Billionaire's Holiday Bride: A Bad Boy Christmas Romance

by Serena Vale

  If that were so, she did not feel it. Part of her was hoping that Luke would scream for her, calling for his armed security and that those men would gun down these animals right where they were.

  But no outcry came. Not from anyone.

  “Tris, there’s no need to worry,” Luke said calmly and she felt his hand on her shoulder and he stepped by her and fearlessly approached the creatures. Much to her shock, he embraced the smallest of the three, as if it were a lover, encircling its midsection with his arms.

  She felt bile rise in her mouth.

  “This is my wife,” he said familiarly. “And these are my two sons.”

  Chapter 4

  Tris was barely maintaining control of her finer senses as the day wore on. She had been escorted back to her room, though she had taken the pitcher of wine from lunch with her and had drank all of it in the hope of passing out and waking up aboard the cruise ship, surrounded by the familiar comforts of her stateroom and hoping for the comfort of realizing that everything she had experienced was just a dream… or a nightmare.

  But the alcohol had not helped. It seemed that her adrenaline – or maybe it was just sheer madness – kept her awake. She felt as wide awake as a priest on Sunday. There would be no sleep for her… not from this. Not until she could either confirm her sanity or be certain that she had slipped to lunacy.

  She leaned against the frame of a door that overlooked a private balcony to her room. Beyond was a portion of the compound that she noted had been overturned by Luke into this, his private villa. Some of the old Spanish guns that rested on the walls were still being cleaned by the staff and every once in a while she saw armed guards walk by on the walls and below in the yards. Each of them stopped to acknowledge her with a nod, crushing any hope she had of remaining anonymous to these people until she could find a way to escape.

  They know who I am, she thought, feeling mortified.

  She had thought to find some alternative methods of communication. She had searched her entire room and found no telephone… no computer… nothing that would help her reach the outside world.

  There has to be something, she decided. Luke had said there was a boat. Boats needed radios… and the radio that could do that was probably… Down at the docks… where they’ll know an outsider, even if Luke hasn’t told them about me.

  Shit!

  Okay… so getting a hold of a radio was out. But so were a good many other things… including a psychiatrist. She knew that the island had electricity, she had determined as much by the lights in her bathroom and from the security cameras that she had seen outside in the courtyard. Obviously they weren’t cut off from the rest of the world, especially if Luke said that there was a boat to bring in supplies.

  So… the boat is the only way out of here.

  Shit!

  All of her thoughts had been on wondering if she had gone insane or not for the first fifteen minutes when she had returned to her room. After that she resolved that she would rather not find out and decided that if she was still in control of her psyche that getting away from this place was the best way to preserve it.

  But deeper contemplations of trying to find another way off the island were drowned out by everything that Luke had told her at lunch… and by what she had seen. Though she had seen it – or thought she had – she was unwilling to believe it. Monsters… the Bermuda Triangle… monsters… she was marked for death… monsters… she was a prisoner here…

  It’s not true, she told herself repeatedly and with gulp of wine. It’s not true… it can’t be true. This isn’t happening… Luke… Mr. Silva… whatever the hell his name is… it’s all fake! He’s just fucking with me! I didn’t see that shit!

  There came a knock on her door that almost made her jump from her skin. She turned towards the door and gripped the edge of the door frame she had been leaning against. “Go away!” she shouted, feeling tears form in her eyes.

  The door was lightly pushed open and standing there in the arch of the door were two figures that would have, under normal circumstances, caught her interest entirely.

  They were men. Each of them built handsomely enough for her liking. Broad shoulders, well-toned if not overdeveloped muscles, a light sheen of sweat covered their bodies where they were visible. They wore no clothes that she could detect, their modesty protected only by towels that were wrapped around their waists.

  One of them had lightly colored blonde hair that was parted down the middle and wore deep brown eyes, and he looked to be about thirty or so. The other had a head of lighter brown hair and piercing green eyes, though he was slightly shorter than his counterpart, looking about forty or so in age. He carried a metal flask in his hand.

  “I told you to go away,” Tris warned.

  “Yes, I’m sorry about that,” the blond one said, taking two steps into the room. “But, our father thought it would be best if we talked to you. He knows you’re upset… and believe me, we understand perfectly how you feel.”

  She caught the word like an outfielder catching a long-drive. “Your father?”

  “Yes,” said the brunette man. “Luke… he’s our father.” He blushed a little. “I’m Jon… and this is my brother, Jacob,” he said, gesturing to the blond man beside him. “We met earlier today… though, you wouldn’t know us if you saw us.”

  Fear began to tremble inside of her legs. She couldn’t have run even if she wanted to. “You’re… his sons?”

  Jacob and Jon both shared an amused look. “Well… no, at least we’re not his sons biologically. Uh… it’s kind of hard to explain,” Jacob said. “That’s why we’re here.”

  Tris held her ground, thinking that if things came to the worst of it, she could just throw herself from the balcony of her room and hope that the fall killed her. Death seemed preferable to wasting away here as a captive.

  Wait… am I a prisoner here? Could this all just be some kind of cruel joke?

  She licked her lips nervously, hoping that the answer to her question would be a resounding ‘no’. “Am I a prisoner here?”

  The two men looked at each other uncertainly before looking back to her. “Uh… it’s not that simple, I’m afraid. You’re here for your own protection… and for others too, I suppose,” Jon said.

  “The Sea Snags can’t find you if you’re too far inland… you just happened to land on the only island that they won’t try and cross. They die if they’re out of the water too long. Most other places, if you’d washed up on shore and that drink you spilled on you had washed off enough, they’d have plucked you right off that beach,” Jacob added.

  Okay, they’re nuts too, Tris decided, but stayed on point. “That doesn’t answer my question.”

  Jon pursed her lips together contemplatively. “Yes… I suppose it would be simpler just to say that you’re a prisoner here. But… it doesn’t have to feel that way. That’s another reason that we’ve come here.”

  “You can’t hold me here,” she warned. “That’s kidnapping.”

  “Not in the eyes of the local law,” Jon said delicately. “You see, our father – when he bought this island – the government recognized his right to set the laws for this place as he saw fit. They didn’t care if he did or not, the island is so small and nobody but us lives on it. So, according to local law, your life as a U.S. Citizen is null and void here. You’re a resident of this island now.”

  Tris’ jaw dropped. “Just like that?”

  “Just like that,” Jacob confirmed. “Money can accomplish a lot in this part of the world. It would be best if you just accept it. This isn’t a terrible place to live. Not in the least. We have all of the comforts you could possibly imagine here. And if it’s not here, we can import it. Well… everything except cars. There’re no roads here.”

  Tris looked around for some kind of weapon as drastic thoughts crossed her mind. Maybe throwing herself off the edge of the balcony wasn’t a sure-fire way to protect her from falling into madness. But an alternate thought also saile
d across the front part of her brain and she felt she had the spine to attempt it.

  Here she had the sons of the man who owned the island. Much as she hated to do anything violent the idea of taking either of these men as a hostage and demanding to be returned to… well… anywhere but here, suddenly held great appeal. If she could get down to the docks while holding a knife or something to either man’s throat… they would have to take her anywhere she wanted.

  “I know what you’re thinking,” Jon said.

  Tris froze, fear overcoming her malevolence. “Excuse me?”

  “You’re thinking that there’s no way out… that you feel like someone is standing on your chest… that you can’t breathe. It’s like suddenly the world should be a much bigger place but all you have is… this,” he said as he swept his arm across the room, encompassing the entire island.

  Tris tried to gather her fortitude and stepped away from the balcony door and deeper into the room. She could not see anything that she could use as a weapon, not even an improvised one. Even though her mind was still pressed with desires of escape, there was something to this man’s words that had caught her attention. There was a note of sympathy inside of them. And despite her thoughts she had the strange feeling that these two posed no threat.

  Not really.

  Jacob held up a hand to keep her calm as he took one cautious step deeper into the room. “How much did he tell you?”

  Tris, again, looked curiously at the pair of men. She was confused but thought it best to answer with the only truth she knew. “That monsters are real… they ate the people on a sightseeing barge… and I’m stuck here.” She felt herself leaning against a wall. “And I’m starting to think that I’ve gone bat-shit crazy.”

  Jon smiled at the remark, Jacob chuckled.

  “What?”

  “There was a time when I thought the exact same thing,” Jacob said. “Both of us had at one point, I’m sure.”

  Jon licked his bottom lip contemplatively. “He told us what he told you, Tris. And while he told you the truth about why you have to stay, he didn’t tell you everything. He left some of it up to us because… well, because we’ve been through it before. And believe me, you’re lucky. When I first came here I didn’t have anyone to help me adjust. I had to come to it naturally and it was harder for me. I didn’t have Jacob here to help me out until years later. But now… there’s something that can help you through it. You’ll understand everything a lot easier if you’ll just hear us out.”

  “Wait, wait, wait, wait,” Tris said, holding up her hands and hoping that the crazy flying around the room would keep away from her. “Wait… just… wait!” She took a breath and worried that the last of her sanity might be leaving her even now. “Just, tell it to me straight now. No more subtleties… no more half-truths… none of that shit. Just tell me what the hell is going on.”

  Jacob nodded. “If you like… although, you might want to sit down.”

  Tris didn’t move.

  “Suit yourself,” he said indifferently, “you say you want the truth?”

  “I’m all ears.”

  Jon settled on the bed, the towel he wore hiking up a little and exposing a little more of his leg. “The truth is… I’m one hundred and seventy one years old. Jacob here is just a little over seventy. I came to this place just after the Confederacy fired on Fort Sumter. My father was a wealthy merchant in St. Louis and when the war broke out he was afraid for me. He didn’t want me to get inducted into the army so he packed up me and everything that he had and decided to make a quick run for the Bahamas on his private yacht… though we never made it that far. We saw the Sea Snags and we ran aground here on this island trying to get away from them.” He pointed at Jacob. “Jake here was a pilot… crashed here just before the Korean War got started. Snags tried to get him too, but they didn’t know he was a champion swimmer… he made it ashore before they got him.”

  “Luke found us both, took us in, and eventually he made us into what we are. We’ve been here ever since,” Jacob said fondly.

  Tris had seen enough bad television in her time to know a false story when she heard done. And there was nothing false about this tale. It sounded like something out of one of those corny soap operas, but she had seen evidence to the contrary that her mind was still trying to make sense out of.

  “Bullshit,” she said simply. No other resolution came to her mind but that.

  “It’s not,” Jon replied. “It’s a hard truth, Tris. But it is the truth.”

  Tris shook her head. “Sea monsters… no way off this island… and you’re a hundred and seventy one years old? And you, you’re seventy?”

  This time, the two men said nothing. All they did was wear an expectant look upon their faces. Tris could read that expression easily enough. They were simply waiting for her to accept it or to flatly ignore it.

  “And what… you’ve survived all this time by sleeping in a coffin and drinking blood, I bet?”

  Jon shook his head disgustedly. “What? Ewww! No!”

  “I hate it when people think that’s the only way to live forever,” Jake added.

  “That’s the other thing I need to tell you about,” Jon said.

  Tris felt her legs tremble. “There’s more?”

  Jon blew out a sharp breath. “Well, you saw us… our other halves, I mean. We can explain that a little. What do you know about mythology? Specifically what do you know about monsters… beasts… half-breeds… that kind of thing?”

  She didn’t say anything.

  “Well,” Jon went on, “not everything that you might have heard is untrue. There are… things… in the world that are real. Luke is one of them… and now you know that we are too.”

  Tris took a cautious step backwards. The notion of hurling herself over the balcony might yet be a viable option if she did it just before the madness took hold of her. But curiosity stemmed her desire for a quick death. She wanted to hear what the nearly naked men had to say. She wanted to know how far gone she was so that she might know what kind of insanity she was in for.

  “Luke himself never really knew what he was called. If his people ever had a name then it never made it into the history books… or the mythology books, come to that. He just always called himself a Scale.”

  “A Scale?” Tris asked incredulously. “Somehow I don’t think that has anything to do with measuring weight. Does it?”

  “No… it’s hard to explain. He was born that way. But he was able to share the gift with us.”

  “I wouldn’t call turning into a… Scale… a gift.”

  Jacob shrugged. “A hundred years ago nobody thought being turned into a werewolf or a vampire would be a gift either. But today, thanks to popular culture, people would be lining up around the corners to get their shot at immortality because they think it’s cool.”

  “And if you’ll let us,” Jon said, “we can show you that you’re not in any danger.”

  Chapter 5

  It took some small amount of coaxing, but the two finally managed to convince her to sit upon the bed. Her legs felt as if they were about to fail her so she had accepted. And faced by the two men, she waited for them to explain themselves on why she was being kept as she was and for benediction that she was not in any danger. She welcomed it. She didn’t feel the urge to vomit, fight, or scream. She simply felt… drained. If there was anything left inside of her of her old self, it was too weak to care what happened to her next.

  Her eyes fell to a glint of metal in Jon’s hand. The small flask he had brought in was clutched in his fingers. “Drink this. It’ll help and it’ll make you feel better.”

  She looked at the flask warily. “Will it help me forget?”

  Jon shook his head. “No. But it will help you calm down.”

  Without hesitation and a desire to blunt whatever it was that was happening to her mind she took the flask and put it to her lips. She turned it upright and took a mouthful of whatever it was that inside.

 
; She almost gagged as the kick it provided was nothing that she was expecting. It wasn’t alcohol that she had swallowed, she was positive of that. It was something more putrid, like a cross between foul tasting cough syrup and motor oil. How it could help her she was unsure, but it was something else definitely other than a stiff drink.

  But it did have an effect. And it took hold of her almost immediately.

  Her mind flooded with images. Images that somehow she knew were memories… but not her own. It was like standing on a cloud during a tornado and being able to stare down into the funnel before the winds eventually sucked her in. Image after image beat her, swooshing by at speeds she could not comprehend.

  She tried to hang on to them as they passed her by.

  She saw men… ancient men, dressed in chainmail or full armor plates, almost as if she were watching them through one of the nausea-making face cams from a reality TV show. The image seemed to swirl and wobble uncontrollably as she tried to hold the armored figures in her eyes. In her heart, she felt a sense of uncontrollable fear… fear of those men. Many of the pursuing figures were on horseback while others were on foot, waving medieval weapons around menacingly as they gave chase.

  The images seemed to shift. She saw more men, droves of them as they chased down creatures identical to the ones she’d seen standing in the courtyard through thickets and swamps, forests, and even in towns or villages. The animals were overturned and slaughtered by spears and swords.

  The images changed. She saw the same creatures, living inside hollow spaces of rock and damp caves. Several of them were larger specimens while the others were considerably smaller. They were huddled together, like newly born kittens around a sleeping mother. Light suddenly poured into the cave, stirring each of the creatures. Their – her – eyes seemed to turn upward just as something thick and smelling of oil came pouring in, covering the creatures. And a torch came in after it, igniting the pitch and the animals within screaming in their own language for… mercy.