You’re getting maudlin.He shook his head and dumped the tortellini into the boiling water.
Ten minutes later, he settled at his tiny kitchen table with his laptop, a bowl of pasta with butter and parmesan, and Basil already making a move for his lap.
“Absolutely not. You just ate.”
Basil purred and climbed up anyway, settling into a warm loaf across Sam’s thighs. His claws pricked through Sam’s jeans as he kneaded, eyes half-closed in contentment.
Sam sighed and opened his laptop one-handed, his fork in the other. The document stared back at him. He wasat Chapter Twelve, where his dragon shifter finally confessed to his fated mate that they were destined to be together. Romantic. Impossible. Everything Sam wanted and knew he’d never have.
Kieran’s heart stone blazed beneath his shirt, pulsing with golden light that matched the warmth spreading through his chest. “You don’t understand,” he said, voice rough with barely controlled desire. “You’re mine. You’ve always been mine.”
Sam snorted softly and took a bite of his pasta. As if anyone would ever look at him as if he were precious, longing to claim him as theirs for all eternity.
“You’re too nice,” his friend Emma had said last week. “And let’s be honest, Sam - you’re soft and sweet. Guys want mysterious and brooding, not a barista who rescues spiders instead of squashing them.”
Basil’s purr rumbled against his stomach. Sam scratched behind the cat’s ears and turned back to his ridiculous fantasy where beautifulparanormal men fell in love at first sight and bonds formed with magical certainty. It was all just fiction, Sam knew that, but his fingers moved across the keyboard anyway, spinning dreams into words while Basil claimed his warmth and the cottage settled into evening quiet around them.
/~/~/~/~/
Sam scrolled up through the chapter, rereading the setup. He now had three vampire brothers - Kieran, Dante, and Alaric - who’d spent centuries together, incomplete, searching for the fourth piece of their bond.
He’d changed them from dragons to vampires, figuring that lots of authors wrote about dragons and he liked to keep his stories interesting.
His fingers hovered over the keys. He was at a crucial part of the story - the confession moment. Sam knew he needed to get it right, so that the emotion felt real even if the premise was pure fantasy.
“We should tell him,” Kieran said, watching their mate through the café window. The human had no idea three immortals had been following him for days, drawn by an instinct older than memory.
Dante shook his head. “He’ll run. Humans don’t understand bonds like ours.”
“Then we make him understand.” Alaric’s voice carried certainty, the kind that came from waiting three hundred years. “He’s ours. That’s not a choice - it’s fate.”
Sam paused, tapping his fork against the bowl, worried that the last line was too aggressive. He’d read enough romance to know the line between possessive-sexy and possessive-creepy was thinner than tissue paper.
“What do you think, Basil?” He cleared his throat and read the dialogue aloud, giving each vampire a slightly different inflection. “Too much? Does Alaric sound unhinged?”
Basil’s purr deepened, eyes still closed.
“Right. Good talk.”
Sam kept writing, letting the scene unfold. The three vampires arguing strategy while their oblivious mate served coffee and smiled at customers who’d never see him as anything special. Just nice Sam. Friendly Sam. Too-soft-to-be-interesting Sam.
He shook off the thought and dove back into the fantasy.
“Look at him,” Kieran breathed. Their mate laughed at something a customer said, face lighting up with genuine warmth. “He’s perfect.”
“Too perfect for us,” Dante muttered. “What would someone like that want with monsters?”
Alaric’s hand found Dante’s shoulder and squeezed. “He’s meant for us. The bond doesn’t lie.”
Sam sat back, rereading the exchange. His pasta had gone cold, but Basil radiated enough heat to keep his lap warm. Outside, theevening light faded to purple-gray, and somewhere down the street, a dog barked.
“Would you believe it?” Sam asked the cat. “Three gorgeous paranormals - powerful, immortal, probably stupidly attractive - and they want someone ordinary. Someone who’s just...there.”
Basil’s purr never wavered. His paws flexed, claws pricking through denim.
“You’re a terrible editor. You approve of everything.”
But Sam smiled anyway and kept typing. He was at the good part, the moment where his characters took the leap and trusted that something as intangible as fate could be real. That a bond could form without logic or reason, just certainty blazing bright enough to guide them home.
