“Shepherd’s pie,” he said. “Well, cottage pie, I guess, since it’s beef and not lamb. Try some?”
I crossed to him as though drawn to his side by a length of silken cord. The pie itself was in the oven, baking to a lovely golden brown. He scraped the contents of one bowl into another bowl and handed it to me—mashed potatoes sitting on top of a mixture of cooked ground beef and diced vegetables. I took the spoon he offered and devoured it like a starving coyote.
At the table, Flynn chuckled. “Come here for a minute when you’re done.”
While I was distracted, he’d foisted an apple on Kam, who bit into it with a crunch. I scraped up the last couple of bites of deconstructed cottage pie and offered Jax a tentative smile of thanks before rinsing the bowl and spoon in the sink. I approached Flynn cautiously. He set the knife down and hooked me close to him with a gentle hand at the back of my neck.
My heart rabbited, my body unused to that kind of casual touch from an alpha. When he buried his nose at the base of my neck and shoulder and breathed in, gooseflesh erupted across my entire body. He let me go, holding the breath he’d just taken like a wine connoisseur assessing a rare vintage.
“You’re gonna be early,” he said. “Go talk to Beckett now and get that out of the way. I want to have plenty of time to play before we need to get down to business.”
I couldn’t suppress a shiver. Kam’s eyes on me were soft when I turned to him.
“Come on,” he said. “Let’s go make sure everything’s in order.”
Nodding wordlessly, I followed him with Flynn’s call of, “Don’t worry—I’m gonna play with you, too, Ginger Tea!” chasing us out.
“Why do I feel like we’re on the menu every bit as much as the cottage pie and fruit salad?” I murmured.
“Because we are,” Kam said wryly. “Well, you are, anyway. That’s basically what you’re signing up for, you realize.”
I hadn’t realized—not properly. Not until just now. My hazy memories from last time involved the alphas holding back, respecting boundaries that I’d needed for my own safety, but hadn’twantedin the desperation of the moment. Now, I was extending them carte blanche, at least within the framework of what we’d all agreed to ahead of time.
“I have absolutely no idea what I’m getting into, do I?” I asked.
Kam huffed in what was probably amusement. “You’re about to spend four solid days riding a sex-high.” He hesitated. “And I’m apparently going to be caught inside the blast zone for most of it. Should be interesting, if nothing else.”
I stepped in front of him and turned to face him with my hand on his arm, stopping us in the hallway. “Youareokay with this, right?” I asked, feeling a wash of guilt over my drunken confession to Alex earlier.
“Yes,odama,” he said gently. “I’m okay with the nice alphas eating us for breakfast. We’re here, we’re safe—for a given definition of the word—and it makes no sense for you to take that toxic poison you call a heat blocker when you can have a natural heat shared with alphas you genuinely like. I like them, too, by the way. In case that wasn’t obvious.”
I knew he was telling the truth. I also knew he didn’t really think he’d be able to get anything out of it beyond that—not after the mutilation he’d undergone as an adolescent. That was clear in his tone, even if he hadn’t meant for it to come through.
“I... might have confessed to Alex that you have a crush on her while I was drunk,” I blurted, wincing before adding, “and asked her to have sex with you.”
Kam’s face went utterly still. Sheepishly, I let my hand drop from his arm.
“At which point she freaked out and ran for the hills, I assume?” he asked slowly.
I sighed. “Not exactly. She, uh, changed the subject.”And then ran for the hills with a bottle of vodka in tow, I didn’t add.
He sighed, too. “You probably shouldn’t have done that.”
“I know,” I told him. “And I’m sorry. But she’s sad, and miserable, and she’s going to try to wall herself off from what’s happening for four straight days while the house is choked with heat pheromones. And you’re also sad, and miserable, and you’re going to try to wall yourself off from what’s happening the minute I’m too out of things to stop you. I just want you to be happy, Kam.” I studied his tired, beautiful face. “If she offered, would you turn her down?”
“No,” he said. “I wouldn’t. That’s what scares me.”
I cupped his cheek in my palm. “Promise me you’ll try to enjoy yourself, whether it’s with her, or with Flynn, or even Jax. Maybe it will be different with my heat pheromones and the alpha pheromones together.”
I could see in his eyes that he still thought it was hopeless. His beta owners had considered him too difficult to deal with; too stubborn for use in the breeding pens despite his impeccable purebred bloodlines. They’d sterilized him before tossing him into the slave market—ripping out his ovotestes and his womb, suturing his birthing passage closed. We’d tried before, but in the end, we hadn’t been able to work around what had been done to his body.
Despite his obvious discomfort with the subject, he covered my hand with his and slid it forward so he could press a kiss to my palm. “If it makes you feel better, I don’t think I’m going to have much say in the matter if Flynn gets his way. I’m sure I’ll enjoy myself to whatever degree I still can.”
I had the feeling he was humoring me, the same way he’d been humoring me when he swore that our failed sex experiment the night before my capture had been ‘fine.’ But it would be churlish to press the issue any further.
“Okay,” I said. “I’m holding you to that.”
He found a smile for me. We continued to the living room, where Beckett had set up his makeshift office. He was waiting for us there, a brown paper bag sitting on one corner of the coffee table.
