Chapter 9 #2
Declan wisely chose to set a small cup of his brew in front of her instead and sat at the table, asking about her love life of all things. Their chatter became background noise.
I poured the egg mixture into the pan, lovingly tending it and feeding it what amount of power I dared, praying it wouldn't go haywire. Time and fire sculpted the eggs into a meal. My magic only enhanced those, adjusting, encouraging.
When I whisked the cast-iron around for plating, Declan had cut and buttered the bread perfectly. I added the smoked salt in a sprinkle. Wild garlic garnish complemented the studs of red pepper in the eggs and the bright colors of the chutney on the side.
“The color looks okay?” I asked Declan, gesturing the question with my thumb and forefinger forming a ring, my other three fingers to the sky.
“You're perfect.”
I sighed. He wasn't even looking at the dish as he stared at me. I wiped the rim of the plate clean and brought it over for Anise’s judgment.
“Wait, Fallon.”
But the plate was already on the table and I just stormed ahead. I could do this. Nothing about my feastweaving felt off when I had prepared so carefully this morning. Not forcing my magic higher left me confident until I saw the amused expression on Anise’s face.
It stopped short of condescension, but it prickled all the same, spiking my nerves all over again.
“Okay,” my hands automatically emphasized my words with the gesture. Declan rushed to my side. “We have a coddled, sweet scramble with a smoked salt bread and a vinegar-based chutney.”
With every description, her eyebrows rose.
“Okay.” I didn't know why my hands were making the ‘okay’ gesture again but I couldn't stop. “Do you need anything else?”
Declan batted my hands down as his mother's mouth formed a perfect ‘o’.
Honey, no. What are you doing? He shook my hands for emphasis.
Anise cackled as she cut into her eggs. “This is the most amusing breakfast I’ve had in such a long time.”
My hands found my hips, frustration rising. Just asking her if she’s okay. If I forgot anything.
Declan shook his head, standing between us. Your fingers are doing that thing.
I held it in front of his face, which turned bright red. That’s ‘okay’, like yes, I understand.
He clapped his hand over mine. That is not what that means here. You just told my Momma to fuck off.
My face flushed in a flash of heat. “Oh… Oh my Godds. Anise.”
The woman’s bemused expression didn’t change. I needed the big cross bolt, right between my eyes.
“Momma. I’m so sorry. I… that’s…”
“My son’s mate has made me food and, as he has mercilessly reminded me, I want to see him happy. I will try it. As long as you two are already trying for pups.”
My heart sputtered out. I would not dignify that with a response.
As the fork met her mouth and she chewed slowly, my eyes tracked her every expression.
That might mean she savored it. Or she was trying to think of her next baby dictum.
I couldn’t handle mates, let alone pups.
What would they even be? Magic food wolves? Whatever.
I snapped my attention to Declan. Whether you and I are having sex is none of her business, right?
Declan looked at anything but my face. Right.
I would leave that right there. It was too much, while anticipation for her judgment on my food thrummed through me. I shifted from foot to foot until I couldn’t contain it anymore.
“Do you love it?”
She pressed a napkin to her mouth in a bid to buy time. “It’s very… complicated.”
My expression must have fallen because she was immediately on her feet.
She wrapped me up in a hug that definitely read as condescending.
“Look, Tali. I know you try very hard. But, really. Declan will keep you well pleasured and well fed. I have told him all the stories of food. He knows the tradition better than anyone. How to keep it. He will make you happy in all things.” She pulled back to give me a knowing wink.
Fucking Declan was the last thing on my mind when my reputation was at stake. “It’s perfect, though.”
Her smile tore me down even more. “Perfect food does more than taste good. It unlocks memories, reminds you of worlds you’ve never been to, and looks fantastic. It should build a story.”
I’d had about enough of fantasy-building this past week.
Our mateship was a sham and I was a better cook in my sleep than Declan ever dreamt about.
This is the exact same Bakh Bull shit that kept me in a bakery in my human village.
She just disguised it as something else.
Magic surged up in me along with a river of pain and it pulsed into the kitchen.
“I can’t accept that.”
The stove flared. Herbs rained down from the ceiling, too dry to hold on to their stems. Somewhere Ned howled and a chorus of wolves echoed him. Anise eyed the falling food.
She took my shoulders, staring down at me. “You do have the gift.”
What else had I been trying to tell the woman? Hope lifted me. She finally understood. I pulled out the mental list of questions I had about the finer points of feastweaving.
“How can you cook these eggs and have the gift?”
A flash heated my whole body. My mouth opened of its own volition. “My eggs are delicious.” Only respect kept the snap out of my voice.
She clenched her hands at her sides. “Your dish is a bunch of pretentious slop. You want to learn from me, we must strip all your bad habits and we start again.”
Start again? I was better than most chefs on their best da–
Wait! Did that mean she would teach me?
“I don’t care how long it takes. You will make me a decent plate of eggs. Declan will help you.” The forbidding tension on Anise’s face brooked no argument this time.
I wasn’t afraid of hard work, despite the ache that now crept into my bones. I would master this. Declan was smart enough to know how to work around me.
“How did I get dragged into this?” He reached for the food across the kitchen.
“You were ready to help earlier.”
“The crocetta has worn off and I can’t focus on an empty stomach.”
A slice of buttered bread in his mouth would have to do.
I cracked an egg with each hand. I let him swallow before ramming the bowl into his grip so I could turn to preparing the pan.
Declan sighed, rolling up his metaphorical sleeves.
After taking up the whisk with his long fingers, he started shoving the eggs from side to side.
I wouldn’t snap. “What the hells are you doing? You make a circular motion to combine the most amount of air.”
“I'm whisking as you asked!”
His speed increased, every tendon on his forearms standing out as he clutched the bowl to his middle and vigorously beat the eggs.
My mouth grew dry watching his muscles twitch and work the mix smooth, his fingers flexing on the handle of the whisk.
A vein on his forearm started to throb in time with my shallow breathing.
All that fine motor control, the dexterity of his fingers blossomed heat across my skin. His direct eye contact parted my lips.
“Did you come?”
“What?” My brain scrambled as neatly as those eggs.
“Did you come close enough to see? I’m tired now. That has to be good enough.”
There was nothing to say to that so I wrenched the bowl away from him and worked the mixture in the pan. The heat of the stove had to hide my wandering blush. I slipped a pat of butter into the eggs. The steaming plate hit the table just as more siblings entered the kitchen.
Cosomo reached for the plate and Anise slapped his hand. “Manners.”
“Sorry, Momma.”
Would I ever learn to make anyone look as sheepish as Cosomo did? My breath stoppered in my lungs as I waited for her verdict.
She pushed the plate to Briggs and turned to me. “Again.”
Declan let me whisk, sending four more eggs to their demise, without magic this time, as Anise pushed the plate to her offspring and demanded another.
Soon, every one of her children ate some version of my eggs and still she called for another plate. My bones protested, the edge of pain starting to consume my vision but I wouldn’t give up. I couldn’t. These were the most important eggs of my life.
I blew out a breath of frustration. This was supposed to be easy. Declan rubbed my back, ignoring the catcalls from his siblings. That was okay. That’s how mates acted according to him, so if it kept them off our backs while I focused, he could spread me on the butcher block for all I cared.
Wait…
Maybe not that.
Or…
Declan was saying something important as my brain frizzled.
You have to understand that she thinks her cooking drove my father further and further away until it all broke. Those maddening circles on my back didn’t let up as I listened and shook the eggs.
Are you serious? Did he think she wasn’t good enough? Is that why I’m getting all this blowback?
Declan sighed. That she was too invested in it. In her magic. The Old Magic rules here and it fosters obsession. She thinks he couldn’t handle her being Godd-touched and the result of their battle drove the Old Magic into hiding.
My indignation on her behalf rose up into my throat. That was why men never made it on my to-do list. He couldn’t handle a few eggs and left you magicless?
Declan slowly shook his head. He was an asshole, Honey. And I… I… was the one who made sure he got gone. It was…
He trailed off as I waited for the rest of that sentence until the scent of burning eggs hit my nose.
“Son of a rotten kumquat!” I almost hurled the pan across the kitchen, my hand clawed around it until my knuckles went white. Sorry. Tell me later.
I was sorry. I wanted to know why Declan carried that sad look in his eyes but I also wanted to get us out of here as soon as possible.
The wolf crew had long since left, the sun in the late afternoon sky, taunting me with my lack of progress.
Declan left me to start again, sitting with his Momma.
His flashing eyes said they were communicating mentally.
I set the next plate on the table and Anise tucked in. I was already calculating how to improve when I heard, “Acceptable.”
My body didn’t know how to react other than to shake, but I clamped down on that weakness, afraid they would see too much. No one got this worked up about eggs.
“You’ve been in here all day. Get out of my kitchen. I need to prepare dinner for Marco.”
Declan quirked a smile. “Another lover, Momma?”
“Good thing you don’t get a say, bardeva.”
“I’ll clean up,” I volunteered, even though my legs screamed in protest.
“What do you think I have so many children for? Briggs! Cosomo! Eilie!”
She yelled into the house and I didn’t have to guess why they came running so fast. “Find something else to do so I can have my kitchen back.”
Well, that was a dismissal if I ever heard one. I might not have won breakfast of the year, but I wasn’t kicked out of Nightfell. That would have to be enough for today.