warm and sweet and devastatingly feminine. But there were often other scents around her—floral scents, some of them quite strong. Solon didn’t mind the other smells, but it was the scent of his fated mate that he focused on.
He also liked the sound of her voice—it was soft and low for a female’s. It had a soothing cadence, especially when she was talking to the people he assumed must be her customers. But who those customers might be, he didn’t know because they all appeared like colored blobs.
But then, just the night before, he’d had a breakthrough. The dream he was sharing with her just happened to include a phone call. And when she’d picked up the phone, he’d heard her say,
“Rose’s Roses Florist Shop, roses that smell as beautiful as they look are our specialty. This is Abbey speaking, how can I help you?”
After months of hunting for her, it felt like a breakthrough! He finally knew his future mate’s name and where to find her.
Solon was hoping to meet her today…and maybe find out why the dreams he had shared with her were so strange. He had never heard of a Kindred or Monstrum warrior Dream-Sharing with a female he couldn’t see before. In fact, he didn’t even know what his future mate looked like.
He wondered if she could see him—if she was dreaming of him as he was dreaming of her. If so, he hoped his appearance didn’t startle or frighten her.
Because the Monstrum came from a different universe, they looked quite different from the Kindred warriors the human women were already used to. And by some twist of fate, many of them looked like animals that were native to Earth.
Solon was a Chimera Monstrum—meaning he has physical traits of several different kinds of his people. His basic appearance was that of a Felinus Monstrum—to a human he would appear to be a large, muscular man with leonine features—a broad, flat nose, a split upper lip, and deep golden eyes. He was covered in a thin golden pelt and his hair was a mane of dark gold around his head.
