“All of the dangerous ghouls have been found and dealt with. I’ve left Inx with a team to dispatch the remaining smaller kin, which they’ll be able to do without issue,” Tristan explained. At Austin’s push, he moved back, letting him slide into the water. Tristan could only hold himself back a second before he crowded Austin against the wall, nuzzling his cheek, pressing kisses all over his face. Austin held still and let him.
“The marriage?”
“Going as well as one might expect. I suspect it will be a generation before the animosity truly settles and their child inherits both countries and unifies them.” Tristan found the soft skin beneath Austin’s ear of particular interest.
Austin let out ahmph. “Did you have your memories of me eaten?”
Tristan hesitated. “No. No ghoul touched me.”
“But you wouldn’t remember if it had, would you? That’s the whole point.”
Tristan pulled back to meet Austin’s eyes. It wasn’t worry, but something sharper and more dangerous shining in silver. Austin cupped Tristan’s face. Smiled, sweetly. “Did you let a ghoul take any of me from your mind?”
“No.”
“Are you sure?”
“We never fight them alone. There are always at least three men to a fight, and we keep close watch,” Tristan reassuredhim. “And besides that, they wouldn’t be able to take you from me.” Memories of Austin had power, simmering in his mind with their own beating pulse. Tristan would lose himself long before Austin could be snatched away.
“Hm. Alright, then. I made arrangements with Sam’s witch aunt. Inx is instructed to keep the bodies of the slain ghouls so that any of the Troop whose memories end up stolen can get them back.”
It hadn’t occurred to Tristan until that moment that Austin’s unhappiness about him going north was about more than just their separation. “You feared I would forget you as Sam did.”
“I didn’t imagine it being a terrible issue,” Austin said. “Would you have acted any differently just now, even if you’d forgotten me?” The question was both coy and confident.
Tristan’s first meeting with Austin had been memorable in its own right. A beautiful creature of contradictions washed up on his shore, tired yet deadly, alluring and bladed. Within the hour, he had banished Tristan from his own bedroom and claimed the room for himself. Would Tristan have put up a fight had Austin told him to sleep in the stable so he wasn’t disturbed?
And what if Tristan had returned, having forgotten Austin, and found an unknown siren sitting as he had been? Ankles tantalisingly in the water, body so adorned?
“At any point since our first meeting, if you’d asked me to pleasure you, I would have got on my knees. I see your point. This would be no different.”
The answer seemed to take Austin by surprise.
“If you asked me to pleasure you, I would have torn your throat out.”
Tristan grinned and nuzzled Austin’s cheek. “Of course.” Austin was not someone you demanded anything from. You asked, and perhaps he might grant. Though Tristan suspectedthat with those close to him, Austin was more willing to please than he would ever let on.
“Thank you,” Tristan said. “It didn’t occur to me to make arrangements for memory issues the Troop might suffer. What was the price?”
“I told Sam I’d think about forgiving him.”
Tristan dug his face into Austin’s hair, smiling now. “He got a bargain.”
“Yes.”
The air pressure changed, bubbles surfacing as the legs wrapped around Tristan’s waist became a tail he was pressing against. Tristan’s aching cock once more became the focus of his attention. He gritted his teeth, fighting the urge that rose sharp and sudden inside him. It was because they’d been apart, Tristan knew. His resistance to being teased had degraded in the meantime, and it needed to be reforged.
Until then…Tristan encircled Austin’s waist, rubbing against him. He moaned into his mate’s ear as he trapped his cock between their bodies, the crush between them exquisite in its own right.
“Are you happy?”
“Beyond words,” Tristan murmured. Need rose again, and he reached for himself, stroking his cock as he pushed Austin against the wall. Keeping him close, close, close.
“I think you’re very worked up, actually. Not all blissed out and smug like you usually are.” Austin’s voice was the one that was smug. “Do you like the tunnel?”
“I love it.” Fire was quickly rising in Tristan, lust washing away his ability to think, never mind talk.
“I prepared it for you. This one’s ready for you too,” Austin said. “But I see you’re making do with your hand.”
