Page 11 of Moonstriker (The Summertide Chronicles #4)
Chapter 11
Kit
Once again, I saw the moment Aubrey checked out and it checked in.
His eyes went blank, his whole body convulsing as he started to go down. I leaped from my chair faster this time, and since they were closer to me and I didn’t have a whole table to get across, I managed to grab him around the waist and hold him up.
Titania also leaped in, holding onto him for dear life, her huge blue eyes filling with tears as we carefully set him down on the floor while his body convulsed.
“I can’t—” she said, the words coming out wet and tremulous. “I have to?—”
“I said I’d take him to the doctor, and I’ll take him to the doctor,” I promised, trying to sound kind and helpful, like I was as in the dark as everyone else and only worried about Aubrey’s health. “We’ll go right now.”
She bit her lip, watching him like a hawk, trying to check his pulse and likely failing, because he was still shaking. “I should go with you. This isn’t as important as him.”
“The entire world isn’t as important as one man, who’ll also die if we fail?” Delta demanded, her voice strident and entirely free of anything resembling sympathy, and it made me clench my teeth so tight my face hurt. I’d been thinking that very thing all along, and it annoyed me to have any thoughts in common with her.
Titania’s jaw clenched, and she met my eye in time to see me roll my own dramatically. At that, she gave a single tiny laugh. I reached over and grabbed her hand, even as Ember slumped onto the floor next to her, wrapping her arms around Titania’s hunched shoulders.
“Maybe I was wrong,” Ember whispered. “Maybe?—”
“He’s going to be fine,” I told her, meeting her eye and holding it. “I promise you. Nikka says he can absolutely handle this, and it’s going to go away.”
Titania’s head shot up, and she stared at me. “Your—your stone? A time stone? Says he’s going to be fine?”
Delta, still sitting at the table, made a rude noise. “His diamond .”
She said the word like she was talking about a pile of shit I wore proudly on my person, because that was precisely how she saw it.
“Now is not the time, Mother,” Frost hissed, turning back to glare at her as he joined us on the floor. His left hand was balled into a fist so tight that his skin was paling at the knuckles, and for a moment, I worried he might hit someone. Then I realized it’d probably be Delta, and that was fine. He turned to me. “Even if this is about altitude, and even if Nikka says he’ll be fine, he needs to see a doctor. Let me help you carry him to the car.”
Delta, though, was determined to have her say. I wasn’t sure if she thought I was putting Aubrey in danger, or if it was the usual expected hate for any stone that wasn’t her own, but she sighed and seemed terribly put upon as she pushed out of her chair and came over to look down on us. “His stone doesn’t have anything to do with time, so he has no idea what’s going to happen in the future. But really, we can’t just go traipsing all the way back to?—”
And that, apparently, was the moment that my brother snapped.
“For one of the most educated women in the world, it shocks me that you don’t know aquamarines can be clear, Mother,” Frost snapped, his pale eyes blazing with anger. “Nikka has always been an aquamarine. Kit has always been bonded to a time stone. One that sees the future more clearly than any of the rest of us, since he’s obviously been preparing for this exact moment for ten damned years. So if you don’t have anything useful to add, stand back and let me help Kit get Aubrey to his car, so he can take him to the doctor.”
Every Moonstriker in the room, myself grudgingly included, went silent at the uncharacteristic outburst. Poor Rain looked like a deer in car headlights, like he thought he needed to do something, but in the face of Frost being the angry one, he simply couldn’t remember what it was. He’d always been the family peacemaker, but he’d never had to do it for Frost before.
Delta just stared at him, stunned.
None of the others seemed to want to interrupt what was clearly an important shift in family dynamics, so the tension just sat in the air for a moment as the two of them stared at each other.
Frost didn’t back down, and pride for the man my little brother had become bubbled up in me. Damn, he was good.
Delta took a deep breath, preparing to respond, and well, screw that.
I tapped Frost on the shoulder, getting his attention on me. “On three?”
He gave a curt, efficient nod, and we counted to three together, then lifted Aubrey. He’d stopped shaking, and was just pliant between us as I wrapped an arm around his waist and Frost supported his shoulders—it was automatic, as though we’d been carrying men around together for years. Sure, it was because I wasn’t tall enough to properly get my arm under Aubrey’s shoulders to support him, but still. I didn’t work that seamlessly with anyone but my brother.
Titania ignored Delta, shooting to her feet and rushing ahead, opening and holding doors.
“Maybe I should take him,” she worried as we headed down the front stairs of the chalet. “The two of you were a little, ah, antagonistic. Plus I’d hate for him to think I’d abandoned him. I would never?—”
“He knows you wouldn’t abandon him,” Ember said, her voice low and soothing, and I turned to look at her in surprise. I hadn’t realized she had that in her. “But he also wouldn’t want you to leave this unfinished. He was about to agree to go to the doctor with Kit anyway, so there’s no reason to change that plan now.”
“Kit,” Aubrey mumbled, starting to come around.
I glanced up at him from a step below where he and Frost stood, but I didn’t think he was all there just yet.
Then he let out a scoff and muttered, “Handsome asshole.”
Frost gave a full belly laugh at that. “It’s like he knows you, Kit. Have you two met before?”
Ember also seemed amused, and well, it wasn’t wrong. He wouldn’t have been the first, tenth, or even hundredth person in my life who’d classified me precisely that.
Even Titania seemed amused, though, and that was useful. It might make her less inclined to worry and insist on coming with us, and the last thing I needed was to be responsible for the lives of the entire remaining Duskbringer family. It was going to be hard enough to take care of Aubrey.
“Should we put him in the back?” Ember asked, hurrying ahead to get to my car first. She looked down into the backseat, head cocked at an angle. “Or, um, not. Why didn’t you unpack your car at all, Kit?”
“He’s just one guy, and he’s not that big.” I scowled at her. “It’s not like he’s Frost.”
She gave a little shrug that said she didn’t agree but wasn’t willing to argue with me, and opened the front passenger door, hitting the lever to recline the seat and pushing it back as far as it would go. “I guess that’ll probably work.”
She stood there until Frost cleared his throat, then seemed to realize that we were waiting for her to move and jumped out of the way.
As I’d expected, Aubrey fit just fine in the passenger seat of the car, especially with the thing entirely reclined that way. I pulled the seat belt across him and secured it as well as possible with him leaned halfway back, then tested it. Yeah, that should do the trick.
When I stood, Frost was looking at me, and it was just like our childhood. He knew. I knew. We each knew that the other knew.
“Is there anything else you should take with you?”
I glanced in the back of the car, at all my supplies, then back at him. “If there is, I haven’t thought of it in ten years, and Nikka hasn’t pointed out that I missed it.”
You’ve got everything , she promised me. If anything, I think you’re over-prepared. I doubt we’re going to need six gallons of water .
I did not roll my eyes at her. You just think that because you never need any water. Humans require quite a lot of it, every single day, remember?
Her only response was the mental equivalent of a shrug, because there was no way she truly could understand. I often wondered what it might be like to be a stone. To require literally nothing. No sustenance, no water, not even human contact, because as much as I hated the last, it was still a necessity sometimes, for my mental health.
I don’t know about that , she interjected. Stones that get left alone for long periods of time can go funny. Sometimes, you know, they even threaten the whole world .
And point taken.
“Are you sure I shouldn’t go?” Titania was asking, leaning on Ember and looking at the prone and admittedly pitiful Aubrey.
Frost, who’d been looking over my backseat packed with supplies, turned toward her with an empathetic smile. “They’ll be fine. If Kit says his stone knows Aubrey will be okay, then he will be. Nikka’s never been wrong that I know of.”
She nodded at that, but she was still watching Aubrey, biting her lip.
Frost leaned toward her, and his tone went conspiratorial. “And if they’ve been antagonistic toward each other, I have it on pretty good authority that’s how my asshole of a brother flirts these days.”
She finally tore her eyes off Aubrey, looking up to meet Frost’s amused gaze, and giggled. “Well, I wouldn’t have thought that of Aubrey, but I guess it turns out maybe him too.”
I groaned and shook my head at them, but it wouldn’t do to protest too hard. She was giving in, and giving me what I needed. Telling them they were wrong wasn’t going to help at all.
So instead I closed the passenger door and headed for the driver’s side. “I’ll have Aubrey call you when we’re done with the doctor, and let you know what they say. I know it’s going to be fine, though. I promise. He’s not dying.”
She bit her lip, but nodded, even as she never took her eyes off him. “He’s just...he’s all I’ve got, you know? I need...I need him to be okay. He deserves so much better than this. Imri deserved better than this, and he’s her baby.”
She was tearing up, and that settled it, I had to get the hells out of there. I looked at Ember, who was already moving in to comfort her. Perfect. The romance I hadn’t expected, but definitely needed to happen.
Plus bonus happy sister.
I gave them all a strained smile from the other side of the car and nodded to Frost. “We’ll see you on the other side, okay? You all take care, and be cautious when you go up the mountain today. We’re getting there, but this isn’t done yet. Aubrey will call, and we’ll be careful getting back. If cell service cuts out for any reason, I promise, we’re going to be fine. Nikka and I have been planning contingencies for a decade.”
Frost nodded, Ember watching me over the top of Titania’s head with shrewd interest, and Titania nodded, wide-eyed and shockingly innocent, considering she was the oldest person present by almost fifteen years.
Probably had something to do with how she was the only one who didn’t know me.
Without another word to any of them, I climbed in and started the car. Frost waved as we headed down the driveway toward the bridge, and oddly enough, I waved back.
It wasn’t like I was never going to see him again.
We were just going to see the doctor, less than an hour away.
Still, something cold settled in my belly as the tires of the car made that distinctive click-thud as we crossed onto, and then off the bridge that led to the chalet.
It felt like an ending.