Twenty

Being back in her parents’ house was bittersweet for Nessa. So much of her father still infused the place, but it was also clear her mother had done her best to move on. Thankfully, the kitchen was still the same, and Nessa could sit and commune with her father’s memory here without the imprint of her mornings with Gaius that now tainted the old kitchen at Ig’s house. She had told Ignazio to go ahead with the demolition of the old kitchen, though the new one would be difficult enough to work in as it was.

That was a complication she wasn’t sure she’d be able to easily resolve. Not knowing who her mate was, she had no idea how to prepare for the possibility that he might not be okay with her continuing to work for Ignazio Karsten. But she had made Ignazio a promise that she would stay at least long enough to train a replacement, if it came to that. Her future mate would just have to deal with it.

It was so strange to think of her future mate in such abstract terms, but it was easier than knowing his true identity. Knowing who he was would make it too real, too inevitable, and she wasn’t quite ready to let go of the memories of Gaius. She would have to soon, though. Her mother’s enthusiasm kept her going, and she started to look forward to the party, at the very least as an excuse to visit with old friends she hadn’t seen in a long time.

Halfway through the week, a rumor that was circulating made its way to her mother, and then to Nessa. She and her mother were finalizing the menu to give to the caterers her mother had insisted on hiring. “You are not cooking for your own party, Nessa,” her mother had said. Partway through the debate about how much wine to order, her mother had dropped the bomb.

“Oh, did you hear that the Blackpaw found a mate? He was always your father’s favorite Champion. I never agreed with his choice to give up clan leadership in favor of fighting. He’d have been mated a long time ago, if he had chosen his birthright.”

Nessa’s heart stopped and she had to bite her lip to keep from crying. “I thought Daddy was the one who disagreed with his choice.”

Her mother tilted her head back and forth. “Oh, well, your father was always more liberal that way. You know how much he preferred sports over politics.”

“I hope he’s happy with her, whoever she is,” she murmured, and she meant it. Gaius deserved happiness.

But her mother was already going on about other recent gossip, how the Hot Wings duo were neck and neck on their annual bet, and how the women’s Arena League teams were abandoning the superstition of waiting to mate until they retired.

“It’s ridiculous for them to wait, anyway,” her mother said. “The Blackpaw is so old by now, he probably isn’t even fertile anymore. How is his new mate going to take the news if she can’t have cubs because he waited too long?”

With that, Nessa couldn’t sit still. She mumbled something about not feeling well and ran out of the room.

The one small blessing of being back in her home town was that there were no reminders of Gaius to taunt her. She could breathe a little easier out in the open, with the hot, dry air of the southern hills blowing across her skin. She wandered the quaint streets of the little village she’d called home until just recently.

It didn’t feel like home to her anymore, though. Neither did her parents’ house, despite the level of comfort she found through spending time with her mother again. She mourned her father less, at least. Her time in his old kitchen at Ig’s had allowed her to finally come to terms with his passing and find a kind of compromise with her feelings there. She had his knowledge—all the things he taught her about cooking were things she would never lose. The old kitchen would be gone by the time she went back to Ig’s, and while it left her feeling depressed, she preferred that sadness to the twisting pain in her heart over letting go of Gaius.

She needed a way to distract herself until the party, so she wandered into a dress shop to indulge in some shopping and personal pampering for the next couple days, and resolved to shove Gaius to the back of her mind. Something told her he would be happy no matter what . . . that there was no way he couldn’t be with that house, even unfinished, and she highly doubted there was anything wrong with the man’s virility. Good lord, that was the most far-fetched thing her mother had ever suggested, but then Nina Baxter had never actually met the Blackpaw in person.