Chapter Thirty-Four
Reba and Char were waiting in the stable when the carriage pulled to a stop, both tense. “What’s wrong with them?” Austin asked Tristan, peering out through the glass. Tristan, in the middle of kissing Austin’s shoulder, let out a distracted, “Hm?”
Austin buttoned up Hal’s jacket, which fell to his mid-thigh. It hid the worst of the mess on his body. Only some of the semen rubbed into his thighs remained visible, and even that blended with his skin. He opened the door before Tristan could.
“Why are you tense?” Austin climbed out of the carriage.
The second they laid eyes on him, the tension vanished, relief flashing across both their faces. Reba rushed forward, offering his hand to Austin to help him down the last step.
Reba shared a small smile with him. “We thought Tristan might be coming back in an even worse mood than he left in,” he whispered. “I’m glad you’re back. Will I carry you so your feet don’t get dirty?”
If Reba carried him, he was definitely going to end up with semen on his clothes. “No. I’m going back into the ocean anyway.”
Tristan, having climbed out of the carriage after him, stiffened. “You’re leaving already?”
“Eli said you were working on my nest. I want to see it.” Austin twisted to peer up at Tristan’s furrowed brow, which relaxed at once. “I’m also going to go speak with Connor.”
The furrow promptly returned.
“You can come with me.”
Reba and Char joined them for the walk to the shore, Char filling Tristan in on a few letters and requests he’d gone through over the last few days. “Desor has sent another three. He wants you to—”
“Just burn them,” Austin snapped, annoyed. “Who cares what he wants?”
Char cleared his throat awkwardly.
“Burn them,” Tristan said, untroubled. “And make sure he knows he is not welcome at the estate.”
“Sir?” Char’s entire aged body twisted towards Tristan in surprise. “I doubt he’ll take a refusal to hear his case quietly. It might be easier to hear him out first and then refuse him.”
“His presence is unwanted,” Tristan answered. He increased his pace and came side by side with Austin as they stepped between two buildings and arrived at the gutted shoreline. The tide was low, so Austin could see the work Tristan had begun to connect his nest to the ocean.
“Is Desor the reason you want to live elsewhere?”
“What?”
“This six-months…thing.” Tristan’s voice took on an unhappy quality.
Char and Reba vanished with astonishing speed.
“I believe I have made the estate an agreeable place for you otherwise. If I get rid of him, will you stay?”
“It’s a rule where I’m from. You have to be seeing someone for at least six months before you live together.”
Tristan paused. “I believe we should follow my customs instead.”
“Is it painful for you to be apart from me?” Austin faced Tristan, studying his face closely. “Is it starting to bother you? Your skin? Your senses?”
“It isn’t painful in that sense…” Tristan’s eyes were fixed on Austin’s, his gaze unerringly direct. “But I have only got to wake with you on a few mornings, and now you are saying we must wait six months to do so again? I do not see the sense in this rule. Why does it exist, exactly?”
Austin didn’t want to admit he didn’t know the details, reluctant to broadcast his ignorance. “Not living together doesn’t mean we can’t spend the night together.”
Austin swore the stubborn look in Tristan’s eyes screamed, So why not just live together? “You will spend the night, then?”
Austin doubted Tammy would have everything with Liam kicking off tonight. Plus… “I don’t really want to swim all the way back. My shoulders are sore from pulling Eli to Justerra.”
“I’ll rub them,” Tristan promised. “All night, if you like.”
“Hm. Alright. For now, can you lead me to Connor? I don’t want to…reach in his direction.” Austin shuddered. “I never want to feel that connection again.”
Tristan answered with a tense nod.
They walked down the rocky surface to the ocean, Tristan pausing to turn and offer a helping hand for the steep drops when they lost the light of the estate.
“I can feel you,” Austin said. “Can you tell?”
Tristan squeezed his fingertips.
“Not like that.” Austin batted away his hand, taking his time to copy Tristan’s path, then overtook him when the ground levelled. “I felt you in the city, and it was…soft. When I reach for you, it feels gentle.”
He progressed several steps before realising Tristan had stalled. Austin paused but frowned as he found the starlight too dim to brighten the world and Tristan’s expression. Tristan ducked his head, shoulders deflating in a long, slow exhale. “Gentle?” he checked.
“Hm. What do I feel like to you?” A question Austin hadn’t thought to ask before. He had thought a connection meant different levels of discomfort, and that the question was how uncomfortable it made you.
Tristan caught up with him, hand finding his waist as he pressed soft kisses to Austin’s cheek and temple. “A storm surge,” he said.
The beginnings of such a surge were currently raising the tide high. “I like storm surges,” Austin said.
“As do I.”
With a pleased hum, Austin pulled away from Tristan, balancing on a rock hanging out over the high tide before jumping in.
Austin seamlessly transformed. He was far better at it now, and he felt as though, with each change, it took less energy and effort.
He could exert minute control over his own body.
Tristan led the way out to sea, bringing them past Justerra and Vi’s estate, to a yacht sitting on the ocean with a furious merman circling.
Adonis charged at Austin the second he saw him.
Tristan slipped between them, and they entered a tense stalemate.
Austin swam at Tristan’s back, grabbing the bottom rung of the side ladder.
His tail slipped into legs, and he climbed.
He emerged naked on board and stopped in surprise at the sight of Connor flat on his back, palms digging into his eyes.
“What’s wrong?” Austin asked.
Hard breaths heaved through Connor’s chest. His palms pressed harder against his face. Sweat beaded down his temples and neck, and unlike in the throne room, where cold had billowed off him, heat was radiating from his skin.
Austin knelt next to him. “Are you hurt?” Surely not by anything Austin had done? The octopus had frightened him, but frights didn’t elicit reactions like this. Austin had never seen anything like this in Connor before.
He never got sick.
Cessair and the scientists had never noticed, but Austin had.
Austin hadn’t particularly cared that when he caught winter colds, Connor was immune, but he’d often envied Connor’s resistance to drugs.
He’d accidentally shared a tainted slice of birthday cake with Connor once, one that Cessair had sent.
Austin had spent days glued to the toilet, puking his guts up after only a few bites, yet Connor had eaten an entire slice and been totally fine.
“Headache,” Connor gritted out.
Austin peered into the water behind him. “Adonis won’t heal you?”
“It doesn’t work,” someone else answered.
Austin turned sharply toward the cabin as Laurence emerged with a tub. He knelt at Connor’s side, and Austin saw the tub was filled with water and ice cubes. Laurence squeezed out a cloth and encouraged Connor to lower his hands so he could rest it over his eyes.
“Adonis has been trying to heal his headaches for weeks, but…” Laurence caught his lower lip between his teeth, biting down. “It doesn’t seem to help. Don’t speak loudly. It hurts his head.”
“Austin’s voice is fine,” Connor muttered, replacing the heels of his palms over the damp towel. “It’s soothing, if anything. It’s what he says with it that’s the problem, such as threatening me with an ocean full of octopus and squid.”
“You were in the wrong,” Austin said. He was so surprised by Connor’s compliment that there was no bite in his voice.
Laurence scowled. “It’s always us who are wrong when it comes to you. You never accept any responsibility for—”
“Laurence.” Connor said his name as a warning.
“Justerra is my city,” Austin said stiffly. “Do not set foot in it again.” He fixed his glare on Laurence. “Either of you.”
Laurence scowled. “It isn’t yours—”
“Laurence,” Connor snapped.
Laurence startled, a look of surprise, then hurt, flashing across his face as he looked down at Connor.
“Me? He’s the one who’s always acting crazy.
Throwing eggs at Adonis, luring him onto the street, and then making him shift so he’s stranded.
Bee and Dew told me all about that.” Laurence’s dark-brown eyes fixed on Austin, filled with fiery determination.
“And then you abduct Kit—and okay, Kit gave out to me for how I behaved that day. He said that you were just asking about the pendant, not trying to steal it, but your boyfriend still abducted him. And I don’t know what that octopus remark was about, but I’m sure you—but—” A full-on scowl twisted Laurence’s pretty features, yet the animosity washed over Austin harmless as a wave.
“But Sam gave out to me too! He’s the nicest person ever, and he took your side, so I don’t know what to think! ”
Sam took his side?
Laurence abruptly stood and marched over to one of the loungers on deck. He snatched up a blanket and roughly offered it to Austin with his eyes averted. His cheeks were beet red.
“What are you doing?” Connor asked, a little more strength in his voice now.
“He’s completely naked.”
Austin took the blanket, realising the source of Laurence’s erratic behaviour. It wasn’t loathing; he was flustered.
“Taking Kit was a misunderstanding.” Austin arranged the blanket on the deck and settled into a relaxed, sideways sitting pose on top of it.
Laurence’s eyes flashed so quickly away that Austin didn’t even have to hide his amused grin.
“Tristan had tasked his men with finding a similar stone, and they were a tad over-enthusiastic about completing the assignment. The man responsible was fired.”
Laurence stood with his back to Austin. “I’ll draw you one,” he offered.