Her lips curved and she ran her hands over a fallen beam. “Aric and I met in the student bookstore right after I arrived at Covenant College. I had a different boyfriend, who happened to be in a fraternity with him, but there was a spark there.”
“Will the dill hole,” Sami piped in.
“I see you’ve been listening to your father tell college stories,” Zoe said dryly.
“He said you were stupid when it came to men before him,” Sami replied. “I believe him.”
“Of course you do.” Zoe shook her head before turning back to me. “My college experience was a mess. I didn’t know what I was when I first arrived. Others did. They kept referring to me as a mage even though I didn’t know what the word meant. Over time, things became clearer. Aric and I fell in love. My roommates joined the fight, sometimes willingly and other times, not so much. Rafael became a trusted ally despite the fact that he tried to glamour me so he could take a drink the first night we met.”
I made a face. “That’s gross.”
She chuckled. “It all worked out in the end.”
“You love them both.” It was a statement rather than a question.
“Not the way you’re thinking,” she replied on a firm head shake. “Aric is my soulmate. I’m not even sure I believed in soulmates until him. I do now. He’s my whole heart. Rafael stood by us through some very tough times. We haven’t always kept in touch over the years, but when it came time to return to Covenant College to ... finish things, he was there.”
“You obviously trust him with your only child,” I pointed out. “She’s the most important thing in your world and you gave her to him to protect.”
“He would die for her.” Zoe took on a far-off expression and then shook her head. “I told Aric to go with them. The plan was for me to stay behind and take on the vampires myself. He refused and sent Rafael ahead with her and circled back.”
The pain was naked on her face and it touched me. “You’re his soulmate, too.”
Zoe nodded. “We’re kind of a mess right now. We had an agreement that we would always put Sami first. He reneged on that agreement and came back for me.”
“And that makes you angry.” In a weird way, I understood where she was coming from. “You can’t ask him to be something he isn’t. Isn’t it possible that he knew in his heart that she would be okay but that you were at risk?”
“Of course that’s what happened.” Zoe rubbed her forehead. “We had one child because we knew it would be impossible to guarantee the safety of multiple children. It didn’t matter if we had a boy or girl, we only knew we had to protect this tiny being that sprang from both of us. From the moment she came into our lives, we became hyper-vigilant. We protected her with everything we had, sent messages left and right. For the most part, she had a quiet childhood. And then she turned twelve.”
“What happened when she turned twelve?”
“She came into her powers, and not just the mage powers she got from me but the shifter powers she got from Aric. It happened all at once.”
Something occurred to me. “Do you think she’s more powerful than you?”
“I don’t know,” Zoe said sincerely. “There are ... things she’ll have to face as she grows older. I suspect we’ll figure out the answer to that question then. Right now, despite her attitude, she’s still our little girl, and we’ll fight to the death to protect her.”
Something in her tone stirred me. “Can I ask you an invasive question?”
She chuckled, her eyes drifting back to Sami, who was fixated on the house. “I think you’ve earned it. You kept my family safe last night.”
“Not really. I just didn’t kill the vampire. Sami kept herself safe, and then rode to the rescue this morning looking for her friend.”
Zoe’s smile deepened. “Yeah. That she got from both her father and me. We’re both loyal to a fault. She got a double dose of that.”
“The thing is, I don’t know where I came from.” I hesitated and then barreled forward. “I was abandoned at a young age. I have no memory of my time before then.” Before I realized what was happening, I launched into the tale. I didn’t embellish anything or drag out the story. By the time I was finished, Zoe looked intrigued.
“What are you asking me?” she asked, confused.
“Just that ... if you thought it was necessary to save Sami at a young age, would you have left her to be raised by someone else?”
The question appeared to stump Zoe. “I don’t know. I guess that depends on a great many things. That would never be my first choice. I would fight to the death to make sure it didn’t happen. If my choices were losing Sami to an enemy faction or death and losing her to a world without me, I would like to think I’d do the right thing.”
“What’s the right thing?” I was genuinely curious. “Isn’t the right thing keeping a family together?”
“In theory, yes. However, that’s not always possible in practice. I get that you’re upset about what happened. To you, it feels as if you were thrown away. You don’t know the truth behind who you are. You’re powerful, Scout. I sensed it the second we landed in your front yard. Why do you think I put on such a show of being a bitch?”
I chuckled at the memory. “I knew what you were doing, and why. I wasn’t offended. Don’t worry about that.”
“I’m not.” She returned my smile. “The thing is, you’re dealing with a lot of the same things I dealt with when I arrived at Covenant College. Everyone and their brother knew something about me being a mage and I was in the dark. Apparently, you’re
