Page 21 of Moonstriker (The Summertide Chronicles #4)

Chapter 21

Kit

I pulled my sleeping bag to the other side of the fire—to the other side of Aubrey, bracketing him between the still warm spot where I’d put the fire out and myself, because he couldn’t seem to stop shaking. I wasn’t sure if he was cold, but it seemed like a good bet. He was from a warm area in Duskbringer lands, so the mountainside had to feel constantly cold, to say nothing of the fact that he seemed to be almost in shock. Bonding a mountain felt like it might do that to a guy.

He also didn’t pull away from me, which made that seem even more likely.

It wasn’t like he wanted to snuggle with me. He was just emotionally vulnerable at the moment, because he was in a completely new and unfamiliar situation and didn’t know how to react to it.

I couldn’t imagine I’d have reacted any differently, given his circumstances.

And when I’d been a child, reacting to similar, if never precisely that strange, circumstances, my father had always taken good care of me. Always told me that there was no shame in wanting human contact.

On the other hand, it was almost impossible to imagine being in Aubrey’s current circumstances. I’d been bonded to Nikka more than half my life, and bonding a stone changed you. It changed the way you interacted with the whole world. Bonding was synonymous with never being alone again in your life, not even if some part of you wanted to.

Do you want to? Nikka asked, sounding more curious than hurt at the idea.

I stared up at the stars and considered for a while before answering. I wasn’t an automatically reassuring kind of guy, and Nikka wouldn’t have appreciated a knee-jerk denial anyway. She wanted to know how I actually felt. Finally, I shook my head. Not now. Maybe when I was a teenager, full of angst and determination that only I, in all the world, could possibly understand my amazing existential suffering .

You were pretty determined that you were alone then , she agreed. Even when I was with you. And I’ve never been very good at emotions, so I don’t think I helped very much .

You did fine. There wasn’t much anyone could have done to help, but you and Frost gave me everything I needed. That’s just a tough time for every human. Hormones and all that crap .

Next to me, Aubrey gave a tiny snore, and relief coursed through me. He might not be happy about all this, and fuck only knew if his body was healing from all the trauma of the last few days, but at least he was getting some sleep.

You should too , Nikka said. I’ll keep watch and let you know if anything happens .

Thanks, Neek .

It was only years of practice that let me disengage my mind and slowly drift off. That, and my utter trust that Nikka wouldn’t let anything happen to us while we slept.

I woke to Aubrey’s face and it . . . was strangely not annoying.

He was gorgeous, after all. It was a damn sight better than waking up to look at Huxley Dawnchaser across a breakfast table while he said shitty things about his kids. Or his cousins. Or anyone that came to his mind, really—the single constant about Huxley Dawnchaser had been the fact that if a person had his attention for longer than an hour or two, he’d find a reason to hate them. He’d never hated me to my face, but that had just been sensible. I’d been both dangerous and protecting him, and it would have been ridiculous to piss me off.

Not that Huxley had been ugly to look at, at least not on the outside. But Aubrey? Well, annoyingly enough, he was beautiful on the inside as well as the outside.

It was harder to see Oberon in Aubrey like this, when his face was slack and untroubled in his sleep.

Innocent.

Oberon had left innocent so far behind him that by the time I’d met him, I suspected he hadn’t remembered what it looked like on his own face.

That innocence wasn’t so different from how Aubrey always looked, but asleep, there was none of the strain of the last few days there. No worries about seizures or Slate or climbing a mountain while wearing cheap, flat-bottomed tennis shoes. No crease between his brows and downturn on his lush lips.

I watched reality set back in as he blinked his eyes open a moment later, and it...well, it wasn’t as bad as I’d half expected it to be. He turned from his back to his side to look fully at me, raising a brow.

“Watching me sleep? That’s a little creepy, isn’t it?”

“It is,” I agreed, nodding, then sat up and stretched before going on. “I was just thinking you don’t seem as stressed as I would be, in your situation.”

He blinked at me, then pushed up. “Are you kidding? I’m freaking out. This is ridiculous. I’m...bonding. Me. And not just bonding, but bonding a whole mountain. I don’t know how to do any of this. It’s overwhelming. It’s impossible. What am I supposed to do?”

“That’s just it,” I said. “You may be shocked and not sure what to do or how to do it, but you’re not still scowling and denying it’s possible. That’s what I’d be doing.”

And that made him laugh. Not like a mean, sharp bark of laughter at my expense, but a real, full-bodied belly laugh. So much of one that it left him wiping tears from his eyes. “That’s...that’s incredibly honest of you. Thank you. I...I appreciate it? Because I don’t feel like I’m handling it well. But my mother always said there was no point in putting off the inevitable by pretending it wasn’t going to happen, and she was right. If I’m actually supposed to bond a mountain, I don’t think I can stop that from happening.”

I pushed up out of the sleeping bag and set to rolling it back up to carry it. “It sounds like she was a clever woman.”

He beamed at the very mention, nodding. “She was the best. I was lost without her for a while.”

“I suppose it’d be rude to say I wish I could trade my mother for yours, but you have to understand, my mother is a literal monster. Ethically speaking, it would be an excellent trade for the whole world.”

He bit his lip at that, frowning, and I could see the problem in an instant.

“Ask whatever you want. I’m harder to offend than I look.” After clipping the sleeping bag to the frame, I dug into my bag to find some clothes to change into.

“So Frost is your brother. But his mother isn’t your mother? And...Ember? And Rain?”

It was my turn to laugh. “We’re a bit messy, the Moonstrikers.” I launched into the full, detailed explanation of the four of us being raised as siblings, and the real blood relationships between us, only pausing when I pulled my shirt off and realized he was staring at me with a goofy smile on his face. “Never seen a man change clothes before?”

He shook his head, surprisingly dismissive, even as he gave my chest a surprised twice-over. Also, dare I think, an impressed one? “Nah, change wherever. Guys down at the docks were never body-shy. It’s not—It’s just, even though everyone screwed up with all of you, you’re still a unit. Still siblings, even though in the technical sense, you aren’t.”

And, well, he wasn’t wrong about any of that. Technically, none of them were my siblings, and some of us had no parents in common at all, but...I shrugged. “It’s not about that. They’re still my brothers and sister, because we chose to be that to each other every day for our whole childhoods, in the same way that Delta never acted like much of a mother to any of us, even though she’s the biological mother of two of us.”

“And Cove was your father, even though he couldn’t claim you. Reading you stories and all that, because he wanted to be a part of your life. It almost sounds like he was more of a parent to all four of you than she was.” He bit his lip, expression going wistful. “I only met Oberon the once, and I...I’m not really sorry I didn’t get to know him better. But I do wish I’d had a father sometimes.”

I couldn’t help the face I made at the notion of Oberon as a father, but I nodded. “Yeah, you’ve got the right idea there. You’re lucky the only thing you inherited from him is your looks. The man was a complete ass.”

Aubrey lifted a brow at that, his lips quirking up, as he reached over to open his own pack and inspect the clothes I’d gotten him. “My looks, huh?” he asked, without looking up at me.

“Oh please. You have to know you look just like him when he was young, and he was fucking hot.” I balled up my old shirt and stuffed it in an empty section of the bag, then reached for the blue pants I’d set aside for the second day. “There’s not a convenient place to clean up, unfortunately, so we’re just gonna have to start being smelly. Hope you’re okay with that. The only stream anywhere near here flows down the east side of the mountain, toward Dawnchaser lands, and it’s farther from us than the chalet.”

He waved me off. “Like I said, I worked at the docks. If I were afraid of smelly guys, I never would have managed that.” He pulled his own shirt off, and fuck me, but I almost swallowed my tongue.

Yeah yeah, after lifting him I’d known he was hiding muscles for days under those baggy T-shirts, but it hit different actually seeing it. He almost looked like one of my obsessive gym-going peers in the dueling game.

Maybe I wouldn’t be able to carry him.

Also, I was never going to get that image out of my head. Aubrey Duskbringer, shirtless and still a little sleepy, smiling up at me.

Fuck me sideways.

Literally.

“So Oberon was hot, huh? Spend some quality time with him, did you?” The faux-lascivious look he sent me was almost...no, it was. It was totally playful. Like we were friends and he was fucking with me.

I laughed and shook my head. “Fuck no. Like I said, it’s good all you got from him was his looks, and I definitely don’t sleep with guys that arrogant. Also, he was scared of me, which totally kills the mood.”

His smile faltered, and he cocked his head. “Scared? Why would he be...” he trailed off rather than finishing the question, squinting at me as though I was just coming completely into focus. “You’re...actually a duelist. Like, not just a person who duels, a professional duelist. You said—you said you paid your own rent. And had a job. And worked for Huxley Dawnchaser.”

Had he thought I was dressed up for a costume party when we’d met?

Admittedly, I didn’t have to go around in the outfit anymore, since I wasn’t technically working. Hells, dueling was banned everywhere now. Caspian was having a little trouble getting his people to follow the new rules, but every family lord had unilaterally banned it, and I wasn’t going to be the one to disappoint that little ray of sunshine by illegally dueling in his lands.

Just picturing the look Frost would give me made my stomach turn.

“I was,” I agreed. “For close to ten years. Oberon recognized my name when we met, and he was scared. No bigger turnoff than a guy who shrinks away from you.”

And then I waited. Waited to see Aubrey’s reaction. Waited for him to shrink away from me as his father had, or moralize at me like Delta. Even Rain hadn’t been able to resist a little of that, though from him it had been concern rather than superiority.

After a moment, he nodded. “How else were you going to get close to someone like Huxley Dawnchaser? That’s...you really have been planning this for most of your life.”

Like a balloon with a pin stuck in it, I deflated. I’d been all prepared for an argument about how I was a professional murderer, but instead he’d just...put all the pieces together and figured out exactly why I’d started it all.

Dropping to sit on his sleeping bag next to him in order to take off my shoes and socks so that I could change pants, I nodded. “It was the only way to get close to Huxley Dawnchaser. Plus honestly? I was really good at it. There’s not a lot else I’m good at. So even if I had plans for after this, I don’t anymore. Dueling is illegal, and I’m not—I’ve never been a school guy. I’m never going to be the scientist or mathematician Delta wanted us all to be.”

Aubrey slipped his shirt over his head, smoothing it down over his hot fucking abs, and then leaned over to bump our shoulders together. “You’re in pretty good shape. You could come work the docks with me.”

I laughed. “Like Titania’s ever going to let you back to that life. You at her side is keeping her sane.”

He scrunched up his nose at that, but nodded, sighing. “You’re probably right. I won’t say I want to abandon her to it, but her life is a lot. I don’t ever want to be in charge of a family. I keep trying to talk her into having a kid. Even if she doesn’t want to, you know, have a kid, it’d be good to have someone there to take her place.”

I paused, dropping my shoes in front of me and turning to him. “Or maybe...maybe it’s time to make sure that the people could go on even without a new Gloombringer. Or Duskbringer. Or...any member of any major family. That’s what Caspian is trying to do in Sunrunner lands. Make the people better at self-governance, so that no one like his aunt can rise again to cause so much harm.”

“Titania would like that, I think. I’ll have to talk to her about it. If, you know, we survive this mess.”

I leaned over to bump my shoulder to his this time. “No doubts. We’re going to be fine. We’re doing great.”

He scoffed. “I twisted my ankle yesterday when I fell and we both know it. It was nice of you to let me keep my dignity, but I’m kind of a mess.”

“You’re literally having seizures because a mountain is trying to squirm its way into your head. I think it’s a fucking miracle your brain isn’t oozing out your ears. I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t survive it.” Then I popped the button on my pants and slid them down as I stood up.

Idly, I wondered if it would have been better if I’d bought and worn underwear for a change, but every pair of pants I owned were made in the style of dueling clothes, and the lines showed through. It was a bit of vanity, but I didn’t like the way it looked.

I glanced back at him as I pulled the blue pair of pants up, and it turned out he wasn’t so completely immune to naked skin. His eyes were averted from my bare ass, a flush high on his cheeks and lip pulled between his teeth.

Well then. That wasn’t so bad, was it? He might be a straight up hottie more than I’d realized, but at least I was pretty sure he thought the same of me.