Being(s) In Love 03 - A Beginner’s Guide to Wooing Your Mate (17 page)

Zeki had been sewing and casting protective spells all day. He was going to have to stop to spin more thread, which meant not only buying wool but unpacking his tools. His hands were cramped, his fingers sore and bandaged, but he liked to feel things when he worked, so he touched the lightly cracked spines. He ran his fingertips over the fantasy series on a higher shelf, trying to sense what he could through the fabric of the bandages. High fantasy was so strange. Humans had begun writing it when they had been forced to accept that magical creatures and magic itself were real, yet their facts remained so hopelessly wrong. But something about all those warriors and mages had appealed to Theo in high school. Zeki smiled, finding a trilogy that had been read many times. If he ever needed an item that had value to Theo for a spell, he might pick one of these books.

The bookshelf itself was clean of dust. Zeki swept the pads of his fingers over it, hoping for more to give him a sense of who Theo was, but there wasn’t anything.

Theo made a noise, almost a whimper.

Zeki twisted to look at him over his shoulder. “Do you not want me to touch anything?” he asked guiltily. “Sorry, I do that. But I can stop.”

“No. I don’t mind.” Theo shook his head, then had to tuck his hair behind his ears. “It’s”—he lowered his voice—“it’s your scent. You’re leaving your scent in my home.”

Zeki withdrew his hand. “Is my scent bad? Is it the magic, or is it me?” He turned all the way around in time to catch Theo’s alarmed hand waving.

“No! No, of course not. No one smells
bad
. Bad isn’t something we say to describe what our senses tell us. Sometimes people smell like their jobs, or someplace unpleasant they’ve been, but even an unwashed body isn’t bad to us. Just… different.” Theo stopped flailing and took a breath. He took another, this time through his nose and with his eyes closed. “You smell like
Zeki
.”

“I showered before I came over.” Zeki had no clue what that meant, but he could tell Theo was trying to be more clear. Once when he’d been very little, at school in a different city where his dad had been working, a kid had complained Zeki smelled weird, like the spices in his dad’s kitchen. It hadn’t occurred to Zeki until then that smelling like a kitchen and the food his family made wasn’t a good thing.

Theo nodded. “You smell like the water, and cotton, like a towel. Surface smells. Those fade. You’re underneath them. You smell like….” He floundered for a moment. “I don’t usually name scents. Some weres do. They tend to be much better at analyzing or tracking them. I don’t think much about components. I… smell and feel them.” Theo shrugged. He glanced at the floor. “You smell like Zeki. Like nourishment. Like ma—like spices. It’s a good scent.”

If Theo was blushing as he tried to describe how he interpreted scent as if it was an unbearably intimate thing to explain how each individual were processed smells, Zeki would forgive him for being vague. “Nourishment, huh?” That was different. Zeki could cook okay, if the situation demanded it. His knife skills were decent, he was reasonable with a recipe in front of him, but he’d never loved it, and he’d never be a great chef like his father. Theo was the one who baked and fed others. Zeki considered him. “Do I stink of magic?”

“Magic doesn’t stink.” A line came and went between Theo’s eyebrows. “It… refuses to explain itself. It’s frustrating if you think about it, like when someone points it out.” The explanation wasn’t much help, though Theo was trying to put it in terms a human would understand.

“So once it’s pointed out, it bothers you.” Zeki paused and felt bad for assuming werewolves were being overly dramatic about the smell of magic. “I always thought you guys were making up the itchy nose thing.”

“It’s not irritating,” Theo rushed to assure him. “Like I said, very little actually bothers most were noses or tongues. The only reason we don’t like perfumes is because humans use them to mask things. We’d rather smell what’s really there.”

“And magic doesn’t let you do that,” Zeki realized aloud. Werewolves generally didn’t lie because they saw no point, but humans lied all the time. The weres must find that terribly disconcerting. Zeki sighed away a tension he hadn’t known he’d had. “No one in town ever gave me a real answer on the whole perfumes rule before. Thanks.” His small expression of gratitude brought Theo’s head up. His cheeks were darker. Zeki tripped closer to him. “So do people in town think I’m a liar, or just untrustworthy? I was… it was nice, at the firehouse yesterday, not being glared at. Were they friendly because you asked them to be?”

“You won them over on your own.” Theo shook his head, then smiled, maybe at the memory of Zeki being an idiot and sliding down a fire pole, or the firefighters throwing their laundry on top of Zeki until he’d been surrounded by their scents—which might have been the reason they’d done it, now that Zeki knew what he did about scent. Theo’s voice was soft, apologetic. “But I think some of the people in town are afraid of you, what you might do.”

“They and humans both.” Zeki heaved a sigh. Witches remained almost as misunderstood as demons and imps. “I hope you aren’t afraid of me. I’m not that kind of sorcerer, really. I’ve hardly ever cast a spell for my personal benefit, despite the temptation.” For some reason, Zeki was compelled to keep going. “Okay,” he confessed. “I made myself look older once or twice so I could buy alcohol. But that’s it, I swear.”

Theo’s astonished smile hit him square in the chest. He looked absolutely charmed by Zeki’s admission. “It was after finals. I was desperate.” Zeki grinned up at him. “Am I talking about myself or magic too much? Let me know. I know I can go on, and no one finds it that interesting, but”—he rolled a shoulder ruefully—“magic’s kind of my only topic of conversation at the moment unless you want to talk about job hunting. I don’t have much of a life.”

“I don’t mind. I don’t fully understand all of what you’re saying, but you get excited.” From the way Theo said it, an excited Zeki was a good thing. Zeki tried to see how that could be, then gave up. He decided to stay closer to the topic that had relaxed Theo enough to look at him again.

“Your walls would be easy to paint blessings or charms onto. Or if you prefer, a symbol of your own choosing or design.” Zeki stepped away to push his hand against the bare wall. “Then you paint over them in whatever color you want. If you wanted to paint over them.” There was nothing wrong with white walls. White was a good color, with good associations in many magical traditions. Zeki happened to find it boring as a room color, that was all. But maybe overstimulated werewolf senses liked a boring wall.

“Oh. The walls. I never painted them. It didn’t occur to me, I guess. Too….” Theo hesitated. “Distracted.” He twisted his mouth unhappily. “I don’t have a life either, but you know that.”

Zeki hadn’t expected Theo to mention his history. But he gave a nod, so Theo would know that he understood, then straightened up.

“Not having a life is something that is changeable, if you wanted to.” He wasn’t sure he could wait for the answer. Theo might not even have an answer yet. If there was one to be found, it might be in his kitchen. Zeki drifted in that direction, not sure what to expect.

He saw curtains, perhaps the only ones in the house, and went to them first. He stared out at Theo’s neglected backyard, the space for trees and herbs Theo had never planted, and bit his lip to keep quiet. Then he moved on. He was studying the shelf of cookbooks when he felt Theo’s presence in the doorway, but he didn’t turn.

Two of the cookbooks were store-bought. The rest were notebooks. Theo’s, Zeki was guessing. He created and wrote down what worked. Zeki ran his bandaged fingertips over those and felt the pull from them. “They look like spellbooks because they are,” he commented, unspeakably happy at the realization. Here was Theo’s heart, spelled out, quite literally, in Theo’s own handwriting.

The kitchen was spotless—sparkling clean, in fact. Zeki opened a cabinet, peering in wonder at the ingredients arranged exactly how Theo wanted them. His kitchen was practically a work room for spellcraft, with neatly labeled jars of flours, tins of cocoa, and wrapped squares of dark chocolate alongside nuts and cinnamon sticks and vanilla beans.

“This is beautiful.” Zeki kept his voice low out of respect. Everything tingled when he touched it, charged with so much feeling and power. “Theo,” he exhaled reverently, “the spells I could cast in here. The whole room radiates
you
.” He put his head back and carefully closed the cabinet door before he turned to look at Theo. “You’re powerful.”

Theo brought his eyes up from Zeki’s throat and seemed upset. “I’m not. I wasn’t trained or anything. I didn’t study. I never meant to be.”

“Oh yes.” Zeki wanted to touch everything and had to fight not to. To know Theo he’d had to see his kitchen. “I’d never use your workspace without your permission, but you should know how remarkable this is, Theo. How remarkable you are. People think weres have no conscious control over their magic, but you’ve infused this room with everything you’ve ever wanted to give. It’s generous and loving and a little sad, but safe. And it’s so strong. This is your space, undeniably.” Zeki nearly put a hand to his dick when he realized how aroused he was by this new side of Theo. Theo was going to notice if he hadn’t already. Zeki cleared his throat. “In high school I never thought you liked to bake, much less how you do.”

Theo looked uncomfortable. “You mean with my feelings.”

“I mean with your magic. But yes.” Zeki’s voice got husky despite his efforts to seem unaffected. “If I charmed this room, our magic would blend together. But I’d only do that if you wanted me to.”

“Yes.” Theo answered before Zeki could explain what that would entail. He ducked his head as if he seemed to realize he had spoken too quickly, but didn’t take it back. “That’s okay.”

“Does it bother you that I’m in here?” This room was clearly Theo’s personal space. It would be understandable if Zeki poking through it made him uneasy, but Theo stared at him as if the suggestion was ridiculous. Zeki hesitated, curious about the rest of the cabinets, about those recipe books and what he might learn from them. But he’d pushed enough already. He didn’t need Theo realizing how obnoxious he could be just yet.

He slipped past Theo to go out into the living room, heading toward the books once again. “Natural talent is one thing, but anything done well still takes practice and dedication. Or, if you were me as a kid, hiding away in the library with research rather than face my truly pathetic weekends alone.” Zeki pried one book out of its place and stared at the familiar cover. “But you hid in books too, even if I didn’t get what you were hiding from.” It came out as a question.

Theo stayed in the kitchen doorway. “My family is kind of… small town famous.” Zeki snorted at that understatement and Theo amended it. “We’re old wolf. It attracts some attention, especially in this town when the tourists are here. I don’t like attention. So I would read.”

Zeki glanced up from under his eyelashes. “You hid, same as me.” His crush on Theo was less embarrassing in that context. They’d had something in common without knowing it. He pushed the book into place. “You always had your face in a novel. You never did look up.”

He swallowed and spun on his heel to go check out the hallway and Theo’s bedroom. He had a curious nature and was going to blame it on that and not his own embarrassment. “You know, the sheriff said I smelled curious the other day,” he called out as he moved, already used to how Theo followed him at a respectful distance. “But that’s not exactly true, is it? I mean, according to what you said, you all smell components of things. So everything about me
added up
to curious, but it was probably more of him reading me the way he reads other weres, all that body language and silent communication.” He considered the bathroom, the claw foot tub with the shower curtain pushed back, the plain bathmat. He opened up the hall closet, found linens, towels, cleaning supplies, and unmarked boxes. No magic. “That’s your language, isn’t it? I mean, how weres communicate with each other, whether you are currently wolves or not.”

“In a sense.” Theo didn’t say a word about how nosy Zeki was being. For a werewolf who didn’t like attention, he seemed fine with Zeki rooting through his life to learn about him. He stopped a few feet behind Zeki as Zeki slipped into his bedroom. His voice was strained. “We like words too.” Theo paused, then asked, “Zeki, back in school, did you
want
me to look up?”

Zeki’s heart kicked against his ribs, giving Theo the answer before he even opened his mouth. He sighed for the truth finally revealed. Now Theo would know what everyone else had known for years. “Of course I did, Theo. Everyone knew it but you.” He could always say he was over the crush. Theo wouldn’t believe him, but Zeki could pretend anyway if it bothered him.

He turned at the thump from behind him and saw Theo leaning heavily against the wall. Theo drew his eyebrows together, but the soft circle of his mouth made him seem more shocked than angry.

“Are you nervous about me in your bedroom? I can stay out.” Zeki stepped into the hall to prove it. He didn’t know exactly how the mate thing worked, but if Theo had been making cupcakes like those chocolate ones he’d made for the bake sale, then he probably hadn’t had anyone in his bedroom in a long time.

“I was a year behind you.” Theo put a hand under his shirt, like he was hot and about half a heartbeat from tearing it off. He clutched at it instead. Zeki got concerned enough to approach him, but he stopped when Theo tensed. “You noticed me?” Theo shook his head, as if something wasn’t adding up. Embarrassing admissions aside, the news shouldn’t have been that surprising. Theo had gone out to The Meadows to mess around with other weres his age. He had to know he was attractive.

Just in case, Zeki gestured at him. He kept his tone light and didn’t let his eyes linger as he indicated Theo’s body, Theo’s face. “Theo,” he began in somewhat embarrassed exasperation, “look at yourself. You were the same in high school, maybe not as tall, and your hair was shorter, but otherwise you were exactly the same—hot. You were responsible for a good portion of my embarrassing teenage moments in class. My senior year I stared at the back of your head every single day. You honestly didn’t notice?”