Tropical Leopard's Longing (Shifting Sands Resort 8)

“You wouldn’t let me,” Breck said, wonderingly. He touched the side of her head and Darla flinched. His injuries were mirrored on her, and halved from what they had been.

Then Breck stared at his uplifted wrist in astonishment and Darla did the same.

Their bracelets were gone, replaced by a simple circle of dragonrunes like tattoos around their wrists.

Before they could speculate, Eugene was getting to his feet. “I won the challenge,” he said, weaving drunkenly as he held onto his bloody throat. His nose was no longer bleeding, but was still striped with angry red scratches. “I won…”

Darla looked up at him. “I won the challenge, you idiot.” She and Breck struggled up to their feet, clinging to each other. “And if I hadn’t, I still wouldn’t marry you.”

“You have to!” Jubilee cried from the dais. “It’s dragon custom!”

Darla lifted her chin. “I’m not a dragon,” she cried in a ringing voice. “I’m a snow leopard, and unlike you, I’m not ashamed of that.”

The wedding guests had retreated back from the battle, but had begun to cautiously return. Darla’s statement caused a murmur of support; though Jubilee had invited all of the dragon elite that she knew, many of the guests were the more garden varieties of shifters, and most of them had grown tired of the elite dragon attitudes of Jubilee and some of her more arrogant guests.

“If you don’t marry according to the custom, you won’t get a penny of your inheritance,” Jubilee snarled in warning, voice pitched not to carry to their audience.

“I hope the hoard rots,” Darla snapped back, as loudly as before. “I don’t want your money, and I don’t want your blessing.”

Eugene was spitting angry. “You have to marry me,” he roared. “If I can’t have you, no one will. Even both of you can’t win against me.”

But before he could shift, Liam was stepping forward. “If this is no longer a challenge according to custom, I have no reason to stand back and let you harm my friends,” he cautioned with a frown.

“Yeah,” another voice added behind them. “We’re going to have to back them up, too.”

Darla turned. Half the staff of Shifting Sands was ranged behind them, a motley crew in crisp resort uniforms with expressions ranging from amusement to anger. Lydia from the spa was there, arms crossed, and Conall, with Gizelle peering out from behind him.

Even Eugene was not foolish enough to take all of them on.

“You’ll be unhappy,” he predicted. “You’ll be poor and miserable.”

“Did your psychic tell you that?” Breck asked with exaggerated pity. “No wait, did you tell your psychic to tell you that?”

When Darla gave him a puzzled look, he explained, “He’s been feeding your mother ideas through her pet psychic.”

“That’s preposterous!” Jubilee said in outrage as Eugene started to sputter.

“Is it?” Breck asked. “Check his phone. I’m sure you’ll find a familiar number with lots of calls there.”

“You dropped it when you shifted,” Liam said helpfully, holding the phone in question aloft.

Eugene leaped up onto the dais and tried to snatch it away from the dragon shifter while Jubilee protested his innocence with obviously increasing doubt. Liam held it away, a glint of mischief in his steely eyes.

Darla laughed helplessly. “That explains so much. He just had to have Madame Nadine predict something he could then orchestrate, or pretend to see some private bit of information he’d fed her.”

Jubilee looked absolutely furious, and Eugene tried more desperately to get his phone from Liam, who was still resolute about holding it out of his reach.

“You’ve played me like a fool,” Jubilee said softly.

“You are a fool,” Eugene spat, giving up on his phone. “None of this would have been necessary if you had just given me your daughter’s hand when I first asked.”

“You didn’t want my hand,” Darla said in outrage. “You only wanted to get your hands on the hoard.”

Eugene gave her an ugly leer. “I would have enjoyed having my hands on you, too, you cold b—”

Before he could even finish, Breck had leaped up onto the dais, and in one swift move, punched him in the nose.

Darla’s knuckles stung from the blow.