Evander often wondered, if he reached up to touch it, would be there, and was it just an illusion that it was gone?
“Don’t touch it,” Orion said deadpan.
“I’ll let you touch mine,” Evander teased. Because, what the heck, he might as well start out like a he could hold out.
“I will touch you both if you don’t stop it. Hard.” Hawk said in a voice that he probably used countless times a day on his kids.
Orion pouted. “So mean to me. Come on in and have a sit. We made coffee and tea, so whichever you prefer.”
“Thanks. I tell you what, friends. Today sucked.” He poured himself a cup of tea, sugaring it liberally. “This was not the way I wished to deal with the in-laws.”
“Fuck no.” Orion shook his head, curling up in the corner of the sofa. “I mean, seriously? What the hell? And just so that we’re clear, I’m not bleeding out for the entirety of the Land of Summer. They’re just gonna have to figure out a way to deal with it.”
Hawk nodded. “That’s fair.”
“I think so.” Orion grinned at him. “Please, Evander, relax. I will not let Hawk eat you.”
“Well, that’s thoughtful of you. I do appreciate it. I very rarely want to be eaten.”
Hawk rolled his eyes. “Are you kidding? I would never hear the end of it from my mate, ever. It would go on forever. There’d be visions of doom and gloom, and can you imagine what Cullen would do to me? I’d be walking around the house and have random illusions of you popping up. Boom! Did you know you were evil? Boom! Did you know you ate Corbin’s mate? Boom! And everything on the entire land, every bit of acreage we have, it would all be dead.”
It was simply the most animated he’d ever seen Hawk. It was actually quite appealing. “Well, we can’t have that. We’re just going to have to be family.”
“Exactly. We have to figure this whole vampire thing out because they’re going to come back. Here. Cosmo is sure of it.”
“I believe the same thing.” Evander shrugged. “There’s some sort of vampire nexus here, something that pulls them. I don’t think it’s just the entrance to the other lands, although that has to be a huge draw.” He pondered things for a minute. “I think, though, that there has to be something more to it, something in the land itself that sank down here on the earth. Vampires are very much of the human realm.”
“I kind of think you’re right,” Orion said. “The physics of it just makes sense. What doesn’t make sense is how they got somebody across into the fae lands who didn’t immediately disintegrate in the light.”
“How much harder is it for you to pass in the human realm?” Evander asked.
“Shit-tons.” Orion waggled his eyebrows. “Gravity is way stronger there.”
“Right. Just like it’s harder for me to shift into my Hunt form.” Evander shrugged. “The magic is so much less strong in the human realm, and I have a harder time calling on my Other Self.”
Hawk raised an eyebrow. “Like it’s impossible for a dragon to just blend in most of the time,” he said. “We’re pure magic, and they’re not used to that, so it jogs a human right out of their normal existence.”
Orion nodded, his eyes widening. “So it stands to reason that the laws are different for vampires in the Land of Summer. Maybe the light there isn’t based on the same system, and so it isn’t actual UV light. Maybe that’s the only thing that causes the vampire to crumble and burn.”
“Which is why our mates are able to kill him. They’re both fae and Dragon, and they’ve lived in the human world. Hell, they live right on the human, fae, dragon intake valve. They instinctively understand how all the various systems work.”
They all stared at each other, amazed at how they had come to this conclusion so easily by way of simply eliminating everything else. Evander could remember reading the old human Sherlock Holmes novels talking about when you’ve eliminated everything else, whatever is left, no matter how improbable, is probably the solution. Or something like that. He was paraphrasing.
“So now what do we do about it?” That came from Hawk, who was clearly growly and angry about everything. Evander didn’t blame him. He had two kids to worry about and a mate who saw visions.
“We start combing through our resources.” Orion waved a hand. “I’ll ask my dads. Corbin and Cullen and Cosmo can talk to their mom. And the dragons can… You take that, Hawk?”
At Hawk’s nod, he went on. “There’s always some sort of history or prophecy or weird story tucked away somewhere in some book, and that’s easier than ever to access that kind of stuff in the human lands at least. In the other realms, there’s oral histories, and we just have to tap the right people.”
“Fair enough.” Hawk slapped his hands flat on the table. “I shall go now and talk to the dragons. I don’t think we can waste a minute.”
He stomped off, and Evander glanced at Orion. “I’m not waking Corbin up.”
“No, and I’m not waking up Cullen. I know Hawk wants Cosmo to sleep as long as he can. Their mom will be talking to everybody as it is; it’ll just be a matter of her reporting to us what she finds out, and I’m pretty sure she will. It won’t take me but a minute to pop across and talk to my dads in the Glade, so I canwait and do that. If there is any information, they’ll give it to me in the form of some sort of riddle anyway.”
He had to grin. He loved Orion’s ironic turn of phrase and tone.
“Parents are good that way. Trust me, everyone got to see the good side of my dad today. Mr. Action rather than Mr. Gruff and Bluff and Grumble.” Evander winked broadly. “I’m gonna see what I can scare up in the library. Hawk has quite an amazing one, and I think there might be something there.”
