Too Late for My Shifters' Regret novel · Chapter 5 of 24
Chapter 5: Honey Cakes
Lorne crossed the sand toward me in long, angry strides.
Cassius got to his feet.
He was still bleeding, and he still put himself in front of me.
"What did you do?" Lorne said.
"Nothing," I said. "That's the whole point."
"You cursed us."
"I stopped feeding you. You asked me to."
"She feeds us."
"Then you're fine, aren't you?"
He opened his mouth and shut it.
Delphine came up behind him and slid her hand into his.
"Don't let her upset you," she said. "It's the strain of the match. Isn't it, Bri? These things go up and down."
"They don't go down," I said. "Not when they're fed."
Delphine smiled at me with all her teeth and led him away.
The next morning I was in the infirmary kitchen at five, like always.
It was the warmest room in the academy.
Two big ovens, a scrubbed table down the middle, copper pots on hooks and bundles of dried thyme hanging from the beams.
The cook was already there, up to her elbows in bread dough.
She was sixty and built like a flour sack, with forearms like a blacksmith's.
"You look like death," she said.
"Thank you."
"Eat something before you touch my oven."
She pushed a bowl of porridge at me.
I slid my bundled cloak into the warming drawer under the big oven, the way I had every morning that week.
The cook had never once asked what was in it.
Then she looked over my shoulder and her eyebrows went up into her hair.
Cassius had followed me in.
He had to duck under the beams.
"That's the snake," she said.
"His name is Cassius."
"He's very tall."
"He knows."
"Does he eat?"
"He hasn't had a proper meal in a year," I said.
The cook put down her dough, wiped her hands on her apron, and pointed at a stool.
"Sit."
He sat.
She put a bowl of porridge in front of him, and a pat of butter on it, and a spoon of honey, and stood there with her arms folded until he picked up the spoon.
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