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Chapter Fifteen
Analise
I woke between the two alphas, their arms around me from both sides, as warm and safe as I had ever felt. Their stiff members poked me, and I should have been afraid, but not a hint of fear darkened my pleasure at being with them. They could have done anything they wanted to me in those nighttime hours. I was smaller and weaker and would have been unable to stop them.
But all they’d done was kiss me. And hold me, and speak to me in soft, kind tones. I kept expecting them to make demands, as I’d heard males did, once they had a female alone with them. Tadeo did once lift my shirt, but when I didn’t encourage him, he stopped. And then kissed me some more. I was actually a little sorry he’d stopped but relieved at the same time.
None of the girls in our pack spoke of such a night. Some bragged that their mates were strong lovers, and others emerged from their mating nights shaken and afraid. Virginity was highly prized in our pack, and a girl who did not wait for her mating night was seen as less valuable.
Valuable. My father had seen me as a way to cement an alliance or whatever his agreement was with Elder Ridge. In that lay my value to him. Not as someone he loved, a member of his family. Not as a person whose happiness mattered. I might as well have been a sum of money or a piece of real estate. It hurt so much to think of this, I looked around for something to distract me.
We’d pushed the covers down during the night, and I pulled them up and tucked them around us, snuggling between the two men. It was chilly in the bedroom, although it looked like the storm was easing.
The snow was piled halfway up the window, and I wondered whether that meant we’d be able to lie around all day like yesterday. I hoped so, but if they could shovel out, they’d probably need to be about their work. Their eyes were still closed, though, and their breathing even, and soon sleep closed around me again.
Safe here.My wolf’s words followed me into dreamland.
When I woke again, I was alone in the middle of the gargantuan bed, and the house was quiet. I climbed to my feet and stretched. The bedroom had not gotten any warmer, but one of the alphas had left a heavy bathrobe across the foot of the bed, so I donned it and wrapped the sash around me a few times before tying it. In the kitchen, I set the percolator on the stove to reheat the coffee and made some toast that I spread with butter and blueberry jam from the refrigerator. A chicken was thawing in the sink, the first full raw bird I’d seen in the wild like this. At home, chicken appeared on the table like all other meats. Cooked and sliced usually. Except, of course, Thanksgiving when Dad stood at the head of the table and wielded a carving knife, making the gorgeous bird a shredded mess.
It felt strange to eat alone at the counter, so I went into the living room and set it on the low table. The banked coals stirred up into a bright fire with a little stir and a fresh log from the pile nearby.
After breakfast, I peeked outside. A path had been shoveled in the deep snow, likely by the alphas on their way to their daily tasks, but I had nowhere to go, and no shoes, so I closed the door and considered what to do with my day.
I washed the dishes, made the bed, and swept the floor, but everything else seemed pretty tidy. I didn’t want to watch TV and use up a lot of power in the batteries. While the snow was no longer coming down, the sky was still cloudy and the bank of solar panels behind the house wouldn’t be getting enough light to recharge.
I made a few trips back into the kitchen to study the chicken. Tadeo and Sawyer would be out in the cold all day, and they might appreciate a hot meal. But doubts about whether I could make one that wouldn’t poison everyone sent me back to sit on the couch each time.
We’d had chicken soup the night before. I’d expected cattle ranchers to serve mostly beef—and to be fair, they had given me a steak sandwich. But if they wanted chicken for dinner, how hard could it be? A quick search turned up a cookbook calledDinner for Beginners, and I paged through it until I found a recipe for roast chicken.
The steps looked easy enough, and I set the oven to 400 degrees and reached for the bird. “Okay, Mr. chicken, it’s just you and me! I will try to do you justice.Step one, check inside for giblets.” Inside where? And how would I know what a giblet was? I turned the bird every which way and peered inside the larger opening. Which led to darkness. Two inserted fingers poked against a lot of ice and a paper pouch that, when removed, proved to hold some indescribable parts and what might be the neck bones. I wrapped them up in a paper towel and put them in the refrigerator. If they were trash, they could be thrown away later. I went on to wash the chicken, dry it with more paper towels, and set it in a pan I found in the oven. It was hot. But I only got a couple of blisters. And rubbing the chicken with butter inside and out helped with the burns.
The cupboards did not hold all the spices the recipe called for, but I replaced cumin with cinnamon and paprika with chili flakes, on the assumption the general color looked like the pictures of those spices in the helpful index at the back of the book.
Then I put the chicken in the oven and considered side dishes.
I found a huge bag of rice and put a big scoop in a pot along with some water, put a lid on it, and set that to boil. Feeling like I needed a vegetable, I added half a bag of frozen peas to the rice pot and covered it again.
The whole day, no matter what I was doing, I’d been running over the idea in my head of living here with these men. Of being their mate. Of what that would mean. I pictured their faces when they saw what I’d prepared, their pleasure at eating my food. And then…when I had done a little something to show them my regard, made them a meal and watched them eat it, I would give them my decision.
And thank them for giving me the time and space to make it. The Lady sent me here and gifted me with the polar opposite of what my father tried to force me to accept as a birthday gift. The Goddess was a much better shopper.
The chicken smelled so good, the rice was boiling merrily away, and in a burst of homemaking, I set the counter with plates and silverware and some beer glasses I found in a high cupboard. My heart was happy, my mind and body exhausted when I sat on the sofa to watch the fire.
