Aisling shook her head and found a more steady smile.“Of course.Please feel free to sit, both of you.Coffee, hummingbird?”
“The answer is always yes, Mother.”
“It’s real coffee too.Not bean-flavored Faerie juice.”Eithne paused, head tilted.“There’s the ward trip; that’s my cue to get the door and bugger right off, lest Aultyr not be able to resist my toothy charms.”
Eithne left as Declan took his usual spot, and Antonio settled next to him, their knees bumping under the table.
“May I ask why we invited Aultyr and Harke to breakfast?”
“Just Aultyr,” Aisling replied, with a wave to the retreating Eithne.She set a pair of mugs on the table, followed by a pot of milk and another of sugar.“He’s news, darling.Please don’t be like your sister.”
“Prone to excessive baking?”Antonio suggested, still hoping to chase the remaining tension from Declan’s shoulders.
“Prone to flirting with large, brooding men.”And Declan smiled, which made everything worth it.“No arm wrestling and no propositioning.I suppose we can manage that.”
“Good,” said a new voice, and if Antonio hadn’t been busy mooning over Declan’s smile, he would have noticed the man in the doorway, holding Puck in his arms.
Fillingthe doorway.Declan hadn’t been kidding.Six and a half feet if he was an inch– so not Brownie tall but still big–andbroad,he was a shade darker than Antonio, with middle-eastern features, shoulder-length black hair and a short-clipped beard to match.Also, his shadow was shaped like a big fuck-off dog, and his canines looked made for tearing throats.
“Good morning, Aultyr,” Aisling said as she took her cat back from the man.“You remember Declan.May I introduce Antonio?They’re bonded.”
The guy returned Aisling’s greeting with a nod and acknowledged Declan with a lift of his chin, before turning those eyes on Antonio.Christ, the guy had astareon him.
“Would give a new human a heads up, usually.Faerie’s fucking weird.Figure you already know.”
Blunt bastard, wasn’t he?Somehow, that helped, enough that Antonio peeled his fingers from his nettle-inked wrist.
“Weird’s one way of putting it.Hard to relax when the walls have opinions.”
“New spin on them having eyes.”Aultyr’s cheek twitched, which he maybe thought counted as a smile.“Well met.”
And Declan’d said that fae were weird about changelings, so Antonio managed a smile of his own as he said, “Yeah.Well met.”
He pressed his knee a bit harder against Declan’s as the barghest sat down, Puck squirming into the big man’s lap the second his ass hit the chair.Aisling settled beside him, reaching for a bagel, calm as anything.
“I asked Aultyr and Harke to let me know if they heard anything about the nereid business.”
The nereid business.As in, the creepy water fae who’d tried to tear Declan apart while Antonio was busy wandering off into the mist.They’d ended up as rotting piles of torn flesh, strewn across the beach.It wasn’t Antonio’s favorite memory.
“Full truth?”Aultyr asked, looking at Antonio likehewas the one who should be answering.“Or you want evasive, polite fae talk?”
“My ‘best friend’ from when I was a kid tried to kidnap me while a bunch of fish ladies went after Declan.”Antonio covered Declan’s hand with his own, just that little reassurance that they were both here and not kidnapped or drowned.“Not much dancing around that.”
“Fish ladies with a price,” Aultyr said, as he meticulously peeled and segmented his orange.“Expensive ones.Got better chances slogging through a summer sewer after a knife fight than fighting a sluagh.Not an easy sell.”
“Calloway hired assassins,” Declan said, the words flat.“And attempted to kidnap Antonio during the job?”
“Not hired.A hit.”Aultyr might as well have been talking about the fucking silverware, for how concerned he sounded.“Got tapped to take it specific, said no.After that, blanket call went out.Calloway’s not high pillow material.A pushover.You think his mother’s the sort to bankroll that, make sure her kid and a human bond and middle-aisle it?”
Declan’s emotions rang through Antonio, shock and anger and affront, but Antonio could barely feel them, too caught by his own tangled thoughts, looping back to that bland statement,a blanket call went out.
He’d tried to believe it was a one-off thing.That Calloway’d fled and that’d be the end of it.Or at least he’d be back to tugging at Nimai and Wyte, trying to twist Antonio out of Declan’s grip through Faerie’s weird, complex web of Protocol.Assassins hadn’t crossed his mind.That was a word for action films.Fucked as Antonio’s life was, it wasn’t fucked like that.
He stroked the hand that gripped his, while his free fingers tapped against his plate.Across the table, the barghest was still calmly eating his fucking orange.Antonio wanted to scream.It wasn’t a new feeling.
“Would she?”Declan’s voice broke through the clamor of Antonio’s anxiety, reminding him that he had someone in his corner.
He breathed again.
