“What the fuck happened?” Rogue hisses, his hand shooting out and grabbing Dev around the neck. Dev snarls before he submits, his instincts clearly letting him know that he’s not gonna win this fight. Rogue’s been vibrating with tension the whole time we’ve been standing silently outside the door.
I idly wonder if us basically eavesdropping on them makes us creepy stalker alphas, and then shrug. Ah, well. To be fair, we would have picked up the scents even from outside the house, so it’s not like we could have given them privacy even if we’d wanted to. Which I didn’t particularly. Although I hope Harper won’t be too upset when she realizes we overheard pretty much the whole thing.
Ace is palming his hand over his pants, clearly trying to rearrange the semi he’s still sporting. I bite my lip as I stare and he catches me, letting out a low, inviting purr that goes straight to my fucking knot.
It can be hard for alphas to come together sexually, but it helps that my dominance levels are pretty low compared to Ace’s. I blush at the mental image of Ace leaning over me, his hands on my hips as he presses me into a mattress, and quickly turn my face away.
Focus, I tell myself. I’m blaming the omega hormones for my randy thoughts.
Devlin and Rogue are both snarling at each other. “I know what I said,” Dev snaps in a low voice. He shoots a look towards the door, clearly not wanting to wake Harper. “Things changed.”
“In one night?” Rogue pushes back with an incredulous snarl. “What could possibly change in—”
“She had anightmare,” Devlin bites out the words, his eyes darkening. “Because I was a prick. I found her in the cage, crying out. I did that to her.I did that.”
Oh. Devlin’s voice is hoarse, a slight tremble to the words. Oh, Harper. My heart breaks at the thought of her crawling back into that fucking cage to sleep.
Rogue takes a step back, releasing his hold on Dev’s throat.
“I heard her, went in and pulled her out. I ended up sleeping in with her. She didn’t want me to leave. And then she woke up.”
An uncharacteristic red blooms on Devlin’s cheeks. “One thing led to another. We talked, and I apologized. She enjoyed it.”
“Oh, we know,” Ace chips in, and everyone throws him a glare. He raises his hands jokingly. “What? I’m just saying, we all heard it.”
Rogue runs a hand over his eyes, his brow creasing with frustration. I feel a little sorry for him. Our pack’s all over the place right now. The bonds must be running him ragged.
“Right,” he grits out. “Can I assume that you’re over any concerns you had?” he asks Devlin, an edge of sarcasm warring with genuine worry in his voice. Dev sends another look towards the door, something in his normally hard-as-nails expression softening.
“Yeah,” he mutters, clearing his throat. “I’m in. Sorry. I’ll try not to fuck it up again.”
I sag in relief. Thank fuck for that. I don’t want to go through a dinner as awkward as the one we had last night ever again.
The door creaks open. We all whip around in unison, our expressions a matching shade of guilty-as-hell. Harper blinks at us sleepily, her focus moving from one to the other. When she reaches Devlin, the corner of her mouth tips up, just a little. A wave of cinnamon hits me and I bite back a groan. Devlin, our hard-assed, grumpy, commitment-phobic alpha actuallymelts. Crossing over to her, he wraps his arms around her back and nuzzles her cheek, blatantly scent marking her. He whispers something and she laughs before shyly reaching up and kissing him gently on the mouth, giggling when he licks at her roughly. Devlin isplaying.
I’m in too much shock to school my expression when he turns around, and he flicks me in the chin as he strolls past. “Close your mouth, Gabe, you’ll get flies in it.” Snapping my mouth shut with a snap, we all watch him sauntering down the hallway. Smug bastard.
Harper is still standing with us, and she blushes when we all turn our awed expressions on her.
“You fixed Devlin,” Ace whispers in exaggeration, his eyes wide as saucers. Harper frowns at him and crosses her arms.
“There was nothing wrong with him,” she states, a small wobble in her voice. It’s clear that she’s still slightly uncomfortable around us, and I don’t blame her. The mood swings in this house over the last few days have been enough to give anyone whiplash.
Rogue steps forward and gently wraps an arm around Harper, steering her down the hallway. I hear him apologising for his behavior last night.
“Family breakfast,” he calls out to me, and I let out a small whoop in excitement. He’s basically just given me permission to go full gung-ho – that means fry-up, pancakes, the works.
* * *
A bomb has hit my kitchen. An omega-shaped bomb.
There’s pancake battereverywhere, flour is covering every surface and there’s four pancakes of varying sizes stuck to the ceiling.
I don’t give a fuck. Harper is glowing. When she said she’d never made pancakes before, I had her up and in front of the pan before she could do much more than blink. I thought it would be simple enough to walk her through.
Boy, was I wrong.
She’s a walking disaster zone in the kitchen. I’ve never seen anything quite like it. She’s dropped at least four eggs, knocked a pint of milk over, and she looks like some sort of weird ghost with a baking fetish with so much flour covering her.
