by Starla Night
He didn’t bother to shift. “If you kill me, then you’ll be on your own.”
“That will be my problem and you will be dead!”
“I thought you wanted to win.”
“I thought you wanted to live!”
“I can’t focus until I have confirmed Rose’s status for myself. No one’s watching over her, Larimar. You have the schedules and whatever you’ve done to keep your male alive, to know about him, and I have nothing. You ate my phone.”
She sat on her haunches. “The sooner you get the business running, the sooner you can go back to her.”
“How long did it take you to focus? After your mother took away your male.”
“We don’t have that kind of time.” Larimar extended a hand, and when Jasper took it, she yanked him upright so hard he nearly went flying off his feet the other direction. She forced a suit onto him, dusted off his hair, and picked up the list again. “Help me. Come on. Focus.”
He stared at the list.
A long pause passed.
She sighed and ended the call with a disturbed-looking Kyan, who’d witnessed the whole argument, and brought up the ordering software. She began hunting and pecking in the orders. “One hour.”
He jolted. “What?”
“You can go for one hour. Don’t betray me.”
Chapter Thirty
Jasper raced for the exit.
“And you have to do the other stuff,” Larimar called after him. “Confirm the office space or whatever.”
He got outside and flew home so fast his skin practically melted off. His speed would impress even a female dragon. The early evening sun cast shadows on the hot sidewalk, and he found Rose carrying two heavy plastic bags out of the discount grocery store.
He landed on the sidewalk in front of her in a rush.
She jumped and dropped her bags. “Goodness, you startled me.” Then, she did a double-take. “Jasper? Oh my goodness, Jasper!”
His heart catapulted in his chest. He opened his arms. “Rose.”
She dove into his embrace. “I missed you so much!”
His throat closed and he couldn’t speak. He held her soft body to his.
She was lithe and healthy; whole and unharmed; and her delicate feminine scent hooked him, addictively strong. He buried his nose in her soft, unbraided black curls, and squeezed her. She laughed, hugging him back just as tightly.
Eventually, she let him go. Tears glimmered in her eyes. “Did you get free? Is it over? Did you escape?”
“We’re three days away.” He collected her bags. She’d filled them with the lowest quality of discount toilet paper, a small jug of oil, and wrinkly black beans. “My brothers offered the head office for our final tasting. You must have talked to them.”
Sadness crossed her face, then anger. She looked away and hugged her elbow. “Yeah, words were said, all right. So, you’re not out of the woods yet?”
“Not yet, but the horizon is lighter.” He made the automatic turn to go to her grandmother’s complex.
“Ah, you can’t go back there.” She pulled him away. “Grandma’s living in my apartment, and you’re not too popular in the old neighborhood. Not that anybody’s still around.”
“Oh, has the housing authority responded?”
“Yeah, they responded.” Her tone didn’t sound as happy as he was expecting. “They evicted us in 72 hours. All the vans were busy, and we had to leave behind most of her stuff. It was mold-damaged anyway, but Grandma was sorry to lose her bed, and she should have been able to move the couch.”
He stopped on the sidewalk. “The housing authority didn’t assist?”
“Nope. Why, were you expecting them to?”
“They said that they distributed moving assistance. Something called vouchers.”
“Yeah, but you get those weeks later. You have to pay to hire a moving company and store your stuff upfront. Plus find a new place. First, last, deposit. Application fees. Background checks. It goes on.” She shook her head and kept walking. “Luckily I have a couple of weeks left on my lease. I wanted Grandma to move in anyway, and it’s been good to have someone with me while I…well, I was lucky.”
“The housing authority didn’t help.” He couldn’t understand this. “How hard is it to make a few phone calls and arrange temporary labor, storage, and housing? I would have done it in a half-hour. I would have found you another place to live! Humans have dormitories called hotels for temporary habitation.”
“Yeah, sure, if the housing authority had money and cared.”
“Kyan should have assisted you.”
“Really?”
“Or Peridot. Anyone.”
She looked away again.
He dropped the bags and scooped her into his arms. “I’m sorry. This was my mistake. Kyan should have noticed your distress and offered his help.”
“He doesn’t seem like the kind to pay much attention outside of guns, you know.”
“You must be right.” Jasper shook his head. “An apartment building is condemned so the occupants need new housing. Why isn’t the next step obvious?”
“Well, there’s seeing the obvious, and then there’s doing something about it.”
“Why doesn’t anyone act? I can’t understand.”
Her smile returned. “No one’s surprised except you. You always do the right thing.”
“Doing the ‘right thing’ is like performing maintenance; it requires a small effort sooner and prevents an enormous catastrophe later.” He refocused on her. “For my part in this, I’m sorry.”
She shrugged. “I knew it was a risk when we started dating. You’re a dragon, so miscommunications happen.”
“And my Jaguar needs to be moved.”
“Oh. Uh, no, the city took care of that.”
“I’ll locate and pay to release it.”
“No, Jasper, it wasn’t in great condition. I doubt they could even find a VIN to identify or charge you. Everyone knew you reported us and they were…well, they were unhappy.”
“I’m sorry.” His heart ached for Luis and all the kind people who’d been shocked and thrown out. “I will demand a new phone from Larimar and be available to you and Liam no matter what.”
She stiffened. “So you didn’t get any of my messages?”
“No, I had to fight Larimar to see you, and here I am.”
“You defeated Larimar?”
“I convinced her I couldn’t focus until I knew you were okay.”
She patted his arm in a way that made him release her slightly, and then she pulled free, picked up her bags, and avoided his gaze. “Right. Well, you can see I’m okay, so you should head back and finish that one crucial thing. We can catch up after you’re free.”
He followed. “How is your family settling into your apartment?”
“Fine.”
“Wouldn’t you prefer my spaceship? It’s bigger for three of you living in one place.”
“We don’t need any more room,” she hedged, “and anyway, I don’t want to occupy it if you need to make a bargain or getaway.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Nothing. I mean, we can talk about it after you’re free like I said.”
He followed her with an even darker sense of dread. She was off; something was off. He pondered as she carried her bags into her gated complex. “How’s the team? Shawn, Elle, Patty?”
“I haven’t talked to them. Patty called me, but I wasn’t in a good place.”
“Why not?”
She shrugged. “The move, you know. Lots of shocks at once, no way to reach you.”
That was on him, but she was being evasive. “Is your grandmother’s health improved after leaving the mold?”
“Probably. I don’t know. We have to change her address with the doctor’s office to get her test results sent here at least until…for a while.”
“How’s Briar’s business?”
“She called last night about another investment, so I ga
ve her your old number.” They reached the front step. On the lawn were strewn boxes, a mess unlike Rose’s usual tidiness, and bags of garbage that included Liam’s bent cardboard race car bed.
“Liam outgrew his bed,” Jasper commented. “He liked that one.”
“Sure did.” She passed it without looking. “It needs to be recycled.”
“I’ll get you a bigger one.”
“No need.”
“Don’t worry, Rose. I’ll arrange a hotel for your grandmother so you can fit a new bed for Liam in your apartment.”
“No, Jasper.” She turned on the first step so she was eye-to-eye with him. “No need.”
“Liam still needs a bed.”
“Not here, he doesn’t.”
“You don’t wish to move into the spaceship until after Adviser Wrathmoda releases me, but that is still three days. I can get a bed delivered today, and—”
“No. Jasper.”
He rested on his heels. Rose’s eyes were diamond hard; her resolution a rock.
“Liam doesn’t need a bed because he’s not sleeping here anymore.” Her voice wavered. “Briar came and took him.”
His heart lurched. She was obviously destroyed inside and keeping it together for him. “Where?”
“It changes. Briar posts on Facebook.”
“You can track her location.”
“And what?”
“Get him back.”
Rose shook her head. “When Briar sees me upset, she hangs on tighter to what I want, or she destroys it in front of me.”
“You can’t abandon your team.”
“I’m not abandoning him,” she snapped. “I told you. When Briar takes him, there’s nothing I can do.”
“The family lawyer—”
“Also said there’s nothing I can do. Again.” She lifted her fingers and counted off the reasons. “Because we didn’t have a custody agreement. Because Briar’s his mother. Because I’m living in a one-bedroom apartment with my homeless grandma, to say nothing of my work situation right now.”
“You have me.”
“Right now, I have you.” Her eyes narrowed. “For how long?”
He checked his wristwatch. “Fifteen minutes.”
“There you go.”
“Can I borrow your phone?”
She reached into her pocket and brought it out. “Why?”
“You don’t like my spaceship so I’ll buy you a three-bedroom house.”
She lifted the phone out of his reach. “I didn’t say I don’t like your spaceship. I don’t know how CPS would feel about it, but don’t waste your money on a house.”
His heart lurched again. “But this is how you get him back from Briar.”
“Could you buy off the adviser or Larimar? Pool your assets and pay them to go away?”
He didn’t know.
She took his silence for her answer. “So, I don’t want your money. I don’t want your spaceship. I don’t want to tangle up your stuff when you need it the most.”
“You need it now. Liam—”
“And I can’t accept something that might get taken away. That doesn’t help. I can’t reach you. If something I was relying on falls through, that’s devastating. It’s worse than never relying on anyone to begin with.”
“My family would help you.”
She put a hand on her hip. “Jasper, your family doesn’t even have your back, so why would they have mine?”
He swallowed because he’d struggled with the same fear. “Forget me. You have to get Liam back because Briar isn’t taking care of him.”
“I know.” She searched the sky, her voice heavy, tragedy pressing on her shoulders. “It’s been three days and her posts are erratic. Liam hasn’t been to the preschool. The last place she stayed didn’t have a kid’s bed. He slept on a lounge chair. When was the last time he changed his clothes? Is he brushing his teeth?”
“Why are we standing here? I’ll spend my last five minutes finding Liam.”
“And then what?” She scoffed at him, the dark rings around her eyes suddenly much more prominent. It was as if they’d traveled back to weeks ago when he’d first tried to force his way in. “Beg Briar to change her mind? She loves hurting me way more than she loves money, and because of what you said, she knows that my usual tactic of disinterest is a lie.”
“You can’t give up on him.”
Hot anger flashed through her face. She shoved him back. “You think this is giving up? No, this is me enduring.”
“Stop enduring and start fighting.”
“Oh, so, you have it figured out, huh?” She shoved him back another step. “Just go kidnap Liam back. That’ll be fine. Like how the man I love is kidnapped by a rival female dragon, and have to I fight her, but fighting is suicide.”
“Briar isn’t a dragon.”
“Life is like a 400-pound dragon. It comes and sits on your chest and there’s nothing you can do but wait until it gets bored and lets you up again. And that’s what I’m doing. Fighting the only way I know how to fight.”
“Rose, you can do so much more.”
“Oh, sure, I could complain to CPS just like you complained to the housing authority. How did that turn out?”
“I solved the problem.”
“Unlike you and Briar, I’m just not willing to destroy Liam’s life in the process of ‘solving things’ for him.”
A deep shame filled him. She was right. About so many things.
He’d pushed his way into her life and then set about improving her happiness without understanding the delicate working relationships she had perfected. He’d misunderstood and destroyed everything.
The proper functions of spaceship parts were defined: Each part fit in its own slot and did its work; remove a piece and the ship cannot fly. But in his case, he’d removed many pieces from her life without watching over the result. Her ship had self-destructed, throwing casualties in his wake.
He could arrange anything except the happiness of the woman he loved.
He couldn’t even save himself.
Jasper’s watch alarm beeped.
They both looked at it.
“Time to go.” Rose pushed him down her narrow walkway, through the waist-high picket fence, onto the empty parking strip in front of her apartment. She backed up until she stood on the other side of the gate. “Let’s just take a break, okay Jasper? It’ll be better for everyone. Look me up when you’re no longer enslaved.”
Chapter Thirty-One
Jasper’s heart contracted. “You’re breaking up with me?”
“It’s not a break up so much as a break, uh…” Rose leaned against the gate. “Not down…well, it’s so you can stop wasting time on me and refocus on you.”
“You are breaking up. You no longer want to be with me.”
“To be fair, we’re not exactly together,” she pointed out. “We were supposed to pretend to be married to save you, and that didn’t work. It was a stupid idea to begin with and it’s only made both our lives worse.”
His chest burned. It felt like he’d been flayed alive with a laser, belt to chin, and mortal ice filled him with savage pain. “It wasn’t supposed to be pretend.”
“No, it wasn’t. But everybody’s treating us like it was fake, so it might as well have been.” She looked as hurt as he felt. “Anyway, you’ve got to get back.”
“I’m not enslaved,” he insisted, but the words sounded dry and unfair in his mouth. “Larimar’s mate is enslaved, and I’m raising the funds to free him.”
“That sounds like you. Selfless as always. Lighting yourself on fire to keep other people warm.”
“I would never self-immolate when better materials are available.”
“It’s a figure of speech. It means you don’t value yourself. You just sacrifice, sacrifice, sacrifice for other people who don’t even care.” She put her hands on her hips. “Try not to get married or killed.”
“No.” He tried to swallow the knife of hard truths. “I’
m sorry, Rose. I’m…you really want to break up?”
“Well, it’s one less person CPS has to investigate when they remove Liam—because someone’s going to report Briar eventually, even if it’s not me—and they’re looking for a foster home.” She shrugged a shoulder. “You have a record, after all, and that looks bad on their reports.”
He felt faint. “No.”
“Sorry, but I’m telling you this so you’ll get it.” She rapped her own temple. “Stop worrying about me and start worrying about how to save yourself! Your brothers obviously have no plan, and distraction isn’t working.”
He struggled for equilibrium.
Rose still loved him. She was acting callous to protect herself, again, and she was also trying to help him. But it didn’t feel like help. Too many barbed truths lodged in her words to comfort him.
“I will look you up,” he promised gruffly. “I will take you away and no one will stop me. You’ll be mine.”
Heat and hunger flashed in her eyes.
She licked her lips. “Well, I heard that when dragons are serious, they abduct their mates off the street.”
“I will. Even if you Mace me.”
“Promises, promises.” She stroked his roughened cheek.
He grabbed her palm and kissed her hand. “I’ll fix this. Believe me.”
“I’m not the one you have to convince.” She dragged their foreheads together, held him close for one long, endless moment, and then let him go. “At least we get to say goodbye.”
“Our day is coming, Rose.”
“Okay.” She stepped back. “Focus on you, now, Jasper.”
He flew up and hovered at a hundred feet, watched her return to her house, and then he flew straight to Larimar’s office. Rage, fury, and sorrow whirled in his heart, forcing out his scales, kindling a hundred plans and then flaming the planning board clean.
Jasper would not get married or killed. And he no longer relied on others to save him from those fates.
He’d always done his job. He’d ignored external distractions to complete his work, and he’d assumed his performance was average, that he was only doing what made the most sense, and that everyone would perform the same tasks.
