Page 47 of Bite for Sore Eyes

Rath shook his head, setting the pan on the stovetop with more force than necessary. "We're perfectly capable of cooking for our mate."

"We haven't really done this in years," Torren pointed out with a wry smile. "I'm very rusty."

Despite everything—the rogue bear attack, Lana's terrifying episode, the weight of decisions hanging over all of them—Rath found himself laughing at his best friend's expression. "Torren, you can handle this. Just like you handle everything."

The familiar dynamic between them, unchanged despite the extraordinary circumstances, felt like an anchor. They'd navigated impossible situations before. They could navigate this too.

Torren moved toward the large refrigeration unit, its sleek surface reflecting the warm kitchen lighting. "I can certainly try," he muttered, pulling open the door and surveying the contents with the same tactical assessment he used for battle planning.

Rath moved around him, reaching for packages of meat while his mind drifted to more troubling concerns. "Why do you think those rogue bears were attacking Lana and Jace? It doesn't make any sense."

"I don't know," Torren replied, gathering vegetables and fruit with methodical precision. "Random attacks like that⁠—"

The kitchen door swung open, Lana stepping through like a ray of sunshine in a flowing yellow sundress, and Rath's breath caught in his throat.

She looked radiant—alive in a way that seemed impossible just hours after they'd held her shivering body in ice water, praying her system wouldn't completely shut down. The soft fabric of the dress moved around her curves as she walked, and the bright color brought out the warm undertones in her skin.

"You two look absolutely out of your element in here," she said, taking in the scene with obvious amusement.

"We are definitely out of our element," Torren admitted with a self-deprecating grin.

She approached the stovetop where Rath stood holding the pan like he wasn't entirely sure what to do with it. The sundress swirled around her legs as she moved, and her wildflower scent wrapped around him like a physical embrace.

"Did you season these?" she asked, nodding toward the steaks he'd placed in the pan. "Oh, and you have the heat all wrong."

Before he could respond, she was nudging him aside with her hip, her smaller frame somehow managing to displace his much larger one through sheer determination. She reached for the temperature controls, adjusting the settings with confident familiarity, then began opening cabinets in search of seasonings.

There was something profoundly moving about this moment—watching her take charge in his kitchen, seeing her make herself at home in his space. This ordinary domestic scene they hadn't been sure they'd ever have. An hour ago, he'd been holding her in ice water, terrified he might lose her before they'd barely begun. Now she was here, teasing him about his cooking skills and wearing a sundress that made his bear rumble with deep satisfaction.

"Well, maybe you can teach me a thing or two," he said, his voice roughened.

She looked up at him, and something electric passed between them—heat and promise and the kind of intimate connection that had nothing to do with desire and everything to do with building a life together.

"I can definitely teach you more than a thing or two," she replied, and the way her eyes sparkled made heat flood through his entire body.

Unable to resist, he bent down and pressed his lips to the curve of her neck. Then she laughed—a sound like music that made his chest tight with emotion—and the simple pleasure of it, of making her happy, was almost overwhelming.

"Hey, I could use a little help over here," Torren called from across the kitchen.

Rath looked over to see his co-Alpha standing beside a cutting board covered in what could generously be called "rustic" vegetable preparation. Chunks of various sizes scattered across the surface, and Torren held a knife like it might bite him.

Lana turned from the pan after giving Rath strict instructions to keep turning the steaks every two minutes, then walked over to Torren. She assessed his handiwork with the same analytical eye she probably used for cybersecurity problems.

"Okay," she said gently, "let me show you a better way to do this."

Rath watched as she positioned herself beside Torren, her smaller hands guiding his larger ones as she demonstrated proper knife technique. There was something beautiful about seeing her teach both of them, about the way she naturally made space for their learning without making either of them feel incompetent.

I could get used to more moments like this, he thought, carefully turning the steaks as instructed. Spending weeks, months, years with her.

For the first time since Kelly and Emry had revealed their theory, he allowed himself to truly imagine it—a future where Lana's life didn't end within a year. Where they had time to learn each other's habits, to build traditions, to grow old together. Where she could teach him to cook properly and he could show her every corner of Nova Aurora. Where they could complete their triad bond not out of desperation but out of choice, out of love, out of the absolute certainty that they belonged together.

The images were so vivid, so achingly perfect, that he had to grip the pan handle tighter to keep his hands steady. But he didn't want to pressure her or ask directly if she'd made her decision about completing the mate bond. The choice had to be entirely hers, made without any sense of obligation or expectation.

So he stayed quiet, focusing on the simple pleasure of cooking with his mate and his best friend, and tried not to hope too hard for impossible things.

Thirty minutes later, the afternoon sunlight filtered through the stone archways of the back terrace as Rath carried the perfectly prepared steaks outside, still marveling at how effortlessly Lana had transformed their clumsy cooking attempts into something that actually smelled edible. The cast-iron serving platter felt substantial in his hands, grounding him after the emotional whiplash of the past few hours—from terror at nearly losing her to hope at Kelly and Emry's theory to this simple domestic pleasure of sharing a meal they'd prepared together.

The back terrace had always been his favorite part of the castle—the place where he and Torren escaped the weight of leadership for stolen moments of peace. But today, with Lana settling gracefully into the chair between them, her yellow sundress bright against the ancient stone, the space felt transformed.