11. Resa

Chapter 11

Resa

T he stairs nearly defeat me.

I consider sitting and shuffling down them on my ass to save my throbbing feet, but I manage them. All I can say is whoever invented the balustrade deserves every award going because they are a saint. I hobble into an ultra-modern black and white kitchen, immediately ducking as something hurtles toward me.

It slams into the wall beside me, setting off every instinct to run.

I'm half out before I realize a pancake is sliding down the wall.

"What—" I swallow my panic as the pancake hits the ground, "—the hell."

A man in his late forties or early fifties, sitting at a long black wood table, lowers the plate he's holding up with a sad sigh.

"See. Told you your aim was off. I'll show you how it's done," Vaughn tells a man with platinum white-blond hair and dark brown eyes standing beside him at the stove. "Grab a seat, Resa."

The white-haired man looks at me and his expression is apologetic. "He's a show-off, in case you didn't know. And, uh, sorry about the pancake."

With my heart still racing and two alphas at the dining table, I hover in the doorway, not keen to enter. "Is no one getting that pancake?"

" Lex !" I jump when Vaughn yells as he pours pancake batter into a smoking hot silver skillet.

Garrison has his head bowed over a newspaper. He turns a page, muttering, "Volume. Vaughn."

A guy with shoulder-length pine green hair in a baggy white shirt and knee-length blue skater shorts rises from the table. He's busy typing on his cell phone, but he shoots me a rapid glance. "Morning."

I back up as he approaches. "Morning."

He stops texting long enough to scoop up the broken pancake from the floor and tosses it into the trash before returning to the dining table.

Vaughn is busy at the stove, and I'm still not eager to sit at that dining table. I have his emergency knife in my right hand, but I have an alpha covertly watching me.

Blaine, my other scent match, is in a mustard yellow turtleneck. He has the neck pulled up high, but it doesn't quite hide the scar on his cheek.

It looks like a burn scar. Old, but a bad one.

As he butters a piece of toast, his black-rimmed glasses slide down his nose, and I get the unmistakable sense he's paying more attention to me than his task.

" Plate !" Vaughn booms.

I jump again.

Garrison mutters something inaudible and pinches the bridge of his nose.

The older man, who sighed sadly before, lifts his plate high as Vaughn flips a pancake and it lands with a splat.

" That's how you do it." Vaughn beams as he places the pan back on the stove and triumphantly flicks the heat off. He walks over to the dining table, taking the plated pancake from the older man's hands and motions me to the black leather bar stools at the kitchen island. "You're over here, bloodthirsty omega."

I blink. "What?"

"It's the knife." Blaine pushes his glasses up with his index finger, and although he looks in my direction, he doesn't meet my gaze. I didn't notice it before, but his voice is too raspy to be natural, and I can't help but wonder if it's because the burn on his cheek extends down his throat. "Don't worry. It's a compliment."

My attention swings back to Vaughn.

He places the plate with a flourish on the kitchen island. "But the best kind," Vaughn confirms.

I hesitate.

No one seems to notice. They're all back to laughing, chatting, in Garrison's case, turning the pages of his newspaper. Everyone is busy doing what they must have been doing while I was upstairs. It makes it a little easier to ignore my throbbing feet, wariness about alphas, and slip into the room to take a seat on a leather bar stool at the kitchen island.

Vaughn, on the other side, holds a bottle of maple syrup aloft. "Want me to cover you?" he offers with a grin.

"Vaughn," Garrison rumbles warningly.

"The pancake . Not my fault you have a filthy mind," Vaughn says with a sparkle in his eyes that warns he was absolutely not talking about the pancake.

This man…

I take a seat. "No, thanks."

I don't let go of my knife. I don't know when it happened, but it's become my safety blanket. I transfer it from my right hand to my left and take the fork he offers me.

Expecting more flirtatious behavior from this beta, I blink in surprise when Vaughn leaves the maple syrup beside my plate and walks over to the dining table.

When he bends to grab a cup of coffee, Blaine leans away from the table, so there's not even the slightest chance of them bumping shoulders.

Confused by what I just saw, I nearly drop my fork when a voice comes from opposite me.

"Juice?"

It's the white-haired man with dark eyes. The one who nearly hit me in the face with a pancake.

"Uh, thanks."

He fills a glass with orange juice, pushing it toward me but keeping his distance. Could be because of the knife I'm gripping or the way I lean away. I'm not sure, but I'm grateful for it.

"Frost," he says, pointing at his chest.

That can't be his real name, can it?

"Resa."

"You're probably curious about my hair."

"She is not curious about your hair," Vaughn snorts. "Stop thinking everyone is curious about it."

"People are. I've been compared to a selkie. She might wonder," Frost says, sounding defensive.

A selkie ? Is he being serious?

Vaughn rolls his eyes and continues his conversation with Blaine.

"My heritage is Nordic, but mostly mysterious." Frost continues as he puffs out his chest, "One bitter winter?—"

"Frost. Sit down," Garrison orders. Then he looks at me for the first time. "He is not a selkie."

Frost flashes me a boyish grin, making me think he's closer to thirty than the forty I thought him before. He wanders back to the table, sitting down.

I'm cutting into my pancake when someone clears their throat.

The older man who caught my pancake is washing a plate at the sink. "Roman."

What is up with these names? Frost? Lex? Roman ?

I lower my fork for this next round of introductions. It's conducted from the safety of the kitchen island, where I have a massive slab of marble separating me from him. And the knife. I have no hesitation in using it if someone threatens me. "Resa."

He continues washing a plate in the sink. "Soon you'll be gray-haired too."

Someone at the table lets out a defeated sigh. I think it might be Garrison, but I'm not sure.

"Jokers," Garrison mutters. "Everyone here thinks they're jokers."

"I was a lot like you before," Roman continues dejectedly, sounding ground down by life. "Young. Fit. Had my whole life ahead of me. Not a hint of gray hair in sight until this place. Little did I know the shit show I was stepping into. See this?" Roman finishes washing his dish and points at a mostly bald, gray head.

Not knowing what else to do, I nod.

"Comes from one month of working here."

What?

"Roman is our resident joker number two," Vaughn says, catching my eye. "He'll pull your leg until he pulls it right off. Don't listen to him."

" Three ." Garrison closes his newspaper and sets it aside. "Vaughn is number one. Be wary of bad jokes, filthy innuendos and acts so stupid you wonder how he made it to age twenty-six without having killed himself."

Vaughn widens his eyes and looks so innocent I don't buy it for a second.

Garrison nods at the other end of the table. "Frost likes to convince people he's a selkie. Thinks it makes him mysterious. He mostly works in the field doing surveillance, so he's not around often unless it's for meetings. We believe all the alone time has made him unhinged."

Garrison delivers his summary so dryly I'm not sure how serious he is.

Frost salutes me.

Garrison points at Roman. "Roman is an extremely experienced security specialist. He works full time for us. Despite what he said, those gray hairs were not the result of working with us. The rest of us are a little more serious."

Roman nods at me.

"Except Lex. He's our jack," Garrison continues.

"Jack?" I echo.

"Jack-of-all-trades." Lex, the green-haired man, takes over. "I do a little of everything around here. I help Boss Man with cases, fix whatever needs fixing, deliveries, appointments. Anything that needs doing, I get it done. I'm here most days, but sometimes I'll spend the weekend with my girlfriend Marie, or she'll come round to yell at me when I forget her."

Boss Man?

He seems young to be so good at all those things. He can't be older than twenty-five, and that's being generous.

My pancake has to be stone cold by now, but I haven't thought about eating in a while. "So, forgetting your girlfriend. Is that a regular occurrence?"

"Workaholic," he explains. "Marie is too, but she doesn't see it that way. She's a corporate slave at a tech firm."

Right.

Garrison pushes himself to his feet.

My hand tightens around the handle of my knife as I prepare to run.

Or stab.

He sweeps his eyes over the table. "Meeting now." He doesn't seem to notice the way I've angled my body to the door or the way I'm gripping the knife. "Help yourself to breakfast and feel free to explore the house. We'll be back in thirty minutes."

And they file out, waving and grinning as they go, leaving me alone in the kitchen.

I stare after them.

A green-haired workaholic.

A flirty beta who juggles throwing stars as he walks down the stairs.

Another who tried to convince me he was a selkie.

And a scarred alpha who wouldn't look me in the eye and doesn't seem to like being touched.

I fork a piece of cold pancake into my mouth, chewing as I push myself to my feet. The sooner I find out what I need to know, the sooner I can leave these strange people and forget I ever met them.