“Would you like to sleep in this room alone or come to my bed as we discussed earlier?”
“You made an offer, there was no discussion involved,” I remind him. “And I…I never agreed to that.” My response is meant to be a declaration, but the words come out as little more than a weak stutter. It’s hard to keep my voice as firm as I want it to be with my wolf dancing in my stomach.
“No, you didn’t agree to share my bed,” he answers, both his expression and voice sad. But instead of arguing, he takes a step back and says, “Good night, Reverence.”
That’s it? I feel disappointed and like a fool at the same damn time. “Okay, um, good night,” I answer before escaping into the room.
But of course, I don’t fall asleep after I climb into bed. As soon as I deem it late enough, I creep to the door, hoping to God and the Fenrir wolf that Damianos forgot to lock it again, like the one time I managed to get all the way downstairs.
You see, I gathered an important piece of intel over dinner. The kitchen…it has three doors: a sliding one that leads out to the living room, and two regular ones with old-fashioned knobs. One of the regular doors is full wood and looks like it leads to the basement, but the other one has a window and I could see it definitely leads to the outside.
Taking a deep breath, I press my palm to the door.
To my utter surprise, it totally opens.
But then, to my utter disappointment, I find Damianos curled up on the floor outside my room.
Damn hermetically sealed suite! If this had been a regular house, I would have known he was right on the other side of the door. But maybe he was sleeping so soundly I could just creep over his huge body.
“Is there any way I might serve you, Reverence? Do you require water or more food?” the dragon king’s voice appears inside my head, completely cutting off that idea.
With an irritated huff, I palm the door closed again, not bothering to answer.
The next time I find myself in the kitchen, it’s because Damianos has escorted me down there after administering my morning bath.
“How about you let me handle breakfast,” I offer, not wanting to sit through another rubbery meal of overcooked whatever Colby left in the fridge.
A weird thing happens when we’re done eating, though. I feel a tremendous surge of hunger.
Which is crazy since I’d made myself four eggs, and that’s more than I usually eat for breakfast. But then I realize the ravenous feeling isn’t coming not from inside of me but over my mate bond.
“Are you still hungry?” I ask Damianos.
“Forgive me, Reverence, but we drakkon require much more sustenance than wolves. I will as the humans say, raid the refrigerator to see what else I might eat.
“No, I can make more,” I answer, standing up. For reasons I don’t care to fully examine right now, I do not like the idea of Damianos starving. “How much did Colby use to cook for you?”
“The last Colby would have food delivered toward the beginning of the week. I believe he ordered a carton of eggs for each day until the next delivery and a package of bacon.”
Well, that explained why there were so many cartons of eggs and at least ten packages of bacon wrapped in brown paper in the fridge.
“You want some toast, too?” I ask, closing the door with one of the cartons and brown-paper packages tucked under one arm.
“Drakkon are carnivorous. We do not require breads, grains, or plants.”
A chill runs down my back at the word carnivorous. And it’s not one of fear. Why does everything he says remind me of sex? Which I shouldn’t be wanting to have right now. Especially with him.
I concentrate on figuring out how to scramble a whole carton of eggs at the same time.
“You honor me with this feast,” Damianos declares when I set down a plate piled high with eggs and bacon.
“I’m sure this is nothing in comparison to what Colby would have made,” I answer.
“Yes, all of the Colbys train for a time under master chefs. However, this meal was made by your reverent hand, and therefore it automatically qualifies as the best thing I’ve ever eaten.”
My cheeks warm. It’s embarrassing how pleased his declaration makes me feel, even though cooking a simple breakfast like this really wasn’t any kind of big deal. I guess my great-grandfather Leroy was right though.
“Remember, Twins, the best way to a man’s heart is through food,” he’d once told us when our overworked mom walked in with a bucket of KFC for the fourth night in a row. This had been back before our dads had returned to share the parenting and kingdom burden with our mother, who was not only a video game business CEO but also holding down the Queen of Michigan title at the same time.