Page 11 of Altius
I shot a glare over my shoulder. “Keep talking and see if I make you lunch… Ah-ha!”
I triumphantly pulled out several quarts of stock, each thud of a frozen container hitting the countertop more satisfying than the last. Nudging the freezer door shut with my foot, I surveyed my bounty, hands planted on my hips.
For the first time since Morgan snapped at me on Thursday afternoon, I felt like I had a grasp on things.
I never thought she could be so cold, with such a cutting voice and an even harsher gaze.
Even so, when Joaquin’s panic seared across the bond that night, a split second before Cal’s text message arrived saying Morgan was in the ER, all I wanted to do was go and take care of her.
But it wasn’t my place.
So, I decided to follow Morgan’s advice and focus on what I could control—managing domestic necessities in Kelsey’s absence.
After jotting down a tentative meal plan for the weekend, I pinned it on the fridge with a cat-shaped magnet, stepped back, and surveyed it with satisfaction.
“Okay. This should hold us until Kelsey gets back.”
“You don’t say,” Joaquin teased, taking his sweet time slicing a carrot.
“And you wonder why I stopped meal planning with you.”
“Because you never put yourself on the menu, babe.”
I frowned at him, but Joaquin just winked and mimed a kiss. The man was incorrigible today.
No, not just today.
He’d been like this since he filmed Morgan tearing into Garvey in the hallway, as though watching her assert her omega nature had flipped some primal switch in his scheming brain.
Maybe it had.
I’d noted the orchid scent and metallic tang in the air. However, I’d been too busy reeling from Morgan’s blunt dismissal to realize it was her scent.
“Babe,” I asked, filling a stock pot with water, unsure if I genuinely wanted to know, “why didn’t you tell Morgan her pheromones smelled off after she got into things with Garvey?”
“The temptation,” he grumbled, mangling the next carrot slice.
“What do you mean?”
Joaquin dropped the knife and shoved the cutting board away. “See, you can’t ask me things like that. You won’t like the answer. You never do.”
“Why?” I asked, frowning as I set the pot on the stove. “Oh, you mean youralpha stuffnonsense?”
“Yes, and I know you don’t believe me, but sometimes, it’s the only excuse I’ve got.”
It would explain why he’d been off since Thursday. All the alphas had been—even Owen. They were too twitchy and restless, and more than a little too focused on Morgan.
Wyatt’s reaction was the oddest. He only stepped foot in our kitchen to make coffee or reheat leftovers, but last night, he refilled the girls’ salt and pepper shakers and gave me a crash course on Morgan’s favorite tea flavors.
He even insisted on taking responsibility for the cats. Not that I wanted to scoop their litterbox, but Wyatt never volunteered for anything, not even grabbing takeout from the front desk.
And now, he was bending over backward to wait on Morgan hand and foot. It was too abrupt. I couldn’t understand.
“So, you’re all fixated on a sick woman because of so-called alpha stuff?”
“She’s not sick, Alijah. Recovering, maybe, but not ill. Not in the usual sense.”
His brown gaze deepened, more decadent than usual, like premium melted chocolate, luxurious to the point of being sinful. The same way he looked at me in bed, right before he…
