“Are you just going to stand and stare, or are you going to grab some plates?”
Busted. I shook my head and twisted my lips to the side. “I think I earned a little staring and a whole lot of pancakes.”
“Fair enough.” He pointed at the chair with the spatula. “Then sit your cute ass down and let me feed my woman.”
“So caveman,” I scoffed, moving toward the chair.
He threw his head back and laughed. “On a scale of one to one hundred, this is about a level five caveman.”
That’s what I was afraid of. I took a sip of the orange juice from the glass before me. Yum, freshly squeezed. He served up the final two pancakes onto two plates and slid one in front of me before dropping down on the seat next to mine. His knee brushed my own, and he grinned as the familiar heat swept down my spine. I cleared my throat and dug into the pancakes. Damn, these were good.
“How did you sleep?” he asked.
“Better with Keverin, thank you.”
“Don’t thank me. We were both going nuts listening to your nightmares. But you’d made it quite clear I wasn’t welcome, so I sent him hoping you wouldn’t demand he leave.”
“Have you seen the size of him? Not sure anything I said or did would make him leave. He takes stubborn and makes it his personality.”
“See, I’m not that bad.”
I snorted. “You are worse, but with less fur.”
He grinned. “If the fur is a deal breaker, I can make that happen.”
I shook my head. “You are impossible.” I devoured another mouthful. “But your blueberry pancakes make up for it.”
A loud thud above our heads made us both look up. “Whose room is that?” he asked.
I glowered at the ceiling. “Rebecca’s.”
Aunt Liz strode in with Dave following a step behind her. She gave us a soft smile, clutching a large dark leather book in her hands. A Roberts grimoire, I believed.
“Good morning, Cora,” she said.
“Morning. Why do you have that?”
“Research.” She took a seat opposite me while Dave filled the kettle and popped it on the stove. Look at that. My aunt had domesticated Dangerous Dave.
“About?” I asked.
She darted a look at Hudson. I wasn’t keeping any more secrets from him, because they would tear us apart faster than any shifter chasing prey. I’d already decided sometime last night to discuss with the rest of the Serpents of the Dawn how to do one of two things: leave and rid myself of the knowledge of their existence, or stay and inform Hudson of their existence. He didn’t have to join, but I was done hiding this. It wasn’t fair to me or him to do so. I understood the logic and need for such an organization, but it didn’t need me.
“This specific grimoire was my mother’s.”
I froze with a forkful of blueberries halfway to my gaping mouth. I’d already searched the vaults. My grandmother had taken all her grimoires, somehow bypassing my imitation spell, which would have given me a perfect copy. You didn’t become the ruler of the elementals by being careless.
“Close your mouth, niece.”
“Won’t she notice it’s missing?” Hudson wondered.
Liz’s mouth curled. “Did I tell you one of the things my mother used to drill us with as punishment?”
I narrowed my eyes and put my fork down. “I’m sure Eloise was winning parent of the year awards, but no, enlighten me.”
Liz spread open the grimoire, the pages creaking as they revealed my grandmother’s secret thoughts. “Eloise used to make us copy her family spells over and over again until theybecame second nature.” Liz tapped her temple. “Everything from charms to curses is stored like an encyclopedia in my mind.”
Dave placed a perfectly prepped cup of English tea in front of Liz and joined us.
