Scarlet sighed, stroking the gray kitten absently. Gizelle’s kitten, she reminded herself. They were Gizelle’s kittens.
Gizelle.
Gizelle... was complicated.
Scarlet tipped her head against the back of her chair and, now that the rush of her anger had ebbed away, tried to untangle the conflicting emotions that had been dredged up by the paperwork.
Gizelle reminded Scarlet keenly of herself, if circumstances had been only a little different. She could remember herself too easily in Gizelle’s confused place, new to a world of human rules and baffling customs. Scarlet had been lucky enough to have powerful and charitable friends, patient enough to teach her the skills she lacked and generous enough to give her a place and purpose.
But it wasn’t just empathy for Gizelle’s social awkwardness than made Scarlet feel protective of the young woman.
It felt like her fault that Gizelle had been in Beehag’s zoo.
“No,” she protested out loud. “It wasn’t my fault.”
The cream kitten stirred at the sound of her voice and put a paw out to the side of her face, patting her twice and then curling tighter into the side of her neck.
Scarlet couldn’t have known about the zoo that Gizelle had been caged in for so much of her life. And if she had, she was under a binding contract not to trespass there.
But she could not convince herself that she couldn’t have guessed, couldn’t have done something to put a stop to it. Beehag had stolen shifters right out from underneath her nose, from her resort. She should have protected them. Should have...
The gray kitten gave a sleepy mrrrr of protest and Scarlet realized she was petting it too roughly. She gentled her hand and the kitten slowly rolled over, exposing her fluffy white tummy.
They trusted her, she thought with a sigh of bittersweet regret. She wasn’t sure if they should. She wasn’t sure anyone should.
She reached for the letter that had been at the front of Gizelle’s packet of secrets, careful not to jostle the kitten sleeping precariously on her shoulder.
It was a terribly convincing letter.
The director of the facility made a compelling argument for Gizelle needing special care. He mentioned her specific challenges with surprising accuracy and proposed methods of treatment that sounded, on the surface, logical and completely humane. He mentioned safe space to run multiple times, and with polite obliqueness pointed out that although Scarlet had the best of intentions, she might not be the person most suited to help Gizelle.
If she had received the letter two weeks prior, Scarlet would have had a hard choice before her. She would have agonized over the truths in the letter, and questioned her own competency. Knowing what someone was going through didn’t make her an expert in helping them get through it.
But Conall was here now, and Gizelle’s mate had changed everything.
When she was being honest with herself, Scarlet was not sure which of the two she was more envious of. She was glad, of course, that Conall’s patience and love had won Gizelle’s trust and her heart, and the young woman had bloomed in his care.
But a small, shallow part of her still wanted to be the person the timid gazelle shifter needed most.
And she’d have to be dead inside not to want someone like Conall; he was that gorgeous broody type who made women weak in the knees with a careless glance.
Scarlet sighed.
She was definitely not dead inside. And it wasn’t really that she wanted Conall, just that she wanted what Gizelle had in Conall.
“Don’t you want a mate?” Gizelle had asked her, so innocently.
Scarlet had not had an answer for her.
She wasn’t a naive romantic, waiting around for true love to sweep her off her feet, but she would have liked having a man in her life. Not one that got in the way of running the resort of course, but it had been a long time since she had shared her bed, and it was sometimes so lonely and unappealing that she skipped sleeping altogether.
She wanted a hard body to slide up again, a mouth to kiss, strong arms to hold her, clever fingers to — Scarlet stopped her train of thought firmly.
It wasn’t like she was going to hook up with a guest, and sleeping with the staff was a level of unprofessional beyond even that, which left... no one. She was on an island she couldn’t leave with people who were off limits and if she wanted—if she desperately craved—anything more, she was at least practiced at ignoring her own desires.
She glanced at the kitten in her lap. She wasn’t even going to be able to pleasure herself without disturbing her newest unpaying guests.
She smiled despite herself. It wasn’t worth doing that.