First posted in 2015. Published in the Being(s) in Love 1-5 boxset as a bonus story in 2022
Set after the events of Little Wolf
Summary: Zoe meets (and woos) her mate. Or, really, her mate woos her . 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.
As she slowed her steps and took a left to make a small, short loop around some side streets, it occurred to her once again that she could move out.
She was old enough, she’d paid off the last of her student loan debt from her classes in Carson, she could manage rent at Wolf’s Paw prices.
But something stopped her from glancing at the houses converted into the single apartments humans usually rented.
It wasn’t that weres couldn’t live alone.
It was that many didn’t want to.
Zoe had lived alone even in houses filled with foster kids.
She had always been alone until she’d come to this town.
She had no desire to live that way again. She had her room, her very own space, and a tiny pack of her own. She wasn’t ready to give that up for a life with no closeness, no pack touches.
Of course, the pack touches were probably how Nathaniel and Tim’s sex-and-love scent had ended up in her uniform.
She wrinkled her nose and slowed more as she passed the Flores.
Then she circled back around toward Main Street.
Her shift didn’t start for another hour or so, but she saw no point in heading home now.
She could shower and change at the station—something else she’d started doing more and more lately when she knew those two would be home at the same time.
Little Wolf honestly had no shame and Nathaniel only encouraged him.
But thinking of her favorite awkward pack brother made her head to Robin’s Egg’s.
Calling Tim brother , even in her own mind, made her warmer than the run had.
It helped that she knew Tim would squirm in embarrassment in exactly the same way if he knew.
Nathaniel would just smile, and his pleasure was nearly as blush-inducing.
He’d be so touched, but he wouldn’t comment that it had taken years for Zoe to admit how close she was to him, or say how happy he was to know she loved his mate.
He knew anyway. Thankfully, weres, unlike humans, did not need to discuss these things out loud.
Well, Tim did. But Tim had basically been raised by humans and hardly counted.
Zoe paused outside the door to the café, letting the air cool her skin as much as it could.
September in Wolf’s Paw was much like August, at least for the first half of the month.
Hot, with only slightly fewer tourists now that the main festivals were over.
But she detected a noticeable change in the air, like distant snow, and grinned as she stepped into the café.
She asked for a coffee at the counter, with lots of milk, and watched as the new elf hire, Sampson or something like that, went to work at the espresso machine over by the kitchen door.
Sampson’s skill brought in more customers, Robin’s Egg claimed.
Zoe wasn’t sure about that, but the coffee did smell amazing when he handed it to her.
She ducked her face over it while he added it to her tab.
Rich whole milk from a local dairy, freshly roasted coffee beans, and no sugar, although something in it smelled sweet, almost like real vanilla.
Zoe inhaled the steam, which was definitely sweet, and then took a sip without waiting for the drink to cool.
Even ignoring her burned tongue, which would heal, the coffee was good.
It was very good in fact, but it wasn’t the source of the scent.
Zoe sniffed around the counter as discreetly as she could, finding the usual grease and donuts and gravy that meant food and Cosmo in the kitchen .
The humans smelled like humans: deodorant they didn’t need, aftershave they usually had the sense not to wear in Wolf’s Paw, and toothpaste.
A sex scent hung over a few of them, a cloud of sweat/sated/musk that, quite unexpectedly, made Zoe’s skin tingle.
Embarrassed, she hurried away from the counter, although the scent seemed to intensify.
Tourists must be sowing their last wild oats before they left town.
The air in the café was warm and getting warmer despite the constantly opening door.
She took another gulp of too-hot coffee to fill her senses with something other than salty-sweet satisfaction and blissful contentment, and made a beeline for Tim and the relative safety of the gift shop.
She expected a few customers, but for some reason, seeing one leaning against the display counter while deep in conversation with Tim threw her.
She stopped in the doorway, frowning at how close they were standing.
Tim was very, very happily mated, something Zoe knew for a fact.
Also, he tended to like men only as far as she knew.
Seeing a woman in his space shouldn’t bother her, not even on behalf of pack brother Nathaniel.
Zoe studied the woman in confusion.
She was human, judging from her height.
She was a head shorter than Tim, which meant Zoe would tower over her.
Zoe felt like a hulking giant at the knowledge.
Some humans claimed they didn’t mind so much, or were already tall, like Tiff. But Zoe was very tall, even for a were female. She was height and strength, and had been since fifteen.
She hunched her shoulders while the human laughed at something Tim said.
The human was holding a paper cup of coffee much like Zoe’s, but Zoe could smell the sugar syrup in hers from where she stood.
Vanilla, with low-fat milk and strong, bitter espresso, stirred with a birch stick.
The human herself must have been more than a tourist, because Zoe couldn’t detect a trace of perfume about her, although something sensual drifted across the room, like oils made from flowers.
Her thick, bouncy black curls were held in place with a pink scarf, and Zoe thought the woman might have been around fresh lavender sometime in the past few days.
Her lipstick smelled waxy, but not bad, and the purple-pink shade of it made Zoe wish she knew more about things like makeup.
The human’s mouth was full and inviting.
Her eyeliner was sharp and defined.
There was a glisten to her dark skin, as if the heat had made her perspire a little, and Zoe felt her attention fall to her chest, the hint of shadow at the top of her breasts before her shirt hid them from view.
She was built like a tiny, exquisite hourglass, with thighs that looked as soft as the plump outline of her upper arms.
She had muscle in those arms, in those legs, like someone who worked hard, but she was so yielding too, curvy and delicate.
She smiled at Tim again, a beautiful smile, and leaned closer to him with her tank top showing much of her smooth skin, and her jeans tight over her backside, and the air was warmed milk and vanilla, like cream, and Zoe took another stumbling step forward.
Tim looked over first.
He grinned at her like the bloodthirsty wolf he was, teeth always showing even when he meant well, and then blinked when Zoe couldn’t make herself respond.
Taking her eyes off the human woman seemed an impossible task.
Zoe wanted more coffee to wake herself up, but couldn’t remember how to move the cup to her mouth.
“Zoe?”
Tim asked slowly, while the human who smelled like cream and flowers turned to look at her. Her eyes were deep, dark brown, like tree bark or earth. She had a piercing at her eyebrow, and another at the side of her nose. Little silver hoops Zoe stared at in fascination.
“Zoe?”
The human woman repeated. Her voice was soft too. Her gaze was not. It traveled over Zoe from her head to her toes.
“Zoe, did you leave the house in that?”
Tim pressed, which at least allowed Zoe to move her head to glance at herself. She saw running shoes, because human feet did not have pads like the wolf. Gray sweatpants that had once been Nathaniel’s, rolled down at the waist so they hung low on her hips. She paused at the pale but flushed skin of her abs, then stared at her black top for a moment before she remembered that it was, in fact, not a top but a sports bra.
Werewolves, at least, the wolves in this town, didn’t care about such things, but humans did. Zoe was basically half naked in their eyes. She flung an anxious glance toward the human. The human stared at Zoe’s stomach for another moment while Zoe could feel beads of sweat inching slowly down toward her belly button. Then the human lifted her gaze and seemed to focus on Zoe’s arms.
Zoe’s arms were equally sweaty and flushed, only with the added bonus of freckles across the biceps. She wondered if her muscles were too big to human eyes. They’d used to say that when Zoe was growing up. Tiff hadn’t minded, though. She’d even seemed to like them. Zoe missed her, even if they’d only gone out for a few months. But Tiff had left for school and Zoe would never have stopped her.
Tim froze in the middle of gesturing at her bra, which Zoe barely needed anyway, although perhaps the human did not think so, judging from her stares. Zoe should have put on more clothing. She didn’t own anything light or pretty or pink. Her dark red hair was short, shorter than it wanted to be, but she cut it regularly to keep the curls close to her head in a bob. She didn’t understand makeup, although it was lovely on this human.
Zoe inhaled again, vanilla pudding scent this time. Chocolate milk. Cinnamon rolls, the real kind, not the ones from the can she and Tim made. No one around them had any of those things, and yet Zoe thought of them with every breath. Lilies too. Lilies and lavender and lilac. Spring scents in the fall didn’t make sense. Herbs and oils and healing mingled with comfort and sugar, forming textures and layers of good things and happy scent.
Zoe sank her teeth into her lower lip. The human’s eyes seemed to get darker and wider. Her heart was a quick, rabbit thing, excited. Zoe’s pulse was hot and heavy.
Tim was glancing between them. Zoe could see his head moving back and forth but couldn’t demand to know what the hell he was staring at. Maybe he smelled her confusion, because he spoke—carefully, like how people spoke to feral weres and scared children. “Zoe, have you met my new friend here?”
The human suddenly smiled, bright and friendly. “I’m here every morning for coffee, and this is the first time I’ve caught you in here. I didn’t know you were the Zoe he’s mentioned before.”
Something in that statement made Zoe straighten, but for the life of her, she couldn’t have said what. She took a deep breath while the human glanced at Little Wolf, who had an astonished look on his face, one he leaned over to share with someone else, probably Carl.
Zoe had forgotten all about Carl. She’d also forgotten words. “How…?”
she tried, although she had no idea what she was trying to say.
“Oh my God,”
Tim exclaimed, but in nowhere near his usual tone of exasperation. “Zoe, oh my God!”
He said it with wonder, and then a smile that lit up his face. Zoe frowned at him, more lost than ever until she turned to the human.
She was so little and pretty and breakable, soft and rounded and strong. Zoe smiled at her without thinking.
The human smiled back. “You always seem busy. This is actually the first time I’ve ever seen you not in uniform. I’m Cleo, by the way. It’s nice to finally meet you.”
She paused there, then swallowed and held out her hand. Her short, rounded fingernails were painted clear and shiny. She had on jangling silver bracelets that fell against the delicate skin of her inner wrist. Zoe wanted to push them up and bite beneath them. She would very much like those fingers inside her. She needed that mouth on her, and her tongue pressed just there, at the human’s pulse point.
Zoe had the horrifying suspicion she was growling. She couldn’t hear it, but it would explain why the human’s heart was pounding.
Zoe’s attention fell, obviously, too obviously, to the thin tank top and that portion of bared skin, the hint of curving breasts and sweat. Zoe could feel the heat from that spot as surely as she could now hear her own heavy breathing. The warm, intimate place with the throb of blood beneath the surface smelled heavenly, which she was happy to know, at last. This was the source of the scent that had called to Zoe across the café and brought her here. She ought to be fine now that she’d identified it, but she was silent and tense except for her growl. She wondered if her eyes were brown or glinting yellow, and why she was so conscious of the fang now pressed hard into her lower lip.
Tim said something, her name maybe, trying to be calming, but Zoe shook her head to make him go away. She inhaled and dragged her gaze slowly up to the lovely throat and the wide, warm, prettily made-up eyes, and then down to Cleo’s crushed-berry mouth, and back to her throat and that bare skin. If Zoe put her face there, it would probably smell like home .
Home home home , her mind repeated, joyous and wild, and then finished her off with one shocking thought.
Mate.
“Oh, you… you’re….”
She tripped over her own words and ended in a soft whine that brought Tim rushing forward. Pack brother would save her. He’d keep her from ruining this. He was smart wolf. Crafty wolf. A wolf among the humans. He’d know what to do while Zoe stumbled backwards in panic and Mate’s eyes went wide with fear or disappointment.
“Nathaniel,”
Tim said, saving her with one word. Zoe listened, fleeing before her mate could lose all faith in her.
~~
Zoe managed to keep from tearing through the station to get to Nathaniel, but once she realized he was alone in his office, she burst through the door with enough energy to nearly take it off the hinges. She hadn’t done that since puberty, something that made her stop and try to act calm.
Obviously, that wouldn’t work around Nathaniel. Even if the door hadn’t tipped him off, Zoe’s appearance and scent would have given away her agitation. Nathaniel looked up from glaring at piles of paperwork that had built up during the busy time around the Full Moon Festival, then went very, very still.
“Zoe,”
he greeted her, cautiously, as though she was Little Wolf in a fit of temper and he had to watch his step. “Can I help you?”
“I met my mate,”
Zoe blurted, then gasped. Hearing the word was so different from thinking it.
Someone outside agreed, because they gasped too.
Zoe continued to stare anxiously at Nathaniel.
Nathaniel’s smile was slow, but as bright as Tim’s had been.
Oh God. Tim had known. Zoe’s face or her scent or something had given her away, so Tim had known before she had. That wasn’t fair. Someone who’d taken so long to recognize his own mate shouldn’t be so quick to identify hers.
But Zoe stared at Nathaniel’s smile and felt some of the tightness in her chest ease. This was good, then. He wasn’t alarmed or worried.
She felt her mouth curve. Then she remembered the rest. “I left her there.”
She opened her eyes wide and put a hand over her racing heart. “I left her there!”
Zoe could still see the surprise on her mate’s face as Zoe had bolted from the café. “Oh God, I didn’t even speak to her. I just ran. I stared at her and I growled and then I ran. Oh shit. She’s going to think I’m a freak.”
Nathaniel considered her for several seconds, probably weighing how badly Zoe had fucked it up. But then he inclined his head, as if he wasn’t going to say she hadn’t fucked it up, but it wasn’t as bad as she thought. “She’s your mate, Zoe. That’s the most amazing thing about it. If anyone in the entire world will understand why you’d be afraid in that moment, it’s her. You only have to tell her.”
“Tell her?”
Zoe pulled in a painful breath. “She’s not going to want to see me again.”
Zoe wasn’t wheezing, but she was close to it.
Nathaniel pushed away from his desk so he could come over to her and wrap his arm around her shoulders. Zoe didn’t know what was more astonishing, that he would hug her without asking first, or that she let him. He smelled so nice. Nathaniel always smelled nice, like family and dinner and man-smells—the good kind, like how Zoe imagined fathers on old human TV shows would smell. Tim said Nathaniel was like pine and smoke. That was close to what he was, but he didn’t remind Zoe of fire. Nathaniel had strength and heat, but he combed his fingers gently through her hair and let her feel small for a few moments.
He breathed in and out slowly, getting her to do the same, and then he lightly, just once, ran his fingertips down her cheek until she shuddered and calmed.
She was immediately embarrassed to realize she was being coddled. She was not Little Wolf with a nightmare.
She pulled away and stalked over to the couch. After a small pause, she sat. Then she clasped her hands in front of her and stared at him.
Nathaniel stared back, his expression almost worried. But he walked to his desk and sat down again without saying a word. He steepled his fingers as if he intended to wait her out. The horrible thing was, it would work. When Zoe had first arrived in town, eighteen, defensive about everything, and reluctant to talk about even the most harmless of subjects, Nathaniel had done the same thing until Zoe had given in and told him her favorite food.
Tim joked, or didn’t joke, that Nathaniel was evil. Zoe just thought he was very, very patient, which could feel like the same thing when someone’s insides were twisted and they didn’t know what to do or how to do it.
The phone lit up before Zoe could cave and tell him everything.
Her gaze went to it in horrified embarrassment. A call sent directly to Nathaniel’s office with no warning from the dispatcher usually meant Little Wolf, so of course Nathaniel picked up the phone.
Zoe closed her eyes.
“Yes, she’s here,”
Nathaniel answered before Tim could say a word. Tim was talking about her. He probably wouldn’t do that if Zoe’s mate was still with him, but Zoe tensed anyway. Tim and her mate had already become friends. Zoe imagined her mate’s face, her smiles for Tim, her wide, blown pupils when she’d turned to Zoe, and how she’d stared, her plush lips parted.
Zoe’s mouth fell open. “Oh.”
She looked to Nathaniel. He was still smiling at her, because he was… well, she hesitated to call her pack leader evil, but he was definitely pleased with the situation. “My mate desires me.”
Already. Zoe hadn’t even had to try. She hadn’t known mating would be this wondrous and yet still terrifying.
“Is she breathing?”
Tim asked, clearly audible to her ears even at a distance.
“Shut up!”
Zoe barked at him.
Tim laughed softly. “Wow. Nathaniel, you don’t know how amazing that was. I’ve seen it happen before, but not to someone I know. I’m not an expert, but I think it well.”
“By your standards?”
Nathaniel wondered, not without a hint of bitterness.
Whatever Tim had been about to say became a sort of a squawking sound mixed with sputtering. Zoe suddenly became aware of the very real possibility that she might end up pining for her mate for months like Nathaniel had done, and that was one of the better possible outcomes. One of the outcomes that wasn’t madness, or depression, or a long, lonely, gray life. It didn’t matter that she’d never let herself dream of a forever after with someone the way Nathaniel always had. She had a chance at one with someone amazing, and it might not happen.
She dropped down and put her head between her knees. They told anxious humans to do this all the time in First Aid Training. It had to do something good.
“Zoe?”
Nathaniel’s chair squeaked as if he’d leaned toward her.
“Aw, Zoe, don’t freak out.”
Tim’s words, part command, part plea, carried through the silence. “Come on. We’ve got this. Because trust me, this town’s rules make some sense, but they aren’t set in stone. I can handle everything for you, just say the word.”
Zoe tried to make herself take in air while imagining what kind of destruction Little Wolf might wreak upon the town in the name of her love life. He’d do it, that was the thing. At some point in the past few months, he’d become this person she’d find sleeping next to her on the couch and sliding cups of coffee toward her in the morning. Zoe didn’t have a lot of friends. Neither did Tim. Maybe that was why he was so earnest about this. The problem was that he was Timothy Dirus. He was nearly unstoppable.
Zoe made a gurgling sound, like worried, hysterical laughter might burst out of her, then almost choked when Nathaniel growled.
This growl was not friendly, or playful. The sound, loud and forceful, was not meant to communicate anything but authority.
Zoe sat up straight and swallowed any noises she might have been making. Tim shut up. People in the outer room went so silent it was like they were frozen.
Nathaniel let out another sound, huffing in satisfaction to have the world quiet at last, before he focused back on Zoe.
Zoe met his serious, steady gaze. The sheriff’s gaze. Pack brother was town leader alpha.
“Breathe, Zoe,”
he ordered, voice rough like wolf , and Zoe breathed.
“Holy crap…”
Tim panted brokenly on the other end of the line, probably turned on. Not that it took much with him.
“Now go on,”
Nathaniel continued after Zoe had taken several breaths. He was still mostly growling.
Tim sighed heavily for it. “Not fair, Nathaniel. Not fair at all,”
he complained, longing and sweet enough to make Zoe blush if she hadn’t used up her blushes earlier. Then he let out a longer sigh and seemed to focus. “Zoe, listen. It’s okay. It’s better than you think anyway. It went really well. Even Carl thinks so. What?”
Zoe couldn’t make out what Carl must have said in reply. Whatever it was made Tim snort. “Not on the floor in here! Aw, gross. Zoe you’d better not.”
“Little. Wolf.”
Nathaniel rubbed his neck as if his mate was killing him. The sounds of work resuming came from the outer room.
“No, really,”
Tim carried on smoothly. “Really, Zoe. It’s okay. It really is. I took care of it. I’ll take care of anything you want me to.”
“Run while you can,”
Nathaniel told Zoe immediately. His tone was earnest, but he had that I love my Little Wolf light in his eye.
“Hey,”
Tim protested quietly, but went silent while Nathaniel rumbled softly at him for a moment in an apology that some others might have been shocked to witness.
Normally Zoe would look away during an intimate moment like that, but it was strangely fascinating to watch them and realize that might be her cooing at someone someday. She’d never cooed in her life. She didn’t even think most humans would count growling as cooing.
But her mate would. That’s what mate meant. Of all the people in the world, this one would most understand Zoe. And Zoe would most understand her.
If they ever got to know one another.
“She’s going to think I’m weird,”
Zoe confessed in quiet despair, and lowered her gaze to the floor. “I’m tall, and were, and I ran out on her without even saying hello. She was looking at me, like maybe she could like me, and she was”
–Zoe licked sweat from her upper lip— “pretty. She was lovely and smelled good, and I ran.”
“Okay.”
Tim cleared his throat like an old general about to give a speech. “First things first. Her name, in case you missed it while you were panting at her—which is all right, Zoe, because she was practically panting too—is Cleo. Everything is all right, Zoe. Better even. Because she didn’t yell in your face, right? Or run away from you. And she lives here now, which is great, because you won’t have to worry about her leaving. Like some wolves do.”
Nathaniel eased back in his seat but didn’t say a word. His gaze went to the ceiling. Zoe had a strange urge to get up and hold his hand. Mating was a fearful business.
“But I ran. And….”
Zoe waved at herself. Tim had been right to question her choices. There was no reason for her to be so distracted and eager to run into town that she’d forget to put on clothes—unless she considered that her mate had been in town for weeks, leaving traces of herself everywhere. “I finally found her and I left here there. She’s going to think…”
“That you are charming and wonderful and great,”
Tim interrupted. “Here I am, entertaining the new girl in town with stories about life among the weres, because, you know, I figured she could use some warning, and living here does take some getting used to, and this whole time it turns out I’ve been describing Zoe to her mate. It’s enough to make me even more curious about human magic. I really wish the wizard was more forthcoming about the subject, instead of telling me to study. Humans. I’ve been studying. But I think human magic requires thinking like a human, and I’m not exactly that, am I? Or were enough for this town’s rules to make perfect sense either.”
“Timothy Dirus.”
Nathaniel closed his eyes. Zoe couldn’t tell if he was exasperated with his mate’s rambling or soothed by his voice. Likely both.
Zoe was not soothed. Not at all. “What did you tell her about me?”
“Um.”
Tim hummed. “I told her you had to go because you are a deputy and you heard a disturbance somewhere with your werewolf hearing.”
Tim was such a liar. His time with the humans had taught him that.
Zoe sighed for it, though. “Thank you.”
She was going to have to tell her mate the truth eventually, but for now, it was good to know her mate didn’t think Zoe was a complete freak.