Page 13

Chapter Thirteen

“O h my god. Oh my god. Oh my god, Oh my god.” Cullen looked at his brothers. “Do I look all right? I’m going to meet the parents I’ve never—I’ve never gone to meet the parents. I’ve never had parents to go and meet. Oh my god, how’s my hair?”

“You’ve watched way too much Real Housewives . You’re fine.” Corbin rolled his eyes. “Did you know that we had a beaver living in the spring house? He’s such a neat guy…”

“Don’t try to change the subject. You and I know that we have a beaver. We all know that Yarrow is in the spring house. Even Elliot has gone out to the spring house to say hello.”

Cosmo frowned at him. “He has?”

Oops. “Look, pay attention to me. I’m going to meet parents. Hello. How is the hair? Should I, like, glamour up?”

Corbin shrugged. “Does that work on unicorns?”

“I don’t know.” How was he supposed to know?

“It didn’t work with Orion, remember,” Corbin pointed, while Cosmo asked, “Are Orion’s parents unicorns?”

“How else are unicorns born?” That was just a stupid question. “You think there’s a horse and a-a-a uni?”

Cosmo tilted his head. “Maybe it’s a rhinoceros and a horse. That could make a unicorn.”

“Oh what about a narwhal and a horse? Much closer to unicorn.” Corbin was altogether too amused for his own good.

“You two are not helping!”

“No yell, Cunkle!” Elliot hollered.

“I’m not yelling!” Was he yelling?

“You’re so yelling,” Cosmo said.

“What in our long association with one another leads you to believe that we are ever helping?” Corbin had a point.

“All right, I’m going to go meet the parents. I hope you both get boils on your butts.”

“I hope you can keep all of your magic together long enough to not make an ass of yourself when you go and meet his parents,” Cosmo shot back.

“Oh, that’s just mean.”

“Meaner than butt boils?”

“Yes. I need them to like me.”

Cosmo looked him up and down. “I’m not sure that outfit is going to work. Let’s not wear white.”

“What?”

“Well, you’ve got on a white muumuu thing. You’re not pregnant enough to wear one of those muumuu things.”

His cheeks started to burn. “Well, no…”

“I mean, look at what you’re wearing. It’s almost like a nightgown. You look like an old romantic poet, as if you’re going to be wandering along the Moors. Put on some pants.” Cosmo nodded as if that was that. “And that green shirt, the really silky dark emerald one; it makes your skin look nice.”

“All right. I just have to find it…”

Cosmo rolled his eyes. “Never mind, I have that dark blue one he can wear right here. Take that thing off of him, Corbin.”

Cosmo went to the closet and Corbin grabbed his nightgown and started tearing it off.

Gods, this was embarrassing. “It’s not my fault that I was asleep when you all bothered me and asked me to come and visit.”

“You weren’t asleep, you were being lazy. Besides, this is ridiculous—it’s at least eighty-seven yards of lace.”

Cullen grinned at Corbin. “I know. I was honestly testing out what it would feel like to be pregnant and heavy, and so I was wandering around with loose clothes on and just seeing how it felt.”

It had been a silly bit of playacting, but he’d had fun with it, and it had made him feel closer to his little butterfly baby.

Corbin stared at him for a second, then he got a hug. “I would tell you that it was really weird and disturbing that you did that, but really? It actually sounds like a perfectly reasonable thing to do, or at least something that I would do.”

He leaned closer to his brother. “What if they don’t like me?”

“Fuck them.”

Elliot crowed for them.

He blinked at Corbin. “Brother!”

“I’m serious. If they don’t like you, we don’t have to see them. We will take Orion, we will make a family with him, and they can just fuck right off. You’re amazing. Not only that, but your brothers are amazing, so this family is amazing. And there’s going to be a baby, and if they’re not going to be nice, then they don’t get to be grandparents.”

“I can’t wait until you find a mate, and you say that to mom.”

Corbin grinned, and Cosmo chuckled. “He’s been practicing.”

“I bet.” Okay. He could do pants and a nice shirt. And once he was dressed and his hair brushed, he took a deep breath. I’m ready, love.

Okay. Meet me at that little Regency table Basil put up in our room.

I can do that. That seemed odd, but who was he to say? He headed to their room, and Corbin’s clothes felt kind of big, but he’d cope.

He saw Orion appear, seemingly out of thin air, and he blinked. “Hey.”

“Hello, love.” Orion chuckled. “The dads are impatient.” He held out a hand. “They reacted so much better than I feared. But then again, they told me I was just being a butthead and that I should have come home sooner.”

Cullen laughed. “Not butthurt, though?”

“No, baby. I’m so happy for you to meet them.” Orion kissed him. “Okay, are you ready?”

“I am.” Orion reached out and touched a piece of jewelry sitting on the table. One he hadn’t seen. Then a door appeared.

“Oh, wow. Look at that. Is this what you meant by you always have a door?”

“Yep. And it will cloak itself until we come back.”

“Neat! That’s handy. And it only works on the Glade?”

“As far as I know, yeah.”

“Huh.” He took Orion’s other hand, and they stepped through the door. “I’ll have to ask Mom if the Land of Summer has anything like that. Whoa.”

Cullen looked around as they walked into the Glade, and his first thought was that it smelled amazing. Not like flowers, like his mom’s place did. This was rich earth and verdant green plants and clear water. Corbin would plotz.

“This is beautiful, Orion.” It was sort of like…descriptions of paradise. No wonder Orion was a little butthurt about having to not live here. It was amazing.

“Yeah. Come on. I’ll take you to the?—”

“Is this him?” someone thundered.

“Yes, Father.” Orion winked at him as a large, dark man strode toward them, long, embroidered robes flapping around him.

“Well come, Cullen. I am Rigel. Come, I will take you to my mate.” The big guy smelled like the weather right before a storm, and Rigel latched onto his arm and they were off and running. Well, he was running. Rigel was marching.

“Father! That’s my pregnant mate you’re towing like an otter with a turtle on its tail!”

“Don’t you mean a beaver?” Cullen teased, already out of breath.

“Or something in the water.”

They trooped up a hill, along a stream, and as they came to the crest of the hill, he saw the house. All the air whooshed out of his lungs. “That’s where you grew up! Wow. Wow!”

“You like it.” That got Rigel to go from scowling to a slight smile.

“It’s gorgeous.” The place was both deceptively simple and like a palace. It was stunning.

“My mate is in back in the garden.”

“He’s like Corbin,” Orion teased. “He loves to dig.”

“He does,” Rigel agreed. “Who is Corbin?”

“My brother.” Cullen grinned. “He’s the gardener. Cosmo is the seer. I’m the illusionist.”

“Ah, no wonder you and my son are well-suited.”

“Cullen is amazing, Father. Though he has gone a bit haywire since he got pregnant.”

“Yeah, not going anywhere that I have to maintain the illusion for a goodly bit,” Cullen teased.

“Probably a good idea.”

They rounded the house, and he saw a much shorter, leaner man bent over, tilling a little with some kind of tool.

“Da! Come meet Cullen.”

“Ah!” The man straightened. “Hello, Cullen. I am Alnitak. Pleasure to meet you.” This one was all earth, from his deep green eyes to his loam-colored hair. He was lovely. And he was hugging Cullen hard. His hugs were like Mom’s. Magical.

Then he was spun into a hug like Dad’s. Bone crushing. “Welcome to our new son.”

Tears stung his eyes. “Thank you. I—” He looked at Orion, who winked and mouthed, Hormones .

He stuck out his tongue. “Come. I’ll make tea. I was going to for Orion, but then he told us about you, and we made him go get you.” Alnitak moved close and put a hand on his belly. “Hello, butterfly!”

“That’s what I think of her as.” He was doomed to be a watering pot this whole meeting, he could tell.

Before he could blink away the tears, a host of little lights that sounded like hummingbirds surrounded them. “Baby?” he heard tiny, high-pitched voices asking. “Orion’s baby?”

Cullen nodded, offering the little fluttering lights a smile. Of course, a rush of butterflies in every color of the rainbow began to flutter around them, the magic refusing to be held back, even a bit.

Orion came to him, holding him easily. “Yes, lovelies. This is my mate. He’s having our child. A new baby.”

“Finally!” One of them came right up to Orion and popped him on the nose, even as the others explored him, tugging at his hand and clothes, the touches of light hot and a bit shocking.

“Be nice, dears. Cullen has come a long way.” Alnitak waved his hand gently, dislodging them, before wrapping one hand around Cullen. “Tea and cakes, I think. There hasn’t been a dragon here in a millennium.”

“So long?” Orion teased his father.

“Maybe longer.” Alnitak shot back, and Orion’s laughter filled the air.

Rigel watched him, eyes so stormy, so serious. “And your other people—the Ildathach?”

He nodded, smiled. He hadn’t used that term in a while. “My mother is Calla of the Flower Mound.”

“Then she would fall right in with my mate, eh?” When Rigel looked at Alnitak, the love there humbled him, made him happy. That was what he wanted for him and Orion in however many years. He already had all these feelings for his unicorn that he could never put into words.

Just think how he would feel after having children and spending decades together.

“I like how you look at him,” Alnitak murmured to him. “You are fully invested in this, dragon-fae.”

“I—yeah, I guess I am. I want to keep him safe. I want to be with him.”

Rigel shook his head. “Protect him?”

“Of course!” Cullen blinked over them, shaking his head. “Orion’s magical. I can’t bear the thought of someone hurting him! I love him, and I won’t allow anyone to hurt him, ever.”

Alnitak came to him, hugged him again. “You are amazing, sweet dragon-fae.”

“He’s a guardian. He protects the Land of Summer and the dragon world.” Orion sounded so very pleased, so proud. “Him and his brothers.”

A cup of tea was offered to him, the cup paper thin and delicate, the most delicate robin’s egg blue with a bright yellow foot and handle. It was amazing.

The tea itself was deep, dark and rich, and it smelled like the earth and growing.

He drank deep, and he swore, for half of a heartbeat, he could hear their baby girl laughing. “Oh!”

Orion smiled at him. “Are you well, mate?”

“More than. I heard her. I honestly heard her laugh, and it was perfect. She is going to be amazing.”

The smile widened. “I can’t wait until I can hear her,” Orion said.

“It won’t be long,” Alnitak said. “She is a bright butterfly soul.”

“She is.” Cullen put a hand on his belly, feeling at one with this stunning space.

“I like you.”

“Thank you, Alnitak.”

“Oh, you must call me Da. And you are welcome to all Rigel Father.”

“I call my father Dad, so that’s wonderful if no one objects.”

“Not at all,” Rigel told him. “I am honored.” And he stuffed a whole small cake into his mouth.

He’s adorable. Seriously. So sweet.

Not as much as your father, who has clueless down to a fine art … Orion pointed out.

Noted. Cullen nodded and sat when Da motioned to the chair. “Is this where you grew up, mate?”

“I did. I loved it here.”

“Why did you leave?” How could anyone leave this magical place?

“I didn’t have a place here.” Oh, there was something cold and miserable in those words, and Cullen hated to hear it.

“Oh.” Oh, love. I’m sorry. Do you want to go? I will totally go with you, right now .

“That’s not true. You always have a place here, hios.” Alnitak’s eyes were wide.

“You sent me away.”

“We had to. There were children that needed rescue, and you were the one best suited for it. You were our guardian. We needed your help.”

“And I needed to come home, Father. I needed your help, your support, your love, and you just…” Left me in the wind out there, alone in the human world. It was wrong.

Rigel’s face seemed to crumple. And Cullen couldn’t blame him if he’d heard what Cullen had heard.

“Oh. My son. I am so sorry. I thought you liked the human world. You always seemed so fascinated by them.”

“I was! But I would happily have gone and done rescues and then come home to stay.” Orion looked at Cullen. “But I did finally find you, and I will never regret that.”

“And I can’t imagine my life without you, Orion, so we’re equal.” He reached out for his mate and squeezed his hand.

Rigel hummed deep in his chest, the sound almost pained. “You are welcome here. Here, or you and your mate can build a home of your own here. Whichever you’d like.”

“We can’t leave my brothers or my post. It’s my job, you know, to protect the different realms. We have to make sure that any dragons left behind get to go home.”

“Are you the only portal?” Da asked, and Cullen shrugged.

“We don’t know. If we’re not, then there’s a reason no one is sharing where the others are…”

“I suppose that is true.” Da smiled gently. “Know that we love you, Orion, and that you and your mate are always welcome here.” His eyes scrunched as if he might cry. “I did not know we were keeping you away so badly. At some time, I will ask your forgiveness, but now I will only apologize.”

Father Rigel just stuffed another cake in his mouth.

Parents. They were all the same.

Don’t you know it? “Would you like to see the room I grew up in?”

“Of course I would!” He was so curious to know where Orion had formed himself, where Orion had been a little unicorn.

Orion cracked up, shaking his head and holding out his hand. It was a little weird, that Orion had faith his rooms were still there, still as he’d left them.

Of course they are. I locked the door. They can’t get in.

Orion! That’s devious. And sort of wonderful.

The doorway was at the very top of a tower, the door glowing around the edges with a white light that seemed to pulse. Orion held his hand and simply walked through.

“That’s a really neat trick.”

“Yeah. It’s my own invention.”

Cullen looked about, and he saw a gorgeous mural covering the walls, reminiscent of something in an old Tuscan villa, but it had unicorns and pixies and plants Cullen had never seen before.

There was a bed big enough for an actual horse, and a little table that held what looked like a sundial, and tons of other knickknacks and books. The books all looked to be hand-written, or illuminated, he thought it was called. And they were gorgeous.

“These are wild.”

“This one is fairy tales,” Orion said, handing him a heavy leather-bound volume. “We should take it for our butterfly.”

“Oh, but we’ll bring her here, right?” Cullen asked. He couldn’t imagine not coming back.

“We will. I’ll come far more often now. I’ve just been…bitter. I hate that. I’m a unicorn. I’m about love.”

“The magic is thin in the human world, love. They forget about it. It starts to hurt after a while.” Cullen went to sit on the bed, and he patted it to let Orion sit next to him. “Have I ever told you about Hawk?”

“I’ve met him, love.” Orion gave him a quizzical look but came to sit.

“I know, dork. Anyway, we think he was born in the dragonlands and then went to the human world somehow.”

“You think?”

“He’s a little vague on his origins, but that’s the thought.” Cullen sighed, his heart aching for people who couldn’t remember how to be magical. “He lived among humans for a long, long time, and it made him a little nuts.”

“Yeah?” Orion leaned against him.

“Yeah. He slept for hundreds of years at a time and would forget so many things. Like whole swaths of memories.”

“Damn.” Orion rubbed his leg, comforting him. Him! And he wasn’t the one having bad memories.

“Anyway, I just wanted you to know you aren’t the only one.”

“That’s both sad and reassuring. I’ll have to talk to him about it.”

“You will. He’s very open.”

“Thank you, love. I hate to feel…ungrateful. I know my fathers love me. But I just wish I had talked to them sooner, I suppose.”

Cullen snorted. “The brothers and I have a pact not to let anything simmer more than one day. With all of us so close together, it could get really hinky, real fast.”

“Oh, goddess. I join that pact. I don’t want anything to stretch out with you or the family.”

“Good.” Cullen kissed his shoulder. “I like your dads, but you have to remember they live here. They haven’t ever been over there, have they?”

Orion pondered that. “No. No, they haven’t.”

“This is a rarefied world. They all are, in their own ways, yeah? They all have their light and their dark, but the humans? They lose their magic. It grows and then it ebbs. I don’t think anybody knows why.” Cullen shrugged. “Maybe it’s greed? Maybe envy? Maybe it’s just simply that they end up hating each other, and the magic can’t hold. I don’t know; I’m just a dragon. There’s horrific stuff everywhere. It just doesn’t seem to get fed as easily in the other realms. The humans feed it. I don’t have a good reason why. I wish I did.”

Orion nodded, chewed his bottom lip as he thought. “You and me both. The fact is, you’re welcome here and I’m…well, I guess I am too.”

Cullen liked that thought. He thought it was…hopeful. “I like your room. It’s pretty and it feels comfortable.”

“I grew up here. I’m sure if you looked hard enough, there’s a journal filled with terrible teenaged angsty poems about how my horn was never going to be as long, and my mane was never going to flow as easily.”

“Oh wow. Wow, man, that’s impressive.”

Orion blinked at him. “You don’t have one?”

He snorted, unable to stop his eyes from rolling. “Are you kidding? I have two brothers, one of whom is a seer. If there had been a journal of bad poetry? Trust me. They would right now be wallpapering the house with it, so that we could all see it, every day, forever.”

“Oh, you have a point.” Orion grinned at him. “At least you knew you were never alone, right?”

“Not even so much as a second. Privacy was not one of those things that we had, but you’re right, we had each other. That’s more than a lot of people have.” And he loved his brothers fiercely, just as they loved him.

“They’re good eggs.”

“Bawk bawk. I guess we should go back down?”

“Yeah. I bet my da has worked up a real batch of worry by now. Thinking I hate him. He’s the sensitive soul.”

“Sure. I got to say, Rigel is kind of intimidating in that god-of-thunder kind of way.”

“Oh, goddess, he was never one to let things go. Always thundering, for sure.”

Cullen stood and pulled him to his feet. “But he loves you. I can feel it in the stones here. In the air.”

Orion grinned at him. “Yeah, I can feel it. Come on, let’s go down. Let Da feed us. Then I’ll take you and introduce you to some of my friends.”

He let his eyes go wide. “You have friends? Are you sure?”

“Don’t make me hurt you.” Orion’s smile was wicked. “You’re pregnant and that would probably be looked down upon.”

“Yeah, I would probably let Corbin kill you.” Although, really? Cosmo was the hormonal one. Like seriously. “Come on, let’s go. I could totally spend the night here though. This room is stunning.”

“I used to lay in here and dream about meeting someone like you, you know? When I was here feeling so alone and so distant from the universe, I’d mope and dream about finding a mate and being madly in love.”

“How does it compare? I mean the reality to the imagination.” It took way more courage than he had anticipated to ask that question.

“The reality is nothing like I imagined.” Orion shrugged and leaned in, rubbing their noses together, a spark of magic passing between them. “This is so much more real than I had imagined. What I had fantasized was just a dream.”

Okay. Well, maybe he wouldn’t kill Orion because that was really sweet.

In fact, little pink hearts were floating up and exploding all around them in a wave of joy.

He stood up and rubbed his belly. “Come on, let’s feed this butterfly before she starts complaining.”

“Complaining? Our little girl? Surely you jest…” Orion took the book of fairy tales under his arm. “I’m going to take this home with us. This one can be hers.”

“She’ll love it, I’m sure.” He hooked their arms together, both of them heading out the door. He couldn’t wait to see what Orion’s fathers would invent for a meal. Corbin and Cosmo would be so jealous.

They loved food. All of them did. They had to keep the magic flowing, and that took a lot of energy. Hell, all the dragons in Lunastra had that in common. His mom ate like a bird and sipped a lot of flower tea, though…

“There you are!” Da greeted them when they came back down. “I have buns and cakes and little sandwiches.”

“Oh, that looks so charming.” Cullen beamed. “It’s so pretty. It’s like tea in Britain?”

“What are your favorite things? Have you started having cravings?” Da’s eyes were warm, curious, but not mean.

“Not really. Everything—literally everything—has been about the magic. It’s just—I’m not very good at keeping it under control. My mom helped, but it’s still hard.”

“Well. I’ll help as well. Have a cookie.”

Da twisted his hand, and suddenly there was a cookie. Not an illusory cookie, but a real cookie.

“It’s okay?” he whispered to Orion.

“It’ll be fine. Da’s cookies are legendary.” Orion said. Kind of literally.

“This is very Alice of Wonderland .” But he took the cookie, and he ate it. It tingled all through him, and he swayed for a second. “Whoa.”

“When the magic starts becoming problematic again, just come have a cookie,” Father said in his deep rumble of a voice. “We’ll visit for a while, and we’ll help settle it. You’re not used to glade energy inside you, but you will become that way.”

Cullen concentrated, built a flower and handed it over, so tickled to have things work again.

When Da took the white rose, it became bright blue and then pink before settling into a deep purple. “Thank you, dear. Now let’s have lunch. No one can do anything on an empty stomach.”