Liam stared back, unerringly calm. “Which you just apologised for and took back.”
Dammit.
“Well, Iuntake it back!”
Reba froze mid-chew. He couldn’t understand Liam, but clearly he’d gathered the meaning from Austin’s side of the conversation.
Austin was practically growling now. “Just eat!” he snapped. And yet still,stillhis voice did not harm.I am tired. I just terraformed an entire beach.Austin needed only ignore the way his power was comfortably stretched out through every limb, ready to go, and he could believe his excuse.
Tristan returned with a tray of piping hot pastries, the smell of savoury meat making Austin’s stomach clench with ravenous hunger. He plucked the nearest one from the tray before Tristan even set it on the table and burned the inside of his mouth, swallowing it down in greedy bites. Instead of the tea he’d poured, Eli handed Austin a glass of cool juice.
“I ruined your beach,” Austin said, reaching for a second meat pie.
“It’s yours to ruin,” Tristan said. At Austin’s unhappy look, he added, “Not that I consider it ruined. It will be more comfortable like this. Less sand thrown up as we swim.” Tristan lifted Austin’s feet from the chair, settled himself beneath them, and carefully arranged the silk to cover his toes and ankles.
Austin ate the second pie, gazing out at the newly exposed bedrock. There was a shallow pool of ocean water left behind in the crater. “The water will go stagnant like that,” Austin said, recalling basins of salt water that had been in the lab and the stench they’d begun to emit over time. Once the storm surges were over and the water became stagnant, it would putrefy. They’d smell it everywhere in the estate.
“We can fill in the crater,” Reba suggested. “With rocks and shale.”
“Ithink we should chisel seats into the outer rings,” Eli said, “then pump out the water, and host fights.”
Austin looked more closely at Eli. “You’re very eager for there to be fights.”
Eli grinned. “Family blood,” he explained.
“What do you think?” Austin asked Tristan, half expecting to hear him say he’d like whatever Austin liked.
“I’d rather keep the crater you went to the effort of creating,” Tristan said, surprising Austin. “And I was thinking perhaps I might expand that scar there.” He pointed to the furthest point of the crater, closest to the water. “Create a deep enough path that the crater is one with the ocean.” His eyes focused on the bottom of the crater, on the pool of water. Austin looked too and realised that what he’d initially taken for shadows were black, solid rocks.
His heart lightened. By some miracle, his nest, though far lower than it had been before, remained intact.
“Yes,” Austin said at once, and his power shimmered in his voice. Reba and Eli let out matching sounds of pleasant surprise as Tristan leaned over to press a kiss to Austin’s cheek.
“Do that. Please,” Austin murmured, for Tristan’s ears alone. The shimmer of warmth drew a low hum from Tristan.
“As soon as the delegations are gone, I’ll get to work,” Tristan promised.
Throughout the exchange, Liam hovered like a spectre. Austin paused with a third meat pie suspended in mid-air and looked his way. “If you don’t sit down and eat something…”
He threateningly lowered the pie.
Liam sighed as he straightened from the rail. He sat in the remaining chair. Austin didn’t take another bite until he saw Liam do the same.
Tristan’s gaze went distinctly displeased. His hands had lowered to Austin’s feet, kneading his arches through the silk covering.
Austin knew without asking what Tristan disliked: the threat of refusing to eat.
Austin decided not to look at Tristan. He kept his gaze on Liam instead. “Is anyone bothering you?”
Liam’s gaze slid to Eli.
“At home.”
Austin stopped, surprised by the word that had fallen from his mouth. He’d never consciously considered the cottage home. He’d never considered anywhere home. He’d spent most of his life in a lab, and that was hardly an appropriate name for it.
“Tammy and I met with Wilbur,” Liam said. “They’ve handed over the files that were in Miami.”
Austin put down his half-eaten meat pie. He merely glanced at Eli and Reba, and the two stood, offering plausible excuses about filling a bath and checking the perimeter as they left the porch.
