by Sadie Sears
I was in no way, shape, or form, the strongest of my clan. In fact, Cam and I were both down on the end of that spectrum together, Theo only just above us only because he frequently worked out. Regardless, I had strength enough to vent my frustration out on the unsuspecting trees. Combined with my abilities, which seemed stronger than usual, they didn’t stand a chance.
The clearing was littered with broken pines and shattered firs and uprooted oaks by the time I finished my tantrum, and I had enough presence of mind to know it for what it was. I surveyed the damage, a feeling of guilt washing over me. The need for a more physical outlet was still there, but there was no point. It wasn’t helping.
My only chance was to talk to Damini when I met her in the morning for brunch. If we were lucky, her parents wouldn’t be there to direct her every move. It would probably be my last chance to convince her to stick up for herself. Maybe I was the one being selfish, but it killed me to watch her bow to her parents while they put her down.
Or rather, while her father put her down. Her mother, though, she held no shortage of dislike for me, hadn’t really spoken much at dinner, which was odd. She’d been rather vocal the day she drove us apart the first time. Huffing, I spread my wings and left my circle of destruction behind me. I needed sleep if I was going to get my argument across in the morning.
But even after I got home, sleep wouldn’t come.
13
Damini
Most of my stuff was still at Vince’s. I’d paid for the hotel through the end of the week, but mostly I’d been at Vince’s house. I didn’t have a change of clothes, but I’d walked next door before the little boutique closed and bought a few things. Luckily, they had undies. Not something I wanted to rewear.
“This was the nicest hotel Spruce had to offer,” Mother said distastefully. She’d somehow managed to get the hotel to give her and Father the suite next to mine and had come through the adjoining door to sit in my seating area. With me.
Almost immediately, she’d begun picking the place apart. “For this to be the best they’ve got, it’s awfully rundown.” She sniffed and shifted on the small sofa, uncomfortable. “We need to purchase a nice camper bus for times like this,” she muttered. “At least it would be clean.”
I sighed. Her words stabbed at my nerves. I couldn’t dispute her words. The hotel was a bit rundown, but it was very clean. “Mother, stop. It’s not the newest, but it’s not dirty.”
She kept sniffing and looking down her nose at me. Why did it bother me so much that she was being her normal self about the hotel? Mother was a snob. I knew that. I’d always known that.
But I loved Spruce. Hearing Mother criticize it cemented that surety for me. If I’d been on the fence about how I felt before, I wasn’t now.
“I just want to go to bed, Mother.” I sighed and rubbed my face, wishing I had my valise with my face masks in it.
Peering through my fingers, I studied my mother. I bet she had something. “Do you have any face masks? I’d like to take a bath and have a glass of champagne and a face mask.”
Her face brightened. “Of course.” She stood and scurried from the room, brightening up. I bet she was happy that I wanted something luxurious to decompress.
I was beginning to think she was right. Spruce was old. Outdated. Not for the likes of my family, and maybe not for the likes of me.
Vince and I were just from different worlds. It was time for me to face it.
But no matter how much I tried to convince myself of that, I knew with every fiber of my being that I loved him.
When Mother returned with the face mask, I took it and stared down at the luxurious white package. “Mother,” I said tentatively. “Why did you lie to me?”
She stopped midstride, heading back to her room. “What are you talking about?” she asked over her shoulder. But I knew my mother, and I knew her voice. Guilt was laced into her tone. She knew damn well what she’d done.
“You lied about bribing Vince,” I said in a stronger voice. “He didn’t take the bribe, and you tried to threaten him.” Anger bubbled under the surface as my father walked into the room.
“Why are you bringing up ancient history?” he asked in his thundering, dominating way. “We did what we did for your own good. You’re too young to understand.” He waved his hand as if dismissing me.
“I’m thirty years old,” I said in a loud voice, a tone I’d never taken with my parents before. Ever.
“Oh, stop it, Damini, please.” He crossed his arms in front of his chest, a sign that he’d had enough. “You’re acting like a silly, emotional woman. Now, relax and have your beauty mask thing and we’ll go home tomorrow and get down to business.”
“How can you not take my wants into account?” I asked, my anger overpowered by the certainty that I’d never win. He’d never let me be myself.
“Damini, enough. I am your father, and I will not stand for this. That boy was not of your stature, not of your breeding, and certainly not of your class. It didn’t work. You would’ve ended the relationship in embarrassment and heartache.” He sliced his hand through the air and walked from the room.
“We did save you a lot of heartaches, sweetie,” Mother said. “Please try to understand. You were so very young and inexperienced. We know what's best for you.”
She put her hand on my shoulder and squeezed, then followed Father next door, closing the door behind her.
With a sob, I grabbed the face mask and ordered room service to bring their most expensive champagne and charge my parents. The least they could do was pay for my bubbly.
I got ready the next morning after drinking enough champagne to knock me out. If I hadn’t, I would’ve been up all night obsessing over whether I was making the right decision or not.
At first, I dressed quietly, hoping to sneak out before they woke and realized what I was doing, but then I remembered I was a full-grown adult. If I wanted to go have breakfast with Vince and say goodbye to him, they could just get over it. I was going to go home with them, do as they wanted. They’d give me my goodbyes.
Vince waited for me outside Snowshoe. When he saw me walking from the hotel, he rushed forward and wrapped his arms around me. Being in his arms was nearly enough to make me change my mind, but in the end, I knew I had to return to Boston. I pulled back and shook out my hair, steeling my spine and my nerves.
The look of relief on his face hardened. “You’re leaving, aren’t you?”
I nodded, but I couldn’t meet his gaze.
“Damini, you can’t. You’ve got to stand up to them. You’re not a child under their thumb anymore. They hold nothing over you.”
Why couldn’t he understand? They were my parents. But he wasn’t finished.
“Damini, listen to me.” He grabbed my shoulders. “You must stand up for yourself.”
I was so tired. So worn out. So beaten down. All I could do was nod my head. I knew I needed to stand up for myself, but it was so much easier said than done. What I should do and what I could do were two different things.
Vince snapped his mouth shut and stepped back. “Hey,” he said softly. “What’s going on? I’m sorry, I don’t mean to demand or insist you do anything.”
“Vince,” I said. “We’re different people from different worlds.” I pretty much recited what my parents had said. “I’m saving us a lot of heartache.”
His jaw dropped and he mouthed silently at me. “No,” he whispered. “Damini, no. The last time nearly killed me. Please don’t do this.”
I shrank back. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t say that.” He stepped closer, making up the space I’d put between us. He looked like he was about to drop to his knees. It was more than I could take.
Turning, I hurried toward the hotel and swiped the tears from my cheeks as I went, rushing as fast as I could without full-out running. I glanced over my shoulder once to find Vince had sunk to his knees, one hand reaching toward me and the other clutching his chest.
&nbs
p; Oh, geez. Could he have picked a different pose? I sobbed all the way up the elevator, stopping outside my door to compose myself.
After several calming breaths, I braced myself and opened the door.
My parents were in the room, and Mother was zipping my bag. “We’ll send a messenger for your other things at that boy’s house,” she said.
I just nodded woodenly. This was a nightmare. Vince said he’d barely survived it before, but it had nearly killed me, too. In nine years, I never fully got over it.
“It’s time to go,” Father said. “The car is ready downstairs.”
“I’ve got a lunch date with my friend Jessica,” I said, thinking on the fly. I needed some time to process, not be in a long-ass car then airplane ride to Boston with my parents.
“Jessica stopped by to tell you she was leaving herself. She asked that you call her next week.” My mother crossed her hands blandly in front of her. “There’s no reason for you to stay.”
I had no way of knowing if she was being truthful. I sure as hell couldn’t trust her. But I was in so much pain after what happened with Vince, I didn’t have the energy to argue. I nodded and grabbed a bag.
“The porters will get that,” Father said. “Let’s go.”
With my heart at my knees, I followed my parents to the elevator. I’d go with them to Boston and get some perspective and space. I wasn’t happy with the way I was leaving things. I’d get myself together, make moves to get myself out from under my family’s thumb and prepare to come back to Spruce… eventually.
14
Vince
She broke up with me.
I wasn’t sure how long I sat on the bench outside the restaurant as her words circulated on repeat in my head. They didn’t make sense. The dots weren’t connecting. We loved each other, had a great time together, and yet she hadn’t even tried to fight for me. She accepted what her parents wanted, and that was the end.
I stared at the door of the café, not really seeing anything around me. In my head, I watched her leave over and over, looking back once with a tear-stained face. I wished I felt numb because my dragon was in agony, and his pain was my pain. And she was hurting too, so why didn’t she stay?
At least she’d said goodbye this time. That was the closest positivity I could find to pull from the situation. Though it hadn’t been the words I’d wanted to hear, at least she didn’t up and vanish and leave me wondering, like I had in North Carolina.
Ben jostled me out of it when he shoved me over on the bench. Theo took up on the other side of the seat, his face one of understanding. I wasn’t sure how they found me, or even how they knew to look for me, but I was sure glad for the company. I really didn’t want to be left with my own thoughts or else I’d just keep circling endlessly without accomplishing anything.
“Cam asked us to look in on you today, but you weren’t home,” Ben said.
“I could feel you as we drove back into town.” Theo gave me a sympathetic smile. “The sadness you’re radiating right now is drowning out everyone around you. You wanna tell us what happened?”
“Not really.” They hauled me to my feet.
“Come on. You need food.”
I needed a stiff drink but that wasn’t an option so early in the day. When we got inside, I folded my arms on the table and laid my head down. “Damini left me again. There’s nothing else to say.”
Ben frowned and lowered his head to meet my eyes. “Why would she leave? You guys seemed so happy together.”
“Cameron said something about controlling parents,” Theo said. “I assume they had something to do with the decision?”
I sighed heavily and squeezed my eyes shut. They wouldn’t let it go until I told them. “The first time we were together, everything was perfect. We were happy. We had our own stuff going on—she was studying journalism, and I was in the military—but it worked, and it was great. Then her parents got involved.” I breathed deep, fighting back the urge to scream out in frustration.
“When they found out she was dating me, they came to town. I’d been planning to propose, and I was excited at the idea of meeting with her mother and floating the idea by her. Not only did she try to lie about Damini wanting to break up, but she also tried to bribe me with an obscene amount of money to leave, and said I wasn’t good enough. I wasn’t from the same class. When that didn’t work, she threatened me. They disappeared. Damini and her parents. I was upset when Damini left without so much as a goodbye, but I found out that her parents had told her that I took the bribe and ran.”
Ben whistled. “Sounds like her parents have a lot of issues to work out. That’s some borderline psycho behavior.”
I nodded in agreement. “Now she’s telling me that we’re from different worlds, that it wouldn’t work between us. She sounded like she was reading from a script her parents gave her. It was working just fine until they got involved; it always does. All they do is talk down to her and insult her to her face, and she wouldn’t let me defend her to them over dinner. Now they’re forcing her to go back to Boston, treating it like some kind of punishment for a misbehaving child.”
Theo’s enormous hand patted my arm. “What is it that you want from your relationship?”
“I just want her.” I cringed at the whine in my voice and sat up, clearing my throat. “All I ever wanted was for us to be together and be happy.”
“Then why are you focusing so much on her parents?”
I narrowed my eyes at him, confused. “Because they’re the reason all of this is happening now.”
“You’re focusing more on them taking her away from you, and not enough on her being taken away.” He leveled his kaleidoscope eyes at me, so much like Cam’s, and lowered his tone. “What are you going to do about your mate being taken away?”
It was then that I realized what he was saying. I’d been far too lenient in how I dealt with them. When they pushed, Damini wasn’t the only one who had backed down from them. Shame and anger warred within me. The whole time I’d been harping on her for following her parents’ orders, and I’d been no better.
I decided it was time to take the initiative.
“There he is.” Ben clapped me on the back and grinned.
The corners of Theo’s mouth turned up. “So, what’s the plan?”
We sat inside Sacred Spaces, Sophie and Lila’s yoga and tarot studio. It was open, Lila leading a class in the back while Sophie stood at the front counter as if nothing suspicious was happening right in front of her. Her support had been integral in our plan. Across the street was the Spruce Lodge, where Damini and her parents were staying.
“I feel like a spy,” Ben whispered. He fished sunglasses out of a pocket and started humming campy spy music as he peeked out the window.
Theo smacked his shoulder even as he fought back a smile. “Knock it off and pay attention. We’re watching for a black, luxury SUV.”
“How can you be so sure?” Sophie asked.
“Trust me, I know the type.” He glanced back at her and smiled. “Cam isn’t the only ether dragon in the group. I’ve had my share of dealings with rich businessmen. If they have an opportunity to flash their wealth to the plebs, they will. Just watch, you’ll see.”
The sound of Lila’s soothing voice filtered into the lobby from her yoga room as we waited. Sophie paced behind the desk, watching the Lodge. We got one or two strange looks from people who happened to notice us from the sidewalk, but they kept moving.
“Are you sure this is going to work, though?” Sophie stopped pacing and walked over to us. “There are so many things that could go wrong with this situation.”
“Is that it?” I point to the vehicle in question. Like Theo had described, it was a full-size, black SUV that was so shiny, it looked like it had just been driven off of the factory floor.
Without answering me, Theo disappeared out the front door and crossed over to the driver’s door. He knocked on the window, said something to the driver, and slipped him some
cash. The driver stepped out of the vehicle and handed Theo his hat before moving to the sidewalk. Theo put it on and jumped into the driver’s seat.
“I sure hope that’s the right one,” I mumbled.
Sophie patted my shoulder. “I’m sure he asked before he switched places, honey.”
Sure enough, a few seconds later, Fred walked out of the hotel and climbed into the back seat. Before his family followed, the SUV pulled away from the curb. I felt my heart skip a beat and grabbed Ben’s sleeve.
“This might just work,” I whispered.
Ben smiled grimly. “Of course it’ll work. This is Theo we’re talking about.” He waved his hand toward the street. “If his money doesn’t speak the right language, he can be as intimidating as hell. You wouldn’t think so, as sweet as he is, but, man, can that guy put you through the wringer.”
Sophie giggled. “You sound as if you’re speaking from experience.”
“Let’s just say his age is not the only reason he’s in charge of our little group,” Ben replied, a grin stretched wide across his face. His blue eyes sparkled with amusement. “He still occasionally likes to play drill sergeant when we go out for our monthly drills.”
Snow had started falling again, coming down in thick sheets. I felt another storm on its way. A minute later, the SUV pulled back up to the spot it had left. Theo swapped places with the driver again and hurried back across to us. It made me feel like shit what we were doing, but it was all I could come up with on such short notice.
“Well?” I asked as Theo stepped inside. “Did it work? Did he take it?”
“He took it, though I had to go a lot higher than I’d expected.” Theo brushed the snow from his hair. “He asked for five times the amount they offered you in North Carolina. Luckily I came prepared.”