Page 76
Story: Cosmo
“Oh cool, can I see?” Cullen handed him a mug of tea and kneeled down to look. “Oh, that’s cool. Was it yours? Do you remember?”
“I remember having this. I don’t remember being in it, of course. Do you think that these cartoons were fairy tales?”
Cullen peered into the wood. “Oh, totally. You want some help painting it?” He held up one hand. “I mean, if this is like a dad thing, I don’t have to help. I just sort of thought I’d ask ’cause it sounds like fun and we could hang out.”
“I think that would be lovely. Thank you so much for the tea.”
“You’re totally welcome.” Cullen crossed his legs and sipped. “Yeah, see. You can see the golden egg in this one.”
“I would like to leave as much of the original painting there as we can and just fill in.”
“I love that.” Cullen grinned at him. “So we need to either figure out the fairy tale or make it up.”
Hawk closed his eyes. “I can remember…”
“Remember?”
“My mothers singing to me about a dragon and a golden egg. It was stolen.”
“Dude, you’re not serious. Did the golden dragon go and eat whoever stole it and crunch their bones? Because that’s what I would do. I would crunch bones—munch, munch, munch!”
Hawk wasn’t sure that Cullen was actually bone-crunching material, but he let it go. “Let me see if I can remember.” He tapped his temple with one finger. “How did it start?”
“Once upon a time.”
“What?” He didn’t follow.
“It’s a fairy tale. Fairy stories start with Once Upon a Time. Everybody knows that.”
“Okay.” Hawk laughed and shook his head. “So, once upon a time, there was a beautiful omega who lived in a tower, and the alpha came to woo her.”
“Ooh, I like wooing. I like making with the woo. Don’t stop.” Cosmo came in, belly tight and round, a tomato sandwich in one hand and a cup of tea in the other.
“Right. Greetings, mate. Do you need a blanket?”
“There’s one here on the back of the chair. Continue with the story, please. Wooing. You were at the wooing part.”
“Is there going to be a lot of kissing?” The third of the triplets was heard from. Corbin wandered in with a sack full of willow branches for the basket he was weaving.
“Well, this is a children’s fairy story, so the kissing will be limited at best. Are we all here now?”
“Yes, I brought cookies,” Corbin said.
“So, you can totally stay,” Cullen told his brother. “All right. Alpha dragon wooing omega in a tower? Go.”
Hawk chuckled, settling in, his hand on the cradle, which was telling him the tale, he thought. “He brought her a fine casket of jewels. Some of the rarest fruits in the land. A stack of the most coveted books. But none of this pleased her. ‘Bring me a golden egg,’ she told him, ‘and I will consider your suit.’”
“Attagirl. Make him work for it.” Corbin muttered around a bite of his cookie. “You’re going to end up fat and pregnant.”
Cosmo put a hand on his belly. “Hey!”
“He’s not at all fat.” Hawk winked at Cosmo. “Shall I go on?”
“Please, mate.” Cosmo licked tomato juice off his fingers.
“He adored her more than anything on earth or beyond, so he searched the world for the mythical golden dragon eggs, which?—”
“Dragons don’t lay eggs,” Cullen pointed out. “Do you think they used to, back in the olden days.”
Table of Contents
- Page 1
- Page 2
- Page 3
- Page 4
- Page 5
- Page 6
- Page 7
- Page 8
- Page 9
- Page 10
- Page 11
- Page 12
- Page 13
- Page 14
- Page 15
- Page 16
- Page 17
- Page 18
- Page 19
- Page 20
- Page 21
- Page 22
- Page 23
- Page 24
- Page 25
- Page 26
- Page 27
- Page 28
- Page 29
- Page 30
- Page 31
- Page 32
- Page 33
- Page 34
- Page 35
- Page 36
- Page 37
- Page 38
- Page 39
- Page 40
- Page 41
- Page 42
- Page 43
- Page 44
- Page 45
- Page 46
- Page 47
- Page 48
- Page 49
- Page 50
- Page 51
- Page 52
- Page 53
- Page 54
- Page 55
- Page 56
- Page 57
- Page 58
- Page 59
- Page 60
- Page 61
- Page 62
- Page 63
- Page 64
- Page 65
- Page 66
- Page 67
- Page 68
- Page 69
- Page 70
- Page 71
- Page 72
- Page 73
- Page 74
- Page 75
- Page 76 (Reading here)
- Page 77
- Page 78
- Page 79
- Page 80
- Page 81
- Page 82
- Page 83
- Page 84
- Page 85
- Page 86
- Page 87
- Page 88
- Page 89
- Page 90
- Page 91
- Page 92
- Page 93
- Page 94
- Page 95
- Page 96
- Page 97
- Page 98
- Page 99