by Starla Night
Pyro wasn’t there. His phone rang, unanswered.
Well, at least she had a backup plan.
Kyan appeared a short time later with the “car”. She got home after midnight. He was obviously pissed despite what Pyro had said. Because when she asked where Pyro was, Kyan snapped, “Jail.”
And when she gasped and asked why, he turned to her with a glare. “It’s your fault.”
Chapter Nineteen
Pyro had problems.
He strode the buzzing halls of the Onyx Corporation executive floor, buttoning his suit as his red scales receded from his hands. He’d intended to turn over a new leaf but apparently, Earth leaf-turning was harder than it sounded, and here he was, late again to the meeting he was intended to run.
His siblings turned to him in a very familiar gesture as he burst through the door.
He skipped the coffee and took his seat. “What did I miss?”
His siblings looked at each other.
Jasper finally cleared his throat. “As acting CEO, you start the meeting.”
“Nothing? Great. First item of business — Sard’s offer.”
Amber’s eyes narrowed, and she stopped him. “What about your wife?”
“That’s the second item.”
She blinked in surprise.
“But if you want to talk about her first, that’s fine.” He held up one hand and counted off the things he had done on his fingers. “I’ve married Amy. It’s fully legal according to human laws. All that’s left is to announce our marriage to my mother when she returns from her estate tour with Mal and Cheryl.”
“Amy spoke of divorce,” Amber said.
“When I left her last night, she was pleased to remain married.”
Jasper pointed at Kyan. “When he left her last night, she was hysterical and never wanted to see you again.”
Well, that explained why she hadn’t replied to his good morning texts. And here Pyro had thought she must be in class. Responsible Amy wouldn’t use her cell phone in class. Now her silence appeared more sinister.
He fixed on Kyan. “What did you say to her?”
“The truth.” Kyan stared back. “She asked where you were. And who was at fault.”
“And you didn’t consider that unnecessary information?”
He remained silent.
Pyro fought his irritation. The smoothed claw marks from his last frustration stood out to him from beneath the newly sanded conference table. It would be so easy to let them out to slice more wood.
He’d left Amy at the baths to clear up a misunderstanding. Deal with his outstanding warrant so he could be the kind of male who could walk her down a street, in any country, without worry. And Turkey was just the start. Ignoring misunderstandings out of laziness hadn’t done him any favors.
“I’ll talk to her. Again. But,” he held up a warning finger, “this is the second time she’s talked to one of you and then desired a divorce. Clearly, there is a problem with your communication styles. I need the rest of you to shut up and help or stay out of my way.”
His siblings stared in shock.
“Anything further on this topic?”
Silence.
“Next. Sard’s offer. We’ve had a day to consider it. What’s our response?”
They went over the offer clause by clause. In the end, nothing was certain except that they would get the use of his ports to distribute their clothing — under his label — and take on the very risky, possibly lucrative, but most certainly treasonous distribution of jewelry.
“It would be easier if he stuck to rings and pendants,” Jasper said. “Ordinary settings of gemstones like humans are so fond of wearing.”
“Gemstones are easily created in labs. We couldn’t compete with Draconis copies.”
If Draconis jewelers had the balls to copy these fake crests, liability for their distribution might not land only on the Onyx family. The further it spread, the more difficult it was to arrest just one family. Even the family that started it.
Amber must have been reading Pyro’s mind, because she said softly, “He was right that it’s larger than our companies.”
“Yes, it could go before the Palace.”
“The Empress wouldn’t execute us over jewelry.”
“Why not? We’re not aristocrats. She can’t strip our titles.”
“She could strip Mother’s title and estate. Where would she go? Earth?”
They spent a few minutes considering the grand matriarch of the Onyx clan, who spent most of her time in scaly, jewel-covered dragon form, living among humans.
Unfathomable.
Pyro called on Kyan. “Did you contact Flint?” A strategy this dangerous should be run past their youngest sibling.
“He was beyond the reach of my communications.”
So. Like Mal being gone, the decision was up to them.
They were going to save this company or destroy it.
Alex leaned forward. “We are not considering Sard’s risk. His family assumes ultimate responsibility for subsidiaries. If the Empire decided to enforce sumptuary laws, they will punish him, too.”
“Here’s the part I don’t get.” Pyro laid out his palm. “Is he so greedy? Why risk all?”
“His sister.”
Everyone turned to Amber.
She spoke quietly but surely. “Sard had an older sister. Her first marriage to a minor aristocrat was invalidated to force her into a different marriage. She committed suicide.”
No wonder Sard had been impressed by Pyro’s mother. Her marriage was invalidated seven times. If not for the early death of Pyro’s father, they might have had seven more siblings, each one a plea for her grandmother to finally recognize the validity of their marriage.
“What happened to her bastard son?” Jasper asked.
“I do not know. But Sard’s family is controlling. I do not think he was supposed to come here. And I think the only reason he was allowed to remain so long is because the company was number one.”
A ranking the Onyx Corporation had recently stolen. By hard work. But nonetheless.
Sard had lost the top rank and been recalled to Draconis. Now a younger brother was taking over the company intending to dismiss Sard’s “fallen” employees and install his own “pure” aristocrats.
Pyro almost felt sympathy.
Almost.
Jasper laid his palms on the table. “I want to do it.”
Shock rocked Pyro. Cautious Jasper, who never stated any opinions on products or strategy, wanted to merge companies and distribute a questionable contraband?
Alex stole Pyro’s question. “You do not fear the consequences?”
“I was working in an Outer Rim factory when Mal came to me,” Jasper responded. “I lived in dorms with many other males. I have thought of them many times since coming here.”
“And selling a false crest will help them how?”
“The factory is not bad work. No one is endangered. But we are interchangeable as the parts in the machines. Nothing is uniquely ours. No small piece or symbol in which to feel pride.”
Pyro forgot that difference between the human and dragon worlds. Why colorful human clothes were so popular and why exotic human spices and flavors evoked such cravings. In the dragon world, only utility and efficiency were prized. The rank of bloodlines, and, in a very few cases like Alex’s, the gem tone color of scales.
Having a small crest, even an unofficial one, would give Jasper’s former coworkers something they could never possess in any other way.
“There are many things we cannot do to help those males,” Jasper finished. “But this is something we can. I want to do it.”
Pyro sucked in a breath and rested both hands on the conference table. “Well, I’m not getting down on one knee for any aristocrats. You want this done, you come up with a counterproposal that keeps us in command.”
“In two days?” Alex asked dryly. He had the most experience with contracts, human and dragon.
“In as many days as it takes. I’ll inform Sard we have a counter-proposal. The rest is up to you.”
The meeting ended.
Pyro checked his watch as he strode down the corridor to his office. There was just enough time…
“Where are you going?” Amber asked, floating behind him. In human form, her legs were significantly shorter than his, which was odd because in dragon form she dwarfed the brothers. As females did.
“Thailand,” he said. There was just enough time to clear up one more misunderstanding. “Tonight, Amy will introduce me to her parents.”
Amber nodded in approval.
Not that Amy had agreed to introduce him. In fact, she specifically hadn’t agreed. But he wouldn’t wait. The last time he had waited the introduction had never come.
Amy wasn’t like the last time. She was completely different. Pyro willed himself to believe that.
“Then she is in class now?”
He stopped. “Why?”
“I wish to help.”
Great.
But it wasn’t like he could tell his sister not to do so. As a female, she had a short temper and could easily toast him with her natural fire-breathing abilities.
“Don’t say anything unnecessary,” he growled.
“I never do.”
He flew out of the office, leaving Amber behind and wondering what damage control he’d have to do this time when he got back.
Chapter Twenty
Nice nails,” the fourth-grade teacher’s assistant mentioned in passing.
“Thanks.” Amy poured herself a cup of coffee in the teacher’s lounge during her midmorning break.
“And are those highlights?”
“They are.”
“Great color. It gives you a whole new look. And I just love that lacy undershirt. Are you dressing up for any reason?”
Pyro had made her beautiful. She’d gotten married this weekend. His relatives had forced a hundred camisoles in different shades on her.
Well, she hoped her new look would impress her family as much as the teachers.
She eased into her chair and smelled the forbidden but very necessary liquid. “Just time for a ‘me’ day.”
“It’s very nice.”
She sipped from the borrowed mug. Normally she brought something herbal and decaffeinated but she’d forgotten her full travel mug on the counter this morning. After first period, her body had demanded caffeine.
Now, as the coffee passed her lips and her brain obediently kicked into super-wired mode, she prayed for a miracle.
She’d stayed up way, way, way too late last night laboring over the How Do Colors Feel? poem. Not only did her activities still feel dislocated and teacher-y, they didn’t even engage her. She scrubbed her face and stared at the well-erased lesson planner, then recycled the page and got out a fresh sheet.
That afternoon, she and Corinne went over the clean, neatly written lesson plan together. Corinne tapped her lips. “It just doesn’t feel…”
“Like A work?” she asked with a cringe.
“Like you.” Corinne set aside her own well-stained coffee mug and stretched.
She was a bouncy fifth-grade teacher with a barrettes obsession; she always had some adorable animal or chemistry molecule in her hair, one for every day of the academic year.
Amy was considering a decorated sock collection.
“Why do you think you’re struggling?” Corinne asked. “Is it the subject? The material? Or…” Her critical gaze roved over the same highlights, nails, and camisole the others had complimented. “Are you not fully devoting yourself to this assignment?”
All of the above.
Amy erased the dot of an “i” on her page and re-marked it. “I’m fully dedicated to creating a lesson students will engage with and administrators will love.”
“But?”
It wasn’t the subject matter or the material.
Ever since Corinne said she couldn’t use her original plan because it would make administrators uncomfortable, Amy had pushed every new idea past the same inner censor and found them to be uncomfortable-making too. She fixated on issues that caused students to think — and administrators to squirm.
What if students accidentally disclosed things administrators didn’t want to hear? What if someone got embarrassed? Nothing about her plan was safe. Nothing about her teaching style was safe. She wasn’t safe.
How strange. She’d lived her whole life doing the smart, reasonable, safe thing and since coming into contact with Pyro she’d realized that the one area in her life where she excelled, where she’d devoted her energy and passion, was full of risk.
Teaching was dangerous. Her style of teaching especially.
“Teachers need to be able to teach any subject and any material engagingly,” Corinne prodded gently. “Not only their favorite topics.”
“I know.” Amy hung her head.
Hopefully, her conversation tonight with her parents wouldn’t come to the same unsatisfying conclusion.
“Well, you still have three days. Let’s meet again.”
Amy lifted her head. “Three days?”
“You didn’t hear? Administrators overheard me telling another teacher about your exceptional work and they asked if we should have you do a demonstration lesson in front of parents on Thursday’s Parent Night.”
All the oxygen sucked out of the room. Her voice squeaked. “Me?”
“It’s a great opportunity to showcase yourself. Be memorable, funny, and show off that natural talent you have with engaging a class.”
“Corinne…” she moaned. “Thursday? Thursday?”
Her mentor smiled sympathetically and patted her hands. “Work hard.”
She dragged herself out of the meeting, through the last class of the day, and began packing a larger-than-usual book bag for her journey across town to her parents’ house.
This public teaching demonstration was the opportunity she’d waited for all year. Subbing at the school as an assistant was great for experience, but more importantly, it put her in contact with the employers who could take her career to the next level.
A demonstration lesson in front of them and the parents was the opportunity she needed.
Her polished lesson had to shine.
Except she had no polished lesson. Tonight was shot because she’d promised Pyro she’d broach the subject of their marriage with her parents. He had a complex about her not introducing him. She absolutely couldn’t back out now.
Which left tomorrow to finalize her lesson. Wednesday she’d want to do a practice run with props. Maybe even try out parts of the lesson on her unsuspecting reading class to gauge on how interesting they found the activities. Then she’d recalibrate her lesson for the demonstration.
Her belly squeezed.
Regrets. She knew she’d have regrets.
She should’ve gotten married after school was out. But by then the Empress would have forced Pyro into marriage.
Dragons! They were so inconvenient.
Amber walked into her classroom.
Amy was swinging her overly heavy book bag onto her shoulder when she suddenly noticed the dragon shifter female. She checked her movement. The bag bossed her around a bit, and she finally regained her footing.
“Visitors need to check in with the main office,” she said. “This is a closed campus.”
“Okay.” The diminutive woman made no move to rectify her lack of a guest pass. She was again wearing Mary Janes, a conservative plaid skirt, a burgundy blouse and dark tights.
“Can I help you?”
“No. I’ve come to help you. There was a misunderstanding.”
Amy let the bag thump on the floor and indicated for Amber to take one of the student desks. They would have a few minutes before security or janitorial staff asked questions.
Amber folded her hands in her lap and regarded Amy with serious eyes. “Yesterday, Pyro was not in jail.”
Oh. That was a relief and
kind of nice for her to come down to say. Amy had gotten his good morning texts but had been too afraid to respond with her questions.
“What happened?” she asked. “Where was he?”
“He was speaking with law enforcement about his outstanding warrant.”
Outstanding warrant? That was less reassuring. “For what?”
“Disturbing the peace and aiding a terrorist.”
Oh. Wow.
Amy rubbed her forehead. “He dropped me off at a bathhouse. He said he was visiting friends.”
“The bathhouse is owned by the family of the man Pyro rescued. Their son drove his bus into a mosque. The police branded the activity terrorism, and Pyro did not correct their understanding of his involvement.”
“So he saved a man’s life?” That made him a hero. “Why wouldn’t he correct that misunderstanding?”
Amber shrugged. “He used to find jail time restful.”
“People jail dragon shifters?”
“We obey all local laws. It is part of our treaty.”
The treaty again. Okay. Whatever. “Kyan said the situation was my fault.”
“Because Pyro is taking responsibility. He did not care who misunderstood him. Now he is making an effort to clear up the misunderstandings because of you.”
Wow. That was…
Wait a minute. “How many ‘misunderstandings’ are we talking about?”
“I do not know the exact number.”
“Ballpark is fine.”
“Ballpark?”
“Rough estimate.”
“Thirty-five.”
“He has outstanding warrants in thirty-five countries?” she gasped.
“Some are in the same country but in different jurisdictions,” Amber replied stoically. “That is why I do not know the exact number.”
Oh god, she’d married an outlaw. The lyrics from Renegade played in her head. Pyro’s jig was up, news was out, they’d finally found him…
Her parents must never know.
Amber rose and started for the door. “I wanted to tell you before he visited your family tonight.”
“What?! No!” She bolted to her feet. “He can’t.”