Page 41

Maybe that was why Hawk was there. He didn’t know.

When he snapped back to himself, his eyes rolling back down out of his head, Hawk was holding him. He’d fallen out of his chair, he thought.

“What did you see?” Cullen asked.

It was pretty obvious that he was having a vision, he guessed. There was no getting away with saying oh, I just kind of had a seizure or something.

Cosmo blinked, trying to figure out how to put into words what he had seen. And what he’d felt. “It was all red,” he said. “And hunger. It was awful.”

Hawk held him closer, lending strength and heat, which was lovely, but Cosmo couldn’t shake the vision.

Corbin stared into his eyes. “What kind of hunger? What are you talking about?”

“Well, if I knew. It would be useful, wouldn’t it? It was toothy, whatever it was, and it was coming for us. It’s something that we have to guard against, and maybe that’s why I’ve been feeling so uneasy.”

“That’s it, I’m buying garlic.”

“What?” Cosmo was nowhere near unrattled enough to follow whatever the hell Corbin was talking about.

“Vampires. This place was attacked by vampires. Infested with vampires. They killed two dragons here. It hasn’t been that long. We were still cleaning the blood out of the wood not long ago. You can still smell dragon blood in my side of the house!” Corbin was just getting warmed up. “I’m buying garlic—cases of it. And crosses. Can you buy holy water?”

“I’ll look it up,” Cullen said. “I can get sun lamps too. I wonder if they make portable sun lamps?”

Hawk growled low. “Vampires. Soulless creatures. We’re infinitely more satisfying to them than humans. They cannot be allowed through the veil.”

“Well, I guess that that’s our job then, to sit here and let them suck on us and bleed us dry so that they can’t get through the veil.” Cosmo didn’t like this at all.

“Oh, bullshit. We’re going to cover this entire house on the front end with roses, a la the Sleeping Beauty myth. Big thorny roses everywhere—we’ll leave a door for the Amazon delivery and groceries. Then we will just put garlic wreaths everywhere.” Corbin was going on and on, and Cosmo dropped his head in his hands.

Then he lifted it and sighed. “If you don’t stop him, he’s going to start inventing handheld sun lamp ray gun things. I know.” He put his head back down again. Then lifted it. “I’ve seen it.”

“Oh, ray guns are cool.” Hawk held him, rocked him, and smiled at Corbin. “I think we should research what is fact and what is fiction before we start just buying many of one sort of item. No worries, though. I do know one thing.”

Cosmo looked up at Hawk. “What’s that, mate?”

“There’s never been a vampire born that could withstand lava.”

Chapter

Eleven

Hawk watched with bemusement over the next few weeks as Cosmo and Cullen and Corbin fortified the house.

Corbin grew roses at an alarming rate. They were beautiful and healthy, but large and thorny. And they took up the entire front of the house. What didn’t get covered in roses got covered in ivy and other vines that worked their way into the stones, into the wood, and strengthened everything.

Cullen practiced illusions. Practiced hiding the entire house, which was a lovely trick, but would not particularly fool a vampire. It did panic Corbin at one point when he returned from the greenhouse to find the house gone…

Cosmo. Well, Cosmo worried him. Cosmo looked pale and sad and not at all rosy like he should. Hawk wanted to tell him not to borrow trouble; if the vampires came, they would come. Why work oneself into a frenzy if it wasn’t going to happen?

And he’d meant what he said. There wasn’t a vampire on earth who could withstand a flow of lava. Now, that didn’t mean that he wouldn’t burn the house down, but such trade-offs were required sometimes. He hoped that wouldn’t happen, but they could always rebuild, he supposed.

Instead of letting Cosmo mope around for the rest of the day, Hawk was going to tempt his lover into exploring more of the house. They hadn’t done that since the lovely day that they had spent having tea and cookies in the library, but now he wanted to find the sandpit. He really wanted to get his scales polished, and he wanted to teach Cosmo how wonderful that was as well. It really did a mind and body good.

He started his seduction, so to speak, with long stretching. and low moaning, and stealing a peek at his mate to see if perhaps his Cosmo had noticed.

No.

He pursed his lips and really stretched again, longer this time, arms going wide.