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I understood that while he was being playful about it, and giving me the illusion of freedom, that Daemon was just a different kind of prison guard.
"I would like to raid the kitchen, actually," I admitted.
I'd been served exactly two kinds of meals in my time with these people.
When Lenore fed me, it was very much the "twigs and leaves" variety of food. She was, I had been informed, vegetarian.
When Minos was the one feeding me, it was usually uncooked pieces of random vegetables like celery or zucchini along with a slab of some sort of meat that was cooked without any sort of seasoning. And "cooked" was being generous about how rare the meat was.
I hadn't eaten a carbohydrate in what felt like ages.
"Then to the kitchen we shall go," Daemon declared grandly, leading me down the stairs and into the massive kitchen.
"Lenore?" I asked, waving toward the oversized windows where dozens of herbs and flowers were lined up.
"She had a massive outdoor garden in the summer. She has some things growing now too. In, ah, cold frames or something like that. Ly is building her a greenhouse."
"Can I?" I asked, waving toward the fridge.
"Help yourself, princess," he invited, hopping himself up on the counter, reaching for a mug of coffee there.
I could feel his gaze on me as I went through the fridge, finding some vegetables that I could cook, then rummaging around the pantry to find some questionably old pasta to make with it.
I'd just dropped the shells into the boiling water when Ace's roar seemed to sound loud enough to make the walls shake.
"Uh oh. Daddy's mad," Daemon said, a wicked smile pulling at his lips when he looked at me.
"Damn it," Ace roared, tearing down the stairs, almost falling forward with his momentum when his gaze fell on me and he tried to stop quickly. "What the fuck?" he asked, looking between the two of us.
"The pretty lady was hungry. I showed her the kitchen."
"I didn't say she could leave the room," Ace snapped, giving Daemon a hard look.
"You also didn't lock the door," Daemon shot back, surprising me with the challenge in his tone.
It didn't escape Ace, either, whose eyes went harder than usual as he looked at the younger man.
"Why don't you go change the oil on the bikes," Ace suggested, a clear punishment for the younger man's attitude to someone who was supposed to be his boss.
"It's freezing out there, man," Daemon complained, taking a sip of his coffee.
"Yeah, that's not going to be enjoyable," Ace agreed, chin lifting. "You're still going to do it."
To that, Daemon sighed and jumped off the counter. "Maybe we will have some more adventures together in the future, pretty lady," he said, then grabbed a coat off a hook by the door, and moved outside.
"Did he really do anything wrong?" I asked, stirring the pasta.
"Are you really questioning how I run my club?"
"Yes, I am," I said, smiling. "He was clearly trying to keep an eye on me until you became less... indisposed."
"He's a headstrong little shit," Ace said, making his way to the coffee machine.
"Well, yeah," I agreed. "But he's harmless."
"None of us are harmless, Josephine. The sooner you learn that, the better," he said, reaching into the cabinet to grab a mug, holding one up to me, a question in his eyes.
"Yes, thank you. But do you have sugar?" I knew from the fridge that milk wasn't an option.
"Yeah. What are you making?"
"Well, your pantry and fridge are woefully empty," I informed him. "But I found some ancient pasta, some tomatoes, and spinach. Do you think Lenore would mind if I stole some herbs? This will barely be edible without some."
"Take whatever you want."
"That's not what I asked," I told him, shaking my head.
"It's fine."
"Again, that's not what I asked."
"Lenore is the only one of us who might be considered generous," Ace clarified. "She won't mind sharing. She comes from a society that shared everything."
"Oh, that must have been nice."
"It's antiquated and backward."
"Why are you so cynical about everything? Just because something isn't for you doesn't mean it isn't for someone else."
At that, his lips twitched ever so slightly at one side. The beginnings of a smile. Miracles would never cease, it seemed.
"Give you a little freedom, and you get an attitude on you," he mused, tone close to playful.
"See, your mistake is thinking I didn't have an attitude all along," I said, shrugging. "I was just scared and then drugged and then in isolation from everyone, so you didn't experience it fully. But I figure if you saved me from the elements, I am on pretty safe footing here now. You can expect more attitude from now on. I think someone needs to put you in your place once in a while," I added, shooting him a smirk.
