Page 78

Story: Cullen

“Then he belongs there.”

Cullen could see that. He got it. But it killed him to think of giving this baby over to someone else. This was his baby as much as the one growing in his belly.

He sniffed, hormones, making him so weepy. “Did it all go okay?”

“Yeah. Hawk melted them.”

“He is a little volcano-like. Lava is his thing.”

“I’ll keep that in mind. It could come in even more handy at some point.”

“I know!” Cullen laughed, taking the wee one to their side of the house with Orion following. He put the baby on the couch and covered him with a blanket, then hugged Orion tight. “Does he need milk?”

“I imagine that wouldn’t hurt.” Orion was giving him the weirdest look.

“Okay.” He went to the kitchen, the listlessness of the little pegasus worrying him. Vamps could drain the magic from so many creatures.

He wasn’t sure what he was going to do. He needed to get this baby milk, but he didn’t have a bottle. Like, not that kind of a bottle.

Damn it.

Cullen warmed up some milk with some sugar in it, as he tried to figure out what the best way to do this was. Horses didn’t belong in the house, he knew that. He also knew, in the pit of his stomach, that the baby in Orion’s arms was not a horse. He just had to figure out?—

Orion gasped. “Oh dear.”

Cullen came running, finding Orion holding a little beautiful perfect baby with skin dark as a raven’s wing.

“Huh.” That was new. “Oh! I do have bottles for this, thank goodness.”

Orion blinked at him. “We have a baby. With wings.”

“No parents, huh?”

Orion blinked at him. “Can you imagine? Full-sized winged horses not getting noticed? Here?”

The baby had wings.

Fascinating.

“Let me go get his bottle made up.”

Orion nodded. “Let’s get a diaper on him. Hopefully, he’ll be able to communicate enough to let us know his name or something. He’s very young though. I imagine that was why the fae was there—to make sure the baby got back somewhere safe.”

“Poor guy. Had he been bitten?” Was he infected?

Orion shrugged. “To be honest, I didn’t even get a look at him. Not really. He’d been beat half to death, I know that for sure. But I can tell you from what I know…”

Cullen stopped listening because he’d dealt with a lot of vampires. He knew a lot about them, but he didn’t have a huge desire to be ugly about this.

Not with that baby being hungry.

Orion was still sitting there when he got back, and he picked the baby up, put a bottle in its mouth, and started heading for where he’d stored the diapers. There had to be something that would work.

“What are you doing?”

“Feeding and diapering the baby. What are you doing?”

Orion shook his head, still on the sofa. “Hawk burned them all alive.”