Mark of Love (Love Mark #3) - Linda Kage Page 0,22

It had been with me since we’d met in the alley.

Sometimes it dogged my horse’s steps, sometimes it led the way along the path as if it knew exactly where we were going, and sometimes it darted off to the side after a field mouse to catch a meal.

After it ignored my initial attempts to shoo it back into town the first day that I left the village to follow the draw from my mark, I gave up and shared my meals with the cat—which it always greedily accepted—and I struck up the occasional conversation with it.

The cat was not a big conversationalist.

“What form do you think we’ll find my mate in this time?” I asked.

No answer.

I lifted my eyebrows as if it had, though. “Really? Not even going to dare to guess the gender or age? Smart,” I murmured. “Very smart. Playing it safe. Though, if you think about it, no one ever accomplished anything great by playing it safe.”

I eyed the cat, waiting for a response. It didn’t even rise to the bait.

“Hey, did you ever hear of the woman who hated negative numbers? She’d stop at nothing to avoid them.”

Still no response.

Hmm. Tough audience.

I thought that had been a damn fine joke myself.

“My great-grandmother,” I went on, returning to my initial subject. “Amelia. The one from Earth that I told you about yesterday. My friend Bison—also from Earth—said she’s known there as the most famous pilot ever.” I waved a distracted hand. “I’ll explain what pilots and airplanes are later. My point is, she didn’t play it safe. She stood up and tried something no person on Earth had ever tried before. They all think she died doing it, of course, but we know the truth, don’t we, cat?”

I had explained my theory about Replacements to the cat three days back.

Brow furrowing, I gave a subtle sigh. “Calling you cat just feels wrong, you know. We should give you a name.” Brightening, I asked, “What do you think of Mittens?”

The cat hissed at me.

Well, at least it was responding to me now.

“Okay, then. Not Mittens, I guess.” Fussy feline. “Whiskers? Felix? Oliver? Bella? Simba?”

This time, I got a low growl from the back of the cat’s throat.

“I’ll keep thinking about it, then.” I sighed. “Seriously though, what reason do you think my true love has for always running from me? I mean, you don’t think he—she—knows I’m their life partner, do you? Maybe they’re just so repulsed by the look of me that they want nothing to do with me.”

That would suck. I wasn’t quite sure what I’d do if that were the case.

I’d want them to always be happy and content, of course, and if they were happier without me, I wouldn’t want to force myself into their life. Then again, the mark was never wrong, and the mark knew which person out there could make you the happiest, so my mate should honestly give us a chance.

I just wasn’t sure quite how to convince them of that.

Needing some advice, even a meow, growl, or purr at this point, I turned my attention to my traveling companion, asking, “Cat?”

Not-Mittens had discovered a bird sitting on a low branch in a nearby tree and was taking up chase, completely ignoring me before it caught sight of a dangling vine swaying in the light breeze and began to bat at it.

“Wow,” I murmured. “So glad to see how much you care.”

Dismissing the cat, I began to hum to myself, a song Grandpa Atchison used to sing to me when I was little. He’d said it had been his mother’s favorite song.

“The sun’s in my heart,” I murmured under my breath. “And I’m ready for love…”

I was beyond ready for love.

“Let the stormy clouds chase everyone from the place.”

Suddenly, my skin began to tingle, and my heartbeat sped up as we neared the settlement, where about half a dozen homes had been built in a circle around an intersection to two main roads.

My mate was here.

Many other voyage-weary travelers had also paused in their journeys and were purchasing food and drink from a handful of vendors posted along the roadside.

My mate loitered among the venders and was back to being old, a female this time, with frail skin and a gaunt frame, and scraggly long white hair that snarled down her back like shriveled, dead snake skins hanging from her scalp.

Keeping a distance away, I hung back, huddled in my dark cloak, and paused at the end of a