Chapter Fifteen
Austin hummed as he slid his arm around his merman’s lower back and pressed a kiss to his upper arm—he was too lazy to go on his toes to reach any higher—before simply gazing up at Tristan, revelling in the delightful, satisfied feeling radiating through him.
In a distant sort of way, Austin realised he felt very similar to how he did when Cessair had tested his response to mood stabilisers—sedatives, really, after they’d caught him trying to get Connor’s school friends expelled.
The mood stabilisers, he’d been told after a blissful month of being only half aware of his surroundings, had undesired effects on the biological samples they were taking from him.
To keep the classmates safe and preserve their samples, they’d just taken his phone and locked him up instead.
It took a day before the withdrawal set in, and that excruciating experience had been carefully documented too.
Austin abruptly found himself sitting in the dimly lit carriage. He blinked, looked around to get his bearings, and realised from the furious set of Tristan’s jaw that he’d been talking, not remembering.
With a shiver, Austin shook free of the memories.
“I don’t recommend it. I was so anxious.
” Austin rarely wasn’t plagued by that feeling, but withdrawal had ramped it up a thousand times.
“I was fourteen. I didn’t know what withdrawal was.
I didn’t know my body was craving those sedatives I’d been on the month before.
It was maddening.” He blinked. “I told Liam I was going crazy, but he said it wouldn’t last. I didn’t believe him, so he broke it down and explained what was going on: the cravings, the headaches, the irritability.
When I was let out of the room, he even snuck a book into the lab for me on the subject so I could read it for myself. ”
Tristan’s hands enfolded Austin’s knees, long, lean fingers settling warm against his outer thighs. In his eyes was a storm, but the stroke of his thumbs was slow and soothing. “What happened to your mother?”
Austin’s human mother had either died giving birth to him or been killed by Cessair afterwards.
Either way, that strain of family had no interest in Austin, even after Cessair’s passing.
Tristan was likely asking about his other parent.
The gene donor who had twisted his genetics and made him into this.
“She died. They tried to keep her alive, but perhaps, given the way I react to drugs, that was what killed her. She was big, you know. Bigger than you.” Even her bones had been ground up for study by the time Austin was old enough to know what a bone was, but he had seen videos and photos of her. Measurements detailing her size.
“She was the largest there ever was.” Tristan nodded.
Austin looked at him in surprise. “You knew her?”
“I never met her personally; I was not yet born when she left her city. But there isn’t anyone who did not know her.
She was the last true-born monarch. The rest of her line died out.
When Char worked as my tutor, we studied the family line, going back almost a millennium.
Each subsequent generation was stronger than the last, and each new generation had greater problems conceiving children.
” Tristan got a faraway look as he spoke.
“The stronger the mated couple, the less likely the match would produce children.”
“Char thinks it’s because we’re too much,” Tristan continued.
“He studied natural sciences for years, and he believes there is balance to the world. But then he sees the power we wield, and he cannot reconcile where the balance in that comes from. The stronger the match, the stronger the children. The world can only yield so much before rebalancing.”
Austin considered that.
“Where does your power come from?” Tristan asked. “The ocean?”
Thoughts whirling, Austin answered, “It comes from me. From inside.”
“As does mine. It is not fuelled by food, or training, or effort—I simply am.”
“I feel it like a limb, but it has its own personality. It detaches sometimes. I controlled my voice on the street just now with Adonis, but I can’t always do that.
Sometimes it acts alone, against my wishes.
” Cringes and flinches paraded through Austin’s mind like a sped-up slideshow.
It came to a stop on Gary’s face, turned away from Austin, unyielding eyes focused on his phone as he keyed in 1-1-2.
Tristan regarded him thoughtfully.
“Tell me what you’re thinking,” Austin pushed, preferring what was going on in Tristan’s mind to what his own was trying to dredge up.
“I got the sense that your power is linked to feeling. You say it defies your wishes, but does it defy the feeling that stirs it?”
If Tristan was right, then Austin would never be able to control the harm his voice unleashed. He refocused on the window, peering out as their carriage halted outside a tall, yellow-brick building. People streamed in and out through a large, arched doorway.
Tristan squeezed Austin’s thighs. “Justice Hall. Given the time, Hal is likely hearing the last of the cases. Do you still wish to meet him?”
Austin stared vacantly at the designs chiselled into the archway. Floral motifs intertwined with monsters, who stood upon swords and wielded shields. Justice was spelled out in plain stone, and Prince Hal looked to be comprised of stone seaweed.
“How do you know my mother was the last monarch? And not some random northern mermaid?”
Tristan huffed, amused. “Because nobody else could have possibly given life to you, my dearest siren.” He pressed a sweet, beseeching kiss to Austin’s cheek.
Austin’s attention strayed from the building, and from his thoughts, to the feel of Tristan’s hands warm on his thighs, his hot breath on his cheek.
An errant strand of hair escaped from Tristan’s bun and tickled the delicate skin around Austin’s temple.
Austin reached up to tuck it back into place, running his fingertips against Tristan’s supple skin.
Austin leaned toward the merman, magnetically drawn to his power and steady warmth. “Wasn’t Adonis’s face very funny?”
Tristan made a sound that might have been agreement. He tipped his head sideways into the cup of Austin’s palm. “Until now, I thought you were here on the monarch’s behalf.”
Austin cast him a confused look.
“I suspected you were sent to deal with me and that he would challenge my brother for the city.”
Austin leaned back, withdrawing his hand. Tristan’s eyes flicked sideways to watch his fingers. Austin’s hand settled in his lap, and Tristan’s hand was there a moment later, exploring the pads of his fingers with grave concentration.
“‘Deal’ with you? You thought I came to fight you?”
“Or distract me,” Tristan admitted. “Which you are. Very distracting, that is. But I do not think you would be toying with or demeaning the monarch’s mate if you were working with him.”
“You’re calling Connor ‘the monarch’? Oh, that’s ridiculous. As if that lazy sod would be bothered trying to steal someone’s throne! You really thought I went to your estate to ‘deal’ with you while someone else attacked the city? And your response to that was to invite me in as a guest?”
There was an abashed look in Tristan’s eyes. “Well, you…”
“Yes?”
Tristan avoided Austin’s eyes. “You didn’t seem very impressed with me.”
“And now?” Austin challenged. He’d thrown an exceptional amount of weight around in the last hour alone. “I’m not here as part of some covert mission. You don’t need to humour me to figure out some secret plot!”
Tristan stopped stroking Austin’s fingertips, eyes flicking up and colliding with Austin’s. “I haven’t been humouring you or acting in any way to deceive you. Just because I thought you came to steal my territory doesn’t mean I didn’t want you there.”
Austin couldn’t put into words quite why he was irritated, but he was. He leaned in again, falling to that magnetic lure that Tristan possessed. “If I wanted your territory, I would take it.”
A light sparked in Tristan’s eyes. He regarded Austin with animal excitement.
He hummed, almost grinning. Whether he agreed with Austin’s capability or not was impossible to discern, but Austin saw well enough that he liked the idea of it.
Austin couldn’t even dream about taking Tristan in a fight, but he knew his voice.
He knew, too, of all the feelings that might inspire his power to action, the refusal to bow his head would triumph over everything and everyone.
Austin smiled, and he let it be sharp. “Are you not upset that I’ve caused trouble in your city?
” He climbed onto Tristan’s lap, knees resting on either side of Tristan’s thick, powerful thighs.
Tristan’s hands fastened onto Austin’s thighs, fingers sliding beneath fabric.
They curved in, mere inches below the swell of Austin’s buttocks.
Tristan’s bold touch matched the shine in his eyes, as did the swelling arousal pressing against his ass.
Austin let his hands explore the defined shoulders, pecs, and chest that had proven a sturdy place to rest one’s head.
He didn’t look away from Tristan’s eyes, watching as his gaze shuttered to half-mast. “I am more than capable of handling trouble,” Tristan said.
He studied Austin’s eyes, then his mouth, and then he leaned in, nuzzling his neck.
A kiss beneath his gill, then one above it.
Then a nibble at the hinge of Austin’s jaw, just beneath his ear.
His body jewellery tinkled as a hand slid up his spine.
Tristan’s grip firmed on Austin’s thigh, pulling him in as he tipped his hips, rubbing his erection into Austin with a pleased groan.
Austin hissed, tightening his grip on Tristan’s shoulders, shivering as his arousal flared bright and sudden.
Tristan let go of Austin’s thigh to hook an arm around his waist. He thrust his hips up, cock rubbing through their clothes to nestle firmly between Austin’s cheeks.
I want him, chimed through Austin’s body like a bell. I want him, echoed his mind. Waking from its slumber, the power within Austin: I want him.
Austin had a fist in Tristan’s hair and his mouth against the merman’s ear, his lips parted.
Someone laughed outside the carriage. Far off. It reached Austin’s ears and registered only as something abstract. But it nudged him, enough, back into awareness.
Austin tore himself from Tristan.
He bit viciously down on his cheek and clamped his mouth shut. His power was buzzing on his tongue, tingling all the way down his throat to his heart.
Tristan snapped to full alertness. “What’s wrong?”
Austin pointedly looked away and said nothing.
When he didn’t answer, Tristan studied him anew, alarm giving way to thoughtfulness. Finally, his head canted to the side, exposing his throat in that docile manner, but as always, he undercut the gesture by refusing to lower his eyes.
“Shall we go in?” Tristan asked, not a hint of hurt or confusion at the sudden rejection.
Austin nodded.