Page 96 of Out of Peril

He chuckled, but I was just standing there with my palms sweating, my head spinning, and my heart racing. Walker had said he loved me before now, but this time, it was like the words pierced through all my shields and embedded straight into my heart.

“You really, truly love me?”

“Of course I love you. You swept me off my feet the second I found you.”

We both laughed at that memory, because I had quite literally done just that.

“But . . .”

He silenced me with a kiss.

“Don’t say, who could love a beast?, because that's far too cliché. I love you, and I love your beast, and I love our kids, and I love the life we're going to make together after all this craziness is behind us, and I love that thing you did this morning with your tongue.”

I gasped and blushed, but he just kissed me again.

“I love you so much,” I confessed, needing to say the words more than I had needed to hear them from him. “And we're going to get through this. Dante's already seen it.”

Walker pulled back to stare at me like he was trying to ensure I hadn't just lied or something.

“Dante had another vision about the Challenges?”

“No, not specifically about that, but about us as a family. And if there's to be a long term us as a family, then that means I will win the Challenge.”

He grinned, and it felt like a weight had been lifted.

“Okay then. I'm going into work so that I can focus on protecting our kids and the other witches that call this territory home. See you tonight.”

It was kind of strange having this whole big house all to myself with the kids at school and Walker at work. I honestly wasn’t sure I liked it.

I turned on the television and found a channel about cooking. I'd never done much of it before. My time with the Raglan and then with the Collectors mean someone was always bringing me food, so there was no need to learn.

The show walked through all the steps. I jumped up and gathered a few things and tried to follow along. They made it look so easy, and I knew the kids would love the cookies they were boasting about.

When the knock sounded at the door a short time later, I screamed in frustration and dropped the bowl of dry ingredients I'd been whisking for my second batch of cookies to answer it.

“Holy shit, what happened to you?” Callie asked.

I'd completely forgotten she'd asked to come over for lunch with the girls today.

“Come on in. I was just making cookies.”

“Is that what attacked you?” Abby asked.

“You have a little something in your hair,” Christine said.

I'd never met the fourth woman with them before.

“Hi, I'm Lindsey,” I introduced myself.

“Mirage. I'm going to guess cooking is not your thing, right?”

I shook my head and frowned. “Does it really look that bad?”

“Go get cleaned up while we straighten up this mess you made,” Christine ordered.

I sighed in defeat and walked to my bedroom and into the bathroom. One look in the mirror and I was cracking up. Egg was dripping from my boob. My hair looked frosted from the sheer amount of flour I'd managed to get dusted with. And there was chocolate on my face. I mean, who could resist eating chocolate chips? Though I wasn't sure how they quite managed to get there.

I laughed so hard that Mirage came to check on me.

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