Page 26 of Violet Moon (Pitch Mountain Pack #1)
eighteen
With a no longer avoidable and very important conversation ahead of her, Sera, naturally, procrastinated. It was useful procrastination. At least that’s what she told herself. She had a plan. First she would bake and then she would tell Parisa everything.
“Emmaline, I have a need to bake!” Sera announced, throwing the back door to the kitchen wide open. Her body buzzed with anticipation and nerves.
Emmaline looked up from the tartlets she was decorating and grinned. “Let me finish these and then you can help with the next batch. Go wash up those raspberries for me, will you?”
Sera rubbed her hands together and nodded, getting to work right away. With her hands busy, she felt steadier and could focus on what she had to do. “Can I bring one to Parisa when they’re done?”
“Fine by me,” Emmaline replied. “You make them. You decide what you want to do with them.” She gestured towards a bowl of lemons. “Juice those, if you can. We’re doing raspberries and lemon curd. It’s tart, sweet, perfect. Some things just work so well together, don’t you think?”
She lost herself in the work as Emmaline instructed her and kept her busy, making little room in her mind for anything else.
She welcomed the moments where she didn’t think about what she was going to say to Parisa, or replay the moment where she’d stepped into the duel and ruined everything.
She cut raspberries, worked the tartlets into their little molds until her fingers were covered in flour and sticky bits of pastry, and did her best to follow Emmaline’s lemon curd instructions.
“It looks so bad.” Sera stared down into the pot. She picked up a bit with a spoon and it fell off in a hardened clump. “See, there’s always a point where it all goes wrong.”
“Nothing’s stopping you from trying again,” Emmaline said.
Frustrated, Sera tried again, following Emmaline’s advice. And again. And again. When burnt lemon curd stuck to the bottom of the pot, she decided enough was enough. “Can you make it and I’ll do something else?”
“What kind of teacher would I be if I did that?”
“A helpful one.” Sera clicked her tongue, but smiled. “Fine, but can you stand here and tell me every little step as I do it?”
With Emmaline’s help, Sera managed to make something passing as lemon curd, though it was still lumpy.
She did manage to start a small fire later, but that was a tea towel’s fault, not hers.
In the end, it was very easy to tell the difference between Emmaline’s professional tarts and Sera’s attempts.
Sera’s were burnt on the edges, soggy on the bottom, and she’d worked the pastry a little too much.
The curd settled like mountains, not smooth like Emmaline’s.
But at least the raspberries looked nice.
“Thank you, Emmaline. I didn’t burn the kitchen down. A good lesson.”
“Never a bad time to try something new.”
“I hope you’re right.”
Emmaline raised an eyebrow.
“Got something else I’m trying today,” Sera said.
“Well, good luck with whatever you’ve got going on,” Emmaline added with a smile.
Sera wrapped one of the better looking tarts in one of the boxes from Violet Moon, tied a silver ribbon around it, and walked back to the pack house.
Part of her hoped Parisa wouldn't be home, but while it’d give her more time to think, it would mean she’d sit in her room with a boxed tart, jumping anytime she heard a door open.
The second she stepped over the threshold she could sense Parisa’s presence.
Her scent still lingered in the entryway as though she’d only just come home.
Sera’s heart raced as she made her way to Parisa’s study.
She had to keep switching which hand held the box to wipe her sweaty palms on her trousers.
She lifted her hand to knock, but Parisa’s voice rang out before her knuckles hit the door, “Come in.”
Her hands trembled as she opened the door.
Parisa was standing beside her desk, thumbing through an open book.
Her smile was warm and welcoming, despite everything that had happened between them, and Sera melted at the sight of her.
Her hair was neatly pinned back and her long-sleeved, floral-print dress had a low collar that dipped just past where her tops normally stopped.
Sera took a few steps forward, caught herself staring, and looked at the box in her hands instead. Her mouth was dry. She shoved the box in Parisa’s general direction. “Eat the tart,” she said, voice shaky. She cleared her throat and tried again. “Please eat the tart.”
“What?” Parisa laughed in confusion.
Sera stared at her shoes as she held out the box. “I have something to tell you and I need you to not say anything until I’m done. So, for now, could you please, please just eat the tart?”
Parisa’s fingertips grazed the backs of her hands as she took the box. “I think I can manage that.”
Sera’s breath left her in a rush. “Thank you.” She wiped her hands on her trousers again and clasped them together to keep them from shaking.
Parisa lifted the tartlet from the box. Her eyes darted between Sera and the pastry, worry sinking into her expression. “Sera, if this is about —”
“Let me say this. Please?” she begged, knowing that Parisa could sense her racing heartbeat. Parisa had already pieced everything together and was ready to stop her, but this time Sera wasn’t holding anything back.
Parisa nodded and brought the tart to her lips to take a bite. Sera could sense Parisa’s nerves now, too. She could hear how Parisa’s breath was coming in shorter bursts, and she could smell the subtle changes in her scent that showed she was on high alert.
Now that she was standing here, Sera realized she hadn’t practiced exactly what she was going to say. She had wrongly assumed the right words would come on their own, so she stood silent for a moment before plunging in.
“You saved me,” she said, starting at the very beginning. “I’m eternally grateful for that, but it’s not what draws me to you, or what keeps me by your side.” Her voice sounded far away in her own ears. Sera felt like she was somewhere outside of herself watching all this happen.
“I’m your Beta because I believe in you and this pack.
I’m your friend because our chats by the fire over coffee and tea are the best part of my day and you trust me the way that I trust you.
And —” She faltered, summoning the strength to continue.
“And I love you because I hate going a day without seeing you. I miss bringing you flowers every afternoon and watching your face light up. Your voice makes me feel calm and grounded. Your presence makes me feel like I can do anything. And I’d never forgive myself, ever, if I didn’t tell you all of this. ”
She swallowed hard and dared to meet Parisa’s gaze.
“I think about you constantly. It’d be stupid of me to not know this was love and I’ve been stupid for a long time now.
I know what you’ve said. I know how you feel.
But I had to tell you what I felt, too.” She shifted on her feet. “I hope you like the tart.”
Parisa set down the tart and stared, lips parted. Tension crackled in the silence between them.
“The pack comes first,” Parisa said.
“I know the pack comes first, but why does that have to be at the expense of how you feel? How I feel?”
“Because —” Parisa stood, hands clenched at her sides. “We can’t ruin the pack for selfish reasons.”
“What would change? We’re already together all the time.”
“But the pack.”
“I know.”
“Everything would change. How can you not understand this?”
“Think about it, though. Really think about it. How would anything be different if we were happy? We already support each other and spend so much time together —”
“A relationship is different and you know it.”
Sera wasn’t backing down. “The pack is stronger when we’re together.”
Parisa paced in a tight circle. “You of all people know how hard I’ve worked to carry this pack and make the other Alphas respect us, respect me. And you want to undo all of that for the chance that —”
“For a chance? Pari, you told me you loved me. And you know how much I love you!” Her voice cracked and she shut her lips tight.
“I don’t need to look weaker than I already am.”
“Love can make us stronger, not weaker.”
Parisa looked at her and there was a war behind her eyes. “I need time to think.” She sunk down into her chair and looked away. “Alone.”