Chapter 1
Darla Grant’s heart pounded in her chest.
Being in the hoard always made her anxious, but this was worse than ever before.
This time, everything was at stake.
All around them, treasure gleamed: jeweled golden goblets, chains of silver and platinum, cut gems, loose stones, coins, tapestries with real gold thread, statues carved out of jade and tiger’s eye, priceless art in solid gold frames. A raw diamond the size of a dining room table sat on a low dais, surrounded by cut rubies and emeralds that were merely the size of bulldogs.
Everything was sitting on priceless marble columns or displayed on cunning, hand carved shelves from extinct hardwoods. Strings of precious stones and jewels in findings hung across rafters above them like garlands. Drifts of gold and silver coins filled every corner.
A protection spell shivered in the air around them, the faintest metallic haze over everything.
Beside Darla, Liam let out the breath he’d been holding.
Darla shot him a glance, glad to see that he looked awed rather than disgusted. She had tried to prepare him for the sight, but descriptions of the hoard fell short of the staggering reality of it.
She wasn’t the only one watching for his reaction.
Jubilee Grant’s mouth turned up in a smug smile of satisfaction. “As you can see, marrying my daughter comes with a great responsibility,” she said severely. “With my blessing on her wedding, her union will satisfy the dragon contract and unlock the hoard in entirety.”
Liam looked adorably confused, glancing behind them at the door they had just come through. It had been conspicuously open. “It’s… locked?”
“Magic, of course,” Jubilee was happy to explain. “My dear, departed husband had a protection spell set over it. He was the last dragon shifter of his line, and so disappointed that Darla ended up being a snow leopard shifter. He wanted her to continue the dragon line, much as my father had hoped for me.”
Darla gazed forward with practiced serenity. She had never felt like her father had been particularly disappointed in her shift form; certainly not to the extent that her mother had. She wondered how much of her mother’s disapproval came from the disappointment that Jubilee herself had grown up with; she had also been the last of a great dragon line, and had also failed to manifest wings and scales.
“The spell was one of the last things he did before he died,” Jubilee continued. “Dragons are so protective of their hoards. You know how that goes, of course!”
Liam gave her a dazed smile, nodding agreeably. Neither he nor Darla bothered to explain that Eastern dragons were considerably less motivated by wealth than their Western counterparts. Liam himself was as poor as a proverbial churchmouse.
Would her mother care about that? Darla wondered, her heart in her mouth. Would she approve of Liam as a suitor for her hand, or would she find his poor origins and ordinary shifter bloodline too distasteful to forgive? The alternative… Darla carefully did not look past her mother to where Eugene was frowning thoughtfully at a particularly gaudy dragon statue studded with cut gems.
He was a distant cousin from her mother’s family, chummy with her mother and rather more friendly to Darla than she had ever wished he would be. His lingering looks had bothered her even before he had started leaving hints that a marriage between them would be beneficial to the precious family line. When her twenty-fifth birthday — the usual age of engagement for dragons — came around, his hints and his distasteful courtship had grown considerably less subtle.
Only years of training kept Darla from shuddering at the very thought of marrying Eugene, and she let her hand tighten in Liam’s just a little.
He looked down at her anxiously and Darla smiled gratefully up at him.
“Well, Mother, what do you say?” she asked, trying to look just the right amount of eager. “Don’t leave Liam in suspense!”
“He doesn’t come from an established dragon line,” Eugene was quick to remind them. He had done a poor job of hiding his seething anger behind his social polish since Darla had sprung Liam on them that afternoon. “He doesn’t understand dragon honor.”
“But he is a dragon shifter,” Jubilee said, a little smile at her lips.
“A great surprise to my dear mother,” Liam said, with a charming little laugh.
“It’s a good match,” Darla said coaxingly. “And we’re very fond of each other.” It wasn’t a falsehood; Darla was not brave enough to outright lie to her mother, though she had been practicing a series of half-truths that might be convincing in the event that her mother was reluctant to approve the union.
It appeared that she needn’t have worried.
Jubilee, despite Eugene’s dissent, seemed so taken by the idea of a dragon shifter to marry Darla to that she didn’t seem to mind his common origins or Eugene’s not-so-subtle protests of the union.
“Madame Nadine told me that Darla would be best suited to someone she’d known a long time,” Jubilee said knowingly. “And that she would be the start to a long, healthy line of new dragon shifters. Liam, you are obviously exactly who she meant; Darla’s been volunteering at your retirement home for years now! You were so sly not to tell me of your relationship earlier!”
Eugene sputtered unexpectedly. As much as he usually supported Jubilee’s unhealthy obsession with her psychic, he seemed weirdly surprised that Jubilee would follow her advice now.
Darla tried not to feel too smug about thwarting him; he was as clever as he was unsavory, and she knew from his dark expression that he wasn’t done trying to get her hand — or the incredible hoard she would inherit once she was married.
Liam was not oblivious to his ire either. He met Eugene’s hateful gaze evenly and calmly.
“Oh, yes,” Jubilee said, not noticing either of them. “Eugene, this is perfect! You don’t have to marry Darla now after all! Oh, everything is falling into place, just as Madame Nadine predicted!”
Darla almost smirked; Eugene had played up marrying Darla as his duty so heavy-handedly to her mother that he had no footing against Jubilee’s enthusiasm for the new suitor she presented. “Thank you, Mother,” she said, casting her gaze down like the very picture of a dutiful daughter. “I’m sure we’ll be very happy.”
“My thanks, Mrs. Grant,” Liam added politely.
Jubilee clapped her hands happily. “Come, let’s go talk with the lawyer regarding the dowry, and t
here will be an engagement party — we can do that next week. I’ve been researching all the dragon customs in great detail and oh, I know exactly where I want the wedding. There’s this lovely luxury resort for shifters off the coast of Costa Rica that I’ve heard the most wonderful things about! Eugene, come help me figure out the guest list. All the best people, of course…”
Liam and Darla were the least of her concerns now, and Jubilee Grant swept out of the hoard with Eugene simmering at her heels, not even noticing that the two to be married lingered behind.
Darla let out her breath, letting relief wash over her at last. “It worked,” she said gratefully. “Oh, Liam, you are a lifesaver.”
“I should say the same,” Liam said, but he sounded hesitant. “Are you sure about this? You deserve a love match, and you know I can’t...”
“She never wanted a love match for me,” Darla said calmly. “And this solves so many problems for both of us.”
“You don’t have to do this for the retirement home,” Liam protested. “I could probably find other funding. Somehow.”
“You’ve met Eugene, now,” Darla reminded him. “I am not just doing this to keep the home afloat. I mean, I could just marry him and use my pocket money to keep the center open.” The very idea left an awful taste in her mouth.
“Now that I see what you consider casual spending money, I believe you could,” Liam said dryly. He was clearly still staggered by the wealth of the hoard. They left the halls of treasure behind to return to the house, going from unimaginable treasure to more pedestrian ridiculous wealth; the paintings here were only in gilded frames, not solid gold, and the decor was more ‘tasteful opulence’ than ‘actual piles of gold.’