The Chef's Sick Mate (Book 17 of the Regal Eclipse Pack Series)

Chapter 17

Linc woke the next morning and laid there quietly, staring at the ceiling. He hadn't dreamed about her again after the initial dream he'd had followed by his discussion with Maddox. He hadn't dreamed about anything at all.

Linc hauled himself out of bed and got dressed. He was off today too, something he wasn't thrilled about. He'd taken the time off so that he could spend it with Gina for all the good it had done him. He'd planned to be mating her last night and today, and maybe even marking her by now. If she'd agreed to it. Maybe bringing her back here to the pack house and into his bed finally. He sighed. He supposed he could get some moving done today. The sooner he was out of that house, the better. He didn't want to be constantly going back and forth between the two. He wanted to cut all ties with that place and close that chapter of his life.

Linc left his apartment and headed down to the kitchen and stepped inside. They could always use help in the kitchen, and he really enjoyed Brianna's company. The smell of baking bread that always seemed to be prevalent in the space hit him sharply and he breathed it in. That smell always made him think of home. Always. 

"Lincoln! Good morning!" Brianna looked up from the island where she was busy doing something. Biscuits, he thought, eyeing her mess. She'd make a ton of them by hand. No frozen biscuits for her. Brianna preferred to make things from scratch. 

"Hi, Bri. How are you?" He walked over and kissed her on the cheek. She was the only one in the kitchen. Even her mate, Landon, wasn't here which surprised him. She and Landon were always together. 

"I'm good. What are you doing here?" She smiled up at him. 

He lifted an eyebrow at her. "I'm moving back into the pack house. You make it sound like I'm never here." He was here pretty frequently, wasn't he?

She turned to look at him. "First off, why are you moving back here? And second, you aren't ever here. I haven't seen you in probably two months."

"Well, I broke up with my girlfriend," he responded as he walked over to the sink and washed his hands. If he was going to be chatting with her, he was also going to be helping her. He felt weird just standing around. 

"Any reason why?" Bri had a commercial grade mixer that she made biscuit dough in. She was busy adding ingredients. She was a professional at making large batches of food, she'd been doing it for so long. She'd been cooking for the pack for hundreds of years. 

"She cheated on me, and apparently has been for a while." He sighed softly. He was still pretty furious about the whole thing. It blew his mind that she'd been at it for months. And then to tell him the sex wasn't even that good? What the hell? He'd loved sex with her. He'd done what she'd wanted. He needed to stop ripping it apart in his head. It wasn't going to do him any good.

"On you?" Bri asked in surprise, her gaze traveling over him.

"Yup." 

"How did you find out?" she asked curiously, before turning on the mixer. 

"She came in yesterday smelling like him." Like she'd been having sex with someone else. The thought of it turned his stomach, though he had to admit he was surprised he hadn't smelled that guy on her before. Apparently, she hadn't gone to see him before coming to see Linc. He couldn't remember another time that she'd been late like that either. 

"Oh Linc. I'm so sorry." Bri watched him quietly. She knew quite a bit about his relationship with Gina. He'd probably told her more than anyone else. Except about the sex. That he hadn't really told anyone about. It was private, and his friends and family respected that. 

"Not your fault, but it does suck. I was thinking about asking her to be my mate," he admitted. He was just glad he'd found out what she was before he'd asked. Before he'd spilled his secrets to her. "What do you want me to do?"

"You want to help me make biscuits?" She turned the mixer off and moved the dough onto the counter. 

"Sure," he agreed and moved over to the island where she was working. He'd watched her make biscuits a million times and helped hundreds of times. Brianna could probably make them in her sleep, and Linc wasn't far behind.  "Why are you in here alone?"

"The others will be here soon; you're just early, Linc," she told him with a smile.

He chuckled but set to work on the biscuits, falling into a rhythm with Bri. He'd always enjoyed cooking and had snuck into her kitchen many times when he was a teenager to experiment. She had a very old cookbook, and he'd sneak in so he could look through it and write down recipes. He knew she rarely ever opened it because she had most of the recipes memorized. 

He'd done so at night at first, slipping in and cooking and baking to his heart's content. He'd quickly learned to clean up after himself or Brianna would have his hide. She'd flipped out the first couple of times when she'd walked into his mess the following morning, though it hadn't taken her long to figure out it was him. He'd been a teenager at the time and cleaning up after himself hadn't exactly been a priority. He'd quickly learned his lesson, and even his mother had read him the riot act. 

After that, she'd taken him under her wing, and began to let him help her with preparing meals, and prepping other things, like homemade dough, bread, butter and stuff like that. She'd discovered that Linc had a talent, and had encouraged him to go to culinary school, though Linc had told her more than once that he'd learned way more from her than he had from the school. 

There were days when he'd actually impressed the chefs at the school with some of the techniques he used. Of course, he couldn't tell them that the woman he'd learned them from had been cooking for centuries. But they were definitely impressed by him, and he'd easily graduated top of his class. Linc knew he could work anywhere he wanted to, but he'd wanted to stay close to home. Near his pack. The only one who'd come close to pulling him away was Gina. And what a disaster that had been. 

Now, he worked at a high-class restaurant in a small town nearby, one that people came from all over to eat at. The place had a reputation that had spread far and wide thanks to the internet, and people traveled for miles to eat there. It was always busy. He'd been there now for a few years. It was a good job, and he'd ended up outshining the head chef who had not been too thrilled with him for a while there. He'd sort of made Linc's life hell, which went against everything in Linc, but he'd ignored every instinct within him to not tolerate the disrespect, kept his head down and did his job, letting his talent speak for itself. The head chef had finally gotten over himself and let Linc do what he was good at. Now the two of them were friends, and the head chef fully respected him. 

That hadn't been easy for him, dealing with someone who looked down their nose at him. He'd talked to Brianna about it quite a bit, and she'd told him straight out that if he didn't want to get fired, he'd have to put up with it. "I know it sucks, but it's just the way it is. Deal with it and do your best. He'll see that you truly do have talent and then you'll earn his respect."

He hadn't liked that response, but he knew she was right. He'd seen the arrogance when he was in school too. Humans were rather annoying in that regard, but he'd dealt with it and reminded himself that this wasn't his world. He had to blend in, not stick out. He already attracted attention as it was because of his good looks and muscled, toned body. He'd caught the eye of more than one student when he was in culinary school. Not that he'd slept with any of them. He'd considered it more than once though.