Pack's Dinner
1064 Words
I touched my chest, where my wolf should have been. Silence. Emptiness. Twelve years of nothing.
Maybe if my wolf wakes. Maybe if I prove myself. Maybe if I try harder.
Hope whispered. Hope lied. Hope always did.
But I didn't have anything else.
The next morning, I reported to the kitchens.
Lily, accompanied by my mother, assigned me the role. The cook... I woke early, restless, unable to stay in that narrow room. The kitchen staff were already bustling, preparing breakfast for the household.
I started chopping vegetables.
No one looked at me. No one thanked me. But no one stopped me, either.
So I kept chopping.
Days blurred into weeks.
I woke before dawn. I worked in the kitchens until my arms ached and my back screamed. I washed dishes, hauled supplies, learned the rhythms of a household that had no place for me.
The pack ate well.
I became the pack's most preferred cook.
Auntie Zheng ran the kitchen, a broad woman with sharp elbows and sharper tongue. She didn't coddle me. Didn't pity me. Just pointed at the sink or the stove or the prep table and expected me to keep up.
I kept up.
"You're not useless," she said once, not looking at me. "Just misplaced."
I didn't know if that was kindness or cruelty.
I stored it in my chest anyway, next to all that stubborn hope.
Lily visited the kitchens sometimes.
To check on menus. To request special dishes. To smile at me, sweet and concerned, and ask how I was settling in.
"Sister, you're working so hard. Are you sure you wouldn't like me to speak to Mother about a different arrangement?"
I kept my eyes on the carrots I was chopping.
"This is fine."
"But you're the true heiress. It feels wrong to have you laboring like a servant."
Then give me back my room. My pack. My life.
"I don't mind."
Lily's smile tightened. Just slightly. Just enough for me to notice.
"Well. If you change your mind, you know where to find me."
She swept out in a cloud of perfume.
I chopped the carrots into smaller and smaller pieces until Auntie Zheng smacked my hand with a ladle.
"Stop murdering the vegetables. They didn't do anything to you."
Dixon didn't visit the kitchens.
I saw him across hallways, across the training yard, across dining tables where I served and didn't sit. He didn't look at me. Didn't acknowledge me.
Sometimes I caught his gaze in my direction. But it always slid away, like I was a reflection in water, too insubstantial to hold.
My fated mate. Promised to me since birth. And he doesn't even see me.
My wolf, silent, sleeping, dead, offered nothing.
I scraped plates and washed dishes and tried not to think about hands that almost touched and voices that murmured ‘interesting’ in dark barns.
I mostly failed.
Evenings were the hardest.
The kitchen quieted. The household retreated to their chambers. I walked through service corridors back to my narrow room next to the laundry, and the silence pressed against my ears like water.
I read my law book by lamplight.
Grandpa Chen's voice echoed in my memory:
‘Smart girls own the companies that employ the husbands.’
I didn't want to own anything. I just wanted to stop being invisible.
But the book was warm in my hands, and the words were steady, and reading kept the darker thoughts at bay.
I turned the page and read about property law until my eyes blurred and sleep finally dragged me under.
Morning always came too soon.
I woke up. I dressed. I walked to the kitchen. I chopped vegetables and scrubbed pots and tried not to hope.
But hope, stupid and stubborn, refused to die.
Maybe today they'll see me.
Maybe today will be different.
Maybe today.
"Leila Yuxan."
I looked up from the sink.
Auntie Zheng stood with her arms crossed.
"Alpha Dixon requests dinner in his study tonight. Private meal. No staff."
My heart stopped.
"He specifically asked for you to prepare it."
Hope, that tireless fool, surged in my chest.
He sees me. He finally sees me.
"Yes," I said. "Of course. I'll prepare for it."
Auntie Zheng studied me for a long moment. Then she nodded once and walked away.
I turned back to the sink, hands shaking.
Maybe today...
I spent two hours preparing the meal.
Auntie Zheng watched me sear the steak with precision, but she didn't interfere. Didn't mock. Just pointed at the seasoning when my hand hesitated.
"Less salt. He doesn't like salt."
I adjusted. Measured. Tasted. Adjusted again.
The steak came out perfect. Medium rare, just like the servants said he preferred. Roasted vegetables glazed in honey. Mashed potatoes whipped perfectly. A sauce I'd learned from Grandpa Chen, rich and dark, that made even Auntie Mei grunt approval.
I plated everything carefully. Arranged it like art. Like love.
Like maybe, if I did everything right, he'd finally see me.
Before I carried the tray upstairs, I went to my room.
The narrow closet next to the laundry. The chipped dresser. The water-stained ceiling I'd memorized over weeks of sleepless nights.
I opened my drawer. Pulled out the only dress I owned that wasn't stained or faded.
It wasn't much. Blue cotton, simple cut, hem slightly frayed. Auntie Mei bought it for me three years ago at the village market. "You can't meet the cows looking like a beggar," she'd said.
Not silk. Not pink. Not anything Lily would wear.
But it was my best.
I changed quickly, fingers clumsy with the buttons. Combed my hair with my fingers. Pinched my cheeks the way I'd seen girls do in bus station magazines.
I looked at myself in the cloudy mirror.
Countryside clothes. Calloused hands. Face too thin from years of too little food.
He won't notice, hope whispered. But maybe he'll try.
I tucked my grandmother's bracelet into my pocket. For luck.
Then I carried the tray upstairs.
Alpha Dixon's study was at the end of the east wing.
My grandmother's old wing. I'd never been inside. The doors were always closed, always guarded, always off-limits to kitchen staff.
Tonight, the guards stepped aside without looking at me.
I knocked.
"Enter."
His voice was deeper than I remembered. Warmer. Like heated stones.
I pushed the door open and stepped inside.
- Writer
