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But because he was a Chimera, those weren’t his only features. He also had a pair of twisting horns growing from his temples which made him even more beast-like. Along with the horns came a hidden trait—he had the ability to feel the emotions of others. Only while he was touching them though and only people he was attuned to. Thank goodness he couldn’t feel the emotions of everyone around him—it would have been much too distracting, especially in battle.
The Chimera Monstrum called this ability Feeling and it was one of the main ways they communicated within their family units—just by touching each other and sending emotions back and forth.
Solon couldn’t wait to become attuned to his new mate and Feel her, even though he didn’t know what she looked like. Her appearance didn’t matter to him. He knew what she smelled and sounded like, at least in his dreams—that was enough.
Because of their acute senses, both the Kindred and the Monstrum were as much attracted to a female for her scent as her appearance. In fact, the Kindred version of porn wasn’t visual at all—it was swatches of fabric that females had worn while they were aroused collected into “scent books.” So no matter how his fated mate looked, Solon knew she was the only one for him.
And now he finally knew how to find her.
“Today, my mate,” he murmured to himself. “Today I’ll finally meet you and bring you home to the Mother Ship for our Claiming Period.”
He couldn’t wait to hold her in his arms.
4
ABBEY
Abbey and her aunt cleared the table together and loaded the dirty dishes into the dishwasher before heading to Aunt Rose’s car. Abbey brought her cane with her in case she wanted to run out for anything. CVS was just a few blocks from the shop and she didn’t have any problem going there because she knew the way so well.
She still missed her guide dog, Major, whenever she went though. He had served her long and faithfully and after he died she hadn’t had the heart to apply for a new dog.
Soon though, she thought as the traffic hummed outside her window while Aunt Rose drove. I need a dog if I’m going to be more independent.
Plus, she missed the companionship. Major had been a German Shepherd and intensely loyal and loving. He had saved her from so many dangers—including that night with Henry…
Abbey pushed it out of her head. She didn’t want to think about that night. It was too awful.
Soon Aunt Rose parked and they walked arm-in-arm into the store together.
Rose’s Roses was a family owned and operated Florist Shop that Abbey’s grandmother—who was also named Rose—had opened years before. The shop had nearly gone under after big places like 1-800-Flowers came on the market and started undercutting local businesses and stealing all the customers. But now they were doing fine.
Despite her loss of vision, Abbey had gotten a degree in business administration and marketing. It had been her idea to pivot in a new direction and market their flowers based on scent rather than pure visual appeal.
Because major growers of flowers—roses in particular—had been breeding flowers for years to be more hardy and less prone to diseases, the gene for scent had been bred out of many of them. Which meant that while most bouquets you could buy at a florist were beautiful to look at, they didn’t smell of hardly anything at all.
Abbey had noticed customers remarking on how much they missed the scent—especially the scent of roses, which were one of the most popular flowers to buy and to give. She had done some research and found local growers who could supply them with roses that still smelled like, well, roses.
After the change, business was booming. They had new customers constantly, who had heard about them from reviews on the internet as well as the ads that Abbey placed. People who walked into the shop often said things like,
“Oh, this is how it used to smell!” or
“It smells so good in here!”
“Yes, Ma’am—our flowers smell as beautiful as they look,” Aunt Rose would reply proudly. “How can I help you?”
They had been anticipating a busy day today—it was just a few days until Mother’s Day which was the biggest flower holiday of the year, followed only by Valentine’s Day and Christmas. And sure enough, once the OPEN sign was turned on, a steady stream of customers made their way in.
It was only the two of them, so they were constantly busy. Abbey couldn’t run the register if a customer was paying with cash, but other than that she was able to do everything Aunt Rose did. She was even able to help people choose what flowers they wanted. Using her color sense and the fact that she had memorized everything in the store, she was able to make lovely bouquets. Often, her customers didn’t even know she had anything wrong with her vision at all.
Part of that was because Abbey was excellent at “masking”—or pretending to be sighted. She could still make a semblance of eye-contact by looking at the top part of the blob that was the customer’s face—and she moved so naturally and easily through the small shop, no one who didn’t know her would have guessed at her disability.
This usually made life easier for Abbey…but sometimes it backfired, as it did later that morning, just an hour before lunchtime.
She’d been helping a rather surly man put together a bouquet of American Beauty roses for his wife. He was brusque and rude but Abbey was her best professional self, ignoring his bad manners as she waited on him.
“There you are, Sir,” she said as she placed the vase full of roses carefully on the counter. “Will that be cash or charge?”
“Cash—I only do cash,” the man snapped.
