Then he shoved his phone back in his pocket and kept walking, eyes scanning every doorway, side street, and window of every shop.
His dragon prowled restlessly beneath his skin.
We’re very bad at this.
For once, Rux couldn’t disagree. He broke into a run. The street curved ahead where his mate - because that’s what the man was - had disappeared. Tourists clogged the sidewalk, moving with that particular aimless drift of people with nowhere urgent to be. Rux shouldered past a family posing for photos and ignored the indignant squawk from someone he’d jostled.
His dragon clawed beneath his skin.
Find him. Track him. HIS SCENT…
But there were too many scents. Coffee, exhaust fumes, and someone’s overpowering cologne, a bakery pumping out cinnamon and sugar, and the autumn leaves rotting in the gutter.
“Excuse me. Sorry. Move.”
Rux reached the corner where the street branched into a narrow lane lined with boutiques and cafes. More tourists. A busker with a guitar. Three teenagers were blocking the sidewalk while they argued about which restaurant to try.
No wavy brown hair. No cable-knit sweater. No soft middle or wire-rimmed glasses or…
The heart stone pulsed again, sending heat cascading through his ribs.
Rux spun around, scanning faces. His height gave him an advantage, so he could see over most of the crowd. A blonde woman carrying shopping bags. Two men holding hands as theydebated over a window display. A mother wrestling with a stroller.
He was right there a moment ago.
Rux’s phone kept buzzing repeatedly in his pocket. His mates were persistent like that. Rux ignored it, moving further down the lane, checking doorways, peering through even more shop windows. The dragon snarled its frustration, demanding he shift and use his real senses to track their Treasure properly…
But he couldn’t, not with witnesses, council laws, and the very real possibility of causing a panic.
“Dammit.”
He’d lost him. He’d lost their fourth after seeing him for barely a blink. A hundred years of searching, and Rux had let him slip away like water through his fingers.
The heart stone’s pulse didn’t fade. If anything, it burned hotter. Proof that somewhere in town, their fourth mate existed. Walked, breathed, and smiled at his phone screen, completely unaware that threedragons were now bound to him. Well, that Rux was bound to him, at least.
You should’ve grabbed him. Should’ve claimed him right there. Mine. MINE.
Except that grabbing random men off the street qualified as kidnapping in modern society, and Mabon had very firm opinions about following human laws.
Rux’s phone buzzed again. He pulled it out with shaking hands.
The only emergency here is the lack of bread Rux. Urien’s getting cranky
Three more missed texts from Mabon and one from Urien demanding to know where his chocolate torte was.
Normal concerns except nothing was normal anymore.
Rux pressed his palm flat against his chest again, feeling the heart stone’s warmth. That was real – it wasn’t a hallucination. That meant he had seen their Treasure, and then lost him in a crowd of tourists.
“Brilliant. Absolutely bloody brilliant.”
A woman passing by gave him an odd look. Rux realized he was standing in the middle of the sidewalk, talking to himself, one hand pressed to his chest as if he was having a medical emergency. He forced himself to breathe and tried to think past the dragon’s howling demands.
The man had been carrying a coffee, walking with purpose, before he’d stopped at that window. Local, maybe? Or familiar enough with Dinetell to move through it comfortably. It was a small town, and it wasn’t like there were many places where their Treasure could go. Rux could find him again, no, he would find him again.I have to.
/~/~/~/~/
Rux took the curves faster than a rally driver, gravel spraying as trees blurred past. The Range Rover’s engine roared in protest as he downshifted into the turn by the stone gates, tires squealing.
