“With a fairy tree woman who was both greenandtranslucent,” Hendrix added. “I still can’t believe that.”
“Me either,” Aurin said. “But if you’re ever offered honey mead at a solstice campfire, say no. Trust me, it’s not a game you will win.” He made a face before pushing the cup of tea away too.
“I wonder what was in it,” Kellan said. “If it was something we cephamorphs metabolise differently. Salem, you are fine?”
“I feel fine, yes,” he said.
“Old gods are built different,” Aurin said. “Cern was fine also. Must be some cosmic thing.”
Then, as Aurin leaned back against him, Salem put his hand to Aurin’s forehead and met Kellan’s eyes. “He is a little warm.”
Before Kellan could slip into full doctor mode, Aurin stood up. “I’m okay, honestly. Another day or two, and I’ll be back to normal. I don’t drink often, clearly. And it’d been a very stressful week of no sleep and not eating enough. I felt so much better in freeform, so this is clearly a human flaw.” Then before anyone could say anything else about it, he pulled Dylan to his feet. “Come on, you said we’d go meet the new guys and see their vegetable patch,” he said. Then he linked his arm with Dylan’s and murmured, “And we havedetailsto discuss.”
Dylan grinned as he snatched up his piece of toast. “Oh yes, indeed we do,” he said, and they headed for the door.
Hendrix’s smile was warm, his eyes filled with fondness, as he watched them, and then he gave Kellan a nod toward the door. Kellan understood what that meant, apparently.
They stood, and Kellan put a hand on Salem’s shoulder. “We should follow.”
“Oh yes,” Salem replied, walking out with them. “Is your bond still bound by the need for proximity?”
Hendrix held the door for them. “I dunno if ‘bound by’ is the right way to say it,” he said. “Can we be apart? In the beginning, no. But it has eased up a bit. It’s a physical thing, needing to be close. Kinda hard to explain.”
They followed Dylan and Aurin, who were still walking with arms linked, whispering and laughing. Salem loved to see it. Aurin and Dylan were always close, along with Hendrix. They were the three youngest in the consortium and were as close as brothers.
Well, Dylan and Hendrix were much more than that now.
“I must say,” Kellan mused. “I’m very intrigued by your accent and vernacular, Salem.”
Salem chuckled. “Aurin loves it,” he admitted. “He says it’s romantic, or something to that effect. I’m trying to not sound so—what did he call it?—Tudor princelike. It’s a vain attempt to fit in more, I guess.”
Kellan laughed at that. “Well, don’t change a thing or try to modernise anything. Your accent tells a story. A story I’d love to hear all about one day. Your life story is so unique, so mysterious, I can’t help but be fascinated by it. And I love history, so...”
“Kellan loves to learn new things,” Hendrix said, taking Kellan’s hand and threading their fingers together. He looked at him with such love, it felt like an intensely private moment, and Salem felt the need to look away.
He watched Aurin instead, feeling that burst of warmth, of love, that stole his heart whenever he looked at him. “What do you suppose they’re whispering about?”
“They are,” Hendrix said, “one hundred percent talking about our sex lives.”
Kellan nodded. “Without doubt.”
“Oh,” Salem said. He felt his cheeks warm and was glad they were both too busy smiling at Dylan to notice his embarrassment.
“Assuming you guys have something for him to talk about,” Hendrix said.
Salem’s face flamed, and his silence made both their heads turn. “Uh, yes,” Salem said quickly. “Though it’s private. Or so I thought.”
Kellan took pity on him and clapped his shoulder. “You’ll get used to it.”
“God, I bet you’ve seen some shit you’d rather forget,” Hendrix said. “You know, when you were in cat form, when Ciaran and Sawyer first bonded. And then Fray and Tobin.”
“I was very adept at making myself scarce,” Salem said, and they both chuckled.
Dylan and Aurin had stopped walking at the large vacant block at the end of the row of houses that fronted the water. Only now it wasn’t vacant. There were rows of tilled soil, wooden planter stakes, and two men working with gardening tools.
The newest consortium members, apparently.
Salem had only met them very briefly the night before. They’d arrived when Salem and Aurin were up the mountain, and everyone seemed to like them. Tobin had done a quick mental scope to see if they were hiding any ill intent, and he’d said they were genuine. Their old consortium in the Bass Strait had split after differences couldn’t be reconciled.
