Culinary Lesson

Kai couldn't believe his eyes. Or his nose. He sat at the dinner table, blatantly staring, a little slack-jawed. His mother sat opposite him, a dazed smile on her lovely face. She was busy butchering lettuce to make what was supposed to be caesar salad, too oblivious to notice Kai's shocked silence.

Marius the Conqueror was cooking right in his mother's kitchen.

He had a high fever and was hallucinating. That had to be it. Kai wasn't actually seeing what he was seeing. And he wasn't actually smelling onions and garlic being sauteed. And his mouth wasn't actually salivating...

Kai scowled. This was not how he'd expected his short visit to go down.

Marius should have turned down his mother's misguided request to assist in preparing dinner. Instead, he'd sat her down, buttered her up with a few calculated compliments, and had assumed reign of the kitchen as if it were his kingdom.

And he really was cooking! King Marius knew how to cook of all things.

Well, Kai supposed the merman could have hobbies, but this was a total surprise. Watching him move about the small kitchen, all six foot four of pure muscle and magical strength, was equally intimidating and enlightening. It seemed that the Nostrazian King had much hidden under his sleeves. He was a foe to be wary of indeed. Kai was willing to be that of all the enemies hunting him, King Marius was the one to fear the most. After all, he was the one who discovered his location and took him captive before any of the rest could lift a finger, presumably.

"Kai, why are you just sitting there? Help Marius!"

Reluctantly, Kai got up and went to Marius's side.

"You don't have to-"

"You can boil the water for the pasta."

"You... know what pasta is?"

Marius flashed him a look that said 'What do you take me for?'

"I thought you hated all things human." Kai said by way of explanation as he went to grab the pot from the cabinet. With their backs to each other, Kai at the sink and Marius slicing some vegetables at super speed on the island, he said, "How do you know how to cook human cuisines?" Marius had given him the impression that he hadn't so much as ventured to the surface except to grab him.

"I do," Marius said casually without an ounce of hesitation, and in answer to his question, he added, "One of the cooks in the Palace's kitchen is a human chef. He was rescued from a sinking cruise ship where he was working as the head chef."

"And he taught you?"

"I watched him."

"You learned from just watching?" Incredible. It was difficult not to admire him.

"The food he made was... colorful and quite aromatic. I found it... agreeable."

Kai moved to the stove with the water-filled pot in his hands. He placed it on the electric burner and set the heat to maximum to get it boiling quicker. He reached for the olive oil bottle and splashed some into the water, then dumped a fistful of salt.

He felt eyes on the sides of his face. He looked up to see Marius's gaze fixed on him, even though it should have been firmly fixed on the sharp knife in his hand expertly chopping away.

"What?" Why was he staring?

Marius looked away wordlessly.

"What are you making?" Kai asked, defeated by his curiosity.

"I believe it is called Fettuccine Alfredo."

Kai blinked. "Can you make it with chicken? I like chicken."

"Very well, but you'll have to cook it. I'm afraid there's not much chicken at the bottom of the ocean."

Kai went to the freezer to fetch a plate of frozen breasts and dropped it in a bowl of water to defrost faster.

Meanwhile, he decided to whip up a drink while the pasta water came to a boil. He moved around the kitchen, opening cabinets and drawers to grab glasses, his trusty shaker, some syrups for flavor, and a rack of ice from the freezer. As much as he liked kelpie tea, a mojito would be heavenly.

He heard the water boil and moved to dump half a bag of fettuccine pasta in the water, abruptly looked up at Marius, then decided half a bag wouldn't be enough and dumped the whole thing in the pot.

"You have no servants?"

At that, Kai raised an eyebrow and said sarcastically, "No, we don't, Your Majesty."

"Hmm."

Hmm?

"We don't need them. As you can see, my house is no palace. My mom and I take care of things just fine. Or we did before you came along." Kai couldn't conceal the bitterness in his voice even if he tried, not that he should have. Why should he bottle it up? Marius deserved to feel the full brunt of his hatred and bitterness.

"Your father's decisions continue to astound me."

Kai's eyes flew to his mother to see if mention of his father had alarmed her. She was totally oblivious. The illusion cast on her gripped her completely. In a way, he was glad for it, but the other half of him twisted in agony seeing her like that. He quickly averted his gaze.

"Why do you say that?"

The ice in the glasses clinked.

"He's distanced you from your heritage and roots completely. I cannot for the life of me fathom why. It's left you at an unforgivable disadvantage."

"Truth be told, I don't understand why myself. I haven't met the man to ask him, thanks to you."

Marius's eyes narrowed at Kai. A palpable tension crackled between them. Words that had been left unsaid too long, left to fester, had finally emerged. Last time they had broached this subject, they'd both avoided much of it. There was much that Kai did not know.

You killed my father, Kai accused with his eyes. Even when his mother told him what Marius did, he'd accepted it as fact. He'd lived his whole life without a father, made to think that he was the son of a human man, so it hadn't truly affected him when he discovered that his father was merman royalty, but still dead. He was used to having only one parent. What had affected him more was discovering he was a half-breed.

"Your father deserved it." Marius said with a face made of stone. His eyes darkened and Kai could see his jaw tightening, as if to keep from saying more. Kai quickly scanned his form to see that his shoulders had squared and his hands had fisted at his sides. He was tense -too tense. Like someone preparing for a fight.

So this was a topic that even Marius didn't like to broach, even if it meant winning points over Kai. But Kai wasn't going to drop it that easily.

His father deserved to be killed? Marius would have to explain that one.

"How so?"

Marius regarded him with a hard gaze for a long time.

"Tell me why. I deserve to know." Kai demanded angrily, and then his gaze flitted to his mother sitting at the table, still chopping lettuce. In a quiet hiss, he said, "My mother deserves to know too."

Marius looked like he wouldn't.

But then he did.

"He killed my father."

The declaration left Kai momentarily speechless. When he found his voice again, he blurted out, "What? How? Why?"

"In the middle of battle, my father extended a truce to your father. We were both suffering heavy casualties. Your father pretended to accept, and when my father extended his hand to shake on it, your father extended his sword."

Kai didn't know what to say. What could he say? It wasn't like he knew his father, so he couldn't exactly defend his honor.

His father who all but abandoned him and his mother.

His father who left them unprotected.

His father who gave him a power that now threatened their peace, even their very existence.

How could Kai possibly defend his father?

Marius was many, many things, but a liar he was not -at least not so far.

"With my father, our leader, dead, morale plummeted. Your father proceeded to wipe us out, destroying our ranks. Our soldiers were terrified; they thought King Kaerus possessed the Spirit of the Sea. We did not know that it had gone to someone else at the time."

Someone else.

Me.

"By some miracle, I managed to get close enough to your father."

"And you killed him." Kai sighed, his chest tighter than it had ever been. Was that a lump stuck in his throat?

"I avenged my father." Marius growled, and Kai saw savageness, but he also saw...

Kai looked away.

The water simmered out of the pot and dropped onto the electric burner, sizzling into the air immediately. The sizzling sound startled them both.

"The pasta's ready." Kai declared with a husky voice.

*~~~~~~~~~~~~~~*

If you'd like to read ahead, please consider joining my Patreon and supporting me. You'll find exclusive NSFW Abyssal sex stories, artwork and various content. Hit that Patreon button to check out all the rewards!