Protector by Joanne Wadsworth Page A

reasoning? I’m clueless about what’s going on.”
    No other than my mate and I truly understood our crisis.
    Davio pivoted as he reached the far couch, meeting my gaze first. “This seems good. What about you?”
    The release of tension was instant. “Yes, thank you, that’s perfect.” Nothing like two mates, destined to be together, standing a good room’s width apart. Absolutely perfect.
    Then turning to Zac and the others, he explained while I resigned myself to what was. We had to be touching and merged for the best outcome, or we had to be apart. Lucky for us, I had the skill to merge.
    At the sound of an approaching car, I crossed to the window, listening with half an ear to Davio as I looked outside. The sun was setting, brilliant shades of yellow, orange and pink suffusing the horizon beyond the row of houses on the opposite side of the street.
    A familiar, white four-door Toyota pulled into the driveway and rolled to a stop. A few seconds later, the car door swung open. I smiled as my favorite person in the world came into full view as she stretched and stood, righting her knee-length, back-slit navy skirt and red blouse.
    That was when Zac slid in front of me, lifting his sword and blocking my view.
    I groaned. Loudly. “That’s my mother–Kate Stryker.” I slapped a hand against his arm. His strangely immovable arm. Wow, that was one solid piece of muscle.
    He lowered his weapon, turning to stare and making me feel like I was a pesky bug under his feet. “Your mother–she’s young, and her hair, it’s chestnut-brown. Yours is so light, so very blond.” Next, he looked into my eyes, and not in a good way. “Your eyes are a curious shade of violet. They are not your mother’s color either.”
    “Well, for starters, my mother was very young when I was born. She was eighteen–and she dyes her hair. Usually she’s a blonde.” I shrugged my shoulders. “And the eye color–that must come from my father, not that I know him. He disappeared on the day of my birth.”
    Zac glanced over my head as Davio approached. A second later one warm hand circled my arm as he moved in behind me. I leaned back into him, the contact perfect and preventing any opposing emotions the instant we touched.
    Thumbing his chin, Zac watched my mother reach into the trunk of her car and pull out a couple of eco-green grocery bags. “Your mother looks far younger than the possible thirty-six years you say she must be. She could pass for your older sister.”
    At my back, Davio’s fingers squeezed into the curve of my elbow, his mind ticking over Zac’s observation. I focused on his unblocked thoughts.
    “No,” I snapped, shaking my head.
    He immediately blocked, mumbling. “I mustn’t forget you can do that, but Zac is right–your mother appears far younger than her thirty-six years. She may not be an Earthling.”
    “I already said no. My mother has not lied to me for the past eighteen years. You’re crazy to think she’s not an Earthling. I haven’t seen her doing anything magical.” I took a deep breath and slowly exhaled. “I’d like to think I’d have noticed that.” Which meant my strength skills must have come from my unknown father.
    “It is an observation, yet as you said, she was only eighteen when she gave birth to you. She has aged well, although it is disturbing there is no other known family, that it’s only you and her. In Magio, our children are raised within villages by their immediate and extended family. There are always relatives.”
    I heard the trunk of the car drop with a heavy thud. “My mother would never lie to me. She has no family because she’s an orphan.”
    “Your father? Does she ever speak of the man who is your sire?”
    “No, and I don’t force it. There’s too much pain there for her. I only know vague things, like he was eighteen as she was, and that he left her right after my birth.”
    Davio’s hand stroked absently along the inside of my arm. “Our people