Chapter Twelve
Austin kept track of the moon’s progress across the sky as he walked through the estate.
He kept his hand to the wall, stepping carefully so he didn’t trip on anything invisible on the flagstones.
There was a distinct lack of staff around to guide him.
He traced his way to where he remembered smelling food and found a softly lit kitchen.
His nose crinkled at the scent of spices as he stepped into the room. A shadow stoking up the fire in a stove startled when it spotted him.
“Sir.” It was Lassie’s voice. She leapt to attention, bowing. A shadow in the corner of the room shifted, and when Austin glanced that way, he was able to make out the shape of wings. Reba, who bowed his head. “Sir.”
Austin violently crushed the wave of embarrassment that threatened to rise in him.
The little game he’d played with this pair earlier—and surely they would have known they’d been purposefully called out—was somehow humiliating.
He didn’t let that show, pulling around himself the attitude Tristan had yielded to.
Austin looked to Lassie. “I want sweet fruit.” Then to Reba, “Can you fly?”
Cupboards clattered open, and the sweet aroma of freshly cut fruit wafted into the air as Lassie’s knife thunked on a board.
“I can glide,” Reba said. “I can’t really fly, though. Unless there’s a strong updraft of warm air, I’m too heavy to go upwards.”
“I want to see.” Austin waved a hand in the direction of his porch. “And fetch Jaris, I want music too.”
Reba didn’t hesitate to rise and bow, and Austin, sensitive to malice, felt none from the avian.
The lack of apprehension mollified Austin, and when he was once again reclined with music and entertainment, this time with his belly full, his worries eased somewhat.
He couldn’t relax entirely, anxious about Tristan’s return, but he wasn’t truly afraid for the merman.
He sensed innately that the cage that had contained Adonis—barely, and beginning to break anyway—wouldn’t hold Tristan.
Nor did he think Tristan, clearly far smarter than Adonis, would fall for any trap that was laid.
The little he’d learned about Tristan’s upbringing hinted at someone raised in a hostile environment, who had learned how to take care of themselves.
Reba entertained Austin for the span of a half hour.
Outside of the porch light, Austin couldn’t really see him, but it amused him to track Reba’s progress across the sky by the stars he blotted out.
By three glides across the beach, Reba was dragging his legs as he returned to the porch for an assessment, wings trembling.
Austin studied the shake as Reba drank juice, catching his breath.
“Your wings aren’t shaped for gliding,” Austin said. “They’re similar to a bat’s—the bones are like a human hand with extra joints. Stretch them out.”
Reba complied, gazing at the boning in his wings. Austin did the same and noticed with a flare of alarm that the joint Oran had kicked was swollen. Reba didn’t stretch that wing out fully.
Austin could picture the membrane between the long bones catching air in a scooping motion, but having seen Reba try to glide, the air caught unevenly, tugging at the stretched membrane and pulling him off balance.
“But I’m too heavy to just hover,” Reba said, frowning now, as if he was displeased by what was attached to his back.
The look caught Austin’s chest in a thump.
“I said your wings are similar to those of bats, not hummingbirds. Bats don’t hover.
” Austin gestured to the bottle of wine on the table.
“Take that, and a day off to rest.” Austin shouldn’t have made him fly on a sore wing.
“There’s a jar of cream next to my bed. Get that too and rub it into your swollen joint. ”
Reba’s eyes brightened immediately. “Sir.” He picked up the wine and left, a jovial bounce in his step.
“Another song?” Jaris asked.
Austin leaned back on the chaise lounge, his eyes on the shore. “A story about Hal. How he came to run the city of monsters? Something like that.”
A wisp of cloud covered the moon, darkening the ocean. It was a mistimed splash that caught Austin’s ear. He rose from his chair, grabbing a large silk robe he’d retrieved earlier from his room. “You can go.”
Austin had paced the length of sand before his porch a dozen times, skirting the edge of the pool of light, when Tristan emerged suddenly from the dark.
Naked. Austin’s gaze slid down the man’s tall form, a flurry of heat tightening his gut as a gentle prickling sensation spread between his legs.
Caught off guard by his own physical reaction, Austin stared far longer than he should have.
He hadn’t been physically excited by anyone since his relationship with Connor ended.
Tristan’s long, heavy cock twitched and began to rise upwards.
Austin dragged his gaze up to find Tristan’s head tilted in the exact same go on gesture as earlier that night, bidding Austin to voice his desire.
Tristan’s posture was just shy of supplication—he refused to lower his eyes, which shone bright like a predator’s and were fixed upon Austin like he wished to devour him.
Austin flexed his toes, digging them into the sand.
The uncertainty of what might follow didn’t quench the feeling of arousal, but it was enough to make up his mind.
His physical relationship with Connor had never been particularly satisfying, even if their interactions started with Austin frisky and wanting.
Austin could never quite please in bed. Connor found something in him lacking, and that in turn had left him with a hollowness that would haunt him for days after every attempt to deepen their relationship.
Austin answered Tristan’s question by stepping forward and offering the robe. “Did you make her an offering?”
Tristan slipped the robe on without complaint. Austin watched abs disappear behind soft fabric. “I brought a king crab.”
Austin’s head snapped up. “What? That could kill her! She’s only—Tristan—” Power and panic threaded through his voice. “Return right now and—”
“Dead,” Tristan interjected quickly. “The crab, not her. When I saw how small she was, I pulled it apart for her.”
He stared into Tristan’s face but, after a moment, decided he was telling the truth. Austin’s agitation settled as quickly as it had risen.
“Okay,” Austin murmured.
Seeing that he was mellowing, Tristan bent and pressed a kiss to Austin’s cheek. “I’m sorry for—”
“Oh, you are aware that ‘sorry’ is a word!” burst from Austin before he could stop it. “With all your forgive-mes, I was certain that Hal had neglected to teach it to you.”
Tristan’s arm slipped around Austin’s shoulders, and a far less beseeching kiss landed on his temple. A rumble rose from Tristan’s chest. “Shall I tell you how your territory fares? Or would you rather keep me here the rest of the night?”
Another taking kiss, this one against Austin’s cheekbone.
The press of his body, the warmth of his touch, renewed Austin’s awareness of the heat in his lower abdomen.
There was another worrying symptom. His cock began to harden.
And he felt Tristan against his abdomen, clearly undeterred by Austin’s sniping.
Austin released a hard, affected breath. An answering rumble grew in his chest, but he felt his top lip curling back in agitation. Before he’d consciously decided to so much as breathe on the merman, he’d grabbed him by the throat—and held him like that as he gazed up at him.
“I’d offer you a reward,” Austin said, voice so sickeningly sweet it was anything but, “if only your household wasn’t to entertain me without seeking any.”
Desire flared in Tristan’s eyes, the pulse of it beating hard against Austin’s fingertips. The arm curled around Austin’s shoulders tightened its grip as Austin rose onto his toes, letting his fingers tighten. “Such a shame.”
He’d had the vague notion of pressing his own imperious kiss to Tristan’s cheek but found the merman out of reach. Austin leaned in anyway, lips finding the hollow above Tristan’s collarbone, tasting the dried salt of the ocean on his skin.
Tristan’s pulse jumped. The arm bracketing his shoulders loosened, and instead his hands planted on Austin’s sides, fingers curling in to grip.
As it often did, Austin’s mouth ran away on him. It chased after that pulse, and when it struck gold in the crook of Tristan’s neck, his tongue wanted in on the action, and then his teeth, nipping. A gratified groan swelled in Tristan’s throat. Austin tasted its vibration in his mouth.
Restraint shook Austin’s body as he planted his heels back into the sand. He released Tristan’s throat, sliding his hand down until he was holding his chest, keeping the merman at bay. A potent want had a grip on him, and it took a confusing amount of time to contain the sudden surge of desire.
Tristan held him tightly during it, waiting patiently.
When Austin raised his eyes, he found Tristan’s attention fixed on him with an intensity that threatened to undo the work he’d put into calming himself.
With effort, Austin stepped out of Tristan’s grip. “Tell me what you saw.”
Austin retreated to his chaise lounge, pulling a silk sheet over his bare legs, only to immediately kick it off.
Not because his skin bothered him—it was entirely painless—but because it felt sensitive.
Tingly. As Tristan followed him onto the porch, Austin belatedly recalled the fruit pieces he’d had cut.
“There’s your reward.” He gestured imperiously.
A second later, he remembered that he said he wouldn’t give Tristan a reward and scowled.
Tristan perched on the very edge of the chaise lounge, his blue eyes sliding up Austin’s bare legs until they reached his rucked-up shorts. He let out a long exhale, heat flaring in his eyes, and turned away from Austin. After that, he kept his gaze firmly on the fruit.
“The matriarch looked pleased with the crab. There were ten males with her—”