Page 25 of A Queen and Her Knight

Zoe thrust the latte at her. “I can provide for you. If you let me, I’ll show you. I’m allowed to try, as we get to know one another. It’s exactly as I told you. I just… left a word out. If you like, we can continue as we were.”

“You were doing a bang-up job so far,” Tim interjected. Carl actually hissed at him to shut up. Tim was undeterred. “No, really. I think she’s magic, Zoe.”

Nathaniel calmly placed a hand over his mate’s mouth.

Cleo stared at them in wonder. “Magic?”

“I think you’re magic, too,” Zoe confessed. “You’re wonderful.”

Her mate’s honest, sunshiny pleasure was lighter than the vanilla in her latte. She still hadn’t taken it, but she looked down at the cup as though it held the key to all life’s mysteries.

“I like you, Zoe. Very much.” She finally took the cup in both hands although she didn’t drink from it. She flicked the plastic lid in a nervous gesture. “I moved in with my last girlfriend after knowing her a month, and it did not end well. She was… not the settle-down type. You know, I think I was….” Cleo’s gaze sharpened. Zoe tried not to look too obviously upset to think of her mate’s broken heart, or of someone touching her who hadn’t appreciated her. Whoever she was, she had better not ever step foot in Wolf’s Paw. “I think was treating them—her—like you. Like I was searching for you with them, and—are you growling?” Cleo came forward, as if a frustrated predator wasn’t in front ofher. She put one hand on Zoe’s cheek. Her skin was warm from the coffee and silenced Zoe immediately.

“Maaaybe don’t mention your exes around her until things are settled between you,” Tim warned from behind Nathaniel’s palm. “Also, I know you touch people for a living, but until you decide, um, she’s going to be sensitive about it. Growly, you might say.”

“Shut up, Little Wolf.” Zoe growled again, unintentionally proving him right.

Cleo petted her. “I’ve never slept with anyone after one date, Zoe. Or felt so strong of a need to make sure they knew I wanted them.” She gently angled Zoe’s head to the side to study her handiwork. Her smile made Zoe want. Her scent was sticky and familiar. “Do you mind them?”

Zoe stared at her with open hunger.

Cleo’s eyes went wide. “But I don’t really know what mate means to you.” She sighed and let Zoe go. “What happens if I say no? Are you going to sneak away on all fours again?”

“Yes.” Zoe didn’t explain. The stark silence around her said enough as it was. She wasn’t going to pressure Cleo into staying by mentioning the fate of the Rejected.

“WillIfeel it, what you’re saying we are?” Her mate was so smart, always with direct questions Zoe didn’t have the answer for.

“They say humans do. Magic humans most of all,” she responded at last.

“You don’t get to take it back, Cleo. You fucking claimed her.” Tim’s muffled snarl was oddly comforting. “You feel it and you know it.”

“Shut up, Little Wolf,” Zoe told him a second time, but weaker, softer. He meant well. He was worried. He loved her.

And he was right. Zoe finally believed him. The bond was there no matter what else happened, and they both felt it, even if Cleo felt it differently than Zoe did.

Cleo made a little noise, a gasping, surprised sound Zoe had last heard in her bedroom. She put a hand over her heart. The beat of it was quick, excited. “I felt like I was waiting to meet you,” she revealed, on a panting, puffing exhale that made Zoe stand up straight. “Every time I saw you, I was waiting for you to look at me. I think I do feel it, and I don’t even know what it means.” She met Zoe’s eyes. “What does it mean, Zoe?”

Zoe took a deep breath, trying to put into words how Cleo could physically smell like sweat, or detergent, or the coffee in her hand, and yet to Zoe she was a garden. Weres never had been able to explain it, not even to each other. To Tim, Nathaniel was a hearth fire—burning, passionate, potentially dangerous, but warmth-giving, life-giving, home. To Zoe, Nathaniel smelled like home as well, though she had never once thought of his scent as fire-like.

Cleo was freshly tilled earth and pollen, the bright blooms outside the cabin that Zoe had planted. She was spring and sex and life, and meant for Zoe.

Zoe tried to say that, for the third time, and thought Cleo was beginning to understand what Zoe had been trying to express. Cleo was the right one. She was mate. She was….

“Home,” Zoe murmured, and closed her eyes when even that term didn’t seem enough.

But then Spring-mate’s scent was at her mouth, and her soft skin, and Zoe raised her hands to delicately encircle her mate’s wrist. She opened her eyes to find Cleo smiling at her.

“Home?” Cleo whispered, over the sound of Little Wolf’s jubilant shouting. “Doesn’t everyone deserve a chance at that?”

Epilogue

Cleo hummed a bit and pressed her face to the back of Zoe’s neck. She was supposed to be holding on to Zoe’s shoulders, but one of her hands kept finding its way to the collar of Zoe’s shirt to tug at it.

Zoe focused on the ground in front of her with determination. Hiking up the old trail had been Cleo’s suggestion, a way for her to learn more about the area around Wolf’s Paw while also getting to know Zoe better.

After several weeks of dating, Zoe wasn’t sure what about her Cleo hoped to learn by walking up a mountain, but she hadn’t been about to turn down the chance to spend more time with her mate either.

Now here they were, almost to the summit, on the first real nippy day of the season. Cleo was wearing an oversized sweatshirt, and Zoe had chosen flannel to keep out the chill. Of course, she hadn’t realized she would be doing most of the work and end up too heated to feel any cold at all. She also hadn’t expected Cleo to be so interested in her choice of shirts.

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