For the first time all day, I feel like we might actually have a shot at keeping everyone safe. We walk on, two bodyguards doing what we do best: staying invisible, even when we want everything in the world to be otherwise.
Later, after the royal gardens have been properly fertilized with enough half-truths and candid shots to fuel the tabloids for a week, I get a text from Kellen:
Meet me in the kitchen. Bring an appetite.
I don’t have to ask which kitchen. There are two in this manor estate but only one that Kellen actually uses. I head there, grateful for the excuse to be alone with him. Piper and Nolan vanished after the walk, presumably to let the omega decompress and the alpha simmer down.
The kitchen is empty when I enter, save for the faint hum of the oven warming. Kellen crouches by a lower cabinet, rummaging for something. His back is to me and his shirt is already dusted with flour. His hair is a mess—he’s run his fingers through it a hundred times today, I’d bet.
I lean against the island. “Is this an ambush?”
He straightens and grins, holding up a fistful of brown sugar like it’s contraband. “Only if you hate chocolate chip cookies.”
Kellen turns to wipe his hands on a nearby towel, and starts assembling ingredients with that frenetic, high-wire energy he gets when something is bothering him. I take a seat at the bar and pretend not to watch his every move. It’s domestic and weirdly intimate, the kind of situation that would get me fired if the queen ever walked in.
“Where’s Piper?” I ask.
“With Nolan,” says Kellen. “I think she needed time to relax. Nolan looked ready to murder me every time I so much as smiled at her, so I let them be.”
“I’ll be the first murdered, I assure you,” I say dryly.
Kellen gives me a warm smile. “He’s not that bad.” Then he moves to crack two eggs in rapid succession. “So what’s the diagnosis, Dr. Blaine? Are we doing a good job?”
I can’t help but chuckle. “Jury’s out.” I watch the way he stirs the sugar and butter together, quick and neat. “You actually like her, don’t you?”
He glances up, blue eyes bright. “Should I not?”
“Just surprised,” I say. “She’s not what I expected. And I never expected you to change your mind regarding pack life.”
“I know, neither did I.” Kellen looks up at me. “But you have to admit this is all unprecedented.”
“That’s one way to put it.” Except I’m not sure Kellen’s right.Alphas and omegas bond all the time. If they’re lucky, they’re even scent matches.
This is, unfortunately, the most natural thing in the world. It’s just happening to strangers and people who can’t be together.
I don’t know what else to say about this, so I deflect. “Are you ever going to tell the queen about the baking videos? Baking is a great hobby.”
He snorts. “Not if I can help it. I like having secrets.” He shoves the mixing bowl at me. “Your turn while I work on the rest.”
I take it, and the spoon, and beat the batter while he lines a tray with parchment. The silence is companionable, filled only by the scrape of metal on ceramic and the soft thump of Kellen’s hip against the counter.
He’s not looking at me when he says, “I’ve been thinking about the pack thing.”
That dangerous word again. “Yeah?”
“I don’t think it has to be complicated if we don’t want it to be.”
I arch an eyebrow. “We’re a prince, a security guard, a pop star, and a walking slab of redwood. Nothing is ever simple.”
Kellen shrugs. “Maybe we couldmakeit simple.”
There’s a world in that maybe. I feel it settle in the air between us, sticky and warm as brown sugar.
I still the spoon in the bowl. “Do you want to?”
Kellen looks at me straight on. “We only just met them, Elliot. And while I love the idea of scent matches feeling like fated mates, the only parts of fairytales that are real here is that I am a prince.” He sighs. “Which is to say, I was opposed to strict pack life until the very moment Piper’s suppressants failed and she and Nolan walked into our life.”
Our life.
