by Starla Night
Rose snapped at her. “You should be grateful Jasper doesn’t hold a grudge. If it were me, I’d tell you to pound sand.”
“Pound…sand? What is the purpose of pounding sand?”
“It has none, which is just how much of Jasper’s time he ought to give you. Be grateful he’s willing to help you at all.”
Her lids lowered to half-cover her eyes. “I expect your call as soon as you finish this ‘honeymoon.’”
“Don’t hold your breath,” Rose muttered.
Larimar paused on her way to the door. “Why would I hold my breath? The air has already cleared, and anyway, I am leaving.”
Rose blinked. “Never mind.”
Larimar shrugged, jumped off the balcony while shifting to dragon and flew away.
Peridot passed her flying the opposite direction. He landed in front of the environmental techs. “You’re all here.” He glanced at Jasper and Mal, then drew himself up. “I am authorized to offer you anything you wish to return and make the building habitable.”
Shawn shared glances with Patty and Elle. “Anything?”
“Anything.”
He rubbed his palms together. “The first thing you have to do is sing ‘I’m a Little Teapot’ while dancing an Irish jig.”
Peridot frowned. “I do not know that song and dance.”
“Oh.” Elle stepped out of her hazmat suit. “Here, I’ll show you.”
Jasper cleared his throat. “Mal, someone must support my staff. Order the needed supplies, give help and encouragement, and prevent unrealistic expectations from fracturing their goodwill.”
Mal turned to Peridot. “You know this area—”
Peridot backed away. “Jasper will confirm. I cannot assume his work as well as my own.”
Mal turned to Jasper. “You’re the only one who can oversee the building.”
“That is untrue, and I refuse.”
“Well, who else has the experience and ability to lead this cleanup?”
The environmental techs turned to Rose.
Her heart thudded. She gulped. “Me?”
“You’re already the leader,” Patty said.
“You have the experience,” Elle agreed.
“You make the machines work,” Shawn said. “Remember, they said to ask for anything.”
“Anything?” She met Mal’s gaze and the unreality of negotiating her own salary instead of accepting whatever they gave her made the floor tilt. “I don’t know. I guess a raise?”
Mal crossed his arms and lifted his chin. “How much?”
She shook her head, unprepared to even hazard a guess. A couple of extra bucks an hour? Or would that be too much?
“At least my old salary,” Jasper said, rescuing her. “She’ll be performing my old work.”
“Only half of it,” Mal protested.
“They undervalued me.”
“What was Jasper’s old salary?” she asked.
“About a million dollars,” Jasper said.
“M-million? I’m sorry, per year?”
“Done.” Mal shook her hand. “You start now. Get to work.”
Jasper growled low in his chest. “Don’t undervalue my fiancé.”
“Fine. Two million, and she starts yesterday.”
“Mal!”
“It’s okay,” she said, still reeling, “I haven’t signed anything. This is crazy.”
“Three million, with the option to renegotiate your annual salary after you clear the mess.”
“That’ll take months,” she babbled, shock making her reel. “And we’ll need more staff. Plus, as Jasper said, I’ve got a wedding to plan, a honeymoon to enjoy, and I have to get back my kid.”
“Honeymoon approved. Wedding plan approved. Work hours and kid approved.” Mal ticked them off. “What else?”
She looked at her staff. “What are you going to do for them?”
Shawn grinned. “I’ll take a million for the cleanup.”
“Done.”
The rest of them agreed, and Rose issued her first orders as the new Head of Environmental Technicians. “Patty, shut down the sewage unit. Once the water’s out, turn off the heaters. We’ll freeze the mess of parasites inside. Shawn, Elle, make a checklist of our priorities and then go home. It’ll take about twelve hours to freeze everything, so don’t come back until tomorrow noon.”
“Yes, boss!” her team called, Elle with a wry smile, Patty gripping her forearm with enthusiasm, and Shawn pumping his fist.
“Is that safe?” Peridot asked.
“We had to do a full system shut down in the first year,” Rose told him. “Replacing connectors and recouplers. It’s not comfortable, and nobody should use the building until it’s back on again, but it won’t blow a hole in the ground either.”
Shawn jutted his chin. “Are you questioning our boss?”
“No, I read the manual and was just curious if…” Peridot’s eyes widened and he looked faint. “Am I…am I still required to work both positions?”
“No, Shawn.” Rose traded a grin with him. “Peridot can go, and we don’t mind questions in our department. It’s how you learn.”
“Then you are released,” Mal said. “Go home to Pyro.”
Peridot let out a huge sigh. “Thank you. Very much.” To Shawn and Elle, he said, “I will review the Tea Pot song and jig, and perform it. I vow on my honor as an Olivine. I will not fail you.” He flew into the sunshine.
The environmental techs dispersed. Mal began making phone calls.
Jasper murmured in Rose’s ear. “Ready leap into action?”
“Yes.” Rose made a fist of determination. “First thing first, we have to save Liam.”
Chapter Thirty-Six
Saving Liam was Rose’s top priority now, and she needed Jasper to know.
Jasper glowed. “That’s the action I meant.”
“Oh?” She squeezed her thighs together, turned on by a different thought of Jasper. “I hope that’s not the only action you’re ready for. I haven’t seen you in days.”
He smiled and nibbled on her neck. “No, I am ready for any action.”
Mal got off the phone.
Rose disentangled from Jasper and made her first demand. “Can I get an offer letter and an advance on my salary? Since I started yesterday.”
Right then, the wall screen flashed and Amber’s face appeared. “Jasper! Mother just received word that Adviser Wrathmoda dissolved your engagement. That’s lucky. We weren’t making any progress against the blockade.” She squinted. “What happened to the office?”
“Adviser Wrathmoda.” He pulled Rose forward. “This is my fiancée.”
“Hi, Rose,” Amber said with easy familiarity. “I like your hair today.”
She tugged her warrior locks. They’d taken hours, and she’d spent every second envisioning how she would fight for Jasper and get him back. “Er, thank you.”
“Where’s Mother?”
“I’ll forward you.” Amber disappeared with a wave.
The dragon matriarch appeared with a delighted smile; the mysterious final Onyx sibling, Flint, sat beside her. “Rose! I’m so pleased to meet you. As soon as this pesky blockade is over, assuming we still have an estate, I can’t wait to meet you. Jasper has been so devoted.”
Oh, this was awkward. “Yeah, he’s the best.”
“Isn’t he?” Their mother turned her elongated head at the dark gray dragon. “Flint was just enumerating Jasper’s good points. As if I didn’t know them all myself.”
Flint’s odd owl-like eyes blinked slowly, and a smile arranged itself on his dragon face. “Looks like the office still stands? Our loving siblings must have realized that you, Jasper Onyx, are the singular reason the business ever succeeded.”
Jasper looked surprised. “Me? Then why didn’t you warn me not to marry Adviser Wrathmoda?”
“Your actions proved my Linchpin Theory of history. More accurate than the Great Man Theory, more comprehensive than the Theory of Socio-Technologica
l Evolution, my Linchpin Theory suggests that a seemingly unimportant single individual or small group is responsible for successes attributed to leaders and movements. Remove the individual and the whole organization crashes down; in the case of our building, literally.”
“I’m a Linchpin? We’ve all contributed.”
“How well did the Onyx Corporation continued to function during the absences of Mal, Pyro, Kyan, and even Amber in comparison to the short absence of you?” Flint’s eyes gleamed with amusement. “From here, it looks as though you’ve survived a fire. How are the toilets?”
“Not great,” Jasper admitted. “Rose will turn it around.”
“Our new Linchpin. I hope the lessons learned today stay fresh in everyone’s minds.”
“How did you know my presence was so important? Even I didn’t imagine what might go wrong.”
“Environmental technicians are overlooked elements of successful spaceship operation; like supply chain logisticians—which you are also—their importance is evident when absent. A war may be won with incompetent leadership or warriors, not frequently both, but nothing survives an uninhabitable environment. Similarly, a backwater planet with no useful resources populated by genetically recessive non-shifters may be the Linchpin of the Dragon Empire.”
“Are you starting a war?”
“No.” His grin cracked his dragon face again. “Depending on what happens next, however, Earth may be the key to ending one.”
The dragon mother listened to Flint with blank happiness as if she had no idea what he was saying but loved him anyway. “And then you will find a nice female and give me dragonlets.”
Flint’s cocky smile slipped. He cleared his throat and examined his claws. “That depends on many factors, Mother, not the least of which is finding a female who listens to my incoherent ramblings.”
“You’ll find one,” she assured him and addressed Rose and Jasper again. “Congratulations, my darling Jasper. Rose, I hope you will be carrying Jasper’s dragonlet when I meet you.”
“Uh…”
“Jasper, please Rose and do not disappoint me. I need dragonlets! Where is Alexandrite?”
Everyone looked. He was nowhere to be seen.
“If he thinks this has changed anything, he is wrong! He will bring me a female, or I will make him a suitable match. Warn him, Jasper. He has three days.” Desperation made her eyes gleam and smoke curl out her nostrils.
The communication ended.
Jasper called Alex’s phone. Three days! That was less time than any of the rest of them had gotten. He left a message over voice mail.
Rose folded her arms. “Guess I’ll need to ask about maternity leave.”
“No pressure,” Elle joked from the back, and the other environmental techs laughed.
Mal returned to their topic from before the interruption—getting Rose an advance. “This way.”
He started for his office, but the environmental techs blocked the way, chiseling the door free. “Er, no. This way.” He flew out into the air heading toward Mount Hood.
Rose tossed her hazmat suit and coveralls on her cart so she was back in street clothes. Jasper gripped Rose firmly, and they followed Mal.
The glacier dominated Portland’s skyline and tilted like a dark witch’s cap, the snow at the top all that remained in the summer heat. A stone fortress clung to one impossible outcropping like a dewdrop on a leaf. Jasper landed on a helicopter pad and carried her to the glass sliding door; it scanned them and then opened.
Cheryl greeted them from inside the warm stone entry. She wore cozy slippers and a Snuggie blanket indoors. “How was the meeting? Mal told me you scared off that adviser.” She led them down the wide stone steps into the Spartan office and tucked herself into a soft, dark couch. “How’s the bathroom?”
“Worse,” Rose said.
“Really?”
“The toilets are on fire.”
Cheryl blinked. “I guess I’ll work from home a little longer.”
“It’s for the best.”
Mal nipped Cheryl playfully as he passed to his palatial desk. “I like you in my lair.”
“I enjoy working in my pajamas, so it works out.”
He printed a work contract, which Jasper read along with Rose and approved, and then Mal transferred her advance into a special account. They bid Mal and Cheryl farewell.
Jasper flew into the crisp mountain air. “What’s your plan?”
“It’s two parts, really.” She held him tightly against the whipping wind. “Can we use that dragon hospital?”
“I have to make a phone call.”
“Great, you can do it while we’re at the family lawyer’s.”
They made the stop. Rose collected a draft of the informal custody agreement she’d asked the family lawyer draw up and Jasper completed his call, then tracked Briar’s whereabouts from Kyan. They landed in front of a nice, middle-class neighborhood.
Rose looked around. “Isn’t this the house that reported the vandalism?”
“It’s the Houck neighborhood,” Jasper confirmed. “One of Briar’s associates lives here in his parents’ basement. His parents reported the vandalism.”
She sighed and shook her head. “Where’s—oh.”
Briar ate an ice cream bar as she walked down the sidewalk. She stopped in over-acted shock, put her hands over her heart, and gasped at seeing Rose and Jasper. “I knew you’d come crawling back to me, Rose. I’m your favorite person, aren’t I? You can’t get enough of me.”
“Where’s Liam?” Rose demanded.
“Around.” Briar showed off galaxy print leggings with oily streaks. “What do you think of my Oily Legs? I just made them. Want to sniff?”
“Briar.”
“You’re just jealous because I had a million-dollar idea, and you lost your chance to get in on it.” She licked the drip of her ice cream bar. Chocolate smudged her stained shirt. “Liam’s around. Playing in the backyard pool or something.”
Nerves flared in Rose’s belly. “Under supervision?”
“Or something.”
She cut her gaze at Jasper.
He lifted the phone to his ear, hopped in the air, and his overhead circle widened. Liam must not be in the backyard.
Briar watched Jasper while she licked her bar. “Neat.”
Rose prepared herself for a hard fight. “I want you to sign that I’ve had physical custody of Liam all this time. This document,” she lifted the packet she’d gotten from the lawyer, “describes our arrangement.”
“I’m his mother.”
“You’ll still be his mother. But you have to stop threatening to take Liam away, or else I’m going to sue you for permanent custody.”
Briar snorted. “Please.”
“I also want you to agree to get examined by a dragon doctor and treated for your head injury.”
“No needles. No hospitals.”
“Dragons don’t have needles, and their ‘hospital’ is on a spaceship.”
Briar’s expression betrayed interest. “An alien spaceship?”
“Correct. Jasper will take you whenever you want. In exchange for getting, say, ten treatments, I’ll give you a million dollars.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Divided out over the course of, uh, ten years. Or, twenty years, actually. Anyway, you can get your first payment today for signing these custody documents, and you get the next one after your first treatment. You decide when. Just call me.”
Briar rolled her eyes. “I always call you.”
“I’ll call you. Every month, every week if you want.”
“Every day?”
“Sure, every day. Me and Liam, we’ll call you.”
“Jasper, too?” Briar chewed her bar and swallowed. “I want you to see how I’m living it up with this Oily Legs business that doesn’t need you. See? I can act like I don’t care, just like you.”
“I’ll call you every single day,” Rose promised. “For a year. I promise.”
> “My phone’s broken.”
“I’ll buy you a new one.”
Briar coughed on her sneer. “Wow, you play hardball when I have what you want, huh? Which makes me just want to hold on to it and make you suffer the way I have all these years.”
Unfair accusations warred with defeat in Rose’s mind. She wanted to scream she’d done so much. Why couldn’t Briar see? Because Briar had a head injury. Screaming was easy, but the way to reach her was much harder.
Rose centered herself and tried again. “Briar, you’ve always been my favorite person.”
Briar scoffed. “Yeah, right.”
“Since you were born, you were my rock. I didn’t like it when you got wild and angry. I miss so much the sister I had when we were little, and we still had Momma and Dad.”
“But that’s who I am now,” Briar retorted. “Wild child. Nobody bosses me around, not even me.”
“And I never met you where you’re at. So, that’s what I’m going to do.”
Briar frowned with distrust. “You don’t care about me.”
“I do, I’m just bad at expressing it. I mean, I almost let Jasper get force-married to another dragon. Two other dragons. All because I didn’t tell him how I felt.”
“Yeah, that’s you.” Briar bit her bar and chewed it. “So you’ll give me a million dollars right now if I sign papers saying you watch Liam?”
“I’ll give you two…um, twenty dollars, right now.”
She made a raspberry. “Your dragon man gave me a thousand.”
“Someone chained him to a wall for a week. I’m the only one with cash.”
“Typical.” Briar finished her bar, dropped the stick on the sidewalk, and smeared her chocolate-coated hands across her shirt. “You got a pen?”
Rose’s heart leaped into her throat. She fumbled with one she’d grabbed at the lawyer’s office. “Yeah, I’ve got a pen.”
Briar took it and made a show of reading the papers, flipping them back and forth and tilting her head, but she spent so much time glancing up at Rose and smiling that it was doubtful she took anything in. Rose fought her impatience. Briar knew how to push her buttons. Rose couldn’t stop the torture; she had to meet Briar head-on.
“Problem?”
“No…actually, yeah.” Briar pushed the papers back. “I don’t feel like it today. Give me the money and come back tomorrow.”
