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“Stop it, you are not an ogre. Besides that, if you were an ogre, you’d still be cute.”

“Thanks. I think.” Cullen chuckled and leaned on Orion.

“Definitely thanks, because I mean it in the best way.” I think you’re the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.” Orion rubbed slow circles on his back.

“Do you? Will you think so even when I get all big and swollen?” He’d never thought Cosmo was ugly, but Cosmo sure had, so Cullen knew his time was coming.

“Baby, you’re carrying our kid. I can’t imagine anything being more stunning to me than you being big with her.” Orion stared into his eyes, that silver gaze so serious. “I love you. All of you. No matter what. And I know you would never screw me over, babe. Okay?”

“Okay.” He had to return the favor. “I know you didn’t hide the whole Glade from me on purpose, but please don’t not tell me things.”

“Fair enough.” They grinned at each other. “Are you hungry? Yarrow brought doughnuts.”

“What kind?”

“Uh, lemon, blueberry, and maple logs.”

“Should we eat his doughnuts?”

“Love, he’ll be hauling sticks into the springhouse for a week. I’ll toss food at him periodically.” Orion rose to go grab the doughnuts and some milk.

That was kind of wonderful, so Cullen let the rest go, and he laid in his lover’s arms and ate doughnuts.

* * *

Orion sighed,because Cullen had deserved better than to be forgotten. He’d just never taken anyone to the glade before who wasn’t—who wasn’t a rescue. And the last one he’d taken there had been a couple of centuries ago.

Orion waited until everyone was busy, though, Cullen watching Elliot, Hawk and Corbin in Lunastra for a guardian meeting or some shit.

Then he pulled off the pendant he wore on a cord around his neck and laid it on the table that Basil had brought into the bedroom. It was a lovely Regency piece he’d always adored. The table. Not the pendant.

That was old silver, a stylized wooden door like something out ofThe Hobbit, surrounded by trees, vines climbing around the edge.

He stared at it for a long moment. Then he knocked on it three times with the tip of his forefinger.

The whole world slowed down, even the dust motes no longer dancing. A bright light appeared, the shape of it like the doorway on the pendant. And then the door opened, letting him step through.

Into the Glade.

He took a deep breath and ducked in, knowing the pendant would hide itself until he came back. It had a built-in glamour that way so no one could steal it.

Orion stood just inside the glade for long moments, the scents of rich earth and sweet running water filling him as he breathed in and out. It had been a long time. A really long one. God, goddess, and their children…

“Orion.” The soft, melodious voice of a naiad reached him, and she rose out of the water on a little splash. “How good it is to see you.”

“Hello, Lania. How are you?”

“Well. Are you here to see your fathers?”

“If I am allowed.”

She tilted her head, her blue and white and gray hair sliding over one shoulder. “Why should you not?”

“You know how they are.”

His fathers weren’t mean, not under any circumstance, they just simply…had these incredibly complicated lives, which had absolutely nothing to do with him.

And he wasn’t one hundred percent sure that they remembered they had a child.