Chapter Twenty
Reba stretched one of his bat-like wings over Austin, sheltering him from the light drizzle as they stood back and surveyed their work.
His nest was dug out, and the scrubbed stones glittered black against the white sand.
Inx lay flat on the ground a short ways off with Eli perched on his stomach, rubbing oil into his biceps.
From the conspiratorial tilt of Eli’s head and the sly glint in his eye, Austin suspected he was quizzing Inx about the ongoing love triangle between him, Reba and Lassie.
Austin looked back at Reba. “Why do you like Lassie?”
Reba’s wings twitched, surprise flashing across his face before it gave way to an endearingly shy smile. “I have a list.”
“I’d like to hear it.”
“I like her voice,” Reba said. “It’s not as nice as yours, of course, but if I held everyone to that standard, the entire world would be intolerable.
I like her discipline. She’s told me all cooks have that, but I know she’s dead wrong there—the way she runs her kitchen is bliss.
I grew up in a dirty old town called Vicine.
In the summer, it’s a desert, and in the winter, the streets are flooded with mud.
Nothing is ever clean.” A little shudder shook his wings.
“At the orphanage, everyone took turns helping prepare food. It was so filthy you’d wonder how much of what was going into you was food and how much was dirt. ”
Being repelled by tainted food was something Austin could relate to without effort. A sound of sympathy rose in his throat, and Reba’s shoulders, which had begun to tighten, relaxed.
“When I first arrived here, I used to stand in the kitchen and watch the food be prepared. It took months of seeing that Lassie took her job seriously before I trusted to eat food I hadn’t watched her make.
But in those months, I learned a lot about her and came to admire her.
She says I remind her of her little brother. ”
Austin’s head tilted to the side in thought. “I thought her gaze on you was an admiring one.”
“That look was for Inx. I learned a great deal more about Lassie than simply how she cooks when I camped out in her kitchen, including the captain she has a soft spot for. She’s terribly shy, you see, and I’m fairly certain Inx didn’t even notice her until I told him she likes me far more than him. ” A sly smile. “He’s very competitive.”
Austin smiled back, amused.
Reba glanced at the captured Inx, whose expression indicated he was being tortured by Eli’s questions. “I’m very close with him now, actually. He’s a good captain, but he’s also like an older brother. Avians aren’t well-suited to combat, and Inx has spent a lot of time giving me extra instruction.”
Austin considered that, idly studying the pair on the sand. “Are you not the same age?”
Because Austin was looking toward Inx and Eli, it took a few seconds for him to notice Reba’s incredulous look.
“What?” Austin asked.
“Do Inx and I look the same age?” Reba looked at Inx, then down at himself.
Austin studied Reba’s face carefully, but his initial assessment of mid-to-late twenties didn’t alter. Inx’s didn’t either. “You’re both around…twenty-eight?”
“Minus ten for me! And add at least another ten years to Inx’s count, probably more.”
Eli and Inx both looked over at Reba’s raised voice.
Austin studied Reba anew. “Are you actually eighteen?”
“Yes! I’m the youngest Troop member. Everyone always teases me about it. I thought the day you made me fly up and down the beach was because you were joining in with them all!”
Reba thought being made to fly across the beach was teasing? Austin blinked. “I just wanted to see you flying. I haven’t seen anyone with wings like yours before.”
Reba beamed.
Austin nodded toward Inx and Eli, who’d returned to their stalemate. “Why doesn’t he push him off?”
A hint of mirth entered Reba’s expression. “Eli is your attendant; Inx is outranked. Don’t worry, sir. Aside from Char, nobody else really pulls rank on Inx. It’s good for him.”
“I’d rather you call me Austin.”
Reba smiled. “Austin.”
Inx’s attention jumped toward the estate. He pressed Eli on the side, and Eli hopped up, shaking off sand as he trotted to Austin.
“I have got so much gossip,” Eli hissed.
Austin turned with him toward Char, who was fast-walking toward them with a look of mild alarm. Inx looked as though he was readying an excuse to avoid paperwork, but tensed when he glimpsed Char’s face.
“What’s wrong?” Inx asked, stepping forward.
“Oran has just come in,” Char reported. “It seems he took it upon himself to gather some new recruits and follow up on a lead to one of Tristan’s enquiries… He’s brought that lead here, and they are not happy about it.”
Inx’s expression was level, but there was something in the air about him that had Austin paying close attention when he spoke. “Who was brought in?”
Char pinched the bridge of his nose. “He’s dragged in someone from the monarch’s court.”
Inx cursed and moved at once up the beach. “Where are they?”
“The pit.”
Austin followed.
Inx glanced over his shoulder. “I’m not sure what the situation is. It might not be safe.”
“I have a guard. I assume you’ve trained him well?”
Inx met his eyes briefly. That glimpse likely told Inx that further arguing would be useless and, if his tone wasn’t right, poorly received.
Reba stuck close to Austin, his wing both windbreaker and umbrella as the force of the wind picked up and the drizzle turned into a gentle downpour. Glowing blue stones lit the estate walkways, the torches guttered out by the elements.
A yelp echoed off the walls, followed by a growl. Inx picked up a run, racing ahead into the training pit. Reba stayed next to Austin, all puffed out.
The situation in the pit didn’t seem all that different from the training Austin had witnessed over the past few weeks. Oran and two Troop members circled an unfamiliar creature. Inx joined them, taking up a wooden training stave. Austin frowned at the choice. There were real weapons in the pit.
A long black tail lashed in the air behind the stranger, whip-thin and tufted at the tip.
It whistled like a weapon at each lash, and bright red welts decorated the Troop’s arms. The black, poisonous spines that usually stuck out from beneath Oran’s jaw, previously damaged by Inx, were now completely shattered.
The stranger brandished a short sword, its edge glinting silver and red. His eyes locked on Inx.
“The head of Hal’s personal guard and the captain of the city guards are kits like him,” Eli whispered against Austin’s ear. “They’re a strong race.”
Austin had registered the man’s weapons first, his clothes second. A hoodie? He stepped sideways into the man’s view, positioning himself to see the design on the front.
Stamped in black on grey was the insignia of Sam’s college in Ireland.
The man’s eyes flicked to Austin.
Inx sprang.
The stave cracked down hard on the man’s sword hand. The man kept his grip. His weight shifted, and the silver flew through the air towards Inx’s head.
“Drop it!” Austin ordered, the power of his voice splitting the air.
The Troop’s weapons landed softly in the sand. Inx released his stave.
The man did not drop his sword.
Austin’s heart leapt into his throat. Inx’s arm flew up, catching the blade on his reinforced forearm.
The impact jolted his entire body. Weaponless, Inx lunged and ripped the blade from the man’s hands.
Inx was struck several times by the man’s tail before the three circling Troop members caught it and grappled the man to his knees.
Austin waited until the man was completely immobilised before marching forward. He grasped Inx’s arm, turning up the side that took the blow. There was a deep chip in the chitin, spiderweb cracks spreading out from it. “I did not mean you.” It came out as a growl. “Does this heal?”
Inx flexed his damaged arm. “I moult every few months.” He sounded entirely unbothered by the fact that Austin had almost got his head lopped off.
The flash of the silver sword shimmered behind Austin’s eyes, keeping his heart rate elevated.
He looked at the man to find a heated look fixed upon him.
Wariness and intense dislike. Austin had no doubt if that sword was in his grasp exactly who it would be swinging at.
Something about the man made Austin’s throat itch.
Raised voices neared the pit, entering the space mid-argument. “—send against you four mermen, an entire nation of kits, a witch, a—Austin?”
Austin looked up. Char hovered at the intruder’s back with a bleak look, hands flexed as if he wanted to grab the man but kept stopping himself at the last second.
Like the monster on his knees wearing a hoodie from Ireland, the intruder produced a similar disconnect for the opposite reason.
A man who should be wearing a hoodie stood dressed in the attire of this world: canvas shirt, dark pants and boots. A sword strapped to his waist.
Honey-blond hair. Dark-brown eyes.
The urge to flee swept through Austin, twinned with stomach-dropping apprehension. Connor’s little stepbrother despised Austin and made no secret of it, and Austin was convinced that this little blighter was the reason Bee and Dew hated him too.
“Laurence.” Austin let none of his trepidation show. “What are you doing here?”
Laurence looked from Austin to the man on his knees, his expression going from surprised to thunderous.
“You’re insane.”
His voice was packed with so much venom that Austin instinctively flinched.
Laurence marched forward, glare intensifying.
“What are you even trying to achieve with this? What, you’ll—you’ll—” Anger choked his words.
“Threaten Connor into getting back together with you, is that it? By kidnapping Nick’s boyfriend? ”
“I—what? I have no interest in Connor.”
Laurence scoffed. “Right. Yeah. That’s why you have your creepy friend watching our house. That’s why you go around stalking him. Because you have no interest. Right.”
Austin’s cheeks grew painfully hot.
Eli stepped in front of Austin, expression as thunderous as Laurence’s.
“A nation of kits? Four mermen? A witch? All I see is a kit on his knees and one weak human.”
He fixed Laurence with a glare that could have scared the bravest of monsters. Laurence’s ire shot to Eli, and it shamed Austin how much relief he felt to have it deflected, even for a second.
Laurence bristled. “I’m not weak. I’m being trained by the best fighter in Aridia!”
Eli’s disdainful gaze slid down Laurence’s body. “I grew up assessing fighters. I know a loser when I see one.”
Laurence’s mouth dropped open. “Loser?” he squeaked.
“Shall we spar, then?” Eli took a challenging step forward. His hand flexed, and Austin realised the silver smudges all over his fingers were scars. “Would you like to prove me wrong?”
Austin caught Eli’s elbow. Laurence’s attention snapped down to that hand, then back to Austin. He seemed to shake off Eli’s challenge with a fleeting glare.
Laurence turned fully to Austin. “Let him go.”
Austin’s heart pounded in his ears. Thought became nearly impossible, and his power surged, ready to attack what threatened him. He couldn’t tamp it down, but he couldn’t stand there mute, either. Everyone was looking at him!
Austin forced his attention to Inx. “Why was he taken?”
Laurence reared back, hands flying to his ears.
His eyes went wide in alarm. Eli’s elbow ripped from Austin’s grip with a cry of pain.
Reba’s wings billowed up a wall of sand as they flapped in a full-body flinch.
Inx rocked back on his heels, wincing, and the Troop members who had finally contained the man released him as they recoiled.
The only one not to stir was the man, who, despite his freedom, remained cautiously on his knees.
Austin shrivelled.
Inx recovered first. “Tristan was inquiring about a gift for you.” He fixed a pointedly displeased look on Oran. Inx looked over Laurence, over the man on his knees, and then sighed. “The man has a pendant Tristan wished to gift you.”
Austin looked at the man. A thin silver chain hung from his neck, disappearing beneath his shirt.
The man clutched whatever hung from it with a protective fist. Whatever it was, now that Austin was focusing on it, he could feel like the first throb of a headache.
It repelled him. And he knew instinctively that the reason the man hadn’t reacted to his voice wasn’t because he was strong like Tristan, but because of what he wore around his neck.
A shield.
A pendant that shielded from the pain Austin caused.
Liam was on his way to the estate. A solution. It was fate. The universe finally throwing some good luck his way. A solution to his impossible problem! Austin trembled as he drew in an excited breath.
“How do you make—”
“You’re trying to steal Kit’s pendant!” Laurence talked at the same time, and over him.
He closed the distance he’d lost, taking up a protective stance next to the still-kneeling kit.
Dark eyes blazed in holy outrage, like he was an avenging angel and Austin the devil.
Austin fought not to shy away from the anger.
“That was basically Nick’s engagement ring to him; you are not having it. ”
Kit’s hand shot up. He grasped Laurence’s wrist, squeezing hard enough to cause a wince. Laurence fell silent, giving Kit a confused look. Kit ignored it, his eyes remaining on Austin, a question in the way he tilted his head. An invitation to finish what Laurence had interrupted.
The suffocating silence following Laurence shutting his mouth did not invite questions.
Austin turned away so he didn’t have to watch them all flinch at his voice.
“See them out.”
He marched from the training pit alone.