Fire Breakout
1030 Words
Rebecca's POV
The smell of oatmeal and Katherine’s cheap on the inside perfume was enough to make me want to vomit. I was in the laundry room, scrubbing that stupid silk scarf like my life depended on it, but my mind was miles away. I was thinking about a six year old kid that doesn't belong to Damian.
I was thinking about the look on Katherine’s face when I finally pulled the rug out from under her.
The door clicked open. Speak of the devil.
Katherine strutted in, her heels sounding like hammer nails on the floor. She wasn't alone. She had Jane with her, a woman whose face had been pulled so tight by Botox she looked like she was constantly standing in a wind tunnel.
"Whoa, Kath," Jane said, stopping dead as she looked at me. "Is she the fine maid you were talking about?"
I froze. Fine? My hand instinctively went to the reconstructed skin of my jaw. Had she seen through it?
Katherine’s elbow practically caved in Jane’s ribs. "Ahem… ugly. I meant the ugly maid," Jane corrected herself, though she was still staring at me like I was an exotic animal in a zoo.
I kept my head down. Stay invisible, Don't slip out of character.
"Stop right there, Rebecca," Katherine snapped.
I halted, clutching the wet silk. Katherine walked a slow circle around me, her nose wrinkled like I was something she had stepped in on the sidewalk.
"I have decided your service is lacking," she said, flicking a manicured nail against my shoulder. "I don't want you just doing Damian’s laundry and floors. From now on, you are the cook. Every meal. Every day."
I turned slowly. "I wasn't hired to be a chef, Miss Katherine."
"Wow, it speaks!" Jane laughed, leaning against the dryer. "I didn't think the mouse had a tongue."
Katherine’s eyes flashed. "You will do what I say or you’re out on the street. I am sure a plain thing like you doesn't have many options. You need this paycheck, don't you?"
She was trying to break me. She wanted me exhausted, greasy, and subservient. Nothing has even happened yet and Katherine was already intimidated by me. Good.
But she didn't realize she was giving me exactly what I wanted, total control over the food would draw me even closer to Damian but damn I didn't even know how to cook a proper meal.
I straightened my back. It was pretty hard to stay in this soft quiet girl's character.
"Fine. But I will need a salary raise for the extra labor."
Katherine’s mouth fell open. She looked like a fish gasping for air. "How dare you...."
"Being a cook wasn't part of my contact was it?" I asked, my voice flat. "Well, I am expecting a raise in my payment."
I didn't wait for her to scream. I grabbed the damp scarf and walked right past them, feeling Jane’s bewildered stare on my back.
Behind me, I heard Katherine shriek, "When did that b***h get the nerve?!"
Fast forward three hours, and I was standing in a kitchen that looked more like a laboratory than a place to make food. Everything was stainless steel and touch screens.
I am a Sterling. I can hunt, I can skin, and I can survive in the woods for a month with nothing but a pocketknife. But I don't know how to fry bacon for a man who probably expects his toast to taste like heaven he didn't deserve.
I threw the bacon into a heavy pan and cranked the heat. My mind was drifting again. Six years old. Katherine had been hiding a whole human being for six years. If Damian wasn't the father, who was? And why did she cheat on Damian? A whole lot I needed to know.
The pan started to hiss. A lot.
I looked down and realized I had put way too much oil in. It was spitting like a cornered cat. I reached for a towel to move the pan, but I was a second too late.
Whoosh.
It wasn't just a small flame. The grease hit the induction burner’s edge and the whole thing turned into a pillar of orange fire.
It roared toward the ceiling, the heat hitting my face so hard it felt like my skin was melting all over again. I stumbled back, my heel catching on the corner of the rug, and my heart lurched into my throat.
The fire was reaching for the cabinets. I was trapped between the marble island and the blaze, and for the first time in ten years, I felt true, paralyzing fear.
"Rebecca! Get down!"
A heavy weight slammed into my side. I didn't even have time to scream before I was tackled to the hard marble floor.
A body covered mine, solid, warm, and massive. I felt the rush of the flash-fire roll over us, the oxygen in the room vanishing for a terrifying heartbeat. The smell of singed hair filled my nose, and the roar of the fire was deafening above our heads.
I was pinned. The person on top of me was breathing hard, their heart thudding against my back like a drum.
"Don't move," a voice growled near my ear.
It was Derek.
He stayed over me, his arms locked on either side of my head, shielding me as the fire suppression system finally kicked in with a hiss of chemicals. We were soaked in seconds, the freezing cold water hitting our heated skin.
He didn't get up. He stayed there, his chest heaving against mine. I turned my head slightly, my breath hitching as I found his eyes inches from mine.
"I have got you," he whispered, his thumb grazing the side of my neck as if checking for a pulse. Or a mark.
Then, the kitchen door slammed open.
The air in the room didn't just get cold, it froze. I didn't need to look up to know who it was. The sheer, suffocating pressure of a pissed off Alpha filled the space.
"What the hell," Damian’s voice vibrated through the floorboards, "is going on in my kitchen?"
- Writer
