Tropical Dragon's Destiny (Shifting Sands Resort 10)

Chapter 1

There were several ways to get to Shifting Sands Resort that would have been faster than flying under his own power, but Mal enjoyed the journey and his dragon was grateful for a chance to spread his wings.

It was a long, leisurely flight, letting the world shrink beneath him to model scale. Whole countries were reduced to patchworks of farms and forests and wrinkles of mountains. The hours seemed short and Mal had a pang of regret as first the coast appeared beneath them and then the island that was their goal.

I am not winded, his dragon said wistfully. I am strong and powerful. I could fly much longer than this.

But the sun was beginning to set and Mal didn’t want to be so rude as to try to check in after full dark.

The island was a brilliant green jewel on an ocean that was beginning to turn gold.

As beautiful as it was, Mal’s sense of unease only increased as he approached.

The storms on the way were still distant, past the horizon; the only clouds were fluffy and harmless, stained in sunset colors.

But a swift, high circle of the island confirmed all of his worst fears.

There were weird currents of magic where there ought to be a smooth blanket of it and the tenor of the energy was off-key and unhealthy, like dark poison was running through veins in the earth. Something was very wrong here.

I almost waited too long, he realized in dismay. He’d been too tolerant of the resort owner’s resistance to his plans, too interested to see what she would do next. His curiosity had almost been a disaster.

There was a particularly odd hiccup of power some distance from the resort, buried in the jungle, and Mal nearly went to investigate it despite the sinking sun. But his dragon gave a sudden burst of interest. There, he said urgently.

Mal folded his wings and dropped from the darkening sky to the sparkling resort below.

There! his dragon repeated, and they angled to land on the lawn downhill of a hall ringed in Greek columns near the top of the resort. Cheerful music and bright light streamed from the grand building.

Mal shifted so seamlessly he might as well have been descending a staircase, his luggage going from being cradled in claws to being carried effortlessly in human hands. He’d dressed in evening best, not wanting to meet the owner of the resort at any disadvantage, and he was glad now that he had; there was clearly a formal dance in progress.

The event hall was elegant and spacious. Couples were dancing and talking and drinking in a warm swirl of cheer and happiness.

Mal walked in slowly, picking out faces from among the many guests that were familiar from his investigations. The shyly laughing blonde would be Mary and the man she was dancing with was her mate and new husband, the former Marine, Neal.

There were two women browsing at the snack table; the towering amazon was Alice, and the brunette woman who would have been tiny even not standing next to her was Amber, her belly round with new life. Their mates, Grant—so recently still hiding under the name of Graham—and Tony respectively, were comparing notes by the bar where Tex, the cowboy bartender, was being distracted by a dark-skinned woman who was kissing his cheek. She had to be Laura and the woman who looked exactly like her was Jenny, the lawyer who had met him in battles of contracts many times... and hadn’t always lost. Her mate, Travis, was tightening the connections on a chair nearby.

The reformed thug, Wrench, was dancing around the floor very staidly with flashy, dark-haired Lydia, the swan shifter in charge of the spa. Breck, the leopard shifter in waiter finery, was less restrained as he sashayed around with the strawberry-blonde Darla, spinning and dipping her. He wasted no opportunity to kiss her whenever the dance brought them together. Saina, a bindi sparkling at her brow, was dancing more serenely with Bastian, the lifeguard.

Then the dancers parted for a moment and Mal saw Scarlet.

The owner of the resort, the voice on the phone that brooked no nonsense and had a hundred ways of saying no. The mysterious woman who had reappeared after nearly forty years to restart the resort without a word of explanation.

Every one of his spies had agreed that she was unexpectedly powerful, and unexpectedly shrewd. They didn’t have answers for his questions, only more puzzle pieces that didn’t fit anywhere: she had great strength, keen intuition, and seemed to show up at the worst possible times.

A mercenary Mal had questioned extensively swore on his grandmother’s grave that he’d shot the woman point-blank and hadn’t harmed her at all.

And no one had ever seen her shift.

Alice, the last informant he’d sent in, claimed Scarlet had no shift form whatsoever and Mal had no reason to doubt her, even while it raised a whole garden of new questions. If she wasn’t a shifter, what was she, and why would someone who wasn’t a shifter invest so much energy into a resort that was exclusive to them?

She was certainly everything her photographs had promised... and somehow more. Her profile was elegant, and her up-swept hair was impossibly red in real life. The line of her neck was long and inviting and when she smiled at something, Mal had an unexpected moment of unsteadiness.

Curiosity made him put down his bags and make a swift, subtle gesture with a short murmur of words. Power swam into his vision by comma

nd and he was suddenly looking at the room with an overlay of energy.

Most humans had a spark of magic, just a hint, hardly worth noting. Normal animal shifters glowed with it; a slight aura all around them that reflected the strength of their animal, and the room was full of those. Saina, a siren, had a sparkling source of enchanted light around her human form and her dragon mate shone just as brightly. All of their mate bonds glimmered like curious flickers at the edge of his vision, connecting each of them no matter where in the room they were. It was unusual to have so many of them in one place, Mal mused.

Mal noticed Gizelle for the first time then. Her curious magic leaked from her in a fractured pattern where she sat next to her mate, Conall, as he played guitar with the band, her touch enabling him to hear. He was an extinct Irish elk and his glow was brighter than most normal shifters, if muted compared to the mythical creatures.

And they all might have been blown-out candles compared to Scarlet.