Zed pressed his thumbs into her foot to make her moan again. “Because the only other person allowed to see that mark, besides my patriarch, is my chosen mate. The person I’m going to be with for life. Bear clans are very secretive about their sigils, you know. We take this very seriously. Even more seriously than dragons and their ‘true name’ craziness.”

“Oh.” She glanced back at the little squashed hourglass, and to her surprise, the idea of forever with Zed didn’t scare her. Zed was home now, just like Mystic Bayou was home.

Zed grinned. “And now that you’ve seen it, that means you have to make an honest man out of me.”

“You get through a sentence without looking over at the foyer table and we’ll talk about making an honest man out of you,” she told him.

“Fair enough.”

“And you’ll have to tell me what the other tattoos mean,” she demanded.

“I can do that.”

Dani started giggling without warning, and was soon wiping at her eyes, leaving her bear shifter confused.

“What’s so funny?”

“It’s just . . . it’s on your foot,” she sniffed, her cheeks flushed. “How have you kept it hidden all these years? If you were unsure about a girl, did you wear socks to bed?”

He nodded. “Yes.”

And she giggled even harder. “Well, thank you, for being vulnerable enough to share your foot with me.”

“It was all a ruse to trap you into marriage.”

“Worth it,” she wheezed, wiping at her eyes.

She pressed the heel of her hand over the sigil and rubbed at it. He grinned and burrowed down into the couch. “So do you have any other secret tattoos I don’t know about?”

Zed smirked at her. “You’ll find them eventually.”

Dani tweaked his toe. “I look forward to it.”

Dani's Comfort Applesauce Recipe

And if you’d like to make Dani’s family applesauce recipe:

Comfort Applesauce

12 Granny Smith Apples

6 Gala apples or red apples of your choice

2 tablespoons of ground cinnamon

½ teaspoon ground ginger

½ teaspoon ground nutmeg

½ teaspoon ground allspice

½ cup light brown sugar

These measurements are all subjective. Honestly, I don’t measure most of the time. I’ll just add enough brown sugar and cinnamon until it “looks right,” and then add a dash of each of the spices. But I thought that might make first-timers nervous. This recipe is very difficult to mess up, so just find the mix that works for you.

Instructions