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Caden raised both of his eyebrows. “I don’t think coffee counts as fuel. Did you eat anything?”
“Would’ve taken too long.”
At that, Caden had to roll his eyes, leading the way down the hallway toward the staircase he’d passed the day before when he’d gone to find Quinten. He could smell bacon and fresh bread permeating the whole house, and it was making his mouth water.
“Well, I’m starving. If you’re stuck to me, that means you’re going to have to go to the kitchen with me, and you can either eat too, or you can just watch me.” He glanced over his shoulder, and he was pretty sure that behind the mug, Dare was grinning at him.
When he lowered it, there was no sign of it.
Caden was pretty sure there had been though. He could tell by the way Dare’s eyes had crinkled. He could continue to pretend to be all stoic and unfeeling, but Caden would wear him down.
At the top of the stairs, he slowed. The entrance hall at the bottom was busier than it had been the day before, the whole house humming with activity, even though it was barely 7:30 in the morning.
All the people made him hesitate. He didn’t use to mind other people, was great at meeting new ones too—it came with the territory of traveling from pack to pack. He was often the new guy wherever he went, but now the large group of people made him wary.
He wasn’t sure he could force himself to go down into that chaos.
“This way,” Dare said softly.
Caden turned away gratefully and followed him. After a few twists and turns down some other hallways, they found a much quieter and far less grand set of stairs.
At the bottom, the scent of bacon was almost strong enough that he could taste it in his mouth. He knew they had to be close to the kitchen.
“Do you think it’s okay if we just go in and get something?” he asked Dare quietly, not exactly sure why he was whispering.
Dare nodded. “It’s fine, kid.”
He wrinkled his nose at being called a kid but straightened his shoulders and decided to fake it until he made it.
The kitchen was busy, too, but with far fewer people than the other side of the house had.
There was an older, round woman standing off to the side, giving orders to two younger women. She sent one to refill something in the dining room and the other to wake up “the pups.”
Caden hesitated once more just inside. Should they go to the dining room too? It was probably full of Kincaid’s people, and he didn’t really want to have to make small talk with them or lie once more about not remembering what happened to him.
Before he could decide, Dare nudged him with his arm and then used his chin to point out a small table against the wall. It was set up like a booth at a restaurant, and no one else was sitting there at the moment.
The older woman noticed them, her face creasing in a beaming smile. “Well, good morning,” she called, bustling over toward them and wiping her hands on the apron she was wearing. She cast a critical eye over Caden. “You must be starving, dear. Anything in particular you’d like?”
He shook his head, feeling shy in the face of her boisterous good mood. “Whatever you have is fine.”
She hummed and looked at Dare. “What about you, wolf?”
He glanced past her into the kitchen and then met her eyes once more. “Bacon.”
She laughed and turned away. “Bacon, I can do.”
He and Dare settled into either side of the booth, Dare’s back to the rest of the kitchen and eyes on the door they’d come through. Caden, on the other hand, got a front-row view of the graceful way the woman ran the entire room.
It seemed like she was doing a million things at once, all while directing the other two. In far less time than he would’ve thought, she had whipped up a mountain of pancakes and brought it over to the table, then brought another plate full of bacon and then a huge bowl of freshly cut fruit.
He stared, mouth already watering.
Setting empty plates in front of each of them, she nodded. “Go ahead and dig in, dears.” She looked at Caden. “You want some coffee or juice, sweetie?”
“Coffee would be great,” he said. “Thank you. This looks wonderful.”
She smiled at him again, hustling off and coming back with a mug, filling it for him, and topping off Dare’s before he could even ask. As soon as she was done, she left again, not lingering over them and making Caden feel subconscious. Dare was already piling food on his plate, his scarred eyebrow going up when Caden hesitated.
