31. Piper
CHAPTER 31
Piper
T hat night I couldn’t sleep.
Truly, it was the worst-sounding concert I had ever been to.
And the fact that Rook, Erain, and Teddy had instantly offered to sponsor their album was quite surprising.
Now I would have had to be completely oblivious to not realize that they were planning something in the woods behind the palace grounds. Of course I had promised to go with them tomorrow to see whatever they were building, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t also go look at it tonight on my own.
It was 1 am when I walked out of Otis and Mary’s home, down the steps, and into the forest.
Almost immediately, I felt a sense of peace and calm wash over me, almost eliminating the uncomfortable warmth I was feeling in my body.
It wasn’t too hard to figure out which way the surprise was with the way their huge Alpha feet had been tromping through the woods.
Not only that, I could scent them.
God, even their hours-old scents were getting stronger.
I felt liquid begin to pool in my mouth as goosebumps broke out over my skin, my traitorous nipples tautening as the wind carried the scents over to me. Dark, unyielding steel and bone-deep wood, fresh, crisp winter, the creamy, decadent taste of butterscotch.
Then I broke through the trees and saw it.
I couldn’t suppress a gasp of surprise.
It was so much more beautiful than I could have ever imagined.
A stunning stone and dark wood creation situated right beside the little stream like a filthy rich hobbit house, the water tinkling gently in the moonlight.
It was big, too. Spacious. With a huge wrap-around porch in front and, if I wanted to look, a stunning view of the city through a little window in the trees. In the other direction, the forest stretched away in the distance, with the tiny lights of far-away towns.
“Piper?” someone gasped, and I dragged my eyes from the house to see Rook, Erain, and Teddy working on building what looked like the world’s most luxurious cat palace outside.
The three of them looked frozen with shock, the cat palace expanding around them with huge walkways that Poppy, Iris, and Bluebell would love.
Then they all rushed toward me, arms around me, drawing me toward the house eagerly, all talking at the same time and wanting to show me what they’d made.
Inside, the house was somehow even more beautiful.
The first thing I saw when I came in was that ridiculous painting I’d made for Erain’s art competition, respectfully placed in a huge golden frame.
“Oh my god!” I exclaimed involuntarily.
“The Duke,” Rook said dryly, his lips twisting up at me, “was persuaded to sell it to me, despite saying it was the most beautiful and ground-breaking art he’d ever seen.”
“How about that?” I retorted.
I looked up at the huge cat monstrosity.
“I didn’t win fair and square,” I told Erain. “I bribed the Duke.”
He only grinned at me, his cold face transformed by his gleaming smile.
“I don’t care. Yours was better. It’s actually memorable. I’m working on adding more authentic emotion into my art. And I’d love it if you did that with me.”
He raised a hand and pushed open a door to the right of the entrance.
“An art studio,” he said.
I stepped inside and was stunned. It was a huge, open area with big bay windows, the forest framed inside them. And it was stocked with every art supply imaginable—huge top-of-the-line canvases, the best quality paints.
And every other room was like that, too.
A glorious gleaming in-home gym. An outdoors/indoors pool. Sauna. Hot tub. Bedrooms that were twice the size of my old apartment. A playroom just for the kittens.
A big kitchen.
“I’ll do the cooking,” Rook said over my shoulder. “Since I know you loathe it.”
“We just want to share it with you,” Erain said. “That’s all we want.”
I felt my skin prickle, heat and anger roiling into an uneasy salve over my skin.
“I can’t get past it,” I hissed. “And I frankly think if you had never scented me, didn’t feel biologically drawn to my scent, that you wouldn’t give a shit about me. I can’t get past that.”
Erain stepped closer, and I had to fight my treacherous Omega urges to run to him, wrap my legs around his waist, and nuzzle into his stupid Alpha scent.
“I promise you, Piper,” he said, and I saw him trying to fight back tears, but unable to stop them as they spilled out and down the unbearable gorgeous perfection of his cut-glass cheekbones.
“I promise you, even if I had never scented you, even if you weren’t my fated mate, that I would still love you and think you were the best woman in the world. I said what I did out of stupid arrogance and pride. I reject what I said. I reject that entire stupid mindset I had. Smelling you means your scent makes drool run down my chin and I can’t keep my cock down, but knowing you means that I love you and think you’re the only one in the world for me. I don’t need a knot to know that.”
“I don’t think I can get past it,” I said again, feeling tears on the corners of my eyes, my emotions a chaotic whirl in my chest.
And I turned and ran as fast as I could back to Otis’ house and slammed the door.
I could hear them outside my window all night crying, sleeping on the hard ground. They didn’t come in to bother me.
But I knew they were waiting.
For something I didn’t know if I could ever give them.