95

We sat next to each other at his dining table to enjoy the assorted dishes he had retrieved from the mess hall. There had been some extra sausage links and pancakes from breakfast, but the cooks on duty had also begun to prepare chicken potpie. Though it was technically against the rules for them to serve lunch so early, everyone was all smiles and eager to please us, according to Night.

“Why’s that?” I asked around a mouthful of pancake. “Did you exert your Alpha privileges?”

He smiled and brushed a stray crumb from my cheek, sending goosebumps down my back. His touch had been so heated in the shower, but now it was feather-light. Almost not there at all. “No,” he replied. “It’s because they know you and I are together.”

“Oh, I see.” Now that I possessed the heightened senses of a shifter, it should have been obvious to me that they would be able to tell just from being near him. It made me feel so wonderful to know that the others accepted our relationship. That I belonged.

Amusemen