Page 55 of The Alpha's Silent Mate

I try to envision Shay doing just that. “How did it go?”

“Not well, since I could never see to the bottom of the pot. All I ended up doing was drawing more attention.”

“Then what did you do?”

He doesn’t say a word, but his expression turns so sheepish that I can guess how he ended up in the soup was no accident.

“You didn’t,” I breathe.

Shay’s sigh is dramatic. “I may be alpha now, but that doesn’t mean I had a brain as a boy. So, I did what any idiot would do. I waited until the chef’s back was turned and stuck my arm in the pot.”

I gape at him in horror.

“Daniel shouted my name, and I was already on edge, so I spun around and…”

My laughter bursts out of me and I clamp my hand over my mouth.

His lips twitch. “I fell into the soup.”

“No.” I’m laughing almost too hard to speak.

“I didn’t tell you the worst thing,” Shay continues.

“And that was?”

“The soup was fish.”

I laugh even harder, but he’s not finished yet.

“And that thing that Daniel threw into the pot…” Shay continues.

“Was?” I gasp.

“A stock cube, so…” he doesn’t have to finish.

“All your stirring would have done is melt it so you never would have found it.”

I dissolve into peals of laughter for the next several minutes as Shay observes me with a smile curving his lips.

Eventually, when my laughter has died down, he sighs. “So, yeah, I was on floor cleaning duty for a week, right alongside Daniel when he admitted what he’d done.”

“But you didn’t have to do it. You could’ve left the kitchen and the chef wouldn’t have been able to force you to clean the floors.”

He nods. “That’s right. But I knew I wouldn’t. For the first time, I was like any other boy who gets into trouble and has to serve out his punishment. I felt… normal.”

“So the kitchen became your new home.”

“Yes.”

For a moment we gaze at each other, and then it all comes back, the pain, Daniel’s death.

“She’s going to be devastated,” I say in a low voice.

“I know. But she won’t be surprised. Daniel was…” he shakes his head, “Daniel. He wouldn’t have died any other way.” After pulling me toward him, he kisses my hair. “Grief hurts pup. But it’s always easier to bear when it’s shared.”

“You were lucky to know him.”

He nods. “I know. He was a good man.”

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