The Alpha's Temporary Mate (Fated Match)(36)

Yeah, she didn’t believe it either.





Chapter Nine

Chloe loved weekends. They were her break away from work, where she could focus on something besides helping others find the loves of their lives. Often she went out with friends, did her own recon for her elusive mate.

This Saturday, however, she sat in one of Kieran’s deep, comfy recliners with a cup of tea in one hand and a book in the other. Her fake lover sat on the sofa staring intently at his computer screen. It was a scene so domestic she had to keep forcing herself to remember none of this was real. But the silent companionship wasn’t awkward. Instead it was comfortable. Chloe couldn’t remember the last time she’d simply been with someone. Not talking. Not engaging. Just a quiet part of someone else’s world.

She turned the page with her pinky before taking the last sip of her tea. Closing her eyes, she savored the earthy taste of her oolong. Kieran really had outdone himself.

Not wanting to leave her comfortable position, she waved her hand and watched as the empty cup glided through the air to land gently on the coffee table in front of her. Task done, she turned her attention back to her book.

“I can feel when you do magic,” Kieran said quietly.

Chloe glanced at her companion. “What?”

He tilted his head as if uncertain how to explain. “It’s not an unpleasant sensation. More like something soft brushing along the very edge of my senses. It’s you using your gift.”

“I didn’t know wolves could sense magic.”

He shrugged. “I’ve never felt it this way before. Perhaps it’s our close quarters.”

Thinking back, Chloe tried to remember anything about species that could track a witch’s power use. Usually it was only other magic users that could sense such changes. Not weres.

“Has anyone been able to do that to you before?” Kieran asked.

She shrugged. “No, but I live alone. You might be right about the cohabitation thing.”

“Surely other witches would have mentioned it?”

Chloe looked back down at her book. “I don’t speak to them often.”

Other witches had covens, families. Even when they tried to include her, Chloe was always aware she was the outsider. Much like packs, it was rare for a witch to switch covens. Usually, the coven a witch was born into was the only option unless a witch married into another. Even then, there was a family connection to open a door.

She’d had no one.

While a baby might have been adopted into a coven, a grown woman wouldn’t. After being rejected by a few groups in the sixties, she’d stopped hoping she’d find some magical family to fill the void inside her. Instead, she’d focused on creating her own bonds with other species more accepting of a lone witch. Jessica didn’t care what sort of background she came from as long as Chloe could keep up with her at the bar.

But eschewing her people had some drawbacks. She’d had to learn about her magic on her own, with only books as a guide. Even after nearly a century of study, questions like Kieran’s still stumped her from time to time.

“I’ll research it,” she said. “Let you know if I find an answer.”

She glanced up at the wolf and found him watching her with sympathetic eyes.

Her fingers curled tightly on the spine of the book. She’d been doing her best to keep her distance from the tempting wolf but when he looked at her like that, her job just got harder.

“I’m fine as I am,” she snapped, knowing he’d inferred more from her words than she wanted to reveal.

“Of course you are,” he said evenly. “You don’t need anyone else, right?”

“Right.” She didn’t long for the camaraderie he had with his pack. She didn’t wish for a mate to wrap her in his arms. And if she did, the hero in her fantasies certainly didn’t wear his face.

Kieran glanced at his watch and a smile tugged at his lips. “True as that might be, little witch, for the next few weeks you’re not alone.”

The air left her lungs. He couldn’t have known how the words would affect her but they did. No one, in all her decades, had ever said them to her. But Kieran meant them in a very temporary sense and she had to be careful to remember that.

He looked up at her with a mischievous glint in his eyes. “How sporty are you?”

“What?”

“Saturday mornings a few of the younger wolves in my pack organize a soccer game in the park. Time with them will guarantee a smile on your face.”

Warmth spread through her before she forced herself to rein it in. Was he asking her to cheer her up or to set up another viewing op of their relationship?

His eyes displayed only eagerness.