Chapter 21
Zinnia
“Ihad the best dream,” Julian mumbled at my side. “It was so good, I’m almost scared to open my eyes.”
I let out a breathy laugh, surprising myself.
I stretched out my fingers and toes, feeling my body.
I was alive, maybe more so than I had been in decades.
Energy hummed through me from all directions: the ground beneath me, the sky above, and even the sleepy, well-sated mate who lay naked at my side. My mate.
I had a mate at last, even if we weren’t bonded as shifters, with claiming bites.
There was still something there, tying us together with the earth’s magic.
Truthfully, I was a little frightened at the intensity of the connection, and shocked at some of the side effects.
I decided to face those issues later. The energy surge was giving me far better ideas.
“Then don’t open your eyes. You can feel your way.” I let one hand move over his shoulder, then down his abdomen, taking in the hard planes of muscle and the smooth skin. So much skin to touch, and all of it mine.
He groaned. “Have pity on an old man, mate. I’m not ready to go quite yet.” He nibbled at my neck, then rolled to face me, his erection already hardening against my leg.
“Liar,” I teased, pushing myself up on my hands. The earth had stopped thrumming quite as eagerly under me now, probably because I was almost too healed, if such a thing was possible. I hadn’t had this much energy since I was a child.
I glanced at the closest trees, smiling at the animals who’d made their way into the garden somehow the night before.
They peered from the shadows of the fruit trees, still keeping guard, though a few young rabbits were working their way through my lettuces.
I’d have to re-work the spells over the whole place, or they’d eat every scrap of food before the end of the week.
“They call them your babies,” Julian said softly, watching a chipmunk scurry out of a hole and sit up to take us in.
“They are. Even more now,” I said truthfully. Inside, my connection to the animals had been strengthened. Their energy was woven into mine, or perhaps it was the other way around.
“Do you think…” His voice was almost a whisper.
I lifted a hand to his lips, hushing him. I pressed my other hand over my heart, feeling the threads that connected me to every living creature around me. To him, and even to the boys in the cabin.
This morning was already a miracle; I didn’t want to get dragged into the might-have-beens that I’d already let go. A baby at my age, even if it were physically possible, didn’t feel right. I had my babies, as the boys called them. Hundreds of them.
Julian let it go, kissing my hand gently, and I was glad.
Shouts in the distance had us both grinning. “Speaking of children, should we go check on the boys?” I asked, hopping up. I was glad I could do that now; the night before, I’d gotten dizzy when my body wasn’t prone on the earth. I’d needed a lot of healing.
Julian’s eyes gleamed. “We should definitely not. I’ve decided I need to worship your perfect body a few more times before we leave the sacred garden.” He grabbed my ankle, and I fell on top of him, laughing.
“Sacred garden?”
“Yes.” He dropped quick nibbles and kisses along my thigh, and around my hip. “The humans have a story about the first garden. There was a man, a woman, an apple tree, an oh fuck—” The kisses stopped abruptly.
“A what?” I sat back up, quickly spotting what had caught his attention.
Ah. “Urchin, I told you to leave Julian alone. He’s scared of snakes.
” I reached down to pick up the garter snake, but she slid faster than she had in years—maybe she’d been healing as well?
—and wrapped herself around Julian’s ankle. Uh-oh.
Julian froze, but a moment later, let out a quiet, “Huh.” I reached for Urchin again, but he said, “Leave it. She’s not bothering me.”
I swallowed hard. “How?”
His cheeks darkened slightly. “I think… I think it was my wolf side that didn’t like snakes. It must have been.” He reached down with one finger to stroke Urchin’s scales, proving his point. “I wonder what else has changed. Are you different now?”
He stood and walked over to the orchard.
None of the animals fled, and one of the bunnies hopped over to sniff at his foot.
His body was the same as before, except the tattoos had all sunk deep into his skin and had no texture, as if he’d been born with them.
The scars he’d carried from battle were gone, though, and his skin glowed with health.
He glanced over one shoulder at me, the sunlight causing the silver hairs in his beard to glint.
I hummed noncommittally. I wasn’t certain if Julian was ready to know how much I’d changed when I’d taken the power of the deep earth into me.
If he knew I could now read his emotions easier than a recipe.
If he understood that I didn’t need to look for him to know where he was, that the earth told me where he was standing.
I felt a tickle in my hair and reached up to pat the flowers there. No, he wasn’t ready to know everything. Neither was I.
“Miss Zinnia? Sergeant? Food’s ready,” Bo called from somewhere near the cabin. “We, ah, put y’all some clothes on the path, just in case all them critters left shit—I mean, scat on your other ones.”
Sergeant shook his head, laughing. “Thanks, Bo, we’ll be right there.
” He stalked over to me, giving me ample opportunity to appreciate just how healed he was.
I licked my lips, suddenly very thirsty.
“Food first, my insatiable mate.” He laughed, then leaned down and placed one arm behind my knees to lift me into his arms.
I shook my head and held out a hand instead. “I’m not sure that’s a good idea. The earth…”
“You need to keep touching it?”
I grinned ruefully. “It feels like it’s the other way around. Like it doesn’t want to let me go.”
He shook his head. “I never thought I’d be jealous of dirt.” We returned to the cabin hand in hand to find the boys had put together a table outside, long boards laid over a sawhorse and a flat-topped boulder, with a charming picnic lunch laid out on top, set for two.
Leroy pulled out a half-cut pine log for Sergeant, while Bo gestured to one of my own chairs from the cabin. “M’lady.”
There was a platter with a stack of pan-fried trout in the center of the table—only slightly burned at the edges—and bowls heaped with freshly cooked greens, onions, and even some of the early peas. It smelled delicious, and I told them so.
“Leroy did most of the cookin’, ma’am.” Bo ducked his head when I pressed a kiss to his cheek and sat. Leroy was there in an instant, heaping food on my plate. Bo started to do the same for Julian, but he stopped him.
“Where are your places, boys?”
Bo and Leroy blinked at each other. “Me and Bo was, uh, just gonna eat down at the creek. Give you two some alone time.” Leroy wiggled his eyebrows at Julian, then tilted his head at me, a silent, completely transparent hint.
Julian rolled his eyes. “Go get some more seats and plates, and sit down. You’re family. We’ll eat as a family.”
Neither one of the boys moved, until Leroy whispered, “Family?”
Bo swallowed hard and rasped, “On the mountain. You… you called me son.”
“I did,” Julian said, his eyes shining with…
remorse? I wasn’t sure. “I was looking for you last night, you know. To apologize for the way I’d treated you.
” Bo flinched. “I was too harsh with you, and not just yesterday. My only excuse is the pain I was in. I was afraid I would die before I’d taught you everything you needed to know about being Alpha. ”
Bo let out a shaky breath. “I don’t know enough. I don’t know how I’m gonna go back to the pack and do what you did. They won’t want to follow me.”
“You’re feeling the pull to go back?” Bo nodded. “That’s good. That’s the pack calling you. That means they do want you; they’re wanting to pledge to the new Alpha.”
“I told you, Bo,” Leroy murmured. “You’re gonna be a great Alpha. You’ll see. They all will.”
“I… I don’t want to go,” Bo whispered brokenly. “I don’t want to leave y’all.”
Leroy wrapped his arms around Bo and whispered something in his ear.
Whatever it was, it had Bo hugging him back and nodding fiercely.
When he let go, Leroy moved around the table, a sweet, secret smile on his face as he pulled two more logs close for seats, then went back into the cabin for plates and food.
Bo and Sergeant stepped away, into the shade of a nearby pine. I could make out some of Julian’s words, a story about the Moonblessed Warriors. Bo was listening intently.
Leroy’s eyes met mine as he came back out, and I smiled. “I’m glad you’re okay, Miss Zinnia. Thank you for fixing up Sergeant, too,” he murmured, but his voice caught.
“I couldn’t fix everything. His wolf is with mine.” I knew he would understand. “It might be hard…”
“Don’t fret, Miss Zinnia. Bo knows he’s got to go back to our pack. He told me last night I’m his—well, what used to be called Head Enforcer, right? But we need a new name for second wolf.”
“Beta?” I offered.
He wrinkled his nose. “Maybe? I dunno. Pickin’ a name is weird.”
I nodded, and he sat down beside me, helping himself to some food when Bo called out, “Y’all start. We’ll be there in a sec.”
“Hey, Sergeant. What name would you pick if you had to decide on a new one?” Leroy asked as Julian and Bo returned to the table.
“That’s just what Bo and I were talking about,” Julian said softly. “I’m not Alpha anymore. But—”
Bo broke in. “He’s not Alpha, but that ain’t all he was, even before. Leroy, you remember what we talked about at the river? About how we don’t got family anymore, besides my sister Delia, and how neither of us ever had a dad worth a can of spit? So I told Sergeant what we wanted.”
“What we wished for,” Leroy whispered. His head snapped to Julian. “We can—I mean, you’ll let us—”
“I’d be honored if you’d call me Dad,” Julian told him. “I can’t think of any other title I’d like more.”
Leroy tackled both of the others in a group hug, the two boys crying and smiling and shouting, even howling, before they both looked at each other and pulled away.
Then they dropped to their knees beside my stool. Leroy handed me a napkin, and I wiped my own tears away. “What are you doing?”
“We’re family, right?” Leroy’s eyes sparkled with flecks of gold in his deep green irises.
“If Sergeant’s our dad now, that means me and Bo really are brothers.
But… my mama died when I was little bitty, and Bo’s passed two years back.
We could sure use a mom, if you could think of us that way. I know we’re not little, but—”
Something inside me broke at his stammered request. I’d learned to stop hoping for a mate and children of my own long ago, telling myself I was content with the life I’d carved out here in solitude.
I’d packed that dream away, the same way I’d buried my sadness at losing the ability to shift.
To have it now… I felt my heart crack open, but there was no pain.
It was opening to let them in. Somehow, I managed to answer, tears coursing down my cheeks. “If I could choose any sons in the world, I would choose you, both of you. If the moon Herself gave me one wish…” I was crying so hard by then, I had to stop.
I couldn’t see, but I felt the steady strength of the earth underfoot, and the arms of these two dear boys wrapping around me, and then his as well, my mate, after all these years of loneliness.
It was as if every whispered prayer at night, every piece of dandelion fluff I’d blown into the wind, every birthday wish I’d ever made, had all come true, all at once, a flowering of joy in the middle of pain.
“This would be my wish. To have you as my family.”