Chapter 12 #3
“Yes. You can ripen fruit and bring an herb to peak freshness.” She let me smell the dried basil she had revived.
“Can you kill an animal for its meat?”
I meant it as a straightforward question about pork chops but Anise stiffened all over. What did I say?
“I’m just a humble cook, Fallon. I leave life and death to the Old Magic.”
My mind leaped two paces ahead. If I could kill an animal, in theory I could kill anything. Weren’t we all just meat in the end?
“But how does that work?”
She scoured the work surface and set a cast iron pan in front of me to clean. “I think that’s enough for today.”
That mother tone had me scraping and oiling the pan in record time. I set it back on the stove to let the oil bond. Exhausted but ecstatic, I had actually learned something. Perhaps too much. I wasn’t prepared to have the power of life and death at my fingertips.
Declan burst through the door, trailing siblings like snowflakes. He scooped me up in a hug.
“Did you have a good day? Are you the best feastweaver the world has ever seen?”
I looked at Anise, who subtly shook her head. So her children didn’t fathom the extent of her magic either. Maybe her mate had a valid reason to believe she was too powerful.
“I didn’t explode the kitchen so I’ll take that as a win.”
“That’s my girl.” His kiss was sweet, brief, and combined with his words, decadent. I kissed him back before I thought too much. His hands gripped me tighter, raising my temperature.
Anise laughed and we parted. The siblings shouted her down in a chorus.
“It was just getting good.”
“You’re ruining the fun.”
“I have pointers to offer, Fallon.” Eilie chimed in with the last and everyone stared at her.
Desperate to end the awkward moment, I peeled myself off Declan and dove into the sibling pile.
They served dinner with a side of racy suggestions.
Sure, shifters were more open about such things, but I grew up in a home where we barely spoke to each other.
Open wasn’t a concept I was used to. Even when Maggie and Evie acted up, I usually sat in the background.
Despite a glass of wine in my hand, I could only listen to so many versions of the words lips before it was time–
“You’ve kept her up late enough. Save your degenerate suggestions for your own love lives.” Declan took my hand.
Back in his room, he chattered about his day with his siblings, dressed in my nightgown again. Krystall’s friends had produced a few new leads to follow. He waited patiently while I got ready for bed, regaling me with his excitement.
I tugged on my nightgown. “You don’t have to wear that.”
“I don’t?” He pulled it over his head with all due speed.
My hands jutted out, nerves surging up. No way I could look at his penis again without crashing out. “I mean. You have to wear something.”
His crestfallen expression softened his voice. “I would rather wear this then.” He lowered it back over his head, smoothing out the fabric and fluffing the ruffles.
I steeled myself against his disappointment, the bone I had to pick with him lodged in my throat. “I don’t know how this works, Declan. What if skin to skin contact makes it worse?”
He stared at me like he would fix anything I asked. “Makes what worse?”
I crossed my arms over my chest. “The bond you didn’t tell me about.”
Like a naughty boy, he looked anywhere but at me. Did he think the novels he stared at had any answers for this?
“Yeah, I figured it out. What is that all about? I thought bonds were for mates and we’re certainly not that.”
He flinched like I kicked him. “Friends have bonds too.”
I raised an eyebrow. It was the truth, but he understood what I meant.
He blushed. “I didn’t force it on you if that’s what you’re asking. Sometimes it just happens when people are close. I mean… did you hate it?”
It wasn’t quite a change in subject so I let it slide. “I don’t know.”
My brain meant ‘I don’t know’ in the sense that I wasn’t sure what to make of any of this. I didn’t lie to Anise. Some part of me wanted love. I crawled into bed, ready to just let it go. But Declan took it as a personal challenge to his ‘no-touching-sex’ skills.
“I can do better. I just have to practice. It was my first time. Let me try.”
His eagerness struck me right to my core. No one else in my life had ever been eager to please me.
“Oh-okay?” His earnestness swept me away.
A wave of lust poured into me and my head flew back, all my muscles straining as my heart beat into my clit. My body lit on fire, pleasure pouring through my soul. He reached for me. I held him at bay with an outstretched hand.
“You got it. You did it, Dec,” I said through clenched teeth. Did he ever.
I would not come in my best friend’s bed when I had just told him we were friends who should keep a virginal distance.
I squeezed my legs together, wishing for pain for once in my life.
Anything to douse the flames slowly subsiding inside me.
What if the bond grew into something else and we were stuck with each other?
I would ruin his chances of finding a proper mate. The one he deserved.
“Uh... good boy?” I patted his head in the worst, post-almost-orgasm move my brain whipped up. He smiled up at me anyway, his eyes sparkling with adoration. I needed distance and a roll to my side of the mattress. Suddenly, this one bed was looking way too small.