Eugene staggered back, nose streaming blood again, and roared in anger and pain.
An authoritative voice cut through. “As satisfying as I’m sure that was, I think that there has been enough fighting for one wedding. Wrench, Bastian, Eugene appears to need medical attention. Please give it to him elsewhere. Travis, Graham, if you wouldn’t mind cleaning up the brawling pit. Breck, a word. Mr. Trayvor, Mrs. Grant, Darla.”
Scarlet, despite the chaos around her, looked as if she had just stepped out of the spa… and found something distasteful on her shoe. As Eugene quit the scene in ungraceful capitulation with Wrench and Bastian, Scarlet drew the primary wedding party onto the back of the dais out of easy earshot.
“I’m sorry,” Breck started. “Eugene promised me he wouldn’t challenge. I really did think that I’d be able to pull this off without risking the resort.”
Scarlet looked at him sourly. “And I suppose you wouldn’t have challenged if you hadn’t had that assurance.”
Breck grinned, not at Scarlet, but at Darla, making her heart ri
se in her chest. “Oh, I probably would have had to anyway.”
Darla shook her head at him hopelessly, smiling despite herself. Then her smile faded. The home. “Mother, about the retirement home…”
Jubilee knew an opportunity when she saw one. “Marry Liam,” she said firmly. “We can salvage this wedding and you can save your precious nursing home and the hoard will be unlocked for you.”
Darla shuddered. “Mother, please....”
“I don’t want to disown you,” Jubilee said threateningly. “Don’t force my hand.”
Darla felt like she had never known her mother, like this was a woman she had never imagined could exist beneath her society mother’s glossy veneer.
“I am not marrying Liam,” Darla said without hesitation. “I am marrying my mate. I am marrying him without your blessing, without dragon custom, because I would not want your blessing tainting my union with him. You force my hand, mother. The hoard will be locked forever, and you won’t have it either. I will find another way to save the home, because I have no desire to be beholden to you. Ever.”
She looked at Liam. “I have some clothing, a little jewelry. It’s mine, and I’ll sell it to protect the retirement home as long as possible.”
Jubilee took a step backwards at her defiance, confused and shaken. “You’ll regret this,” she promised.
Darla looked at her curiously. “No, I don’t think I will,” she said thoughtfully. Breck slipped his fingers into hers and squeezed.
“Well, you will,” Jubilee said, rounding on Scarlet furiously. “This is your fault, your employee who did this. You will regret this. I’ll see this resort in ashes. I will sue you into the earth and see that your resort is smeared in every major shifter publication. No one who is anyone will ever come here again.”
Chapter 42
Twice in as many days now, Breck had seen Scarlet get angry.
It was no less impressive the second time, even if it wasn’t directed at him this time. Her green eyes were hard and brilliant, and her red hair seemed to crackle with energy. The air around them grew thick and hard to breath, and Jubilee, perhaps recognizing her mistake, took a second step backwards.
“Do you know what I regret?” Scarlet snarled. “I regret letting you run roughshod over my staff. I regret biting my tongue while you treated your family like chattel. I regret allowing you to disparage your less fortunate guests by constantly reminding them of your supposed generosity and superior bloodlines. I regret letting you take a contract for service as a license for abuse. I regret pulling my best waiter from service because you were a shallow, bigoted fool.”
“You can’t talk to me that way,” Jubilee gasped, retreating another step. “You can’t!”
“Because I’m not a dragon?” Scarlet seemed to bristle, and for a moment, Breck actually thought she was going to shift on the spot. Was she a dragon? No one knew. Maybe she would eat Jubilee, he thought gleefully.
There was a moment of tension, Jubilee too terrified to protest further, then Scarlet turned away dismissively and looked at Liam, who blinked several times rapidly at her sizzling gaze but held his ground. “Liam, you may relocate your retirement home and any of your family who need shelter to the resort at your convenience. I expect a complete list of the residents and any of their special needs, as well as an accounting of their personal effects for insurance purposes. We’ll discuss the details tomorrow.”
Then Breck took the brunt of her flinty stare. “Are we still having a wedding, Breck?”
“Yes,” he said immediately. Then, when Darla’s hand tightened in his, he turned his gaze to her. “If you want to,” he added at once. “I think that technically, you won the challenge, so you probably ought to decide.”
Darla’s blue eyes got big, and Breck wondered if anyone had ever asked her to make her own choices about her life. “Yes,” she murmured hopefully. Then she drew herself up taller and met Scarlet’s eyes bravely. “Yes,” she repeated. “It would be a terrible shame to let this all go to waste,” she said practically. “But it won’t be this wedding.”
To Breck’s surprise, nearly all of the guests — especially on Liam’s side — stayed, helping the Shifting Sands crew put the chairs back in order and right the fallen pots of flowers. Only a few of them retreated from the wedding field. One of the dragon guests did the honor of removing the fuming Mrs. Grant from the resort rather than forcing her to wait for the charter plane.
The gargoyle clergy politely removed himself from consideration for performing the wedding before he could be requested, but he did so graciously. Scarlet offered just as graciously to perform the ceremony, and Darla solemnly accepted that.
Darla’s dress was beyond repair, which seemed to give her great satisfaction, and Breck’s suit was no better off.