Chapter 11
Piper
If I go any longer without eating, I might chew through the beautiful, imported silk wallpaper of this manor.
“Remind me why the chef’s off on Wednesdays?” I whisper with all the subtlety of a pop star wearing bunny slippers. Which… okay, I am.
Nolan shuts the book he’s reading. “Kellen enjoys cooking. Are you hungry?”
“Starving.” I set aside the notebook I’d been scribbling lyrics into. “Want to go investigate options in the kitchen?” Which is a stupid question because Nolan will literally follow me anywhere, even before this new bond formed.
Nolan sets his book aside and rises from his chair. “Lead the way.”
I do. I hurry downstairs to the kitchen just for him to hold the door open for me once we get there. Inside, it smells like cinnamon and yeast and some incredibly illegal amount of melted butter.
At the center island: Prince Kellen Hale, standing there exuding strong “off-duty prince” vibes in joggers and an oatmeal-stained tee.
He doesn’t see us. He’s hyper-focused on a camera rigged above his workspace as his hands move in practiced, hypnotic rhythms. Kneading and folding, tucking and then brushing.
Elliot stands to his left watching Kellen with mesmerized eyes until he notices us.
For a moment, he almost looks jolted by our appearance but any surprise is quickly replaced with affection.
I study all the projects Kellen’s in the middle of working on. Bread, cookies, and even some pastries. “I knew you were great in the kitchen, but this looks incredible.”
Elliot jerks his chin at Kellen, then at the bread. “He’s been at that for hours. Keeps muttering about hydration percentages.”
Kellen, still in a trance, brushes an egg wash over a row of cinnamon rolls and doesn’t look up. “Aren’t you supposed to be sleeping?”
“Sleep is rare for me.” I wander over and pluck a stray walnut from the edge of the counter. “What are we making?”
He waves a spatula in the vague direction of the cooling racks. “Kolaches. Three kinds. Also, cinnamon rolls, croissants, and … whatever’s in the oven.”
I look. It’s a tray of pinwheel-looking things that are glittering with coarse sugar. “A little bread therapy?”
“Perpetual bread therapy.” Kellen finally glances up.
His blue eyes make my heart skip a beat.
Hell, being in the same room with all three of my alphas sends my heart into an endless gyre of warmth and happiness.
Their scents swirl around me like the cinnamon on Kellen’s pastries. “Also, I have a delivery tomorrow.”
Nolan raises an eyebrow. “You deliver these out? To where?”
“Senior center,” Elliot supplies. “It’s his monthly thing.”
Nolan doesn’t say anything to that, but I see him processing that information and tucking it away for later use. How a senior center could be dangerous is anyone’s guess.
I flash Kellen a playful grin. “So this is what palace heirs do in their downtime? I always imagined fencing practice. Maybe falconry.”
Kellen rolls his eyes. “If you must know, my viral secret is that I run an extremely popular baking channel.” He pauses, then reluctantly admits, “With over two million followers.”
I drop the walnut. “Wait. What? Two million?” And then it connects and my eyes go wide. “You’re the ‘Handsome Hands Bakery’ guy?” I glance down at his hands. How the hell did I not realize before now?
He blushes bright with pink across his cheekbones. “I am, but I only get away with it because only Elliot knows, and my face, signet ring, nothing that could identify me is in the videos. And no one from the palace that’s been here seems to notice the familiarity of the kitchen.”
My mouth drops open and I clap my hands together with a little squeal that would mortify me if I weren’t so genuinely surprised. The Handsome Hands Bakery videos? I’ve fallen asleep to those gentle kneading motions more nights than I can count.
My own blush starts as my mind immediately pictures those kneading motions at work elsewhere. On my own body.
I blink and add, “I’ve sent your videos to people. I made your lemon twist bread for Thanksgiving. It’s still the only thing my aunt talks about.”
Elliot grins proudly, while Kellen busies himself with exactly nothing, refusing to make eye contact. It’s pretty adorable actually. Who would have thought that Prince Kellen Hale not only makes cinnamon rolls, but is one.
I want to reach out and squeeze his arm, but I settle for crowding his personal space. “You could have told me. You don’t strike me as the bashful type.”
Kellen shrugs lightly. “I like having something that’s just mine. That’s not for the world to pick apart.”
I get that, maybe too much.
Kellen’s eyes light up. “Want to help? Usually I drag Elliot in to assist, but I’ve used up nearly all of my good will there.”
Elliot laughs.
My hands go up. “Do I look like someone who can be trusted with an egg wash?”
“You look like someone who’s been banned from three separate hotel chains for fire-related incidents,” Elliot says dryly.
Nolan cracks a smile but doesn’t affirm or deny.
“Those were accidents.” They were also hilarious, but the insurance companies will never see it that way.
Kellen hands me a bowl and points to a mountain of dough. “Here. Make balls the size of golf balls. Not tennis or baseball.”
I salute. “Yes sir, Prince Kellen.”
Kellen’s smile slips for a moment. “Don’t call me that. At least, not when we’re together like this. My title doesn’t matter with this pack.”
No one comments on his use of ‘pack.’ Like it’s simply a thing now, no point denying it. So we carry on helping Kellen bake.
We’re halfway through dough-ball assembly when Kellen asks, “Did you ever want to do something else, Piper?”
“Like, for work?”
He nods.
I don’t have to think about it. “I wanted to make movies. Documentaries. Art-house stuff. I majored in film for like a semester before all this happened.” I gesture vaguely at myself, as though the pop star trappings are visible.
Kellen nods. “Do you regret going into the music industry instead?”
I squish a dough ball too hard. “Sometimes? Not really. I mean, I get to make music videos. That’s close enough, right?”
He thinks about that while methodically spacing out the raw pastries on parchment. “I wanted to be a marine biologist. My parents said that was probably not going to happen with the prince title.”
Elliot is focused on rolling out a perfect dough ball at the far end of the counter. “I think you would have made a great marine biologist.”
Kellen looks grateful. “Thank you. Maybe one day yet.”
“What about you two?” I ask the bodyguard contingent.
They’ve been pretty silent, although my experience is they’re always a little too silent.
I’ve cracked Nolan open some over the years, but much of Elliot still remains too much of a mystery at this stage in our situationship, for lack of a better word.
For lack of the fully-agreed-upon term pack. Minus the “fake” modifier.
Elliot watches me watch him. “I wanted to be a cop, or a firefighter. This is almost the same thing, saving people and putting out fires. But my focus is Kellen first.”
“Bodyguard is the sweet spot for all three,” Kellen agrees.
Nolan grunts. “Police officer here, too. Although I did get through the academy. It didn’t work out.”
I raise an eyebrow. “It didn’t?” I had no idea Nolan was a police officer before joining Ravenwood.
He snatches up the bowl of dough balls I made and rearranges them. “No. I had authority issues.”
That doesn’t seem to track, but I have no reason to believe Nolan’s lying to me. Maybe I’ve just never seen them because his boss—whoever that is—is never around.
“Thank you for telling us,” I say softly.
Nolan nods.
We get into a rhythm. Kellen orchestrates. Elliot supervises. I make misshapen kolaches while Nolan criticizes everyone’s form. It is, objectively, the most domestic I have ever been in my life.
Kellen nods at my lump pastry. “You’re a natural. That’s rustic charm.”
“It’s definitely an aesthetic,” I agree. “Ugly food tastes better, anyway, I think.”
We’re brushing on the final layer of egg wash when Nolan accidentally splatters a glob onto my nose. I feel it before I see it.
I stick my tongue out. “Smooth.”
“That was deliberate,” he deadpans, but his eyes are crinkling at the edges.
I swipe a streak of flour and flick it at him. It lands square on his black shirt. Bullseye.
He eyes the flour. “You want to start a war, Sumner?” There’s a gleam of joy in his gaze.
I look at the counter, then at Nolan. “I mean. If you’re not scared.”
Kellen, traitor that he is, picks up the open bag of flour and pours a tiny mountain into his hand and pats the mountain right onto my head. “I’m afraid you’re not very intimidating, Piper.”
I scoff and launch a handful of my own at Kellen. I’m throwing flour at the damn prince. His parents would probably lose it. But I don’t have time to consider that more before Elliot and Nolan have joined in and chaos erupts.
I launch a counterattack, but it’s three on one and within a minute, the kitchen looks like a crime scene at a gluten warehouse. I lay on the floor laughing endlessly.
Elliot eventually helps me to my feet. “You look like a very confused ghost.”
I shake off the flour on my clothes. “I’ll haunt you all.”
Nolan’s shirt is a lost cause. Kellen’s hair is gray at the temples.
Elliot’s nose is dusted like a powdered donut.
We stand in the ruin of the palace kitchen, catching our breath.
My cheeks hurt from smiling and my lungs burn from laughing.
The weight I’ve carried on my shoulders—the constant vigilance, the secrets, the performance—has lifted completely.
Kellen leans back against the counter and watches us with a warm, private smile. “You’re all out of control.”
I shuffle closer to Kellen, flour-dusted and wild-haired.
He’s got that rare, unguarded smile reserved for moments when he thinks no one’s watching.
I expect him to say something clever or command us to clean up the mess we’ve made, but instead, he reaches out and wipes a streak of flour from my cheek with the edge of his thumb.
Maybe it’s the adrenaline from the kitchen battle, but I don’t see the forehead kiss coming at all. His lips brush the crown of my head so lightly I almost wonder if I imagined it, but the sensation travels all the way down my spine, setting off a nervous system fire drill.
I’m barely able to inhale before Nolan, still looking like a bouncer who got caught in a bakery burglary, hooks his arm securely around my waist and pivots me to face him.
In one smooth motion, he cups the back of my neck, leans in, and plants a soft, definitive kiss right on my cheekbone.
He lingers there for a beat, long enough for my heart to trip over itself, before letting me go.
By this point I’m expecting Elliot to play it safe, to maintain his usual perimeter of mild amusement and military-grade self-control.
But he’s already closing the distance, eyes bright and a little daring.
He brushes a few strands of hair out of my face.
For a split second his fingers linger at my temple, quietly checking if I’m okay with all this.
I am, obviously, but I’m also not used to this kind of attention—three alphas, one omega, all moving in sync and making it look like the most natural thing in the world.
Elliot’s hand is steady as he tilts my chin and then kisses my other cheek, sweet and unhurried, like this was the plan all along. He pulls back with a grin that’s infuriatingly satisfied. My brain short-circuits trying to process what just happened.
For someone who lives on stages, I’ve never been more flustered by a crowd of three.
I’m barely holding it together, caught in the gravitational pull of their combined adoration and pheromones, and for the first time in longer than I can remember, I actually want to stay in the moment instead of ducking out or deflecting with a joke.
There’s no expectation, no implicit demand for more—just the pure, chaotic affection of our not-quite-a-pack.
I want to be cool and to banter, but I can’t. I’m blushing so hard I must look like a strawberry buried in snow. The three of them all watch me with different flavors of fondness.
The timer dings. Kellen shoves the trays into the oven, then wipes flour off my chin with his thumb.
I clear my throat. “Should we, uh. Clean up?”
Nolan smirks. “Probably.”
We do, and then end up on the kitchen floor afterward, with our backs to the cabinets, eating fresh cinnamon rolls and telling stories that get less and less coherent the later it gets.