Page 23 of Defeated

I’m putting the last of the groceries away when Zoe’s footsteps stop outside the kitchen. “Breakfast?” I call out, keeping my back to her.

She clears her throat. “I thought we could get started on the packing.”

I turn.

She’s standing in the doorway, her back straight, chin tilted up. Nothing about her is the least bit fearful. Nothing suggests she would be scared of anything, least of all me.

She said she had a mate. But she’s alone.

Why?

My cell phone vibrates in my back pocket, and I fish it out, glancing at the screen before I press answer.

“Colton bit my throat and then I bit his throat. And then... well, you don't need to know what we did next,” Penny happily declares.

With my phone still clamped to my ear, I meet Zoe’s wide eyes across the kitchen.

“Well, congratulations,” I say, because it sounds like Colton and Penny have just become mates in every sense of the word.

A claiming bite is the shifter form of marriage, if only a more permanent one. Penny will wear Colton’s bite at the junction of her neck and shoulder forever.

Again, I notice Zoe’s bare throat. She has a mate, yet he hasn’t bitten her.

Why the hell not?

“Anyway,” Penny continues airily. “It may or may not have involved a sushi and popcorn scented rug.”

A what?

Zoe’s eyes widen further. As if fascinated—or horrified—by the sushi and popcorn scented rug, she drifts into the kitchen, perching on the very edge of a wooden dining chair.

Colton sighs. “Penny, baby. I don’t think they need to know about the rug.” His tone is more amused than annoyed. Sounds like he’s already well on his way to accepting Penny’s tendency to overshare.

“Probably not,” Penny concedes. “Anyway. Colton took me out on a date and he’s trying to talk me into going to stay at a resort. I told him that we can’t leave you to pack up his apartment alone. So I said no.”

I’ll bet I know exactly why Colton would suggest that.

“You should do it, Pen,” I say, closing the refrigerator door. “I don’t mind packing. And I have some help. Coffee, Zoe?”

Zoe hesitates.

Penny sucks in a breath.

“Penny,” I say, warningly.

“But I just want to?—”

“Penny.” Now Colton is the one warning Penny. “I’m sure Zoe might have things she doesn’t want to share.”

Like how she came to be mateless in a small town just outside Jersey City.

Colton has the right idea of stopping Penny. Zoe is wary enough without facing a barrage of questions she might not want to answer.

Penny blows out a heavy sigh. I picture her long red hair flying up with a sigh that heavy. “I just want to be a teeny, tiny little bit involved. That’s all. Can you blame me for being interested when Chris runs away from any woman who even looks at him?”

Zoe is suddenly looking more interested in me.

My hand tightens around the phone. “I do not?—”

---