Chapter 11
CHAPTER 11
N oah
The smell of bacon, pancakes, eggs, and fruit greet me as soon as I open my bedroom door. I’m up slightly earlier than usual, after showering and dressing for the day.
A huge breakfast spread sits on the kitchen island, waiting to be devoured.
I ignore my hunger and peer up toward the ceiling. I can’t see anything except the wooden beams of the same ceiling that make the flooring of Serafina’s bedroom.
Go to her! my wolf demands. I have to let the fucker know that he’s not the one in charge. I haven’t slept well in the three nights since she’s been here.
My wolf is restless, demanding, and so damn needy. The first night she was here I even laid outside of her bedroom door, a small part of me hoping she’d open the door, feeling the same need flowing through me to not sleep alone.
She doesn’t even have a wolf, I remind my wolf. He just makes a snorting sound and blows out a puff of air as if he doesn’t believe me.
Like I would lie to the fucker. He can sense just as well as I can that she doesn’t have a wolf.
Hiding, he replies as if I’m supposed to know what that means.
“You’re up early,” Ronan says as he enters the kitchen, wearing only a pair of blue and green plaid pajama bottoms.
I grunt at my brother as I pour a glass of freshly squeezed orange juice into a glass. My eyes hungrily roam over the spread before us. Ever since Montgomery returned, he gets up at the crack of dawn to prepare a damn buffet breakfast from scratch. Our youngest brother always finishes cooking, cleans up after himself, and is out of the door before Ronan and me.
Not for the first time I wonder if he ever sleeps.
Aside from cooking and working the construction job he’s taken on, Montgomery prefers to spend his free time in his wolf. Always. However, he rarely goes on pack runs with us.
It makes me question, not for the first time, what the hell happened to him during his time away from us. The period of time in which we believed he was dead. A belief that broke my mother’s heart so much she couldn’t go on living.
And once she was gone, my father couldn’t bear living in this world without his mate.
I run my hand across his chest, wondering if his pain was even deeper than the pain that lanced through me those years ago when we turned Serafina away.
I still remember that night under the full moon, her wide eyes with a sheen of tears she refused to let fall, as Ronan told her the words we’d agreed on. It was during one of the multi-pack runs the Nightwolf, Blackclaw, and some other packs of the Midwest attend on occasion.
Again, my eyes float toward the ceiling.
“Even with your wolf scent you cannot see her through the floorboards,” Ronan casually says before taking a sip of his morning coffee.
He only drinks half a cup since caffeine tends to have double the effect on us shifters than it has over humans.
“You know if you skipped your morning coffee, there is a chance you would be less of a tight ass.”
He snorts, which is his typical response. Barely a flicker of emotion.
But there was emotion last night. Practically flowed off of him every time he looked at our mate.
“He’s not here this morning,” I comment, instead of bringing that up.
“What else is new? Use a plate,” he demands when I swipe one of the pancakes from the top of the stack and take a huge bite.
“Make me,” I tell him while chewing. Damn, Montgomery can cook. My stomach growls, my hunger intensifying from the small morsel I just gave it.
“Plate.” Ronan grips my wrist, stopping me as I reach for another pancake. “We are not barbarians.”
I roll my eyes and snatch my hand out of his grip.
“You know,” I start to say while opening the cabinet that holds the plates and bowls, “our mate would probably say otherwise.”
I hand him a plate, knowing that he won’t place a crumb of food into his mouth until everything is neatly plated and he’s seated at the table.
“She would be wrong,” he simply replies while scooping food onto his plate.
“We should make her a plate, too.” I start spooning pancakes and bacon onto a separate plate for Serafina. “Do you think she likes pancakes?”
My wolf calls me a piece of shit for not knowing the type of food my mate likes. I silence him by silently telling him to fuck off, before I go back to making her plate and placing it in the oven to keep warm.
“She will need more than that if she did not have dinner last night,” Ronan says.
“She ate,” I tell him as we both take our seats at the long, wooden table. Though the table is meant to seat at least ten, from the moment we moved it into this place, it’s only been Ronan and I who've ever eaten here.
I try to ignore the ache in my chest upon remembering that fact, but it’s no use. Even with the return of our long-lost brother and our mate here, it still feels empty as the first time we sat down to eat at the table.
“She came down for dinner? I didn’t scent her downstairs,” Ronan says in my head.
I shake my head before swallowing the forkful of eggs in my mouth.
“Montgomery took the leftover chicken and dumpling soup, biscuits, and crackers up to her.”
Ronan frowns. “He griped about those store-bought crackers being an abomination against Mother Moon when I brought them home.”
I chuckle at the same time I wipe my mouth. One of the few things Montgomery does speak up about is food. Or rather, food he swears is beneath his kitchen.
“He spread ’em out on a baking sheet, seasoned ’em with some sort of mixture he made, and baked them for a while before adding them to the tray he took up to her.” I snort. “He said it’s better than nothing.”
The only acknowledgement Ronan gives is a nod of his head before continuing his breakfast. The lift of his eyebrows, however, speaks to how impressed he is. Montgomery has a gift for making even the most bland shit taste good.
All with a few additions of the combination of spices he’s made on his own.
“Good, she ate,” Ronan adds in a mumble.
“How’s your face?” A smile spreads on my lips even though I tried to bite it back.
Ronan glares at me from across the table, at the same time he works his jaw this way and that.
“Fine.”
I wasn’t honestly worried. It’s not like he can’t take a hit, but we were all shocked into silence for a half a minute after she laid the cleanest right hook I’ve seen in a while on Ronan.
Then the heat that had already been burning in the pit of my stomach from seeing the kiss between her and Ronan began to spread.
By the time I realized what was happening, Serafina had already fled up the stairs, disappearing into her bedroom. It’s a good thing, too. I’d barely been able to hold my wolf instincts back from claiming her.
Yes, watching her sock the hell out of Ronan was a turn on.
I’m a wolf. What the hell do you want from me?
“Are you prepared to take her into town?” Ronan asks.
I almost forgot the reason I got up so early.
“Clothing store, and one of the pharmacies so she can get whatever face creams she likes or whatever.” I grunt.
“Pharmacy?”
Ronan and I both turn in surprise at Serafina’s sudden appearance.
My wolf rises at the same time my eyes naturally scan up and down the length of her body.
At five-eleven, dressed in the same pair of ripped jeans from last night and a button-up shirt that she’s tucked the front of into the jeans, she wears the casual outfit perfectly. I don’t think she’s wearing makeup, yet her dark brown skin glows with the absence of any imperfection.
The long, brunette hair she’s parted on the right side streams over her shoulders in waves.
My eyes drop to her lips. Aside from a light coating of gloss, they're free of color, showing off the natural light brown tone. Staring at them reminds me of her and Ronan’s kiss.
I’ve never been jealous of my brother about anything before. Not his ability to reason out problems with ease. Or his capacity for planning that’s led to one of the major overhauls of the entire Colorado state roadway system.
My brother is gifted when it comes to facts, figures, and plans. And emotional stability. He’s the calm to my ire. It’s our opposite natures that make us such great alphas of the Blackclaw pack.
Yet, staring at Serafina’s lips, I despise that he’s the only one who knows what they taste like.
“Drop something?” Serafina asks, pulling me out of my envy.
I glance down at the table to see the glass of orange juice I’d been in the middle of placing down onto the table is now cracked with juice spilling over onto the floor.
“Shit!”
I jump up so fast my chair falls against the wall, making a loud thudding sound.
Serafina raises an eyebrow as she folds her arms across the chest. The cocky smirk on her lips isn’t doing anything to calm my nerves.
“Eat,” I grunt before going into the kitchen to grab a rag to clean up the mess.
“Not hungry. Meet me outside so we can go into town.”
With that, she flips her hair over her shoulder and spins toward the door.