“Is it safe to leave them alone up there?” Evander was always thinking about tactical things. He had found that out relatively quickly.
“They won’t be unprotected, so don’t worry about it.” Cullen waved a hand, and visions of little predatory animals popped out of his fingers.
Corbin grinned when putting a hand on his belly. He wondered if his baby would get any kind of animal familiar.
They had all just settled around the table when they heard Hawk roar. “Elliot, no.” Then there was the sound of a boulder rolling down the stairs. Bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang,bang. Plop. And Elliot came running into the kitchen.
He went right to Evander because no doubt that kid knew who the sucker was in the room and crawled up into his lap. “Want cookies.”
Evander raised an eyebrow at the table at large. “Should we have cookies with the little one?”
Cullen just laughed. “That is one stubborn nephew we have, Corbin. Oh, bro, creating that little gargoyle baby. He’s gonna be hell on earth, and I love it.”
“What’s helenearth?” Elliot grabbed a chocolate chip cookie off the tray and munched it in two bites.
“The same thing as the Danticrist, baby.” Cosmo winked and reached over to ruffle Elliot’s little tuft of hair. “It’s an affectionate nickname.” At some point, Hawk had called Elliot the Antichrist, and Corbin could remember it really well because Isabelle had immediately parroted it with “Danticrist.”
Hawk thundered down the stairs moments later, Isabelle tucked under his arm like a football. “Elliot, you are not meant to be down here. This is adult time. Your father and your uncles are talking about important things.”
Elliot waved his cookie in the air. “Cookies important.”
Hawk made a low growling noise, and Isabelle grunted because, obviously, he had squeezed her a little bit.
“Don’t worry about it, babe.” Cosmo gave his mate a tired smile. “He can stay. He’ll be asleep after a few cookies anyway.”
Hawk rumbled. “So will you. I do not like this, mate. I do not like it at all.”
“I know. We’re going to figure it out, though. And we have full cooperation from Mom’s court. I can tell.”
Corbin nodded. “She’s furious and worried, but they’re sending one of her people to the Court of Bells, and Evander’s brother Alyster is going with them.”
Cosmo and Cullen’s gaze turn to Evander. “And you trust this brother?”
“I do. He’s a pain in my ass and he’s a sarcastic bastard, but he’s not prone to fits of temper or rash action.”
Then we’ll let them handle that part and report back. He looked at his brothers. “What do we need to do?”
“Practically?” Cullen suddenly looked like he was made of concrete, which was a clever image, Corbin thought. “We need to fortify the wards here at the house. We’re the gateway to other lands. At least three of them. So we’re going down to make sure nothing can get in here. Then we start thinking about the Land of Summer. We’re limited there because our mates can’t come with us except for Evander. So we have to coordinate with the courts that are already there.”
Cosmo nodded. “Much of it is going to be legwork. How did she get infected? Where did she come from? What is going on at the Court of Bells? And a lot of that we can’t do anything about.”
“Not to mention that I will not have Corbin putting himself in danger now that he’s pregnant.” Evander put a hand on his leg. “I’m sorry, my love. I won’t risk you and the baby.”
Hawk, who was still with them, nodded. “That’s fair. I did the same thing with Cosmo, even though it made him sad on occasion.”
Cosmo bared his teeth at his mate. “That’s because we’re used to doing what we want to do when we want to do it, or at least we were before we started having kids.” He frowned at Cullen. “Why did we do that?”
Cullen grinned, the expression a little bit evil. “I fell in love with a unicorn. What’s your excuse?”
Cosmo laughed then, and Corbin allowed himself to relax and hold Evander’s hand. He had no idea what they were going to do about all this, but he knew one thing; his brothers had his back, and he had theirs. They would figure this out. And they would help save the Land of Summer from whatever thing had infiltrated it.
That was their job.
Chapter
Ten
This was bad. If he could have slipped out of the house to meet with his father and brothers without Corbin, Evander would have. He needed to talk to them. Because this was a coordinated attack, and he knew it. Someone had separated him from the hunt and sent him out into the human world, where the vampires had attacked him. And then now there was vampirism in the Land of Summer.
