Tropical Dragon's Destiny

by Chant, Zoe

  Then she was stalking away, through the door, and gone.

  Chapter 3

  Mal did not sleep well, despite the luxurious bed and its billion thread-count Egyptian cotton sheets, and he lay in them long after the sun rose, trying to make sense of everything.

  His thoughts kept returning to the betrayal and anger that had bloomed in Scarlet’s face when she realized who he was, and the soft, yearning laughter that fiery look had replaced.

  She was so beautiful, so powerful. Those green eyes, that glossy hair that no photograph did justice to... He longed to see if she tasted as potent as she felt, to bury his fingers in her hair, to lay her down and claim her.

  She is ours, his dragon rumbled, but Mal remembered the fury in her face and knew that it was more complicated than that.

  Mal was not used to second-guessing his methods or questioning his own decisions, but he found himself thinking over every interaction they’d ever had. Had he done her as wrong as she was clearly convinced he had?

  He rolled out of the bed and stalked to the desk where he’d left a folder open the night before.

  The top photo was a candid, close-up shot of a beautiful woman with candy-red hair wearing a crown of deep green holly.

  Scarlet Stanson.

  His mate.

  She was smiling in this photo, as she was not in so many of her others.

  Mal frowned thoughtfully in return.

  He understood people, especially shifters. He knew how they worked and what made them tick. After more decades than he cared to admit as a lawyer, he could predict what they would do under pressure with eerie accuracy, and he used that knowledge to his advantage.

  But he didn’t understand Scarlet Stanson.

  He shuffled back to an older photograph, faded with age. It was another Christmas shot; a pine tree in the background was draped in old fashioned lights and tinsel. Scarlet’s hair, nut brown, was swept up in exactly the same bun and she looked like someone had surprised her.

  Last night hadn’t been the first time she’d surprised him.

  She had failed at every turn to fall into the patterns he had expected of her, bucked his expectations and thwarted his plans.

  And she wasn’t just a small problem.

  The island was never meant to have been developed. Alistair Beehag’s private compound was bad enough, but a resort? And not just a quiet, garden variety resort. Beehag’s partner, Lord Aaric Lyons, had built a luxury resort designed just for shifters.

  Mal had been glad when Lyons vanished and the resort stalled out before he had to interfere. He spent a few years working his way into the Beehag family as their lawyer and was as alarmed as they were when Scarlet Stanson mysteriously reappeared. She had brilliant red hair but didn’t look a year older and she pointed out the language in a binding contract for lease that even he could not find loopholes in. Within a year, she had the resort opened for business.

  Still, he thought he had time. Decades even, and Mal had always excelled at the long game.

  So he waited for her to fail on her own and was surprised when she didn’t. She collected a fascinating array of skilled staff, finished the half-built resort in remarkable time, and courted in a chef who could have cooked in the finest restaurants anywhere in the world.

  When Alistair Beehag’s atrocious shifter collection—a terrible zoo where shifters were forced to remain in their animal form—had been uncovered and the prisoners released, Mal had been furious and had nearly taken the opportunity to rid himself of all the problems on the island at once.

  But Scarlet unexpectedly took in all the refugees from Beehag’s menagerie, before Mal could step in. Mal had been so shocked by the act that he put the rest of his plans on hold, sparing the resort until he saw how the chips fell out.

  It was a stunningly poor business move. The resort had barely begun to establish itself, and yet she’d chosen to run her finances—Mal had access to all of them—dangerously into the red in an act of pointless charity. She tied up dozens of rooms that could otherwise have been booked for people who would never be in a position to repay her and hemorrhaged thousands of dollars a day to feed them, clothe them, and send them back to their old lives when they were ready.

  None of them were important people, none of them had connections that would serve her. She’d done it, as far as Mal could tell, completely selflessly. She was too smart not to realize how thin she’d stretched herself, even if she appeared to keep the true depths of her debts—already considerable—secret from the staff.

  And she didn’t give up.

  Instead, she hooked a contract for a male shifter beauty pageant, with impressive and flattering media coverage, and business boomed. She even managed to host one of the highest profile shifter weddings in decades.

  Mal picked up the newest edition of Night Shift, a glossy shifter gossip magazine and had to smile wryly at the splashy cover. A giant cave bear and a leopard were facing off and a distraught bride in the background wearing pounds of jewelry was wringing her hands. Guests were fleeing and potted plants were toppling.

  Scarlet didn’t feature much in the photos; she was a blurry, bright-haired figure in the background at most, but Mal had gotten several first-hand accounts of the tawdry event. The wedding had dissolved into chaos, the bride had run away with a waiter, and Scarlet had shared choice words with the mother of the bride publicly, quoted in damning detail within the article. The lawsuit that had been filed against the resort was a veritable tome of complaint; a copy of it sat on his desk next to the folder.

  Mal almost felt guilty for his part in the pandemonium.

  Almost.

  The waiter, Breck, still worked at the resort with his runaway bride. As did the washed up mermaid, Saina, the twin sisters Jenny and Laura (who had fled here from the mob), and Wrench, the brute with the unsavory past who had tried to kidnap the wrong one of them for money.

  Scarlet had shown them all utterly illogical compassion and they had returned her trust with loyalty that gave Mal considerable pause; they had denied every tempting offer he had dangled in front of them and ignored every subtle attempt to sow discord.

  All because of Scarlet.

  And Scarlet herself was a cypher. How had she managed to win such devotion from her staff? She had even convinced Grant Lyons to shake off his identity as Graham Long and claim his first right of refusal to buy the island itself. The staff had scrounged the exorbitant price of the sale in nickels and dimes and gifted it to her in entirety.

  Mal trailed his hand across the offer that they’d sent, shaking his head in grudging admiration, and then began to get dressed. Mal had managed to keep a life insurance policy owed to Laura and Jenny tied up in paperwork for almost a year and he’d scared two buyers off from buying Conall’s business—Conall was a permanent resident retiring from a life of celebrity as a classic musician who had built a business empire and given it all up to settle down on the island with his skittish mate Gizelle, one of the longest imprisoned and most damaged residents of Beehag’s cruel menagerie.

  But Mal hadn’t counted on Magnolia, another of the resort’s permanent residents, reconciling with her royal family and regaining access to her inheritance, or on a third buyer for Conall’s music empire appearing out of the woodwork while he was still busy with the second.

  He had no legal recourse to stop the sale.

  It was downright sloppy of him to let them get this far, build this much hope.

  Then there was the fact that Scarlet was, completely beyond expectation, his mate.

  She was so beautiful, so strong, so... vulnerable.

  And she was going to be crushed when the resort inevitably fell.

  A knock at the door interrupted the unavoidable spiral of his thoughts.

  He opened the door to find a curvy, dark-skinned woman holding out a key and a brochure.

  “Ms. Smith,” he greeted.

  She smirked at him. “That’s a safe guess,” she said mockingly. “But it’s my
sister you’ll be needing to see if you have any business to discuss.”

  This was Laura then, the wolf shifter who had married the cowboy bartender, identical twin to the lawyer Jenny. “Thank you,” Mal said gravely, accepting the items. The resort hadn’t upgraded to keycards; it was an actual key on a large wooden keychain.

  “Breakfast is open for another few hours,” Laura added. “Scarlet said you are to be treated exactly like any other guest and that you are... welcome... to enjoy the amenities.”

  Her emphasis suggested that welcome was not exactly what he could expect, but Mal only said, “I appreciate it.”

  Once she left, he was dismayed to find that he was hungry. It had been a long flight the night before and his dragon’s appetite was considerable... even if food was his second choice.

  The restaurant was not terribly busy, but several of the tables were in use when Mal arrived. He seated himself at the edge of the deck, overlooking the bar and the pool beyond.

  The waiter, sharply dressed, plunked a glass of ice water down in front of him and gave him a distinctly unfriendly appraisal. “Chef is making custom omelets this morning. We have most ingredients you could want in stock to build your own, or you can choose from a Denver—a proper Denver, with no cheese—or a vegetable lovers that uses what’s fresh with mozzarella. Do you need a moment to decide?”

  He waltzed to the next table without waiting for Mal’s answer and spent notably longer chatting up the guests and flirting with the matron of the group.

  Breck. Mal remembered vividly his role in the recent wedding disaster and he was amused to note the dragon runes that circled one of Breck’s wrists when he reached to refill a water glass. Mal fingered the long sleeves of his own light bamboo shirt thoughtfully.

  The waiter took the order for the second table back to the kitchen, served a third table, refilled drinks throughout the restaurant, and finally returned to Mal’s table, his slight obvious. “Have you decided?” He did not offer to refill the half-empty water glass, despite the towel-wrapped pitcher he held.

  “Vegetable with a side of bacon,” Mal said serenely. “Coffee.”

  “There’s bacon at the buffet,” Breck said dismissively, and he turned coldly away.

  Mal did not expect his meal to come without a generous seasoning of spit and briefly considered feeding himself solely from the buffet. It was clear that the staff knew exactly who he was and had no qualms making sure that he knew exactly how little they cared for his presence.

  It wasn’t entirely unexpected.

  He’d already tested their loyalty to Scarlet and found it impenetrable. It must look, from their narrow view, as if he had some kind of vendetta against her, or against the resort itself.

  The omelet came cold and late, neither of which could quite disguise the quality of it. The vegetables were stunningly fresh and perfectly cooked and the white cheese was a good pair with the fluffy eggs. It was served, despite Breck’s earlier brush-off, with a generous platter of thick, salty bacon, and a stout cup of strong, good quality coffee (also nearly cold).

  Mal ate it without complaint and did not bring attention to his empty water glass, despite Breck’s several circuits of the room with the pitcher.

  He left his starched napkin on the table when he had finished and went to the railing that overlooked the bar and the glimmering pool below that. It was a tasteful paradise, with shining tile, perfectly groomed foliage, and grand, Greek-style columns.

  It was really no wonder Scarlet didn’t want to let go of it.

  Mal leaned onto the railing, then shifted as he kicked off, launching from the deck on mottled golden dragon wings. Sunbathers around the sapphire pool looked up in wonder as his dragon form passed over, gleaming in the sun.

  Showing off a bit? Mal asked. Mythical creatures were usually invisible to humans and regular shifters, but they could choose to be seen.

  She should see and admire us, his dragon said smugly as they circled over the resort. The light here is flattering.

  We have work to do, Mal reminded him. Let’s focus.

  Chapter 4

  Scarlet stalked into the early afternoon senior staff meeting and glared them to silence.

  They stared back, clearly dying of curiosity over the events of the night before but not quite willing to ask.

  “The resort will be at just over sixty percent capacity this week,” she said coolly. “We’ve got a request in for a whale spotting tour later this afternoon—Travis, can I put you down for that?”

  Travis agreed. “Not a problem. The solar panel on cottage seven just needs to be wired in, and that’s the last one.”

  Scarlet nodded. It had been an expensive investment and the panels were only installed at a few cottages so far, but if they could start moving away from pricey fuels that had to be imported from the mainland, it would be worth it. If she could just keep her resort long enough to see the payoff... she caught her hands curling into fists as she thought about Mal... N. Padrikanth Moore.

  “We have two guests of particular note coming in on the morning charter,” Scarlet said, consulting her notes with a scowl. “One is an elderly domestic cat shifter who has mobility issues. I’ve talked with her companion and will be putting her at cottage twenty-two. Liam, that’s right there next to your elders, because we’ve got the most access infrastructure in that area and it won’t involve stairs to reach the restaurant.”

  Liam, who was in charge of a small shifter retirement community within the resort, nodded agreeably. “I’ll reach out and see if she’s interested in some of the activities we’ve got scheduled. She can take meals with our crew, if that’s convenient.”

  Scarlet nodded crisply. “Thank you. The other guest requiring special consideration is a fire ant shifter. I want any pest control to be extremely careful this week. I would like to maintain our good record of not having squashed any guests.”

  There was a cautious wave of chuckles through the room, and then expectant silence.

  Scarlet, knowing what they were really dying to ask, nodded instead at the large, gray-haired man sitting at the side of the room in an apron. “Chef, if you’d like to start off our department reports.”

  She remained standing as he confirmed the status of inventory. He added, “I’d like to have Travis look at the grill; I feel like it’s acting a little sluggish, not running quite as hot as usual. Oh! And I’m down fifty pounds of salt. I’ll need to have some picked up from the mainland before the end of the week.”

  Scarlet furrowed her brow at him. “Fifty pounds?” Chef was usually excellent at inventory management and this was a significant quantity.

  “An unopened bag went missing from storage yesterday. I’ve looked every place it might have accidentally been put, but it’s just gone.”

  “Stolen?” Wrench asked swiftly. Scarlet had placed the tattooed panther shifter in charge of security and he was taking his new duties very seriously. There was almost no crime at the resort, and she rarely needed additional enforcement, but she suspected that it would give the guests peace of mind to know that there was someone in charge of such matters. Most of all, it made Wrench feel like he had a purpose; he refused to take his mosaic art seriously, though Scarlet was encouraging him to continue his work.

  “Who would steal salt?” Travis asked, laughing. “The whole bag costs less than ten dollars, and there’s not much black market use for it.”

  “Someone with a vendetta against snails?” Breck suggested.

  Others chuckled, Scarlet made a note to order the salt, and the meeting passed to Breck, who gave an entertaining report about the service schedules, and then to Graham.

  “If you’re going to borrow my tools, you’d better put them back,” the lion shifter growled. “I’m missing a shovel from the uphill storage room. Putting in two new beds of herbs, have a surplus of lettuce, the lower paths need raking, I’ll get on that tomorrow before it’s too hot.”

  “Salt and now a shovel! It’s an out-of-cont
rol crime spree!” Breck observed drolly. “Wrench, you’d better get on this!”

  Wrench gave a grunt that might have been a laugh.

  “No one would steal from Grant Lyons, King of the Jungle,” Travis joked. “A shovel made of pure gold wouldn’t be worth that risk.”

  A swift smile crossed Graham’s face at the sound of his previous name and fighting title; he had somehow found a sense of humor when he’d met his mate, Alice, and Scarlet caught a smile of her own briefly on her face.

  Smiling managed to remind her of Mal, of his self-assured grin and the feeling of his hand at her waist.

  “Lydia,” she said, more sharply than she meant to. “Anything we should be aware of at the spa?”

  She only caught about half of Lydia’s report, stewing over the sheer gall of Mal Moore, showing up here, at her resort, under the guise of being a guest. What did he think he could accomplish in person that he couldn’t over dozens of phone calls and letters? In what world did he think that he could convince her not to go forward with the offer for the resort? He must be desperate, knowing that he had no legal recourse to stop her.

  Or maybe he thought that his charms could persuade her in person where they’d failed over distance?

  Scarlet didn’t realize how angry she had gotten until she snapped the pen she was holding and everyone went silent and stared at her.

  “Thank you, Lydia,” she said as mildly as she could manage. “Tex?”

  Tex drawled a bar report, requesting some mixers and reporting a broken tap for Travis to look into.

  “Is there any other business?” Scarlet finally asked, finishing her notes with half a pen.

  There was a brief moment of anticipatory silence, then Breck asked boldly, “I don’t know... is there any other business?”

  Scarlet glowered at him. “I think we’re done here,” she said dismissively.

  She left the room swiftly and heard the conversation lift into gossip and speculation behind her.