Page 2

“Who does?” Still, Yarrow had a point. He might have to go and look this whole thing over. Just to be on the safe side. He had a few more tricks up his sleeve than a beaver shifter, even one as resourceful as Yarrow.

If there were vampires in the area, they needed to be removed. Period.

“So, will you look into it?” Yarrow asked. “It would ease my mind. It’s still my family territory. I have to be able to get up there and build dams.”

“We can’t have anything interfering with that.” He winked, then polished off his toast. Did he need a cinnamon roll?

Yarrow snarfed down his last bite of avo toast. “Want to split a big side of hash browns and some churro waffles?”

“Goddess yes.” Being a vegetarian and a magical creature simultaneously was tough. It took a lot of energy to maintain the glamour he had to put on to look human, even in a human form. If he didn’t put on gray hair and gray eyes, then he had silvery hair and eyes and iridescent skin.

That could be a little off-putting to humans. And get a guy caged to be studied…

They polished off two more plates of food, and he raised an eyebrow at Yarrow. “I’ll meet you here in say, three days? Same time? I’ll make my report.”

“Sounds good.” They both left money on the table. Magical guys like them tended to go off the grid, especially when traveling all the time like him and Yarrow did. “I’ll look forward to it.”

“In the meantime, be careful,” Orion admonished.

“I will.” Yarrow clicked his teeth and headed off. He could almost see that big paddle of a tail in the shadow Yarrow cast. Someone really needed to get his beave on.

Orion hit the little local department store to outfit himself for camping for three or four days, then grabbed some groceries before heading up the mountain toward Wolf Creek Pass.

He didn’t want to have to deal with any magical fucking weirdness.

Hopefully, this was all just because Yarrow had gotten into some wormy wood and was having hallucinations.

A guy never knew with a beaver, did they?

ChapterTwo

“Do it again. Do it again.” Little Elliot clapped his hands, chanting, “Do it again, do it again.”

“Your wish is, as always, my command.” Cullen gathered up his magic, opened his arms, and butterflies flew everywhere, dropping flower petals with every flap of their wings, and every time the baby reached for a flower petal, it exploded in a flurry of sparks.

Elliot ran around the room, clapping and exploding butterfly wing petals, laughing like the world was the best place ever.

Heavens above, wasn’t that an endorphin rush?

Cullen loved this little boy more than life itself, not just because he was amazing or because he was his nephew and his godson, but because nobody thought he was cooler. The other dragon kids, sure, they all thought he was neat, but they were so involved with being all weird and magical in a new universe kind of way, and he needed someone who thought he was the best.

“Luff Conkle.”

“Oh, I love you too, little boy. My Elliot Bo-belliot. My sparkly little beast of joy. My?—”

“Cullen, you are making a racket.” Cosmo looked like hammered poo.

“You asked me to babysit. You’re the one having morning sickness. You need to leave me alone. I’m playing with my godson.”

“I’m pretty sure he’s my godson.”

He whipped around and stared at Corbin with a grin. “Is not.”

“Is too.”

“Not not. Not notty, not not not.” He snapped his fingers, and the rainbow-colored wind swirled around little Elliot and plopped him back down in front of him from where he’d tried to sneak off. “I was asked to babysit. I’m not playing. If you all don’t like it, then shoo. Shoo, shoo, shoo.”

Elliot climbed up into his arms and perched on his shoulder like the cute, creepy little dragon he was. “Mine Cuncle.”