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Chapter 18

Augustine

T wice, as it turned out, had been an understatement, vastly so.

Twice a day didn’t even cover it. Augustine had to keep his sweet incubus fed, after all; nothing else was more important.

So for the first week, they spent most of their time in bed. Augustine had a lot of hunger to make up for—hunger he had caused in his clumsy, ham-handed... well, kidnapping. Not to mention the fact that Declan had never before been able to simply eat his fill every single day, and it was something of a novelty to him.

He liked to start his mornings by waking August with a blowjob, and as far as August was concerned, that was never going to be a bad morning. After that, frying up eggs and sausage was the least he could do for his sweet incubus.

Declan ate that with just as much gusto, and then he’d wander off to look through the computer room. He seemed to be setting it up to his liking, ever so slowly, one piece at a time, with joy in his eyes every time he found something new in the pile of wires and boxes. And now that August had set up a power bank with his magic, the stuff even worked.

“Seriously, August,” he was saying at dinner, his whole face glowing with joy. “A brand new, still in the box Amiga 1000. Where did you even get such a thing?”

Augustine shrugged helplessly, smiling at his excited mate. He hadn’t the slightest clue what the object in question was, let alone where he’d procured it from. “Is it a good computer?”

“Well sure, like forty years ago. Nowadays, my phone can out-compute it. By a lot. But it’s amazing. It’s... it’s a piece of history. It belongs in a museum.” He waved his fork in the direction of the room. “I know you like books better, but it’s a little like that. It’s like... it’s like the first edition of an old book, in perfect condition.”

And that, well, that, Augustine could understand. At least a little. He didn’t usually care all that much about editions of books, but occasionally he’d come across something special, with notes by the author in the margins, or copies signed for loved ones, or copies annotated by other clever people.

“We can put it on display in the new front room, if you’d like,” August offered. He’d spent the week trying to get Declan interested in what went in the front room, because he wanted to choose replacements for the destroyed pieces. It wasn’t that he wanted the place to look a specific way, just that he wanted to be finished. He wanted his lair to be complete, truly ready for his mate, as it had been before the attack.

That, unfortunately, had led to their plans for the afternoon.

Plans to go . . . shopping .

Not order things from the internet or catalogues, oh no. To actually leave the lair, and walk into Lyric itself, to a “furniture store” and choose pieces from enormous showrooms full of other furniture... and humans.

And if Augustine hadn’t been nervous enough about humans before the attack, he liked the idea of being around them now even less. They had planned to rape his mate and make his skin into armor.

And now he was going to buy a couch from them.

Admittedly, he purchased almost all of his home decor from humans, but he hadn’t had to see them to do it.

After eating, Declan headed to the bedroom, now half filled with his clothes, to get ready to go out while Augustine waited for him in the antechamber.

He stood there, leaning against the wall, staring out at the ocean. Admittedly, he was mentally double and triple checking the new wards that not only made the cave invisible, but formed a portal that would send uninvited guests back to the bottom of the cliff instead of allowing more attackers inside, but the ocean view was as lovely as ever.

That was when the shuffle of paper caught his attention.

White fluttered in his peripheral vision, and he turned to stare. A letter had appeared on the table in the room. It was magically connected to the mail drop at his house in the woods, so not shocking or unwelcome, just unusual. He strode over and picked up the letter, the return address Miss Silverstone’s shop, so he opened it without hesitation.

Sure enough, it was what he’d asked her for, during her visit to help Declan. As he scanned the page, he cocked his head in confusion.

Surely, she was kidding?

Only one way to find out.

He headed back into the thoroughly cleaned and now mostly empty main room of the lair, and pulled open his mother’s chest. Right there on top was the object he needed. The velvet robe that had been torn on Declan’s first night in the lair. When Augustine had been an ass and Declan angry with him.

A strangled sound came from his right, and he looked up to find Declan standing there, ready to go out, but eyes focused on the robe, on the tear right there at the top of the folded garment. Well, the bottom of the robe, but Augustine had it folded so the tear was on top. Poor Declan looked stricken, as though the tear was a personal insult.

“I’m”—he broke off and swallowed hard, closing his eyes and refusing to look at August—“I’m so sorry about that. I’ll hire someone. I’m sure someone can fix it. It’ll be...”

“Declan,” Augustine whispered, going to stand next to his mate, wrapping a hand around his waist. “Don’t worry. My mother herself would have said you were more important than an object, even one I care about. You are so much more to me than mere pretty things. The pretty things are for you, to make you happy. Not because I can’t live without them.”

He pressed the robe into Declan’s limp grip, and reached up with his freed hand to grip Declan’s chin. “You are the only thing I cannot live without. And this, along with everything else in my hoard, is yours, if you want it.”

He leaned in and kissed Declan, soft and sweet, and as he did, he felt the magic tug, just as Poppy had said it would. A moment later, he pulled back and looked down at the robe.

The tear was completely gone. As perfect as when it had been brand new, even the shade of silver seemed brighter than before.

He flashed his widest grin at Declan. “And apparently, the power of love can fix all things. Or at least, our love can fix the things my mother chose for you, for my love.”

Declan stared, shaking his head in wonder. “If only the rest of the world worked that way.”

“It doesn’t need to,” Augustine whispered. “Because you’re the only thing that matters to me. I’ll move the whole world if it will make you happy.”

“You’re ridiculous.”

“For you. Always.”