“Aspen is excited about the idea of many babies.”
“Really?” He liked to think that she was excited, and fond of him, but really, while he loved Aspen dearly, she was absolutely Evander’s.
Lare appeared in front of him with a pop, and he squealed, “Lare, you scared me!”
“Sorry, so sorry, so sorry!” He was given a crookedy grin. “Hello, there, I just came to see if you wanted lunch. I was thinking about making pasta. I like pasta.”
This little guy just cracked his shit up. Corbin nodded. “I also like pasta, so I imagine that would be a great thing to have for lunch.”
In fact, his stomach growled, proving exactly what a good idea he thought it was.
“Wonderful, I will make pasta. I will see what you have in the cabinet for me to use.”
“What we have, Lare. You live here now, and you are part of our family.” Corbin wanted to make sure their new friend felt absolutely welcome.
“Oh, thank you so much. You just sit down and have a little drink of something sparkly and lemony, and I will make lunch.” Lare began puttering around the kitchen, opening cabinets and the refrigerator, pulling out wildly incongruous items. Hopefully, they would come together and make a good meal.
He couldn’t watch, though, so he glanced at Ev. “Do you want to go sit in the front room?”
“I do. I think that’s a fine idea.” Ev wrapped an arm around him and steered him toward the living room. As they were out of Lare’s earshot, Ev began to chuckle. “He is something else, isn’t he?”
“We’re not sure what.” Corbin laughed, too, because Lare was wonderful, and he was not going to look a gift horse in the mouth, no matter what that gift horse looked like.
“So tell me about Yarrow.” Ev sat him down on the couch, cuddling up with him, and it was amazing because his mate smelled like pine and musk. He was warm and perfect, andCorbin just wanted to rest his head on Ev’s chest and not think too hard about things.
“A lot of it was long-winded, you know how he is, but he was telling me how no one else had produced babies that were of the Third like we were.” He plucked at the laces on Ev’s shirt, which looked like something out of a medieval blacksmith fantasy.
“Well, that’s true I suppose. I mean, it’s one thing to have three children, but it’s another thing to have them all at one time.”
“Yeah, I’m a little concerned about that, but he was explaining how his theory is that I’m going to have the triplets who are going to replace us eventually—once they’ve gone out and lived amazing lives and done wild things all over the various lands.” He looked up at Ev with those dark eyes. “I don’t want to have children who feel like they are required to stay here at this house and be guardians of it.”
“I don’t think you’re going to have to worry about that. Your children,ourchildren, are going to be their own people. Well, they’re going to be dragons and fae, but they’re going to be their own creatures, and we’re going to encourage that and let them do what they want to do. However…” Ev stroked his hair back off his face, smiling into his eyes. “You know as well as I do that fate plays a hand.”
“I do know that. The three of us, me, Cullen, and Cosmo, were fated to be guardians. It just seems cruel to pop them out knowing that. I don’t think my mom knew that when she had us.” He felt so conflicted about it.
“Your mother knew you were special. I know she did.”
“She was very brave to have us. I mean, it was one thing to mate with a dragon, it was another thing altogether to mate with a dragon and have dragon children. Three dragon children.” He shook his head. “Can you imagine if we had been the size of Arielle—who obviously you don’t know, but you’ve seen her now.You’ve seen the dragons that aren’t us. You know they’re huge. Hell, you know Hawk. She must have been terrified.”
Evander shrugged. “Yes, but she did it, and that’s the point. Yes?”
“That’s totally the point. Still, it’s a little overwhelming to think about.” He rubbed his stomach. “Do you think that there could be three in here? That we’ve just missed someone?”
“Well, if there are three… I mean, you’ve heard them in multiples—multiple heartbeats, multiple energies. When they’re older, when they get bigger, you’ll be able to hear their different voices, perhaps?”
He nodded. That actually made sense. “I wonder if it’s two girls and a boy or two boys and a girl.”
Evander shrugged. “It doesn’t matter. It’s going to be three babies, if it’s three babies. They’re going to be our children. That’s all that matters. Nothing else matters.”
Evander had a point. Really, what mattered was that they had parents who loved them and who would protect them to the ends of the earth. “I think that’s perfectly fair.”
Maybe he needed to talk to his mom. Ask her if she’d known that there were going to be three of them, and if she did, had she been scared.
His cheeks heated because someone should have asked before now, but she always seemed like she was so in control, like she’d never been afraid of anything for a second in her entire life.
But she had to have been terrified as her belly swelled and swelled, knowing that Dad was so much bigger than she was, that their magics were so very different.
And she was the first of her kind, at least in the Flower Mound. The first to have dragon hybrid babies. Human and fae, yes. But not dragon.
