7

CHAPTER SEVEN

Iwake instantly the next morning when Dayne rips the covers off my body, blinding me with the harsh white light from the lamp beside me. And although I squeeze my eyes tight, I swear I can still see the light.

"Why aren't you up already? It's six. The pack will be here in less than thirty minutes and they'll be expecting to find breakfast on the table."

It's a battle to pry my eyelids open. Any time I'm awake before nine has been to flip my pillow over to the cool side, stumble to the toilet before crawling back under the sheets, or to burrow deeper to seek more warmth in winter.

And since Uncle never particularly cared when all the chores got done, as long as I did them well, it wasn't like I had to be up early ever. That and he wasn't an early riser either. None of my pack were.

"I'm heading to town. I wouldn't even think about running if I were you."

Although I hear Dayne's words, it's taking far longer than it should for them to penetrate my semi-awake consciousness.

Breakfast for the pack in thirty minutes?

I understand the words but they don't make sense to me. Not yet, anyway. Not when my brain is still back in a dreamland where Dayne finishes what he started in the forests, and where instead of his finger sliding deep inside me, it's his cock.

A low growl warns me my lack of attention has been noticed and I snap my eyes open.

Dayne is standing at the foot of the bed, his eyes locked on me with intense focus.

As if he were just waiting for me to open my eyes, he spins around and starts for the bedroom door. It's only then I wake up enough to see he's up and showered and dressed, all before six in the morning.

There must be something wrong with him. It's not normal for someone to be up that early, and look, well… awake.

Seeing that my opportunity to find out what's going on is about to walk out the door, I scoot down the bed and scramble to my feet.

"But, I—I don't—I've never cooked breakfast before."

At the door, Dayne pauses before he spins around to face me. For a second his gaze dips to take in my bare legs, exposed by my t-shirt. "Are you telling me no?"

His question is mild, and he gazes back at me with a completely neutral expression. An expression I don't trust at all. Retreating back a step, I shake my head no.

I have no idea if such a person exists who would dare say no to Dayne Blackshaw, a shifter with a reputation even I, who rarely left my pack, heard about him. But whoever that person is, it certainly isn't me.

He turns to leave again, and it kills me to speak up, but I have to. Because I can't go another day in one of his t-shirts. And I'm getting pretty sick of him flinging his clothes at me, much like he did last night before he disappeared.

I still don't know when or even if he came up to bed since I had a shower and fell into bed, crashing soon after.

"Can I…" Immediately, my words trail off when Dayne swings back around.

"What?" he snaps.

I swallow. "I don't have…" Pausing to clear my throat, I stare at his bearded chin since I can't bring myself to meet his gaze, "anything to wear. Can I borrow some—"

"In there." He jerks his head toward a chest of drawers, and before I can even ask him which drawer or what I can borrow, he disappears through the bedroom door, slamming it shut behind him.

For a long moment, I can do nothing but stare at it, waiting to see if he'll come back.

"I'd get a fucking move on if I were you. You have twenty minutes."

Jumping, I get to the chest of draws and yank the first one open, before I freeze, staring down at the clothes. Then I close it and open the next, and the next, repeating the action until I've examined the contents of each of the five drawers.

"It doesn't make sense," I mutter to myself.

Why would Dayne have a chest of drawers full of women's clothes?

Glancing over at the closed bedroom door, I hear him taking the stairs two at a time before I return my focus to the clothes in the drawers.

At random, I pull one open and take out a long sleeve white t-shirt and a pair of jeans. Raising both to my nose, though it's unnecessary, I wonder if the faint female scent I'm picking up means the clothes belong to the beautiful blonde Dayne was talking to last night.

It wouldn't surprise me if it was her.

I take in the labels on the clothes. Frame denim skinny blue jeans and a Rag & Bone jersey top. I've heard of the brands from gossip magazines some of the pack used to leave lying around the house. But even if I didn't know the clothes in my hands are high-end, then the feel of them would've clued me in.

I've never worn anything this expensive before, and never dreamed I ever would. Since I lived in ripped Walmart jeans and either black or khaki t-shirts, I expected to be wearing much the same here.

Even the underwear I see, lace panties, and matching bralettes and bras are expensive: Victoria's Secret. The thought of wearing someone else's panties—especially expensive ones makes me wince.

Well, whoever the clothes belong to, she won't be wanting them back.

Not that I can blame her.

What's strange is everything, at first glance anyway, is a size four. My size. Everything looks like it'll fit. Except for the bras which are smaller, or rather my boobs are bigger than they should be for my body size. So, leaving them in the drawer, I snatch up the jeans, panties, and t-shirt before I pause.

Cooking is not going to go cleanly. I don't need a crystal ball to tell me that. The last thing I want to do is stain high-end clothes with bacon grease and whatever else I decide to cook for breakfast, regardless of who the clothes belong to.

So, after pulling a drawer open, I replace the white t-shirt with a black one. Then, remembering how little time I have to shower, dress, and make breakfast, I run for the bathroom.

The cars are pulling up outside the house at a little after six-thirty, but I'm done. I've cooked breakfast for the pack. And as someone who has approximately zero experience cooking breakfast for even one person, let alone for ten or more, it's gone about as well as I'd expected it to go. Which is to say, not well at all.

As I take in the devastation in the sink, the eggshells on the counter, bacon grease on the back-splash, six different pans in the sink, I feel a presence come up behind me.

"You weren't kidding about not being able to cook, were you?" a voice says with a low whistle.

To no one's surprise, it's Dayne.

Spinning around, I find him eyeing the total annihilation of his kitchen and start backing away as I wait for the inevitable explosion.

Lazily, he reaches out and snags my wrist, tugging me toward him with so little effort, once again it hits me how much stronger he is than my uncle.

I close my eyes, half turning away from him as I brace myself for whatever he decides to do to me, knowing I'm powerless to stop him.

"What happened?" he asks in his usual low, growly voice.

I don't immediately open my eyes, and it's only when he flips my wrist that I realize he must be talking about the burn on my arm, do I crack my eyes open to find I'm right.

He's staring down at the long burn on my forearm, which is still pretty red and sore but isn't half as painful as it was ten minutes ago.

As a shifter, we heal faster than ordinary humans, even a shifter like me who doesn't change any more. In an hour, there won't be the slightest scar or mark left behind.

A bigger injury, like a broken bone or a deep cut, would take a couple more hours. Other wounds take more or less time to heal, depending on the size and the location.

With the life I've had, I've got extensive experience in how long it takes to heal most types of injuries.

Seeing Dayne isn't about to lash out at me for destroying his kitchen, the tension in my shoulders eases a little. Only a little, though, because it's Dayne Blackshaw who has a hold of me, and I know what those bare hands are capable of.

"The bacon pan," I mumble.

He lifts his head and stares at me.

Clearing my throat when I realize what I've said isn't so much of a sentence as a fragment of one, I try again, "I was chopping peppers and accidentally burnt myself on the side of the bacon pan."

He bends his gaze to my arm for another long moment. "What peppers?"

Since he doesn't look about to kill me, a little more of my tension slips away. "To go in the eggs."

When he glances over at the long wooden dining table on one side of the kitchen, near the glass sliding doors which lead to the back of the house, I can guess what he's about to say before he speaks.

"I don't see peppers."

He's right. On the dining table are dishes filled with scrambled eggs, bacon, and toast. There is not a green pepper to be found anywhere on it.

"That's because they aren't in the eggs," I mutter, lowering my head as I hear the pack coming in the front door.

"So, where are they?" he asks.

The pack pause at the entrance of the kitchen, and I try my hardest to ignore their presence.

"Talis," Dayne asks, "where are the peppers?"

"Outside," I mutter, my face hot.

Without a word, Dayne drops my arm to cross the kitchen. He slides open the glass doors, and I stand there, watching him scan outside before his eyes fix on the eggs I burned while trying to save the bacon from a similar fate.

"Why did you throw it outside?"

I can't believe I'm having to say all of this with the pack standing at the entrance listening, witnessing my utter humiliation. "I thought the birds might want it."

There's a painfully long silence before he speaks. "Evidently not."

I clear my throat. "I guess they weren't hungry," I murmur because it's the only thing that makes the knowledge my cooking is so bad even the natural wildlife won't have anything to do with it bearable.

Thankfully, Dayne has nothing more to offer, although I'm aware there's plenty he could say, and I'm beyond grateful for his continued silence since there's only so much a girl can take.

Eventually, one of the pack clears her throat.

Turning, I meet the eyes of one girl with auburn hair who was waiting outside the front of the house. She's holding a large white paper bag, and she's not alone, most of the pack are holding bags, and the bags smell of food. Baked goods like fruit pies or muffins.

"We all appreciate you going to the effort of surprising us with breakfast, but on Fridays, we usually just grab pies and pastries from the diner in town."

I stare at her without blinking. Although I can see how uncomfortable this makes her, I can't stop myself. It feels like my brain is short-circuiting… or something.

"Didn't Dayne tell you?"

Glancing at the sliding door, I find Dayne studying me closely.

I was woken at six, rushed through a five-minute shower, tossed clothes on so fast it's a wonder I didn't cause myself an injury, got so stressed I burnt everything—including myself, and now I'm being told I needn't have bothered to do any of it?

He's even worse than Uncle. At least I knew where I stood with Uncle Glynn. But, Dayne… he's toying with me in a completely different way. A way that's getting to me far faster than anything Uncle ever did.

I haven’t even been here two days yet and I’m ready to kill him. And that’s just my human side. My wolf? She’d eviscerate him in a fucking heartbeat.

Cold-blooded alpha is right. What an asshole.

The feeling of claws scraping at my insides is enough to have me dropping my gaze from Dayne's.

"No," I murmur, my voice low. "I guess he must have forgot."