Total pages in book: 84
Estimated words: 81808 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 409(@200wpm)___ 327(@250wpm)___ 273(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 81808 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 409(@200wpm)___ 327(@250wpm)___ 273(@300wpm)
“Go fetch whatever is needed,” she said to me. “I will remain here, at the threshold, and stand guard over your home and the boy.”
No one tried to say that she alone wouldn’t be much of a guardian. They knew better now. We stood there, unmoving, and watched them all leave.
EIGHT
The relief I felt just seeing duffel bags, suitcases, and clothes on hangers being walked into my home was amazing.
Our home.
I shivered watching Cole.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
“Looking at you.” I stared at the beautiful man. We hadn’t had a moment alone since we’d confirmed that he was my mate, and I wanted one.
“Well, maybe you could help me instead? That way we can get this done so I can go get us something to eat or—do you cook?”
It took me a second to process what he’d said. “What?”
“Can you cook?”
I squinted at him. “Of course I can cook. Who can’t cook?”
“Me, for one.”
“Really?”
“Yes, really. It’s not a character deficit or something, it’s just not something I’m good at.”
“Well, then you’re fortunate for the second time today,” Ondine told Cole. “For Merritt is an excellent cook. The things he enjoys, he masters. Like pruning those little bonsai trees. There are several in here, and they’re all ancient.”
“That is very good news,” Cole told me with a grin that made his eyes warm. “Because we need to wake Evan up soon so we can feed him. Is it all right if I put his things in the guest room?”
“It will be his room now,” I told him. “You do whatever you want.”
The possessive way he was looking at me was making my breath catch.
“So it’s you, me, and Evan here, as well as Teague and Ondine.”
“Both of them are here sporadically, but they’ll always have a place with me.”
“Oh no, of course. I’m looking forward to getting to know them both.”
“Well, Ondine you will, but Teague is…”
“Difficult,” Ondine chimed in.
“Is he?”
She nodded.
“He’s not,” I assured Cole. “He’s just quiet.”
“And difficult,” she repeated, crossing her arms.
Cole looked from me to her, then back again. “Some history I’m missing? Lover’s quarrel?”
“Hah! Lover’s quarrel,” she spat. “As though I would ever take an elf to my bed.”
“Let’s get back to moving clothes,” I suggested.
“Why don’t you make a cheese and fake bacon quiche and that wonderful tomato soup. It’s cold outside, and I think that would be lovely.” Ondine yawned, and when she stretched, her hair went from blond to jet black, so dark that the highlights in it were midnight blue. She was also wearing flannel pajama bottoms, fuzzy slippers, and a baggy long-sleeved T-shirt all of a sudden. The only thing that remained the same was the messy bun.
“That’s amazing,” Cole told her.
She grunted, picked up a laundry basket with toiletries in it, draped some clothes on hangers over it, and headed for my bedroom. Or our bedroom, mine and Cole’s, now.
“Are you gonna eat?” I called after her.
“Of course I’m going to eat,” she snarled back.
Cole turned to me.
“She’s just hungry, which is weird because she doesn’t have to eat, but when she wants to, she gets like that.”
“I think she’s luminous.”
I grunted. “We’ll see how luminous you think she is when she eats everything in the house and forgets to tell you.”
“I can’t wait.” He gave me a blinding smile before following her.
I went to the kitchen and started pulling out everything I needed, excited to be cooking for Cole and Evan. I wanted to show the man that I could take care of him and his brother.
It was fun to listen to snippets of his conversation with Ondine as they came in and out of the bedroom, picking up and carrying things.
“Apparently, I know nothing about sirens,” he told her. “I thought they were mermaids who hung out on rocks near coastlines and tried to get sailors to steer their boats into reefs.”
“Sirens come in many different sizes and colors,” she teased him.
“I just thought they wanted to kill sailors.”
“I mean, some do that.” She shrugged. “But they also come onto the land and hunt down men who have committed atrocities out on the sea.”
“Really?” Cole sounded surprised, and then they were both gone again.
I was grating cheese when they came back out.
“So even if you can’t hear, a siren can still enthrall you?”
“Of course. Sirens rely on more than just audible seduction.”
“Why?”
“Being reliant on only one form of temptation would be careless,” she told him. “Simple song would have made my sisters obsolete.”
“Makes sense.”
“A siren may also lure with sight, touch, and smell. We are the most fearsome of creatures, though I’ve always found wolves to be most susceptible to song. Perhaps it’s the fact that you engage in your own that makes it so.”
She meant the howling.
“Could be,” Cole agreed, following her into the bedroom again.
I was slicing up plant-based bacon a bit later when Evan got up, stumbled over to the island, and took a seat.