“No, well … Andrew has stolen several things from me and I’ve rounded them up before. Right at this moment there’s nothing missing. That I know of. I’m here to talk to him about the day. I think we’re going to London later.”
“Oh.” Both relaxed and Tabitha went on, “Go right in. Their door is the first on the right down the hall.”
“Uh … I can’t just barge into their bedroom and wake them up. Maybe I’ll—”
“They’re up.” Thomas glared again. “The little stura turs—”
“Now, really, Thomas. Those are your sons. Yes, they’re up. Andrew was up early to make sure he would have enough eggs from the stores to provide for you all this morning. And he didn’t mean to crash around, dear. Jay left his pack in the middle of the floor and his shoes in the hall.”
“Is Jason feeling better? Was he all right last night?”
“Oh, yes.” Tabitha smiled. “I think he’s fine. Bethany called on him and the others after Andrew told us they’d been through a spot of bother with a vampire. I spoke to her myself and she says they’re well enough.”
“Even Kage?” My heart leapt. “Did she look at his eyes. Do you know?”
“As to that, I’m not sure. He’ll need some time and to change each day and the damaged tissues should correct. Eyes and brains and bones and major organs … a prickly business, as I’m sure you know. But, know what’s the weirdest?”
Growing a bone in your penis every time you change to fur?
“No,” I said, “what’s the weirdest?”
“Eight nipples. That’s the weirdest.”
“That does sound disconcerting. I’d have thought a tail was harder to get used to, though.”
“Oh—” She waved a hand again. “A tail is just an extra useful spine. Now, we’re off to the kitchens. I have a catering job this evening and Thomas is being a dear and helping me get ready. You go right in and make yourself at home.”
“Thank you—”
“And watch your pockets.” Thomas gave me a meaningful look, tapping the corner of his eye.
Then they went on, back to talking about the best cheeses to sit out at room temperature.
I didn’t have to go knocking on bedroom doors because Andrew was already opening the front door as I reached for the knob. He’d obviously heard us.
“Morning, Belle. Mingling with the parents so early?”
I looked over my shoulder at them wandering away, then smiled at him. “I love your parents.”
“So do we. You’ve come to the right club.” In nothing but cargo pants and his glasses, Andrew stepped back, extending his arm to invite me in. “Welcome to our humble den. What’s wrong?”
“Wrong?”
“You look dreadful, darling.”
“Oh. I didn’t sleep.”
He arched an eyebrow. “Your appetite truly is insatiable.”
“Not because I was with someone. Nightmares and … stuff. I need to ask you about a couple of important things.”
“Of course you do. Hardly as if you would pay a call unless you had something to demand from me.”
“Andrew, I didn’t mean—”
He sighed. “Have a seat. Let’s get this over with.”
Chapter 29
Andrew fixed me black tea with chicory and carob that ended up making something not quite like coffee, but still warm and satisfying. Then I sat at a barstool at the wraparound counter with my mug while he made pie crust.
He didn’t use a recipe—seemed to know what he was doing—talking to me at the same time and moving deftly about his work. I found this more fascinating than was strictly necessary because I’d never enjoyed my morning cup while watching a guy bake. Much less a beautiful, shirtless guy.
He was already cutting partly frozen lard into a food processor with flour, salt, and a bit of baking powder before I remembered to ask about Jason.
“Trying to go back to sleep,” Andrew told me, grinning. “I already woke him twice coming and going this morning.”
“And you take pleasure in that?”
Andrew tightened the lid and ran the food processor for several pulses. The noise was horrendous.
“That pillock shouldn’t even be here. The last thing he needs is to be encouraged.” Andrew dumped the resulting crumbs into a bowl, popped the bowl in the freezer, then started a second batch in the food processor. He measured the flour, eyeballing everything else.
“He and Kage broke up,” I said. “You could try a little compassion.”
“Why? So they’ll stay broken up? With Jason all comfy over here? It’s happened before and it will happen again. He just needs to go back and grovel—which he’s a master at like you wouldn’t believe.”
“It has?”
“Sure it has.” He chopped in more cold lard. “Think this is the first time they’ve had a rift? They’ve only actually split a couple times since they moved in together, but it used to be practically a weekly ordeal. Hunt Moon, that relationship has taken years off my life. The sooner Jay goes back the happier everyone will be. Why keep him around?”
Another buzz with the deafening machine. Andrew dumped the next batch of crumbs into a bowl, traded for the one in the freezer, and began adding little splashes of chilled water, tossing the mix with a fork and watching the consistency.
“You’re sure they’ll get back together?” I asked.
“We have to assume. And pray. The sooner the better.”
“Is Jason difficult to have here?”
“Bloody menace. Now he’s decided to play up his illness since he’s warm and comfortable in my bed. Tough it out before, naturally. Had a proper long gait for the last couple days, didn’t he? Now it’s all, ‘That light’s in my eyes, Switch, I need sleep.’ ‘Switch, would you fix my broth? Would you get my bone from Merab if I’m still not on my feet on Saturday?’ ‘I still have a fever, Switch. Would you bring me some ice?’ If he wants to be an invalid and taken care of, he can go back to his mate. Kage likes looking after him. I have a life.”
“And he’s only been here one night.”
“Moon, Sun, and stars,” Andrew said under his breath as he prepared a floured mat to roll out the crust. “Feels like a season.”
“Why does he call you that?”
“All the yearlings used to call me Switch. It’s from switchfoot—fast on your feet, springy, you know.”
“And Sparky?”
“That one’s an inside joke. They had an incident in which Kage was almost seen by mundanes in daylight one time. Of course, they laughed it off and hardly anyone even knows about it—or Kage’s pelt would have been tacked up on Diana’s wall. But the joke was that Jay could have told the mundanes this was just his dog, Sparky. Perfectly apropos nickname for Kage anyway since he’s Jason’s pet.”
“I really hope things are okay between them. If there’s anything I can do—”
“They’ll work it out.” Andrew delicately rolled and turned one half of the first dough batch, dusting with flour. “Hopefully sooner rather than later—so the ligger will shift his lazy arse out of here. But whatever. Between his sister and his eyes and Jay and you … this hasn’t been one of Kage’s best weeks.”
“I’m going to do all I can to make that right. It’s my fault.”
“Sure it is.” Not quite rolling his eyes.
“I don’t believe Jason did this on purpose.”
“Fine. Don’t believe it.”
Silence for a couple minutes while Andrew rolled the second half, then draped both crusts into two of four waiting deep pie dishes. He neatly trimmed, rolled, and crimped the edges all the way around while I watched.
“It doesn’t matter,” I said at last. “Jason never forced or even coerced me into anything. If he did have any malicious intentions as far as sabotaging mine and Kage’s relationship—which I don’t believe; he had plenty of other chances before then—it still doesn’t matter. I was the one who should have known better and said no.”
“Sur
e.” Andrew pricked the crusts with a fork, then filled each with a couple handfuls of dry kidney beans and put them in the hot oven. A large oven. The whole kitchen was larger and nicer than the others I’d seen here, remodeled with extra counter space, oversized appliances, and a deep, stainless steel sink.
“Anyway, what matters now is me being able to talk to Kage and make things right. If anything heals the relationship between him and Jason, maybe that will.”
Andrew grabbed his second bowl from the freezer. “What’s stopping you? Sparky’s home alone. Go get in bed with him.”
I sighed. “He won’t even speak to me. One step at a time.”
Andrew paused, hands around the cold bowl, drumming his fingers against it, gazing down into it as he apparently thought about what I said.
He looked up. “How, Cassiopeia, are you expecting to make up with Kage if you’re not going to sleep with him?”
“I’m going to talk to—”
“Because you do know what he’s upset about, right? He was all, ‘Hey, pick me. Am I a stud, or what?’ And Jay was all, ‘Don’t mind me. I’ll just sit over here.’ And you were all, ‘Hey, Jason, ever slept with a lady? Right this way, handsome.’ And Kage was all—along with the rest of us—‘Flip to Moon. Oh, no she didn’t. Flip to bleeding Moon.’ And Jay was all, ‘Nailed it.’ And you were all, ‘Oh, sorry, Kage. I hadn’t thought you’d mind. Let’s talk this out.’”
Andrew had been watering his crumbs, once more tossing with a fork, but he stepped back and held up his hands as if I aimed a gun at him.
“I mean, if that’s the route you want to go, I guess it makes sense with this whole trip you’re all on, right? It’s like someone with three different personality disorders wrote this script. So what the hell? But, if you actually want Kage back, and you want to sort out your relationships, just fuck him.”
He gave his crust another fluffing with the fork and turned it out onto the newly floured mat, muttering. “One big happy family again. I don’t know what else you’re thinking.”
“Makeup sex doesn’t solve problems. We need to talk. He needs to know what happened and stop blaming Jason, and either accept my apology or not. Jumping into bed without working through the anger and issues isn’t a solution.”
Andrew glanced at me over his glasses, face still downturned to his crust rolling. Then he said, “Huh.” And went on rolling.
“I actually wanted to ask you about other things.”
“So you can chuckle at the naïveté of my advice?”
“No, Andrew. Sorry. I’m sure what you’re saying makes sense. But I can’t think that way. I need to talk to Kage. And he needs that also.”
“Tomorrow’s his birthday.”
I blinked. “What?”
“Kage. Something else Jay was whinging about. Wanting to be with Sparky for his birthday but he’s being all mean to Jay. Add that to Kage’s list of Worst Week Ever.”
I pinched the bridge of my nose between thumb and forefinger while Andrew trimmed and crimped his second two crusts.
“That’s horrible,” I said. “Is there anything I can do for him? What’s—”
“Uhh…?”
“I mean, anything other than sex? What’s usual for you all on birthdays? Do you have traditions?”
“Oh, we’ve adopted a lot of worm habits. A couple gifts from closest friends and family, might take the day off work, do something fun as the spirit moves us, have a nice dinner with family. That sort of thing. Cakes and the whole works when we’re pups. After our pedemittere—coming of age ceremony, when we really have a proper do: whole pack, dinner, cake, speeches—birthdays aren’t such a big deal beyond then. Still, it’s nice to be appreciated rather than broken up, isolated, grieving, sexually frustrated, living alone, and blind.”
I looked up from my mug and eye-rubbing.
Andrew smiled as he added dry beans into the dishes. He popped these two into the upper oven rack, rotating the first two onto the bottom.
He turned back to me. “Now, darling, what was it you wanted to ask?”
Chapter 30
While the crusts baked, Andrew grated mountains of cheese, chopped about four pounds of ham into chunks, and rinsed and chopped a small stalk of broccoli.
“What’s going on with the pack?” I asked after an offer to help which he waved away. “I knew they were upset when you all did the vow to me last weekend. But not this bad. And it’s not just me. They’re treating all of you differently. Atarah was as polite as always to me. And Tabitha and Thomas didn’t act like I was a rabid dog. But everyone else I’ve seen since we got back has been weird.”
Andrew removed two crusts from the oven and rotated the other two to the lower rack. He started cracking eggs into a huge serving bowl and tossing the shells in a compost bucket on the floor where he’d also thrown the broccoli stalk trimmings.
I heard a door in the hall and looked around to see Jason dragging his way out to us. In shorts and an old T-shirt, black stubble on his face and eyelids sagging, he looked as pathetic and dejected as Andrew had described him. His own illness finally having caught up to him when he was technically on the mend?
“Morning,” he mumbled to me. “Sleep all right?”
“Not really. You?”
Jason made a face as he slouched into the kitchen. “Other than being woken a dozen times.”
Andrew gave me a meaningful look.
“Did you heat any broth?” Jason asked him. Pitifully.
“Nope. I’m sure Kage would have heated some for you by now if you were home.”
“Do you still have a fever?” I asked.
“Yes,” Jason said at the same time Andrew said, “No. He’s fine.”
Jason cast Andrew a hurt look, as if he couldn’t believe the brutality. It was true he didn’t look well. After all he’d had to deal with while his sickness was at its worst he really needed a day in bed with fluids.
He shuffled to the refrigerator to pull out a half-gallon jar with a little congealed bone broth left in it. He fumbled around for a small stainless steel pot to plunk on the burner and dump the gloopy broth in. Shivering, hugging himself, he leaned into the counter to wait for it to heat. There was no microwave in the place.
Andrew ignored him.
I slid off my barstool and walked around the counter. “I’ll bring it to you when it’s hot. Go lie down.”
“It’s all right.” Another violent shiver.
“Don’t act like that. Go on.”
Jason got a mug out of the cabinet for me, mumbled thanks, and shuffled away.
Andrew really did roll his eyes then.
“Give him a break,” I said. “He was almost killed. He can have a day in bed with broth.”
“So were the rest of us, darling. Do you see any other cripples around here? You wouldn’t be saying that if he was taking up your room.”
“Why doesn’t he have his own bed? Or sleep on the couch?”
“He used to have his own. We grew up with two singles. Now it’s my room but he still invites himself over. And the sofa is too short.”
“So he sleeps with you when he’s over?”
“That bit’s not like it sounds to a human ear. I wouldn’t care if he needed to curl up with me for a night if he was actually in need. But he’s not. What he needs is to go home.” Raising his voice to call down the hall on the last few words.
“Who are you to judge that? It’s his relationship, his sickness, his feelings. Give him a little time. If you’re right, I’m sure he’ll be back with Kage soon.”
Andrew sighed. He pushed me aside with a hand on my hip and removed the next two crusts to cool on the empty burners.
I took Jason the broth, finding the first room on the right dark with the blinds drawn.
Jason was curled up, head and shoulders on a pillow, but dragged himself into a reclined sitting position when he saw me.
“Want to see Bethany again?” I asked, taking the mug to a bedside table for him.
Jason shook his head. “I’m all right. Just feel really … weak. And cold. Like I’ve been left out in the rain for three months. She said it was a normal part of the recovery.”
“That makes sense. Do you think you’ll be able to make things right with Kage?”
“That’s up to him. He’ll hardly look at me.”
“Me too. Andrew says it’s his birthday tomorrow. Is there anything we can do?”
“I don’t know what else to do.” He twisted his hands together. “I have something for him. Not that he’s going to be in the mood…”
“No, I’m sorry.”
With my eyes more accustomed to the gloom, I had a chance for a quick look around the room as I left. Bookshelves, a desk with a laptop, a couple of DVD towers. Yet the space felt impersonal—bare walls, almost no clutter. It looked like a room someone was just about to move out of, or had just arrived at.
Then a framed photograph caught my eye on a plain wooden shelf by the door. It struck me as odd, though it took me a minute to realize this was because I’d not seen one such image in any of their homes. In fact, hadn’t Jason told me that they didn’t go in much for pictures? Here, though, was a young brunette, her hands clasped together as she stood on the beach on a cloudy day, just looking around to the camera, smiling, but shy, seeming to pull away. One of those, Okay, that’s enough photos faces.
I knew instantly who she was. And probably who had taken the picture. Placed around the frame were two blue cat eye marbles, a small plastic figure of a dingo, the shell of a robin’s egg, a tightly folded sheet of paper lying under sprigs of dried flowers, and an infinity engagement ring set with incredibly tiny diamonds in the twining band.
I almost turned back to Jason, almost started asking questions about wolf marriage or partnership customs.
I stopped myself and went on back to the kitchen.
Andrew was just ladling the beaten eggs, with cream, salt, pepper, and rosemary added, over a crust in which he had arranged all the broccoli, plus a scattering of diced ham and thick layer of sharp cheddar.
I returned to my place on the stool and didn’t say anything for a few minutes while he worked.
Moonlight Betrayal: A Reverse Harem Shifter Romance (The Witch and the Wolf Pack Book 5) Page 18