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Cullen glared at him. “One, never talk about my mother and use sexual innuendo at the same time because that’s foul. Two, have you ever met a fae? Did they seem like vegetarians to you? Because if they do, you haven’t been paying attention.”

Fascinating. Seriously. He had met a fae once or twice, but he hadn’t spent too much time with them. “I tend to hang around shifters. Bears. Lions. Wolves. Beavers. Foxes. I even know a porcupine shifter…”

“Yes, but you’re not a porcupine shifter. I mean, you may have a little prick or two…”

“Be nice, Cullen. I am a shifter, obviously.”

Cullen snorted. “Bah. No more than I am. There’s a difference. They can pass no matter which form they’re in. We only pass if we’re in human form, and even then with some of us—” Cullen tilted his head toward Orion, eyes knowing. “—some of us have to use a little help even to do that.”

“Yes, I would have to say that you would be absolutely noticeable out and about.”

“Yeah. It’s true. Even in the circus.”

“Were you in the circus?” How fascinating was that?

Cullen nodded. “We traveled with the circus a few decades ago. That was back before cell phones and cameras on everything and people constantly trying to figure out how we did what we did. It really was entertaining—a lot of fun. But then the boss found us, and we had something else to do.”

A fission of jealousy shot through him. “The boss?”

“Yes, we have one, the three of us. He lives…elsewhere.”

“Like in another dimension?” Because he’d had a picture from Cullen of a land where it was winter right now, and where dragons flew free in the sky without worrying about being shot down. Fascinating.

Cullen shrugged, not answering, but that elaborately casual movement was an announcement in its own right, wasn’t it?

“Huh.” He pulled the pasta pot to the sink to fill it with the pull-down spout. He wouldn’t boil it yet, but he would get it on the stove. Then he would start on the accompaniments.

He’d totally make meatballs for the dragon if Cullen had the stuff.

ChapterFour

“Like I’d make you do that.” Cullen wasn’t an asshole. At least he wasn’t that big of an asshole. “You don’t ask vegetarians to make meat. That’s nasty. Even I know that.”

Why was he letting this man be in his kitchen to make meatballs?

He knew the answer to that.

Because he had this horrifying idea that if anyone had seen this gorgeous magical creature out there in the world, they would just kill it, or worse, take him somewhere and experiment with him.

Cullen saw movies; he had lots of movies. He knew what people did to things that were different because he was a thing that was different.

Poe had found them. Tanya had found them. A couple of others had found them. A frigging unicorn had found them.

They were going to have to stop going out front.

Maybe they could go only to get Amazon access. Maybe they should build a thing where the Amazon delivery guy could put the packages. The driver could just open it up from the outside, then they wouldn’t have to worry about it, and they could just get the things that they needed.

Like Doritos.

They ordered Doritos by the caseload.

There just wasn’t a good Lunastra answer to Doritos.

Goddess knew those little nacho cheese triangles were fucking addictive.

“All right, we don’t have to have meatballs. I was trying to be nice. Don’t you want me to be nice to you?” Orion asked.

“Absolutely.”