Adonis crashed into the dock, fingers sinking into gaps in the stone to haul his body up. Bee and Dew looked betweenthe egg in Adonis’s hair and Austin. They laughed. Bee laughed so hard he clutched his stomach like he couldn’t breathe. Customers and vendors alike fled the scene.
Austin almost fled too, well aware the only reason Adonis hadn’t killed him before now was because Connor had ordered him not to. He didn’t seem to be in the state of mind to recall such orders.
Reba stepped in front of Austin and drew his sword from its brown leather scabbard, leathery wings going still in a half-folded position. Eli pressed to Austin’s side, clutching his arm and trying to push him in the direction of Tristan, who had just looked up from the horse man wearing a frown.
Despite Eli being bigger than Austin, something stronger than fear rooted Austin in place. An instinct, the part of him too inhuman to let him pass unnoticed in Ireland, wouldn’t let him move. He’d rather stand there and die than flee fromthismerman.
“Austin, please.” Eli’s voice had gone high with fright. “I’m sure you’ll be fine, but I certainly don’t fancy my chances against a merman. And I’ve heard the rumours about this one, too. He goes around sinking ships when he’s angry, sparing nobody. Let’s just go stand by Tristan! I’d love to watch mermen fight, of course, that’s family blood for you, but let’s do so comfortably from a distance!”
A sound of rage tore from Adonis as a chunk of the dock broke off under his hands,but—
Austin’s laugh joined Bee’s and Dew’s snickers.
The bastard was too angry to hold his legs!
Austin shook off Eli’s hold and chucked another egg with sniper precision, staining blond hair yellow. Adonis ducked his head, trembling with rage. His furious growl faded. His fists uncurled, palms and fingers planting onto grey stone. Themuscles in his shoulders tensed as he lifted himself, and akneeplanted on the dock.
Austin’s soft cursemade Reba’s wings twitch. He twisted, meeting Austin’s eyes. He clearly saw that Austin wasn’tprepared for a showdown.
Reba’s voice was strained. “Would you consider Eli’s suggestion?”
When Austin made no attempt to flee, Reba turned back to Adonis. He spread his wings and planted his feet, adjusting his grip on his sword. His exhale was slightly unsteady.
Eli cast a desperate look toward the horse vendor and made a faint, despairing sound. Tristan was farther from them than Adonis. Austin’s heart thundered as Adonis, naked, marched toward Austin, his eyes murderous.
Austin remembered how Adonis had looked trapped on the tanker ship theInfinite, desperately trying to claw his way out of a reinforced cage. Even as towering waves broke over the broadside of the ship, Austin had fought with Connor to keep the merman trapped, ensuring freedom for him and Connor at the cost of this creature’s life. Connor would have none of it, already valuing the overgrown fish more than he ever had Austin.
Austin’s power swelled inside, spiteful and determined.
“Tail!” he shouted.
Adonis’s tail re-emerged. He crashed onto the street, bringing down a row of stalls with him. Austin stared down at the beached, snarling merman, imprinting the vision into his mind. Then he turned away, walking toward Tristan, meeting him half a pace away. Adonis was just in view, furious, but clearly he couldn’t manage what he’d done moments ago. The control to take on legs wouldn’t come back to him. Between his temper and the lingering effects of Austin’s voice, he wouldn’t manage it.
Though buzzed, Austin felt his power settling into a pseudo-sleep, curling up like a cat pleased with a day’s mischief.
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 safeandpreserve 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 thousandtimes. “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 hisotherparent. 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 wayIreact 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 inthatcomes from. The stronger the match, the stronger the children. The world can only yield so much before rebalancing.”
Austin considered that.
