Love Burns (2 page)

Olivia felt her heart sink as she was walked from the small jail section into the main police station. Her father was screaming at Calder so loudly that everyone in the station was staring at him.
Way to improve those fire and ice relations, Dad.

She’d had time to calm down. As mayor, she shouldn’t have taken the law into her own hands. She should be setting a better example than that. She had also been informed by the bailiff about the Dragon Overseer who was in town for the next month.

When she’d arrived back in town one month ago after an absence of twenty years, she’d been dismayed to find how widely hated her police chief father was. She’d been warmly welcomed despite that, by all the people who remembered her and her mother and understood why they’d had to flee. Those people were the reason she’d come back; for all the years that she and her mother had been on the run, she’d never felt like she’d had a real home.

When her uncle had been caught with the high-school intern, her father had immediately picked one of his cousins and announced that he’d be mayor. A man with the pretentious name of Regus, who was if anything even more of a bully and blowhard than Quinton. However, the town council, sick of his bullying, had insisted on holding an emergency election for interim mayor, which was required by town charter.

Nobody else had the guts to go up against the Teague family – so she’d stood up and announced that she was running for mayor. Her father had been furious. He’d tried to protest that she wasn’t eligible because she wasn’t a town resident – but she had been living in town for exactly thirty days, so she qualified.

And she had won by unanimous vote.

Now she was determined to run a town where everybody was treated fairly and people were judged by their actions, not by their political connections – as in whether or not they were buddies with the Teague family.

“Hey!” she said in a low, urgent voice as she walked up to her father. “Quit making a damn spectacle of yourself. That’s the last thing we need when we’ve got an Overseer in town. Calder actually had the legal right to arrest me, and he also arrested one of the kids who vandalized our town sign, so he isn’t showing favoritism – at least not in this case. I don’t need you to fight my battles for me, thank you very much.”

Her father snorted. “Right. So you don’t need bail? I take it you want to sit in that jail cell until tomorrow when you appear before the judge? Oh, wait, today is Friday. I guess you’ll be in there until Monday. It’s going to be awfully hard to carry out your duties as mayor. Maybe the town council needs to rethink their very bad choice.”

Olivia felt a lurch of alarm in her stomach. He was right. She was flat broke; she didn’t even get her mayoral paycheck for two more weeks. She had always worked as a waitress so that she could stay off the grid and get paid in cash, and waitresses didn’t tend to build up fat bank accounts.

She had just enough money for groceries and gas. Would it be enough to cover her bail money?

Well, she could hunt her food for the next two weeks and walk everywhere…

Before she could say anything, her aunt, Quinton’s sister, walked up. Olivia hadn’t even seen her come in, but there she was, in a cloud of Chanel No. 5, clad in an Alexander McQueen cutaway jacket and crinoline skirt and Louboutin shoes.

“Nonsense,” she said coolly. “I will post bail for her. No niece of mine will spend the weekend in jail. How would that make our family look?” But as she said it, she winked affectionately at Olivia, then crossed her eyes and stuck out her tongue at Quinton when he wasn’t looking.

“Thanks, Aunt Nora,” Olivia said. “I’ll pay you back as soon as I get my first paycheck.”

“Oh, don’t be silly. It’s family money. It belongs to all of us.”

Actually it was my mother’s money…until my father’s clan took it…
The uncharitable thought flashed through her head, but then she rethought it and felt ashamed. It wasn’t Aunt Nora’s fault that her father was an ass. And Aunt Nora had always had her back – when she was a child, and when she’d came back to town a month ago.

Quinton looked at his sister with annoyance. “I told you to wait outside. This is between me and my daughter. If I’d known you were going to do that, I wouldn’t have let you come.”

Nora shrugged. “You couldn’t exactly stop me.”

Quinton’s eyes glowed blue and the pupils narrowed to black vertical slits. “I am your Dominus,” he growled. Most dragons belonged to clans, and the Dominus was the leader of the clan.

Nora met his gaze fearlessly, but she inclined her head in a brief nod to his authority. “And she is my niece. And the mayor of North Lyndvale, whether you like it or not. Having her sit in a jail cell is an embarrassment for our family and our town.”

As Nora walked over to the counter to pay Olivia’s bail, Quinton turned his attention back to his daughter. Now that he had lost the ability to threaten her with jail, his tone turned wheedling.

“I’m just trying to do what’s best for you,” he said to her, and the whine in his voice was like nails on a chalkboard. “Being mayor is stressful, and you don’t need to work for a living.” He was talking about the offer from Ichabod Tremaine, the wealthy old dragon shifter who wanted to marry her.

She felt a surge of disgust well up inside her. She’d just gotten back to town, hadn’t seen her father in twenty years, and he’d immediately started trying to pimp her out. Of course he wanted her to marry Ichabod; under the medieval laws that governed dragon shifters, he’d collect an extremely generous dowry for marrying off a fertile female from his clan.

“I enjoy working, I’ve always worked, and I know I can do a lot of good for our town. Given the unanimous vote to elect me, it seems as if they were really eager for some fresh blood.” She met her father’s gaze challengingly as she said that.

Quinton knew that the town council would love to see him out the door too. He was such a bully that even his former allies were sick of him.

“Listen, you ungrateful…” He grabbed her arm, and unfortunately he grabbed it right where she’d been attacked. Weird, random dragon attack that had happened several days ago when she’d gone on a day trip to Oregon.

She’d flown up to a mountaintop there for a little mini-vacation, and a fire dragon had chased her as she flew and blasted her with flames. Luckily, she was a fast flyer. She’d reported it to the state police, but the dragon had flown off and nobody really had anything to go on. She had no enemies – she hadn’t even been mayor at that point. There was a long standing hatred between fire and ice dragons, though, so she might have just run into an extremist who’d tried to take advantage of the fact that she’d been alone.

She hadn’t told her father or anyone in town about the attack, because she didn’t want to stir up problems between the two species.

She winced in pain when her father grabbed her arm, and in an instant Calder was covered with red scales. He barreled forward, and her father quickly let go of her arm and stepped back.

“What happened to your arm? Is it sore?” he said with a shrewd look of calculation. “Did someone attack you?” He glanced at Calder. “Did he do that to you?”

“Are you all right?” Calder asked her.

“I’m fine,” she said, resisting the urge to rub her arm. “And no, Calder didn’t hurt me.” She was pissed off at Calder, sure, but she wasn’t going to lie to get him into trouble.

Then she fixed her father with an ice-cold gaze. “And by the way, don’t ever lay your hands on me again,
Dad,
or I will press charges – just like Mom should have. And I don’t think that will be very good for your career.” And with that, she turned and walked out the front door.

She probably shouldn’t have said that in fire dragon territory, and especially not in front of the fire dragon Principe. But she needed to lay down the law where her father was concerned – because she knew his history with women. Frankly, she couldn’t believe that her mother had married him – she’d known her mother to be a strong, take-no-crap woman her entire life. Quinton must have put on quite the act to woo her to the altar.

She headed straight home to the little cottage that she was renting on the edge of town, and took a nice cool shower. It felt good on her slowly healing burn.

After the shower, she fixed herself a quick dinner of half a dozen burgers – using her ice powers had worked up an appetite, and she’d been starving enough sitting in that jail cell that she’d almost gnawed on the bars before she finally got out.

She sat on the little rocking chair on the porch and breathed in the country air as she shoveled the food into her mouth in a most unladylike fashion. The air was so clear here, and the stars were like twinkling diamonds scattered across black velvet.

If only her mother were here to see her home town again. The thought made her eyes burn with unshed tears, and she blinked hard and set her plate of burgers down. Her mother Laura had been a wealthy debutante, the last member of a small, dying clan, who had inherited everything they possessed. She’d never worked a day in her life. But when Quinton’s abuse had become unbearable, she’d grabbed Olivia and they’d fled with a couple of suitcases, and the two of them had moved to the East Coast under assumed names.

A few months ago, Olivia’s mother had died of a heart condition. Olivia had stayed away from North Lyndvale even after she was an adult, because she knew that if she reappeared, Quinton would start searching for her mother and insist on prosecuting her for fleeing with his daughter.

But with her mother gone, and with no real roots or close friends, she’d decided to finally come back home.

Thinking about her mother dampened her appetite, so she went back inside and tossed her last burger in the trash.

Then she climbed into her ancient Volvo and went to the town meeting that had been called to address the Overseer’s visit to their territory.

There were hundreds of people packed into the room and spilling out into the hallway. To her annoyance, she saw Henrik sitting in the audience. People were glaring at him; news travelled fast and they already knew why he was there.

She heaved a sigh. No point in ignoring him.

After she called the meeting to order, she indicated Henrik Vromme in the audience. “Well, we might as well address the elephant in the room, or rather the fire dragon,” she said, and was rewarded with a polite ripple of laughter.

She called Vromme up to the podium, and the audience began peppering him with questions. The tone was definitely aggrieved and resentful, and Vromme wasn’t particularly reassuring. There had been numerous complaints about the recent fights between the fire and ice dragons, and if the two warring species couldn’t keep the peace, action would be taken.

After the meeting, she called Henrik over to talk to him. Before she could say anything, a tall, elegant woman with flowing black hair walked up. She appeared to be in her fifties, and wore a cream-colored Chanel linen suit and low-heeled pumps. To Olivia’s surprise, she recognized the woman as a fire dragon; the red ring around the outsides of her pupils gave it away.

“Hello, Henrik,” the woman said coolly.

“Tabitha.” Henrik looked down his long, aristocratic nose at her. “I assume you’ve come over here to tell me that you regret your decision back in college.”

“What decision would that be?” she said.

“Marrying into a family of jewel thieves and joining in their ridiculous exploits and nearly getting arrested several dozen times.”

“The operative word being ‘nearly’.” She smiled at him. “I am here to tell you not to allow our unfortunate history to influence your decisions here, or I will file a complaint with the Council of Elders.”

Henrik snorted. “Good luck with that.”

Her eyes glowed red. “I have pictures of you from back in college.” At that he smiled. “Unflattering ones.” His smile vanished, and he turned and stalked off.

Tabitha glanced over at Olivia. “Olivia Cabrera,” she said. “My son Calder mentioned you when I spoke to him this evening. Your name came up several times.”

“So apparently I succeeded in annoying the living heck out of him,” Olivia said.

For some reason, that thought bothered her. Why should it matter what he thought of her? Stupid stuck-up gorgeous dragon. He’d been a good foot taller than her, with the broad shoulders of a linebacker and silky black hair that begged to be tousled. And he’d been way too aware of how hot he was.

“I’m not so sure.” Tabitha looked her up and down, then turned and walked out of the room.

Well, that had been strange. But no stranger than any of the other goings-on since Olivia had come back to town.

Saturday Night

Calder stood with Mayor Tom Tompkins, surveying the crowd, watching the high-school aged fire and ice dragons flying overhead in the aerial version of lacrosse.

It was a huge draw for both humans and dragons, and brought in a lot of money for the town. Dozens of concession booths on either side of the field sold food and T-shirts and cups and duffel bags with team insignias, along with dragon toys and dragon jewelry and every other kind of dragon-themed item imaginable. The ice dragon food carts and booths sold ice cream in every flavor and frosty drinks, and the fire dragons sold hot drinks and hot food.

Vromme was there in the crowd, and so far everybody was behaving themselves reasonably well. The dragon citizens of both towns had been warned. There were the usual shouts and taunts, but there hadn’t been any flame and ice fights. Yet.

Calder especially had his eye on the food booths being manned on either side of the field. Darlene, the tourist ambassador for North Lyndvale, stood there glaring at Laetitia, the tourist ambassador for South Lyndvale.

The two of them had a history, and unfortunately shared a tourist booth right on the border between the two towns. There was a partition between the two sides of the booth, but it didn’t help much. Last week, someone had “accidentally” set the ice dragon’s side of the booth on fire, burning it neatly down the middle so the ice side was destroyed. And in an amazing coincidence, the next day when Laetitia had showed up for work, it had turned out that the fire dragon’s side was completely encased in a block of ice.

Calder glanced over at Barnum, who was hitting on every woman in sight, whether they be fire dragon, ice dragon or human.

“Do you think you could ask your son to stop making passes at everything female that walks on two legs?” Calder asked Tompkins with annoyance.

“I could ask,” Mayor Tompkins said cheerfully.

Calder rolled his eyes. Obviously whatever the mayor said to his son would roll off him like water off a duck’s back.

“He’ll settle down when he finds the right woman,” Mayor Tompkins reassured him.

“I’m more worried about right now. When he might accidentally say the wrong thing to the wrong woman and get punched in the face. Well, carry on, then.” Calder turned and walked off, keeping an eye out for people trying to set each other on fire.

Principe Teague stalked over to Calder, with two of his centurions by his side. “I haven’t forgotten that you arrested my daughter,” he said angrily.

“Neither have I. I also haven’t forgotten the way you grabbed her arm at the station. I don’t expect to see that kind of behavior ever again, especially from the Principe,” Calder said.

Teague let out a puff of icy vapor and his eyes went ice blue, but one of his centurions elbowed him and glanced to the side. Vromme was standing about twenty feet away, watching them.

“Great!” Teague said heartily. “Glad to hear it!” He reached out and pumped Calder’s hand enthusiastically, squeezing harder than necessary. Calder grinned and squeezed back. Teague’s face turned red, but he maintained his big, fake smile. Teague was squeezing as hard as he could, and Calder just stood there smiling and squeezing back. Beads of sweat popped out on Teague’s forehead and began trickling down his face.

Finally Teague leaned in close, his eyes gone completely reptilian. “I’ll find a way to end you if it’s the last thing I do,” he said, maintaining his angry fake smile the whole time. “And how I treat my daughter is my own damn business.”

“How you
mis
treat women, especially when you’re in my police station, is entirely
my
business,” Calder said, returning the fake smile.

Then a scuffle broke out in the crowd and both men hurried over to break it up before it could flare out of control.

* * * * *

Olivia stood with her aunt Nora and her uncle Kenneth and their nineteen-year-old daughter, Sailor, watching Quinton and Calder closely.

“Those two idiots should just grab a ruler and whip it out and see whose is bigger,” Kenneth snorted.

“Kenneth,
really
,” Nora said disapprovingly. “How crude.”

Kenneth rolled his eyes. “I’m going to go get a drink,” he said, and walked off.

“I’m going to keep an eye out for you-know-who,” Sailor said, and headed in the opposite direction. Sailor, like her mother, was clad head to toe in designer wear – Marchesa, today – and had just been presented at the Ice Dragon Cotillion.

Nora glanced over at Olivia. “I hear that Calder brokered a deal to have the charges against you dropped in exchange for the town of North Lyndvale dropping the charges against that little twerp who burned our sign.”

Olivia nodded. “Yes, so I’m told. Thanks again for bailing me out. I’m hoping that now Vromme is in town, we can have at least a temporary truce. Who’s the you-know-who Sailor is looking out for?” she added.

Nora was scanning the crowd. “I think there’s a chance that your father has invited that Ichabod character here to publicly propose to you. He’s hoping that if Ichabod proposes in front of everyone, you’ll be pressured to say yes out of fear of offending Ichabod’s clan. I’m keeping an eye out for him.”

“Seriously?” Olivia said in dismay. “Damn my father to hell and back again. And he knows I can’t leave. I’m mayor – I’m supposed to be present at these kinds of events.”

Nora shrugged, her gaze never leaving the sea of faces. “You already stood up and introduced the team, and did the meet-and-greet. You’ve shown your face. If you have to hide out for the rest of the game, it won’t be that big a deal.”

“Still,” Olivia said with annoyance. “It would be better for me to be here for the whole game. Why is he making it so difficult for me?”

Nora choked out a cynical laugh. “Hello, have you met your father? Quinton wants what’s best for Quinton, and to hell with everyone else.”

“I really appreciate you helping me out with this.”

“Well, I wouldn’t want what happened to me to happen to you,” Nora said. She gave Olivia a sidelong glance. “Arranged marriage.”

“But aren’t you and Kenneth happy?” Olivia asked in surprise. Had that minor flare-up between the two of them been something more than that?

She and her mother had already fled town and gone into hiding before Nora and Kenneth had married, so she didn’t know that much about the circumstances.

Nora shrugged. “We’re…content. We tolerate each other. We take a lot of separate vacations. I know about his secretary, and I’m frankly delighted that she does things I prefer not to.”

Ugh.
TMI
, Olivia thought. She’d had no idea that Nora’s marriage was so depressing. She’d always seen Nora and Kenneth being pleasant to each other in public, but then they were both the type to keep up appearances.

Up until only a few years ago, arranged marriages had been much more common for fertile young female dragon shifters, and it was a custom that was slow to die out. Because of declining birth rates, the Dragon Elders had required all females to be tested, and fertile females’ names listed on a registry. If they didn’t choose a mate quickly, one would be chosen for them.

And Nora had been married for twenty years, so she would have had little choice about who she married.

“Quinton arranged it, you know,” Nora confided. “Once I tested fertile, there were a number of dragons clamoring for my hand, and as Dominus of our clan, Quinton got to choose who I would marry.”

“How awful.” Olivia shuddered at the thought.

“I suppose I should be grateful that he didn’t manage to force me to marry the most hideous and wealthiest dragon who was applying for the position. He chose the third richest.” There was unmistakable bitterness in Nora’s voice now. This was a side of her that Olivia hadn’t seen before.

“The third richest?” Olivia echoed. “He left money on the table? That doesn’t sound like my father at all.” It really didn’t.

“Well, he tried,” Nora admitted, “but I drew the line at being married off to a man who was old enough to be my great-great-grandfather and who was already married to two infertile women and just looking for a womb to incubate his eggs. I told Quinton I’d literally set that man on fire if he laid a claw on me, and I didn’t care what the consequences were. I meant it, and my dear brother could tell that I meant it. We finally reached a compromise among the various suitors, and I selected the one I found least objectionable.”

As Olivia digested that disturbing information, Nora was still looking around the crowd, scanning for Quinton and Ichabod.

“I honestly don’t recommend getting married at all. Or having children,” Nora continued.

“But…you have three children,” Olivia said, shocked. Two of them were away at college. Sailor seemed more inclined to find a wealthy dragon suitor, so she was taking a “gap year”, or at least that was the excuse.

“I did what was expected of me.”

Well, Olivia could understand Nora’s bitterness at being forced into a marriage she didn’t want. Still, the fact that it seemed to extend to her own children…did she regret giving birth to them? How sad.

“Someday I would like to get married and have children,” Olivia said, and as she said it, for some reason, Calder’s face flashed into her mind. She was trying very hard not to think of him at all, but he kept popping into her head at random moments. Thinking about him had an odd physical effect on her; her heart started beating faster and her nipples went hard. She crossed her arms over her chest and felt herself blushing.

Nora was watching her sharply.

“Got someone in mind?”

“No, not at all,” Olivia lied. “I’m just saying that I hope it happens someday.”

“I thought you cared about your career. I thought you wanted to make changes and all that.”

“Mayors can have families,” Olivia protested. “Mayor Tompkins has a wife and three kids.”

Nora shrugged. “Oh well. You’ll do what you want, I guess.”

Olivia didn’t answer, because she heard the disappointment in Nora’s voice. It was obvious that Nora’s experience had poisoned her outlook on marriage. She didn’t want to alienate her aunt; so far, her aunt had been her ally against Quinton, and given that Olivia’s mother was dead and her father was Satan with scales, she didn’t have anyone else in the way of family.

“Well, I’m going to walk around a bit,” Olivia said. “Press the flesh and all that.”

“Watch out for Ichabod,” Nora called after her.

After a few minutes of handshaking, someone came up behind her and tapped her on the shoulder. She started and swung around.

It was Tabitha Kingsley.

“Hello again,” Olivia said. “Enjoying the game so far?”

“So far, yes. I mean, it’s a little quiet for my taste. Nobody has set anything on fire,” Tabitha said, looking mildly disappointed. Then she fixed Olivia with a shrewd, assessing gaze. “So, what do you think of my son?”

“Er…wow, talk about putting me on the spot. He’s, ahh…” Was she blushing? Why would she be blushing? “Stubborn. Loyal to fire dragons. He does everything by the book.”

“I know, right?” Tabitha rolled her eyes. “I imagine you’ve heard of the Kingsleys.”

“Well, a little.”

“Go on. It’s impossible to offend me.”

“Well…” What the hell. What could it hurt? “I’m aware that for centuries your family had the reputation of being jewel thieves,” she said. “But apparently you’ve gone straight now.”

Tabitha made a face. “Sad but true.”

“And you wanted to talk to me tonight because…?”

Tabitha looked her up and down again. “Calder and I haven’t seen eye to eye for a long time. As you pointed out, he’s very by-the-book. I’m not. But we were reconciled about a year ago, when Calder’s brother Gabriel married a lovely woman, and I have to admit, I probably did him wrong for a number of years by blaming him for his nature. So I’m trying to be a good mother again. I wanted to see what kind of woman my son was going to end up with.”

“What did you just say?” Olivia burst into laughter. “I’m sorry, I wasn’t aware of the strain of insanity running through your family.”

“Well, you should be, it’s quite pronounced. However, that’s neither here nor there. You’re his mate. I can tell by the way he talks about you. He’s not admitting it to himself yet, but he will.” Tabitha frowned in thought. “Yes, you’ll do,” she said finally, and walked off.

Nora walked up to Olivia, her pretty face pinched in disapproval. “What was that all about? Why were you talking to Calder’s mother? She’s a thief, you know. Rumor has it that she shoplifts and her son always covers up for it.”

“Calder does that?” Olivia said, astonished.

“No, his twin brother, Gabriel. Also a thief.”

Sailor rushed up to them, out of breath. “
Mother
, that grotesque Ichabod creature is here,” she said in a whiny, self-important tone. She pointed in the direction she’d just come from. “I would never let myself be married off just for money like that.”

“Good for you,” Olivia said appreciatively.

Sailor nodded. “My husband has to be rich
and
handsome,” she said. “Right, mother?”