Mate.“Brooke…” I murmured, dazed. “She…we’re notMates.” But my brother seemed so certain, and a part of me dared to hope as I looked up and met his dark gaze. “She’s just visiting—heading back to L.A. after the new year. She pushed me away.”
Garrak nodded once before dropping his hand and lifting his mug once more. “Then you’d better figure out why,T’mak. Because you’re not going to get any peace until you claim her.”
Claim taste Hunt now claim fuck now now now.
The urges pounded through my body in time with my heartbeat, and I groaned as I tipped my head back to stare at my brother’s ceiling. “She’s not myMate,” I told myKteerloudly.
I didn’t believe myself.
“Want to use my shower?” Garrak called from the kitchen. “I’m making pancakes, because if I have to make polite conversation this early, there damn well better be pancakes involved.”
“No,” I mumbled, having a vague idea that I needed to log into my computer. Garrak, as always, understood what I needed better than I did, and snorted.
“I just texted Abydos that you wouldn’t be working today either.”
He didn’t ask; he’d just informed my boss that I would be taking the day off? I groaned again.
“Go take a shower,T’mak. You know where the clean clothes are. I’ll be out here when you’re ready to talk.”
The chaga tea—and memories ofourmother—had helped, but…Mate? I shook my head and stalked toward the large bathroom attached to the single bedroom. Another hot shower, another swift hand-fuck, andmaybeI’d be able to face the day calmer, with logic.
I snorted as I dragged my shirt over my head and tossed it in my brother’s hamper. Logic didn’t seem possible these days, and the explanation was even more difficult to believe.
Mate?
Impossible.
Brooke
“Focus,Brooke! I told you to flood the cookie, not stab it!”
I frowned down at the snowflake-shaped sugar cookie on the counter in front of me, then jabbed my toothpick into it. “That’s what I’m doing,” I grumbled at my sister.
Riven’s loud sigh ruffled my hair a moment before she snatched the toothpick from my fingers. “You’re stabbing it.”
“I’m poking it. You said poking was part of the flow.”
“Flood,” she corrected, bumping me out of the way with her hip and bending over my workstation. “You just sort of…gently…nudge the icing to the edges of the cookie. Like this.”
“That’s what I wasdoing.” At this point, I was objecting merely on older-sister principle. Lord knows I was never going to be as meticulous as Riven was when it came to icing cookies. “I can be careful.”
At this, Mom looked up from across the counter, raised a brow, then ducked her head and went right back to her perfectflooding. I huffed at both of them and crossed my arms over my chest in a pout.
I’m so mature.
“I don’t see why they have to be perfect anyhow.”
“They’re never going to be perfect,” Riven teased without looking up, “as long asyou’reinvolved.”
“Mom,” I whined.
On the other side of the counter, my mother sighed happily without looking up from her work. “It’s sogoodto have both of you home again.”
Maybe my lips twitched a little.
Don’t get me wrong; I did like being back on Eastshore. The last few weeks had reminded me how much I like this place, even though it’s so different from the big city I’d been navigating for years. Stuff was slower here, but I felt like I could really connect with the people and community, if that makes sense, rather thanrush rush rushingthrough each day.
There’d been a few times since returning that I seriously considered selling my place out in California and buying one of the small homes for sale along the south side of the island. I could be happy here, with my mom and sister and her new husband. Maybe there weren’t a lot of weddings here on the island, but maybe I could change that.
