My eye squints open. Through the dim light, I can’t see anything but gray, hazy shapes.

I roll over and realize I was nose to shoulder with Cyrus. It was his blurry shape granting me a lovely landscape.

I didn’t expect to fall asleep, but at some point after making love, I must have, tangled up in Cyrus’ arms and legs. Groggily, I push my hair out of my face and look over at Cyrus.

He lies on his back, one arm hooked up behind his head. His hair is utterly insane, sticking up in every direction. One leg is straight, the other crooked up. The covers are lazily thrown over his naked form.

I smile as I look at him. He looks so peaceful. His lips are parted just slightly. His long, dark lashes fan over his cheeks.

He’s so damn beautiful.

And he’s mine.

My stomach twists with hunger. Careful not to disturb him, I climb from the bed. I pull on comfortable, simple clothes, and head out of the sanctuary of the bedroom.

The castle is so quiet. I can hear the guards, mostly by the entries to the castle. But they don’t say a word. Like they’re watching and waiting, poised to fight at one movement in the shadows.

I don’t bother them. I silently slip down the second and third floors, and descend into the fourth.

I find the kitchens empty, which is a relief, and also disappointing, since my cooking skills are zero.

I rummage through the massive pantry and then the refrigerator. Here there’s evidence of war and turmoil. Our supplies are low. There hasn’t been an opportunity to get supplies in weeks, now. There’s been no one cooking. There’s been no regularity in the entire time since I’ve returned to Roter Himmel.

It’ll never be normal again.

I find a loaf of bread that hasn’t gone bad and a jar of peanut butter. After an extensive search in the massive walk-in unit, I find some jars of mulberry jam.

A PB and J sandwich. That kind of cooking I can handle.

I sink into the small eat-in table in the corner of the massive, commercial grade and sized kitchen and bite into the sandwich with a satisfied moan. I even prop my bare feet up on the table, tipping back in my chair.

“I guess even the Court’s chefs couldn’t teach you how to cook a proper meal.”

The voice startles me so badly I nearly tip out of my chair. I must have been really into my sandwich, because I didn’t even hear him approaching.

Eli—Rath, Cornelious Rath steps into the kitchen. He folds his arms over his chest and leans against the counter.

And for a second, it’s like the old days. Him in the kitchen of my little apartment, making me food so I don’t starve. Good friends, just hanging out.

I smile, climbing to my feet. I cross the kitchen in three steps and wrap my arms around his neck, hugging him tight.

Some things are definitely different, though.

I never smelled him before. Never analyzed the smell of his blood before.

He sort of smells tasty. But definitely doesn’t.

Rath so isn’t human. But he’s certainly not a vampire.

Which makes no damn sense.

“I really appreciate you coming,” I say, smiling as I look up at him. “Thanks for saving my ass with Moab.” I hadn’t thanked him yet for barging into the castle with that DNA bomb a few days ago.

“Of course,” he says. And he smiles back. He actually does.

Eli doesn’t smile often. But when he does, you feel it. You know it’s real. You know you’re someone special.

“Why don’t you sit back down and I’ll make you some real food,” he says, releasing me.

“It must be my lucky day,” I say, finding I’m smiling again. I turn in place and walk back to the table to finish my sandwich.

He just chuckles and sets to taking stock of what ingredients we have on hand.

I let him do his thing. He takes his time going through the supplies at hand. He grabs this and that. And he starts cooking something up on the stovetop.

“How has it been being back in Mississippi?” I ask.

It feels like forever ago. It really does. When he and I drove to Silent Bend, Mississippi so we could get the cure when Eshan was a Bitten for just a few days. We cured him, and then Eli made the decision to stay at the House of Conrath, where he belonged.

It seems like a whole lifetime ago.

“Strange,” he says as he goes about cooking. “My history there is long, but the dynamic is so different. There are a lot of people that live there. Alivia isn’t the unsure, untested girl she once was. It’s organized and busy and efficient. I don’t feel needed there like I once was.”

“What do you mean?” I ask.

I want to know. There’s so much history to Eli that I never knew about, this whole life he had as Rath that was hidden from me. I want to understand. But he’s a man who greatly values his privacy and secrets.

“I used to run the entire estate,” he explains, a little to my surprise. “I lived my entire adult life on that plantation. Learned who I was as a man there. Worked there, in many capacities. After Henry was killed, I took care of it, helped Alivia learn how to run things.”

“You knew Henry Conrath, then?” I ask in surprise. I struggle to swallow the last bite of my sandwich in my surprise.

Eli looks back at me and nods. “He was my best friend,” he says. His tone is dark. There’s a hint of…regret in it.

“Was?” I say quietly.

Sharply, Eli’s eyes flick back up to mine.

“Alivia told Cyrus and I that he’s still alive,” I confess. I say the words so quiet. This castle is full of ultra-sonic ears. I won’t betray their secret to everyone. “Do you still mean that Henry was your best friend?”

Eli turns back to the food, and he doesn’t answer me for a good thirty seconds while he considers. “He was. That’s just one more way that the House of Conrath is different.”

“Is it because he’s always leaving?” I probe. I tuck one knee up into my chest, wrapping my arms around it.

He gives a small shrug. “Henry almost never left the estate before his assassination…attempt.” The sentence comes out awkward, like he doesn’t know how to define what happened to Henry when he was supposedly dead, but wasn’t. “I came and went, running the estate’s errands. And he and I had a lot of time together. But after he…died, after he came back and we found out he was alive, he wasn’t the same.”

The food hisses, and it smells amazing as he stirs it in the big pan. “I think death was freeing for Henry. He entirely escaped the world he resented for so long. He didn’t want to be a part of the politics and the games. I think he got a taste of anonymity while he was supposedly dead. It never went away after he came back. Henry was my best friend and I will always love him, for who he is and what he did for me.” Eli pauses, and I know, there is so much to this story that I will never understand.

“But Henry Conrath is a selfish man,” he says. There’s resentment in his voice, and I know it’s hard on Eli for it to be there. He doesn’t look at me when he confesses these words. He stares at the food, every muscle in his body tight. “When he should be at his daughter’s side, not only making up for the first twenty-three years of her life that he missed, but guiding her in becoming the leader she needed to be in this world, he’s off in the world. None of us know what he’s doing. Where he goes. He comes and leaves as he pleases, with no explanations and no promises of when he will return.”

It’s fascinating how different people perceive others. I see the conflict in Eli when he talks about Henry. Eli knows the good about the man, but the negatives are weighing awfully heavy, tipping the scales.

But when Alivia talks about her father? It hasn’t been much that I’ve heard. But she loves him. Loves him. I don’t know if she doesn’t notice his faults like Eli does, or if they just aren’t that important to her, but I know she forgives him always.

I hear it in her voice and see it in her eyes every time.

Almost as if it were on cue, I hear footsteps on the stairs, and I know it’s her. Just ten seconds later, she rounds the corner and steps into the kitchen.

She smiles, as if seeing the two of us together does something. Maybe validates her asking him to uproot his life and watch over me for sixteen years. Maybe it’s just seeing two family members who have such a deep relationship without her involved.

But she looks happy to see us together.

“Something smells good,” she says. “Dinner’s on you tonight, Rath?”

He offers a small smile and turns to prepare something else.

“How about some cookies to go along with whatever smells so delicious?” she asks, looking over at me and winking.

My mom. Is making. Me cookies.

So weird.

“You like to cook?” I ask as she digs through the pantry.

“I love baking,” she says. “I worked in a bakery for years before I moved to Mississippi. It’s actually kind of nice having so many people living in the House, there’s always someone to make a treat for.”

I smile, imagining her covered in flour, surrounded by her House members, like Christian, and Cameron, and Anna.

I might be her biological daughter, but they’re her real family. And that’s okay.

“So where’s Ian?” I ask the question that’s been knocking at the back of my brain since I first found her here.

She sighs, measuring out ingredients without even pulling up a recipe. “I made him stay back at the House,” she says. “Nial needed some help managing affairs.”

Eli—nope, he’s Rath when he’s around Alivia—looks over at her with this total dad look. “That is not what happened.”

A little laugh huffs over my lips.

This is funny.

Like, really funny.

Eli was always my friend, like an uncle or something.

But he is totally a father figure to Alivia.

“What happened, for real?” I say.

I’m smiling. And it feels good. It’s been forever since I smiled.

Alivia glares at Rath, totally annoyed he ratted her out for fibbing the truth. Finally, she gives this sigh and turns back to her work. “Fine. I may have shot him with a nerve agent when he wouldn’t agree to stay.” She dumps the sugars into the commercial-sized mixer. I laugh, covering my mouth to try and hold it in. It doesn’t do much good. She looks over her shoulder and glares at me, trying to suppress a smile. “And then Christian and Nial may have helped me lock him in this well-prison room in the middle of the house. I told Nial not to let Ian out until he agreed to stay home and not try to come after me.”

“You’re holding your own husband prisoner at your house?” I say, trying really hard not to laugh my head off.

“I couldn’t have him follow me here and get tied up in this war!” she defends with a laugh as she dumps a huge brick of butter in with the sugar and turns the mixer on. “He’s fought in more than a few battles, plus he was a hunter before he even Resurrected. You wouldn’t believe the ego on him. He would have gotten himself killed on the first day of the fight.”

“I’ll be sure to let him know you had so much confidence in him,” Rath says dryly.

“You will not,” she says, brandishing a spatula in his direction.

I can’t hold it in. I lose it. I hold my stomach, I’m laughing so hard.

It’s ridiculous. And funny. And so normal.

I needed this so bad.

Just as the mixer finishes blending all of Alivia’s ingredients together, I hear footsteps on the stairs again. A moment later, Cyrus enters the kitchen.

Everyone freezes for a moment, and the light mood instantly pulls tight.

Cyrus looks around the kitchen. At me. At Rath. At Alivia.

“Is that chocolate chip cookie dough?” he asks. His voice sounds very serious, and very deadly.

“Yes,” Alivia answers very nervously.

He doesn’t look away from her as he reaches into a drawer, digs out a spoon, and very quietly stalks toward her with a spoon.

I think my heart is stopped.

He’s staring at her like he could blink and she’d explode with his mind powers.

Never breaking the eye contact, he dips the spoon into the huge mixing bowl, and scoops out a huge mound.

He takes a small nibble. And a small smile curls on his mouth.

“Delicious,” he says, still deathly serious.

Alivia hasn’t taken a single breath since he walked into the kitchen.

“Cyrus, knock it off, you asshole!” I yell, breaking the quiet. I throw an apron, which was sitting on the table, at him, hitting him in the head.

He instantly laughs, licking a huge chunk off the spoon and turning away from Alivia.

He was so messing with her.

That man and his games.

Physical or mind games, he’s always enjoyed them.

Alivia looks at me over his shoulder as he walks toward me. You really love this maniac? she mouths.

I can only smile and shrug.

“Who’s hungry?” Rath asks, turning the stove off.