“These appeared the first time we saw you,” Mabon said. His voice was still gentle. “Each of us, separately. Rux, at the grocery store. Urien and I, when we followed him to find you.”
“That’s not possible,” Sam heard himself say. “People don’t just...grow glowing stones in their chests.”
“You’re right,” Rux said. “People don’t.”
Sam looked from one stone to another. They were definitely there, embedded in flesh, glowing with that steady, impossible light.
His pragmatic side - the part that worked at a coffee shop, paid bills,and lived in the real world - was screaming that this couldn’t be happening.
But the other part of him - the part that spent his evenings writing about fated mates, supernatural beings, and love that defied explanation - was whispering something else entirely.
What if...
Sam’s brain was trying to categorize it - trick, hallucination, or elaborate prank - but his body knew the truth before his mind caught up. The stones werewarm. He could feel the heat from where he was sitting, and could see the way they pulsed in perfect synchronization like three hearts beating as one. They weren’t CGI, a projection, or some clever illusion. They were real in a way that rewrote every rule Sam thought he understood about the world.
Three men had apparently decided that Sam was worth magical heart stones appearing in their chests. The writer in him was screamingthis is the plot, this is exactly what you’vebeen writing, but the human in him - the one who worried about groceries, pet his cat, and knew how reality actually worked - was free-falling through a reality that had just proved itself negotiable.
And underneath both reactions, terrifying and exhilarating in equal measure - what if he stepped into the impossible and it was real?
“I need to sit down,” Sam said, then realized he was already sitting. “I need to...I don’t know what I need.”
“Time,” Urien suggested quietly. “You need time. This is…we know this is overwhelming.”
“Overwhelming,” Sam repeated. He started laughing, a slightly hysterical sound that he couldn’t quite control. “Three men have glowing stones in their chests that appeared when they saw me, and you think I needtime?”
“We also have some explaining to do,” Mabon admitted. He was still kneeling, still at eye level, and the stone in his chest pulsed brighterwhen Sam’s gaze landed on it. “If you want to hear it.”
Sam dragged in a breath, then another. His entire worldview was cracking apart. Everything he thought he knew about reality was rearranging itself into impossible new patterns.
But the three men in front of him - with their glowing stones and their vulnerable expressions and their obvious, desperate sincerity - they were real.
“Okay,” Sam said finally. “I want to hear it. Explain.”
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 thiscentury 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.
