Page 87 of Knotting on Heaven's Door

“They better be perfect. If they’re soggy, I swear to every moon in the sky I will personally make you eat all seventy of them.”

“Amuse-bouche needs to be ready in forty minutes!” Mia bellowed from across the tent, steam curling around her like she was summoning battle-ready spirits.

And Sebastian?

Oh, he was thriving.

Confident. Commanding. Sweat glistening on his neck as he handled a line of junior chefs like he’d been born to lead. I caught a glimpse of him slicing charred leeks with that smirk on his face—the one that said“I told you I could do this.”

Generators were already humming. Tables were half-dressed. The scent of fresh herbs and grilled onions clung to the crisp morning air. The improvised kitchen—more of a glorified tent with steel tables and burners—was a flurry of noise and motion. Hands chopping, pots bubbling, trays sliding, voices rising over each other like a symphony of organized chaos.

Mia shoved a tray of crisp rye tartlets into my hands. “Goat cheese piped. Pear pickled. Honey drizzled.”

“Good. Let’s plate.” I turned to the team. “Tartlets up in thirty. Consommé next. Sebastian, where are we?”

He didn’t even look up. “Dumplings are ready. Saffron’s infusing. Charred leeks are cooling.”

“Perfect. But if those dumplings break before they hit the consommé, I will end you.”

He gave me that cocky alpha smirk. “Don’t worry, boss. I’m not in the habit of premature breakage.”

Ass.

But I almost smiled. Almost.

Because even in the middle of this madness—even when Ihadn’t slept, even when my brain was one email from melting—my hands still smelled like the moss-green pillow he gave me.

No one else knew that, though.

No one else needed to know I curled around it last night like it was him.

But right now, that didn’t matter. What mattered was five flawless courses, two hundred high-ranking wolves, and a kitchen that smelled like blood, butter, and fire.

“Alright!” I shouted. “Tartlets in twenty. Dumplings in thirty. Let’s make some damn magic.”

And the kitchen roared back, alive with chaos.

Exactly how I liked it.

The smell of pine honey still lingered in the air like victory.

“Tartlets out!” Mia yelled. “Go, go, go!”

The first team filed out for their twenty-minute break, hands trembling, shirts sticking to their backs. No one dared sit too far, though. They knew better. Breaks in our kitchen weren’t a right—they were borrowed time.

The second group slid in without missing a beat.

“Smoked venison carpaccio up next!” I called, cracking open a bottle of water and tipping it against my lips. Cold. Sharp. Not enough.

“Black garlic aioli in station three!”

“Wild berry gastrique ready to reduce!”

“Plates go in the freezer—now!”

Then I saw them.

Sebastian and Liam, shoulder to shoulder, knives flashing. One held the venison steady while the other sliced—razor-thin, precise, symmetrical enough to pass a French culinary exam. No words between them, just pure, practiced rhythm. A dance choreographed by instinct and adrenaline.

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