Page 18

Chapter Eighteen

C ullen looked at Corbin, who sat next to the bed holding the big fae man. He was so pale. Almost translucent, and his breathing was incredibly shallow. Dark, bruised-looking veins stood out under his skin, and he was tied to the bed with vines that had sprouted up magically out of the floor and surrounded the guy.

“What happened?”

“He tried to eat me,” Corbin said.

“What? Why didn’t you call for us?”

Corbin raised an eyebrow at him. “Hey, my preggers bro and my only recently no longer preggers bro! Come help me with this fae guy who’s turning into a vamp.”

“So he was bitten.” Orion moved forward to peer at the guy.

“Be careful, Orion,” Corbin said. “I wasn’t joking. He really did try to bite me. Thankfully right now, he’s super weak, but…”

“Look, the dads say he has maybe a day. Maybe two.”

Corbin scowled. “No. No, we’re going to figure out how to help him.”

Cullen moved up just enough to grab Orion’s shirt as he leaned over the guy and pull him back. “Sure. We’ll start research right away. And get Hawk to come help you watch him.”

“No.” Corbin bared his teeth. “I can do it. You just figure out how to cure him.”

“Can I talk to you a minute?” Orion asked, pulling Cullen aside.

“What?” He glanced at Corbin, who was totally acting weird. “You don’t think Corbin got bit, do you?”

“Huh?” Orion tilted his head. “No. Why?”

“He’s just acting really odd.”

“Yeah. I know.” Orion sighed. “The dads don’t seem to think he can be cured.”

“What?” Now it was his turn to stare. “There has to be a way.”

“Well, I’m totally willing to look for it, but I thought I would tell you what they intimated.”

Corbin was looking down at the fae guy with this weird expression, and Cullen felt magic move in the room.

“Okay. But they deal in theoreticals, right?”

“Sure, but they’re pretty, uh, realistic about vampires.”

Cullen grinned. “You mean they told you I was right?”

“That too.” Orion chuckled, and Corbin rounded on them.

“If all you can do is laugh, you can leave.”

They exchanged a glance, and he poked at Corbin with his mind. Did he bite you?

“Don’t be ridiculous. Of course he didn’t bite me.” Corbin rolled his eyes. “He tried really hard. His teeth aren’t sharp, though, so that made it a little weird. It was sort of like watching a rampaging cow, but a pretty one.”

Cullen stared at his brother. “Are you sure you didn’t get bit? Maybe you have mad pretty cow disease.”

That earned him a glare. “Not funny, and we have to fix him.”

He winced, because the chance that they were going to have to kill the fae was huge. “Corbin, you know that?—”

“No, you have to fix him. We have to fix him.” There was a hint of panic in Corbin’s eyes, the green almost neon.

“We can’t let the family get infected?—”

“So let’s fix him!”

Cullen shrugged and glanced at Orion. “Corbin hasn’t been bitten.”

But that didn’t mean that this poor creature was not going to have to die if he threatened the children or his parents or the whole entire fae land. The good of the many—it was a thing.

Orion sighed softly. “Can you two think of anything? Do you have any kind of idea about what we could possibly do?”

He shrugged, racking his brain—not that he was a scholar or an herbalist or anything. “Do you mean like is there a vaccine?”

Orion shook his head. “Maybe an antidote?”

“Well, I don’t know. What’s the opposite of vampire.” Corbin never looked away from the fae tied there on the bed again. “I mean. Give me something that’s practical. We say, oh, they’re bad. Well, we’re relatively good, and you know, we can be vampires. They feed off children. That makes them evil. We rescue the children. That makes us good. I don’t know. How much do you get fed from even to be turned? Do you have to get emptied? And then the virus or bacteria or whatever vampirism is infects you as your blood starts to make itself again?”

Cullen glanced at Orion, whose eyes were wide.

“I don’t even know if that makes sense,” Corbin said.

“Yeah, me either.” Orion sat on the end of the bed while Cullen took the one wing-backed chair. “Okay, so if it’s not an herb, if we can’t mush up mugwort or something and pour it up his nose and fix him, What if it’s magical?”

He tilted his head. “Some sort of weird-assed magic?” That he did know about. “Well, I could try to blast him with all of my drippy hearts.”

“Not helpful,” Corbin snapped, while Orion followed up with?—

“Don’t get close enough to him to blast him with anything. Last thing we need is a vampire-dragon-fae and a vampire-dragon-fae-unicorn baby?—”

“Aren’t babies kind of vampires by definition?” he asked.

“Shut up, Cull!”

Cullen was developing one hell of a Corbin-sized headache.

Really, all he wanted to do was go see the new baby and hold him, ask him his name. He wanted to enjoy being pregnant. Enjoy being freshly mated. He did not want to have to deal with this shit, and he wasn’t sure why this was happening right now.

Cullen was starting to feel a little cursed, and he was beginning to feel a wee bit grumpy about it.

“You’re pouting, your bottom lip is sticking out. It’s really cute.” Orion tried to smile for him.

He scowled. “I will kill you.”

“Right, not cute. You are the least cute omega ever.”

Corbin threw a glass of water against the wall, shattering it. “If you two do not stop being funny and adorable, I’m going to murder you both.”

That would be adorbs as hell if it wasn’t terrifying.

“You can just go away,” Corbin snapped.

Orion shook his head. “We’re not leaving you here with the bloodsucker.”

“You don’t have a choice. This is my house!”

Was Corbin yelling at them? For being decent?

He blinked at Corbin and then screamed, “Your house? This is our house, and it always will be! There is no you without me and vice versa!”

Don’t forget to add Cosmo in. Orion stood, staring at Corbin. His feelings will get hurt.

“And the only reason Cosmo is not in here yelling is because he is with the children!”

“Oh, I’m here.”

I thought you were watching the babies.

Hawk is watching the babies. You needed my support, Cull.

All right, that works. “So Cosmo is here too. You want to yell at him? You could yell at both of us, and let’s see what happens!”

“Stop screaming at me!” Corbin did round on them now, pointing at Cullen. “I’m doing the best I can.”

“I know. I do.” He held out a hand to his brother, but that was when his eyes widened in horror. The vines holding the fae man to the bed had shriveled to dried husks, and the fae rose up, grabbing Orion and yanking him up against him to bite deep into Orion’s neck.

“No!” He leaped forward to rip the guy away, Corbin and Cosmo both shouting and moving to help.

But it was too late. Even as they pulled the fae man free, he could see the great, bloody wound on Orion’s neck.

* * *

Orion flailed, trying to push the fae off of him, but his strength was unreal for someone who was so skinny and pale.

The bite felt agonizing, and he shouted, the sound coming out of him something like, “Annnnnngggghhhhh.”

“Orion!” Cullen let Corbin and Cosmo wrestle the guy away from him, then grabbed him and yanked him off the bed to tug him toward the door. “No! No, no, no, no. No, you can’t be bitten.”

“Well, I think I am, baby. I mean, those were not cow teeth. They were pretty sharp.”

“Oh, goddess. Oh no.” That was Corbin, who had subdued the man again, this time with sheets ripped up and wrapped around him like a mummy. “Orion. Oh, fuck.”

Orion put a hand to his neck. The flow of blood was slowing, his natural healing taking over. This hadn’t been a catastrophic wound. Those took way longer. The only thing that could kill him, though, was taking his horn.

Now, there were ways to keep living that were no fun, but?—

“Orion, come back to our part of the house. I need to take care of you. Hawk still has the baby, so?—”

“It’s okay. Look, it’s closing up.” He wiped more blood away, knowing Cullen would see what he felt.

“Holy shit,” Cosmo said. “That’s some accelerated healing.”

“Yeah. Part and parcel of the whole unicorn gig.” He winked at Cosmo, then wrapped an arm around Cullen. “Just a sec, huh?”

“What—”

He let Cullen go for just a moment, then moved to Corbin to put a hand on his shoulder. “I’m okay. It’s okay, Corbin. But obviously he has some sort of plant affinity like you do, so keep him tied up with actual rope, huh?”

“We should just kill him,” Cullen spat.

“No!” Corbin almost sobbed. “Not yet. Please. We have to try.”

“If he infected my mate…”

Orion went back to Cullen, taking him in his arms. “Not infected. See how his wound never closed up? The one on his neck? Mine already is. Ta-da.” Orion showed off his throat. “Corbin. Be careful. We’ll come back once I get cleaned up.”

“I’ll stay with him,” Cosmo said, eyes wide, his lips quivering a little.

“Okay. Seriously. We’ll be back.”

“No, we will not.” Cullen dragged him out of the room, then out of Corbin’s part of the house. “Orion.”

“Stop.” He wrangled Cullen into their main room, then took his shoulders in hand to kiss him. “I’m fine. I mean, that hurt like the very devil, and I hate being all bloody, but?—”

“Did you know your blood is kind of…golden?”

“Huh?” He blinked, then grinned. “Oh. Yeah. I’m like a golden delicious.”

Cullen slapped his chest. “Not funny! What if you die!”

“From what? The wound is gone.” He wasn’t being deliberately dense. He just didn’t get it.

“But you got bit! What if he infected you?”

“Oh, love.” He hugged Cullen close. “He didn’t. I would know.”

“How? It can take a few days. Didn’t your dads say that?”

He frowned. “No, they said we only had a few days at most with this guy. Can we take a shower?”

Cullen burst into tears. “I’m so mad.”

“I’m sorry, honey. I am. I’m not trying to be a?—”

“Not at you. At everything. I just want to be with you and the baby and be pregnant and not be scared that you’re turning into a zombie!”

“Technically, a vampire.”

“No, people who are like, only half turned become zombies or something. I read it in a book.”

“Hmm.” He thought he knew what book that was, and it wasn’t exactly a history of real vamps. “I’m fine, love. Really. Just bloody and full of adrenaline.”

Cullen stared at him. “This has been the longest day in the history of days, and there has been a long goddamn history of days, and I do not want to do this anymore !” He crossed his arms over his chest and glared. “You went out without me for the first time. My brother went out on the job without me for the very first time. Ever. You brought home a fae vampire Pomeranian and a baby with wings, who is hanging out with Hawk, but he should be hanging out with us. And now you’ve gotten bitten! I’ve fought with my brothers. I think that maybe Corbin has lost his goddamn mind. I found out that I am mated to a man with gold blood!”

Orion opened then closed his mouth and shook his head, and Cullen stuck his finger right in his chest.

Not literally.

“You know, we had our first real fight, and you walked out on me, and I don’t feel like that has been effectively resolved. First, you ran off to your parents to complain about me? That’s not fair! They haven’t even gotten to know me yet! Now they’ll think I’m a harridan. You got all pissed at me because I killed vampires. See why I kill vampires? Did you notice how you got bit in the neck? Did you see the teeth marks on that baby? Somewhere, that baby has parents, and I don’t know how to find them! We don’t even know his name. And they didn’t care. They just eat. And eat. And eat !”

Orion listened, allowing Cullen to vent his spleen. They would talk afterward; he had no doubt. They could talk about things like how that baby’s parents weren’t alive because there was no way anyone would steal a baby like that and leave the parents alive. Then they would talk about how somebody—most likely the baby himself—would tell them the baby’s name.

He would tell Cullen that he understood, and that he was sorry.

And that he was okay.

But first, he was going to have to let the screaming just happen.

Of course, the most important thing was not to smile, because Cullen’s screaming was accompanied by balloons.

Hundreds of them.

Some with skulls, some with unicorns. Some with baby pegasuses. Pegasi?

It was adorable, but he was not going to smile, because that would get his ass kicked, and he would by definition have to let the pregnant guy kick his ass. Because otherwise, Hawk and the other brothers would kick his ass. Possibly his dad would…

“—pregnant with your baby and it would kill me to lose you. I just found you.”

Oh, that was the end of the storm. So Orion felt like it would be reasonable to draw Cullen in and hug him tight.

“I hear you.”

“Do you?” Cullen sniffled, and he nuzzled one of Cullen’s temples. “For real?”

“I swear to you on my horn.” He needed his pregnant mate to be about to relax. Seriously. “Let’s shower, get cleaned up, and then we’ll go see the baby. He’ll be hungry again by then.”

“Okay. But if you turn into a vampire, I’m going to be really mad.”

He wanted to note that he wasn’t turning into a vampire. He didn’t feel any different than he had any other day. Maybe a little tired.

And hungry.

There hadn’t been enough food, like real food, and he wasn’t hungry.

Not in an oh my god, I just got turned into a vampire so I have to go eat the universe kind of hungry. This was more hmm, I could murder a fried tofu sandwich with lettuce and tomato kind of hunger. Actually, that sounded super, super good. “You know what I want?”

“The blood of the innocent and your enemy’s head on a pike?”

“No… I was thinking a fried tofu sandwich with lettuce and tomato, possibly with a little mayo on brioche.”

Cullen grinned at him. “I’m fairly sure no vampire in the history of vampires has ever said fried tofu sandwich.”

“Good, because I’m not a vampire and I do really want one. That sounds—oh…or we could get falafel wraps?”

Cullen rubbed his belly. “That sounds really good. And actually doable without cooking. Falafel and feta with maybe some fries.”

Orion beamed. Bingo. “We’ll just get him to leave it at the door. Let me get a big thing of hummus for later.”

It wasn’t fried tofu, but it was crunchy and it had sambal.

Unless… “Someone does deliver, right?”

“Yeah. One of the Mexican places in town has a cook from Israel. He makes amazing falafel. He’ll do it for the delivery fee.”

“Ah, small towns.” He grinned, and kissed Cullen lightly. “We’ll talk out the rest. But first, you order food, and I’ll get the shower going.”

“Okay.” Cullen stared at him a moment. “You promise you’re not infected?”

“I promise, my love.”

“Okay.” Clearly trying to trust, Cullen went to grab his phone to order food.

Orion went to start the water, feeling sticky and a little worn out from all the adrenaline leaving him.

Food. Baby. Nap, all of them together.

And then they would figure out what to do with the vampy fae.