by Zoe Chant
He still wasn’t willing to let go.
These were his last stolen moments with her.
It was nearly morning, and she would be occupied for the entire day preparing for her wedding. Tonight she did a chaperoned all-night vigil, and the following day, she would go through a ceremony and exchange vows with someone else, completing an iron-clad contract.
So he breathed in the smell of her hair and caressed the soft planes of her body and held her for all the moments he’d never hold her again as the first light before dawn crept up over the island.
“I’m so tired, but I don’t want to sleep,” Darla said, her voice slow and drowsy. “I don’t want to miss a single second with you.”
Footsteps crunched on gravel and they both froze.
“I’m telling you, I saw a light up here, they’re sure to be this way.”
“Mother,” Darla whispered in panic, just as Breck realized they’d left the flashlight on, wedged in the window to illuminated their workspace.
“It’s possible she only went for a walk,” Scarlet’s voice said, sounding perfectly reasonable. Cold chills went down Breck’s back. “She may have felt the need to work off some of her wedding jitters.”
“Crap,” Darla hissed, and she scrambled quietly off of Breck, accidentally kneeing him as she tried to navigate the darkness and the narrow space between seats.
Breck’s explicative was no less quiet, but much less polite.
“Sorry!” she breathed.
“Working off wedding jitters isn’t what I’d call it,” Jubilee said clearly, right beside the van.
Then the van door was yanked open, and she said with triumph, “I told you that pervert was defiling my daughter!” She was holding the kitchen apron that Darla had tucked under her pillow in her hand.
Frozen in the act of reaching for their damp clothing, Darla and Breck stared back at Scarlet and Jubilee.
“So I see,” Scarlet said, voice icy.
“Mother…” Darla started.
“You will be hearing from my lawyers,” Jubilee said to Scarlet, ignoring her daughter. “And if you expect a penny out of me, you’ll be informing me of his immediate termination.”
“Mother…”
“I assure you he will be dealt with.”
Breck swore the temperature dropped several degrees with Scarlet’s words, and there was a building feeling of pressure and power as her green eyes went from surprised to furious.
“Scarlet…” Darla attempted to plead.
She finally received her mother’s attention. “Get your clothes on, you shameless hussy,” Jubilee hissed. “You are getting married tonight, if Liam will still have you, and you will bless your stars that I’m not tossing all of you into the poorhouse over this.”
Darla was pulling on the only clothing she could find, and Breck managed to find pants while both women folded their arms and glared into the dim van. “Mother…” Darla protested again as she emerged from the neck of Breck’s shirt. “Breck is…”
Jubilee, patience exhausted, reached in and took her firmly by the arm, dragging her from the van. “I don’t care what disgusting thing he is. You are my daughter, and you will do as I say.”
Breck reacted to her manhandling with an instinctive growl, and surged forward to defend his mate… only to be intercepted by a hand at his shoulder.
He had always known that Scarlet was strong; she had a simmering power that was hard to miss. But he had not expected her to be this strong.
Her grip was iron, absolutely unmovable against all of his considerable shifter strength. Breck would have needed to literally rip his muscles from her grasp to be free. His collarbone creaked in protest when he struggled briefly.
He could do nothing but watch as Darla meekly followed her mother away, casting him one agonized look back over her shoulder.
“I love you,” she mouthed at him.
Then he was being frog-marched into Scarlet’s office, and thrust down into a chair.
She settled opposite him and glared across the desk. The early morning light starting to color the sky behind her made her hair look like fire. Green eyes snapped in her shadowed face. “Is this your idea of more professional?” she demanded. “Was there some confusion about what it is I hired you for?”
“Scarlet…” Breck’s shoulder began to throb where Scarlet had gripped it as the blood returned.
“I have been very generous accepting your extracurricular activities these past few years, and I have been very tolerant about your friendly behavior. I assumed you understood and respected certainly boundaries, and knew the difference between a harmless vacation dalliance and sleeping with the daughter of a very important client.”
“Scarlet…” Breck attempted again.
“She’s getting married, Breck! You had your choice of bridesmaids, cousins, society dilettants, even groomsmen… and you had to sleep with the bride?” The air in the room was getting hard to breathe. “Did you think about anything before you let your libido loose? Did you once consider what the repercussions would be for letting your cock lead you around?”
Her fists came slamming down onto the surface of the desk and everything on it jumped several inches. “My insurance doesn’t cover my staff being unable to keep it in their pants, Breck!”
“I’m not sorry!” Breck roared back.
The office was suddenly silent.
Even the insects and frogs were quiet, and Scarlet’s fury threatened to choke him from across the desk.
“She’s my mate,” Breck snarled into the stillness. “She’s my mate, and she’s going to marry someone else because she’s got a bigger heart than this whole island, and I got to spend three gorgeous nights with her and I am not sorry for a single second of it even if it means you toss me out on my ass and I never know a moment of happiness again.”
The pressure seeped from the room like a waterbed with a slow leak and Breck might have been able to breathe again if it hadn’t been for the pain in his chest.
“She’s my mate,” he repeated helplessly. “And we’ll never be together after this.”
If he hadn’t expected pity on Scarlet’s face, he certainly hadn’t expected the sorrow that chased it. Her eyes softened and she let out a held breath like a sigh of wind.
One brave frog gave an experimental croak into the silence.
“Why are you letting her marry Liam, then?” Scarlet asked, and her voice was gentle and full of complexity.
Breck told her. He told her about the home that would go under, and about the formal challenge for Darla’s hand that dragon custom required. He told her about the arrangement with Liam, and how he was keeping the odious Eugene from coming forward with his own challenge. He told her about the spell-protected hoard and the magical fertility bracelets.
“Unbroken line,” he mourned. “I couldn’t even give her children if she wanted them.”
Scarlet, who had been listening intently, stood up abruptly. “I can’t help you with that,” she said. “Nor the challenge for her hand. But the home…”
Breck thought she was coming around the desk, but she stopped halfway, and turned instead to the wall. There was a giant map of Shifting Sands hanging there, half-shrouded in the vines that draped around most of the room and merrily snaked among the beams. “Did you ever wonder where the staff housing was supposed to be?”
“... Yes?” Breck had wondered many times. For many years, they had been housed in the hotel building intended as a budget option for the resort. As business picked up and those rooms were required for guests, it made sense to house the staff in the big mansions along the cliffs that had stood empty so long — too expensive for anyone to rent in whole, too awkward to subdivide into individual rooms.
But he didn’t really see what that had to do with his dilemma.
Scarlet moved aside some of the vines, revealing a beach past the cliffs where the mansions stood, past the vegetable gardens that Graham snarled at anyone visiting. There was a clus
ter of buildings drawn there, a sprawling community of small and medium-sized buildings nestled between the jungle and a crescent of sand. It wasn’t as grand as the rest of the resort — there were no pools or event halls or restaurants, by the looks of it, but it was nearly as large.
“Are those all cottages?” Breck asked, puzzling over the shapes of their roofs. “Was Shifting Sands supposed to expand over there?”
“Most of them are cottages,” Scarlet said. She pointed at one of the larger ones. “This was intended to be a school.” Breck could make out playground equipment, now that he knew what he was looking at. “This was a daycare next to it, a little general store, and ...a retirement home.” Her finger touched a square building near the center.
For the first time that week, Breck had a stab of hope.
It hurt.
“Shifting Sands was intended to be a haven for shifters,” Scarlet continued, almost to herself. “It was never meant to only be a luxury escape for those who could afford it. It was supposed to be a place for families to work and grow, with the resort to support it. A safe place, where they didn’t have to keep secrets.”
Breck wondered if he imagined the slight bitterness on the word secrets.
“Those foundations were poured,” Scarlet said thoughtfully. “But the structures were never built.” She shook her head. “Money. It would cost a lot of money that I don’t have to finish them.” She frowned, and gave Breck a piercing look. “How many shifters are we talking about in Liam’s center?”
“A dozen, I think,” Breck said, dizzy with the idea of it.
Scarlet gave a heavy sigh, letting the vines swing back down over the unbuilt portion of the map.
“I am undoubtedly facing an expensive lawsuit if you run away with Darla and this wedding doesn’t go through. I don’t think that a return of her deposit would satisfy Mrs. Grant, and I’m quite certain she would not be interested in paying the remainder of her bill. To say nothing of what she would do to our reputation, with her social clout.”
She folded her arms and gave Breck a hard look. “We could house twelve people, if their medical needs are minimal and they don’t mind sharing a few of the more basic cottages. But if Mrs. Grant takes offense, the resort — my resort — is on the line. What are you going to do about that part?”
Breck was silent, chewing over this unexpected turn. “The challenge,” he said grimly. “If the wedding goes through exactly according to the dragon custom she’s insisting on, she wouldn’t have a leg for a lawsuit or for backing out of her bill. The challenge is part of that custom. She would have to let Darla marry me if I won, even if she wasn’t very happy about it.”
Scarlet’s gave didn’t waver. “Can you win?” She didn’t sound as skeptical as she had every reason to.
Breck set his jaw. “I have to.”
Scarlet sighed, and shook her head. “Mates,” she muttered. “Nothing but trouble.” But she said it with a curious warmth to her voice.
Breck stared at her, having to reevaluate her at every level. “You could just fire me,” he said. “It would be the safest thing to do. Just send me packing on the next charter and let the wedding to Liam go on.”
“Are you telling me how to run my resort?” Scarlet asked tartly.
Breck felt like a band had been released from around his chest. “Scarlet, I could kiss you.”
Scarlet scowled back at him. “Hasn’t kissing people gotten you in enough trouble today already?”
Chapter 35
“How could you?” Jubilee hissed as she dragged Darla away.
“Mother, he’s…”
“Oh, don’t you even try to defend yourself, you hussy,” Jubilee said ferociously. “The way you’ve humiliated me. Did you think about your family once?” she demanded.
“I’m not…”
“You didn’t think about me when you decided to ruin your own wedding,” Jubilee insisted, her grip on Darla’s arm painful as she wrenched her down the gravel path to their cottage. “You only thought about your own base needs, like some kind of common animal, like a rutting…”
Darla pulled her arm away fiercely and Jubilee stopped and stared at her.
“Breck is my mate, Mother. I will still get married if you won’t compromise and let me follow my heart, but don’t think for a moment that I will regret what I did while I could.”
Darla was not sure she had ever seen a jaw literally drop, but Jubilee Grant’s did exactly that.
“Are you talking back to me?” she asked in astonishment. “Are you defying me?”
Darla met her gaze steadily, not nearly as frightened by the act as she thought she ought to be. “Mother, of all the people in the world, I met the man that was absolutely, perfectly made for me, for my happiness forever. You have the power to let me be with him, to find my own happy ending. Will you let me? Will you release me from this engagement and give me your blessing and let me marry Breck instead?”
For one blissful moment, Darla thought that Jubilee might be reasonable, that she really would be able to persuade her mother that she deserved joy.
But at the sound of Breck’s name, Jubilee’s surprise turned to rage. “I would rather see you dead than married to that deviant,” she spat.
Stunned by Jubilee’s vehemence, Darla stepped back in alarm and the hedge behind her prickled her arms.
“If you married him, I would destroy everything you both loved,” Jubilee raged. “I would see that this resort was bankrupted, that your precious retirement home was condemned, that Liam and his entire family was put out on the streets. I would take every penny you had, you would have nothing. You are nothing without me, you ungrateful brat, and you will get nothing from me unless you do exactly as I say.”
Darla gazed sorrowfully back.
She had wanted to believe better of her mother, had harbored some small hope that somewhere deep under the society polish and the greed and the petty rages, there was a woman who still had a heart, who might believe in the generosity she tried to project.
“I will marry Liam,” she said, drawing back sharply and holding up an imperious hand when Jubilee reached for her arm again. “I will be the obedient daughter you expect of me and commit myself to the contract you have laid out for me. I will spend two days declaring loyalty to a family that doesn’t care a jot for my happiness and join one that at least acknowledges it.” She went on swiftly when Jubilee might have spoken. “But do not ever expect me to apologize for finding a few moments of joy. I am not sorry for it, and I won’t satisfy your shallow need for control by saying it was wrong.”
Then she marched down to their cottage, Jubilee trailing in her wake.
Her mother would undoubtedly have had more to say on the matter, but Alison met them just around the corner, so close that Darla wondered if she had heard any of their conversation or Jubilee’s terrible threat to have them turned out on the streets.
If nothing else, Darla would be marrying into a far better family.
“I understand we’re doing photographs of the dresses today,” Alison said cheerfully, choosing not to comment on the shirt that Darla was wearing, or the state of her muddy hair, or the simmering rage on her mother’s face. Maybe it was still too dark for her to tell. “I... wanted to see if I could help you get ready.”
“We don’t need—”
“I would treasure your assistance,” Darla said swiftly before her mother could finish. “You could help us select the jewels for my hair, if you please.”
Alison glanced at Jubilee’s angry face and back so quickly Darla doubted she had seen it. “I’d love to, Darla,” she said at once.
“I’ll be out of the shower before you can blink,” Darla promised.
She took Breck’s shirt in with her and spent the time that the shower was heating breathing in the smell of him and the feel of the fabric against her cheek. Goodbye, she thought achingly.
Not much later, Darla looked at her reflection at the spa dubiously.
The
first of the three dresses was black, to represent (her mother loved to explain) the sorrow of loneliness before the final bond was made. It was embroidered in black and gold silk, textured painstakingly in swirls and patterns.
The second dress, the one she was modeling now, was white and virginal, representing (Jubilee reminded her with new dubiousness) the purity of the bride and the dedication to family and ancestral honor. The photographer had wanted to get it in early morning sun.
She certainly looked the role of virgin sacrifice, resplendently beaded in (her mother would tell anyone who would listen) genuine Swarovski crystal until she looked like a snowy Christmas display that someone had hung too much jewelry on. The photography lights they had set up made the whole affect look blinding.
The dress for the third day, hanging beside her, was blood red, representing sacrifice and obedience, and a dozen other things her mother seemed convinced she was incapable of.
I’m here, Darla wanted to say. I’m sacrificing everything.
But she knew her mother was still too furious — and too selfish — to appreciate exactly what she was giving up to go on with the wedding.
Jubilee was putting on a good show for the most important of the guests and the photographer, smiling her cultivated smile and giving her cultivated laugh. Darla wondered how she had never heard the falseness that filled it.
“Oh, perfect,” the photographer said. “You give me a lovely smile now, and turn a little this way. Let’s see the train up over your arm…”
Darla posed, forcing a faint smile that didn’t reach her eyes, and wondered how much the photographs would reveal about her breaking heart. They moved out to the gardens for the coveted morning photos, and took shots until the sun was high in the sky.
Then, finally, it was time to model the final dress. “This one buttons up the front,” she explained pointedly. “I can get into it myself.” Her mother, on the phone with her psychic again, glared at her and left willingly. Alison gave her one last concerned pat, and stayed with the photographer outside the spa while Darla went in alone.