Chapter 21

Chapter

Twenty-One

H awk sanded down the cradle rails, then wiped them with a damp cloth to bring up the grain of the wood. The cradle, which he vaguely remembered being in his attic, had appeared not long ago in one of the rooms that had come to be in the center of the house. One of Cosmo's comfy rooms, he called them. The medieval-era piece had a lovely hood of carved wood, with panels set into the sides that had once had paintings of a dragon fairy tale.

Hawk thought he could recreate them with a little practice and care.

"What's all this?"

Hawk smiled over his shoulder at Cullen, who walked into the room carrying two steaming mugs of tea.

"A cradle for the little one."

"Oh cool, can I see?" Cullen handed him a mug of tea and kneeled down to look. "Oh, that's cool. Was it yours? Do you remember?"

"I remember having this. I don't remember being in it, of course. Do you think that these cartoons were fairy tales?"

Cullen peered into the wood. "Oh, totally. You want some help painting it?" He held up one hand. "I mean, if this is like a dad thing, I don't have to help. I just sort of thought I'd ask 'cause it sounds like fun and we could hang out."

"I think that would be lovely. Thank you so much for the tea."

"You're totally welcome." Cullen crossed his legs and sipped. "Yeah, see. You can see the golden egg in this one."

"I would like to leave as much of the original painting there as we can and just fill in."

"I love that." Cullen grinned at him. "So we need to either figure out the fairy tale or make it up."

Hawk closed his eyes. "I can remember…"

"Remember?"

"My mothers singing to me about a dragon and a golden egg. It was stolen."

"Dude, you're not serious. Did the golden dragon go and eat whoever stole it and crunch their bones? Because that's what I would do. I would crunch bones—munch, munch, munch!"

Hawk wasn't sure that Cullen was actually bone-crunching material, but he let it go. "Let me see if I can remember." He tapped his temple with one finger. "How did it start?"

"Once upon a time."

"What?" He didn't follow.

"It's a fairy tale. Fairy stories start with Once Upon a Time. Everybody knows that."

"Okay." Hawk laughed and shook his head. "So, once upon a time, there was a beautiful omega who lived in a tower, and the alpha came to woo her."

"Ooh, I like wooing. I like making with the woo. Don't stop." Cosmo came in, belly tight and round, a tomato sandwich in one hand and a cup of tea in the other.

"Right. Greetings, mate. Do you need a blanket?"

"There's one here on the back of the chair. Continue with the story, please. Wooing. You were at the wooing part."

"Is there going to be a lot of kissing?" The third of the triplets was heard from. Corbin wandered in with a sack full of willow branches for the basket he was weaving.

"Well, this is a children's fairy story, so the kissing will be limited at best. Are we all here now?"

"Yes, I brought cookies," Corbin said.

"So, you can totally stay," Cullen told his brother. "All right. Alpha dragon wooing omega in a tower? Go."

Hawk chuckled, settling in, his hand on the cradle, which was telling him the tale, he thought. "He brought her a fine casket of jewels. Some of the rarest fruits in the land. A stack of the most coveted books. But none of this pleased her. ‘Bring me a golden egg,' she told him, ‘and I will consider your suit.'"

"Attagirl. Make him work for it." Corbin muttered around a bite of his cookie. "You're going to end up fat and pregnant."

Cosmo put a hand on his belly. "Hey!"

"He's not at all fat." Hawk winked at Cosmo. "Shall I go on?"

"Please, mate." Cosmo licked tomato juice off his fingers.

"He adored her more than anything on earth or beyond, so he searched the world for the mythical golden dragon eggs, which?—"

"Dragons don't lay eggs," Cullen pointed out. "Do you think they used to, back in the olden days."

"I think it's because people associated dragons with snakes and lizards, so they thought we laid eggs." Corbin handed him a cookie to dunk in his tea.

It really was like having a trio of eager students at lessons.

He'd been a tutor once…

"Which had been fashioned by an ancient dragon during the classical era. There were four of them, and by all accounts, they had been taken to the four corners of the earth."

"Which is a sphere." Cosmo took a cookie.

"I think the point of this whole thing is that the alpha was just desperate to make this omega happy," Corbin pointed out. "It's all smoke and mirrors. Like she's asking how much will you do for me?"

"Does that make the omega a bitch?" Cosmo pondered.

Corbin shrugged. "Possibly, but you know he is asking her to get knocked up and carry a baby. He has to prove that he can provide, right? I mean, this is the olden days. Omegas were much less expected to be providers of their own, like for instance—us. We rescued people from being kidnapped and from vampires. We were fierce."

"What? What is this ‘were' thing?" Cosmo pointed out. "Just because I'm pregnant doesn't mean I'm not fierce. I will eat your face. Someone tries to come in here that doesn't belong? Grr."

Hawk was not going to laugh because that would mean he wouldn't be allowed in the bed for at least a week.

And part of him did realize that Cosmo was fierce and had been this great warrior and was a guardian now.

But a huge part of him just saw his sweet, sexy pink, loving omega who was eating a cookie.

With his tomato sandwich.

Which was nasty.

Gooey and wet with white bread and mayonnaise.

Cosmo knew. Hawk could see the laughter in his eyes.

"At any rate, the alpha despaired that he would never find one of these great eggs, though he set off in search of the one told to be closest to his home."

"No traveling to distant lands for this guy."

"Oh, I think he did go." Cullen pointed at one of the cartoons carved into the cradle.

"He did. He traveled for years, chasing tales of the eggs from land to land, all the while sending letters to his omega love in her tower."

Cosmo frowned deep enough his forehead wrinkled. "I would think that she would want him rather than his letters. If you want letters and gold instead of your mate, that's not love."

"Maybe love was different then," Corbin pondered. "There were a lot more knights and plagues and things."

"Still, I would rather have Hawk than his letters. That's awful."

"Well, it's a fairy tale," Cullen said. "That means we're supposed to be learning something. There's supposed to be some kind of moral. What's the moral to the story?"

Corbin rolled his eyes. "We haven't heard the whole story. How the hell do we know? And why does there have to be a moral?"

"Because that's what these stories are for," Cosmo pointed out. "I mean, they're supposed to teach little dragons things."

"Like omegas are big dicks who want big eggs?"

Cosmo's grin went wicked as hell. "I like big dicks. I cannot lie."

All four of them groaned in unison.

"I believe with this tale, we're going to find a very different outcome than just that." The rest of the tale came flooding back to him. "He nearly died retrieving the egg, but when he brought it back to the omega, she knew his love was true. She could trust him to protect their young. So she laid a hand on the golden egg, and a baby dragon unfurled from it, one with rare golden scales and the ability to heal all the wounds and scars the alpha had suffered."

He waited expectantly for the next round of commentary.

Instead he found them watching him, staring rapt.

"‘I saved all your letters,' she told him. ‘I waited for you.'

‘But you made me prove myself with this gift. You do not love me as I love you.'

The omega was sad that the alpha felt slighted, and so she revealed to him what she had hidden before. ‘I needed this golden dragon to heal me so I could leave my tower. Now I am free to go out into the lands with you and be your mate.'

The baby dragon curled around her, the glow from the two of them blinding the alpha for a moment. Then she rose from the bed he'd never seen her leave and came to him, putting her hands on his cheeks.

‘Thank you for this gift. I am ready to be yours if you will have me.'

And the alpha realized that his gift had been about far more than greed, so he took her away from her tower, and they made it their mission to keep the golden dragon safe as he grew."

"Oh, that's sweet," Cullen muttered, forming a golden egg between his hands, then letting it go in a shower of sparkles. "I do love a happily-ever-after."

"Why didn't she just say that she doesn't feeling well, and that she required help to get up and do shit? I don't understand." Corbin looked constipated. "Say what you need. Get it? It's logical and sensible."

Cullen glared at his brother. "Don't be a fucker. It wouldn't be a story otherwise."

"I'm not a fucker, you are. That is a story. It's a good story." Corbin waved his hands. "I need help here. How do I help you? Well, there's this egg that'll fix things. All right, I'll go get it because I love you. I really appreciate it. The end. Story. Beginning, middle, and end."

Hawk glanced at Cosmo, who was just sitting there, staring at him and crying.

Oh dear.

He stood and walked over to his mate, which drew the other triplets' attention.

"Oh no. What's wrong?"

"Cullen," Corbin snapped. "Don't flutter. He's hormonal, and he's got this thing about the baby never being able to leave the house, and Hawk never being able to leave the house. It stresses him out. We know this."

"The thing I love best about you?" Cosmo sniffled. "Is that you're so delicate."

Corbin rolled his eyes. "The thing you love best about me is that I don't lie. Also cookies. You all really like my cookies."

"Of course we do." Cosmo held up his arms to Hawk, who picked him up and nuzzled his cheek. "Can we go have more? And can someone make me tomato soup?"

"I can make that." Hawk squeezed Cosmo hard. "I did not mean to upset you, love. That was the story I remember."

"No. I loved your story. Seriously. I just worry that I've doomed you."

"Stop it. No stress. It's bad for the baby. It's not good for you." He headed down to the common area.

"But—"

"I will kiss this mood out of you, you know." Bakli's words about enjoying this time kept coming back to him, and he was learning to tease Cosmo back into a good mood anytime he fell into sniffles or worry.

"Will you?" Cosmo's eyes went wide, but there was a blessed hope there. "Promise?"

"I promise, love. I want nothing more. After you have your cookie. But before soup." He would put the tomatoes in to roast and then steal his mate away for a make-out session.

"Mmm… a man who prioritizes food and sex appropriately." Cosmo purred and wiggled for him.

"I try, my love." He chuckled, because Cosmo was already drying those tears, smiling for him, and that was what he wanted to see.

His mate didn't need to be sad. He was no alpha in search of a golden egg.

Hawk had what he needed right here.