Page 7 of A Queen and Her Knight

Usually, Graham could breathe easier, study with more focus when Albert was in his room. But Albert’s scent today was colder and nearly painful, like ice or grated lemon peel, and Albert wasn’t on his bed with him, curled up with a textbook. Albert was in Graham’s desk chair, staring out at the moon over the snow.

The silvery light made him appear sad, as if he wanted to be out beneath the moon and not with Graham.

Graham took a breath and only then noticed the heavy quiet in the room. “Albert.” He was surprised at how soft his voice was.

But Albert turned, and his long hair streamed across his face. His eyes were bright until he blinked. “Yeah?” He gave Graham a smile—and that was almost unthinkable. It was almost a lie.

Graham considered the facts, ignoring the knowledge he was always missing because until he knew what that was, he couldn’t do anything about it.

“Are you going to stay here when you graduate in the spring?” Lots of kids left. Some went to college. Others went out to slightly bigger towns. A few even went to cities, although most weres didn’t care for cities for very long.

Albert moved his shoulders. “I don’t know.” His scent became more of a muddle, with shards ofworryat the center.

The weres who graduated and left town were the ones who wanted a life outside of Wolf’s Paw, or who hadn’t found anyone to run around with in the Meadows. Like Albert.

Graham dropped his gaze to his books and stared hard at the words. “I’m going to college. Next year, they think.” He was sixteen, but the exams he’d been given had been easy.

He glanced up. Albert was staring out the window again.

“I know,” Albert said, in the soothing voice he used sometimes around Graham. In Graham’s experience, most seventeen-year-olds did not speak that way to others their age, or close to their age. But Albert was always different.

It’s part of why Graham liked him, but also why he was so confusing.

“Across the country, probably,” Graham added, and Albert drew his shoulders in.

But he nodded. “Yeah. You’re going to do great things. Convince everyone who doubts beings and weres that we have geniuses too.”

He meant it, but he wouldn’t look away from the window.

“You’ll miss me?” Graham wondered, then flushed at his own stupidity and lowered his head.

“Yeah,” Albert answered immediately, as if Graham were stupid for worrying, when he hadn’t been worried. He just knew something was wrong, and there was no evidence, no hint of what it was. Only Albert, who smelled upset more and more often lately, and who wasn’t sitting next to him, and kept staring at the snow instead of—

Albert crawled onto the bed with him, ending that train of thought there. He curled up at the foot with the assigned English reading he’d abandoned, and pulled in his long limbs to keep from crowding Graham.

That was wrong, too. Weres touched each other all the time. But Graham had Albert back where he belonged, and when he thought about asking Albert to touch him, it felt… strange. As if there was some reason he shouldn’t, or some reason he should. Or as if Graham ought to apologize for wanting it no matter how natural it was.

He frowned, and Albert laughed, a real laugh, but kind and not mean.

“Come on, genius,” Albert sighed, then leaned forward to brush Graham’s bangs from his eyes. “Finish this chapter and we’ll watch a movie or something, okay?”

He took his hand away before Graham could shut his eyes and fall into it. But his scent was warmer up close, and the chill inhis skin from being close to the window wouldn’t last long. So Graham gave him a smile, and went back to studying.

The End

A Mate of One’s Own

First posted in 2015. Published in the Being(s) in Love 1-5 boxset as a bonus story in 2022

Set after the events ofLittle Wolf

Summary: Zoe meets (and woos) her mate. Or, really, her mate woosher. f/f

Tags: on-page sex, some wolf-on-wolf violence

Zoe didn’t bother to turn around and head home when her run led her into town. Lately her runs had brought her into town more often than not, and she’d anticipated that today by choosing to run as a human. It meant sweat, but it also meant clothing, which was good for when she found herself jogging down Main Street at midmorning.

She assumed the restlessness pulling her into town was due to sharing the same house as two mated idiots still in their honeymoon phase. It didn’t matter that Nathaniel and Tim weren’t home at the moment; their happiness scent was everywhere. She was pretty sure it was even in her work uniform, which she had kind of resigned herself to for the time being.

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