“I kind of hate you.”
Yarrow winked at him. “You wish.”
“How did a beaver get so wise?” he asked, toasting Yarrow with his tea.
Yarrow raised an eyebrow and whistled through his two front teeth. “I sit around out here all winter by myself and think about things.”
He had to laugh at that. “True. You don’t have the constant noise of the kids and my brothers like I do.”
Yarrow nodded sagely. “Also, I’m not a guardian; I’m just a dude. I can thump people with my tail, but that’s about it.”
“Your tail is epic.” Corbin put a hand on his belly. “I just think I get obsessive about one thing right now. Can I blame hormones?”
“Absolutely. You might as well. Hell, you can milk it for all it’s worth.” Yarrow raised an eyebrow. “How’s your mate?”
“Good. He’s good. You know he was fully recovered, right?” It really had been that long since he’d talked to Yarrow for any length of time.
“I did know that. I haven’t seen him, though. Is he allowed to come into this part of the world still?”
“Yeah, he comes into the garden. We should have some kind of a cookout once it’s a little bit warmer.”
“Sounds good. I love nut roast.”
Corbin laughed, thinking of his Lord of the Hunt. “Nut roast it is, at least for you and me. For Evander, not so much.”
“Yeah, that was the way he was before the whole vampire thing, though? Right?”
“It totally was. He’s a hunt guy, which is weird for somebody with antlers on his head.”
“We don’t question the old ways. We just go with it.” Yarrow slurped the rest of his tea down.
“I like that, man. Although it seems like you question everything in the long winters when you’re here by yourself.” He winked and then drained his tea. “I guess I should get back to the house before he starts worrying about me.”
“Well, don’t be a stranger now that the growing season is pretty much on us.” Yarrow stood, reaching out a hand to help him up to his feet, which was good because he was starting to get to the point where it was tough to do that by himself.
They walked together outside to the garden where he had been before, and he lifted a hand as he headed inside the house, letting Yarrow know how much he appreciated the time spent.
The baby kicked and rolled. One of them did anyway. Maybe more than one. Now he had to think maybe there were three. Perhaps that was why he was so huge. Twins were bad enough, but he wasn’t a big dragon like his dad. Triplets was wow. He couldn’t imagine what his mom had looked like.
Did I hear you think triplets, lethean?
Somehow, he knew from the sound of Evander’s mental voice that his mate was coming to look for him.
You did. Yarrow is convinced. He has a theory. I’ll tell you about it when we’re meeting in the kitchen.
There was a soft, warm chuckle.Didn’t you just have tea with Yarrow?
I did, but it just made me hungry. Yarrow’s a little stingy.
I think he doesn’t understand what it takes to feed four of you. Four, three children and you. That’s insane.
They met up at the door to the kitchen, and Evander took him into those strong arms, kissing him on the forehead. “I love all of you, no matter how many there are.”
“I love you too. But three is at least one more than we bargained for.” In fact, it was a tiny bit concerning. He couldn’t believe his Mom had managed somehow. And they had not been easy.
Like, at all.
“I bet Aspen’s gonna be biting a lot of babies.” He was trying to go for charming. He wasn’t sure it was working.
