Page 16 of Cam's Treasure

"Um, hey Gus."

Purple eyes narrowed at me. "Don't 'Hey, Gus' me, Cam. Was this your idea?"

My eyes widened, and I shook my head quickly. "It was the twins, I swear. You can ask Micah. They asked me if I'd throw them into the air so we could see how far they can go."

"And you agreed?" His tone implied I should've known, but that couldn't be right. Why in the world would he ever expectmeto act my age?

"Yeah." I shrugged, then added, "Sorry."

Sighing, Gus shook his head, then turned to April. "Can you get them please?"

She gave an eager hoot and took off into the trees, appearing a few moments later with one barn owl clutched in each of hertalons. The twins hung there, completely at ease since this wasn't the first time the eagle owl had carried them around like that. She was practically their mom, or maybe more like a governess from those British shows.

"Come on, dinner's ready." Gus turned his back on his sons and stalked back into the house.

I shot a wide-eyed look at Mateo and Miles before following after him.

Micah, Gus scares the shit out of me, I told my mate through our link when I reached him, and he chuckled under his breath.

But Papa's a sweetheart. Even without hearing his voice, I could sense the dryness of his comment, and it made me smile despite myself.

April flew the twins directly to their room so they could get dressed, and within a few minutes their footsteps thundered down the stairs.

"Hey, Dad. Hey, Papa," they greeted as if they hadn't just been outside causing trouble.

"Ooh, that smells good," Miles commented as he took a seat at the table, and after a hesitant look at Gus, I did the same.

Cassian started serving everyone while Gus quickly cleaned up the kitchen before joining us at the table. He didn't eat, but he always sat at the table so he could keep everyone company and chat with us.

All through dinner, I could tell Mateo and Miles were waiting to be reprimanded, but neither Cass nor Gus said anything, and after a while, they relaxed as they continued eating.

For a guy who didn't eat, Gus was a pretty great cook, and I ate until I felt stuffed.

"Thank you for the great meal, Gus," I said, and he smiled at me, no longer angry. The great thing about Gus was that he never held on to his negative feelings. He was actually prettycheerful for a vampire. He was just a little overprotective of his sons.

"Where are you going?" Gus asked when Miles and Mateo deposited their dishes in the sink and started heading toward the stairs.

"Uh, to our room," Mateo answered hesitantly, sharing a wary look with his twin.

Shaking his head, Gus waved them back and pointed toward the kitchen. "You're on clean-up duty."

They were both smart enough to not argue, and quietly walked into the kitchen and started working on the dinner dishes.

Gus's eyes slid to me, one brow going up, and I shot to my feet. Joining them in the kitchen, I started on the counter, handing them the last of the dishes, packing up the leftovers, and then wiping down the counter.

I didn't mind doing my part, especially because I knew I should've stopped them instead of going along. I needed to do better, be better, if I wanted to be a good older brother. I was so glad I had Micah because I knew he'd stop me from truly fucking anything up.

After dinner, everyone sat in the living room for a while, just chatting and hanging out as a movie played in the background, and I enjoyed every moment. I didn't always need adventures or pranks to appreciate life. Sometimes, quiet moments like these could be just as fun too. I'd remember to teach that to my new siblings.

It was close to midnight when everyone finally started heading off to bed, and I grabbed Micah's hand, leading him to his room.

We undressed quietly, which didn't happen for me often, but I was a bit tired. Once we were in our underwear—we'd mostly slept naked while on our trip, but Mateo had a tendency of bursting into rooms without knocking, so we decided not to—we crawled into bed, and I immediately wrapped my arms and legsaround Micah, pulling him close. Then, I traced the mark on his right shoulder, a four-pointed star shape with only two of the points—up and down—colored in, while the other two were mere shadows. It was how we'd discovered we had two more mates, and then DD had checked to make sure. The mark told everyone that Micah was mine, and I had a similar mark on my right hip marking me as his. Not all supes had a mate mark like this, but since Micah was a type of mage, he and I—and our other mates—got the mark because of it.

"Tomorrow, we're going to talk to Dad and DD about the house thing." As much as I loved being around family, I also wanted to be out of their earshot so I could have some proper fun with my mate. He was way too sexy and beautiful for me to be satisfied with some stolen moments.

"All right," Micah said, a smile in his voice. Sighing happily, I closed my eyes, pressed my face against his chest, and breathed in deep, letting his familiar scent seep through me as sleep dragged me under.

Eight

---