Two Mates of the Sapphire Sea

1. Chapter One

Chapter One

Mattias

When I’d envisioned what it would be like to bring my mate into my home, I never imagined there being two of them or that one would wash up on the shore of my private beach, unconscious and barely alive.

Raven had done all she could for him. It was in the Goddess's hands now. I just prayed she had pity on me after the long wait I’d already endured. The longer he lay unmoving in my bed, the more I feared that he would never open his eyes. I still didn’t know what color they were.

Kes’ was blue and scared. What lay beyond the eye patch covering the other he still hadn’t allowed me to see. I'd have to earn his trust first, but the only way I’d have the opportunity to do that was if the Merdragon on the bed woke up.

If he did not survive whatever had befallen him, Kes and I would follow him into the grave and leave my brothers one protector short of fulfilling the prophecy.

Maybe.

I’ve been thinking a lot about that since the dragonets were born.

More specifically, Griffin, after the scare we’d had when Caro had accidentally stolen a Merdragon baby.

The prophecy spoke of five, but it did not specifically say that the five had to be of the same generation.

If one fell, we would have five in Griffin, as long as he was kept alive to reach maturity.

Still. There might be a chance for us if one should fall, or at least, I had to hope that the Goddess built in a failsafe and provided us with our mates just when we needed them most.

As each was found, our powers increased, then increased more when a new dragonet was born. I’d known the magic was woven through our family line, as it was for all dragons, but this was the first time I truly understood it on a deeper level. The Denarius clan were in essence dragon royalty.

This was why so many of our kind had gone into hiding. To preserve what remained, because once the last dragon was gone, so too was the remaining spark of hope for rebuilding a once strong and powerful lineage.

The Gorynych had been picking us all off slowly, generation after generation, all building toward the one thing that would ultimately doom us as a species.

And yet they were too proud and power-hungry to see that reducing us down to one line, their line, would mean that eventually, our connection with the elements would be limited to only those who carried it in their blood.

If left up to them, there would come a day when no dragon had the connection to the sea that I had, where I could feel the rolling waves in my blood, all the way inside my mountain home.

The tides and slipstreams surged through me every minute of every day.

I knew when storms churned up rough waves and when a human threw something as small as a soda cap into it.

I knew when a quiet brook was reduced to sand due to global warming, and I knew when rainwater carried pesticides and other toxins into rivers, deeming them no longer safe to swim in.

Humans.

I’d like to put every last one of them over my knee and spank the hell out of them for what they’ve done to this planet.

Though I discovered that some dragons weren’t much better.

After what we saw in and around the village Kes had lived in when he was young, there were some dragons who deserved a beatdown too.

The elder dragons had been kidnapping and controlling younger, weaker ones to force them to work in the mines, where two veins of precious stones had converged.

Greed.

It always came down to wanting more than you could possibly know what to do with.

Says the dragon with two mates. Irony was having a field day with me on that one.

“Would you like something from the kitchen?” Kes asked, already half out of his chair and clearly in a hurry to leave the room for a few minutes. I knew exactly how he felt, my anxiety was beginning to get the best of me too.

“No, thank you, I had something earlier,” I replied and watched him rush out.

It was only after he was gone that I wondered if maybe our mate arriving in the condition he was in might have triggered memories of whatever happened to his eye. I’d gleaned a few things from our conversations that led to questions I hadn’t had the opportunity to ask him yet.

Would I ever get the chance?

Was there anything in the archives about what to do if a mate was found barely clinging to life? Was there still a way to save them without the bond being completed?

If he’d just wake up, all the wondering would be over, and maybe the boulder on my chest would ease up.

I should have asked Kes to stay.

A stray thought entered my mind, one I’d never admit to anyone, but I pictured myself sinking my claws into the mattress and shaking it until my mate woke up.

Impatient much?

Dragon, this is not the time to start giving me shit about being impatient when you dented the wall carrying him in here.

Only because you were taking too long.

Human form means shorter strides.

Which is exactly why I took over.

I heard Kes’ footsteps on the stairs, and relief washed over me. I was so grateful that he’d returned before I did something rash.

“I know you said you didn’t want anything, but I made you a sandwich too,” Kes said, handing me a plate with a massive one perched in the center and threatening to topple over.

Between the thick slabs of meat, bacon, cheese, lettuce, tomato, and onion he’d layered on, it literally wobbled as I got the plate settled on my lap.

“Thank you,” I said, my stomach growling now that it was in front of me, though I suspected my dragon had something to do with that too.

Inhale and you’ll understand why. It smells divine, and he toasted the bread. Mmm and heated the meat too. I can smell the cheese melting on top of it.

Taking a bite was the only way to stop him and keep my mouth from watering more than it already was.

Crisp and melty, the butter he’d used to toast the bread mingled with whatever condiments he’d put on the sandwich.

There were plenty to choose from in the kitchen, I loved roughly ninety-nine percent of them and kept many on hand.

“Exemplary,” I whispered, after I’d chewed and swallowed.

Unlike my dragon, I was not a savage, though I did tear into that sandwich with enough gusto to be grateful for the napkin he’d brought with the food.

The burp I let out after was all dragon. No one could say otherwise.

Excuse me.

Yes, excuse you, dragon, now behave.

You first, human.

I was arguing with myself and losing.

Nothing new there, if I was being honest.

He snorted, and I knew that if we were keeping score, he’d make another tick mark in his column. Not like he needed it, he usually won these mental sparring matches of ours.

Who says I’m not?

Not what?

Keeping score. Keep up, human, there is a reason you lose all the time.

Shush!

“Oh, sorry, I just thought maybe the quiet was getting to you too.”

Shit.

Now look what you did.

Dammit, dragon, that was all on you.

“Sorry, that wasn’t meant for you,” I hastily tried to explain, not that I’d heard one word of what Kes had been trying to say when I accidentally shushed him. “My dragon was being disagreeable.”

“Probably because shaking the bed wouldn’t be a good idea with him in this condition,” he remarked, startling me so badly I nearly dropped the plate.

“How did you know what I was thinking?”

"I don't know, I guess you were being loud enough that it popped into my head, or your dragon shared with mine. They like to whisper secrets to each other. I think it’s, well, kind of sweet the way they’ve already bonded.”

“It’s the way of dragons,” I replied. “What were you going to share before I rudely interrupted?”

“Oh, um, it wasn’t important.”

“Why don’t you let me be the judge of that?”

“It was just that, well, one night I watched a dragon rise out of the moon’s reflection on the water,” Kes muttered. “You’ve probably seen that happen a thousand times, but it was a first for me. Upalo, and Canyon and I were in Norway. I swear, everything there tasted like ice in the morning.”

“Are you sure it isn’t because you are an ice dragon?” I pointed out.

“Maybe,” he replied, shrugging.

Seated across the room from me was entirely too far away for my way of thinking, but that was where he’d dragged the chair when he brought it in. The middle of a crisis was no time to press him on his choice of chair positioning.

“I couldn’t take my eyes off the dragon though,” he said, setting his plate aside on the end table beside him.

I’d noticed that he liked to have his hands empty so he could run his fingertips along the seams of whatever clothes he had on. I believed the humans called it stemming. Dragons were naturally tactile beings, so many of us had adapted a self-soothing mechanism that involved touch.

“None of the other dragons I've seen before looked like a Seadragon with wings,” he said.

“I only remembered when the light hit his arm and it shimmered blue from all the tiny scales running over his skin. Like the mist around the moon. I have the strangest feeling that it was him that night. After he flew away, I got this weird sensation in my belly, and I spent the next couple hours fighting back the urge to follow him. I got the same feeling when I was in the kitchen making the sandwiches. Like I needed to hurry up and get back to him immediately.”

“What held you back that night?” I asked.

“The beach was the post I was assigned to patrol, and he wasn’t the dragon I was keeping an eye out for. I asked for that assignment for the rest of our time there, but I never saw him again, and we left the region a few weeks later when our assignment was complete.

“You guys weren’t just looking for answers and gathering information about dragon lore, were you?” I asked. “You were mercenaries too.”

Kes didn’t flinch nor did he squirm, he just met my gaze head on.

“Not in the traditional sense,” Kes said.

“But we traded favors for information, since we didn’t have anything else to barter with.

If that meant getting bloody from time to time, we were okay with it as long as we were fighting on the right side of whatever conflict we’d wandered into.

Otherwise, we spent time imprisoned on occasion, until we figured out how to escape or were rescued, which usually cost us a favor or two.

We took part in a few Robin Hood moments when we accidentally liberated the coffers of assholes who were breaking the backs of their workers just for more profit, but we never kept much, since there were others who needed it more.

Our hunting and survival skills improved every year, so we got by okay. ”

“If by getting by you mean being decidedly undersized and a tad fragile in appearance, then I suppose the three of you did okay, but I am pleased to see you raiding the kitchen whenever the mood hits you. There’s always plenty.”

“I noticed you guys have made an art form of throwing feasts,” Kes replied.

“Heh, so far, all you’ve seen is a normal family supper,” I said. “We haven’t thrown a proper feast in years, though it might be something to consider this holiday season, with all the newcomers to Dragon City.”

“Do you celebrate the solstice?” He asked.

“We hadn’t for a long time,” I explained. “Then the dragonets came along, and we decorated for the first time in centuries. This year will be an even bigger celebration, with Cade, Opal, and Ruby joining their cousins in the fun.”

“We always watched the celebrations from a distance,” Kes explained.

“Even when we were invited, it just didn’t feel right to join in, so we found a spot off on our own, sang songs around a fire, and cooked our meal, maybe fancier than what we had on a regular night, but not by much.

One year we tried eggnog. No one warned us that it could get you drunk if you drank too much.

Needless to say, we all drank too much. It was so smooth going down that we didn’t taste the alcohol in it.

Who knew an egg could give you a hangover? "

He was adorable sitting there in one of my t-shirts, baggy and hanging off his shoulders, making him look like a precocious imp with the mischievous look on his face as he told the story.

“What sent you in this direction?” I asked. “When it sounds like you’ve spent a good deal of time clear on the other side of the world.”

“Ronan,” Kes explained. “Upalo kept reaching out to the contacts we’d made to see if they could help locate him, and time after time they came up empty-handed.

One of the dragons he’d spoken to passed through Dragon City not too long ago and said he danced with a guy at a club who said his name was Ronan and that he had the same hair and eye color Upalo described.

It was the first semi-solid lead we had to go on, since the guy couldn’t tell him anything else about Ronan aside from his name.

He said that three songs in, a huge guy strode onto the dance floor and slipped right between them, started dancing with Ronan like he was invisible, and he let him, since Ronan didn’t protest and the guy was built like a tank.

After meeting your brother, I’m sure he’s the armored vehicle in question. ”

I didn't see the need to tell him that three dances was two more than I would have waited to claim him on the dance floor.

I had a possessive streak that could fill the Marianas Trench…

or rival my brothers. Who had already done grave injury to our enemies in the name of love and protecting our family.

He’d learn soon enough. At times that side of me ran far too deep. I was still ashamed to admit that I was overly harsh with Caro about his undersea adventures, especially after truly taking the time to examine the creatures he’d rescued and rehabilitated.

Despite my refusal to see it then, the removal of the artifacts from the sand beneath the ocean fell into both of our purviews, since his domain was earth, and thus what was in the sand belonged to him as much as it did to me.

The part I’d struggled to make clear to him was that my anger hadn’t stemmed from him invading my territory but because he’d never given me the opportunity to share in those undersea adventures with him.

Which still smarted when I was being honest with myself. There were so many things I needed to work on.

Provided my mates and I survived long enough to get the chance.