Bearing the Ruthless Alpha's Twins novel · Chapter 32 of 32
Chapter 32: Stay Till Morning
Torin opened the boathouse door and stepped back to let me go in first.
It smelled of fresh paint and cedar and lake.
There was a bed against the back wall where the cushions used to be, with a new quilt on it, white and blue.
A lamp stood on the shelf by the door.
The floor had been sanded pale.
I stood on the boards where I had once stood in my underwear and not covered myself, and I waited for the room to hurt.
It did not.
It was only a room.
"Not today," I said.
"The house is full of children and I want it quiet.
"Saturday night. After the cake."
"Saturday," Torin said.
He did not ask me anything else, and I walked back up the hill with my hand in his.
The twins turned seven in the garden at noon, with a paper crown each and only the people who mattered there.
The baker from next door had come with three grandchildren and a tray of lemon bars.
The girl from my counter had brought a present she refused to explain.
The Beta stood at the back of the lawn in an old jacket, a present for each child in his hands.
When I thanked him he only nodded.
The grey-bearded elder had given Orin a book with a leather spine and bowed to Hazel, who bowed back.
Hazel asked once whether Grandpa was coming.
"No," Orin said before I could.
Hazel thought about it, said "Okay," and went back to the lemon bars.
Torin had baked the cake himself.
He had been up since four.
I had come downstairs at five and found him in the lake house kitchen with flour to the elbows, losing a fight.
"I run a pack," he said, without turning around.
"I've faced my own father in front of two hundred wolves.
"This will not stand up."
The top layer was sliding gently to the left.
The frosting had gone into the cracks.
"It's a very honest cake," I said.
"It's their birthday."
"Give me the knife."
I fixed it with buttercream and a ring of raspberries, and he watched every stroke.
Now it stood on the garden table with a candle for every year on each half.
The sun caught the lean in the top layer.
The twins wished with their eyes shut tight and refused to say what for.
Torin cut the cake into uneven wedges and got buttercream on his collar.
Hazel pointed at him and screamed with laughter.
Then she went still, and her ears went up.
They were pointed, furred and brown, and they came out of her curls.
"Oh no," said Orin, "she's doing it again."
"Hazel," I said.
She dropped to the grass, and her party dress tore apart around her as she changed.
Out from under the pile of pink came a brown pup.
Her round glasses lay on the dress where Orin had caught them.
The paper crown was still on her head.
She raced across the lawn in a circle, ears flat, skidding at the corners.
Orin took off after her with a plastic sword, shouting that he was the Alpha.
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