In March of 1792, the same year Mason had met Julien, everything between their clans changed. On a cold and overcast afternoon, Mason had traveled with his father to a narrow clearing in the woods surrounding the Brethren homesteads. Here, they were to meet Michel’s friend, Augustus Noble, who had been challenged to a duel by Victor Davenant, Julien’s oldest brother.
At the time, Mason hadn’t understood the reason for the duel. Something about a woman. It had seemed a ridiculous enough cause that he hadn’t really asked for more information, and Michel had been distracted enough not to offer any. They’d ridden by horseback together, but Michel kept pulling ahead as if anxious to arrive. Mason had struggled to keep up with the fleet-footed pace set by his father’s stallion, and by the time they’d arrived, his poor mare had been snorting and sweating with fatigue.
It was cold outside; he remembered that clearly. The air had felt crisp and dry, the ground underfoot crunching with a light coating of late-season frost. A crowd of at least three dozen Brethren men had showed up to watch the gun fight, and the Davenants had already arrived. They stood together in a tight cluster at the far side of the clearing, and there was no mistaking their patriarch, Lamar. His dark hair was shot through with streaks of silver, and he leaned heavily against an ivory-handled cane, his face a mask of dark, brooding menace. Standing somewhat away from the others, as if deliberately distancing himself from his kin, was Julien, and Mason’s heart had quickened at the sight of him.
He’d never seen a duel before, and stood nervously beside his father, watching as Augustus and Victor marked their paces and prepared to fire upon each other. Mason hadn’t really been interested in the match; his gaze kept traveling time and again to Julien, who time and again kept meeting it, offering fleeting hints of a smile.
The first report of gunfire had been thunderous, and if it hadn’t been for the cloud of pale blue-grey dust swirling around the muzzle of Victor’s flint-lock pistol, Mason wouldn’t have known who’d shot first. Mason heard Michel utter a sharp, pained gasp as Augustus had stumbled, nearly losing his footing and crashing to the ground—clearly hit.
Augustus remained standing however, and as his brows twisted, furrowing deeply with pain and determination, he’d extended his own pistol, leveling his aim. Another roar of gunfire, and in the aftermath, as the thin haze of smoke had wafted skyward, it first appeared he’d missed. Victor remained standing; he hadn’t as much as flinched. Then, in a strange, somewhat tremulous voice, he’d said, “You son of a bitch…”
And he’d crashed to the ground, falling backwards and landing hard, his legs sprawled, his arms clumsily outstretched. Augustus had crumpled only moments later, and as Michel sprang to his friend’s aid, he clapped Mason hard on the shoulder.
“Go and tend to Victor,” he’d exclaimed, already in motion, rushing to Augustus’s side.
“What?” Mason’s eyes had widened in surprise and alarm. “Father, wait!”
He’d been studying medicine and surgery under Michel’s wing for over two years, and had assisted his father in any number of procedures. Most of these, though, had been relatively minor, and he’d never tackled anything more serious than closing a wound with sutures on his own.
Michel didn’t listen; he didn’t wait. He continued running until he reached Augustus, and Mason turned slowly, hesitantly, toward the Davenant clan’s end of the field. Lamar had uttered a low, anguished howl when Victor had fallen, and he hobbled out to his son’s side as quickly as he could. His other sons—Vidal, Allistair, Jean Luc, and Jerard—all hurried with him, falling to their knees in a tight huddle around Victor. Again, Julien held back, but not noticeably so; he stood just behind his younger brother Jerard, keeping a hand on his shoulder as if to steady the stricken teen.
“Is…he alive?” Mason asked as he approached them, feeling timid and intrusive and above all, intimidated.
“Barely,” Julien said, drawing his gaze. “For now, anyway.”
Augustus’s shot had struck Victor in the chest. Judging by the growing bloodstain on his coat, and the fact that his breathing had taken on a sodden, gurgling quality, Mason deduced that he’d been struck in the lung. When Victor began to cough, writhing in pain against the ground and spewing blood in a frothy spray from his mouth and nose, Mason’s fears seemed pretty much verified.
“We need to cover his wound,” Mason said, lifting his chin so he could pull his scarf loose from around his neck. “The shell hit his lung. He can’t breathe without—”
“He needs a doctor,” Lamar snapped. In that moment, Mason came to understand why Julien both hated and feared his father. The older man’s face was flushed and twisted with rage, his brows furrowed deeply, his lips pulled back in a snarl. His voice trembled with barely tempered fury, and there was something so imperious in his tone, so devastating and piercing in his glare, that Mason felt immediately cowed.
“Mason Morin is a doctor, Father,” Julien said. “He—”
Lamar swung the handle of his cane—a wicked hook of hand-carved ivory—straight into Julien’s groin. The blow knocked him backwards a stumbling step, and whoofed the breath from him. Doubled over, hands darting to his belly, he gasped in pain.
“He’s a boy,” Lamar shouted. “Your brother’s been shot, you half-wit! He doesn’t need the clumsy efforts of some incompetent muckworm!” Leveling his terrifying gaze at Mason, he barked, “Go get your father, boy. At once, I say!”
But when they looked across the field, they saw Michel dragging Augustus in tow, his arm around Michel’s shoulders as he led him, staggering and wounded, for his horse.
“Michel Morin!” Lamar roared, grunting as he rose, wobbling, to his feet. Leaning heavily on his cane, he stumbled forward, raising his free hand in the air, fingers coiled in a tight fist. “Michel Morin, I demand you come and attend to my son!”
“I’m afraid that’s not possible at the moment,” Michel called back, his brows narrowed as he met Lamar’s gaze. “As I have my hands full. My son, Mason, will see to Victor.”
“You’re the healer among the clans,” Lamar bellowed. Clearly he was not a man accustomed to being refused. His face flushed brightly, his eyes glittering with murderous fury. Spittle flew from his lips as he stood his ground and hollered. “And I’m the dominant Elder. Defying me is no less than defying the will of the Tomes! If you refuse my son—my heir—attendance in order to treat the first-born of my rival clan, the Nobles, it will be tantamount to killing Victor with your own—”
“My son is no less capable or competent than I,” Michel yelled, his own voice sharp with anger now. “I’ve taught him everything he knows—everything I know. And the only one killing anyone at the moment is you. Dominant Elder or not, the longer you run your mouth, the longer these two men go without medical care—they both could die!” Turning around, he began leading Augustus from the field again, bearing most of his friend’s faltering weight. “Now kindly shut the fuck up and let my son do his work if you have any bloody hope at all of Victor’s survival!”
But by the time Mason had been able to wrestle Victor’s overlapping layers of clothing from his chest, it had been too late. That much had been apparent. Victor’s skin hard turned the color of putty. His lips were bluish in color, his eyes half-lidded and unresponsive. His lung had flooded with blood; in essence, he was drowning without having stepped foot in any water. And though Mason had tried to cover the wound, to seal it and stifle the horrendous, moist slurping sound that came with each of Victor’s failing breaths, it hadn’t prolonged his life for more than moments.
“We have to drain the blood,” Mason said, reaching beneath his coat for his belt knife. Glancing up at Julien, who’d knelt across from him, he said, “Roll him toward you. I’m going to cut between his ribs, try to get in deep enough to—”
“You’re not cutting my son,” Lamar had bellowed. It had taken this long for him to make it back to where Victor had fallen, and as he cried out, he began swinging wildly with his cane, striking Mason in the head and shoulders and driving him back with a startled yelp. “Get away from Victor, you half-witted bastard!”
“It’s the only way,” Mason cried, ducking his head. “I know what I’m doing!”
“Killing him—that’s what you’re doing!” Lamar snapped. “You’re killing him! Murderer! Murderer!”
His voice grew shrill, his blows more frenzied and wild. Mason staggered to his feet, holding his hands up to shield his face as he backpedaled, frantically trying to escape.
“Murderer!” Lamar screamed, even as Julien grabbed him from behind, forcing his arms to his side.
“Father, no,” he cried, staring at Mason, distraught and stricken. “Stop!”
Run! he thought—a single, telepathic plea, despite the fact that Lamar could hear him; his father was too powerful and there was no way Julien or any other Brethren could shield themselves psionically from him. Mason, please, go!
Mason turned and ran for his horse. As he shot a panic-stricken glance over his shoulder, he saw Lamar drop his cane, growing lax in Julien’s arms split seconds before Jerard and Allistair came to his defense, shoving Julien aside.
“Get your bloody hands off him—what’s the matter with you?” Allistair demanded.
“Whose side are you on, you bastard?” Jerard snapped, giving Julien a rough push. He put his arm around Lamar from one side, and Allistair from the other. Together, they led him to Victor’s side.
“My boy,” Lamar moaned, and his grief and despair were probably the only things that kept him from beating both Mason and Julien to death that afternoon. “Those sons of bitches…they’ve murdered my son!”
* * *
Four months later
“Good, you got my note.” Julien rose to his feet as Mason dismounted his horse. He’d been sitting beneath the broad boughs of an oak tree, a hardbound copy of The New England Primer that Mason had loaned to help him practice his reading in his hands.
Mason had been astonished to learn that Lamar considered reading to be folly, and had never allowed his children to be taught. Although at first Julien had been too embarrassed to accept, he’d finally given in and allowed Mason to teach him. Together, they’d often spend hours reading aloud—Mason from more complicated tomes like Ann Radcliffe’s A Sicilian Romance, Thomas Holcroft’s Alwyn and other popular novels of the day, and Julien from the various primers Mason would bring for him to borrow.
As Julien had grown more proficient in both reading and writing, they’d started leaving messages for each other in a hollow at the base of a large, cragged tree on the Brethren’s property. It was a midpoint between both the Davenant and Noble farms, and a way for them to keep in touch in secret. The tree hollow wasn’t deep, but it was partially hidden by an upturned rock. They’d use a rudimentary kind of invisible ink to keep their messages safeguarded from any prying eyes who might have stumbled across them—milk. When held up to a candle’s flame, or the heat from an oil lamp, a note written in milk—which would have been otherwise invisible when dried—would appear as if by magic.
Julien had foregone a jacket and turned back his shirt sleeves against the hot July sun. As he stood, he dusted off the seat of his dun-colored breeches and with a smile, walked down the gently sloping hillock to meet Mason. “You came.”
“Wild horses couldn’t have kept me away,” Mason said, taking Julien’s face between his hands and pulling him near.
Julien’s smile widened as he turned his head up, kissing Mason warmly. He uttered a low, soft sound as Mason brushed past his lips with his tongue, deepening the kiss. They remained like this for a long moment, and that was all it took to leave Mason hungry for him, his arousal apparent and stirring between them. With a quiet laugh, Julien ducked his head, drawing away.
“Stop now,” he said. “There’s not time for that.”
“There’s always time for that,” Mason insisted with a grin, leaning in to kiss him again.
“Not…today…there’s not,” Julien said, his words interspersed between kisses. He laughed and again sidestepped from Mason’s embrace. Grabbing Mason by the hands, he gave a playful tug. “Come on. We’re going to be late.”
Mason arched his brow. “For what?” he asked, and as Julien practically began to drag him along through the knee-high grass and wildflowers, he added, “Where the bloody hell are you taking me?”
“To meet my family,” Julien replied, his blue eyes bright with excitement.
Mason might have told him that he’d already met his family on more than one occasion—and that on the last such, he’d been beaten nearly senseless by Julien’s father. Not to mention been accused of murdering his brother Victor.
He might have told all of this—and plenty more—to Julien, but as the younger man led him over the crest of a nearby hill, he realized that wasn’t what Julien had meant. Those were his kin—his father and Victor, and likely his other brothers, too, like Jean Luc and Allistair. Julien wanted him to meet his family.
Below them at the bottom of the hill, Mason saw a young woman and a boy, maybe eight or nine years old, standing along the banks of a small pond. Sunlight glinted off the green-brown water and set the young woman’s blonde hair aglow like spun honey. The boy had hair only a shade or two darker. His mouth was spread wide in a delighted grin as he chucked pebbles into the murky shallows. The girl looked up, shielding her eyes from the glare of the sun with the blade of her hand. When she caught sight of Julien and Mason on top of the hill, she lifted her free hand in a wave and smiled brightly. The boy followed his gaze, then dropped the handful of stones he’d been about to throw. Running along the water’s edge, he raced toward the hill.
“Julien!” he cried.
“Hey, Az.” Julien strode ahead of Mason to meet the boy midway along the slope. With a duck of his head, and without breaking his stride, he caught the boy—Aaron, or “Az,” as he called his brother—over his shoulder. He hoisted Aaron aloft like a sack of potatoes slung across his back and continued on his way. All the while, Aaron laughed, his legs pedaling helplessly as he play-punched Julien in the ass.
“Put me down!” he cried. “Put me down right now!”
Julien turned enough to look back at Mason and grin. “Fair enough, then,” he remarked, and then made a show of acting as if he meant to flip Aaron ass over elbows and into the pond. He even threw in a stumble or two so the boy thought he was losing his balance along the muddy shore, and he clutched at the back of Julien’s linen waistcoat, screaming with laughter.
“Julien, stop it,” the girl said, with a weary roll of her eyes that suggested she was well-accustomed to such shenanigans. There would be no mistaking her for any clan but the Davenants, what with her blue eyes nearly identical to Julien’s. She wore her golden hair drawn back in a neat bundle, a wide-brimmed straw hat with silk ribbons atop her head, a floral-printed dress with yellow petticoat and stomacher, and a lace neck kerchief drawn demurely over her shoulders. Flapping her hand in imperative, she said, “That’s enough now. Set him down.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Julien said, as with a melodramatic bow, he eased Aaron back onto his feet again. As he straightened, he turned to Mason with a laugh. “Remember when you asked if my sister Lisette likes to remind me that she’s the oldest between us? Here’s your answer, then, as you can plainly—”
His voice cut short in a yelp as the young woman—Lisette—scurried behind him, planting her hands against his shoulders and, with a mischievous grin, giving a mighty shove. Julien floundered forward, then lost his footing as his shoe heels sank into the soft mud along the bank of the pond. His arms pinwheeled for a second as he tried to reclaim his balance, and then he tumbled into the water, sloshing and stumbling to his knees. He caught himself with his hands, but the water was deep enough to nearly submerge him, and when he scrambled upright again, eyes flown wide as he sputtered for breath, his cravat was drenched, his waistcoat, shirt, breeches and stockings all soaked.
Lisette and Aaron fell together laughing out loud, and Mason tipped his head back, joining them. The look of absolute surprise on Julien’s face was too priceless not to.
“Oh my God,” Julien gasped—although it came out in a rush, nearly all in one breath, one word: Ohmygod. He blinked at Lisette, shuddering, then started to laugh. Holding out his hand, his sleeve sopping and dripping, he pointed at her. “Oh, you bloody harpy, that was good.”
He waded back to the bank, slipping and sliding clumsily in the mud. As he clambered out, Lisette shrank back, and when he darted toward her, she wheeled about, hiking up her skirt and hooped petticoat so she could flee.
“Julien, no!” she screamed, but she laughed as he raced after her, both of them running along the water’s edge. He caught her easily, hooking her around the waist with his arms and hoisting her off her feet, her back against his belly. She slapped at him, her hat flopping askew. “Julien, please! I’m sorry! Don’t you dare! I’m sorry! I—”
She was still squealing, still laughing as he sloshed out into the water with her. Keeping her pinned to his chest, he took a huge, deep breath and—as she wailed in protest—dunked them both beneath the surface. Her petticoat and skirt ballooned above them in the water; her hat popped up about two feet away from where they’d submerged. When they both broke the surface again, they were drenched and laughing.
“You beast!” she exclaimed with a grin, slapping at Julien. “You complete beast!”
“Lissie!” Aaron cried. He’d bolted after his brother and sister, and launched himself from the shoreline now, pouncing onto Julien’s back in Lisette’s defense. Julien toppled sideways, splashing beneath the water again, this time taking dragging Aaron down with him. They tussled together, laughing and sloshing around, Aaron with his knees locked around Julien’s waist, piggy-back style.
“Here, Mademoiselle Davenant.” Mason extended his hand as Lisette waded for the shore, a drenched and shivering mess. “Let me help you.”
“Thank you.” She was a beautiful girl just from the casual observance, but when she smiled, Lisette was positively stunning. She draped her hand delicately against his own, trying to maintain some dignity as she stumbled from the water. “And it’s just Lisette—or Lissie, if you please. You must be Dr. Morin. Julien’s told us so much about you.”
“Yeah! He won’t shut up about you,” Aaron hollered—then he squealed as Julien dunked him again.
Mason laughed. “All good things, I hope.” He leaned down and fished Lisette’s hat out of the water. “But truly, call me Mason. My father’s the doctor. I’m only—”
His voice cut abruptly short as a blob of mud—thick, wet, heavy—hit him in the head. It splattered all over him—his hair, his clothes, his face—and he heard Julien suddenly howl with laughter. Lisette’s eyes widened and she uttered a shocked little gasp he suspected was entirely faked for his benefit, considering the corners of her mouth kept hitching up in an involuntary struggle to smile the whole time.
“You’re the only one still prissy rot clean,” Julien cried.
“Is that so?” Mason glanced at him, his brow arching as he reached up, flicking mud from his nose.
“Well…you were, in any case,” Julien said with a snort. Aaron laughed with him, still clinging to his older brother’s back like a sopping wet little monkey.
Offering Lisette her hat, Mason said, “If you’d be so kind…?” When she took it, stepping back, he leaned down and sunk his fingers into the mud, grabbing as large a handful as he could.
“Oh, shit…!” With a grin and a yelp, Julien started floundering for the shore, but it was too late. Mason threw the mud clod at him, hitting him in the side of the head. From that moment, the game was afoot, and all three of them—Mason, Julien, and Aaron—lobbed handful after dripping, filthy handful of mud, muck, and slimy pond bottom algae at one another. After being caught in the crossfire one too many times for her liking, Lisette got into it, too, standing beside Mason, both of them almost knee-deep in the shallows, laughing and screeching as they bombarded Julien and Az.
When they were finished, and all of them had tried to wash the mud and muck out of their clothes and hair, they waded ashore and collected dried wood to build a fire. Settling in beneath a large old tree, they stripped down to their undergarments, hanging breeches, waistcoats, dresses and stockings on low-lying limbs to dry by the heat of the small blaze.
“I suppose after all that, introductions are in order,” Julien remarked as he returned from scavenging around nearby tree trunks for more fallen pieces of timber. Dropping an armload of small sticks and twigs, he squatted by the fire and began to add them one by one. “This little imp on my right is my brother, Aaron. Az, this is Mason.”
“I’m not an imp.” Aaron jabbed Julien in the side with his elbow, scowling. Then, as his expression softened to a smile, he offered his hand to Mason. “Pleased to meet you, monsieur.”
“The pleasure is all mine,” Mason replied warmly, his hand large enough to nearly cover the boy’s in full as he accepted the shake.
“And this delicate flower to my left is my darling sister, Lisette. Lissie, this is—”
As he spoke, he poked her pointedly with his elbow, and she slapped him in the ass. “We’ve already taken the liberty of introducing ourselves,” she said. “Even if you’re not going to have anything by way of good manners, you at least associate with proper young gentlemen who do.”
With this, she awarded Mason a radiant smile that undoubtedly would have made any man so inclined fall hopelessly, head over heels in love with her. Julien tipped his head back and laughed. The chortle faded almost as soon as it had started, however, and his eyes widened in something akin to marveling surprise.
“Lis, look.” Reaching out, he caught Lisette by the arm, then pointed up into the tree above them to direct her gaze. Mason tilted his head back, following the line of Julien’s arm, and saw a remarkable sight on one of the larger boughs overhead about fifteen or twenty feet: a large, dense object at least the size of a milk pail or more, nearly hidden among the leaves. It appeared to be hanging from the underside of the limb, affixed somehow to the bark, and Mason thought he heard a slight but distinctive hum over the soft crackle of the fire.
“A beehive?” he asked, puzzled, and Julien nodded.
“Honey!” he exclaimed, scrambling to his feet. Turning to Lisette, who was also getting up, he said, “Quick—grab some green limbs, some grass. Get some smoke going. I’ll climb up and get it.”
“Be careful, Julien,” Lisette said, her smooth brow wrinkling slightly with a doting, nearly maternal sort of worry.
“It’s fine,” he said. “Hurry now. We need more smoke.” With a glance at Mason, he said, “Why don’t you take Aaron and move back a bit? In case, you know, I knock the hive down by accident or something.”
“What are you going to do?” Mason asked, suddenly sharing in Lisette’s concern as Julien turned around to face the tree. As he watched, Julien hooked his fingertips into the cragged bark and, as nimble as a squirrel, began to climb up the trunk. “I don’t think this is such a good idea…”
“Sure it is,” Julien insisted, somewhat breathless with distraction as he climbed. With a glance down and the sort of reckless smile that melted Mason’s heart—not to mention made his cock suddenly ache with momentary longing—he added, “No fair peeking up my skirt.”
Aaron laughed at this. “Come on, Mason,” he said, rising to his feet. “Over here.”
Mason followed the boy about ten feet away from the fire. “If that hive falls, those bees are going to be all stirred up,” he remarked.
Aaron shook his head, all round and adulating eyes as he turned to follow his brother’s progress up the tree. “Julien won’t knock it down. Don’t worry.”
Mason turned to follow his gaze. He had to admit, Julien made it look easy to scale the broad length of the venerable old maple. Lisette had started adding green limbs and handfuls of ripened grass to the blaze below, and the smoke cloud rising toward the hive had thickened.
“My father says you’re the reason my brother died,” Aaron said suddenly. Blinking in aghast surprise, Mason looked down and found the boy had turned his attention toward him, his expression somber, his blue eyes—nearly identical to Julien’s—unreadable. “Victor, I mean. He said you and your father killed him just the same as Augustus Noble.”
“I…I don’t…” Mason stammered helplessly. He wasn’t sure how to defend himself in this argument against an adult, never mind a child.
“It’s alright,” Aaron said after a moment. “Victor was an ass. I’m glad he’s dead.” He looked toward Julien again. “He used to hit Julien a lot. He’d try to hit me, but Julien would get in his way, call him names, make Victor mad at him.”
“He must be very brave,” Mason said softly, following the boy’s adoring gaze with his own.
Aaron nodded. “He does that with our father, too, whenever he gets his lash out. He tells me and my younger brothers, our little sisters, to hide. Then he’ll do something stupid, like spill Father’s brandy, or knock over a lamp so Father goes after him instead.”
Mason thought of all the times he’d seen whip marks and lacerations criss-crossing Julien’s shoulders, spine, and buttocks. Julien had always tried to laugh these off, but there had been more than once, long after they’d finished making love and Julien had drifted off to sleep beside Mason, that he’d brushed his fingertips and lips across these cruel, brutal marks and hated Lamar Davenant with a passion so fierce and murderous, it left him nearly breathless.
As if Mason had left his mind open, psionically unguarded, and Aaron had sensed these thoughts, he said quietly, “I wish it had been my father right along with Victor. I wish they both were dead.”
Mason looked down at him, but his eyes were distant, as if seeing beyond the smoke and trees, at something Mason himself could not discern.
“He keeps a little girl locked up beneath his library,” Aaron said. “I hear her crying sometimes at night.”
Julien had told him of a similar discovery when he’d been a boy—when Lamar had wrenched his shoulder out of socket for the first time. He’s kept several of them down there over the years, he’d said. Slave girls, mostly, the ones he takes a fancy to. He likes to lock himself in there late at night and bring them out…play with them a bit.
Years would pass before Mason realized that in Aaron’s case, the slave girl had in fact been his own family, Naima Morin, trapped beneath Lamar’s library. She was the illegitimate daughter of his brother, Arnaud, and a human woman—the same half-bred child who had caused Arnaud to be flogged in front of the Brethren Council. Mason had been aware of Naima’s existence since her birth—the entire Morin clan had—but she’d been kept a closely guarded secret among them. Michel had adored the child as much as any of his kin, and when Lamar had discovered her, when as the dominant Elder, he’d ordered her banished to the labyrinth of tunnels beneath their farmlands known as the Beneath, it had broken Michel’s heart. None of them had realized that Lamar had taken her from the tunnels shortly after her incarceration there—and had spent the next twenty or more years physically, sexually, and psychologically abusing her for his own sadistic pleasure.
At the time of Aaron’s disclosure, Mason hadn’t understood that he meant Naima, however. He’d only again felt an overwhelming sorrow to realize the full and horrific extent of what he felt sure was Lamar’s madness. No man in his right mind could do the cruel, savage things Lamar did time and again—to his own family, no less.
“I’m sorry, lad,” he said, because he didn’t know what else to offer the boy. He draped his hand in what he hoped was a comforting fashion against Aaron’s shoulder.
“Julien says there’s nothing to be done about it,” Aaron murmured, not averting his gaze from that distant, unseen focal point. His brows crimped and for a moment, Mason caught a glimpse of that same granite-like hardness that would come over Julien sometimes. “But I’m going to get her out somehow.”
“Hot damn!”
Julien had managed to reach the hive, having stretched himself out along the bough like a sun-basking cat, then using his legs to anchor himself as he flipped upside down, dangling head-long toward the hive. Using his knife, he managed to saw off a large chunk of honeycomb, which he scraped free of bees with his blade, then tossed down to Lisette. Then, as he called out now, he unfurled his legs. He held onto the limb momentarily with his hands, the knife between his clenched teeth, and then let go. Mason felt a thrill of alarm as he dropped like a stone toward the ground—and a surge of sudden relief when he landed on his feet, nimble and lithe, his knees flexing to bear the brunt of the impact.
“Were you stung?” he asked, following Aaron as the boy rushed forward, returning to the fire.
“Of course not.” Julien laughed, wiping his knife clean on his damp shirt tail. “You’re as bad as Lissie, the way you worry, you know that?” He turned to his sister, hand outstretched. “Have you ever tasted it straight from the comb?”
“I don’t think so,” Mason said, watching with undisguised fascination as Julien broke apart the delicate comb, sodden and dripping with fat, golden globules of rich, fresh honey.
“Here.” Smiling, Julien offered him a piece. “You suckle it until the honey’s gone. Then you can chew the comb.”
He held Mason’s gaze, a mischievous glint in his blue eyes as he slipped the honeycomb between Mason’s lips. As the sweet flavor graced his tongue, filling his mouth, Mason had to fight the urge to let his tongue catch the runaway drops and rivulets of honey that clung to Julien’s fingers, and had spattered onto his chest.
“That’s amazing,” he murmured, forced to stifle an inward groan as Julien drew his finger into his mouth and made an obvious point to drag his tongue around it in a slow, sweeping circle, cleaning up the honey.
“Good stuff, oui?” Julien asked innocently, his brow arched in what Mason hoped was an invitation for anything but innocence later.
“Oui,” he murmured, his voice coming out low and husky all at once.
“It’s the best,” Aaron exclaimed, clutching a chunk of honeycomb in his hands and sucking greedily. With a toothy grin—and with honey smeared all over his cheeks and chin—he added, “This is the best day ever!”
Years later, after Lisette had been married off to Mason’s brother Phillip and the Morin clan had moved in exile to Lake Tahoe, California, she had often recounted that afternoon with Mason. There had not been much at that time to make her smile—her marriage to Phillip had been anything but happy, and she’d started suffering the initial symptoms of the disease that would eventually incapacitate and kill her—but her face would always light up at these memories, her smile as glorious and lovely as that sun-kissed afternoon.
“He loved you so,” she tell him of Julien, and sorrow would fill her blue eyes—eyes that had never failed to powerfully, poignantly remind him of her brother’s. “He wouldn’t admit it, of course, not even to me and Az, but I knew. I could see it in his face, his eyes, the way he looked at you. The way he couldn’t seem to look at anyone but you. He was so in love.” With a knowing sort of glance, she’d touched his face and added, “And you were, too, with him.”