Chapter Twenty
Mabon
Mabon watched Sam’s face, waiting for the inevitable fear and rejection. He braced himself, knowing that any moment Sam would push back from the table and run for the door.
Instead, Sam was just sitting there, looking confused.
“We’re not exactly human, Sam.”
Sam’s forehead creased. “What does that mean?” He glanced down at the glowing stone in Mabon’s chest, then at Rux and Urien. “What are you?”
Mabon took a breath. Centuries of secret keeping weren’t easy to break. But Sam was worth the risk.
“Dragons.”
Sam blinked, and then he blinked again. Then he laughed - a slightly hysterical sound that made Mabon’s stone pulse harder. “Dragons. You’re telling me you’re dragons.”
Mabon nodded, keeping his expression serious. “We shift. It’s not something we do often, not in this century with cellphones and everything, but…”
“Dragons,” Sam repeated. “Actual dragons, with wings and scales and…”
“Fire,” Rux supplied helpfully. “Don’t forget the fire.”
Sam’s laughter cut off abruptly. He stared at Rux like he’d grown a second head. Which, to be fair, Rux’s dragon form did have horns that might look like extra heads from certain angles.
“I have to be dreaming,” Sam said. “Surely, you can see how impossible this sounds. And yet, I really am sitting in your dining room, and you do have glowing stones in your chests, and now you’re telling me you’re dragons.”
“Yes,” Mabon said simply.
“And the stones mean I’m your...” Sam trailed off, like he couldn’t quite bring himself to say it.
“Treasure,” Urien said quietly. “The fourth member of our triad. The one we’ve been waiting for.”
“Your...what?” Sam was looking a little pale, but he was still sitting down.
Mabon shifted his weight. His knees were going to protest later, but he wasn’t about to move.
“A Treasure is the fourth mate,” Mabon explained, keeping his voice level.
“The three of us have been together for nearly a century. But a triad isn’t complete without a Treasure.
Someone who balances us, grounds us, and who…
” He stopped, searching for words that wouldn’t sound completely mad.
“Someone who makes everything make sense.”
“And you think that’s me.” Sam’s voice was so quiet. “You think I’m this...Treasure.”
“We don’t think,” Rux said. “We know. The heart stones don’t lie, Sam. They appeared when we saw you. That’s how it works. That’s how it’s always worked for dragons.”
Sam looked down at his own chest, as if he expected to find a glowing stone there too. “I don’t have one.”
“Only dragons get heart stones,” Urien said. “But you’re…” He paused, seeming to struggle with his vocabulary too. “You’re the reason they exist.”
“This is quite a revelation,” Sam said, but he still hadn’t moved.
Mabon’s dragon rumbled with satisfaction. Sam was trying to understand.
“I write about this,” Sam said suddenly. “I write about fated mates and paranormal beings and…” He stopped, his eyes going wide. “Oh, my god. I write about this.”
“You do?” Mabon asked.
“It’s a romance novel, about three vampires who find their fated mate in a coffee shop.
” Sam’s voice was climbing in pitch. “I’ve been writing it for months.
And now you’re sitting here, telling me that the fictional thing I made up is actually real, except you’re dragons instead of vampires, and I’m the - the Treasure instead of just a regular human, and… ”
He stopped and took in a huge breath. “This is crazy.”
“From your perspective, it is,” Mabon agreed.
Sam’s gaze snapped to him. “From my perspective?”
“You didn’t know dragons existed ten minutes ago,” Mabon pointed out. “You didn’t know mates or heart stones or Treasures existed. Your entire worldview just shifted. That’s not a small thing, Sam. We know that.”
“But for you, this is normal?” Sam asked slowly.
“This is everything,” Rux corrected. “Heart stones appear only once in a dragon’s lifetime. Sometimes never. After all the years we’ve been together, we’d resigned ourselves to never finding our fourth. And then you walked past that grocery store window, and…” His voice cracked.
Sam stared at him. “You really believe this,” he said. “All of you. You’re not joking, you’re not…this isn’t some elaborate prank.”
“I swear on my hoard,” Mabon said solemnly. “I swear on everything I value. We are what we say we are, and you are our Treasure.”
“Which is another word for fated mate,” Sam whispered.
“Yes.”