Chapter 5
Olivia
Bram keeps us out until the light goes orange over the ridge.
By the time I make it back up the gravel path, my arms won't stop shaking, and there's a bruise coming up on my hip.
Three hours of that, on a lunch of one grilled cheese sandwich and a side of fries.
I am hungry enough to eat the porch.
As I limp up the steps, I see a note taped to my door. DINNER. MY HOUSE. SEVEN.
“Please,” I mutter under my breath, as if he could hear me. “Civilized people say please.”
I check my phone. It's 6:52.
"No," I tell the note, and let myself in. “How about no, thank you, because polite people say please and thank you? How about that, fur-face? Jerk-hole? Sexy-butt? Handsome-faced – damn it! What the hell is wrong with me?”
Yes, if you consider his looks, Kieran may possibly be the most handsome man I’ve ever seen, but pretty is as pretty does, as my third-grade schoolteacher used to tell us.
And he’s rude, stuck-up, bossy, and has no consideration for anyone else’s feelings. Which makes him butt-ugly. So there.
The guest cabin is one big room with an electric stove and a bathroom with actual water pressure. My bedroom has a bed with a red-and-black-checked flannel blanket. There's a kitchenette along the back wall.
I open the refrigerator. A box of baking soda sits on a shelf, looking sad and lonely.
The cupboards have plates, mugs, and a glass jar of dried leaves with a Shadowpine label I can't read. The freezer has two ice trays. That's it.
Last night and this morning, I ate at the pack canteen, so I hadn’t realized quite how dire the food situation was here.
My stomach lets out a rumbling growl of protest. I lean against the wall and fold my arms across my chest, cursing the fates.
I have fourteen dollars in my wallet, a quarter tank of gas, and a loan shark named Gary who calls me every three days to remind me what compounding interest is. The pack canteen closed at six.
Finally I heave a sigh and accept the inevitable. I storm out of the cabin, slam the door behind me, and stomp across the lawn and up the gravel path that leads to his cabin.
He opens the door before I knock.
"You're late."
"I wasn't coming."
"And yet, here you are." Kieran grins fiercely and steps back to let me in. He's barefoot, wearing jeans and a t-shirt that reveals the swell of his biceps, with a dish towel slung over one shoulder.
The whole house smells of roasting beef and rosemary.
"Rose called me His Royal Hiney at the breakfast table this morning," he says, his cold gray gaze fixing on me. “Funny. She’s never said anything like that to me before.”
“No!” I gasp, and clap my hand to my chest. "That's terrible. Who would teach her such a thing?”
He sweeps me with one quick, narrow-eyed glance. "I have a suspicion."
The kitchen is timber and stone, lit low.
There's a prime rib resting on a carving board, crusted black with pepper, pink through the middle.
Next to it is a pan of roasted potatoes, rosemary sprinkled on them.
A large white china bowl holds asparagus and creamy hollandaise sauce.
And on the counter are six glass dishes of chocolate mousse under plastic wrap, cold enough that the glass has gone cloudy.
I sweep the counter with a suspicious look.
Prime rib. Roast potatoes. Asparagus. Chocolate mousse, which is the one dessert I know how to make and the one I would eat out of a boot at a bus station. I love me some mousse.
These are all my absolute favorites, and I haven’t been able to afford prime rib or chocolate mousse in years. I only get to eat asparagus because we grew our own.
"How did you know?" I demand. “I don’t know if I should be flattered or appalled. I’m going with appalled. How did you find all this out, stalker-boy?”
He gestures at the kitchen table. "Sit down."
"Kieran!” It is so exasperating how he ignores my questions.
"The food was in the freezer. I cooked it." He shrugs and picks up the carving knife.
I scowl at him. "Mousse doesn't come out of a freezer. It takes four hours to set. You made it this morning."
"Did I?" He carves two slabs off the roast, the good pink center, and puts them on a plate. He adds a pile of potatoes and then the asparagus. He sets it down on the table, which has been set with bone china.
I cross my arms over my chest. "Did Stephen tell you?"
"Eat."
"Talk!” I order him, but just then my stomach lets out a mortifying growl.
"Olivia." He looks amused. "Your food is getting cold."
I sit down. I mean, there’s prime rib sitting there, juicy and warm, marbled with fat, taunting me. I'm not made of stone.
The first bite of prime rib sends a rush of pure pleasure through me. I let out a low moan of appreciation.
Kieran grins at me. “Would you and the prime rib like some time alone?”
I chew and swallow, and then stab the prime rib with my fork, looking him in the eye while I do so. “Please. I actually like the prime rib. I’m not the least bit angry at it. It’s delicious and it doesn’t try to order me around. When it comes to slabs of meat, it’s my clear favorite.”
He laughs, a warm, rich sound, and sits down facing me. We both attack our food with gusto, and for the next few minutes there is nothing but the delectable flavors of the buttery, salty potatoes and the juicy prime rib and the delectable tang of the asparagus and sauce.
Then he sets down his fork. "Tell me about your grandparents."
I make a point of cutting a piece of meat, shoving it in my mouth, and chewing slowly, while avoiding his gaze.
He gestures impatiently. I’m sure His Royal Hiney isn’t used to having his royal commands ignored. "Both sides. Start anywhere."
I swallow, and take a sip of iced tea before I answer. "Why?"
He looks mildly exasperated. "Because we need to fill in all the blanks, and your brother doesn’t seem to know anything about your family history.”
"My father's parents are dead. He inherited everything. He came from a big old pack family. They’re into cattle and sheep.” I go after a potato. "My mother's parents I've never met."
Kieran looks up. "Never?” He cocks his head to the side.
"Never. Not once. No visits, no phone calls, no birthday cards." I shrug.
I don't really want to elaborate. Family, other than my brother, is an uncomfortable subject for me. My mother met my father at a pack gathering and married up, and she has sliced her past away as cleanly as a knife.
From what little I gleaned from people who knew her pack in Colorado, her parents were alcoholics, dirt-poor, and embarrassing. The subject was taboo in our house growing up.
"Where do they live?"
"No idea."
“It would really help us to have more information about his genetics. I’m going to have an investigator track down the information. All right, let’s talk about your parents, aunts and uncles then.”
I don't care for the direction of this conversation.
"Hey!" I say brightly, spearing an asparagus spear. "You promised that if we trained with Bram, we’d get to use whatever we learn on you."
He sits back in his chair, amusement quirking his mouth. "I did say that."
"You did. In front of witnesses.”
"And what did Bram teach you?"
"Not to shift, mostly." I stand up, slowly, because Bram spent forty minutes this afternoon on something he called the wall sit.
"That was the entire first hour. A shift takes 30 to 60 seconds for most of us, and you're useless for all of them.
Anyone grabbing you is a shifter too. He knows those seconds are coming and he'll break your arm before your wolf ever shows up. "
"Bram is a wise man."
"Also my wolf is a hundred and ten pounds of pure enthusiasm. Bram says enthusiasm is not a fighting style." My wolf is also pacing impatiently, and panting for Kieran, but I will literally die before I admit that.
Kieran gets to his feet. There's a lot of him, and he takes his time about it. He holds out one hand, palm up. "Show me."
"Grab my wrist."
He does. His hand closes around my forearm and his fingers overlap by a solid inch. His palm is hot. My whole arm goes stupid.
I step off the line. I rotate against the thumb. My wrist comes free, clean, exactly the way Bram drilled it.
“Very good,” Kieran says kindly.
Patronizing bastard.
So I hit him. A body shot to the ribs, weight behind it, elbow in.
Kieran looks down at me. "Ow," he says politely. "Devastating."
I hit him again, harder.
He pretends to wince. “There goes a rib. The pain. Thank God for shifter healing.”
I put my shoulder into the next one, hard enough that my own boots slide on the tile. He doesn't move. I hit him twice more and get nothing for it but a small, courteous nod.
I mean, I wasn’t expecting to do major damage, but he could look at least a little uncomfortable.
“It worked on Bram!” I groan.
"I have terrible, terrible news for you. Bram was faking it.”
I’ve had it with this smug bastard. I wind up and put everything I have left into his ribs, and he grimaces, gasps dramatically, and staggers back. “The lights…they’re going dim…”
“Oh, drop dead!”
“Tell my sisters I love them…Tell them to avenge me…”
“I am going to keep training,” I warn him. “I’ll get better at this.”
“Of course you will,” he says, so kindly that I slam my hands into his chest and shove him.
He grabs my wrist, and somehow does this quick spin thing and the next thing I know I’m backed up against the wall.
He’s so tall that I have to tip my head back up to look at him. The feeling of his hand on my wrist, the heat and strength radiating from him…my knees are jello. My panties are damp. If he leaned down and kissed me, I wouldn’t stop him.
“Now…escape,” he growls.
For a long, long moment, I just stand there…because I don’t actually want to escape.
I know he’s an absolute tyrant and he’s got this ridiculous idea that I’m his fated mate and he thinks he can just snap his fingers and I’ll be his, and I still halfway suspect that he’s casting some kind of spell on me to make me pulse with desire for him…and yet.
I feel so safe with him towering over me. Nobody could hurt me with him there. He’d never let it happen.
He brought me over here. He fed me. And he’s looking at me like I hung the moon.
I’ve been the sole caretaker for my brother since I was 17, everything falling on my shoulders. I made sure we were fed and clothed and housed, and if anything went wrong, it was all on me. It’s exhausting, and lonely.
I take a deep breath. He’s leaning in slightly now, as if he actually might kiss me. I can’t let that happen, because if he kisses me, I’ll melt. I won’t be able to stop myself.
He’s leaning closer…I stand on my tiptoes to receive his kiss. My lips part, my thighs part…
The silverware drawer rattles. Every fork in it, all at once. A cabinet door bangs open above his shoulder, and the six mousse dishes chatter on the counter behind me. He starts, and lets out a muffled curse.
In one smooth motion, I rotate my wrist out of his grasp. I spin away from him, stalk over to the table, and grab two chocolate mousse cups.
“I’ll just take these to go,” I say, without daring to look back, and I hurry out of the cabin without a backwards glance.
He doesn’t say a word, doesn’t chase me.
My wolf lets out a long, low, mournful howl.