by Chant, Zoe
Scarlet stood and paced away to the edge of the lawn, staring over the resort to the ocean with her arms wrapped around herself.
She didn’t want to believe him, and she didn’t want to trust him. But everything Mal said rang true, and everything matched the things she already knew. She’d felt the creature below the island, and knew its wild power, even if she didn’t understand what it was or where it had come from. She had always known, instinctively, that to wake it would spell disaster.
And Mal...
She’d spent so long hating him that she had a hollow place in her chest where that anger had burned, and it felt raw and tender inside... and that frightened her more than her fury ever had.
Was he really her mate? Yearning threatened to swamp her logical thought and she forced the question away. It had no bearing here.
What mattered were the people who trusted her, all the shifters at the resort who didn’t know the danger they were in: her guests, her staff... her friends.
“How long?” she asked, not turning. “How long do we have?”
She heard Mal rise and cross the lawn to her. “Not long. The storms that will make landfall in a few days are his doing. He has control over wind and water and my gut says that they aren’t a coincidence. His method of destruction will be storms and floods of a scope humans have never seen and have no defense against. He will make our category fives look like child's play. Storm surge will reach your office.”
She looked down the long, steep slope over the roofs of the cottages, the waving treetops, and the glittering pool. The ocean looked peaceful, far below.
“When he wakes, the cage won’t be able to withstand him in its current state.” Mal hesitated. “Scarlet, I have to stop him if that happens. I have to battle him down and reset the spell at that moment, before he breaks free... it wouldn’t matter who was here, who got killed in the crossfire. I can fight him in his resting place, but if he breaks free, he’s in his element of strength and I’m at a disadvantage. And if he gets loose on the world, it would be so much worse. I don’t know who could stop him, or how long it would take, and how many he would kill first. You have to believe me, Scarlet. You have to leave. You have to leave now.”
Scarlet turned to him. “I believe you,” she said quietly. “I don’t want to believe you, but I do.”
His eyes were full of sympathy she didn’t want... and he didn’t even understand the scope of what he was telling her.
“It’s late and the storms are a few days out. I’ll start the evacuation tomorrow morning. I need to make some phone calls, we’ll get the air charter out here as many times as they can schedule. The storms at least are real, we can use them as our reason for the exodus.” She paced to the table and pushed the chairs in neatly, as if arranging the furniture would somehow make everything better.
“I know someone who can put a few news articles up to support the story,” Mal offered. “A general widespread evacuation warning of the coast in this area might look more likely than just a single island.”
“I’ll have Jenny cancel the purchase and return the funds they raised. But...” Scarlet looked at Mal and swallowed her pride with effort. “You offered me a buyout. I know I refused it. But if it’s still on the table, I want it. I want the staff to be able to retire comfortably. They deserve that.”
“I offered you three buyouts,” Mal said dryly. “Every one of them generous by any measure. But why not start the resort again somewhere else? Your people would follow you anywhere and you have the funds.”
Scarlet smiled at him, a slow, sad smile. “I can’t leave the island.”
“I know it means a lot to you...”
She reached out and touched his face, because he was standing so close, and because he was so handsome that she couldn’t resist it. “I can’t leave the island,” she repeated with emphasis. She took her hand back before she was tempted to do more. “It didn’t matter how much money you offered me, or how much pressure you put on me... leaving the island was never an option for me.”
Mal scowled at her. “I don’t understand. Is it a magical compulsion? I can break those.”
Scarlet shook her head slowly.
“A contract?” Mal’s voice took on a hint of alarm as the ramifications of what she was telling him sunk in. “I’m arguably one of the best lawyers in the world. I could get you out of anything.”
“Modest, too,” Scarlet observed wryly. “The only contracts binding me are the ones you already know about.”
“Then what? Scarlet, you can’t be here when this goes down!” He sounded angry, but Scarlet heard the note of panic in his voice.
Scarlet lifted her chin and smoothed down her skirt. “I’ll show you,” she decided finally. “Come with me.”
“Show me what?” Mal scrambled to follow.
Scarlet shot him a look over her shoulder as she led him back through her office. “What I really am.” She pointed to his shirt, slumped on the floor. “Put your shirt on.”
Chapter 13
Mal suspected he’d appreciate Scarlet’s suggestion to wear his shirt; the buttons at the wrists were gone, but he solved this indignity by rolling up his sleeves, walking fast to catch Scarlet. To his surprise, she did not pause at her office door, or head down into the resort, but led him out of the courtyard, past the entrance, along the low stone wall, and then plunged into the jungle before him.
Scarlet moved swiftly through the trees before him, flitting ahead as easily as if she was on a paved walk. Mal had glimpses of her ahead, as he clamored over roots and pushed aside leaves the size of tables to follow. Her skirt, which had seemed so conservative in her office—lack of undergarments aside—was hiked up above her knees and her long, pale legs flashed in the deepening green shadows.
At one point, Mal was astonished to realize that she was still wearing her modestly-heeled shoes, over ground that even he found challenging in flat dress shoes... and that he still seemed to hear the distinctive click that they made over tile.
Before he could reconcile this oddity, he was breaking out of the clinging shadows into an unexpected clearing. The sun was beginning to set; the sky above them was stained purple and gold in the hole of the jungle canopy above.
For a moment, Mal thought that Scarlet’s true form was too big to show him in a constrained space and she’d brought him here for privacy.
Then he realized that the clearing wasn’t empty.
In the center of the jungle-ringed space was a tree.
Mal was no arborist, but even he could tell at once that this was no ordinary tree. It wasn’t that impressive in size, compared to the gigantic trees of the jungle surrounding them, but it was still grand, as big as a house, with thick fern-like leaves and a heavy crown of brilliant red flowers.
Mal didn’t have to cast his power sight to know that it sizzled with power: power like Scarlet’s.
And it had brilliant red flowers: red like Scarlet’s hair.
She was watching him with something that might have been anxiousness in a lesser person.
“This is me,” she said needlessly, because Mal had put all the pieces of this puzzle together at last. “This is why I can never leave the island.”
“You’re a dryad,” he said in wonder.
“This is my tree,” she said simply. “This is my forest. This is my island.”
They had closed the distance to the tree and the branches bent down in greeting.
Mal reached up and ran his fingers through the feathery leaves. They curled around his fingers and stroked his arms curiously.
Scarlet gave a little sigh, and Mal turned to see her eyes half-closed in pleasure.
“It has been a long time since anyone really touched me,” she said achingly.
Questions crowded in Mal’s mouth: how did she grow here? What was her connection with the Lyons? How did her stunning power work?
And most critical: how could he protect her from the devastation of rebuilding the wyrm’s prison? Lettin
g the island become a battleground was no longer a palatable option... but it had always been the only option.
We cannot let her come to harm, his dragon wailed. But we cannot fail our destiny!
“I have photographs of you in England, from the sixties,” Mal said, confused. “You had brown hair.”
“Royal poinciana doesn’t bloom in England,” Scarlet said, as if it made perfect sense. She reached up and caressed some of the leaves; they twined around her fingers. “It only thrives in the tropics.”
“But... you were in England. How...?”
“I woke up there. Probably a traveler brought a seed pod back from a vacation; I only know that I woke up when I was a sapling in a pot. I was root bound, starting to die, so I picked up my pot and went looking for someone to help me. I found the lot with the happiest trees and went to ask them to save me.”
While Scarlet spoke, she sat down in the thick moss beneath her tree, and the ground beneath her raised into a mossy root chair that conformed to her shape and cradled her like a throne. Apparently, she was done hiding her abilities from him and the analyst in him desperately wanted to test what she could do.
He didn’t doubt she could raise the entire jungle onto its roots and march it forward in battle, if it came down to it. Could she use her power to protect the island while he battled the wyrm? Already, his mind was churning through possible solutions.
Mal sat carefully across from her, mimicking her motion, and was unnerved by the sensation of the roots beneath the springy moss rearranging themselves and lifting him into a chair.
“That lot, as you’ve probably guessed, belonged to Aaric Lyons, who was in the midst of preparing for his wedding.”
“To Coral Jennings,” Mal said, recalling his research.
“No, actually,” Scarlet gave a tiny, conflicted smile. “He was engaged to Rupert Beehag’s daughter, Anna. Coral was a landscaper who was there to do the finishing touches on the grounds for the ceremony. He took me to find her for advice on my tree... and met his mate. He had hired her by phone, and that was the first time they’d seen each other...”
Scarlet was avoiding his gaze, finding anything else to look at. Mal wanted to reach for her, badly, and his dragon was grumbling impatiently inside. He waited.
“They were very kind to me. I had nothing but a pot with a dying tropical tree in it and Aaric had me re-potted, took me into his household, taught me how to blend in, educated me, and eventually built a glass greenhouse where I lived for nearly twenty years. Then, he bought half of a tropical island and paid an exorbitant amount of money to have me freighted across the world and planted here.”
She pursed her lips, then went on evenly. “It wasn’t an easy road for them. She was from a poor area where shifters were being harassed and he was a young lord who was expected to make a brilliant match with an influential businessman’s daughter. Aaric chose to break off the engagement at the last moment and marry Coral.”
She shook her head. “It was messy. Anna was already pregnant—not by Aaric, but I think her father was hoping that her marriage to him would hide the shame, and instead, it became very public and ugly. I thought that Rupert Beehag took the disgrace very well; they continued business arrangements, and even made the purchase of this island together. But it’s clear he never forgave Aaric and, it appears, grew to hate shifters.”
Scarlet balled fists at her side.
“When Aaric vanished, the resort was almost finished, but it was discovered that he had been in financial straits. I wonder now, if Rupert didn’t play a large role in that, as well. The workers all quit and left, and Coral... Coral was devastated. She knew that Aaric was dead, even if she didn’t have any proof. She wanted to take their son to England, where she thought they would be safe, and Rupert, her good friend Rupert, made a very generous offer to buy her half of the island, leaving the option open to buy it back whenever she, or her heirs, could. It was quicker than a loan, and the contract looked ironclad. Rupert didn’t know what I was, of course... I was just Aaric’s secretary on paper, he had no idea I was tethered to the island. Coral... she thought she’d come back quickly, that it would take a few years at the most to figure out what had gone wrong with the bookkeeping and get it all fixed. A few years isn’t so long for a dryad.”
“She never came back,” Mal finished for her.
“I found out, decades later, that she died in a car accident, shortly after returning to England. Her son received a life insurance settlement that got him on his feet again, but he was just a kid, and he only knew me as an eccentric aunt. He had problems of his own, without wondering what had happened to me or worrying about some island he barely remembered. He got married, had a son... died a pauper. I didn’t know any of that... I was just... waiting.”
“For almost forty years.”
“Until cell phone coverage reached the island and I could communicate with the rest of the world again.”
“That’s why you were missing for so long.” Mal whistled. “You were actually here the whole time.” Alone, Mal thought. Alone on an island of your broken hopes.
“If you tell me I look good for my age, I will throw you off my island, reservation or not.” That was the Scarlet he knew so well, full of spice.
“I wouldn’t dream of it,” Mal said honestly. “My compliments are much more clever than that.”
“I wouldn’t know,” Scarlet said dryly. “The last time we spoke on the phone, I believe you called me a stubborn harpy who wouldn’t understand a smart deal if it bit me in the ass.”
For a moment Mal could only smile at her, bemused. “I had offered you twice the value of the island and a reasonable settlement on Jubilee Grant’s lawsuit simply to sever the lease. What else was I supposed to assume?”
“Maybe you shouldn’t make assumptions,” Scarlet said sharply.
She rose from her chair and paced away. The moss chair melted back into the earth. Mal rose and followed her.
The tree above them shuddered and Scarlet shut her eyes. “I found Aaric’s hide in Alistair's study, after we freed the zoo. There was a short time there, after his death, where the contract hadn’t been passed to Benedict yet and I could go there.”
“You were there when the zoo was freed,” Mal remembered.
“I made Jimmy invite me,” Scarlet hissed. “I was extremely persuasive. The contract allowed me to visit, though I could feel it dampening my power.”
Mal could feel her fury and helplessness. He remembered puzzling over the weirdly detailed specifications in the resort lease and the older contract that dictated rights of first sale. “The Beehags have always been very good at hiding their true nature,” he growled, remembering how betrayed he’d felt when he discovered what was happening at their compound.
“I still feel like I should have known what was happening,” Scarlet said quietly, bowing her head. The wind in the branches gave a sorrowful sigh.
“The contract...”
“The contract was written to protect the shifters at Shifting Sands... and to protect me. None of us ever dreamed that Rupert and later his grandson would use it conceal something like... that.”
The sun was almost down now, the sky velvet indigo overhead. A silver moon, nearly full, cast crisp, cool light over the clearing, and in the shadows under Scarlet’s tree it was growing dark. Mal could see in the dark, thanks to his dragon, but it was almost colorless sight; Scarlet’s hair, and the flowers in the tree, had lost their red hue.
Her eyes were still emerald when she turned to look at him, luminescent to his sight, and Mal felt like he was looking straight down to the center of her, to all of her years of loneliness, all of her strength, and every regret.
She was so beautiful, so complicated.
“I wish I had done something sooner, stopped him...”
“It wasn’t your fault,” Mal interjected.
“I could have...” she spread her hands helplessly.
“You did everything you could. More than you
had to.” Mal had kept his hands from her longer than he’d thought possible and he failed to resist the urge to comfort her where he’d been able to resist touching her for his own pleasure. She didn’t pull away when he took her hands, and when he drew her close, she didn’t protest, merely looked at him with those glowing eyes.
He didn’t kiss her, though he desperately wanted to, only opened his arms and gathered her into a tight embrace. He held her close and, after a moment, she sighed and put her arms around him.
Chapter 14
Scarlet leaned into Mal’s body, trying to absorb his strength and comfort. She was so filled with yearning and emotion that she didn’t know what to do with any of it. She hadn’t spoken of Aaric or her guilt over Beehag’s zoo to anyone, bottling it up as deeply as she could manage.
Her trust of Mal was alarming in its intensity. His motives were clear now and all of their past strife had logical, if misguided, explanations once they’d bothered to sit down and untangle the underlying confusion.
It felt amazing not to have secrets, for the first time in such a long time... almost as amazing as it felt to have strong arms around her, holding her close.
Scarlet could not help but remember his gaze—amused and full of wonder—as he told her why he knew she wasn’t a shifter.
Her mate. Was it true?
It was impossible not to realize he wanted her; he was trying not to press his erection against her, but Scarlet was not oblivious to its hardness between them, or the way his fingers kept caressing her and stopping as if the desire was rising in him like it was in her and he wasn’t sure what to do with it.
“We never finished our dance,” he murmured near her ear.
“That’s a shame,” she whispered back. “But I suppose we still could...”
With small adjustments, one hand was in hers and one was at the small of her back, and they were no less close as Scarlet walked her fingers to his shoulder, wishing now that she hadn’t encouraged him to put his shirt back on. The runes on his forearms gleamed slightly in the darkness below his rolled-up sleeves.
