Chapter 12 Zinnia
Zinnia
The sunlight woke me, moving over my body in a warm caress. I stretched lazily, but didn’t open my eyes immediately. Instead, I listened.
This time, I wasn’t alone. Soft snoring, and the scent of cedar and ink had me sitting up with a smile.
Julian slept in my rocking chair, his torn shirt and sweatpants doing nothing to hide the power of his frame.
I let myself stare for a long moment, savoring the feeling of waking with another shifter in the house. Especially this one.
I peeked down at my side, feeling a familiar slither as Urchin lifted her head from her nap as well.
Years ago, I’d insisted that Ida and her whole pack leave me alone as much as possible.
In exchange for solitude and safety, I’d made the vow to give whatever magic I could when she needed it.
I’d thought I loved being alone, but taking in Julian’s muscular body and drawing his scent into my lungs, I was able to recognize the lie.
“Your eyes are so beautiful.” My gaze lifted to Julian’s face. He’d stopped snoring while I stared and was drinking me in as greedily as I had him. I blushed at the heat in his gaze. “You’re stunning. Like some kind of forest nymph.”
I rolled what I knew were perfectly ordinary eyes and swung my legs over the edge of the bed.
I still had on the horrible house dress, but I slipped it off now, standing naked before him.
“I’m a fifty-year-old woman with a little bit of magic, and a full-length mirror that shows me exactly how I look, Julian.
I’m not beautiful or special. There’s no need to flatter me.
” I turned to look at myself in the long, walnut-framed mirror, a gift from a pack member two years before when I’d helped his mate heal after delivering twins.
The mirror didn’t hide anything. I had scars no shifter would carry, from living a life as a magically gifted human.
Small nicks littered my arms, while my hands and fingers bore old burns from cooking pans and from distilling tinctures and boiling down ingredients for my salves.
My hair was long and fell in waves around my breasts, and the curls at the juncture of my thighs were still lush and dark.
I supposed I had some golden flecks in my brown eyes, and good, straight teeth.
My nipples beaded as Julian’s gaze blazed in the reflection. He stood, stalking toward me. He stepped behind me so his body loomed over mine. At five foot eight, I wasn’t short for a woman, but he was over six feet, and wider than any shifter I’d met, other than the Mountain Alphas.
“Look at you,” Julian purred into my ear, leaning down to wrap his hands around my waist. “How could you think there was anything imperfect about you?” He lifted my hands in his, turning them palm up, then down.
“Ida told me a little about you on the way here. She said you were a witch who took care of the children of the pack and the injured. These hands saved the lives of pups and healed the suffering.” My hands dropped to my sides as he moved his hands to my hair, his fingers trailing lightly over the length of it to linger at my beaded nipples.
“These are the most perfect breasts I’ve ever seen in my life, and this?
” One hand moved lower, cupping my mound firmly.
“This is the closest to heaven I ever need to be.” He leaned down to nuzzle at my neck and froze, making a choking sound.
Was he in pain? Was touching me… hurting him? “Julian?”
“Something’s on my foot,” he whispered.
I peeked down. “Oh, that’s just Urchin. She’s blind. Hold still, and she’ll move away.”
“Ur–Urchin?” His reply was oddly high-pitched, and his grip on my mound had gotten a little too tight. I pushed my pelvis back and turned, bending down to lift the garter snake off the ground.
“Yes, Urchin. She’s perfectly harmless.” I tilted my head, taking in his stance. I could see his pulse pounding in his throat, his eyes fixed on the half-blind garter snake like I was holding a cobra. “Julian, are you afraid of snakes?”
His silence was answer enough. I stepped away, placing Urchin in her wicker basket by the wardrobe, before turning back and crossing my arms over my chest. I wanted to tease him, but his fear had been all too real. Irrational, but real.
“Want to talk about it while I make us some dinner?” There had to be a story.
“No,” he said curtly, then scrubbed his hands over his face. When he looked up, his expression was sheepish and a bit disappointed, though I thought that may have been because I’d pulled on my robe. “The boys are out looking for vegetables for dinner. I told them no hunting.”
“No hunting?”
“No, I sent them to look for wild garlic by the river.” His brows lowered. “It’s good practice for living wild.”
I grabbed his hand. “No need for that. I’ll take you to my garden now. It’s not far, but the spells over it are more complicated than the ones around my home. They had to keep out animals as well, at least the ones who would help themselves to seedlings. Let me show you.”
I pulled him through the door and around to the back of the house. There was an outcropping of rock right behind the cabin, and we circled that on a well-worn path. As we rounded the largest boulder, I waved my hands in the air, greeting the spell.
“What are you doing?” Julian asked softly, staring at what must look like another tall boulder to him.
“Asking the spell to let you inside.” I grinned at his shock.
“This was one of my favorite creations. When Ida first brought me here, she had to bring me food every month, or I would’ve starved.
I spent that first year healing and… well.
” I didn’t need to tell him how close I’d come to death, again and again.
The only thing that had saved me had been the earth itself.
“One day, I wandered out here, like I did most days, and saw the oddest thing. I’d thrown some cherry pits out a month before, and one of them had taken root.
But more than that. It had grown tall enough to blossom, in a matter of weeks.
” I used both hands to open an invisible gate and pulled Julian through.
“By the moon!” he gasped as the garden came into focus.
“No. By the earth.” I looked around my garden like it was the first time, wondering what he would think.
“That’s the first tree.” I pointed ahead of us to a small orchard, where apple, pear, and cherry trees stood in small clumps.
Most of them were already blooming, since it was mid-April, but one of the cherry trees was already fruiting.
“Come see,” I urged, pulling him deeper inside.
We walked past mounded hay where asparagus fronds and stalks waved, near blackberry and raspberry vines twisting around woven supports I’d made one winter, their white blossoms moving in the breeze. Some of the peas we passed were ready to be picked, as well as the lettuces and spinach.
“I have tomatoes and peppers over there, along with a dozen other summer vegetables.” I gestured to the farthest side of the garden that got the most sun.
“None of them are ready. It’ll only take a few minutes to gather enough for a good meal, though.
” I winked at him as we reached the first tree, the oldest one. “Want some cherries?”
He blinked at me, his expression hard to read. “Unripe ones?”
I grinned. I’d never had anyone to show off to before, and I knew my magic reserves were low.
But the sun was shining brightly, the earth warm and ready to play.
I put one hand on the nearest branch, where the fruit was closest to ripe, closed my eyes, and hummed.
The magic of the earth moved in a thick wave from the bottoms of my scarred feet up my legs and through my torso.
When the energy, like a warm wave of honey, reached my hands, it thinned out.
I let it slide through my fingertips to the branch, concentrating it there, on that fruit.
I kept my eyes closed, but Julian’s whispered, “Hot damn!” made it clear that it had worked. I sagged a little when I let the power go, then grabbed a basket from a stack by the base of the tree.
“Thank the tree and the earth when you harvest in this garden,” I suggested as he began to pick the fruit.
“Is that part of the spell?”
I shook my head. “It’s just good manners.
” He gave me an odd look, but I didn’t care.
The earth hadn’t taken all of the excess energy when I’d let it slide away.
I could feel the power running through my limbs, easing the soreness, and healing the bite wound on my shoulder.
“Thank you,” I whispered, kneeling and pressing one hand to the rich dirt below.
“Thank you for catching me when I fell.” Help me to heal him.
Help me to heal him as you healed me… or at least, the part of me that could be healed.
“Why do you look sad?”
“Just remembering.” I couldn’t speak my thoughts out loud, not yet. That I was still mourning my connection to the moon, even while I thanked the earth for Her kindness. For giving me a purpose, and keeping me alive.
In the back of my mind, a wolf howled out a song of loss and pain. But it wasn’t my wolf. Maybe it was his?
“Little star?” Julian whispered.
“You call me that in my dreams,” I whispered back.
His amber eyes warmed. “Yes. And in the best waking moments of my entire life.”
Remembering what we’d been doing when he’d said those words in real life last night, I felt myself growing slick with sudden arousal, and blushed.
My cheeks went even hotter when the earth sent another lush wave of power into my core.
I moaned, shocked at the sensation. That had never happened before.
Hell, it had been months since I’d even touched myself.
I thought I’d gotten too old to want that.
Of course, Julian had showed me just how wrong I was last night, and now—