“No. I’m braving the people for you.” I shot her a small smile. “I was invited onto pack land, however, so they shouldn’t tear my heart out and serve it to you on a platter.”

Her eyes widened, and she whispered, “They’d do that?”

“We would if you needed defending.”

The intrusion came as no surprise, seeing as I’d heard Maggie May storming over to me from the counter, but I twisted to face her and greeted her, “I’d expect no less, Maggie. Thank you for welcoming me into your diner.”

She sniffed. “Is it true?”

“What?” I asked, not perturbed by her question. I knew her from old, after all. Knew how intrusive she could really be. “Is what true?” I repeated when she just stood there, pursing her lips at me.

“That you’re mated?”

Evidently, one of the members of staff had a penchant for eavesdropping and gossiping about the ruling family… still, there was no harm in confirming the chatter. “It is.”

Lara protested, “It isn’t.”

I cut her a look. “You can deny many things, avoid many fates, but that is one truth you’ll never be able to hide from.”

Laughing, Maggie agreed, “He’s right there, girl. You can’t hide from a mate bond. Not even sure why you’d want to. Not with this cutie.” She reached over, and my nose crinkled as she grabbed my cheek like I was eight. Then, after she finished tormenting my innocent face, her eyes narrowed into a squint and she turned to Lara. “The girls up at the house say you can feel things.”

The way she phrased it had me hiding a grin, but I had no choice to let it out when Lara muttered, “Well, yes, I’m not a psychopath.”

“Good to know,” Maggie grumbled, her disbelief clear. She peered between us. “But you’re a tricky one, ain’t you? I see that unless I pin you down, you’ll answer however you want.” She plunked her order pad down on the table, then asked, “So, let me put it this way. The girls said that you can feel what I’m feeling.”

“Yes,” Lara confirmed, her shoulders hunching slightly.

“She’s your omega then?” Maggie asked, and I rolled my eyes at her.

“I’m courting her, Maggie, not terrifying her.”

“You’re both tricky, probably for the best or you’d drive each other insane with half-answers,” Maggie complained with a huff.

“I’m probably not strong enough to have an omega,” I prevaricated.

She pshawed at that. “Just because your strength comes in different ways doesn’t mean you ain’t strong, boy.” She wagged her pen at me. “Now, what are you eating?”

“I’ll have the usual.”

“What’s the usual?” Lara asked, and I got the feeling she clung to the normal topic with both hands. I’d let her get away with that, for now. I had no intention of scaring her away.

“A cheeseburger with the cheese inside, bacon and avocado. Home fries and…” Maggie squinted up at the ceiling like she was trying to recall my order when we both knew that she knew it by heart. “Cherry cola.”

“Right on the money,” I told her with a laugh.

“I’ll have that as well please, only no avocado.”

Maggie hummed, then drifted away as quietly as she’d appeared at the side of the table.

“It’s good. The best. You’ll enjoy it.”

“Don’t you have a diner on your…”

At her struggle, I answered, “Territory? Or you can call them pack lands as well. And yes, we do, but no burgers beat Maggie’s.” I hummed. “I think it’s the cheese.”

“You two sounded like you knew one another.”

“Maggie tutors. Not so much now, but she still has a few pupils. She’d travel around the three packs in the area every week. In fact, she’s one of the only people I know of who can still freely enter three sets of territories without getting permission from the alphas upfront.

“Back then I needed all the help I could get. My father’s Korean-American, my mother American, but because of how the pack home-schools, my grandparents were the ones teaching me, so I was learning everything in Korean just like they did. I needed help with English. More help than my mom could give me.” Mom had been many things, but no teacher.

“Really?” Her brows rose. “Why? Didn’t you just pick it up by being here?”

I wiggled my head. “Easier said than done.”

“Why?”

I hadn’t intended on getting into this, but… “Gray Rainford, the father of the previous alpha, brought my grandparents over as…” I sighed. “Basically, they were his slaves.” Her shocked gasp had me shooting her a wary look. “For a long time, they were kept to themselves, and everyone was too terrified of him and then his son to ever try to help. There’s a lot of guilt among the pack over how my family was treated. We’ve been the token Asian family for a long time—”

“Until your father was killed?”

“Yes. Until I’d had enough.” I smiled at one of the servers when she dropped off a cherry cola that was already perspiring, and after I took a deep sip, I told her, “My father didn’t iron his clothes well enough one day. That was enough to trigger his rage.” Such a ridiculous way to die, but that was Kingsley Rainford. Ridiculous. On the knife’s edge. Psychotic.

Her brow puckered, but she reached over and grabbed my hand. “I’m sorry.”

“I miss him,” I told her simply.

“I can imagine,” she replied, her tone soft, her eyes sad as she evidently experienced my sorrow. When she said ‘I can imagine,’ we both knew she felt it as much as I did. There was a curious freedom in that. In knowing that she felt the suffocating grief that often overwhelmed me.

Not that I wanted her to suffer, but to be understood was something any grieving child needed. No matter their age.

“My mom and he were mates. She was trying to encourage him to leave the pack, to move, but it never worked. He was too scared.”

“Why?”

“Originally, my grandparents were North Korean defectors. Their papers say they’re from the South, but they’re not. To get into the US, they took some illegal routes, and the Rainfords always held that against us. My grandparents are still alive, so losing everything would probably be the nail in the coffin.”

“You said your mother was American?”

“She was.” Eying her, I repeated, “They were mated.” I sensed she didn’t understand what that meant, because her expression didn’t change all that much. “In our world, if you’re mated to someone, bound and claimed, when one dies, the other does too.”

Her mouth turned into a perfect circle, a too-perfect circle that made me think of things I had no business thinking right now. She needed to be courted, not seduced. There was a distinct difference—even if I wished I could seduce her, because sweet Mother, she was beautiful.

A true beauty, with her dark hair that curled about her face, the bright red tints that might have been streaks a stylist put in, but weren’t. It was nature who’d blessed her with such beauty.