Chapter Two
Mabon
The Range Rover was parked across from the Daily Bean, the engine ticking softly in the afternoon heat.
Mabon held up the newspaper - yesterday’s financial section, because it was the only thing in the car - and peered over the top edge like the world’s worst spy.
Beside him in the driver’s seat, Urien had slouched so low his knees hit the steering wheel.
In the back, Rux pressed his face against the window hard enough to leave a nose print. But it was all fine. They’d found him.
“This is absurd.” Mabon lowered the paper half an inch. “We look like extras from a bad detective film.”
“Speak for yourself.” Urien shifted even lower in his seat, which seemed physically impossible given his height. His long legs were now folded at angles that defied basic anatomy. “I look completely natural.”
“You’re six-foot-seven, folded like a lawn chair, and covered in garden dirt because someone didn’t think to change clothes before stalking our mate.”
“It’s not stalking if he’s ours.”
“I’m pretty sure that’s exactly the definition of stalking.”
“The dirt adds character,” Urien insisted, brushing at a smear of potting soil on his shirt, which only spread it further. “It makes me look...rugged. Approachable.”
“It makes you look like you’ve been burying bodies.”
Behind them, Rux made a noise suspiciously close to a whimper. His breath fogged the window in rapid pants.
“That’s him. Right there. Behind the counter. Do you see him? Tell me you see him.”
“We see him, Rux.”
“But do you see him?”
Mabon raised the paper again, angling for a better view through the Daily Bean’s front window while simultaneously trying to look like he was definitely not looking through the window.
The coffee shop was bright and cheerful, with potted plants hanging in the windows and a chalkboard sign advertising seasonal lattes.
And there, behind the glass display of pastries, stood their fourth.
Brown hair and wire-rimmed glasses. That soft, rounded face Rux had described in excruciating detail for the past two hours. The man smiled at a customer - the kind of smile that crinkled the corners of his eyes… Mabon’s chest constricted, and his newspaper crinkled, then tore slightly.
“Careful,” Urien muttered. “That’s the stock report.”
“I don’t care about the stock report.”
“You care very much about the stock report. Yesterday, you spent forty minutes explaining cryptocurrency trends.”
“That was yesterday. Before.” Mabon gestured vaguely at the coffee shop. At their mate, who was currently laughing at something a customer said. “Now there’s only...him.”
In the back seat, Rux had begun to vibrate. “He’s smiling at that customer. Look at that smile. That’s OUR smile. Why is he giving our smile to strangers?”
“Because he works in customer service and doesn’t know he’s our Treasure yet,” Mabon said through gritted teeth.
“Well, he should.”
“Yes, I’ll just march in there and announce it, shall I?
‘Hello, we’ve been watching you from our car for twenty minutes because magical stones appeared on our chests from the moment we saw you.
Would you like to hear about our century-long search for a fourth mate?
Also, we brought a newspaper for cover.’”
Rux growled low in his chest like distant thunder.
“Inside voices,” Urien hissed. “Or inside growls. Whatever. Someone’s going to notice us.”
“Notice what? Three completely normal men reading a newspaper in a parked car outside a coffee shop in the middle of the afternoon? That’s completely…”
“You’re holding it upside down.”
Mabon looked down. The financial section was indeed inverted, a chart about municipal bonds pointing toward his lap. “Damn it.”
He flipped the paper right-side up, and the pages crackled in protest.
Through the window, their mate handed a coffee to an elderly woman, as he said something that made her laugh. His whole face lit up, and Mabon watched Urien’s hands tighten on the steering wheel hard enough that the leather creaked.
“Easy,” Mabon warned.
“I am easy. I’m extremely easy. I’m the easiest I’ve ever been.”
“You’re about to rip the steering wheel off.”
Urien’s knuckles had gone white. “No, I’m not.”
“Your hands are smoking.”
“That’s…” Urien looked down. Wisps of steam rose from where his palms gripped the wheel. “Damn.”
He released it quickly, shaking out his hands. Scorch marks remained on the leather.
“That’s the third steering wheel this year,” Mabon said.
“This is different. The other two were traffic-related.”
“And this is Treasure-related, which is apparently worse.”
In the back, Rux had begun narrating. “He’s making another coffee. Look at his hands. Did you know he has freckles on his hands? I didn’t notice the freckles on his hands before. There are at least six. Maybe seven. I should count them. I need to count them.”
“You can’t count his freckles from the car, Rux.”
“Not with that attitude.”
Mabon pinched the bridge of his nose. They’d been here for twenty-three minutes.
Twenty-three minutes of watching their fourth work, smiling and chatting with customers, and generally existing in a state of complete ignorance about the three dragon shifters who were having a collective crisis outside his workplace.
“We look like perverts,” he said flatly.
“We’re not perverts.” Urien sat up slightly, then immediately slouched again when a pedestrian walked past. “We’re concerned mates conducting reconnaissance.”
“That’s what all perverts say.”
“I found binoculars,” Rux offered from the back seat.
Both Mabon and Urien turned to stare at him.
“You brought binoculars?”
Rux held them up defensively. “They were already in here. For bird watching.”
“We’re not watching birds, we’re watching our Treasure, which makes the binoculars exponentially creepier!”
“I just thought…”
“No binoculars.” Mabon snatched them and shoved them under his seat. “Definitely no binoculars. We’re already one step away from a restraining order.”
Through the window, their fated one laughed at something a teenage customer said. The sound didn’t carry through the glass, but Mabon could see it in the curve of his shoulders, the tilt of his head. He seemed gentle, kind…perfect, in other words.
And we’re sitting in a car like deranged stalkers with yesterday’s newspaper and slightly suspicious-looking binoculars.
“How do humans do this?” Urien asked quietly. “How do they court each other without looking insane?”
“I don’t think humans usually start with vehicular surveillance.”
“Then what do they start with?”
“Talking, presumably.”
“But what could we say? ‘Hello, we’re dragons, and you’re our fated mate, please don’t call the police.’”
Rux’s head popped up between the front seats. “We could send him a gift. Humans like gifts.”
“What kind of gift says, ‘we’re very old dragons who’ve been searching for you for a century, but we’re not threatening’?”
“Flowers?”
“Too romantic. He doesn’t know us yet.”
“Coffee?”
“He works in a coffee shop, Rux. That’s like giving a blacksmith a horseshoe.”
“What about…”
A sharp knock on the window made all three of them jump.
A police officer peered through the glass, expression professional but suspicious. She made a rolling motion with her hand.
Urien fumbled for the window control. It lowered with a soft whir.
“Afternoon, gentlemen.” Her gaze tracked over all three of them - Mabon with his scrunched up newspaper, Urien covered in dirt, and Rux with his face trying to act like he wasn’t still looking at their Treasure in the coffee shop, through the back passenger window. “Everything alright here?”
“Fine!” Mabon’s voice came out an octave too high. “Definitely fine. Just...reading the paper.”
“In a parked car.”
“Yes.”
“Outside a coffee shop.”
“Yes.”
“For twenty-five minutes.”
Damn. She’d been timing them, too.
“We’re deciding if we want coffee,” Urien said.
The officer’s eyebrow rose. “For twenty-five minutes.”
“It’s a very important decision,” Rux added helpfully from the back. “Life-changing, really.”
Inside the Daily Bean, their mate glanced toward the window, attracted by the commotion. His gaze landed on the Range Rover, the police officer, and three full-grown men clearly having some kind of crisis.
He smiled - uncertain, a little concerned - and gave a little wave.
All three heart stones glowed in unison, and Mabon’s newspaper caught fire.
“Oh, hell,” Urien muttered.
The officer took a step back. “Sir, your newspaper is…”
Mabon threw the flaming financial section out the window, and the officer stomped on it. “Spontaneous combustion! Very common with newsprint! Nothing to worry about!”
“I’m going to need you all to move along, I think.”
“Absolutely. Yes. Moving along. Right away.” Urien started the engine with hands that trembled slightly.
Through the window, their Treasure still watched, now looking significantly more alarmed.
The Range Rover pulled away from the curb with as much dignity as three dragons could muster after being rousted by local law enforcement for stalking their own mate.
“Well,” Rux said into the silence. “That went well.”
“I’m going to set you on fire,” Mabon said.
“You already set yourself on fire.”
“That was the damn newspaper.”
“Same thing.”
Urien drove exactly the speed limit, with his hands carefully positioned at ten and two on the scorched steering wheel. “We need a better plan.”
“Any plan that doesn’t involve the police would be an improvement.”
In the rearview mirror, Mabon watched the Daily Bean shrink into the distance. Their fourth stood in the window now, still watching their retreat with an expression that was equal parts confused and wary.
Brilliant. Their first almost interaction with their fated mate, and they’d managed to look like criminals who destroy property, and who need a police escort from the premises. Dragons had conquered kingdoms with less effort than the first steps in their courtship.