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Mal would have liked to spend more time experimenting with Scarlet’s power... or exploring her kisses with the new strength of their mate-bond.
But time was one thing they didn’t have.
She drew back reluctantly. “I have to go. There are angry guests gathering, and I can’t leave Graham and Wrench to deal with them alone.”
“Do you always know what is going on, everywhere at the resort?” Mal had to ask.
Scarlet, leaving one last kiss along his jaw that he knew was going to burn for hours after she left, shook her head. “Not always, everywhere. I have to think about someone to know where they are, or think about a place and know what is happening there.”
She closed her eyes and showed him, and it was a weird and dissociated feeling, like he was looking down at the courtyard by her office using some kind of heat vision. Someone was snapping with anger and fear, another was a tangle of anxiousness, another frustrated and confused. What he saw was much more about what they were feeling than what they looked like.
“I have to go,” she said apologetically. Before he could ask when she would be back, or any of the hundreds of questions that were crowding his mind, she vanished from his arms.
Mal wondered if he’d ever get used to the sense of loss when she did that, but was comforted by the feel of her inside his chest. He would never lose her, they would never truly be apart.
Our mate, his dragon sighed happily. Forever.
He looked at the book he had tossed on the table and narrowed his eyes thoughtfully. Trying to very specifically draw only on the power through the gleaming mate-bond inside, he muttered a short spell and gestured.
The book shot open, flipped through every page like a crazed fan, and violently shut again, nearly bouncing off the table.
What are you doing? Scarlet demanded in his head.
Sorry, Mal laughed helplessly. I was experimenting, did I bother you?
I’m trying to evacuate my resort and that’s very distracting, Scarlet said impatiently. Then she softened. It tickles.
I’ll keep it to a minimum, Mal promised.
She gave him a parting caress of her mind, like a kiss on the cheek, and Mal refrained from disturbing the mate-bond again.
He cleaned up the books he’d brought in, returning the stacks to the library through a portal that he had to consciously not draw from Scarlet’s abundant energy. If the library was alarmed by the swift return, they were professional enough not to comment by his unexpected arrival.
As full as he was, with her bright power, and the warm presence of her, Mal became aware that his body was hungry. He considered using a portal to obtain a meal, but steeled himself to have dinner at the restaurant instead. He was, after all, paying a considerable amount for gourmet food, and whatever else he was, he was not too cowardly to face Scarlet’s staff again.
The glow of Scarlet’s mate-bond also helped him admit to himself that he also wanted the companionship of the restaurant. He was tired of solitary meals and isolated studies.
Breck gave him a curious look when he arrived at the restaurant, but led him to a table without comment. It was the same table that Mal had seated himself in the morning before, and he guessed that wasn’t a coincidence.
Breck poured him a tall glass of cold water. “Our dinner menu tonight is your choice of a halibut with cream sauce and dill, served with either a baked or mashed potato side, or a Mediterranean lamb roast with young root vegetables and a reduced olive glaze.”
“Lamb,” Mal selected mildly, and both of them pretended that there was not any more important conversation they could possibly have than the choice of drink to accompany it, even though Breck was clearly dying for more information.
It was quiet; most of the guests had already been evacuated, and several members of the staff were murmuring and watching him not at all surreptitiously as they helped themselves from the buffet.
Mal was not unaware of the entrance of Alice, Amber, and Mary, but he was surprised when Alice led them in a beeline directly to his table.
“Mind if we sit with you?”
Alice, her head cocked in challenge, towered over Mal where he was seated. Mary and Amber looked dubious, but when Mal graciously gestured at the empty chairs, they all took seats. Alice was brave enough to sit beside him, while Mary timidly took the seat across from him and Amber awkwardly lowered herself into the remaining chair.
Breck returned to pour everyone water and give the dinner choices, a distinct lack of flirtation in his service.
“I am surprised to see you two here still,” Mal observed across the table, once the waiter had returned to the kitchen with their choices.
Alice snorted. “Neither Neal nor Tony are particularly happy with it,” she observed frankly. “But you try telling Amber to do anything. She looks all sweet and pliable, but good luck getting her to comply.”
Amber looked abashed by the honest assessment and Alice cleared her throat. “I mean... you’re leaving on the boat first thing tomorrow morning, right Amber?”
“Yes,” Amber said shortly, taking a sip of her water.
Mal, following Alice’s blunt example, gathered himself. “Amber, I’d like a moment to speak with you alone, if you’re willing.”
Amber stared at him with alarmed golden eyes.
Mary squirmed. “We could get salads from the buffet...” she started to suggest politely.
“No,” Alice said flatly. “Look, no one knows what you’re up to here, or what you’ve done to Scarlet, but I’m not real excited to leave my pregnant friend in your clutches for a conversation.”
Mal protested, “I assure you—”
“Your pregnant friend?” Amber exclaimed in disgust. “Really, Alice?”
Alice still had her baleful gaze fixed on Mal. “I promised Tony I wouldn’t let you out of my sight for a second.”
“I think you could see anything that was going to go wrong from across the restaurant full of shifters,” Amber pointed out.
“I want to be in hitting distance,” Alice declared.
“I wish I were in hitting distance,” Amber muttered, glaring across the table at her.
Mary looked like she wanted to fold into her chair and die.
“It can wait,” Mal said peacefully.
Amber gave him a piercing look. “You can say anything you have to say to me in front of them,” she said firmly.
“I was sorry to miss your mother’s visit,” Mal said gently. “I would have preferred to tell her what I found out about your father in person.”
Everyone at the table stiffened and Mal steeled himself.
“My... father?” Amber said numbly, with a hand to her belly.
“If you’d prefer to...”
“What do you know about my father?” Amber demanded, bringing a fist down on the table that made all the glasses jump.
Mal kept his voice low. “You’re aware of the warlock Corbin and his... use of shifters.”
Amber’s face went white.
“Your father’s sole goal was to keep you from Corbin’s clutches,” Mal said gently. “I don’t believe he would have given you up for any other reason. My guess is that he knew he was close to capture.”
Amber was staring down at the surface of the table, taking careful breaths. Alice swore quietly. Mal was surprised by his own sympathy. He usually maintained a professional detachment from this sort of thing, but the look on Amber’s face cut deeper than it should.
“I’ve... there’s a fund set up for victims of the warlock and his—”
Amber surged to her feet, shoving her chair back hard. “Maybe it’s hard for you to understand, but money doesn’t fix everything,” she snarled at him.
Mal took her outburst without comment. “I’m sorry for your—”
“I’m not hungry,” Amber growled and she stormed as gracefully as she possibly could for the entrance to the restaurant.
Alice rose to follow her, shooting Mal a baleful look over her shoulder as she called to Amber to wait for her.
Mary remained behind. Her look was thoughtful and measuring. Mal remembered that she was the timid one of the bunch and was surprised that she didn’t flee at the first opportunity.
Instead, they sat for a long moment in silence, regarding each other.
“Are you the one who set up the anonymous trust for the victims of Beehag’s zoo?” she finally asked.
“Yes,” Mal said simply.
“You did that for Benedict Beehag, as his lawyer, because of the horrible things that his uncle had done?”
“No,” Mal said shortly. He had tried to convince Benedict to set something up, but the heir to the Beehag fortune had proved to be as self-centered and shallow as Mal had come to expect of billionaires; even the promise of a tax shelter had not strong-armed generosity from him.
“You made secrecy about the payment a condition of the allotment,” Mary observed. “Neal almost didn’t take it.”
“I’m glad he did,” Mal said.
“I’m trying to decide if I should thank you,” Mary said honestly. “On the one hand, that money made it much easier for him to change careers and get his life back. On the other... it feels like dirty money.”
Mal was having to reconsider Mary; though she was quiet and unsure compared to the forward, forthright Alice, the deer shifter was no coward. He sighed. “Because I’ve been trying to get Scarlet to sell out her lease?”
“She loves the resort. This is her home. Why would you try to take that from her? I take a dim view of anyone who can’t take no for an answer.”
Mal wasn’t used to justifying himself to anyone, let alone wanting to. He made the best choices with the information he had, and he almost always had more information than anyone. He never felt the need to waste time seeking approval for the choices he made, and his ego didn’t need stroking.
But he found himself wanting to explain himself to Mary... to the entire staff of Shifting Sands and all the people who cared for Scarlet.
“I’m willing to admit I made a mistake with Scarlet,” he said honestly. “I made assumptions I should not have.” He did not add that it was a very reasonable expectation that Scarlet could have rebuilt elsewhere. It had never even occurred to him that she would be literally incapable of leaving the island.
He wondered what other assumptions would prove false.
“I have the lamb for the lawyer,” Breck said, clearing his throat. He looked askance at the chairs Alice and Amber had vacated; their meals were balanced on his tray. “And halibut for the deer Mary?” He paused a moment before putting Mary’s down, giving her a chance to declare her intention to switch seats.
But Mary only smiled. “Thank you, Breck.”
The waiter spread a napkin into her lap as Mal laid out his own.
The food—hot and fresh this time—was everything that he had hoped for, with balanced spice and perfectly cooked vegetables.
They ate quietly for a while after Breck refilled their water and left, with minimal conversation about the food. Then Mary abruptly asked, “Is it true you’re Scarlet’s mate?”
Mal wasn’t the slightest bit surprised that she had already heard; Alice was Graham’s mate, and Alice was Mary’s closest friend. Honestly, Mal would not have been surprised if the entire resort knew.
“I am,” he said simply.
“And you’re a warlock like Corbin?”
Any warm, companionable feelings that had started to bloom in Mal’s chest turned to ash. “I am nothing like Corbin,” he said fiercely.
Mary gave his forearm tattoos a long measured look.
For a second time, Mal desperately wanted to explain, to make her hear his side of the story. “I’m not like Corbin,” he reasserted. “I’m...” He paused.
“A good guy?” Mary guessed.
Mal met her gaze appraisingly. “I was going to say that I was trying to save the world, not rule it.”
“Noble goal,” Mary said, mopping up a last of her sauce with a piece of bread. “But goals don’t define someone, their actions do.”
Mal gravely replied, “Then I hope that my actions prove to you my sincerity.” And he meant it with his whole heart.