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Story: Cosmo

Why would Myk have to know? He can’t come in here. He can’t leave the veil. You and I? We’re the only ones who would know. Cullen. Hawk. Who are we going to tell? We take it outand we remove it. No one ever knows. We’re the ones who live here. This is our home. We fix it.

As easy as that.

He shrugged one shoulder.Doesn’t matter if it’s easy or not. It is what it is. This is your home. Your life. We’re stuck here in this place.No, we were chosen to be here in this place, and I’m going to make it mine, and you’re going to make it yours. Fuck anybody who says otherwise.

Tension seemed to drain out of Corbin. Then he nodded, pouring the milkshakes into glasses.Right. All right, yes, I can do that. We can do that.Corbin gave him a warm grin, and his elder brother seemed to stand up a little bit taller.Thank you, brother.

I love you.

Corbin began to pass out glasses, and Hawk came back up to Cosmo, one arm around his waist.

You did well.

It seemed like the right thing to do.

It was perfect.Hawk’s smile was blinding.Absolutely perfect.

Feeling like a million dollars, like he had turned a corner in a road he hadn’t realized he was walking on, Cosmo lifted his glass. “To us.”

And everyone else lifted their mugs as well.

“Cheers.”

Chapter

Fifteen

Something had changed in Cosmo. Hawk could see it. It was as if someone had turned on a light that had been dimmed since Hawk had known him.

It wasn’t just Cosmo though. It was all three of them. Something inside of them had eased. Had lightened.

Hawk was over the moon.

He heard his sweet rosy dragon whistling. And the sound of something moving, deep inside the house.

Curious, he started wandering, searching room by room. He had a basic idea of where Cosmo was, somewhere in the center of the house, in one of the rooms that was smaller and not often used. Something dusty and dark.

No, not dark. Cozy.

Hawk had noticed that Cosmo was trying to use more positive language. It was cute as hell. Cozy.

BANG!

Cosmo?

“Mate?”

Oh dear. That wasn’t mental. That was vocal, which was probably bad, because that meant that Cosmo didn’t want him to really know what was going on.

“Are you okay?”

“Oh yeah, I’m fine. I was just. Moving something…heavy.”

He’d obviously done enough searching, and so he found Cosmo with his mind. He simply went straight to Cosmo, finding him smack dab in the center of the house.

Literally in the heart of the house.

This was a room with no windows and precious little but a chair, a bookshelf, and stairs—one going up and one going down. It functioned more as a landing than a room really. And yet, somehow, Cosmo had managed to drag up a desk, or possibly a dresser. It was an odd piece of…