Page 16 of Fated Surrender

“Shut up and die, morning person. Coffee,” she mumbled.

Right. Note to self. Mate was not a morning person.

He poured a cup of coffee and placed it on the table near her hand along with the sweetener and cream. He watched as she poured three packets of Equal into the coffee with her forehead still on the table. He looked on in amazement as she felt around and unscrewed the cap to the cream before dousing the dark liquid. She stirred for a second before dragging the cup to her lips. After a few sips she was able to lift her head. By the time she had finished half a cup she was sitting upright. When she finished the cup, her eyes were open and she was looking around.

“You should be a coffee commercial,” Connor said, staring at his mate.

“I hope those waffles are for breakfast, I’m starving,” she said, ignoring him.

He went over, picked up the plate he had made for her and walked back over to her chair. She reached up for it but he shook his head.

“You want breakfast. I need a morning kiss. Especially, after you just told me to die,” he said, raising an eyebrow at her.

She winced and lifted her face up for a kiss. He kissed her thoroughly and placed the plate down in front of her.

“Sorry about that. I should have warned you I’m not a morning person. Anything said before coffee should never be held against me,” she said, smiling up at him.

“You’re lucky my eldest and youngest brothers are grumpy. I have plenty of practice dealing with them first thing in the morning.” Connor winked and joined her at the table.

“They would be?” she asked.

“Aleks and Gavin. The beginning and the end.” Connor laughed to himself.

“There are seven of you, right? Is it true your family always uses the first seven letters of the alphabet?” she asked, digging into her waffles.

“Yup. We all get an A through G name based on our birth order, and our middle names correspond to the previous generation’s name. For example. Aleks is Aleksander Aaron Arkadion. Aleksander is his name and his middle name is the A name from the previous generation. Which would be Pa. I’m Connor. My uncle’s name, who is also a C name, is Christian. So, I became Connor Christian Arkadion. When Rebecca has rug rat number three. He will be ‘whatever C name’ Connor Arkadion and so on and so on,” Connor explained.

“That is genius in its simplicity,” Madison complimented.

“It sure as hell made genealogy easy. We have a huge family tree dating back over two thousand years. Benedict has been working on a software program that will act as a family database,” Connor said.

“You really love your brothers don’t you?” she asked.

“Of course. Don’t you love your siblings?” he asked in return. She nodded.

“Yes, but then again we’re triplets.” She quieted and put her fork down.

Connor knew exactly who she was thinking of.

“I’m sorry about your sister, Madelyne. I’ll see what I can do to help look for her,” he said, taking her hand. He remembered Maddox’s story about their missing sibling.

She looked up and quickly wiped away a stray tear with her other hand never letting go of his.

“I’m not sure what else can be done,” she said, before picking up her fork to begin eating with one hand.

Connor did the same. It was funny how Fate worked. Less than twenty-four hours ago he had to be drugged to get some sleep. Now, he was sitting at a table eating breakfast with his mate after a perfect night’s rest. He chuckled at his good fortune.

“Are your waffles funny?” she asked.

He shook his head. “Just thinking about how Fate works and how different my life is now, than it was twenty-four hours ago.” He squeezed her hand.

“Twenty-four hours ago, I had packed up my entire life and got on a plane to go visit my brother. No job, no home. Nothing. Now...” She trailed off and looked at him, smiling.

“Why did you quit your job and pack up like that? I was there in the diner the day Doc was talking to you. After being around you, you don’t seem like the type of person that would do something like that on a whim.”

“You’re right. It wasn’t a whim. I really started to hate myself in New York. I hated my job. None of the cases seemed to matter. I guess, I was ready for a change. When I heard about what happened with the virus, all I could think about, was that it had been years since I last seen my brother. That was all it took. I’ll call my personal assistant when we get back, so he can arrange to have my things sent to Arkadia, I mean, if that’s okay?” she asked.

“Sounds good to me.” Connor took another bite of his waffles.

---