AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“If he doesn’t enjoy sex, why would he fuck you ‘for the team’? Does he enjoy it? Because if he does, I bet your relationship is more than that,” I pointed out.
He blinked. Blinked again. Once more. Finally, understanding lit up his green eyes. “No way. He never wanted to be together until Shan demanded I only feed off the team while we’re on assignment.”
Ah. So Em was as dumb as Caspian was with matters of the heart. I had to hand it to Shan for this one — he’d pushed them together without them realizing they’d been pushed. Now he was letting it develop how it developed. I should respect that, at least until I’d met Em in person.
Joanne pushed through the doors, out into the dining room again, holding a plate in each hand. It was the excuse I needed to drop the topic without him being suspicious about why. Let him believe the food had distracted me. A still-sizzling stack of bacon sat on the edge of my plate, beside the crisp Belgian waffle with whipped cream on top. Caspian got a plate with a pile of four pancakes with chocolate sauce and a slice of ham with maple syrup. He was staring at the spread in awe, eyes unfocused. “Enjoy your meal, you two. Better eat fast because Clara won’t be able to hold herself back forever.”
“She’s magic,” he said to me before she’d gotten two steps away.
Looking back over her shoulder, she winked at him. Starstruck, he dug in to the pancake stack, moan leaving his parted lips. He was going to get me wet with sounds like that coming out of him. It was hard to hold back a moan of my own, though, when I placed a piece of bacon in my mouth. The meat melted on my tongue, the way I liked it.
Engrossed in the plates in front of us, we ate in silence until I was so stuffed I couldn’t take a single bite more. That was when my Aunt Clara made her timely entrance. “Hello, Freya,” she said, leaning down to give me a kiss on each cheek. She regarded Caspian with her quiet curiosity that unnerved people. “Nice to meet you, Caspian. I’m Clara Alverona.”
He was finishing up the last few bites of his meal, wiping a bit of chocolate sauce away from the corner of his mouth. Unlike most people meeting Clara for the first time, he didn’t look the slightest bit uncomfortable. “I wish I could say I’ve heard a lot about you, but Freya doesn’t talk about herself much,” he said jokingly, cocking his eyebrow at me.
Hair covered his pointed ear tips, but he brushed it momentarily out of the way in a casual movement. Aunt Clara didn’t react. Like Elodie and Mabel and I, she didn’t care about fae-demon mixes. “I’ll have to agree with you on that. I hadn’t the slightest clue she was seeing anyone until Elodie kept going on about it.”
She turned her unnerving stare on me and I shrugged, used to it. “I’ve been busy. Sorry, Aunt Clara.”
“I’m happy you’ve been busy,” she said, glancing between the two of us.
I gave the tiniest shake of my head. We weren’t mates. I didn’t plan on taking that step anytime soon. Having him knot me through my heats was another story entirely, but I would not go into the dirty details with my aunt. At least, not in front of Caspian. Save that conversation for another time. “I’m going to head to the washroom,” Cas said, wiping his mouth one more time and cringing when the napkin almost stuck to his cheek. He was a messy eater. Yet another reason for Shan being so protective of him, probably. “I need to clean all this chocolate sauce off of me.”
He vanished around the corner, and my aunt sat down in his chair, staring at me. We stayed like that for a few seconds until she sighed. Her hair was the same silver as mine, falling in straight strands around her face, and people often mistook us for mother and daughter. I looked more similar to her than I did to my own parents. “Have you taken my advice? Did you tell him what you are?”
“It’s less me taking your advice and more that my body is forcing my hand,” I said, earning a roll of her eyes. She’d known my current plight would happen from the very beginning, but her warnings had fallen on my deaf ears. “He knows.”
“Why are you still using the scent dampener, then?”
“I’d rather put off telling the world for as long as possible. Besides, I don’t plan on being a claimed Omega for a while yet. It’s dangerous for my designation to become common knowledge.”
“Secrets are more dangerous. Joanne keeps telling me all these worrying things about you.”
I couldn’t imagine the amount of things Joanne knew about me that I didn’t want Clara to know. It might be worth it to beg her to stop telling her things. “I’m fine. I’m going to keep being fine. More than fine, since I have Caspian.”
And Shan, if he ever dragged his head out of his ass and started trusting me. Then again, I didn’t see that happening soon. He’d given me no reasons to trust him in return, so we were at an impasse. Clara didn’t look convinced, but she didn’t question me because Cas appeared around the corner again. She vacated his seat and leaned down to kiss my cheeks again. Oh, she would ask Joanne about me. Hopefully, Joanne didn’t deem it appropriate to dish out any more information. It was hit or miss with her — sometimes she respected privacy and other times; she didn’t. The woman liked to fuck with us. Keep us on our toes.
“You need to make sure you come by more often,” Clara scolded, looking over at Caspian with a cocked eyebrow. “Make sure she visits. It’ll get you in my good graces. Elodie already likes you, but I’m not as easy to impress.”
“Got it, Mrs. Alverona,” he said, saluting her and shooting me a grin.
“Clara, please. No one calls me Mrs. Alverona.”
“Got it, Clara,” he corrected, winking.
He was turning up the charm like he was my high school prom date and this was his first time meeting my parents. There wasn’t any need. My aunt might say she was harder to impress, but she was on board with him from the second he walked in. Anything to keep me from dying of heat complications, and she was probably impressed he was OK with me still using the dampener. Alphas tended to be possessive, wanting to mark their Omegas as soon as possible. Omegas were more possessive of their Alphas, but that was another story.
Not that we’d ever spoken about whether there was a possibility of him marking me, but she didn’t know that.
“Make sure you call me in a few weeks. Or sooner,” Clara said. She glanced between us and Caspian missed the implication, but I didn’t. I had to tell her how my next heat went. Little did she know, it might be less than a few weeks before I could give her the update. My body was upping the ante.
“I will, promise. Tell Mabel and Elodie I said hi when you see them next.”
Getting up, I gave her another hug, and she vanished back through the swinging doors. Unlike Elodie, she didn’t work in the kitchens. Aunt Clara was more a business woman, keeping up to date with bookkeeping and Null social media and things like that.
“You seem to want me to meet your whole family,” Caspian teased when she was gone, reaching out to grab my hand. “Something you aren’t telling me?”
My eyes met his and I couldn’t help but see the vulnerable man underneath. The one that made me desperate to work past my trust issues so I could have him to myself. Instead of baring my soul to him, I gave him a little smirk. “I guess you’ll have to wait and find out.”
