Chapter 24
Elliot
Kellen disappeared on me. It doesn’t happen often, but in the days since Piper left the palace grounds, it keeps happening as I’m drawn into endless meetings and other detail work that takes me away from Kellen.
It’s not that I don’t trust the other Ravenwood Shield security personnel. But Kellen has been my charge since long before I got the badge.
I go up to his quarters first when I return to his manor estate as he’s not in the living room, but he’s not up there either. Most others would search the study next. They’d also find that empty.
There’s only one other place Kellen would be. I round the corner and push open the doors to Kellen’s private kitchen. There he is, having a bare-knuckle fistfight with a mound of dough in the kitchen.
I lean in the doorway. “You know, most people use a rolling pin.”
He doesn’t stop kneading. “Rolling pin’s for flatbreads. This needs hands.” The accent’s gone when he bakes, I’ve noticed. Like he can’t keep up the royal front when there’s flour involved.
I resist the urge to mention that he’s on his third loaf and it isn’t even eleven yet. “Hungry?”
He lets out a sharp exhale that’s nearly a laugh. “Not even a little. This is pure spite baking.”
He looks up then, blue eyes wild under a fringe of sweaty blond hair. He looks fresh off a knife fight with his own public image—which he pretty much has. There’s a raw, untamed energy in his hands. The dough doesn’t stand a chance.
I step further in. The prince’s kitchen is never off-limits to his bodyguard.
“It’s going to be a disaster,” he says, low. “You know that, right?”
“The bread?”
He glares like I’ve insulted his non-existent firstborn. “The announcement.”
I plant myself against the marble counter. “It doesn’t have to be. Just tell them.”
He snorts. “Simple like that, huh?”
“Maybe start with your mother.”
“That’s not how things work here, Elliot.
” He slaps the dough, then immediately hisses and flexes his right wrist. “If I’m going to blow up my life, I want it to be on my terms, not some palace spin.
” There’s a long pause while he stares at the half-formed loaf like it’s the embodiment of every generational expectation that’s ever haunted his family line. “We should have stayed on the island.”
I flash him a grin. “And do what, exactly? Be a ‘mysterious baker’ with a suspiciously good security detail and an omega pop star wife hiding in the back room?”
He gives me a feeble smile. “Yes, something like that.” Kellen goes back to kneading, but the dough is now fighting back. It’s sticky and clinging to his hands the same way the royal world refuses to let him go.
I steel myself for the suggestion I need to make. “I think you have to be the one to fix this. I’d do it for you in a heartbeat if I could, Kellen, but—”
“I know.” He looks up at me. “I’ve just been enjoying the last few moments of peace in this kitchen before doing that.”
My brow creases together. “You already have a plan?”
He pauses mid-knead and lets go of the dough. “Yes, and I’ll do it today. Help me finish this first?”
“Of course.”
I wash my hands and jump in to assist. By the time we’re done, a few hours have flown by and we have a cooling set of pastries and cookies for the closest senior center.
We clean up the kitchen for another half hour before Kellen brings out the camera he’s been using to film his baking channel content.
Only then does his plan click into place in my head.
Kellen will out himself as the viral baker, and then use that live stream as the only open channel uncontrolled by the palace to speak the truth. But is he going to reveal more?
“Yes,” Kellen says as if he can hear my thoughts. “Can you check with Piper?”
I’m already writing the message. I haven’t reached out to her or Nolan since my previous text days ago, but this requires consent for sure.
Within a minute Nolan replies: Go for it.
I nod to Kellen. “All clear.”
Kellen grins. “Let’s do this, then.”
I smile with pride as he finishes setting up the scene: him on the other side of the island sitting on a barstool that leaves his face in full view for the first time. He gives me a nod and I start the live stream for him.
He just smiles warmly—true Prince Kellen form—as instantly hundreds and then tens of thousands of people join the livestream. And then hundreds of thousands more when people see who is at the center of the screen.
The chat flies by in a flood of surprised-face emojis and hearts, and a lot of OMG OMG OMG. I scan them as Kellen waves to his views just to see if I can catch any actual threats scrolling by in the flood.
Kellen clears his throat and waves again.
“Hi. It’s Kellen. Or, I guess, Prince Kellen, if we’re being formal.
” He glances at me, and I nod back to him for reassurance.
“I’m supposed to shortly be at an event, but I wanted to jump on here with you all first and reveal myself before more information about me and those I love gets leaked online by people we once trusted. ”
I try not to cringe as he softly accuses the royal house. His parents said they didn’t leak Piper’s information, but who else would’ve had so much to gain from it? Forcing Kellen’s pack away, ending the PR relationship, and setting Kellen up for more matches. It just makes sense.
The hearts triple. So do the surprised-face emojis.
Kellen glances at the camera, then away, then back, like he’s learning how to look at his own reflection for the first time.
“I’ve always tried to be honest with you all,” he says, which is an outright lie, but nobody in the comment section is going to call him on it.
“At least inside the realm of the best baking recipes and methods. Today I’m revealing my face to you for the first time.
I also want to talk about something that matters to me. To a lot of people, actually.”
The view count is over a million now. I wonder how long we have before the rest the palace’s Ravenwood Shield contingent is inside these walls ready to turn off the livestream and maybe apprehend their own prince.
“You all know Piper Sumner, right?” he says, and now the chat is just her name, over and over. “You might have seen some rumors about her and about us all. I want to address them directly.”
He pauses. His fingers tremble against the marble countertop.
“Well, Piper is amazing, as I’m sure you all already know.
She’s got an exquisite ability to make you feel like you’re the only person in the world with just her voice.
But, in our case, it’s that she’s made the three of us feel like we’re the only person in the world.
” He straightens and, while giving a beat for that information to sink in, pulls in a deep, steadying breath.
“Piper is also, yes, an omega. My omega. Well, our omega. Piper Sumner and I are part of a loving pack, and while there are those who do not support this, their lack of support changes nothing.”
The chat goes wild. Hearts fly by. Piper’s name again, and then Kellen’s.
A lot of questions as to who our other pack members are.
A surprisingly small amount of hate messages or direct threats.
I’ll grab a log of who was in the live stream for later, to cross-reference and double check the threats aren’t credible.
But overall, this is going much better than I think either of us had any right to assume.
Then Kellen looks to me and tilts his head, a question in his eyes. He raises his eyebrows expectantly.
I straighten and nod. He wants to show me to them. My whole life, I’ve been in the background of Kellen’s. No longer.
Kellen smiles back at the camera. “Do you want to meet one of the other alphas in our pack? Truth be told, he’s been here all along.
Hidden in plain sight one might say.” He leans forward to grab the camera from its tripod and flip it toward me.
While he does show, the chat is just a flying wave of messages moving far faster than any human could ever read.
I try to smile for the camera. Or at least, not wear a stoic expression screaming, “Don’t come near me.” I’m aware that’s my default.
Kellen keeps the camera trained on me as he introduces me. “This is Elliot. You’ve probably seen him around. Elliot is not just my bodyguard, we have been best friends since childhood. Our bond has always been here and now we have a full pack to express that bond with. It’s honestly magical.”
Kellen turns the camera back on himself. “That’s all I wanted to share today. Thank you so much for joining me here, and I look forward to baking with you all again soon. See you next time!”
He turns off the camera and the livestream both. Only once both are off does he stretch out and collapse on the kitchen island. “It’s done. It’s out there.”
I lean over and kiss his head. “I’m proud of you.”
“My parents won’t be.”
I lift up his face so he has to look at me. “Your parents love you, Kellen, and you’ve been an adult for a long time. You’re allowed to make your own choices.”
He nods. “You’re right. Just feels like I’ve given them the go-ahead to strip me of my title and set me out to sea.”
I laugh at the dramatics. “It won’t be that bad, you’ll see.” I hold my hand out to him. “Let’s go. Why don’t we go get our omega? She’s playing a festival today. We can surprise her there.”
Kellen rises from the island and straightens his shirt. “Yes, let’s. Fuck, I miss her.”
“I do, too.”
I miss the peace we had on the island the most, but I’m hopeful that once this all blows over, we’ll have that again.
We just need to get the pack back together.