“Oh.” Magnus stood abruptly, beaming at the woman for her timely arrival. “Of course. Come in. I shall just take our coffee cups away while you do.”

“Oh, I didn’t mean to chase you off,” Leonora protested as he bent to scoop up both his and Allie’s cups. “This should only take a minute or two.”

“And so will this,” he said lightly as he walked toward her with the cups in hand. “Go ahead. I shall be right back.”

Leonora peered at him with curiosity, and then her expression turned more focused and he knew she was trying to read his mind. He paused then, just feet from her, curious to see if she could. Normally, an immortal as young as Leonora wouldn’t be able to read him because he was so much older than her, but immortals who had just found their life mates were supposed to be easy to read for the first year after finding them and he was curious to see if that was the case. It would be more proof that Allie was indeed his—

“Oh. I see.”

Magnus blinked his thoughts away at those barely breathed words, and smiled at Leonora again. She could read him.

“Take your time,” he said lightly as he eased past her to slip out of the room.

“Well, he couldn’t seem to get out of here quick enough,” Allie said with disgruntlement as soon as the door closed behind Magnus.

“Men do dislike anything to do with doctors and such,” Leonora said with amusement as she crossed to her side with the clipboard and blood pressure cuff in hand. She set both down on the coffee table in front of the couch, and then produced the thermometer from her pocket.

“I had just asked him about life mates before you came in,” Allie admitted. “I’ve heard the word used a couple of times and wondered if it just means ‘mate’ to immortals, or is something special.”

“Oh, life mates are definitely something special,” Leonora assured her.

“Why?” Allie asked at once.

“Because immortals mate for life,” Leonora said simply, and then popped the thermometer in Allie’s mouth. “That isn’t to say that if their life mate dies they won’t ever find another one. But while the first life mate lives, they will be devoted to her or him and never stray. For immortals, having a life mate really means until death parts them.”

Allie’s eyebrows rose at this news as Leonora took her wrist in hand. In this day and age when half the marriages failed, and the young weren’t even bothering to marry much anymore, mating for life seemed a rare and unusual thing. She wanted to ask why that was the case, but couldn’t with the thermometer in her mouth, so thought the question in her head, actually hoping, for a change, that Leonora would read her mind.