Chapter 24: The Window Is Lit

The cake was on the kitchen table when I came down.

It was a plain yellow cake with white frosting and a ring of moonflowers made from sugar.

My name was on it in blue icing, spelled right.

My mother stood behind it with her hands folded in her apron, looking at the floor.

Then she lifted her eyes, and she looked straight at me.

"I've hated this recipe for six years," she said. "I'd like to try it once without hating it."

"Cut it, Mom."

She cut it.

It was lemon, and it was perfect, and I ate the first slice standing up.

Ansel sat at the long kitchen table in the seat my father had given him, which was the seat at the Alpha's right hand.

My five brothers filled the benches on either side, eating cake for breakfast and arguing about whose turn it was to wash the trucks.

My second brother had his phone propped against the sugar bowl.

"The north fence is clear," he said, to nobody. "The pines are clear. The gate is clear."

"Do you check it every morning now?" I asked.

"Every hour." He didn't look up. "I like knowing where everyone is."

"That's creepy."

"It's love."

"It's both," my eldest brother said, and everyone laughed.

My father came in last, in his plaid shirt, with the ring on his hand, the one I had handed back to him in the Tower on three conditions.

He stopped in the doorway.

Then he crossed the kitchen and held out a mug of coffee, with the handle toward me.

I took it.

"I'd like to ask you something," he said. "I won't decide it for you either way."

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