Page 83 of When Death Whispers

I blink down at the plate. They’re intricate. Thoughtful. A little ridiculous.

Who the hell is this guy?

The answer comes fast: I don’t really know.

We’ve been orbiting each other through chaos. Near-death encounters. Shadows. Sex. But I still haven’t learned much of anything about him—aside from the gossip that floats around town like pollen on the wind. People talk about how he’s the golden boy, the town’s favorite, always smiling, always helpful. But no one’s ever bothered to dig deeper, to ask what’s really going on beneath all that charm. Until now.

I clear my throat and cut a piece from the hummingbird’s wing. “Okay. New rule.”

Hudson pauses mid-sip of coffee, brows lifting. “Yeah?”

“You don’t get to keep making me pancakes and decorating cakes like a secret pastry god without telling me a single real thing about yourself.”

A crooked smile tugs at his mouth. “So, you wanna interrogate me over breakfast?”

I tilt my head, considering. “That depends. How attached are you to your kneecaps?”

He laughs, the sound low and warm. “Well, there’s a strong chance I might need my knees for specific situations. Worshipping your body being at the top of that list.”

That makes a flush of heat spread like wildfire over my cheeks then down my chest.

Dammit, the guy’s good. I bet he enjoys watching me blush if the smirk and twinkle in his eye is any indication.

“Then yeah.” I clear my throat, then meet his gaze, steady this time. “Let’s start with something easy. Where’d you learn to make pancakes like this?”

He flips another onto a plate, then turns off the stove and joins me at the island. “My mom,” he says, settling in beside me. “She went through this phase where she took every cooking class she could find and dragged me along for the ride. I picked up a few things… realized I liked it. Especially baking. Now I fine-tune with social media videos and let her test the results.”

He pauses, a soft rueful smile spreading on his face, love coloring his every word. It makes my heart ache with grief, with the what ifs of what family life could have been like, had I not been hunted by a monster hell-bent on taking everyone I loved from me.

He must catch the flicker of pain across my face, because the smile fades.

Before he can ask, I push forward. “Do you have any siblings?”

Hudson shakes his head. “Only child. Spoiled as hell on Carter Ranch. Got all the horses, all the lessons, none of the real labor. I even tried bronc riding for a while.” He huffs a laugh, stabbing his fork through a butterfly-shaped pancake. “Lasted about five rides before I realized I sucked at it.”

I glance at the pancake he’s mauling. It’s a butterfly with surprisingly detailed wings.

Another contradiction in a walking contradiction.

Hudson radiates easy confidence, cocky masculinity, and yet here he is: making pancakes shaped like flowers, hummingbirds and butterflies. Baking cakes for old ladies. Smiling like he means it. I don’t understand him.

And I also don’t hate it.

“So you’ve lived here your whole life?”

“Born and raised. Fifth generation of Carter Ranch royalty,” he says, but this time, there’s no pride in his voice. Only bitterness, thinly masked by a swallow of coffee.

I watch the shift in his posture—his shoulders tighter now, jaw clenched, eyes on his plate like it might bite him. He pushes a bit of pancake around with his fork but doesn’t eat.

So the golden boy prince of Creek Haven doesn’t love the crown.

Interesting.

“If you could go anywhere,” I ask, softer now, “leave your job, your family, all of it—where would you go, then?”

He lifts his gaze to mine, slow and steady, the weight of it slamming straight into my chest.

“You already know the answer, Silver.” His fingers reach out, brushing a strand of my hair behind my ear in that now-familiar way that short-circuits my brain. “You said it yourself. We’re linked. Where you go, I go. Doesn’t matter where, as long as you’re there.”

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