“Oh, that’s a shifters-only island resort, isn’t it?” Gita said dismissively. “I’ve heard it’s alright, if you don’t have real standards.”
“The food is very good,” Saina said neutrally. She didn’t precisely want to encourage the idea.
Gita waved an imperious hand of dismissal. “You two just take me to the ocean and abandon me there. I’ll find a cruise ship that will take me. I need a little rest and pampering after my long imprisonment.”
Saina looked around the well-appointed room, but held her tongue.
Bastian returned, laden with matching suitcases.
“Well, you are a strong one,” Gita conceded. “Did you fetch the case from the bathroom?”
“Yes, Ma’am,” Bastian said, holding it aloft.
“Maybe you’ll do for Saina,” she said with faint approval. “As long as she has heavy bags to lift.”
They walked together to the courtyard. The smoke had mostly cleared, and the evening sun through the jungle sparkled on green leaves. Somewhere overhead, a toucan cried.
“Where’s the car?” Gita asked, once they had reached the bottom of the entrance stairs.
“Ah, we didn’t bring a car,” Saina said. “I rode here on Bastian.”
“I don’t need dirty details like that, girl,” Gita scolded.
“Bastian is a dragon, my Voice,” Saina explained cautiously. “He can fly us wherever we’d like.”
“A dragon?!” Gita took an unsteady step backwards, looking at Bastian with new cautiousness. Saina took her arm when she might have stumbled back on the last step.
“A dragon,” Saina said firmly. “My dragon.”
Gita sniffed. “This day is turning out to be more and more disappointing.”
Chapter 40
Are you sure we can just leave her here?” Bastian asked, trying not to sound as hopeful as he felt. He’d heard of nightmare in-laws, and even suspected he came with some, but nothing had prepared him for the casual, condescending cruelty of Saina’s grandmother.
“My Voice will have no trouble finding whatever she needs here,” Saina assured him. While they watched, a pair of deckhands leapt to their feet to gather Gita’s luggage, practically tripping each other to follow close at her heels. Further down the dock, a man who’d been stacking crates abandoned his task to sweep the deck in advance of her approach.
Bastian could hear the faint strains of her song as she walked away -- for good, he could not help but hope.
“Oh gosh,” he said insincerely. “I don’t know how we’ll get in touch to invite her to the wedding.”
Saina looked at him sideways. “There’s going to be a wedding?”
“We did promise to get married,” Bastian reminded her.
Saina blinked, heavy eyelashes over sea green eyes. “I guess I figured we’d just do a walk-in wedding somewhere. They have those in Costa Rica, don’t they?”
“We could go through a wedding lawyer,” Bastian said, feeling oddly disappointed. “Fill out some paperwork, show your passport and birth certificate. He rounds up some witnesses and it’s done. Er, do you have a passport or birth certificate?”
Saina shrugged. “I can wave a piece of paper in front of him and convince him it’s one.”
“You don’t… want a real wedding?” Even Bastian could hear how wistful he sounded.
She smiled at him, her true, crooked smile full of warmth and amusement. “Do you want a real wedding?”
Bastian scuffed a foot in the sand. “I do. I want to watch you walk down an aisle towards me. I want all our friends there to witness our vows. I want a giant reception with every fancy dish that Chef knows how to make.”
Saina narrowed her eyes. “You want to outshine Tex and Travis’ double wedding.”