Holding her breath, Nyx smacked the egg on the edge of the mixing bowl. Yoke and clear liquid glop mixed with the sugar and white shell pieces from the last egg she’d cracked. Her shoulders slumped. The human on the baking show had made this look so easy. He didn’t get any of the hard white shells in his mixture.
Nyx pushed up her sleeves. Gritty sugar covered her arms from the last time she’d shoved at them. She flicked the crystals off her fingers and picked out the largest shell pieces. The tiniest shards evaded her fingertips, however. Each time she tried to scoop the white slivers, the egg mixture pulled them out of reach.
“Good enough.” The beaters should break them up into even smaller pieces. They’d be unnoticeable then.
Nyx added the soft clumps of butter, then turned the large standing mixer to low. After a moment of butter chunk banging into the mixer blades, the mixture blended, exactly as it had for the baker.
“Perfect.” Nyx grinned and faced the kitchen island.
The sight of the mess she’d made killed her enthusiasm. Flour covered the counter, the floor, and the cabinets behind the island. A metal sifter lay next to the flour-covered apron she’d tossed on the floor.
She’d have a lot of cleaning to do. If the triple batch of chocolate chip cookies convinced Anton to keep her in his home, however, it’d be worth it. The human did say this recipe was irresistible. That a single batch wouldn’t be enough to satisfy a crowd. Well, she had to satisfy a large male predator.
So she could destroy him.
Anton’s image flashed before her. The protective look he’d worn after she’d mentioned not wanting to take a mate haunted her. No. She shook her head. She wouldn’t allow any soft moment with him to influence her. He was a selfish jerk. Everyone had told her that. She’d seen that side of him herself.
Latching on to the memory of Anton yelling at her in the library, Nyx stepped over the dirty apron and snatched the flour bowl. She increased the speed on the mixer and dumped in some of the contents.
Flour puffed around her. Turning her head, she choked on the airborne particles. Holding her breath, she added the rest, slowly, exactly as the baker had done. The mixers groaned, then whipped the cream-colored batter, splattering the sides of the bowl and the countertop.
The runny batter didn’t resemble what the human had made. She’d followed his recipe. She’d watched the video. The only thing she hadn’t done was sift the flour.
“He said it was optional. It’ll be fine.” She stopped the mixer, stirred in the chocolate chips, then dropped a rounded teaspoon on the cookie pan.
The batter dripped off the spoon. The cookie dough spread into a misshapen blob, not a rounded drop.
“Dang it!” She’d screwed up the recipe. It was the only explanation.
Groaning, Nyx slammed the spoon on the counter, then flung the bowl.
Failure did not make her feel good. At all.
“What have you done to my kitchen?”
Anton’s bellowed question tore a gasp from her throat. She spun.
Dressed in another pair of chinos and a white dress shirt with the sleeves rolled up, Anton stood in the doorway with his eyes locked on her, not the mess she’d made. His wild-eyed gaze mapped her face before taking in her sad state. Flour, sugar, and sticky cookie dough covered her body.
She was a wreck.
Nyx brushed a shaky hand over her hair. Her fingers snagged in the strands. She turned her palm over. Cookie dough covered it. She’d just rubbed it in her hair.
“Answer me.” Anton gripped the doorframe. “It looks like a bomb went off in here.”
“I…” She glanced over her shoulder at the disaster area she’d caused. “I’m making cookies.” And failing miserably at it.
Anton stared at her for several heartbeats before taking a few steps into the kitchen. His judging eye skipped over the flour-covered counter, the broken sifter she’d tossed in a fit of frustration, and the spray of cookie batter across the floor.
A tic formed in his jaw. He slowly dragged his attention to her. “You are?”
“Well…” She took in the scene and sighed. “It’s a ‘new to me’ recipe. I struggled a little with it.”
“Struggled?” Anton snorted. His lips twitched as if he was fighting a smile. “It looks like you fought and lost.”
Her shoulders slumped. Her eyes burned. Nyx turned her back on Anton and walked to the upended bowl. She righted it, then scooped a handful of cookie dough from the floor. What did it matter if she used her hands? She already looked like a fool.
Anton grasped her wrist. She dared a peek at the man whose kitchen she’d trashed. Brows pinched and lips downturned, he watched her with open confusion. Her stunt had caught him off guard. She should be proud of the accomplishment.
If he was unsettled, he’d let his guard down. She had a better chance of destroying him if he didn’t hold his secrets close. She couldn’t work up any satisfaction. The glaring mess in front of her reminded her of how badly she’d screwed up.
Nyx wiped her hands on her jeans. “I was trying to prove I can be valuable to you.”
Anton dramatically swept his gaze over the kitchen. He raised a brow. “By covering my kitchen with cookie batter and flour?”
“I…I…” Nyx groaned. She pushed to her feet and planted her hands on her hips. “You see? This is why I don’t want to take a mate! I can’t do any of the things a woman should. I can’t cook. I don’t clean. And obviously I’m a horrible baker! That’s all a mate does. She’s essentially a live-in servant. And I can’t do any of it!”
“But you still offered to be mine.”
Nyx dropped her hands. She snapped her mouth closed. She had offered to be all those things for Anton. “Desperation compelled me to make that offer.”
“It did?” His disbelieving tone matched his drawn brows.
“Yes. Why else would I be here demeaning myself by pretending to be a culinary goddess? I was trying to make these cookies for you.” Nyx dropped to her knees. She scooped more cookie batter into the bowl. “So you’d be wowed by my awesomeness and want to keep me here, to save me.”
“From having to take a mate.”
“Yes.” She answered even though he hadn’t phrased it as a question. “I’d make a horrible mate. I wouldn’t even be able to feed my male. We’d have to live on takeout.”
“Your cooking and cleaning skills”—Anton looked pointedly at the batter splattered at her feet—“or lack thereof, should not be equated with your worthiness as a female or a mate.”
The conviction with which he spoke demanded her agreement. He wasn’t acting. She was sure of it. Anton’s statement reflected his beliefs. They didn’t match the image everyone had painted of the cold, driven councilman. “What does, then?”
Anton drew her to her feet. He set the bowl on the counter behind him. “Love, honor, the ability to bring your mate peace. Our lives are too long to waste on a relationship that doesn’t offer those things. In the end, the promise of a clean house and a good meal isn’t enough to justify a bond. Or it shouldn’t, at least.”
“You’re very philosophical. I never would’ve expected it.” Because everyone had told her how obstinate and unyielding Anton could be.
Anton brushed flour from her cheek. “I learned from my father’s mistake.”
“He mated a woman he didn’t love and regretted it?” She voiced the first thing that came to mind.
“No. He loved my mother.” Anton pulled out paper towels and spray cleaner from under the sink. He handed both to her, then retrieved a dustpan and broom from a closet in the hallway. “She, however, didn’t love him.”
The intimate knowledge Anton shared wasn’t something she could use to tie him to Bianca’s murder or some other crime to justify his removal from the Council. The detail Anton shared sparked her curiosity, though. “Why?”
Anton propped the dustpan against the wall and swept the flour into piles. He worked his way from the island to the slightly bent and no longer usable sifter. Without commenting on its destruction, he tossed it in the garbage.
The clunk of metal in the bottom of the trash can jerked Nyx from her intent study of the methodical way he worked. She couldn’t let him do everything. He hadn’t made any of this mess. Yet, he was helping her.
Nyx gave him one last glance, then scraped out the mixing bowls and cleaned the island’s top. Minutes passed. The swoosh of the broom and the squirt of the spray bottle blended with the sounds of their breathing. The tightness in her shoulders lessened the longer they worked.
Finally, she washed her hands and took the towel Anton held out for her. Then he stood there, staring at her as she dried her hands. Going by his conflicted expression, he was mulling over his response. She held her breath and waited.
“My father mated my mother despite knowing a male from a neighboring pride claimed she was his true mate.”
“Was this other male’s claim true?”
Anton shrugged. “Don’t know. My father killed him, then forced my mother into a mating.”
Words failed her. She ached for everyone involved. “No wonder she hated your father.”
“Hate is too soft a word for what my mother felt toward him.” Anton glanced at his palms. He flexed his fingers. “She despised him. I did too, even though part of me loved him despite what he’d done. I was grateful, you understand?”
“Because if he hadn’t mated your mother, you wouldn’t have been born?”
“Yes.” Anton dropped his hands. “Not a day goes by that I don’t think about my parents. The path they took. The one I chose.”
“I think about my parents often too. I never really knew them, though. They died when I was very young. Boris raised me. I had other uncles, but Boris is the one who taught me everything I know today. Cooking and cleaning or doing any of the things women usually know how to do weren’t part of my upbringing. Boris paid people to do things like that. And…well, I never wanted to learn either.”
Her revelation paled in comparison to the intimate insight Anton had shared, but—it was as personal as she could get without giving away her goal.
Anton glanced at the clock. “It’s late. Why don’t we call it a day and talk more tomorrow.”
Sunlight flooded the kitchen. It wasn’t late.
“Be ready to leave first thing in the morning.” He walked past her.
She grabbed his arm. “Don’t dismiss me, Anton. Give me a chance. A couple of weeks. That’s all I’m asking for.” That was all she needed. If she couldn’t uncover evidence against Anton in that time, she would be facing her nightmare, one where she’d have to cook and clean for the next few hundred years.
He pried her fingers off him. “I am giving you a chance. We’re going to the campus library tomorrow. I want to see your secretarial skills in action.”
Nyx deserved his doubt. “Oh? Which ones?”
“Note-taking and transcription. A newly discovered journal from a third-generation Alexander pride member was recently added to the library’s collection. I have yet to read it. You’ll copy some passages so I can do so in private.”
“Copying text? That’s it?”
Anton crossed his arms. “Yes. That’s it, but it’s not as easy as it sounds. The journal is written in the old language.”
Still, it was copying stuff. How hard could it be? She nodded. “You won’t be disappointed.”
She had over twelve hours to practice copying from the books she’d seen in Anton’s library.