Faking Your Mate and Other Recipes for Disaster (The Cake Chaos Chronicles #3)

Chapter 1

Fallon

Iknew, all too well, that a woman’s work was never done.

Starting while the sun slept tight didn't calm the anxiety that there was always too much to do. All of it too important to leave to someone else. As I stood still, hands beginning to sweat, my spiraling thoughts only made it worse. The list grew longer as the town’s healer loomed before me, fists on hips.

“Stop being so stubborn,” she said.

I rolled my eyes, trying to pass this off like it was no big deal. “Like I haven’t heard that one before.”

It was never a good day when Lenora had to grab my tender, nick-covered hands from my apron pockets.

“Try to think of something positive while it works.”

Okay, so not my Aunt's voice telling me: You’re wasting the healer's time. She’s not about to cure your Hollow Fever.

Lenora’s magic filled my joints as I fought not to fall into my Aunt’s practical pessimism.

Nothing cured it, I knew that, so the reminder was unhelpful.

I didn’t ask for Lenora’s help this morning, or after she gave me her last round of potions to try, but Goddsdamn my hands hurt.

Of course on the day I could afford it the least. “Why is this taking so long?”

The healer smirked, used to my inability to sit still. “Because it's magic, not a miracle. Breathe. Keep thinking positive thoughts.”

So not Lenora telling me: You’re going to die alone at your cutting board, burn the kitchen down, or end up in the second stage of the fever if you keep up this pace. Like she had last time. The dying alone part might have been the harshest of those because it was probably the most true.

We got along because she gave it to me straight. That was just a little whiskey-no-ice straight. I did that breathing thing she recommended to soothe those nightmares and tried again. She had come to check on me for this important day, I might as well use her.

Also not the time to start my inner monologue about my besties becoming Queens of the realm and so happily mated I trembled at their good fate.

The state dinner I had to put together tonight was not at all an attempt to get back to the way we used to be before Evie was a dragon and Maggie ruled the Elven territory.

How had we been closer when a psycho human bent on conquering the Harrowlands had kidnapped us?

Not that I wanted Brad to make a reappearance, but still.

Our dinners had gotten downright depressing when only Declan and I showed up.

“Stop twitching and this will go faster.”

I resisted the urge to curl my hands into fists. The magic was working, if slowly. I might get through the demands of the night. My heart fluttered in a dying way at the reminder. Dinner had to be perfect and I had it organized down to the minute.

Okay, a list. I needed a list. That was productive.

Fire and ovens started.

Check.

Mead barrels tapped.

Check.

Seventy-two duck innards to rip out.

I concentrated on the ducks waiting in the cold room. Perhaps I could use a little of my magic while Lenora did hers. I tugged on my gift the way I would use my hands and heard a set of organs plop onto the stone floor.

Perfect! I could do two things at once!

Then the thud of a duck. Well, I would pick that up later. I had scrubbed the floor within an inch of its life this morning, it would be fine.

Lenora shook my still-aching hands. “I don’t know how your magic and mine will interact, Fallon. Give it a rest.”

It wasn’t her fault. No one knew much about feastweavers or why I could control food, ingredients, and even celebrations in some ways but not others.

I had never met anyone with this weird magic.

Not even I knew the limit of what I could do.

Most people just enjoyed the meals my enchantment created and left it at that.

“Are we holding hands? I want to hold hands.” Declan’s chipper voice filled the echoey room and my shoulders relaxed.

In the years he spent in my kitchen, it never failed to amaze me.

I responded every time. A sunny wolf and a cynical feastweaver should have produced natural friction rather than the fast friends we had become.

Maybe it was because we both ended up as the third wheel when our friends paired off.

He skipped over with more enthusiasm than anyone should have at that hour of the morning, joy lighting up his elfin features like he was about to receive the sweetest treat.

“I’ll do you next,” Lenora promised. “Fallon just wanted a good luck charm for tonight.”

She was the one who’d stumbled in here checking on me. At least the healer hid my secrets well.

Declan just scoffed and nudged her out of the way with the uncompromising force and speed of a glacier, a sweet but intractable smile on his pouty mouth.

He was so good at that. It meant our friends underestimated him over the years.

But it also meant no one cared if we hung out all the time.

Since he wasn't burdened with a crown like my other friends, he always found time to gossip, help, or just be there.

As his cool palms met mine in a perfect slide of skin, I realized I had come to rely on his presence.

My gaze instinctively latched on to him.

How were his eyes so warm when they were such a cool color?

Maybe it was the way his dark hair kind of brushed over his forehead like he invited me to share a secret.

I stuffed my smile down because any time he saw it, he would tease me for days with declarations that the Harrowlands were about to fall into the seven hells or some such nonsense to imply I never smiled.

I smiled… sometimes. There was just a lot to do and I couldn’t help it if I had “resting serious face”.

That’s what Declan called it, rather than the “resting feral bitch face” everyone else called it.

He rubbed his thumbs across my knuckles, gazing into my cinnamon eyes with his blueberry ones, as if he tracked every twitch of my pupils.

My breath came out slowly and time melted down into the two of us.

My hands relaxed, some of the pain easing.

Something I didn’t want to name softened his gaze, and I had to whisper to dispel it.

I didn't know if I could summon more breath.

“Why are you up, Declan? It’s four in the morning.”

His eyes sparkled, never leaving mine, his thumbs tingling my skin. “It’s your big day. Where else would I be?”

“Helping the others? Annoying Ward and Noth? Sleeping?” I suggested.

“Wow, you know how to have a good time, Honey.” His sarcasm almost broke me into a laugh. “I’ll be sure to put those on my to-do list later. Right now, I can finish dressing that duck on the floor while you work on the next thing.”

Holding hands with Declan soothed even better than Lenora’s magic.

It always felt so perfect. I almost asked him to hold my knees like a psycho, but how would I ever explain that?

Declan was right. There was a lot of work ahead for the dinner tonight.

While he normally only kept me company, I wasn’t about to pass up help when my list was a mile long.

He could do the basic stuff like rip out innards.

We would get back to that… in just a second. After I was definitely able to let go of his warm hands. Any second… I would let go. I just needed another minute–

“Excuse me. I’m looking for the head cook.”

I snatched my hands away from Declan as if I’d been caught doing something sinful. He didn’t appear offended, but a bit of sadness came into his gaze. Before I asked what was wrong, he turned to the stranger.

“Fallon is the head cook.”

The man, dressed in a pristine white double-breasted jacket, surveyed my kitchen like he owned it. I bristled. The rigid way he held himself, the thinning blade of his mouth announced he was a screamer. The worst kind of cook in a kitchen. Now he stood in mine.

“Be serious,” he said, his mustache puffing out like an angry bird. “Just because she eats a little too much from the kitchen doesn't make her in charge of it.”

Anger simmered beneath my skin. He meant my hips and thighs, which had always been more generous than my top half and somehow disqualified me from participating in life, according to every man I’d ever met.

He twitched his hand at Declan. “There is a lot to do for tonight’s feast and the scullery maid can go get the head cook. I have critical work to do.”

Men were always in the way, or telling you things you already knew, or failing up around you.

They were barely tolerable for sex. The little I’d had was fast and uncomfortable, hardly worth the effort.

That’s why my friendship with Declan remained so surprising.

It didn't make sense that he turned into my best friend over these past couple years.

Usually, men only came in this flavor of ass-hattery.

His impatient foot tapping only confirmed it. This guy was about to see some damage.

I stepped into his line of sight, mentally preparing a full list of takedowns. “Don’t act like you didn’t hear him. I’m the head cook. And you are?”

It was easier to start by defending Declan. A few of the kitchen staff filtered in with sleepy stares. Great. Just what we needed: an audience.

“I am in charge tonight. The Queen requested my presence to make everything look perfect.”

What was that supposed to mean? “My food is ‘perfect’.”

His mustache poofed out again with indignation. “Since your dinner standard is probably eating ham with your hands. We can certainly do better than that.”

“Doubt it,” I hissed.

Declan rested his hand at the small of my back in encouragement. He had that far-away look in his eye, saying he was mentally talking to someone else.

What are you doing? I asked as the mustachioed man ranted about proper technique and the Taurian school of culinary aesthetics he attended.

Getting Evie so she can straighten this out. I’m sure it’s just a misunderstanding, Declan replied.