Page 35 of Moonstriker (The Summertide Chronicles #4)
Chapter 35
Kit
Aubrey’s hearing loss was nearly seventy percent, the doctor informed us with a serious, worried face in town a few hours later. I didn’t know how they knew that number so precisely, but what the hells did I know about any of this?
We were back at the doctor’s office in Yomi, and it seemed that Slate could communicate with Aubrey that far away with ease. I was hoping that as their bond deepened, we could do a little traveling without problems. After all, Father now lived hundreds of miles from Iri in Dawnchaser lands and didn’t have trouble talking to her.
And after ten years of missing out on my siblings’ lives in favor of The Plan, I didn’t want to miss a single new thing, not ever again.
Delta was standing next to Titania, looking imperious and angry, scowling at the doctor as I sat next to Aubrey on the bed they’d put him in.
His ankle was too swollen to be casted right away, but thankfully, they didn’t think he’d done any permanent damage by walking on it. They actually seemed to think my half-ass splint had helped.
“—get him into the medical center near Moonstriker Tower for cochlear implants,” Delta was saying to Titania, who looked worried as hell. I was annoyed Delta was even there, but no small town doctor was going to eject a family head.
Given the look on his face, though, Aubrey might do precisely that in a minute.
“No,” he interrupted, and every head in the room snapped around to look at him.
Admittedly, only the three of us had been allowed back, as well as the doctor and the audiologist who’d done the hearing test, but it was still weird, all four of them snapping around to stare at him.
Delta’s gaze narrowed, and she started to open her mouth, but Aubrey shook his head again. “I’m not much of a lipreader, but I’m pretty sure you said implants.” He turned to look at me. “She said implants, right?”
“She did,” I agreed, nodding for emphasis.
“Yeah, I’m not interested in that. So I’ve lost seventy percent of my hearing. So what? I’m not a musician. And even if I were, there’ve been Deaf musicians in the past, and they didn’t have cochlear implants. I don’t want them. I’m fine as I am. Kit said he’ll learn sign with me.”
Delta pursed her lips, barely glancing at me, and looking at Aubrey like he was the slowest kid in the classroom. “I understand you’re struggling with this, but you need to understand that my son?—”
“Nephew,” I interrupted, just because I loved the way being repeatedly interrupted was making the muscle in her jaw tic.
“My nephew is not the sort of man who follows through on?—”
“I really can’t understand most of what you’re saying,” Aubrey interrupted again, making me want to kiss him. “But I do have the feeling you’re insulting my Kit, which...really isn’t going to help here.” He reached out and grabbed my hand, squeezing it tight. “Kit’s the reason I’m alive, you know? And the reason I successfully bonded Slate, which is why we’re all going to live to see tomorrow. So if you’ve got a problem with Kit, I guess you’re not a fan of being alive.”
Behind Delta, Titania pressed a hand to her lips, trying and mostly failing to hold back laughter, her shoulders shaking with the effort.
“Your Kit?” I asked.
Aubrey’s head whipped around to face me, and he smiled. “My Kit,” he agreed. “I don’t know if there are other Kits out there, but this one’s mine. At first I only saw what he was showing the world, and I kinda thought he was just an arrogant asshole. But then I realized he’s both an arrogant asshole and something else entirely. And this is crazy, but it turns out I’m in love with him. Can you believe that?”
The way he said it, like they were the easiest words that had ever come out of his brain and slid over his tongue, left me breathless.
Love. He was in love. With me.
“Good thing,” I choked out, struggling to keep my voice loud enough for him to hear. “Turns out he’s in love with you too.”
His grin at that was positively radiant. “I know,” he agreed. “Even if he has a hard time saying things out loud sometimes. I guess growing up, his mother was kind of awful to him. That’s okay, though. Mine taught me how to love someone. We can work together on it.”
“I’m trying to help,” Delta insisted, and Aubrey turned to look at her, gaze blank.
Clearly, he hadn’t understood what she’d said, only heard that she’d said something, and he had no interest in asking her opinion.
Fuck, I loved him.
“Well at least it seems like you’re perfect for each other,” she muttered, turning away with a huff.
“Seriously?” I asked. “That’s it. The man risks his life to save the world, and your whole reaction is to offer him medical intervention he doesn’t need or want, and then you’re done?”
“What else does he want?” she exploded, the pent-up frustration of not being able to fix things herself finally coming out of her in a rush. “I offered him the best medical technology that?—”
“How about a simple thank you, Delta? You couldn’t fix it. You needed help. You needed him . And you haven’t so much as said ‘thanks for fixing this mess.’ Why is that so hard?”
You’re pushing kinda hard there , Nikka said. She was...kinda being nice. Sort of.
I pursed my lips, but didn’t give any other outward sign of the conversation. No, she was trying to take charge. She wasn’t being nice. She was trying to pay him off so she’d feel absolved of any culpability for the situation, even though she let Slate fester for her whole adult life, all the while knowing that eventually it would result in a volcanic eruption .
That’s probably true , she sighed. But she might have some good intentions. And I . . . I just . . . wish she were better .
I understood. I’d been dealing with Delta longer than Nikka, though, and at some point I’d realized that hoping for better was fruitless. The woman had stolen credit from Frost for his solving of some mathematical equation when he was a kid. She wasn’t secretly a decent mother and excellent person.
She was selfish and flawed and she was never going to be my mother.
But I did have to deal with her, for my siblings’ sakes.
And her? She was standing there glaring at me, jaw clenched and not interested in thanking Aubrey for saving the whole fucking world.
I believed the technical term was “what a piece of work.”
Finally, I just shook my head, rubbing ineffectually at the tension gathering between my brows. “You know what, it’s fine. The important thing is that it’s done. Aubrey did save us all, and it’s over. We don’t have to worry about Slate anymore. It’s not like he’s the kind of guy who needs kudos for his work.”
Aubrey tugged on our twined hands, pulling me farther onto the bed. “I think you mean you saved us all,” he said, kissing me on the cheek. “It was your plan. You got me there. You took me up the mountain. You took care of me when I couldn’t anymore.”
I lifted a brow at him. “Some people would say I manipulated you into all this. Forced you to bond the mountain. Twisted?—”
“Some people are jerks,” he said with a sweet smile, tugging on me again, wrapping me in his arms and laying his head atop mine.
And that was that.
“Never, ever going to have grandchildren,” Delta muttered half under her breath, and I was all set to be pleased that Aubrey had missed the rather fraught topic for a brand-new relationship, but Titania apparently didn’t want to let that happen.
She gave first Delta, then us, a sweet smile that reminded me very much of Aubrey’s. “Actually, I’m pretty sure Ember is going to offer to be a surrogate for the boys. We were talking about it the other night, because she was worried I wouldn’t want to date someone who was pregnant.”
That was...a very serious conversation for another brand-new relationship. I, for one, was impressed.
Apparently, she’d also been loud enough for Aubrey, because he smiled back, bright and happy. “That sounds great, Aunt Titania. I’m sure Rain and Adair will want a kid. The two of you can be pregnant together.”
Titania blinked at him, staring, but I nodded. “Fair point. You’ll need someone to succeed you as Duskbringer.”
Her mouth dropped open, and she obviously wanted to deny it, to insist that would be Aubrey, but after a moment, she just nodded. “I guess I will.” Then a wicked gleam entered her eye, and she lifted a brow at me. “What do you say, Kit? Want to father the next generation of Duskbringers? I mean, it might as well be you, right?”
I was stunned into silence, but next to me Aubrey threw his head back and laughed.