Page 97 of Mates: Posy

"Everything's okay," I told him. "I know you want to protect me, and I am so grateful that you care about me, but please don't hurt your brothers. It hurts me to see them hurt."

I didn't mean to, he muttered.

"I know." Lifting my head, I rubbed his ears and smiled at him. "I'm not mad at you, I promise. Are you comfortable with returning control to Jayden now?"

Few more minutes. Rub inside my ears.

I laughed a little and complied with his request, then giggled again when he made the canine equivalent of a cat's purr as I massaged his ears.

I'll go upstairs and shift now, my love.

"All right. Then we can eat dinner." I wrapped my arms around his neck and hugged him. "I love you, Quartz."

I love you more.

Right then, Luke, Gisela, and Ranger came in the back door. Ranger looked at Quartz, who was scampering off, then turned toward the living room, where we could hear the king and Onyx getting upset about something.

"What did we miss?" Luke wanted to know as Mason helped me stand up. "Is Lilah okay?"

"She’s meeting her mate." I smiled wide enough to show my dimples. "We’re giving them some alone time. Where did you guys go?"

"I sent them to supervise the betas handing over the watch to a patrol of our warriors," Mason explained.

"Why is Julian pitching a fit?" Ranger sat down at the table. "I could hear Onyx all the way outside."

"He saw her bruises."

By the time Cole finished summarizing what happened, Lilah and King Julian were walking into the dining room. They held hands and couldn’t take their eyes off of each other, and I squealed inside.

My friend was going to be fine.

"Can we eat now?" Ash looked at me with wide, hopeful eyes.

"As soon as Jayden—"

"I’m here." Jayden trotted into the room. "Do you need help bringing it out from the kitchen?"

"If you want to," I smiled shyly.

"We canallhelp," Mason said, eyeballing my other mates. "After all, it wasn’t Posy’s turn to cook, but she did anyway,andafter the trauma of what happened at the diner."

"I like to cook." I shrugged a little. "I find it relaxing. And it’s nothing fancy."

"It will be delicious, I'm sure," King Julian said graciously as he pulled out a chair for Lilah. "Thank you for preparing it."

Blushing, I ducked into the kitchen with my mates following me. While Lilah slept this afternoon, I'd been restless and thought making dinner would be helpful as well as give me something to settle my nerves. I had to shove Cole out of the house, though, when he fussed over me doing anything. It took a while to convince him, but he'd finally given in and went to see what was taking Ash so long, leaving me in blessed peace.

Now, I handed out oven mitts to Mason, Jayden, and Cole so they could pull the three big pans of lasagna out of the oven.

"Wyatt, please take the trivets and put them on the table so they can set the hot pans on them."

"Sure. Um, what's a trivet?"

I giggled, then pointed to the stack of them I'd found in a drawer earlier. He winked at me before picking them up and doing as I'd asked. The rest of the boys followed him, and I went to the fridge and pulled out the two large bowls of salad I'd put together. Pursing my lips as I debated, I finally decided to grab all five bottles of dressing, since I didn't know what anyone would like.

And since there are five, each of my mates probably likes a different one.

Wyatt came back to the kitchen to see if I needed anything else.

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